User talk:HouseBlaster/Archive 9
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Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 1

Upcoming and current events and conversations
Let's Talk continues

- Conversation with the trustees: Speak directly with the Wikimedia Foundation trustees about their work at the next Conversation with the Trustees on January 30 at 14:30 UTC.
- Community Resilience and Sustainability: Join the conversation hour which will discuss Trust and Safety, the Universal Code of Conduct, Committee Support, and Human Rights on January 30 at 20:00 UTC.
- Annual Planning: Shaping Wikimedia Foundation’s 2025–2026 annual goals: Key questions for the Wikimedia movement.
- Central Asia Wikicon: Submission for sessions is open until March 22.
- Wikipedia is turning 25: We just celebrated Wikipedia's 24th birthday, and are already planning for next year's big milestone! Share your thoughts on what you have in mind to mark the silver jubilee of Wikipedia.
Annual Goals Progress on Infrastructure
See also newsletters: Wikimedia Apps · Growth · Research · Web · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org
- Wikipedia App: iOS App users worldwide can now access a personalized Year in Review feature, providing insights based on their reading and editing history on Wikipedia.
- Design System: Codex – Year 2024 in Review: Key Milestones and Innovations.
- Tech News: The CampaignEvents extension offers organizers features like event registration management directly on-wiki; The Single User Login system is being updated over the next few months; Administrators can mass-delete multiple pages created by a user or IP address using Extension:Nuke. More updates from tech news Dec 16, Jan 13, and Jan 21.
- Wikifunctions: Wikifunctions shares their Quarterly planning for January-March 2025.
- Admin Research Report: The Research Team published their final report on administrator recruitment, retention, and attrition patterns among long-tenure community members in moderation and administration roles.
Annual Goals Progress on Equity
See also a list of all movement events: on Meta-Wiki
- Distribution of Funds: Next steps toward the creation of the interim Global Resource Distribution Committee.
- Wikipedia Library: What’s new in The Wikipedia Library? (Oct-Dec 2024).
- Conferences: Your Sneak Peak into the 9 approved Wikimedia Conference Proposals for 2025.
- Wikimania: Road to Nairobi: Travel Essentials & Tips.
- Wikisource Loves Manuscripts: Meet-up in Bali: Strengthening the manuscript preservation ecosystem.
- Wikimedia Research Showcase: Watch the latest showcase which looked at Reader Attention and Curiosity.
- Resource Support Pilot: Join the discussion about shaping a pilot project on the English Wikipedia that would fund small resource requests (like books) to support editors in improving content.
Annual Goals Progress on Safety & Integrity
See also blogs: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog
- Global Advocacy: Wikimedians will promote cultural preservation and knowledge diversity at RightsCon 2025. Tune in!
- Mis- and disinformation: Training on misinformation and disinformation prevention for communities in Indonesia: A recap.
- December's Global Advocacy Newsletter: For quarterly insights into the internet governance and policy work the Foundation is doing, subscribe to our Global Advocacy Newsletter. You can see our latest December edition here.
Board and Board committee updates
See Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard · Affiliations Committee Newsletter
- Board of Trustees: The Wikimedia Foundation welcomes community-and-affiliate selected trustees and the Board appoints Lorenzo Losa its Chair-Elect.
Other Movement curated newsletters & news
See also: Diff blog · Goings-on · Planet Wikimedia · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · Actualités du Wiktionnaire (fr) · Regards sur l’actualité de la Wikimedia (fr) · Wikimag (fr) · other newsletters:
- Topics: Education · GLAM · The Wikipedia Library
- Wikimedia Projects: Milestones · Wikidata
- Regions: Central and Eastern Europe
Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate
For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let askcacwikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!
MediaWiki message delivery 16:58, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
Question from Edward moore1234 (18:08, 27 January 2025)
I know you are a bot --Edward moore1234 (talk) 18:08, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
Edward moore1234, I am not a bot! I am a real, living person :)
Let me know if you have any questions, and I would be more than happy to answer them. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 18:11, 27 January 2025 (UTC)- you are a bot or a 40 year old person with good grammar Edward moore1234 (talk) 19:09, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
Question from Edward moore1234 (19:10, 27 January 2025)
what's 9 + 10 --Edward moore1234 (talk) 19:10, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Edward moore1234: The correct answer is 19; the meme answer is 21. But I'm here to answer questions about Wikipedia, not to prove I am not a robot. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 19:25, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- sorry but I don't need help Edward moore1234 (talk) 20:13, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-05
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
- Patrollers and admins - what information or context about edits or users could help you to make patroller or admin decisions more quickly or easily? The Wikimedia Foundation wants to hear from you to help guide its upcoming annual plan. Please consider sharing your thoughts on this and 13 other questions to shape the technical direction for next year.
Updates for editors
- iOS Wikipedia App users worldwide can now access a personalized Year in Review feature, which provides insights based on their reading and editing history on Wikipedia. This project is part of a broader effort to help welcome new readers as they discover and interact with encyclopedic content.
Edit patrollers now have a new feature available that can highlight potentially problematic new pages. When a page is created with the same title as a page which was previously deleted, a tag ('Recreated') will now be added, which users can filter for in Special:RecentChanges and Special:NewPages. [1]
- Later this week, there will be a new warning for editors if they attempt to create a redirect that links to another redirect (a double redirect). The feature will recommend that they link directly to the second redirect's target page. Thanks to the user SomeRandomDeveloper for this improvement. [2]
Wikimedia wikis allow WebAuthn-based second factor checks (such as hardware tokens) during login, but the feature is fragile and has very few users. The MediaWiki Platform team is temporarily disabling adding new WebAuthn keys, to avoid interfering with the rollout of SUL3 (single user login version 3). Existing keys are unaffected. [3]
View all 30 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Updates for technical contributors
- For developers that use the MediaWiki History dumps: The Data Platform Engineering team has added a couple of new fields to these dumps, to support the Temporary Accounts initiative. If you maintain software that reads those dumps, please review your code and the updated documentation, since the order of the fields in the row will change. There will also be one field rename: in the
mediawiki_user_history
dump, theanonymous
field will be renamed tois_anonymous
. The changes will take effect with the next release of the dumps in February. [4]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 22:12, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
Category:Formerly missing people found dead
I'm not quite sure how WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 January 19#Category:Formerly missing people found dead could have been read as having consensus in support of merging. Even if you discounted Dimadick (who was a participant in the previous CfD) and Nayyn (who made the most substantial argument in the discussion)'s arguments as canvassed, the remaining !votes apart from the nominator were two keeps, one delete, and one merge. (Also, the consensus from the previous discussion was to delete one of the categories rather than merge, while the other was never CfDed, so the nominator referring to it as precedent for merging was incorrect.) --Paul_012 (talk) 23:39, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- If you are in to headcount (which is relevant), I count the nominator. If Dimadick is to be pinged as a participant in the old CfD, you need to ping the six(!) other participants in the discussion who all supported deletion. The delete is "per nom", which I read as a merge (that is what the nomination was, after all). Nor is an editor's personal opinion of what is to be considered important relevant (
In my opinion, the distinction between missing person cases where the individual was found alive and those that were found dead is a very important one
). Three supporters of merging who reference a guideline (WP:CATDEF) compared to two WP:ILIKEIT/"its important" (without backing that up with citations to reliable sources) is a clear merge. HouseBlaster (he/they) 23:52, 27 January 2025 (UTC)- I had to squint to find the CATDEF reference, which was made as an off-hand reply without any supporting arguments and wasn't even mentioned in the nomination. In any case, the CfD was such an ill-informed mess that I don't think re-listing it would help anything, so I won't request any further action here. I might however consider opening a new, clearer discussion based on the options presented in the much more substantial 2024 discussion. Thanks for your explanation. --Paul_012 (talk) 01:03, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
Close of Category:RuPaul's Drag Race contestants
Regarding your close of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 January 16#Category:RuPaul's Drag Race contestants, I think it would have been beneficial for this to be relisted to get some more eyes on this, especially seeing as the oppose !votes were active members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Drag Race so there might be some WP:BIAS there. Also, as a "no consensus" close, wouldn't that imply that there was no consensus to create these recently created categories in the first place? --woodensuperman 09:48, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Hello Woodensuperman! I'll start with your second comment, because that it easiest: from first principles that might be a good argument, but WP:NOCON is clear that deletion requires affirmative consensus (or WP:SILENCE, but that is obviously not applicable here). Articles taken to AFD during NPP are not deleted after a no consensus closure. Turning to the first part: I can and will relist the discussion, though members of a WikiProjects are not given less weight when assessing consensus. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 17:33, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for relisting! I'd have thought that in the event of no consensus we should revert to the status quo, i.e. with the categories not having been created in the first place by the wikiproject as they were created so recently. Anyway, let's hope we see consensus with some fresh eyes. --woodensuperman 08:48, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
Feminism and Folklore 2025 starts soon
- Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Feminism and Folklore 2025 starts soon because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.

Dear Wiki Community,
You are humbly invited to organize the Feminism and Folklore 2025 writing competition from February 1, 2025, to March 31, 2025 on your local Wikipedia. This year, Feminism and Folklore will focus on feminism, women's issues, and gender-focused topics for the project, with a Wiki Loves Folklore gender gap focus and a folk culture theme on Wikipedia.
You can help Wikipedia's coverage of folklore from your area by writing or improving articles about things like folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, women and queer folklore figures, folk game athletes, women in mythology, women warriors in folklore, witches and witch hunting, fairy tales, and more. Users can help create new articles, expand or translate from a generated list of suggested articles.
Organisers are requested to work on the following action items to sign up their communities for the project:
- Create a page for the contest on the local wiki.
- Set up a campaign on CampWiz tool.
- Create the local list and mention the timeline and local and international prizes.
- Request local admins for site notice.
- Link the local page and the CampWiz link on the meta project page.
This year, the Wiki Loves Folklore Tech Team has introduced two new tools to enhance support for the campaign. These tools include the Article List Generator by Topic and CampWiz. The Article List Generator by Topic enables users to identify articles on the English Wikipedia that are not present in their native language Wikipedia. Users can customize their selection criteria, and the tool will present a table showcasing the missing articles along with suggested titles. Additionally, users have the option to download the list in both CSV and wikitable formats. Notably, the CampWiz tool will be employed for the project for the first time, empowering users to effectively host the project with a jury. Both tools are now available for use in the campaign. Click here to access these tools
Learn more about the contest and prizes on our project page. Feel free to contact us on our meta talk page or by email us if you need any assistance.
We look forward to your immense coordination.
Thank you and Best wishes,
--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:35, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
Wiki Loves Folklore is back!
Please help translate to other languages.

Dear Wiki Community, You are humbly invited to participate in the Wiki Loves Folklore 2025 an international media contest organized on Wikimedia Commons to document folklore and intangible cultural heritage from different regions, including, folk creative activities and many more. It is held every year from the 1st till the 31st of March.
You can help in enriching the folklore documentation on Commons from your region by taking photos, audios, videos, and submitting them in this commons contest.
You can also organize a local contest in your country and support us in translating the project pages to help us spread the word in your native language.
Feel free to contact us on our project Talk page if you need any assistance.
Kind regards,
Wiki loves Folklore International Team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:35, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
Edit description help
Could I receive an explanation on the format of a part of an edit description that instantly refers to the section mentioned when said edit is viewed.
Ex: →top Executive20000 (talk) 22:11, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
- Hello Executive20000! Those are an indication of which section of a page the edit was made within. They automatically show up when you click the "edit" link beside a section within a page or when you click "new topic" or "reply". Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 00:47, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you very much. Executive20000 (talk) 00:50, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
Notice of Conflict of interest noticeboard discussion
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard regarding a possible conflict of interest incident with which you may be involved. Thank you. Hi, letting you know about this since I mentioned your discussion with one of the users involved. Sarsenet (talk) 08:16, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
Happy First Edit Day!
![]() |
Hey, HouseBlaster. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 07:41, 1 February 2025 (UTC) |
![]() |
Thank you, DaniloDaysOfOurLives! HouseBlaster (he/they) 18:45, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
Question from Tikaram Saud (14:23, 1 February 2025)
Tikaram Saud --Tikaram Saud (talk) 14:23, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hello Tikaram Saud! Let me know if you have any questions about editing Wikipedia, and I would be more than happy to help :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 18:46, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
More queries about JJMC89 bot III
Hey, HouseBlaster,
I hope you are having a good weekend. I see you are active on the project tonight so I'm going to pose another question about JJMC89 bot III.
If you look at this page, you can see we have almost 500 empty categories right now. I know enough now to check their page history and see they are categories that were recently either part of a CFD or Speedy Rename and so they shouldn't be tagged as empty categories. But some of these CFD closures were days ago. Does it usually take JJMC89 bot III this long to recategorize all of the articles and categories after it has moved categories to a new title? Just wondering. Liz Read! Talk! 06:33, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Liz! Hope your weekend is going well, too. The categories are largely populated by templates, which JJMC89 bot III can't process. If you look at CAT:NESRC, you can see there are ~875 categories which need updating, which would fix most of what is in the toolforge report.Aluxosm, would you be able to run your script? That should fix the problem. Thanks, HouseBlaster (he/they) 20:34, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
Reminder: first part of the annual UCoC review closes soon
- Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Reminder: first part of the annual UCoC review closes soon because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.
Please help translate to other languages..
This is a reminder that the first phase of the annual review period for the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines will be closing soon. You can make suggestions for changes through the end of day, 3 February 2025. This is the first step of several to be taken for the annual review. Read more information and find a conversation to join on the UCoC page on Meta. After review of the feedback, proposals for updated text will be published on Meta in March for another round of community review.
Please share this information with other members in your community wherever else might be appropriate.
-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) (talk) 00:48, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-06
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
- Editors who use the "Special characters" editing-toolbar menu can now see the 32 special characters you have used most recently, across editing sessions on that wiki. This change should help make it easier to find the characters you use most often. The feature is in both the 2010 wikitext editor and VisualEditor. [5]
- Editors using the 2010 wikitext editor can now create sublists with correct indentation by selecting the line(s) you want to indent and then clicking the toolbar buttons.[6] You can now also insert
<code>
tags using a new toolbar button.[7] Thanks to user stjn for these improvements. - Help is needed to ensure the citation generator works properly on each wiki.
- (1) Administrators should update the local versions of the page
MediaWiki:Citoid-template-type-map.json
to include entries forpreprint
,standard
, anddataset
; Here are example diffs to replicate for 'preprint' and for 'standard' and 'dataset'. - (2.1) If the citoid map in the citation template used for these types of references is missing, one will need to be added. (2.2) If the citoid map does exist, the TemplateData will need to be updated to include new field names. Here are example updates for 'preprint' and for 'standard' and 'dataset'. The new fields that may need to be supported are
archiveID
,identifier
,repository
,organization
,repositoryLocation
,committee
, andversionNumber
. [8]
- (1) Administrators should update the local versions of the page
- One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Central Kanuri (
w:knc:
) [9] View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the OCR (optical character recognition) tool used for Wikisource now supports a new language, Church Slavonic. [10]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 00:06, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
Palestine category move cleanup
Hi HouseBlaster, I noticed that while Category:Bilateral relations of the State of Palestine was moved, its uses were not replaced. Can this be done via a bot? Would you also be able to move Category:Palestine–Ethiopia relations to Category:Ethiopia–Palestine relations, this is the standard order (already used for the main article Ethiopia–Palestine relations). Thanks, CMD (talk) 09:29, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Chipmunkdavis, Category:Bilateral relations of the State of Palestine seems to have been sorted now? The bot moves the category first and then corrects uses, so there is always some "lag time" before all uses are corrected. As for Category:Palestine–Ethiopia relations, it has been proposed for speedy renaming and will be moved in a couple of days absent objection. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 19:15, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks! CMD (talk) 05:47, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – February 2025
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2025).
- Administrators can now nuke pages created by a user or IP address from the last 90 days, up from the initial 30 days. T380846
- A '
Recreated
' tag will now be added to pages that were created with the same title as a page which was previously deleted and it can be used as a filter in Special:RecentChanges and Special:NewPages. T56145
- The arbitration case Palestine-Israel articles 5 has been closed.
The Signpost: 7 February 2025
- Recent research: GPT-4 writes better edit summaries than human Wikipedians
- News and notes: Let's talk!
- Opinion: Fathoms Below, but over the moon
- Community view: 24th Wikipedia Day in New York City
- Arbitration report: Palestine-Israel articles 5 has closed
- Traffic report: A wild drive
Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 16:30, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Question from 75s.bottman2 (21:02, 7 February 2025)
hi --75s.bottman2 (talk) 21:02, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Question from 75s.bottman2 (21:02, 7 February 2025) (2)
I love engineering. --75s.bottman2 (talk) 21:02, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hi 75s.bottman2, and welcome to Wikipedia! If you want to contribute to engineering topics, you might want to join WikiProject Engineering. They maintain a list of "stub" articles which have to do with engineering which need expansion. Let me know if you need additional help! Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:31, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Category merge
Hi HouseBlaster. I'm just wondering if you can provide a bit more detail on your rationale was for closing the merge discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 February 1#Category:International airports by country please? I'd challenge whether 3 comments (1 opposed, 1 supporting and one referring to a 14 year old discussion constitutes consensus). Consensus may change over time and it would be much better to base the decision on current views.
Unfortunately I was not aware that this discussion was even running until after it was closed, nor do I recall seeing it listed on relevant wikiprojects (although this may have happened and I missed it). I did review the 2011 discussion that was referenced. I note that there was some discussion at the time as to whether an International Airport was something that was just a name applied for marketing, or if there is an actual difference and a hierarchy (as per International_Airport#Naming). I also note that in Australia (one of the affected categories), Airports do have to be designated by the government as International gateways to call themselves International Airports. The merging of the categories has removed this distinction, which has been quite topical recently regarding slot limits and flight caps to certain airports.
Given the above, I think there has not been nearly enough discussion here to say there is clear consensus. Would you consider reviewing the decision with a view to relisting it and tagging with for WP:AVIATION to generate further discussion please? Dfadden (talk) 07:50, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Dfadden! So, I disagree with the way you counted heads: Marcocapelle and Aidan721 both supported the nomination, even if they used different bolded words to do so. 3–1 discussions generally required very strong arguments from the one dissenter to get to no consensus territory. The discussion was also advertised to WP:AVIATION (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Article alerts#CfD), and referencing discussions in the past generally means something along the lines of
I agree with both the consensus reached at the time and the rationale
, notI agree that is precedent which can never be challenged in the future
. That all being said, you wish to present additional arguments, so I am happy to reopen and relist. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 18:26, 9 February 2025 (UTC) - Hi-- I too believe the lack of discussion is a huge problem at Categories for Discussion. Things are closed by bots with very little input. Sadly there seem to be very strong opinions there that lean towards closing categories and merging things. Its not very open to discussion. The environment appears to leave very few people willing to contribute there and take part in the conversations. I feel your pain @Dfadden Nayyn (talk) 20:19, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- I mean, I disagree with most of what you said (number of participants etc are a matter of perspective), but I will correct the factually error in your comment: A human is always the one to close the discussion, and review the arguments made; the bot merely implements the result of the discussion. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:08, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you for the relist. I have now provided a comment that includes supporting evidence of why arguments made in the previous discussions 14 years ago are not applicable to the proposed course of action. While you may not agree with the way I "counted heads", I would like to point out that per WP:XFD and WP:VOTE, deletion discussions are not a vote. Consensus is not based on a headcount alone, but by careful consideration of different perspectives and the strength of arguments considering evidence and wikipedia policy. I am sure you are aware of this and making decisions in good faith (it's a thankless task). But there is no rule that says these discussions have to be closed after 7 days if there haven't been any strong or compelling cases put forward. I think Nayyn's frustations also speak to rhe same point - well reasoned and thought out arguments can take time to articulate and it can be easy to miss the chance to contribute when they are closed so quickly. Anyway, thanks again for the relist and opportunity to throw in my 2c. Peace.Dfadden (talk) 07:34, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- Just some musings; reply if you wish, but no reply if expected :)I do not think "Relist in the hopes of getting quality participation" is a sustainable strategy, and I doubt relisting would've caught your attention (I presume you saw the changes on your watchlist). I wish we had a better way to notify editors of articles of category changes, but we don't short of instructing a bot to notify the talk page of every proposed change to categories. I highly doubt such a bot would find consensus, but Wikipedia has been getting better at trying new things as of late. Who knows?If you had said before I closed the discussion, "please give me a couple of days; I want to give an argument", I would have happily granted that request. You are also absolutely correct there is no rule that discussions need to be closed after seven days – sometimes they sit for months, usually because there has been a lot of discussion but very little agreement – but the standard thought process is that a week is the right balance between "the wiki way" (WP:BOLD, immediate action) and deliberating everything carefully (as is necessary when you need to exercise the ability to delete things).Again, feel free to respond to all, none, or some of this. Merely wanted to share some of my thoughts on your own thoughts. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 09:26, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- I appreciate you taking the time to reply with your thoughts. You are absolutely correct about notification coming via my watchlist. It really is a bit of a wicked problem and I dont know of an easy solution. You may have given me a few days extra to make an argument, but then again, how would I have known you would be the one to close the discussion to ask for that in the first place? In any case, i feel the onus should be on the nominator to provide a detailed rationale and notify as many interested/involved parties as possible to generate quality discussion. Bots are an interesting idea. I'm not sure how feasible they would be here either?
- What I do know is that many of us work full time and have life commitments off wiki. We are lucky if we get 1 day a week to dedicate our Wikipedia hobby. If I have multiple projects on the go it's easy to miss things, even when they are on relevant noticeboards, simply for lack of time to check. I take your point about balancing the bold against endless circular discussion. A line needs to be drawn somewhere, but I think 7 days is too short in most cases - WP:DEADLINE still applies to CfDs as it does to AfDs.
- Thanks again for the reply! Dfadden (talk) 11:50, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- Just some musings; reply if you wish, but no reply if expected :)I do not think "Relist in the hopes of getting quality participation" is a sustainable strategy, and I doubt relisting would've caught your attention (I presume you saw the changes on your watchlist). I wish we had a better way to notify editors of articles of category changes, but we don't short of instructing a bot to notify the talk page of every proposed change to categories. I highly doubt such a bot would find consensus, but Wikipedia has been getting better at trying new things as of late. Who knows?If you had said before I closed the discussion, "please give me a couple of days; I want to give an argument", I would have happily granted that request. You are also absolutely correct there is no rule that discussions need to be closed after seven days – sometimes they sit for months, usually because there has been a lot of discussion but very little agreement – but the standard thought process is that a week is the right balance between "the wiki way" (WP:BOLD, immediate action) and deliberating everything carefully (as is necessary when you need to exercise the ability to delete things).Again, feel free to respond to all, none, or some of this. Merely wanted to share some of my thoughts on your own thoughts. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 09:26, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you for the relist. I have now provided a comment that includes supporting evidence of why arguments made in the previous discussions 14 years ago are not applicable to the proposed course of action. While you may not agree with the way I "counted heads", I would like to point out that per WP:XFD and WP:VOTE, deletion discussions are not a vote. Consensus is not based on a headcount alone, but by careful consideration of different perspectives and the strength of arguments considering evidence and wikipedia policy. I am sure you are aware of this and making decisions in good faith (it's a thankless task). But there is no rule that says these discussions have to be closed after 7 days if there haven't been any strong or compelling cases put forward. I think Nayyn's frustations also speak to rhe same point - well reasoned and thought out arguments can take time to articulate and it can be easy to miss the chance to contribute when they are closed so quickly. Anyway, thanks again for the relist and opportunity to throw in my 2c. Peace.Dfadden (talk) 07:34, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- I mean, I disagree with most of what you said (number of participants etc are a matter of perspective), but I will correct the factually error in your comment: A human is always the one to close the discussion, and review the arguments made; the bot merely implements the result of the discussion. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:08, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-07
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
- The Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) has published a draft of their recommendations for the Wikimedia Foundation's Product and Technology department. They have recommended focusing on mobile experiences, particularly contributions. They request community feedback at the talk page by 21 February.
Updates for editors
- The "Special pages" portlet link will be moved from the "Toolbox" into the "Navigation" section of the main menu's sidebar by default. This change is because the Toolbox is intended for tools relating to the current page, not tools relating to the site, so the link will be more logically and consistently located. To modify this behavior and update CSS styling, administrators can follow the instructions at T385346. [11]
- As part of this year's work around improving the ways readers discover content on the wikis, the Web team will be running an experiment with a small number of readers that displays some suggestions for related or interesting articles within the search bar. Please check out the project page for more information.
Template editors who use TemplateStyles can now customize output for users with specific accessibility needs by using accessibility related media queries (
prefers-reduced-motion
,prefers-reduced-transparency
,prefers-contrast
, andforced-colors
). Thanks to user Bawolff for these improvements. [12]View all 22 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the global blocks log will now be shown directly on the Special:CentralAuth page, similarly to global locks, to simplify the workflows for stewards. [13]
Updates for technical contributors
- Wikidata now supports a special language as a "default for all languages" for labels and aliases. This is to avoid excessive duplication of the same information across many languages. If your Wikidata queries use labels, you may need to update them as some existing labels are getting removed. [14]
- The function
getDescription
was invoked on every Wiki page read and accounts for ~2.5% of a page's total load time. The calculated value will now be cached, reducing load on Wikimedia servers. [15] - As part of the RESTBase deprecation effort, the
/page/related
endpoint has been blocked as of February 6, 2025, and will be removed soon. This timeline was chosen to align with the deprecation schedules for older Android and iOS versions. The stable alternative is the "morelike
" action API in MediaWiki, and a migration example is available. The MediaWiki Interfaces team can be contacted for any questions. [16]
In depth
- The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: Updates about the "Contribute" menu; details on some of the newest language editions of Wikipedia; details on new languages supported by the MediaWiki interface; updates on the Community-defined lists feature; and more.
- The latest Chart Project newsletter is available. It includes updates on the progress towards bringing better visibility into global charts usage and support for categorizing pages in the Data namespace on Commons.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 00:09, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
Administrator recommendations
Is it possible for you to recommend me some administrators to contact at this time? This is due to numerous users adding copyvio photo(s) to the article, Scott Bessent, when there are zero images through Wikimedia of the subject that are in the public domain or display Creative Commons licenses.
Thanks, Executive20000 (talk) 03:00, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- In addition, I would have addressed this on the talk page of the article, but it will not allow me to create new topics on it. Executive20000 (talk) 03:02, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Ok, I made a little oopsie there, because I didn’t even know that you were an administrator. Apologies. Executive20000 (talk) 03:10, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Executive20000: Don't worry about it! I don't advertise that fact one my talk page (though perhaps I should), so it makes sense you would miss it. Removing obvious copyvios is an exception to the three-revert rule, but make sure you cite that you are claiming an exemption. I have added a note visible only to page editors telling them not to add the image. I have also added the page to my watchlist, to monitor the page. Finally, if you ever need to find an active admin and I am not around, you can use this tool to find a recent active admin. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 03:25, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Much thanks for this. Executive20000 (talk) 12:19, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Executive20000: Don't worry about it! I don't advertise that fact one my talk page (though perhaps I should), so it makes sense you would miss it. Removing obvious copyvios is an exception to the three-revert rule, but make sure you cite that you are claiming an exemption. I have added a note visible only to page editors telling them not to add the image. I have also added the page to my watchlist, to monitor the page. Finally, if you ever need to find an active admin and I am not around, you can use this tool to find a recent active admin. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 03:25, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Ok, I made a little oopsie there, because I didn’t even know that you were an administrator. Apologies. Executive20000 (talk) 03:10, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
Hello, HouseBlaster,
We seem to be running into problems with speedy renames. Like this category redirect was created by you but it was not supposed to be a category redirect, the target category was supposed to be moved to this category title. Same with Category:2025 events in Bangladesh by month which was supposed to be moved to Category:2025 in Bangladesh by month (I think) and instead this category is a redirect to back to this category with the CFD tag. Most of these problems seem to be cause by the CFD bot though. I've come across a lot of categories that were supposed to be moved and instead the bot or editors just created new categories without moving these pages so I've deleted the old categories but that's not the way it should be working.
Thanks for any help you can provide in CategoryWorld. Liz Read! Talk! 05:03, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- So generally the point of these redirects is to get things out out Special:WantedCategories (which only updates daily and has a hard cap of 5,000 pages) and into CAT:NESRC (which, obviously, has neither of those limitations!), while we wait the two days for a WP:CFDS to process. I suppose we could create a new template for this niche purpose which populates a third maintenance category, to be deleted per G6 when the move is ready to be made. The template would explain this to the passer-by so they know what exactly is happening with the category and an invitation to db-g6 it once the thing is ready to be overwritten. Is that a nice solution? HouseBlaster (he/they) 06:05, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- Could you check on Category:2025 events in Bangladesh by month and Category:1994 events in Bangladesh by month and the "not-empty" category redirects you created? Something is wrong here. THank you. Liz Read! Talk! 22:44, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Due to the way {{Month events in country category header}} works, the contents were moved before the categories themselves were moved. The categories are due to be renamed once someone gets around to processing the CFDS nominations (two days have passed), at which point the the two categories you will no longer be empty. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 23:01, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- Could you check on Category:2025 events in Bangladesh by month and Category:1994 events in Bangladesh by month and the "not-empty" category redirects you created? Something is wrong here. THank you. Liz Read! Talk! 22:44, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
A cookie for you!
![]() |
For always being so lovely and kind and a great Wikipedian! DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 16:19, 12 February 2025 (UTC) |
- Thank you so much, DaniloDaysOfOurLives! HouseBlaster (he/they) 16:57, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
Question from Swapnil Chanpuriya (14:12, 13 February 2025)
Hi there , I need to remove an incorrect photo of an Indian revolutionary and add a correct image of him, as a student of history , this issue bugs me significantly as people making popular videos about Tatya Tope use the incorrect wikipedia image of him. The image used in Tope's page is of Jwala Prasad (when he was arrested) and not of Tope, this should be corrected for solving the obvious confusion and in respect to the freedom fighters. This Incorrect Image has made it onto lectures and videos on the subject which is really bad and the sad part is it is an easily fixable blunder. --Swapnil Chanpuriya (talk) 14:12, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Swapnil Chanpuriya! It looks like the image at Tatya Tope claims to be a photo of "Tantya Tope". Do you have a higher quality image of Tatya Tope? Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 15:13, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
About Template:HCMMLS
Back in July, you were given the order to delete Template:HCMMLS because Jonesey95 said in the discussion that HCMC Metro had 1.5 lines so they didn't need line symbols. Now that we have them, can I bring back the aforementioned page? Huy1984 (talk) 15:31, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- Sounds reasonable – you have my blessing to recreate the template, as has already occurred ;) Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 15:34, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks. Huy1984 (talk) 15:41, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
A pie for you!
![]() |
Thank you for deleted my useless categories (old news but still) - Nail123Real (talk) 15:33, 14 February 2025 (UTC) |
Question from MSNRNK-613 (21:20, 14 February 2025)
I want to write about myself --MSNRNK-613 (talk) 21:20, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
- You can't. See the guideline on writing an autobiography. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 23:30, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-08
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
- Communities using growth tools can now showcase one event on the
Special:Homepage
for newcomers. This feature will help newcomers to be informed about editing activities they can participate in. Administrators can create a new event to showcase atSpecial:CommunityConfiguration
. To learn more about this feature, please read the Diff post, have a look at the documentation, or contact the Growth team.
Updates for editors

- Starting next week, talk pages at these wikis – Spanish Wikipedia, French Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia, Japanese Wikipedia – will get a new design. This change was extensively tested as a Beta feature and is the last step of talk pages improvements. [17]
- You can now navigate to view a redirect page directly from its action pages, such as the history page. Previously, you were forced to first go to the redirect target. This change should help editors who work with redirects a lot. Thanks to user stjn for this improvement. [18]
- When a Cite reference is reused many times, wikis currently show either numbers like "1.23" or localized alphabetic markers like "a b c" in the reference list. Previously, if there were so many reuses that the alphabetic markers were all used, an error message was displayed. As part of the work to modernize Cite customization, these errors will no longer be shown and instead the backlinks will fall back to showing numeric markers like "1.23" once the alphabetic markers are all used.
- The log entries for each change to an editor's user-groups are now clearer by specifying exactly what has changed, instead of the plain before and after listings. Translators can help to update the localized versions. Thanks to user Msz2001 for these improvements.
- A new filter has been added to the Special:Nuke tool, which allows administrators to mass delete pages, to enable users to filter for pages in a range of page sizes (in bytes). This allows, for example, deleting pages only of a certain size or below. [19]
- Non-administrators can now check which pages are able to be deleted using the Special:Nuke tool. Thanks to user MolecularPilot for this and the previous improvements. [20]
View all 25 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed in the configuration for the AV1 video file format, which enables these files to play again. [21]
Updates for technical contributors
- Parsoid Read Views is going to be rolling out to most Wiktionaries over the next few weeks, following the successful transition of Wikivoyage to Parsoid Read Views last year. For more information, see the Parsoid/Parser Unification project page. [22][23]
- Developers of tools that run on-wiki should note that
mw.Uri
is deprecated. Tools requiringmw.Uri
must explicitly declaremediawiki.Uri
as a ResourceLoader dependency, and should migrate to the browser nativeURL
API soon. [24]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 21:14, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
Pls let me edit on Azerbaijan now :(
It's been three months. I have written and contributed mostly successfully to various different topics and also brought up my edits over 600. I ask you to now please let me edit on Azerbaijani topics again. I had two problems there when I unknowingly edited on Azerbaijani topics, I apologize for it again and promise to not repeat it. 🙏 Viceskeeni2 (talk) 21:52, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- It hasn't quite been three months (we have a couple more days until we have reached that point). However, I am setting that aside and treating this on its merits. I will review your contributions and get back to you shortly. I am inclined to grant the appeal and narrow your topic ban to only the conflict itself, but note that consistent non-neutral editing would mean we have to reinstate the full topic ban. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 22:19, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Viceskeeni2: Alright. Because it is a conditional unblock, you have to agree to this new topic ban. It permits you to edit Armenian and Azerbaijani topics, but you remain forbidden from talking about the relationship between those two countries. It is subject to a "trial" period: Any uninvolved administrator may reimpose the broader topic ban (under the contentious topic designation) if there are any issues with your editing, so be careful.
Do you accept this? Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 01:41, 18 February 2025 (UTC)Viceskeeni2 (talk · contribs) is banned from editing topics related to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, broadly construed. This ban supersedes their earlier conditional unblock and may not be appealed before 18 May 2025.
- Yes Viceskeeni2 (talk) 06:04, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- Awesome. I have left a note at your talk page to make it official. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 06:35, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes Viceskeeni2 (talk) 06:04, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Viceskeeni2: Alright. Because it is a conditional unblock, you have to agree to this new topic ban. It permits you to edit Armenian and Azerbaijani topics, but you remain forbidden from talking about the relationship between those two countries. It is subject to a "trial" period: Any uninvolved administrator may reimpose the broader topic ban (under the contentious topic designation) if there are any issues with your editing, so be careful.
No good deed goes unpunished
In case you could use some feedback or were second guessing anything, that message was fine. Floquenbeam (talk) 01:34, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you, Floq :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 01:44, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
Question from Qhamhi Ezekiel on List of demons in the Ars Goetia (06:15, 20 February 2025)
hello
i want to join --Qhamhi Ezekiel (talk) 06:15, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- Qhamhi Ezekiel, hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! You have already joined Wikipedia – Help:Getting started has some help for getting started. And I am more than happy to answer any questions you might have along the way :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 06:18, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
cfd
I noted in the discussion that Category:Burn survivors was also tagged for the nom, for similar reasons. - jc37 00:00, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Jc37: It seems I forgot to address that; thank you for pointing it out and apologies for my oversight. As that did not attract many comments, what if we created a fresh nomination only focused on Category:Burn survivors, and pinged Marcocapelle and Smasongarrison to the discussion? We already have clear consensus on the fictional version, and I don't think we should bring that category back. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 03:29, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- (Re-)listing Category:Burn survivors sounds good. And thank you : ) - jc37 03:44, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase III/Administrator elections.
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:20, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
Upcoming Language Community Meeting (Feb 28th, 14:00 UTC) and Newsletter
- Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Upcoming Language Community Meeting (Feb 28th, 14:00 UTC) and Newsletter because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.
Hello everyone!

We’re excited to announce that the next Language Community Meeting is happening soon, February 28th at 14:00 UTC! If you’d like to join, simply sign up on the wiki page.
This is a participant-driven meeting where we share updates on language-related projects, discuss technical challenges in language wikis, and collaborate on solutions. In our last meeting, we covered topics like developing language keyboards, creating the Moore Wikipedia, and updates from the language support track at Wiki Indaba.
Got a topic to share? Whether it’s a technical update from your project, a challenge you need help with, or a request for interpretation support, we’d love to hear from you! Feel free to reply to this message or add agenda items to the document here.
Also, we wanted to highlight that the sixth edition of the Language & Internationalization newsletter (January 2025) is available here: Wikimedia Language and Product Localization/Newsletter/2025/January. This newsletter provides updates from the October–December 2024 quarter on new feature development, improvements in various language-related technical projects and support efforts, details about community meetings, and ideas for contributing to projects. To stay updated, you can subscribe to the newsletter on its wiki page: Wikimedia Language and Product Localization/Newsletter.
We look forward to your ideas and participation at the language community meeting, see you there!
MediaWiki message delivery 08:29, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
Please self block my doppelganger
2NumForlce (talk · contribs)
Requesting self block of my doppelganger account as my auto-logout and auto-hide-everything are not enough. Also make sure to turn off account creation, talk page access, email but not autoblock. ~~2NumForIce (speak|edits) 22:28, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- Proof 2NumForlce (talk) 22:29, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- @2NumForIce:
Done; happy editing! HouseBlaster (he/they) 04:22, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- @2NumForIce:
Question from PakeeWiki (19:22, 23 February 2025)
Hey mentor, this page's title is misspelled and I don't know how to change it or whether I'm allowed to change it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_Pei (Jian Pei*) --PakeeWiki (talk) 19:22, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hello, PakeeWiki! I have moved the page for you. For future reference, you can see the how-to at Help:How to move a page. Wikipedia:Moving a page has information about why you might move a page (obviously, typos in the title are a great reason to make a page move!). Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:13, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks! PakeeWiki (talk) 20:26, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-09
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
- Administrators can now customize how the Babel feature creates categories using Special:CommunityConfiguration/Babel. They can rename language categories, choose whether they should be auto-created, and adjust other settings. [25]
- The wikimedia.org portal has been updated – and is receiving some ongoing improvements – to modernize and improve the accessibility of our portal pages. It now has better support for mobile layouts, updated wording and links, and better language support. Additionally, all of the Wikimedia project portals, such as wikibooks.org, now support dark mode when a reader is using that system setting. [26][27][28]
- One new wiki has been created: a Wiktionary in Santali (
wikt:sat:
) [29] View all 30 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed that prevented clicking on search results in the web-interface for some Firefox for Android phone configurations. [30]
Meetings and events
- The next Language Community Meeting is happening soon, February 28th at 14:00 UTC. This week's meeting will cover: highlights and technical updates on keyboard and tools for the Sámi languages, Translatewiki.net contributions from the Bahasa Lampung community in Indonesia, and technical Q&A. If you'd like to join, simply sign up on the wiki page.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 00:38, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
Could you please help?
I have had extreme difficulty with an editor.
This is the talk page where you can see all the discussions here: Talk:Harla people#Relationship of the Harla to the Walasma and Their Origins. There is a RfC ongoing but I was told it is too long and unlikely to be resolved due to the expertise required.
I was also told that an RfC cannot be used for issues regarding the conduct of an editor.
This person appears to be an admin and using it against me a newbie. They've attacked me personally, accused me of peddling rubbish from random blogs instead of academic research. They revert literally anything I do even with the large amount of fully cited sources provided. They are not interested in engaging with the material presented and are not consistent at all accusing of me of things I have not done (that they have) and contradicting themselves sometimes in the same reply. Can you please help I just want a neutral third party with influence to see what's going on.
~~~~
Abcsomwiz (talk) 19:57, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Abcsomwiz! I am currently unable to deal with a dispute such as this one; I just had a surgery and am trying to do "easy" jobs. Would you be able to ask another admin? Apologies for the trouble. Best wishes, HouseBlaster (he/they) 20:12, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @HouseBlaster. I hope you're doing alright. That's not a problem. I very much appreciate the reply and hope you have a full recovery.
- I have now just posted it on the DRN after seeing someone say it is 'canvassing' to ask an admin on their page. Is this true? Abcsomwiz (talk) 20:37, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Abcsomwiz: Looking at your contributions, you asked three admins and at ANI. Generally, you ask for help at one at a time. I wouldn't say it is canvassing, but it is WP:FORUMSHOPPING. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 20:39, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
- I'll remove the posts on the admin pages. I saw it might be an issue only afterwards. Thank you once again :) Abcsomwiz (talk) 21:02, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
- Of course, and apologies that I was unable to provide real help in this instance! HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:03, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
- I'll remove the posts on the admin pages. I saw it might be an issue only afterwards. Thank you once again :) Abcsomwiz (talk) 21:02, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Abcsomwiz: Looking at your contributions, you asked three admins and at ANI. Generally, you ask for help at one at a time. I wouldn't say it is canvassing, but it is WP:FORUMSHOPPING. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 20:39, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
pblock
You made the pblock more harsh because you did not include the prior explanation and restrictions but made it unconditional indefinite pblock. That is not right. I hope you are open to discussing your actions with me. That would be preferred over of blocking and stonewalling as far as dialogue. Thank you.
I write this not to argue with you but to seek a better understanding of Wikipedia. At present, it seems like a very harsh place. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 07:24, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
- @ErrorCorrection1: Your original pblock was indefinite in the software. Due to software limitations, it was erased by the software when your temporary siteblock was instituted. I simply reinstated the original partial block. The same unblock conditions apply as before:
Any admin is free to unblock if/when the election date is firmed up and/or this user shows a willingness to respect consensus-based decision-making)
. I am more than happy to discuss my actions further with you; I am about to head to bed so I can't get into an extended conversation with you at this instant. I bet by the end of discussion we would actually be in a position to lift the block. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 07:38, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
I would like to have a discussion over a few days to better understand Wikipedia. To me, there are pockets of Wikipedia where it's very harsh. If you are unwilling to have a discussion, please let me know. There are many little areas that I can think of you might be able to shed light on. One broad topic is consensus, of which there are many sub-topics to this concept. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 04:31, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- I am happy to have a conversation with you, ErrorCorrection1. About consensus: it is something you could spend a lifetime studying. WP:CON is the policy which explains the topic in detail; that's the textbook. Our WP:PAGs are documentation of various pieces of consensus we have formed as a community over the years. What specifically do you want to know more about / do you have questions about specific parts of how that policy works? "Explain consensus" is difficult – that would be a great dissertation topic! But I am happy to answer more manageable questions. For instance, is there a particular part of the policy you find unclear? Or perhaps you are wondering how the consensus policy applies in a particular scenario? HouseBlaster (he/they) 05:03, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you for your reply. It is easy for an admin to block then end all consideration of the matter. It is more responsive to engage in dialogue and guidance, which you are doing.
- I believe edit warring is a threat to consensus. However, I am a firm believer in disengagement, which I have done independently of the block. (If you require evidence of that, it can be tabulated into a report for you). While that can be seen in letting the others who edit war win, that is the nature of the Wikipedia beast.
- I hesitate to bring up the above paragraph because Wikipedia can and has been weaponized by using that kind as discussion as a "personal attack" (by using making the accusation that the above paragraph is a "personal attack" then using the specious reason as an excuse for further blocking). It's not a fair system because I have been the subject of personal attacks.
- There are numerous articles which hard working editors have made many edits but the broad presentation of the article has been overlooked. Article improvement in that regard is very useful for overall quality of the Wikipedia project. If I can make a contribution not only to factual error correction but to re-orient articles in a more encyclopedic direction, I would consider that success.
- Would you be open to discussion over a specific article or two in terms of how Wikipedia policy and customs are applied as a teaching tool (and certainly not a call for you to do any administrative action)?
- ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 19:24, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- @ErrorCorrection1: You are absolutely right that edit warring is the antithesis of consensus. I don't need evidence that you have disengaged from that sort of thing. In general, reverting the addition of information a single time is not edit warring. However, reinstating the removed content can be edit warring.I would be open to a discussion over a specific article or two. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 19:31, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- This article is where 2 editors that I consider who edit aggressively was the first point of contact for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2025_Canadian_federal_election&diff=1277004561&oldid=1270413882
- It is about the next Canadian federal election. I entered the article thinking that the main direction of the article's lede is not a good orientation. The lede with a detailed explanation of an election no later than October 2025 is good for the generic article written several years but no longer is a balanced presentation because the likelihood of such October election is very low based on all news reports of major Canadian and foreign news organization. Even the NDP which agreed to a confidence and supply agreement for the governing Liberal Party has torn it up and said they will overturn the government when they are allowed to convene. Despite fierce opposition from 2 editors (who complained to ANI) and despite me no longer working to improve the lede, the consensus was to remove this for a more balanced lede which has been stable for a few weeks. Conclusion: my eye for overall direction was validated by consensus.
- What I did in January was when the 2 aggressive editors kept reverting my lede suggestions, I abandoned the attempt. I did try to suggest mentioning the article in the article (just not in the lede) but the 2 editors still went to ANI, resulting in my p-block. This separate editing disagreement was not explained by the 2 editors but characterized as one continuous conflict, which it was not.
- Another point is that calling it a 2025 Canadian federal election is slightly presumptuous. It is more accurate to call it the 45th Canadian federal election (or parliamentary election) until the election is actually called and that year used for the title, but I cannot change Rome in a day or a century so it will have to be.
- I view it as aggressive behaviour when an editor or two merely reverts and does not start a talk page discussion or start a RFC, but rather goes to ANI and a few weeks later goes to the p-block administrator complaining that I have not been blocked from the article AND the talk page despite not trying to edit in the talk page (which I am not p-block). Mentioning this is not a personal attack but a description of the aggressiveness of the 2 editors.
- One reason that I would like p-block to be undone is because it remains a part of my permanent Wikipedia record. It is stating that I cannot be trusted to edit until after the election. I have already been commended by the p-blocking admin who is on extended leave but wrote "Now, I will grant that this was a wise thing to do. You were obviously very agitated during the incident that led to the block and walking away when it was issued actually surprised me, as I assumed you'd throw a fit, and it is to your credit that you did not.(23:53, 4 February 2025 (UTC) Beeblebrox)"
- What I seek is for the punishment (and this blocking is punishment despite that blocking is supposed to be damage control, not punishment) to end. I do not seek a lot of further editing in that article. I am likely to provide overall direction to what I think will improvement the article and let other editors form consensus. However, I should not be shackled and be told "you can beg for changes in the talk page but are banned from making even the most minor grammatical correction from the main article".
- I have no desire to make Wikipedia a battleground and realize some people are just aggressive. If unblocked, I might look at the Canadian article in a few days (certainly not today or tomorrow if unblocked) and might try to provide direction but no more than that. The original admin said that a condition of p-block unblock was ok in his opinion where "Any admin is free to unblock if/when the election date is firmed up and/or this user shows a willingness to respect consensus-based decision-making). I hereby express a willingness to respect consensus-based decision making.
- I also might add that I would like to have further discussions with you to understand Wikipedia better but that these will likely be not so lengthy as the above. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 22:08, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
- @ErrorCorrection1: You are absolutely right that edit warring is the antithesis of consensus. I don't need evidence that you have disengaged from that sort of thing. In general, reverting the addition of information a single time is not edit warring. However, reinstating the removed content can be edit warring.I would be open to a discussion over a specific article or two. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 19:31, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
@ErrorCorrection1: So the first thing I would advise you to do is follow the "no re-reverting" rule. It is not actually a rule you will find written down anywhere, but it is the approach I personally take when editing Wikipedia. If someone objects, go and have a discussion on the talk page. The burden to initiate discussion is on the person wanting to make a change – in this case, it was on you to start the discussion, which you did at Talk:2025 Canadian federal election#Lede's emphasis could be improved. I see people communicating there – but if you cannot persuade people to agree, you need to drop the stick and stop arguing. It is disruptive. Consensus can change, but continuing to beat a dead horse is a waste of time.
Regarding this edit, if discussion is ongoing about a particular point, you should not edit that part of the article (excepting minor edits like fixing typos). I fully believe that this block was necessary at the time to stop you from continuing to disrupt the article; whether it is still necessary, I am not sure.
I am also unsure what you mean by this block is a punishment. That is a pretty serious allegation – you are saying that your block is in violation of policy, after all – so I am curious if you have any evidence to support that claim. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 00:33, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
- You asked "so I am curious if you have any evidence to support that claim" regarding punishment. Yes, I have. I do not intend to edit that article extensively and, when I do edit, it will be mostly to give direction to the gist of the article, which is a new approach. I also have stated clearly that I am willing to respect consensus-based decisions. Therefore, the main reason for continuing the p-block despite these assurances would be punishment. Besides, when the blocked editor makes good faith efforts and remains blocked, it is entirely reasonable for the editor to feel that it is punishment
- I do not want to complain too much but the question was asked regarding punishment, so I answer it. Blocking to prevent disruption is how it's suppose to work. Does anyone have any evidence that disruption will occur? ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 03:11, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- @ErrorCorrection1: Right, you say that, but unfortunately we cannot read your mind to divine your intentions. You already were asked to go talk on the talk page and seek consensus, and while the discussion was ongoing you edit-warred in your preferred version. That is not acceptable behavior, and editing "to give direction to the gist of the article" is not the same thing as a commitment to avoid edit warring and bypassing discussion. Discussion is binding on everyone – whether they support the result of the discussion or not. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 03:33, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you for your comments. You don't have to read my mind. The blocking admin, who is on extended vacation, already wrote that he was surprised that I did not make a fit and did disengage to reflect on his administrative actions. Furthermore, I do NOT have a history of repeated blocks on that article or any other article. That is partly where WP:AGF assume good faith comes in.
- I make this comment not as a personal attack but the 2 people who complain, one has been blocked many, many times. No other editor in that article had major disagreements with me. In fact, my idea was accepted in that the lede is no longer long paragraphs about the theoretical October 2025 deadline for an election. In that respect, consensus validated my ideas and went against the 2 editors that complained and went to ANI. Going to ANI is supposed to be for emergencies, according to the instructions. They did not even go to RFC, which I now am aware of.
- You should be commended in maintaining a dialogue. Many admins are quick to block and not to discuss things with the readership. However, with that time commitment, re-blocking if there is bad behaviour is not difficult. I ask for that AGF in view of my intense reflection, commitment towards consensus. Please do not create lots of additional hoops to jump over. At some point, that creates a feeling of punishment. As for "commitment to avoid edit warring and bypassing discussion", I solemnly give that commitment and declare that I will act in that way.ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 16:38, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- @ErrorCorrection1: ANI is not necessarily for emergencies. It is for things where there are behavioral problems. Edit warring, not respecting consensus, and the like are problems. Even if consensus in the long run agreed with you, a fundamental principle on Wikipedia is that being "right" is not an excuse for bad behavior. You do have a history of being blocked. You were blocked twice; once for edit warring and once for personal attacks. Given your tenure on the project. Your above message is persuading me that you are still in the mindset of "well, the other editors are wrong and have a history of behaving badly, which justifies my behavior". That needs to change if you are going to be a productive editor on Wikipedia.That being said, you have given the commitment we asked of you. Therefore, I am going to give Beeblebrox a couple of days to respond to this discussion; I am wiling to lift the block and extend some WP:ROPE. If he does not respond, I will lift the block per this discussion and especially your commitments. HouseBlaster (he/they) 20:38, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- If you unblock within a few days, I will report to you in a month. I will show you that I acted responsibly and that the unblock was the correct decision.
- As far as your comment, that is not quite true. I do not believe "the other editors are wrong and have a history of behaving badly, which justifies my behavio(u)r". I do believe that "the other 2 editors are wrong and have a history of behaving badly, but I should have been wiser went they started acting badly" ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 00:22, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
- It is currently 26 February. Your message was late on 24 February. In Wikipedia, often a few hours is considered awhile. Beetlebrox has declared that he is on a wikibreak. His last edit was 20 February, 6 days ago. Therefore, I ask that you unblock without waiting further. Thank you. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 01:07, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- If Beeblebrox does not respond within 48 hours of my original message (i.e. ~20:38, 26 February 2025 UTC) I will unblock you. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 01:31, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you in advance for the unblock. It is 9 minutes away though I would not mind an earlier commutation. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 20:29, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- Unblocked. Be careful, and best of luck. I am still here if you have any questions. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 20:46, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you. Your actions are much appreciated. In contrast, it reflects poorly on Wikipedia that 4 other administrators did nothing, not even a short response. The customers of Wikipedia may interpret this as very poor customer service. In fact, one administrator even went so far as to block me. Even you noted that I have been blocked twice. It was when I requested unblocking (un-p-block) that they blocked me. While I do not hold you responsible for the actions of others, that action was perplexing.
- The offending edit (because it was the only edit to that admin's talk page) was this. .... https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Voorts&diff=prev&oldid=1276091568
- The excuse for blocking was "personal attack". There is likely a reference to "GoodDay (who was been blocked multiple times) and Ivanvector reverted these changes without discussion." but writing "who has been blocked multiple times" is really not a sufficient personal attack to be blocked. If it were, then you would be blocked because you mentioned in this talk page about me being blocked.
- The conclusion that I make is that there is variability among admins and that they are afforded great leeway. They can even act arbitrarily and capriciously with no recourse. I accept that as the nature of the Wikipedia beast even if those admins should do better. Fortunately, there is one admin like you. I hope that you don't block me for speaking candidly. I intend to tread lightly because of my new understanding of Wikipedia variability. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 20:59, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- Unblocked. Be careful, and best of luck. I am still here if you have any questions. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 20:46, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you in advance for the unblock. It is 9 minutes away though I would not mind an earlier commutation. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 20:29, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- If Beeblebrox does not respond within 48 hours of my original message (i.e. ~20:38, 26 February 2025 UTC) I will unblock you. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 01:31, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- It is currently 26 February. Your message was late on 24 February. In Wikipedia, often a few hours is considered awhile. Beetlebrox has declared that he is on a wikibreak. His last edit was 20 February, 6 days ago. Therefore, I ask that you unblock without waiting further. Thank you. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 01:07, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- @ErrorCorrection1: ANI is not necessarily for emergencies. It is for things where there are behavioral problems. Edit warring, not respecting consensus, and the like are problems. Even if consensus in the long run agreed with you, a fundamental principle on Wikipedia is that being "right" is not an excuse for bad behavior. You do have a history of being blocked. You were blocked twice; once for edit warring and once for personal attacks. Given your tenure on the project. Your above message is persuading me that you are still in the mindset of "well, the other editors are wrong and have a history of behaving badly, which justifies my behavior". That needs to change if you are going to be a productive editor on Wikipedia.That being said, you have given the commitment we asked of you. Therefore, I am going to give Beeblebrox a couple of days to respond to this discussion; I am wiling to lift the block and extend some WP:ROPE. If he does not respond, I will lift the block per this discussion and especially your commitments. HouseBlaster (he/they) 20:38, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
- @ErrorCorrection1: Right, you say that, but unfortunately we cannot read your mind to divine your intentions. You already were asked to go talk on the talk page and seek consensus, and while the discussion was ongoing you edit-warred in your preferred version. That is not acceptable behavior, and editing "to give direction to the gist of the article" is not the same thing as a commitment to avoid edit warring and bypassing discussion. Discussion is binding on everyone – whether they support the result of the discussion or not. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 03:33, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
Some stroopwafels for you!
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I just read that you are recovering from surgery. Oh, my! I hope everything went smoothly. Please take care of yourself and only log on for pleasant activities...disputes can be handled by others. I wish you a speedy recovery. Enjoy the waffles! Liz Read! Talk! 02:36, 26 February 2025 (UTC) |
- Thank you so much, Liz! It is a very routine surgery under local anesthesia, and I am recovering very well – much better than anticipated by the doctor! They said I'll be ready to resume some physical activity by the end of the week. And again, thank you so very much for the well wishes and waffles! :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 02:44, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- Surgery??!!!! There is no such thing as "minor" surgery. There is just "major" and "gigantic". Get well soon. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 21:04, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- @ErrorCorrection1: Thank you for the kind words :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 22:30, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
- Surgery??!!!! There is no such thing as "minor" surgery. There is just "major" and "gigantic". Get well soon. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 21:04, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
The Signpost: 27 February 2025
- Serendipity: Guinea-Bissau Heritage from Commons to the World
- Technology report: Hear that? The wikis go silent twice a year
- In the media: The end of the world
- Recent research: What's known about how readers navigate Wikipedia; Italian Wikipedia hardest to read
- Opinion: Sennecaster's RfA debriefing
- Tips and tricks: One year after this article is posted, will every single article on Wikipedia have a short description?
- Community view: Open letter from French Wikipedians says "no" to intimidation of volunteer contributors
- Traffic report: Temporary scars, February stars
Talk Page Template
@HouseBlaster Hello!, through what must be a minor bug in the app, I saw that now, Talk Pages on EC topics get a new notice that says "Stop," consistent with a suggestion I'd made (and which you replied to) about a month ago. So that I might boast that I assisted Wikipedia, might you know of any connection? Johnadams11 (talk) 00:56, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Johnadams11: it was directly as a result of Template talk:Contentious topics/Arab-Israeli talk notice#Edit request 4 February 2025; see this comment from SilverLocust in the discussion :) Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 02:06, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- @HouseBlaster Thank you so much. Had I merely scrolled down I would have seen that. I thought the conversation had concluded. In any event, thank you for affirming. I'd be interested in knowing if it has any effect. Perhaps I'll consult with EC constables like sean.hoyland to learn if his beat has become any quieter! Thanks again. Johnadams11 (talk) 03:30, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
Further guidance
What if a change is properly discussed and a consensus seems to be reached. Then when an edit is made, another user reverts with no explanation or inaccurately comments in the edit summary "no consensus reached"? I suppose it's possible to think "Wikipedia is impossible, let the troublemaker win". What would you suggest?
Some possibilities might be to have a RFC, to further discuss in the talk page and then re-revert (though possibly written with a different emphasis to test the water). Should ANI be used? (I, personally, tend to think that ANI should be rarely used for this kind of problem).
I realize there is no one correct answer but any thoughts? ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 21:23, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- It really depends on the circumstances. We are all biased towards thinking our preferred position has consensus when it doesn't, so sometimes it helps to take a moment and consider whether the reverter is correct that no consensus has formed. Really. Take a moment and consider it. (Hint: if you decide there was consensus 100% of the time, you are doing it wrong.) Sometimes you can find a compromise; sometimes you should continue to talk with them. Anyone who has spent a good amount of time here is trying to improve the encyclopedia, just like you are. You have the same goal; you are on the same team. Wikipedia:Help button/Article content disputes has a great menu of options, one of which is an RfC. Others include a filing at the dispute resolution noticeboard, a more specific noticeboard (e.g. WP:NPOVN, WP:BLPN, etc.), or asking for more eyes from a related WikiProject. Continuing to edit the article is rarely productive; as you gain experience as an editor, you will learn when you can do this effectively. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 22:02, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
- There are some people who seek confrontation so it is questionable whether everyone has the same goals and are on the same team. Fortunately, many people are not like that. Thank you for your additional ideas. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 00:38, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
different question
What if there is a proposed beneficial (and logical) section in an article where a similar article has such section. However, a dissenting editor insists the proposed section must not appear but gives no rational explanation. There is one or two other occasional editors that agree that the proposed section makes sense. When the edit is then made, the dissenting editor reverts it immediately with no explanation or nothing that makes much logical sense. What is the community to do? In essence, give the lone dissenting editor veto power and defacto control of the article?
Some possibilities include entering a cordial dialogue with the dissenting editor but re-instating the new section, making some changes to water it down to (hopefully) appease the dissenting editor? Or entering a long bureaucratic process while the new section is held up and not displayed because of one editor?
This is not a rare hypothetical example because there are many articles in Wikipedia that are not really complete and could use an additional section. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 00:09, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
The first thing to note is WP:ONUS, which formally says that the burden is on those seeking to include content to demonstrate consensus for its inclusion, should it be challenged. And I would challenge
Making changes to the proposed addition in an effort to compromise is a great way forward. WP:TOOBIG is the formal guideline for when length alone determines when something should be excluded from a particular article, and most articles are nowhere near that threshold.but gives no rational explanation.
Are they giving no rational explanation, or an explanation with which you do not understand? If you can't come to a compromise, you should follow the steps I outlined above to resolve disputes. It is not letting a single person "veto" the community if you cannot demonstrate that the community agrees with you.This article is WP:PERFECT as is
is never a sound argument. So usually editors ought to have a objection to the contents of a section, rather than the mere addition of additional content. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 02:05, 1 March 2025 (UTC)- Partly, it could be combative behaviour to try to veto any changes in an article.
- That's a nice article that I didn't know about, WP:PERFECT. Thank you.
- I asked you the above with an article in mind. The article talks about a scenario that happens about 20% of the time, but then adds that it's possible of the 80% scenario. I think it is better to say the 80% scenario but then add that it's possible of the 20% scenario. Though still in discussion, there is an editor who wants the 20% scenario first. That editor has been sanctioned by ArbCom and been blocked about 9 times in the past. That is in the record and not a personal attack. However, it might reflect combativeness. I hope that there is not combativeness anymore but we'll see. I might have to let them win.
- ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 02:28, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- I am very disappointed with the mentality you are displaying here. I know exactly who you are talking about, and I have had my fair share of disagreements with them in the past (courtesy ping to GoodDay, because we are discussing you here). I could just as easily say you have been blocked for disruption at 2025 Canadian federal election and for personally attacking GoodDay. Is it true that GoodDay has had some behavioral problems in the past? Yes. Does that mean you are automatically in the right and able to present this issue as dealing with a vexatious editor with a rap sheet? Absolutely not. Unlike you, their sanction history has absolutely nothing to do Canadian elections. Stop bringing up their sanction history, and start considering them to be a colleague who is here in just as much good faith as you are. HouseBlaster (he/they) 02:40, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- Sorry for the disappointment but I am trying to figure out how to approach it if an editor merely reverts without any explanation or minimal explanation. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 04:31, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- Appreciate the ping, HouseBlaster. PS - I've mostly chosen to be silent (these last few days), while you've been attempting to help ErrorCorrection1 in the area of getting along with others. GoodDay (talk) 02:48, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hello Good Day. So let's be constructive. If you have good ideas, please express them. Do not revert something without explanation and discussion unless you think it is about a minor universally accepted topic that needs no discussion. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 04:15, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- I am very disappointed with the mentality you are displaying here. I know exactly who you are talking about, and I have had my fair share of disagreements with them in the past (courtesy ping to GoodDay, because we are discussing you here). I could just as easily say you have been blocked for disruption at 2025 Canadian federal election and for personally attacking GoodDay. Is it true that GoodDay has had some behavioral problems in the past? Yes. Does that mean you are automatically in the right and able to present this issue as dealing with a vexatious editor with a rap sheet? Absolutely not. Unlike you, their sanction history has absolutely nothing to do Canadian elections. Stop bringing up their sanction history, and start considering them to be a colleague who is here in just as much good faith as you are. HouseBlaster (he/they) 02:40, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
Category Merging
Hello. Just asking what rationale actually led to the merging of my Scholars of Precolonial North Africa and Scholars of Precolonial West Africa category? There was not really any discussion on these topics, beyond initial posts and my responses. HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 19:09, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hi HiddenHistoryPedia! I simply closed the discussion, which means I determined the consensus of the discussions. You'll notice that I did not close Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 February 19#Category:Scholars of Precolonial East Africa because no consensus (for merging or for keeping) has emerged.As for the substantive reason: discussions on Wikipedia last a week, and after a week of discussion you were unable to persuade anyone to agree with your point of view. As a closer, I would be supervoting if I closed either discussion in any other way. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 19:18, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
- With all due respect, there was no substantive discussion. A number of claims were made, I responded to those claims, and I received no responses to my statements. The discussion was repeatedly "relisted for further consideration", without any of its other participants showing apparent interest in such consideration. Similar, in fact, to the situation on the East Africa category which you have just shared. HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 14:43, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- For reference, see the archived discussion. HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 14:47, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- And this one for West Africa (apologies for the multiple disjointed replies). HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 14:48, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- Neither discussion was relisted because clear consensus had in fact formed. Supporters are not required to rebut every argument made by the opposition (nor vice versa). If people are not persuaded by the points you made, and I say this will all due respect, that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes. We've all had some of our work deleted before; it is almost a rite of passage. That all being said, if you have additional arguments you would like to present, I would be happy to relist the discussion, but if you are unable to persuade people to agree with your perspective it will be merged again. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 18:11, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- And this one for West Africa (apologies for the multiple disjointed replies). HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 14:48, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- For reference, see the archived discussion. HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 14:47, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- With all due respect, there was no substantive discussion. A number of claims were made, I responded to those claims, and I received no responses to my statements. The discussion was repeatedly "relisted for further consideration", without any of its other participants showing apparent interest in such consideration. Similar, in fact, to the situation on the East Africa category which you have just shared. HiddenHistoryPedia (talk) 14:43, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
Reply to House Blaster about Tatya Tope Incorrect Image edit
Thank you for your reply, the image shown in wikipedia is of 'Jwala Prasad' at the time of his arrest and tatya tope does not have a photograph of him available anywhere (to my knowledge, a photograph was never infact taken) but there are portraits/paintings/illustrations of Tatya Tope, and it is very easy and highly important to change Jwala Prasad's photograph with one of Tope's illustrations. I do have a few images although I am not sure about the pixel quality but they are very easy to find on the internet because it is common knowledge, the image shown in the wikipedia page is a source of uninvited confusion. How do I send you the images that I have? If not satisfactory please let me know, but making the change is extremely important because I have seen people using Prasad's photo as Tatya Tope because of this silly wikipedia error. (Tatya Tope is sometimes also written as Tantya Tope). Swapnil Chanpuriya (talk) 04:29, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- How do you know that the photo is actually of Jwala Prasad? The original source (not Wikipedia) describes the image as one of Tantia Topi. To submit new photos, you should email photosubmission
wikimedia.org, which is staffed by volunteers who specialize in this sort of work. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 04:38, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
- thankyou for the follow up, I study indian history as a degree, and the identities and appearances of both Jwala Prasad and tatya tope are common knowledge here in India.
- The original source is incorrect, a quick Google search can easily prove it
- I can send you many examples of sources using the correct image of Tatya Tope, even my city has the statue of him which clearly shows his face.The fact is Tatya Tope was never photographed, but Jwala Prasad was after his arrest. The wikipedia image and the source is incorrect hence the confusion. Swapnil Chanpuriya (talk) 07:59, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, Wikipedia policy does not consider you to be a reliable source. "Common knowledge" doesn't count; most Wikipedia readers are not from India (or any particular country!). I would encourage you to email the photosubmissions address I gave you. HouseBlaster (he/they) 18:15, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
Notice of noticeboard discussion
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is ErrorCorrection1 and upcoming Canadian election, redux. Thank you. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 21:42, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-10
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
- All logged-in editors using the mobile view can now edit a full page. The "Edit full page" link is accessible from the "More" menu in the toolbar. This was previously only available to editors using the Advanced mobile contributions setting. [31]
- Interface administrators can now help to remove the deprecated Cite CSS code matching "
mw-ref
" from their local MediaWiki:Common.css. The list of wikis in need of cleanup, and the code to remove, can be found with this global search and in this example, and you can learn more about how to help on the CSS migration project page. The Cite footnote markers ("[1]
") are now rendered by Parsoid, and the deprecated CSS is no longer needed. The CSS for backlinks ("mw:referencedBy
") should remain in place for now. This cleanup is expected to cause no visible changes for readers. Please help to remove this code before March 20, after which the development team will do it for you. - When editors embed a file (e.g.
[[File:MediaWiki.png]]
) on a page that is protected with cascading protection, the software will no longer restrict edits to the file description page, only to new file uploads.[32] In contrast, transcluding a file description page (e.g.{{:File:MediaWiki.png}}
) will now restrict edits to the page.[33] - When editors revert a file to an earlier version it will now require the same permissions as ordinarily uploading a new version of the file. The software now checks for 'reupload' or 'reupload-own' rights,[34] and respects cascading protection.[35]
- When administrators are listing pages for deletion with the Nuke tool, they can now also list associated talk pages and redirects for deletion, alongside pages created by the target, rather than needing to manually delete these pages afterwards. [36]
- The previously noted update to Single User Login, which will accommodate browser restrictions on cross-domain cookies by moving login and account creation to a central domain, will now roll out to all users during March and April. The team plans to enable it for all new account creation on Group0 wikis this week. See the SUL3 project page for more details and an updated timeline.
- Since last week there has been a bug that shows some interface icons as black squares until the page has fully loaded. It will be fixed this week. [37]
- One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Sylheti (
w:syl:
) [38] View all 23 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed with loading images in very old versions of the Firefox browser on mobile. [39]
Updates for technical contributors
Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 02:28, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – March 2025
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2025).

- A request for comment is open to discuss whether AI-generated images (meaning those wholly created by generative AI, not human-created images modified with AI tools) should be banned from use in articles.
- A series of 22 mini-RFCs that double-checked consensus on some aspects and improved certain parts of the administrator elections process has been closed (see the summary of the changes).
- A request for comment is open to gain consensus on whether future administrator elections should be held.
- A new filter has been added to the Special:Nuke tool, which allows administrators to filter for pages in a range of page sizes (in bytes). This allows, for example, deleting pages only of a certain size or below. T378488
- Non-administrators can now check which pages are able to be deleted using the Special:Nuke tool. T376378
- The 2025 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ*ぜ, Arcticocean, Ameisenigel, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, Galahad, Nehaoua, Renvoy, Revi C., RoySmith, Teles and Zafer as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
- Following the 2025 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: 1234qwer1234qwer4, AramilFeraxa, Daniuu, KonstantinaG07, MdsShakil and XXBlackburnXx.
Growth Newsletter #33

A quarterly update from the Growth team on our work to improve the new editor experience.
This year, the Growth team is exploring ways to help more new account holders start editing—and do so constructively, meaning their edits are not reverted. Our latest experiments include:
- Gradual rollout of "Add a Link" at English Wikipedia – We are gradually introducing the "Add a Link" structured task to newcomers at English Wikipedia (T386029). This serves as a natural A/B test to measure its impact on activation, retention, and revert rates (T382603). Previous experiments on pilot wikis showed that "Add a Link" increases newcomer participation, particularly by helping them make constructive (non-reverted) edits.
- Testing in-article suggestions for first-time editors – Many new account holders want to contribute but don’t know where to start. To help, we’re piloting a feature that surfaces structured task suggestions directly in an article’s read view for brand-new editors (T385343). These suggestions will appear for logged-in users with no edits, providing a clear, simple way to begin contributing that is surfaced while they read.
Newcomers often struggle to find their place in Wikipedia’s collaborative environment. While experienced editors easily discover events like edit-a-thons and writing campaigns, newcomers often miss out.
- To bridge this gap, we launched the Community Updates module for the Newcomer Homepage. This module is disabled by default, allowing Community Admins to decide how (or if) to use it.
- If your community hosts events, consider setting up a Community Update to engage and welcome newcomers! Learn more on Diff. To configure, visit Special:CommunityConfiguration.
Community Configuration is now available across all wikis, including non-Wikipedia projects (T383910). Community Configuration allows admins to customize various features like Growth features and Automoderator for their communities, and more recently the Babel extension now allows admins to modify configuration:
- Babel customization – Admins can now configure Babel settings (T374348), including category naming, automatic category creation, and more. See an example on Wikimedia Commons.
- Upcoming configurable features – Projects exploring community configuration options include: Incident Reporting System (T374113) and Cite backlinks (T378807).
Mentors play a key role in guiding new editors. If you’re interested in mentoring, or turning mentorship on at your wiki, check out the Mentorship FAQ
- Starting February 17, 100% of new accounts at English Wikipedia will be assigned a mentor (T384505).
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18:59, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
RfD advice
Hi, and again, many thanks for your advice over at the Teahouse. Anyway, I've come across another RfD that I'm inclined to close, but I've decided to be more prudent, especially as it relates to Trump: Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 February 18#Build that wall. I see valid arguments being made by all sides: delete, keep, retarget, and disambiguate. As such, I'm inclined to close it as no consensus as I highly doubt that consensus could be established, especially with no further discussion since 23/2 and 2 previous relistings. Your input would be highly appreciated; of course, feel free to use my rationale to close it yourself as well. Happy Tuesday, it's lio! | talk | work 13:52, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- @HKLionel: I agree that this is a textbook no consensus close. There is also no reason for a no consensus retarget; it is not like the section Mexico–United States border wall § First Trump administration (2017–2021) is non-existent. Though take my opinion with a grain of salt; I am not a regular at RfD :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 20:23, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- Oh, right, keep forgetting you're more focused on CfD - my apologies, ha. Thanks a lot for your opinion. G'day, it's lio! | talk | work 22:54, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
Please explain.
Tristan made a suggestion up above, on January 21, for a concise edit describing the required date under the fixed-date provisions, along with a suggestion to move the rest of the detail about legal and constitutional requirements and the conditions for an earlier date to a body section. Three editors immediately agreed, and Mr Serjeant Buzfuz has just made the same suggestion again just above. That's five supporting the edit, one saying "do nothing", and one continuing to make suggestions for which no other editor has expressed any degree of support. You two can keep talking past each other; I'm making the edit. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:26, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
That is an incorrect conclusion of consensus, Ivanvector. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz made a suggestion. I support it in part. However, I bring up the fact that the second sentence phrases should be reversed because the most likely scenario is an early election, based on the past 20 previous election and the current circumstances. Neither Ivanvector, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, nor any of the 3 editors have disagreed. Even Ivanvector did not comment on that aspect (which covers quite a few paragraphs and is not hard to see) so I'm making the edit that does not conflict with the consensus, rather it adds a little logic but maintains the same few sentences. My edit complies with WP:BRD where Ivanvector was bold and I revert and discuss but my revert is very similar. Anyone want further discussion? If so, please continue. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 18:54, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
I see that Kawnhr has maintained this latest edition but made a change in a link in the first paragraph. This is additional support that the lede in place 19:11, 3 March 2025 (UTC) is good. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 19:11, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
Well, not quite. I was simply in the middle of making that same edit to Ivanvector's wording when I found myself in an edit conflict, shrugged and carried it over to this new one. WP:EASTEREGG is something of a bugbear of mine, and my hope was that jumping in while other editors are paying attention would make it more likely that my edit be adopted by others, rather than simply waiting for the dust to settle (because who knows when that will be). I'm supportive of changes to the lede generally but don't have a strong opinion on which proposed wording is better. — Kawnhr (talk) 19:21, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
I still don't see the need for any changes, until the fed election date is set. Because the changes made now, will only be altered further when the date is known. But anyways. GoodDay (talk) 20:01, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
The wording we decide on might only be on this page for a short time, but presumably it will presumably be carried over to the page for the 47th election, as well as future provincial elections. — Kawnhr (talk) 21:07, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
The wording might be applicable for the next 100 years or more with minor modifications to past tense later this year and adding a sentence for the date. Therefore, predictions that it will be only for a short time may not come to pass unless even minor changes of tense are counted. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 21:21, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- - - - - - - - - - - -
This is the entirety of the talk page discussion. The change in the article was then done by Ivanvector. Please explain what he did right and I did wrong. I do not think I did wrong but am open to discussion.
It was Ivanvector who changed the article. I then supported the change but suggested that the second sentences two phrases be reversed in order. That's a really minor change. Another editor though it was ok. Ivanvector then went to ANI. ErrorCorrection1 (talk) 00:44, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- @ErrorCorrection1: with all respect, at some point you need to figure these things out for yourself. If you are going to demonstrate that my good faith was misplaced, I am not going to continue to help you. Harping on GoodDay and Ivanvector as disruptive contributors because they are happy with how the lead looks is disruptive, and raising essentially the same issue again so soon, right after you were unblocked, is also disruptive. Stop it. Drop the stick. I am not going to help you further, because if you can't realize that going right back to the talk page and requesting similar changes is going to be perceived negatively, I don't think I can help you. I will not be replying further unless you have a question about my administrator actions. HouseBlaster (he/they) 01:45, 4 March 2025 (UTC)
- I had a small taste of communicating with this editor and I must say that you have demonstrated incredible patience in these exchanges, much more than I would have. Kudos to your administrator skills. They now have had TPA removed for the next 7 months. Liz Read! Talk! 23:56, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you, Liz :) I try to help the couple of editors who need a little help. Sometimes it works out wonderfully. Sometimes it doesn't work out, like here. But the few times it does work out make it worth it! HouseBlaster (he/they) 00:06, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- I had a small taste of communicating with this editor and I must say that you have demonstrated incredible patience in these exchanges, much more than I would have. Kudos to your administrator skills. They now have had TPA removed for the next 7 months. Liz Read! Talk! 23:56, 5 March 2025 (UTC)
Blocked user's user page
Hi, HouseBlaster. I have deleted User:Heyaaaaalol in response to UTRS appeal #101026, but after I did so I saw that a few minutes earlier you had deleted the page and then had second thoughts and restored it. I did have doubts about deleting it, and thought quite hard before doing so, but I decided I couldn't see any reason why the page has to be kept. What are your thoughts on the matter? JBW (talk) 10:18, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hi JBW! I went through exactly the same thought process. I only undeleted it because, realizing that it was not an obvious call (despite U1s usually being very obvious!), I was about to go to bed and I didn't want to be AWOL for a while after the deletion. I agree that it should stay deleted. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 17:51, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
- OK, thanks for answering. I vaguely think I may have seen deletion requests declined in this situation, but there doesn't seem to be any policy against it. JBW (talk) 18:36, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
Universal Code of Conduct annual review: proposed changes are available for comment
- Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Universal Code of Conduct annual review: proposed changes are available for comment because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.
Please help translate to other languages..
I am writing to you to let you know that proposed changes to the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement Guidelines and Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) Charter are open for review. You can provide feedback on suggested changes through the end of day on Tuesday, 18 March 2025. This is the second step in the annual review process, the final step will be community voting on the proposed changes. Read more information and find relevant links about the process on the UCoC annual review page on Meta.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review was planned and implemented by the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.
Please share this information with other members in your community wherever else might be appropriate.
-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) 18:51, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
Universal Code of Conduct annual review: proposed changes are available for comment
- Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Universal Code of Conduct annual review: proposed changes are available for comment because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.
Please help translate to other languages..
I am writing to you to let you know that proposed changes to the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement Guidelines and Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) Charter are open for review. You can provide feedback on suggested changes through the end of day on Tuesday, 18 March 2025. This is the second step in the annual review process, the final step will be community voting on the proposed changes. Read more information and find relevant links about the process on the UCoC annual review page on Meta.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review was planned and implemented by the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.
Please share this information with other members in your community wherever else might be appropriate.
-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) 18:51, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
Universal Code of Conduct annual review: proposed changes are available for comment
- Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Universal Code of Conduct annual review: proposed changes are available for comment because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.
Please help translate to other languages..
I am writing to you to let you know that proposed changes to the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement Guidelines and Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) Charter are open for review. You can provide feedback on suggested changes through the end of day on Tuesday, 18 March 2025. This is the second step in the annual review process, the final step will be community voting on the proposed changes. Read more information and find relevant links about the process on the UCoC annual review page on Meta.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review was planned and implemented by the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.
Please share this information with other members in your community wherever else might be appropriate.
-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) 18:51, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
Universal Code of Conduct annual review: proposed changes are available for comment
- Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Universal Code of Conduct annual review: proposed changes are available for comment because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.
Please help translate to other languages..
I am writing to you to let you know that proposed changes to the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement Guidelines and Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) Charter are open for review. You can provide feedback on suggested changes through the end of day on Tuesday, 18 March 2025. This is the second step in the annual review process, the final step will be community voting on the proposed changes. Read more information and find relevant links about the process on the UCoC annual review page on Meta.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review was planned and implemented by the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.
Please share this information with other members in your community wherever else might be appropriate.
-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) 18:51, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
Help with adding a photo to a new page?
Hi mentor! I'm working on this new page (Wild and Clear and Blue) and can't figure out how to lawfully add the album cover art. I am sure it is copyrighted and I don't know how to find the copyright information so I can upload it correctly. Can you walk me through how to do it? ChappellRoanFan (talk) 17:13, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hi! In cases like this, we are actually allowed to use copyrighted images under fair use. You can use the file upload wizard, which will let you go through the steps to add this photo. In particular, select
This is a copyrighted, non-free work, but I believe it is Fair Use.
You should then selectThis is the official cover art of a work.
, and then you will be able to fill out the required information. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 22:17, 9 March 2025 (UTC)- I did it! Thank you so much for the help. ChappellRoanFan (talk) 00:19, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
Infobox of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
Hi, this is in regard to your latest edit on the infobox of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. While trying to standardize the infobox and its content, you have removed some information that explains the true nature of the organization. Not every organization is the same so as to reduce it to a standardized infobox. A real encyclopedia should aspire to provide information on the nuances and unique features, not confine it to a skeletal structure prepared from a standard format of some other organizations. The information you removed explains the true character and unique features of this ministry, and hence I request you to revert your edit. Do point out if there are any factual errors though. Leonardoofleaf (talk) 07:01, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Leonardoofleaf! So in general, the purpose of an infobox is to give a very rough overview of the the content of the article, not to duplicate the text of the body. Every snowflake is unique, but the idea is to contain a rough overview of the process, not an intricate, detailed look at the agency. We absolutely can and should provide
information on the nuances and unique features
, but that belongs in the prose of the article, not in the infobox. See the linked guideline:
Looking at the history of the article, it appears you removed the infobox template in favor of a custom solution. In the future, it would be very much appreciated if you could use {{infobox}} (the generic template) to do that sort of thing; there is an ongoing project to convert all uses of the infobox class to use the template. If really necessary, we can use {{infobox}} here, but again, I am skeptical that it is helpful to readers to deviate in this way. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 07:17, 2 March 2025 (UTC)Barring the specific exceptions listed below, an article should remain complete with its infobox ignored. The less information that an infobox contains, the more effectively it serves its purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance.
- There is a correction in this infobox. There is no post of "Health Secretary" in Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. There are 2 departments and 2 secretaries under MoHFW. The Secretary of Department of Health and Family Welfare and Secretary of Depart of Health Research. Also there are 2 attached offices Dte.GHS and NHA. Directorate General of Health Services is headed by DGHS and NHA has a CEO. These 4 are the executive heads under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Leonardoofleaf (talk) 05:23, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- Acknowledging this; will respond tomorrow when I am more awake :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 05:46, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Leonardoofleaf: I am not sure I fully understand your comment. Are you saying that the line for Punya Salila Srivastava should be removed? Or modified? Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 22:11, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- Didn't you add this info to the infobox? I am saying the information is incorrect. There is no post of "Health Secretary". There is a secretary of "Department of Health and Family Welfare" and a secretary of "Department of Health Research".
- This is why I wanted to add more information to the infobox. Otherwise it leads to biases and misinformation. The outline of the organisation (ministry of health and family welfare) will not be complete without mentioning all its executives(2 secretaries, the Director General of Health Services and CEO of National Health Authority).
- What I want is to mention all 4 executives along with the agencies they are heading, just like I had done before your edit. Leonardoofleaf (talk) 02:45, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- I have added that information to the infobox. Does that address your concerns? Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 02:53, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you Leonardoofleaf (talk) 03:01, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- I have added that information to the infobox. Does that address your concerns? Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 02:53, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Leonardoofleaf: I am not sure I fully understand your comment. Are you saying that the line for Punya Salila Srivastava should be removed? Or modified? Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 22:11, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- Acknowledging this; will respond tomorrow when I am more awake :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 05:46, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
- There is a correction in this infobox. There is no post of "Health Secretary" in Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. There are 2 departments and 2 secretaries under MoHFW. The Secretary of Department of Health and Family Welfare and Secretary of Depart of Health Research. Also there are 2 attached offices Dte.GHS and NHA. Directorate General of Health Services is headed by DGHS and NHA has a CEO. These 4 are the executive heads under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Leonardoofleaf (talk) 05:23, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
Hello, HouseBlaster,
It looks like this CFD was all handled by JJMC89 bot III except for Category:Event venues established in the 1630s. Can you take care of this remaining one? Thanks. Have a great week! Liz Read! Talk! 16:22, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Liz! Of course;
Done. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 19:04, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-11
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
- Editors who use password managers at multiple wikis may notice changes in the future. The way that our wikis provide information to password managers about reusing passwords across domains has recently been updated, so some password managers might now offer you login credentials that you saved for a different Wikimedia site. Some password managers already did this, and are now doing it for more Wikimedia domains. This is part of the SUL3 project which aims to improve how our unified login works, and to keep it compatible with ongoing changes to the web-browsers we use. [40][41]
- The Wikipedia Apps Team is inviting interested users to help improve Wikipedia’s offline and limited internet use. After discussions in Afrika Baraza and the last ESEAP call, key challenges like search, editing, and offline access are being explored, with upcoming focus groups to dive deeper into these topics. All languages are welcome, and interpretation will be available. Want to share your thoughts? Join the discussion or email aramadan@wikimedia.org!
- All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 19. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks.
View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Updates for technical contributors
Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki
In depth
- The latest quarterly Growth newsletter is available. It includes: the launch of the Community Updates module, the most recent changes in Community Configuration, and the upcoming test of in-article suggestions for first-time editors.
- An old API that was previously used in the Android Wikipedia app is being removed at the end of March. There are no current software uses, but users of the app with a version that is older than 6 months by the time of removal (2025-03-31), will no longer have access to the Suggested Edits feature, until they update their app. You can read more details about this change.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 23:06, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
Lone Star Funds
Hello HouseBlaster. Some two years ago, you helped implement some changes on John Grayken's BLP. I am reaching out now to ask for your help with adding some investment details to the Lone Star Funds article. While Lone Star has an extensive investment history, my suggestions focus on those companies that have wiki articles and strong supporting sources. I'd appreciate your input and assistance. Thank you, KD at LSF (talk) 10:01, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hi KD at LSF! I try not to let editors with a COI from "editor-shopping" to seek me in particular, so I am going to decline to get involved here. Thank you for understanding, and my apologies. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:29, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
Empty categories
Hello, HouseBlaster,
If you run this toolforge link, you'll see about 100 empty categories. They were moved by bot through the speedy renames option at CFD but the contents of the categories were never moved over. Could you check on these? Thanks for any help you can supply. Liz Read! Talk! 17:03, 16 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Liz! It appears to have been sorted; there are now only five entries in the report. I'm guessing it was some jobqueue issues. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 19:07, 16 March 2025 (UTC)
Precious anniversary
![]() | |
One year! |
---|
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:23, 16 March 2025 (UTC)
- Wow, already? Thank you so much, Gerda Arendt – all the wikilove you spread is sincerely appreciated :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 19:08, 16 March 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-12
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
- Twice a year, around the equinoxes, the Wikimedia Foundation's Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team performs a datacenter server switchover, redirecting all traffic from one primary server to its backup. This provides reliability in case of a crisis, as we can always fall back on the other datacenter. Thanks to the Listen to Wikipedia tool, you can hear the switchover take place: Before it begins, you'll hear the steady stream of edits; Then, as the system enters a brief read-only phase, the sound stops for a couple of minutes, before resuming after the switchover. You can read more about the background and details of this process on the Diff blog. If you want to keep an ear out for the next server switchover, listen to the wikis on March 19 at 14:00 UTC.
Updates for editors
- The improved Content Translation tool dashboard is now available in 10 Wikipedias and will be available for all Wikipedias soon. With the unified dashboard, desktop users can now: Translate new sections of an article; Discover and access topic-based article suggestion filters (initially available only for mobile device users); Discover and access the Community-defined lists filter, also known as "Collections", from wiki-projects and campaigns.
- On Wikimedia Commons, a new system to select the appropriate file categories has been introduced: if a category has one or more subcategories, users will be able to click on an arrow that will open the subcategories directly within the form, and choose the correct one. The parent category name will always be shown on top, and it will always be possible to come back to it. This should decrease the amount of work for volunteers in fixing/creating new categories. The change is also available on mobile. These changes are part of planned improvements to the UploadWizard.
- The Community Tech team is seeking wikis to join a pilot for the Multiblocks feature and a refreshed Special:Block page in late March. Multiblocks enables administrators to impose multiple different types of blocks on the same user at the same time. If you are an admin or steward and would like us to discuss joining the pilot with your community, please leave a message on the project talk page.
- Starting March 25, the Editing team will test a new feature for Edit Check at 12 Wikipedias: Multi-Check. Half of the newcomers on these wikis will see all Reference Checks during their edit session, while the other half will continue seeing only one. The goal of this test is to see if users are confused or discouraged when shown multiple Reference Checks (when relevant) within a single editing session. At these wikis, the tags used on edits that show References Check will be simplified, as multiple tags could be shown within a single edit. Changes to the tags are documented on Phabricator. [42]
- The Global reminder bot, which is a service for notifying users that their temporary user-rights are about to expire, now supports using the localized name of the user-rights group in the message heading. Translators can see the listing of existing translations and documentation to check if their language needs updating or creation.
- The GlobalPreferences gender setting, which is used for how the software should refer to you in interface messages, now works as expected by overriding the local defaults. [43]
View all 26 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the Wikipedia App for Android had a bug fixed for when a user is browsing and searching in multiple languages. [44]
Updates for technical contributors
- Later this week, the way that Codex styles are loaded will be changing. There is a small risk that this may result in unstyled interface message boxes on certain pages. User generated content (e.g. templates) is not impacted. Gadgets may be impacted. If you see any issues please report them. See the linked task for details, screenshots, and documentation on how to fix any affected gadgets.
Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 23:45, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

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Books & Bytes – Issue 67
The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 67, January – February 2025
- East View Press and The Africa Report join the library
- Spotlight: Wikimedia+Libraries International Convention and WikiCredCon
- Tech tip: Suggest page
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --18:48, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
Question from DarkistDesires on User:DarkistDesires/sandbox (23:52, 19 March 2025)
Please help me write a new article on the band DarkistOfficial. Their YouTube is https://youtube.com/@darkistofficial?feature=shared --DarkistDesires (talk) 23:52, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
- @DarkistDesires: First things first, we need to get your account renamed. It currently implies it is being shared by multiple people. You can request a rename at Special:GlobalRenameRequest. Next, it is highly unlikely the band is eligible for a Wikipedia article. Our criteria include things like
Has had a single or album on any country's national music chart
orHas won or been nominated for a major music award, such as a Grammy, Juno, Mercury, Choice or Grammis award.
Looking at the entire list of criteria, does the band meet any of them? HouseBlaster (he/they) 00:03, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
Question from BonifaceOwori (21:07, 21 March 2025)
Hello sir Hope you're doing well today How do we cite the work --BonifaceOwori (talk) 21:07, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hello BonifaceOwori, and welcome to Wikipedia! You can see how to cite a source at Help:Referencing for beginners. If you are using the VisualEditor, you should use Help:Introduction to referencing with VisualEditor. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:10, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
Question from Kyrie Loves Dih (02:23, 22 March 2025)
Hello, How can i do my first edit, i find some misspellings in articles often, I would like to fix them. --Kyrie Loves Dih (talk) 02:23, 22 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! Help:Getting started has some great advice for things you can do to get started. I would also highly recommend this YouTube video from Molly White. And if you encounter misspellings in articles, please just fix them! That's why we have an edit button :)Let me know if you have any questions, and I would be more than happy to help! Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 02:36, 22 March 2025 (UTC)
The Signpost: 22 March 2025
- From the editor: Hanami
- News and notes: Deeper look at takedowns targeting Wikipedia
- In the media: The good, the bad, and the unusual
- Recent research: Explaining the disappointing history of Flagged Revisions; and what's the impact of ChatGPT on Wikipedia so far?
- Traffic report: All the world's a stage, we are merely players...
- Gallery: WikiPortraits rule!
- Essay: Unusual biographical images
- Obituary: Rest in peace
Question from Bootheblue (13:50, 22 March 2025)
Hello im bootheblue, My question is what is the sandbox possibly for?. just askin --Bootheblue (talk) 13:50, 22 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hello Bootheblue, and welcome to Wikipedia! Your sandbox is for testing out editing. This could be to practice editing, to draft an article rewrite, or something similar. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 15:47, 22 March 2025 (UTC)
Question from QeedIsAWatermelon (16:27, 24 March 2025)
How do I add the title on a new article? --QeedIsAWatermelon (talk) 16:27, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
- To create an article titled "example article", you should go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Example_article, and start writing. This is easiest with the new article wizard. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 19:31, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-13
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
- The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking your feedback on the drafts of the objectives and key results that will shape the Foundation's Product and Technology priorities for the next fiscal year (starting in July). The objectives are broad high-level areas, and the key-results are measurable ways to track the success of their objectives. Please share your feedback on the talkpage, in any language, ideally before the end of April.
Updates for editors
- The CampaignEvents extension will be released to multiple wikis (see deployment plan for details) in April 2025, and the team has begun the process of engaging communities on the identified wikis. The extension provides tools to organize, manage, and promote collaborative activities (like events, edit-a-thons, and WikiProjects) on the wikis. The extension has three tools: Event Registration, Collaboration List, and Invitation Lists. It is currently on 13 Wikipedias, including English Wikipedia, French Wikipedia, and Spanish Wikipedia, as well as Wikidata. Questions or requests can be directed to the extension talk page or in Phabricator (with #campaigns-product-team tag).
- Starting the week of March 31st, wikis will be able to set which user groups can view private registrants in Event Registration, as part of the CampaignEvents extension. By default, event organizers and the local wiki admins will be able to see private registrants. This is a change from the current behavior, in which only event organizers can see private registrants. Wikis can change the default setup by requesting a configuration change in Phabricator (and adding the #campaigns-product-team tag). Participants of past events can cancel their registration at any time.
- Administrators at wikis that have a customized MediaWiki:Sidebar should check that it contains an entry for the Special pages listing. If it does not, they should add it using
* specialpages-url|specialpages
. Wikis with a default sidebar will see the link moved from the page toolbox into the sidebar menu in April. [45] - The Minerva skin (mobile web) combines both Notice and Alert notifications within the bell icon (
). There was a long-standing bug where an indication for new notifications was only shown if you had unseen Alerts. This bug is now fixed. In the future, Minerva users will notice a counter atop the bell icon when you have 1 or more unseen Notices and/or Alerts. [46]
View all 23 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Updates for technical contributors
- VisualEditor has introduced a new client-side hook for developers to use when integrating with the VisualEditor target lifecycle. This hook should replace the existing lifecycle-related hooks, and be more consistent between different platforms. In addition, the new hook will apply to uses of VisualEditor outside of just full article editing, allowing gadgets to interact with the editor in DiscussionTools as well. The Editing Team intends to deprecate and eventually remove the old lifecycle hooks, so any use cases that this new hook does not cover would be of interest to them and can be shared in the task.
- Developers who use the
mw.Api
JavaScript library, can now identify the tool using it with theuserAgent
parameter:var api = new mw.Api( { userAgent: 'GadgetNameHere/1.0.1' } );
. If you maintain a gadget or user script, please set a user agent, because it helps with library and server maintenance and with differentiating between legitimate and illegitimate traffic. [47][48] Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 22:39, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
Question from Sargamites on Critical mass (16:40, 23 March 2025)
How can I suggest an edit that would be reviewed before publication by other contributors to the specific page ? --Sargamites (talk) 16:40, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hello Sargamites! Usually, the advice on Wikipedia is to just make the change. That's actually an official rule around here :)If there is reason to think your edit might be controversial, you should bring it up on the talk page. So, for critical mass, that would be talk:critical mass. (There should be a link at the top of each page which brings you to its talk page.) Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 20:19, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you, I will do that! 2600:1011:A011:A207:A8C9:EBEF:78FD:2C34 (talk) 00:44, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
- You're welcome! A quick reminder to log in before editing – you just leaked you IP address. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 00:48, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you, I will do that! 2600:1011:A011:A207:A8C9:EBEF:78FD:2C34 (talk) 00:44, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

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Hello, HouseBlaster,
If you set up a big category rename like this, could you please have the bot leave a redirect when it renames categories? Otherwise, we end up with a great many broken redirects that we need to clean up. If this could happen also with Speedy renames, it would be appreciated. Category redirects are a bigger pain to clean up than article redirects. Thank you. Liz Read! Talk! 05:57, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Liz! We generally don't keep category redirects as a short-term measure (see Wikipedia:Category redirects that should be kept#Issues with redirecting categories). I'm disinclined to start always leaving category redirects, but perhaps a solution would be creating the category redirects and then deleting them if it looks like template-generated categories are in use? Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 18:55, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
Question from BabyGirl010215 (13:13, 26 March 2025)
Hi Mentor, how do I find out if my suggested edits are showing already on the page? Is there a timeline on when the edits would show? --BabyGirl010215 (talk) 13:13, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hi BabyGirl010215, and welcome to Wikipedia! Suggested edits should show up immediately after clicking publish. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 18:56, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
- How do I add an infobox or a photo for biography? BabyGirl010215 (talk) 08:04, 28 March 2025 (UTC)
- @BabyGirl010215: infoboxes are templates, so you should follow the instruction at Help:VisualEditor § Editing templates. The names of infobox templates always start with "Infobox", so you would search for something like "Infobox person". To insert an image, you can follow the instructions at Help:Introduction to images with VisualEditor. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 18:45, 28 March 2025 (UTC)
- How do I add an infobox or a photo for biography? BabyGirl010215 (talk) 08:04, 28 March 2025 (UTC)
My Email.
1. I am not a "younger" editor, I have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), As you may or may not know, that is classified as a "Social Disorder", therefore making me unable to communicate the same way others do. So I have problems with social interactions as my disability makes it harder to interact normally… I'm not born in 2013….
2. I made that post as a college activity for a mock government inside, we are doing a mock election for 2048, we are pretending to advertise as a government official, and see which our member base likes most, so that article is classified as "School Work", we used fake names as we thought it'd be harder to recognize fellow members…
If you have any other questions regarding this matter, please reach out. Please don't assume someone's age because of their social life and articles. They may suffer from a disability or do the work for school… Next time please contact me without making assumptions and please don't believe I am younger than most, I classify it as offensive… Valorrr (talk) 04:44, 29 March 2025 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker) Hi there, Valorrr! As you get more familiar with how Wikipedia works, I recommend keeping in mind one of Wikipedia's behavioural guidelines: assume good faith. I understand it can sometimes be easy to assume people are trying to be rude; however, especially in a situation like this, it's valuable to presume that HouseBlaster was acting in good faith to potentially protect a minor based on the information they found rather than jumping to the conclusion that they're bullying you. Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 07:52, 29 March 2025 (UTC)
Question from Wedidntstarthefire on Draft:Convention of Olso (21:33, 29 March 2025)
How do I create subheadings, ie “history” --Wedidntstarthefire (talk) 21:33, 29 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hello Wedidntstarthefire, and welcome to Wikipedia! Love your username and the song :)To create a subheading, you put a double equals sign before and after the word you want to call the subheading. So a subheading call "History" would be
==History==
. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:51, 29 March 2025 (UTC)
Question from 61castrillio (09:02, 30 March 2025)
How do I write a citation for a special person . --61castrillio (talk) 09:02, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
- I am not sure what you mean, 61castrillio? If you want to write a citation, you can check out Help:Referencing for beginners. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 15:27, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
Find categories
Hi Houseblaster. I am attempting to rename all categories of the form Category:Category-Class 20th Century Studios articles of NA-importance to Category:Category-Class 20th Century Studios pages of NA-importance in line with other category moves. Please see the CfD nomination. Would you be able to help me to produce a comprehensive list of such categories so I can add them all to the nomination? Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:59, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
- To expand on the above, the possible formats are:
- I don't know if all of these forms actually exist, but I don't believe there are any others out there — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:04, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
- Of course! Let me see what I can cobble together using WP:PETSCAN. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:02, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
@MSGJ: These are all the categories with case-insensitive "importance" in their title, and are subcategories of subcategories of subcategories of Category:Articles by quality. (For instance, Category:Category-Class 20th Century Studios articles of NA-importance is a subcategory of Category:Category-Class 20th Century Studios pages, which is in Category:Category-Class pages, which is in Category:Articles by quality). There are only 320 of them, so a much smaller job than the original article->page moves. Unless there are bonus ones which are oddly not in the tree, this should be all of them.
While we are at it, we should probably consider if some of these could be deleted: As I am sure you are aware, many (most? all?) WikiProjects consider all of these pages to be of NA importance, so the other importance level categories are unused and the NA category is redundant to the vanilla, importance-less category. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:19, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
- Many thanks for that. There was a discussion that decided that drafts and redirects could be assessed for importance (as they are potential future articles) but all others will be NA-importance. In which case, you are totally correct, they are redundant — Preceding unsigned comment added by MSGJ (talk • contribs) 08:40, 31 March 2025 (UTC)
Question from Shmigley (22:46, 26 March 2025)
Hi HouseBlaster, I hope you're doing well.
I work in a biomedical research lab. Started thinking about contrinuting to wikipedia as I thought about making a page for a specific lab technique that's growing in usefulness and popularity. Recently, I've had the persisting idea that it would be helpful for students, trainees, and members of the public to have access to a wikipedia page that lists and connects ideas, fields, and techniques in biomedical research. To that end, I thought I'd create a template page, seeing as no similar one exists yet. I tried that, attempt (that I believe didn't work, not sure why...) linked here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Biomedical_research
However, on further thought, I think this project may be better suited by a portal page, as that would allow for multiple different subsections to be created and featured on one page. This is based on reading portals like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Philosophy.
On the other hand, I don't want to bite off more than I can chew! Would appreciate your advice on what you think would be a good way to approach this, and how to tackle this step-by-step.
The ideal, long-term goal here would be to involve others I know in my and other fields of biomedical research, and perhaps translate to other languages too.
Thanks so much! --Shmigley (talk) 22:46, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
Hi Shmigley, and welcome to Wikipedia! I am not a subject-matter expert on biomedical research, so excuse this beginner question: Is there a distinction between "medical research" and "biomedical research"? Our article is titled medical research, and seems to use them as synonyms. The answer will substantially change the advice I have, but I do have some initial thoughts which apply regarldess of the (lack of a) distinction between the two terms.
I don't think a portal is the right way forward. Portals are generally for more broad concepts, take a lot of work to maintain, and are generally viewed by fewer people than sidebars. Sidebars, on the other hand, live directly in related articles and are seen by more people. Your attempt at making a sidebar worked, though you haven't added it to related articles. (That does not happen automatically.) You can view the official rules for navigation templates (like sidebars) at Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates § Navigation templates.
One final thing: Wikipedia's titles use sentence case rather than title case. (The first letter of a Wikipedia title is case insensitive on Wikipedia; the rest is case sensitive.) So, for example, in the sidebar you linked to Biomedical Research, which is a medical journal, rather than biomedical research, which redirects to medical research. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 00:26, 27 March 2025 (UTC)- Hi HouseBlaster, thanks so much for the detailed reply and advice!
- I would definitely say that there is a distinction between medical and biomedical research. While it's up to interpretation, but there are numerous techniques and fields that fit the purview of biomedical research, but are not medical or even medically relevant yet. CRISPR, for instance, is not a medical research technology or technique and was not discovered or developed with the express intention of serving the field of medicine, but definitely fits within the purview of biomedical research. That, to me, is the big distinction - the term "biomedical" widens the range of works that are part of this project.
- Thank you for your help! Will get to adding the sidebar to related articles. Shmigley (talk) 19:10, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
- Awesome. Before working on the sidebar, I have a couple more questions. I just want to make sure that a sidebar is truly the best way forward :)The next thing we would need to check is whether biomedical research is distinct enough from medical research to have its own article. If two topics are so deeply intertwined, we often cover them in the same article. As some examples, Bonnie and Clyde were American gangsters during the Great Depression. Their lives follow much of the same story, so we cover them in the same article. Sine and cosine are in the same article, too, even though they are not interchangeable (and a student better not mix them up on a test!). And the Wright brothers are also in a single article. Wikipedia:Notability § Whether to create standalone pages is the official guideline explaining whether it is best to create a new page.That was a lot of words to say: do you think biomedical research should be its own article, separate from medical research, even though they are not synonyms? Or, alternatively, do you think renaming the medical research article to "biomedical research" and covering them both there would make more sense? Best regards, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:55, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
- That is a great point!
- I think it would make the most sense to have both still exist on one page. Renaming medical research to "biomedical research" and covering + distinguishing between the two terms would make things most accessible for readers in my view.
- I'd then like to implement the sidebar to link as a "series on biomedical research" which would link to the newly re-named "biomedical research" page. The category:biomedical research will link to fields, concepts, and techniques within that purview, and the template:biomedical research would be used either to also link between those things like the category, or (better option in my opinion) to create the sidebar to be attached to existing articles.
- What are your thoughts?
- Thank you! Shmigley (talk) 15:24, 31 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Shmigley: I think you should first get the article moved. To do this, we need to file a move request. You can see the instructions for doing so at Wikipedia:Requested moves#Requesting a single page move, and make sure you don't change the closing double curly braces. Make sure you cite some sources which indicate that biomedical research is the more broad term, so it makes sense to cover the topic under the title biomedical research. Of course, peer-reviewed articles discussing the difference are best, but anything which is reliable will do, including reputable news media. (To a layperson, it would sound like "biomedical" research is actually the subtopic.) Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 22:33, 31 March 2025 (UTC)
- Awesome. Before working on the sidebar, I have a couple more questions. I just want to make sure that a sidebar is truly the best way forward :)The next thing we would need to check is whether biomedical research is distinct enough from medical research to have its own article. If two topics are so deeply intertwined, we often cover them in the same article. As some examples, Bonnie and Clyde were American gangsters during the Great Depression. Their lives follow much of the same story, so we cover them in the same article. Sine and cosine are in the same article, too, even though they are not interchangeable (and a student better not mix them up on a test!). And the Wright brothers are also in a single article. Wikipedia:Notability § Whether to create standalone pages is the official guideline explaining whether it is best to create a new page.That was a lot of words to say: do you think biomedical research should be its own article, separate from medical research, even though they are not synonyms? Or, alternatively, do you think renaming the medical research article to "biomedical research" and covering them both there would make more sense? Best regards, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:55, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
Categories for discussion
Hi, was just wondering why these 2 haven't been closed, as discussion has now lasted over 7 days? Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2025_March_18#Category:Albanian_endocrinologists , Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2025_March_18#Category:Jordanian_female_discus_throwers. By the way, thanks for your good work in closing CfDs. LibStar (talk) 23:43, 31 March 2025 (UTC)
- I had a bunch of other things on my plate the last couple of weeks, so I had to scale back my CFD closing activities. I hope to resume them in earnest soon. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 23:46, 31 March 2025 (UTC)
- No problems. LibStar (talk) 23:48, 31 March 2025 (UTC)
Tech News: 2025-14
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
- The Editing team is working on a new Edit check: Peacock check. This check's goal is to identify non-neutral terms while a user is editing a wikipage, so that they can be informed that their edit should perhaps be changed before they publish it. This project is at the early stages, and the team is looking for communities' input: in this Phabricator task, they are gathering on-wiki policies, templates used to tag non-neutral articles, and the terms (jargon and keywords) used in edit summaries for the languages they are currently researching. You can participate by editing the table on Phabricator, commenting on the task, or directly messaging Trizek (WMF).
- Single User Login has now been updated on all wikis to move login and account creation to a central domain. This makes user login compatible with browser restrictions on cross-domain cookies, which have prevented users of some browsers from staying logged in.
View all 35 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Updates for technical contributors
- Starting on March 31st, the MediaWiki Interfaces team will begin a limited release of generated OpenAPI specs and a SwaggerUI-based sandbox experience for MediaWiki REST APIs. They invite developers from a limited group of non-English Wikipedia communities (Arabic, German, French, Hebrew, Interlingua, Dutch, Chinese) to review the documentation and experiment with the sandbox in their preferred language. In addition to these specific Wikipedia projects, the sandbox and OpenAPI spec will be available on the on the test wiki REST Sandbox special page for developers with English as their preferred language. During the preview period, the MediaWiki Interfaces Team also invites developers to share feedback about your experience. The preview will last for approximately 2 weeks, after which the sandbox and OpenAPI specs will be made available across all wiki projects.
Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki
In depth
- Sometimes a small, one line code change can have great significance: in this case, it means that for the first time in years we're able to run all of the stack serving maps.wikimedia.org - a host dedicated to serving our wikis and their multi-lingual maps needs - from a single core datacenter, something we test every time we perform a datacenter switchover. This is important because it means that in case one of our datacenters is affected by a catastrophe, we'll still be able to serve the site. This change is the result of extensive work by two developers on porting the last component of the maps stack over to kubernetes, where we can allocate resources more efficiently than before, thus we're able to withstand more traffic in a single datacenter. This work involved a lot of complicated steps because this software, and the software libraries it uses, required many long overdue upgrades. This type of work makes the Wikimedia infrastructure more sustainable.
Meetings and events
- MediaWiki Users and Developers Workshop Spring 2025 is happening in Sandusky, USA, and online, from 14–16 May 2025. The workshop will feature discussions around the usage of MediaWiki software by and within companies in different industries and will inspire and onboard new users. Registration and presentation signup is now available at the workshop's website.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 00:02, 1 April 2025 (UTC)
In retaliation
![]() |
Whack! You've been whacked with a wet trout. Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly. |
~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:40, 1 April 2025 (UTC)
- I think you are the first person to use my trout button, if you used it
HouseBlaster (he/they) 00:42, 1 April 2025 (UTC)
Question from BonifaceOwori (21:24, 2 April 2025)
Hello sir how do I move my work to space --BonifaceOwori (talk) 21:24, 2 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hi! I've made some formatting changes. To request that an experienced editor review the page and move it if it is ready, place
{{subst:submit}}
(including the double curly braces) at the very top of the draft. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 23:52, 2 April 2025 (UTC)
Final proposed modifications to the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and U4C Charter now posted
- Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Final proposed modifications to the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and U4C Charter now posted because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.
The proposed modifications to the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and the U4C Charter are now on Meta-wiki for community notice in advance of the voting period. This final draft was developed from the previous two rounds of community review. Community members will be able to vote on these modifications starting on 17 April 2025. The vote will close on 1 May 2025, and results will be announced no later than 12 May 2025. The U4C election period, starting with a call for candidates, will open immediately following the announcement of the review results. More information will be posted on the wiki page for the election soon.
Please be advised that this process will require more messages to be sent here over the next two months.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review was planned and implemented by the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.
Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.
-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) (talk) 02:04, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
Final proposed modifications to the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and U4C Charter now posted
- Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Final proposed modifications to the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and U4C Charter now posted because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.
The proposed modifications to the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and the U4C Charter are now on Meta-wiki for community notice in advance of the voting period. This final draft was developed from the previous two rounds of community review. Community members will be able to vote on these modifications starting on 17 April 2025. The vote will close on 1 May 2025, and results will be announced no later than 12 May 2025. The U4C election period, starting with a call for candidates, will open immediately following the announcement of the review results. More information will be posted on the wiki page for the election soon.
Please be advised that this process will require more messages to be sent here over the next two months.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review was planned and implemented by the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.
Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.
-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) (talk) 02:04, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
Final proposed modifications to the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and U4C Charter now posted
- Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Final proposed modifications to the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and U4C Charter now posted because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.
The proposed modifications to the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and the U4C Charter are now on Meta-wiki for community notice in advance of the voting period. This final draft was developed from the previous two rounds of community review. Community members will be able to vote on these modifications starting on 17 April 2025. The vote will close on 1 May 2025, and results will be announced no later than 12 May 2025. The U4C election period, starting with a call for candidates, will open immediately following the announcement of the review results. More information will be posted on the wiki page for the election soon.
Please be advised that this process will require more messages to be sent here over the next two months.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review was planned and implemented by the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.
Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.
-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) (talk) 02:04, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
cfd
First, welcome back. There was getting to be a bit of a backlog. I started wading in and closing discussions to help out a bit. But obviously your automated tools are faster than me doing every step manually lol.
Second, I think it might have been missed, but there were 2 "keeps" (including me) in that discussion. Does that change your read of the discussion? - jc37 07:10, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
- It does. I will relist the discussion so a potential rename can be discussed. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 15:46, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for closing this CfD. Category:Filipino pulmonologists was not closed. LibStar (talk) 09:38, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
Done. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 15:53, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
in your closing rationale, can you please note that the exemption for the consensus against redirect categories is for when a clear maintenance process is established
? Two other merge voters agreed on this, and P&G allows redirect categories. ミラP@Miraclepine 14:02, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Miraclepine! My reading of consensus was that we shouldn't create redirect categories while implementing the result of the discussion, not a prohibition on their eventual creation. That's what I meant by
... to facilitate the manual merge
in the close. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 15:58, 5 April 2025 (UTC)- Okay, thanks. Needed some extra clarification just in case. ミラP@Miraclepine 16:09, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
Template:Cfd top
Hi, please see User talk:AnomieBOT#CFDClerk: Template:Cfd top is broken - fixed. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:05, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for the note. I didn't realize that even adding a parameter would break things. @Anomie: Apologies for the hassle, and thank you for quickly updating the bot to accept the alias :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 15:53, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
- No problem. AnomieBOT's post on its talk page wasn't intended to say you did anything wrong, just that you did something that the bot didn't know how to deal with. It's specifically so I can fix it instead of the bot just mysteriously not doing its job. Anomie⚔ 16:14, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
Barnstar
Thank you very much for all closures of CfD discussions of the past year. But especially your work in the last two days was very impressive, reducing the backlog from close to 200 discussions to almost 0! Marcocapelle (talk) 06:48, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
![]() |
The Category Barnstar | |
For all the hard work you do regarding categories. |
- I also mentioned it above, but I'll still second the motion : ) - jc37 07:56, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you so much, @Jc37 and Marcocapelle! I do my best :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 17:43, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
I would have opposed this renaming. Military books in Latin are not at all limited to ancient Rome. Srnec (talk) 20:03, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
- @Srnec: That is a reasonable objection; I will relist the discussion so you can participate. (This takes a moment at CFD: We have to make sure the bot is not going to reinstate the close, and the only way to do that is to wait about an hour after removing the listing from WP:CFDW.) Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:44, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
Question from Yoko Spunge (15:28, 6 April 2025)
Hi Houseblaster! I manage a band by the name of Slaughter & the Dogs™️and the page should read Slaughter and the Dogs™️ as written on all our Trademarks which I can provide for you, if requested. I’ve been battling with an overzealous fan that has been editing the page with incorrect information for years, and I have the individual’s email as he has sent horrific and defaming emails to both myself and my husband Wayne Barrett-McGrath, the creator and trademarked owner of the band on who’s behalf I manage all things for the band from booking shows, to filing legal petitions and Trademarks and handling royalties and false merchandise. Is there anyway you can help me with this individual, and other Wikipedia editors have made similar complaints about his mental stability and “changing of the past” which defames and degrades Wikipedia and the facts. I have nothing but the best intentions and to keep the facts, THE FACTS and not make up stories. Any help or advice you can offer, would be GREATLY APPRECIATED! I thank you kindly in advance for reading my message. And I am not new to editing-I have another name but lost the information , so figured it was easier to start fresh.
Kindly Yours, Erin Custer Manager of Slaughter and the Dogs ™️ AKA Yoko Spunge --Yoko Spunge (talk) 15:28, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Yoko Spunge, and welcome to Wikipedia! I would first direct you to the conflict of interest guide, which will explain how to edit with a conflict of interest. In particular, you also need to disclose that you are being paid to edit. You also should disclose the username of the account you used previously to comply with our policy concerning multiple accounts. Finally, instead of editing the article directly, you should make edit requests on the talk page, where a neutral editor will look at them.With that out of the way, let's turn to the substance of what you say: per our guideline on writing about trademarked terms, we do not use the ™️ mark. We do not follow the stylization of trademarks used by their owners. I would also caution you against talking about the mental stability of any editors, and note that we have a very strict policy against making legal threats. You either get to resolve your disputes on Wikipedia or via the court system. Next, I would recommend you not imply other editors are mentally unstable. Rather than jumping to reverting, I would recommend you open a civil dialogue at Talk:Slaughter & the Dogs. There you can discuss with the person what changes you object to. They are required to act in good faith to make improvements. Finally, Wikipedia is open to editing by everyone. You do not have any authority to "authorize" anyone to edit the page about the band. You can also see our policy about the ownership of content. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 17:43, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Houseblaster!
- Thank you so much for all of the information. Regarding my old account, can you recommend how I could find it as I don't remember the username or password? If I can retrieve it, would I then ask you to delete this current account? As mentioned in my previous message, I have a court order and am resolving the defamation and slandering issues via the legal system. Thank you again for all the information, and also any help on recouperating my original account and where I go from there would be very helpful!
- Thank you again for everything!
- Kindly Yours,
- Erin Custer
- Yoko Spunge 2001:861:201:D970:AC55:B81D:3B5B:B96A (talk) 17:57, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
- By "information", I thought you meant you forgot the password. If you also forgot the username, then there is nothing that can be recovered. If you are resolving your disputes via the legal system, that is your choice. Because you are choosing to persue legal action against a contributor for their Wikipedia-related work, I am blocking your account until you either permenantly and unconditionally withdraw the litiation or the legal action concludes. Note that the block applies to you as a person. You may not create a new account while you are blocked, and you may not edit without logging in. You also may not ask anyone to edit on your behalf. See your talk page for your appeal rights. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 18:04, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
- Judging by the COI notices at the above-linked Talk:Slaughter & the Dogs, one was almost certainly Theoriginallawoman (talk · contribs). The article history shows that it has been edited by a large number of IPs; some of which use edit summaries containing giveaway words like "trademark" and "legal". User talk:Jetboy21 is also of interest. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:26, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for the note, Redrose :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 22:01, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
- Judging by the COI notices at the above-linked Talk:Slaughter & the Dogs, one was almost certainly Theoriginallawoman (talk · contribs). The article history shows that it has been edited by a large number of IPs; some of which use edit summaries containing giveaway words like "trademark" and "legal". User talk:Jetboy21 is also of interest. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:26, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
- By "information", I thought you meant you forgot the password. If you also forgot the username, then there is nothing that can be recovered. If you are resolving your disputes via the legal system, that is your choice. Because you are choosing to persue legal action against a contributor for their Wikipedia-related work, I am blocking your account until you either permenantly and unconditionally withdraw the litiation or the legal action concludes. Note that the block applies to you as a person. You may not create a new account while you are blocked, and you may not edit without logging in. You also may not ask anyone to edit on your behalf. See your talk page for your appeal rights. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 18:04, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
Question from VENKATESHWAR GLOBALSCHOOL (03:07, 7 April 2025)
how do i create a wikipedia page in my school's name --VENKATESHWAR GLOBALSCHOOL (talk) 03:07, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
- @VENKATESHWAR GLOBALSCHOOL: Welcome! Creating a new article from scratch is extremely challenging, and new editors are strongly recommended to spend a few months learning how Wikipedia works, by making improvements to some of our existing seven million articles before trying it. When you do decide to have a go at a new article, you are highly encouraged to read WP:Your first article. If you haven't already also check out WP:TUTORIAL; it's a lot of fun! Happy editing! HouseBlaster (he/they) 04:02, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – April 2025
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2025).

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