User talk:Woodstop45/Archive 10

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Woodstop45. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Archive 8

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This week's article for improvement (week 40, 2018)

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

History of American football positions

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: St. Louis cuisine • Pub session

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 1 October 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

The Signpost: 1 October 2018

From the editor: Is this the new normal?

We keep on publishing as long as you keep on reading.

News and notes: European copyright law moves forward

Wikipedia dodges a bullet in Brussels... maybe.

In the media: Knowledge under fire

Can Wikipedians help save the world's knowledge and shine a light on current events?

Discussion report: Interface Admin policy proposal, part 2

Plus: signatures, shortcuts, and reliable sources.

Arbitration report: A quiet month for Arbcom

No valid new requests for arbitration, no new cases.

Traffic report: John McCain's death generates over 7 million hits, followed by historical low

Fourth highest view count of the year; lowest view count since 2014; death, sports, and movies ever constant.

Technology report: Paying attention to your mobile

Plus the latest scripts, bots, and tech news.

Gallery: A pat on the back

A pictorial ode to the end of summer.

Blog: After a catastrophic fire at the National Museum of Brazil, a drive to preserve what knowledge remains

As the global community of volunteer Wikimedia editors mourns the destruction of this amazing museum, this post pays tribute to all editors who have contributed restlessly to tell the story of the National Museum, our history.

Recent research: How talk page use has changed since 2005; censorship shocks lead to centralization; is vandalism caused by workplace boredom?

And other recent research papers.

Humour: Signpost Crossword Puzzle

What is a four-letter word for...

Essay: Expressing thanks

You know you should...

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:45, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-40

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

Recent changes

Ordinary pages can no longer be loaded as javascript. You could do this using ?action=raw&ctype=text/javascript in the URL. Only fully protected pages in the MediaWiki: namespace or user javascript subpages can be loaded as javascript now. This is for better security. [1][2]

Problems

New and updated translations from translatewiki.net will not reach the wikis for a while. You can still translate messages on translatewiki.net. The Wikimedia wikis will be updated with the new translations later. This is because of work on the translation system. [3][4]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 October. It will be on all wikis from 4 October (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 3 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the meeting with the Wikimedia Foundation Search Platform team. The meeting will be on 3 October at 15:00 UTC. See how to join if you want to know how the search function works or have questions.

Future changes

Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.

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

17:34, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 41, 2018)

An herb garden. Herbs are plants with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, in medicine, or as fragrances.

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Herb

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: History of American football positions • St. Louis cuisine

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 8 October 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2018-41

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

Recent changes

The Education Program extension was removed from all Wikimedia projects. You can use the Programs and Events Dashboard or the Fountain instead. [5]

Problems

There was a problem when you copied and pasted from a table with the visual editor. It could add href where it shouldn't be. This has now been fixed. [6]

Changes later this week

Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.
Because of the data centre test there will be no new version of MediaWiki this week. Changes for this week will come next week instead.

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 10 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

23:38, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 42, 2018)

Long Island Iced Tea is a cocktail made with vodka, tequila, light rum, triple sec, gin, and a splash of cola.

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Cocktail

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Herb • History of American football positions

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:07, 15 October 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2018-42

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

Problems

Some pages, edits and users disappeared for a short while after the server switch. Missing content and users was fixed within a day. Some preferences and other things might take a few more days to fix. [7]
Wikis are updated with new and updated translations from translatewiki.net again. This will happen once a week. The developers are working on fixing the problem so we can have translation updates more often again. [8]

Changes later this week

When you create an abuse filter that prevents edits you can now write a specific error message for it. Before this all abuse filters that prevented edits had the same error message. [9]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 October. It will be on all wikis from 18 October (calendar).

Meetings

There will be no more meetings with the Editing team. This is because not enough Wikimedians were interested. To tell developers which bugs you think are the most important you can use Phabricator as normal. [10]
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

22:40, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 43, 2018)

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Latin music (genre)

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Cocktail • Herb

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 22 October 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2018-43

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

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 October. It will be on all wikis from 25 October (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 24 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The Community Wishlist Survey begins on 29 October. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 29 October to 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.

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

23:11, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes, Issue 30

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 30, August – Septmeber 2018

Library Card translation
Spotlight: 1Lib1Ref spreads to the Southern Hemisphere and beyond
Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
Global branches update
Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:43, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 October 2018

From the editors: The Signpost is still afloat, just barely

A slightly thinner issue, but out on time.

Op-ed: Wikipedia's Strickland affair

Is a missing article on a Nobel laureate a fail? What if her draft biography was declined as non-notable?

News and notes: WMF gets a million bucks

And it's richer than ever.

In the media: Bans, celebs, and bias

Breitbart begone; rescued by archivists; celebrating trolls?

Discussion report: Mediation Committee and proposed deletion reform

Plus: two pending changes-related discussions, notability, and naming conventions.

Traffic report: Unsurprisingly, sport leads the field – or the ring

Who's reading what?

Technology report: Bots galore!

Bots can do anything you want – well, almost.

Special report: NPP needs you

WMF continues to stonewall development; NPP wishes again relegated to stocking fillers.

Special report 2: Now Wikidata is six

SPARQL adds sparkle to WMF projects.

In focus: Alexa

We are all writing for Amazon.

Gallery: Out of this world!

No special effects here, just beautiful celestial images.

Recent research: Wikimedia Commons worth $28.9 billion

If it weren't free, of course.

Humour: Talk page humour

Wikipedia has a long history of talk page tomfoolery.

Opinion: Strickland incident

The reviewer who declined the article gives his perspective.

From the archives: The Gardner Interview

The "holy-shit" slide.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:11, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 44, 2018)

A view of the Gulf of Alaska from space. Notice the swirling sediment in the waters.

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Gulf of Alaska

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Latin music (genre) • Cocktail

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 29 October 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2018-44

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

Recent changes

You can post proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals until 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.
The wikis now have a content security policy report. This means that you might get a warning in your javascript console when you load external resources in your user scripts. For security reasons it is recommended that you don't do this. It might not be possible to load external resources in your scripts in the future. [11]

Problems

Your watchlist can show which changes you have already seen. This did not work for a few days. It has been fixed. [12]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 October. It will be on all wikis from 1 November (calendar).
The 2006 wikitext editor is no longer available. It will be removed from Special:Preferences. It has not been the standard editor for a long time. It was replaced by the 2010 wikitext editor. [13][14]

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 31 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

20:08, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Editing News #2—2018

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter • Subscription list on the English Wikipedia

Did you know?

Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?

Tap on the pencil icon to start editing. The page will probably open in the wikitext editor.

You will see another pencil icon in the toolbar. Tap on that pencil icon to the switch between visual editing and wikitext editing.

Remember to publish your changes when you're done.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has wrapped up most of their work on the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual diff tool. The team has begun investigating the needs of editors who use mobile devices. Their work board is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are fixing bugs and improving mobile editing.

Recent changes

The Editing team has published an initial report about mobile editing.
The Editing team has begun a design study of visual editing on the mobile website. New editors have trouble doing basic tasks on a smartphone, such as adding links to Wikipedia articles. You can read the report.
The Reading team is working on a separate mobile-based contributions project.
The 2006 wikitext editor is no longer supported. If you used that toolbar, then you will no longer see any toolbar. You may choose another editing tool in your editing preferences, local gadgets, or beta features.
The Editing team described the history and status of VisualEditor in this recorded public presentation (starting at 29 minutes, 30 seconds).
The Language team released a new version of Content Translation (CX2) last month, on International Translation Day. It integrates the visual editor to support templates, tables, and images. It also produces better wikitext when the translated article is published. [15]

Let's work together

The Editing team wants to improve visual editing on the mobile website. Please read their ideas and tell the team what you think would help editors who use the mobile site.
The Community Wishlist Survey begins next week.
If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly. We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:12, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 45, 2018)

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Civics

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Gulf of Alaska • Latin music (genre)

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 5 November 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2018-45

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

Recent changes

You can now use TemplateWizard to edit templates. This works only with the 2010 wikitext editor and not in the visual editor or the 2017 wikitext editor. If you click on you can enter the information in a pop-up. You can turn on TemplateWizard in your beta feature preferences. [16]

Changes later this week

You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. The interface for the two-column edit conflict will change. You can read more.
When you edit with the visual editor you can use the "Automatic" citation tab. This helps you generate citations. You will now be able to write plain text citations or the title of a journal article or a book in this tab. This will search the Crossref and WorldCat databases and add the top result. [17]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 November. It will be on all wikis from 8 November (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

17:29, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 46, 2018)

Distribution map of modern man (Horniman Museum)

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Mongoloid

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Civics • Gulf of Alaska

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 12 November 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2018-46

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

Recent changes

Some old mobile browsers can use the watchlist again. This has not worked for a while. These browsers are called grade C browsers. This helps for example Windows Phone 8.1 with Internet Explorer and Lumia 535 with Windows 10. [18]

Problems

You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. Users who use this view saw the edit conflict resolution page when they wanted to see a preview. This has been fixed. [19][20][21]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 November. It will be on all wikis from 15 November (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 14 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

You can use the content translation tool to translate articles. The developers are working on a new version. One of the changes will be a maintenance category. Articles where users add a lot of text from machine translation without changing it will be in that category. This is so the community can review it. The users will also have been warned before they publish the article that it has a lot of unchanged text from machine translations. [22]

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

19:22, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 47, 2018)

The Equator on the world map of the Earth

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Equator

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Mongoloid • Civics

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 19 November 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2018-47

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

Recent changes

You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can vote until 30 November.
There is an A/B test for sameAs data. This is to make it easier to find the right information with a search engine. This changes the metadata for a wiki page. It doesn't change how the page looks. [23]

Changes later this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The Wikimedia wikis use templates to show readers there are problems with the content on some pages. For example if there are no sources or the page needs to be rewritten. The mobile website will soon show more information when you use these templates. Some templates may need to be updated. [24]
The Education Program extension was removed from all Wikimedia projects. The database tables used by the extension will be archived. This will happen in a month. If you want the information on your wiki you should move it to a normal wiki page. [25]

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

23:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 48, 2018)

Siri is a virtual assistant part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, watchOS, macOS, HomePod, and tvOS operating systems.

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Siri

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Equator • Mongoloid

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 26 November 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2018-48

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

Recent changes

On wikis with translatable pages you could create a mess when you moved a page that had translatable subpages. A subpage is when you use / to create a new page: /wiki/Page/Subpage. The subpages would be moved but not the translations. The subpages are no longer automatically be moved. This is to make it safer to move pages. [26]

Changes later this week

The advanced search interface will be available by default on all Wikimedia wikis. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. It's already active on German, Farsi, Arabic and Hungarian Wikipedia. [27]
Special:UnusedCategories show empty categories with no files or other categories. You can soon choose to not show soft redirect categories or some maintenance categories there. You can do this with the magic word __EXPECTUNUSEDCATEGORY__. [28]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 November. It will be on all wikis from 29 November (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 28 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The mw.util.jsMessage() function was deprecated in 2012. It will be removed next week. Look for the warning Use of "mw.util.jsMessage" is deprecated in the JavaScript console to know if you use an affected script or gadget. If you are a gadget maintainer you should check if your JavaScript code contains mw.util.jsMessage. There is a migration guide. It explains how to use mw.notify instead. [29]

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

22:22, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 December 2018

From the editor: Time for a truce

Lay down your verbal weapons.

Op-ed: Looking back, looking forward: A beginner's experience on Wikipedia

The experiences of a new user on Wikipedia, told in their own words.

Special report: The Christmas wishlist

What do the WMF devs have in store for the community?

Opinion: The blogosphere migrates to Galaxy WMF

Suppose they gave a blog and nobody came?

News and notes: Reviewer of the year, WikiCup winner, and the 2019 Wikimedia Summit

Looking both backward and forward to events concerning the community.

Reflections: Wikipedia, history, and the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day

A personal reflection on Wikipedia's role as a repository of history.

In the media: Court-ordered article redaction, paid editing, and rock stars

Real-world news competes with the usual celeb fascination for Wikipedia's commentators.

Discussion report: Farewell, Mediation Committee

It was a good 15 years. Plus: admins, notability, substubs, and new padlocks.

Arbitration report: A long break ends

Arbcom takes its first new case since June.

Traffic report: Queen reigns for four weeks straight

The "Queen" of stage and screen, that is. Is there another?

Gallery: Intersections

Biology or technology? Form follows function in nature and the constructed world.

Recent research: Why do the most active Wikipedians burn out?; only 4% of students vandalize

And other new research results.

Essay: No one cares about your garage band

Nope, don't care!

Humour: The dark side of our favorite root vegetable

Wonky carrots invoke terror.

From the archives: Ars longa, vita brevis

ARS might continue, but some Wikipedians might not.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:48, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 49, 2018)

Waves in Lake Ontario

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Lake surfing

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Siri • Equator

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 3 December 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2018-49

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

Recent changes

Admins will not be able to unblock themselves if they are blocked by someone other than themselves. This is because it can cause damage if someone else takes over an admin account and other admins can't block them. If this is a problem for your community you can report it on Phabricator. You can also ask questions on Meta. There is a discussion on Phabricator about how to solve this if two admins fight with each other on a small wiki. [30]
Small SVG images are now bigger when you see them in MediaViewer. [31]
You can go to a section from the edit summary by clicking on the section name. Before this you had to click on the arrow. [32]
When you jumped to a footnote that was referenced several times in an article it could be difficult to see where you were in the text. Now there are jump marks and highlights to help you find your way back. [33][34]

Changes later this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 5 December at 16:00 (UTC) and at 23:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

16:12, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 50, 2018)

Nuuk is the capital and largest city of Greenland. Pictured is the Nuussuaq district in Nuuk, with Sermitsiaq mountain in the background.

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Nuuk

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Lake surfing • Siri

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 10 December 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2018-50

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

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 December. It will be on all wikis from 13 December (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 12 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

New accounts will need passwords that are at least 8 characters long. Admins, interface admins, bureaucrats, oversighters, CentralNotice admins, global renamers, check users, stewards and some other user groups will need passwords that are at least 10 characters long. This is because an attacker could cause damage to the wikis if they took over these accounts. [35][36]
When you hover over a footnote it will show you the reference as a pop-up. This is so you don't have to jump down to the bottom of the page to see a reference. This will happen in 2019. Some wikis already have gadgets that do this. You will be able to turn it off. [37]

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

17:33, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 51, 2018)

A bookworm / beetle grub found inside a paperback book, showing some of the damage it has wrought

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Bookworm (insect)

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Nuuk • Lake surfing

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 17 December 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2018-51

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

Tech News

Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 7 January 2019.

Recent changes

Some templates that show notices about the content of the page will now be shown on the mobile website. In many cases they were hidden before. [38][39]
Admins can no longer unblock themselves, except for self-blocks. A blocked admin can block the user who blocked them but no one else. This is so no one can block all admins on a wiki without being stopped. [40]
The ParserMigration extension has been removed. It compared the result of two versions of the MediaWiki wikitext parsing pipeline. It was used when we moved to the Remex parsing library instead of Tidy.

Problems

<ref> tags can use parameters such as "name" or "group". For example <ref name="adams" group="books">. If a <ref> tag has more than two parameters all parameters are ignored. You don't get a warning that they don't work. This will soon be fixed. [41]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 December. It will be on all wikis from 20 December (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 19 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The Wikimedia Foundation Android app team are working on making it easier to edit on mobile phones. You can read more about these plans. If you have an Android phone and speak at least two languages you can help testing in English. Tell Dchen (WMF) you want to be part of the testing by writing on her talk page or email her.
tiles.wmflabs.org and wma.wmflabs.org will stop working. They have no maintainers and run an old operating system. Tools which use it could stop working. This includes the mapnik gadget, hill shading, and hike and bike layers. New maintainers could help out and keep it going. [42]

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

20:34, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes, Issue 31

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 31, October – Novemeber 2018

OAWiki
Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
Global branches update
Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:34, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 52, 2018)

A diagram that includes the scalp

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Scalp

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Bookworm (insect) • Nuuk

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 24 December 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

The Signpost: 24 December 2018

From the editors: Where to draw the line in reporting?

Tell us what you think!

Op-ed: Wikipedia not trumped by Trump appointee

Did World Patent Marketing pay to get Wikipedia to include flattering information on their board member, now the Acting United States Attorney General?

Special report: The Signpost got 380,000+ views in 2018, sounds reasonable enough, right?

A statistical insight into the English Wikipedia's very own online community newsletter.

News and notes: Some wishes do come true

NPP wins the wish list poll; Wikipedia editors will be able to work better at night; new WMF appointments and new arbitrators; and who wants to be an admin?

In the media: Political hijinks

Wikipedia says 'ta' to British M.P. and 'buh-bye' to U.S. President's image vandals.

Discussion report: A new record low for RfA

Plus: reliable sources, notability, and fallout from the self-blocking software changes.

WikiProject report: Articlegenesis

Discovering how new and unregistered users make articles with the members of WikiProject Articles for Creation.

Arbitration report: Year ends with one active case

GiantSnowman asked to chill, and other disputes addressed by Arbcom (or not).

Traffic report: Queen dethroned by U.S. presidents

The band relinquishes its first place hold; Aquaman is swimming into view for late December.

Gallery: Sun and Moon, water and stone

Happy solstice, and happy New Year!

Blog: News from the WMF

In and around the WMF and its projects from the WMF's web site.

Humour: I believe in Bigfoot

Are you a believer?

Essay: Requests for medication

When the desire to continue to have the privilege of editing Wikipedia overrides the body's innate desire to choke the living shit out of some bastard who really has it coming.

From the archives: Compromised admin accounts – again

Compromised accounts – especially those of inactive admins.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:36, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 1, 2018)

Poster for a production of Boucicault's farce Contempt of Court, c. 1879. From the Library of Congress.

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Farce

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Previous selections: Scalp • Bookworm (insect)

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Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 31 December 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Welcome to the 2019 WikiCup!

Hello and Happy New Year!

Welcome to the 2019 WikiCup, the competition begins today. If you have already joined, your submission page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and we will set up your submissions page. One important rule to remember is that only content on which you have completed significant work during 2019, and which you have nominated this year, is eligible for points in the competition, the judges will be checking! Any questions should be directed to one of the judges, or left on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will make it to round 2. Good luck! The judges for the WikiCup are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:14, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 2, 2019)

An example of page orientation: a smartphone positioned upright (portrait orientation) and horizontally (landscape orientation)

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Page orientation

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Previous selections: Farce • Scalp

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Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:27, 7 January 2019 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2019-02

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

Tech News writers, editors and translators wish you a pleasant 2019 year.

Recent changes

RelatedSites extension has been undeployed. It was used to create interwiki links on Wikivoyage, now handled by Wikidata. [43]
MediaWiki logstash logging is moving to a new infrastructure. This is an ongoing deployment. [44]
codesearch.wmflabs.org has been updated, with new and updated repositories and a new search options for code. [45]
On several wikis, an account named "Edit filter" has been created on December 17 to perform some technical maintenance on AbuseFilter. This account has sysop rights but it's a system user and no human can use it. The account already existed on wikis where AbuseFilter can perform blocks, which are issued using this account. See T212268 for more information and future plans.

Problems

In AbuseFilter, the "Throttle" action takes three parameters: count, period and groups. They must now strictly respect the requirements listed on mediawiki.org. A list of broken filters is on Phabricator. If you're familiar with AbuseFilter, please take a look and fix them. [46]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 8. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from January 9. It will be on all wikis from January 10 (calendar).

Meetings

Search Platform Office Hours is rescheduled to January 9. Check the details for time and date.

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

18:29, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 3, 2019)

Vicki Gunvalson in 2009

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Vicki Gunvalson

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Previous selections: Page orientation • Farce

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Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 14 January 2019 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2019-03

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

Recent changes

You can now use Google Translate in the content translation tool. [47][48]
You can now add captions to files on Commons. Captions are short descriptions of the file. They can be translated to all languages we use. They can't use wikitext markup.
Earlier a quoted HTML attribute had to be followed by a space. Now it doesn't. This means that some pages could look different when you save them even if you didn't edit that part of the text. [49][50]
Templates with <templatestyles> could not show the difference between the live template and the sandbox version when they were tested. This has now been fixed. <templatestyles> has a new wrapper parameter now. You can use it for selectors like .mw-parser-output <wrapper parameter value> <selector from CSS page>. [51]

Problems

When you see an edit in the recent changes feed or in the history of a page some of them have tags. Some tags are added automatically. You can also add tags manually. Tags for edits that have been added manually can be edited. This didn't work for a little while. This has now been fixed. [52]

Changes later this week

You can move files from your wiki to Wikimedia Commons and keep the file history with the new FileExporter. It will be a beta feature on all wikis from 16 January. If you want to test it you activate it and check your wiki's configuration file.
Users who could cause more damage to the wikis if someone took over their account have to have more secure passwords. This includes administrators and other user groups. They can't use passwords that are in a list of common passwords. Accounts with common passwords are easy to take over. The list of common passwords was made longer a few weeks ago and has a different error message. Some user groups have been added to those who can't use common passwords. This is to protect all accounts with user rights that could cause damage. [53]
The AbuseFilter variable minor_edit has been removed. It was deprecated in 2016. Now you can't use it. You can fix the filters using it. You can find them if you use the search bar on Special:AbuseFilter.
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 15

17:54, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 4, 2019)

A view of the Quetschenfest street fair in the community of Geichlingen, Germany

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Street fair

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Vicki Gunvalson • Page orientation

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 21 January 2019 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2019-04

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

Tech News

Some people did not get last week's issue of Tech News. This was because of a problem with MassMessage. If you did not get last week's issue, you can read it on Meta. [54]

Recent changes

The content translation tool can now use version 2 as the default version for users who turned on the beta feature. For example it adds the tracking category Pages with unreviewed translations to translations that might have used machine translations without fixing the problems. This is so others can find them. You can find this category in Special:TrackingCategories on Wikipedias.
https://mediawiki2latex-large.wmflabs.org can now convert collects of up to 800 pages to PDF, EPUB or ODT. Previously this was 200 pages.

Problems

When a template was edited with the visual editor, it would sometimes put all information on one line. This makes it difficult to read for editors who use the wikitext editor. It also makes it more difficult to see what happened in a diff. This problem affected edits made between 8 and 17 January and is now fixed. [55]
MassMessage is used to post a message to many pages. It has not been working reliably. Some messages have not been posted to everyone. [56][57]
Because of a database problem that had to be fixed immediately you could not edit most wikis for a couple of minutes on 17 January (UTC). This has now been fixed. [58]

Changes later this week

You will be able to use template styles in the Module namespace. [59]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 January. It will be on all wikis from 24 January (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

20:36, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 5, 2019)

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Assassination attempts

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Street fair • Vicki Gunvalson

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 28 January 2019 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2019-05

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

Recent changes

The Wikimedia servers use HHVM to run the PHP code. They are going to use PHP7 and stop using HHVM. You can test PHP7 with a new beta feature. That way you can help find and report problems.

Problems

When someone moves a page to a name that already exists that page that had the name the article is moved to is deleted. For a couple of months this didn't always work. Some users saw an error message instead. This has now been fixed. [60]

Changes later this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 30 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

18:15, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 January 2019

Op-ed: Random Rewards Rejected

Lab rats deflate research to be performed on the Wikipedia community.

In focus: The Collective Consciousness of Admin Userpages

Did you know that there was an admin who thought that the metaphor of the mop was a joke, and now they know it's not?

News and notes: WMF staff turntable continues to spin; Endowment gets more cash; RfA continues to be a pit of steely knives

Rude or just forgetful? Eight-year WMF manager has disappeared; Facebook gives a million bucks, gets no love.

In the media: The Signpost's investigative story recognized, Wikipedia turns 18 and gets a birthday gift from Google, and more editors are recognized

Heroes and unsung heroes: many good news stories about the work we are all doing together.

Discussion report: The future of the reference desk

Plus: plagiarism from Wikipedia, user categories, and admin activity requirements.

Featured content: Don't miss your great opportunity

Get yourself lost in 1730's Paris, and a wide range of other recently promoted content.

Arbitration report: An admin under the microscope

Snowman flames newbies? Or just oversensitive snowflakes?

Traffic report: Death, royals and superheroes: Avengers, Black Panther

The most popular articles of 2018 include a cornucopia of superheroes (Avengers: Infinity War)

Technology report: When broken is easily fixed

Emergency server switch goes smoothly; technical glitches resolved; a new way to transfer files to Commons.

Gallery: Let us build a memorial fit for such pain and suffering

A tour of some of the world's greatest memorials courtesy the Prime Minister of India.

News from the WMF: News from WMF

The world’s largest photo contest, a $1 million gift, Wikipedia’s birthday, WF appoints Valerie D'Costa.

Recent research: Ad revenue from reused Wikipedia articles; are Wikipedia researchers asking the right questions?

And other new research publications.

Essay: How

A narrative to get you oriented to how this place works, and to the key policies and guidelines.

Humour: Village pump

More talk pages you don't want to miss.

From the archives: An editorial board that includes you

Four years - and nothing changed?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:51, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 6, 2019)

A typical Finnish school meal lunch, served free of charge to all pupils.

Hello, Woodstop45.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

School meal

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Assassination attempts • Street fair

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 4 February 2019 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions