This is an archive of past discussions with User:28bytes. 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.
Wikimedia previously used the IRC network Freenode. However, due to changes over who controlled the network with reports of a forceful takeover by several ex-staff members, the Wikimedia IRC Group Contacts decided to move to the new Libera Chat network. It has been reported that Wikimedia related channels on Freenode have been forcibly taken over if they pointed members to Libera. There is a migration guide and Wikimedia discussions about this.
Consensus has been reached to delete all books in the book namespace. There was rough consensus that the deleted books should still be available on request at WP:REFUND even after the namespace is removed.
An RfC is open to discuss the next steps following a trial which automatically applied pending changes to TFAs.
Technical news
IP addresses of unregistered users are to be hidden from everyone. There is a rough draft of how IP addresses may be shown to users who need to see them. This currently details allowing administrators, checkusers, stewards and those with a new usergroup to view the full IP address of unregistered users. Editors with at least 500 edits and an account over a year old will be able to see all but the end of the IP address in the proposal. The ability to see the IP addresses hidden behind the mask would be dependent on agreeing to not share the parts of the IP address they can see with those who do not have access to the same information. Accessing part of or the full IP address of a masked editor would also be logged. Comments on the draft are being welcomed at the talk page.
Arbitration
The community authorised COVID-19 general sanctions have been superseded by the COVID-19 discretionary sanctions following a motion at a case request. Alerts given and sanctions placed under the community authorised general sanctions are now considered alerts for and sanctions under the new discretionary sanctions.
Articles for Creation July 2021 Backlog Elimination Drive
Hello 28bytes:
WikiProject Articles for creation is holding a month long Backlog Drive!
The goal of this drive is to eliminate the backlog of unreviewed articles. The drive is running until 31 July 2021.
Barnstars will be given out as awards at the end of the drive.
There is currently a backlog of over 1500 articles, so start reviewing articles. We're looking forward to your help!
Orphaned non-free image File:The Most Unwanted Song 250px.jpg
⚠
Thanks for uploading File:The Most Unwanted Song 250px.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
An RfC is open to add a delay of one week from nomination to deletion for G13 speedy deletions.
Technical news
Last week all wikis were very slow or not accessible for 30 minutes. This was due to server lag caused by regenerating dynamic lists on the Russian Wikinews after a large bulk import. (T287380)
A discussion is open to decide when, if ever, should discord logs be eligible for removal when posted onwiki (including whether to oversight them)
A RfC on the next steps after the trial of pending changes on TFAs has resulted in a 30 day trial of automatic semi protection for TFAs.
Technical news
The Score extension has been re-enabled on public wikis. It has been updated, but has been placed in safe mode to address unresolved security issues. Further information on the security issues can be found on the mediawiki page.
Arbitration
A request for comment is in progress to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules. Comments and new proposals are welcome.
Following an RfC, extended confirmed protection may be used preemptively on certain high-risk templates.
Following a discussion at the Village Pump, there is consensus to treat discord logs the same as IRC logs. This means that discord logs will be oversighted if posted onwiki.
A motion has standardised the 500/30 (extended confirmed) restrictions placed by the Arbitration Committee. The standardised restriction is now listed in the Arbitration Committee's procedures.
Following the closure of the Iranian politics case, standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, post-1978 Iranian politics, broadly construed.
The Arbitration Committee encourages uninvolved administrators to use the discretionary sanctions procedure in topic areas where it is authorised to facilitate consensus in RfCs. This includes, but is not limited to, enforcing sectioned comments, word/diff limits and moratoriums on a particular topic from being brought in an RfC for up to a year.
Miscellaneous
Editors have approved expanding the trial of Growth Features from 2% of new accounts to 25%, and the share of newcomers getting mentorship from 2% to 5%. Experienced editors are invited to add themselves to the mentor list.
The community consultation phase of the 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process is open for editors to provide comments and ask questions to candidates.
Phase 2 of the 2021 RfA review has commenced which will discuss potential solutions to address the 8 issues found in Phase 1. Proposed solutions that achieve consensus will be implemented and you may propose solutions till 07 November 2021.
I seem to be blocked from editing, which is a bit surprising to me. Looks like a range block by Yamla that my current IP is caught in? It’s block #11652838. Can a friendly talk page stalker assist? 28bytes (talk) 19:14, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
I've given you IPBE. Seems like it's just a fluke that admins have IPBE automatically, and crats don't. Hopefully no one yells at me that I granted it indefinitely, but the range block is 2 years, and the menu choices for IPBE stopped at 1 year. p.s. Hi 28bytes, hope all is going well. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:11, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Unregistered editors using the mobile website are now able to receive notices to indicate they have talk page messages. The notice looks similar to what is already present on desktop, and will be displayed on when viewing any page except mainspace and when editing any page. (T284642)
The limit on the number of emails a user can send per day has been made global instead of per-wiki to help prevent abuse. (T293866)
The already authorized standard discretionary sanctions for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed, have been made permanent.
Hi 28bytes. I miss seeing you around and hope that our paths cross again. In the meantime, I wanted to reach out and wish you, from my family to yours, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 2021 has been a challenging year and here's hoping 2022 is better for us all. All the best, TheSandDoctorTalk05:00, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
Following consensus at the 2021 RfA review, the autopatrolled user right has been removed from the administrators user group; admins can grant themselves the autopatrolled permission if they wish to remain autopatrolled.
The functionaries email list (functionaries-enlists.wikimedia.org) will no longer accept incoming emails apart from those sent by list members and WMF staff. Private concerns, apart from those requiring oversight, should be directly sent to the Arbitration Committee.
Thanks, it began happily with vacation. I uploaded images but stopped at 22 January - click on songs. 30 January means 10 years of Precious, first for a blocked whom you freed ;) - It's also the birthday of a friend, - I'm so happy I mentioned his DYK on his 90th birthday when he was still alive. I have a great singer on DYK whom I heard, Elena Guseva, and wait for a Recent death appearance of Georg Christoph Biller whom I saw in action. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:49, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
I was just looking at the Former Admin list to check about an editor I was unfamiliar with and saw that you had chosen to pick up the mop again! Welcome back! Well, a belated welcome back. I don't check in on the noticeboards like I did when I was a new editor. There's too much work to do to get pulled into the constant conflicts although maybe the drama boards need a few more admins to look into disputes.
I tend to stay away from DYK, but with the current CofE issues, I saw this one, which you approved. Care to check again? The source for the claim starts with "STATE of Nebraska, Appellee, v. ONE 1970 2-DOOR SEDAN RAMBLER (GREMLIN), Appellant." Which, uh, is not what the article or the DYK hook states. Fram (talk) 17:05, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
@Fram: OK, I think I see the problem (please correct me if I'm wrong.) Let's start with the article, then discuss the hook. The lede should say "It was brought by the owner of a Rambler Gremlin, whose car was seized by the American state of Nebraska on the grounds it was transporting illegal marijuana" (or something similar) rather than "It was brought by the American state of Nebraska to seize a Rambler Gremlin on the grounds it was transporting illegal marijuana." Also, "defendant" in the second paragraph should be changed to "appellant" or perhaps simply "party". Thoughts? 28bytes (talk) 17:35, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
OK, that's fixed. Thanks for catching that. I'll reopen the review and propose a new hook that better reflects who sued whom. I appreciate your vigilance! 28bytes (talk) 18:10, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, 7&6, I just read the extended discussion there and I’m glad you and the other subject matter experts were able to clarify things. 28bytes (talk) 17:09, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
I said it wouldn't be easy. "Fools rush in ..." but lawyers do research and choose their battles. You were right in the first place; and the resistance that developed was peculiar to the terrain and the players. 7&6=thirteen (☎)15:10, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
7&6=thirteen (☎) has given you a Dobos torte to enjoy! Seven layers of fun because you deserve it.
To give a Dobos torte and spread the WikiLove, just place {{subst:Dobos Torte}} on someone else's talkpage, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend.
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
When using WikiEditor (also known as the 2010 wikitext editor), people will now see a warning if they link to disambiguation pages. If you click "Review link" in the warning, it will ask you to correct the link to a more specific term. You can read more information about this completed 2021 Community Wishlist item.
When asked to create a new page or talk page section, input fields can be "preloaded" with some text. This feature is now limited to wikitext pages. This is so users can't be tricked into making malicious edits. There is a discussion about if this feature should be re-enabled for some content types.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 January. It will be on all wikis from 20 January (calendar).
Events
Community Wishlist Survey 2022 continues. All contributors to the Wikimedia projects can propose for tools and platform improvements. The proposal phase takes place from 10 January 18:00 UTC to 23 January 18:00 UTC. Learn more.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 January. It will be on all wikis from 27 January (calendar).
The following languages can now be used with syntax highlighting: BDD, Elpi, LilyPond, Maxima, Rita, Savi, Sed, Sophia, Spice, .SRCINFO.
You can now access your watchlist from outside of the user menu in the new Vector skin. The watchlist link appears next to the notification icons if you are at the top of the page. [2]
Events
You can see the results of the Coolest Tool Award 2021 and learn more about 14 tools which were selected this year.
On 31 January 2022, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Jeremy Ayers, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that a new species of ant was named to honor artist Jeremy Ayers and the non-binary community? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Jeremy Ayers. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Jeremy Ayers), and if they received a combined total of at least 416.7 views per hour (i.e., 5,000 views in 12 hours or 10,000 in 24), the hook may be added to the statistics page. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.
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
If a gadget should support the new ?withgadget URL parameter that was announced 3 weeks ago, then it must now also specify supportsUrlLoad in the gadget definition (documentation). [3]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 February. It will be on all wikis from 3 February (calendar).
Future changes
A change that was announced last year was delayed. It is now ready to move ahead:
The user group oversight will be renamed suppress. This is for technical reasons. This is the technical name. It doesn't affect what you call the editors with this user right on your wiki. This is planned to happen in three weeks. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections. As usual, these labels can be translated on translatewiki (direct links are available) or by administrators on your wiki.
Today is a feast day for which Bach wrote several cantatas including Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin, BWV 125, which was on DYK 10 years ago and TFA 4 years ago. I'm less happy that Georg Christoph Biller had to wait days for a Main page appearance under recent deaths, and then stayed not even for a full day. It would have been so meaningful today, with the man in the cantata saying he can depart in joy and peace. - The February pic was taken in memory last year. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:41, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
The user group oversight will be renamed suppress in around 3 weeks. This will not affect the name shown to users and is simply a change in the technical name of the user group. The change is being made for technical reasons. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections.
The Reply Tool feature, which is a part of Discussion Tools, will be opt-out for everyone logged in or logged out starting 7 February 2022. Editors wishing to comment on this can do so in the relevant Village Pump discussion.
Thank you for returning, it’s a pleasure to see you resume in that very tasking role. The English Wikipedia needs more hands on deck. Thanks once more for resuming in that capacity. :) Celestina007 (talk) 13:29, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Category counts are sometimes wrong. They will now be completely recounted at the beginning of every month. [4]
Problems
A code-change last week to fix a bug with Live Preview may have caused problems with some local gadgets and user-scripts. Any code with skin-specific behaviour for vector should be updated to also check for vector-2022. A code-snippet, global search, and example are available.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 February. It will be on all wikis from 10 February (calendar).
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
Purging a category page with fewer than 5,000 members will now recount it completely. This will allow editors to fix incorrect counts when it is wrong. [5]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 February. It will be on all wikis from 17 February (calendar).
In the AbuseFilter extension, the rmspecials() function has been updated so that it does not remove the "space" character. Wikis are advised to wrap all the uses of rmspecials() with rmwhitespace() wherever necessary to keep filters' behavior unchanged. You can use the search function on Special:AbuseFilter to locate its usage. [6]
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