User talk:UncleBubba

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Defender of the Wiki Barnstar[edit]

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		To UncleBubba Many thanks for your tireless efforts in keeping article clear of spam and other nonsense. Wikipedia is a better quality project because of hardworking and conscientious editors like you!--Hu12 (talk) 17:41, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Wow—that is so nice to hear. Thank you so much! — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 18:55, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

What[edit]

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You make a stupid edit, restoring a piece of vandalism, presumably not looking at what you are doing, and then lecture me, with a piece of condescending nonsense. What is that about? please allez-vous-en or something like that. Sayerslle (talk) 23:40, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Moved reply to original user's Talk page where it belongs, per above notice. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 00:14, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Cars don't produce smog?[edit]

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You deleted a modification I made on the toyota prius page about smog. Your comment was that cars don't produce smog. Technically, they do produce smog forming particals that are activated by sunlight and transformed into smog. For all practical purposes, the produce smog. Would you prefer the wording 'smog forming particals?' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.178.2.64 (talk) 10:29, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I did revert your edit, for several reasons:

You didn't explain what you were doing by including an Edit Summary (the default "section" summary is nice but doesn't help much). In my experience, a majority of vandalism is presented in the form of anonymous edits with no Edit Summary. While it is by no means required, I recommend you create an account and use it when you edit Wikipedia--it may make your life easier.
You added information that went beyond the text in the cited reference, which is original research and not allowed in this encyclopedia.
You introduced an error of fact: smog (from smoke and fog) is a meteorological phenomenon caused by the combination of emitted gases and liquid particles in the atmosphere. Smog may be made worse by photochemical reactions brought on by sunlight acting on various compounds (mainly hydrocarbons) in the emissions. Ergo, cars may emit smoke, NO, CO, CO2, particulates, etc., but they do not emit smog.

Please don't take it personally; while researching this reply, I found another factual error that someone sneaked into the article (regarding "toxic emissions" in the lede). It, too, is gone. And it will stay gone unless someone can cite a reliable source that meets Wikipedia standards for notability and verifiability.

(There is another error, regarding tax-deductability, that I will correct as soon as I save this page.)

Our purpose here should be to improve the encyclopedia. Anything that does not further that goal does not--in my opinion--belong here.

If I can help you in any way, please let me know. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 15:03, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't believe I stated anything beyond the sited text. If you click on the link it will take you right to the EPA's green vehicle guide and on that page is my reference to the mention the EPA rating the 2003 model with a 3 out of ten air pollution score. This will be 'improving the encyclopedia.' If someone wants to buy a prius so be green they may want to know the 2003 model is not the year to go with. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.178.2.64 (talk) 00:46, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry; I don't agree. If they want that information, there are literally hundreds of sites to which they can go. Wikipedia is not an automobile review site, nor is it Consumer Reports. If you can find justification for your assertion in the WP:MOS or other official guidelines, you might get me to change my mind, though. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 00:53, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Akhenaten[edit]

Please look at my comments at Talk:Akhenaten. A. Parrot (talk) 01:29, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

This erroneous "China" assertion[edit]

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My point is that by introducing "China" in the first sentence without any context, the intro is actually perpetuating the antipodean misconception to people who are aware of it. Whereas to people who aren't aware of it (i.e. non-Americans), the mention of China is completely bizarre, and likely to lead the reader to ask "What's so special about China that it attracts nuclear reactors?" – Smyth\^talk 11:29, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

IRC-Galleria[edit]

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Re: this edit: IRC-Galleria is a valid "see also" link. Please do your research before making such edits in the future. Mythpage88 (talk) 09:34, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

No, I do not believe it is. The only thing even remotely IRC-related about the IRC-Galleria site is its name. It is a web site "created as a photo gallery for IRC users". Should we also list all other photo gallery web sites here? Should we list Facebook and G+, too? I think not. If you want to discuss it, please come to the article Talk page and do so. If you continue to use Wikipedia for promotion, I will be the least of your worries. Please don't put unrelated information into technical articles. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 02:39, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you accusing me of promotion? If so, I see we just threw good faith out the window! Mythpage88 (talk) 03:37, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I am accusing you of nothing. The link to the social networking site does not belong in the IRC article because they are unrelated. Only you know the true reason you want the link there, but I don't think it is for the purpose of improving the article. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 03:45, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

How does "If you continue to use Wikipedia for promotion, I will be the least of your worries. Please don't put unrelated information into technical articles." assume any good faith? It's a thinly veiled threat, at best. Mythpage88 (talk) 03:48, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I feel—very strongly—that all editors here should be working to improve the encyclopedia. I will assume good faith in dealing with people, but I will not compromise that overarching goal. Since you've not done anything to defend your IRC-Galleria link (other than malign me), I find myself wondering if you have an ulterior motive, either to promote the Galleria page or to improve its link stats. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 04:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I have defended myself by responding to your blatant assumption of bad faith. I shouldn't have to defend myself against accusations of blatant promotion, when my edit history clearly shows that I have no such interest in anything of the sort. Please stop biting, it's unbecoming. Mythpage88 (talk) 04:40, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I did look at your history (all three months of it); I still don't see the justification for this link. What I have seen is you using various Wikipedia "magic buzzwords" to attack me: "Oh dear, he reverted my edit. I'll accuse him of not assuming good faith. That'll fix him." Followed by, "Oh, dear, that didn't work, so I'll try a 'biting' accusation, and I'll make it 'blatant', for good measure."

I didn't see you arguing in favor of your link other than saying "it's valid". And discussion is what it's all about here. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 05:04, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Isn't "vandalism" a "magic buzzword"? Oh, and looking at your talk page archive, this isn't the first time you've bitten others. Whatever happened to WP:DICK? Mythpage88 (talk) 05:06, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't bite newcomers, but I do try to help support the quality of the encyclopedia. You're trying to use more ad hominem, which is a fallacious technique. I'm still waiting for you to present a convincing argument in favor of including the link, or have you given up on that in favor of continuing to attack me? — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 05:24, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

"I don't bite newcomers." Do you have a convincing argument behind this statement? Or have you given up on that in favor of continuing to bite me? Mythpage88 (talk) 05:26, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Similarly, you have yet to justify calling my edit "vandalism". Mythpage88 (talk) 05:27, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I didn't think you could defend your insertion of the link into the IRC article, and these attempts at deflection and distraction seem to prove my conjecture valid. Please grind your axe elsewhere; it's not going to work here. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 05:38, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Burden of proof lies on you. How was it vandalism? Mythpage88 (talk) 06:41, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

There is no "burden of proof", as I did not call what you did "vandalism". I called it "apparently promotion", which it is.

But you're still avoiding the argument you apparently feel you cannot win: How do you justify including the social-networking site in the IRC article? — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 06:54, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Don't lie. You identified the edits as vandalism in multiple edit summaries. Mythpage88 (talk) 06:56, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

It's easy to make baseless accusations, but proving them is another thing entirely. I have not called your edits vandalism, so who is the liar? — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 07:04, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

No response? I didn't think so. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 14:06, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

StarWind Software Page[edit]

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Dear Sir,

I appreciate your feedback about you working in business and never hearing about StarWind. Well, it was a day when nobody heard about Microsoft and IBM. Also storage industry is quite isolated. In case you can do me a favor could you please tell me why DataCore Software page with TWO links and written entirely by their staff is NOT SPAM and what we currently have (please take a look @ our page as I've added TONS of external links) IS? I appreciate your feedback in any case.

Staff had did a lot of mistakes in the past but they had be punished for doing this (content was removed). Do you think you can judge for past all the time?

Thank you very much for cooperation!

AK47

213.238.8.10 (talk) 01:01, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Network Bridge page[edit]

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I don't think the edit you reverted was vandalism, I think it was lack of references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Surge12 (talk • contribs) 21:08, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but whenever anyone removes four sections/seven paragraphs of technically coherent text—including its source references—from an article without one word of discussion or explanation (or even a single Edit Summary), a rational person would feel justified labeling it "vandalism", and that's exactly what I did. Were you the editor from IP 111.68.103.26? If so, please go to the article's Talk page and discuss your proposed revisions. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 23:38, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Christian Science[edit]

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I am hardly trying to promote Moody's book. As a start, the reference to it has been there for a very long time. Its importance to the topic is that it marks the time(1975) at which the public in general became aware of Near-Death Experiences. The point of the paragraph concerned is to show that Christian Scientists have been aware of them for much, much longer: a fact of encyclopedic interest. You suggest, incorrectly, that the other reference does not support this. The only purpose the other reference has, is to confirm that the publication of Moody's book was indeed the stage at which public interest in NDEs began: a widely accepted fact. I can certainly find any number more references to support that, if you like.

It is highly likely that users who look up Christian Science have heard more about near-death experiences than they have about Christian Science. The sole aim of the entry is to establish the nexus between the two, and so to open up the topic more effectively to the enquirer.

I believe that my response to you is both courteous and correct. I therefore have respectfully yet again reversed your edit. Michael J. Mullany (talk) 07:29, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The point here is pretty simple: To be included in Wikipedia, material must be notable (see WP:N), verifiable (see WP:V), and reliably sourced (see WP:RS). This doesn't mean you have to know it's true so much as you must reference reliable sources that say it's true.

Your assertions that "it marks the time (1975) at which the public in general became aware" and that it is a "a widely accepted fact" must be supported. If you are only interested in mentioning Christian Scientists have known of NDEs for a long time, that's one thing. Claims that Moody coined the term and that NDEs were unknown to the general public prior to that are pretty sweeping and must be supported with hard, reliable sources. And it MUST be discussed if there is any doubt among the interested editors.

Please stop reverted edits. The way Wikipedia works is: Someone changes something. Someone disagrees and reverts it. The original editor goes to the Talk page to discuss it. If consensus is reached, the new material is reinserted into the article; if no consensus is reached, it stays on the Talk page.

I have no special interest in the article or the book, but I do have an interest in making the encyclopedia better. Unsourced material, no matter how "true" or "well known" is not allowed. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 08:12, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so in Wiki's own article on NDEs where it states: "Popular interest in near-death experiences was initially sparked by Raymond Moody's 1975 book Life After Life[8] and the founding of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) in 1981.[9]". Do we say that the NDE article also committs the same fault, or are we satisfied that there the editors got it right? If so, then the same references would indicate the reinstatement of the assertion in question.Michael J. Mullany (talk) 08:57, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

my question is why is this reference important to the article on Christian Science. It doesn't clarify a major point of Christian Science doctrine. Many other faiths acknowledge NDE's well before Christian Science supposedly does. Do we need to list all of them as well? To me an encyclopaedic article should be to the point with a minimum of ancillary information. Am I wrong? Digitalican (talk) 15:32, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

No, you are absolutely right. Your opinion also follows WP policy closely, as I understand it. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 15:47, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I do not agree that the main stream of western religions other than CS did acknowledge NDEs prior to 1975. MB Eddy's reference to them was written the best part of a century earlier. I would have thought that the sentence under dispute relates the CS view to something that many readers will have heard of: NDEs, and so places the CS view in world context.Michael J. Mullany (talk) 19:25, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Student Editing[edit]

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Dear UncleBubba,

I want to bring to your attention your (merited, but not entirely) deletion of work by my Wikipedia student, Thegannon. One focus of our class is trying to augment female and ethnic diversity among contributors in Wikipedia. Some new contributors are easily discouraged, particularly if they have not grown up in circumstances that support a sense of entitlement and expertise. I'm going to encourage Thegannon to re-word work on women in wrestling and make it workable and useful for Wikipedia. Thank you kindly, and in advance for your patience with newcomers to the process, and any supportive effort you may be willing to lend to a beginner. KSRolph (talk) 19:39, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

While patrolling recent changes, I ran across Thegannon's edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wrestling&diff=prev&oldid=461544414), which inserted apparently-coherent text into the article.

I was about to move on when I noticed the edit was unexplained (i.e. had no edit summary), so I looked a little deeper and saw many statements of fact and syntheses of factual data. Usually, this indicates original research, which isn't allowed. That pretty much sealed the edit's fate and I reverted it.

I believe my action in this matter was entirely justified.

Having said that, I think what you're doing with the students is absolutely wonderful! I will, of course, help you any way I can.

To prevent problems in the future, I recommend you review the Wikipedia "Help for New Editors" articles. At the very least, point out to them the Edit Summary box on the editing screen and teach them to use it for every edit. It doesn't take much time and it shows other Wikipedians the edit respects them, their time and the encyclopedia as a whole.

Teach them also about Wikipedia's policies regarding notability, verifiability, and reliable sources, and that these—not truth—are the criteria for inclusion in articles here.

If you teach your students to observe these practices, I believe you will encounter far fewer problems.

If you could see the crap I pull out of these pages on a daily basis, you'd understand my firm approach to spam, vandalism and disruptive editing. (And I'm not even a prolific page patroller; there are folks here that do ten times my volume of cleanup per unit of time invested.)

I am quite encouraged by your project, though, and I hope you carry on with it. Once again, if I can help, please let me know. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 01:37, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Dear Bubba,

Thank you for your detailed response. I do, of course, all I can to help eighteen to 22 year-old students understand what we want, what we refer to, how multivariate Wikipedia culture is to be appreciated and navigated, and so forth. On the other hand, there are more than twenty people's work to monitor, and a couple of my students have suffered from the experience of less than perfect text, followed by deletions. For newcomers, a couple of these, and students can become discouraged. While I understand you are not trying to teach this course, it might be that a few encouraging words to Thegannon could go a long way. One wishes to see all newcomers succeed and move to the next level, independent works and edits. I must also concern myself with less assertive students, those who have not had initial success with their edits.

I appreciate your thoughtful response, and please do tolerate our works. I can imagine your tasks to be difficult, and I too, would be/am on a short fuse with some of the contributions (and deletions) I encounter. In fact, in class, we wonder aloud at the admins in Wikipedia who oversee and modify hundreds of items per day.

There is a place for women in wrestling in this page, especially with events being televised nationally and international events held. My view is Thegannon needs to include citations, and perhaps augment statements. I hope you'll agree. KSRolph (talk) 04:09, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I absolutely agree. The citations are the key to verifiability, and an Edit Summary is a mark of courtesy and professionalism. Together, I believe they will make a tremendous difference.

After that, all they need to do is write well. ;-)

Do you teach about the really strange way WP works, through things like consensus and cooperation? I imagine that would make a helluva lesson, not only for editing, but for life. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 09:05, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I think you revised wrong...[edit]

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Do you use Apple? "Personal" is not the accepted term for us Macintosh users. PC refers to Windows machines, Linux refers to Linux, and Macintosh of course refers to Apple computers. MaganT2k13 (talk) 05:28, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I think you need to consult a dictionary. "Personal", as an adjective, is defined, "Of, affecting, or belonging to a particular person rather than to anyone else." My MacBook Pro is mine, as is my Linux desktop and my Windows laptop, and they are all Personal Computers. They certainly are not mainframes... I think we should try to avoid being pedantic. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 05:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

External Links in Articles[edit]

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I've noted your comments on the Starwind Software AfD page and as you seem to have an aversion to people exploiting Wikipedia for promotion and advertising I was wondering if you could take a look at Microsoft SQL Server Compare Tools. This article is nothing but a list of external links for people trying to promote their products. If these links were put on most articles they would be immediately reverted as spam. I have suggested changing the links to references and removing anything with no reference at all. I've put in a request for comment but the only response I've had is from an IP user who has a link for his product on it. There are a lot of these articles, I've started cleaning up Comparison of database tools which I think looks better. I would really appreciate any comments you may have on this - I'm so tempted to AfD it.Vrenator ^talk 11:02, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow--what a mess o' links! Thanks for the heads-up. I need to look at it some more, but I'm wondering if you're right in that an AfD is the best solution. I posted some opinion on the article's Talk page. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 12:54, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for comments on the article's talkpage. I was beginning to think I was on my own and had some kind of phobia against red links and spam links. This article, unfortunately is just one of a hole bunch of these but once this one has been tackled I may just target some others. Vrenator ^talk 13:00, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The article has now been redirected to Microsoft SQL Server. Vrenator ^talk 13:46, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

And I say "Yaaaaa!" Thanks for letting me know about it. Are you familiar with the Spam Project board? Check it out sometime--you might find it useful.

Regardless, if you run across any more, and want some help, please let me know. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 13:56, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Cheers! I will check it out. Vrenator ^talk 13:59, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Brahma Kumaris website[edit]

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Regarding the external link section in the Brahma Kumaris article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahma_Kumaris_World_Spiritual_University#External_links

The contribution I made was reverted back. "The Brahma Kumaris Info" site has an "ad" right beside it: "An independent resource accurately documenting the beliefs and lifestyle of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, including many of its channeled messages." Is that ok to place such things after a link?

Thanks

Riveros11 (talk) 12:52, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I looked at the link on the WP page (and the abstract text beside it) and don't really see the problem. There are two External Links to official BK sites, followed by the one in question. While I'd bet BK leadership would rather not hear some of the things the http://www.brahmakumaris.info/ site has to say, it does not appear to be commercial (I saw no ads), and it doesn't seem overtly shrill. In fact, it seems to be a reasonable, well-sourced skeptic site (I didn't read much of it.) Am I missing something? — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 13:29, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt reply. Well, I just want to play by the rules. It appears interesting to me that a link in the "external links" part of the article has an opinion such as to consider that link " accurately documenting the beliefs and life style of the BKs." Encyclopedias usually will add something like " According to that site..." to avoid bias.

In that light, It appears to me that I could add the following link: http://brahmakumarisforum.net and also will add a little text right beside it and some text to the other links as well, if there are no objections.

Riveros11 (talk) 15:04, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I recommend you do not do that. The link you mentioned is a forum, and has no business here. The former link is--as I mentioned--a link to a non-forum site, similar in structure to the official BK sites.

I have, though, had a chance to look at some of your edits. Are you connected to the BKs in any way? I may be mistaken, but it really appears that some of your edits are written with the intent of promoting a particular point of view. Are you familiar with WP:NPOV, WP:COI, WP:N, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:SPS, and WP:NOT? please remember this is an encyclopedia. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 15:23, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure that brahmakumaris.info is not a forum?

Please check out: http://www.brahmakumaris.info/forum/index.php

If in fact, this is an encyclopedia, then the brahmakumaris.info link should go away for it is a forum. The participants are not bona fide researchers, but ex-members of the BK movement. Please re-consider your thought.

Yes, I am a member of the BK movement. I don't see why I cannot contribute as much as an Ex-Brahma Kumaris member can. But I will be happy to go by the rules as long as it works both ways. Have you checked on "January 18" user? His history talks lots about him.

Riveros11 (talk) 15:40, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

C'mon, just because a site has a forum doesn't make it one. I went to the link you provided and wound up on a forum index page. I went to the other site and found a home page. Please don't split hairs with me.

Why can't an ex-BK be a bona fide researcher? Seems like they might have useful knowledge. You can contribute; I never said otherwise, but you should not remove or suppress others' views just because you do not agree with them.

My wife's mother is an active BK and, while I don't subscribe to her worldview, it is interesting. Regardless, I don't have an agenda one way or the other regarding the BKs. They're just like Catholics or Buddhists in one important way: some folk love 'em and some folks hate 'em. As far as I'm concerned, either group is welcome here only as long as they don't allow their biases to leak onto the pages.

The page should not read like a recruiting brochure. If you work to be informative, neutral, and balanced, we'll get along fine.

By the way, did you read those WP articles I cited? I think they would help you better understand what should be here and what should not.

I will be checking out the January 18 user. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 16:14, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

What would you consider that site? A research on the Brahma Kumaris? Have you notice that the contributors are the same members of the forum?

FYI. I have been in this article from the very beginning.I have not been banned even once. On the other hand, the main contributor of the Ex-BK side has been. He has been "blocked permanently" (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:195.82.106.244) but he has continued editing under different IDs, now one of them is "january 18." That user is the owner of the brahmakumaris.info site.

I think I am being reasonable in asking why his website link is mentioned in the BK wiki article? That individual is not a researcher, neither the group in that website.

So, when I see a link which is a forum (by dictionary definition) with articles containing "original research" without an article signed by a "bona fide" researcher but just biased opinions and the "ad" which mentions that they "accurately document" the BK beliefs and life style...then, you wonder, what gives them that authority? According to wiki policies the brahmakumaris.info link violates the "No original research" policy in wikipedia.

If you look at the "Scientology" site, under external links, they have an "official site" heading with a "scholarly web pages on Scientology" sub-heading. The brahmakumaris.info link do not qualify as a scholarly site as you know.

Please give me a good reason.

Ps: A "bona fide researcher" for an encyclopedia; is someone with a terminal degree in that subject. Riveros11 (talk) 17:11, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Deletion review for StarWind Software[edit]

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An editor has asked for a deletion review of StarWind Software. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Hu12 (talk) 16:20, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Season's tidings![edit]

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 03:50, 25 December 2011 (UTC).

APL[edit]

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I have nothing against ISO dates, but they only apply to gregorian dates. Also, I am sure you have noticed that the absence of spelt-out month names often give gives rise to ambiguities – common "alternatives" seem to be "01-23-2008" or "23-01-2008". But the real crux is that there was a mixture of different formats in that article that I want to harmonise. I don't know where to take it from here; I won't be reverting you. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:23, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

ATOMIC49ER[edit]

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Amelia Earhart from the FBI FOIF(freedom of imformation files)

FBI FOIA FILES

The files at the link below clearly show and state that many radio operators intercepted Earhart's radio transmissions. These files on pages 49 thru to 54 establish that Earhart landed in the Marshall Islands and was taken prisoner by the Japanese. After reading the files it is obvious that Earhart and Noonan were both alive and had landed safely, however into or near a secret Japanese base. Due to the planes altitude the radio transmissions misled those waiting to intercept Earhart as planned. Off course far north of Howland Island, Earhart is said to have actually landed on Knox Island nearer to the Marshall Islands. This is outlined by the FBI files. The files document often repeated and frantic requests by radio operators to get FBI assistance in finding Earhart, even many years after her disappearance.
Here is the FBI link: http://vault.fbi.gov/amelia-mary-earhart/amelia-mary-earhart-part-01-of-01/view

This material seems noteworthy

(sorry your """don't be a dick""" is suggestive and pornographic as posted)
(the image of the penis in addition to "dick" as referenced are obscene images and speech)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Atomic49er (talk • contribs) 18:58, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

The material may well be noteworthy, but it doesn't seem to meet the criteria of the Wikipedia policies on verifiability and notability.

You didn't discuss it on the article Talk page; not discussing what you're doing is not a good thing.

You also don't seem to have bothered to read the Wikipedia documentation on editing--I had to re-format the text you inserted here because it was messing up my Talk page. In short: Please explain your edits with an Edit Summary; please sign your posts; and please take a look at the Help pages to learn more about editing the encyclopedia.

Lastly, don't worry about my Don't Be a Dick picture--I like it and it's going to stay. Wikipedia is NOT censored so, if line drawings of human anatomical features bother you, perhaps you should read elsewhere. Frankly, I couldn't care less that you think the images on my User or Talk pages are "pornographic" or "obscene"; I don't think they are and, as long as I don't violate WP policy, my opinion is all that matters on this page.

— UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 20:27, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

do not talk down to me in stupid riddles? ok? uncle buddy...

ato49er — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atomic49er (talk • contribs) 05:57, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, your general comportment, including the way you spell and write, make it pretty difficult to do anything but talk down to you, ya know? What I wrote is in no way a riddle; it's not my problem you can't comprehend simple English prose. And how hard can it be to indent your replies and sign your posts? — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 06:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Harassment and annoyance[edit]

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You posted multiple times on my talk page. I ask you to stop. One time is enough. You are warned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.13.103.192 (talk) 02:12, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

You are tenditiously attempting to restore spammy links and unsourced, potentially dangerous medical information to an article, which is not allowed. You are trying to use Wikipedia for promotion and advertising, which is not allowed. If you are editing as an IP (not signed-in) user to hide your identity, you are evading, which is not allowed.

In short, you are abusing the encyclopedia to further your own ends, which is reprehensible. Now, YOU have been warned. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 02:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

You are not better than any other wikipedia user. Quit harassing me. I asked you already. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.13.103.192 (talk) 03:17, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

With all due respect, sit down and shut up, spammer. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 03:49, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Amelia Earhart[edit]

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See contentious submission. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 13:04, 5 June 2012 (UTC).

This person is, shall we say, "interesting". If you want to see something really crazy, take a look at the rev history of his Talk page. I'm not quite sure if he's attacking/threatening me or if he just needs to take his medication, nor am I sure if I should do anything (ANI?) about it. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 17:01, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

DFT is often the best advice. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 02:24, 7 June 2012 (UTC).

...and especially so, I'd bet, in this situation. Thanks. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 16:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Your comment on my talk page[edit]

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I don't know why you bothered posting your "rebuke". I am not a boy scout collecting badges and I don't count edits or display the count or collect awards, I just edit articles often in passing whilst I go on my merry way in what is a busy life. If I overlook checking the "minor edit" who gives a toss? Would you prefer that I didn't bother making the correction?

Your pedantic ignorant attitude is what has driven away many editors who think they "own" articles or are the final arbiters of what is right or wrong.. my understanding is that the powers that be are very worried about this wastage of editors

The problem is exemplified by your reversion of my edit to the HG Wells article. It came about because one of my kids was reading the article (after the death of Ray Bradbury) and asked me what "sums" meant. It is is not a term used widely outside the UK and Ireland and it is probably uncommon there in this century. I thought that it was worth explicating the term. In any event it wasn't silly, or a "joke" the edit made the point Wells was making clear and it wasn't exactly cluttering up the place.

Please do not bother posting a response on my talk page. I will delete it and not read it. As George W Bush allegedly said one time, "Who cares what you think?" Silent Billy (talk) 12:24, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Obviously, you care enough to reply (in the wrong place, no less).

The Wells article is written in British English, about a British author. In that language variant, "sums" is a pretty common word. Instead of inserting poorly constructed changes into the article text (and snarfing at me for cleaning it up), you might have availed yourself of the opportunity to teach your children something new.

And, just so we're clear: you didn't fail to check the "Minor" box; you checked it when you knew--or should have known--not to do so.

It's pretty funny you're calling me "ignorant" here; evidence indicates you have it backwards.

Wikipedia is a community of people who work together to improve "the encyclopedia anyone can edit". As such, there are a lot of people editing it and there are rules and conventions and best practices, much like there is everywhere else.

If you are unwilling to take the time to properly use the Minor check box--or to supply a proper Edit Summary--when you change something, so be it. You may save yourself a second or two but will cost others in the editing community much more time while they patrol recent changes. Your actions don't rise to level of a sanctionable offense but, just like rudeness and discourtesy, they tell others what you're made of. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 18:00, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Need help with a user[edit]

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Fifelfoo is launching personal attacks and deleting my comments on the talk page. Can you go to the Talk page for the Vietnam War and help me out. I don't mind changing things if I need to, but I could do without the personal attacks. -- Korentop (talk) 12:27, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Parkinson's science learning project in Wikiversity[edit]

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Hi. I'd like to bring your attention to a new learning project in Wikiversity. As you have been involved with the discussion on the wikipedia Parkinson's disease page I felt you might be interested in looking at the project and perhaps even contributing material to it. Please see my Talk page, http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Droflet#The_Science_Behind_Parkinson.27s_learning_project , the subpage, http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Droflet/ProjectDescription or the project itself , http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Portal:The_Science_Behind_Parkinson%27s . It would be great if you could bring the project to the attention of others who might be interested in helping us develop it. Thanks.

Jtelford (talk) 15:54, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Your current edit war[edit]

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Your recent editing history shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. You may have thought that this was okay under the 3RR, however, my records show that you have still come close to violating this rule yourself. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time, counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly, which I have determined it has. This is your notice that if I see another revert by you on this page, I will report yourself to AIN and begin a discussion about your edit war, if the other involved editor doesn't do so first.

Don't take this the wrong way. I'm being as nice as possible here. But this is a serious offense. Please consider another course of action before reverting again. I am also going to be requesting full protection of the page to prevent this from going any further.

gwickwire | Leave a message 02:14, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh, really? On what page, may I ask? How was I edit-warring?

My edit history shows, frankly, that I spend a lot a time cleaning up messes and contributing to the encyclopedia. If you feel I've violated WP policies, please do make a submission to the appropriate AN/I page. But be aware: Your behavior will be scrutinized, too, and baseless accusations are not well received around here. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 02:28, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I just looked at the one page you reported the other editor for. Your edit summaries looked like you were intent on reverting his material until he stopped. It was just a little friendly reminder. Like I said, don't take it the wrong way. And I'm well aware of the AN/I regulations. If you'd like me to remove this, as the other user was blocked, and there's no way for you to go over 3RR, feel free to remove this. Thanks for understanding. gwickwire | Leave a message 02:32, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Look, I'm very understanding and pride myself on maintaining civility, but one thing I will not abide is being falsely accused of wrongdoing. Did you actually bother to count the reverts I made? There was ONE. Hello71, Ianmacm, and Freshacconci made the others.

If you're not sure of your target, you have no business pulling the trigger. If you are careless with your Rollback rights, you could lose them. If you truly want to become an administrator (as you say on your User page), you must train yourself to pay attention to details.

What you left here is not a "friendly warning", it's a mistake. Making matters worse, you "templated" a long-time editor. Frankly, I think you owe me an apology. If you ever do this again, I will have to seriously consider reporting your behavior to AN/I.

And yes, I'm gonna revert the change now that the guy's blocked. Perhaps this time, it will stick. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 02:51, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I've already admitted I was not fully informed. I purposefully did not use the standard template in this, to make it personalized. My rollback rights don't even come into effect here, I didnt use them at all in this. I admitted I was wrong. Sorry. gwickwire | Leave a message 02:56, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Star Trek[edit]

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I recently was sent a message by you regarding my correction to Star Trek: The Next Generation, changing the episode listing from 176 to 178 episodes. In fact this is my second time doing so, and the previous time I did cite my source. I will cite it again here for you: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation

As this webpage--and many others who document the episodes of this show--will attest, TNG consisted of 176 episodes in its 7-year run. Two of the episodes were feature-length and in reruns have sometimes been split into separate episodes but that does not change the episode total. I hope this clears up any confusion that may have been caused. Please feel free to message me if you have any questions or comments for me.

Jason — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jasonite75 (talk • contribs) 02:23, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. This is a classic example of why it's a good idea to always include an Edit Summary when you change something. You would probably be surprised by the number of vandals that edit an article, change something like "26" to "29", save it, and run off to make other messes. If you have a fact to present, cite it (in the article, not here). If you do that, you won't have any trouble from me--or the majority of recent-change patrollers in the community.

Please be careful with your sources, though—MemoryAlpha, while a great site, is a wiki; wikis (and other user-contributed sites) are not usually considered to be reliable sources (see WP:RS). — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 02:39, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Werewolf-response[edit]

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The Loup-garou addition was due to the fact that the loup-garou name (different from the other pages named that) redirects to Werewolf where it was mentioned that loup-garou is a French Werewolf. The redirect heads-up had to be mentioned somewhere. Rtkat3 (talk) 6:45, October 21 2012 (UTC)

(This reply moved to your Talk page, where it should have been placed, and I've responded there. Can't you read the notice on this page?) — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 23:03, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

RFC Feedback[edit]

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Looking for more feedback from uninvolved parties for an RFC I posted at the page ALCAT test. The discussion is here: Talk:ALCAT test#RFC:Neutrality and reliable sources. Many thanks. Plot Spoiler (talk) 03:35, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Conquest of Lombardy[edit]

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(Heading added during Talk page cleanup because the original author didn't do so, which makes their comments much harder to notice.)

Hello The amendment I made was to simply correct an error i.e. The Conquest of Lombardy (the current sub-heading) is not/was not the same as the Conquest of the Lombard kingdom. The Lombard kingdom in 774 extended to a number of other regions (Tusica, Piemonte etc etc.) Sources are not necessary simply because this is evident from any casual glance at a map! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.185.83.84 (talk) 19:37, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Simple Mail Tranport Protocol page edits[edit]

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Hi ---

I noticed that you removed the link to CheckTLS. I'd like a chance to convince you it should stay.

The site does tens of thousands of free tests a month. There is no limit to how many free tests one person can do. We receive a lot of positive feedback, and we've never received a negative feedback. Our privacy policy is very strict and very good.

Yes, the site has advertising -- it's unobtrusive. Yes, the site promotes fee services. We both know there is no such thing as a free lunch -- we pay hosting fees for the two sites that host CheckTLS and make the free tests available.

I proposed the addition of the site three years ago for discussion. At that time I received a little feedback that it was OK; I guess most people who watched the page didn't care one way or another. I received no negative feedback there either. CheckTLS has been on the SMTP page for three years without a complaint.

Bottom line, the site is free, many people find it very useful, and no one has ever complained about anything about the site. I can't see how there is a better site the SMTP page could point to to help people test and understand the protocol.

--- Steve (sshoe at checktls.com) Sshoe (talk) 13:22, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

ps: I hope I can figure out how to see your answer.

Steve, the site to which you linked may do free tests, and it may do a zillion of them. The problem is that it really doesn't matter, as CheckTLS.com appears to meet all the criteria of a commercial web site. In fact, on the linked page, there are many solicitations for services from your company. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a search engine, nor is it a place to promote goods and services. There are some good essays that cover the subject far better than can I. Take a look at WP:EL (especially the sections at WP:ELNO and WP:ADV). Also, because of your apparent association with the linked site, the guidelines in WP:COI seem applicable. Finally, I recommend you look at WP:ADVERT, which pretty much sums up Wikipedia's stance on the subject. Afterwards, if you have any questions, please let me know—I'll be happy to answer them.

Thanks! — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 09:43, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi there UncleBubba[edit]

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This is going to sound awfully random... but, if you would like your topicons on your userpage aligned a bit better, as opposed to on top of one another, I tweaked them and saved them to my userpage fixing subpage, User:Dainomite/userpage fixing1. If you do like it you can just edit the page and copy the entire bit and paste it into your userpage. Feel free to cut and paste and save my subpage "blank" if you will. If you want to make sure I only changed the topicons you can hit "show changes" to verify I didn't touch anything else. Anywho, I hope you don't mind and find this helpful. Cheers, — -dainomite 08:01, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't mind a bit, but I don't have time to chase it right this second. I'll take a look at it as soon as I can, though. Thanks! — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 20:44, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Scratch that. I was premature in saying it. I do have time, so I just replaced the page with the version you edited. Nice job! You did exactly what you said you did, and the new version looks better. Thanks again! I'll clear your edit-sandbox page as requested. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 20:54, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Not a problem good sir, if you need/want anything else tweaked just give me a shout.

— -dainomite 21:17, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Your access to AWB may be temporarily removed[edit]

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Hello UncleBubba! This message is to inform you that due to editing inactivity, your access to AutoWikiBrowser may be temporarily removed. If you do not resume editing within the next week, your username will be removed from the CheckPage. This is purely for routine maintenance and is not indicative of wrongdoing on your part. You may regain access at any time by simply requesting it at WP:PERM/AWB. Thank you! — MusikBot II ^talk 20:22, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Ronald McDonald[edit]

I just took the issue to the talk page, I apologize for the whole editing back and fourth issue I've been doing to it. I wasn't trying to cause harm, I was only trying to fix it back to normal. Because I'm the one that originally added in 1975 by mistake in the past edits. 2600:1000:B039:E407:D14A:4E62:E42D:9EB9 (talk) 20:27, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

I just restored the text you deleted off my Talk page. Don't do that! You should never remove text from someone else's Talk page without their knowledge. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 01:07, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Apology[edit]

Hey Bubba, I owe you an apology. I'm really sorry about my edits in the Ronald McDonald article, I know it's against the Wiki policey to edit war against users and I know I shouldn't have done that in the first place. I'm just letting you know I'm sorry and I will not do it again. I really hope you forgive me. 2600:1000:B07C:3A4F:E564:7D48:54B:FD08 (talk) 15:42, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

It's not a problem. Really. The subject is pretty confusing, and complicated by the fact that McDonalds Corp apparently isn't very open to discussing the actors they've employed to play the part. Thanks for reaching out! — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 16:29, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Ted Kaczynski[edit]

I have raised a dispute on the talk page as you suggested. I also asked the last person who added the disputed link to comment. 73.71.251.64 (talk) 17:36, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Naya Rivera[edit]

Hi. You mentioned not changing an article unless discussing it. Last I checked, anyone can edit a wiki page. And yes, it does matter. No one can actually prove she died on July 8th. Anything before her body was found is merely presumed. Even the coroners are speculating that she died within minutes. Her death certificate lists the date of death as July 13th.

@Parksandrecfan2013: You obviously didn't read the edit notice above (or don't care enough to follow its simple instructions)—you should have replied on your own Talk page. Nevertheless, I strongly suggest you spend a little time familiarizing yourself with the way the encyclopedia works. There are plenty of reference articles you can read to get you started on a path to constructively contribute to Wikipedia. However, winning arguments isn't one of them. Consider this: the article you're edit-warring on is protected against spurious changes, and the edits you keep re-adding are not visible to the general population of Wikipedia users until someone with a little seniority accepts them. Sorry. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 03:44, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

@UncleBubba: chill. I sent this before I saw yours. I thought I deleted it. You win, though. I refuse to be belittled by someone who’s hobby is “patrolling recent changes to high-volume Wikipedia pages.” I have a life. Have me banned if you want, I don’t care.

Template:Marriage[edit]

I have a question about your comment regarding an edit in Dallas McKennon. You wrote, "As marriage ended by death of McKennon, not by death of his spouse, the year 2009 is omitted here. See instructions on Template:Marriage for more info." I am missing something as I read the documentation for that template. Under "Description" for "<end date>", I see "Year or full date when the marriage ended..." with no mention of an exception for the death of the article's subject.

Where is the statement about omitting the end year? Eddie Blick (talk) 00:45, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi! All I did on that page was revert a Pending Changes edit that removed the comment about the date of the end of his marriage. The IP editor had removed the comment without any explanation of why, and that's not really good cooperative behavior. I was not the original author of that comment, so I don't have any more information to give you. Sorry... — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 02:55, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

My apologies! I misinterpreted what I saw in the differences. I have seen similar changes made on other biographies but have yet to find documentation to support them. Eddie Blick (talk) 01:22, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

FYI[edit]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Art_of_Odessa ThatMontrealIP (talk) 16:54, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

That was a great catch! I am glad you made the connection, they have both been blocked as socks.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 18:09, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

@ThatMontrealIP: I'm glad I noticed it, too; I almost missed it. I'm far more grateful, though, that you took the time to ferret out his misbehavior on Commons and document it. Thanks! I've been hanging around Wikipedia for a while (with some long activity gaps for real-life stuff), and one thing I really feel passionate about is keeping various miscreants from hijacking the free encyclopedia for personal gain. It's nice to see other people feel strongly about it, too. I'm glad I had a chance to work with you (albeit indirectly), because I learned something new (that "interaction timeline" tool). Maybe we'll run into each other again sometime. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 20:11, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Calvin and Hobbes[edit]

I think you may have misread the section you removed here. It did not say that Watterson "portrayed himself", as you state in your edit summary, but that "Watterson himself portrayed a grown-up Calvin...", which in this context (i.e. the adult Calvin) means that Watterson drew ("portrayed") Calvin as an adult during a few strips. This is true, although I agree that it is poorly written and needs a source (at the least the strip dates). Vyselink (talk) 21:17, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

@Vyselink: Ha! You're absolutely right (about both the meaning and the shoddy composition). Re-reading it, the sentence's murky meaning is fairly clear: "portrayed" tends to connote acting. Thanks for letting me know! — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 09:20, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Law Degree[edit]

"Assertion, in a BLP page, of type of law degree unsupported by the cited ref. (Was it really a J.D., or did he earn an LL.D., a D.L., or an S.J.D.?)"

No United States university, college, or law school awards the LL.D. or D.L. as an earned degree.

As the Wikipedia Juris Doctor article states, beginning with 1971, every United States law school has awarded the Juris Doctor (J.D.) as the first degree in law. As the article also states, the University of Chicago Law School is an exception: It has always awarded the Juris Doctor (J.D.) as its first degree in law.

And so, anyone whose first earned degree from a United States law school was awarded in 1971 or later (or from the University of Chicago Law School) has earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.)2601:205:3:DEE2:F4CF:6882:4884:29B2 (talk) 22:19, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think you understood what I wrote and, since you don't have an account (other than various IPv6 addresses or 73.192.242.220) it's really hard to talk to you. Why don't you create an account? The point is not that the sky is blue. Wikipedia doesn't contain original research, so we may include the statement "the sky is blue" only when we can cite a reliable source (preferably a secondary one) that says so. That's the way it works.

The other issue is understandability. I can report that "so-and-so ingested acetylsalicylic acid to relieve acute cranial neuralgia", or I can say that "so-and-so took some aspirin for a headache". Unless the increased level of accuracy imbued in the technical text is necessary for the article, you should use common terms. If you really want to include "J.D." in every article that mentions a "law degree", you must A) cite a reliable source that says the article's subject received a J.D., and B) explain what "J.D." means (parenthetically if necessary). Anything less than that works contrary to the purpose of the encyclopedia, and isn't allowed. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 05:13, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

You are raising two different issues. I am only addressing one of them at present: If a biography already cites a source which makes clear that an American graduated from an American law school during or after 1971 (or from the University of Chicago Law School at any time), then the subject must have been awarded a Juris Doctor/J.D. and there is no need for any additional source beyond the Juris Doctor Wikipedia article itself. Furthermore, many of the accompanying short descriptions on the right side of the page themselves reference the J.D., establishing that that is the degree that was received2601:205:3:DEE2:403B:D1A3:5632:1770 (talk) 06:45, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Of course I'm discussing two issues; your changes raised them, and they are inextricably linked:

You are asserting that the people who are subjects of the articles received JDs when the cited sources say "law degree". Your reasoning seems to be valid (I've not researched it, but I have no reason to believe you're not telling the truth), but it constitutes ORIGINAL RESEARCH, and that's not allowed here. Do note that, in the few places where the cited source says "JD" (e.g. Fritz Knaak), I left your edit intact (although I may have parenthetically explained "JD", per below).
You seem to be running through articles en masse, changing a commonly understood term ("law degree") to a less common one, and you're doing it seemingly without regard to the majority of Wikipedia readers, who may not know what a J.D. is. Granted, they can click on the link when they hit an arcane term in an article, but that's disruptive to the reading process, and inconsiderate to the readers of biography pages who may not, themselves, be academics. We should not make readers do that without a really good reason.

You bring up some excellent points about the degrees. I, too, want the encyclopedia to be as accurate as possible, but there are rules for including information here, and they have been developed over time to encourage accuracy and deter abuse. They are especially important in biographies of living persons (BLP) articles, and are enforced much more rigidly there because Wikipedia is considered a trusted source by search engines, with material added here being quickly slurped up by Google, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc. and shown to the world.

I don't want to fight with you, but I am going to do my best to convince you not to sacrifice clarity on the altar of accuracy.

By the way, are you trying to increase your anonymity by editing my Talk page using an IPv6 address (and editing the articles using an IPv4 address)? If so, I recommend you get an account here. When you edit WP without logging on, your IP address(es) is(are) recorded and visible to everyone to see; if you sign on using an account, all that info is hidden. It's your choice, but I recommend you consider it. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 16:38, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful and comprehensive responses.

You are asserting that the ... subjects of the articles received JDs when the cited sources say "law degree". Your reasoning seems to be valid ..., but it constitutes ORIGINAL RESEARCH, and that's not allowed here.

It is not original research. It is akin to encountering a biography which states that its subject was born in the City of New York and changing it to state that its subject was born in New York, New York. (All those born in the City of New York were also born in the State of New York.) This constitutes applying an inevitable conclusion, not engaging in original research.

You seem to be ... changing a commonly understood term ("law degree") to a less common one, and you're doing it seemingly without regard to the majority of Wikipedia readers, who may not know what a J.D. is. Granted, they can click on the link when they hit an arcane term in an article, but that's disruptive to the reading process, and inconsiderate to the readers of biography pages who may not, themselves, be academics.

But the vast majority of Wikipedia articles already use the term Juris Doctor or J.D. for those who graduated from law school during or after 1971. For these individuals, Juris Doctor or J.D. is by far the more commonly used term. The horse has already left the barn.

By the way, are you trying to increase your anonymity by editing my Talk page using an IPv6 address (and editing the articles using an IPv4 address)?

No, I am unaware of that distinction. 2601:205:3:DEE2:6051:47E6:9B06:C824 (talk) 18:37, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Original research is drawing a conclusion from a source and writing about it here. Please read this article: WP:OR. You should also understand that Wikipedia does not allow contributions made from synthesis, or the combination of material from multiple places (see WP:SYNTH). You seem to think it's OK to run through WP articles and change every occurrence of "law degree" (or "JD") to "J.D.". In some cases (i.e. where supported by the cited source), that's fine, but, as I've told you before, where the source material says "law degree", you must leave it alone.

Thinking "the source says law degree, but all Law Degrees issued in the US during that time are really J.D. degrees, so I'll change it" is original research because you're inferring something from the source that is not written there. Do not do this.

Secondly, if you went out on the street and asked passersby "What is a law degree?" and "What is a J.D.?", you would find more people are familiar with the former term than with the latter. WP is meant to be understandable by average readers, and there is a real art to explaining complex topics in simple terms. You are not improving the encyclopedia by inserting a less-common term in place of one that is more widely understood; absolute accuracy and arcane precision are not always the best choices. Should I tell you "I have circumscribed dermal edema consistent with urticaria", or should I say "I have an itchy rash"? The former is far more accurate, but many more people will understand the latter statement. The same rationale applies to abbreviations. I would never tell someone I'd just met "I hold an ASEL/AMEL/IA, and LTA/B-AH certificate." Rather, I'll just say "I'm a pilot". If they wanted more detail, I might say "I'm a private pilot with an instrument rating, and fly hot-air balloons." I would never hit anyone (other than another pilot or an FAA guy) with the alphabet soup, because they probably wouldn't understand (and they'd probably think I was an arrogant ass for talking that way).

That said, you should not run a massive search/replace in these articles. If you want to say J.D., fine. Find a reliable source and cite it. (NOTE: Wikipedia articles are not considered reliable sources for other Wikipedia articles.) THEN, make sure the resulting sentence is as clear to the majority of readers as was the former one. If the article said "Joe Blow received a law degree from Catatonic State University", your new sentence should probably read "Joe Blow received a [[Juris Doctor|J.D.]] (law) degree from Catatonic State University". — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 15:45, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

"L.I"[edit]

The cited ref isn't retrievable, but the text was pretty specific, so we need to assume it was quoted accurately ("LI.B./J.D." and "LI.M."). If you want to make this change, you need to cite a reliable source and explain it.

There are no such degrees as the LI.B. or LI.M. They do not exist. They cannot be found anywere else on Wikipedia. Because the J.D. replaced the LL.B., "we need to assume" that LI.B. reprsents confusion between a capital i (I) and a small l, and a capital l (l). Similar logic applies to the LL.M., which is the degree that follows the LL.B./J.D.2601:205:3:DEE2:BC1C:15F:C86B:19A8 (talk) 02:03, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

His CV proves what I have been saying. It is LL.B. and LL.M: https://specialedu.ku.edu/sites/specialedu.ku.edu/files/docs/people/vita/R_Turnbull-02-22-17.pdf 73.192.242.220 (talk) 06:04, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

(The following is almost exactly what I posted on the Talk:H._Rutherford_Turnbull page. It's really a waste of time to say the same thing in multiple places, and it scatters the discussion. Please don't do that.)

Great! That's good information! Now, here's what you need to do: correct the uppercase/lowercase error in the article (i.e. change "LI.B" and "LI.M" to "LL.B" and "LL.M", respectively), and at the same time cite this information (the CV, along with the page number) as the authoritative source for your edit, PROOFREAD IT, and post it to the article. If you want to be considerate of other Wikipedia editors, you should also state, clearly and concisely in your Edit Summary, what you've done, and why. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 14:30, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Please do not "fix" redirects[edit]

Please do not "fix" redirects as you did here. Please read WP:NOTBROKEN. I would add that the IP in question is a long-term abuse editor, whio has been blocked many times under many IP addresses. DuncanHill (talk) 16:21, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

@DuncanHill: Point taken. Thanks for letting me know. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 16:39, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-37[edit]

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

Normally pages can be moved to a title that has no existing page yet or to a page that has only one revision, which is a redirect to the page to be moved. A new user right allows editors to move pages over one-revision pages that redirect to anywhere. [1]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 September. It will be on all wikis from 10 September (calendar).
All MediaWiki API modules will now use watchlist instead of watch. This was inconsistent before. [2]

Future changes

The Wikipedia Android app team might work on patrolling tools in the future. You can let them know what tools would be useful for you or for less experienced patrollers. See the page on mediawiki.org.
OTRS will be updated to a new version. This will probably take around two days. OTRS agents will not have access to the system during these days. Emails that come in during the update will be delivered when the update is done. The plan is to start around 08:00 UTC on 14 September. This could change. [3]
The Wikipedia Android app will send push notifications if users want them. This could help you see for example when someone wrote on your talk page or your edit was reverted. This will need Google Play Services to work. It will also be possible to get the app without Google Play Services but push notifications will not work. Google Play Services is also used to make the app work for Android 4.4 users. [4][5]
Wikimedia code review could move to GitLab. It would be hosted on Wikimedia servers. You can take part in the consultation.
Dropdown menus in the Vector skin use a .menu class. This will not work in the future. Scripts can use nav ul instead. .vectorTabs and .vectorMenu will also not work. Some scripts need to be updated. You can read more in Phabricator.

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

15:59, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Internetting[edit]

Hey, you're probably right. In my mind I wasn't being uncivil when I challenged people on their arguments, and I don't think I've used uncivil language. However, an RfC is probably not the place for the actual debate, and my responses are probably disruptive and clutter up the chat. Based on that, I'd outright remove my response to Wwwhatsup, but things would look even weirder with your response to my response still hanging there. I'll keep quiet in the RfC from now on.

Regarding my suggestion for you read the guidelines again - forgive me, but I feel the need to just clarify this point, as you seem to have been a bit put out by it. I didn't mean it like "you need to get your head checked out, you're talking nuts", if that's how it came across. I meant it literally, in that your statement suggested you'd maybe misread the guideline. Specifically, there is no requirement for "a majority" of reliable sources in the guideline, and no one has suggested that. That's what I was trying to straighten out. But perhaps I've misunderstood something myself. Popcornfud (talk) 23:31, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I have continued editing[edit]

If you have problems with my editing kindly report it to the admins, but do not undo the good faith edits that I made, starting today. I won't take a 1-week break as per your advise. Thank you! Angus¹⁹⁸⁶ TALK 09:34, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

I never advised you to "take a 1-week break" (and the noun, "advice", is spelled with a "c", by the way). I will treat any edits you make exactly as I would any others. If they are beneficial, I won't touch them. If you edit carelessly, I'll remove or correct the problems I see. Edit competently (see WP:CIR) and you won't hear a word from me, except for an occasional "thank you". — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 14:52, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

I looked it up on Google and Merriam-Webster and "advise" appears to be the British spelling.(I was curious if you had said anything about me on your talk page and found you didn't, but...) 99.137.85.166 (talk) 21:22, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@WinnerWolf99: Actually, that's incorrect. Please see [6], which defines the "-ise" spelling as a verb and the "-ice" spelling as a noun (on both sides of the pond). It even includes the admonishment: Note: Do not confuse with the noun, advice.

While we're at it, please DO NOT EVER edit historical information on other users' Talk pages, especially without their permission/knowledge. It's great that you created an account, but the message posted above came from an IP address. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 21:35, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Oh lol

Ok, I will let them know before doing so — WinnerWolf99 ^talk_{What did I break now?} 21:37, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-38[edit]

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

The Wikipedia apps briefly showed pages without CSS last week. This meant they looked wrong. It was quickly fixed but cached pages without CSS were shown for a few hours. [7][8]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 September. It will be on all wikis from 17 September (calendar).

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

16:18, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rocketry on a "Maths, science, and technology" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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A barnstar for you![edit]

	The No Spam Barnstar
	For fighting spam on User Datagram Protocol ^_^ AngusMEOW (chatter • paw trail) 16:34, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Guild of Copy Editors September 2020 Newsletter[edit]

Guild of Copy Editors September 2020 Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the September GOCE newsletter, a brief update of Guild activities since June 2020.

Current and upcoming events

September Drive: Our current backlog-elimination drive is open until 23:59 on 30 September (UTC) and is open to all copy editors. Sign up today!

Election reminder: our end-of-year Election of Coordinators opens for nominations on 1 December. Coordinators normally serve a six-month term and are elected on an approval basis. Self-nominations are welcome. If you've thought of helping out at the Guild, or know of another editor who would make a good coordinator, please consider standing for election or nominating them here.

Drive and Blitz reports

June Blitz: An uncorrected typo (even copy editors make copy editing mistakes!) led to an eight-day "leap blitz" from 14 to 21 June, focusing on requests and articles tagged in May. 19 participating editors claimed 54 copy edits. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

July Drive: Over 750,000 words of articles were copy edited for this event, keeping pace with the previous three self-isolated drives. Of the 38 people who signed up, 30 copyedited at least one article. Final results and awards are listed here.

August Blitz: From 16 to 22 August, we copy edited articles tagged in June and July 2020 and requests. 12 participating editors completed 37 copy edits on the blitz. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Other news

June election: Jonesey95 was chosen to continue as lead coordinator, assisted by Baffle gab1978, Tdslk, Twofingered Typist, and first-time coordinator Puddleglum2.0. Reidgreg took a break after serving for a couple years. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Progress report: As of 01:33, 18 September 2020 (UTC), GOCE copyeditors had processed 532 requests since 1 January and there were 38 requests awaiting completion on the Requests page. The backlog of articles tagged for copy-editing stood at 433 (see monthly progress graph above).

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978, Puddleglum2.0, Tdslk and Twofingered Typist.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:03, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-39[edit]

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

There is a new tag for reverted edits. For example you can see it in the recent changes feed or in the article history. It is added to edits when they have been undone, rollbacked or manually reverted to an older version of the page. [9][10]

Changes later this week

The number of times you can do something in a period of time on wiki is limited. This could be the number of edits per minute or the number of users you email in a day. Some users are not affected by all limits because of their user rights. They could soon see the limit even if it does not affect them. [11]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 September. It will be on all wikis from 24 September (calendar).

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

21:26, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Kamala Harris on a "Politics, government, and law" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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New talk page template for misuse of grammar tools?[edit]

Hi, I'm still seeing issues with the use of tools like Grammarly, so I've left a note at Wikipedia talk:Template index/User talk namespace asking if there could be a new single-level or multi-level talk page notice to address this. Cheers, Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 14:22, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

@Esowteric: I like it!! And, yeah, I'm still seeing Grammarly-looking edits, too, so I'd definitely use it, if one were available. Thanks! — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 20:01, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't think they're going to go for this one. Perhaps an essay with a convenient "WP:xxx" shortcut might be another way forward? Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 08:26, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment[edit]

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Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Antifa (United States) on a "Politics, government, and law" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Tech News: 2020-40[edit]

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 can now see links to diffs of deleted revisions on Special:AbuseLog. This uses the interface of Special:Undelete. [12]
Editors are automatically added to some user groups. For example editors are added to autoconfirmed users when they have edited enough times and long enough. Abuse filters can hinder users from automatically getting user rights for a period of time. They can also remove rights user have. Wikis can now ask to change how long this period of time is for their wiki in Phabricator. It is currently five days. [13]

Problems

Last year some abuse filters stopped working because of a new change. If they tried to use variables that were unavailable for that action they would fail. This has now been fixed. [14]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 September. It will be on all wikis from 1 October (calendar).

Future changes

You can't see the language links to other language versions from the talk page or history page. They are also not shown when you edit an article. This could change. It is not decided if for example the history page should link to another history page or to the article. You can take part in the discussion in Phabricator.
The link colours could change. This is to make the difference between links and other text more clear. You can read more in Phabricator.
In your preferences you can choose to get different notifications on the web or by email. You will see Apps as one of the alternatives later this week. This is because the Android and iOS Wikipedia apps will use push notifications for those who want them. You can see the preferences on the test wiki. The goal is to have push notifications on Android in October and on iOS in early 2021. [15]
You can soon put pages on your watchlist for a limited time. This could be useful if you want to watch something for a shorter time but don't want it on your watchlist forever. It now works on mediawiki.org and will come to more wikis later. You can read more and see when it will come to other wikis.
You can see what Wikimedians think are the best new technical tools this year. You can also nominate them.

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

21:23, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2020).

Administrator changes

Ajpolino • LuK3

Jackmcbarn

Ad Orientem • Harej • Lid • Lomn • Mentoz86 • Oliver Pereira • XJaM

There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely 1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created.

Technical news

The filter log now provides links to view diffs of deleted revisions (phab:T261630).

Arbitration

The 2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place from September 27th to October 7th.
Following a request for comment, sitting Committee members may not serve on either the Ombuds Commission or the WMF Case Review Committee. The Arbitration Committee passed a motion implementing those results into their procedures.

Miscellaneous

The Universal Code of Conduct draft is open for community review and comment until October 6th, 2020.
Office actions may now be appealed to the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:44, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

"vandalism"[edit]

"need confirmation", provide confirmation from other sources (assuming original text isn't enough), "KNOCK IT OFF"

👍 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.70.173.20 (talk) 20:09, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-41[edit]

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

There is a new tool where you can see which home wiki users have in discussions on Meta. This can help show which communities are not part of the discussion on wikis where we make decisions that affect many other wikis.
You can now thank users for file uploads or for changing the language of a page. [16]

Problems

There were many errors with the new MediaWiki version last week. The new version was rolled back. Updates that should have happened last week are late. [17]
Everyone was logged out. This was because a user reported being logged in to someone else's account. The problem should be fixed now. [18]
Many pages have JavaScript errors. You can read more and now see a list of user scripts with errors.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 October. It will be on all wikis from 8 October (calendar).
Letters immediately after a link are shown as part of the link. For example the entire word in [[Child]]ren is linked. On Arabic wikis this works at both the start and end of a word. Previously on Arabic wikis numbers and other non-letter Unicode characters were shown as part of the link at the start of a word but not at the end. Now only Latin and Arabic letters will extend links on Arabic wikis. [19]

Future changes

You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [20]

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

16:24, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Feedback request: Wikipedia style and naming request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Talk:List of vegetarians on a "Wikipedia style and naming" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Tech News: 2020-42[edit]

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

Because of the problems with the MediaWiki version two weeks ago last week's updates are also late. [21][22][23]

Changes later this week

Live previews didn't show the templates used in the preview if you just edited a section. This has now been fixed. You can also test CSS and JavaScript pages even if you have the live preview enabled. Previously this didn't work well. [24][25]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 October. It will be on all wikis from 15 October (calendar).

Future changes

A new stable version of Pywikibot is coming soon. [26]

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

15:23, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia talk:Merging on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment[edit]

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Tech News: 2020-43[edit]

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 20 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 October. It will be on all wikis from 22 October (calendar).

Future changes

You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [27]
In the AbuseFilter extension, the rmspecials() function will be updated soon 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. [28]
Some gadgets and user-scripts use the HTML div with the ID #jump-to-nav. This div will be removed soon. Maintainers should replace these uses with either #siteSub or #mw-content-text. A list of affected scripts is at the top of phab:T265373.

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16:30, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia technical issues and templates request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Template talk:Expert needed on a "Wikipedia technical issues and templates" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Tech News: 2020-44[edit]

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

You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on October 27 around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [29]
Last week, links to "diffs" from mobile watchlists and recentchanges were linking to page-revisions instead of diffs. This has now been fixed. [30]

Changes later this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

Since the introduction of the interface administrators user group in 2018, administrators couldn’t view the deleted history of CSS/JS pages. Now they can. [31]
There was a problem with the Change Tags. The software would apply the "Reverted" tag to any page actions such as page-protection changes if they came directly after a reverted edit. This has now been fixed for new edits. [32]
The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias in November. Another announcement will be made once the date is finalized. [33]

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

17:37, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia proposals request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Women on the Verge on a "Wikipedia proposals" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Feedback request: Wikipedia style and naming request for comment[edit]

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Feedback request: Wikipedia proposals request for comment[edit]

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Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment[edit]

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Administrators' newsletter – November 2020[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2020).

Administrator changes

John M Wolfson

Bduke • Nilfanion • Philosopher • Rspeer • Yunshui

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

TonyBallioni

CheckUser changes

EdJohnston • Oshwah • Yamla

Yunshui

Oversight changes

Anarchyte

Yunshui

Guideline and policy news

Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection any article on a beauty pageant, or biography of a person known as a beauty pageant contestant, which has been edited by a sockpuppet account or logged-out sockpuppet, to be logged at WP:GS/PAGEANT.

Technical news

Sysops will once again be able to view the deleted history of JS/CSS pages; this was restricted to interface administrators when that group was introduced.
Twinkle's block module now includes the ability to note the specific case when applying a discretionary sanctions block and/or template.
Sysops will be able to use Special:CreateLocalAccount to create a local account for a global user that is prevented from auto-creation locally (such as by a filter or range block). Administrators that are not sure if such a creation is appropriate should contact a checkuser.

Arbitration

The 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections process has begun. Eligible editors will be able to nominate themselves as candidates from November 8 through November 17. The voting period will run from November 23 through December 6.
The Anti-harassment RfC has concluded with a summary of the feedback provided.

Miscellaneous

A reminder that standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people. (American Politics 2 Arbitration case).

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:53, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-45[edit]

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 no longer read Wikimedia wikis if your browser uses very old TLS. This is because it is a security problem for everyone. It could lead to downgrade attacks. Since October 29, 2020, users who use old TLS versions will not be able to connect to Wikimedia projects. A list of browser recommendations is available. All modern operating systems and browsers are always able to reach Wikimedia projects. [34]
There is a new automatic tracking category available: Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments. It collects pages which use the {{formatnum}} parser function with invalid (non-numeric) input, e.g. {{formatnum:TECHNEWS}}. Note that {{formatnum:123,456}} is also invalid input: as described in the documentation, the argument should be unformatted so that it can be reliably and correctly localised. The tracking category will help identify problematic usage and double-formatting. The new tracking category's name can be translated at translatewiki. [35]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 4. It will be on all wikis from November 5 (calendar).
Administrators and stewards will be able to use a special page (Special:CreateLocalAccount) to force local account creation for a global account. This is useful when account creation is blocked for that user (by a block or a filter). [36]
The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias on November 4. This change excludes the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias, plus a few smaller Wikipedias with special circumstances. You can read the help page and the troubleshooting guide for more information. [37]

Future changes

A discussion has been restarted about using a Unicode minus sign (− U+2212) in the output of {{formatnum}} when it is given a negative argument. [38]
In the future IP addresses of unregistered users will not be shown for everyone. They will get an alias instead. There will be a new user right or an opt-in function for more vandal fighters to see the IPs of unregistered users. There would be some criteria for who gets the user right or opt-in. There will also be other new tools to help handle vandalism. This is early in the process and the developers are still collecting information from the communities before they suggest solutions.

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

16:08, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-46[edit]

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

There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

You can see reference previews. This shows a preview of the footnote when you hover over it. This has been a beta feature. It will move out of beta and be enabled by default. There will be an option not to use it. The developers are looking for small or medium-sized wikis to be the first ones. You can let them know if your wiki is interested. [39]
From November 16 the categories will not be sorted in order for a short time. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the internationalisation library. They will use a script to fix the existing categories. This can take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [40][41]

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

15:49, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-47[edit]

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

Listings on category pages are sorted on each wiki for that language using a library. For a brief period on 16 November, changes to categories will not be sorted correctly for most languages. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the library. They will then use a script to fix the existing categories. This will take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [42][43]

Changes later this week

If you merged two pages in a namespace where pages can't redirect this used to break the merge history. This will now be fixed. [44]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 November. It will be on all wikis from 19 November (calendar).

Future changes

The Community Wishlist Survey is now open for proposals. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 16 to 30 November. You can vote on proposals from 8 December to 21 December.

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

15:36, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-48[edit]

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

Timestamps in Special:Log are now links. They go to Special:Log for only that entry. This is how timestamps work on for example the history page. [45]

Changes later this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

The Wikimedia Cloud VPS hosts technical projects for the Wikimedia movement. Developers need to claim projects they use. This is because old and unused projects are removed once a year. Unclaimed projects can be shut down from 1 December. Unclaimed projects can be deleted from 1 January. [46]

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

17:17, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message[edit]

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. 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.

If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:32, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-49[edit]

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 1 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 December. It will be on all wikis from 3 December (calendar).

Future changes

The iOS Wikipedia app will show readers more of the article history. They can see new updates and easier see how the article has changed over time. This is an experiment. It will first be shown only to some iOS app users as a test. [47][48]
The Wiki Replicas can be used for SQL queries. You can use Quarry, PAWS or other ways to do this. To make the Wiki Replicas stable there will be two changes. Cross-database JOINS will no longer work. You can also only query a database if you connect to it directly. This will happen in February 2021. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech. [49]

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

17:43, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2020[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2020).

Administrator changes

Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020

Interface administrator changes

Izno

Guideline and policy news

There is a request for comment in progress to either remove T3 (duplicated and hardcoded instances) as a speedy deletion criterion or eliminate its seven-day waiting period.

Technical news

Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.

Arbitration

Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 7 December 2020 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 18[edit]

News and updates associated with user scripts from the past three months (September, October, and November 2020).

Hello everyone and welcome to the 18th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter:

Scripts Submit your new/improved script here

SD0001's W-Ping is this month's featured script

Sportzpikachu's bookmarks adds a bookmarks section to the navigation toolbar

SD0001's deleted-metadata-link.js adds links to the deletedrevisions API output for deleted pages

SD0001's GAN-helper makes it easier to create a GAN nomination.

1234qwer1234qwer4's XfDstarted scripts add links to today's XfD log pages to the personal toolbar

Awesome Aasim's rcpatrol is a tool that can be used to patrol recent changes, including reverting edits and warning users

A new JavaScript snippet, MediaWiki:AFC-add-project-tags.js, can be used to add WikiProject tags to drafts at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Add WikiProject tags without actually needing to install a user script.

Nardog's PlayAudioNow makes {{audio}} links playable while staying on the page, regardless of the format

GeneralNotability's ip-ext-info.js adds extended info on IPs in a popup with their range, ASN, and ISP

TheTVExpert's submitRMTR adds a button to Special:MovePage to submit a technical request at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests

TheTVExpert's rmCloser helps with closing and relisting requested moves.

Enterprisey's parsoid-round-trip uses Parsoid to convert wikitext to HTML and back, and then shows the result and the difference between the original wikitext and the post-conversion wikitext.

Frietjes's infoboxgap assists in renumbering infobox labels/data/classes, so that a new line can be inserted in the middle of the infobox.

Pending requests

A request for a script to help with maintaining the lists of vital articles
A request for a script to make it easier to archive specific list entries, rather than whole discussion sections
...and many more, all available at Wikipedia:User scripts/Requests

Twinkle has made a number of improvements, including using a change tag to identify actions made with it and automatically filing edit requests for protected XfD nominations.

SD0001's shortdescs-in-category is now compatible with scripts modifying category listings, such as Equazcion's CatListMainTalkLinks

GhostInTheMachine's TalkHelper2 is a newer version of their prior script, TalkHelper

GeneralNotability's spihelper updated to 2.2.10, fixing a number of small bugs, automatically tagging globally locked socks as such in the sockpuppet template, and restoring open cases following an SPI history merge.

Enterprisey's script-installer gadget has been updated with more internationalization of messages, as well as addition of a user preference, window.scriptInstallerInstallTarget to allow controlling where new scripts are to be installed.

Open tasks

Enterprisey is looking for beta testers for their new section-watchlist user script. See the announcement.

Miscellaneous

The second edition of the m:Coolest Tool Award will be taking place in December.
Enterprisey's links-in-logs script has now been implemented as part of MediaWiki core, see gerrit:640761 and phab:T207562.

My apologies for the delayed issue. As always, if anyone else would like to contribute, help is appreciated. Stay safe, --DannyS712 (talk) 18:20, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-50[edit]

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 put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time. Some wikis already had this function. [50][51]

Changes later this week

Information from Wikidata that is used on a wiki page can be shown in recent changes and watchlists on a Wikimedia wiki. To see this you need to turn on showing Wikidata edits in your watchlist in the preferences. Changes to the Wikidata description in the language of a Wikimedia wiki will then be shown in recent changes and watchlists. This will not show edits to languages that are not relevant to your wiki. [52][53]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 December. It will be on all wikis from 10 December (calendar).

Future changes

You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey between 8 December and 21 December. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on.

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

16:14, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

December 2020 Guild of Copy Editors Newsletter[edit]

Guild of Copy Editors December 2020 Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the December GOCE newsletter, a brief update of Guild activities since September 2020.

Current and upcoming events

Election time: our end-of-year Election of Coordinators opened for nominations on 1 December and will close on 15 December at 23:59 (UTC). Voting opens at 00:01 the following day and will continue until 31 December at 23:59, just before Auld Lang Syne. Coordinators normally serve a six-month term and are elected on an approval basis. Self-nominations are welcome. If you've thought of helping out at the Guild, or know of another editor who would make a good coordinator, please consider standing for election or nominating them here.

December Blitz: This will run from 13 to 19 December, and will target all Requests. Sign up now.

Drive and Blitz reports

September Drive: 67 fewer articles had copy-edit templates by this month's close. Of the 27 editors who signed up, 15 copy-edited at least one article, and 124 articles were claimed for the drive.

October Blitz: this ran from 18 to 24 October, and focused on articles tagged for copy-edit in July and August 2020, and all Requests. Of the 13 who signed up, 11 editors copy-edited at least one article. 21 articles were claimed for the blitz.

November Drive: Of the 18 editors who signed up, 15 copy-edited at least one article, and together claimed 134 articles. At the close of the drive, 67 fewer articles were in the backlog and we had dealt with 39 requests.

Other news

Progress report: As of 09:05, 3 December 2020 (UTC), GOCE copyeditors had processed 663 requests (18 from 2019) since 1 January and there were 52 requests awaiting completion on the Requests page. The backlog of articles tagged for copy-editing stood at 494 (see monthly progress graph above).

Annual Report for 2020: this roundup of the year's activity at the Guild is planned for publication in late January or early February.

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Seasonal tidings and cheers from your GOCE coordinators: Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978, Puddleglum2.0, Tdslk and Twofingered Typist.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:47, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-51[edit]

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

There is a Wikipedia app for KaiOS phones. It was released in India in September. It can now be downloaded in other countries too. [54]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 December. It will be on all wikis from 17 December (calendar).

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

21:33, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 19[edit]

News and updates associated with user scripts from the past month (December 2020).

Hello everyone and welcome to the 19th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter:

Scripts Submit your new/improved script here

Enterprisey's script-installer, a gadget that makes it easier to install scripts, is this month's featured script

Enterprisey's copy-section-link adds popups to section headers which has an appropriate wikilink and external link to the section.

DannyS712's FindBlacklistEntry can be used to figure out which line(s) in either the local or global spamblacklist prevent a particular url from being added.

Nardog's CodeEditorAssist allows customizing the code editor, including changing the color theme and enabling live autocompletion.

Cobaltcigs's IllWill allows searches wikidata.org for foreign-language sitelinks, to populate {{ill}} and replace plain red links.

Twinkle has made a number of improvements, most notably full support for expiring watchlist items.

Evad37's Signpost Publishing Script is now at version 2.4.2, with changes including a fix for calculating the size of pages with files.

Evad37's MoveToDraft is now at version 2.5.1, with changes including:

checks for move conflicts and better options if move fails
the addition of {{Drafts moved from mainspace}} after moves
updating the default move log and notification texts to be more in line with WP:DRAFTIFY

Enterprisey's cv-revdel now handles failures more cleanly, including reporting failures caused by the spam blacklist.

Bradv's Notepad.js script has been updated with new styles and a new launch button.

A beta version of XFDcloser is available for testing, and brings a new user interface for dialogs and some preferences for customization.

Open tasks

Voting in the m:Community Wishlist Survey 2021 is ongoing until December 21, 2020. There are 15 proposals in the "bots and gadgets" category that may be of interest.

Pending requests

A script to help list discussions at WP:ANRFC (request)
A script to allow undoing edits despite conflicting intermediary edits (request)
...and many more, all available at Wikipedia:User scripts/Requests

Miscellaneous

The Watchlist Expiry feature worked on by the Community Tech team has been enabled on Wikipedia. For scripts that include watching or unwatching pages, developers may want to update their code to take advantage of the new functionality. See the documentation on mediawiki.org.
As noted in the prior issue, Enterprisey's links-in-logs script has now been implemented as part of MediaWiki core. By my count, this is his third script that was replaced by implementing the code in MediaWiki core or an extension, along with link-section-edits and abusefilter-hide-search. Additionally, his reply-link script is being converted in part to mw:Extension:DiscussionTools. Are there any other scripts that might be worth integrating directly in MediaWiki? Thoughts would be welcome at Wikipedia talk:Scripts++.

As always, if anyone else would like to contribute, help is appreciated. Stay safe, and happy holidays! --DannyS712 (talk) 00:19, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-52[edit]

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 11 January 2021.

Recent changes

The {{citation needed}} template shows when a statement in a Wikipedia article needs a source. If you click on it when you edit with the visual editor there is a popup that explains this. Now it can also show the reason and when it was added. [55]

Changes later this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.

Future changes

You can propose and discuss what technical improvements should be done for geographic information. This could be coordinates, maps or other related things.
Some wikis use LanguageConverter to switch between writing systems or variants of a language. This can only be done for the entire page. There will be a <langconvert> tag that can convert a piece of text on a page. [56]
Oversighters and stewards can hide entries in Special:AbuseLog. They can soon hide multiple entries at once using checkboxes. This works like hiding normal edits. It will happen in early January. [57]

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

20:52, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

/* History */ Corrected the origination of IMAP at Stanford University[edit]

Hello, This is WilliamJYeager. Sorry I didn't understand exactly how to add a little more reality to my changes. Since this happened 35 or so years ago, there are not too many sources. But, RFC1064 for IMAP2 validates part of what I wrote. Strangely, it leaves out the developers. It also does not note that IMAP was supported by an NIH grant as part of the Stanford Knowledge System Labs SUMEX-AIM portion. This portion was for my proposal to develop what became IMAP. Mark was not the unique inventor by a long shot. I don't see where it is documented that he was. He did write the IMAP2 RFC which I edited. The director of SUMEX-AIM at this time was Thomas Rindfleish. Happy, he's still alive an well. Will an email message from him verifying those claims I made be a sufficient addition. If not, I can most likely can create a webpage on the Knowledge Systems Lab website. It will be validated by Tom. It's really sad that such an inaccurate representation of the true history of IMAP is on wikipedia. Oh, I can hopefully find the Stanford Computer Science documentation for V/VGTS. Prof. David Cheriton is still there, and is a close friend. V's quite old and what I seek may be archived. No matter. I'll give it a shot. Thanks so much for cluing me in on how to properly substantiate what I write on a wikipedia webpage. William (Bill) Yeager — Preceding unsigned comment added by Williamjyeager (talk • contribs) 01:07, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

@Williamjyeager: I recommend you proceed very carefully, and only after you have reviewed the applicable policy pages on contributing material about yourself or your accomplishments. In short, you can't just "create a Web page" and cite it, because that's not a reliable source (see WP:RS and WP:COI). Ideally, Wikipedia cites secondary sources published by reliable organizations; blogs, self-published works, etc. are generally unacceptable.

While there is nothing wrong with editing articles you have no interest in or connection to, the smartest way deal with a COI situation (after disclosing it) is to use the {{request edit}} template to ask someone else to make the desired changes to the article.

I'm sorry that these rules have to be enforced, but you would probably not believe the BS that some people want to put into Wikipedia pages. One of my favorite examples is Pedro Paulet, a Peruvian (and, in my opinion, demonstrated fraudster) who claimed to have invented liquid-fueled rockets before Goddard. That article is sort of a pet project of mine, and I regularly have to remove misleading information posted by some apparently well-meaning people who, usually for reasons of national pride, want Paulet's claims to be true. Alas, wishing doesn't make it so.

Also, please read the templated text I posted to your Talk page—it outlines the steps you must take in the event of a conflict of interest. Cheers! — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 03:04, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

internet as an proper adjective[edit]

when "internet" is capitalized, is there some consensus in wikip style world that it then functions as a proper adjective? or maybe it doesn't need to be? (diff) skak E L 17:23, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2020).

Administrator changes

Hammersoft

Andres • Brion VIBBER • Rkitko • Thatcher

CheckUser changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek • Primefac

Oversight changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek

Joe Roe

Guideline and policy news

Speedy deletion criterion T3 (duplication and hardcoded instances) has been repealed following a request for comment.

Technical news

You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time.

Arbitration

By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes). The effectiveness of the discretionary sanctions can be evaluated on the request by any editor after March 1, 2021 (or sooner if for a good reason).
Following the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, BDD, Bradv, CaptainEek, L235, Maxim, Primefac.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:08, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-02[edit]

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 choose to be reminded when you have not added an edit summary. This can be done in your preferences. This could conflict with the CAPTCHA. This has now been fixed. [58]
You can link to specific log entries. You can get these links for example by clicking the timestamps in the log. Until now, such links to private log entries showed no entry even if you had permission to view private log entries. The links now show the entry. [59]
Admins can use the abuse filter tool to automatically prevent bad edits. Three changes happened last week:
- The filter editing interface now shows syntax errors while you type. This is similar to JavaScript pages. It also shows a warning for regular expressions that match the empty string. New warnings will be added later. [60]
- Oversighters can now hide multiple filter log entries at once using checkboxes on Special:AbuseLog. This is how the usual revision deletion works. [61]
- When a filter matches too many actions after it has been changed it is "throttled". The most powerful actions are disabled. This is to avoid many editors getting blocked when an administrator made a mistake. The administrator will now get a notification about this "throttle".
There is a new tool to build new skins. You can also see existing skins. You can give feedback. [62]
Bots using the API no longer watch pages automatically based on account preferences. Setting the watchlist to watch will still work. This is to reduce the size of the watchlist data in the database. [63]
Scribunto's file metadata now includes length. [64]
CSS and JavaScript code pages now have link anchors to line numbers. You can use wikilinks like w:en:MediaWiki:Common.js#L-50. [65]
There was a new version of MediaWiki last week. You can read a detailed log of all 763 changes. Most of them are very small and will not affect you.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 January. It will be on all wikis from 14 January (calendar).

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

15:41, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Feedback requests from the Feedback Request Service[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Talk:New York City Police Department on a "Politics, government, and law" request for comment, and at Talk:Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde, BWV 53 on a "Wikipedia style and naming" request for comment, and at Talk:Brexit Party and Talk:Luke Letlow on "Politics, government, and law" request for comments. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 14:50, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-03[edit]

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 19 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 January. It will be on all wikis from 21 January (calendar).

Future changes

The Growth team plans to add features to get more visitors to edit to more Wikipedias. You can help translating the interface.
You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for a short time on 26 January at 07:00 (UTC). [66]
MassMessage posts could be automatically timestamped in the future. This is because MassMessage senders can now send pages using MassMessage. Pages are more difficult to sign. If there are times when a MassMessage post should not be timestamped you can let the developers know.

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

16:09, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Coronavirus disease 2019 on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 02:32, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Intertranswiki on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 15:30, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: WikiProjects and collaborations request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Discographies on a "WikiProjects and collaborations" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics on a "Politics, government, and law" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Tech News: 2021-04[edit]

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

You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for a short time on 26 January at 07:00 (UTC). You will not be able to read or edit Wikitech for a short time on 28 January at 09:00 (UTC). [67][68]

Changes later this week

Bracket matching will be added to the CodeMirror syntax highlighter on the first wikis. The first wikis are German and Catalan Wikipedia and maybe other Wikimedia wikis. This will happen on 27 January. [69]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 January. It will be on all wikis from 28 January (calendar).

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

18:30, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Reverted changes to ENEA AB page 2021-01-26[edit]

While I left what I thought was an adequate and easily verifiable summary:

"Removed factually incorrect statement that read as if OSE was released in 2009"

Maybe it was not enough for people not acquainted with the product or company.

The restored statement makes it appear that the OSE realtime operating system was released initially in 2009, this is patently false as I have first hand knowledge of its existence since the '90s.

Hence my decision to move reference [3] to its right place, as it only announces the release of OSE for multicore systems and to remove the misleading statement.

Unfortunately, I'm no longer in contact with Bengt Eliasson (I had the honour of sitting beside him at work for some time) so I cannot provide a firm date for the relase of OSE.

I have second-hand knowledge that OSE for 68k systems was already released in 1992, but no linkable source; as evidence that 2009 is far off from the birth of OSE, this comparison between OSE and RUFUS (please go to page 8 for English abstract) dates to 2000.

BTW: The instructions you left in the message (answer in your talk page) contradict the banner (answer on my talk page). I hope I'm not being rude, just following one of the alternatives.

Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Joe Biden on a "Politics, government, and law" 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 03:30, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

hello[edit]

Please don't reply on my Talk page to messages left on your Talk page
The following discussion has been closed by UncleBubba. Please do not modify it.
I am sorry I didnt know about the iloveyou virus thing, I just joined 2 months ago and not used to editing, Ilikememes128 (talk) 22:35, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

hello[edit]

As I asked before, please don't reply on my Talk page to messages left on your Talk page
The following discussion has been closed by UncleBubba. Please do not modify it.
I am sorry I didn't know about the talk page thing --Ilikememes128 (talk) 14:54, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2021).

Administrator changes

Hog Farm

Mattflaschen • Nandesuka • Savidan • Wangi

CheckUser changes

Berean Hunter • Xeno

Oversight changes

Someguy1221 • Xeno

Arbitration

The standard discretionary sanctions authorized for American Politics were amended by motion to cover post-1992 politics of United States and closely related people, replacing the 1932 cutoff.

Miscellaneous

Voting in the 2021 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2021, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2021, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
Wikipedia has now been around for 20 years, and recently saw its billionth edit!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:10, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-05[edit]

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

IPv6 addresses were written in lowercase letters in diffs. This caused dead links since Special:Contributions only accepted uppercase letters for the IPs. This has been fixed. [70]

Changes later this week

You can soon use Wikidata to link to pages on the multilingual Wikisource. [71]
Often editors use a "non-breaking space" to make a gap between two items when reading but still show them together. This can be used to avoid a line break. You will now be able to add new ones via the special character tool in the 2010, 2017, and visual editors. The character will be shown in the visual editor as a space with a grey background. [72][73]
Wikis use abuse filters to stop bad edits being made. Filter maintainers can now use syntax like 1.2.3.4 - 1.2.3.55 as well as the 1.2.3.4/27 syntax for IP ranges. [74]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 February. It will be on all wikis from 4 February (calendar).

Future changes

Minerva is the skin Wikimedia wikis use for mobile traffic. When a page is protected and you can't edit it you can normally read the source wikicode. This doesn't work on Minerva on mobile devices. This is being fixed. Some text might overlap. This is because your community needs to update MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext to work on mobile. You can read more. [75][76]
Cloud VPS and Toolforge will change the IP address they use to contact the wikis. The new IP address will be 185.15.56.1. This will happen on February 8. You can read more.

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

22:38, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 20[edit]

News and updates associated with user scripts from the past month (January 2021).

Hello everyone and welcome to the 20th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter:

Scripts Submit your new/improved script here

Ajbura's anrfc-lister assists with listing discussions at WP:ANRFC to request that they receive a formal close

Bradv's endlesscontribs provides for endless scrolling of contributions pages

Evad37's livenotifications displays notification alerts and messages in a little popup box, (almost) live as they happen

Terasail's Edit Request Tool allows users to reply to, close or remove protected edit requests

ToBeFree's clear-watchlist allows emptying your watchlist even if the watchlist is too full to be edited or cleared by conventional methods

Dentonius's GlobalRecentChanges allows you to monitor recent changes across various wikis.

Yahya's SNA (Start New Article) allows you to start a new article or draft from the navigation bar.

Nardog:

CatChangeLinker bluelinks the "(diff | hist)" part of category additions/removals on your watchlist.
CatChangesViewer lists recent category additions/removals on a category page.
Consecudiff adds links to diffs of consecutive edits by the same user on watchlist, history, etc.
DiffFontSwitcher allows you to toggle between fonts for diff by clicking a line number.
MoveHistory lists the past moves a page has gone through.

Novem Linguae:

UserHighlighterSimple is a fork of Chlod's UserHighlighter with a simplified color scheme.
VisualEditorEverywhere displays the Visual Editor edit tab and section links on pages that don't normally have them.

User:Evad37/TimestampDiffs – fixed compatibility issues with various scripts/gadgets, including Wikipedia:Comments in Local Time. For discussion archives, now looks for revisions on the base page.

User:Enterprisey/undo-last-edit.js - no longer tries to load on special pages.

User:Ahecht/Scripts/pageswap - version 1.4 fixes reading destination from form field if destination is not in article namespace, and fixes self redirects.

Wikipedia:XFDcloser - version 4 brings a new user interface for dialogs, some preferences for customising XFDcloser, major behind-the-scenes coding changes, and resolves various issues raised on the talkpage. Also, since version 3.16.6 non-admin soft delete closure have been allowed at TfD.

Open tasks

As a reminder, the legacy javascript globals (like accessing wgPageName without first assigning it a value or using mw.config.get('wgPageName') instead) are deprecated. If your user scripts make use of the globals, please update them to use mw.config instead. Some global interface editors or local interface administrators may edit your user script to make these changes if you don't. See phab:T72470 for more.

Miscellaneous

For people interested in creating user scripts or gadgets using TypeScript, a types-mediawiki package (GitHub, NPM) is now available that provides type definitions for the MediaWiki JS interface and the API.
A GitHub organization has been created for hosting codebases of gadgets. Users who maintain gadgets using GitHub may choose to move their repos to this organization, to ensure continued maintenance by others even if the original maintainer becomes inactive.

Pending requests

A script to ease reviewing Good Article nominations
A script to help manage Z number templates
...and many more, all available at Wikipedia:User scripts/Requests

As always, if anyone else would like to contribute, including nominating a featured script, help is appreciated. Stay safe, and happy new year! --DannyS712 (talk) 01:17, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 20[edit]

News and updates associated with user scripts from the past month (January 2021).

Hello everyone and welcome to the 20th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter:

Scripts Submit your new/improved script here

Ajbura's anrfc-lister assists with listing discussions at WP:ANRFC to request that they receive a formal close

Bradv's endlesscontribs provides for endless scrolling of contributions pages

Evad37's livenotifications displays notification alerts and messages in a little popup box, (almost) live as they happen

Terasail's Edit Request Tool allows users to reply to, close or remove protected edit requests

ToBeFree's clear-watchlist allows emptying your watchlist even if the watchlist is too full to be edited or cleared by conventional methods

Dentonius's GlobalRecentChanges allows you to monitor recent changes across various wikis.

Yahya's SNA (Start New Article) allows you to start a new article or draft from the navigation bar.

Nardog:

CatChangeLinker bluelinks the "(diff | hist)" part of category additions/removals on your watchlist.
CatChangesViewer lists recent category additions/removals on a category page.
Consecudiff adds links to diffs of consecutive edits by the same user on watchlist, history, etc.
DiffFontSwitcher allows you to toggle between fonts for diff by clicking a line number.
MoveHistory lists the past moves a page has gone through.

Novem Linguae:

UserHighlighterSimple is a fork of Chlod's UserHighlighter with a simplified color scheme.
VisualEditorEverywhere displays the Visual Editor edit tab and section links on pages that don't normally have them.

User:Evad37/TimestampDiffs – fixed compatibility issues with various scripts/gadgets, including Wikipedia:Comments in Local Time. For discussion archives, now looks for revisions on the base page.

User:Enterprisey/undo-last-edit.js - no longer tries to load on special pages.

User:Ahecht/Scripts/pageswap - version 1.4 fixes reading destination from form field if destination is not in article namespace, and fixes self redirects.

Wikipedia:XFDcloser - version 4 brings a new user interface for dialogs, some preferences for customising XFDcloser, major behind-the-scenes coding changes, and resolves various issues raised on the talkpage. Also, since version 3.16.6 non-admin soft delete closure have been allowed at TfD.

Open tasks

As a reminder, the legacy javascript globals (like accessing wgPageName without first assigning it a value or using mw.config.get('wgPageName') instead) are deprecated. If your user scripts make use of the globals, please update them to use mw.config instead. Some global interface editors or local interface administrators may edit your user script to make these changes if you don't. See phab:T72470 for more.

Miscellaneous

For people interested in creating user scripts or gadgets using TypeScript, a types-mediawiki package (GitHub, NPM) is now available that provides type definitions for the MediaWiki JS interface and the API.
A GitHub organization has been created for hosting codebases of gadgets. Users who maintain gadgets using GitHub may choose to move their repos to this organization, to ensure continued maintenance by others even if the original maintainer becomes inactive.

Pending requests

A script to ease reviewing Good Article nominations
A script to help manage Z number templates
...and many more, all available at Wikipedia:User scripts/Requests

As always, if anyone else would like to contribute, including nominating a featured script, help is appreciated. Stay safe, and happy new year! --DannyS712 (talk) 01:17, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard 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 02:31, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia style and naming request for comment[edit]

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Shusha on a "Wikipedia style and naming" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Tech News: 2021-06[edit]

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 Wikipedia app for Android now has watchlists and talk pages in the app. [77]

Changes later this week

You can see edits to chosen pages on Special:Watchlist. You can add pages to your watchlist on every wiki you like. The GlobalWatchlist extension will come to Meta on 11 February. There you can see entries on watched pages on different wikis on the same page. The new watchlist will be found on Special:GlobalWatchlist on Meta. You can choose which wikis to watch and other preferences on Special:GlobalWatchlistSettings on Meta. You can watch up to five wikis. [78]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 February. It will be on all wikis from 11 February (calendar).

Future changes

When admins protect pages the form will use the OOUI look. Special:Import will also get the new look. This will make them easier to use on mobile phones. [79][80]
Some services will not work for a short period of time from 07:00 UTC on 17 February. There might be problems with new short links, new translations, new notifications, adding new items to your reading lists or recording email bounces. This is because of database maintenance. [81]
Last week Tech News reported that the IP address Cloud VPS and Toolforge use to contact the wikis will change on 8 February. This is delayed. It will happen later instead. [82]

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

17:40, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Re: Beetlejuice[edit]

I was the anonymous user who edited the page; what was wrong with them? DrakeyC (talk) 22:24, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

@DrakeyC: I thought I made my reasoning pretty clear in my Edit Summary (which you should include with every edit, BTW). It's been a while, but what comes to mind is a change you made to a sentence in the first Plot paragraph, "At their home the two return but find they have no recollection of what happened after the crash or how they got back home ...", which I noticed because the word "home" appears twice in it. More important, though, the phrase "at their home the two return but find" just doesn't make a lot of sense; the original ("When the two return home they find") was much better.

You're right, though: the copy in that section does need some work—perhaps quite a bit. Thanks for the reminder; I'm going to take a look at it as soon as I get my "real" work finished. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 23:00, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Okay. No complaints on the new revision, just going to make one formatting edit for consistency in referring to the Handbook. DrakeyC (talk) 16:55, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

I did make a couple grammar corrections and wording changes. The biggest major change; mentioning the name of Maxie's wife in the middle of the sentence and specifying how they were dispatched, then saying "and Otho" at the end made it a bit awkward to read, and giving these two details is not really necessary to the overall summary. DrakeyC (talk) 17:00, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi[edit]

Greetings, I have noticed that you have left a message on my talk page yesterday. My response to you is: bite me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NoobServer625 (talk • contribs) 03:17, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-07[edit]

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

There were problems with recent versions of MediaWiki. Because the updates caused problems the developers rolled back to an earlier version. Some updates and new functions will come later than planned. [83][84]
Some services will not work for a short period of time from 07:00 UTC on 17 February. There might be problems with new short links, new translations, new notifications, adding new items to your reading lists or recording email bounces. This is because of database maintenance. [85]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 February. It will be on all wikis from 18 February (calendar).

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

17:55, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-08[edit]

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 visual editor will now use MediaSearch to find images. You can search for images on Commons in the visual editor when you are looking for illustrations. This is to help editors find better images. [86]
The syntax highlighter now works with more languages: Futhark, Graphviz/DOT, CDDL and AMDGPU. [87]

Problems

Editing a timeline might have removed all text from it. This was because of a bug and has been fixed. You might need to edit the timeline again for it to show properly. [88]

Changes later this week

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

Future changes

There is a user group for developers and users interested in working on Wikimedia wikis with the Rust programming language. You can join or tell others who want to make your wiki better in the future.

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

00:16, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-09[edit]

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

Wikis using the Growth team tools can now show the name of a newcomer's mentor anywhere through a magic word. This can be used for welcome messages or userboxes.
A new version of the VideoCutTool is now available. It enables cropping, trimming, audio disabling, and rotating video content. It is being created as part of the developer outreach programs.

Problems

There was a problem with the job queue. This meant some functions did not save changes and mass messages were delayed. This did not affect wiki edits. [89]
Some editors may not be logged in to their accounts automatically in the latest versions of Firefox and Safari. [90]

Changes later this week

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

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

19:07, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2021[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2021).

Administrator changes

TJMSmith

Boing! said Zebedee • Hiberniantears • Lear's Fool • Only • WGFinley

Interface administrator changes

AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

A request for comment is open that proposes a process for the community to revoke administrative permissions. This follows a 2019 RfC in favor of creating one such a policy.
A request for comment is in progress to remove F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a, which covers immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
A request for comment seeks to grant page movers the delete-redirect userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target. The full proposal is at Wikipedia:Page mover/delete-redirect.
A request for comment asks if sysops may place the General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 editnotice template on pages in scope that do not have page-specific sanctions?
There is a discussion in progress concerning automatic protection of each day's featured article with Pending Changes protection.

Technical news

When blocking an IPv6 address with Twinkle, there is now a checkbox with the option to just block the /64 range. When doing so, you can still leave a block template on the initial, single IP address' talkpage.
When protecting a page with Twinkle, you can now add a note if doing so was in response to a request at WP:RfPP, and even link to the specific revision.
There have been a number of reported issues with Pending Changes. Most problems setting protection appear to have been resolved (phab:T273317) but other issues with autoaccepting edits persist (phab:T275322).

Arbitration

By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, any gender-related dispute or controversy and associated people. Sanctions issued under GamerGate are now considered Gender and sexuality sanctions.
The Kurds and Kurdistan case was closed, authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for the topics of Kurds and Kurdistan, broadly construed.

Miscellaneous

Following the 2021 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AmandaNP, Operator873, Stanglavine, Teles, and Wiki13.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:15, 1 March 2021 (UTC)