DreamRimmer

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Tech News: 2024-31

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

Feature news

• Editors using the Visual Editor in languages that use non-Latin characters for numbers, such as Hindi, Manipuri and Eastern Arabic, may notice some changes in the formatting of reference numbers. This is a side effect of preparing a new sub-referencing feature, and will also allow fixing some general numbering issues in Visual Editor. If you notice any related problems on your wiki, please share details at the project talkpage.

Bugs status

• Some logged-in editors were briefly unable to edit or load pages last week. These errors were mainly due to the addition of new linter rules which led to caching problems. Fixes have been applied and investigations are continuing.
• Editors can use the IP Information tool to get information about IP addresses. This tool is available as a Beta Feature in your preferences. The tool was not available for a few days last week, but is now working again. Thank you to Shizhao for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Project updates

• There are new features and improvements to Phabricator from the Release Engineering and Collaboration Services teams, and some volunteers, including: the search systems, the new task creation system, the login systems, the translation setup which has resulted in support for more languages (thanks to Pppery), and fixes for many edge-case errors. You can read details about these and other improvements in this summary.
• There is an update on the Charts project. The team has decided which visualization library to use, which chart types to start focusing on, and where to store chart definitions.
• One new wiki has been created: a Wikivoyage in Czech (voy:cs:) [1]

Learn more

• There is a new Wikimedia Foundation data center in São Paulo, Brazil which helps to reduce load times.
• There is new user research on problems with the process of uploading images.
• Commons Impact Metrics are now available via data dumps and API.
• The latest quarterly Technical Community Newsletter is now available.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:08, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

DCWC August update

The 2024 Developing Countries WikiContest has now been running for a month, and we've already seen some momentous improvement in the quality of many articles about underrepresented subjects! So far, our top-scoring participants are:

• Magentic Manifestations (submissions) – 338 points, mainly from nine good articles. He's a contender for the "most submissions for a single country" specialty award, with nine submissions for India.
• Arconning (submissions) – 305 points, including from six seasonally-appropriate Olympics-related good articles.
• Generalissima (submissions) – 290 points, the bulk from her featured article about Greenlandic interpreter Qalaherriaq and two China-related good articles.
• AirshipJungleman29 (submissions) – 245 points, mostly from the achievement of bringing Genghis Khan to featured status.
• Thebiguglyalien (submissions) – 144 points from three good articles, including two about Kiribati elections, and four reviews of good article nominees.

Looking for ways to climb up the leaderboard yourself? Help out your fellow participants by answering a few review requests, particularly the older entries. Several more nominations needing attention are listed at eligible reviews, and highlighed entries receive a 1.5× multiplier! The coordinators would like to extend a special thanks to Thebiguglyalien (submissions) for his commitment to keeping these review pages up to date.

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the contest talk page or ask one of the coordinators: Ixtal (talk · contribs), sawyer777 (talk · contribs), or TechnoSquirrel69 (talk · contribs). (To unsubscribe from these updates, remove yourself from this list.) Sent via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 14:24, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Collab

Hey, interested in any collab for GA or FA? — The Herald (Benison) (talk) 06:41, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

IAU designated constellations is something I'm working on for FL. Got it PRed. I'm not sure if it's up your alley, but lemme know if you wanna collab with that or any other article. Thanks. — The Herald (Benison) (talk) 06:44, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

@The Herald, I am definitely interested, but I am currently tied up with some real-life stuff. I will be back to regular editing after 25 August. If that timing works for you, I can join then. – DreamRimmer (talk) 10:42, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Yea, sure. I'll be going for a holiday next week and will be back by August 20ish. So it's okay. — The Herald (Benison) (talk) 12:22, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-32

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

Feature news

• Two new parser functions will be available this week: {{#dir}} and {{#bcp47}}. These will reduce the need for Template:Dir and Template:BCP47 on Commons and allow us to drop 100 million rows from the "what links here" database. Editors at any wiki that use these templates, can help by replacing the templates with these new functions. The templates at Commons will be updated during the Hackathon at Wikimania. [2][3]
• Communities can request the activation of the visual editor on entire namespaces where discussions sometimes happen (for instance Wikipedia: or Wikisource: namespaces) if they understand the known limitations. For discussions, users can already use DiscussionTools in these namespaces.
• The tracking category "Pages using Timeline" has been renamed to "Pages using the EasyTimeline extension" in TranslateWiki. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match.

Project updates

• Editors who help to organize WikiProjects and similar on-wiki collaborations, are invited to share ideas and examples of successful collaborations with the Campaigns and Programs teams. You can fill out a brief survey or share your thoughts on the talkpage. The teams are particularly looking for details about successful collaborations on non-English wikis.
• The new parser is being rolled out on Wikivoyage wikis over the next few months. The English Wikivoyage and Hebrew Wikivoyage were switched to Parsoid last week. For more information, see Parsoid/Parser Unification.

Learn more

• There will be more than 200 sessions at Wikimania this week. Here is a summary of some of the key sessions related to the product and technology area.
• The latest Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is available.
• The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: New design previews for Translatable pages; Updates about MinT for Wiki Readers; the release of Translation dumps; and more.
• The latest quarterly Growth newsletter is available.
• The latest monthly MediaWiki Product Insights newsletter is available.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:41, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		Thanks for your efforts for reviewing articles on request and helping new users to overcome their difficulties. BhikhariInformer (talk) 10:31, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! @BhikhariInformer – DreamRimmer (talk) 10:43, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2024).

Administrator changes

Isabelle Belato

• Ian.thomson
• Modussiccandi

Interface administrator changes

Izno

CheckUser changes

Barkeep49

Technical news

• Global blocks may now target accounts as well as IP's. Administrators may locally unblock when appropriate.
• Users wishing to permanently leave may now request "vanishing" via Special:GlobalVanishRequest. Processed requests will result in the user being renamed, their recovery email being removed, and their account being globally locked.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee appointed the following administrators to the conflict of interest volunteer response team: Bilby, Extraordinary Writ

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:59, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Submission of Darft for Article Space

Dear @DreamRimmer Please check and approve Draft:Ajay Kumar Jha as and when your time permits. Amanatadverse17 (talk) 11:16, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

@Amanatadverse17: A reviewer has shared some feedback on your draft. Please take their suggestions into account and make the necessary improvements. If you have any questions or need help, don’t hesitate to reach out. – DreamRimmer (talk) 15:57, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thank you DreamRimmer, for your contributions, efforts to wikimedia. Youknow? (talk) 10:43, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

BAGBot: Your bot request BaranBOT 2

Someone has marked Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BaranBOT 2 as needing your input. Please visit that page to reply to the requests. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 13:15, 10 August 2024 (UTC) To opt out of these notifications, place {{bots|optout=operatorassistanceneeded}} anywhere on this page.

Project Editor Retention

Thanks so much for joining our little corner of Wikipedia. I will return shortly with the Official Rules of Decorum, a gold embossed memdbership card {only $24.95 cash only) and a nice pin (also $24.95) for your new blazer (only $124.95). TA! Buster Seven Talk (UTC) 13:16, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Just kidding of course. Welcome. Always love enlarging the circle! Buster Seven Talk (UTC) 13:18, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

@Buster7, I came across this project a while back and really liked it. When I noticed your block yesterday and saw you were feeling down about this week's award distribution, I thought I could step in and help out since I handle a similar kind of awards distribution (though not quite the same). It’s great to see you back, and I appreciate your message. I’ll do my best to help wherever I can, and thanks for all the amazing work you’ve done! – DreamRimmer (talk) 13:37, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Check out the Wikipedia:The admin baton which is something that @Hey man im josh: suggested. Isaacl pitched in that if it happens it needs to come from Editor of the Week rather than Editor Retention. Back Burner for a while? Nomination and SUPPORT are always welcome. Buster Seven Talk (UTC) 03:39, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

No, what I said is that I originally thought you were referring to new members of the editor retention WikiProject, but I was mistaken, since you linked to the membership of the Editor of the Week initiative. (My suggestion was to post periodic welcomes on the Editor of the Week talk page, asking new members to find new nominations.) isaacl (talk) 06:58, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-33

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

Feature news

• AbuseFilter editors and maintainers can now make a CAPTCHA show if a filter matches an edit. This allows communities to quickly respond to spamming by automated bots. [4]
• Stewards can now specify if global blocks should prevent account creation. Before this change by the Trust and Safety Product Team, all global blocks would prevent account creation. This will allow stewards to reduce the unintended side-effects of global blocks on IP addresses.

Project updates

• Nominations are open on Wikitech for new members to refresh the Toolforge standards committee. The committee oversees the Toolforge Right to fork policy and Abandoned tool policy among other duties. Nominations will remain open until at least 2024-08-26.
• One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in West Coast Bajau (w:bdr:) [5]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:19, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Question from TriggercyLa (12:28, 13 August 2024)

how to wrewrite username? --TriggercyLa (talk) 12:28, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

@TriggercyLa, I assume you want to change your username. If so, you can request a rename here. – DreamRimmer (talk) 13:46, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 August 2024

• In the media: Portland pol profile paid for from public purse

• Recent research: STORM: AI agents role-play as "Wikipedia editors" and "experts" to create Wikipedia-like articles, a more sophisticated effort than previous auto-generation systems

• In focus: Twitter marks the spot

• News and notes: Another Wikimania has concluded

• Special report: Nano or just nothing: Will nano go nuclear?

• Opinion: HouseBlaster's RfA debriefing

• Traffic report: Ball games, movies, elections, but nothing really weird

• Humour: I'm proud to be a template

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:47, 14 August 2024 (UTC)