This is an archive of past discussions with User:Courcelles. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Discussions
New requests for permissions/Bot:
CJMbot (CJMbot lets users upload a CSV file in a certain format. The data inside this file is then validated and processed. New items wil be created based on the data in the CSV file and existing items wil updated by adding statements and references).
RPI2026F1Bot 5 Task/s: Import dependency and version data from PyPi
Next Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikibase Working Hour February 13, 2023. The February Working Hour will feature a presentation by Steve Baskauf on using VanderBot with Wikibase: The Wikibase API provides a mechanism for programmatic control of uploads, and its behavior is consistent across instances (Wikidata, Structured Data in Commons, and those that are established privately). In this session, Steve will discuss basic interactions with the API and demonstrate using the VanderBot Python application to rapidly upload tabular data to a wikibase.cloud instance. After performing a mass deletion, Steve will conclude by describing how he's used the Wikibase API to facilitate addition of structured data to Commons. Registration link
Wikidata Graph Builder released a major update, introducing new layouts and visualization ideas. You can read the full changelog here.
The new Service Level Objective for the Wikidata Query Service has been implemented: the current aim is to maintain a 95% uptime based on a 90 day rolling window. You can read the full announcement here.
a.gup.pe provides group features for Mastodon. @[email protected] is a group about Wikidata in general. @[email protected] is a group about Wikidata queries. Anyone can join those groups simply by following them in Mastodon. Anyone can share a message with all members of those groups by mentioning them in a publication in Mastodon or any other application of the Fediverse.
The hashtag #Wikidata can be used to tag all publications related to Wikidata in Mastodon. Anyone can find recent publications using this tag using the search feature: https://wikis.world/tags/Wikidata.
@[email protected] is the official Mastodon account of the Wikidata project.
Went over the feedback on the first release and deciding on the next routes to add
Added a new endpoint for getting descriptions (phab:T327881)
Worked on throwing exceptions when something goes wrong (validation failed, Item not found, etc.) instead of returning an error response object (phab:T327527)
Entity Schemas: Finished the technical exploration that will unblock the next steps for actual development
Query Service: Changed URLs with URL-encoded characters to be shown un-encoded for better line-breaks and readability (phab:T327514)
Query Builder:
Adding support for a few additional datatypes (phab:T328528)
Adding a basic language selector to make it easier to switch the language of the page (phab:T328764)
Constraint checks: Working on showing constraint clarification messages to make it easier to understand how to fix a violation on a statement (phab:T219037)
Search: Exploring design options for how to make it easier to search for entities other than Items (phab:T327507)
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
On wikis where patrolled edits are enabled, changes made to the mentor list by autopatrolled mentors are not correctly marked as patrolled. It will be fixed later this week. [1]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 February. It will be on all wikis from 16 February (calendar).
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [3][4][5]
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Discussions
New requests for permissions/Bot:
Cmtqwikibot 2 (Task/s: Add credits (cast and crew) for audiovisual work produced in Quebec based on the Cinémathèque québécoise's catalogue data. Adds reference. Deletes redundant, more general existing statements in certain circumstances.)
Gabrabot (Bulk upload Maltese lexeme data to wikidata from Gabra.)
Next Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call February 21, 2023: Jim Hahn and John Mark Ockerbloom will be presenting on Penn Libraries' Linked Data Vision. They will discuss their framework for activities and goals around linked data, which includes both existing standards and new functionality. Additionally, they will share successes and areas where progress has not yet been made. The presentation will cover projects with Wikidata tie-ins, such as the Digital Scriptorium Wikibase project and the Deep Backfile copyright information project. The presenters also plan to have ample time for conversation with those interested in using linked data to bring new functionality to their libraries. Agenda
Wikidata and Wikibase - SEMIC workshop 2 physical hands-on workshop in Brussels on the 23rd of February (Register here)
If you are interested in organizing or joining the Wikimedia Hackathon 2023 satellite events, you can apply for funds by March 20 via the Rapid Grants maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation.
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
Last week, during planned maintenance of Cloud Services, unforeseen complications forced the team to turn off all tools for 2–3 hours to prevent data corruption. Work is ongoing to prevent similar problems in the future. [6]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 February. It will be on all wikis from 23 February (calendar).
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [7][8][9]
Imminent suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions will be removed if you do not return to activity within the next several days.
Inactive administrators are encouraged to rejoin the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators. If you do not intend to rejoin the project in the foreseeable future, please consider voluntarily resigning your administrative permissions by making a request at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.
Just to continue the conversation about the lab leak at ITN, since it was closed
I think you're right, and I would've changed my vote to Oppose. It wasn't the US Government's position that there was a lab leak, and even so it didn't mean that it was deliberately engineered. I do think we should keep an eye on the story as it unfolds, though. PrecariousWorlds (talk) 16:12, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
Oh, absolutely, I agree that if there was a definitive consensus this was a lab leak, that it would be ITN worthy (and front page news around the world!) Courcelles (talk) 16:14, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
Wikidata weekly summary #561
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
ScikingBot (Task/s: The bot is going to fix interwiki links for the Lombard Wikipedia)
fromCrossrefBot (Task/s: Importing licenses for 1.45 million CC licensed papers from the Crossref April 2022 dump.)
Closed requests for permissions/Bot:
Cmtqwikibot 2 (Task/s: Add credits (cast and crew) for audiovisual work produced in Quebec based on the Cinémathèque québécoise's catalogue data. Adds reference. Deletes redundant, more general existing statements in certain circumstances.)
Bug Triage Hour on dates input, March 13th: Following up on an issue on date parsing in the Czech language (T221097), fixed earlier in February, we would like to look at the changes induced by this fix together, check how the date input parsing works in your language, and identify some possibly remaining issues.
Eager to discover the potential of Wikidata and Wikibase for semantics? SEMIC is organising a series of workshops that are very much hands-on. Join the first workshop online on 24 January 2023 from 14:00 to 16:00 (CET) via Webex. Register for the first event via this link!
Wikibase Suite Survey is now open! The goal is to understand what role Wikibase plays in your organization and identify what you need from Wikibase based on how you currently make use of it.
rebuilt (year or date when the structure was reconstructed, rebuilt, repurposed or replaced by similar one (if the new and old structures have separate items, use P167/P1398 links instead))
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
Last week, in some areas of the world, there were problems with loading pages for 20 minutes and saving edits for 55 minutes. These issues were caused by a problem with our caching servers due to unforseen events during a routine maintenance task. [10][11]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 March. It will be on all wikis from 2 March (calendar).
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. [12]
This is somewhat of a sequel to last year's Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Brunch in terms of the participants, though this time it is an evening event in a different borough.
We may leaven the event with a few impromptu lightning talks, a Wiki-fashion show (yes, really!), and likely an afterparty tour.
All attendees are subject to Wikimedia NYC's Code of Conduct. In addition, to participate in person you should be vaccinated and also be sure to respect others' personal space, and we may limit overall attendance size if appropriate.
Following a request for comment, the Portal CSD criteria (P1 (portal subject to CSD as an article) and P2 (underpopulated portal)) have been deprecated.
The Terms of Use update cycle has started, which includes a [p]roposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing. Feedback is being accepted until 24 April 2023.
So ends the first round of the 2023 WikiCup. Everyone with a positive score moved on to Round 2, with 54 contestants qualifying. The top scorers in Round 1 were:
Unlimitedlead with 1205 points, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with two featured articles on historical figures and several featured article candidate reviews.
Epicgenius was in second place with 789 points; a seasoned WikiCup competitor he specialises in buildings and locations in New York.
FrB.TG was in third place with 625 points, garnered from a featured article on a filmmaker which qualified for an impressive number of bonus points.
TheJoebro64, another WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points gained from two featured articles on video games.
Iazyges was in fifth place with 532 points, from two featured articles on classical history.
These contestants, like all the others, now have to start again from scratch. The first round finished on February 26. Remember that any content promoted after that date but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Some contestants made claims before the new submissions pages were set up, and they will need to resubmit them. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.
Biondibot (Task/s: Import us patent from a csv file)
bitbotje (Task/s: Property MovieMeter film ID (P1970) has a suggested constraint that the item should have a Dutch ('nl') label. The MovieMeter website has suitable labels and provides an API for structured data access. I have a script that reads the relevant section in Wikidata:Database reports/Constraint violations/P1970 and for each listed item does an API call to moviemeter.nl and adds a label.)
Next Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call March 7, 2023: Lydia Pintscher and Silvan Heintze will tell us about the new Wikidata REST API and Silvan will demonstrate some of its aspects. Agenda
Bug Triage Hour on dates input, March 13th: Following up on an issue on date parsing in the Czech language (T221097), fixed earlier in February, we would like to look at the changes induced by this fix together, check how the date input parsing works in your language, and identify some possibly remaining issues.
Open Data Day Taiwan 2023 recorded livestreams: Day 1; Day 2
Wikidata for History of Science projects, by Martin Poulter - YouTube
How to add Wikidata properties using PetScan in Finnish Wikipedia via categories - YouTube
How to add Wikidata properties using PetScan in Finnish Wikipedia 2 - YouTube
LD4P3 - Browsing Across Music With Obtainable Wikidata - YouTube
Extracting political data & relations from Wikidata - YouTube
Operation of Wikidata and its centralized management of metadata linked to multiple databases (in French) - YouTube
Wikidata and higher education and research libraries (in French) - YouTube
Wikidata supporting open student research projects in plant chemistry - YouTube
Tool of the week
wikidata-todo is a tool that helps you find Commons categories with files, where none of the files are used on Wikidata.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
The WMDE Wikibase.Cloud team is currently seeking individuals who are interested in participating in interviews regarding the pressing issue of data modeling. Please reach out if you'd like to participate.
Search: We are looking deeper into how we can make it possible to search for Properties, Lexemes and EntitySchemas in the search box, not just Items (phab:T321543)
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 Community Wishlist Survey 2023 edition has been concluded. Community Tech has published the results of the survey and will provide an update on what is next in April 2023.
On wikis which use LanguageConverter to handle multiple writing systems, articles which used custom conversion rules in the wikitext (primarily on Chinese Wikipedia) would have these rules applied inconsistently in the table of contents, especially in the Vector 2022 skin. This has now been fixed. [13]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 March. It will be on all wikis from 9 March (calendar).
A search system has been added to the Preferences screen. This will let you find different options more easily. Making it work on mobile devices will happen soon. [14]
Brazil report: GLAM-Wiki initiatives in Brazil spark academic investigation
Croatia report: Activities during first two months of 2023
Indonesia report: Launching of Wikisource Loves Manuscripts; Bincang GLAM continues
Italy report: New project and collaboration in February
Kosovo report: I Edit Wikipedia Online Campaign 2023
New Zealand report: Wikidata and the Biodiversity Heritage Library, Wellington WikiCon 2023 and Auckland Museum local suburb project funding
Poland report: The European GLAM Coordinators online meet-up; GLAM-Wiki workshop at the Wawel Royal Castle State Art Collection; Wikimedians-in-residence online meet up
Sweden report: 100 000 Bildminnen; Report from The Association of Swedish Museums; Wikipedia for all of Sweden; ArkDes edit-a-thons
UK report: In Memoriam Jo Pugh / Cultural Diversity
bitbotje (Task/s: Property MovieMeter film ID (P1970) has a suggested constraint that the item should have a Dutch ('nl') label. The MovieMeter website has suitable labels and provides an API for structured data access. I have a script that reads the relevant section in Wikidata:Database reports/Constraint violations/P1970 and for each listed item does an API call to moviemeter.nl and adds a label.)
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 14 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 March. It will be on all wikis from 16 March (calendar).
Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Chavacano de Zamboanga Wikipedia, Min Dong Chinese Wikipedia, Chechen Wikipedia, Cebuano Wikipedia, Chamorro Wikipedia, Cherokee Wikipedia, Cheyenne Wikipedia, Central Kurdish Wikipedia, Corsican Wikipedia, Kashubian Wikipedia, Church Slavic Wikipedia, Chuvash Wikipedia, Welsh Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [15][16]
Upcoming: WikiCite Monthly Meeting, online on 28 March 2023 at 16:00 UTC. Information and notes
Press, articles, blog posts, videos
Blogs
In this week's update by the Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions team, they are asking where the right place to store and maintain Abstract Wikipedia should be. All of the options involve Wikidata to some extent, some more, some less. If the content of Abstract Wikipedia is hosted on Wikidata, that would lead to an increased scope for the Wikidata community (and likely more contributors joining). But that is a decision the Wikidata community needs to be involved in as well. (Also, if you are interested, the Abstract Wikipedia updates might be worth to follow.)
EntitySchemas: We are preparing for adding a new datatype and other changes by improving tests, documentation, etc.
Date input: We did a bug triage hour around issues with date parsing and improved it for Japanese dates (phab:T214002)
Ontology issues: We started evaluating the survey responses for the survey about different types of ontology issues reusers are facing. More work is needed before we have results.
REST API: We finished work on including the URL of an article in sitelink data (phab:T330252) as well as providing all aliases of an Item (phab:T327882)
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
Last week, some users experienced issues loading image thumbnails. This was due to incorrectly cached images. [17]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 March. It will be on all wikis from 23 March (calendar).
There will be a new option for Administrators when they are unblocking a user, to add the unblocked user’s user page to their watchlist. This will work both via Special:Unblock and via the API. [18]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the Wikipedia mobile apps teams. During the meeting, we will discuss the current features and future roadmap. The meeting will be on 24 March at 17:00 (UTC). See details and how to join.
Nice to see everyone again. Just doing some basic stuff as I catch up on everything... this place changes constantly! Courcelles (talk) 17:13, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
1) Administrator Courcelles, I respectfully request that my arbitration enforcement sanction be removed. In return, I promise not to make any edits about Peter Navarro anywhere in Wikipedia, ever. I don't know what else I can do to show good faith.
2) Can you answer for me what a typical/normal time period would be to archive something? I really don't know. I wasn't trying to be funny when I asked for reference. The editors I have dealt with on this article have not been all that helpful to me; other article editors have been very helpful and friendly. I really wanted, and still want to know the Wikipedia way of archiving. Thanks. Karagory (talk) 20:32, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
I’d be willing to let the restriction go in a few months if you go do useful edits elsewhere, but for now, I think the mandatory break from Navarro. And for most articles, 3 months is a perfectly reasonable archive time given a desire to only keep discussions up that still have active interest to be continued, archiving bots run by the most recent time stamp, not the oldest, so even a quick note that you want to keep talking about an issue would reset the clock. Courcelles (talk) 00:28, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
I would certainly agree to that restriction. I will not edit the Navarro article even after the restriction as a show of good faith. Thank you for your explanation. All I was looking for was little assistance instead of: NO, that it was way it is because I said so; that is not the Wikipedia way. I know you put up with a lot of grief as an Administrator, but I appreciate you making Wikipedia better. Thanks Karagory (talk) 13:13, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
Why delete and redirect? Why not simply redirect? I saw no assertion the comment was defamatory, COPYVIO, attack/harassment, tainted by socks, or any other reason that we would want to deny regular editors the history from which to source and improve a potential future article on the topic. Jclemens (talk) 15:53, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. There's a 99% chance that no one ever will... but I think it sends the right message to allow for the possibility. Jclemens (talk) 19:57, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
I see something imploded at ANI
I reported a user at ANI before going to bed and woke up to find the entire thread had been memory holed. Out of morbid curiosity… what happened, without going into detail (obviously)? Dronebogus (talk) 22:04, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
No I agree and your right It is biased, can you help me wipe the matter of all personal details and Im happy to voluntarily delete, i'm not the right person to be making submissions as I am unbiased. Jadamondo (talk) 14:16, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
Wikidata weekly summary #565
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Next Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group Working Hour March 27, 2023: We will be creating items related to notable book podcasts. You are, as always, welcome to bring your own project to work on.Event page
WikiCite Monthly Meeting, online on 28 March 2023 at 16:00 UTC. Information and notes
ISCED Attainment (ISCED attainment is the UNESCO main classification of educational level, it is used to map each level to the global classification used by UNESCO. This is useful because the same local level can mean different things in different countries. It identifies the specific levels of the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) Attainment model. Has two sub qualifiers - code and label.)
first performance by (performer or performing group for the first performance of a work)
EntitySchemas: We started working on the new datatype to link to EntitySchemas in statements (phab:T214884)
Query Builder: We finished the work on the language selector so you can swithc the interface language of the tool (phab:T328148) It will be available on the site in the next days.
Wikibase REST API: We implemented the functionality to provide an Item's label, description or aliases in a specific language (phab:T323173)
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 AbuseFilter condition limit was increased from 1000 to 2000. [19]
Desktop users are now able to subscribe to talk pages by clicking on the Subscribe link in the Tools menu. If you subscribe to a talk page, you receive notifications when new topics are started on that talk page. This is separate from putting the page on your watchlist or subscribing to a single discussion. [21]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 March. It will be on all wikis from 30 March (calendar).
The legacy Mobile Content Service is going away in July 2023. Developers are encouraged to switch to Parsoid or another API before then to ensure service continuity. [23]
I do, but I am a teacher, and my 2nd block went into chaos mode as I was working on ensuring all the alerts had been done! I'm about to do more now. Courcelles (talk) 15:52, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks! Not to be too demanding but there seems to be a minor formatting mishap: You have been sanctioned Edit warring. The usage notes at wikt:transgendered may also be of interest for the future. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me;16:48, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
Hello. In the last two days, I've declined protecting this page twice at WP:RFPP/I as preemptive ( {{rfpp|np}} ) since I didn't see much if any disruption to warrant doing so. Now I've noticed you having done so (logged by Ymblanter for some reason), so I'm wandering how that came about; if there was admin shopping, etc. Thanks for taking the time. El_C08:30, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
Um, why would you decline it? Wikipedia:General sanctions/Russo-Ukrainian War is a blanket authorization for such protections, and we’ve never waited for disruption to spread from page to page when the 500/30 is authorized for the topic area and the page is so firmly within the topic that there are no edits a non extended confirmed editor could make without violating the sanctions. (Note the complete shield from edit warring granted by the community to editors who revert non-EC editors within the topic area). As a new article under such a sanctions regime, it should have been protected immediately to enforce the sanctions, and I’m really surprised you’d decline it twice. And, no, there was no admin shopping, I left a note directly on RFPP saying I was protecting the page. Courcelles (talk) 08:52, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
That is in fact not so. There has been a longstanding practice among admins, which I believe started with WP:ARBPIA3, to not preemptively protect pages even under such blanket restrictions. Only when disruption actually occurs do these normally come into effect. El_C10:02, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
I was on arbcom during ARBPIA3, and was part of the discussions that led to that novel remedy being introduced, refined, and voted on, so suffice it to say we remember history and the intent of the regulation differently. In fact, the committee voted down the interpretation that it was a discretionary action to be used in response to disruption. Courcelles (talk) 12:24, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
Maybe it was WP:ARBPIA4, then...? Anyway, there was a time period during 2017 (or 2018? or 2019?) when someone was requesting for a lot of ARBPIA pages to be protected preemptively by the tens (10 here, 20 there, etc.), which I did. I think I got to like 100 of em until there were objections to that blanket protection of pages that had zero disruptive edits. As I recall, we asked ArbCom and they said something to the effect of 'do whatever.'
A conversation then ensued at RfPP by several of its most active admins (I think Ymblanter participated, I definitely remember Lectonar did), which then resulted in a unanimous agreement to stop preemptively protecting those (well, unanimous except for me, I was neutral, I still am). And that has been the prevailing practice ever since. We both have protected a lot of pages, you +1K, me +10K, and are likely to continue doing so, so it'd be good if we could arrive at a consistent approach for these requests. El_C13:16, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
I'd be ready to consider flooding RFPP with requests with no current disruption to be de facto disruption of the process, as basically [[pointy. But extending a sanction to a newly created article, I don't see a problem with getting in front of all the of the utter garbage edits that comes from this conflict, especially with that one being linked on the main page currently. (I guess my opinion on this is "if someone bothers to ask without flooding the process, I'll push the buttons to enforce the sanctions. No one else has to, and no one should flood RFPP without active disruption, but I read the 300/50 General Sanction as saying the default setting of these pages should be ECP.) Courcelles (talk) 13:55, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
I will quote from our protection policy:"Administrators are authorized to enforce this restriction through extended confirmed protection or any other means". So I still read the meaning as a may, not a must, even in ARBPIA cases. And I for one, having been around for a long time and being old-fashioned anyway, still like to see at least some kind of disruption before protecting a page. Protection still should be the exception, not the rule. Protection is such a crude tool, when blocks or partial blocks would suffice. As an addendum, I definitely know of at least 2 admins working at rfp who simply don't process ecp-protection requests anymore. If we really want all articles in contentious areas protected preemptively, then let's codify this unambiguously in some way. Lectonar (talk) 14:08, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
To be clear, to the best of my recollection, many of these were not necessarily benign ARBPIA pages, but rather, ones with a moderate to high potential for disruption—and now that Israel's far-right government seems intent to rescind the Gaza disengagement law, for example, I expect to see many of them needing to be 'legit' protected. The matter also arose of the two different types of preemptive protection requests: ones which had zero edits by unconfirmed accounts whatsoever -versus- those ones that did have edits by unconfirmed accounts but which were nevertheless uncontroversial (i.e. edits that otherwise would fall under WP:SILENCE)—not an easy feat for ARBPIA, but still, believe or not, there are in fact many such edits that neither side contest.
In any case, I personally have greatly decreased preemptive protections of any kind, save for the most potentially egregious cases. So for example, I believe I preemptively protected zero pages in 2022 and only one in 2021 (Jill Biden from none to indef semi as WP:AP2 upon Joe Biden assuming the presidency). Anyway, perhaps it's time to attempt to incorporate how to approach 500/30 mandates in the protection policy, especially since these are no longer limited to ARBPIA, but now also extend to other sanction regimes, such as the aforementioned WP:GS/RUSUKR, WP:APL50030, and possibly even more that I'm not immediately able to recall. El_C19:29, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
So for example, you indef ECP'd the protection request for the List of equipment of the Russian Ground Forces under RUSUKR (diff), which I haven't looked at and may well be due due to accompanying moderate levels of RUSUKR-related disruption. But if not, contrast that with my declining the request by the same submitter for T-54/T-55 (diff), which I did not immediately see as having accompanying moderate levels of RUSUKR-related disruption—note that the #Russo-Ukrainian War section accounts for a tiny portion of the total text in the T-45/T-55 article. The point is that there's a growing risk that the submitter is getting mixed signals from the two of us. El_C20:51, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, and the article about the tanks is really a Cold War article that extends into today by a small margin. That’s not something I’d protect under general sanctions, since there’s plenty of edits that can be made without coming anywhere near the current war. The list is different, though, the lede says it’s for current equipment used by a belligerent party in the current war, not for a complete historical list, or even, say, one since the establishment of the Russian Federation.
The core problem? We likely have two different interpretations of the sanctions regime, and no easy way to reconcile them. I read the sanctions as saying new editors may not touch the topic, and anyone can revert for any reason without worrying about edit warring. If that’s going to happen? Why let them waste time making the edit? If an admin wanted to go through whole categories and apply ECP, I think the sanctions authorized would support that action, (though it’s absolutely not something I want to spend my time doing evaluating hundreds of articles for how fully they are connected to topics new editors can’t touch.)
aAs to it being a may, not a must? Yeah, because we want humans to determine how much of the article would be unaffected by the sanctioned topic, and we can’t lay down commands on how human volunteers spend a limited resource we have — time of humans with a sysop flag. Courcelles (talk) 22:16, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
In a way I think we are on the same side, but with different conclusions; I am well aware that I would not need to fear repercussions either as an editor if I just reverted an edit in articles which fall under the sanctions, and also not as an admin if I ecp-protected articles which are in the same category. But I think assuming good faith with editors even here is not a waste of resources: once they have made a disruptive edit, then sanctions can be applied. It would be perhaps be a good move to bring this discussion and its underlying points of contention up somewhere. Lectonar (talk) 08:03, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
I would never sanction the editor for making an edit unless it was, of course, a de facto disruptive edit or an edit warring issue. Folks don't know, after all. That's kind of why I like protecting, it saves newer editors the stress of making an edit and seeing it reverted for no reason they can easily understand other than it being made by the wrong person. Courcelles (talk) 18:31, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
Okay, that's good, I'm glad to learn that this latest example, at least, isn't a pressing issue. But the concern remains about ones that may still arise, and not just with you and me—I won't get into the nuances of #related content -versus- #primary articles for the time being.
But I'd stress that I am not necessarily in disagreement with your position. I still don't know if it's overall better or worse. When I said that "I was neutral, I still am," I truly meant it. After +10K protections and as one of the most active contributing admins, possibly the mostest, in both WP:RfPP and WP:AEL protections, I find that often the more I learn, the less I know.
My stance therefore only follows that aforementioned discussion, that is now likely over half a decade old, which as mentioned had unanimous agreement, and which from then on became the prevailing practice. Which is why I suggested something be codified once and for all, one way or the other, at protection policy. Which I realize is easier said than done, but I really can't think of anything else. But I'm definitely open to creative ideas! El_C23:56, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
Wikidata weekly summary #566
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Next Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call April 4, 2023: Magnus Manske will discuss Wikidata editing tools and tools that use linked data from other sources (eg GND, VIAF) to integrate in Wikidata. Agenda
The rollback of Vector 2022 RfC has found no consensus to rollback to Vector legacy, but has found rough consensus to disable "limited width" mode by default.
You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our WikiWednesday Salon, with in-person at Brooklyn Public Library by Grand Army Plaza, in the Central Library's Info Commons Lab, as well as an online-based participation option. No experience of anything at all is required. All are welcome!
We are proud to announce that monthly PIZZA has returned!
All attendees are subject to Wikimedia NYC's Code of Conduct. In addition, to participate in person you should be vaccinated and also be sure to respect others' personal space, and we may limit overall attendance size if appropriate. Brooklyn Public Library encourages the wearing of masks when indoors, and especially be mindful of those in your proximity.
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 system for automatically creating categories for the Babel extension has had several important changes and fixes. One of them allows you to insert templates for automatic category descriptions on creation, allowing you to categorize the new categories. [24][25][26][27][28]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 April. It will be on all wikis from 6 April (calendar).
Some older Web browsers will stop being able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis from this week. This mainly affects users of Internet Explorer 11. If you have an old web browser on your computer you can try to upgrade to a newer version. [29]
The deprecated jquery.hoverIntent module has been removed. This module could be used by gadgets and user scripts, to create an artificial delay in how JavaScript responds to a hover event. Gadgets and user scripts should now use jQuery hover() or on() instead. Examples can be found in the migration guide. [30]
Some of the links in Special:SpecialPages will be re-arranged. There will be a clearer separation between links that relate to all users, and links related to your own user account. [31]
You will be able to hide the Reply button in archived discussion pages with a new __ARCHIVEDTALK__ magic word. There will also be a new .mw-archivedtalk CSS class for hiding the Reply button in individual sections on a page. [32][33][34]
Future changes
The Vega software that creates data visualizations in pages, such as graphs, will be upgraded to the newest version in the future. Graphs that still use the very old version 1.5 syntax may stop working properly. Most existing uses have been found and updated, but you can help to check, and to update any local documentation. Examples of how to find and fix these graphs are available.
Hello Courcelles, Back in 2011, you full protected the user talk page of User talk:KnowIG due to the user's actions. I see that their two archives were not protected, and did not experience any vandalism or issues in the years since. Do you have any objections to lowering the protection of User talk:KnowIG to extended confirmed (or lower) so that I could address the Tidy Font errors (a high priority WP:lint issue) in the signatures appearing on that page? Zinnober9 (talk) 20:18, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
Anytime, though I won't pretend to be technical enough to understand what these lint errors are, I'm willing to trust fixing them is useful! Courcelles (talk) 12:35, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Hello. As I can see, you deleted this article due to a number of reasons. But somebody recreated it as Somkhishvili Tamaz with simple recombinated name and same text and sources. As I understand, this recreation violates wikipedia policy? Should this article be removed as well? Caramoble (talk) 08:10, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Might be right, might be wrong, but rather than pull another deletion rabbit out of my hat, I'm going to list it AFD. Courcelles (talk) 12:41, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
AE alteration needed
On the AE for me, HJ Mitchell made a comment "...Please refrain from making substantive edits to your comments once posted, and especially once replied to...." I contacted them and they had not actually seen me do that. They were just irritated that I had not made a comment all at once, but had added and revised it in several edits, but there were no intervening comments by anyone. Right now that stands as an accusation that readers will forever assume is a true accusation. I'd like that comment removed. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:18, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Hello
I wanted to ask for your help, there is an admin he is misusing his privileges in a page for the city i was born. He is reverting my edits and blocking me for a period of time. The name of the page is "Podujevo" it is not the correct name and as well he is using his phone and created a 2nd account to make it look like i am (edit) warring and then comes with his main account and blocks me. What can i do ? Fa7bardh (talk) 19:31, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
You protected this page in June 2012 following an oversight action. Do you believe that continued protection of the talk page is warranted? 67.180.143.89 (talk) 23:52, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
Came there off an AIV report and I belatedly noticed that. My brain saw your block, and your warning, and just didn’t connect they had completely different timestamps… oops. Still, two harassment blocks in 70 edits tells me this is an editor we’re better off without. Courcelles (talk) 20:25, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
There was a problem with all types of CentralNotice banners still being shown to logged-in users even if they had turned off specific banner types. This has now been fixed. [37]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 April. It will be on all wikis from 13 April (calendar).
Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Moroccan Arabic Wikipedia, Danish Wikipedia, Dinka Wikipedia, Lower Sorbian Wikipedia, Ewe Wikipedia, Greek Wikipedia, Emiliano-Romagnolo Wikipedia, Esperanto Wikipedia, Estonian Wikipedia, Basque Wikipedia, Extremaduran Wikipedia, Tumbuka Wikipedia, Fulah Wikipedia, Finnish Wikipedia, Võro Wikipedia, Fijian Wikipedia, Faroese Wikipedia, Arpitan Wikipedia, Northern Frisian Wikipedia, Friulian Wikipedia, Irish Wikipedia, Guianan Creole Wikipedia, Scottish Gaelic Wikipedia, Galician Wikipedia, Gilaki Wikipedia, Guarani Wikipedia, Goan Konkani Wikipedia, Gothic Wikipedia, Gujarati Wikipedia, Manx Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [38][39]
BotFunast (Task: The bot is already operational in the Tachelhit Wikipedia. One of its main tasks is editing template tags and categories, and creating new ones when necessary, based on a csv database (that you can find in github) . When adding new pages though, a common problem is to link those to Wikidata. This can be unfeasible by hand in a reasonable amount of time, when hundreds of pages, e.g. categories, are added at once. The idea is to have the bot approved for Wikidata, so it can link the pages to their counterparts in other languages automatically.)
The next Wikidata+Wikibase office hours will take place on Wednesday, 16:00 UTC on Wednesday, 19th April 2023 (18:00 Berlin time) in the Wikidata Telegram group. The Wikidata and Wikibase office hours are online events where the development team presents what they have been working on over the past quarter, and the community is welcome to ask questions and discuss important issues related to the development of Wikidata and Wikibase.
orchestration (the instruments used in a musical composition or arrangement in notated form)
part of other combined lexeme (qualifier on P5238 to indicate that a component appearing in a compound lexeme actually comes from the appearance of another compound lexeme)
The next Wikidata+Wikibase office hours will take place on Wednesday, 16:00 UTC on Wednesday, 19th April 2023 (18:00 Berlin time) in the Wikidata Telegram group. The Wikidata and Wikibase office hours are online events where the development team presents what they have been working on over the past quarter, and the community is welcome to ask questions and discuss important issues related to the development of Wikidata and Wikibase.
Next Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group Call, Tuesday, April 14, 2023 - Indigenous Artists and Wikidata: Report launch and discussion. Agenda.
Christos started a Wikibase to collect and organise existing research-related resources about Wikibase. Feel free to add to it. researchwb.wikibase.cloud
EntitySchemas: We are continuing the work on creating the new datatype that allows linking to EntitySchemas in statements. It will be available on test systems next. (phab:T332139)
QueryBuilder: We are putting finishing touches on the language selector so you can switch the UI language of the Query Builder. (phab:T328764)
Wikibase REST API: We continued working on making it possible to create or replace labels and descriptions in a iven language. (phab:T323813)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
At Wikimedia Commons, some thumbnails have not been getting replaced correctly after a new version of the image is uploaded. This should be fixed later this week. [43][44]
For the last few weeks, some external tools had inconsistent problems with logging-in with OAuth. This has now been fixed. [45]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 April. It will be on all wikis from 20 April (calendar).
You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for a pair of special events this weekend as we wrap up Earth Week! No experience of anything at all is required. All are welcome.
Hi Courcelles, hope all is well. Idly curious what I missed here with Barnett effect - I lifted a ten-year semi-protection which was a response to basic vandalism, but I think you have flagged as needing ECP? All the best, -- Euryalus (talk) 02:00, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
I was dealing with the linty old socks request above it and the script screwed up…. My protection log will show I didn’t actually touch that page. ;) Courcelles (talk) 02:02, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
yeah I noticed that too. :) Curiosity was really if the old vandalism was linked to some sort of current LTA of which I was unaware. Glad it's not, and good luck with Linty's socks!-- Euryalus (talk) 02:05, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
I confess I don’t understand the lint thing, but Zinnober9 does, and we generate database reports for it, so it can’t hurt to fix. Not like sock puppet pages from 18 years ago actually need indef full protection… While I have your attention, what do you think about the deceased user pages? I know full is standard procedure, but ECP really seems like enough for those userpages of folks who didn’t attract much negative attention. Courcelles (talk) 02:11, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Seems reasonable, per application of the least possible protection to prevent disruption. Can't imagine why people would need to edit them but whatever. There's a couple I can think of that would be vandal targets and need to stay as they are, but this could easily be case by case. -- Euryalus (talk) 04:59, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Per your comment [[User:|Euryalus]] about negative attention - SlimVirgin (who I miss every day) received both negative and positive attention and I can well imagine someone gaming the system to get ECP and then messing with her page. If you are okay with leaving it at ECP I just hope that you will both have her page on your watchlist to rvt if anything should happen. Thanks for your time and I hope you both have a nice weekend. MarnetteD|Talk19:38, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Hello, I have a question about two types of pages I'm considering asking for a protection reduction on, and since you've handled some of my recent requests, felt you were a good person to ask. This is not a formal request, only information gathering, I'd make the formal request at RPPD if these are acceptable and noncontroversial sorts of requests.
For user pages/subpages of deceased Wikipedians that have been full protected, are these valid for temporary page protection reductions to address lint errors?
My other question is for user pages of long blocked, long dormant, socks (ten+ years with no known activity). In general, should these remain at full protection indefinitely, or is a reduction acceptable for addressing the lint acceptable, either reduced temporarily or indefinite?
In each case I'm eying about 11 pages, so not a large quantity in either case. I'd make two separate requests if these are valid due to their nature.
For both of those categories, assuming they aren't recent protections, I'd likely be willing to drop them to extended confirmed (subject to changing my mind when I see the actual pages, of course.) Full protection in this kind of situation is a bit of a hack from before EC was available, and while it stopped nonsense, it cut off uncontroversial maintenance of the sort you are doing. Courcelles (talk) 20:51, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Of course. I was just seeking the general impression of these sorts of requests. For the sock pages, most recent protection was 2006, so those probably will be fine. I'll formally post that request at RPPD in a minute.
For the deceased, I was looking at these eleven pages:
Don’t feel like you have to rush, given I don’t speak HTML I’m not sure how involved fixing this is on each page. But, yeah, at least some of these I will be going back to full when you’re done. Courcelles (talk) 02:00, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
I should have these all done in next 24hrs, but yes, I will message you when I've completed them all. Thank you for your assistance! Zinnober9 (talk) 05:14, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
@Courcelles All complete with these pages, you may protect them back up. Thank you for your help! I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't spot that the issues on Aditya Kabir and Ron/admin were transcribed from other pages, so ended up not needing to change anything on these two after all, but all others went as expected. Zinnober9 (talk) 01:30, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
No worries. I’ve moved SlimVirgin’s user page back to full, but the others I am somewhat inclined to see full as overkill. Courcelles (talk) 01:58, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
Wikidata weekly summary #569
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Discussions
New requests for permissions/Bot:
AddLetterboxdFilmIdBot (Task: Adding Letterboxd Film ID (P6127) statements to items which already have a TMDB Film ID (P4947))
Next Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group Working Hour April 24, 2023: Would you like to know how to join and use Telegram? Two regular Wikidata Telegram users will provide an introduction to Telegram and its available Wikidata channels. They will discuss how they use it, how it can provide help with Wikidata work, and how it can facilitate connections with other Wikidata users Event page
User:Nikki/colour icons.css - is a Userscript to add colour to the editing icons. It uses green for add/save, yellow for edit, red for remove, orange for cancel and blue for help.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
The Wikibase newbie docs are here (to help to onboard new Wikibase users easier).
REST API: We continued work on making it possible to create or replace a label, or a description in a given language (phab:T323813)
EntitySchemas: We continued working on the new datatype for linking to EntitySchemas. It is now available on beta in a very bare-bones version but not ready for wider testing yet. (phab:T332139)
Ontology issues: We are evaluating the results of the survey we ran earlier this year.
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