This is an archive of past discussions with User:DMacks. 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.
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
An update was made on March 18th 2024 to how various projects load site, user JavaScript and CSS in Vector 2022 skin. A checklist is provided for site admins to follow.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 March. It will be on all wikis from 28 March (calendar). [1][2]
The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. (T313405)
Arbitration
An arbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".
Miscellaneous
Editors are invited to sign up for The Core Contest, an initiative running from April 15 to May 31, which aims to improve vital and other core articles on Wikipedia.
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
Users of the reading accessibility beta feature will notice that the default line height for the standard and large text options has changed. [3]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 April. It will be on all wikis from 4 April (calendar). [4][5]
Future changes
The Wikimedia Foundation has an annual plan. The annual plan decides what the Wikimedia Foundation will work on. You can now read the draft key results for the Product and Technology department. They are suggestions for what results the Foundation wants from big technical changes from July 2024 to June 2025. You can comment on the talk page.
Well, at least we'll get some proxy-blocks out of it. Is it open enough that we should block for longer term? I'll watchlist a few more pages in that area, but also feel free to ping me if you find a mole that needs whacking. DMacks (talk) 07:36, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
I don't think there is harm in blocking for a longer term, it has been done on previous occasions, but at the same time there is no point taking time out of your day to do it. Usually they make one or maybe two edits per IP of more subtle disruption, this one feels like its acting out to try and get a reaction. CMD (talk) 07:50, 2 April 2024 (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.
Recent changes
Web browsers can use tools called extensions. There is now a Chrome extension called Citation Needed which you can use to see if an online statement is supported by a Wikipedia article. This is a small experiment to see if Wikipedia can be used this way. Because it is a small experiment, it can only be used in Chrome in English.
A new Edit Recovery feature has been added to all wikis, available as a user preference. Once you enable it, your in-progress edits will be stored in your web browser, and if you accidentally close an editing window or your browser or computer crashes, you will be prompted to recover the unpublished text. Please leave any feedback on the project talk page. This was the #8 wish in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
Readers using the Minerva skin on mobile will notice there has been an improvement in the line height across all typography settings. [9]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 April. It will be on all wikis from 11 April (calendar). [10][11]
New accounts and logged-out users will get the visual editor as their default editor on mobile. This deployment is made at all wikis except for the English Wikipedia. [12]
I appreciate your point about biobased epoxies having been around for a while. However, the concept of 100% closed-loop recycling is quite novel, which is why it's highlighted in the recent publication in Science. Perhaps my explanation wasn't clear enough. I am just trying, to keep Wiki up-to-date.
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
Between 2 April and 8 April, on wikis using Flagged Revisions, the "Reverted" tag was not applied to undone edits. In addition, page moves, protections and imports were not autoreviewed. This problem is now fixed. [13][14]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 April. It will be on all wikis from 18 April (calendar). [15][16]
Default category sort keys will now affect categories added by templates placed in footnotes. Previously footnotes used the page title as the default sort key even if a different default sort key was specified (category-specific sort keys already worked). [17]
A new variable page_last_edit_age will be added to abuse filters. It tells how many seconds ago the last edit to a page was made. [18]
Future changes
Volunteer developers are kindly asked to update the code of their tools and features to handle temporary accounts. Learn more.
Four database fields will be removed from database replicas (including Quarry). This affects only the abuse_filter and abuse_filter_history tables. Some queries might need to be updated. [19]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
You can nominate your favorite tools for the fifth edition of the Coolest Tool Award. Nominations will be open until May 10.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 April. It will be on all wikis from 25 April (calendar). [21][22]
Future changes
This is the last warning that by the end of May 2024 the Vector 2022 skin will no longer share site and user scripts/styles with old Vector. For user-scripts that you want to keep using on Vector 2022, copy the contents of Special:MyPage/vector.js to Special:MyPage/vector-2022.js. There are more technical details available. Interface administrators who foresee this leading to lots of technical support questions may wish to send a mass message to your community, as was done on French Wikipedia. [23]
Noticed you at that page and thought I'd bring up not the edit (although I don't understand the switch they are making there and elsewhere of a chart) but their contributions. Most seem bad. Lots of copyvio, clumsy English, failure to source. See [24] When they do source they clearly don't know what our criteria, eg using an open wiki as a source. Of their just over 500 edits, 62 have been reverted and I think that a lot more need removing. You may not have the time or stomach to bother with this, and that's ok. But I do think they are messing up a lot of articles but am not sure I can sanction yet. Thanks. Doug Wellertalk07:32, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
One other. Here's an edit chosen because the edit summary says "stop using cushion words" referring to the word "some" that he removed from "daf holds special importance because some Muslims believe that it is the only musical instrument which is permitted to be used".
The source contains a quote saying "Some Muslims hold all forms of music to be forbidden, others permit certain forms of unaccompanied singing, while others will permit the use of daff or drum like a tambourine (without the cymbals). In some Sufi circles the flute or lute are permitted"[25]Doug Wellertalk07:35, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
I think you can sanction. A ton of small problems, and an occasional large problem, especially in this topic-area, needs to be stamped out. Copyvio and change of meaning (especially when it was previously per cited ref). DMacks (talk) 04:18, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
No objection to indef. I'm hard-pressed to AGF in cases of change-of-meaning in religious/sectarian contexts when edit-summary does not mention it. Either they don't know what they are doing (CIR for idiomatic English) or they do know what they are doing (NPOV or sealion). DMacks (talk) 04:54, 25 April 2024 (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.
Recent changes
Example of a talk page with the new design, in French.
The appearance of talk pages changed for the following wikis: Azerbaijani Wikipedia, Bengali Wikipedia, German Wikipedia, Persian Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia, Hindi Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia, Korean Wikipedia, Dutch Wikipedia, Portuguese Wikipedia, Romanian Wikipedia, Thai Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia, Ukrainian Wikipedia, Vietnamese Wikipedia. These wikis participated to a test, where 50% of users got the new design, for one year. As this test gave positive results, the new design is deployed on these wikis as the default design. It is possible to opt-out these changes in user preferences ("Show discussion activity"). The deployment will happen at all wikis in the coming weeks. [26]
Kartographer maps can use an alternative visual style without labels, by using mapstyle="osm". This wasn't working in previews, creating the wrong impression that it wasn't supported. This has now been fixed. [35]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 May. It will be on all wikis from 2 May (calendar). [36][37]
Partial action blocks are now in effect on the English Wikipedia. This means that administrators have the ability to restrict users from certain actions, including uploading files, moving pages and files, creating new pages, and sending thanks. T280531
You are receiving this message because you previously participated in the UCoC process.
This is a reminder that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) ends on May 9, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.
Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.
Every once in a while I notice the gears of the Wikipedia machine being turned around and I'm impressed by the social organization of it. Because it is not a mindless machine, but flawed, wonderful, thinking people doing their best. People paying attention, making notes, being part of the solution to problems (and not the precipitate as the Chemistry joke goes). Sure, people come in trying to turn over the tables, but just as quickly other people are cleaning it up and putting everything back where it was, or even maybe a bit cleaner than it was before the fracas. I checked back on a little vandalism thing and saw your notes on sock investigations. You and Classicwiki making sure the boxes get checked and it made me impressed with how well our little place works. Thanks for being part of it. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 05:27, 2 May 2024 (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.
Recent changes
Example of a talk page with the new design, in French.
The appearance of talk pages changed for all wikis, except for Commons, Wikidata and most Wikipedias (a few have already received this design change). You can read the detail of the changes on Diff. It is possible to opt-out these changes in user preferences ("Show discussion activity"). The deployment will happen at remaining wikis in the coming weeks. [38][39]
Interface admins now have greater control over the styling of article components on mobile with the introduction of the SiteAdminHelper. More information on how styles can be disabled can be found at the extension's page. [40]
Wikimedia Enterprise has added article body sections in JSON format and a curated short description field to the existing parsed Infobox. This expansion to the API is also available via Wikimedia Cloud Services. [41]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 May. It will be on all wikis from 9 May (calendar). [42][43]
When you look at the Special:Log page, the first view is labelled "All public logs", but it only shows some logs. This label will now say "Main public logs". [44]
Thanks for uploading File:WEZJ Logo.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
On Wikisource there is a special page listing pages of works without corresponding scan images. Now you can use the new magic word __EXPECTWITHOUTSCANS__ to exclude certain pages (list of editions or translations of works) from that list. [46]
If you use the user-preference "Show preview without reloading the page", then the template-page feature "Preview page with this template (what's this?)" will now also work without reloading the page. [47]
Kartographer maps can now specify an alternative text via the alt= attribute. This is identical in usage to the alt= attribute in the image and gallery syntax. An exception for this feature is wikis like Wikivoyage where the miniature maps are interactive. [48]
The old Guided Tour for the "New Filters for Edit Review" feature has been removed. It was created in 2017 to show people with older accounts how the interface had changed, and has now been seen by most of the intended people. [49]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 May. It will be on all wikis from 16 May (calendar). [50][51]
The Special:Search results page will now use CSS flex attributes, for better accessibility, instead of a table. If you have a gadget or script that adjusts search results, you should update your script to the new HTML structure. [52]
Future changes
In the Vector 2022 skin, main pages will be displayed at full width (like special pages). The goal is to keep the number of characters per line large enough. This is related to the coming changes to typography in Vector 2022. Learn more. [53]
Two columns of the pagelinks database table (pl_namespace and pl_title) are being dropped soon. Users must use two columns of the new linktarget table instead (lt_namespace and lt_title). In your existing SQL queries:
Replace JOIN pagelinks with JOIN linktarget and pl_ with lt_ in the ON statement
Below that add JOIN pagelinks ON lt_id = pl_target_id
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 Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title. [56]
New changes have been made to the UploadWizard in Wikimedia Commons: the overall layout has been improved, by following new styling and spacing for the form and its fields; the headers and helper text for each of the fields was changed; the Caption field is now a required field, and there is an option for users to copy their caption into the media description. [57][58]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 May. It will be on all wikis from 23 May (calendar). [59][60]
The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It will change on 22 May in some skins (Timeless, Modern, CologneBlue, Nostalgia, and Monobook). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in all other skins. The developers are also considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.
An article can sometimes be created even if it had previously been deleted. It depends on the reason it was deleted. But having been deleted once, it usually means many eyes have looked at the topic and available references and found that it was not viable at that time. The new attempt must not suffer from whatever problems identified in the previous attempt. Reliable sources are always important. Without them, no article can ever be written. A previous AFD might be useful to see what sources were available at that time and why they were not sufficient. So the new attempt needs sources that are newer and stronger than those. DMacks (talk) 07:49, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
I do not know about them in particular. The fact that two of them do not have Wikipedia articles is concerning. DMacks (talk) 12:37, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
Looking more closely, MENAFN is not notable and therefore not likely to be a good source. AfricaPublicity is definitely not acceptable, as it identifies itself as a "public relations and media agency promoting businesses, organizations, entertainers, and individuals across Africa." DMacks (talk) 16:20, 21 May 2024 (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.
Recent changes
Several bugs related to the latest updates to the UploadWizard on Wikimedia Commons have been fixed. For more information, see T365107 and T365119.
In March 2024 a new addPortlet API was added to allow gadgets to create new portlets (menus) in the skin. In certain skins this can be used to create dropdowns. Gadget developers are invited to try it and give feedback.
Some CSS in the Minerva skin has been removed to enable easier community configuration. Interface editors should check the rendering on mobile devices for aspects related to the classes: .collapsible, .multicol, .reflist, .coordinates, .topicon. Further details are available on replacement CSS if it is needed.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 May. It will be on all wikis from 30 May (calendar). [61][62]
When you visit a wiki where you don't yet have a local account, local rules such as edit filters can sometimes prevent your account from being created. Starting this week, MediaWiki takes your global rights into account when evaluating whether you can override such local rules. [63]
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
It is now possible for local administrators to add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without JavaScript. Documentation is available. [64]
The message name for the definition of the tracking category of WikiHiero has changed from "MediaWiki:Wikhiero-usage-tracking-category" to "MediaWiki:Wikihiero-usage-tracking-category". [65]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 June. It will be on all wikis from 6 June (calendar). [67][68]
Future changes
Next week, on wikis with the Vector 2022 skin as the default, logged-out desktop users will be able to choose between different font sizes. The default font size will also be increased for them. This is to make Wikimedia projects easier to read. Learn more.
Thanks for your continued help, it seems he just won't learn. Maybe a long ip block is in order? Say 5 years since I guess you can't permaban ips. Just an idea. Pieinthesky1 (talk) 02:52, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
Can you please provide proof (evidence) that my website is 'low-value' and my content is 'spam'?
I am an expert in my field with more than 600 published crochet patterns available. I've been publishing for more than 10 years.
If you do not want to include my site as a source (even though I have more experience than some of the other sources that have been allowed to contribute and be linked in Wikipedia for Crochet Topics) that is totally fine.
However, leaving slanderous comments on the internet about the quality and type of content I provide in unacceptable.
My website is registered as a Corporation in Canada and as such, defamation of my business is taken very seriously.
Please provide your proof (other than your personal opinion) that my content is spam and low-value.
This is your comment:
curprev 16:54, 7 June 2024 DMacks talk contribs 51,742 bytes −287 spam for a low-value blog is as unacceptable today as it was 3 years ago. Undid revision 1227755106 by Rhonddamol (talk) undothank Tag: Undo
By Wikipedia's definition of "reliable sources", blogs and other self-published material are by default considered non-reliable and therefore "low value" as a reference (I am one of now three different editors to note that using using your blog as a ref is a problem). Use of "reliable" sources is one of Wikipedia's gold standards as an encyclopedia. Personal reputation in a field is a reasonable basis for having one's publications be considered, but those sorts of claim are only relevant to the extent other independent sources verify them. Being a corporation does not add any extra weight or value here. DMacks (talk) 17:26, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
So you are saying that you are labelling my registered professional corporation as a unreliable source on crochet and that my business is providing spam and low-value content.
Please then explain why you have allowed the following (I've only included 5 examples from the Crochet topic - there are more) blogs to be linked as sources?
The rules should be the same for all content creators.
If my website is not considered a reliable source because it is self-published then all five of the one's I've listed above should not have been allowed to be used as sources either. Based on Wikipedia's definition of "reliable sources".
Indeed, combatting poor sources on Wikipedia's nearly 7 million articles is a never-ending task. There is no editorial board here that authorizes each piece of content, but instead thousands of editors who each can act on whatever they see. Do not make it worse. But as an easy first response for the one I've heard of, Spruce Crafts seems to have reasonable editorial oversight and identified some notable contributors, with Dotdash Meredith being a notable publisher of such sites. DMacks (talk) 17:43, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
You may want to rethink your Spruce Crafts as a reliable source. They have transferred content that was user generated by bloggers to their site and repurposed links written by a blogger to things like this http://crochet. about.com/od/homedecorpatterns/p/variegated_earthtone_potholders.htm to become this https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/free-patterns-for-crochet-potholders-978957
Regardless I'd like you to remove your comment that my site is 'low-quality' and my source link is 'spam'.
While knitterspride does appear to be a blog and therefore default low-value source, the first link I saw to it was merely using a page of it that is merely an apparent restatement of a published medical research study. That's not bad. But we should find that study and use it directly instead. DMacks (talk) 17:52, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Here are the other blogs you have used as approved sources for the Crochet page:
it was still a blog...which = By Wikipedia's definition of "reliable sources", blogs and other self-published material are by default considered non-reliable and therefore "low value" as a reference...
That's a good question. Everyone publishes whatever they publish. One confusing distinction is between the "publisher" (who posts it or runs the site) vs the "author" (who writes the content). See WP:SELFPUBLISH for a guideline that builds on that idea. Regarding crochetliberationfront, I don't yet know anything about it, just noting that your parenthetical concern does not make the ref any worse. DMacks (talk) 18:28, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
I resolved that knitterspride link (was redundant at best). Some others to that site were added by User:Themindfulcollection and seem solely to promote that site. Obviously that's not acceptable, so I removed the one that someone else had not already handled. Thanks for identiftying that set! Sometime I'll try to look back at the others and look in more detail at the status of Spruce. DMacks (talk) 18:12, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Tech News: 2024-24
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 software used to render SVG files has been updated to a new version, fixing many longstanding bugs in SVG rendering. [69]
The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It was changed last week in some skins (Vector legacy and Minerva). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in Vector-2022. The developers are still considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.
The HTML markup used for citations by Parsoid changed last week. In places where Parsoid previously added the mw-reference-text class, Parsoid now also adds the reference-text class for better compatibility with the legacy parser. More details are available. [70]
Problems
There was a bug with the Content Translation interface that caused the tools menus to appear in the wrong location. This has now been fixed. [71]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 June. It will be on all wikis from 13 June (calendar). [72][73]
The new version of MediaWiki includes another change to the HTML markup used for citations: Parsoid will now generate a <span class="mw-cite-backlink"> wrapper for both named and unnamed references for better compatibility with the legacy parser. Interface administrators should verify that gadgets that interact with citations are compatible with the new markup. More details are available. [74]
On multilingual wikis that use the <translate> system, there is a feature that shows potentially-outdated translations with a pink background until they are updated or confirmed. From this week, confirming translations will be logged, and there is a new user-right that can be required for confirming translations if the community requests it. [75]
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