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Tech News: 2017-10

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

Recent changes

• You can now search on English, French, Hebrew and Greek wikis and find words even if you forget the diacritics. It also works if you use diacritics in your search but the wiki doesn't. [1]
• When you use the mobile view and click on a link to an article in another language you will see that article in the mobile view. Previously it changed to the desktop view. [2]

Problems

• Some watchlist gadgets didn't work for a period of time last week. This has now been fixed. [3]
• Admins who click on "mass delete" on a user's Special:Contributions will be taken directly to a list pages created by that user. It has worked like this before, but not lately. [4]

Changes this week

• The way you switch between wikitext and the visual editors in the desktop view has changed. It is now a drop-down menu. This is the same as in the mobile view. [5]
• The "flag the edit in the abuse log" checkbox will be removed from the abuse filter interface. This is because the edits are always flagged in the abuse log. [6]
• 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).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 7 March at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Clarification

• The 2017/09 issue of Tech News mentioned 3D file formats you can soon upload to Commons. The AMF format will be available later.

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

23:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 12

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Aspartic acid, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Incontinence. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Tech News: 2017-11

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 this week

• You will be able to show references from <references /> tags in more than one column on your wiki. This is the list of footnotes for the sources in the article. How many columns you see will depend on how big your screen is. On some wikis, some templates already do this. Templates that use <references /> tags will need to be updated, and then later the change can happen for all reference lists. [7][8]
• 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).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 14 March at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Some old web browsers will not be able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis in the future. If you have an old web browser on your computer you can upgrade to a newer version. [9]
• CSS in templates will be stored in a separate page in the future. [10][11]

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

15:25, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Can you re-up this discussion?

I missed the Template talk:Infobox drug#3D models discussion when it was first initiated in mid-2014. (See tetracycline Talk.) I would gladly engage that if it were restarted, unless it reached a conclusion that you found satisfactory, without my presence . Le Prof 73.210.155.96 (talk) 15:41, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Copyright Issue

Hi DMacks,

I am not sure where's the copyright violation to my draft,

since mostly of the content are rewritten by myself and referred from our company's press releases and our partner's websites.

And I thought the censor is after the submission, how wikipedia can just remove the draft without any warning, and let me have no power to further edit the article.

Please point out the violation, and allow me to access the draft for further modification.

Ariel Yin (talk) 03:04, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

There are specific sentences and paragraphs that are verbatim. See Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials to learn how to proceed, being aware that the text becomes open-licensed by your mere action of posting it here (i.e., your company is no longer in control). But before you do *anything* else, read WP:COI to make sure you are in compliance (hint: you are not) and whether you should be working on an article about your own company (hint: possibly not). DMacks (talk) 20:37, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Najaf ali bhayo

Hello. I noticed your comment on the SPI about someone trying to change your WP password. It's Najaf up to his old tricks again, he tried to change my password too about a year ago... - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 21:01, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Yup. It was just one more piece of evidence that my rangeblock was on target:) DMacks (talk) 21:42, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

H₂Lv

You're welcome! Somehow I find that every time I go to those articles the superheavy ones seem to be back. Of course, those are the least of the articles' problems, but at least removing those makes it a little less obvious that they are from what I tend to jokingly call "periodic table fans". The phenotype: memorised the names of all 118 elements, knows precious little about their actual chemistries besides little fragmented tidbits, but repeatedly organises things into neat but ill-fitting little boxes according to his or her knowledge without first reading up on the topic from more reputable and detailed sources. ^_-☆ Double sharp (talk) 07:30, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Thiophene

Leave a note here about your concerns about thiophene, and I will try to resolve issues. Your continued efforts on these fundamental compounds are much appreciated. --Smokefoot (talk) 15:30, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Oxalate degrading enzyme

Thanks for your work at this article; with no background in the subject, I found the article just almost incomprehensible. I can't even figure out what chunk makes Enzymes are macromolecules with biocatalytic activity, and most enzymes are proteins redundant, so it's good that someone more knowledgeable came along :-) Do we have an article that covers the "degradation" concept that's relevant here? You added a link to degradation, but it's a disambiguation page. And also, I've added Category:Oxalates and Category:Enzymes to the article, since it's related to and one of these concepts, respectively. Is oxalates appropriate, or is that only for types of oxalate compounds? And surely this can go in some of the enzymes subcategories (I'm guessing in one of the subcategories of Category:Enzymes by function, for example), but I don't understand which ones. Nyttend (talk) 16:59, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-12

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 Save page button now says Publish page or Publish changes on the Wikimedia wikis except for Wikipedias and Wikinewses. This change will come to Wikipedias later. The point is to make it more clear that the edit will change the page immediately. Publish page is when you save a new page and Publish changes when you edit an existing page. [12]
• DMOZ no longer works. Templates that use DMOZ can be redirected to archive.org or another mirror. DMOZ has been removed from the RelatedSites extension on Wikivoyage. [13]
• You can see monthly page views when you click on Page information in the sidebar. Developers can also get monthly page views through the API. [14]
• The Linter extension is now on smaller Wikimedia wikis. It helps editors find some wikitext errors so they can be fixed. It will come to other Wikimedia wikis later. The extension will be able to find more errors later. [15]
• The MediaWiki-Vagrant portable development environment has been updated to use Debian Jessie. This means local development and testing will be more like on the majority of Wikimedia production servers. [16]

Problems

• On 15 March some interwiki links to other languages were not correctly sorted. This has been fixed. If you still see pages where the interwiki links are not sorted as they should be, they should be fixed automatically with time or you can edit the page and save it without changing anything. If this doesn't work, please report it. [17]

Changes this week

• When you edit with the visual editor, you will be able to switch the direction you write in from right-to-left to left-to-right as you are editing. This is especially important for editors who edit in languages that write from right to left. You can do this with a tool in the editing menu. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+X on PCs or Cmd+Shift+X on Macs. [18]
• 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).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 21 March at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

22:03, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Science-related question

Hi DMacks. If you get a chance, I wonder if you'd take a look at this edit request. The OP came back and modified the request after I declined it, but I'm finding that an adequate assessment of it is a bit beyond my ken. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 04:06, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-13

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

Recent changes

• When you edit with the visual editor, you can see a visual diff as well as a wikitext diff when you review your changes. [19]

Problems

• Special:AllPages was disabled for two days due to some performance issues. It is back, but the filter for redirects is gone as the cause of the performance problem. It still needs to be fixed. [20][21]

Changes this week

• New filters for Recent changes will be released on Portuguese and Polish Wikipedias and MediaWikiwiki on March 28. Other wikis will get it progressively. The new filters include filtering, highlighting and, on certain wikis, user intent prediction.
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from March 28. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from March 29. It will be on all wikis from March 30 (calendar).

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

14:46, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Czechia "Vandalisim"

How was it vandalism I just updated the name Ninvento (talk) 16:08, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Please see the FAQ link I included in the message. DMacks (talk) 18:29, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Javascript test pages

Hi Dmacks

Thanks for starting the discussion at WP:VPT#Categories_for_.js_pages about the categorisation of code. I learnt a lot from it.

However, the discussion has now run its course, so I was wondering if you would now like to disable (or delete) the two test pages you produced — User:DMacks/template-test1 and User:DMacks/test.js — so that they no longer populate non-existent categories?

It would be helpful to have them no longer appear in Special:WantedCategories. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:02, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for gnoming the categories! DMacks (talk) 20:08, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Great! Thanks --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:39, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

This Month in Education: [March 2017]

This Month in Education

Volume 6 | Issue 2 |March 2017

This monthly newsletter showcases the Wikipedia Education Program. It focuses on sharing: your ideas, stories, success and challenges. Be sure to check out the full version, and past editions. You can also volunteer to help publish the newsletter. Join the team!

In This Issue

---

Featured Topic	Newsletter update Overview on Wikipedia Education Program 2016 in Taiwan
From the Community	High School and Collegiate Students Enhance Waray Wikipedia during Edit-a-thons Approaching History students as pilot of Education program in Iran An experience with middle school students in Ankara Wikishtetl: Commemorating Jewish communities that perished in the Holocaust
From the Education Team	UCSF Students Visit WMF Office as they start their Wikipedia editing journey Meet the team
In the News	Från dammiga arkiv till artiklar på nätet

If this message is not on your home wiki's talk page, update your subscription.

The new issue of the newsletter is out! Thanks to everyone who submitted stories and helped with the publication. We hope you enjoy this issue of the Education Newsletter.-- Sailesh Patnaik using Saileshpat (talk) 19:07, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-14

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 Save page button now says Publish page or Publish changes on most Wikipedias. The point is to make it more clear that the edit will change the page immediately. Publish page is when you save a new page and Publish changes when you edit an existing page. [22]
• The tracking category Category:Pages with template loops is now added when a template loop is found. A template loop is for example when a template tries to use a second template that uses the first template. [23]
• English Wikipedia now has cookie blocks. It will come to more wikis in the future. This is an extension to the autoblock system so when a user is blocked, the next time they visit the wiki a cookie will be set. This means that even if the user switches accounts and to a new IP address the cookie will block them again. [24]

Problems

• Wikidata descriptions, aliases and labels that used some characters could not be saved. This has now been fixed. [25]

Changes 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).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 4 April at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the next office hour with the Wikidata team. The meeting will be on 5 April at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• New filters for Recent changes will come to Wikidata and Persian, Dutch, Russian, Turkish, Czech and Hebrew Wikipedia on 11 April. The new filters include filtering, highlighting and user intent prediction. User intent prediction means the filter tries to help editors determine if the edit was made in good faith or not. Other wikis will get it later. [26]

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

17:53, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for April 4

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Enzyme, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Cofactor. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:58, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-15

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

• Tidy is going to be replaced with an HTML5 parsing algorithm. Bad HTML in wikitext would cause problems on a number of wikis. There is now a ParserMigration extension on all wikis that you can use to help clean this up. You can read more about how you can use it. [27]

Changes this week

• Some older web browsers will not be able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis from this week. If you have an old web browser on your computer you can upgrade to a newer version. [28]
• New filters for Recent changes will come to Wikidata and Persian, Russian, Turkish and French Wikipedia on 11 April. The schedule has been changed to fix the user intent prediction filters for some wikis. User intent prediction means the filter tries to make it easier for editors to determine if the edit was made in good faith or not. Other wikis will get it later. [29]
• The list of special characters in the wikitext editor and the visual editor will now have a group of Canadian Aboriginal characters. [30]
• 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).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 11 April at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for 20 to 30 minutes on 19 April and 3 May. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. You can read more about this.
• RevisionSlider will change how you move between revisions. This will be available on the test wiki from 11 April. It will come to other wikis later if users like the change. You can test it and give feedback.

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

18:35, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Freedom Machine

Not a test page. Spam. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. Thanks for canning it. DMacks (talk) 05:28, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for April 12

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Henderson Bridge (Rhode Island), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page India Point. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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external links on New Power Party in Taiwan

Hi DMacks,

I had added some of those external links related to New Power Party, which they are mostly related to New Power Party with those external links on various reforms that are going on at Taiwan. I hope that you would at least read them on those various issues at Taiwan instead just using bots to delete them. Wikipedia is after all an encyclopedia for mass awareness to keep people informed on things around world.

Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia - Wiki....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia

File:Size of English Wikipedia broken down.png....

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Size_of_English_Wikipedia_broken_down.png

I love science, too, but politics in Taiwan isn't exactly like academic papers, which are very rigor and even dry reading. Those external links are almost all related to Taiwan or exactly to topics of that page. My goals are to focus on struggle of Taiwan and why these political parties even existed in first place not to write strict academic papers to impress your peer scientists like most academic papers in very complex terminologies. I will just said that it is important for Taiwan to have those links regarding to reforms and human rights at Taiwan. China suppressed freedom of speech and so on. Better privacy laws are really needed in Taiwan to protect on those that are demanding for changes in Taiwan. I hope you will have understanding on that. Thanx! =) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.114.119.130 (talk) 04:37, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Privacy International - Wiki....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_International

Julian Assange - Wiki....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange

Not much love lost between Wikipedia and WikiLeaks - The Guardian....

https://www.theguardian.com/business/andrew-clark-on-america/2010/aug/30/wikipedia-wikileaks

Maybe Jimmy Wales needs to pay royalty to Julian Assange for using word such as wiki.... just joking! USA certainly got housing bubbles, student loan crisis, income inequality, and much more to that devastated middle income class. Anyhow.... noticed that Taiwan is rather red and rank very low on privacy laws.... sadly. I mean you can change world and save life on here not siding with any Pro-China and Anti-Democratic agenda for sure. Imagine that!  ;-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.114.119.130 (talk) 05:29, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-16

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

Recent changes

• You can add ?safemode=1 to the end of the URL on Wikimedia wikis to disable your personal CSS and JavaScript. Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature?safemode=1. This means you can test if a problem is because of your user scripts or gadgets without uninstalling them. [31]
• You can now see a list of all autoblocks on Special:AutoblockList. [32]
• The Wikiversity and Wikinews logos are now shown directly from the configuration and not from [[File:Wiki.png]]. If you want to change logo or have an anniversary logo, see how to request a configuration change. This is how it already works for other projects. They can request logo changes the same way. [33]

Problems

• Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for 20 to 30 minutes on 19 April. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. You can read more about this. This will also happen on 3 May.

Changes this week

• There is no new Mediawiki version this week. This is because of the data centre test.

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 18 April at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• stats.wikimedia.org will be replaced. You can see the new prototype. You can leave feedback on this change.
• Page Previews will be turned on for logged-out users on a large number of wikis in May. It could be postponed and happen later. Page Previews shows readers a short part of a linked article when they rest their mouse pointer on the link. This is to help them understand what it is about without leaving the article they are reading. Page Previews used to be called Hovercards. Users who have tested the feature can give feedback. [34]
• From next week, user scripts using very old deprecated wikibits functions will show errors. These functions have not worked since 2013. You should fix or disable broken scripts. You can see examples of how to upgrade scripts. [35][36]

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

19:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Vandalism

@DMacks: @DMacks2: Somebody instead of clean up the article deleted 95% portion of your last edited article[37], photos, references, signature, Infobox information, awards and distinctions, books, reliable sources, quotes, occupation, example of poetry, khowar translation, links, reliable references and external links and many others has been deleted, please check this edit and revert the article to its original position and fix the protection template to save the article from vandalisum--175.107.55.33 (talk) 05:34, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Sock blocked. DMacks (talk) 06:44, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

@DMacks: @DMacks2: sir due to oversight or human error you blocked the IP 175.107.55.33 please unblock the IP as someone deleted 95% portion of your last edited article[38] please revert the change to your last edit. Thanks --175.107.53.145 (talk) 03:55, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

No. DMacks (talk) 04:06, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-17

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

• New filters for recent changes are now available as a beta feature on most wikis. You can turn it on in your preferences. Remaining wikis will have the new filters on 9 May. [39]
• When administrators, bureaucrats and stewards make a user a member of a user group they can now set an expiry date. A user group is for example "administrators" or "bots". This means that they can give someone user rights for a limited time. This is similar to how blocks and page protections can be limited in time. Special:UserRights will have new options for this. You can read more about user groups. [40]

Problems

• Since the data centre test last week the content translation tool has been disabled. This is because of a database problem. It will be back as soon as the problem has been solved. [41]

Changes this week

• The GuidedTour extension will be enabled on all wikis. This is a tool to explain to new users how to edit. [42]
• Wiktionary will handle interlanguage links in a new way. The Cognate extension will automatically link pages with the same title between Wiktionaries. For this to work all old interlanguage links have to be removed. You can read more about this. [43]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 April. It will be on all wikis from 27 April (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 25 April at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

16:40, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

This Month in Education: [April 2017]

This Month in Education

Volume 6 | Issue 3 | April 2017

This monthly newsletter showcases the Wikipedia Education Program. It focuses on sharing: your ideas, stories, success and challenges. Be sure to check out the full version, and past editions. You can also volunteer to help publish the newsletter. Join the team!

In This Issue

---

Featured Topic	How responsible should teachers be for student contributions?
From the Community	Cairo and Al-Azhar Universities students wrap up their ninth term and start their tenth term on WEP Glimpse of small language Wikipedia incubation partnership in Taiwan Key to recruiting seniors as Wikipedians is long-term work Education at WMCON17 OER17 Western Armenian WikiCamper promotes Wikiprojects in his school Building a global network for Education
From the Education Team	Mobile Learning Week 2017

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The new issue of the newsletter is out! Thanks to everyone who submitted stories and helped with the publication. We hope you enjoy this issue of the Education Newsletter.-- Sailesh Patnaik using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:18, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-18

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 content translation tool works again. It was turned off because of a database problem. [44]
• Scripts using very old deprecated wikibits functions show errors. These functions have not worked since 2013. You should fix or disable broken scripts. You can see examples of how to upgrade scripts. This is the same thing as Tech News wrote about in issue 2017/16. You need to add mw.loader.using( 'mediawiki.util' ) block for your scripts also, or add mediawiki.util dependency in gadget ResourceLoader section in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition. [45][46]

Problems

• Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for 20 to 30 minutes on 3 May. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. You can read more about this.

Changes this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week. This is because of the data centre test.

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 2 May at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• All Wikimedia wikis will have cookie blocks from May 8. This is an extension to the autoblock system so when a user is blocked, the next time they visit the wiki a cookie will be set. This means that even if the user switches accounts and to a new IP address the cookie will block them again. [47]
• The Publish changes, Show preview and Show changes buttons will look slightly different. This is to fit with the OOUI look. Users can test scripts, gadgets and so on to see if they work with the new interface by adding &ooui=1 to the URL. [48]

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

19:50, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Technical support scam article

Hi DMacks, I don't know why you removed my edit here - I added something important that wasn't covered in the article, but should've been. Please have a look at the source, my addition is demonstrated there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrDennis (talk • contribs) 13:52, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

The idea that SEO can elevate bad sites, either malware, ad sites, or all sorts of incorrect information, is already well-covered. I don't see what is substantially new or deserving of additional prominence, and I don't see a high-quality well-known reference site to support it (WP:RS and WP:UNDUE guidelines). I do see a new editor who seems to be fond of adding refs to the same site on many pages (refspam is a serious problem on Wikipedia). DMacks (talk) 14:23, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

The unique aspect of black-hat SEO combined with the fake tech support issue is something that search engines still didn't find a way to tackle properly. This is an industry that makes millions every month from unsuspecting users, and the idea of a reverse phone number search hasn't crossed anyone's mind yet. Looking over official sites, nobody mentions the SEO aspect, as though the ban on fake tech support ads by Google & Bing solved the problem. But it hasn't! The article demonstrates the research which was made and an issue that continues to plague search results and users.

The other edits I made that reference our site are also highly relevant and while I see your point about "a new editor who seems to be fond of adding refs to the same site on many pages", I'd like to point out that the specific pages I add are not only beneficial and highly relevant, but also unique, without a better substitute from a more authoritative site. (see this tool for example, which was also removed from the antivirus comparison page) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrDennis (talk • contribs) 14:44, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

"without a better substitute from a more authoritative site." is one of the problems. If this were a major or notable situation, it would be covered by them. Especially someone like google getting tricked by a scam involving masquerading as google? Compare to the recent gmail phishing, which was widely covered. I suspect wikipedia just isn't ready to jump into the realm of cutting-edge information, instead taking a more conservative approach to reporting. DMacks (talk) 13:00, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

I appreciate your taking the time to discuss this, and if you think that the black-hat SEO networks are an insignificant issue, I can't convince you otherwise. However, if you truly believe that the importance of a research is determined solely by the popularity or fame of the researcher, I beg to differ. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

Do you mind if I raise the issue of the other submission which was removed? The tool that provides an aggregation of lab tests is a perfect resource for comparing antivirus test scores because (1) it combines scores from multiple AMTSO certified labs, (2) it allows users to view tests over time instead of a single test (the labs don't have such an option), and (3) each original test is accessible from the data points on the graph. All the data is based in fact and no other tool does that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrDennis (talk • contribs) 14:06, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-19

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

Problems

• Some users have a problem with the watchlist. Some changes in categories make the watchlist a blank page. The developers are working on this. Until this is fixed you can try some things that have helped other editors if you have this problem. You can turn on Hide categorization of pages in your watchlist preferences. You can turn off Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent in your watchlist preferences. You can remove problematic categories from Special:EditWatchlist/raw. [49]
• There was a problem with the visual editor for several days. You could not save edits that triggered a CAPTCHA. This would for example be when a new user added external links in references. This was fixed on 2 May. [50]

Changes this week

• When you edit you can switch between the visual editor and the wikitext editor. This works if the wiki you edit has the visual editor. The menu will now say Visual editing and Source editing instead of Switch to visual editing and Switch to code editing. This is because it was confusing when the menu said you could switch to the editor you were already using. [51]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 May. It will be on all wikis from 11 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 9 May at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• You will be able to get a notification when a page you created is connected to a Wikidata item. This will come to Wikivoyage on 9 May. If there are no problems it will come to most Wikipedias on 30 May. It will come to other projects and English, French and German Wikipedia later in the summer. It will be opt-in for existing users and opt-out for new users. [52][53]
• Markup that looks like code for language variants might need to be fixed. If -{ is used in transclusions or web addresses it has to be escaped appropriately. You can use -<nowiki/>{ for transclusions and %2D{ in web addresses. A transclusion could for example be when you use -{ in a template: {{1x| sad :-{ face }}. This is because of some code fixes to the preprocessor and affects all wikis. [54][55]

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

02:25, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Unblock request on hold

There is an unblock request at User talk:1.136.96.43, in connection with a year-long range block that you placed on the range 1.136.96.0/24 in September 2016 for block evasion. I am much inclined to unblock, but I am consulting you, in case you know of relevant facts that I can't see. Looking at your editing history around the time when you placed the block I see no edits that appear to be related to the block, and which might throw light on the reason for the block, nor is it obvious from the IP editing what block was being evaded, which makes it difficult for me to fully assess the situation. However, the following are my observations based on what I can see.

There have been 1493 edits from 241 IP addresses in the range. Looking at the editing history, I see a wide range of different edits, with no obvious connections to one another, so that there is no reason at all to suppose that all, or even a large minority, of the edits are from one person. That being so, I see no reason at all to suppose that the editor who is requesting the unblock is the one who caused you to block the range. Indeed, in view of the evidence that many editors have used the range, I find it difficult to see how a long-term block on the whole range could have seemed justified in the first place. Also, any disruptive editing from the range which took place back in September was certainly not so extensive that unblocking now would pose a major risk. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:42, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm guessing this was Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Dylan Florida/Archive? I can see some of the previous range blocks were triggered by him and he uses Telstra. The history here in early 2016/2015 shows previous uses of this range. Not clear what triggered the most recent range block. Kuru (talk) 14:45, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Yup, Dylan Florida as usual. DMacks (talk) 17:57, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

@JamesBWatson:, see also User talk:1.136.96.88, where you and I have already discussed this same rangeblock and another admin declined the unblock. DMacks (talk) 18:00, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Here is the block log for the /24 range. In my opinion, it is not unreasonable to keep a /24 blocked for as much as a year if we have evidence that the problem is likely to continue. Since the block is anon-only we are just forcing the user to create an account, if they need to work from this range. EdJohnston (talk) 18:17, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

@EdJohnston and Kuru: & of course DMacks. Thanks for the clarifications. This is a good example of why it is virtually always best to check with the blocking administrator "in case you know of relevant facts that I can't see", because that is exactly what turns out to be the case. (And I didn't remember my own raising of a similar question for the same range block in September last year.) This is one of the rare occasions when I think that the considerable collateral damage caused by such a long-term block on a range with many editors is probably the lesser evil. I shall decline the unblock request. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:13, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

@JamesBWatson: And thanks for asking! I certainly didn't mean my comment to be snide in any way, though I can now see it being read that way, but merely to keep discussions linked and available due to the...nature of the subject. DMacks (talk) 20:47, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Hagiographies

Any suggestions on what to do when I run across a hagiography such as Bernard Cheong? Other than fix it myself? Need a template:hagiography cleanup tag? Thanks Jim1138 (talk) 09:27, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

27.252.121.212

27.252.121.212 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Quite opinionated. wp:KDL irrelevant, wp:disambiguation irrelevant... Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 09:01, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

And disruptive. If I weren't involved prior to seeing how widespread the pattern was, I would have blocked him myself ASAP. DMacks (talk) 20:59, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Request for undeletion the article Koushani Mukherjee

I am requesting you for undeletion the article Koushani Mukherjee. She is a bengali film actress who already made her debut in four films. I want to provide reliable sources on the article.

Tushar Singha (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:30, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Because this was deleted as a result of a discussed consensus (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Koushani Mukherjee), I cannot undelete it unilaterally. You were advised at WP:Deletion review who to contact instead, because I am not "the administrator who closed the discussion". DMacks (talk) 04:38, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-20

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

Recent changes

• You can now use ISBNs to automatically generate citations in the visual editor. This works on wikis that have enabled Citoid. [56]
• The Two Column Edit Conflict View is available as a beta feature on all wikis. It is a new interface for the edit conflict resolution page. [57]

Problems

• The mediawiki.util library does not load automatically any more. Your Special:MyPage/common.js may use it. If you have technical problems that started a couple of weeks ago you can try adding mw.loader.using( 'mediawiki.util' ).done(function(){ as the first line in the file and }); as a last one. Tech News wrote about this in the 2017/18 issue. [58]

Changes this week

• The RevisionSlider extension will be a default feature on all wikis. RevisionSlider is an easier way to move between changes in the page history. It has been a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia and a beta feature on all wikis. You will be able to turn it off in your preferences. [59]
• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

• Administrators will soon be able to search through deleted pages. [60][61]
• Markup that looks like code for language variants might need to be fixed. Tech News wrote about this last week. If -{ is used in transclusions or web addresses it has to be escaped appropriately. You can use -<nowiki/>{ for transclusions and %2D{ in web addresses. This is because of some code fixes to the preprocessor and affects all wikis. You can now see the full list of wikis with this problem and help fix them to avoid that things break later this month. You might find false positives. You can read more about what to fix. [62][63]

Older unreported changes

• Your Meta user page is shown on all wikis where you don't have a local user page. You can now add the magic word __NOGLOBAL__ to your Meta user page to stop this. [64][65]

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

21:48, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Boner

You did not have to protect Boner, as I had quit editing the page after this revision by Bkonrad (talk · contribs).
―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 17:54, 16 May 2017 (UTC)