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Tech News: 2022-43

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

Recent changes

• There have been some minor visual fixes in Special:Search, regarding audio player alignment and image placeholder height. Further details are in T319230.
• On Wikipedias, a new preference has been added to hide article thumbnails in Special:Search. Full details are in T320337.

Problems

• Last week, three wikis (French Wikipedia, Japanese Wikipedia, Russian Wikipedia) had read-only access for 25 minutes. This was caused by a hardware problem. [1]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 October. It will be on all wikis from 27 October (calendar).
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 25 October at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 27 October at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
• Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Assamese Wikipedia, Bashkir Wikipedia, Balinese Wikipedia, Bavarian Wikipedia, Samogitian Wikipedia, Bikol Central Wikipedia, Belarusian Wikipedia, Belarusian (Taraškievica) Wikipedia, Bulgarian Wikipedia, Bhojpuri Wikipedia, Bislama Wikipedia, Banjar Wikipedia, Bambara Wikipedia, Bishnupriya Wikipedia, Breton Wikipedia, Bosnian Wikipedia, Buginese Wikipedia, Buryat Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [2]
• Starting on Wednesday October 26, 2022, the list of mentors will be upgraded at wikis where Growth mentorship is available. The mentorship system will continue to work as it does now. The signup process will be replaced, and a new management option will be provided. Also, this change simplifies the creation of mentorship systems at Wikipedias. [3][4][5]
• Pages with titles that start with a lower-case letter according to Unicode 11 will be renamed or deleted. There is a list of affected pages at m:Unicode 11 case map migration. More information can be found at T292552.
• The Vector 2022 skin will become the default across the smallest Wikipedias. Learn more.

Future changes

• The Reply tool and New Topic tool will soon get a special characters menu. [6]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:20, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Cortisol edit

Please review this edit. I could not verify suspected copyvio, but the edit summary raises questions about whether the edit should stand. Zefr (talk) 19:34, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

• Cortisol (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I can't find close matches for copyvio. But I agree the ES is a problem. It's clearly a school project or similar edit-contest where someone needs to demonstrate that they have made a change. My VPN is not working right now so I can't access the refs to see if they actually support the content. If they do, then I'm ok with it staying. If it's even slightly not, then I'd nuke. DMacks (talk) 19:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-44

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 using keyboard navigation on a Kartographer map, the focus will become more visible. [7]
• In Special:RecentChanges, you can now hide the log entries for new user creations with the filter for "⧼rcfilters-filter-newuserlogactions-label⧽". [8]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 November. It will be on all wikis from 3 November (calendar).
• The maps dialog in VisualEditor now has some help texts. [9]
• It is now possible to select the language of a Kartographer map in VisualEditor via a dropdown menu. [10]
• It is now possible to add a caption to a Kartographer map in VisualEditor. [11]
• It is now possible to hide the frame of a Kartographer map in VisualEditor. [12]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:13, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2022).

Administrator changes

• 
  • Isabelle Belato
  • Whpq
• 
• 
  • Atama
  • Astronautics~enwiki
  • Athaenara
  • Eddie891
  • GraemeL
  • Marianocecowski
  • Natalya
  • Pratyeka
  • SB Johnny

Interface administrator changes

• TheresNoTime
• Ragesoss

CheckUser changes

• 
  • Blablubbs
  • Firefly
• Joe Roe

Oversight changes

• DGG

Guideline and policy news

• The article creation at scale RfC opened on 3 October and will be open until at least 2 November.
• An RfC is open to discuss having open requests for adminship automatically placed on hold after the seven-day period has elapsed, pending closure or other action by a bureaucrat.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 13 November 2022 until 22 November 2022 to stand in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections.
• The arbitration case request titled Athaenara has been resolved by motion.
• The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block has entered the proposed decision stage.
• AmandaNP, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2022 Arbitration Committee Elections. Xaosflux and Dr vulpes are reserve commissioners.

Miscellaneous

• The 2022 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of two new CheckUsers.
• You can add yourself to the centralised page listing time zones of administrators.
• Tech tip: Wikimarkup in a block summary is parsed in the notice that the blockee sees. You can use templates with custom options to specify situations like {{rangeblock|create=yes}} or {{uw-ublock|contains profanity}}.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:22, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-45

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 updated version of the Event Registration tool is now available for testing at testwiki and test2wiki. The tool provides features for event organizers and participants. Your feedback is welcome at our project talkpage. More information about the project is available. [13]

Problems

• Twice last week, for about 45 minutes, some files and thumbnails failed to load and uploads failed, mostly for logged-in users. The cause is being investigated and an incident report will be available soon.

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:30, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

newton's third law

Hello, I thought my edit to be a positive contribution to an even better formulation of the example in terms of mutual influence later. As the statement at the wikipedia page is formulated right now, it appears a bit rediculous to me. I believe this is what I'm trying to say: there's something wrong with the formulation of the 'book on table and the Earth'-example in terms of a pull of the earth on one side and an equal pull of the book on the earth on the other side. I can't remember Newton ever has formulated a comparative example in this way. Jan janman (talk) 06:27, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

The standard formulation of gravity, Newton's law of universal gravitation is that two objects equally pull on each other. DMacks (talk) 04:46, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Copyright violation question

Your recent help with copyright issues with some of my students is greatly appreciated! I wish I had a tool to identify some of the issues you found, and while I know there are some out there, I have not been able to find a way to gain access to them. Do you have any suggestions or guidance for any tools I can use to monitor edits and try to root out issues if or as they arise? Many thanks. FULBERT (talk) 18:21, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Most copyvio cases are easy, especially for these students because they did follow the guideline about citing their sources. I just checked the cited ref and 'command-F' to find a key few words that the student added. Sometimes google search for a key phrase can find an origin that isn't cited. I don't know of a tool that is generally very useful for sources in journals, because so many of them are not visible without a university subscription. But if you have access to an articles database on a certain topic, searching there can help.

For uncited content, and "softer" problems such as SYNTH and TONE, I don't know of any alternative to simply looking at the edit itself. I've never taught a class that involves wiki-editing before, but from experience seeing other classes' outcomes, the results are often not very good. Encyclopedias are so very different than normal school writing, and so many experienced eyes often catch things that might go less-noticed in other media. I don't have more time today beyond the ones I already commented on your talkpage, but I can check more of the edits later this week if that would be helpful. DMacks (talk) 18:34, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

@DMacks Thanks for your reply and suggestions, all of which are appreciated! I am back to offering feedback into my comment with my students and will work your most helpful feedback as a learning opportunity into all of this. Again, I value your feedback to my students and suggestions for them! FULBERT (talk) 18:22, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Teahouse: erase my reply

Can I erase my reply about what I said that was not needed on the conversation? Wikipedia:Teahouse#Introducing_my_parents/family_to_being_a_wikipedianCwater1 (talk) 09:56, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I am not a hard-core Teahouse participant, so I do not know what their usual guidelines about that are. But I personally don't object. DMacks (talk) 09:59, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Nice Banner

love the choice of colour you put on this banner. its excellent Zekerocks11 (talk) 20:17, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

:) DMacks (talk) 00:53, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-46

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

• At Wikidata, an interwiki link can now point to a redirect page if certain conditions are met. This new feature is called sitelinks to redirects. It is needed when one wiki uses one page to cover multiple concepts but another wiki uses more pages to cover the same concepts. Your feedback on the talkpage of the new proposed guideline is welcome. [14]
• The www.wikinews.org, www.wikiversity.org, and www.wikivoyage.org portal pages now use an automated update system. [15]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 November. It will be on all wikis from 17 November (calendar).
• There will be a new link to directly "Edit template data" on Template pages. [16]

Future changes

• Wikis where mobile DiscussionTools are enabled (these ones) will soon use full CSS styling to display any templates that are placed at the top of talk pages. To adapt these “talk page boxes” for narrow mobile devices you can use media queries, such as in this example. [17]
• Starting in January 2023, Community Tech will be running the Community Wishlist Survey (CWS) every two years. This means that in 2024, there will be no new proposals or voting.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:52, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Stay off my talk page!

I’m still learning how to edit correctly. Instead of leaving rude criticism, mind your BUSINESS tf. Naniigray (talk) 03:53, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

We're running an encyclopedia here. Your edits are part of a pattern many of us are observing related to inappropriate content on many fashion-related articles. Best anyone can figure out, there is a class or other project that is promoting all these edits, but the professor or coordinator is not providing you with good guidance. That is leading to widespread disruption on Wikipedia and patience has run out. Please ask them to contact Wikipedia:Education program right away so they can better help you towards success. DMacks (talk) 04:09, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Thanks CAPTAIN RAJU. On behalf of probably every admin, though, this reminds me to finally ask: WTF was I thinking???? DMacks (talk) 19:19, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

WTF indeed. I didn't realize that we were promoted on the same day. Acroterion (talk) 19:56, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Wow cool! Sadly the editors who nominated us both left within the past year. DMacks (talk) 04:24, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-47

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 display of non-free media in the search bar and for article thumbnails in Special:Search has been deactivated. Further details are in T320661.

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 22 November at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 24 November at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis).

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:19, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

IP editor you previously blocked

Hi DMacks. Can you take another look at the recent contributions for Special:Contributions/85.109.136.232 please? I had occasion to check based on their recent chemistry-related question at the Teahouse. I note that you had blocked them for 31 hours recently. Now I've reverted a couple more of their useless contributions, for example this addition of a non-reference. I also find it odd that they have been adding to six User Pages, all of currently-blocked sockpuppets. Meanwhile I'll continue to delve into other edits they have made in article space with a view to reverting anything else they shouldn't have been doing. Thanks. Mike Turnbull (talk) 16:39, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

I blocked for a week based on their direct article edits. Looking at the other talk-page edits, I don't see any relationship among the blocked accounts to tie this one to them as evasion. I agree it's weird though. But if you do see a connection among any of them that were active within the past few months (such as multiple socks of the same master, or socks whose edits are analogous to this IP's), I know who to ask about checking it more detail. DMacks (talk) 05:17, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-48

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

• A new preference, “Enable limited width mode”, has been added to the Vector 2022 skin. The preference is also available as a toggle on every page if your monitor is 1600 pixels or wider. It allows for increasing the width of the page for logged-out and logged-in users. [18]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 November. It will be on all wikis from 1 December (calendar).
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 29 November at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 1 December at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
• Mathematical formulas shown in SVG image format will no longer have PNG fall-backs for browsers that don't support them. This is part of work to modernise the generation system. Showing only PNG versions was the default option until in February 2018. [19][20][21]
• On some wikis that use flagged revisions, a new checkbox will be added to Special:Contributions that enables you to see only the pending changes by a user. [22]

Future changes

• How media is structured in the parser's HTML output will change early next week at group1 wikis (but not Wikimedia Commons or Meta-Wiki). This change improves the accessibility of content, and makes it easier to write related CSS. You may need to update your site-CSS, or userscripts and gadgets. There are details on what code to check, how to update the code, and where to report any related problems. [23]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:00, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

ArbCom 2022 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 12 December 2022. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2022 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:23, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Molar attenuation coefficient to Molar absorption coefficient

Is there any chance that you can vote and then help with swapping titles for Molar attenuation coefficient as per the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry. Thanks, --Smokefoot (talk) 14:18, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

I heard that my message to you could be seen as advocacy or biasing. Not my intention. Please accept a few extra mea culpas from me for future sins. You can put them in a virtual freezer and thaw them out as needed. --Smokefoot (talk) 20:30, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

No worries. I obviously do watch the WikiProject Chemistry talkpage and other related ones, though I often don't jump into discussions that seem to have already covered what I would say. Freezer loaded up, let me know if you need any for other purposes. They are a good side dish for WP:TROUT. DMacks (talk) 06:48, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2022).

Administrator changes

• Eddie891
• Euryalus
• TheresNoTime

• Alex.muller
• Excirial
• RedWordSmith
• Ron Ritzman
• TheresNoTime
• Stephen

Interface administrator changes

TheresNoTime

TheresNoTime

CheckUser changes

TheresNoTime

Oversight changes

TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• Consensus has been found in an RfC to automatically place RfAs on hold after one week.
• The article creation at scale RfC has been closed.
• An RfC on the banners for the December 2022 fundraising campaign has been closed.

Technical news

• A new preference named "Enable limited width mode" has been added to the Vector 2022 skin. The preference is also shown as a toggle on every page if your monitor is 1600 pixels or wider. When disabled it removes the whitespace added by Vector 2022 on the left and right of the page content. Disabling this preference has the same effect as enabling the wide-vector-2022 gadget. (T319449)

Arbitration

• Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 12, 2022 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.
• The proposed decision for the 2021-22 review of the discretionary sanctions system is open.
• The arbitration case Reversal and reinstatement of Athaenara's block has been closed.
• The arbitration case Stephen has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 1 December 2022.
• A motion has modified the procedures for contacting an admin facing Level 2 desysop.

Miscellaneous

• Tech tip: A single IPv6 connection usually has access to a "subnet" of 18 quintillion IPs. Add /64 to the end of an IP in Special:Contributions to see all of a subnet's edits, and consider blocking the whole subnet rather than an IP that may change within a minute.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:43, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Protect

DMacks, could you protect pages Dichlorodifluoromethane and Selenium dioxide for prevention of vandalism (non-constructive edits)?

85.109.136.232 (talk) 21:51, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Please ignore that request. We are having a discussion at User_talk:Michael_D._Turnbull#External_links which may or may not be progress..... Mike Turnbull (talk) 22:04, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Keep be updated if you need any third-eyes or admin help. DMacks (talk) 18:34, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

LTA?

Seems likely to be the LTA that you mentioned. User:79.71.70.53 --Smokefoot (talk) 18:47, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Ayup. Gone. DMacks (talk) 18:53, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

you removed something.

Why did you remove the section of an article that I put down there? Bopit1998 (talk) 13:40, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Actually, I found my chalk page, and I put a response, and I know why you did it. You have to forgive me. It was late at night. I was literally about to go to bed. I always play didn’t think about the sausage. If you can leave it up there, I promise I will find some credible sources. It was my idea to put the article up there in the first place, and it’s my responsibility to find credible sources. I’m sorry if I caused any problems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bopit1998 (talk • contribs) 13:59, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

No worry, no hurry. I responded on your talkpage. DMacks (talk) 17:33, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-49

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 Wikisources use a tool called ProofreadPage. ProofreadPage uses OpenSeadragon which is an open source tool. The OpenSeadragon JavaScript API has been significantly re-written to support dynamically loading images. The functionality provided by the older version of the API should still work but it is no longer supported. User scripts and gadgets should migrate over to the newer version of the API. The functionality provided by the newer version of the API is documented on MediaWiki. [24][25]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 December. It will be on all wikis from 8 December (calendar).

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:39, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for catching the vandal harassing me. He'll be back but whatever. Yours. MurrayGreshler (talk) 03:52, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I would assume so. You know where ANI and AIV are if you need them. DMacks (talk) 03:53, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-50

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 A/B test has begun at 15 Wikipedias for DiscussionTools on mobile. Half of the editors on the mobile web site will have access to the Reply tool and other features. [26]
• The character = cannot be used in new usernames, to make usernames work better with templates. Existing usernames are not affected. [27]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 December. It will be on all wikis from 15 December (calendar).
• The HTML markup used by DiscussionTools to show discussion metadata below section headings will be inserted after these headings, not inside of them. This change improves the accessibility of discussion pages for screen reader software. [28]

Events

• The fourth edition of the Coolest Tool Award will happen online on Friday 16 December 2022 at 17:00 UTC! The event will be live-streamed on YouTube in the MediaWiki channel and added to Commons afterwards.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:32, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

This Month in Education: End of the 2022

This Month in Education

Volume 11 • Issue 10 • October–November 2022

Contents • Headlines • Subscribe

In This Issue

• 2nd Latin American Regional Meeting on Education
• Adopting Wikipedia for Secondary School Students in Nigeria Classroom
• Celebrating 2022 Vibrance in Kwara State University Malete
• Celebrating the Wikipedia and Wikidata Birthday in school
• Report on school libraries in Poland for the Wikiteka project
• Wiki For Senior Citizens Network
• WikiEducation, Educational practices and experiences in Mexico with Wikipedia and other open resources
• Wikimedia & Education Workshops: a Wiki Movimento Brasil initiative
• An event at the National History Museum in Tirana
• Students 24-hour competition on Wikipedia article writing
• Wiki-Data a Giant at 10
• WikiGraphers: Visualizing Open Knowledge
• Wikimedia Israel’s Educational Innovation: “Students Write Wikipedia” as a Matriculation-Exam Alternative
• Wikimedia Morocco User Group Empowers Moroccan Teachers to Use Wikipedia in the Classroom
• Wikimedia Russia has released the "Introduction to Wikipedia" textbook
• “Wikipedia for School” contest was held in Ukraine for the third time
• Announcing the Wikipedia & Education User Group Election Results

About This Month in Education · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · For the team: ZI Jony 06:56, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-51

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

Tech News

• Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 9 January 2023.

Recent changes

• On a user's contributions page, you can filter it for edits with a tag like 'reverted'. Now, you can also filter for all edits that are not tagged like that. This was part of a Community Wishlist 2022 request. [29]
• A new function has been used for gadget developers to add content underneath the title on article pages. This is considered a stable API that should work across all skins. Documentation is available. [30]
• One of our test wikis is now being served from a new infrastructure powered by Kubernetes (read more). More Wikis will switch to this new infrastructure in early 2023. Please test and let us know of any issues. [31]

Problems

• Last week, all wikis had no edit access for 9 minutes. This was caused by a database problem. [32]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.
• The word "Reply" is very short in some languages, such as Arabic ("ردّ"). This makes the Discussion tools button on talk pages difficult to use. An arrow icon will be added to those languages. This will only be visible to editors who have the Beta Feature turned on. [33] [34]

Future changes

• Edits can be automatically "tagged" by the system software or the Edit filter configuration system. Those tags link to a help page about the tags. Soon they will also link to Recent Changes to let you see other edits tagged this way. This was a Community Wishlist 2022 request. [35]
• The Trust & Safety tools team have shared new plans for building the Private Incident Reporting System. The system will make it easier for editors to ask for help if they are harassed or abused.
• Realtime Preview for Wikitext is coming out of beta as an enabled feature for every user of the 2010 Wikitext editor in the week of January 9, 2023. It will be available to use via the toolbar in the 2010 Wikitext editor. The feature was the 4th most popular wish of the Community Wishlist Survey 2021.

Events

• You can now register for the Wikimedia Hackathon 2023, taking place on May 19–21 in Athens, Greece. You can also apply for a scholarship until January 14th.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:58, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

CAS Registry Number artcle

Hi DMacks, I don't know if this is the correct tool to talk to you as its my first time working on Wikipedia (CAS Registry Number). I added the actual number of valid cas numbers I calculated with a python script and you deleted it because it was not from a reliable source. By that standard you would have to delete lot of information on Wikipedia. The same article states that 1 billion CAS numbers are possible but the same article states that only some of them are valid. This information has no citation and is also wrong. Should we then also delete the information about the billion CAS numbers? Is it possible to provide the code to provide a source that could be checked? This type of information I could not find anywhere else, thats why I wrote the script.

Freespam (talk) 13:00, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

more weird organoX

I recall you asked me about organopolonium back in 2020 (which I then created as a stub), so I guess my recent creation of organoastatine chemistry might interest you. :) There is some detailed knowledge there (and some reviews), but I just started a stub first.

I don't think there are many more that are actually missing (other elements without individual organometallic articles mostly are already sections in a more general article), but some could well have their own articles (e.g. organothallium). There are a few known organokryptons and organoargons, but I don't recall seeing a review article yet (while there are such for organopolonium and organoastatine). Double sharp (talk) 07:04, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Cool! Thanks for the note. {{ChemicalBondsToCarbon}} is a nice nav-box. Should we have redirects to the relevant section if there isn't a stand-alone article? Help:Link_color#Redirect is then a nice tool if to indicate which ones are actual vs redirects in that navbox. DMacks (talk) 07:39, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

In some cases we do, e.g. "CTl" (thallium) links to Organogallium chemistry#Higher group 13 organometallic chemistry. Almost all the lanthanides send you to Organolanthanide chemistry: I think this is fine (because a recent review also considers them all together), but that article surely needs expansion. For the actinides we have organoactinide chemistry linked to for most of them, even for the ones where no such chemistry is actually known (although, since variation of properties is much greater among 5f elements than among 4f elements, maybe more of them should become real articles; in particular maybe for Th a better target is Thorium compounds#Organometallic compounds). I'm not sure if it actually makes sense to have the template give any link at all for "Lr" when there aren't any known organolawrencium compounds (for obvious reasons) and nobody has actually investigated any. Then we have a "CSg" for seaborgium which is necessary pedantry: exactly one compound is known and there's no hope of ever having a real article for the foreseeable future (though maybe that should link to Seaborgium#Experimental chemistry?).

The funny thing is that I found enough sources that I now think organohelium chemistry makes sense as a computational-chemistry article. Even though no such compounds are actually known. Double sharp (talk) 07:53, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I spent a while in grad-school doing computations on alkylargon (or alkylneon, can't remember anymore) to simulate hydrophobic-protein binding regions. Nothing publishable came of it. DMacks (talk) 08:29, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm still hoping that someone will eventually make the argon fluoride salts Frenking predicted in 1989. Or find helium acting as a bad alkaline earth metal in the way hydrogen acts as a bad alkali metal – in fact that's exactly what is calculated for high-pressure helium when it metallises. Actually I agree with Wojciech Grochala that the "right" place for helium on the periodic table is in group 2 (in the sense that one puts H in group 1), but I suspect most will not be quite so convinced to move it! :D

Anyway, I'm convinced that organothorium deserves an article, though I'm less convinced about other actinides (except U and Np where we already have articles – amazingly little is known for Pu despite its notoriety). Once again I find myself wishing that protactinium got more love. :( Double sharp (talk) 08:47, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I created organothorium chemistry by copying over from Thorium compounds (it can be expanded beyond that, but this is an OK start). No plans for other actinides.

I'll probably write the noble-gas ones soon. Double sharp (talk) 09:50, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I made permastubs for organokrypton chemistry and organoargon chemistry. Organohelium probably still to come (as purely computational chemistry). I couldn't find any studies on organoneon structures. Double sharp (talk) 14:00, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

And it's certainly not "organic", but you might like doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2014.07.011, which predicts that ArO₄ might be metastable and possible to synthesise via β⁻ decay of ³⁸ClO₄⁻. This sort of decay technique has been suggested for making organoheliums too – almost always the result from decay of tritiated organics is a carbocation with the ³He leaving as a neutral atom, but it ought to occasionally stay behind.

I suspect it'd be worth trying to make Kr(IV) and Kr(VI) oxoacids via decay of bromates, but as much fun as it would be to make kryptonites for real, that moves straight into OR territory. Double sharp (talk) 14:05, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, organoargon is at AfD. Double sharp (talk) 16:27, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Hope I'm not bludgeoning too much there, but I keep thinking of new search terms, or tracing a ref's cites or what-cites-it. Managed to push back to late 1970s and up to 2022, with a bunch of different lines of research, including practical (even if niche, obviously) applications and specifcally about Ar rather than all NGs. DMacks (talk) 05:11, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Unblocking of my account

Hi,

I noticed that my account was blocked after a warning I did not read before (I know, my fault) so I hope we could leave it to a final warning with me refraining from edits that violate copyright.

Countrymaster Countrymaster (talk) 17:50, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

@Countrymaster: what account (or which specific wikipedia site) are you talking about? DMacks (talk) 17:55, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Countrymaster Countrymaster (talk) 17:59, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Not sure if you are the right admin to do this though. Countrymaster (talk) 18:10, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

@Countrymaster You are not blocked, or you would have been unable to add content here. You have been warned that adding copyright material may result in a block if repeated. You will be annoying a whole group of admins by adding the same message as you did here to their Talk Pages! Mike Turnbull (talk) 18:15, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I understood. Countrymaster (talk) 18:16, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Blocked I meant was at the commons page. Countrymaster (talk) 18:17, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

People missed that that's why the confusion. Countrymaster (talk) 18:19, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. If you're blocked on commons, you'll need to discuss it on commons. When users are blocked on a single site, they almost always still are able to write on their own talkpage on that site (commons:User talk:Countrymaster, the same place where the warnings and block-notice are). DMacks (talk) 18:45, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings

Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, whether it's Christmas or some other festival, I hope you and those close to you have a happy, restful time! Have fun, Donner60 (talk) 00:16, 23 December 2022 (UTC)}}

Donner60 (talk) 04:16, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

@Donner60: Thanks! DMacks (talk) 05:27, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Happy Holidays!

DMacks Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, RV (talk) 07:30, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

@RAJIVVASUDEV: Thanks! DMacks (talk) 12:10, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Edit reverts various

Where does it say articles deleted at AFD can't exist as redlinks? Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 10:39, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Red link. The topic failed to be notable enough to have an article, therefore there won't plausibly be an article on the topic. Removal of links to AFD-deleted articles is standard workflow in AFD closure. For disambiguation pages, it's also against MOS:DAB to include entries for which there is no reasonably close article on the topic at this time, since DAB are designed as a reader tool to help navigate to articles. DMacks (talk) 10:42, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Happy New Year, DMacks!

Happy New Year!

DMacks,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
— Moops ^⋠T⋡ 02:07, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

— Moops ^⋠T⋡ 02:07, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2022).

Administrator changes

• ComplexRational
• Extraordinary Writ

Stephen

• Andrew Yong
• Dbenbenn
• DESiegel
• GlassCobra
• Joe Decker
• Nancy
• Pathoschild
• StuffOfInterest
• William Pietri
• Wwwwolf
• Xdamr

Interface administrator changes

Nihiltres

CheckUser changes

Moneytrees

• Ivanvector
• SilkTork

Oversighter changes

• GeneralNotability
• Moneytrees

• Guerillero
• SilkTork

Guideline and policy news

• Speedy deletion criterion A5 (transwikied articles) has been repealed following an unopposed proposal.

Arbitration

• Following the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, CaptainEek, GeneralNotability, Guerillero, L235, Moneytrees, Primefac, SilkTork.
• The 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review has concluded with many changes to the discretionary sanctions procedure including a change of the name to "contentious topics". The changes are being implemented over the coming month.
• The arbitration case Stephen has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• Voting for the Sound Logo has closed and the winner is expected to be announced February to April 2023.
• Tech tip: You can view information about IP addresses in a centralised location using bullseye which won the Newcomer award in the recent Coolest Tool Awards.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:08, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-02

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 use tags to filter edits in the recent changes feed or on your watchlist. You can now use tags to filter out edits you don't want to see. Previously you could only use tags to focus on the edits with those tags. [36]
• Special:WhatLinksHere shows all pages that link to a specific page. There is now a prototype for how to sort those pages alphabetically. You can see the discussion in the Phabricator ticket.
• You can now use the thanks function on your watchlist and the user contribution page. [37]
• A wiki page can be moved to give it a new name. You can now get a dropdown menu with common reasons when you move a page. This is so you don't have to write the explanation every time. [38]
• Matrix is a chat tool. You can now use matrix: to create Matrix links on wiki pages. [39]
• You can filter out translations when you look at the recent changes on multilingual wikis. This didn't hide translation pages. You can now also hide subpages which are translation pages. [40]

Changes later this week

• Realtime preview for wikitext is a tool which lets editors preview the page when they edit wikitext. It will be enabled for all users of the 2010 wikitext editor. You will find it in the editor toolbar.
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 10 January at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 12 January at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 January. It will be on all wikis from 12 January (calendar).

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:05, 10 January 2023 (UTC)