User talk:Rusty Cat/Archive 9
Latest comment: 1 month ago by Rusty Cat in topic Test edits in draft space
 | This is an archive of past discussions about User:Rusty Cat. 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. |
| Archive 5 | ← | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 |
Question from Quirek the Bird (21:10, 29 August 2024)
Hello! How can I generate my own wiki page? --Quirek the Bird (talk) 21:10, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Quirek the Bird: Hello! Welcome to Wikipedia. Sorry, but I'm afraid that that's not possible. Wikipedia is not meant for ordinary people. In all of the articles we have about people, those people have at least won a really famous award or at least been in a well-known newspaper.
- But if you intend to improve existing Wikipedia article, you may to provide basic information about yourself so your fellow editors get to know you!
- Rusty 🐈 23:40, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oh... I must have miscommunicated. I don't plan on making a page for *myself* (that is, while I am still insignificant) but rather, can I make a new wiki page on a different topic, like a charity? 2600:1007:A011:970:1653:8F9A:5201:8B9E (talk) 00:07, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Quirek the Bird: Certainly. A draft article can be started through a process known as Articles for Creation. Generally, a subject is eligible for its own article when independent sources write about it in-depth (for example, a news article discussing the charity's efforts).
- See our General notability guideline and Organizations notability guideline for more in-depth information. Rusty 🐈 03:22, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – September 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2024).
Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, there is a new criterion for speedy deletion: C4, which
applies to unused maintenance categories, such as empty dated maintenance categories for dates in the past
. - A request for comment is open to discuss whether Notability (species) should be adopted as a subject-specific notability guideline.
Arbitration
- Following a motion, remedies 5.1 and 5.2 of World War II and the history of Jews in Poland (the topic and interaction bans on My very best wishes, respectively) were repealed.
- Remedy 3C of the German war effort case ("Cinderella157 German history topic ban") was suspended for a period of six months.
- The arbitration case Historical Elections is currently open. Proposed decision is expected by 3 September 2024 for this case.
Miscellaneous
- Editors can now enter into good article review circles, an alternative for informal quid pro quo arrangements, to have a GAN reviewed in return for reviewing a different editor's nomination.
- A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in September 2024 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles and redirects in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,900 articles and 26,200 redirects awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!
Tech News: 2024-36
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
- Editors and volunteer developers interested in data visualisation can now test the new software for charts. Its early version is available on beta Commons and beta Wikipedia. This is an important milestone before making charts available on regular wikis. You can read more about this project update and help to test the charts.
Feature news
- Editors who use the Special:UnusedTemplates page can now filter out pages which are expected to be there permanently, such as sandboxes, test-cases, and templates that are always substituted. Editors can add the new magic word
__EXPECTUNUSEDTEMPLATE__to a template page to hide it from the listing. Thanks to Sophivorus and DannyS712 for these improvements. [1] - Editors who use the New Topic tool on discussion pages, will now be reminded to add a section header, which should help reduce the quantity of newcomers who add sections without a header. You can read more about that, and 28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
- Last week, some Toolforge tools had occasional connection problems. The cause is still being investigated, but the problems have been resolved for now. [2]
- Translation administrators at multilingual wikis, when editing multiple translation units, can now easily mark which changes require updates to the translation. This is possible with the new dropdown menu.
Project updates
- A new draft text of a policy discussing the use of Wikimedia's APIs has been published on Meta-Wiki. The draft text does not reflect a change in policy around the APIs; instead, it is an attempt to codify existing API rules. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome on the proposed update’s talk page until September 13 or until those discussions have concluded.
Learn more
- To learn more about the technology behind the Wikimedia projects, you can now watch sessions from the technology track at Wikimania 2024 on Commons. This week, check out:
- Charts, the successor of Graphs - A secure and extensible tool for data visualization (25 mins) – about the above-mentioned Charts project.
- State of Language Technology and Onboarding at Wikimedia (90 mins) – about some of the language tools that support Wikimedia sites, such as Content/Section Translation, MinT, and LanguageConverter; also the current state and future of languages onboarding. [3]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
The Signpost: 4 September 2024
- News and notes: WikiCup enters final round, MCDC wraps up activities, 17-year-old hoax article unmasked
- In the media: AI is not playing games anymore. Is Wikipedia ready?
- News from the WMF: Meet the 12 candidates running in the WMF Board of Trustees election
- Wikimania: A month after Wikimania 2024
- Serendipity: What it's like to be Wikimedian of the Year
- Traffic report: After the gold rush
I'm sorry--I don't understand what you were doing there. Drmies (talk) 15:55, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- @Drmies: Yesterday, after seeing this talk page, I stumbled upon the AN thread Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive238#Unblock_requests_being_handled_by_non-administrators. From my understanding of some of that thread's opinions, along with WP:NAC, non-administrators may close discussions, extending to unblock requests, where they are uninvolved, if they have the permissions to perform the action. No action was necessary since it was a decline, and wasn't even a real unblock request.
- However, if policy or general consensus differs from what I am saying, please let me know, preferably with a link to relevant thread(s) so I can learn from this experience. Thank you! Rusty 🐈 21:41, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- Hmm interesting--but it seems to me you've turned around the idea that "[things] require that any sincere unblock request be reviewed by someone who has the technical ability to grant the request" (28bytes, correct me if I'm wrong)--you would need to technical ability to grant the request. That there is no technical ability necessary to deny the request does not mean that someone without that ability is free to deny it, no matter how crappy the request is, and how obvious that any one in their right mind would deny it. User:Bbb23, you have thoughts on this? It's the first time I ever heard of it. Drmies (talk) 22:05, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- Non-admins cannot decline unblock requests.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:49, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- @Drmies: What about the
"...and of course revert obvious abuse or vandalism that happens to include (or be included in) an unblock template"
part? That isn't the same thing as declining, but it's similar. - Also, the user who started the discussion stated that they had "seen an increasing number [of non-admins] handling [unblock requests]."
- I'd also like to add that I have no intention to continue handling unblock requests routinely: My work on-wiki mainly involves helping when I see something that might need my help. Rusty 🐈 22:15, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, yeah, I suppose I see your point there. Thing is, we have gotten so careful with so many things (like, there's a hesitancy I sense in the way editors are handling drafts, rather than nominating or obliterating obvious crap and promotion) that I'm not sure it's obvious to everyone what "obvious abuse or vandalism" means anymore, esp. in an unblock request. I think what caught me off-guard is, well, first of all, I've never seen a non-admin handle one, and second, you declined it, rather than for instance just rolling it back. Does that make sense? Ha or you can just run for admin! Drmies (talk) 23:22, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- Hmm interesting--but it seems to me you've turned around the idea that "[things] require that any sincere unblock request be reviewed by someone who has the technical ability to grant the request" (28bytes, correct me if I'm wrong)--you would need to technical ability to grant the request. That there is no technical ability necessary to deny the request does not mean that someone without that ability is free to deny it, no matter how crappy the request is, and how obvious that any one in their right mind would deny it. User:Bbb23, you have thoughts on this? It's the first time I ever heard of it. Drmies (talk) 22:05, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
Question from Nojboj (22:22, 4 September 2024)
Hello Rusty, do you mind giving me any information for German Infoboxes, specifically for people. I am looking for a fit that would match George Finey. Thank you in advance. --Nojboj (talk) 22:22, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- @Nojboj: If you're looking for infoboxes on the German-language Wikipedia, I unfortunately am unable to help you. Each Wikipedia language edition is completely independent of each other, and thus one thing on one language edition may not be the same on another. Moreover, I don't speak German. However, the German Wikipedia may have a similar program to the mentor program on the English Wikipedia. You may find a better response there. Rusty 🐈 22:58, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for your help. I have another assistance you may be able to help me with. The Death Records of Nellie Phoebe Murray. I can't currently sign in to see those records. If you could assist me with her Death date, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you Rusty, and I'll look into German Wikipedia. Nojboj (talk) 23:19, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- @Nojboj: Once you have 500 edits and your account is 6 months old, you will be able to access Ancestry.com through a partnership with Wikipedia called The Wikipedia Library. Rusty 🐈 03:31, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
- Alright. Nojboj (talk) 10:15, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
- @Nojboj: Once you have 500 edits and your account is 6 months old, you will be able to access Ancestry.com through a partnership with Wikipedia called The Wikipedia Library. Rusty 🐈 03:31, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for your help. I have another assistance you may be able to help me with. The Death Records of Nellie Phoebe Murray. I can't currently sign in to see those records. If you could assist me with her Death date, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you Rusty, and I'll look into German Wikipedia. Nojboj (talk) 23:19, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
Question from EyoAkiba (10:07, 8 September 2024)
Hello --EyoAkiba (talk) 10:07, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
- @EyoAkiba: Hi! Do you have a question about Wikipedia? Rusty 🐈 14:02, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
Tech News: 2024-37
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
- Starting this week, the standard syntax highlighter will receive new colors that make them compatible in dark mode. This is the first of many changes to come as part of a major upgrade to syntax highlighting. You can learn more about what's to come on the help page. [4][5]
- Editors of wikis using Wikidata will now be notified of only relevant Wikidata changes in their watchlist. This is because the Lua functions
entity:getSitelink()andmw.wikibase.getSitelink(qid)will have their logic unified for tracking different aspects of sitelinks to reduce junk notifications from inconsistent sitelinks tracking. [6]
Project updates
- Users of all Wikis will have access to Wikimedia sites as read-only for a few minutes on September 25, starting at 15:00 UTC. This is a planned datacenter switchover for maintenance purposes. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [7]
- Contributors of 11 Wikipedias, including English will have a new
MOSnamespace added to their Wikipedias. This improvement ensures that links beginning withMOS:(usually shortcuts to the Manual of Style) are not broken by Mooré Wikipedia (language codemos). [8]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
Upcoming expiry of your patroller right
Hi, this is an automated reminder as part of Global reminder bot to let you know that your permission "patroller" (New page reviewers) will expire on 2024-09-20 00:00:00. For most rights, you will need to renew at WP:PERM, unless you have been told otherwise when your right was approved. To opt out of user right expiry notifications, add yourself to m:Global reminder bot/Exclusion. Leaderbot (talk) 04:36, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
Tech News: 2024-38
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Improvements and Maintenance
Editors interested in templates can help by reading the latest Wishlist focus area, Template recall and discovery, and share your feedback on the talkpage. This input helps the Community Tech team to decide the right technical approach to build. Everyone is also encouraged to continue adding new wishes.- The new automated Special:NamespaceInfo page helps editors understand which namespaces exist on each wiki, and some details about how they are configured. Thanks to DannyS712 for these improvements. [9]
- References Check is a feature that encourages editors to add a citation when they add a new paragraph to a Wikipedia article. For a short time, the corresponding tag "Edit Check (references) activated" was erroneously being applied to some edits outside of the main namespace. This has been fixed. [10]
- It is now possible for a wiki community to change the order in which a page’s categories are displayed on their wiki. By default, categories are displayed in the order they appear in the wikitext. Now, wikis with a consensus to do so can request a configuration change to display them in alphabetical order. [11]
Tool authors can now access ToolsDB's public databases from both Quarry and Superset. Those databases have always been accessible to every Toolforge user, but they are now more broadly accessible, as Quarry can be accessed by anyone with a Wikimedia account. In addition, Quarry's internal database can now be queried from Quarry itself. This database contains information about all queries that are being run and starred by users in Quarry. This information was already public through the web interface, but you can now query it using SQL. You can read more about that, and 20 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.- Any pages or tools that still use the very old CSS classes
mw-message-boxneed to be updated. These old classes will be removed next week or soon afterwards. Editors can use a global-search to determine what needs to be changed. It is possible to use the newercdx-messagegroup of classes as a replacement (see the relevant Codex documentation, and an example update), but using locally defined onwiki classes would be best. [12]
Technical project updates
- Next week, all Wikimedia wikis will be read-only for a few minutes. This will start on September 25 at 15:00 UTC. This is a planned datacenter switchover for maintenance purposes. This maintenance process also targets other services. The previous switchover took 3 minutes, and the Site Reliability Engineering teams use many tools to make sure that this essential maintenance work happens as quickly as possible. [13]
Tech in depth
- The latest monthly MediaWiki Product Insights newsletter is available. This edition includes details about: research about hook handlers to help simplify development, research about performance improvements, work to improve the REST API for end-users, and more.
- To learn more about the technology behind the Wikimedia projects, you can now watch sessions from the technology track at Wikimania 2024 on Commons. This week, check out:
- Hackathon Showcase (45 mins) - 19 short presentations by some of the Hackathon participants, describing some of the projects they worked on, such as automated testing of maintenance scripts, a video-cutting command line tool, and interface improvements for various tools. There are more details and links available in the Phabricator task.
- Co-Creating a Sustainable Future for the Toolforge Ecosystem (40 mins) - a roundtable discussion for tool-maintainers, users, and supporters of Toolforge about how to make the platform sustainable and how to evaluate the tools available there.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
Question from Vasco Kgomotso Moropa (17:24, 14 September 2024)
How can one pass in the SCIENCE STREAM --Vasco Kgomotso Moropa (talk) 17:24, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
- @Vasco Kgomotso Moropa: I'm not sure what you're talking about. Can you clarify? Rusty 🐈 17:32, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
- how can one manage activities and be able to cope in the SCIENCE STREAM Vasco Kgomotso Moropa (talk) 06:41, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
- @Vasco Kgomotso Moropa: I don't know what Science Stream is. As this system is mostly for questions related to Wikipedia, you may get a better response posting elsewhere. Rusty 🐈 13:47, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
- how can one manage activities and be able to cope in the SCIENCE STREAM Vasco Kgomotso Moropa (talk) 06:41, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Test edits in draft space
Hi there, I see you've been tagging some drafts with WP:G2 - there's no need to do this, since a draft that has been untouched for six months will be deleted according to WP:G13 at the end of six months. -- asilvering (talk) 20:31, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
- @asilvering: Alright, thanks for letting me know! I already knew that but I had been seeing that some admins would actually delete the drafts I tagged for G2, so I thought it was probably okay. Rusty 🐈 16:14, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
- Think of it like this: when you tag something for speedy deletion, you're telling admins to grab their mop and bucket and come clean this one particular spot on the floor. If I've already been called out to this one specific spot, I might think "well, alright, it's true that there is some dirt on this one specific spot, I may as well," and mop it up. But there's also going to be another janitor who comes by at the end of the day with one of those giant rectangular mops, and they're going to check real quick for anything that shouldn't be on the floor, and then they're going to mop the whole thing whether that first janitor got that one spot earlier or not. -- asilvering (talk) 17:59, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
- @Asilvering: Ah, makes sense. I never thought about G13 that way! Rusty 🐈 13:59, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
- Think of it like this: when you tag something for speedy deletion, you're telling admins to grab their mop and bucket and come clean this one particular spot on the floor. If I've already been called out to this one specific spot, I might think "well, alright, it's true that there is some dirt on this one specific spot, I may as well," and mop it up. But there's also going to be another janitor who comes by at the end of the day with one of those giant rectangular mops, and they're going to check real quick for anything that shouldn't be on the floor, and then they're going to mop the whole thing whether that first janitor got that one spot earlier or not. -- asilvering (talk) 17:59, 15 September 2024 (UTC)