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R4 (new): Redirects in the file namespace (and no file links) that have the same name as a file or redirect at Commons are now covered under the new R4 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-redircom}}; the text is unchanged.
G13 (expanded): Userspace drafts containing only the default Article Wizard text are now covered under G13 along with other drafts (discussion). Such blank drafts are now eligible after six months rather than one year, and taggers continue to use {{db-blankdraft}}.
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Technical news
Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length. All accounts must have a password:
User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.
Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
{{Copyvio-revdel}} now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.
Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
Around 22% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
Administrators who are blocked have the technical ability to block the administrator who blocked their own account. A recent request for comment has amended the blocking policy to clarify that this ability should only be used in exceptional circumstances, such as account compromises, where there is a clear and immediate need.
A request for comment closed with a consensus in favor of deprecating The Sun as a permissible reference, and creating an edit filter to warn users who attempt to cite it.
Technical news
A discussion regarding an overhaul of the format and appearance of Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is in progress (permalink). The proposed changes will make it easier to create requests for those who are not using Twinkle. The workflow for administrators at this venue will largely be unchanged. Additionally, there are plans to archive requests similar to how it is done at WP:PERM, where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.
A new IRC bot is available that allows you to subscribe to notifications when specific filters are tripped. This requires that your IRC handle be identified.
As part of my campaign vendetta against year/decade.century parameters in by-year templates, I have been trying to figure out how to convert some of the old-style templates to ignore the redundant parameters pending their removal.
I have tested the new shortened param form on various categories, and I think I have now a setup which doesn't break anywhere for years >= 100 AD.
When I have satisfied myself that it's all working OK, I will add it to the categories which are using clumsier templates such as {{Year by category}}, and rip out the redundant parameters from existing uses. Then I can start implementing the handling of name changes.
But before I do that, two heads are better than one. You know these categories better than anyone, so I was wondering whether you might have a little time to try some destructive testing and see if you can find any categories where the new shortened form doesn't work.
Hi @BrownHairedGirl: Great plan! I note that an additional row of << decades >> appears only where new-style parameters are used, e.g. Category:1908 in France, but does not appear where the old style is in use, e.g. Category:1908 in Poland. Did you decide not to bother implementing the new decade row in the old-style case, since it will become obsolete?
Also, can we improve the documentation for using the alternative variable for "member states" of United Kingdom, Soviet Union and Yugoslavia? Should they be categorised by continent and country, or just by country? If the latter, the country should be the second parameter, not the third. If the former, then the template will not handle former Soviet states that are in both Europe and Asia. E.g. Category:1949 in Georgia (country) currently has Soviet Union added as a separate line, rather than within the category.
When you purge the old parameters, could you also check for cases like [1] where prefix-words "Socialist Republic of " ought to be moved from the current fifth to the final parameter, in order to sort by the short name? (Forget this if you can do what I suggest below; sorting by "Socialist" is not a disaster… or could be countered by even more clever but fiddly stuff at a later date.)
TBH I was expecting to read that you were going the whole hog and dispensing with all parameters by using a lookup like the one in Template:YearInCountryPortalBox. If you were to do that, there would be no need to edit the category pages to remove the redundant parameters. Would that be harder than I realise? – FayenaticLondon23:06, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Tks, FL.
The decades links are one of the features of the new version at /core.
the first line of the old version said "Articles and events specifically related to the year [[YYYY in countryname]]", which in most cases created a redlink; but the first line of the old version says "Topics specifically related to the year [[YYYY]] in [[countryname]]", which will always be a bluelink. If [[YYYY in countryname]] exists, then it adds a new line: "Main article: [[YYYY in countryname]]"
It seemed to me to be unhelpful to ever have only a redlink at the top, and best to always have a direct link to the country. However, I'm not sure whether the redlink maybe should be included. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 00:00, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@BrownHairedGirl: Thanks. I would not display the redlinks, as in many cases there would be no benefit in creating a page.
You haven't replied to my last paragraph. If you were to use a script to identify the "second part" of the category name (as you have elsewhere), then you could use a table to look up the parent country/continent(s), and automate the whole thing. In some instances, the parents would depend on date ranges. It would take some work, but save 14,000 boring edits to pages that currently use old-style parameters.
@BrownHairedGirl: I see you are most of the way there now with implementing the template as it stands, instead of automating the parents for continents as I suggested above. Fair enough.
I have done the series for (Socialist) Republic of Macedonia, moving "Republic of" between parameters as I suggested above, up to 2018. I've left 2019 onwards, as "North Macedonia" parents have not yet been created for 21st century and 2010s (the latter would only hold 2019). From 1919 to 1990 I parented it in Yugoslavia but not Europe.
Several of the changes I made on Mark Pigott's page yesterday were typo corrections that you have since overwritten. PACCAR should always be spelled in ALL CAPS. Two sections were removed also that I don't understand. One was a section called "Environmental Leadership" and the other was a Quote by Mark Pigott. The Sandbox is current with all the updated facts. Is it possible to put those changes on the production version?
When you contribute on talk pages, please indent your replies by using colons at the beginning of each new paragraph. This makes it easier to see the start of each reply by another person. – FayenaticLondon09:39, 28 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've run into a puzzling situation that I can not figure out and I hope you might help me. I ran into Category:Dart games on the Database list for Empty Categories. When I looked into tagging it CSD C1, the category now has contents, a few dart games (such as Dartball). But when I checked those articles to see when the category was added, the category, Dart games, isn't listed on the articles. I looked at the Edit History and it doesn't show that the category was recently added or removed.
I went into Edit mode to see if this was somehow a hidden category and did a text search and Category:Dart games doesn't appear anywhere on the page. So, there was a dart template (Template:Darts) present on these articles and I went to see if the template automatically added the category to the articles where the template appears...but this doesn't seem to be the case either.
I looked to see if there was a previously existing version of this category that had been deleted before but it is brand new according to the page log. I thought the category might have been moved from one title to a new one, but there is no trace of that either.
So, we have this little category, Category:Dart games, that contains articles but the articles don't show the category assigned to them. Any ideas what might be going on? Or do I just need to get more sleep? LizRead!Talk!02:29, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
D'oh! I don't know what else to say. I usually notice when the editor has written content on the category instead of assigning articles to the category. But I missed it this time. Thanks for noticing! Category tagged. LizRead!Talk!02:29, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Following discussions at the Bureaucrats' noticeboard and Wikipedia talk:Administrators, an earlier change to the restoration of adminship policy was reverted. If requested, bureaucrats will not restore administrator permissions removed due to inactivity if there have been five years without a logged administrator action; this "five year rule" does not apply to permissions removed voluntarily.
Technical news
A new tool is available to help determine if a given IP is an open proxy/VPN/webhost/compromised host.
Arbitration
The Arbitration Committee announced two new OTRS queues. Both are meant solely for cases involving private information; other cases will continue to be handled at the appropriate venues (e.g., WP:COIN or WP:SPI).
paid-en-wpwikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
checkuser-en-wpwikipedia.org has been set up to receive private requests for CheckUser. For instance, requests for IP block exemption for anonymous proxy editing should now be sent to this address instead of the functionaries-en list.
@Mitchumch: (edit conflict) You don't need a redirect. The {{topic}} template just needed the "category=" parameter stating the appropriate capitalisation, Civil rights movement. If you get redlinks from templates like that, first look at the template page, as there will probably already be a way to fix it. – FayenaticLondon11:27, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
And thank you for proving me wrong by populating the category! For info, I found that one using Search, rather than looking in parent categories (as you may have done).
I would have changed the nomination to Rename to "Christianity" if I hadn't found that article. Most of the others in Category:Religion in England by city have a Christianity sub-cat; is it worth creating that here? – it would be well-populated, but would leave only the synagogue article directly in the Religion category; or a new Places of worship sub-category, like several other cities. – FayenaticLondon08:32, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid that I don't understand the plan here. Are we saying that Congress Poland is not worthy to have "by year / decade / century" tree structures? Or are we saying that it should have them but each of them is a sub-category of the equivalent cat in Poland? Laurel Lodged (talk) 21:20, 1 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
All that I've established was that in that discussion there was no consensus to create "by year / decade / century" tree structures (chronology hierarchy) for Congress Poland. There is no master plan for what is worthy to be created. Perhaps you might consider starting an RFC with a proposal to split the Poland chronology to Congress Poland, Duchy of Warsaw, Province of Posen or whatever you consider helpful for certain periods. – FayenaticLondon07:24, 2 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I was already doing just that before it was nixed by BHG.This interval has been a huge waste of time when I could have been doing something constructive. Laurel Lodged (talk) 18:09, 2 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
"You talkin' to me?" Please see the TPS notice at the top of this page.
It sounds like you have knowledge of the topic and some ideas in mind already, so why don't you just get on with publishing your proposal for this matter? – FayenaticLondon18:00, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Opposed CFD Category:Religious organisations in Serbia
@Armbrust hasn't struck their oppose, and it doesn't seem to me that the nominator's striking of part of the nom invalidates the oppose. I actually disagree with Armbrust on this, but their oppose still stands. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 15:42, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I hadn't spotted that the nom had been changed to retain the "S". Thanks for explaining ... and query withdrawn --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs)
The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Please see meta:Community health initiative/User reporting system consultation 2019 to provide your input on this idea.
Two more administrator accounts were compromised. Evidence has shown that these attacks, like previous incidents, were due to reusing a password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. All admins are strongly encouraged to enable two-factor authentication, please consider doing so. Please always practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
As a reminder, according to WP:NOQUORUM, administrators looking to close or relist an AfD should evaluate a nomination that has received few or no comments as if it were a proposed deletion (PROD) prior to determining whether it should be relisted.
@Hellknowz: Thank you for that clarification. I found it used on (I thought) a majority of category pages, but perhaps that was for eSports, which is now deprecated. I will revert/remove it. – FayenaticLondon13:27, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Recently, several Wikipedia admin accounts were compromised. The admin accounts were desysopped on an emergency basis. In the past, the Committee often resysopped admin accounts as a matter of course once the admin was back in control of their account. The committee has updated its guidelines. Admins may now be required to undergo a fresh Request for Adminship (RfA) after losing control of their account.
What do I need to do?
Only to follow the instructions in this message.
Check that your password is unique (not reused across sites).
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Enable Two-factor authentication (2FA), if you can, to create a second hurdle for attackers.
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Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)
ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.
Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.
We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.
XTools Admin Stats, a tool to list admins by administrative actions, has been revamped to support more types of log entries such as AbuseFilter changes. Two additional tools have been integrated into it as well: Steward Stats and Patroller Stats.
Arbitration
In response to the continuing compromise of administrator accounts, the Arbitration Committee passed a motion amending the procedures for return of permissions (diff). In such cases, the committee will review all available information to determine whether the administrator followed "appropriate personal security practices" before restoring permissions; administrators found failing to have adequately done so will not be resysopped automatically. All current administrators have been notified of this change.
Following a formal ratification process, the arbitration policy has been amended (diff). Specifically, the two-thirds majority required to remove or suspend an arbitrator now excludes (1) the arbitrator facing suspension or removal, and (2) any inactive arbitrator who does not respond within 30 days to attempts to solicit their feedback on the resolution through all known methods of communication.
Thanks for the revision to the "Persaud" page after I added some things. It's my surname and it was looking a little barren, you cleaned it up well! Emile Persaud 09:37, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Surname Russo.
Dear Fayenatic london, the page about the surname Russo is misleading and full of unnecessary and false informations. Russo is a common italian last name, simply derived from a nickname used to designate people with reddish hair and it does not indicate nobility. Please accept by contributions, I just translated the italian page.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nomenomenom (talk • contribs) 07:38, 9 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Star Trek animals until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Jtrainor (talk) 02:02, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I am a little disturbed by your actions. You became personally involved in a content dispute when you reverted my actions. You have done this before and after blocking me? JorgeLaArdilla (talk) 08:03, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pleased to see that you are using talk pages to discuss some matters now.
Are you talking about me reverting this clumsy edit, where you reintroduced various blatant errors as well as non-standard practices?
You were also requested to undo the other moves you had made in contravention of that policy. Again, you made no response, and appeared to ignore the request.
If I remember correctly, you made a further move in contravention of MOSAR. That, combined with refusal to discuss, amounted to disruptive editing in my view.
I added a brief sanction, to wake you up to the seriousness of your conduct, and repaired some of the moves and edits that you had made which appeared to be clear errors.
If you consider that I went too far and my conduct was misuse, please specify the edits concerned. You would need to provide links to diffs; see WP:DIFF if you don't know how. – FayenaticLondon08:22, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you are well. I was looking at the Special Pages Wanted Categories list and ran into two very odd categories. I looked at the pages where they were applied and can't see a way to remove them from the articles. I was hoping you'd know what was up. Here they are:
The CSD feature of Twinkle now allows admins to notify page creators of deletion if the page had not been tagged. The default behavior matches that of tagging notifications, and replaces the ability to open the user talk page upon deletion. You can customize which criteria receive notifications in your Twinkle preferences: look for Notify page creator when deleting under these criteria.
Twinkle's d-batch (batch delete) feature now supports deleting subpages (and related redirects and talk pages) of each page. The pages will be listed first but use with caution! The und-batch (batch undelete) option can now also restore talk pages.
Miscellaneous
The previously discussed unblocking of IP addresses indefinitely-blocked before 2009 was approved and has taken place.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. LizRead!Talk!02:46, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Not exactly, it is in the spirit of the header of Category:Populated places by year of establishment which implies that an exact year for the establishment of a populated place is less likely to be known if it was before the year 1500. This case is even more troublesome because [3] mentions 116 as the year of establishment instead of 1168 and other websites that I have seen contain an exact copy of the Wikipedia text. An explanation on how on earth they could ever establish the date of establishment that accurately is lacking. Marcocapelle (talk) 12:26, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There's a case to answer re 116 or 1168, but the Mesoamericans were noted as competent with calendars. I can accept an exact date if it's stated in a historical record; it may be e.g. that a ruler relocated that year. IMHO we should accept one date or the other in good faith, and categorise accordingly, not rounding it off. – FayenaticLondon13:51, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.
Louis XIV of France – a monarch of the House of Bourbon who reigned as King of France. He did say, "Every time I appoint someone to a vacant position, I make a hundred unhappy and one ungrateful."
Mary, Queen of Scots – arrested for Reigning While Catholic (RWC), Mary was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth I of England in 1586, and was beheaded the following year.
Elizabeth I of England – The Virgin Queen, Elizabeth was the last of the five monarchs of the House of Tudor who ushered in the Elizabethan Era, reversed re-establishment of Roman Catholicism by her half-sister.
" There are three urgent and indeed great problems that we face not only in the United States of America but all over the world today. That is the problem of racism, the problem of poverty and the problem of war."
Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral is a Gothic Revival three-spire cathedral in the city of Cork, Ireland. It belongs to the Church of Ireland and was completed in 1879. The cathedral is located on the south side of the River Lee, on ground that has been a place of worship since the 7th century, and is dedicated to Finbarr of Cork, patron saint of the city. It was once in the Diocese of Cork; it is now one of the three cathedrals in the Church of Ireland Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, in the ecclesiastical province of Dublin. Christian use of the site dates back to a 7th-century AD monastery, which according to legend was founded by Finbarr of Cork. The entrances contain the figures of over a dozen biblical figures, capped by a tympanum showing a Resurrection scene.
(more...)
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Ichthus is published by WikiProject Christianity • Get answers to questions about Christianity here Discuss any of the above stories here • For submissions contact the Newsroom • Unsubscribe here Delivered: 10:55, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Cfds on organisations can take a variety of unexpected routes. This one seems to have been closed indefinitely although support for 'z' was clear (I would happily support 'z'), and the rfc does not seem to contain any argument in favour of 's' for East Timor. It's a little irritating that it is just sitting there pending, especially as Od Mishehu has fallen by the wayside. Any ideas? Oculi (talk) 19:06, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - that was the only outstanding one. There are not all that many left to do, as my only personal target was to remove 's' from 'z' trees and vice versa (which can be done speedily if there is a clear majority, unless people raise objections). There are a few irritating ones such as Greenland ('s' for some reason) which I might try. I suspect that if one were to try the UK, there would be an uproar. (The person who closed the RfC is from Queensland acc to their user page.) Indeed the only 50:50 one not yet at cfd is Category:Organizations based in Nigeria; will wait a few days. Oculi (talk) 11:08, 23 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Withdraw
Could you could please close and withdraw this one on my behalf? As I said the topic is unpredictable and gets either no comments or walls of text. Oculi (talk) 15:44, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Oculi: You already have? I would have replied to the claim for uniformity.
Yes, I discovered how to do it. The people who object are usually people I have annoyed. I can bring it back in a few weeks; there is still Nigeria and 3 or 4 processing quicker than the RfC. Oculi (talk) 14:04, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
