George Beauchamp[edit]

George Beauchamp lived in Southampton at a pub called The Woolpack Inn. He died here in the sixties he was never on the Lucitania and is not the man ringed in the photo. There are untrue accounts of this which originated by another George Beauchamp’s family and an article was published in the Hull Mail and picked up by all the other national papers stating this untrue story. Now when you google his name you are told he was a Jonah who was on two sinking ships! Not the true story of a young man who’s hair turned pure white with the shock and was a brave rower of the huge lifeboat thereby saving many women and children.

Welcome![edit]

Hello, Jmar67, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

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Thank you! - Now I can use thank-you-clicks ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:48, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

C.D.[edit]

22 August
Happy birthday

C.D.

Thank you for your help for The Little Nigar. As for advertisement: if it was a dog article, I might be concerned, but I don't think that a reader of an article about music will change the brand of dog food. - The line (which was inspired by a conversation on user talk:Drmies/Archive 115#The Little Nigar) stands for: the music is catchy enough to serve for advertisement. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:24, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you![edit]

	The Original Barnstar
	For the river of copy edits you have unleashed to date. Keep it up! Vami _IV† 17:53, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I support that, couldn't have said it that well, but feel the same! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:07, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Your help desk questions[edit]

I saw you got an answer to the first one, but the second one did not get a response. Did you find what you needed elsewhere?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:31, 12 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Vchimpanzee: Thank you for the follow-up. Yes, I asked at DYK. Unfortunately there is no shortcut. Would like to have one. Jmar67 (talk) 20:39, 12 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It might be possible to ask at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) but I'm not sure how that works.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:46, 12 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

2019[edit]

Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht

Happy 2019 -

begin it with music and memories

Thank you for your help last year, including meticulous copyediting! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:19, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

TNX[edit]

Danke für deinen Dank. – Sca (talk) 13:09, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

April

... with thanks from QAI

... and the comments for the Sieben Worte! - and being back! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:22, 18 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt: I am no longer following your contributions page, but ping me if there is something you think I can help you with. Always impressed with your dedication. Jmar67 (talk) 20:53, 19 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have a section for Quality on my user page, - peer review for Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist. If you have extra time, you can look at new productions by my French friend LouisAlain. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:00, 19 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt: I want to review only those files that are considered to be ready for CE and will not be changed significantly while I am looking at them. How do I recognize Louis' files? Jmar67 (talk) 04:06, 20 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Those with problems are here, look at the draft ones if you have time, those marked for ce. Others need referencing. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:00, 20 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for becoming a member of the cabal of the outcasts ;) - welcome! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:22, 21 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt: Please explain the "cabal" remark. BTW, I deleted a strangely formatted reference to this from the QAI article. Looked like vandalism. Jmar67 (talk) 06:30, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's an old nickname, check my 2013 user talk page archive. The group was founded in protest to the socalled TFA cabal, because that one's head would not schedule articles by a certain user (who incidently wrote today's, and more than anyway else). So we felt like outcasts, and when one of the founding members was blocked, and another banned, the name became even more appropriate. We are sort of proud of it ;) - If you don't want to belong to such a gang (missing banned users, using inflammatory images such as a blue sapphire ...), I'd understand ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:33, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Recurring problems encountered in copy edits[edit]

cite book edition

@Gerda Arendt and LouisAlain: The "edition" field of the "cite book" template requires an ordinal number (1st, 2nd, etc.). I have updated the doc. Jmar67 (talk) 16:58, 20 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, always learning ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:23, 20 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Citations for Kutsch/Riemens and similar works

@Gerda Arendt and LouisAlain: This edit produces a better citation format for books like Kutsch/Riemens. Jmar67 (talk) 10:55, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Seen, thank you, - behind on several things ... - just translated the article planned for 1 May. C. 200 articles should be changed. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:13, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

DNB reference to non-person

@Gerda Arendt: A DNB reference to something other than a person, such as a work, needs the "TYP=Literature about" parameter as shown here.
Thank you, seen. Could you check Bach cantatas? - I am busy, another recent death. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:39, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Worldcat reference to non-person

Similar to the "DNB" problem, the template ((Worldcat subject|id=)) is needed if the subject is not a person. Jmar67 (talk) 18:26, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ChoralWiki reference to work

The parameter "prep=of" is required. Jmar67 (talk) 03:19, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

in/at/on cemetery

@Gerda Arendt and Yoninah: ~~Someone is buried, or a gravestone is located, in (not at) a cemetery.~~ Jmar67 (talk) 18:48, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I meant @LouisAlain:, not Yoninah. Jmar67 (talk) 18:51, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I look at the category "burials" and they all go Burials at Père-Lachaise cemetery, Burials at Arlington National Cemetery etc. So which is which? English is easy to approach but endlessly complex in the end. (Or is it at the end? . LouisAlain (talk) 19:32, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Let me think about that. You have a good point. Jmar67 (talk) 19:43, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I will try to remember, but while "in" for buried has some logic, the other escapes me. Two more died, sigh. I asked project opera for help for Deborah Cook (soprano). It's exhausting. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:54, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Gerda Arendt: A gravestone is "within" a cemetery, shortened to "in". Isn't English an "in"-teresting language? Jmar67 (talk) 19:00, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is. Ping me once per thread please, - I'm watching. All these gravestones ... --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:03, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

LouisAlain and Gerda: Reverting my initial comment here, sorry. I cannot find anything to support not using "at". Just a very strong personal preference for "in". "On" is wrong, however. Jmar67 (talk) 02:33, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Learning. In German, it's "auf dem Friedhof" - which translates to "on" ;) - Like "auf dem Berg" - "on the mountain". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:28, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

on a libretto

Operas are often phrased as "composed by A on a libretto by B, based on...". Is "on a libretto" a standard phrase in this context in English? It sounds strange. I have usually changed to "with a libretto", in part to avoid repetition of "on". How would you have phrased it in German?Jmar67 (talk) 16:45, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In German it's "auf ein Libretto" ;) - Our magic flute says "to a libretto". - I heard the same thing on ERRORS. "with" makes it sound a bit like "on the side", and the wording "with music" seems particularly strange, because without that music, if woudn't be an opera. But learning. The Komposition (in German) has no preposition or conjunction, plain "eine Oper von Giselher Klebe", - never heard "mit Musik von" in that context. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:47, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"to a libretto" is probably OK, better than "on" but IMHO not idiomatic. Could be ENGVAR. "With" in the Klebe case is not a translation but rather a "circumvention". "With music by A and lyrics by B" is very common in the U.S. .Jmar67 (talk) 18:03, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

See lead of Antigone oder die Stadt for an example of recasting to avoid the construction. Edited by Gerda. Jmar67 (talk) 02:58, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

alongside

@Gerda Arendt: This is not an error, but you use it too often. Try "with" or "accompanied by" for variety. Jmar67 (talk) 12:25, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Like "creating a role", it's opera speak. I say "with" for the conductor, and "accompanied" for an accompanist, which is understood as a supporting function, although it's often just as hard. "partner on stage" might be another possibility, especially when it's lovers in the plot. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:26, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Use of "his"/"her" in series of works

@Gerda Arendt: Again not an error per se, but the use and repetition of "his" in cases such as "Esser performed as a guest at major European opera houses, including the Vienna State Opera, where he appeared as Tristan in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, as Siegfried in his Der Ring des Nibelungen, and in the title of his Parsifal." is irritating. The reader will assume that a series of works cited after a composer is named would all be by that composer. I doubt that this usage is common in reliable English sources. Jmar67 (talk) 02:47, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And what instead? Repeat Wagner's name three times. I don't think the average reader would induce it's the same composer. You could argue that der Ring and Parsifal are unmistakably "his", though, - accepted. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:26, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"where he appeared as Tristan in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Siegfried in Der Ring des Nibelungen, and in the title role of Parsifal". Could also be rephrased as "where he appeared in the Wagner operas Tristan und Isolde as Tristan, Der Ring des Nibelungen as Siegfried, and Parsifal in the title role". It is the repetition of "his" that I find annoying. Jmar67 (talk) 12:50, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wagner would find his Tristan, Ring and Parsifal being described as "operas" annoying ;) - enough reason for me not to do that. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:06, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Web article titles with double quotes

@Gerda Arendt and LouisAlain: The cite web and cite news templates set the title in double quotes. Therefore, double quotes in the title itself must be entered as single quotes. Jmar67 (talk) 06:20, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Use of "pp." template

@Gerda Arendt and LouisAlain: The "pp." template takes two parameters: first page and last page, separated by "|" (not a hyphen or dash). Jmar67 (talk) 04:28, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Always learning, I never used it, Chuckstreet did who was driven away. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:22, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Infoboxes[edit]

@Gerda Arendt: When you get a few minutes (?!), I would like a brief summary (here) of the infobox controversy you have been involved in. Thanks. Jmar67 (talk) 14:50, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Just returned from the funeral (see my talk). My POV is on WP:QAI/Infobox. Perhaps start reading at the bottom, where admired people said good things. The last debate was on Pierre Boulez (in 2016, when he died, Archive 1). I didn't want any more of the kind. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:58, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong, the last debate was Georg Katzer when he died. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:28, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt: I noticed that and thought about you. Still don't understand the objection to infoboxes. I have seen them so often that an article without one looks incomplete. Jmar67 (talk) 04:19, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You could ask them that question, and perhaps get an answer. I asked, got no answer, but was told that I'm wrong. - I thought about bringing flowers iunstead of the question, but if the question is not understand, how will flowers be? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:25, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

OK, how about starting a little history of the infoboxs wars which began in 2005. As other religious wars, they are not so much about a faith (infobox yes or no) but about domain, power and alliances. The prime objection to an infobox seems to be that it dominates the upper right corner ~~(for mobile the beginning of the article)~~, and thus snares away the reader's attention from the "beautifully crafted" (not making that up, it's a 2013 quote) lead and article, and that reader may go away without ever looking at the beauty. Therefore opposers don't write infobox, but IB, meaning ídiotbox.

I can't tell you anything about 2005, because I joined in 2009. As you know already, if you followed my project link, my history with the infobox wars began in 2012.

2012

April 2012: Samuel Barber - Gerda Arendt meets the infobox wars. Infobox was added by Andy (Pigsonthewing), perhaps the most-hated player in the field, which she didn't know. It was reverted, he began a discussion. She opposed - and was converted in that discussion, by a beautiful line. The discussion is short, still on the talk, and was never resolved.

There are a few no-nos if you go to infobox discussions. Don't do it on the day an article is today's featured article (Jules Massenet today and three more days)! Don't ever mention the word ownership! Stay factual. Best advice: don't go at all ;) - Andy and I soon became friends. He (who once called an article without infobox "naked", - that was when he was forbidden by our highest court to add an infobox to an article he had created, but that's 2013 already) rarely touches an infobox discussion these days, nor do I. I just failed to look up who wrote the Katzer article, or would simply have left it as it was (so certainly no Main page appearance, with exactly one ref used inline twice). Sooo many other articles are missing. If you want to do something for the future, ask the question in the peer review of Orpheus in the Underworld. Better you than I ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:26, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your taking the time to write these notes. It is often difficult and always time-consuming to wade through past discussions. Jmar67 (talk) 20:41, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

June 2012: WP:QAI was founded by a few users who were unhappy with the TFA system, then run by one user who never scheduled articles by one of the members, Wehwalt. Today, we have three who alternate scheduling, one of them Wehwalt, - goal accomplished. The first on the list, PumpkinSky, and I wrote Franz Kafka, FA 14 October that year. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:48, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

October 2012: The second-most hated player in the infobox field (and my friend) was Br'er Rabbit. For a sample, perhaps see Talk:Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. At the end, he quoted: "One despairs, one really does." - After a fruitful year, in October he decided to have himself banned, very successfully so. I still miss him, and am not the only one. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:37, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That was an enlightening discussion. Not sure how I would have reacted at the time. Working almost exclusively in the mobile view, the infobox follows the lead. I never gave much thought to how it looks in the desktop view. I am not persuaded by the redundancy argument. An IB is by no means objectionable as far as I am concerned. Jmar67 (talk) 12:24, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
And that was just a book. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:55, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
December 2012: Andy and I collaborate creating ((infobox Bach composition)). (transclusion count today 221) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:41, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2013

March: Andy and Voceditenore (and I a bit) begin and develop ((infobox opera)) (today 1030 transclusion), a discussion happens about the sense (?) to collapse an infobox, and a discussion on Robert Stoepel who is a composer among other activities leads to him having an infobox (inspite of the 2010 guideline by WP:Composers that composers are too complex people to simply say when and where they were born and died, - a guideline still linked in discussions in 2019 such as Georg Katzer, believe it or not). Gerda Arendt thinks the infobox is over. This line will be a mantra for years to come. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:47, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
14 March: I experimented with infobox opera on Motezuma. It was reverted and called "disruptive", the first time I was called that. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:55, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
21 March: The "wars" were not over, as I noticed when I suggested on the talk page to give Bach an infobox, as a birthday gift, and the resulting discussion (first thing: someone changed the thread header) made GFHandel leave forever, missed much. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:42, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
30 March: I add an infobox to the Sparrow Mass, resulting in a little edit war including article protection over Easter. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:31, 20 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
4 May: A short notice on project opera said that ((infobox opera)) is under development. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:14, 20 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
16 May: In preparation for the bicentenary of Richard Wagner, I following advice by Newyorkbrad, to place an infobox on an article talk page if it was not wanted in the article. (It wasn't wanted, as the peer review had shown, article by Smerus.) So. See what happened. - The kafkaesque thing is that nothing was supposed to happen, - the design was planned to sit quietly on the talk page. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:55, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It is astounding how long these threads (and those on MOS) can be. My contributions are always short because I am entering with my index finger. But the idea of a collapsible infobox is interesting. Was that ever discussed? Jmar67 (talk) 09:55, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, also around the time. It's in place (and was heavily discussed) for Frank Sinatra and Peter Sellers, and is in place for Little Moreton Hall (without so much ado). It was disccussed in great length in general (March 2013), showing its absurdity to me because it was there that Moxy said how much trouble he has to click the "show" button to open the hidden stuff. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:45, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
30 May: The Rite of Spring, a discussion which became a major topic in ARBINFOBOX, and which is still on the talk. Unfortunately, the lead image was deleted in the meantime. It was a colourful image of a stage set, looking like a painting of a landscape, - nothing which would make you think of dance and music without explanation. Btw, it was this discussion in which "beautifully crafted" was coined. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:01, 19 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
3 June Project opera announces infobox opera as ready to be used, and on 18 June (end of the same long discussion) announces that it has been inserted as an option in the project guidelines. It means that the traditional side navboxes of project opera (compare Rinaldo (opera)) can be replaced by a combination of bottom navbox and infobox (compare Carmen). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:37, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
25 June I make the topic part of QAI, one opera example (after it was reverted) and the line that still sits on top of that page: "I dream of the day that the infobox is a simple tool of accessibility." --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:46, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
26 June Remember the Sparrow Mass? After the edit warring mentioned above, it had an infobox. On 6 June, it was removed, on 25 June I brought it back. On 26 June, I was welcomed to the "infobox warrior club", citing three diffs, two from March, one from June. The discussion is still on the article talk. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:27, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
6 July Back to opera: during the following weeks, some users prepared the way by adding the composer's navbox to opera articles, and others added infoboxes, for example Viva-Verdi and I to Rigoletto. The next step was a longish discussion, in the only archive of that opera. The same happened on other operas, but so similar that looking at one should do. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:18, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ARBINFOBOX

12 July Ched, a QAI member seeing the several time sinks of discussions, requests an ARB case on the matter. He (and I) should have known better, by the ultimate guide to arbitration. His request came as a surprise. Here's the link to the request and all that followed in the case. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:23, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
17 July The case was opened. It was the first for me ever, - I had no idea what arbcom was, nor how you have to behave, so made some mistakes you'd better avoid. I trusted that the arbs would easily see how much more user-friendly and elegant an opera article is with an infobox than with the side navbox. Only: they were not interested. It didn't take long until the case focused on Andy being hated by many, and the long history of that. Please see yourself. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:11, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To be more precise: I'd like you to take a brief look at the evidence page, and tell me how you read it. Imagine your were an arb and had to do something about an old "war". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:36, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you again for taking the time to add details. This controversy is much more complex than I had realized. I read your entry here and skimmed through some of the others. It does appear that the arbiters (that's my preference) decided to focus on the warring rather than the propriety of infoboxes. But there does seem to be the need to address the policy about resolving infoboxes at the article level. That invites warring. I need to read the policy again, but I would require consensus to add an infobox to, or delete one from, an established article. As a copy editor, I like the additional opportunity to find and correct errors and think less about the possible redundancy of information. Jmar67 (talk) 13:58, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Define redundancy. The same information is normally given in an article three times, in the lead, in the infobox, and in the body. The same information serves different kinds of people, and I haven't heard complaints about the lead being redundant to the article. Also: define "same". As the Pierre Boulez discussion points out, the date is there in lead and infobox (if there is one), and one who commented even pointed out in bold and extra-large font how it is in the lead. (As if I needed shouting.) However: The date in the lead is a character string, the "same" date in the infobox offers granularity (day/month/year) to calculate with, to compare, and to be correct in different languages. Worth having, I believe, and not detrimental for those who don't care about this aspect. - In the evidence, you will have seen the Pilgrim discussion again, including the threat of the main author to leave Wikipedia if her article had to suffer an infobox. Adding to the guilt of infobox supporters that they drive away those extremely sensitive and valuable FA writers. - Not without irony: I reviewed said article for DYK when it was new ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:29, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Did you really add 14 infoboxes in 30 minutes? Alle Achtung. Is there an article somewhere on Wikipedia records? Jmar67 (talk) 17:53, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Kafka stories, all following the same model, and excessively uncontroversial ;) - all to get Kafka ready for TFA day. In the decision, even the arbs agreed that it wasn't a crime. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:21, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
20 July First comment in the workshop - any questions? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:41, 27 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
August While there was much talk about editor behaviour in the case, I made a factual list of 59 infoboxes that got reverted. A mistake. Who cares about facts and detail in arbitration? Some delicious edit summaries with the reverts. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:59, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
6 August The discussion of discussions, and illustrating "speaking terms" mentioned next: Talk:Siegfried (opera)#Infobox. If I had been arbitrator, I would have told all participants in the case: do it like this from now on ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:21, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I see that IB variant made it to the article. My initial reaction: much too short, defeats the purpose. Also, I noticed the term "music drama", which was likely a point of contention. Jmar67 (talk) 11:37, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If you look up the discussions when developing the template (s. fiirst in 2013 above), it was meant to be short, to minimise controversies. In this particular case, Siegfried is part of Der Ring des Nibelungen, so a parameter such as "based on" could be handled once, not for all. - Did you see when the infobox made it to the article? Yes, 2015. Have a guess: how many of the 59 reverted infoboxes have found their way back? (Or: how few are still without?) - You could simply look that up on the talk of WP:QAI/Infobox if that talk had not been deleted, but this is jumping ahead. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:54, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I guess 50 have been restored. Jmar67 (talk) 12:49, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Close, 56. One left without is BWV 105, a pet of Mathsci, reverted with a delicious edit summary. We did things together in the meantime, such as Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan. He had severe health problems, and hasn't edited for months, - I am worried. Another is Joseph, with juicy discussions, 2013 and 2015, the latter of which caused my friend Montanabw (QAI member) to not succeed when going for admin. Such things can't be forgiven. The last one is the saddest case, Elgar's Cello Concerto, by Tim riley (also edit summary worth reading), with whom I had good relations (at least I thought) until someone else proclamed in 2016 that I drove him (Tim) away from Wikipedia. Author of Massenet, featured article the other day when I cautioned to never say anything while an article is on the Main page. - He returned, and we'll get there. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:36, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
7 August In the workshop, a design for a simple infobox for Beethoven. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:33, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That provided new light on the controversy. I now better understand some of the issues. Jmar67 (talk) 10:40, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Can you name one issue that Beethoven made you better understand? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:44, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The discussions on the metadata and the IB content vs. the article content. Not sure where I stand on the latter, but I have never viewed an IB from that perspective. Just concerned with mechanical problems in the IB itself. Jmar67 (talk) 11:54, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
8 August On my talk page, Nikkimaria explains the fine line between "not contentious" and "shouldn't be contentious". She reverted many infoboxes, but we have been respectful of each other. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:16, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As you mentioned, it is "not debatable" (which you could have said) vs. "not debated" (which is what "not contentious" means). Jmar67 (talk) 11:41, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
16 August Same place, a discussion started by Smerus, based on a misunderstanding, but resolved nicely. He was another one on the opposite end of the case, and we also have been on good terms. The third one was Kleinzach, whom you met if you looked at Bach, Wagner, the Sparrow Mass and Rigoletto. He stopped working for Project Opera, sadly. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:21, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Pause Today is Sunday, so let's pause for a moment and look at the situation in evidence and workshop, and wait for the arbitrators to write their decision, Worm That Turned and David Fuchs. Today's featured article Rossini is by Smerus and Tim riley, and nobody praised me yet for not mentioning the topic in peer review and FAC ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:31, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Before going to the decision, we should look at Peter Planyavsky, who was a composer but mostly an organist. What do you see, history and talk? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:29, 3 June 2019 (UTC) Or more precisly: which of the edits will be cited in the decision to ban a user? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:35, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
17 August Proposed decision is posted. (In case you are happy enough to not have seen such a thing, it follows a pattern from priciples to finding of fact to proposed remedy, and while arbs do much off-wiki, decision-making in cases is done in public. All arbs on a case support or oppose what the two who wrote the initial "decision" have proposed.) Look and see how the result is simple and supports what my dead friend wrote in his ultimate guide: "the Committee does not carefully examine the evidence and circumstances leading up to a case". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:15, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps now look at some reactions (on the talk of the same), the first coming the first day after publishing. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:48, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In case you missed it: I turned to Floquenbeam for help, User talk:Floquenbeam/Archive 6#Hearish? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:10, 29 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
19 August "We start today ...", I said it then, I say it now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:29, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
22 August by now several voted, what do you see? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:27, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
At that point, I could add again: "Gerda Arendt thinks the infobox is over." - do you see the same? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:00, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Only, it wasn't. If you check the votes on the proposed decision, you'll see that the pile on banning Andy grew. It's just easy to take one strong player out of a game, reason or not. I got restless and argued that I'd just continue his work, which fired back to that then I of course also needed to be restricted. Spare me details please, it still hurts. On 28 August, we reached a point of a majority of one vote for banning Andy, and the voter cited one edit. I asked above which one. - I went to a concert that night, thinking that a wonderful collaboration was ended because of Andy trying to help me. Great concert, but I had black feelings. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:02, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
2 September Ched (who had requested the case to ease things for infoboxes, remember?) left Wikipedia, disappointed. I left the two projects Classical music and Opera. Erik came to my talk, and the term cabal of the outcasts was coined. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
4 September Relief. Not that the arb (who is again an arb now) noticed his mistake, but another one changed his vote, saying he didn't want his vote alone let ban a productive content editor. Not without irony, he had been the one who had requested to ban Br'er Rabbit (remember, who wanted that so, but still ...). I thanked him for a good approach, and wasn't the first to do so. Something is wrong if the (almost life and death) destiny of an editor on this project rests on one vote, imho. And then if that one vote is based on an edit correctly saying MoS in the edit summary ... - I should let go. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:40, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Gerda Arendt: I have a question: why don't those who don't prefer infoboxes just use custom CSS to remove them?
But I guess the issue arises from an assertion that their preference is also shared by the average Wikipedia viewer?
But on the other hand, I guess it could be said that I assert my preference for infoboxes by adding them to articles? I'm not sure I buy this, because infoboxes have been implemented fairly consistently across the encyclopedia. For me infoboxes are an expected feature of articles on Wikipedia. While the information is indeed intentionally redundant, I suspect an avid Wikipedia viewer will integrate the presence of infoboxes into their (sometimes subconsciousness) viewing workflow, either consistently browsing infoboxes or consistently ignoring them.
But on the other hand, while it does seem like an issue of individual article ownership issues, I'm not sure if I'd go so far as to say every article should have an infobox. Still, I think infoboxes should be used where there is relevant data available to fill them. Retro (talk | contribs) 14:34, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You will have to ask them, not me. You can ask them individually because they are selected few. However, they are those who write our highest quality articles, so their preference counts a lot. Please (as you can read further up) never ever mention the word ownership (even if looks like it). - For me, infoboxes are useful, just like images, and so far nobody fought a war over the addition of images. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:41, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ps: look at The Rite of Spring, for the arguments, and user names behind them. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:43, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Gerda Arendt: Regarding "ownership", I suppose I don't really mean it in the sense of WP:Ownership, but more in the sense of entrenched curation. But though I say that, this is not intended to be a negative reflection on any specific instance of infobox opposition, more a general rumination (I certainly would avoid using it in a debate about infoboxes, as it seems a bit ad hominem and ABF). Far be it from me to tell editors who have spent hours, maybe tens of hours researching and crafting an article the best way to present the information in that article.
On an interesting note, despite the 2013 opposition to the infobox (which I have not yet read fully), an infobox was added in 2015 and remains to this day. Retro (talk | contribs) 15:01, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, to all you said. The best debate about infoboxes is no debate. Waste of time ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:16, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
9/11 The decision arrived, and I responded: "Ich steh hier und singe", which means, "I stand and sing", which is a quote from the funeral motet by Bach (which I sang on some 11 June, funeral 12 June), - in response to the raging of the world ("Tobe, Welt, und springe"). Also Kafka, of course. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:41, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

during

9 September Brianboulton - a leading FA writer, in case you don't know - tries something to please the critics of infobox opera, announced here. The wars could be over, no? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:14, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Cannot tell what he did. Jmar67 (talk) 23:00, 16 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you could follow his link, and look in the article history for "box" or the date, or here you go. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:32, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

His link is to the article. Still do not understand your point: that he added the infobox? Why would that please the critics? Jmar67 (talk) 07:46, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This was infobox opera added not by a despised member of QAI to an obsure short opera article, but one of the most respected FA writers adding it (on trial) to a featured article, - a first. Gerda Arendt thought the infobox wars were over ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:10, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Jetzetle. :-) You meant "silence the critics", I guess. Jmar67 (talk) 08:17, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

after

Several comments follow on my 2013 talk, one linking to this. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:41, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
11 October I don't know if the writers of the decision are aware of it, but they intoduced the concept of ownership in the matter, by allowing me (but not Andy) to add infoboxes to articles I created. Next question: what is the meaning of "created". taken to ANI, but rejected. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:19, 14 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
22 November Benjamin Britten's centenary, a bright day, Britten for TFA, nice comment a day later by author Tim riley, DYK article Festival Te Deum, new article A Boy was Born. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:16, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
24 November For the first time, I am interested enough in arbitration election to word questions for the candidates, derived from my disbelief about how poor the reasoning for banning Andy had been (citing one edit that clearly was only application of MoS), how little the arbs had looked into details, and how little a margin they'd accept when banning a prolific content editor. The questions are at the bottom, and they were answered mostly well by the candidates. I didn't mention the reasoning about calling be out for battleground behaviour but didn't think it had been any better in the case. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:24, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
25 December A Boy was Born is DYK for Christmas 2013, and the year closed peacefully. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:40, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
29 December so it seemed, until 28bytes, the arbitration candidate with the best result, also my admin of trust, resigned, first only as an arb, then leaving Wikipedia altogether. Sickening. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:27, 23 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2014

January Smerus and Nikkimaria come to my talk in friendly mood, and I begin wok on my first solo FA, Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! BWV 172, to become the first FA with infobox Bach composition. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:08, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
11 March FA - and congratulations from Bencherlite, Tim riley, SchroCat and Dr. Blofeld, - amazing. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:53, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Summary: we are now at a stage where Andy can add no infoboxes, and I only for articles I created, which was interpreted often as "initiated", - I got problems when I expanded a stub (and sometimes had forgotten I did that). Nikkimaria had "created" several Bach compositions by splitting content from existing ones (example), making the split-off part infobox-free (although the content was often written by me). Never mind. - Discussions on project opera about infobox for an opera vs. composer navbox in that position go on, with Andy, Viva-Verdi and Meister und Margarita for infobox, Softlavender and Robert.Allen for traditional navbox, Michael Bednarek open, and Voce saying: "Conversely, I hope that we can avoid a doctrinaire approach, learn to be comfortable with occasional variations when they serve the interests of the article and the reader, and above all treat each other with courtesy and good humour." The wars could be over with that approach. - 2014 was also the year Hafspajen decorated my talk, and I made my last comment ever on the talk of our founder. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:21, 29 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
19 July A strange request for Arbitration Enforcement (AE) lands on Andy's talk. I later asked the new arb candidates about it, User:Gerda Arendt/ACE 2014. Perhaps first check out the diff that was given as a violation of the restriction, in which Andy alledgedly added an infobox. Did he? While that seems sooooo clear, we had long discussions across two noticeboards, and the best comment was by Boing! said Zebedee. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:26, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
3 December The talk of the QAI infobox page is archived for the first time (after the whole page had been moved to my personal space by someone who is not a project member, but reverted, and archiving set up by Andy). Various discussions, and table of how many infoboxes were there for the templates the project had created. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:39, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
25 December Handel gets an infobox, which stays after a short back and forth (which I didn't notice until later, - busy elsewhere on Christmas Day) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:31, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
30 December We have a cute persiflage of the infobox wars, and I think they are over, and best remembered as a farce. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:13, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2015

7 February Another FA with an infobox: Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:16, 8 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
19 February Chopin. After discussions, Brianboulton adds a short infobox. Gerda Arendt thinks the infobox wars are over. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:33, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
22 February meeting Alakzi, all for accessibility, and witty, - still present in my edit notice and on the QAI page. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:06, 1 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
26 February We now leave opera and classical composers, and get to a different type of infobox conflict, example Laurence Olivier, where a discussion began in January. Common features: article had an infobox, but when it was improved to Featured article (FA) those who do so remove it. I made three comments in the discussion, one more than my allowence. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:47, 22 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
11 March Back at Chopin: Francis Schonken, simply counting votes, not seeing that some voters had changed their mind in the discussion below, restored the plain photo "per talk". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:08, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
14 March Remember the first edit by me called disruptive? Trying an infobox for Motezuma. Restored. Refrain. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:57, 27 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
16 March Because of the third edit on Laurence Olivier and more, I am cited to AE (arbitration enforcement) but dismissed.
27 March The low point in the wars for me. I will be short because it still hurts. My friend Dreadstar protected the article for a week because of edit warring over what? Over the hidden notice saying "no infobox". He was called out for it, with a request to desysop him as he had abused his admin privileges when involved. He was disgusted enough to leave Wikipedia forever, leaving his user talk like this. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:43, 23 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
9 May Tired enough of AE to put pride aside, I appeal with arbcom, Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes#Amendment request: Infoboxes (May 2015). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:53, 31 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
10 May sad news on project opera, we learn that Viva-Verdi died, an opera lover from the Santa Fe Opera, with profound knowledge. He had given - remember the discussions in 2013? - infoboxes to all Verdi operas. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:03, 3 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
14 May Beethoven. After discussions going back to 2014, an infobox is installed as the community consensus to Beethoven's article, by Worm That Turned (who co-wrote the infoboxes case, remember). Gerda Arendt thinks the infobox wars are over. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:21, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
27 May In honour of Viva-Verdi, Tim riley takes Falstaff (opera) to FAC, leaving the infobox in place. Refrain. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:29, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
31 May I am set free from arbcom restrictions, other than having to propose infoboxes for articles I didn't create before actualy applying them to these articles. Promise: if no block for violating in 6 months, all restrictions will be lifted. DYK that I was never blocked so far, not in 10 years (today)? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:18, 2 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
24 August Now I can add infoboxes to Bach cantatas which I not "created", such as Geist und Seele wird verwirret, BWV 35, but see at what cost of debating every little parameter ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:32, 8 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
29 August Alakzi re-adds an infobox to Lohengrin (remember, the short discussion?) per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 121#Infoboxes - Wagner operas., closed 3 September. To see Alakzi's comments to the discussion - one of which is quoted in my edit notice and on the QAI page - you need to open the collapsed section. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:56, 5 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
24 September (mentioned earlier:) The Rfa of Montanabw (QAI member from the beginning) failed, mostly because of her comments in the discussion of the one opera from the arbcase which probably will never get an infobox, Joseph (opera). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:38, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
October There were a few articles following the pattern of Laurence Olivier: article has infobox for long time but those improving quality don't like it and delete it. I won't name the articles because it has been considered as inviting another debate. One of these was prepared for the person's centenary in December, and the debate was only about collapsed vs. uncollapsed. Nontheless, I received the honour to be called a monster for thinking a revert of a long-standing infobox might deserve a discussion (1 Oct), and replied by citing Germany's peaceful Monday demonstrations (4 Oct, thread @Gerda). I made a Halloween card. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:53, 7 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
30 November "Sanction expired" is the header of the information that I should be a normal editor again. Refrain. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:23, 8 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
1 December I happily archive most infobox-related links from my user page. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:10, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
31 December The year ends with impressive numbers of infoboxes for musical composition (498 / 202 / 184), many compositions by Jean Sibelius for his anniversary, including Islossningen i Uleå älv, breaking of the ice ;) - Refrain. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:57, 9 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2016

Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid (Oh God, how much heartache) becomes a theme of the year. Negative: dear people die. Positive: The article is one of more to come which I didn't create, but took to GA quality, and thus - per the "new owner's bonus" seen in Laurence Olivier - could add an infobox to. Refrain. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:57, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
5 January Two people who died, and played a role in my life, were Pierre Boulez and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. While Harnoncourt had an infobox since August 2015, I tried one for Boulez, reverted, and the resulting discussions on both the article talk (Talk:Pierre Boulez/Archive 1#Infobox) and Project:Composers (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Archive 40) made me decide to never ever try that again. When I said "waste of time" later, I meant those discussions. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:24, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
18 January Notice that Dreadstar died. Remember: who quit over LO. No way to heal that unfairness. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:42, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
14 March A user added an infobox to Peter Maxwell Davies, and after revert and discussion, it was accepted. Refrain. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:51, 13 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
21 March I try to convince arbcom that restrictions for Andy are no longer needed, Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes#Amendment request: Infoboxes (April 2016), succesfully so. Refrain. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:24, 25 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
11 July We loose Alakzi. Sad. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:54, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
16 July 2016 was the centenary of Max Reger's death. I wrote an FA for the occasion, Der 100. Psalm, and improved his article, then added an infobox. You will not be surprised that even in this case - where I had done the improving - I had to fight a revert by longish talk page discussion. But won. Refrain. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:20, 15 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
1 August Gustav Holst. After a discussion about the usual hidden notice on composers' articles, I try to find out how people think, because there was no "consensus" yet established about infobox or not. Closed as no consensus 6 weeks later, with some remarkable comments in the discussion. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:11, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
29 August The QAI talk infobox is proposed to be deleted. A list (see below) strictly of articles where infoboxes were reverted is described as "victimizing" editors. Therefore ... --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:17, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
31 August The QAI talk is archived a second time: 498 infoboxes musical composition, + 202 Bach, + 184 opera. Of the infoboxes reported as reverted during the infoboxes arb case, only 2 are still without infobox, and 1 is to date (and probably ever shall be, given the main author's preference). Refrain. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:32, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
1 September Wake-up call. I see sarcastic "congrats" addressed at my name, and get from the context that Tim riley left Wikipedia, and I am blamed for it, first by somone else, then by himself, and - needless to say - by his friends. To this day, I don't know how, - somehow probably related to the list of reverted infoboxes. Sad. Remember: always highly esteemed as a FA writer, with collaboration on Messiah (Handel) and a GA review for Magnificat in E-flat major, BWV 243a, especially esteemed for expanding Falstaff (opera) in memory of Viva-Verdi and leaving his infobox in place. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:59, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
21 September "There is consensus that the page is furthering the infobox wars, whether or not that was the intention." is the edit summary for deleting the QAI infoboxes talk. This means that some people still think that there wars. Sad. These people don't like I list of the infoboxes they reverted. No surprise, actually. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:14, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2017

The year of Reformation. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:51, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
2 February One of many RfCs to come: Talk:Stanley Kubrick/Archive 9#RfC: Should an infobox be added to this page?. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:59, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
21 February Piano Concerto No. 24 (Mozart) becomes a FA, the first classical music work with infobox not by me, appearing the same year. Refrain. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:27, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
29 July Begin of lenghty discussions on Talk:Requiem (Duruflé)#Infobox, in which RexxS politely explains. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:56, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
November After having been asked to stop asking arbcom candidates questions related to the Infoboxes case, User:Gerda Arendt/ACE 2017 is the first question regarding a different topic. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:10, 2 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2018

Psalms. The project begun is to improve psalm articles, not 1 2 3 but in the order links are seen in articles. The first causes an infobox discussion which spills to my talk, but it turns silent, and by now all advanced psalm articles have an infobox, see Psalm 70. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:01, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
12 October "Yay!", or: "And, no, there haven't been infobox squabbles in ages. I personally use them all the time now for biographies and operas. There are a few diehards left, but the general attitude from both perspectives seems to have settled on live and let live." - Refrain. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:15, 7 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2019

Nice conclusion, isn't it? As of today, we have 1,750 infoboxes musical composition, 222 Bach composition and 1,055 opera. Not bad ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:48, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
One more: RexxS, a strong supporter of accessibility, becomes an admin. He wrote User:RexxS/Infobox factors. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:08, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

IPA pronunciations[edit]

@Gerda Arendt, LouisAlain, and Elmidae: I recently tried my hand at adding an IPA template for Hans Günter Nöcker. It now occurs to me that many of the German-titled articles lack such templates. I would be willing to add them where I think they would be helpful, such as Bundesjugendorchester, provided that a native speaker checks them. Einwände? Jmar67 (talk) 19:38, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know my way around IPA, I'm afraid, so I would be quite useless for checking these... when one isn't acquainted with the details, they readily "sound about right", which probably isn't quite sufficient :) As a general proposition, sure, go for it. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:18, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You could ask the Help desk where certainly s.o will help you. LouisAlain (talk) 20:49, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I can generate the template, but it's a question of having a native speaker look at it and judge whether it gives the right pronunciation and stress. See Help:IPA/Standard German for the symbols, sample German words, and English approximations. In fact, the finished template links to this page. I have now updated BJO as an initial step. Jmar67 (talk) 21:07, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm no friend of IPA, at least where it normally is, after the name, then IPA, then translation, then - finally - what it is. Could they go to a footnote, perhaps? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:19, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have always seen IPA shown like this in the lead. Seems reasonable. Jmar67 (talk) 21:55, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Same for me, but look at Peter and the Wolf and see how long it takes until we even read that it's a composition, and by whom. And that is a short title. If at least it had an infobox ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:11, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have noticed that you are "impatient" :) in that regard, but I appreciate the additional info up front. Jmar67 (talk) 22:21, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Why a "t" for the end of "jugend"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:21, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's the type of feedback I wanted. Would you pronounce as "d"? I thought it was closer to "t" (not voiced) if not stressed. That's how I would say it. The Duden audio seems to agree. See also note 2 on the help page. Jmar67 (talk) 21:43, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's like "Sand" and "Land" which are somewhat like English (not the vowel, of course). May vary with dialect how hard the ending sound is, softer than "bunt". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:49, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, how do you pronounce the end of your last name? Jmar67 (talk) 00:26, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"t", you don' hear the "d". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:49, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am not familiar with IPA, but can tell you that the "ch" in Bach is a completely different sound from the "ch" in Verzeichnis. Both don't occur in English, while I think "x" is common in English, as in "six". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:29, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I should have recognized this. There are two pronunciations given for "ch", one for "nach" and one for "ich" and "durch". I suspect Verzeichnis should be the latter. The "x" represents "nach". "Six" would be "ks". Jmar67 (talk) 16:44, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback might be better on the article's talk page, but I do appreciate it. Jmar67 (talk) 17:23, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think I better leave my ignorance for IPA here than expose it openly. The "x" sound (ks) is so different from the "ch" as in Bach that I wonder if others won't derive "Baks" reading the IPA. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:31, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That is a risk, but most interested readers would know how to pronounce Bach already. Seeing the other "strange" characters will hopefully take them to the help page if they have any questions. I find the IPA fairly easy, but you should not worry about "exposing yourself". Once you get used to it, you can sound like an expert. And feedback from a native speaker is essential for quality. Jmar67 (talk) 05:43, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I hear radio speakers pronounce his name wrong (too long vowel, k-sound in the end) ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:31, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The "listen" in his article is fine. I am not sure about "zeich", especially the vowel which is a diphthong, - missing the "i" part. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:36, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that myself while doing Mädchenkantorei Limburg and fixed it. I am just going to do the ones I think people might really stumble over. Jmar67 (talk) 11:06, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

for that article: the first vowel is a straightforward ä sound, is that the one you gave it? (Where's the list, for me to check without asking you. The "o" is also long, should that show. The stresses are on "Mäd" and "rei". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:08, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Click on the IPA to get the list. I will investigate. "Always learning." Have now changed per your suggestions. For some reason, when I edit in the desktop view I am being logged out and the edit uses my IP. Jmar67 (talk) 13:16, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

One more question in the Kantorei: in Limburg Cathedral? Would be "in the cathedral", no? And Limburg just says which cathedral. It's not really a name, just a shortcut, because the official name would be too long. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:30, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's somewhat controversial. :-) I prefer it with "at" and without article since it is effectively a proper name (treated that way as the article title). There was a similar complaint on WP:ERRORS recently about Canterbury Cathedral, preferring no article. Jmar67 (talk) 17:58, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ä

The volwel sound in Wächter is as in chair (but short), however, the short ä has "Ende" and "hätte" which have completely different sounds, "Ende" like "Wette". For the short a, why not say "but" which seems really close, instead of "father (but short)"?

Bach cantata and related articles[edit]

@Gerda Arendt: Would like to discuss this informally. I do think a move is desirable, but it might be better to have the discussion here, as we both find time to do it. I want in particular to make sure I understand your reasoning for retaining the current title. Jmar67 (talk) 05:18, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The most important person to include when it comes to precision of article names is JHunterJ. The article title Bach cantata has been stable for years which is one of my reasons to oppose a move. I'd be more intersted in moving Mass for the Dresden court (Bach). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:27, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What is the issue there, not German? Has it been discussed? Jmar67 (talk) 05:50, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We have the title page, it says "Missa", we could say (as before) Missa in B minor (Bach), until User:Francis Schonken moved it (31 October 2014), with whom to discuss a lifetime is too short. It would clarify that this not any mass but the Kyrie and Gloria which became part of the Mass in B minor. It could also be called Missa in B minor, BWV 232a or Missa, BWV 232 I, and variations. Francis is blocked, though, and I kind of find it unfair to do anything while he's away (September). All I wanted to say is that we have worse titles than Bach cantata. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:20, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

About "Bach cantata": German WP has "Bachkantate" redirecting to "Kantaten (Bach)". I doubt that the stability of the English title is due to consensus that it is valid but rather only that others have given up (or are no longer active). There was strong but mostly polite opposition in the last discussion. I might favor the current title if there were a qualifier such as "genre" or "musical form" to soften the strong impression that Bach wrote only one, which is the main problem. Again, just trying to understand your position. Jmar67 (talk) 11:58, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what the question is regarding precision for this topic, but Bach cantata is an unqualified title, so it's fine from a precision point of view, and Cantata (Bach) would be worth qualifying, but English Wikipedia prefers "natural" disambiguation to parenthetical disambiguation, so Bach cantata is preferred over Cantata (Bach). Mass for the Dresden court (Bach) is wrong from a precision point of view, since Mass for the Dresden court doesn't exist, so the disambiguator is not disambiguating anything. It should be moved: if there's a better title for it (such as Missa in B minor, BWV 232a or Missa, BWV 232 I), to that title, if not, to Mass for the Dresden court. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:01, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Or Mass for the Dresden court should be created as a topic article or a disambiguation page or a redirect, if the Bach composition is not its primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:03, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, both. There is no topic. It is this piece, which isn't even a complete mass, only Kyrie and Gloria, the first two of five sections of a complete mass. That is what Bach called a Missa, as the title page says. Francis was afraid that Missa and Mass is not sufficiently different. I don't know where he got the present title from. Yes, it was written for and dedicated to the Elector's court in Dresden, but it's not really a title. I'll boldly move and see what happens. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:49, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. For what it's worth, "Missa" and "Mass" are sufficiently different (WP:SMALLDETAILS), with any potential confusion handled with hatnotes. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:56, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot comment. Please do what you think is right. Jmar67 (talk) 13:31, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. In my view, the problem with "Bach cantata" concerns the title vs. the content of the article. As the article is currently structured, the title would be more appropriate in the plural: "Bach cantatas". The equivalent German WP article title (translated) is "Cantatas (Bach)". I have no problem using "Bach cantatas" on our side. However, If the article were to clearly focus on the specific type of cantata Bach wrote, then "Bach cantata" is ostensibly more appropriate. But it is not precise in that it does not sufficiently convey the concept of "type". To most people coming to the page (including myself), the first impression is "But he wrote more than one!" In the interest of precision, a qualifier is needed. My preference at the moment is to retain the article content as it is and move the page to "Bach cantatas". The specialized term "Bach cantata" can then be discussed in the article. Jmar67 (talk) 13:16, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Then Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals) might apply, particularly the second bullet about things that are distinct but usually considered as a set. But this is really a good topic for the article talk page, either as a requested move or not. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:31, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I had been trying to find that discussion, which Gerda had alluded to once. I wanted to talk "privately" with her before suggesting an official RM. Hope this thread does not violate any WP policy. Jmar67 (talk) 14:52, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not that I know of. But I guess I don't see the benefit of it either. The eventual consensus will out. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:57, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For a title Bach cantatas, I'd expect speaking about them (plural), but the main concern of the article is to explain what one cantata is, typically linked from an individual cantata, singular, of course. If it was a plural, every link would have to be piped. Not worth discussing, imho. - At present, the plural title redirects to the list of all, which I think is fair. We have several dedicated articles to the cantata cycles, DYK? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:11, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A good compromise solution would be Cantata (Bach), justified by the singular/plural ambiguity of Bach cantata. There are also Church cantata (Bach) and Weimar cantata (Bach) as precedents. The question also arises as to whether the latter need to be separate articles. Jmar67 (talk) 11:53, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not a good compromise, as JHunterJ and I explained above, for different reasons. Weimar cantata needs the sperate article, parallel to the other 4 cantata cycle articles. Church cantata (Bach) has the specifics of Bach's church cantatas vs. Church cantata in general. Not without irony, I typically link to the latter for Bach compositions, because it has readings and hymns. Bach's chorale cantatas are unlike any other chorale cantatas, and certainly deserve their own article. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:10, 16 May 2019 (UTC) All these articles - not Bach cantata - are by the absent Francis Schonken, so let's be polite and not touch them. --[reply]

If JHunterJ is still opposed to Cantata (Bach), currently a redirect, as the actual article title, I cannot say any more. Jmar67 (talk) 12:50, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

~~"JHunterJ is still opposed"~~ → "the article titling policy is still consensus". A good compromise might be a WP:RM to see if there's consensus for WP:IAR in this case to use the parenthetical disambiguation instead of the natural disambiguation. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:58, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Expansion?[edit]

@Gerda Arendt: de:Hermann Weil (Sänger) on DYK today. Our article is Hermann Wilhelm Weil. Jmar67 (talk) 16:15, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Eventually, booked for a while ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:36, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Bagger 1473[edit]

Would you be willing to take a look at the above article and see if you can find any additional sources? I suspect that the subject is not notable, based on what I could see from its German Wikipedia entry, but I wanted to check if you can find other German-language sources before I open an AfD. – Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 21:40, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Lord Bolingbroke and Gerda Arendt: I will see what I can find. May take a week or so. Gerda may be able to help. Jmar67 (talk) 03:29, 19 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like local prominence to me. To what would it be connected. But I would just leave it as it is, - why delete? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:12, 19 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you ...[edit]

May
Rapeseed

... with thanks from QAI

... for improving article quality in May! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:21, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

... and for adding to the Six Motets, Op. 82 (Kiel)! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:42, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

George Beauchamp[edit]

Hi!, thanks so much for your help. I'm confused and need help. Many sources say he died in 1944 during World War II and some say he died in 1965. What's true? I already asked another user but would like more than one opinion. Thank you. Best wishes. --LLcentury (talk) 21:48, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@LLcentury: Please see reply on article talk page. Jmar67 (talk) 22:35, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I can't see it, should I clear my cache? --LLcentury (talk) 22:45, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If you wish to help me (not mandatory) could you help me "undraft" the article? I don't understand what must I do. Thanks again for your patience. --LLcentury (talk) 23:16, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I see that copyright violation is alleged, which seems to say that some text is copied verbatim from the refs. I have not dealt with this before but would be willing to see what I can do. It may just be a question of paraphrasing. I understand you are not a native speaker, and I do not have much time to rewrite articles. Will get back to you. It's an interesting topic. Jmar67 (talk) 23:25, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I've done my best. Still need help citing a book, Can't fix the error. May you help me with that last thing please? --LLcentury (talk) 00:34, 27 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

YES! We've done it man! THANK YOU SO MUCH! --LLcentury (talk) 18:16, 27 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for so much asking you for help, but really, you're the only one helping me, I've added more sources, several more to disputed info. Do you think the tag is removable? And please, if you wish to do so, I invite you to see my post on the article's talk page expressing my feelings. --LLcentury (talk) 23:47, 27 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you![edit]

	The Technical Barnstar
	For your immense help improving George Beauchamp (RMS Titanic) in technical issues I don't understand. Best wishes. LLcentury (talk) 17:23, 27 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

New message from Narutolovehinata5[edit]

Hello, Jmar67. You have new messages at Template:Did you know nominations/Hallo Ü-Wagen.
Message added 03:12, 5 June 2019 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((Talkback)) or ((Tb)) template.

Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 03:12, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you ...[edit]

June
cornflowers

... with thanks from QAI

... for article improvements in June! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:35, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you ...[edit]

July

... with thanks from QAI

... for improving article quality in July! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:32, 21 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Clara Schumann[edit]

Clara Schumann's bicentary is tomorrow, I should have looked earlier ... - will you watch, please? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:05, 12 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt: Ref 39 should read "An Artist's Life ...". Cannot find. Jmar67 (talk) 09:11, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Gefunden. Jmar67 (talk) 10:19, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! - I was out and no time to search yet. Thanks for thorough ce! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:02, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you ...[edit]

September
meadow saffron

.. for improving articles in September! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:39, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Present perfect[edit]

Present perfect tense is hard for Germans. Please explain. I thought it is used for things that began in the past but are ongoing, such as "they have made recordings, including 1 2 3". However, in "they made 3 recordings", that's past, no? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:30, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to mention this on yours. Present perfect is also past but focuses on the present. Here, it is used frequently in the article. The idea is that they could produce more albums in the future. Jmar67 (talk) 08:41, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The math seems wrong though, - is that not disturbing to a reader in English? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:43, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Do not understand. BTW: German often uses PP where we would use the simple past. That is a special point in translations. Jmar67 (talk) 08:48, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The math does not require simple past. It is simply a question of whether you can expect more such albums. If the band no longer existed, PP would be wrong. Interesting problem. I'm glad you brought it up. Possibly give me some German sentences to translate, if that would help your understanding. Or let me translate EN-DE. Jmar67 (talk) 01:53, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's fine, I got it, I hope. Thanks for all the ce you do for me! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:20, 21 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt: "that Belgian bass Tijl Faveyts, recognized internationally since his 2006 performance as Mozart's Sarastro at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, has portrayed both Fasolt and Hunding in Der Ring in Minden?" You must use simple past here (portrayed) because this is a past event. Jmar67 (talk) 13:15, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt: DYK today for Protschka: I noted at WP:ERRORS that "has later performed" was a conflict of "later" with the present perfect. Same reasoning as above. It now reads simply "later performed". Jmar67 (talk) 12:51, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

explaining?[edit]

In an article on the Main page, as this is going to be, every bit needs to be sourced, - I am travelling and have no time to check if the given source has the explanation, - if not, better wait until that's over - or write the article ;) - I will be completely away for hours now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:40, 24 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is in the ref. Surprised it was not already mentioned. The sentence seemed incomplete as it was and I went to the ref to resolve. Jmar67 (talk) 18:52, 24 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

October

... with thanks from QAI

Thank you, didn't look close enough! Also for article improvement in October! - See my talk today for great music that we sang yesterday. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:17, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for Márta Kurtág[edit]

On 3 November 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Márta Kurtág, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Hungarian pianists Márta Kurtág and her husband performed together for 60 years, often from his collection entitled Játékok ('Games')? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Márta Kurtág. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, ), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Gatoclass (talk) 00:01, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! - Here's my ideal candidate for arbcom. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:03, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Kutsch/Riemens[edit]

Klarwein, or others: when you see a Kutsch/Riemens, try to find the most recent entry, by searching (Google) for "Klarwein, Franz Kutsch": https://books.google.es/books?id=dsfq_5dFeL0C&pg=PA2400&lpg=PA2400, then replace the dated ref by one found in a recent article such as Ignaz Saal. I'm on vacation, or would do it myself. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:24, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt:Looks like you're in Spain. At any rate, enjoy the Urlaub. I have updated the KR ref. Jmar67 (talk) 09:48, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Günther Jacoby[edit]

Hallo !

I've just published this page and although it's not a monster I know it needs proofreading (nearly 15ko). Do you feel like doing the job? You'll notice I've changed my old way (p. 45, 48) for the one you indicated (pp. 45–48). LouisAlain (talk) 18:55, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The new page has just been reviewed and not a single iota has been changed. I question the utility of these reviews... LouisAlain (talk) 19:01, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have made an initial pass and will verify a few passages against the German article. The text is very well written and appears to be an accurate translation. The page number suffixes "f" and "ff" should be preceded by "pp." because multiple pages are involved. But the template formats them as "p." because there is only one parameter. I will look into fixing that. Jmar67 (talk) 03:54, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking the time to review the page. Had I been more attentive I would have avoided some mistakes but as you know, after 3 or 4 hours working on a text, the attention to details vanishes in the haze. Thanks again. LouisAlain (talk) 16:06, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dürr and Jones[edit]

Dürr wrote the book, Jones translated. Due to the elapsed time, he also updated. I think for a very general statement, he only translated. I suggest I explain that once, and say only Dürr from then on? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:12, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

All of the sfn's cite both. These are, after all, the translator's words. I would prefer avoiding names (including Rathey) at all in the running text and cite by title, or rephrase to just say "critics", with the appropriate sfn's. Jmar67 (talk) 11:42, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'd love to that but - on FA level - quotes have to be attributed. - Your solution to the RV question was marvellous, btw. The same that Alakzi found, only I failed to apply it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:52, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You mean the attribution must be by name in the text? Why is that? Where is that policy stated? Jmar67 (talk) 11:58, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You know that I'm not a policy person ;) - I was asked in FAC reviews, but have no time now, - have to still write that article that would be nice for Christmas - but which year? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:10, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Choral setting[edit]

Could it be that you don't know the difference between a "choral setting" (from choir) and a "chorale setting" (from chorale)? Anyway, a "chorus setting" doesn't exist. Please fix it, I'm on voluntary 1RR. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:10, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You are misinterpreting the sentence, which I thought was yours in the first place. The word "setting" in this case is a present participle, not a noun. It is not about a choir-based setting (Satz) but rather a chorus that sets (festlegt, vorgibt) the mood for the rest of the piece. I have reworded accordingly for clarity. Jmar67 (talk) 04:17, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Giving thanks[edit]

Thanksgiving
Cassia javanica, Torremolinos

... with thanks from QAI

Happy Thanksgiving! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:30, 28 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Der Ring in Minden ... finally appeared today, - thank you for participating in finding the best hook, "... to listen to the music at the end" which would be a good motto ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:27, 7 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Aha, Torremolinos. Click. Jmar67 (talk) 13:36, 7 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That was last year, - this year was El Escorial and Àvila. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:59, 7 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 November 2019[edit]

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Block indent[edit]

Many thanks for finding that gizmo. It's excellent, and I shall use it henceforth. It makes the page look elegantly laid out. Tim riley talk 16:20, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you ...[edit]

Vision in 2020

missing Brian

... for improving article quality in December! There's a peer review open for Clara Schumann and a FAC for Jauchzet, frohlocket!, DYK? We miss Brian who would have helped. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:13, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ps: fyi, I copied most of the above little ibox history to the project page, - you can get rid of it here if you like ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:45, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 December 2019[edit]

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the pastor?[edit]

Not sure about the change, because many churches I know have more than one pastor, and I don't know about Weissel. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:48, 3 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Gutes Neues Jahr! I anticipated your comment. The German article says "zum ersten Pfarrer... ordiniert". Not clear what ref is supporting the sentence here. I feel the need for a grammatical article. Lack of an article strongly implies "the". Could also be "a pastor". We could compromise on that. Jmar67 (talk) 11:06, 3 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Volpelius[edit]

... and elsewhere: everytime I write St Matthew Passion, which is often, I hesitate because for German Protestants, there is no strong concept of sainthood. I would hesitate even more to use a word such as "saintly". A Catholic church will be called after a saint, such as St. Thomas, ABCtown, but a Protestant church will simply be called Thomaskirche, which I believe should not be translated using St. Thomas (or, worse, St. Thomas's). A gospel reading in church will be announced (even Catholic!) by "nach Johannes", - no St. or St. Food for thought. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:37, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was just correcting grammar but changed to "holy". Interesting point, I will digest it. :-) Jmar67 (talk) 10:54, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you ...[edit]

January

... with thanks from QAI

... for improving articles in January! Today - 20 in 2020 - is a birthday, she is pictured on the lower choir pic, enjoy listening. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:45, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Auch ein Steinbock. Vielen Dank, und nachträglich herzlichen Glückwunsch! Jmar67 (talk) 21:47, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's not my birthday (yet), and I don't talk about myself in the third person ;) - 27 January is the birthday of the conductor (I'll return to most of the decoration then), and Mozart, but he doesn't like Mozart. Next program has Stanford Beati, among others. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:58, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Would love to sing in that choir. Jmar67 (talk) 22:05, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! - In 2006, we travelled to some cathedrals in England, listening to how they do it. We got instructions in Salisbury Cathedral by the Master of Music, sang If Ye Love Me to him, and he smiled, and said "What is the most important word in the first line?" - "Sing towards it", and explained that they do such anthems and Bruckner motests faster than some on the continent. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:10, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for fixing this typo [1]! Please could you do the same in the page 'da capo'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.171.74.24 (talk) 17:25, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted this. It does not appear to be a typo using the Italian IPA. Sorry. Jmar67 (talk) 02:22, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 January 2020[edit]

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Could you copy edit this article?[edit]

Hello! I have nominated the article you previously copy edited as a GA. Thanks again for your work.
I have also nominated Vulgata Sixtina as a GA and the article has already been copy edited. However, I have added a few other info since then. Could you copy edit this article? Just know that I will change things you wrote in the article if I disagree and that it is not out of disrespect for your work. As a sidenote, I wrote the article using British English. Veverve (talk) 04:12, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Veverve: I would be happy to look at that article. Jmar67 (talk) 23:42, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What's left to do, in both articles, according to you? Veverve (talk) 19:44, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have finished my initial pass through the files and will monitor future activity including the GA reviews. Let me know if I can help on these or other articles. It is good working with you. Jmar67 (talk) 19:53, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for what you have done! Do you think Template:Contains special characters should be put on both articles since both use Template:Script? Veverve (talk) 07:39, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I have no experience with that and will have to educate myself. Can you provide some info? Jmar67 (talk) 13:41, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Using ((Script)) displays special fonts, however those fonts must be already present on the computer of the person viewing it or else it only displays a normal font. You can look at the conversation I had here for more info. Veverve (talk) 14:00, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please indicate where this affects the article(s). Jmar67 (talk) 01:35, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"It is also cited in the Oxford Vulgate New Testament, where it is designated by the siglum S."; "and in the Oxford Vulgate New Testament (also known as the Oxford Vulgate), where it is designated by the siglum C." Same thing in the Leuven Vulgate article: "The 1583 edition of the Leuven Vulgate is cited in the Oxford Vulgate New Testament, where it is designated by the siglum H" Veverve (talk) 01:39, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we should try to reproduce these characters, considering the dependency on resident fonts. They should be explained in the referencing works. I would just say they cite the respective versions with special printing marks. (Why OVNT twice?) Jmar67 (talk) 02:01, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think keeping them is a better choice, because it displays successfuly the siglum used in the OVTN and that if the viewer does not have the font intalled, it still displays a letter. Hence why I asked what you thought about using Template:Contains special characters (each passage citing the OVNT is for a different article). Veverve (talk) 02:26, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I don't see the value of indicating the sigla in the WP articles. They need to be explained in the books that use them. Jmar67 (talk) 05:43, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean? It is a sigla, it does not need to be explained; they are not explained in the OVNT, they are simply mentioned to give their meaning. Veverve (talk) 05:51, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Are they not used in the books to indicate sources and explained there as to their meaning? Jmar67 (talk) 20:19, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they are, e.g. this way "C = Vulgata Clementina, Rome, 1592." Veverve (talk) 20:21, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see it as useful to note that in the WP articles, at least to give the specific sigla, even if we could reliably reproduce them. Jmar67 (talk) 11:26, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think putting an image of the Codex Carafianus would be a good idea? Veverve (talk) 01:43, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it looks interesting. Jmar67 (talk) 02:53, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How would you solve the fact Metzger states two different numbers here? I checked both sources and yes he indeed contradicts himself. Veverve (talk) 06:37, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I would just drop the second one. It's clear there were a large number. We don't know the criteria in each case. Maybe it's Ehrman's figure. Jmar67 (talk) 07:26, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I tried a simple fix. What do you think of it? Veverve (talk) 08:00, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Does not fix anything and is redundant because both are named as the authors. Jmar67 (talk) 08:18, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

John Bröcheler[edit]

Re: John Bröcheler, I don't think we can say that this excerpt was recorded for the series, because I believe the idea of the series came later. They happened to have it, - no idea if they recorded the whole thing, perhaps for their own records. They could be quite proud. I was there. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:27, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just rephrasing what was there already. Check my update. Jmar67 (talk) 21:35, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

February

Alte Liebe I Will Mention the Loving-kindnesses

yes, good, thank you for all these little improvements, - Valentine month --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:03, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

today's Alte Liebe became especially meaningful after yesterday's funeral. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:32, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I couldn't follow the link. Whose funeral? Jmar67 (talk) 12:43, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Too private to say exactly, in the church pictured, with music and reading as listed. When I wrote Alte Liebe I had no idea she'd die so soon, - battle with cancer for close to 5 years. Life is short. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:56, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 March 2020[edit]

From the editor: The ball is in your court

News and notes: Alexa ranking down to 13th worldwide

Special report: More participation, more conversation, more pageviews

In the media: Mapping IP editors, Smithsonian open-access, and coronavirus disinformation

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Op-Ed: What I learned as Wikimedia UK Communications Coordinator

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Song?[edit]

Continue from Purcell. I understand that the German Lied is not the English lied which is an art song on German text. I thought so far that the German Lied is in English song. It seems to be not so easy, In German, we have Chorlied, which would translate to choral song, but the two Purcell settings would not qualify as such. Chorlied would (only) be a Lied with harmonisation. The funeral sentence is no lied, - Purcell made the melodies/themes. The article song says: "Songs with more than one voice to a part singing in polyphony or harmony are considered choral works." which is worded a bit ambiguously, - I conclude that such a thing is better called a choral setting/work/composition, than song. I wonder what an article choral song would say if we had one, and was seriously surprised how often the term is used in Wikipedia articals. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:15, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Choral song" is short for "choral arrangement of a song". It strikes me as somewhat redundant because, to me, all choral works fall into the category of song, being a composition with music and words intended to be sung by one or more people (my definition). I guess it is a question of avoiding the word "song" for certain genres, to avoid the association with "popular song", for example. As I said, I do not think "choral song" (or even "song" for that matter) is appropriate for the Purcell piece. Jmar67 (talk) 12:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

May be my English, but this sounds like a contradiction. Lied, the German one, is only used for something simple and rather short, - pop, or folk, or art. There even is de:Liedform, describing a typical Lied structure, - a form which can also be used in other music. Anything more complex would not be a Lied in German, certainly not everytink sung (=vocal music), be it motet, cantata, gospel, chanson, oratorio, anthem, canon ... --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:18, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Song is a very broad term in EN. German tends to be more specific, which may be a factor in your uncertainty. Not sure where the discussion stands, but I think I understand your concern. Jmar67 (talk) 18:09, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I asked my choir director about "choral song": "Choral song- probably is a differentiation from just a solo song. Like for example- Schubert or Schumann wrote many songs that would have been sung in German singing clubs or in salons. Often they were either sung by one person and a piano or by a choir." Then he gives Schubert's Sehnsucht, D. 656, as an example. Jmar67 (talk) 03:45, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

All true, but that's exactly what part song is. Brahms also wrote many. But while - at least according to the definition - part song is purely secular, in German we have Geistliches Chorlied, same thing for hymns, and many of Bach's and others' settings of hymns are chorales, - which may actually be the closest term, - while the German Choral means hymn, to make it even more complecated. The Deer's Cry (Pärt) is not a Lied, nor song, listen. I think Lied implies that the piece is text driven, with a melody on top which is closely following the words. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:56, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Having difficulty following. Is the problem the use of "song" in a religious (geistlich) context? What exactly do you object to? What contradiction are you referring to above? One interesting point for me is the reference to "with more than one voice to a part", apparently meaning a structure like TTBBB, which my friend says is the voicing for the Schubert piece. That is, a compound form involving separate parts within a part. What is the term for this? Jmar67 (talk) 08:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Trying harder to explain: part song has no German equivalent. In German, we say Chorsatz, secular or sacred, whatever combination of voices, SATB or TTBB. For some reason, part song in English seems to be only secular, so I think the English word for a Geistliches Chorlied would be chorale. Can you follow this far? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:22, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

More from director: "A chorale is a form of hymn- I believe it originated in Germany before Bach. It was just the melody that made up the hymns in Protestant Germany - later harmonized. Part song- that is the secular form of a motet for example. It would have secular words or a secular story or poem. Jmar67 (talk) 22:56, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree, but if you read chorale vs. Lutheran hymn, you'll see that it's not so here, where chorale is used for the musical aspects of the thing, irrelevant of the text. As if Bach hadn't composed exactly to express the text, so in the St Matthew Passion four different harmonizations. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

St. Patrick's Day[edit]


Pärt: The Deer's Cry

decoration + music with thanks from QAI! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:10, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for consistent clean-up and copy-editing, borrowing her smile --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:41, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BCW[edit]

The name of the website is Bach Cantatas Website, afaik. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:43, 26 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I restored the title in the cite entry, but the text reference should stay lowercase. due in part to the definite article. Also, the URL is bach-cantatas.com. Jmar67 (talk) 10:07, 26 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 March 2020[edit]

From the editors: The bad and the good

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On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

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An alternative[edit]

Instead of this, why don't you spend the time you're willing to invest in trawling obsessively through copious amounts of laborious archives to bolster up your argument to implement something nobody wants, and instead, expand on a stub, or create a new article about something, or review a WP:GAN? That way, we can all benefit. Just an idea. Cassianto^Talk 21:31, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Easter[edit]

or: the resurrection of loving-kindness --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:54, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

... and today Credo, or this is the day from Psalm 118. - I hope I didn't intimidate in the Hensel-Mendelssohn discussion. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:14, 28 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't been following it. You are entitled to your opinion and are more qualified to judge this than I am. Jmar67 (talk) 23:20, 28 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, relief. I unwatched, though, intimidated ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:41, 29 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I thought you were apologizing for intimidating me. I have said all I can say there and have better things to do at the moment. Jmar67 (talk) 11:59, 29 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 26 April 2020[edit]

News and notes: Unbiased information from Ukraine's government?

In the media: Coronavirus, again and again

Discussion report: Redesigning Wikipedia, bit by bit

Featured content: Featured content returns

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On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

Interview: Health and RfA's: An interview with Guy Macon

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Bacquier[edit]

Thank you copyediting, this and anywhere. I didn't write the Bacquier article, so please don't tell me things about the wording, - mostly not by me. I added references, and added them to the prose first, recordings later, so K/R a lot, - that's considered reliable by the watchers of WP:ITNN. I had no time to check, after recordings were done, if those refs were possibly better for the body of the article, and still have no time right now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:53, 14 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

May[edit]

May · Mary · Monteverdi

Thank you for article improvements in May! - DYK our list of people for whose life I'm thankful enough to improve their articles? - I have a FAC open, one of Monteverdi's exceptional works, in memory of Brian who passed me his collected sources. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:38, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

today a composer pictured who wrote a triple concerto for violin, harp and double bass, in honour of the composer who died and my brother who plays double bass. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:58, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the translation[edit]

Thank you for translating Herdgeschehen at the Reference Desk on May 22nd :-)
-- Communpedia Tribal (talk) 02:42, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 May 2020[edit]

From the editor: Meltdown May?

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Discussion report: WMF's Universal Code of Conduct

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WikiProject report: Revitalizing good articles

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Obituaries: Dmitrismirnov, Kattenkruid, Muidlatif, Ronhjones, Tsirel

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Acts and scenes[edit]

Perhaps it's too German, but when I hear "three acts and five scenes", I'd think the scenes come in addition to the acts. Help? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:16, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt that many readers would interpret it that way, but I do appreciate your comment. I would probably translate it as "in drei Akten über fünf Bilder" (improvement welcome), because that is the feeling I have. It occurred to me that the acts and scenes (plot) are not described in the article, unlike the German version, which is interesting. If I were not working on mobile, I would venture adding that here. Jmar67 (talk) 10:16, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I looked around. Falstaff (opera) doesn't mention the scenes, not even in the lenghty Plot, but has subtitles for a new location for a new scene. Così fan tutte has no scenes in the lead, but says "Scene 1" etc in the plot. The German Falstaff has "Erstes Bild" etc in the Handlung. What do you think of just dropping the scenes in the lead, especially when no plot section is there? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:42, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. I noticed in initial CE that the act/scene discussion was missing but never followed up on it. Jmar67 (talk) 21:23, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

June[edit]

June

Vespro della Beata Vergine

Thank you for improving articles in June. I can proudly present a FA, quite a gift after a year without, and a FL is in the making, comments welcome. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:55, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 June 2020[edit]

News and notes: Progress at Wikipedia Library and Wikijournal of Medicine

Community view: Community open letter on renaming

Gallery: After the killing of George Floyd

In the media: Part collaboration and part combat

Discussion report: Community reacts to WMF rebranding proposals

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Humour: Cherchez une femme

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Claude Mercier-Ythier[edit]

The link goes to Wittmayr until that one has an article, at least in German. Pointless to say he learned from someone, if that someone hangs in the air. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:30, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerda Arendt: Do not understand. Why should the Schott reference link to Wittmayer? That's an error. Jmar67 (talk) 10:35, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Now I understand. Sorry. Thou shalt not copy and then forget to change a title (or url or whatever), note to self. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:38, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2020-30[edit]

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 temporary fix helped wikis make their main pages more mobile friendly. This was in 2012. It has not been recommended since 2017. The mobile main page special casing stopped working 14 July. 60 wikis now have main pages that don't work well on mobile. You can see which ones, how to fix it and how to get help in Phabricator. This is the same problem that was reported in Tech News 2020/24 and 2020/26.

Problems

There is a problem with the interlanguage links. The interlanguage links are the links that help you find a specific page in a different language. The sorting is broken. The developers are working on a solution. [2]
Some users keep getting the notifications for the same event. Some of these are old events. [3]
Some users have trouble logging in. This is probably a browser cookie problem. The developers are working on understanding the problem. If you have trouble logging in you can see the details on Phabricator. [4]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 July. It will be on all wikis from 23 July (calendar).

Future changes

There is a Printable version link. This will disappear. That is because web browsers today can create a printable version or show how it will look in print anyway. [5]

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

19:12, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you in July[edit]

July

pale globe-thistle above the Rhine

Thank you for improving articles in July! Now a FTN is open. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:46, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Probably wrong translation, but "focus" is not right. "Ausgangspunkt" is "point of departure", says my translator, but how to use as a verb that something departs from somewhere, but goes goes quite somewhere else, at times far. For a trip, the location where it starts if not its focus, almost the opposite. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:49, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I anticipated some disagreement because I knew it was not a literal translation. I was not inclined to try that in this case because, for clarity's sake, I did not want to describe it in those terms. I did not have the text at hand to determine why the idea of Ausgangspunkt (I was thinking "geht davon aus") was used. I intended focus to mean "with an initial focus on", which would evoke "starting point", but that did not come across. So that is a translation error on my part. Jmar67 (talk) 13:38, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, compare - as many do - Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud. For that one, it would be right, 7 stanzas of nature observation before he gets to what he really wants to say. In this on, Freuet euch der schönen Erde, it's just saying that the Earth is beautiful and full of wonders and worthy to be enjoyed, - no focus on nature, neither at all nor in the beginning, - more like a jumping board to what this guy want to say: about the joy "at God's heart". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:54, 21 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Then I am making too many assumptions. I don't know what the sentence was trying to say. Maybe it was OK as it was. Were you trying to contrast it with Geh aus? That was not clear. Please phrase it in German. Jmar67 (talk) 01:59, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Are we talking about the same hymn? I made the change in Das Jahr steht auf der Höhe. Jmar67 (talk) 02:48, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I came to say that sorry, we were not at the same hymn ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:16, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

January[edit]

Exquisite copy-editor, will you return? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:39, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 January 2023[edit]

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation ousts, bans quarter of Arabic Wikipedia admins

In the media: Odd bedfellows, Elon and Jimbo, reliable sources for divorces, and more

Interview: ComplexRational's RfA debrief

Technology report: Wikimedia Foundation's Abstract Wikipedia project "at substantial risk of failure"

Essay: Mobile editing

Arbitration report: Arbitration Committee Election 2022

Recent research: Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement in talk page disputes

Serendipity: Wikipedia about FIFA World Cup 2022: quick, factual and critical

Featured content: Would you like to swing on a star?

Traffic report: Football, football, football! Wikipedia Football Club!

CommonsComix: #4: The Course of WikiEmpire

From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

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Tech News: 2023-02[edit]

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. [6]
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. [7]
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. [8]
Matrix is a chat tool. You can now use matrix: to create Matrix links on wiki pages. [9]
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. [10]

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 01:06, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 16 January 2023[edit]

From the team: We heard zoomers liked fortnights: the biweekly Signpost rides again

Special report: Coverage of 2022 bans reveals editors serving long sentences in Saudi Arabia since 2020

News and notes: Revised Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines up for vote, WMF counsel departs, generative models under discussion

In the media: Court orders user data in libel case, Saudi Wikipedia in the crosshairs, Larry Sanger at it again

Technology report: View it! A new tool for image discovery

In focus: Busting into Grand Central

Serendipity: How I bought part of Wikipedia – for less than $100

Gallery: What is our responsibility when it comes to images?

Humour: New geologically speedy deletion criteria introduced

Opinion: Good old days, in which fifth-symbol-lacking lipograms roam'd our librarious litany

Featured content: Flip your lid

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2022

From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

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Tech News: 2023-03[edit]

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

The URLs in "prev" links on page history now contain diff=prev&oldid=[revision ID] in place of diff=[revision ID]&oldid=[revision ID]. This is to fix a problem with links pointing to incorrect diffs when history was filtered by a tag. Some user scripts may break as a result of this change. [11]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 January. It will be on all wikis from 19 January (calendar).
Some changes to the appearance of talk pages have only been available on Talk: and User talk: namespaces. These will be extended to other talk namespaces, such as Wikipedia talk:. They will continue to be unavailable in non-talk namespaces, including Wikipedia: pages (e.g., at the Village Pump). You can change your preferences (beta feature). [12]
On Wikisources, when an image is zoomed or panned in the Page: namespace, the same zoom and pan settings will be remembered for all Page: namespace pages that are linked to a particular Index: namespace page. [13]
The Vector 2022 skin will become the default for the English Wikipedia desktop users. The change will take place on January 18 at 15:00 UTC. Learn more.

Future changes

The 2023 edition of the Community Wishlist Survey, which invites contributors to make technical proposals and vote for tools and improvements, starts next week on 23 January 2023 at 18:00 UTC. You can start drafting your proposals in the CWS sandbox.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:08, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-04[edit]

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

Last week, for ~15 minutes, all wikis were unreachable for logged-in users and non-cached pages. This was caused by a timing issue. [14]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 January. It will be on all wikis from 26 January (calendar).
If you have the Beta Feature for DiscussionTools enabled, the appearance of talk pages will add more information about discussion activity. [15][16]
The 2023 edition of the Community Wishlist Survey (CWS), which invites contributors to make technical proposals and vote for tools and improvements, starts on Monday 23 January 2023 at 18:00 UTC.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-05[edit]

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

Last week, for ~15 minutes, some users were unable to log in or edit pages. This was caused by a problem with session storage. [17]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 February. It will be on all wikis from 2 February (calendar).

Future changes

Wikis that use localized numbering schemes for references need to add new CSS. This will help to show citation numbers the same way in all reading and editing modes. If your wiki would prefer to do it yourselves, please see the details and example CSS to copy from, and also add your wiki to the list. Otherwise, the developers will directly help out starting the week of February 5.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:03, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 4 February 2023[edit]

From the editor: New for the Signpost: Author pages, tag pages, and a decent article search function

News and notes: Foundation update on fundraising, new page patrol, Tides, and Wikipedia blocked in Pakistan

Section 230: Twenty-six words that created the internet, and the future of an encyclopedia

Disinformation report: Wikipedia on Santos

Special report: Legal status of Wikimedia projects "unclear" under potential European legislation

In the media: Furor over new Wikipedia skin, followup on Saudi bans, and legislative debate

Op-Ed: Estonian businessman and political donor brings lawsuit against head of national Wikimedia chapter

Opinion: Study examines cultural leanings of Wikimedia projects' visual art coverage

Recent research: Wikipedia's "moderate yet systematic" liberal citation bias

WikiProject report: WikiProject Organized Labour

Tips and tricks: XTools: Data analytics for your list of created articles

Featured content: 20,000 Featureds under the Sea

Traffic report: Films, deaths and ChatGPT

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:44, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-06[edit]

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

In the Vector 2022 skin, logged-out users using the full-width toggle will be able to see the setting of their choice even after refreshing pages or opening new ones. This only applies to wikis where Vector 2022 is the default. [18]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 February. It will be on all wikis from 9 February (calendar).
Previously, we announced when some wikis would be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. These switches will not be announced any more, as the read-only time has become non-significant. Switches will continue to happen at 7AM UTC on Tuesdays and Thursdays. [19]
Across all the wikis, in the Vector 2022 skin, logged-in users will see the page-related links such as "What links here" in a new side menu. It will be displayed on the other side of the screen. This change had previously been made on Czech, English, and Vietnamese Wikipedias. [20]
Community Wishlist Survey 2023 will stop receiving new proposals on Monday, 6 February 2023, at 18:00 UTC. Proposers should complete any edits by then, to give time for translations and review. Voting will begin on Friday, 10 February.

Future changes

Gadgets and user scripts will be changing to load on desktop and mobile sites. Previously they would only load on the desktop site. It is recommended that wiki administrators audit the gadget definitions prior to this change, and add skins=… for any gadgets which should not load on mobile. More details are available.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 10:19, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-07[edit]

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

On wikis where patrolled edits are enabled, changes made to the mentor list by autopatrolled mentors are not correctly marked as patrolled. It will be fixed later this week. [21]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 February. It will be on all wikis from 16 February (calendar).
The Reply tool and other parts of DiscussionTools will be deployed for all editors using the mobile site. You can read more about this decision. [22]

Future changes

All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [23][24][25]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:47, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 20 February 2023[edit]

News and notes: Terms of Use update, Steward elections, and Wikipedia back in Pakistan

In the media: Arbitrators open case after article alleges Wikipedia "intentionally distorts" Holocaust coverage

Disinformation report: The "largest con in corporate history"?

Essay: Machine-written articles: a new challenge for Wikipedia

Tips and tricks: All about writing at DYK

Featured content: Eden, lost.

Gallery: Love is in the air

Traffic report: Superbowl? Pfft. Give me some Bollywood! Yours sincerely, the world

From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 years ago: Let's (not) delete the Main Page!

Cobwebs: Editorial: The loss of the moral high ground

Humour: The RfA Candidate's Song

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:02, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-08[edit]

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

Last week, during planned maintenance of Cloud Services, unforeseen complications forced the team to turn off all tools for 2–3 hours to prevent data corruption. Work is ongoing to prevent similar problems in the future. [26]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 February. It will be on all wikis from 23 February (calendar).
The voting phase for the Community Wishlist Survey 2023 ends on 24 February at 18:00 UTC. The results of the survey will be announced on 28 February.

Future changes

All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [27][28][29]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:56, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-09[edit]

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

Last week, in some areas of the world, there were problems with loading pages for 20 minutes and saving edits for 55 minutes. These issues were caused by a problem with our caching servers due to unforseen events during a routine maintenance task. [30][31]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 March. It will be on all wikis from 2 March (calendar).
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. [32]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:45, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-10[edit]

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 Community Wishlist Survey 2023 edition has been concluded. Community Tech has published the results of the survey and will provide an update on what is next in April 2023.
On wikis which use LanguageConverter to handle multiple writing systems, articles which used custom conversion rules in the wikitext (primarily on Chinese Wikipedia) would have these rules applied inconsistently in the table of contents, especially in the Vector 2022 skin. This has now been fixed. [33]

Changes later this week

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).
A search system has been added to the Preferences screen. This will let you find different options more easily. Making it work on mobile devices will happen soon. [34]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:48, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 9 March 2023[edit]

News and notes: What's going on with the Wikimedia Endowment?

Technology report: Second flight of the Soviet space bears: Testing ChatGPT's accuracy

In the media: What should Wikipedia do? Publish Russian propaganda? Be less woke? Cover the Holocaust in Poland differently?

Featured content: In which over two-thirds of the featured articles section needs to be copied over to WikiProject Military History's newsletter

Recent research: "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the Holocaust" in Poland and "self-focus bias" in coverage of global events

From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:41, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-11[edit]

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 later this week

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).
Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Chavacano de Zamboanga Wikipedia, Min Dong Chinese Wikipedia, Chechen Wikipedia, Cebuano Wikipedia, Chamorro Wikipedia, Cherokee Wikipedia, Cheyenne Wikipedia, Central Kurdish Wikipedia, Corsican Wikipedia, Kashubian Wikipedia, Church Slavic Wikipedia, Chuvash Wikipedia, Welsh Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [35][36]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:18, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 20 March 2023[edit]

News and notes: Wikimania submissions deadline looms, Russian government after our lucky charms, AI woes nix CNET from RS slate

Eyewitness: Three more stories from Ukrainian Wikimedians

In the media: Paid editing, plagiarism payouts, proponents of a ploy, and people peeved at perceived preferences

Featured content: Way too many featured articles

Interview: 228/2/1: the inside scoop on Aoidh's RfA

Traffic report: Who died? Who won? Who lost?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:16, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-12[edit]

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

Last week, some users experienced issues loading image thumbnails. This was due to incorrectly cached images. [37]

Changes later this week

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).
A link to the user's Special:CentralAuth page will appear on Special:Contributions — some user scripts which previously added this link may cause conflicts. This feature request was voted #17 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
The Special:AbuseFilter edit window will be resizable and larger by default. This feature request was voted #80 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
There will be a new option for Administrators when they are unblocking a user, to add the unblocked user’s user page to their watchlist. This will work both via Special:Unblock and via the API. [38]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Wikipedia mobile apps teams. During the meeting, we will discuss the current features and future roadmap. The meeting will be on 24 March at 17:00 (UTC). See details and how to join.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:24, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-13[edit]

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 AbuseFilter condition limit was increased from 1000 to 2000. [39]
Some Global AbuseFilter actions will no longer apply to local projects. [40]
Desktop users are now able to subscribe to talk pages by clicking on the Subscribe link in the Tools menu. If you subscribe to a talk page, you receive notifications when new topics are started on that talk page. This is separate from putting the page on your watchlist or subscribing to a single discussion. [41]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 March. It will be on all wikis from 30 March (calendar).

Future changes

You will be able to choose visual diffs on all history pages at the Wiktionaries and Wikipedias. [42]
The legacy Mobile Content Service is going away in July 2023. Developers are encouraged to switch to Parsoid or another API before then to ensure service continuity. [43]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:11, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 03 April 2023[edit]

From the editor: Some long-overdue retractions

News and notes: Sounding out, a universal code of conduct, and dealing with AI

In the media: Twiddling Wikipedia during an online contest, and other news

Arbitration report: "World War II and the history of Jews in Poland" case is ongoing

Featured content: Hail, poetry! Thou heav'n-born maid

Recent research: Language bias: Wikipedia captures at least the "silhouette of the elephant", unlike ChatGPT

From the archives: April Fools' through the ages

Disinformation report: Sus socks support suits, seems systemic

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:45, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-14[edit]

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 system for automatically creating categories for the Babel extension has had several important changes and fixes. One of them allows you to insert templates for automatic category descriptions on creation, allowing you to categorize the new categories. [44][45][46][47][48]

Changes later 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).
Some older Web browsers will stop being able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis from this week. This mainly affects users of Internet Explorer 11. If you have an old web browser on your computer you can try to upgrade to a newer version. [49]
The deprecated jquery.hoverIntent module has been removed. This module could be used by gadgets and user scripts, to create an artificial delay in how JavaScript responds to a hover event. Gadgets and user scripts should now use jQuery hover() or on() instead. Examples can be found in the migration guide. [50]
Some of the links in Special:SpecialPages will be re-arranged. There will be a clearer separation between links that relate to all users, and links related to your own user account. [51]
You will be able to hide the Reply button in archived discussion pages with a new __ARCHIVEDTALK__ magic word. There will also be a new .mw-archivedtalk CSS class for hiding the Reply button in individual sections on a page. [52][53][54]

Future changes

The Vega software that creates data visualizations in pages, such as graphs, will be upgraded to the newest version in the future. Graphs that still use the very old version 1.5 syntax may stop working properly. Most existing uses have been found and updated, but you can help to check, and to update any local documentation. Examples of how to find and fix these graphs are available.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:38, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-15[edit]

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

In the visual editor, it is now possible to edit captions of images in galleries without opening the gallery dialog. This feature request was voted #61 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [55]
You can now receive notifications when another user edits your user page. See the "Edits to my user page" option in your Preferences. This feature request was voted #3 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [56]

Problems

There was a problem with all types of CentralNotice banners still being shown to logged-in users even if they had turned off specific banner types. This has now been fixed. [57]

Changes later this week

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).
Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Moroccan Arabic Wikipedia, Danish Wikipedia, Dinka Wikipedia, Lower Sorbian Wikipedia, Ewe Wikipedia, Greek Wikipedia, Emiliano-Romagnolo Wikipedia, Esperanto Wikipedia, Estonian Wikipedia, Basque Wikipedia, Extremaduran Wikipedia, Tumbuka Wikipedia, Fulah Wikipedia, Finnish Wikipedia, Võro Wikipedia, Fijian Wikipedia, Faroese Wikipedia, Arpitan Wikipedia, Northern Frisian Wikipedia, Friulian Wikipedia, Irish Wikipedia, Guianan Creole Wikipedia, Scottish Gaelic Wikipedia, Galician Wikipedia, Gilaki Wikipedia, Guarani Wikipedia, Goan Konkani Wikipedia, Gothic Wikipedia, Gujarati Wikipedia, Manx Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [58][59]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:03, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-16[edit]

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 see nearby articles on a Kartographer map with the button for the new feature "Show nearby articles". Six wikis have been testing this feature since October. [60][61]
The Special:GlobalWatchlist page now has links for "mark page as read" for each entry. This feature request was voted #161 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [62]

Problems

At Wikimedia Commons, some thumbnails have not been getting replaced correctly after a new version of the image is uploaded. This should be fixed later this week. [63][64]
For the last few weeks, some external tools had inconsistent problems with logging-in with OAuth. This has now been fixed. [65]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 April. It will be on all wikis from 20 April (calendar).

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:52, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-17[edit]

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 date-selection menu on pages such as Special:Contributions will now show year-ranges that are in the current and past decade, instead of the current and future decade. This feature request was voted #145 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [66]

Problems

Due to security issues with the Graph extension, graphs have been disabled in all Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia Foundation teams are working to respond to these vulnerabilities. [67]
For a few days, it was not possible to save some kinds of edits on the mobile version of a wiki. This has been fixed. [68][69][70]

Changes later this week

All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on April 26. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. [71]
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).

Future changes

The Editing team plans an A/B test for a usability analysis of the Talk page project. The planned measurements are available. Your wiki may be invited to participate. Please suggest improvements to the measurement plan at the discussion page.
The Wikimedia Foundation annual plan 2023-2024 draft is open for comment and input until May 19. The final plan will be published in July 2023 on Meta-wiki.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 22:02, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 26 April 2023[edit]

News and notes: Staff departures at Wikimedia Foundation, Jimbo hands in the bits, and graphs' zeppelin burns

In the media: Contested truth claims in Wikipedia

Obituary: Remembering David "DGG" Goodman

Arbitration report: Holocaust in Poland, Jimbo in the hot seat, and a desysopping

Opinion: What Jimbo's question revealed about scamming

Op-Ed: Wikipedia as an anchor of truth

Special report: Signpost statistics between years 2005 and 2022

News from the WMF: Collective planning with the Wikimedia Foundation

Featured content: In which we described the featured articles in rhyme again

From the archives: April Fools' through the ages, part two

Humour: The law of hats

Traffic report: Long live machine, the future supreme

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:17, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-18[edit]

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 attribution tools Who Wrote That?, XTools Authorship, and XTools Blame now support the French and Italian Wikipedias. More languages will be added in the near future. This is part of the #7 wish in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [72][73][74]
The Video2commons tool has been updated. This fixed several bugs related to YouTube uploads. [75]
The Special:Preferences page has been redesigned on mobile web. The new design makes it easier to browse the different categories and settings at low screen widths. You can also now access the page via a link in the Settings menu in the mobile web sidebar. [76]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 May. It will be on all wikis from 4 May (calendar).

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:43, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 8 May 2023[edit]

News and notes: New legal "deVLOPments" in the EU

In the media: Vivek's smelly socks, online safety, and politics

Recent research: Gender, race and notability in deletion discussions

Featured content: I wrote a poem for each article, I found rhymes for all the lists; My first featured picture of this year now finally exists!

Arbitration report: "World War II and the history of Jews in Poland" approaches conclusion

News from the WMF: Planning together with the Wikimedia Foundation

Special report: There Shall Be Seasons Refreshing – Stories from WikiConference India 2023

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:24, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-19[edit]

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

Last week, Community Tech released the first update for providing better diffs, the #1 request in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey. This update adds legends and tooltips to inline diffs so that users unfamiliar with the blue and yellow highlights can better understand the type of edits made.
When you close an image that is displayed via MediaViewer, it will now return to the wiki page instead of going back in your browser history. This feature request was voted #65 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [77]
The SyntaxHighlight extension now supports wikitext as a selected language. Old alternatives that were used to highlight wikitext, such as html5, moin, and html+handlebars, can now be replaced. [78]
Preloading text to new pages/sections now supports preloading from localized MediaWiki interface messages. Here is an example at the Czech Wikipedia that uses preload=MediaWiki:July. [79]

Problems

Graph Extension update: Foundation developers have completed upgrading the visualization software to Vega5. Existing community graphs based on Vega2 are no longer compatible. Communities need to update local graphs and templates, and shared lua modules like de:Modul:Graph. The Vega Porting guide provides the most comprehensive detail on migration from Vega2 and here is an example migration. Vega5 has currently just been enabled on mediawiki.org to provide a test environment for communities. [80]

Changes later this week

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).
Until now, all new OAuth apps went through manual review. Starting this week, apps using identification-only or basic authorizations will not require review. [81]

Future changes

During the next year, MediaWiki will stop using IP addresses to identify logged-out users, and will start automatically assigning unique temporary usernames. Read more at IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Updates. You can join the discussion about the format of the temporary usernames. [82]
There will be an A/B test on 10 Wikipedias where the Vector 2022 skin is the default skin. Half of logged-in desktop users will see an interface where the different parts of the page are more clearly separated. You can read more. [83][84]
jquery.tipsy will be removed from the MediaWiki core. This will affect some user scripts. Many lines with .tipsy( can be commented out. OO.ui.PopupWidget can be used to keep things working like they are now. You can read more and read about how to find broken scripts. [85]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:34, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-20[edit]

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

Citations that are automatically generated based on ISBN are currently broken. This affects citations made with the VisualEditor Automatic tab, and the use of the citoid API in gadgets and user scripts. Work is ongoing to restore this feature. [86]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 May. It will be on all wikis from 18 May (calendar).
Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Gorontalo Wikipedia, Hausa Wikipedia, Hakka Chinese Wikipedia, Hawaiian Wikipedia, Fiji Hindi Wikipedia, Croatian Wikipedia, Upper Sorbian Wikipedia, Haitian Creole Wikipedia, Interlingua Wikipedia, Interlingue Wikipedia, Igbo Wikipedia, Iloko Wikipedia, Ingush Wikipedia, Ido Wikipedia, Icelandic Wikipedia, Inuktitut Wikipedia, Jamaican Patois Wikipedia, Javanese Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [87]

Future changes

There is a recently formed team at the Wikimedia Foundation which will be focusing on experimenting with new tools. Currently they are building a prototype ChatGPT plugin that allows information generated by ChatGPT to be properly attributed to the Wikimedia projects.
Gadget and userscript developers should replace jquery.cookie with mediawiki.cookie. The jquery.cookie library will be removed in ~1 month, and staff developers will run a script to replace any remaining uses at that time. [88]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:43, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 22 May 2023[edit]

News and notes: Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

In the media: History, propaganda and censorship

Arbitration report: Final decision in "World War II and the history of Jews in Poland"

Recent research: Create or curate, cooperate or compete? Game theory for Wikipedia editors

Featured content: A very musical week for featured articles

Traffic report: Coronation, chatbot, celebs

WikiProject report: Wikipedians Convene for Queering Wikipedia 2023: The First International LGBT+ Wikipedia Conference

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:39, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-21[edit]

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 "recent edits" time period for page watchers is now 30 days. It used to be 180 days. This was a Community Wishlist Survey proposal. [89]

Changes later this week

An improved impact module will be available at Wikipedias. The impact module is a feature available to newcomers at their personal homepage. It will show their number of edits, how many readers their edited pages have, how many thanks they have received and similar things. It is also accessible by accessing Special:Impact. [90]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 May. It will be on all wikis from 25 May (calendar).

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

16:53, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-22[edit]

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

Citations can once again be added automatically from ISBNs, thanks to Zotero's ISBN searches. The current data sources are the Library of Congress (United States), the Bibliothèque nationale de France (French National Library), and K10plus ISBN (German repository). Additional data source searches can be proposed to Zotero. The ISBN labels in the VisualEditor Automatic tab will reappear later this week. [91]
The page Special:EditWatchlist now has "Check all" options to select all the pages within a namespace. This feature request was voted #161 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [92]

Problems

For a few days earlier this month, the "Add interlanguage link" item in the Tools menu did not work properly. This has now been fixed. [93]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 May. It will be on all wikis from 1 June (calendar).
VisualEditor will be switched to a new backend on small and medium wikis this week. Large wikis will follow in the coming weeks. This is part of the effort to move Parsoid into MediaWiki core. The change should have no noticeable effect on users, but if you experience any slow loading or other strangeness when using VisualEditor, please report it on the phabricator ticket linked here. [94]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:59, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 5 June 2023[edit]

News and notes: WMRU director forks new 'pedia, birds flap in top '22 piccy, WMF weighs in on Indian gov's map axe plea

In the media: Section 230 stands tall, WP vs. UK bill, Miss Information dissed again

Featured content: Poetry under pressure

Traffic report: Celebs, controversies and a chatbot in the public eye

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:21, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-23[edit]

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 RealMe extension allows you to mark URLs on your user page as verified for Mastodon and similar software.
Citation and footnote editing can now be started from the reference list when using the visual editor. This feature request was voted #2 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [95]
Previously, clicking on someone else's link to Recent Changes with filters applied within the URL could unintentionally change your preference for "Group results by page". This has now been fixed. [96]

Problems

For a few days last week, some tools and bots returned outdated information due to database replication problems, and may have been down entirely while it was being fixed. These issues have now been fixed. [97]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 June. It will be on all wikis from 8 June (calendar).
Bots will no longer be prevented from making edits because of URLs that match the spam blacklist. [98]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 22:50, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-24[edit]

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 attribution tools Who Wrote That?, XTools Authorship, and XTools Blame now support the Dutch, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Japanese, Polish and Portuguese Wikipedias. This was the #7 wish in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [99]
The Search Preview panel has been deployed on four Wikipedias (Catalan, Dutch, Hungarian and Norwegian). The panel will show an image related to the article (if existing), the top sections of the article, related images (coming from MediaSearch on Commons), and eventually the sister projects associated with the article. [100]
The RealMe extension now allows administrators to verify URLs for any page, for Mastodon and similar software. [101]
The default project license has been officially upgraded to CC BY-SA 4.0. The software interface messages have been updated. Communities should feel free to start updating any mentions of the old CC BY-SA 3.0 licensing within policies and related documentation pages. [102]

Problems

For three days last month, some Wikipedia pages edited with VisualEditor or DiscussionTools had an unintended __TOC__ (or its localized form) added during an edit. There is a listing of affected pages sorted by wiki, that may still need to be fixed. [103]
Currently, the "Sort this page by default as" feature in VisualEditor is broken. Existing ((DEFAULTSORT:...)) keywords incorrectly appear as missing templates in VisualEditor. Developers are exploring how to fix this. In the meantime, those wishing to edit the default sortkey of a page are advised to switch to source editing. [104]
Last week, an update to the delete form may have broken some gadgets or user scripts. If you need to manipulate (empty) the reason field, replace #wpReason with #wpReason > input. See an example fix. [105]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 June. It will be on all wikis from 15 June (calendar).
VisualEditor will be switched to a new backend on English Wikipedia on Monday, and all other large wikis on Thursday. The change should have no noticeable effect on users, but if you experience any slow loading or other strangeness when using VisualEditor, please report it on the phabricator ticket linked here. [106]

Future changes

From 5 June to 17 July, the Foundation's Security team is holding a consultation with contributors regarding a draft policy to govern the use of third-party resources in volunteer-developed gadgets and scripts. Feedback and suggestions are warmly welcome at Third-party resources policy on meta-wiki.

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MediaWiki message delivery 14:48, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 19 June 2023[edit]

News and notes: WMF Terms of Use now in force, new Creative Commons licensing

In the media: English WP editor glocked after BLP row on Italian 'pedia

Featured content: Content, featured

Recent research: Hoaxers prefer currently-popular topics

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:09, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-25[edit]

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

Flame graphs are now available in WikimediaDebug. [107][108]

Changes later this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
There is now a toolbar search popup in the visual editor. You can trigger it by typing \ or pressing ctrl + shift + p. It can help you quickly access most tools in the editor. [109][110]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:07, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-26[edit]

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 Action API modules and Special:LinkSearch will now add a trailing / to all prop=extlinks responses for bare domains. This is part of the work to remove duplication in the externallinks database table. [111]

Problems

Last week, search was broken on Commons and Wikidata for 23 hours. [112][113]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 June. It will be on all wikis from 29 June (calendar).
The Minerva skin now applies more predefined styles to the .mbox-text CSS class. This enables support for mbox templates that use divs instead of tables. Please make sure that the new styles won't affect other templates in your wiki. [114][115]
Gadgets will now load on both desktop and mobile by default. Previously, gadgets loaded only on desktop by default. Changing this default using the |targets= parameter is also deprecated and should not be used. You should make gadgets work on mobile or disable them based on the skin (with the |skins= parameter in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition) rather than whether the user uses the mobile or the desktop website. Popular gadgets that create errors on mobile will be disabled by developers on the Minerva skin as a temporary solution. [116]
All namespace tabs now have the same browser access key by default. Previously, custom and extension-defined namespaces would have to have their access keys set manually on-wiki, but that is no longer necessary. [117]
The review form of the Flagged Revisions extension now uses the standardized user interface components. [118]

Future changes

How media is structured in the parser's HTML output will change in the coming weeks at group2 wikis. This change improves the accessibility of content. 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. [119]

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MediaWiki message delivery 16:17, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 3 July 2023[edit]

News and notes: Online Safety Bill: Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK launch open letter

Disinformation report: Imploded submersible outfit foiled trying to sing own praises on Wikipedia

In the media: Journo proposes mass Wiki dox, sponsored articles on Fandom, Section 230 discussed

Featured content: Incensed

Traffic report: Are you afraid of spiders? Arnold? The Idol? ChatGPT?

Humour: United Nations dispatches peacekeeping force to Wikipedia policy discussions

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:14, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-27[edit]

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

As part of the rolling out of the audio links that play on click wishlist proposal, small wikis will now be able to use the inline audio player that is implemented by the Phonos extension. [120]
From this week all gadgets automatically load on mobile and desktop sites. If you see any problems with gadgets on your wikis, please adjust the gadget options in your gadget definitions file. [121]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 July. It will be on all wikis from 6 July (calendar).

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

MediaWiki message delivery 22:49, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-28[edit]

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 Section-level Image Suggestions feature has been deployed on seven Wikipedias (Portuguese, Russian, Indonesian, Catalan, Hungarian, Finnish and Norwegian Bokmål). The feature recommends images for articles on contributors' watchlists that are a good match for individual sections of those articles.
Global abuse filters have been enabled on all Wikimedia projects, except English and Japanese Wikipedias (who opted out). This change was made following a global request for comments. [122]
Special:BlockedExternalDomains is a new tool for administrators to help fight spam. It provides a clearer interface for blocking plain domains (and their subdomains), is more easily searchable, and is faster for the software to process for each edit on the wiki. It does not support regex (for complex cases), nor URL path-matching, nor the MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist, but otherwise it replaces most of the functionalities of the existing MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. There is a Python script to help migrate all simple domains into this tool, and more feature details, within the tool's documentation. It is available at all wikis except for Meta-wiki, Commons, and Wikidata. [123]
The WikiEditor extension was updated. It includes some of the most frequently used features of wikitext editing. In the past, many of its messages could only be translated by administrators, but now all regular translators on translatewiki can translate them. Please check the state of WikiEditor localization into your language, and if the "Completion" for your language shows anything less than 100%, please complete the translation. See a more detailed explanation.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 July. It will be on all wikis from 13 July (calendar).
The default protocol of Special:LinkSearch and API counterparts has changed from http to both http and https. [124]
Special:LinkSearch and its API counterparts will now search for all of the URL provided in the query. It used to be only the first 60 characters. This feature was requested fifteen years ago. [125]

Future changes

There is an experiment with a ChatGPT plugin. This is to show users where the information is coming from when they read information from Wikipedia. It has been tested by Wikimedia Foundation staff and other Wikimedians. Soon all ChatGPT plugin users can use the Wikipedia plugin. This is the same plugin which was mentioned in Tech News 2023/20. [126]
There is an ongoing discussion on a proposed Third-party resources policy. The proposal will impact the use of third-party resources in gadgets and userscripts. Based on the ideas received so far, policy includes some of the risks related to user scripts and gadgets loading third-party resources, some best practices and exemption requirements such as code transparency and inspectability. Your feedback and suggestions are warmly welcome until July 17, 2023 on on the policy talk page.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 19:52, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 17 July 2023[edit]

News and notes: Big bux hidden beneath wine-dark sea as we wait for the Tides to go out?

In the media: Tentacles of Emirates plot attempt to ensnare Wikipedia

Obituary: David Thomsen (Dthomsen8) and Ingo Koll (Kipala)

News from the WMF: ABC for Fundraising: Advancing Banner Collaboration for fundraising campaigns

In focus: Are the children of celebrities over-represented in French cinema?

Tips and tricks: What automation can do for you (and your WikiProject)

Recent research: Wikipedia-grounded chatbot "outperforms all baselines" on factual accuracy

Humour: New fringe theories to be introduced

Cobwebs: If you're reading this, you're probably on a desktop

Featured content: Scrollin', scrollin', scrollin', keep those readers scrollin', got to keep on scrollin', Rawhide!

Traffic report: The Idol becomes the Master

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:01, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-29[edit]

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

We are now serving 1% of all global user traffic from Kubernetes (you can read more technical details). We are planning to increment this percentage regularly. You can follow the progress of this work.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 July. It will be on all wikis from 20 July (calendar).
MediaWiki system messages will now look for available local fallbacks, instead of always using the default fallback defined by software. This means wikis no longer need to override each language on the fallback chain separately. For example, English Wikipedia doesn't have to create en-ca and en-gb subpages with a transclusion of the base pages anymore. This makes it easier to maintain local overrides. [127]
The action=growthsetmentorstatus API will be deprecated with the new MediaWiki version. Bots or scripts calling that API should use the action=growthmanagementorlist API now. [128]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:06, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-30[edit]

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

Recent changes

On July 18, the Wikimedia Foundation launched a survey about the technical decision making process for people who do technical work that relies on software that is maintained by the Foundation or affiliates. If this applies to you, please take part in the survey. The survey will be open for three weeks, until August 7. You can find more information in the announcement e-mail on wikitech-l.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 July. It will be on all wikis from 27 July (calendar).

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

MediaWiki message delivery 02:18, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-31[edit]

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 Synchronizer tool is now available to keep Lua modules synced across Wikimedia wikis, along with updated documentation to develop global Lua modules and templates.
The tag filter on Special:NewPages and revision history pages can now be inverted. For example, you can hide edits that were made using an automated tool. [129][130]
The Wikipedia ChatGPT plugin experiment can now be used by ChatGPT users who can use plugins. You can participate in a video call if you want to talk about this experiment or similar work. [131]

Problems

It was not possible to generate a PDF for pages with non-Latin characters in the title, for the last two weeks. This has now been fixed. [132]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 August. It will be on all wikis from 3 August (calendar).
Starting on Tuesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Georgian Wikipedia, Kara-Kalpak Wikipedia, Kabyle Wikipedia, Kabardian Wikipedia, Kabiyè Wikipedia, Kikuyu Wikipedia, Kazakh Wikipedia, Khmer Wikipedia, Kannada Wikipedia, Kashmiri Wikipedia, Colognian Wikipedia, Kurdish Wikipedia, Cornish Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [133]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:52, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 August 2023[edit]

News and notes: City officials attempt to doxx Wikipedians, Ruwiki founder banned, WMF launches Mastodon server

In the media: Truth, AI, bull from politicians, and climate change

Disinformation report: Hot climate, hot hit, hot money, hot news hot off the presses!

Obituary: Donald Cram, Peter McCawley, and Eagleash

Tips and tricks: Citation tools for dummies!

Humour: Does Wikipedia present neutral perspectives?

In focus: Journals cited by Wikipedia

Opinion: Are global bans the last step?

Featured content: Featured Content, 1 to 15 July

Traffic report: Come on Oppie, let's go party

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:38, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-32[edit]

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

Mobile Web editors can now edit a whole page at once. To use this feature, turn on "⧼Mobile-frontend-mobile-option-amc⧽" in your settings and use the "Edit full page" button in the "More" menu. [134]

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 21:19, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-33[edit]

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 system is no longer using Youdao's machine translation service. The service was in place for several years, but due to no usage, and availability of alternatives, it was deprecated to reduce maintenance overheads. Other services which cover the same languages are still available. [135]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 August. It will be on all wikis from 17 August (calendar).
Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Latin Wikipedia, Ladino Wikipedia, Luxembourgish Wikipedia, Lak Wikipedia, Lezghian Wikipedia, Lingua Franca Nova Wikipedia, Ganda Wikipedia, Limburgish Wikipedia, Ligurian Wikipedia, Lombard Wikipedia, Lingala Wikipedia, Latgalian Wikipedia, Latvian Wikipedia, Maithili Wikipedia, Basa Banyumasan Wikipedia, Moksha Wikipedia, Malagasy Wikipedia, Armenian Wikipedia, Kyrgyz Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [136]

Future changes

A few gadgets/user scripts which add icons to the Minerva skin need to have their CSS updated. There are more details available including a search for all existing instances and how to update them.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 05:58, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 15 August 2023[edit]

News and notes: Dude, Where's My Donations? Wikimedia Foundation announces another million in grants for non-Wikimedia-related projects

In the media: An accusation of bias from Brazil, a lawsuit from Portugal, plagiarism from Florida

In focus: 2023 Good Article Nomination drive is underway: get your barnstars here!

Special report: Thirteen years later, why are most administrators still from 2005?

Tips and tricks: How to find images for your articles, check their copyright, upload them, and restore them

Cobwebs: Getting serious about writing

Opinion: Copyright trolls, or the last beautiful free souls on this planet?

Serendipity: Why I stopped taking photographs almost altogether

Featured content: Barbenheimer confirmed

Humour: Arbitration Committee to accept case against Right Honorable Frimbley Cantingham, 15th Viscount Bellington-upon-Porkshire

Traffic report: 'Cause today it just goes with the fashion

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:16, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-34[edit]

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 GDrive to Commons Uploader tool is now available. It enables securely selecting and uploading files from your Google Drive directly to Wikimedia Commons. [137]
From now on, we will announce new Wikimedia wikis in Tech News, so you can update any tools or pages.
- Since the last edition, two new wikis have been created:
  - a Wiktionary in Pa'O (wikt:blk:) [138]
  - a Wikisource in Sundanese (s:su:) [139]
- To catch up, the next most recent six wikis are:
  - Wikifunctions (f:) [140]
  - a Wiktionary in Mandailing (wikt:btm:) [141]
  - a Wikipedia in Ghanaian Pidgin (w:gpe:) [142]
  - a Wikinews in Gungbe (n:guw:) [143]
  - a Wiktionary in Kabardian (wikt:kbd:) [144]
  - a Wikipedia in Fante (w:fat:) [145]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 August. It will be on all wikis from 24 August (calendar).

Future changes

There is an existing stable interface policy for MediaWiki backend code. There is a proposed stable interface policy for frontend code. This is relevant for anyone who works on gadgets or Wikimedia frontend code. You can read it, discuss it, and let the proposer know if there are any problems. [146]

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

15:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-35[edit]

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

As part of the changes for the better diff handling of paragraph splits, improved detection of splits is being rolled out. Over the last two weeks, we deployed this support to group0 and group1 wikis. This week it will be deployed to group2 wikis. [147]
All Special:Contributions pages now show the user's local edit count and the account's creation date. [148]
Wikisource users can now use the prpbengalicurrency label to denote Bengali currency characters as page numbers inside the <pagelist> tag. [149]
Two preferences have been relocated. The preference "Enable the visual editor" is now shown on the "Editing" tab at all wikis. Previously it was shown on the "Beta features" tab at some wikis. The preference "Use the wikitext mode inside the visual editor, instead of a different wikitext editor" is now also shown on the "Editing" tab at all wikis, instead of the "Beta features" tab. [150][151]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 August. It will be on all wikis from 31 August (calendar).
New signups for a Wikimedia developer account will start being pushed towards idm.wikimedia.org, rather than going via Wikitech. Further information about the new system is available.
All right-to-left language wikis, plus Korean, Armenian, Ukrainian, Russian, and Bulgarian Wikipedias, will have a link in the sidebar that provides a short URL of that page, using the Wikimedia URL Shortener. This feature will come to more wikis in future weeks. [152]

Future changes

The removal of the DoubleWiki extension is being discussed. This extension currently allows Wikisource users to view articles from multiple language versions side by side when the <=> symbol next to a specific language edition is selected. Comments on this are welcomed at the phabricator task.
A proposal has been made to merge the second hidden-categories list (which appears below the wikitext editing form) with the main list of categories (which is further down the page). More information is available on Phabricator; feedback is welcome!

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

MediaWiki message delivery 13:58, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 August 2023[edit]

From the editor: Beta version of signpost.news now online

News and notes: You like RecentChanges?

In the media: Taking it sleazy

Recent research: The five barriers that impede "stitching" collaboration between Commons and Wikipedia

Draftspace: Bad Jokes and Other Draftspace Novelties

Humour: The Dehumourification Plan

Traffic report: Raise your drinking glass, here's to yesterday

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:43, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-36[edit]

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

EditInSequence, a feature that allows users to edit pages faster on Wikisource has been moved to a Beta Feature based on community feedback. To enable it, you can navigate to the beta features tab in Preferences. [153]
As part of the changes for the Generate Audio for IPA and Audio links that play on click wishlist proposals, the inline audio player mode of Phonos has been deployed to all projects. [154]
There is a new option for Administrators when they are changing the usergroups for a user, to add the user’s user page to their watchlist. This works both via Special:UserRights and via the API. [155]
One new wiki has been created:
- a Wikipedia in Talysh (w:tly:) [156]

Problems

The LoginNotify extension was not sending notifications since January. It has now been fixed, so going forward, you may see notifications for failed login attempts, and successful login attempts from a new device. [157]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 September. It will be on all wikis from 7 September (calendar).
Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Eastern Mari Wikipedia, Maori Wikipedia, Minangkabau Wikipedia, Macedonian Wikipedia, Malayalam Wikipedia, Mongolian Wikipedia, Marathi Wikipedia, Western Mari Wikipedia, Malay Wikipedia, Maltese Wikipedia, Mirandese Wikipedia, Erzya Wikipedia, Mazanderani Wikipedia, Nāhuatl Wikipedia, Neapolitan Wikipedia, Low German Wikipedia, Low Saxon Wikipedia, Nepali Wikipedia, Newari Wikipedia, Norwegian Nynorsk Wikipedia, Novial Wikipedia, N'Ko Wikipedia, Nouormand Wikipedia, Northern Sotho Wikipedia, Navajo Wikipedia, Nyanja Wikipedia, Occitan Wikipedia, Livvi-Karelian Wikipedia, Oromo Wikipedia, Oriya Wikipedia, Ossetic Wikipedia, Punjabi Wikipedia, Pangasinan Wikipedia, Pampanga Wikipedia, Papiamento Wikipedia, Picard Wikipedia, Pennsylvania German Wikipedia, Palatine German Wikipedia, Norfuk / Pitkern Wikipedia, Piedmontese Wikipedia, Western Punjabi Wikipedia, Pontic Wikipedia, Pashto Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [158][159]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:31, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-37[edit]

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

ORES, the revision evaluation service, is now using a new open-source infrastructure on all wikis except for English Wikipedia and Wikidata. These two will follow this week. If you notice any unusual results from the Recent Changes filters that are related to ORES (for example, "Contribution quality predictions" and "User intent predictions"), please report them. [160]
When you are logged in on one Wikimedia wiki and visit a different Wikimedia wiki, the system tries to log you in there automatically. This has been unreliable for a long time. You can now visit the login page to make the system try extra hard. If you feel that made logging in better or worse than it used to be, your feedback is appreciated. [161]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 September. It will be on all wikis from 14 September (calendar).
The Technical Decision-Making Forum Retrospective team invites anyone involved in the technical field of Wikimedia projects to signup to and join one of their listening sessions on 13 September. Another date will be scheduled later. The goal is to improve the technical decision-making processes.
As part of the changes for the Better diff handling of paragraph splits wishlist proposal, the inline switch widget in diff pages is being rolled out this week to all wikis. The inline switch will allow viewers to toggle between a unified inline or two-column diff wikitext format. [162]

Future changes

All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on 20 September. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [163]
The Enterprise API is launching a new feature called "breaking news". Currently in BETA, this attempts to identify likely "newsworthy" topics as they are currently being written about in any Wikipedia. Your help is requested to improve the accuracy of its detection model, especially on smaller language editions, by recommending templates or identifiable editing patterns. See more information at the documentation page on MediaWiki or the FAQ on Meta.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:06, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 16 September 2023[edit]

News and notes: Wikimedia power sharing – just an advisory role for the volunteer community?

In the media: "Just flirting", going Dutch and Shapps for the defence?

Obituary: Nosebagbear

Serendipity: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no paywall, for thou, Wikipedia Library, art with me

Featured content: Catching up

Concept: Strange portal opened by CERN researchers brings Wikipedia articles from "other worlds"

Traffic report: Some of it's magic, some of it's tragic

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:36, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-38[edit]

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

MediaWiki now has a stable interface policy for frontend code that more clearly defines how we deprecate MediaWiki code and wiki-based code (e.g. gadgets and user scripts). Thank you to everyone who contributed to the content and discussions. [164][165]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 September. It will be on all wikis from 21 September (calendar).
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. [166]
All wikis will have a link in the sidebar that provides a short URL of that page, using the Wikimedia URL Shortener. [167]

Future changes

The team investigating the Graph Extension posted a proposal for reenabling it and they need your input.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 19:18, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-39[edit]

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 Vector 2022 skin will now remember the pinned/unpinned status for the Table of Contents for all logged-out users. [168]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 September. It will be on all wikis from 28 September (calendar).
The ResourceLoader mediawiki.ui modules are now deprecated as part of the move to Vue.js and Codex. There is a guide for migrating from MediaWiki UI to Codex for any tools that use it. More details are available in the task and your questions are welcome there.
Gadget definitions will have a new "namespaces" option. The option takes a list of namespace IDs. Gadgets that use this option will only load on pages in the given namespaces.

Future changes

New variables will be added to AbuseFilter: global_account_groups and global_account_editcount. They are available only when an account is being created. You can use them to prevent blocking automatic creation of accounts when users with many edits elsewhere visit your wiki for the first time. [169][170]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Wikipedia mobile apps teams. During the meeting, we will discuss the current features and future roadmap. The meeting will be on 27 October at 17:00 (UTC). See details and how to join.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 16:49, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-40[edit]

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 is a new user preference for "Always enable safe mode". This setting will make pages load without including any on-wiki JavaScript or on-wiki stylesheet pages. It can be useful for debugging broken JavaScript gadgets. [171]
Gadget definitions now have a new "contentModels" option. The option takes a list of page content models, like wikitext or css. Gadgets that use this option will only load on pages with the given content models.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 October. It will be on all wikis from 5 October (calendar).

Future changes

The Vector 2022 skin will no longer use the custom styles and scripts of Vector legacy (2010). The change will be made later this year or in early 2024. See how to adjust the CSS and JS pages on your wiki. [172]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:25, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 3 October 2023[edit]

News and notes: Wikimedia Endowment financial statement published

In the media: History is written by whoever can harness the most editors

Recent research: Readers prefer ChatGPT over Wikipedia; concerns about limiting "anyone can edit" principle "may be overstated"

Featured content: By your logic,

Concept: Wikipedia policies from other worlds: WP:NOANTLERS

Poetry: "The Sight"

Traffic report: There shall be no slaves in the land of lands, it's a Bollywood jam

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:30, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-41[edit]

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

One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Fon (w:fon:) [173]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 October. It will be on all wikis from 12 October (calendar).
Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Swahili Wikipedia, Walloon Wikipedia, Waray Wikipedia, Wolof Wikipedia, Kalmyk Wikipedia, Xhosa Wikipedia, Mingrelian Wikipedia, Yiddish Wikipedia, Yoruba Wikipedia, Zhuang Wikipedia, Zeelandic Wikipedia, Min Nan Wikipedia, Zulu Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [174]
At some wikis, newcomers are suggested images from Commons to add to articles without any images. Starting on Tuesday, newcomers at these wikis will be able to add images to unillustrated article sections. The specific wikis are listed under "Images recommendations" at the Growth team deployment table. You can learn more about this feature. [175]
In the mobile web skin (Minerva) the CSS ID #page-actions will be replaced with #p-views. This change is to make it consistent with other skins and to improve support for gadgets and extensions in the mobile skin. A few gadgets may need to be updated; there are details and search-links in the task.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 14:37, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-42[edit]

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 Unified login system's edge login should now be fixed for some browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera). This means that if you visit a new sister project wiki, you should be logged in automatically without the need to click "Log in" or reload the page. Feedback on whether it's working for you is welcome. [176]
Edit notices are now available within the MobileFrontend/Minerva skin. This feature was inspired by the gadget on English Wikipedia. See more details in T316178.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 October. It will be on all wikis from 19 October (calendar).

Future changes

In 3 weeks, in the Vector 2022 skin, code related to addPortletLink and #p-namespaces that was deprecated one year ago will be removed. If you notice tools that should appear next to the "Discussion" tab are then missing, please tell the gadget's maintainers to see instructions in the Phabricator task.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:45, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 23 October 2023[edit]

News and notes: Where have all the administrators gone?

In the media: Thirst traps, the fastest loading sites on the web, and the original collaborative writing

Gallery: Before and After: Why you don't need to know how to restore images to make massive improvements

Featured content: Yo, ho! Blow the man down!

Traffic report: The calm and the storm

News from Diff: Sawtpedia: Giving a Voice to Wikipedia Using QR Codes

Humour: New citation template introduced for divine revelations, drug use, and really thinking about it

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:01, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-43[edit]

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 is a new Language and internationalization newsletter, written quarterly. It contains updates on new feature development, improvements in various language-related technical projects, and related support work.
Source map support has been enabled on all wikis. When you open the debugger in your browser's developer tools, you should be able to see the unminified JavaScript source code. [177]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 October. It will be on all wikis from 26 October (calendar).

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:14, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-44[edit]

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 Structured Content team, as part of its project of improving UploadWizard on Commons, made some UX improvements to the upload step of choosing own vs not own work (T347590), as well as to the licensing step for own work (T347756).
The Design Systems team has released version 1.0.0 of Codex, the new design system for Wikimedia. See the full announcement about the release of Codex 1.0.0.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 November. It will be on all wikis from 2 November (calendar).
Listings on category pages are sorted on each wiki for that language using a library. For a brief period on 2 November, changes to categories will not be sorted correctly for many languages. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the library. They will then use a script to fix the existing categories. This will take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [178][179]
Starting November 1, the impact module (Special:Impact) will be upgraded by the Growth team. The new impact module shows newcomers more data regarding their impact on the wiki. It was tested by a few wikis during the last few months. [180]

Future changes

There is a proposed plan for re-enabling the Graph Extension. You can help by reviewing this proposal and sharing what you think about it.
The WMF is working on making it possible for administrators to edit MediaWiki configuration directly. This is similar to previous work on Special:EditGrowthConfig. A technical RfC is running until November 08, where you can provide feedback.

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, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 6 November 2023[edit]

Arbitration report: Admin bewilderingly unmasks self as sockpuppet of other admin who was extremely banned in 2015

In the media: UK shadow chancellor accused of ripping off WP articles for book, Wikipedians accused of being dicks by a rich man

News and notes: Board candidacy process posted, editors protest WMF privacy measure, sweet meetups

Opinion: An open letter to Elon Musk

WikiCup report: The WikiCup 2023

News from Wiki Ed: Equity lists on Wikipedia

Recent research: How English Wikipedia drove out fringe editors over two decades

Featured content: Like putting a golf course in a historic site.

Wikidata: Evaluating qualitative systemic bias in large article sets on Wikipedia

Traffic report: Cricket jumpscare

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:44, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-45[edit]

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

In the Vector 2022 skin, the default font-size of a number of navigational elements (tagline, tools menu, navigational links, and more) has been increased slightly to match the font size used in page content. [181]

Problems

Last week, there was a problem displaying some recent edits on a few wikis, for 1-6 hours. The edits were saved but not immediately shown. This was due to a database problem. [182]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 November. It will be on all wikis from 9 November (calendar).
The Growth team will reassign newcomers from former mentors to the currently active mentors. They have also changed the notification language to be more user-friendly. [183][184]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:03, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-46[edit]

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

Four new wikis have been created:
- a Wikipedia in Moroccan Amazigh (w:zgh:) [185]
- a Wikipedia in Dagaare (w:dga:) [186]
- a Wikipedia in Toba Batak (w:bbc:) [187]
- a Wikiquote in Banjar (q:bjn:) [188]

Problems

Last week, users who previously visited Meta-Wiki or Wikimedia Commons and then became logged out on those wikis could not log in again. The problem is now resolved. [189]
Last week, some pop-up dialogs and menus were shown with the wrong font size. The problem is now resolved. [190]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 November. It will be on all wikis from 16 November (calendar).

Future changes

Reference Previews are coming to many wikis as a default feature. They are popups for references, similar to the PagePreviews feature. You can opt out of seeing them. If you are using the gadgets Reference Tooltips or Navigation Popups, you won’t see Reference Previews. Deployment is planned for November 22, 2023.
Canary (also known as heartbeat) events will be produced into Wikimedia event streams from December 11. Streams users are advised to filter out these events, by discarding all events where meta.domain == "canary". Updates to Pywikibot or wikimedia-streams will discard these events by default. [191]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:50, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 20 November 2023[edit]

In the media: Propaganda and photos, lunatics and a lunar backup

News and notes: Update on Wikimedia's financial health

Traffic report: If it bleeds, it leads

Recent research: Canceling disputes as the real function of ArbCom

Wikimania: Wikimania 2024 scholarships

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:43, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-47[edit]

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 later this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week. [192][193]
Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Quechua Wikipedia, Romansh Wikipedia, Romani Wikipedia, Rundi Wikipedia, Aromanian Wikipedia, Tarandíne Wikipedia, Rusyn Wikipedia, Kinyarwanda Wikipedia, Sanskrit Wikipedia, Sakha Wikipedia, Santali Wikipedia, Sardinian Wikipedia, Sicilian Wikipedia, Scots Wikipedia, Sindhi Wikipedia, Northern Sami Wikipedia, Sango Wikipedia, Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia, Sinhala Wikipedia, Slovak Wikipedia, Slovenian Wikipedia, Samoan Wikipedia, Somali Wikipedia, Albanian Wikipedia, Serbian Wikipedia, Sranan Tongo Wikipedia, Swati Wikipedia, Southern Sotho Wikipedia, Saterland Frisian Wikipedia, Sundanese Wikipedia, Silesian Wikipedia, Tamil Wikipedia, Tulu Wikipedia, Telugu Wikipedia, Tetum Wikipedia, Tajik Wikipedia, Thai Wikipedia, Turkmen Wikipedia, Tagalog Wikipedia, Tswana Wikipedia, Tongan Wikipedia, Tok Pisin Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia, Tsonga Wikipedia, Tatar Wikipedia, Twi Wikipedia, Tahitian Wikipedia, Tuvinian Wikipedia, Udmurt Wikipedia, Uyghur Wikipedia, Uzbek Wikipedia, Venda Wikipedia, Venetian Wikipedia, Veps Wikipedia, West Flemish Wikipedia, Volapük Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [194][195][196]
The Vector 2022 skin will have some minor visual changes to drop-down menus, column widths, and more. These changes were added to four Wikipedias last week. If no issues are found, these changes will proceed to all wikis this week. These changes will make it possible to add new menus for readability and dark mode. Learn more. [197]

Future changes

There is an update on re-enabling the Graph Extension. To speed up the process, Vega 2 will not be supported and only some protocols will be available at launch. You can help by sharing what you think about the plan.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:53, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-48[edit]

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 later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 November. It will be on all wikis from 30 November (calendar). There is no new MediaWiki version next week. [198][199]
MediaWiki's JavaScript system will now allow async/await syntax in gadgets and user scripts. Gadget authors should remember that users' browsers may not support it, so it should be used appropriately. [200]
The deployment of "Add a link" announced last week was postponed. It will resume 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 23:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 4 December 2023[edit]

News and notes: Beeblebrox ejected from Arbitration Committee following posts on Wikipediocracy

In the media: Turmoil on Hebrew Wikipedia, grave dancing, Olga's impact and inspiring Bhutanese nuns

Disinformation report: "Wikipedia and the assault on history"

In focus: Tens of thousands of freely available sources flagged

Comix: Bold comics for a new age

Essay: I am going to die

Featured content: Real gangsters move in silence

Traffic report: And it's hard to watch some cricket, in the cold November Rain

Humour: Mandy Rice-Davies Applies

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:09, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-49[edit]

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 spacing between paragraphs on Vector 2022 has been changed from 7px to 14px to match the size of the text. This will make it easier to distinguish paragraphs from sentences. [201]
The "Sort this page by default as" feature in VisualEditor is working again. You no longer need to switch to source editing to edit ((DEFAULTSORT:...)) keywords. [202]

Changes later this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week. [203][204]
On 6 December, people who have the enabled the preference for "Show discussion activity" will notice the talk page usability improvements appear on pages that include the __NEWSECTIONLINK__ magic word. If you notice any issues, please share them with the team on Phabricator.

Future changes

The Toolforge Grid Engine shutdown process will start on December 14. Maintainers of tools that still use this old system should plan to migrate to Kubernetes, or tell the team your plans on Phabricator in the task about your tool, before that date. [205]
Communities using Structured Discussions are being contacted regarding the upcoming deprecation of Structured Discussions. You can read more about this project, and share your comments, on the project's page.

Events

Registration & Scholarship applications are now open for the Wikimedia Hackathon 2024 that will take place from 3–5 May in Tallinn, Estonia. Scholarship applications are open until 5 January 2024.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:48, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-50[edit]

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

Recent changes

On Wikimedia Commons, there are some minor user-interface improvements for the "choosing own vs not own work" step in the UploadWizard. This is part of the Structured Content team's project of improving UploadWizard on Commons. [206][207]

Problems

There was a problem showing the Newcomer homepage feature with the "impact module" and their page-view graphs, for a few days in early December. This has now been fixed. [208][209]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 December. It will be on all wikis from 14 December (calendar). [210][211]

Future changes

The 2023 Developer Satisfaction Survey is seeking the opinions of the Wikimedia developer community. Please take the survey if you have any role in developing software for the Wikimedia ecosystem. The survey is open until 5 January 2024, and has an associated privacy statement.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 02:10, 12 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2023-51[edit]

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

The next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 8 January 2024 because of the holidays.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 December. It will be on all wikis from 21 December (calendar). There is no new MediaWiki version next week. [212][213]
Starting December 18, it won't be possible to activate Structured Discussions on a user's own talk page using the Beta feature. The Beta feature option remains available for users who want to deactivate Structured Discussions. This is part of Structured Discussions' deprecation work. [214]
There will be full support for redirects in the Module namespace. The "Move Page" feature will leave an appropriate redirect behind, and such redirects will be appropriately recognized by the software (e.g. hidden from Special:UnconnectedPages). There will also be support for manual redirects. [215]

Future changes

The MediaWiki JavaScript documentation is moving to a new format. During the move, you can read the old docs using version 1.41. Feedback about the new site is welcome on the project talk page.
The Wishathon is a new initiative that encourages collaboration across the Wikimedia community to develop solutions for wishes collected through the Community Wishlist Survey. The first community Wishathon will take place from 15–17 March. If you are interested in a project proposal as a user, developer, designer, or product lead, you can register for the event and read more.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 16:16, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 December 2023[edit]

Special report: Did the Chinese Communist Party send astroturfers to sabotage a hacktivist's Wikipedia article?

News and notes: The Italian Public Domain wars continue, Wikimedia RU set to dissolve, and a recap of WLM 2023

In the media: Consider the humble fork

Discussion report: Arabic Wikipedia blackout; Wikimedians discuss SpongeBob, copyrights, and AI

In focus: Liquidation of Wikimedia RU

Technology report: Dark mode is coming

Recent research: "LLMs Know More, Hallucinate Less" with Wikidata

Gallery: A feast of holidays and carols

Comix: Lollus lmaois 200C tincture

Crossword: when the crossword is sus

Traffic report: What's the big deal? I'm an animal!

From the editor: A piccy iz worth OVAR 9000!!!11oneone! wordz ^_^

Apocrypha: Local editor discovered 1,380 lost subheadings in ancient Signpost scrolls. And what he found was shocking.

Humour: Guess the joke contest

BJAODN: Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:58, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-02[edit]

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

mediawiki2latex is a tool that converts wiki content into the formats of LaTeX, PDF, ODT, and EPUB. The code now runs many times faster due to recent improvements. There is also an optional Docker container you can install on your local machine.
The way that Random pages are selected has been updated. This will slowly reduce the problem of some pages having a lower chance of appearing. [216]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 January. It will be on all wikis from 11 January (calendar). [217][218]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:18, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 10 January 2024[edit]

From the editor: NINETEEN MORE YEARS! NINETEEN MORE YEARS!

Special report: Public Domain Day 2024

Technology report: Wikipedia: A Multigenerational Pursuit

News and notes: In other news ... see ya in court!

In focus: The long road of a featured article candidate

In the media: What is plagiarism? Oklahoma Disneyland? Reaching a human being at Wikipedia?

WikiProject report: WikiProjects Israel and Palestine

Obituary: Anthony Bradbury

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2023

Crossword: everybody gangsta till the style sheets start cascading

Comix: Conflict resolution

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:49, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-03[edit]

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

Pages that use the JSON contentmodel will now use tabs instead of spaces for auto-indentation. This will significantly reduce the page size. [219]
Gadgets and personal user scripts may now use JavaScript syntax introduced in ES6 (also known as "ES2015") and ES7 ("ES2016"). MediaWiki validates the source code to protect other site functionality from syntax errors, and to ensure scripts are valid in all supported browsers. Previously, Gadgets could use the requiresES6 option. This option is no longer needed and will be removed in the future. [220]
Bot passwords and owner-only OAuth consumers can now be restricted to allow editing only specific pages. [221]
You can now thank edits made by bots. [222]
An update on the status of the Community Wishlist Survey for 2024 has been published. Please read and give your feedback.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 January. It will be on all wikis from 18 January (calendar). [223][224]
Starting on January 17, it will not be possible to login to Wikimedia wikis from some specific old versions of the Chrome browser (versions 51–66, released between 2016 and 2018). Additionally, users of iOS 12, or Safari on Mac OS 10.14, may need to login to each wiki separately. [225]
The jquery.cookie module was deprecated and replaced with the mediawiki.cookie module last year. A script has now been run to replace any remaining uses, and this week the temporary alias will be removed. [226]

Future changes

Wikimedia Deutschland is working to make reusing references easier. They are looking for people who are interested in participating in individual video calls for user research in January and February.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:11, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-04[edit]

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

A bug in UploadWizard prevented linking to the userpage of the uploader when uploading. It has now been fixed. [227]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 January. It will be on all wikis from 25 January (calendar). [228][229]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:02, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-05[edit]

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

Starting Monday January 29, all talk pages messages' timestamps will become a link. This link is a permanent link to the comment. It allows users to find the comment they are looking for, even if this comment was moved elsewhere. This will affect all wikis except for the English Wikipedia. You can read more about this change on Diff or on Mediawiki.org. [230]
There are some improvements to the CAPTCHA to make it harder for spam bots and scripts to bypass it. If you have feedback on this change, please comment on the task. Staff are monitoring metrics related to the CAPTCHA, as well as secondary metrics such as account creations and edit counts.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 January. It will be on all wikis from 1 February (calendar). [231][232]
On February 1, a link will be added to the "Tools" menu to download a QR code that links to the page you are viewing. There will also be a new Special:QrCode page to create QR codes for any Wikimedia URL. This addresses the #19 most-voted wish from the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [233]
Gadgets which only work in some skins have sometimes used the targets option to limit where you can use them. This will stop working this week. You should use the skins option instead. [234]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 19:29, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 January 2024[edit]

News and notes: Wikipedian Osama Khalid celebrated his 30th birthday in jail

Opinion: Until it happens to you

Disinformation report: How paid editors squeeze you dry

In the media: Katherine Maher new NPR CEO, go check Wikipedia, race in the race

In focus: The long road of a featured article candidate, part 2

Recent research: Croatian takeover was enabled by "lack of bureaucratic openness and rules constraining [admins]"

Comix: We've all got to start somewhere

Traffic report: DJ, gonna burn this goddamn house right down

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:13, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-06[edit]

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 mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. If you hear of any problems relating to mobile history usage please point them to the phabricator task.
On most wikis, admins can now block users from making specific actions. These actions are: uploading files, creating new pages, moving (renaming) pages, and sending thanks. The goal of this feature is to allow admins to apply blocks that are adequate to the blocked users' activity. Learn more about "action blocks". [235][236]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 February. It will be on all wikis from 8 February (calendar). [237][238]
Talk pages permalinks that included diacritics and non-Latin script were malfunctioning. This issue is fixed. [239]

Future changes

24 Wikipedias with Reference Tooltips as a default gadget are encouraged to remove that default flag. This would make Reference Previews the new default for reference popups, leading to a more consistent experience across wikis. For 46 Wikipedias with less than 4 interface admins, the change is already scheduled for mid-February, unless there are concerns. The older Reference Tooltips gadget will still remain usable and will override this feature, if it is available on your wiki and you have enabled it in your settings. [240][241]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 19:20, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 13 February 2024[edit]

News and notes: Wikimedia Russia director declared "foreign agent" by Russian gov; EU prepares to pile on the papers

Disinformation report: How low can the scammers go?

Gallery: Before and After: Why you don't need to touch grass to dramatically improve images of flora and fauna

In the media: Speaking in tongues, toeing the line, and dressing the part

Serendipity: Is this guy the same as the one who was a Nazi?

Traffic report: Griselda, Nikki, Carl, Jannik and two types of football

Crossword: Our crossword to bear

Comix: Strongly

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:35, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-07[edit]

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 WDQS Graph Split experiment is working and loaded onto 3 test servers. The team in charge is testing the split's impact and requires feedback from WDQS users through the UI or programmatically in different channels. [242][243][244] Users' feedback will validate the impact of various use cases and workflows around the Wikidata Query service. [245][246]

Problems

There was a bug that affected the appearance of visited links when using mobile device to access wiki sites. It made the links appear black; this issue is fixed.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 February. It will be on all wikis from 15 February (calendar). [247][248]
As work continues on the grid engine deprecation,[249] tools on the grid engine will be stopped starting on February 14th, 2024. If you have tools actively migrating you can ask for an extension so they are not stopped. [250]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 05:46, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-08[edit]

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

If you have the "Email me when a page or a file on my watchlist is changed" option enabled, edits by bot accounts no longer trigger notification emails. Previously, only minor edits would not trigger the notification emails. [251]
There are changes to how user and site scripts load for Vector 2022 on specific wikis. The changes impacted the following Wikis: all projects with Vector legacy as the default skin, Wikivoyage, and Wikibooks. Other wikis will be affected over the course of the next three months. Gadgets are not impacted. If you have been affected or want to minimize the impact on your project, see this ticket. Please coordinate and take action proactively.
Newly auto-created accounts (the accounts you get when you visit a new wiki) now have the same local notification preferences as users who freshly register on that wiki. It is effected in four notification types listed in the task's description.
The maximum file size when using Upload Wizard is now 5 GiB. [252]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 February. It will be on all wikis from 22 February (calendar). [253][254]

Selected tools on the grid engine have been stopped as we prepare to shut down the grid on March 14th, 2024. The tool's code and data have not been deleted. If you are a maintainer and you want your tool re-enabled reach out to the team. Only tools that have asked for extension are still running on the grid.
The CSS filter property can now be used in HTML style attributes in wikitext. [255]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 15:34, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-09[edit]

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 mobile visual editor is now the default editor for users who never edited before, at a small group of wikis. Research shows that users using this editor are slightly more successful publishing the edits they started, and slightly less successful publishing non-reverted edits. Users who defined the wikitext editor as their default on desktop will get the wikitext editor on mobile for their first edit on mobile as well. [256]
The mw.config value wgGlobalGroups now only contains groups that are active in the wiki. Scripts no longer have to check whether the group is active on the wiki via an API request. A code example of the above is: if (/globalgroupname/.test(mw.config.get("wgGlobalGroups"))). [257]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 February. It will be on all wikis from 29 February (calendar). [258][259]

Future changes

The right to change edit tags (changetags) will be removed from users in Wikimedia sites, keeping it by default for admins and bots only. Your community can ask to retain the old configuration on your wiki before this change happens. Please indicate in this ticket to keep it for your community before the end of March 2024.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 19:21, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 2 March 2024[edit]

News and notes: Wikimedia enters US Supreme court hearings as "the dolphin inadvertently caught in the net"

Recent research: Images on Wikipedia "amplify gender bias"

In the media: The Scottish Parliament gets involved, a wikirace on live TV, and the Foundation's CTO goes on record

Obituary: Vami_IV

Traffic report: Supervalentinefilmbowlday

WikiCup report: High-scoring WikiCup first round comes to a close

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:01, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-10[edit]

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 Special:Book page (as well as the associated "Create a book" functionality) provided by the old Collection extension has been removed from all Wikisource wikis, as it was broken. This does not affect the ability to download normal books, which is provided by the Wikisource extension. [260]
Wikitech now uses the next-generation Parsoid wikitext parser by default to generate all pages in the Talk namespace. Report any problems on the Known Issues discussion page. You can use the ParserMigration extension to control the use of Parsoid; see the ParserMigration help documentation for more details.
Maintenance on etherpad is completed. If you encounter any issues, please indicate in this ticket.
Gadgets allow interface admins to create custom features with CSS and JavaScript. The Gadget and Gadget_definition namespaces and gadgets-definition-edit user right were reserved for an experiment in 2015, but were never used. These were visible on Special:Search and Special:ListGroupRights. The unused namespaces and user rights are now removed. No pages are moved, and no changes need to be made. [261]
A usability improvement to the "Add a citation" in Wikipedia workflow has been made, the insert button was moved to the popup header. [262]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 March. It will be on all wikis from 7 March (calendar). [263][264]

Future changes

All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [265]
The HTML markup of headings and section edit links will be changed later this year to improve accessibility. See Heading HTML changes for details. The new markup will be the same as in the new Parsoid wikitext parser. You can test your gadget or stylesheet with the new markup if you add ?useparsoid=1 to your URL (more info) or turn on Parsoid read views in your user options (more info).

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

MediaWiki message delivery 19:45, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-11[edit]

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 later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 March. It will be on all wikis from 14 March (calendar). [266][267]
After consulting with various communities, the line height of the text on the Minerva skin will be increased to its previous value of 1.65. Different options for typography can also be set using the options in the menu, as needed. [268]
The active link color in Minerva will be changed to provide more consistency with our other platforms and best practices. [269]
Structured data on Commons will no longer ask whether you want to leave the page without saving. This will prevent the “information you’ve entered may not be saved” popups from appearing when no information have been entered. It will also make file pages on Commons load faster in certain cases. However, the popups will be hidden even if information has indeed been entered. If you accidentally close the page before saving the structured data you entered, that data will be lost. [270]

Future changes

All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [271][272]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]