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Welcome to the twenty-fifth newsletter from the Growth team! Help with translations

Celebrations[edit]

Leveling up release

• We released Leveling up features to our pilot wikis on March 22 for an initial A/B test.
• In this test, we use post-edit dialogs (pop-ups shown after publishing an edit) and notifications to encourage new editors to try new types of newcomer-friendly suggested edits.
• We are closely monitoring the short term impact of this feature as well as the longer term effect on newcomer productivity and retention. If the experiment shows positive results, we will release this feature to more wikis.

5,000+ images added via the newcomer task in February

• In February 2023, 5,035 images were added via the newcomer “add an image” feature (on all wikis where available); 155 were reverted.
• Since the feature “add an image” was launched: 36,803 images have been added; 2,957 images were reverted.

Recent changes[edit]

• Add a link
  • Community Ambassadors completed an initial evaluation that confirmed that prioritizing underlinked articles resulted in better article suggestions. We then evaluated the change on Growth pilot wikis, and results suggest that more newcomers are successfully completing the task and experiencing fewer reverts. We have now deployed the new prioritization model to all wikis with "add a link" enabled. [1][2]
  • We continue the deployment of "add a link" to more wikis. These changes are regularly announced in Tech News. To know if newcomers at your wiki have access to this feature, please visit your Homepage.
• The Impact module was deployed on our pilot wikis, where we conducted an A/B test. We published initial findings, and a data scientist is now completing experiment analysis. [3]
• Donor Thank you page experiment – Donors land on a “thank you” page after donation, and that landing page now includes a call to action to try editing: Example Thank you page in French. This promising feature is tested at several Wikipedias (French Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia, Japanese Wikipedia, Dutch Wikipedia, Swedish Wikipedia).
• Growth features are now the default experience on both test.wikipedia.org and test2.wikipedia.org. You can test our features there.

Upcoming work[edit]

• Add an image – We plan to offer section-level image suggestions as a structured task for newcomers.
  • We are starting design work. [4]
  • Growth team Ambassadors helped with an initial evaluation of these section-level image suggestions. [5]
  • We will start a community consultation in which we share initial ideas and designs soon. [6]
• IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation – We will support this project for all Growth Team maintained products and extensions that may be affected by IP Masking. [7]

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

13:10, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Samwalton9 I am @Sulav K Shetri I am kindly requesting you to apply Extended confirmed protected Bluelock in the page of Prime Minister of Nepal The Right Honourable Pushpa Kamal Dahal because the new users are doing wrong edit so, applying Extended confirmed protected Bluelock will help to protect the page and only experience editors can edit the page.Sulav K Shetri (talk) 10:19, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2023).

Administrator changes Aoidh KillerChihuahua

CheckUser changes Ferret

Guideline and policy news

• A community RfC is open to discuss whether reports primarily involving gender-related disputes or controversies should be referred to the Arbitration enforcement noticeboard.

Technical news

• Some older web browsers will not be able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis starting this week. This mainly affects users of Internet Explorer 11. (T178356)
• The rollback of Vector 2022 RfC has found no consensus to rollback to Vector legacy, but has found rough consensus to disable "limited width" mode by default.
• A link to the user's Special:CentralAuth page will now appear in the subtitle links shown on Special:Contributions. This was voted #17 in the Community Wishlist Survey 2023.

Arbitration

• The Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case has been closed.
• A case about World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been opened, with the first evidence phase closing 6 April 2023.

Women in Red May 2023, Vol 9, Iss 5, Nos 251, 252, 267, 268, 269, 270 Online events: New: Alphabet run U, V, W | Disability | Women in Education | CEE women Continuing: Peace and Diplomacy (year-long initiative) | #1day1woman | See also: Wikimedia CEE Spring 2023/CEE Women - Wikimedia contest with postcards and prizes The Wikipedia Library: #1Lib1Ref - May 15th to June 5th Tip of the month: Use the Google translate app and camera on your phone to translate text from an article or book Other ways to participate: Become a member. You can always opt-out of notifications. Join the conversations on our talkpage. Help us plan future events. Follow us on social media: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

--Lajmmoore (talk) 18:29, 27 April 2023 (UTC) via MassMessaging[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2023).

Administrator changes Spicy Ale jrb Dbachmann DGG (deceased) Jimbo Wales

CheckUser changes Jimbo Wales Oversighter changes Jimbo Wales

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment about removing administrative privileges in specified situations is open for feedback.

Technical news

• Progress has started on the Page Triage improvement project. This is to address the concerns raised by the community in their 2022 WMF letter that requested improvements be made to the tool.

Arbitration

• The proposed decision in the World War II and the history of Jews in Poland case is expected 11 May 2023.

Miscellaneous

• The Wikimedia Foundation annual plan 2023-2024 draft is open for comment and input through May 19. The final plan will be published in July 2023.

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 56, March – April 2023

• New partner:
  • Perlego
• Library access tips and tricks
• Spotlight: EveryBookItsReader

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --10:03, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Women in Red June 2023, Vol 9, Iss 6, Nos 251, 252, 271, 272, 273 Online events: New: Alphabet run X, Y & Z | LGBTQ+ women | Wiki Loves Pride | Women in Music Continuing: Peace and Diplomacy (year-long initiative) | #1day1woman See also: Women in Green: June 2023 GA Editathon event page Wikipedia:Wiki Loves Pride/2023 global campaign The Wikipedia Library: #1Lib1Ref - May 15th to June 5th Tip of the month: Looking for new red links? Keep an eye out for interesting and notable friends, family, or associates of your last article subject, and re-examine group photos for other women who may still need an article. Other ways to participate: Become a member. You can always opt-out of notifications. Join the conversations on our talkpage. Help us plan future events. Follow us on social media: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

--Lajmmoore (talk) 09:16, 28 May 2023 (UTC) via MassMessaging[reply]

Welcome to the twenty-sixth newsletter from the Growth team! Help with translations

One million Suggested Edits[edit]

We passed the 1 million Suggested edits milestone in late April!

• The Suggested edits feature (AKA Newcomer tasks) increase newcomer activation by ~12%, which flows on through to increased retention. (source)
• Suggested edits increase the number of edits newcomers complete in their first two weeks and have a relatively low revert rate. (source)
• Suggested edits are available on all Wikipedia language editions.
• Newer Suggested edits, like Add a link and Add an image, aren’t yet deployed to all wikis, but these structured tasks further increase the probability that newcomers will make their first edit. (source)

Positive reinforcement[edit]

Positive reinforcement aims to encourage newcomers who have visited our homepage and tried Growth features to keep editing.

• The new Impact module was released to Growth pilot wikis in December 2022, and we are now scaling the feature to another ten wikis. [8]
• The Leveling up features are deployed at our pilot wikis.
• The Personalized praise features were deployed at our pilot wikis on May 24. Mentors at pilot wikis will start to receive notifications weekly when they have “praise-worthy” mentees. Mentors can configure their notification preferences or disable these notifications.

Add an image[edit]

• We are creating a new section-level variation of the “add an image” task. We have tested the accuracy of suggestions, and the development of this new task is well-underway. [9]

Other updates[edit]

• We are progressively releasing Add a link to more wikis. [10]
• After adding Thanks to Recent Changes, Watchlist and Special:Contributions, we investigated Thanks usage on the wikis. There is no evidence that thanks increased after the feature was added on more pages.
• We helped with code review for the 2023 Community Wish to add Notifications for user page edits. [11]
• We have been attending several community events, that we documented in our Growth’s Community events report.

What's next for Growth?[edit]

• We shared an overview of Growth annual planning ideas, and have started community discussion about these potential projects. We would love to hear your feedback on these ideas!

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:14, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

		The Invisible Barnstar
		This award is given to Samwalton9 for collecting more than 20 points doing redirect reviews, in the May 2023 NPP backlog reduction drive. Thank you for your help in bringing down the backlog. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 01:40, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @MPGuy2824 - every little helps I hope. Well done to you and all for such a successful drive! Sam Walton (talk) 16:04, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it does help. Our goal is to get many ppl who do a smaller number of reviews each, to reduce dependence on a few high-quantity reviewers (who are then prone to burnout). -MPGuy2824 (talk) 01:49, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2023).

Administrator changes Ingenuity Ddstretch Prodego Resolute

CheckUser changes Courcelles

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, editors indefinitely site-banned by community consensus will now have all rights, including sysop, removed.
• As a part of the Wikimedia Foundation's IP Masking project, a new policy has been created that governs the access to temporary account IP addresses. An associated FAQ has been created and individual communities can increase the requirements to view temporary account IP addresses.

Technical news

• Bot operators and tool maintainers should schedule time in the coming months to test and update their tools for the effects of IP masking. IP masking will not be deployed to any content wiki until at least October 2023 and is unlikely to be deployed to the English Wikipedia until some time in 2024.

Arbitration

• The arbitration case World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been closed. The topic area of Polish history during World War II (1933-1945) and the history of Jews in Poland is subject to a "reliable source consensus-required" contentious topic restriction.

Miscellaneous

• Following a community referendum, the arbitration policy has been modified to remove the ability for users to appeal remedies to Jimbo Wales.

Hello, Samwalton9. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Steve El-Hage, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 10:02, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Women in Red June 2023, Vol 9, Iss 7, Nos 251, 252, 274, 275, 276 Online events: New: Women in Red's 8th anniversary | Alphabet run A & B | Sports Continuing: Peace and Diplomacy (year-long initiative) | #1day1woman Tip of the month: Look out for contributors interested in writing about women and invite them to join Women in Red Other ways to participate: Become a member. You can always opt-out of notifications. Join the conversations on our talkpage. Help us plan future events. Follow us on social media: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

--Lajmmoore (talk) 07:44, 27 June 2023 (UTC) via MassMessaging[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2023).

Administrator changes

Novem Linguae

• Deckiller
• Electionworld
• MBisanz
• Penwhale
• Raul654
• Roadrunner
• Viridae
• Yannismarou

Bureaucrat changes

MBisanz

Guideline and policy news

• Contributions to the English Wikipedia are now released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) license instead of CC BY-SA 3.0. Contributions are still also released under the GFDL license.

Technical news

• Discussion is open regarding a proposed global policy regarding third-party resources. Third-party resources are computer resources that reside outside of Wikimedia production websites.

Arbitration

• Two arbitration cases are currently open. Proposed decisions are expected 5 July 2023 for the Scottywong case and 9 July 2023 for the AlisonW case.

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 57, May – June 2023

• Suggestion improvements
• Favorite collections tips
• Spotlight: Promoting Nigerian Books and Authors

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --11:22, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. SamWalton9, I saw your activity on the draft space and think you eligible to vote on Netreputation deletion discussion page. It's a censorship organisation. Doesn't look notable but I think the article is fairly neutral in its descriptions. The page was passed from draft to mainspace after 3 months of d ting by many participants. It's not my first page, but really frustrating because people must know the truth about Leo Molloy case! Thank you Paranoya23 (talk) 16:33, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the twenty-seventh newsletter from the Growth team! Help with translations

Annual plan for Growth[edit]

We shared our annual plan, for the period July 2023 - June 2024.

Our first project of the year will be Community configuration 2.0, which helps editors with extended rights transparently and easily configure important on-wiki functionality.

After we finish work on Community configuration 2.0, we will hope to fit in one of the following projects:

• Article creation: This project aims to provide new editors with better guidance and guardrails in the article creation process, with the intention of lightening the load of new page reviewers.
• Non-editing participation: This project aims to create low-risk ways for readers to participate in Wikipedia with the intention of funneling more readers into contributing to the Wikimedia movement.

Please let us know what you think about these projects on the related talk page, or Growth's annual plan talk page.

Suggested edits[edit]

We released a new Section-level “add an image” structured task to Growth pilot wikis (Arabic, Bengali, Czech, and Spanish). This task was part of the Structured Data Across Wikipedia project. We are monitoring the edits made, and we look for community feedback as well.

Suggested Edits are now receiving topic predictions via the new Language-Agnostic Topic Classification. This change affects non-English Wikipedia wikis. It will ensure newcomers receive a greater diversity of task recommendations. Before, as this feature was a test, English Wikipedia was used to select topics. The change is gradual as lists of topics are refreshed when they become empty. The Research team will evaluate the impact in a few months. [12]

Starting on August 1, 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, Cornish Wikipedia.

Mentorship[edit]

The Growth team provides dedicated features to establish a mentorship program for newcomers. Every newcomer gets a volunteer mentor who provides encouragement and answers questions. Communities can set up or join this mentorship system by visiting Special:ManageMentors. This mentorship system is configurable by the community at Special:EditGrowthConfig.

More communities have implemented mentorship. A Wikimedia Foundation data scientist will be looking at the impact of Mentorship. We will look at the impact on Spanish and English Wikipedia. [13]

The Growth team will also host a Mentoring new editors on Wikipedia session at Wikimania 2023 in Singapore. Workshop attendees will help brainstorm improvements to Growth’s mentorship features.

Positive reinforcement[edit]

We will share more complete experiment analysis for all the three parts of the Positive reinforcement project soon. At the moment, the new Impact module, Leveling up, and Personalized praise are still being A/B tested on the Growth team's pilot wikis.

In the meantime, initial leading indicators for the Personalized praise project have been published. Although this is still a relatively small sample, results seem healthy. They show that Mentors are indeed receiving notifications and clicking through to view their praise-worthy mentees.

Growth contributes to IP Editing migration[edit]

The Growth team is currently focusing on IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation. It is a project that touches many different Wikimedia Foundation teams. The Growth team will focus on temporary accounts through two main points:

• the user experience of a logged-out user, that switches to a temporary account,
• change Growth-owned extensions and features, so that they work as expected with temporary accounts. [14]

Community Configuration 2.0[edit]

We are still in the early planning stage of the Community Configuration 2.0 project:

• We are gathering internal Wikimedia Foundation teams' needs, so as community feedback. [15]
• We have started to investigate design improvements. [16]
• We are also reviewing similar tools that are part of other products. [17]

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

12:42, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2023).

Administrator changes

Firefangledfeathers

• AlisonW
• Amberrock
• Closedmouth
• Scottywong

Interface administrator changes

Novem Linguae

Technical news

• The tag filter on Special:NewPages and revision history pages can now be inverted. This allows hiding edits made by automated tools. (T334338)
• Special:BlockedExternalDomains is a new tool that allows easier blocking of plain domains (and their subdomains). This is more easily searchable and is faster for the software to use than the existing MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. It does not support regex (for complex cases), URL path-matching, or the MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist. (T337431)

Arbitration

• The arbitration cases named Scottywong and AlisonW closed 10 July and 16 July respectively.
• The SmallCat dispute arbitration case is in the workshop phase.

Hi Sam, the Hashtags tool has been down for a week. Please can you take a look?. Thanks. – Ammarpad (talk) 13:26, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Ammarpad Sorry for not responding to you yet - I'm in Singapore at the moment so I don't have time to look at this for the next week or so, but I'll investigate as soon as I'm back. Sam Walton (talk) 13:36, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Actually let me ping someone else to see if they have capacity to look. Sam Walton (talk) 13:37, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Samwalton9. I could also be able to help if there's troubleshooting doc or guide and if I can be given access to the project. – Ammarpad (talk) 22:23, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2023).

Administrator changes Pppery Theleekycauldron Dwheeler G.A.S Royalbroil Ssd

CheckUser changes Bradv Oversighter changes Bradv

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, TFAs will be automatically semi-protected the day before it is on the main page and through the day after.
• A discussion at WP:VPP about revision deletion and oversight for dead names found that [s]ysops can choose to use revdel if, in their view, it's the right tool for this situation, and they need not default to oversight. But oversight could well be right where there's a particularly high risk to the person. Use your judgment.

Technical news

• Special:Contributions now shows the user's local edit count and the account's creation date. (T324166)

Arbitration

• The SmallCat dispute case has closed. As part of the final decision, editors participating in XfD have been reminded to be careful about forming local consensus which may or may not reflect the broader community consensus. Regular closers of XfD forums were also encouraged to note when broader community discussion, or changes to policies and guidelines, would be helpful.

Miscellaneous

• Tech tip: The "Browse history interactively" banner shown at the top of Special:Diff can be used to easily look through a history, assemble composite diffs, or find out what archive something wound up in.

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 58, July – August 2023

• New partners - De Standaard and Duncker & Humblot
• Tech tip: Filters
• Wikimania presentation

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --14:27, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the twenty-eighth newsletter from the Growth team! Help with translations

Community configuration 2.0[edit]

• Community Configuration 2.0 is a feature that will enable Wikimedia communities to easily customize and configure features to meet their unique needs. This approach provides non-technical moderators with more independence and control over enabling/disabling and customizing features for their communities.
• Technical approach and associated tasks are detailed in this Epic task on Phabricator.
• Initial designs are drafted for two different approaches (see images). We will soon demo interactive prototypes to interested admins, stewards, and experienced editors (T346109). Please let us know if you have feedback on the design approach, or want to participate in prototype testing.

IP Masking[edit]

• The Growth team has been working on several updates to ensure Growth maintained features will be compatible with future IP Masking changes. This work has included code changes to: Recent Changes (T343322), Echo notifications (T333531), the Thanks extension (T345679) and Mentorship (T341390).
• Before December, the Growth team will initiate community discussions with the goal of migrating communities from Flow to DiscussionTools. This move aims to minimize the necessity for additional engineering work to make Flow compatible with IP Masking. (T346108)

Mentorship[edit]

• We assembled some resources for mentors at Mediawiki wiki. This resource page is translatable and will be linked from the mentor dashboard.
• We are working to resolve a bug related to mentors properly returning after being marked as "Away". (T347024)
• Half of newcomers at English Wikipedia get a mentor assigned to them. To ensure every newcomer receives mentorship, we need additional volunteer mentors at English Wikipedia to achieve a 100% coverage rate. We also encourage experienced users from other wikis to help newcomers at their own community.

Scaling Growth features[edit]

• We continue the deployment of the structured task "add a link" to all Wikipedias. We plan to scale the task to all Wikipedias that have link suggestions available by the end of 2023.
• We plan to scale the new Impact Module to all Wikipedias soon, but first we are investigating a bug with the job that refreshes the Impact Module data. (T344428)
• At some wikis, newcomers have access to the "add an image" structured task. This task suggests images that may be relevant to add to unillustrated articles. Newcomers at these wikis can now add images to unillustrated articles sections. (T345940) The wikis that have this task are listed under "Images recommendations" at the Growth team deployment table.

Other news[edit]

• We disabled the “add an image” task temporarily (T345188) because there was a failure in the image suggestions pipeline (T345141). This is now fixed.
• You can read a report about the Growth team’s representation at Wikimania in Singapore here. Growth team members presented two sessions at Wikimania Singapore.
• After a 2.5 years-long collaboration with Bangala Wikipedia, we have decided to start a collaboration with another wiki. Swahili Wikipedia is now a pilot wiki for Growth experiments.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

Trizek_(WMF) Talk 23:16, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

HEY! The PC, Console and Mobile Versions Of Bloons TD 5 Is not MADE WITH UNITY! Its made with ninja kiwi's own Game engine!

Belive me! Ayden Guil (talk) 14:51, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2023).

Administrator changes

0xDeadbeef

Tamzin

Dennis Brown

Interface administrator changes

Pppery

• Ragesoss
• TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

• 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.
• There is a proposed plan for re-enabling the Graph Extension. Feedback on this proposal is requested.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 12 November 2023 until 21 November 2023 to stand in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections.
• Xaosflux, RoySmith and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2023 Arbitration Committee Elections. BusterD is the reserve commissioner.
• Following a motion, the contentious topic designation of Prem Rawat has been struck. Actions previously taken using this contentious topic designation are still in force.
• Following several motions, multiple topic areas are no longer designated as a contentious topic. These contentious topic designations were from the Editor conduct in e-cigs articles, Liancourt Rocks, Longevity, Medicine, September 11 conspiracy theories, and Shakespeare authorship question cases.
• Following a motion, remedies 3.1 (All related articles under 1RR whenever the dispute over naming is concerned), 6 (Stalemate resolution) and 30 (Administrative supervision) of the Macedonia 2 case have been rescinded.
• Following a motion, remedy 6 (One-revert rule) of the The Troubles case has been amended.
• An arbitration case named Industrial agriculture has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case close 8 November.

Miscellaneous

• The Articles for Creation backlog drive is happening in November 2023, with 700+ drafts pending reviews for in the last 4 months or so. In addition to the AfC participants, all administrators and New Page Patrollers can conduct reviews using the helper script, Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in the Gadgets settings. Sign up here to participate!

Hello, Samwalton9. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 13:29, 17 November 2023 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the ((You've got mail)) or ((ygm)) template.

—*Fehufangą (✉ Talk · ✎ Contribs) 13:29, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 59, September – October 2023

• Spotlight: Introducing a repository of anti-disinformation projects
• Tech tip: Library access methods

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --16:15, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

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

If you wish to participate in the 2023 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add ((NoACEMM)) to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:41, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Happy adminship anniversary! Hi Samwalton9! On behalf of the Birthday Committee, I'd like to wish you a very happy anniversary of your successful request for adminship. Enjoy this special day! The Herald (Benison) (talk) 02:43, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the twenty-ninth newsletter from the Growth team! Help with translations

Community Conversations[edit]

The Growth team will host its first community conversation Monday, 4 December (19:00 - 20:30 UTC). The topic for this meeting will be Mentorship.

This first meeting language will be English, but we plan to host conversations in other languages, and about other topics. Please visit the conversation page on-wiki for the details on how to join. You can also watch the page, or suggest ideas for upcoming conversations there.

Impact Module[edit]

At the beginning of November 2023, the Growth team deployed the New Impact Module to all Wikipedias. We recently released a follow up improvement to how edit data was displayed based on editor feedback. [18]

Add a Link[edit]

We released “add a link” to 35 more Wikipedias. [19] [20]

We have a few Wikipedias remaining:

• German and English Wikipedia will be contacted at the beginning of January 2024.
• There are a few small wikis that will not receive the task until they have enough articles for the algorithm to work properly.

Community Configuration[edit]

• We shared Community Configuration 2.0 plans with technical stakeholders. [21] 🖂
• Initial Community Configuration design ideas have been shared and discussed with community members.
• A basic Community Configuration 2.0 demo is released on ToolForge.
• Developers can find some initial proof of concept code shared on gitlab.

Mentorship[edit]

When a mentor marked themselves as "Away", they were not getting their name assigned to new accounts when they returned. This has been fixed. [22]

We improved the message received by newcomers when their mentor quits, to reduce confusion. [23]

We worked on ensuring that all mentees are assigned to an active mentor. This required reassigning mentees with no mentors to a new mentor. We paused this as the clean-up script confused some editors. We will resume it when the identified blockers are resolved. [24]

It is now possible to create an Abuse Filter to prevent one user from signing up as a mentor. [25]

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:04, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2023).

Administrator changes

• Ganesha811
• JPxG

• Ajpolino
• Lourdes
• Mairi
• RockMFR
• Somno
• WilyD

Beeblebrox → Just Step Sideways

CheckUser changes

• Beeblebrox
• Opabinia regalis

Oversight changes

• Beeblebrox
• Opabinia regalis

Guideline and policy news

• Following a talk page discussion, the Administrators' accountability policy has been updated to note that while it is considered best practice for administrators to have notifications (pings) enabled, this is not mandatory. Administrators who do not use notifications are now strongly encouraged to indicate this on their user page.

Arbitration

• Following a motion, the Extended Confirmed Restriction has been amended, removing the allowance for non-extended-confirmed editors to post constructive comments on the "Talk:" namespace. Now, non-extended-confirmed editors may use the "Talk:" namespace solely to make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided that their actions are not disruptive.
• The Arbitration Committee has announced a call for Checkusers and Oversighters, stating that it will currently be accepting applications for CheckUser and/or Oversight permissions at any point in the year.
• Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 11, 2023 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.

❄️ Happy holidays! ❄️

Hi Sam! I'd like to wish you a splendid solstice season as we wrap up the year. Here is an artwork, made individually for you, to celebrate. Looking forward to seeing how the Wikipedia Library develops in the coming year! Take care, and thanks for all you do to make Wikipedia better!

Cheers,
((u|Sdkb)) ^talk

Solstice Celebration for Samwalton9, 2023, DALL·E 3.

(View full series)

Note: The vibes are winter solsticey. If you're in the southern hemisphere, oops, apologies.

((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 06:59, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Sdkb, happy holidays to you too :) Sam Walton (talk) 11:47, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merry Christmas, Samwalton9! Or Season's Greetings or Happy Winter Solstice! As the year winds to a close, I would like to take a moment to recognize your hard work and offer heartfelt gratitude for all you do for Wikipedia. May this Holiday Season bring you nothing but joy, health and prosperity. Onel5969 TT me 15:06, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Onel5969 ^{TT me} 15:06, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

~ ~ ~ Merry Christmas! ~ ~ ~

Hello Samwalton9: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, Spread the love; use ((subst:User:Dustfreeworld/Xmas1)) to send this message.

CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 19:53, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Happy First Edit Day, Samwalton9, from the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! 141Pr {contribs} 10:18, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

	Happy New Year!
	Hello Samwalton9: Did you know ... that back in 1885, Wikipedia editors wrote Good Articles with axes, hammers and chisels? Thank you for your contributions to this encyclopedia using 21st century technology. I hope you don't get any unnecessary blisters. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 22:18, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Spread the WikiLove; use ((subst:Happy New Year elves)) to send this message

CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:18, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2023).

Administrator changes

Clovermoss

Dennis Brown

• Julia W
• Marasmusine
• PBS

CheckUser changes

• Aoidh
• HJ Mitchell
• Sdrqaz
• Spicy
• ToBeFree
• Vanamonde93
• Z1720

Maxim

• Enterprisey
• Izno
• SilkTork

Oversighter changes

• Aoidh
• Firefly
• Sdrqaz
• ToBeFree
• Z1720

Maxim

• Enterprisey
• Izno
• SilkTork

Arbitration

• Following the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Aoidh, Cabayi, Firefly, HJ Mitchell, Maxim, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720.
• Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee rescinded the restrictions on the page name move discussions for the two Ireland pages that were enacted in June 2009.
• The arbitration case Industrial agriculture has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• The New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in January 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,000 unreviewed articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!

Hello, Samwalton9. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Steve El-Hage".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. When you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:13, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 60, November – December 2023

• Three new partners
• Google Scholar integration
• How to track partner suggestions

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --13:36, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2024).

Administrator changes

• Red-tailed hawk
• Robertsky

• Ameliorate!
• Ancheta Wis
• Anthony Bradbury (deceased)
• Cobi
• Ev
• Moondyne
• Worm That Turned

Bureaucrat changes

Worm That Turned

CheckUser changes

Wugapodes

Interface administrator changes

• Enterprisey
• Izno

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC about increasing the inactivity requirement for Interface administrators is open for feedback.

Technical news

• Pages that use the JSON contentmodel will now use tabs instead of spaces for auto-indentation. This will significantly reduce the page size. (T326065)

Arbitration

• Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee adopted a new enforcement restriction on January 4, 2024, wherein the Committee may apply the 'Reliable source consensus-required restriction' to specified topic areas.
• Community feedback is requested for a draft to replace the "Information for administrators processing requests" section at WP:AE.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2024 Steward elections will begin on 06 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 27 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• A vote to ratify the charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open till 2 February 2024, 23:59:59 (UTC) via Secure Poll. All eligible voters within the Wikimedia community have the opportunity to either support or oppose the adoption of the U4C Charter and share their reasons. The details of the voting process and voter eligibility can be found here.
• Community Tech has made some preliminary decisions about the future of the Community Wishlist Survey. In summary, they aim to develop a new, continuous intake system for community technical requests that improves prioritization, resource allocation, and communication regarding wishes. Read more
• The Unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in February 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with ((Unreferenced)). You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

I am the teacher named in this libelous wikipedia entry about North Marion High School. I need the revision history removed so that it is no longer available to the public. Please help me remove this so that my professional reputation is not damaged any further.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=North_Marion_High_School_(Oregon)&oldid=1205486042 Bonathanjarrett (talk) 23:51, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Bonathanjarrett Hi - apologies for the delay in responding to you, I was without a reliable internet connection over the weekend. It looks like this revision has now been deleted. Sam Walton (talk) 13:40, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2024).

Administrator changes Sdkb The Night Watch East718 Isabelle Belato Mzajac Staecker Stan Shebs Sugarfish Tamzin

Bureaucrat changes SilkTork

Guideline and policy news

• Phase I of the 2024 RfA review is now open for participation. Editors are invited to review, comment on, and propose improvements to the requests for adminship process.
• Following an RfC, the inactivity requirement for the removal of the interface administrator right increased from 6 months to 12 months.

Technical news

• The mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. (T353388)

Miscellaneous

• The 2024 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Doǵu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, MdsShakil, Minorax, Nehaoua, Renvoy and RoySmith as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
• Following the 2024 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Ajraddatz, Albertoleoncio, EPIC, JJMC89, Johannnes89, Melos and Yahya.

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 61, January – February 2024

• Bristol University Press and British Online Archives now available
• 1Lib1Ref results

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --16:32, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for uploading File:Ablegamers charity logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Yeeno (talk) 23:39, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2024).

Administrator changes

• Kbdank71
• Kosack
• NrDg
• TLSuda

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open to convert all current and future community discretionary sanctions to (community designated) contentious topics procedure.

Technical news

• The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. (T313405)

Arbitration

• An arbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".

Miscellaneous

• Editors are invited to sign up for The Core Contest, an initiative running from April 15 to May 31, which aims to improve vital and other core articles on Wikipedia.