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Please check refs - this guy was from UK. Thanks a gain - Ted

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2018).

 

  Administrator changes

  None
  ChochopkCoffeeGryffindorJimpKnowledge SeekerLankiveilPeridonRjd0060

  Guideline and policy news

  • The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely restricted to autoconfirmed users.
  • A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.

  Technical news

  • AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash.
  • When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
  • The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
  • There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

  Arbitration

  Obituaries

  • Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.

16:28, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Christopher Hussey (died 1686)

Please make the photo of Mary Hussey Smith on this pages smaller. Thanks from T — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.32.157.249 (talk) 12:59, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

22:23, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

New

Middlesex

Your insistence on inserting Middlesex in the place of death for George Eliot is geography, not biography. It is impertinent, distracting information that has no place here. You are showing an obvious personal bias. This information is important to no one, not even people from London, and adds nothing to the reader's understanding of the life (or death) of Eliot. Enough of this petty nonsense. The editors of this page have already been through a protracted debate about whether to identify London and England as part of the "United Kingdom." We need not waste any more time on punctilious, idiosyncratic map trivia.

From: Weeks Woodlands, Bayside, Queens, New York (City), New York (State), USA. (North America, Western Hemisphere)

Give the exact street address of the house she died in or leave it alone. SamJohn2013 (talk) 02:01, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

It may be geography but the standard is to use the geography at the time of the event, not impose modern day geography on historical events. Keith D (talk) 09:13, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

17:34, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

East Coast (train operating company)

The article title is correct, per WP:COMMONNAME; the lead gives the legal name, per the source. 2.24.142.61 (talk) 00:08, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

The article title should match the initial bold entry in the lead of the article, the other name should appear later on in the text. Keith D (talk) 00:09, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
That's not actually the case, see Bill Clinton for example. 2.24.142.61 (talk) 00:11, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
That doesn't mean that Bill Clinton has been formatted correctly, nor does it mean that other articles should follow the same convention, see WP:OTHERCONTENT. For biographies such as Clinton, MOS:FULLNAME applies; but East Coast (train operating company) is not a biog, and MOS:LEADSENTENCE applies instead. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:09, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what your point is, but MOS:LEADSENTENCE clearly states: "When the page title is used as the subject of the first sentence, it may appear in a slightly different form". 2.24.142.61 (talk) 19:18, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
You are trying to force something that is not "slightly different" but completely different. If you wish the article to be renamed, discuss it at the article's talk page before making disruptive edits that others then have to undo. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:06, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
As I have made clear above, I do not want the article renamed. I have just changed the lead sentence and infobox from East Coast to East Coast Main Line Company. This is not a major change and you don't have to keep undoing it. 2.24.142.61 (talk) 23:30, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Sin Tetas No Hay Paraíso (Telemundo series)

 

A tag has been placed on Sin Tetas No Hay Paraíso (Telemundo series) requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done for the following reason:

Unnecessary redirection.

Under the criteria for speedy deletion, pages that meet certain criteria may be deleted at any time.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. Philip J FryTalk 05:37, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

12:40, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Potternewton

Please check new ref's if you have time. Thanks again. T. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.33.22.145 (talk) 11:21, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2018).

 

  Administrator changes

  None
  Al Ameer sonAliveFreeHappyCenariumLupoMichaelBillington

  Guideline and policy news

  Technical news

  • IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at the talk page.
  • There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups.
  • It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.

  Arbitration

  • A recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e. Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.

  Miscellaneous


WikiProject Yorkshire Newsletter - June 2018

Delivered June 2018 by MediaWiki message delivery.
If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add an N to the column against your username on the Project Mainpage.

20:09, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

21:54, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi

Thank you for joining the Portals WikiProject

Welcome.

I think you'll enjoy it – it's really hopping. By the way...

Since we are on the topic of portals, I just created a new one as a test run that I'd like you to take a look at: Portal:Sacramento, California.

I'm particularly interested in your thoughts about the picture slideshow feature. (How could it be improved?)

I look forward to your reply.    — The Transhumanist   07:30, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

P.S.: Please ping me in your reply. Thank you.

  • @The Transhumanist: Hi, just had a look and looks OK, though the navigation part is too wide for my width as I get the right arrow on a second line under the toggle thumbnails symbol. Also may be you could remove the white space under the image when not displaying the thumbnails. Regards Keith D (talk) 09:37, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #008, 7 June 2018

The WikiProject now has 92 participants, including 16 admins.

Welcome

A warm welcome to the newest members of the team:

Be sure to say hi.

Congrats

Pbsouthwood has just gotten through the grueling RfA process to become a Wikipedia administrator. Be sure to congratulate him.

The reason he went for it was: "For some time I expect to be busy with subpage deletion for Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals as mentioned above. The amount of work is expected to keep me busy for some time. I am primarly a content creator and contributor to policy discussions, but would be willing to consider other admin work on request, providing that I feel that my involvement would be appropriate and not too far outside my comfort zone."

New feature: Picture slideshow

Picture slideshow

Evad37 has figured out a way to let the user flip through pictures without purging the page. Purging is awkward because there is an intermediary confirmation screen that you have to click on "yes". In the new picture slideshow section, all you have to do is click on the > to go to the next picture or < to instantly show the previous feature. The feature also shuffles the pictures when the page is initiated, so that they are shown in a different order each time the user visits the page (or purges it).

It is featured in Portal:Sacramento, California. Check it out to the right.

Keep in mind that the feature is a beta version. Please share your comments on how to refine this feature, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Refining the Picture slideshow.

The one-page portal has been achieved

We now have a one-page portal design. It isn't fully automated, nor is it even fully semi-automated, as there are still some manually filled-in areas. But it no longer requires any subpages in portal space, and that is a huge improvement. For example, Portal:Sacramento, California utilizes the one-page design concept. While is employs heavy use of templates, it does not have any subpages of its own.

I commend you for your teamwork

This is the most cooperative team I've ever seen. With a strong spirit of working together to get an important job done. Kudos to you.

In conclusion...

There's more. A lot more. But it will have to wait until next issue, but you don't have to wait. See what's going on at the WikiProject's talk page.    — The Transhumanist   02:09, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

West Yorkshire Police

Hi, KeithD. Low level this one, I think; when you click on the Edit Source tab on the West Yorkshire Police article page, a weird artifact of characters appears (block|]]ing.) above the BLP notice at the top of the article. Because it is not in an editable area, I cannot get rid of it (and I cannot even say if it needs getting rid of either!) Thanks, Keith. Regards. The joy of all things (talk) 22:55, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi, it is spurious text in the edit notice page. I have removed it. Keith D (talk) 22:59, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, Keith D. Is that an admin solve only or is it something ordinary editors can do without bothering you about? Fine either way, just asking. The joy of all things (talk) 23:03, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
I think only admins can edit the edit notices for pages. Keith D (talk) 23:06, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
Right; ta and regards. The joy of all things (talk) 23:07, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
Template editors can edit editnotices too. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:20, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

21:55, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #009, 15 June 2018

(Article slideshow prototype)
Selected animals

Don't mind that box to the right. We'll be talking about that later, below.

Almost done...

With the portals upgrades?

No. :)

What is almost done is the updating of the main list of portals!

There are 23 portals left to be listed.

Kudos to the WikiGnome Squadron, for spearheading this.

Once it is fully updated, we need to keep it up to date. When you complete a portal, remember to add it to Portal:Contents/Portals.

Concerning portal upgrades, we are working on those section-by-section...

Associated Wikimedia section conversion task complete

The Associated Wikimedia sections of the entire set of portals have been upgraded. These are now handled on each portal base page (bypassing the previously used corresponding subpages), using the {{Wikimedia for portals}} template rather than reiterated copied/pasted code.

So, to be more accurate on reporting upgrade progress, that's one section down (for the whole set of portals), with (about) nine sections to go. (Skipping curated portals, regarding custom content sections, of course).

Further section conversions (using AWB)

Work is underway on converting Portals' introduction sections, and the categories sections.

If you would like to help, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Upgrade introduction sections and Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#AWB task: Convert category sections

Further section conversions (by hand)

Work has also started with converting selected picture sections to picture slideshow sections. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Install picture slideshows.

Quality rating system for portals under development

Currently, there is no quality rating for portals: in the Portals WikiProject box on each portals' talk page, it just says "Portal". But times are a changin'. Quality assessment is on the way, and you can help. See the discussion.

What's coming: excerpt slideshows

Evad37 has figured out a way to apply the picture slideshow feature to displaying article excerpts (now you can check out the provided box above). :) This allows us to bypass page purging to see the next selection, and you can even click through them rather quickly. Currently, the wikicode for doing this for article excerpts is a bit eye-boggling, and so we are looking into simplifying it. A streamlined version may be just around the corner.

Note that this is a prototype, not ready for widespread use. Click on the box in between the lesser than and greater than signs, to see what I mean. It was meant for pictures, and so the thumbnail feature doesn't apply to article prose very well. I've presented it even though it isn't ready, to show the direction portal development is heading. See the discussion.

Wow

I'm amazed at how rapidly portals are evolving. And we're still within a single generation of portal technological evolution. Imagine what they might be in 2 or 3 more generations of developments. Pretty soon, portals will be able to shake your hand. :)    — The Transhumanist   11:04, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

21:47, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Yoku's Island Express added to WikiProject Yorkshire

Hi, I saw you added Wikipedia:WikiProject Yorkshire to Talk:Yoku's Island Express; however, I do not understand how this game relates to Yorkshire. Could you please explain the connection between Yoku's Island Express and Yorkshire? Biexx (talk) 11:05, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi, relation to Yorkshire is by Team17 which is based in Wakefield. Unless the categories given on the article are incorrect as I was tagging by categorisation. Keith D (talk) 11:10, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for answering. Categories are correct – the game is published by Team17. Biexx (talk) 11:43, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

edit

apologies - not sure how that edit has happened - sorry, I think it was something else at the same time, thanks for fixing JarrahTree 14:07, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Invisible character

Thank you for fixing the invisible character problem on the Rex Linn page after my edit. Can you tell me what exactly this is, what causes them, and how to detect invisible characters so I can be sure to avoid them in my edits? Also, are there editors who patrol for invisible characters to remove them soon after they are added? --Ramanixo (talk) 21:33, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

There are several characters that cause problems in articles, when present, but are not seen by the naked eye. The main reason for them is cut/copy and paste of text from display of pages, where the cut/copy gets a final character that you cannot see.
In the case of Rex Linn the problem showed itself by the article appearing in Category:CS1 errors: dates. Another category that tracks these is Category:CS1 errors: invisible characters. These are hidden categories that you can set to show in your preferences, on the Appearances tab in the "Advanced options" box there is an option to "Show hidden categories".
There are some editors who check for entries in the categories on a regular basis, also there is a BOT that occasionally runs to correct articles with errors. Keith D (talk) 22:03, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

PR for Fawad Khan

Hi Keith, I've recently requested a PR for the article Fawad Khan (see here). It'd be an honour for me if you consider reviewing it. Thanks. Amirk94391 (talk) 16:55, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

I may not be the best person to do this but I will give it a look over and see if there is anything obvious that I can spot. Keith D (talk) 22:08, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

23:10, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #010, 30 June 2018

We've grown to 94 participants.

A warm welcome to dcljr and Kpgjhpjm.

Rating system for portals

We are in the process of developing a rating system specifically for portals, as the quality assessment scheme for articles does not apply to portals. It is coming along nicely. Your input would be very helpful. See the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/General#Proposed new quality class assessments.

Better than a barnstar

One of our participants got involved with this WikiProject through interest in how the new generation of portals would be handled in WP's MOS (Manual of Style). It didn't take long before he got sucked in deeper. This has given him an opportunity to look around, and so, he has made an assessment of this WikiProject's operations:

I'm quite frankly really impressed and inspired by what's happening here. If you'd asked me a year ago if I thought portals should just be scrapped as a failed, dragged-out experiment, I would have said "yes". This planning and the progress toward making it all practical is exemplary of the wiki spirit, in particular of a happy service-to-readers puppy properly wagging its technological and editorial tail instead of the other way around, and without "drama". It's also one of the few examples I've seen in a long time of a new wikiproject actually doing something useful and fomenting constructive activity (instead of acting as a barrier to participation, and a canvassing/ownership farm for PoV pushers). Kudos all around. — SMcCandlish

Congratulations, everyone. Keep up the great work.

Slideshow development

We've run into a glitch with slideshows: they don't work on mobile devices.

Initially, we will need to explore options that allow portals to have slideshows without adversely affecting mobile viewers. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design#Mobile view support.

Eventually, we may need another way to do slideshows. If we do go this route, and I don't see why we wouldn't, then (user configurable) automatic slideshows also become a possibility.

TemplateStyles RfC passed

Once implemented, this will allow editors to create and edit cascading style sheets for use with templates. This will expand what we can do with portals. For more detail, see mw:Extension:TemplateStyles and Wikipedia:TemplateStyles.

Automation effort

We've run into an obstacle using Lua-based selective transclusion: Lua is incapable (on Wikipedia) of reading in article names from categories. Because of this, we'll need to seek other approaches for fully automating the Selected article section. We are exploring sources other than categories, and other technologies besides Lua.

Speaking of using other sources, the template {{Transclude list item excerpt}} collects list items from a specified page, or from a section of that page, and transcludes the lead from a randomly selected link from that list. Courtesy of Certes. So, if you use this in a portal, and if the template specifies a page or section serviced by JL-Bot, you've now got yourself an automatically updated section in the portal. JL-Bot provides links to featured content and good articles, by subject.

What is "fully automated"? When you create a portal using a creation template, and the portal works thereafter without editor intervention, the portal is fully automated. That is, the portal is supported by features that fetch new content. If you have to add new article names every so often for it to display new content, then it is only semi-automated.

Currently, the Selected article section is semi-automated, because it requires that an editor supplies the names of the various articles for which excerpts are (automatically) displayed. For examples, look at the wikisource code of Portal:Reptiles, Portal:Ancient Tamil civilization, and Portal:Reference works.

So far, 3 sections are fully automatable: the introduction section, the categories section, and the Associated Wikimedia section.

Where is all this heading?

Henry.

Or some other name.

Eventually, the portal department will be a software program. And we won't have to do anything (unless we want to). Not even tell it what portals to create (unless we want to). It will just do it all (plus whatever else we want it to do). And we will of course give it good manners, and a name.

But, that is a few years off.

Until then, building portals is still (partially) up to us.    — The Transhumanist   13:32, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Driffield Railway Station

Hi KeithD; I have taken the liberty of replacing your image from Driffield railway station with one of mine showing a train in the station [43]. Feel free to revert if so desired. Best wishes and regards. The joy of all things (talk) 22:49, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I am OK with that change, mine is 10 years old now. Keith D (talk) 00:26, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Yorkshire Newsletter - July 2018

Delivered July 2018 by MediaWiki message delivery.
If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add an N to the column against your username on the Project Mainpage.


08:58, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

00:46, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Keith, please check Governance section of Thornton-le-Dale

Thanks for your assistance on this article. I do not understand governance in North Yorkshire so am not certain that my edit on that section was correctly stated. Thanks, Peter K Burian (talk) 16:32, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I have had an initial stab at this, probably needs some refining to remove redundancy. Keith D (talk) 01:02, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, Keith. And for all the other work on other articles about England. Peter K Burian (talk) 18:23, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2018).

 

  Administrator changes

  PbsouthwoodTheSandDoctor
  Gogo Dodo
  AndrevanDougEVulaKaisaLTony FoxWilyD

  Bureaucrat changes

  AndrevanEVula

  Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC about the deletion of drafts closed with a consensus to change the wording of WP:NMFD. Specifically, a draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at MfD if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion outlined in the deletion policy.
  • A request for comment closed with a consensus that the {{promising draft}} template cannot be used to indefinitely prevent a WP:G13 speedy deletion nomination.

  Technical news

  • Starting on July 9, the WMF Security team, Trust & Safety, and the broader technical community will be seeking input on an upcoming change that will restrict editing of site-wide JavaScript and CSS to a new technical administrators user group. Bureaucrats and stewards will be able to grant this right per a community-defined process. The intention is to reduce the number of accounts who can edit frontend code to those who actually need to, which in turn lessens the risk of malicious code being added that compromises the security and privacy of everyone who accesses Wikipedia. For more information, please review the FAQ.
  • Syntax highlighting has been graduated from a Beta feature on the English Wikipedia. To enable this feature, click the highlighter icon ( ) in your editing toolbar (or under the hamburger menu in the 2017 wikitext editor). This feature can help prevent you from making mistakes when editing complex templates.
  • IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in July (previously scheduled for June). This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.

  Miscellaneous

  • Currently around 20% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 17% a year ago. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless if you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

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