User talk:The Earwig

Nomination for deletion of Template:AfC submission/onhold/sandbox

Template:AfC submission/onhold/sandbox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:37, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2024

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

Administrator changes

• Crisco 1492

• Babajobu
• Daniel
• Elf
• Jayron32
• Thue
• Wugapodes

CheckUser changes

Maxim

Oversighter changes

Maxim

Guideline and policy news

• Following a discussion, the discussion-only period proposal that went for a trial to refine the requests for adminship (RfA) process has been discontinued.
• Following a request for comment, Administrator recall is adopted as a policy.

Technical news

• Mass deletions done with the Nuke tool now have the 'Nuke' tag. This change will make reviewing and analyzing deletions performed with the tool easier. T366068

Arbitration

• RoySmith, Barkeep49 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2024 Arbitration Committee Elections. ThadeusOfNazereth and Dr vulpes are reserve commissioners.
• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate from 3 November 2024 until 12 November 2024 to stand in the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections.
• The Arbitration Committee is seeking volunteers for roles such as clerks, access to the COI queue, checkuser, and oversight.

Miscellaneous

• An unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in November 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!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:21, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 6 November 2024

• From the editors: Editing Wikipedia should not be a crime

• News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation shares ANI lawsuit updates; first admin elections appoint eleven sysops; first admin recalls opened; temporary accounts coming soon?

• In the media: An old scrimmage, politics and purported libel

• Special report: Wikipedia editors face litigation, censorship

• Gallery: Why you should take more photos and upload them

• In focus: Questions and answers about the court case

• Traffic report: Twisted tricks or tempting treats?

• Technology report: Wikimedia tech, the Asian News International case, and the ultra-rare BLACKLOCK

• Humour: Man quietly slinks away from talk page argument after realizing his argument dumb, wrong

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:06, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Reminder to participate in Wikipedia research

Hello,

I recently invited you to take a survey about administration on Wikipedia. If you haven’t yet had a chance, there is still time to participate– we’d truly appreciate your feedback. The survey is anonymous and should take about 10-15 minutes to complete. You may read more about the study on its Meta page and view its privacy statement.

Take the survey here.

Kind Regards,

WMF Research Team

BGerdemann (WMF) (talk) 00:18, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

CSS styles use tool

Hi, I'm the administrator of niawiki with limited coding knowledge.

I wonder whether there is a tool, that can detect unused styles from MediaWiki:Common.css? Is there a tool for finding out which styles are used by which pages?

Thank you in advance and sorry if I wrongly ask it here. slaiatalk 17:24, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi Slaia, thanks for your question. Unfortunately I'm not aware of a tool to do this, and it seems like a difficult problem in general. You could try to search for references to class names across pages, but that's not easy and won't work for every style rule (or even most rules). Looking at enwiki's MediaWiki:Common.css, the rules are very different and you have to understand what they are trying to do to figure out where they are used. Fortunately some rules have comments explaining this.

I suggest you ask again at the technical village pump where more people will see this question, and maybe be more specific about why you are trying to do this in case there is another way to do what you want? — The Earwig (talk) 04:53, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll do as you suggested. slaiatalk 05:31, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 November 2024

• News and notes: Open letter to WMF about court case breaks one thousand signatures, big arb case declined, U4C begins accepting cases

• In the media: Summons issued for Wikipedia editors by Indian court, "Gaza genocide" RfC close in news, old admin Gwern now big AI guy, and a "spectrum of reluctance" over Australian place names

• Recent research: SPINACH: AI help for asking Wikidata "challenging real-world questions"

• News from the WMF: Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Endowment audit reports: FY 2023–2024

• Traffic report: Well, let us share with you our knowledge, about the electoral college

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:44, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

ArbCom 2024 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 2 December 2024. 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 2024 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) 00:21, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Copyvio detector not working properly

Hello Ben, sorry to bother you but I am having a problem with the copyvio detector tool. It is failing when I attempt to search using the search engine, or if I attempt to search using the links in the page. It works only if I have a specific url I want to compare against. here is an example of what I am getting when attempting a search on Station Eleven (miniseries) (this search requested both search engine and links in page). Thank you! --Diannaa (talk) 14:01, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Hi, @Diannaa! Thanks for reporting. This issue should be resolved now. Please feel free to reply if there's any further issues! :D Chlod (say hi!) 14:13, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Yay! Back to work. Thanks Chlod. Diannaa (talk) 14:14, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2024

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

Administrator changes

• Ahecht
• DoubleGrazing
• Dr vulpes
• FOARP
• Peaceray
• Queen of Hearts
• Rsjaffe
• SD0001
• SilverLocust
• Sohom Datta
• ThadeusOfNazereth
• Voorts

• Ajpolino
• Fathoms Below
• Pppery
• Tamzin
• Worm That Turned

• Aervanath
• Christopher Sundita
• Dank
• Dennis Brown
• Dragons flight
• Fastily
• Graham87
• JaGa
• Kbh3rd
• Marine 69-71
• Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington
• Yamamoto Ichiro

Interface administrator changes

• SD0001
• Sohom Datta

Pppery

CheckUser changes

• Spicy
• TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RFC, the policy on restoration of adminship has been updated. All former administrators may now only regain the tools following a request at the Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard within 5 years of their most recent admin action. Previously this applied only to administrators deysopped for inactivity.
• Following a request for comment, a new speedy deletion criterion, T5, has been enacted. This applies to template subpages that are no longer used.

Technical news

• Technical volunteers can now register for the 2025 Wikimedia Hackathon, which will take place in Istanbul, Turkey. Application for travel and accommodation scholarships is open from November 12 to December 10, 2024.

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Yasuke (formerly titled Backlash to diversity and inclusion) has been closed.
• An arbitration case titled Palestine-Israel articles 5 has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case will close on 14 December.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:20, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Happy holidays!

Hello The Earwig: 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, MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 00:45, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 00:45, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, MrLinkinPark333! Same to you. — The Earwig (talk) 20:56, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 December 2024

• News and notes: Arbitrator election concludes

• Arbitration report: Palestine-Israel articles 5

• Disinformation report: Sex, power, and money revisited

• Op-ed: On the backrooms by Tamzin

• In focus: Are Wikipedia articles representative of Western or world knowledge?

• In the media: Like the BBC, often useful but not impartial

• Traffic report: Something Wicked for almost everybody

• Opinion: Worm That Turned's reconfirmation RfA debriefing

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:59, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Happy holidays!

Happy holidays and a prosperous 2025!

Earwig, I really enjoyed our walk together at WCNA this fall. I hope to see you at WCNA2025 :) Thank you for working on oauth for your copyvio tool; NPPers and CCIers alike really appreciate being able to use it for real. Happy holidays, and have a great 2025. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 05:50, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks HouseBlaster! Hope you have a happy holidays too and look forward to seeing you at WCNA 2025 next year! — The Earwig (talk) 06:03, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

Hello The Earwig: 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, AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 02:23, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

The Signpost: 24 December 2024

• News and notes: Responsibilities and liabilities as a "Very Large Online Platform"

• Op-ed: Beeblebrox on Wikipediocracy, the Committee, and everything

• Opinion: Graham87 on being the first-ever administrator recall subject

• In the media: Delhi High Court considers Caravan and Ken for evaluating the ANI vs. WMF case

• From the archives: Where to draw the line in reporting?

• Recent research: "Wikipedia editors are quite prosocial", but those motivated by "social image" may put quantity over quality

• Humour: Backlash over Santa Claus' Wikipedia article intensifies

• Gallery: A feast of holidays and carols

• Traffic report: Was a long and dark December

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:03, 25 December 2024 (UTC)