User talk:TheSandDoctor/Archives/2018/May

Tech News: 2018-19

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 Wikimedia Commons mobile app has a new version. It is now easier to find nearby places that need pictures. It helps you with direct uploads and title and category suggestions. The app only works on Android phones. [1]

Problems

• The abuse filters had a problem with blocks where you had changed how long they last. It used the default length everywhere. This was in late April. Abuse filter users should make sure the right block length is used and change them if needed. This is only for filters where how long blocks last had been changed. [2]

Changes later this week

• The advanced search function beta feature will be on all Wikimedia wikis. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. [3]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 May. It will be on all wikis from 10 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 8 May at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 9 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• All wikis with fewer than 100 high-priority linter errors in the main namespace will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 16 May. Other wikis will switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed on all wikis before July 2018. [4][5]

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

16:28, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-20

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

• Dynamic maps are now available on most Wikipedias. Labels on maps can also be in different languages.
• The new Advanced Search interface is now available as a Beta Feature on all wikis. This makes it easier to learn about and to use many of the powerful options in our search. Feedback is appreciated. [6]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 May. It will be on all wikis from 17 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 16 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• In the mobile view, warnings for when something is wrong with a page are not as clear as they should be. The developers are working on this. You can give feedback and suggestions.
• The developers are working on making the Wikipedia Android app available in more languages. You can give feedback, suggestions and help test it. Read more on mediawiki.org [7]

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

22:22, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Article title: "Fiscal policy debate"

Greetings, SandDoctor. I placed a redirect to the article "Monetary/Fiscal Policy Debate" that takes the user to the article "Fiscal policy debate." The redirect was meant to be a temporary one; the current title is incorrect since it naturally leads users to assume the text is about fiscal policy per see. It isn't; it's about the debates that took place at the time about the merits and pitfalls of monetary as opposed to fiscal policy. Therefore, I intend to have the title changed, e.g. have the text under something like "AM/FM debate", "Monetary/Fiscal Debate", or "Monetary/Fiscal Policy Debate" and then place a redirect under "Fiscal policy debate." What do you think? -The Gnome (talk) 07:10, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@The Gnome: To clarify, which title are you thinking of changing? The destination of the redirect? --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 14:00, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I believe the proper title for the (destination) article is something like "Monetary/fiscal debate" (short and accurate), with redirects to it placed under titles such as "Monetary/fiscal policy debate," "AM/FM debate," etc. -The Gnome (talk) 16:23, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

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

Administrator changes

None

Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060

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

• The Arbitration Committee is seeking additional clerks to help with the arbitration process.

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.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Coding Bootcamp

Good Day to you sir and thank you for reviewing my redirect. I tried to fix up the coding bootcamp article as much as possible in accordance with WP:PROMO I was wondering if you could give a second opinion and look it over to make sure I didn't miss anything, I posted about the several issues the article has on its talk page. Also I'm glad to meet a fellow coder. --Have a great day , Sanjev Rajaram (talk) 02:14, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello there and sorry for the delay Sanjev Rajaram. I have taken a look at the before and after versions and agree that you have taken most if not all of the promotional material out of it. That said, the lead still does not adequately summarize its contents, but that wasn't what you asked about and is fairly minor. You have done a great job so far. As for meeting a fellow programmer, it is always nice to know there are at least a few of us around . --All the best, TheSandDoctor ^Talk 22:38, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Improper redirect

I believe this is an improper redirect. The article you redirected, Cuéntame como pasó, is about a TV program in Argentina, whereas the article you redirected to, Cuéntame cómo pasó, is about a TV program in Spain. Same title, different programs. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 12:04, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

@WikiDan61: Hi Dan, you are correct. Thanks for reverting. Not sure if that article will be able to stand on its own though; time (and willing editors) will tell I guess. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 22:21, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

It's poorly written, I'll agree, but a TV show that was broadcast on the national public TV station probably gets an automatic pass on WP:N. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 22:51, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Help regarding suggested changes

Dear Madam/ Sir,

Thanks for the review. Kindly help me edit my article. You seem to have given 2 different reasons- 1. to add more reliable sources 2. to add footnotes

Kindly help me understand these better as I am unable to understand how to take this forward.

My husband is a public figure in India and we need this article to be published urgently.

Shall be extremely grateful for the same.

Regards, Neha — Preceding unsigned comment added by NehaSingh88 (talk • contribs) 18:18, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Hello NehaSingh88c I will answer your question in a second but just have to say this first. Editing topics/articles in which you have a conflict of interest is strongly discouraged and recommended against. Perhaps Requesting the article be made by an independent editor might be the best approach?

If you still wish to work on this draft though, I would advise reading WP:REFB and this guide on creating your first article. You are strongly encouraged to declare your conflict of interest on the draft's Draft talk:Sahil Vedoliyaa (following the directions listed at WP:DISCLOSE). If you are being paid in any way to create the article then you must declare that information. With that said, please do rest assured that just because you have a conflict of interest does not mean you cannot write a neutral well-sourced article. In stating that someone has a conflict of interest, it is not a judgment about that person's state of mind or integrity.

If you have any questions or anything is unclear, please do feel free to let me know. We are here to help, I just have to also let you know about the rules around editing in areas where you have a conflict of interest. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 22:29, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

How to get YouTube channel articles approved

Good Morning

What sources would you recommend to post a youtube channel to Wiki?

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Swiss001 (talk • contribs) 12:52, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi there Swiss001, I will answer your question in a second but just have to say this first. Editing topics/articles in which you have a conflict of interest is strongly discouraged and recommended against. Perhaps Requesting the article be made by an independent editor might be the best approach?

If you still wish to work on this draft though, in order to satisfy the relevant notability guideline, there must be significant independent coverage in reliable sources. Unfortunately, most YouTube channels do not satisfy this, even those with millions of subscribers. With that said, if there is substantial coverage in reliable independent sources, it should be accepted once those are added and the draft satisfies the minimum requirements for inline citations. I would recommend reading this guide for creating your first article and this guide to referencing. You are strongly encouraged to declare your conflict of interest on the draft's talk page (following the directions listed at WP:DISCLOSE). With that said, please do rest assured that just because you have a conflict of interest does not mean you cannot write a neutral well-sourced article. In stating that someone has a conflict of interest, it is not a judgment about that person's state of mind or integrity.

If you have any questions or anything is unclear, please do feel free to let me know. We are here to help, I just have to also let you know about the rules around editing in areas where you have a conflict of interest. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 01:10, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

RE: Review for AJBER

Dear TheSandDoctor,

I hope this meets you well. Thank you for your review. However, the Wikipedia Writing Guide for Academic Journals states "As a rule of thumb, if a journal is indexed in selective bibliographic databases in its field, or has an impact factor, this will be enough to establish notability" and the one on notability for academic journal adds that "A notable journal thus refers to a publication being known for its publishing of scholarly research in the spirit of WP:GNG. These criteria are independent from the other subject-specific notability guidelines, such as WP:NBIO, WP:NORG, etc. Journals found to be notable under these criteria are likely to be reliable sources". I have referenced the various databases where the journal in question is indexed with the links to such occurrences on the various title lists of the indexers.

I feel it is worthy of note that a good number of journals I have checked have these sources as reference, a lot of them do not even have that. Examples here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Journal_of_Range_%26_Forage_Science, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Journal_of_Reproductive_Health, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Journal_of_Aquatic_Science, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Journal_of_Marine_Science, and a lot of others. You will agree with me that it is not commonplace for journals to make the news.

I hope this will be enough, but I am open to further pointers and corrections, if there are any.

Best regards,

Yahai — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mal. Yahai (talk • contribs) 16:58, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi there Mal. Yahai, sorry for the late response. The criteria I was (partly) going off was the notability essay for journals itself. With that said, oddly enough, neither are policies/guidelines, and therefore do not hold the same weight in a deletion discussion if it were to come to that (until one of them achieves guideline status). Articles must satisfy a notability guideline (that is ratified), if no specific/specialized guideline covers the subject matter, then it falls back to the general notability guideline (GNG). GNG (and virtually all guidelines) state/imply that reliable independent sources are needed.

Pretending for a second that NJOURNAL was a guideline, it would not have satisfied it still though due to the lack of independent sources ("If a journal meets any of the following criteria, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources..."). In the end, essays are useful, but they do not replace or outweigh guidelines. This all appears to be moot though, as I see that since then the draft was deleted by Primefac as being a copyright violation.

If you have any questions, please do feel free to let me know. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 22:14, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Dear Doc, me again. Please, can you suggest what some of these independent sources may be and an example of their usage in the context of academic journals?

Many thanks...and have a cookie! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mal. Yahai (talk • contribs) 01:33, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

For the other journals, keep in mind that WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, but for African Journal of Range & Forage Science / African Journal of Aquatic Science / African Journal of Marine Science all have impact factors (selective), and African Journal of Reproductive Health is in Index Medicus (highly selective), so they all meet WP:NJOURNALS, even if sourcing is not the best. According to MIAR: 1750-4554 AJBER is indexed in ABI/INFORM and Business Source Elite/Premier, but I'm not very familiar with those databases or whether or not they are selective. WP:BUSINESS may be able to offer insight there, or User:DGG/User:Randykitty. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:01, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

@Mal. Yahai:--TheSandDoctor ^Talk 15:08, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• The GNG is not a principle of nature or even a policy of Wikipedia. It's a guideline applicable to subjects where such references exist, can be found by the resources available to wikipedians, and have some elation to ordinary concepts of importance in the subject. None of the three is true here:by and large none but very famous or controversial journals are discussed in third party sources except by inclusion on lists, such rare sources that exist tend to be in documents not accessible to the public, and there's no relationship of ordinary third party sourcing to the importance of the journals to scientists or the public. For mainstream research journals published in the US and Western Europe in the sciences and quantitative social sciences, there are however good measures of significance, which is the citation data for the journal, which determines its presence in the most important general indexes, Other fields need more indirect measures, such as the presence in libraries or other evidence of their relative significance. DGG ( talk ) 16:08, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi there TheSandDoctor and DGG,

Thank you for your feedback. Being quite new to contributing on wikipedia, and this being my first article, it was indeed eye opening, and greatly appreciated. The databases, ABI/INFORM and Business Elite/Premier, are popular with the African scholars the journal (AJBER) services, and are also selective. I was also wondering if the ICDS number provided by MIAR could help in any way in establishing notability. In which case, how can they be best cited?

Once again, thank you for your time.

Mal. Yahai (talk) 09:03, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello again. Please is citation information on Google Scholar for some of the individual articles admissible? Here are some results from querying Google Scholar. Also, there's a rating by Australian Business Dean Council (ABDC) here. Please let me know if I am approaching this the right way. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mal. Yahai (talk • contribs) 16:49, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• What I think might help is to show that the journals are the major or one of the major places where work in the field gets published. You can see what journals they cite, and see if those journals cite them (for journals in JCR, this is tabulated, but for other journals, you have to measure a sample yourself). You can find a review article or recent book on a relevant topic, and see to what extent it cites these journals.

There is another approach, which may work as a first step. It should be possible to make a list article for List of Journals in African Studies. For a list of this sort, they do not have to be individually notable, and the information given can include dates ofpublication, names of editor in chief, and key indexes. DGG ( talk ) 19:11, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Courtesy ping @Mal. Yahai: --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 23:01, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Greetings! It turns out there is already a list, so I just added the journal in question. I wish to put the said information - about publication dates, editor and indexes - in a stub to that effect. Please let me know what you think. Many thanks. Mal. Yahai (talk) 14:28, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Verifying that a page is not a copy of another page

• Coconutyou3 (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Lycée Français de Sofia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hello, I’m trying to improve an article that is currently waiting for a review and at the bottom it says that: “Warning: The page Lycée Français de Sofia redirects to Lycée Français Victor Hugo (Bulgaria). Please verify that it is not a copy of this submission and that this page does not need to be moved to a different title.” I wanted to ask, how exactly do I do that? Thank you in advance for your help. Coconutyou3 (talk) 08:41, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

I there Coconutyou3, generally you look at both pages and see if the two are about the same subject. In this case, it appears that the draft is an expanded version of this section. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 15:36, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello again, thank you for your response but the page I’m trying to create is for an entirely different school, it has a wiki page in bulgarian and I wanted to make one in English. Do you have tips on what I can do to prevent it from being merged with the page of the other school? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Coconutyou3 (talk • contribs) 16:28, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi there Coconutyou3, sorry for the delay in my response. It looks like legacypac accepted the draft after joe decker deleted the redirect. Congratulations on having your first article accepted! Keep up the good work! --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 22:54, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Your BRFA

Hello, your recent BRFA (Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DeprecatedFixerBot 3) has been approved, with a ramp up schedule. Please see the BRFA for initial throttle requirements. The throttle requirement is to allow time for any editor feedback of errors that are only present in cases that were not able to be discovered in the trials. Should you discovery any minor bugs: stop operations, repair them, then restart the ramp-up schedule. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 15:23, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Thank you and will do. Just to clarify, is an instance of the bot reverting its own edit because it caught itself in an edge case result in a restart of the ramp up? (Of course, I will be looking for self reverts and figuring out what went wrong. I will add to the bot something that prints them out to a text file for ease of access.) --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 15:46, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Not really unless you see something significant, the point is that sometimes at volume other editors will find something that you never though of and to give some space for it. Having been in that situation myself (with one slightly overgreedy regex and an unusual way references were in user on either plwiki or ptwiki) it is much easier then going back and reverting a bunch of edits for everyone. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:52, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Thanks for the clarification and your help. (Rhetorical question to the cosmos:) Why did the code work properly during the trials and then the moment it was approved start editing pages with embedded string errors already present? I solved it (mistake in comparing titles; was comparing string and site object, which obviously never matched), but I don't get why it never showed up in the trials.

Oh well, now that that is resolved, I will be transferring it to my server momentarily to run larger sets per the ramp up schedule. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 02:36, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Suggestions for wiki article

Hello,

I would love to get more info about what edits you think should I make in order to get my wiki article posted. I think its a worthwhile topic and am interested in hearing your input. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AminMortada (talk • contribs) 19:37, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi there AminMortada, sorry for the delay in my response. I would recommend reading this guide to creating your first article, this guide to referencing, and this page about reliable sources. Perhaps it would be worth looking at the Further reading section of the draft and see if any of them could be used as references in the draft? I have not looked into them, but if The New York Times or The Independent were useable sources for this, then that would most likely help notability of the topic. I would also suggest reviewing the other declination comments on the draft. Hopefully this helps, if I was not clear or you have any questions, please feel free to let me know. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 02:31, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Just a thought

So I know this happened like two months ago, but if a talk page only has one thread, there's not much point in archiving that thread, even if the conversation is "over". Archiving really is only necessary after you get a half-dozen threads and the page starts getting a little lengthy. Primefac (talk) 21:16, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

@Primefac: I had archived it since it was over a year old and long past being (very) relevant. With that said, point taken. Thanks for taking the time to reach out. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 23:25, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

resubmission

Hello, I have made the changes you requested and resubmitted it. (I hope I did it correctly)

please let me know if I have other things needed fixing.

thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabiharan (talk • contribs) 23:21, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

@Gabiharan: I reviewed it. Unfortunately it is not yet ready for acceptance. Please see my comments in the declination. If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know. I am happy to help where possible . --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 23:33, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

@TheSandDoctor: thank you. Took another shot at it. Please tell me what you think. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabiharan (talk • contribs) 13:35, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi there Gabiharan, unfortunately the majority of it remains unsourced and, as such, cannot be accepted at this time in accordance to the minimum sourcing/citation requirements of the biography of living persons guideline. Please see the {{unsourced section}} and {{single source}} templates on the draft for the unsourced sections. I also took a look at the changes which you made since I last edited the draft, and they did not add any major sourcing (one source added, a space removed, one sentence expanded, and one paragraph split into two). The draft will require more reliable independent sourcing (and inline citations) to address the concerns raised in the declination comments and here. If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 13:52, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

hi TheSandDoctor I've edited my page again. I hope I've added enough citation. thank you' Gabi Haran — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabiharan (talk • contribs) 18:00, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Almost done with div col parameter fixes?

It looks like your bot is almost done with {{div col}} parameter fixes. Thank you so much for taking on this work. Can you please post a note on the template's talk page when your bot has made as many fixes as it can? We humans will be able to clean up the last few hundred strangely formatted templates. Thanks!

I have noticed that the bot appears to be ignoring the redirect {{col div}}, and for some reason appears to be skipping many U.S. county articles, like Grand Traverse County, Michigan. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:28, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: The task is on hold per the above discussion. I will definitely post a note once they are completed. As for missing {{col div}}, I don't have time to check fully right now, but it does appear that it was indeed missed as a template to look for in the bot's code. Cases like that will become more prominent as there are fewer and fewer articles left in the category. For both the columns list and div col categories, there are a few pages at the start of each (now, they weren't at the start before) that the bot simply does not like and refuses to edit (for the former it kept trying to convert text to an int and failing); I will look into those cases and find a proper solution to actually deal with those problematic pages once the others are cleared out and shall re-run the bot with col div added (thanks for pointing that out). I will look into these in more detail and continue running the bot once the above (discussion) is resolved, but in the meantime I am about to hit the sack before I turn into a pumpkin; early start tomorrow. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 06:32, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Got time for the Thai name sort bot?

Hi. This is a small nudge regarding the Thai name sort bot discussed at Wikipedia talk:Categorization of people#Thai names. We haven't had an update in a while—though it's completely understandable if you're still busy, of course. Just wondering if it's still on your to-do list. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:29, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

@Paul 012: I recognized your username immediately upon getting the email notification. So sorry for the delay. I am getting ready for work at the moment, but I will definitely get on this. With finals etc (at end of April) I am not afraid to admit that this totally slipped my mind. Sorry! --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 14:36, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your nice email about my user page

Wishing you the exact right number of cookies, whether that number is 3, 4, 5, or other.

HouseOfChange (talk) 19:13, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

@HouseOfChange: You're welcome! Thank you for the cookies! --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 22:45, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

DeprecatedFixerBot broke "columns-list" template in Robert Vaughn

Hi,

I notice that a change made by your bot here is apparently the reason that the content in the "Television" section of Robert Vaughn disappeared.

Perhaps you can look into this. Thanks,

Ubcule (talk) 21:46, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

@Ubcule: Hi there, that is strange. I have gone ahead and resolved it by just removing the "2", therefore setting it to the default of 30em. That doesn't make sense that that happened, especially since the new default still worked. Not sure what the issue was. This is the first time I have heard of it in over 20-40k articles being converted to the new standard. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 22:08, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

In this version, there are two positional parameters: param 1 is |2 and param 2 is the list. By removing the |2 the list has been moved to param 1. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:13, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

@Redrose64: The value of "2" was just replaced with "colwidth=30em", not removed. Param 2 still was param 2? Pipes were still separating as desired? Or are you referring to the intricacies of unnamed parameters and that once |colwidth= replaced the first unnamed parameter, the second unnamed parameter was treated as the first (just a guess, I am trying to figure out what exactly you are getting at)? Please also see the section further up with the poll --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 00:18, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

This was a GIGO problem. There was a third unnamed parameter in the original template, left over from a wikitable, apparently. I have fixed the original problem with this edit. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:53, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) None of us saw that by the looks of it. Thanks for spotting and resolving Jonesey95! (I guess that's why you're called a template editor and we're I'm not ) --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 00:59, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I have created Category:Pages using columns-list with unknown parameters in order to unearth any more template problems that could cause this problem in future edits. Once the bot's work is done and we remove |2= from {{columns-list}}, the category will find any bot edits like the one above that humans have not noticed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:57, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for creating that Jonesey. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 00:59, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

once |colwidth= replaced the first unnamed parameter, the second unnamed parameter was treated as the first - exactly so. The MediaWiki template parser inspects each parameter in turn to see if it contains an equals sign (such as |colwidth=30em): if so, it treats these as named parameters; if there is no equals sign, the parameter is treated as a positional parameter, and these are numbered strictly left to right. So in a situation like {{template|valueA|paramP=xyz|valueB}}, the fact that the named parameter |paramP=xyz occurs between the positional parameters |valueA and |valueB doesn't change the numbering of |valueB which is the second positional parameter; if |valueA were to be removed, or replaced with a named parameter, |valueB becomes the first positional parameter. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:53, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Category:Pages using columns-list with unknown parameters ended up with 40 or 50 articles, all of which I fixed. The category is currently empty, and has been that way for at least 12 hours. I'm pretty sure that means that the deprecated parameter category is ready for continued work by the bot without running into any more problems like the one above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:36, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-21

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 22 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 May. It will be on all wikis from 24 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• It could become easier to reference different pages of a book in an article. You can give feedback. The last day for feedback is 27 May.

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

17:34, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.11 25 May 2018

Hello TheSandDoctor/Archives/2018, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!

ACTRIAL:

• WP:ACREQ has been implemented. The flow at the feed has dropped back to the levels during the trial. However, the backlog is on the rise again so please consider reviewing a few extra articles each day; a backlog approaching 5,000 is still far too high. An effort is also needed to ensure that older unsuitable older pages at the back of the queue do not get automatically indexed for Google.

Deletion tags

• Do bear in mind that articles in the feed showing the trash can icon may have been tagged by inexperienced or non NPR rights holders. They require your further verification.

Backlog drive:

• A backlog drive will take place from 10 through 20 June. Check out our talk page at WT:NPR for more details. NOTE: It is extremely important that we focus on quality reviewing. Despite our goal of reducing the backlog as much as possible, please do not rush while reviewing.

Editathons

• There will be a large increase in the number of editathons in June. Please be gentle with new pages that obviously come from good faith participants, especially articles from developing economies and ones about female subjects. Consider using the 'move to draft' tool rather than bluntly tagging articles that may have potential but which cannot yet reside in mainspace.

Paid editing - new policy

• Now that ACTRIAL is ACREQ, please be sure to look for tell-tale signs of undisclosed paid editing. Contact the creator if appropriate, and submit the issue to WP:COIN if necessary. There is a new global WMF policy that requires paid editors to connect to their adverts.

Subject-specific notability guidelines

• The box at the right contains each of the subject-specific notability guidelines, please review any that are relevant BEFORE nominating an article for deletion.
• Reviewers are requested to familiarise themselves with the new version of the notability guidelines for organisations and companies.

Not English

• A common issue: Pages not in English or poor, unattributed machine translations should not reside in main space even if they are stubs. Please ensure you are familiar with WP:NPPNE. Check in Google for the language and content, tag as required, then move to draft if they do have potential.

News

• Development is underway by the WMF on upgrades to the New Pages Feed, in particular ORES features that will help to identify COPYVIOs, and more granular options for selecting articles to review.
• The next issue of The Signpost has been published. The newspaper is one of the best ways to stay up to date with news and new developments. between our newsletters.

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Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:35, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Rivers

Godavari is known as Vridha Ganga not Dakshin Ganga. Kaveri river is known as Dakshin Ganga. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.133.236.221 (talk) 05:52, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi there 112. I am not sure what edit I made you are referring to, perhaps with some more context I could be of assistance? I would recommend creating an account as well as that would help to avoid such confusion in the future. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 06:07, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

No New Friends & Suffering From Success

(This is task #1!) TSD, saw your bots fixes; So sorry! I must've accidentally done this when editing. I'm not new to Wiki but new to this parameter fix stuff. All & any help is appreciated. Thanks. 2602:306:8B7A:2A10:75A5:80A1:FC9D:8204 (talk) 12:47, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Not to worry! Parameters that are now deprecated at one point were standard practice/not deprecated, maybe that was when you added it? --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 13:33, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response. Might've been; thanks again. 2602:306:8B7A:2A10:75A5:80A1:FC9D:8204 (talk) 01:53, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-22

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 use global preferences on most wikis. This means you can set preferences for all wikis at the same time. Before this you had to change them on each individual wiki. Global preferences will come to the Wikipedias later this week. [8][9]
• It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked. [10]
• Wikidata now supports lexicographical data. This helps describe words.
• There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups. [11]
• Some rare invisible Unicode characters have recently been banned from page titles. This includes soft hyphens (U+00AD) and left-to-right (U+2066) and right-to-left (U+2067) isolate markers. Existing pages with these characters will soon be moved by a script. [12]
• There's a new Wikimedia Foundation team to support the Wikimedia technical communities. It's called the Technical Engagement team. Most of the team members did similar work in other teams before this. [13]

Problems

• Some translatable pages are showing old translations instead of latest ones. The cause of this issue has been fixed. We will update all pages automatically to show the latest translations. [14]

Changes later this week

• There will be a new special page named PasswordPolicies. This page gives information about the password rules for each user group on that wiki. [15]
• A new way to see moved paragraphs in diffs is coming to most wikis. This is to make it easier to find the moved paragraphs and the changes in them. [16]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 May. It will be on all wikis from 31 May (calendar).
• Wikis can enable Citoid to provide automatic reference look-up in the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. This is complex. The tool will now disable itself if the configuration isn't correct. It has warned about this in the JavaScript console since February. Check that your wiki is configured correctly. You can ask for help if you need it. [17]

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 29 May at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 30 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Content Translation drafts which have not been updated in over a year will be removed. This allows other users to translate those articles. [18]
• A survey is collecting information on what users think about how Wikimedia wiki pages are loaded. This information could be used in future development. [19]
• Some wikis will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 30 May and 13 June. Wikis with fewer than 100 linter issues in the main namespace in all high-priority linter categories will switch. This includes Wikidata. Tidy will probably be removed on all wikis in the first week of July. [20][21]

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

12:40, 29 May 2018 (UTC)