TheSandDoctor

Coming here to ask why I deleted your article? Please read this page first...

Coming here to ask about a block or other admin action that I have issued on another WMF wiki where I am an admin? Please discuss on your talk page there (if you have Talk Page Access) and ping me as it has nothing to do with enwiki and is outside of its processes. Please also do not assume that that WMF wiki has the same blocking policy or processes as enwiki. If you have any questions about another WMF wiki or my actions on such edition, please leave it on my talk page on that wiki and I will see it as a notification/get back to you. enwiki is not the appropriate place to discuss concerns from other WMF wikis

RfA candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report RfB candidate S O N S% Ending (UTC) Time left Dups? Report No RfXs since 00:50, 23 June 2024 (UTC).—cyberbot ITalk to my owner:Online

• This user dreams that their talk page will be full of cookies, cake, pie, and every other delicious delicacy
  

DYK for South by South Lawn

On 18 July 2024, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article South by South Lawn, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the 2016 festival South by South Lawn included a panel discussion on climate change led by President Obama? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/South by South Lawn. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, South by South Lawn), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 00:15, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Seven years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:56, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Question from Tayyab121 (05:17, 22 July 2024)

Hello,

I would like to contribute by uploading a biographical article from my account. Could you please provide me with the detailed steps to do so?

Thank you. --Tayyab121 (talk) 05:17, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello Tayyab121! I would also strongly advise not writing about yourself as you have an inherent (and unavoidable) conflict of interest. Having a Wikipedia article that discusses you also isn't always a good thing. If you insist on moving forward, please read this page, see this guide, and review the relevant notability guideline. You'll have to demonstrate that the article subject is wiki-"notable" by demonstrating in-depth coverage in multiple secondary sources that are reliable and intellectually independent. This page might help shed a bit of light. TheSandDoctor ^Talk 03:33, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-30

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

Feature News

• Stewards can now globally block accounts. Before the change only IP addresses and IP ranges could be blocked globally. Global account blocks are useful when the blocked user should not be logged out. Global locks (a similar tool logging the user out of their account) are unaffected by this change. The new global account block feature is related to the Temporary Accounts project, which is a new type of user account that replaces IP addresses of unregistered editors that are no longer made public.
• Later this week, Wikimedia site users will notice that the Interface of FlaggedRevs (also known as "Pending Changes") is improved and consistent with the rest of the MediaWiki interface and Wikimedia's design system. The FlaggedRevs interface experience on mobile and Minerva skin was inconsistent before it was fixed and ported to Codex by the WMF Growth team and some volunteers. [1]
• Wikimedia site users can now submit account vanishing requests via GlobalVanishRequest. This feature is used when a contributor wishes to stop editing forever. It helps you hide your past association and edit to protect your privacy. Once processed, the account will be locked and renamed. [2]
• Have you tried monitoring and addressing vandalism in Wikipedia using your phone? A Diff blog post on Patrolling features in the Mobile App highlights some of the new capabilities of the feature, including swiping through a feed of recent changes and a personal library of user talk messages for use when patrolling from your phone.
• Wikimedia contributors and GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) organisations can now learn and measure the impact Wikimedia Commons is having towards creating quality encyclopedic content using the Commons Impact Metrics analytics dashboard. The dashboard offers organizations analytics on things like monthly edits in a category, the most viewed files, and which Wikimedia articles are using Commons images. As a result of these new data dumps, GLAM organisation can more reliably measure their return on investment for programs bringing content into the digital Commons. [3]

Project Updates

• Come share your ideas for improving the wikis on the newly reopened Community Wishlist. The Community Wishlist is Wikimedia’s forum for volunteers to share ideas (called wishes) to improve how the wikis work. The new version of the wishlist is always open, works with both wikitext and Visual Editor, and allows wishes in any language.

Learn more

• Have you ever wondered how Wikimedia software works across over 300 languages? This is 253 languages more than the Google Chrome interface, and it's no accident. The Language and Product Localization Team at the Wikimedia Foundation supports your work by adapting all the tools and interfaces in the MediaWiki software so that contributors in our movement who translate pages and strings can translate them and have the sites in all languages. Read more about the team and their upcoming work on Diff.
• How can Wikimedia build innovative and experimental products while maintaining such heavily used websites? A recent blog post by WMF staff Johan Jönsson highlights the work of the WMF Future Audience initiative, where the goal is not to build polished products but test out new ideas, such as a ChatGPT plugin and Add a Fact, to help take Wikimedia into the future.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. You can also get other news from the Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin.

MediaWiki message delivery 00:02, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Question from GrooveLab (01:44, 28 July 2024)

Hello, I am a new here. I am still learning and want to contribute on Wikipedia. My question is how can I find the subject which are notable enough so I can create article on them. I understand that the articles can be created if a subject is notable but how can I asses of whether it is notable or not? I would appreciate if you could teach me. Thanks! --GrooveLab (talk) 01:44, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi GrooveLab! That is a very good question! Understanding Wikipedia's notability guidelines definitely takes some time and experience, and even then you sometimes get it wrong. Though not the full picture necessarily, a good starting point would be asking yourself if that subject has been covered extensively by news media. If it is a person, have they been profiled by The New York Times? LA Times? BBC? Some other large and reputable news publication? Have they been profiled or covered repeatedly by others as well? If so, there is probably a strong argument for notability there, especially if that coverage has been over time. International coverage by reliable sources also definitely is a good sign, though not strictly necessary (if the LA Times and NYT and WSJ report in-depth on the same topic, you're probably okay, for example).

One thing that I would recommend looking out for is making a quick cross-reference with WP:RSP. A source not having an entry there is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does, for example, tell you when Rolling Stone or Forbes articles are suitable and where they're not. (For Rolling Stone it's anything but politics & society & "Culture Council", for Forbes it's staff written articles.)

While this is not a golden rule, I would recommend reading this short essay as it might help shed some light a bit better on sourcing and how that can help establish notability.

Where do your interests lie? Do you have any ideas for articles? TheSandDoctor ^Talk 15:30, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Question from FriendOfSira (23:27, 28 July 2024)

Hello to TheSandDoctor! I'm a biblical scholar who's published on the Book of Ben Sira, and there's a section on Wikipedia's webpage for "Ben Sira” that will mislead readers. The section marked “Legend” needs to be removed from the page, since the text is NOT a legend, it’s a specific booklet, The Alphabet of Ben Sira (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_of_Sirach). That was written may centuries after BBS, by someone who disliked Ben Sira (I imagine someone in colonial USA getting tired of hearing “early to bed, early to rise…” and ending the rhyme with “your gal goes out with other guys,” as in the blues song.) The Ben Sira page could also use quotes from authors who mention that Ben Sira alluded to Eve and to Cain with no mention of a Fall or fratricide. Thanks for any help! Teresa --FriendOfSira (talk) 23:27, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi FriendOfSira! Thank you for reaching out. I've removed the content as it was a word-for-word copy-paste job for the most part of, from what I can tell, a book still protected by US copyright law until 2029. Do you have any other sources or something that you believe the section should be replaced with? TheSandDoctor ^Talk 03:25, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi TheSandDoctor, Thank you so much! I recommend Pancratious Beentjes, especially, but also Benjamin Wright, Jeremy Corley, et. al. I presume I shouldn't recommend myself.:-)

Another point of interest is that BBS is the only non-rabbinic text mention in the Palestinian and Babylonian talmuds. [can get references if you want]

Here are some quotes from my writings, not sure if these authors are out of copyright. I used them because they were all fewer than the maximum word limit...

The Hebrew texts are notoriously difficult. Kister states that Ben Sira’s book “is full of rare words …, and his love of puns leads to their extensive use. Some of these were already incomprehensible to readers two or three generations after his time.” Could one of the “readers two or three generations after” Ben Sira be the grandson who translated the work into Greek?

Kister M (2002) Genizah Manuscripts of Ben Sira. In Reif SC (ed) Cambridge Genizah Collections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 36–46, here p. 39.

Collins states that the “earliest datable allusions to the story of Adam and Eve are found in the wisdom book of Ben Sira, which was composed in the first quarter of the second century b.c.e.” He notes that Ben Sira’s discussion of themes from Genesis—a discussion that lacks both Fall and fratricide—“provides a salutary reminder that what may seem obvious to a modern interpreter was not necessarily accepted in the ancient world.” As an example, Collins notes that the “most remarkable feature of Ben Sira’s discussion of Genesis, however, is his blithe statement that God ‘filled them [Eve and Adam] with knowledge and understanding and showed them good and evil (Sir 17:3-12).’”

Again, thank you so much! Will be glad to write specifically for the Wikipedia, if you like. Teresa FriendOfSira (talk) 04:14, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Correction...Beentjes, Pancratius C.

The best source for information is the one listed on your webpage, bensira.org. The others are outdated or not recognized sources, to my knowledge. FriendOfSira (talk) 04:18, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-31

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

Feature news

• Editors using the Visual Editor in languages that use non-Latin characters for numbers, such as Hindi, Manipuri and Eastern Arabic, may notice some changes in the formatting of reference numbers. This is a side effect of preparing a new sub-referencing feature, and will also allow fixing some general numbering issues in Visual Editor. If you notice any related problems on your wiki, please share details at the project talkpage.

Bugs status

• Some logged-in editors were briefly unable to edit or load pages last week. These errors were mainly due to the addition of new linter rules which led to caching problems. Fixes have been applied and investigations are continuing.
• Editors can use the IP Information tool to get information about IP addresses. This tool is available as a Beta Feature in your preferences. The tool was not available for a few days last week, but is now working again. Thank you to Shizhao for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Project updates

• There are new features and improvements to Phabricator from the Release Engineering and Collaboration Services teams, and some volunteers, including: the search systems, the new task creation system, the login systems, the translation setup which has resulted in support for more languages (thanks to Pppery), and fixes for many edge-case errors. You can read details about these and other improvements in this summary.
• There is an update on the Charts project. The team has decided which visualization library to use, which chart types to start focusing on, and where to store chart definitions.
• One new wiki has been created: a Wikivoyage in Czech (voy:cs:) [4]

Learn more

• There is a new Wikimedia Foundation data center in São Paulo, Brazil which helps to reduce load times.
• There is new user research on problems with the process of uploading images.
• Commons Impact Metrics are now available via data dumps and API.
• The latest quarterly Technical Community Newsletter is now available.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:08, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Question from Ilianeudecker (18:06, 30 July 2024)

Hello! I have just created a new page about my father, Heinz Neudecker. When will it be publicly accessible? How can I add content later on? Hope you can help! Thanks & best wishes, ilia --Ilianeudecker (talk) 18:06, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi Ilianeudecker. Currently? It won't be picked up by Google or other search engines as it isn't publicly indexed. I fixed up some of the formatting on Draft:Heinz Neudecker for you. However, I would recommend reviewing our policy on conflicts of interest (you inherently have one with your father that should be declared), this guide to writing your first article, this guide on getting started with references, and WP:ANYBIO (as a baseline for this notability guideline). Writings by your father don't help towards establishing "notability".

You'll have to demonstrate that the article subject is wiki-"notable" by demonstrating in-depth coverage in multiple secondary sources that are reliable and intellectually independent. This page might help shed a bit of light. I would, however, strongly recommend reading the short essay "an article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing". While it doesn't directly apply and I by no means intend to cast any aspersions or implications against your father, it is something that should be kept in mind if you are able to establish wiki "notability"; you don't keep control of the article one bit or necessarily what ends up on it, provided that whatever is added is reliably sourced and complies with other policies. TheSandDoctor ^Talk 14:37, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Question from Mohammednuhj on Visa policy of the Schengen Area (13:13, 1 August 2024)

Mohammed Nuhu is my name I have need visa to Canada to play football also am can drive a truck to I need your help to come our Country here is on fir a lot of people are suffering also I need to put my Family at the right place --Mohammednuhj (talk) 13:13, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

@Mohammednuhj: That...is not what Wikipedia is for. You need to contact an immigration attorney, no one on Wikipedia can help you immigrate to Canada. Sorry. TheSandDoctor ^Talk 18:25, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Question from 007Editor of History on England cricket team (17:53, 4 August 2024)

Hello, something is wrong with page "England Cricket team". I am not able to see table which is generally there on Wikipedia pages. It's source code is visible. Pls see to it as I don't know what to do or how to do. --007Editor of History (talk) 17:53, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi there, 007Editor of History! My apologies for the delayed response. It was fixed by Matt-h88 within a couple hours of your comment here. (Thanks, Matt!) --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 14:41, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-32

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

Feature news

• Two new parser functions will be available this week: {{#dir}} and {{#bcp47}}. These will reduce the need for Template:Dir and Template:BCP47 on Commons and allow us to drop 100 million rows from the "what links here" database. Editors at any wiki that use these templates, can help by replacing the templates with these new functions. The templates at Commons will be updated during the Hackathon at Wikimania. [5][6]
• Communities can request the activation of the visual editor on entire namespaces where discussions sometimes happen (for instance Wikipedia: or Wikisource: namespaces) if they understand the known limitations. For discussions, users can already use DiscussionTools in these namespaces.
• The tracking category "Pages using Timeline" has been renamed to "Pages using the EasyTimeline extension" in TranslateWiki. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match.

Project updates

• Editors who help to organize WikiProjects and similar on-wiki collaborations, are invited to share ideas and examples of successful collaborations with the Campaigns and Programs teams. You can fill out a brief survey or share your thoughts on the talkpage. The teams are particularly looking for details about successful collaborations on non-English wikis.
• The new parser is being rolled out on Wikivoyage wikis over the next few months. The English Wikivoyage and Hebrew Wikivoyage were switched to Parsoid last week. For more information, see Parsoid/Parser Unification.

Learn more

• There will be more than 200 sessions at Wikimania this week. Here is a summary of some of the key sessions related to the product and technology area.
• The latest Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is available.
• The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: New design previews for Translatable pages; Updates about MinT for Wiki Readers; the release of Translation dumps; and more.
• The latest quarterly Growth newsletter is available.
• The latest monthly MediaWiki Product Insights newsletter is available.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:41, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2024

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

Administrator changes

Isabelle Belato

• Ian.thomson
• Modussiccandi

Interface administrator changes

Izno

CheckUser changes

Barkeep49

Technical news

• Global blocks may now target accounts as well as IP's. Administrators may locally unblock when appropriate.
• Users wishing to permanently leave may now request "vanishing" via Special:GlobalVanishRequest. Processed requests will result in the user being renamed, their recovery email being removed, and their account being globally locked.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee appointed the following administrators to the conflict of interest volunteer response team: Bilby, Extraordinary Writ

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-33

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

Feature news

• AbuseFilter editors and maintainers can now make a CAPTCHA show if a filter matches an edit. This allows communities to quickly respond to spamming by automated bots. [7]
• Stewards can now specify if global blocks should prevent account creation. Before this change by the Trust and Safety Product Team, all global blocks would prevent account creation. This will allow stewards to reduce the unintended side-effects of global blocks on IP addresses.

Project updates

• Nominations are open on Wikitech for new members to refresh the Toolforge standards committee. The committee oversees the Toolforge Right to fork policy and Abandoned tool policy among other duties. Nominations will remain open until at least 2024-08-26.
• One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in West Coast Bajau (w:bdr:) [8]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:19, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Question from Arum Sekar Kinanthi (05:40, 13 August 2024)

I am going to post an information in Indonesian language. What should I do? --Arum Sekar Kinanthi (talk) 05:40, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Arum Sekar Kinanthi: Do you mean that you want to write content in Indonesian or reference Indonesian language sources on the English Wikipedia? If you want to write content in Indonesian, then you want to go to the Indonesian Wikipedia (that link will take you right there). If you want to cite Indonesian language sources (but write content in English) on the English Wikipedia, you can certainly do that. If I am misunderstanding your question, please let me know. TheSandDoctor ^Talk 05:44, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Question from Dxbgeorge (13:39, 18 August 2024)

Hello .. can I create information Wikipedia about my self .. as an athlete swimming champion in Greek national team and famous personal trainer participating in morning tv magazine from 1998 till 2002 I have few videos during this period and also as a guest in tv journalist shows talking about my experiences in the gym industry.. Also working as a personal trainer with famous Greeks tv actors and many shipowner and other VIP people.. Please Your prompt respond Georgios Chadimoglou --Dxbgeorge (talk) 13:39, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-34

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

Feature news

• Editors who want to re-use references but with different details such as page numbers, will be able to do so by the end of 2024, using a new sub-referencing feature. You can read more about the project and how to test the prototype.
• Editors using tracking categories to identify which pages use specific extensions may notice that six of the categories have been renamed to make them more easily understood and consistent. These categories are automatically added to pages that use specialized MediaWiki extensions. The affected names are for: DynamicPageList, Kartographer, Phonos, RSS, Score, WikiHiero. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match. Thanks to Pppery for these improvements. [9]
• Technical volunteers who edit modules and want to get a list of the categories used on a page, can now do so using the categories property of mw.title objects. This enables wikis to configure workflows such as category-specific edit notices. Thanks to SD001 for these improvements. [10][11]

Bugs status

• Your help is needed to check if any pages need to be moved or deleted. A maintenance script was run to clean up unreachable pages (due to Unicode issues or introduction of new namespaces/namespace aliases). The script tried to find appropriate names for the pages (e.g. by following the Unicode changes or by moving pages whose titles on Wikipedia start with Talk:WP: so that their titles start with Wikipedia talk:), but it may have failed for some pages, and moved them to Special:PrefixIndex/T195546/ instead. Your community should check if any pages are listed there, and move them to the correct titles, or delete them if they are no longer needed. A full log (including pages for which appropriate names could be found) is available in phab:P67388.
• Editors who volunteer as mentors to newcomers on their wiki are once again able to access lists of potential mentees who they can connect with to offer help and guidance. This functionality was restored thanks to a bug fix. Thank you to Mbch331 for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 18 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Project updates

• The application deadline for the Product & Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) has been extended to September 16. Members will help by providing advice to Foundation Product and Technology leadership on short and long term plans, on complex strategic problems, and help to get feedback from more contributors and technical communities. Selected members should expect to spend roughly 5 hours per month for the Council, during the one year pilot. Please consider applying, and spread the word to volunteers you think would make a positive contribution to the committee.

Learn more

• The 2024 Coolest Tool Awards were awarded at Wikimania, in seven categories. For example, one award went to the ISA Tool, used for adding structured data to files on Commons, which was recently improved during the Wiki Mentor Africa Hackathon. You can see video demonstrations of each tool at the awards page. Congratulations to this year's recipients, and thank you to all tool creators and maintainers.
• The latest Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is available, and includes some highlights from Wikimania, an upcoming Language community meeting, and other news from the movement.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:51, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Question from Wayne8491 (04:06, 21 August 2024)

I have a big edit I want to make about a page with which I am highly familiar. Can I do that as a new user? (my edits are very well sourced) --Wayne8491 (talk) 04:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

"Trayaurus" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Trayaurus has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 August 21 § Trayaurus until a consensus is reached. I am RedoStone (talk) 20:07, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

"Dr. Trayaurus" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Dr. Trayaurus has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 August 21 § Dr. Trayaurus until a consensus is reached. I am RedoStone (talk) 20:08, 21 August 2024 (UTC)