User talk:Mandarax

Happy New Year, Mandarax!

Happy New Year!

Mandarax,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
— Moops ^⋠T⋡ 20:22, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

— Moops ^⋠T⋡ 20:22, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks; happy new year to you too! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:44, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Pisote

Perhaps Pisote is more of an alternative spelling for Pizote than a misspelling, but we need to reconcile that these two redirects currently point to different articles. Both seem to refer specifically to White-nosed coati, as the lede says for Pizote at least. Either way, it doesn't seem like these two redirects should point to different articles. The ledes should be updated accordingly. Mdewman6 (talk) 02:59, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

The Merriam-Webster page I linked to says that a pisote is a coati, which it defines as one of various species. I don't know if they were being imprecise, or if the pizote spelling is used in reference to only one species or for others too. I don't think it matters if the redirects point to different targets if they do indeed have different usages, especially since each of them averages fewer than one page view per day. I don't care either way, so feel free to make whatever changes you'd like (as long as they're not classified as misspellings). MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 05:29, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Based on google searching, it looks like both spellings are used in Central America to refer to the coati native there, which is the white-nosed coati specifically. So not unreasonable that an attempt at a dictionary definition would simply say "coati" since this is what locals in the native range of the white-nosed coati would call it in English, given that it's the only species present. Certainly this seems to be true for the 'pizote' spelling, and I can't imagine the same word spelled with an s would purposely be meant to refer to coatis more broadly, with the z spelling referring to a specific species. As to which spelling is "correct" or has etymological precedent, I am not sure. So, I am going to retarget pisote to white-nosed coati to match pizote and categorize as an alternative spelling. Cheers, Mdewman6 (talk) 01:07, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

I am gifting you this kitten for your taking care of lint errors on DYK nominations very frequently.

─ The Aafī (talk) 17:52, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:22, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

@Mandarax, could you please help in finding what the problem is with journal citation in Sanaullah Bhat? ─ The Aafī (talk) 15:04, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Have you already fixed it? I don't see a problem. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 16:56, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

If you try to see the article in preview, you'll get to see "One or more {{cite journal}} templates have maintenance messages". I don't know what that means. ─ The Aafī (talk) 17:23, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Ah, a maintenance message. This was not anything that a reader would notice. I fixed it by using the correct dash (en dash) in the date range. For future reference, hidden categories help decipher what the cryptic notice is about. If you don't see them, you can enable their display at your preferences, Appearance tab, under "Advanced options": select "Show hidden categories". In this case, the category was Category:CS1 maint: date format. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:48, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Mandarax: could you please take a look at this and see where this lint error is exactly? I'd be more than thankful to you. Thanks, ─ The Aafī (talk) 08:08, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I looked, but gave up after searching for a long time. I assume it's some <tag> without a corresponding </tag>, but the page is too complicated for me to find the error. However, Jonesey95, I've seen you fixing litterally millions of similar errors; maybe you have a tool or are just keenly perceptive. Could you please take a look at meta:Deoband Community Wikimedia and fix the "Missing end tag" error? MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:10, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Fixed. There was some ending bold markup that was missing starting markup, so I removed it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:58, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for assistance @Jonesey95 and @Mandarax. I'm very much thankful to both of you. ─ The Aafī (talk) 03:37, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, thank you, Jonesey95! Your help is much appreciated. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 10:36, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Linked misspellings

Hello. I work through new entries in Wikipedia:Database reports/Linked misspellings and spotted that most of today's are linked from your sandbox, so I wondered if we might be duplicating each other's work. I usually check the entries which haven't appeared before. I look at all occurrences rather than just links but sometimes work a few days in arrears. I'm happy to carry on or to leave this to you if we'd be tripping over each other. Alternatively, one of us could divert to User:Certes/Misspellings which is a backlog of entries I missed when I was busy off-wiki for a few weeks. Certes (talk) 22:26, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I've been working on those for quite a few years. Actually, not most, but all of them should be in that sandbox (unless you're seeing a cached version from a previous day), because it's the same database report, automatically reformatted in a form that's more useful for me. I generally go through the list every day and fix all of the linked occurrences (except for a few that I skip for various reasons), and almost never check out any unlinked ones. So it looks like we're not tripping over each other. I'd seen you mention your page before, and I sometimes use it. It's very helpful in finding unlinked misspellings. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 01:40, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

January music

January songs

happy new year

-- Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:56, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

February songs

February songs

my daily stories

Now I write my own stories, today a book, Alte Liebe, for Valentine --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:31, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

... and today the regional festival - DYK of 13 years ago ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:17, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

My story on 24 February is about Artemy Vedel (TFA by Amitchell235), and I made a suggestion for more peace, - what do you think? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:26, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

today: two women whose birthday we celebrate today, 99 and 90! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:51, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

DYK nomination: Gregg Rickman

Hi @Mandarax, thanks for looking at the DYK nomination for Gregg Rickman. I made the change you commented on here. Longhornsg (talk) 15:39, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

You're welcome. Someone will, hopefully, be around soon to review the nomination. Good luck! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 17:02, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Exciting news!

Babylon 5 is now available on Tubi, which is a free streaming platform! It's been many, many years since I've seen this extraordinary show, which has been called "the greatest work of science fiction ever produced". If you've wondered what I've frequently raved about, and what Badger and Skinny Pete talked about for three hours straight, you'll have to check it out. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:36, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Abby Day Slocomb

Thank you, I had no clue how to do the technical parts. I also have no idea how to respond there, so if you could please add Ipigott and GRuban. SusunW (talk) 05:00, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

 Done. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 05:18, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Galium hardhamiae

ITIS is wrong if it implies that the correct spelling is "hardhamae". I've now explained why this must be corrected to "hardhamiae" at Galium hardhamiae § Taxonomy, which I should have done when I moved the article. Note that Tropicos. which is usually reliable on taxonomy, also has the corrected spelling here. (Actually, if you follow through the major taxonomic databases in the taxonbar, you'll see that ITIS is the one out of line.) Peter coxhead (talk) 11:14, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

This could not possibly matter to me less. I just don't think that the redirect, which uses the same spelling that one of the most authoritative taxonomic sources does, should be classified as a misspelling, but rather as an alternative spelling or former name. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 01:17, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

March songs

my story today

thank you for a great reply! - sharing impressions from vacation on Madeira 20-30 March, pics now at 25 March with ups and downs and two cats --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:04, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Very nice pictures. It's great that you get in so much traveling. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 23:36, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

History of invention timeline

Is it necessary to split the agriculture and modern section since it has becoming more complicated Cuando de hyiopi (talk) 21:18, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I have no opinion on the matter. I've never read any of the article, and I've made only one edit to it in the last ten months, and only three ever, all of them very minor (like typo fixing). You've made more than sixty, so you're in a much better position to decide. If you think a major change in the structure of the article would improve it, I'd suggest discussing it on the article's talk page. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:20, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

April thanks

April songs

my story today

Thank you for consistent DYK fixes! -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:05, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing. That's a great picture of the appropriately-named glory-of-the-snow. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:45, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

thank you - you said that well! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:10, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Today is the 80th birthday of John Eliot Gardiner. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:17, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

May songs

my story today

I had a good story on coronation day: the Te Deum we sang that day. And the following day we sang it for the composer ;)

I heard pleasant music today - did you know a string quartet with two cellos (and no article yet in English? - I nominated Soňa Červená for GA just to give her a bit more exposure. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:52, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Wow, congrats on singing it for the composer! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 01:57, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

That was really great! - Now May scenery pictured when you click on songs. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:32, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Pentecost was full of music, and my story today is that 300 years ago today, Bach became Thomaskantor, with BWV 75, writing music history. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:12, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Amazing DYK authorship skills

Batman is half female. Roasted (talk) 02:38, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! That was a dozen years ago. And two years later, I had another Batman hook: "... that Walter Baxter wrote about the gay Batman–Kent relationship?" MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 04:51, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

DYK thanks

You are speedy, my friend! Thanks for fixing those issues. You might have remembered me from my previous DYK participation, but it's been a while, so I've since forgotten the formatting rules. :-) Edge3 (talk) 01:36, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

You're welcome for the tweaks. And thanks for the note. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 01:39, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

June songs

my story today

Thanks for the fixes! - Today's story is about a singer whom I saw twice, not Wagner and Strauss, but Bach and Weill. - Vacation pics! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:33, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Quick note

Please note in greyhound racing, a male is officially a dog and a female is officially a bitch, so I had to revert one of your edits. Many thanks. ApricotFoot (talk) 08:44, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, ApricotFoot, for letting me know. I had no idea. Is it standard in dog articles to link it as [[Male|Dog]]? I think it would be much more useful to link as [[Dog#Terminology|Dog]], where this odd convention is explained. Although it's still a little fuzzy for me. Dog#Terminology says "dog" refers to "the species (or subspecies) as a whole, also any male member of the same". So a male dog would be called a "dog", but it looks like its sex would still be referred to as "male". Unfortunately, Template:Infobox greyhound has no documentation. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:06, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Stranded in the rain

I assume you are not among them? Those poor people. Drmies (talk) 22:17, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Right, I'm not there. (It did rain one year that I went, and it was a super-muddy mess, but nothing like this.) I watched an extensive piece of drone footage, and the flooding looked horrible, but the truly remarkable thing was the near-complete absence of people, bicycles, and mutant vehicles. The playa had turned into a ghost town. I can sympathize with all of those burners trapped in their shelters. And it's even worse than many people realize – according to Twitter X, they've got an Ebola outbreak!!! This morning, the Man was scheduled to burn tonight at 9:30 Pacific time, but the latest update no longer provides an estimate for when the Man and Temple burns may happen. Anyone interested should be able to watch whatever's happening live at https://burningman.org/live-webcast/ . Right now, there's a huge rainbow. Thanks for the note. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 23:13, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Ebola?? Holy moly. Thx for the update. I guess it's been a while since you went? I'll try to check in in a couple of hours--though chances are all of Alabama, including me, will be asleep at that time, happily intoxicated after wins by Alabama and Auburn. But yeah, I feel bad for all the folks out there. It's so easy to laugh at people who do different things from what many others do, and so cheap. Drmies (talk) 01:33, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Someone had even taken a screenshot of a news story reporting that the Ebola thing was a hoax, and altered it to say that yes, there's an Ebola outbreak on the playa. Sorry if anybody took me seriously, but I thought the reference to "X" plus the three exclamation marks would be sufficient. I'm not sure if the pre-Elon Twitter would've done anything about such a hoax, but now anything goes. Yeah, it's been a while since I attended. I mentioned the little rain/mud I experienced, but the main environmental problems every year (until now) are the heat and especially the frequent, devastating, dust storms. I guess an optimist would say that there won't be any dust storms while it's all muddy. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 02:01, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Hmm were those exclamation marks extra fat? Gotcha. I saw a few dust references on the page you linked, yes. I'm taking a break from deleting weird pages created by someone who, I think, set up an imaginary Hangul course for themselves. So many lonely people on Wikipedia. Drmies (talk) 02:16, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Alright, I feel like I accomplished something. :) Later, Mandarax! Drmies (talk) 02:25, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your adminwork, congrats on your team victories, and don't get too drunk. There's been an official update. 1) The Man burn is tomorrow at 9 pm. 2) The Temple burn is three hours later. That's 2 am in Alabama, but don't worry if you miss it. The Temple burn doesn't have fireworks like the Man burn. 3) "The online rumors of transmissible illnesses in Black Rock City are unfounded and untrue." MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 02:46, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Update: it is not the Temple (Temple of the Heart) that's scheduled to burn at midnight (Pacific time), but instead the Chapel of Babel. The Temple burn is scheduled for Tuesday at 8 pm, which follows the usual practice of happening the day after the Man burn. Sorry for misinforming. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 23:50, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

September music

September songs

my story today

Thank you for the little fixes repairing my sloppiness! -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:33, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

You're welcome (but I wouldn't call it "sloppiness", since such redirects generally don't matter other than Main Page content).

Another pretty picture. The flowers somewhat remind me of the naked ladies (Lycoris squamigera, I think) that I've got blooming now. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 07:08, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Lovely flowers also! - Herbst means autumn or fall, zeitlos means without time or any time, - a strange name, but when you see them (ad I did on 2 Sep) summer is past. I picked them for September as the prettiest pic I took in September 2022, and they - "weeping" if you look closer - were already used for a user who died and others who went on long break or are enjoying "vacation" for months. No idea how I knew. Next year will probably have a bright sunflower, - reminding me that I should upload more ... --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:59, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Today's story is about a great pianist with an unusual career, taking off when he was 50. It's the wedding anniversary of Clara and Robert Schumann, but I was too late with our gift. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:59, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Today I remember Raymond Arritt, who still helps me, five years after he died, per what he said in my darkest time on Wikipedia (placed in my edit-notice as a reminder), and by teh rulez. - Latest pics from a weekend in Berlin (one more day to come). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:51, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

DYK spelling

I see here you made a comment about the spelling meter vs metre. Must the DYK hooks use US spellings, or can they be use any spelling dialect? It is spelt "metre" in New Zealand. Panamitsu (talk) ^{Please ping on reply} 05:48, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Well, you had spelled it "meter" (twice). The hooks should use whichever spelling is appropriate (which is usually "metre"). I had added a {{Convert}}, figuring that its default spelling was correct here, then I noticed that you had also used the other spelling in the caption, so I added a conversion parameter to make it consistent with what appeared to be your preferred spelling. I've now changed it in both places. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 06:27, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Some stroopwafels for you!

Thanks a lot for cleaning up after my constant forgetting of bolding the article title in my DYK hooks. #prodraxis connect 04:20, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

You're welcome. Thanks for the delicious stroopwafels! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 05:31, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Help

Hello. Help improvements for acticle Akane Yamaguchi. Thanks you. 113.161.210.125 (talk) 02:23, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

No.

Drmies, from Talk:Akane Yamaguchi, I see that this is a sock you've encountered before. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 02:43, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

October music

October songs

my story today

User talk:Gerda Arendt#Music keeps track of "my" music and memories, and just today I have a juxtaposition of music performed by the two church choirs in town, one I sang in and one where I listened, to music about love, evening and night. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:16, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Today, it's a place that inspired me, musings if you have time. Thank you for the much needed link to the right person for the artist! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:05, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

It's always nice to see you branching out into the visual arts from your usual field of music. You're welcome – yes, my edit was necessary to distinguish between your sculptor and a concentration camp overseer! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:09, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

November

November songs

my story today

Thank you! - Vacation pictures offered if you click on songs, and my story today is a DYK hook from 13 years ago OTD: about the great music at one of my churches. Mozart's Requiem to come on Sunday, coupled with Arvo Pärt's Da pacem Domine, - I guess you might come if it was a bit closer. Perhaps watch the video of our last production, our first on yt, ever. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:21, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

RIP, Andre

I would like to acknowledge Andre Braugher, who recently died. It has been said that his Brooklyn Nine-Nine character, Captain Holt, "may be the funniest sitcom character of all time". MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 00:22, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

December: story · music · places

I came just to say thank you for again fixing a DYK nom after a page move, and before I could even ask. About the actor: the article looks well sourced, you could probably nominate him for WP:ITNN as it is, unless someone else did it already. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:05, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

You're welcome for the DYK fix. Braugher already made it to RD. I'd seen him in a few other roles, but his performance as Raymond Holt was extraordinarily funny. Oh, I don't know if you've seen the show in your part of the world. but Captain Holt was also a big classical music/opera fan! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 17:48, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for what you do and stand for! I wish you a good festive season and a peaceful New Year! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:04, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Gerda. I hope you have a very happy holiday season! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 07:57, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! - Today, I have a special story to tell, of the works of a musician born 300 years ago. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:40, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

The DYK Barnstar

		The DYK Barnstar
		For all of the valuable work you do! You are appreciated. Bruxton (talk) 18:13, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Bruxton! And, incidentally, I also appreciate all of the valuable work you do for DYK! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:27, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Christmas greetings

Maria Gloriosa

May the bells of Christmas ring for freedom!

May peace be upon us.

And have a happy and prosperous New Year. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 18:42, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! I wish a very happy holiday season for you too! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:35, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings

Merry Christmas, Mandarax! Wishing you Season's Greetings and a Happy Winter Solstice! As the year comes to a close, I want to express my appreciation for your dedicated efforts on Wikipedia and extend heartfelt thanks for your assistance throughout the years. May the holiday season bring you and your loved ones abundant joy, good health, and prosperity.

RV (talk) 09:41, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! I hope you have very happy holidays! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:38, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

2024

Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht

Happy New Year

2024

Same location pictured as 2019. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:09, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Gerda. Beautiful place for a concert. Happy new year to you too! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 22:14, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! I was there, - DYK doesn't want that pic, but today's of destruction. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:50, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

On the Main page: the person who made the pictured festival possible --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:30, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

story · music · places

Today a friend's birthday, with related music and new vacation pics --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:33, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks

I was so focused on writing the hook that I forgot to bold the article. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 01:03, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

You're welcome. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 01:10, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day, I present one of the most romantic songs. Now, it might not seem that way at first, but if you think about it, it really is. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 17:27, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

story · music · places

With thanks ("name their cars ..."), I present you flowers, - it might not seem that way at first, though. - The image, taken on a cemetery last year after the funeral of a distant but dear family member, commemorates today, with thanks for their achievements, four subjects mentioned on the Main page and Vami_IV, a friend here. Listen to very romantic music by Tchaikovsky (an article where one of the four is pictured), sung by today's subject (whose performance on stage I enjoyed two days ago). -- and then I forgot to sign --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:21, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

more music and flowers on Rossini's rare birthday --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:11, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

April thanks

story · music · places

Thank you for improving article quality in April! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:15, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Gerda. Another pretty flower picture. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:31, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

if you click on places: images of a flock of sheep that I met by chance on the 300th birthday of cantata Du Hirte Israel, höre, BWV 104 --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:47, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

DYK and typos

Dear Mandarax,

Thanks for your suggestions. About the typos I think yacht was corrected and yachties is the correct word and I added the definition from the Oxford English Dictionary. As I am new doing this, I really appreciate your suggestions and comments.

All the best! Lautreca11 (talk) 08:49, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your note! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:39, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Pearl DYK

Hi! On the Did you know nomination for Pearl (X), you left a comment in an edit summary: "This is for an article you reviewed (WP:QPQ), but you're exempt". I'm unsure what that means. Is the nomination invalid or something? (here) FishLoveHam (talk) 14:03, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Reviewed had been filled in with the name of the nomination template it was on. I removed it because this is supposed to be used to list a different nomination which the nominator reviewed to fulfill the QPQ if required to do so; but this is only required if you've previously nominated at least five articles. Since you haven't, you're exempt from having to do a QPQ, and your nomination is fine to proceed without one. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 17:34, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

thanks for explaining :) FishLoveHam (talk) 18:18, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

May music

story · music · places

Today's story mentions a concert I loved to hear (DYK) and a piece I loved to sing in choir, 150 years old (OTD). -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:00, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Schadenfreude?

Sometimes there's a fine line between Schadenfreude and just happiness that justice has been served. I think I'm feeling the latter much more, but in any case, I'm elated right now. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:17, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

story · music · places

That sounds good! - Today we have a centenarian story (documentation about it by Percy Adlon) and an article that had two sentences yesterday and was up for deletion, and needs a few more citations. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:06, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-26

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

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• Editors will notice that there have been some changes to the background color of text in the diff view, and the color of the byte-change numbers, last week. These changes are intended to make text more readable in both light mode and dark mode, and are part of a larger effort to increase accessibility. You can share your comments or questions on the project talkpage. [1]
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• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 June. It will be on all wikis from 27 June (calendar). [4][5]
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MediaWiki message delivery 22:30, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Trump is ineligible

There was plenty of talk about Trump being ineligible for the Presidency because of his insurrectionist activities, but I've never seen anyone mention that he's ineligible because of the Twenty-second Amendment, which states: "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice". Note that it doesn't mention anything about serving ... just getting elected. Trump has always insisted that he was elected for a second term; therefore, according to his own insistence, he is constitutionally ineligible to be elected again, unless he admits that he lost the last election, which he will never do. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 02:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

This would only matter if Americans cared about hypocrisy anymore. We don’t. Floquenbeam (talk) 12:01, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

My plan is to dramatically increase my alcohol consumption until November 5 and <shudder> beyond. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:53, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I stand corrected, sort of.... I still wouldn't say he "admitted" that he lost, but he did accidentally let it slip that he knows he lost. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 01:43, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

July music

story · music · places

Today's story is about a photographer who took iconic pictures, especially View from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Manhattan, 9/11, yesterday's was a great mezzo, and on Thursday we watched a sublime ballerina. If that's not enough my talk offers chamber music from two amazing concerts. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:47, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

DYK

I have some questions! Should the DYK hook be linked to the article I nominated or is that not necessary? The article I have nominated is A. Sreekar Prasad filmography whereas the BLP is A. Sreekar Prasad. There was a discussion here regarding lists. If you have the time, please let me know if I need to make any changes as this is my first nomination. Any inputs are appreciated. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 07:10, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Welcome to DYK. Yes, as I mentioned in my edit summary, you must include a bold link to the nominated article (WP:DYKG#B1). It may be piped to whatever text fits in the hook. You may link to the person's article, but it's not necessary, and you could just include the name as part of the filmography link. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 08:44, 22 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. [7]
• 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. [8]
• 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. [9]

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)

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:) [10]

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)

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. [11]
• 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. [12][13]

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 00:50, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-38

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

Improvements and Maintenance

• Editors interested in templates can help by reading the latest Wishlist focus area, Template recall and discovery, and share your feedback on the talkpage. This input helps the Community Tech team to decide the right technical approach to build. Everyone is also encouraged to continue adding new wishes.
• The new automated Special:NamespaceInfo page helps editors understand which namespaces exist on each wiki, and some details about how they are configured. Thanks to DannyS712 for these improvements. [14]
• References Check is a feature that encourages editors to add a citation when they add a new paragraph to a Wikipedia article. For a short time, the corresponding tag "Edit Check (references) activated" was erroneously being applied to some edits outside of the main namespace. This has been fixed. [15]
• It is now possible for a wiki community to change the order in which a page’s categories are displayed on their wiki. By default, categories are displayed in the order they appear in the wikitext. Now, wikis with a consensus to do so can request a configuration change to display them in alphabetical order. [16]
• Tool authors can now access ToolsDB's public databases from both Quarry and Superset. Those databases have always been accessible to every Toolforge user, but they are now more broadly accessible, as Quarry can be accessed by anyone with a Wikimedia account. In addition, Quarry's internal database can now be queried from Quarry itself. This database contains information about all queries that are being run and starred by users in Quarry. This information was already public through the web interface, but you can now query it using SQL. You can read more about that, and 20 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
• Any pages or tools that still use the very old CSS classes mw-message-box need to be updated. These old classes will be removed next week or soon afterwards. Editors can use a global-search to determine what needs to be changed. It is possible to use the newer cdx-message group of classes as a replacement (see the relevant Codex documentation, and an example update), but using locally defined onwiki classes would be best. [17]

Technical project updates

• Next week, all Wikimedia wikis will be read-only for a few minutes. This will start on September 25 at 15:00 UTC. This is a planned datacenter switchover for maintenance purposes. This maintenance process also targets other services. The previous switchover took 3 minutes, and the Site Reliability Engineering teams use many tools to make sure that this essential maintenance work happens as quickly as possible. [18]

Tech in depth

• The latest monthly MediaWiki Product Insights newsletter is available. This edition includes details about: research about hook handlers to help simplify development, research about performance improvements, work to improve the REST API for end-users, and more.
• To learn more about the technology behind the Wikimedia projects, you can now watch sessions from the technology track at Wikimania 2024 on Commons. This week, check out:
  • Hackathon Showcase (45 mins) - 19 short presentations by some of the Hackathon participants, describing some of the projects they worked on, such as automated testing of maintenance scripts, a video-cutting command line tool, and interface improvements for various tools. There are more details and links available in the Phabricator task.
  • Co-Creating a Sustainable Future for the Toolforge Ecosystem (40 mins) - a roundtable discussion for tool-maintainers, users, and supporters of Toolforge about how to make the platform sustainable and how to evaluate the tools available there.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:59, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-39

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

Weekly highlight

• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on Wednesday September 25 at 15:00 UTC. Reading the wikis will not be interrupted, but editing will be paused. These twice-yearly processes allow WMF's site reliability engineering teams to remain prepared to keep the wikis functioning even in the event of a major interruption to one of our data centers.

Updates for editors

A screenshot of the interface for the Alt Text suggested-edit feature

• Editors who use the iOS Wikipedia app in Spanish, Portuguese, French, or Chinese, may see the Alt Text suggested-edit experiment after editing an article, or completing a suggested edit using "Add an image". Alt-text helps people with visual impairments to read Wikipedia articles. The team aims to learn if adding alt-text to images is a task that editors can be successful with. Please share any feedback on the discussion page.
• The Codex color palette has been updated with new and revised colors for the MediaWiki user interfaces. The most noticeable changes for editors include updates for: dark mode colors for Links and for quiet Buttons (progressive and destructive), visited Link colors for both light and dark modes, and background colors for system-messages in both light and dark modes.
• It is now possible to include clickable wikilinks and external links inside code blocks. This includes links that are used within <syntaxhighlight> tags and on code pages (JavaScript, CSS, Scribunto and Sanitized CSS). Uses of template syntax {{…}} are also linked to the template page. Thanks to SD0001 for these improvements. [19]
• Two bugs were fixed in the GlobalVanishRequest system by improving the logging and by removing an incorrect placeholder message. [20][21]
• View all 25 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

• From Wikimedia Enterprise:
  • The API now enables 5,000 on-demand API requests per month and twice-monthly HTML snapshots freely (gratis and libre). More information on the updates and also improvements to the software development kits (SDK) are explained on the project's blog post. While Wikimedia Enterprise APIs are designed for high-volume commercial reusers, this change enables many more community use-cases to be built on the service too.
  • The Snapshot API (html dumps) have added beta Structured Contents endpoints (blog post on that) as well as released two beta datasets (English and French Wikipedia) from that endpoint to Hugging Face for public use and feedback (blog post on that). These pre-parsed data sets enable new options for researchers, developers, and data scientists to use and study the content.

In depth

• The Wikidata Query Service (WDQS) is used to get answers to questions using the Wikidata data set. As Wikidata grows, we had to make a major architectural change so that WDQS could remain performant. As part of the WDQS Graph Split project, we have new SPARQL endpoints available for serving the "scholarly" and "main" subgraphs of Wikidata. The query.wikidata.org endpoint will continue to serve the full Wikidata graph until March 2025. After this date, it will only serve the main graph. For more information, please see the announcement on Wikidata.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:33, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-41

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

Weekly highlight

• Communities can now request installation of Automoderator on their wiki. Automoderator is an automated anti-vandalism tool that reverts bad edits based on scores from the new "Revert Risk" machine learning model. You can read details about the necessary steps for installation and configuration. [22]

Updates for editors

• Translators in wikis where the mobile experience of Content Translation is available, can now customize their articles suggestion list from 41 filtering options when using the tool. This topic-based article suggestion feature makes it easy for translators to self-discover relevant articles based on their area of interest and translate them. You can try it with your mobile device. [23]
• View all 12 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

• It is now possible for <syntaxhighlight> code blocks to offer readers a "Copy" button if the copy=1 attribute is set on the tag. Thanks to SD0001 for these improvements. [24]
• Customized copyright footer messages on all wikis will be updated. The new versions will use wikitext markup instead of requiring editing raw HTML. [25]
• Later this month, temporary accounts will be rolled out on several pilot wikis. The final list of the wikis will be published in the second half of the month. If you maintain any tools, bots, or gadgets on these 11 wikis, and your software is using data about IP addresses or is available for logged-out users, please check if it needs to be updated to work with temporary accounts. Guidance on how to update the code is available.
• Rate limiting has been enabled for the code review tools Gerrit and GitLab to address ongoing issues caused by malicious traffic and scraping. Clients that open too many concurrent connections will be restricted for a few minutes. This rate limiting is managed through nftables firewall rules. For more details, see Wikitech's pages on Firewall, GitLab limits and Gerrit operations.
• Five new wikis have been created:
  • a Wikipedia in Komering (w:kge:) [26]
  • a Wikipedia in Mooré (m:mos:) [27]
  • a Wiktionary in Madurese (wikt:mad:) [28]
  • a Wikiquote in Gorontalo (q:gor:) [29]
  • a Wikinews in Shan (n:shn:) [30]

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MediaWiki message delivery 23:39, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

October thanks

story · music · places

Thank you for improving articles on October! - My story today is a cantata 300 years old, based on a hymn 200 years old when the cantata was composed, based on a psalm some thousand years old, - so said the 2015 DYK hook. I had forgotten the discussion on the talk. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:04, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Happy whatever you celebrate today, - more who died, more to come, and they made the world richer. Greetings from Madrid where I took the pic of assorted Cucurbita in 2016. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:53, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Gerda. Happy whatever to you too! And, speaking of those who died.... MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:27, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

In memoriam

I'd like to mention that today is Adam Schlesinger's birthday. This brilliant songwriter tragically died from COVID in 2020. I will always be thankful to him for his amazing work on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:27, 31 October 2024 (UTC)