This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that not all changes described here are live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.12 (8b8c762), and changes with a version number higher than that will not yet be active.
Fixed bugs
- A bug causing images to be deleted on Wikimedia Commons whenever a description page for an image with the same name was deleted on a different project (such as the English Wikipedia) has now been fixed. (This means that it's now safe for administrators to resume deletions under speedy deletion criterion I2.) (r22718, bug 10128)
- Editing section 0 of a page now shows the correct list of templates used on that page at the bottom of the screen. (r22779, bug 10149)
New features
- A new parser function, #titleparts, was added, to return the first few parts of a slash-separated subpage structure; for instance, {{#titleparts:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-06-11/Technology report|2}} is Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-06-11. (r22711, bug 6067)
- Two new special pages were added:
- There is now an option to display all namespaces in Special:Newpages. (r22730, bug 9898)
- There is now a checkbox for administrators to watch a page at the same time as changing its protection level. (r22739, bug 9769)
- The user interface for Special:Preferences now shows an example of what setting a stub threshold looks like. (r22740, bug 9886)
- The what-links-here links on Special:Whatlinkshere itself can now be customized using user CSS. (r22757, bug 10145)
- "DEFAULTSORTKEY" and "DEFAULTCATEGORYSORT" are now legal aliases for "DEFAULTSORT". (r22839, bug 5908)
- Administrators can now block a user from using Special:Emailuser. (r22816, bug 7997)
Ongoing news
- Internationalisation has been continuing as normal; help is always appreciated! See m:Localization statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to bugzilla.
Ontario Premier misreads article, blames the French
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty cited a Wikipedia article in a comment made last week in a newspaper article; however, McGuinty apparently misread the article. Commenting on a move to reduce power consumption by setting government air conditioning at a higher temperature and allowing employees to ditch suits and ties in favor of casual clothes suitable for a higher temperature, McGuinty joked that the French were to blame for ties, saying that the cravat originated in France. However, the article actually states that the cravat was popularized by the French after noticing the neckband, a part of the uniform for Croatian mercenaries.
Gracenotes RFA ends in "no consensus"
After a close and controversial RFA that was halted while bureaucrats attempted to determine the outcome (see archived story), bureaucrats judged that no consensus was present on Wednesday. A bureaucrat chat was initiated for bureaucrats to discuss the request (the second RFA to use such a process, after Danny's in April). In all, the request took over a week to decide.
Note: Due to delay, the full story on the RfA closure will be published next week.
Briefly
The Arbitration Committee did not accept or close any cases this week, except that Koavf was unblocked and placed on revert parole, after an appeal (resolved without a full case) from an indefinite block by Dmcdevit.
Evidence phase
- Badlydrawnjeff: A highly controversial case involving the actions of Badlydrawnjeff, Doc glasgow, Tony Sidaway and JzG in relation inter alia to the article known as QZ, which underwent an AfD which was closed as delete by Drini, but overturned on DRV by Xoloz. The resulting AfD was then speedily closed by thebainer. Badlydrawnjeff then filed for a deletion review, which was speedily closed or removed by a number of administrators and others consecutively, including JzG, Doc Glasgow and Tony Sidaway, and the closures often reverted or new DRVs opened. There is dispute as to whether the actions of all parties were within process, and whether, as some believe, WP:BLP takes priority over DRV. A peripheral issue to the case is a 60-hour block of Badlydrawnjeff by Zsinj, apparently after discussions on the admin IRC channel, although some have stated that the consensus on the channel did not favour the block. The block was quickly undone by Gaillimh. Additionally, some allege that violetriga acted improperly in undeleting some articles deleted under BLP.
- Abu badali: A case alleging that Abu badali (talk · contribs) has disruptively tagged non-free images for deletion, even when a valid fair-use justification exists, and has harassed editors who have complained about this behavior. Abu badali denies the allegations.
Voting phase
- Hkelkar 2: A case involving the actions of Rama's Arrow (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), Bakasuprman (talk · contribs), Dangerous-Boy (talk · contribs) and Sbhushan (talk · contribs), Rama's Arrow alleges that the others acted as meatpuppets of banned user Hkelkar, and blocked them for six months. They deny the allegations, and allege that Rama's Arrow acted improperly in blocking them, and in posting private e-mails to the incidents noticeboard. Various remedies have been proposed including an early proposal to impose no sanctions on any of the parties but calling on the parties to enter into mediation, based on a finding of fact noting a lack of reliable evidence in the case, and a proposal to prohibit administrator actions between the parties has the support of six. Voting on a recent proposal to desysop Rama's Arrow is split at three-to-one. Voting on principles regarding the posting of private e-mails is split but it appears that a majority of arbitrators will support the principle that private e-mails may not be posted on-wiki without the consent of the sender.
- TingMing: A case involving the actions of TingMing (talk · contribs). Ideogram (talk · contribs) alleges that he has engaged in "controversial edits", edit warring, incivility, and possibly sockpuppetry. TingMing denies the allegations, and alleges incivility on the part of Ideogram. Kirill Lokshin has proposed a remedy banning TingMing for one year, which has the support of eight arbitrators.
- E104421-Tajik: A case involving the actions of E104421 and Tajik. The case had been suspended to allow a referral to Community enforceable mediation, but the mediation broke down after Tajik was alleged to have edited through sockpuppets while claiming to be away and unavailable for the mediation. Remedies have been proposed banning Tajik either indefinitely or for one year (which have the support of six arbitrators), and reminding AzaToth that Wikipedia operates by consensus (with the support of three arbitrators).
Motion to close