User talk:ZLEA/Archive 11
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Administrators' newsletter – December 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2019).
Administrator changes
EvergreenFir • ToBeFree
Akhilleus • Athaenara • John Vandenberg • Melchoir • MichaelQSchmidt • NeilN • Youngamerican • 😂
CheckUser changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- An RfC on the administrator resysop criteria was closed. 18 proposals have been summarised with a variety of supported and opposed statements. The inactivity grace period within which a new request for adminship is not required has been reduced from three years to two. Additionally, Bureaucrats are permitted to use their discretion when returning administrator rights.
- Following a proposal, the edit filter mailing list has been opened up to users with the Edit Filter Helper right.
Technical news
- Wikimedia projects can set a default block length for users via MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry. A new page, MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip, allows the setting of a different default block length for IP editors. Neither is currently used. (T219126)
Arbitration
- Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 2 December 2018 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.
Miscellaneous
- The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF
will no longer use partial or temporary Office Action bans... until and unless community consensus that they are of value or Board directive
.
- The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF
Skb8721 I'm not sure why your image does not show on the campaign page. I am new to this area of Wikimedia Commons, but my best guess is that the page only shows the oldest or newest uploads. Anyway, I thank you for participating in the contest. - ZLEA T\C 15:01, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
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
- Mix'n'match is a tool to connect Wikidata items to information in other databases. It can be used to find subjects that are missing in a Wikipedia. It now has more than 3000 datasets. Before it was closer to 2000.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 December. It will be on all wikis from 5 December (calendar).
Meetings
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You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 4 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- There will be a new schema for XML dumps. Scripts and apps that use them will need to be updated. If they are not updated they will no longer work. [1]
- The
{{REVISIONID}}magic word will no longer work in the content namespaces. This is for performance reasons. When you preview a page it returns""(empty string). When you read a page it returns"-"(dash). In the future this will also affect other namespaces. The next ones are file and category namespaces. [2]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:59, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
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
- Wikimedia projects use Translatewiki to translate the wiki interface. You can now use WatchTranslations to watch projects there. You would get an email if there are missing translations to your language. [3]
- There is a new dataset you can use. It shows the number of editors per country per month for a number of countries. You can read the documentation and download the dataset.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 December. It will be on all wikis from 12 December (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 11 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- You can test a new reference tool. It makes it possible to reference different parts of a source without repeating all information. You can test it on the beta cluster. You can see an example article. [4]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:39, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- The Linter extension helps you find technical errors in articles. It did not show new changes last week. This was because of an API problem. It is now working again. [5]
- Special:Watchlist can show the wrong information again. It does not always show which edits are read and which are unread. This is because of a database problem. The developers are working on solving the problem. [6]
Changes later this week
- You can get email notifications. You can get them immediately, a summary every day or a summary once every week. If you choose a summary you can soon choose not to get notifications you have already marked as read on the wiki. [7]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 December. It will be on all wikis from 19 December (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 18 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The partial blocks feature is now stable. It will come to most wikis on 6 January. Your wiki can ask to wait. Contact NKohli (WMF) if you don't want it now. [8]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
00:18, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
The Bugle: Issue CLXIV, December 2019
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The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 12:48, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Tech News
- Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 6 January 2020.
Recent changes
- All mobile site users now have new features. Features include: tabs for page/discussion; an expanded user-menu; direct access to history pages. These features were initially part of the "advanced mode".
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.
Future changes
- You can use
setlangin the URL to change the user interface language. This will no longer happen automatically. When you open the link you will be asked to confirm the language change. This will not happen if Javascript is not working in your browser. [9]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:08, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
Donald Trung Thank you. I'm not sure that this is a case of vandalism as I don't see any visual changes. I will look into it later, but at the moment it looks like a replacement of depreciated wikitext. - ZLEA T\C 19:07, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
The Signpost: 27 December 2019
- From the editors: Caught with their hands in the cookie jar, again
- News and notes: What's up (and down) with administrators, articles and languages
- In the media: "The fulfillment of the dream of humanity" or a nightmare of PR whitewashing on behalf of one-percenters?
- Discussion report: December discussions around the wiki
- Arbitration report: Announcement of 2020 Arbitration Committee
- Traffic report: Queens and aliens, exactly alike, once upon a December
- Technology report: User scripts and more
- Gallery: Holiday wishes
- Recent research: Acoustics and Wikipedia; Wiki Workshop 2019 summary
- From the archives: The 2002 Spanish fork and ads revisited (re-revisited?)
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
- WikiProject report: Wikiproject Tree of Life: A Wikiproject report
Currency Contest
Hi, I received an award for participating in the currency contest, but on this page I don't see the one currency bill I submitted:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Uploaded_via_Campaign:US-Banknote-Contest
Should it be there? (Or maybe it is there and I'm just missing it!) It was from the Bank of Louisiana, but it's not any of the Bank of Louisiana notes shown.
Sincerely,
Skb8721 (talk) 16:35, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
- @Skb8721:, that it because you uploaded it using the regular MediaWiki Upload Wizard and not the special Upload Wizard for the contest. --Donald Trung (talk) 21:22, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
WikiProject Numismatics newsletter - January 2020
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The WikiProject Numismatics newsletter |
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| Issue X | |
Read the full newsletter here
The sovereign is a gold coin of the United Kingdom, with a nominal value of one pound sterling. Struck from 1817 until the present time, it was originally a circulating coin accepted in Britain and elsewhere in the world; it is now a bullion coin and is sometimes mounted in jewellery. In most recent years, it has borne the well-known design of Saint George and the Dragon on the reverse; the initials (B P) of the designer, Benedetto Pistrucci, are visible to the right of the date.
The coin was named after the English gold sovereign, last minted about 1603, and originated as part of the Great Recoinage of 1816. Many in Parliament believed a one-pound coin should be issued rather than the 21-shilling (1.05 pounds) guinea struck until that time. The Master of the Mint, William Wellesley Pole, had Pistrucci design the new coin, and his depiction was also used for other gold coins. Originally, the coin was unpopular as the public preferred the convenience of banknotes, but paper currency of value £1 was soon limited by law. With that competition gone, the sovereign not only became a popular circulating coin, but was used in international trade and in foreign lands, trusted as a coin containing a known quantity of gold.
The British government promoted the use of the sovereign as an aid to international trade, and the Royal Mint took steps to see that lightweight gold coins were withdrawn from circulation. From the 1850s until 1932, the sovereign was also struck at colonial mints, initially in Australia, and later in Canada, South Africa and India—they have been struck again in India since 2013 (in addition to the production in Britain by the Royal Mint) for the local market. The sovereigns issued in Australia initially carried a unique local design, but by 1887, all new sovereigns bore Pistrucci's George and Dragon design. Strikings there were so large that by 1900, about 40 per cent of the sovereigns in Britain had been minted in Australia.
With the start of the First World War in 1914, the sovereign vanished from circulation in Britain, replaced by paper money, and it did not return after the war, though issues at colonial mints continued until 1932. The coin was still used in the Middle East, and demand rose in the 1950s, which the Royal Mint eventually responded to by striking new sovereigns in 1957. It has been struck since then both as a bullion coin and, beginning in 1979, for collectors. Though the sovereign is no longer in circulation, it is still legal tender in the United Kingdom. (Full article...)
Today's Featured Article December 22
The Maryland Tercentenary half dollar was a commemorative fifty-cent piece issued by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1934. It depicts Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, on the obverse (pictured) and the coat of arms of Maryland on the reverse. The Maryland Tercentenary Commission sought a coin in honor of the 300th anniversary of the arrival of English settlers in Maryland. The state's senators introduced legislation, and it passed both houses of Congress with no opposition. A design had already been prepared by Professor Hans Schuler; it passed review by the Commission of Fine Arts, though there was controversy over whether Lord Baltimore, a Cavalier and Catholic, would have worn a collar typical of Puritans. The Commission sold about 15,000 of the full issue of 25,000 for $1 each, and thereafter discounted the price for large sales to dealers and speculators. The coins have increased in value over time, and are now valued in the low hundreds of dollars. (Full article...)
Picture of the Day December 11
-1000_Pesos_(1945).jpg)
(see more)
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Delivered by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 18:00, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – January 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).
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Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment asks whether partial blocks should be enabled on the English Wikipedia. If enabled, this functionality would allow administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces, rather than the entire site.
- A proposal asks whether admins who don't use their tools for a significant period of time (e.g. five years) should have the toolset procedurally removed.
- Following a successful RfC, a whitelist is now available for users whose redirects will be autopatrolled by a bot, removing them from the new pages patrol queue. Admins can add such users to Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist after a discussion following the guidelines at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist.
Arbitration
- The fourth case on Palestine-Israel articles was closed. The case consolidated all previous remedies under one heading, which should make them easier to understand, apply, and enforce. In particular, the distinction between "primary articles" and "related content" has been clarified, with the former being
the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted
rather thanreasonably construed
. - Following the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Bradv, Casliber, David Fuchs, DGG, KrakatoaKatie, Maxim, Newyorkbrad, SoWhy, Worm That Turned, Xeno.
- The fourth case on Palestine-Israel articles was closed. The case consolidated all previous remedies under one heading, which should make them easier to understand, apply, and enforce. In particular, the distinction between "primary articles" and "related content" has been clarified, with the former being
Miscellaneous
- This issue marks three full years of the Admin newsletter. Thanks for reading!
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
- When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [10]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 January. It will be on all wikis from 9 January (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:23, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
Hope you're well
Hope you're doing OK, haven't seen your excellent edits on coin articles in a while.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:50, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
- Wehwalt Thank you. I'm fine, just catching up on some off wiki projects. I will be back soon. - ZLEA T\C 16:54, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
Vandalism
Please see this edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/935256753
--Donald Trung (talk) 19:02, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
- Donald Trung Thank you. I don't see any visual changes, and at the moment it looks like a replacement of depreciated wikitext by a user that forgot to log in. I will look closer at the changes later. - ZLEA T\C 19:12, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
TheWikiWizard - January 2020
Hello, ZLEA! Here is the January 2020 issue of TheWikiWizard.
- What's Hot! (We Found Santa Claus!...)
- Articles (DFFT, Young Editors!)
- The Wikipedian
- News about Wikipedia! (Wikipedia News and Events!)
- Editor's Notes (New Main Page DYKS)
- Activity Page (Fun Activities, and super cool stuff...)
- Ads (Super Cool Ads)
We hope you like this month's issue! If you'd like to discuss this issue, please go to this issue's talk page. Happy Reading! --Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 04:00, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 04:10, 13 January 2020 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk)
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 no longer read Wikimedia wikis if your browser use very old TLS. This is because it is a security problem for everyone. It can lead to downgrade attacks. Since 9 December you just see a warning. Soon the browser will not connect to the wikis at all. Most are users on Android systems older than 4.4. You can read the browser recommendations. [11]
- Special:LinkSearch has been moved from the "Redirecting special pages" section on Special:SpecialPages to the "Lists of pages" section. [12]
Changes later this week
- Wikis can protect pages so that only some users can edit them. The standard protection levels are Require autoconfirmed or confirmed access and Require administrator access. If your wiki use more protection levels the technical name might be renamed for standardisation. This doesn't affect what users see. [13]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 January. It will be on all wikis from 16 January (calendar).
Future changes
- Deepcat and Catgraph will stop working. This will happen at the end of January. This is because you can now use the normal search function instead. [14]
- You can use
<ref follow="…">to merge footnotes that follow each other. It is meant to be used for digitised books on Wikisource. If the order of the footnotes is wrong no error was shown but the bad <ref> was shown outside the <references /> list. This will change and you will see an error message instead. [15]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:41, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
The Bugle: Issue CLXV, January 2020
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The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 12:56, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
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 21 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 January. It will be on all wikis from 23 January (calendar).
Future changes
- There is a new suggestion for what to show when someone edits without registering an account. This is to give unregistered editors better privacy and make some anti-vandalism work go faster. You can give feedback.
- Pywikibot is a Python library to automate work on wikis. It will no longer support Python 2. Use the
python2tag if you need to continue running Python 2 scripts. The Pywikibot team strongly recommends to migrate to Python 3. You can get help to do so. [16] - The weekly MediaWiki branch cut will soon become automated. The timing for this cut may change. You can discuss in Phabricator if this affects you. [17]
- You can read about coming technical events and mentoring interns.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:42, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
The Signpost: 27 January 2020
- From the editor: Reaching six million articles is great, but we need a moratorium
- News and notes: Six million articles on the English language Wikipedia
- Special report: The limits of volunteerism and the gatekeepers of Team Encarta
- Arbitration report: Three cases at ArbCom
- Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2019
- News from the WMF: Capacity Building: Top 5 Themes from Community Conversations
- Community view: Our most important new article since November 1, 2015
- From the archives: A decade of The Signpost, 2005-2015
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Japan: a wikiProject Report
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- Some mobile diffs have problems. A couple of buttons are not shown. Structured data diffs on Commons are confusing. The developers are working on fixing it. [18][19]
- Administrators on wikis that use Structured Discussions can't move discussion pages. This is a bug. The developers are working on fixing it. [20]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
- There is JavaScript code on Special:Undelete for administrators that makes it possible to automatically select multiple checkboxes by holding the "Shift" key and clicking. This code is also loaded by accident on other special pages and on articles. This makes pages slower to load. This will be fixed. If you know of other special pages where this is useful please tell the developers at phab:T232688.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:53, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – February 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
- The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with
wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input
. No proposed process received consensus.
Technical news
- Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
- When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [21]
Arbitration
- Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators
that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.
- Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators
Miscellaneous
- Voting in the 2020 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2020, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2020, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- The English Wikipedia has reached six million articles. Thank you everyone for your contributions!
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 4 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 February. It will be on all wikis from 6 February (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:05, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 12
News and updates associated with user scripts from the past two months (December 2019 and January 2020).
Hello everyone and welcome to the 12th issue issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter:
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...and many more, all available at Wikipedia:User scripts/Requests
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Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 06:12, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
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
- There is a new version of the Wikimedia Commons app for Android. It should fix the failed uploads problem. [22]
Problems
- There was a problem with the new MediaWiki version last week. It deleted some messages by accident. The new version was late because it was stopped to fix things. [23]
Changes later this week
- The MediaWiki action API is used by various tools like bots and gadgets. Some error codes will change. Some parameter values that do not follow the standard will no longer work. [24]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 February. It will be on all wikis from 13 February (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:12, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
WikiProject Numismatics newsletter - February 2020
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The WikiProject Numismatics newsletter |
|---|---|
| Issue XI | |
Read the full newsletter here
The Coinage Act of 1873 or Mint Act of 1873, 17 Stat. 424, was a general revision of the laws relating to the Mint of the United States. In abolishing the right of holders of silver bullion to have their metal struck into fully legal tender dollar coins, it ended bimetallism in the United States, placing the nation firmly on the gold standard. Because of this, the act became contentious in later years, and was denounced by some as the "Crime of '73".
By 1869, the Mint Act of 1837 was deemed outdated, and Treasury Secretary George Boutwell had Deputy Comptroller of the Currency John Jay Knox undertake a draft of a revised law, which was introduced into Congress by Ohio Senator John Sherman. Due to the high price of silver, little of that metal was presented at the Mint, but Knox and others foresaw that development of the Comstock Lode and other rich silver-mining areas would lower the price, causing large quantities of silver dollars to be struck and the gold standard to be endangered. During the almost three years the bill was pending before Congress, it was rarely mentioned that it would end bimetallism, though this was not concealed. Congressmen instead debated other provisions. The legislation, in addition to ending the production of the silver dollar, abolished three low-denomination coins. The bill became the Act of February 12, 1873, with the signature of President Ulysses S. Grant.
When silver prices dropped in 1876, producers sought to have their bullion struck at the Mint, only to learn that this was no longer possible. The matter became a major political controversy that lasted the remainder of the century, pitting those who valued the deflationary gold standard against those who believed free coinage of silver to be necessary for economic prosperity. Accusations were made that the passage of the act had been secured through corruption, though there is little evidence of this. The gold standard was explicitly enacted into law in 1900, and was completely abandoned by the U.S. in 1971. (Full article...)
Today's Featured Article January 11
The Lexington-Concord Sesquicentennial half dollar is a fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1925 as a commemorative coin in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. It was designed by Chester Beach. Members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation introduced legislation in 1924 to authorize a commemorative half dollar for the anniversary. The bill passed both houses of Congress and was signed by President Calvin Coolidge. Beach had to satisfy committees from both Lexington and Concord, and the Commission of Fine Arts passed the design only reluctantly, feeling he had been given poor materials to work with. The coins were sold for $1, and were vended at the anniversary celebrations in Lexington and in Concord; they were sold at banks across New England. Although just over half of the authorized mintage of 300,000 was struck, almost all the coins that were minted were sold. Depending on condition, they are catalogued in the hundreds of dollars. (Full article...)
Picture of the Day January 13
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(see more)
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Delivered by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 17:16, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
Roanoke, Virginia
Hi. I recently attempted to make a comment to start a talk about Roanoke's pairing with other cities based on its snowfall. I noticed that you reverted the highlight of Roanoke in the article which I completely understand. However, I was hoping that someone might discuss Roanoke and its pairing under the talk page. My intention was not to vandalize the article or to contradict you in any way. I just wanted to start a discussion. I would just like to know what your opinion was on this topic and why you felt the need to revert the edit? Thank You. P.S. If I am being rude or stepped out of line in any way, please kindly let me know as this was far from my intention. 50.202.217.173 (talk) 19:27, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
Thank You so much for your help. 50.202.217.173 (talk) 20:24, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
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
- Pages on Wikidata and Commons now load faster. You can read more about page load performance. [25][26]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 February. It will be on all wikis from 20 February (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:18, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
The Bugle: IssueICLXVI, February 2020
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The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 13:04, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
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 25 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 February. It will be on all wikis from 27 February (calendar).
Future changes
- There will be a reply button after each post on a talk page if you want one. This will soon be a beta feature on the Arabic, French, Dutch and Hungarian Wikipedias. You will have to turn it on if you want to use it. It will come to more wikis later. You can test the reply button. It was briefly shown earlier than planned by mistake on the four first wikis last week.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:00, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
March Madness 2020
G'day all, March Madness 2020 is about to get underway, and there is bling aplenty for those who want to get stuck into the backlog by way of tagging, assessing, updating, adding or improving resources and creating articles. If you haven't already signed up to participate, why not? The more the merrier! Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:19, 29 February 2020 (UTC) for the coord team
Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 13
News and updates associated with user scripts from the past month (February 2019).
Hello everyone and welcome to the 13th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter:
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I hope everyone is having a great year so far! --DannyS712 (talk) 15:53, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
The Signpost: 1 March 2020
- From the editor: The ball is in your court
- News and notes: Alexa ranking down to 13th worldwide
- Special report: More participation, more conversation, more pageviews
- Discussion report: Do you prefer M or P?
- Arbitration report: Two prominent administrators removed
- Community view: The Incredible Invisible Woman
- In focus: History of The Signpost, 2015–2019
- From the archives: Is Wikipedia for sale?
- Traffic report: February articles, floating in the dark
- Gallery: Feel the love
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
- Opinion: Wikipedia is another country
- Humour: The Wilhelm scream
Administrators' newsletter – March 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops
must not
undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather thanshould not
. - A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.
- Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops
Technical news
- Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.
Miscellaneous
- Following the 2020 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: BRPever, Krd, Martin Urbanec, MusikAnimal, Sakretsu, Sotiale, and Tks4Fish. There are a total of seven editors that have been appointed as stewards, the most since 2014.
- The 2020 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Ajraddatz and Uzoma Ozurumba; they will serve for one year.
Sorry for bothering you, but...
- New Page Patrol needs experienced volunteers
- New Page Patrol is currently struggling to keep up with the influx of new articles. We could use a few extra hands on deck if you think you can help.
- Reviewing/patrolling a page doesn't take much time but it requires a good understanding of Wikipedia policies and guidelines; Wikipedia needs experienced users to perform this task and there are precious few with the appropriate skills. Even a couple reviews a day can make a huge difference.
- If you would like to join the project and help out, please see the granting conditions and review our instructions page. You can apply for the user-right HERE. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 20:07, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- Readers who were not logged in briefly saw the interface in a language decided by their browser. It should normally be in the language of the wiki. This happened for a short period of time last week. This was because of a bug. [27]
Changes later this week
- If you forget your password you can ask for a new one to be sent to your email address. You need to know your email address or your username. You will now be able to choose that you need to enter both your email address and your username. This will be a preference. This is to get fewer password reset emails someone else asked for. [28]
- When you asked for a new password you could see if the username didn't exist on Special:PasswordReset. Now the page will show the username you entered and tell you an email has been sent if the username exists. This is for better security. [29]
- On Special:WhatLinksHere you can see what other pages link to a page. You can see if the link is from a redirect. You can now see which section the redirect links to. [30]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 March. It will be on all wikis from 5 March (calendar).
Future changes
- The developers are working on a new interface to solve edit conflicts on talk pages. You can give feedback. [31]
- There is a vote on the creation of a new user group called abuse filter manager. The vote runs from March 1 to March 31 on Meta.
-
wgMFSpecialCaseMainPagewas used for the mobile site. It was deprecated in 2017. It will stop working in April. Wikis should see if they use it. If they do they should fix it. You can read more and ask for help. This affects 183 wikis. There is a list. [32]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
00:36, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
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
- There is a new search word called
articletopic. You can use it to search for articles on a specific topic. It is available on the Arabic, Czech, English and Vietnamese Wikipedias. It will come to more Wikipedias soon. [33][34][35]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 March. It will be on all wikis from 12 March (calendar).
Future changes
- There is a plan for new requirements for user signatures. You can give feedback.
- The Wikipedia Android app will do push notifications if users want them. This could help you see for example when someone wrote on your talk page or your edit was reverted. This will come later this year. [36]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:15, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
TheWikiWizard/Workshop/Issues/Feburary/March 2020
Hello, ZLEA! Here is the Feb/March 2020 issue of TheWikiWizard.
- What's Hot! (Love poem?)
- Articles (The Missing Manual)
- The Wikipedian
- News about Wikipedia! (Wikipedia News and Events!)
- Editor's Notes (Exciting News!)
- Activity Page (Fun Activities, and super cool stuff...)
- Ads (Super Cool Ads that are totally not spelt woeng)
We hope you like this month's issue! If you'd like to discuss this issue, please go to this issue's talk page. Happy Reading! Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 03:36, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
- Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 20:27, 14 March 2020 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk)
The Bugle: Issue CLXVII, March 2020
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The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 01:52, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
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
- There is a new API module for changing the content model of existing pages. Use
action=changecontentmodelto specify the new model. You can read the documentation on mediawiki.org. [37]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 March. It will be on all wikis from 19 March (calendar).
Future changes
- If you edit a page at the same time as someone else you can get an edit conflict. There is a new two-column interface to make it easier to solve this. It will soon be active by default on the German, Arabic, and Farsi Wikipedias. It will be on by default on more wikis within the next months. You will be able to opt out of the new interface. [38][39]
- You can see a proposed design for replying to comments in an easier way.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:13, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- Some development will be slower than planned. This is because of the current pandemic. You can see the new deployment guidelines. This is to avoid risks when some persons could be unavailable.
- There was a problem when adding interwiki links. The tool you use to add interwiki links could suggest the wrong project to link to. This has now been fixed. [40][41]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 March. It will be on all wikis from 26 March (calendar).
Future changes
- There is a project to make editing easier for newcomers. The developers are trying to understand what initiatives different Wikipedias have to welcome newcomers. They also want to know which templates are often used for maintenance activities. You can help this project by checking if your wiki's pages are listed on Wikidata.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:08, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
The Signpost: 29 March 2020
- From the editors: The bad and the good
- News and notes: 2018 Wikipedian of the year blocked
- WikiProject report: WikiProject COVID-19: A WikiProject Report
- Special report: Wikipedia on COVID-19: what we publish and why it matters
- In the media: Blocked in Iran but still covering the big story
- Discussion report: Rethinking draft space
- Arbitration report: Unfinished business
- In focus: "I have been asked by Jeffrey Epstein …"
- Community view: Wikimedia community responds to COVID-19
- From the archives: Text from Wikipedia good enough for Oxford University Press to claim as own
- Traffic report: The only thing that matters in the world
- Gallery: Visible Women on Wikipedia
- News from the WMF: Amid COVID-19, Wikimedia Foundation offers full pay for reduced hours, mobilizes all staff to work remote, and waives sick time
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
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 beta version of the Wikipedia app for Android can now help users add tags on Commons. These tags are called depicts. [42]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 April. It will be on all wikis from 2 April (calendar).
Future changes
- The video player will change to be simpler and more modern. The current beta feature will become the video player for everyone. The old player will be removed. [43]
- There is a project to make templates easier to use. The next few weeks the developers will present ideas on the project page. You can watch that page if you are interested in giving feedback. [44]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:26, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 14
News and updates associated with user scripts from the past month (March 2020).
Hello everyone and welcome to the 14th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter:
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Stay safe, --DannyS712 (talk) 05:48, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – April 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- There is an ongoing request for comment to streamline the source deprecation and blacklisting process.
Technical news
- There is a plan for new requirements for user signatures. You can give feedback.
Arbitration
- Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold a
Arbcom RfC regarding on-wiki harassment
. A draft RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC (Draft) and not open to comments from the community yet. Interested editors can comment on the RfC itself on its talk page.
- Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold a
Miscellaneous
- The WMF has begun a pilot report of the pages most visited through various social media platforms to help with anti-vandalism and anti-disinformation efforts. The report is updated daily and will be available through the end of May.
WikiProject Numismatics newsletter - April 2020
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The WikiProject Numismatics newsletter |
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| Issue XII | |
Read the full newsletter here
The Big Maple Leaf (BML) is a set of six $1 million (CAD) gold coins each weighing 100 kilograms (220 lb) (3,215 troy ounces). They were produced by the Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) in 2007, at their Ottawa facility where the first BML produced remains in storage. As of March 2017[update], the market value of a single Big Maple Leaf had reached approximately $4 million (USD). On 27 March 2017, one of the coins was stolen from a Berlin museum. (Full article...)
Today's Featured Article February 2
The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge half dollar is a fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1936 as a commemorative coin. One of many commemoratives issued that year, it was designed by Jacques Schnier and honors the opening of the Bay Bridge that November. One side of the coin depicts a grizzly bear, a symbol of California, and the other shows the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, with the Ferry Building. Congress passed authorizing legislation for the coin in 1936. Schnier's models were approved and the coins were struck at the San Francisco Mint. Just over 70,000 coins were sold, by mail, in person, and from booths at the Bay Bridge's approaches, making it the first commemorative coin to be sold on a drive-in basis. The coins were taken off sale in February 1937, with the unsold remainder returned to the Mint for redemption and melting. The Bay Bridge half dollar catalogs in the low hundreds of dollars, depending on condition. (Full article...)
Picture of the Day March 20
(see more)
New members are automatically added to the subscriber list • If you are not a member and would like to receive this newsletter, or are a member but would not like to receive future issues, you may subscribe/unsubscribe here
Delivered by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 16:57, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- There was a problem with user pages not being shown properly on desktop. This was because of a bug. It will soon be fixed. [45]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 April. It will be on all wikis from 9 April (calendar).
Future changes
- MediaWiki will use a newer version of Unicode. Some characters that did not have an upper case equivalent before do now. Titles beginning with one of these characters will be moved. A list of these titles can be seen on Phabricator. The titles will be renamed by the user
Maintenance script. This will start on 13 April 2020. You can rename them before this if you wish and the new title can be different from the one the script would rename it to. [46]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:03, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
The Bugle: Issue CLXVIII, April 2020
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The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 05:21, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
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 the
articletopicsearch word on all Wikipedias. It searches articles by topic. [47] - You can see wiki tools in the new Tools Gallery. [48]
- You can see edits from the Wikimedia Cloud Services in a new dashboard.
- When you use filters on a history page you sometimes don't see any edits. There is a text explaining this now. Before it was just empty. [49]
- There is a new Wikimedia Technical Blog. [50]
Problems
- There was a problem with the Wikidata database last week. Some wikis went down for twenty minutes. Wikidata and other projects showed error messages. Interwiki links were not shown, some tools did not work and other problems. Some of this was fixed quickly. The developers are working on fixing the rest. [51][52][53]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from April 14. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from April 15. It will be on all wikis from April 16 (calendar).
Future changes
- Some graphs have not worked on mobile. This will soon be fixed. [54]
- The article tab on talk pages of redirects links to the target of the redirect. It could link to the redirect page itself instead. You can leave feedback on this.
- For pages using syntax highlighting, the use of the deprecated
<source>tag, as well as the use of the deprecatedencloseparameter, will add tracking categories.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:31, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Editing news 2020 #1 – Discussion tools
Read this in another language • Subscription list
The Editing team has been working on the talk pages project. The goal of the talk pages project is to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily. This project is the result of the Talk pages consultation 2019.
The team is building a new tool for replying to comments now. This early version can sign and indent comments automatically. Please test the new Reply tool.
- On 31 March 2020, the new reply tool was offered as a Beta Feature editors at four Wikipedias: Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian. If your community also wants early access to the new tool, contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF).
- The team is planning some upcoming changes. Please review the proposed design and share your thoughts on the talk page. The team will test features such as:
- an easy way to mention another editor ("pinging"),
- a rich-text visual editing option, and
- other features identified through user testing or recommended by editors.
To hear more about Editing Team updates, please add your name to the "Get involved" section of the project page. You can also watch 
these pages: the main project page, Updates, Replying, and User testing.
– PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
TheWikiWizard - April 2020
Hello, ZLEA! Here is the April 2020 issue of TheWikiWizard.
- Coronavirus Pandemic Message A special message for everyone during this time
- What's Hot! (Wikipedia Time?)
- Articles (none this month)
- The Wikipedian (we have a user!)
- News about Wikipedia! (Wikipedia News and Events!)
- Editor's Notes (News!)
- Activity Page (Fun Activities, and super cool stuff...)
- Ads (Super Cool Ads)
We hope you like this month's issue! If you'd like to discuss this issue, please go to this issue's talk page. Happy Reading & stay safe! --Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 02:05, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Tech News
- The next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 4 May 2020.
Recent changes
- The small wiki toolkits is to help smaller wikis that need technical skills. They can learn and share technical skills. [55]
- Over-qualified CSS selectors in Wikimedia skins have been removed.
div#contentis now.mw-body.div.portalis now.portal.div#footeris now#footer. This is so the skins can use HTML5 elements. If your gadgets or user styles used them you will have to update them. [56]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
- Some things on the wikis might look weird or not work in Internet Explorer 8 in the future. Internet Explorer 8 was replaced in 2011. [57]
- The font in the diffs will change. [58]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 April next week. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 April next week. It will be on all wikis from 30 April next week (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:46, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
The Signpost: 26 April 2020
- News and notes: Unbiased information from Ukraine's government?
- In the media: Coronavirus, again and again
- Discussion report: Redesigning Wikipedia, bit by bit
- Featured content: Featured content returns
- Arbitration report: Two difficult cases
- Traffic report: Disease the Rhythm of the Night
- Recent research: Trending topics across languages; auto-detecting bias
- Opinion: Trusting Everybody to Work Together
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
- In focus: Multilingual Wikipedia
- WikiProject report: The Guild of Copy Editors