User talk:GhostInTheMachine

This user knows that it can be a challenge to keep AGF in mind.

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Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia Newsletter #258: Abstract Wikipedia at Wikimania

There is a new update for Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions. Please, come and read it!

In this issue, we discuss the presentations and workshops at Wikimania, including a features feedback request based on what we heard there, and highlight new features shipped this week including diffs for Wikifunctions.

Want to catch up with the previous updates? Check our archive!

Enjoy the reading! Quiddity (WMF) 19:05, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Downcasing in a short description

Referring to the reverted diff , the point is this: {{annotated biography link}} transcludes the content of {{short description}}. What is required on Getty (surname) is "(1956–2011), grandson of J. Paul Getty", not "(1956–2011), Grandson of J. Paul Getty". Charles Matthews (talk) 06:04, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Short descriptions are sentence case. If the {{Annotated link}} does not produce the desired effect, then just hand-craft the description for the list — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 06:25, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia proposals request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia talk:Did you know on a "Wikipedia proposals" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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SodiumBot (botop|talk|contribs) 18:30, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you

just a quick thank you for this - you help make Wikipedia feel good too. ~2026-31242-72 (talk) 18:31, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Domestic cricket competitions in 2027

A tag has been placed on Category:Domestic cricket competitions in 2027 indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:43, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:2027 Indian Premier League

A tag has been placed on Category:2027 Indian Premier League indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:46, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanksgiving

Hi! Thank you so much for improving the Pachhunga Hmar article. I really appreciate your help. I have been feeling a bit frustrated lately with some of my Wikipedia experiences, so your kindness and willingness to improve the article instead of just pointing out mistakes meant a lot to me. Thank you for being so helpful and supportive. Vankal (talk) 08:08, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Tech News: 2026-32

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

Updates for editors

• The Reader Experience team has developed a patch demo that wraps the page toolbar onto two lines when there is not enough horizontal space for all the buttons. This aims to reduce crowding in the Vector 2022 toolbar, which can occur on some language Wikipedias at certain screen widths.
• The Reader Experience team is planning to launch Reading Lists, a Community Wishlist item, which is currently available to try in beta, as a full feature in September. Before then, volunteer translator help is needed for string translations into a number of languages. The feature supports reading and learning goals on Wikipedia.
• Next week, the table of contents on Wikimedia Commons file pages will be improved by consolidating the file page table of contents with the page table of contents. This will make it easier to understand a file page’s structure, navigate to specific sections, and share links to individual sections.
• View all 24 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, an issue where some TIFF images failed to load after clicking their thumbnail, causing a broken image to be displayed instead of the full-size image, has now been fixed.

Updates for technical contributors

• The variable and function selector in AbuseFilter has been updated to support search and autocomplete. It will allow filter maintainers to find the desired variable or function more quickly.
• The MJPEG and VP8 formats are removed from the video player. The MP4 format (MPEG-4 Part 2) is added instead, which provides higher quality videos to older iPhone devices. It may take a few weeks to retroactively update all existing videos. The default format for modern devices stays the same (VP9/WebM).
• Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

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

MediaWiki message delivery 19:44, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia Newsletter #259: Congratulations Jules*. An apple is a fruit

There is a new update for Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions. Please, come and read it!

In this issue, we congratulate Wikimedian of the Year and we discuss his favourite article in relation to Abstract Wikipedia, we introduce a new Type of function on Wikifunctions, and we take a look at the latest software developments.

Want to catch up with the previous updates? Check our archive!

We also remind you that in the next weeks these newsletter reminders will be paused, and that they will resume in mid-August.

Enjoy the reading! -- User:Sannita (WMF) (talk) 13:19, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2026

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2026).

Administrator changes

• MCE89
• Staraction

• Danaman5

CheckUser changes

• dbeef

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, the 30-day requirement for extended-confirmed status now begins after an account's first edit instead of its registration (T431060).

Technical news

• Inactive editors can now be removed as mentors at Special:CommunityConfiguration/Mentorship automatically.
• The Suggested Edits' Revise Tone feature is now enabled. It encourages editors to identify and revise non-neutral language in articles.

Miscellaneous

• The Unreferenced articles August 2026 backlog drive is underway. Help to add references to 47,000 articles.
• The Articles for creation August 2026 backlog drive is under way. Help to review 4,500+ drafts.

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• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:51, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Tech News: 2026-33

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

Updates for editors

• A new ChartWizard is now available on Wikimedia Commons for users interested in creating charts from their own data. The wizard makes the Chart extension more beginner-friendly by allowing editors to create charts, such as bar and pie charts, without needing to use JSON. Users can still switch to the JSON editor if they prefer. Feedback on the new tool is welcome on the wish talk page.
• View all 19 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, an issue where the Wikipedia iOS app’s Picture of the Day widget displayed the same image every day instead of updating daily, has now been fixed.

Updates for technical contributors

• Math formula SVG images will soon be generated in the browser instead of on the server. MathML continues to be generated on the server and renders in the browser without JavaScript. Wikibooks will see this change on 12 August, Wikisource on 19 August and Wikipedia from 20-27 August. You can try this by selecting "MathML with SVG image (client side MathJax rendering)" in your preferences. This change is part of deprecating RESTBase and deprecating Mathoid.
• Category pages will soon support sorting entries by the time they are added to a category. This will make it easier to find recently or long-standing categorized pages. It will also improve workflows for maintenance categories such as deletion backlogs and other time-based review tasks. You can use cldsort=timestamp URL argument in category view to sort the entries.
• Gadgets and user scripts on Wikimedia wikis may now use ES2018 features and ES2019 features in JavaScript code. Previously, the platform only allowed up to ES2017. MediaWiki validates the source code to protect functionality from syntax errors and to ensure scripts are valid in all supported browsers.
• Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:43, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Drv source files

Hello, as you are more experienced with Wikipedia processes, may I ask you how you see the situation? Honestly I'm completely hallucinating by what's going on, for me it's disfunctional at every level. AbcSxyZ (talk) 13:25, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm thinking about adding the content in a source file section within source code to follow their absurdity, as they recommend according to the consensus supported by a single commentator, hoping people complain in source code for conceptual inconsistencies in the week (idk how long I can have), then drv. It avoid "OR" from the lead this way.

Edit: maybe no drv, just add the content there to be slowly filled, let people state the absurdity over the time to create a source file page on their own at some point, COI is too much of a weapon against me.

"even renaming the target, if there's consensus to do so on the target's Talk page." AbcSxyZ (talk) 13:52, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

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The Source files article definitely needed more work, but it was gradually improving. The arguments for keeping it to allow further work, although straightforward to you (and me) did not seem straightforward to the closer. I suspect that the votes against just sounded more convincing. So mistakes do happen. We often need to accept them and move on – painful though it can be. I would advise that, for a while at least, you only edit articles unrelated to open source and the like. I would especially advise against copying any content from the old version for some while.

The last version of the article before the switch to a redirect is available at 1368633959, so the content is not lost. That version contained text related to six different example domains, so it may be valid to see if part of that text with the refs might be suitable for adding into articles covering those domains — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 16:52, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

A closure in line with the side providing no coherent arguments and no sources, I genuinely admire the performance 🙃

I will do a basic merge tomorrow while it's hot, raise the talk, and see how it goes from here. I need it for theoretical anchor of source files section in open source anyway as they break conceptual consistency in various ways.

I'm a kind of contributor focused on my field, so may just monitor and eventually disappear for a while!

What an experience... Thanks for your support and understanding btw, appreciable to not always fight alone against the world! AbcSxyZ (talk) 19:59, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia Newsletter #260: Shoutout to User:99of9

There is a new update for Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions. Please, come and read it!

In this issue, we congratulate our own User:99of9 for his extensive work with the Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia communities, we discuss what happened at Wikimania, we introduce a document for interested communities to join Abstract Wikipedia, and we take a look at the latest software developments.

Want to catch up with the previous updates? Check our archive!

Enjoy the reading! -- User:Sannita (WMF) (talk) 15:55, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

mycenean raids

@GhostInTheMachine i am sorry if i annoy you but this source source (https://books.google.com.ly/books?id=MLBJDAAAQBAJ&dq=libu+meshwesh+trade+Mycenaean&pg=PA104&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false) which say this "increase in Meshwesh/Libu activity in the Marmarican region, precipitating the first clashes with the sea traders; this is apparently illustrated by the Amarna papyrus mentioned above, where men with Egyptian and Mycenaean military gear appear in conflict with men in Libyan costume (Parkinson and Schofield 1993; Schofield and Parkinson 1994)." so i dont know should we readd it ? or..something else ? Libyanmilitaryman (talk) 08:19, 14 August 2026 (UTC)