This user talk page might be watched by friendly talk page stalkers, which means that someone other than me might reply to your query. Their input is welcome and their help with messages that I cannot reply to quickly is appreciated.
Latest comment: 21 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi. Could you please take a look at . If I'm right CU can't give any results based on just IP. But it seems like some sort of UPE war is going on here. This TA has been tagging many recently created articles (most of them seems like UPE) for AFD. Possible to fetch any information and identify to which gang does this belongs to? Thilsebatti (talk) 10:21, 9 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Well... it's not immediately obvious, and I'm reluctant to dig around on such a wide range. We've spotted Alakmarsaify and Deepcruze in the area but that really isn't saying much. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 05:12, 12 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 21 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hi Asilvering, I am based in mainland China, where Wiki is blocked. Could you please renew my IPBE for English Wiki, which will expire next week? Thanks！ 호고호 (talk) 10:21, 11 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 21 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi Asilvering, after you locked talk page of superpower as well as main page, I'm unable to edit, contribute or respond on it since I don't have an account. It's been 3 months since there's a debate where contributor's geogsage & georgeho are pushing to downgrade superpower status of united states & china, & push EU, Russia, & India as superpower's, if you're following the page. I tried to counter their technical vandalism by presenting facts, figures, statistics, but they're using some dumb articles to claim. With you're placed restriction, I'm technically unable to contribute, so I want you to take appropriate action, whereby I can contribute again. ~2026-54454-80 (talk) 16:27, 11 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
October 2026 Administrator Elections – Voting Phase
October 13–19: SecurePoll voting phase (we are here)
Scrutineering phase
In the voting phase, the candidate subpages close to public questions and discussion, and everyone who qualifies to vote has a week to use the SecurePoll software to vote, which uses a secret ballot. You can see who voted, but not who they voted for. Please note that the vote totals cannot be made public until after voting has ended and as such, it will not be possible for you to see an individual candidate's vote total during the election. The suffrage requirements are similar to those at RFA.
Once voting concludes, we will begin the scrutineering phase, which will last for a few days, perhaps longer. Once everything is certified, the results will be posted on the results page (this is a good page to watchlist), and transcluded to the main election page. In order to be granted adminship, a non-recall candidate must have received at least 70.0% support, calculated as Support / (Support + Oppose), and a minimum of 20 support votes. Recall candidates must achieve 55.0% support. Because this is a vote and not a consensus, there are no bureaucrat discussions ("crat chats").
Any questions or issues can be asked on the election talk page. Thank you for your participation. Happy electing.
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Latest comment: 20 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
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
Starting October 13, wikis can change the default pattern for auto-generated reference names in VisualEditor (currently <refname=":1"/>). They will be able to use human-readable, content-based reference names that are more helpful to contributors using the source editor (e.g. <refname="Miller2026-1"/>). VisualEditor reference name patterns can be defined using MediaWiki system messages, JSON, templates and modules (more information). Admins can enable these changes via community configuration. This is a community wish implemented by WMDE Technical Wishes.
Sub-referencing is a new MediaWiki feature that allows editors to reuse references with different details. It will be deployed to English Wikipedia on October 14 and to remaining Wikimedia Foundation wikis by end of October (likely October 21). The FAQ lists possible actions to take on your wiki to support the deployment. This is a long-standing community wish implemented by WMDE Technical Wishes.
Updates for editors
Moderator Tools will be removing the list view of the Watchlist and defaulting everyone to the changelog view. Previously, there were two versions of how the Watchlist is shown to mobile web users: the list view, where editors could see watched articles in a list format, and the changelog view, where editors could see changes to watched articles in a log format, controlled by a user's Advanced Mobile Control settings. This has created issues for code-base maintenance: two different displays means two sets of code to manage. By defaulting to the changelog view, we are simplifying the codebase and avoiding the likelihood of missing bugs.
The Wikipedia Android app is testing a way to listen to article introductions in the “For you” feed. A text-to-speech model reads the existing article text aloud without rewriting it or adding any content. The 30-day experiment will begin in the Wikipedia Beta app during the third week of September, then move to the regular Wikipedia Android app in October for a limited group of eligible users. A small portion of app users (those with English feeds and at least one topic interest) will have access to the feature. This experiment is part of broader efforts to give app readers options in how they consume content in order to deepen engagement and user retention. Learn more and share feedback.
CodeMirror syntax highlighting was enabled by default for all logged out and newly registered users on the English Wikipedia on September 14. With no signs of adverse effects, the same change is being proposed to be made globally across all wikis in a few weeks. If you have concerns or feedback, or if your wiki would like to opt out, please see the help page.
Last week, language link changes were removed from Recent Changes and Watchlist feeds on Wikivoyage, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikiquote and Wiktionary. As no adverse effects have been observed, the Wikidata For Wikimedia Projects plans to roll out this change globally to all Wikipedias. This is scheduled for October 13 at 07:00 UTC, after which editors will no longer see when a link to another language version of a page is added, removed, or changed in its Wikidata item. Editors who rely on these notifications can read more on the project page and share feedback or ask to opt out their wiki on the talk page.
View all 28 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, an issue where accidentally touching the graph while scrolling on the Pageviews tool on mobile could unintentionally zoom in has now been fixed. Click-and-drag zoom is now disabled on touch devices.
Updates for technical contributors
There are three major changes coming to dumps: the legacy content dumps deprecated in January 2026 will now be sunset, the replacement MediaWiki Content File Exports will be delayed to implement a “safety buffer”, and they are now also available as 7zip-compressed files. Users will need to switch the URL they download their dump from. For more information, timeline and migration instructions, see Legacy content dumps sunset.
The Wikimedia Foundation discovered unauthorized activity by OpenAI agents on Wikimedia projects, including edits to wikis, attempts to exploit a public note-taking tool, and heavy automated traffic. Read the blog post on Diff for more details about the activity and the Foundation’s response.
Meetings and events
Save the date for the next Wikimedia Hackathon! We’ll be meeting in lovely Tirana, Albania for the 2027 Wikimedia Hackathon from April 9–11, 2027. Scholarship and staff sponsorship applications are currently being accepted through Pretix and will close on October 30, 2026. General registration will open in January 2027.
Latest comment: 19 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on September 25. Please help translate.
Screenshot of the Thanks feature.
Highlights
Community Wishlist: Community Wishlist is looking for volunteers to join their working group. You can find details on the goal of the group, roles and expectations, norms we'll follow, and how to sign up on this Meta-Wiki page.
Human knowledge at stake: Wikimedia Foundation makes the case for human knowledge at the UN General Assembly and how scrapers are straining our infrastructure and the larger human knowledge ecosystem online.
Joy of contributing:How a simple thanks fuelled one of our Wikimedians of the Year as they connect the community.
Wikimania scholarship deadline extended: The deadline for Wikimania 2027 scholarship applications has been extended through the end of day on November 4, 2026 (Anywhere on Earth). This is to compensate for a pause in the application window on October 15, 2026 from 1pm to 6pm UTC, to allow for an upgrade to the LimeSurvey platform.
OpenAI agent activities on Wikimedia projects: The Wikimedia Foundation have discovered some activity by “rogue” OpenAI agents on Wikimedia platforms. These unauthorized bot activities included edits to our wikis, some unsuccessful attempts to exploit a public note-taking tool we host, and heavy traffic.
Listening to Wikipedia: The Phase 1 experiment for Listening to Article intros within the Android app’s “For you” feed has been released into the Wikipedia Beta App. This experiment tests whether adding a listening format into the "For you" feed has the potential to deliver improvements in reader retention.
Bookmark button on mobile web: Logged-out Wikipedia users on mobile web will begin to see a bookmark button for saving articles to their reading lists instead of the current Watchstar button. When clicked, the bookmark button prompts users to log in or create an account to save an article for later, to encourage more readers to become account holders.
Abstract Wikipedia piloting showing articles to readers: Three initial pilot communities are currently working with the team to explore using abstract articles on their Wikipedias: Malayalam, Dagbani, and Igbo.
Simplifying account creation: An experiment has begun on Spanish, Arabic, English, and French Wikipedias to simplify the experience users encounter immediately after account creation. The test will explore whether removing friction from the current Welcome Survey helps new users understand what to do next more easily.
Latest experiments: An upcoming experiment is testing a personalised module, called 'Review Changes', for Home which aims to introduce newer editors to the concept of reviewing the edits that other users are making. See all live, upcoming, and completed experiments in Product & Technology.
Tech News: The latest highlights from Tech News weeks 40 and 41 include users of default skins on desktop and mobile web will now be informed if the search results displayed come from page redirects. See also the 20 community-submitted tasks that were resolved over the last two weeks.
Improving developers experience: Two new features has been shipped to improve developer experience: Spiderpig (deployment web interface) which allows developers to leave notes for each other about errors they see in the logs and Patchdemo, which now supports in-browser code editing, so developers can make quick changes without needing to push a new patch and recreate the demo.
Strengthening infrastructure: To reduce the workload from non-pageview requests, the overall number of database queries per logged-out pageview has been reduced by 52%, from a baseline of 23 queries/pageview in August, to 11 queries/pageview today. Read more.
Increasing test reliability: To reduce friction in post-merge validation and ultimately improve confidence in release decisions: Catalyst was proven to be a much more reliable environment to run daily Selenium tests (95.7% eventually green) compared with the beta cluster (79.1% over the same 10 suites). This gives confidence to automatically catch issues before they reach production.
Transparency Report: The latest Transparency Report has been published. Out of 953 requests for content alteration and takedown, only 2 requests were granted. The Foundation continues to prioritize the public interest and is guided by the content moderation policies the volunteer community has shaped over the past 25 years.
Affiliations Committee: Wikimedia Affiliations Committee Has New Officers and Advisors. Read also the latest issue of the AffCom News to learn more about their work.
Board of Trustees Elections Process: The Board has reviewed the feedback received since July on its elections process proposal, and thanks everyone who shared input on Wiki, in person, or directly with Trustees. Based on that feedback, the Governance Committee has moved away from the eligibility criteria approach and developed two new options for the 2027 selection process and beyond. We'd like your feedback again before deciding. Please read the proposal and share your feedback on the Meta-Wiki talk page by October 27.
For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. If you have feedback or suggestions about the bulletin, let us know at foundationbulletin@wikimedia.org. For questions about the Wikimedia Foundation's work, contact us!
Latest comment: 13 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I have been working on cleaning up the AlphaChip article via talk page edit requests. I've reached a bit of an impasse with LouScheffer, most recently over the questions of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, as well as over whether the article should include content that can only be sourced to a paper by Markov that has received an expression of concern from the publisher. Lou and I both agree that the discussion would benefit from intervention by a neutral editor. Would you mind taking a look at Talk:AlphaChip and stepping in? LovinLifer (talk) 03:05, 14 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hi @LovinLifer, sorry, as you may have gathered from how long it took me to get back to you, I have a lot on my wiki-plate right now. But also, I don't think it would be good for me to step in as a neutral editor on the content, since I think I know too much about the dispute. My suggestion would be to try asking at WP:3O. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 03:25, 18 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hi - thanks for reviewing my submission. The original draft was written with LLM assistance, but it has been rewritten and strengthened, Thanks for the feedback, appreciate your efforts. Bx10463 (talk) 03:21, 18 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hi, the article was rewritten manually. I'm not sure what a parameter in a submission template is - could you kindly let me know so it can be fixed? Thanks Bx10463 (talk) 03:29, 18 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 14 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Greetings. You approved my IPBE request through November 2 and said to contact you if my employer was still using ZScaler within a couple weeks of expiry. They are, so I am requesting an extension to my exemption. Thank you for your assistance! —Jkudlick⚓(talk)23:25, 18 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 12 days ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Hello how are you? Are you my mentor that can help me with my article for James Beere? I had disclosed that we have known each other and was told that if I disclosed that, the article could still get approved. --Timmers510 (talk) 11:58, 19 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for responding! Yes, I'll wait to see what the reviewers say before reaching out. I appreciate you following up and supporting! Timmers510 (talk) 17:23, 20 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 13 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
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
To measure the impact of incorporating some community-requested features on logged-out reader retention, a test for Image Carousel will be pushed to logged-out readers. With the Image Carousel feature, readers browse community-uploaded images, selected by editors as relevant to specific articles. The test starts on November 20.
An experimental notice will be pushed to 0.5% of logged-out mobile readers who come to English Wikipedia from Google, asking them to add Wikipedia as a Google Preferred Source. The test is to see if this notice increases reader retention and encourages people who use Google Search to visit Wikipedia more often. It will run from October 15–29 and will be assessed for its impact on retention and referrals.
View all 26 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, an issue where Quarry returned an “Access denied” error when users tried to run SQL queries, preventing queries from running normally, has now been fixed.
Updates for technical contributors
Due to a long-standing bug, applications that use the OAuth 2 client credentials flow to act on their owners’ behalf are treated as if they are logged out. This will be fixed for new applications registered on or after Monday, October 19. Some affected applications need to re-register.
A proposal to hold the Wikimedia Hackathon every three years, with regional hackathons in between, has been shared. It explores making the event more accessible to technical communities in different regions. Share your feedback on the proposal’s talk page before November 6.
Latest comment: 13 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hello!
I'm having trouble with my article specific sandbox, I don't know If I'm not looking in the correct place but I have been working through sources and writing in a different platform and now that I'm deeper into the assignment I cannot seem to figure out the sandbox drafts.
I currently lack an overview of what TarnishedPath is banned from and can't find their name at WP:RESTRICT. A quick search through their talk page archive led me to an AE thread in which they seem to be described as a "highly banned editor". You notified them about the ban and had written that in the discussion, so I assume you may have an overview. As there recently was a dispute on multiple noticeboards about whether their editing of the article about Helen Haines may be a topic ban violation (, , ), I have a feeling that any currently-active bans of this user should be documented more visibly. TarnishedPath is continuing to edit the article since the dispute and AusLondonder may be correct about this being a topic ban violation. The way and place they had raised the issue at may be improvable but the point stands.
Oops:) Perhaps the search box at WP:RESTRICT should include that. Whatever. Thanks!
Regarding the ban: Okay, looking at the messages about a potential topic ban violation again, it only seems to be regarding Pauline Hanson, not Helen Haines, and the only complaint raised about that article is a general behavior of treating things as a battleground. Then my original advice to take it to AE is probably also incorrect and the place to complain would be WP:ANI.
My main concern was that the reason they were topic-banned, namely "stonewalling, WP:POINTy editing, and battleground editing" had moved from the area of Zionism towards a prominent Australian Zionist, Pauline Hanson. They were previously involved in a protracted dispute about whether to label Hanson as "far-right" in the first sentence of her BLP based on some rather obscure sourcing. To clarify I wasn't suggesting that their editing of Helen Haines was in violation of the topic ban. Hanson I think is a grey area, given her strongly supporting view on Israel, documented in a section of her article. I'm simply suggesting that TarnishedPath should be careful to not let the behaviour that had them topic-banned return. AusLondonder (talk) 17:16, 24 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
A quick scan of the Pauline Hanson article suggests that the only mention of being a Zionist is in the categories. Isn't that a BLP issue?Nigel Ish (talk) 18:00, 24 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Nigel Ish, it's WP:CATDEF as well. But if she's a prominent Zionist and her article doesn't say anything about Zionism, that's the problem, not the category. @AusLondonder, if you believe there is ongoing battleground editing in a PIA-related topic (a Zionist's bio certainly qualifies), you can take that to AE regardless of whether it's a tban vio or not. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 22:03, 24 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Asilvering Thanks for that. I was just raising the issue in an informal way seeing a similar pattern of battleground behaviour as the PIA issue. I generally avoid making complaints about other editors but I'll keep AE in mind in future. AusLondonder (talk) 10:43, 25 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
They were previously involved in a protracted dispute about whether to label Hanson as "far-right" in the first sentence of her BLP based on some rather obscure sourcing.
I presented 9 academic references which supported my position. Your characterisation of them as being "some rather obscure sourcing" is incorrect. Notably I wasn't the only editor arguing that we should follow what academic sources state. Importantly, at the end of the discussion I dropped the stick and I moved on.
I am sorry for having revisited the issue; I thought I had made a mistake by dismissing the concern and wanted to check if I had sent someone complaining about a clear topic ban violation away. There was no such clear violation and there is only one ban, not the list I had expected when reading "highly banned editor"¹, nor the clearly-connected-to-the-article ArbCom ban I had expected when re-reading the ANEW discussion (as there is no ArbCom ban at all). ¹ (which, as I now see, referred to ADeeperUnderstanding and not TarnishedPath) ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:12, 25 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
@TarnishedPath I did not bring this up at "yet another venue" - I was tagged here and simply explained my previous comments. Interesting that what you apparently took from ANI was that "I was warned". I also don't think I really accused you of violating a topic ban - again, I was making a comparison between behaviour that resulted in the topic ban and battleground behaviour relating to Pauline Hanson. Topic bans exist for a reason. They're not secret and editors have every right to be aware of similar problematic behaviour moving from one area to another and wasting other peoples time. AusLondonder (talk) 10:39, 25 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
You were tagged here and rather than dropping the stick, you went straight back to the same faulty arguments, trying to draw a connection between the content dispute and my TBAN at yet another venue. Stop trying to have the last word. @ToBeFree explicitly stated (and I don't know how you could have not understood that to be a warning) that they were extremely close to blocking you because of your personalising of the dispute. Drop it. TarnishedPathtalk11:01, 25 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
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Latest comment: 8 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
ThiruVaniCivilization, Tamizhy Civilization oldest World old Tamal, I researched answer becames Tamil is one of the first language source and education method inthis world, I am authenticity writter ThiruVani Civilization,iam identifier one of the first of ThiruVani Civilization Title, more examples.
Latest comment: 7 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hello, I am working on a draft about the Gadsan (Gaadsan) Somali clan in my sandbox. There is limited published information specifically about Gadsan, and I would like advice on how to improve the article using reliable sources. Could you please guide me on the best way to develop the draft and eventually submit it for review? Thank you. --Abdihaybe12 (talk) 03:08, 26 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hi @Abdihaybe12, welcome to wikipedia! I'm sorry to be a downer here, but the first thing you need to do is stop using AI. We really care a lot about having articles that are written by humans. It's ok to make human mistakes. We like that a lot more than seeing AI mistakes.
To answer your question, normally I would suggest going to similar articles to look for the kinds of sources that they use. But I went to Dir (clan), and I have to say I'm really not impressed with the sources here at all. It really doesn't look like you've given yourself an easy first task on Wikipedia. You might want to start out by working on improving articles that already exist, and coming back to that one later once you have a better idea of how to start a completely new article. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 04:42, 26 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hi!
Thanks for being my mentorfor! Are the updates I’ve done so far looking correct? I’ve only changed text on one article so far and I want to make sure I’m doing everything correctly!
The rest of the edits I’ve done are just approving links that are the correct recommendations!
Hi @M.Curtis.McCoy, welcome (back) to wikipedia! I wouldn't have accepted this one, for not-exactly-but-kindof WP:SEAOFBLUE reasons, but that's really no big deal at all. I also wouldn't typically add a link in a situation like this one, where the definition of the term is pretty obvious and a more specific link (in this case LVMH) is already very close. But that too is really minor. For the revise tone edit you did, I notice that you left in promotional phrases like "making it a biker's or walker's paradise". I'd be inclined to remove that whole sentence, and maybe say something about art galleries in some other way. That is to say, you can be much more aggressive with changes, that's fine! In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 07:53, 26 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
“I'd be inclined to remove that whole sentence” <- That makes sense! I was trying to figure out how I’d rewrite the (promotional) sentences to make them less promotional… LOL
Update: I’ve started cutting promotional phrases outright! I think the last couple of edits I’ve done are much better!
Latest comment: 6 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
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
An experiment launched on September 29 is testing article recommendations for new account holders who also identify as readers. By suggesting articles to read, similar to recommendations in the Wikipedia app for logged-in readers, the experiment aims to encourage new account holders to read and return to the website regularly, with the goal of increasing internal referrals by 1%. See the related Community Wishlist proposal.
Several Wikimedia services were taken offline last week because of a security vulnerability in PHP. This is because they need to be updated before they are safe to put back online. This is not a problem just for the Wikimedia movement but affects a lot of websites. You can follow updates on Wikitech. Cloud VPS and Toolforge will take longer to bring back online. This is to make sure that applications which run on Cloud VPS or Toolforge are not affected. Tool developers can see updates and more information on the Cloud-announce mailing list.
Last week we shared that to measure the impact of incorporating some community-requested features on logged-out reader retention, a test for the Image Carousel feature would be pushed to logged-out readers. Due to an issue, we will be restarting the test, but it will be live on October 26, not November 20 as initially announced.
Updates for editors
A new bot detection system to better identify automated traffic that disguises itself as human visitors, is coming to the Wikimedia wikis. This might cause sudden changes to visitor statistics starting from 26 October, going back to 20 June 2026.
The Score extension which renders musical notation inside wiki pages, has been temporarily disabled on all wikis due to a security issue. Affected pages will display a notice instead of musical scores, but the underlying code remains intact. No action is needed from editors, and a fix is in progress. A separate announcement will follow when the extension is re-enabled. Read more on Phabricator.
View all 18 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the issue where CodeMirror syntax highlighter appears to have been enabled in error for existing editors has been fixed.
Updates for technical contributors
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on Wednesday, October 28 2026 at 15:00 UTC. This is for the datacenter server switchover backup tests, which happen twice a year. During the switchover, all Wikimedia website traffic is shifted from one primary data center to the backup data center to test availability and prevent service disruption even in emergencies.
Scholarship and sponsorship applications for the 2027 Wikimedia Hackathon will close on Friday, October 30th. Submit your application through Pretix before the deadline!
Latest comment: 5 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Someone who was likely working in the office of Viviana Krsticevic and thought that s/he could write an LLM-generated cv in Wikipedia registered LRODRISAC(talk·contribs·deletedcontribs·logs·filterlog·blockuser·blocklog) and eventually got indef blocked a few months ago. A new user, LinusDraguPopian(talk·contribs·deletedcontribs·logs·filterlog·blockuser·blocklog), is adding individual paragraphs in international-human-rights-law-related topics. The edits seem to me to be LLM-style, although I've only reverted two so far (source-wikitext mismatch: the source is related to the wikitext in both of these cases but only justifies part of it). The new user has made no other edits beyond international-human-rights-law-related topic, except for a very brief thank you to me. The use of "update" as the keyword in the user's edit summaries sounds similar to that of the earlier user. Together these might be coincidences, but I do wonder if this might be the same person (or same "communications" team). Boud (talk) 23:17, 26 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Also very similar day/timezone editing pattern: afternoons of Euro/African weekdays. Anyway, thanks for the quick glance. We'll see. Boud (talk) 18:41, 27 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Thank you for guiding me.
I chose option B. I chose to create a draft on this topic - Dunston Staiths. For continuity and better readability, I have copied some paragraphs from the existing content on the page.
I have added a section - Fires, restoration and reopening. This time I havent used LLM. Everything that you can see on the draft is my writing. Kindly let me know if this suffices. MoonLightAgrabah (talk) 16:57, 28 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello, Asilvering. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Latest comment: 4 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on October 9. Please help translate.
Mobile users can now edit with visual editors
Highlights
Community Wishlist: The process for this year’s Community Wishlist has been published, incorporating community feedback. The wish submission process will end on November 8. The triage is expected to be completed by late November. Votes for wishes will start in January.
Behind the scenes: What happened on 25 August as hundreds of edits were made to Dolly Parton's article on English and German Wikipedia – and why code stewardship and the Service Catalog matter.
The new Image Carousel treatment experience that will be tested
Identifying LLM edits easily: LLM Paste Check is now available on all Wikipedias. The feature will notify editors using the visual editor when they paste text that is likely to have initially been copied from one of five external generative AI chatbots. Edits will also be tagged so that patrollers can review them more closely.
The Future of Wikimedia Hackathon:A proposal to hold the Wikimedia Hackathon every three years, with regional hackathons in between has been shared. It explores making the event more accessible to technical communities in different regions. Share your feedback on the proposal’s talk page before November 6.
Re-testing Image Carousel on readers: Starting November 20, a test for Image Carousel will run for logged-out readers. Readers will browse community-uploaded images, selected by editors as relevant to specific articles. It will measure the impact of incorporating some community-requested features on logged-out reader retention.
Changes to Watchlist view: Moderator Tools will be removing the list view of the Watchlist and defaulting everyone to the changelog view. By defaulting to the changelog view, we are simplifying the codebase and avoiding the likelihood of missing bugs.
Wikifunctions quarterly planning: For October–December 2026, Wikifunctions will focus on two main areas: working with pilot communities towards bringing abstract articles into their Wikipedias, and making it easier to create and edit articles on Abstract Wikipedia.
Suggestion Mode: To encourage newcomers to publish their first suggestion when using Suggestion Mode, implementation of the publish prompt on mobile has been completed.
Onboarding newcomers: To encourage new editors to make their first edit, the early onboarding A/B test went live.
Tech News: The latest highlights from Tech News weeks 42 and 43 include CodeMirror syntax highlighting was enabled by default for all logged out and newly registered users on the English Wikipedia. See also the 54 community-submitted tasks that were resolved over the last two weeks.
Open geospatial dataset now released: Wikimedia Enterprise has released an open geospatial dataset containing 17 million OpenStreetMap elements linked to Wikidata, Wikipedia, and Wikivoyage, as Parquet and GeoParquet files on Hugging Face and Kaggle.
Better bot detection: There is a new bot detection system for traffic to the Wikimedia wikis. There might be sudden changes to visitor statistics starting on 26 October and going back to 20 June. This is because we will now be better at finding automated traffic which is trying to hide that it is coming from bots.
The Wikipedia Library: Datawrapper is now available in The Wikipedia Library. This is a data visualisation platform to create and publish responsive charts, maps, and tables. If you're a contributor who qualifies for TWL, please feel free to apply for access and make use of this tool.
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Latest comment: 14 hours ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Hello! An update on the Room and Board article you advised me on.
My draft was flagged for AI-use and rejected (I wrote it, but my defense wasn't accepted). Someone then nominated the existing Room and Board article for deletion. There are many delete votes and the WP:THREE are being scrutinized. One editor did take the existing article down to stub-class in an effort to help.
Can you advise me on how to participate in this conversation, if I can at all? I have more sources I could offer for the WP:THREE but they are shooting down even an academic case study on the company, published by a university press.
Can I suggest more sources? Can I try and edit the existing article directly? I'm not trying to get a promotional article through. There really are quite a few things that make this company notable.
It looks to me like the academic case study has been accepted as a good source, actually, even though many others are being challenged. If you have other sources you'd like to suggest, you can do that yourself in the AFD discussion. If you don't want to make a formal, bolded !vote, you don't have to. Just edit Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Room & Board, scroll down to the bottom, and make your comment listing some other sources that might be of use. The first line of your comment should start with * so that it's easier for others to read. I think that's the best way to go about it, rather than editing the article or making edit requests, which at this point is probably going to be more frustrating than helpful. If the discussion closes with Keep or No Consensus, then it's worth your effort to make edit requests. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 02:19, 31 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Looks like the discussion closed with a vote to delete. If I want to try again, do I rewrite, add more sources and submit an AfC again? Ganordma (talk) 23:12, 1 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
It's a perfectly acceptable edit, in my inexpert opinion, since the part you removed doesn't really convey any information. But I'd avoid attributing it as "written specifically to build a citation link". When we're editing, we usually try really hard not to imagine what other people's motives might be, and start from the presumption that everything people do is in an honest effort to improve the encyclopedia (see WP:AGF). It's ok to just state your opinion about the content itself: "removing unnecessary statement" is fine and doesn't speculate about the other editor. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 03:03, 31 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
As I said, when Zio is used as a metonym for Jews, it is indeed antisemitic. This is how Duke used it and it was indeed antisemitic. If I understand your point correctly, you are saying that because Duke used the abbreviation in this way in the 90s, the abbreviation is a priori antisemitic, even in contexts that have nothing to do with Duke or other white nationalists, even in contexts when it is used to refer to Zionists as Zionists. Is this a correct representation of your point? If so, I don't understand what makes the way Duke used the abbreviation the exclusive 'correct' reading of the abbreviation, if, as you said, people indeed use it as though it was created as a casual shortening of the word "Zionist", to refer to Zionists as Zionists, with no reference to the way Duke used it whatsoever. إيان (talk) 21:29, 31 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
A slur doesn't become less of a slur because someone says it without knowing that it's a slur. For an example removed from the PIA context, see Paki#Notable uses. Obviously, people like Bush were not using that word with reference to how it had been used by gangs of neo-Nazis; they intended it as a simple shortening of "Pakistani". Nevertheless, the word is a slur. So too with Zio.
I agree with you that it is very important to be specific, wherever possible, about the differences between anti-semitism, anti-Zionism, and criticism of the Israeli government. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 02:55, 1 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I'm glad we agree that it is very important to be specific, wherever possible, about the differences between anti-semitism, anti-Zionism, and criticism of the Israeli government.
In response to A slur doesn't become less of a slur because someone says it without knowing that it's a slur: it is a great epistemic injustice to impute a meaning into an expression that is not intended, to say that someone means something they do not. It is right and fair to say what various sources consider the word to be, but we can not make such category errors in Wikivoice.
What makes Zio a slur against Jews, when it has been used as such (by Duke, other white nationalists, etc.), is that it is being used as a euphemism for Jews. When it is not being used euphemistically, when it is being used as an abbreviation for Zionist, to refer to Zionists as Zionists, without any reference to Jews as a category, how is it antisemitic? Did the white nationalists manage to exclusively and permanently prescribe the signification of the abbreviation, sealing it off from semantic change in a way the Oxford English Dictionary and others were not able to prescribe the word Zionist, the semantic shifts of which are outlined in the article?
It is not epistemic injustice to correct someone for using a slur when they did not know it was a slur. (It is not epistemic injustice to tell someone "that word doesn't mean what you think it means" when it's not a slur, either.) Epistemic injustice is when a person is held to be a less-than-credible voice regarding their own experience, while a member of a socially dominant group is viewed as credible regarding that same experience. An academic panel on the Two-State Solution that is comprised exclusively of Israelis - this is epistemic injustice in action.
What you say in your third paragraph is your opinion. If you can find sources that say, explicitly, that 'Zio' is not a slur unless it is used as a white-nationalist euphemism for 'Jew', you are welcome to state that opinion in Wikivoice. Until you find such a source, you should not. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 04:01, 2 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 day ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Would it be a violation of my topic ban to edit this article. I don't think it would be, as it doesn't involve or discuss any conflict between Arabs and Israelis, but I thought I better ask prior to doing so to avoid any issues. The article is about a 1918 massacre of Palestinians villagers by New Zealand soldiers during World War I in present day Israel. TarnishedPathtalk01:04, 1 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
I don't see anything at present on that article that would indicate writing about it would be a tban violation. Sorry for the circumlocution here but of course it is possible to write about just about anything in the area in a way that would violate a PIA tban, and staying on the right side of the tban line depends on, well, not doing that. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 03:37, 1 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 21 hours ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Can you please add a citation for me to the Wikipedia page for List of Awards and Nominations won by Genesis. The award is:
BMI Film & TV Awards 1988
Most Performed Song From a Film
"In Too Deep"
Artist: Genesis
Won
The citation for this award is the Wikipedia page for "In Too Deep" (single)
Hi Danny, we don't use Wikipedia articles as citations for other Wikipedia articles, because user-generated sources don't meet our reliable source guidelines. (See WP:RS.) So what you want to look for is the citation on that original Wikipedia article, that says the song won that award. Does that make sense? In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 14:07, 1 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
Thank you Asilverling. I have found the original citation and it is:
Latest comment: 23 hours ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hi there. Been absent for a while but am planning to return soon. Can you renew this exemption? The same reasons I outlined in my last request remain applicable. Thanks for your consideration. Tiamut (talk) 11:41, 1 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 16 hours ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hello!! Do you have any tips for finding sources for TV ratings like the DVR stuff? I've been trying for a while, even back when I was an anonymous user, and I couldn't find anything helpful. --FanfictionWriterWannabe (talk) 18:32, 1 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
