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Voting phase looks good

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Looks ready for business. All downhill from here. Nice work. BusterD (talk) 00:07, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@BusterD. Thanks. So far so good! –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:06, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I feel a lot more confident in AELECT after round 2. It is largely to your persistence and dedication that this one worked so well. (and lots of obvious others) BusterD (talk) 01:00, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@BusterD. Thank you very much. I'm actually really happy to see that your vibe towards me and AELECT is becoming more positive. I was a bit worried about things between us after User talk:Novem Linguae#You should give it a rest, dude., so I am glad to see things going in a positive direction.
Feel free to chat with me anytime about things. I want things between us to be good. I have fond memories of working together with you during the meetings with the Growth Team about new page landing reform ideas, and would hate for anything to cause tension between us. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:47, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry that my actions appeared polemic in the moments I took them. You and I are always good; my concern is the intrinsic precision of the process. In my experience, what often happens in volunteer-driven organizations is a gradual personalization of processes. Any election cycle brings a rhythm, and folks will begin to act around the rhythm (internal politicization, which I believe potentially fatal to community trust). I'm still seeing things I believe we should adjust (like listing candidates alphabetically in discussion and voting processes). If in the moment I acted boldly and seemed to be rude, my perhaps clattering actions were intended to provoke a fuller discussion on the merits. I'll always be a gadfly on this voting thing. But I reside so much trust in your work here I feel allowed to disagree with you for a higher good. That makes us friends. It has always been so. BusterD (talk) 11:14, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@BusterD. Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Glad to hear things are good between us. By the way, can you elaborate a little bit on personalization of processes? I'm not sure what that is. Would love to learn the concept so I can understand better what concerning pattern you're spotting in AELECT. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:58, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not identifying any specific pattern in AELECT, but instead in general human behavior. For background, I suggest you read the third email here. What follows is my informed opinion, based on years of watching.

Acquiescence is not at all the same as agreement.

I have several times in my life managed volunteer-driven enterprises. I'm regularly involved in content communities which rely heavily on volunteers to create experiential "product." In my personal experience, volunteer energy derives from trust (in the community) one's efforts will not be wasted.

Some volunteers seem to have more time/resources, seem to be more willing, seem to be more dedicated, and seem to have more interest in specific outcomes. This causes normal interpersonal friction. I'm not casting friction as a problem, but instead as an inevitability.

On Wikipedia, we move content forward by a frequent willingness to disagree. We argue, constructively, for agreement. We put our friction up front in order to argue for a higher truth. As a community, we notice the friction, then find paths and processes to smooth the roughness towards trust in the disagreement itself. This makes for a collegial society of minds. This is, I believe, how communities thrive.

Our community thrives (if not grows) from its central tenets. This is the Wikipedia I agree to participate in, when I log on. This is how the community has matured from a mere social media phenomenon to a trusted source of information on medical topics, for example. Through disagreement the community has chosen to apply a very strict sourcing standard to such articles.

One of our central pre-pillar tenets, we believe in "rough consensus and running code", not voting. Our community even adopted !vote as a way of signifying not a vote. An argument is made at WP:AFD, WP:RSN, or WP:RFA; we vigorously disagree about the worthiness of the made argument and its corollaries. Each user has an equal opportunity to make a case. The closer notes the found consensus, which is usually obvious even without closure.

In authorizing a new voting scheme, the community has accepted that volunteers with more time, resources, willingness, dedication, or interest in a specific outcome, will have an outsized influence on the future of our endeavor. This makes for a less collegial society of minds. We will be forced to accept candidates which did not go through sufficient and personal vetting. We will allow current admins to be desysopped on the votes of 25 EC accounts. We have made it far less stressful for a lifetime job interview and far simpler to get rid of longtime trusted servants. What could possibly go wrong?

As a community wikipedians will gradually acquiesce to authority without trust. This fundamentally changes how we operate in the future. And that's why my stridency now. BusterD (talk) 13:10, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't get any pleasure about being dickish regarding this. I'm generally pleased with both AELECTs so far, although I have no way of understanding why voters made the choices they did. In typical wikipedian fashion, I trust those votes less than their arguments. BusterD (talk) 13:35, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, no worries. AELECT seems to be a bit of a tradeoff between A) transparency and evidence-based argumentation on one hand (our current RFA and consensus system), and B) not being too harsh to candidates on the other. Pros and cons! Is the tradeoff worth it? I'm sure the community will keep telling us their thoughts on this via RFCs. And if it causes problems we can always RFC to go backwards too. Change is scary, risky, etc. but we'll see. Thanks for talking this out with me. I do want to understand and be respectful of all perspectives. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:14, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A kitten for you!

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Thank you for running AELECT, again. I couldn't find a barnstar that encapsulates how important this is to every aspect of the encyclopedia, so here's a cute kitten instead. Here's to many more elections and many more admins!

Toadspike [Talk] 16:28, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Admin elections

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Once again, a big thank-you for all the work you’ve put into creating the election system and making it work! I think it’s a tremendous improvement over the RfA. I can’t imagine the amount of time and effort you’ve put into it, pro bono Wikipedia. I do have one minor suggestion: would it be possible to keep the announcement box up for a couple of days (the one that announced the stages of the election process that appeared at the top of watchlists), now saying “voting results are now in” or some such? Just to close the loop? As I say, just a minor thought, not meant as a criticism of all you’ve done. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 14:14, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Mr Serjeant Buzfuz. Howdy! I think this would be a good thing to propose at WT:AELECT and get consensus for. We've got to balance the excitement of announcing the results with not spamming people too much. It occurs to me that while RFAs are advertised via watchlist notices, that the results are not advertised there after they close, so that may be something to consider. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:00, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, will comment there. I see discussion has started already, with some interesting stats analysis. With respect to the notification box, there is a difference between RfA and the elections, and that is the result in RfA happens in real time, and the notification box stays up until the 7 day period concludes, with the result. For the elections, the lag time can be days (or even a week, it was suggested) so it makes sense to me to take down the "voting is going on" box once voting is over, and then put up a new box for the results. But, just a thought. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 18:49, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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Hey, I didn't want to just do it myself since it's your signature there. But could you please add the withdrew link in the Sahaib candidacy page to the header to become "The candidate withdrew during the discussion period" header for posterity and consistency with the 2024 election handling (SheriffIsInTown, Iwaqarhashmi, NoobThreePointOh). Thx. Raladic (talk) 04:23, 2 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure.  Done. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:12, 2 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Barnstar

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The Admin Elections barnstar
Thank you for managing the process of the second admin elections and writing code for SecurePoll. It is appreciated! Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 11:22, 2 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A Latin course on Commons

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Hi, @Novem Linguae.

This is that complete Latin course on Commons I mentioned to you today, in case you ever decide to make more progress towards novem. :) Ijon (talk) 13:42, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OWID 2

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We have improved the software and I have reapplied.[1] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:19, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template:unblock-x processed incorrectly, probably by a script

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Can you please take a look at this discussion? I think there may be a bug in one of your scripts related to processing of unblock templates. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:35, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

NPPG IP block should be indef...

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IP made legal threats [2]. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:49, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Headbomb. The community insists on very short blocks for IPs due to the risk of collateral damage. Perhaps when temporary accounts rolls out in September, we can start treating IPs more like users and pass out indefinite blocks to them (when appropriate). –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:52, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/CiteHighlighter.js

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Hi @Novem Linguae! I am writing to highlight a small thing with CiteHighlighter.js. It works well in combination with User:SuperHamster/CiteUnseen.js, no issues there. However, when I disabled CiteHighlighter.js it didn't actually disable. The reason I was testing it is sometimes these types of configurations don't play nicely with my system (CiteUnseen.js doesn't work on mobile, for example). CiteHighlighter.js disappears if uninstalled, so reinstalling works, however disabling does not. Disabling CiteUnseen.js does mean it goes away however. Not at all a major issue, just thought I would let you know about it. I really appreciate the scripts you have created for Wikipedia, they are very helpful to editors like me who do work at AfC and elsewhere. Thank you! 11WB (talk) 21:27, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @11wallisb. Thanks for the message. I'm glad to hear you've found my user scripts useful. If you're having trouble disabling CiteHighlighter, this is probably unrelated to CiteHighlighter. Some ideas that come to mind are 1) you have it installed in two places, for example both common.js and vector.js (or global.js or wherever), or 2) there's a bug in the enable/disable gadget (MediaWiki:Gadget-script-installer.js). Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:25, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

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The Technical Barnstar
Thanks for re-writing reFill, really appreciate it. qcne (talk) 18:01, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Context: User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/ReFillLink.js
My pleasure. Was really fun to chat with you on Discord and work together on it. Looking forward to future chats :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:06, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Query

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Hello, Novem Linguae,

We have an unusually large number of stale drafts expiring in the middle-of-the-night (for me, at least) because back in February an editor used DraftCleaner and the draft articles haven't been edited since then! It made me wonder about this script. After it is installed, do you use it on individual drafts you come across or do you "run" it and it finds drafts to clean up on its own? I didn't see a documentation page so I came here. Thanks for any explanation you can offer. Liz Read! Talk! 21:22, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Based on a quick reading of the code, it needs to be run manually on singular pages. There doesn't seem to be a "run and forget" mode. Sohom (talk) 23:22, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Correct. It needs to be manually run once per draft. If someone did it en masse, that is user behavior not script behavior. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:34, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

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The Barnstar of Diligence
Reading the grouped debriefs and the workshopping which followed, I'm thankful you are still riding herd on this living process. There are many who deserve credit, not the least of which those who boldly put themselves forward for the mop this cycle. Those candidates owe yourself, theleekycaudron, and many others much gratitude for relentlessly breaking down the new process into bites which members of the community had opportunities to digest and even actively oppose, each and all respectfully. As a result, parties to the discussion became active supporters when !voting for their investment. I'm somewhat less stressed about the eventual politicization of these elections. Expect me to remain watchful to consequences of our choices. But MY hat is off to you guys.
BusterD (talk) 21:37, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! The data suggests that since AELECT started, there's more candidates and more admins per year. So I think it's probably a net positive process. But yes, let's keep a close eye on it. It's never too late to fix it or end it if it becomes problematic. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:50, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the debrief, candidates in particular have distinguished themselves by their sensible comments. This speaks well of the room overall, and raises my expectations in those who did not succeed in this last AELECT. Others of us didn't achieve the community's consensus on the first pass. When I read the tenor of sentiments like those in the debrief, I am heartened in our movement. BusterD (talk) 01:32, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Insufficient contrast

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Thanks for the revert [3], I fully agree. I previusly tried to do the opposite for other similar pages (changing colours to be more readable), but I was reverted by other users saying the contrast was sufficient in their eyes. So you might be iterested in checking the color of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Backlog_elimination_drives#Templates and especially Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Participants, as imo they use an even worse background color (in terms of contrast) than the one I tried to use on {{AfC welcome}} FaviFake (talk) 22:17, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since all my attempts at using a single, consistent color for AfC messages are reverted, I'd like there to be a consistent colour used for the AfC wikiproject. FaviFake (talk) 22:18, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(aliases: inc, org)

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This is more of a question for you rather than the project, but since when did AFCH start leaving aliases for decline reasons? For some it rather clutters the edit summary (see e.g. Special:Diff/1309102101). Primefac (talk) 00:42, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Primefac. Howdy. I did it in this patch, while trying to solve a bug where you could type things like "llm" into AFCH, and "llm" is listed at Template:AfC submission/comments, but it wasn't showing up in the search bar. I figured you were OK with it since you watch that repo and didn't comment on the ticket. However I'd be fine with reverting it if you want. Just let me know. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:11, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Primefac. Any further thoughts on this one? I agree with you that the edit summaries are kind of ugly/cluttered now and am leaning towards reverting, but would appreciate your input in the final decision. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:09, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you're leaning that way, I'd say revert. I get where you were coming from with the change but it's a bit much. Primefac (talk) 00:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
 Done. Thanks for reporting. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:36, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

DraftCleaner reflist or references

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When using the DraftCleaner script, is it possible for, in cases when there is no {{reflist}} in an article, have <references /> added instead? Mainly as an attempt at looking ahead to situations where using the template is undesirable (as is discussed in a current WP:VPR thread). Otherwise, could I create a fork of the script to a version that makes this change? Thank you -- Reconrabbit 15:05, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Convenience link so future me can do some research: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Bot to make list-defined references editable with the VisualEditor –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:11, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Reconrabbit. The VPR discussion seems to only advocate changing {{reflist|refs=...}} to <references>. I would imagine that this would apply to <1% of drafts (I can't remember ever having seen it). With that in mind, do you still want me to spend engineering time on this? –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:15, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Given the small scope it probably is not worth investing time in, my mistake. -- Reconrabbit 13:24, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. Was just double checking that the feature would be used. Thank you for the idea. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:11, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Species Helper

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Hi Novem, The very useful Species helper script seems to be mis-firing (for me anyway) worked all week until this evening (Irish time 8:45pm) tried uninstalling and re-installing, also tried on another browser and another laptop but just doesn't load. Any thoughts? Josey Wales Parley 20:04, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Howdy. What's a misfire? What are the steps to reproduce if I want to see this for myself, and what does the script do that is abnormal? Any diffs? –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:07, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Novem (a mis-fire - maybe from my old army days when something goes wrong) anyway it seems ok now except for one article it won't run on (for me) - new article Racesina luteola - I've gone back and tested on other articles and it was fine Josey Wales Parley 20:11, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is Template:Taxonomy/Racesina is formatted incorrectly (GIGO). I can probably add some code to SpeciesHelper to handle this uncommon type of error more gracefully. Let me think about it for a few minutes. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:33, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Great, I added a taxonbar manually in any event - many thanks for up-keeping these various scripts which are invaluable in NPP! Have a great evening Josey Wales Parley 21:47, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
 Fixed. Should get a much better error message next time in a little pop up window. Thanks for reporting. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:20, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there @Novem Linguae and @Joseywales1961, thanks for catching and handling my errors - and sorry I created them in the first place. I'm very new to Wikipedia and just wanted to create a quick page redirecting the unaccepted taxon to the accepted one. The guide in Wikipedia:Automated taxobox system/taxonomy templates really confused me... Did I understand correctly that your script User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/TemplateTaxonomyAddCite is the easier/more reliable way to create new Taxonomy pages? Or can you redirect me to a better guide? Thanks in advance! Barbalalaika (talk) 04:56, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hey @Barbalalaika. No worries, we were all new once. Thanks for helping out. Yes, I use User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/TemplateTaxonomyAddCite for that sort of thing. It'll generate some code for you and then you can fill in the blanks such as |url=. In the case of Template:Taxonomy/Racesina, I also had to create its parent over at Template:Taxonomy/Radicini. Pro tip: just use https://catalogueoflife.org/ for everything since it's reliable and is pretty complete. Please take a look at the wikicode (click "edit source") of existing Template:Taxonomy/* pages so you can see the pattern. Hope that helps. Happy editing. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:00, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Cool beans! Thank you :) Barbalalaika (talk) 05:48, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

CiteHighlighter errors

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Hi @Novem Linguae, I love your CiteHighlighter, but there was something surprising that happened. In Amon (The Legend of Korra), a Den of Geek source was shown as yellow. But on WP:RSP, Den of Geek is green. Can you fix this please? ~Rafael (He, him) • talk • guestbook • projects 13:10, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Rafaelthegreat.  Fixed. Thanks for reporting. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:32, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Novem Linguae you are welcome! ~Rafael (He, him) • talk • guestbook • projects 14:27, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing a CS1 maintenance notice in journal sources

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Hello again

Do you have some thoughts or a fix for this? Collectively in the references of many articles on my watchlist are hundreds of these in preview requesting repair. Zefr (talk) 05:34, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @Zefr. Thanks for the message. I don't know much about this topic. I think the comment you received at VPT may be a good place to start. You could also try posting at WT:CS1, which looks pretty active. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:11, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AFCH

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I know you are probably busy but please add dark mode to afc helper script. Its really bright :( Nagol0929 (talk) 05:09, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @Nagol0929. You're right. I'm pretty busy at the moment. Best to crowd source this. Maybe make a post at WT:AFC. If someone writes a patch, I can approve and deploy it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:24, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

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The Surreal Barnstar
hi Novem Linguae 
MkaoALT (talk) 23:12, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@MkaoALT. 👋 Hello. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:15, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question

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I weighed in at this an/i discussion. In my recent two posts there [4][5], I point out the selective pinging of editors by the original poster. My hunch is the pinged editors were selected b/c they are biased against the accused. Some might call this canvassing, but I don't like to use that accusation, as I prefer wider discussions of relevant editors. I proposed pinging others who I believe are equally relevant to the discussion, to balance the discussion with those who disagreed with the original poster at the article I believe this complaint is actually about. However, I haven't done that as I fear then *I* might be accused of canvassing. Would it be appropriate? How to proceed to have a fair discussion when there is selective pinging like this? --David Tornheim (talk) 21:10, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@David Tornheim. Howdy. I'd recommend raising the pinging issue as a new subsection (or comment) in the ANI and letting folks there weigh in to help form a consensus. If a consensus forms that those pings were inappropriate, perhaps they will be downweighted or excluded by the closer from the final consensus. You can also propose your idea of pinging additional people and see if that is well-received. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:54, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Advice much appreciated. Would use it there, but looks like the die is already cast, and it's pointless for me to say anything further. I will keep this in mind for the future, however. Thanks. --David Tornheim (talk) 01:45, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User script or bot

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Hi @Novem Linguae:. I hope you're doing well. Is it possible to write user script or bot for October 2025 GAN backlog drive to strike the GAN review which was started before 1 October and after 31 October 2025? And then change the codes every time when the backlog drive happen. Hope for positive response. Cheers! Fade258 (talk) 03:51, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Fade258. Howdy. I'm pretty busy IRL this month. Maybe we could crowd source this by posting it at WP:BOTREQ or WP:US/R? Hope this helps! –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:47, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! I will do that. Fade258 (talk) 05:17, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Editor of the Week

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Editor of the Week
Your ongoing efforts to improve the encyclopedia have not gone unnoticed: You have been selected as Editor of the Week in recognition of your great contributions! (courtesy of the Wikipedia Editor Retention Project)

User:Perfect4th submitted the following nomination for Editor of the Week:

Can we hear some appreciation for Novem Linguae? I nominate him for Editor of the Week for his substantial work on Wikipedia:Administrator elections. WP:AELECT was proposed in RfA reviews, and Novem has been instrumental in getting the process over the line. From ironing out process details to setting up and running trial elections to implementing feedback to organizing more than twenty RfCs to setting up Phabricator tickets and fixing technical problems, his work in improving processes to get more Wikipedia admins has been well worthy of recognition – and all that without properly touching on his constant useful technical work or his help in coordinating New Page Patrol. Thanks, Novem, for your work in helping out in the backend processes of Wikipedia to keep this project running! This nomination was seconded by UndercoverClassicist, theleekycauldron, TechnoSquirrel69, Vacant0, Abo Yemen, Mr Serjeant Buzfuz, House, QuicoleJR and Sohom Datta

You can copy the following text to your user page to display a user box proclaiming your selection as Editor of the Week: 

{{User:UBX/EoTWBox}}
organized administrator elections
Novem Linguae
 
Editor of the Week
for the week beginning October 5, 2025
Novem Linguae deserves this second Eddy Award for his substantial work on Wikipedia:Administrator elections. WP:AELECT was proposed in RfA reviews, and he has been instrumental in getting the process over the line. From ironing out process details to setting up and running trial elections to implementing feedback to organizing more than twenty RfCs to setting up Phabricator tickets and fixing technical problems, his work in improving processes to get more Wikipedia admins has been well worthy of this recognition – and all that without properly touching on his constant useful technical work or his help in coordinating New Page Patrol.
Recognized for
helping out in the backend processes of Wikipedia
Submit a nomination

Thanks again for your efforts! Buster Seven Talk (UTC) 15:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much @Buster7 and everyone. To see this many endorsements, and to get this a second time, really means a lot to me. Luckily I had unwatchlisted the nomination page awhile back so this came as a complete surprise :) I really appreciate it! –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:18, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Belated congratulations, Novem! You most definitely deserve it. Looking forward to meeting you in New York later this month! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 05:17, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

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Hi and thanks for your recent participation in AfD. I would like to hear your thoughts about the process. Please check this survey if you are willing to respond.Czarking0 (talk) 02:08, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Github

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Any update at [6]? Thanks, —Matrix ping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 10:19, 11 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Matrix. Thanks for the patch and the reminder. I left some more code review comments just now. Once those 2 new comments are addressed, I'll manually test it, then hopefully we can get it merged :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:01, 11 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Button color

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Hey Novem, a little suggestion. Would you mind making the "Accept" button in your unblock review script green instead of blue? First time using it, I clicked "Accept" instead of "Decline", since it looks exactly like the normal "Publish" button (blue and white). Toadspike [Talk] 14:43, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(Also, I am very grateful that you have not yet enabled the script to unblock automatically, because that would've been extra embarrassing.) Toadspike [Talk] 14:44, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Scratch that, it seems mw:Template:Clickable button 2/doc only has red and blue. I guess I'll actually have to read in future. Toadspike [Talk] 14:47, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The code for the button seems unrelated to mw:Template:Clickable button 2. The code is here. I wonder if anyone else wants this color change though. The script has used blue for years (including before I forked it and it was Enterprisey's script) without any complaints that I'm aware of. Perhaps we should wait for someone else to support the color change idea before coding it up. Any other supporters? –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:05, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of the final outcome, Toadspike's fresh eyes provided a valid insight we hadn't noticed. Welcome, Toadspike. We're glad to have you. BusterD (talk) 06:17, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Guide to temporary accounts

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Hello, Novem Linguae. This message is being sent to remind you of significant upcoming changes regarding logged-out editing.

Starting 4 November, logged-out editors will no longer have their IP address publicly displayed. Instead, they will have a temporary account (TA) associated with their edits. Users with some extended rights like administrators and CheckUsers, as well as users with the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will still be able to reveal temporary users' IP addresses and all contributions made by temporary accounts from a specific IP address or range.

How do temporary accounts work?

Editing from a temporary account
  • When a logged-out user completes an edit or a logged action for the first time, a cookie will be set in this user's browser and a temporary account tied with this cookie will be automatically created for them. This account's name will follow the pattern: ~2025-12345-67 (a tilde, year of creation, a number split into units of 5).
  • All subsequent actions by the temporary account user will be attributed to this username. The cookie will expire 90 days after its creation. As long as it exists, all edits made from this device will be attributed to this temporary account. It will be the same account even if the IP address changes, unless the user clears their cookies or uses a different device or web browser.
  • A record of the IP address used at the time of each edit will be stored for 90 days after the edit. Users with the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will be able to see the underlying IP addresses.
  • As a measure against vandalism, there are two limitations on the creation of temporary accounts:
    • There has to be a minimum of 10 minutes between subsequent temporary account creations from the same IP (or /64 range in case of IPv6).
    • There can be a maximum of 6 temporary accounts created from an IP (or /64 range) within a period of 24 hours.

Temporary account IP viewer user right

How to enable IP Reveal

Impact for administrators

  • It will be possible to block many abusers by just blocking their temporary accounts. A blocked person won't be able to create new temporary accounts quickly if the admin selects the autoblock option.
  • It will still be possible to block an IP address or IP range.
  • Temporary accounts will not be retroactively applied to contributions made before the deployment. On Special:Contributions, you will be able to see existing IP user contributions, but not new contributions made by temporary accounts on that IP address. Instead, you should use Special:IPContributions for this (see a video about IPContributions in a gallery below).

Rules about IP information disclosure

  • Publicizing an IP address gained through TAIV access is generally not allowed (e.g. ~2025-12345-67 previously edited as 192.0.2.1 or ~2025-12345-67's IP address is 192.0.2.1).
  • Publicly linking a TA to another TA is allowed if "reasonably believed to be necessary". (e.g. ~2025-12345-67 and ~2025-12345-68 are likely the same person, so I am counting their reverts together toward 3RR, but not Hey ~2025-12345-68, you did some good editing as ~2025-12345-67)
  • See Wikipedia:Temporary account IP viewer § What can and can't be said for more detailed guidelines.

Useful tools for patrollers

  • It is possible to view if a user has opted-in to view temporary account IPs via the User Info card, available in Preferences → Appearance → Advanced options → Tick Enable the user info card
    • This feature also makes it possible for anyone to see the approximate count of temporary accounts active on the same IP address range.
  • Special:IPContributions allows viewing all edits and temporary accounts connected to a specific IP address or IP range.
  • Similarly, Special:GlobalContributions supports global search for a given temporary account's activity.
  • The auto-reveal feature (see video below) allows users with the right permissions to automatically reveal all IP addresses for a limited time window.

Videos

  • How to use Special:IPContributions
  • How automatic IP reveal works
  • How to use IP Info
  • How to use User Info

Further information and discussion

Most of this message was written by Mz7 (source). Thanks, 🎃 SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 02:47, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Another twinkle thing with temp accounts

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Can we get the block evasion block reason/template added for accounts as well as IPs? Doesn't really make sense to block temp accounts as socks when it's essentially block evasion as an IP. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:33, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Twinkle § Another twinkle thing with temp accounts
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Re: regional language and idioms

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Re [7] Sorry if I miswrote something, (I guess I didn't come off that clearly), but aaaactually I'm pretty sure it's not a regional thing. Just a language processing thing, if that makes sense?

Okay, let's take the most common use of the phrase "from scratch" - I think it has to be "baked from scratch", right? When I hear somebody tell me I need to "bake a cake from scratch", then my thought process, every time is:

  • Well, it can't be literal scratch - unless they want me to make a seed cake?
  • Can I use a prepurchased cake and decorate it?
  • Can I use a prepurchased cake and redecorate it?
  • Can I use box cake mix or not?
  • Can I use tinned frosting or not?
  • Can I use sprinkles or food colouring?
  • Can I use any form of preprepared, purchased, ingredient? (Like, baking powder, self-raising flower, custard powder, pudding mix, ect. )
  • Can I use purchased ingredients? (Like, do I have to go outside and get eggs from my ducks, break out my handmill, make my own oat milk, ect)?
  • Can I use prepared ingredients that I assembled? (Like, if I make my own powdered cake mix, if I make a batch of frosting and freeze it, does that count? What if I didn't make the frosting, but my sister did?
  • Can I use pre-prepared ingredients that I purchased - shelled nuts, frozen fruit, ect?
  • If using ingredients other people made for me doesn't count, then can I get help while I'm baking? Does it invalidate the "from scratch" clause if my sister makes the frosting for me while I'm in the kitchen but still supervising the frosting making procedure? What if I'm outside the kitchen?
  • Does adding ingredients that are impractical to make in a home kitchen (like vanilla) invalidate the "from scratch" clause?

And so on.

I don't know what your response is to these questions- you may (or may not) think any given answer is obviously yes or no, but in my experience, people tend to disagree quite strongly. With all these questions in the air, how can I truthfully say that I understand what somebody means when they tell me I need to do something "from scratch"? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 00:28, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey there. I'm happy to drop the issue. Not worth upsetting you over, or even spending a lot of brainpower on. Truce? :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:01, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Monitor

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User:Polygnotus/Scripts/ExternalLinkMonitor. Polygnotus (talk) 05:15, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Neat. Thanks for sharing! –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:19, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hist merge needed - MediaWiki:Globalblocking-blockedtext-range → MediaWiki:Wikimedia-globalblocking-blockedtext-range

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I wanted to know if you could merge the histories of these two interface pages since MediaWiki:Wikimedia-globalblocking-blockedtext-range is what should have been used on Wikimedia projects. Its history goes back to 2018 and merging the histories would help preserve attribution and would probably help future editors who may become confused why MediaWiki:Wikimedia-globalblocking-blockedtext-range is not appearing in global block messages.

I presume that you created the former page in error without realizing that this latter page existed which is why I am asking. Aasim (話す（はなす）) 20:17, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey there. A history merge seems reasonable here, but I'd like a second opinion on whether it's better to use MediaWiki:Globalblocking-blockedtext-range or MediaWiki:Wikimedia-globalblocking-blockedtext-range, so I'll go ahead and move this to WP:IANB. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:57, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Moved to Wikipedia:Interface administrators' noticeboard

AfC Helper Script PR

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Hi there! I'm not really sure if this is the best place to bring this up, but I thought I'd draw your attention to a PR I submitted on the AfC Helper Script about 3 weeks ago.

It's a fix for dark mode users that makers the script readable when it otherwise was impossible to use in dark mode.

It's not a super urgent emergency, but I think it's worth fixing sooner rather than later as it's quite annoying to have to switch to light mode and get flash-banged whenever dark mode reviewers want to review drafts :)

Please feel free to pass this on to wherever I should have posted it instead, if not here! SnowyRiver28 (talk) 23:51, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@SnowyRiver28. Howdy. Thanks for the patch. Sorry for the delay -- I have to manually test every patch and that is kind of laborious. Anyway, I went ahead and did so and left you a code review comment just now. Hope that helps. Happy coding. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:39, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there! All good, I can imagine that's time consuming.
Thanks for the review, I'll try and be more thorough in future to save you time re-testing things:) SnowyRiver28 (talk) 02:05, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk

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Hey Novem. I saw there are only two election clerks listed for the upcoming administrator elections; I'm currently serving as a clerk for ACE2025 and would be happy to help again, if I can be of use. Giraffer (talk) 10:20, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @Giraffer. Thanks for offering to help. I don't have room at the moment to make you an election official. However I am happy to add you as an alternate. You can step in if Robertsky or I develop a schedule conflict. Hope that's OK! Thanks and happy electing. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:25, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, no problem. Giraffer (talk) 11:28, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Categorization of AE protection actions needed (17 November 2025)

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Hello Novem Linguae,

I'm a bot that helps log arbitration enforcement (AE) protection actions on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. As a result of a September 2025 motion by the Arbitration Committee, administrators are no longer required to manually log AE protection actions. Instead, this bot is responsible for logging AE protections to the AE protection log.

While logging AE protections, this bot detected that you recently took the following page protection actions. These action(s) seemed to be AE actions based on the edit summaries, but the bot wasn't able to tell which arbitration case they related to:

If these were AE actions, please take a moment to log the appropriate topic code at the AE protection log. If they were not, feel free to remove the actions from the AE protection log, and optionally let the bot operator know about the false positives.

Going forward, in order to help this bot categorize AE actions, please include a link to the contentious topic under which the action was taken in the protection edit summary (for example, [[WP:CT/BLP]] or [[Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Biographies of Living Persons]]).

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to the bot operator or to the arbitration clerks at the arbitration clerks' noticeboard.

Thank you! ClerkBot (talk) 23:55, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

L235. False positive. No rush to fix, just putting it in the queue. Thanks :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:07, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh no! I will take a look. I think the "WP:AE" matched there :) KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:09, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This should be fixed, at least with a bodge :) KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:50, 26 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

UnblockReview acting up

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Hi, sorry to bother, wasn't sure where to raise this, but since it's your script I thought I'd at least start here. I'm using User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/UnblockReview, and for the past maybe a week (?) I've noticed that it sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. (When I say doesn't work, I mean it doesn't open up the comment window and offer the accept/decline buttons.) For example, here's one where it doesn't work: User_talk:Vinn_Lay.

I've just checked ~20 pages with open appeals, and it looks like it's not working with {{unblock-spamun}}, but works fine with the vanilla {{unblock}}. Unblock-spamun hasn't been changed for over a year, so I'm thinking it can't be that; then again, your script hasn't been changed for over four months, and I've only noticed this issue very much more recently, so that doesn't seem likely explanation, either. (I've un- and re-installed the script, but it didn't help.)

Any idea what might be behind this? Thanks, -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 11:59, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Turkey

[edit]
 Buster7 has given you a turkey! Turkeys promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a turkey, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy Thanksgiving! Buster Seven Talk (UTC) 19:04, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Spread the goodness of turkey by adding {{subst:Thanksgiving Turkey}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Wikipedia:Administrator elections/December 2025/Candidates

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Re this; shouldn't the priority be to have the correct date? I get the desire to easily copy and paste but I would figure having the correct date would be more important. 45dogs (they/them) (talk page) 15:30, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@45dogs. Oh apologies, I didn't realize the date was wrong. Let me see if I can fix it real quick by modifying the underlying data template. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:34, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Has USync stopped working?

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I have noticed that you started manually updating your userscript: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Novem_Linguae/Scripts/anrfc-lister.js&diff=prev&oldid=1325305306 despite there being a Git commit.

Could it be because User:Matrix/anrfc-test.js is also tracking the same thing, and the bot doesn't handle multiple pages that track the same file? I will look into this later today. dbeef [talk] 18:10, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Dbeef. Thanks for the message. To be honest, it's because I forgot that the bot was updating that file. Whoops.
Also, as I experimented with using the bot previously, I discovered that I like to do manual deploys of user scripts so that I can manually test the new code, then once I work the bugs out of the new code (perhaps with some follow up wiki edits and VS Code file changes) I make a single git commit. That's another reason I haven't added the bot to all my user scripts. Hope that makes sense. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:56, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think a different approach is to host the script locally, and have something on Wikipedia that loads your local development version as you edit it. This is what I usually do for my scripts, and I push to git once the version is good, which gets published to the on-wiki version by the bot. dbeef [talk] 01:09, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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