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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2025-01-15. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Analyzing commonalities of some contentious topics (4,025 bytes · 💬)

  • Thanks for carrying out this research and presenting it so cleanly Barkeep. Perhaps there being so many PIA cases means institutional knowledge has developed for handling them. Best, CMD (talk) 08:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • An interesting piece of research; thank you for putting it together. Can I suggest adding tooltips to the abbreviations, for those of us not as well versed as we perhaps should be in the terminology? UndercoverClassicist T·C 11:32, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
    @UndercoverClassicist: I added a few, is that what you were looking for? ☆ Bri (talk) 18:17, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
    Yes, exactly! I assume "Falun" is Falun Gong? UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:11, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
    Correct. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:14, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Do you have this data in a neat easy to use spreadsheet? Volunteer Marek 07:03, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek Copy-and-paste this signpost URL into https://wikitable2csv.ggor.de/ JayCubby 14:21, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
Thanks. But I was more wondering about a spreadsheet that lists every individual case, admin active etc. All the data, not just the end result summary. Volunteer Marek 14:40, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
I can look into it. Be warned that when I offer to look into a thing of a technical matter, I tend to utilize ChatGPT's SQL or Python code and waste Google Colab's generous resources. JayCubby 15:15, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
The admin active information for PIA is found in my evidence section at WP:PIA5. While a spreadsheet exists for the AE data I made it quick and dirty to help me get the numbers and not in a way that would work well for sharing with others. I hope Jay's efforts are successful (FWIW I spent a little time seeing if I could get an LLM to spit out a script for me but ultimately decided it was going to be faster to just do the work manually). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:46, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
Thanks, that’ll work. I haven’t been following the case so didn’t see it. Volunteer Marek 17:14, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, Barkeep might have solved it better than I ever will. I'd forgotten how much text and how many subpages there are in ArbCom cases. JayCubby 19:56, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Essay: Meet the Canadian who holds the longest editing streak on Wikipedia (2,728 bytes · 💬)

  • Well, if Guinness World Records won't accept the opportunity, I'm glad the Signpost did. Seems an unfair advantage for the Blue Jays though. CMD (talk) 08:17, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Dedication at its finest. 💽 🌙Eclipse 💽 🌹 ⚧ (CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST) 10:53, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Hearing about you inspired me to keep my own streak (although I don't go by the default UTC and simply stick to my timezone). I've kept it since November 22, 2023, so slightly over a year! Not nearly as impressive as yours, but who knows what the future will bring. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 11:50, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Who is at number 2 by editing streak?––kemel49(connect)(contri) 06:42, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    According to this database report, it's Bruce1ee. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 22:17, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Great choice of favorite game character. QuicoleJR (talk) 00:04, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
  • According to that database list, I'm #35 but that list looks like it's exponential, Johnny Au is by far, #1 and it looks like no one will ever meet his streak. Congratulations! I think what most impresses me is that he never had a day without computer access! He must have a backup laptop. Liz Read! Talk! 06:09, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
  • He would be this year's Wikimedian of the Year at the Wikimania 2025. Ahri Boy (talk) 06:45, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Wohoo, go go, keep the streak –Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 05:30, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

From the editors: Looking back, looking forward (1,316 bytes · 💬)

  • Happy anniversary to the Signpost! This may be the most long-lasting collaborative online newspaper out there.[citation needed] —Ganesha811 (talk) 19:05, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • @Bri and JPxG: Not to mention, this issue is out right on time for Wikipedia's 24th birthday, so there are even more reasons to celebrate! Maybe, an anniversary logo contest would be a good opportunity to share our excitement with the community... ; )
But anyway, I think I've never been prouder of having contributed to a Signpost issue, and I'm so honored of being able to keep contributing to its history. Here's to twenty more years! Oltrepier (talk) 21:37, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Happy Anniversary, Signpost. Vulcan wishing you a great future –Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 17:22, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Humour: How to make friends on Wikipedia (2,829 bytes · 💬)

This is the perfect checklist for the new year, great job. Vestrian24Bio 10:04, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

No notes! Perfect! We're best friends now, right? RIGHT!? - UtherSRG (talk) 12:17, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Sure :) Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 14:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

this is good advice does homophobia racism or transphobia give me friend points????•Cyberwolf•talk? 18:54, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps a numbered list would be more convenient for those following along at home? Polygnotus (talk) 19:10, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Numbered lists don't really fit the formatting (if you open this up in source and see where the **s are, that would be impossible). I also just don't like the way numbered lists look, to be quite frank. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
For some reason <input type="checkbox"> is not an acceptable HTML tag in wikicode. Oh well, I don't like new year's resolutions anyway. Polygnotus (talk) 23:41, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
I do! Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:50, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

No notes here. Fantastically funny list! I'd also say, on a more genuine note, that joining the Wikimedia Commons Discord server is also a great way to meet other editors with similar interests! XFalcon2004x (talk) 16:09, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

This is what Vulcan considers a PERFECT list, for those who seeking WikiThrill with a dash of WikiDrama –Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 13:03, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

In focus: Twenty years of The Signpost: What did it take? (2,491 bytes · 💬)

  • Congratulations! It's an important milestone! BilboBeggins (talk) 10:21, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • I really enjoyed these recollections. Thanks to the people who contributed and whoever sought them out. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • @Rosiestep, The ed17, Vysotsky, Jules*, Newslinger, Ssr, and Piotrus: Thanks to everybody who contributed. We should keep in touch more often! Ok, I got it. What are you doing in January 2030? Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:08, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
    Thank you also! I think, in January 2030 I will be admining Russian Wikinews... -- ssr (talk) 09:47, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    Thanks to all TSP peeps... past, present, future. What will I be doing in January 2030? Same o same o; plus WikiPortraits. --Rosiestep (talk) 17:38, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
  • So glad I read this and the related. Even if it's only the second one I've willingly accessed, this is one of your most important and special issues yet. Carlinal (talk) 20:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Great retrospective and recollections, thanks for sharing –Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 17:29, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Appreciate the shoutout. I enjoyed my sojourn on the Signpost and remain glad to put in my two bits from time to time! Montanabw(talk) 18:29, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Good work all but as for "... reply to outsiders who do not necessarily comprehend all of our policies ..." well, as an insider for well over a decade, I don't comprehend more than a small fraction of our policies, nor believe any of my many thousands of esteemed colleagues do. It would be like comprehending all the laws of England. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:39, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

In the media: Will you be targeted? (8,632 bytes · 💬)

I took a reasonably serious look at the Heritage Foundation's slide deck a few days ago. While what is shown is vague, the most plausible interpretations would involve illegal activity. I'd be interested to know if the deck is vague because the author didn't know what they were talking about, because that's how they write presentations or because they were being cautious what they committed to a written record (or indeed some other reason, or combination). The deck also omits any description of what "Wikipedia editors abusing their position" means. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 10:47, 15 January 2025 (UTC).

I'm just speculating, but to me the slideshow read like they were in the early stage of the project. Its essentially a list of all the commonly known ways to identify pseudonymous users on the internet (or cliques of users. Some of the methods (but only some) would be more useful to identify which users are sockpuppets of each other or at least working closely together, but not their actual identity per se) excluding techniques that are excessively expensive/illegal like getting a 0-day on the black market. I think they were pitching what they could potentially do, but don't really have a plan yet, so that's why its all very vague. In essence I think they were writing a pitch for a project that hasn't started yet.
My theory on this is as follows (I'm giving a lot of benefit of the doubt here, but at the same time I think its important to keep in mind that villains never think of themselves as evil; they always think of themselves as justified): Heritage foundation believes that Wikipedia is biased against it (True or not, American right wing has had this as a talking point for a while now, so I think they earnestly believe it). They believe their ideological enemies have infiltrated Wikipedia and the system is being gamed. Perhaps they saw the news about the "Off-wiki misconduct in Palestine–Israel topic area" and they felt that only further confirmed what they already suspected and that it is the tip of the iceberg (Given the timing of all this, I actually do think that whole drama might have been what gave heritage foundation the idea). Given they are a think tank who aims to shape the public narrative, this is a major problem for them. So they decide to do something about it. People have been assuming that their intent is to dox, harass and generally have a chilling effect on wikipedia editors who disagree with them in topic areas they care about, but I don't think that's quite it (Although perhaps that is a bonus to them). I think they earnestly believe (to be clear, I'm not saying this is true, just that the heritage foundation folks believe it) that their ideological opponents have infiltrated Wikipedia, and they want to set that "right". I think they wanted to achieve this by gathering evidence of people off-wiki collaborating/sock puppeting/etc (By essentially investigating everyone against them in certain topic areas until they find dirt). I think they wanted to sell this "investigation" as "investigative journalism". This would give it the legitimacy of journalism. Something coming out of a partisan think tank isn't going to change hearts and minds except for the people who already agree with them. However if they did uncover some large partisan sockpuppet ring or something, they probably believe having it be in a newspaper would put pressure on Wikipedia to change its system (or failing that delegitimize wikipedia as "neutral" which would probably also work for them) in a way that they never could do themselves. So in essence, what I think this presentation is, is a pitch deck to get some major news outlet on board to do the investigation with them and publish it under their banner. Which is why its essentially a laundry list of techniques that while grey-area probably are maybe not straight up illegal. I think this would explain why everything is so vague (Its just a pitch), and also why they were emailing their evil plans to journalists, bond-villian style. Bawolff (talk) 12:37, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
Laws vary over time and from country to country. Techniques that are legal in some jurisdictions may not be legal under European Data Protection Law. So if they are planning to look for similar writing styles of pairs of editors who support each other and report possible sockpuppets to our Sock hunters, then that's fine. But the implied dodgier stuff? Friends, please review your passwords and change any old or weak ones. ϢereSpielChequers 12:58, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
IANAL, but presumably the laws that matter would be where the Heritage foundation is located, which i guess is Washington DC. The stuff they are proposing would be blatantly illegal under GDPR, and I think EU claims GDPR still applies even for groups outside the EU if they are handling data of an EU national, but as a practical matter, it seems hard to imagine that any laws other than US ones would apply, and US laws are pretty weak. While I agree that reviewing passwords is always good advice, I think its important to note that the presentation did not mention anything about attempting to login to targets accounts (Probably because such a thing would be blatantly illegal, even in the USA) Bawolff (talk) 13:09, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
I smell a lawsuit if this happens and it would be big i would support it i bet others would too i know we just came off the last lawsuit but this one I’m confident wmf would succeed as its genuinely a federal crime, as some one who can’t even drive a car my self yet I believe its extra illegal I’m ready to go up in arms. •Cyberwolf•talk? 18:02, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Useful article about Israeli propaganda techniques:

If the Forward is right, we'll see a lot more of that sort of thing in the months to come ... --Andreas JN466 20:17, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Whether or not this threat is real, this is worrying, since Wikipedia has always protected the anonymity of its users. It feels more and more that external organisations are trying to control Wikipedia. It should be a crime since it goes against the Wikipedia T&Cs, but under the Trump administration, I don't know. Who am I? / Talk to me! / What have I done? 15:04, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

"cultural and social biases significantly influence Wikipedia's multilingual content" - very good point, we need to remember this and evaluate our own biases and where they come from, and not let them get in the way of building a neutral encyclopedia. 123957a (talk) 20:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

@Jayen466: Would you consider substituting one of these for the Shomrim Center for Media and Democracy red link?

Peaceray (talk) 21:04, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, links to the Hebrew article he:שומרים – המרכז לתקשורת ודמוקרטיה now. Andreas JN466 21:36, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

News and notes: It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me... and I'm feeling free (1,541 bytes · 💬)

Op-ed: Elon Musk and the right on Wikipedia (8,561 bytes · 💬)

  • [Commenting on the original blog is paywalled, so I leave my 2 cents here] Well done, User:GorillaWarfare, it is always soothing to read Wikimedia defenses that lay bare some of the common misconceptions. I think you omitted a rather obvious argument: Wikipedia leans to the left (imo a matter of fact) because left-leaning people are more likely to contribute than right-leaning people. And that says more about about the Left and the Right than it says about Wikipedia. --Pgallert (talk) 08:44, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • That Wikipedia leans left is a very American-centric viewpoint. It's also a reflection that the American right decided reality was incovenient in 2016, and would prefer operating with a set of more convenient alternative facts. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:36, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • That's not just an American sentiment. The German Wikipedia faces the same accusations, persistently and for a long time. And while some German politicians are American-centric themselves, the population certainly is not. --Pgallert (talk) 08:11, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
  • In the USA and some other places pretending that Evolution didn't happen, being snowflakes re needle pricks and even denial of Climate change all exist on the political spectrum, despite the science. We aren't going to be neutral about such intrusions of politics on science any more than we can be neutral re people who prefer alternative facts. That doesn't mean we have a bias on issues such as how egalitarian a society should be or how authoritarian - provided it isn't so authoritarian that it censors or blocks us. ϢereSpielChequers 14:12, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
  • These bad-faith attacks on Wikipedia are frustrating to no end, and present a real threat to our reputation in the world at large. We need editors of all political stripes who are committed to reliable sourcing, neutrality, and verifiability, or else we do run the risk of becoming an echo chamber. My faint and fondest hope is that some committed conservatives who are led here to "fight the bias" on Wikipedia end up learning the ropes by accident, staying put, and becoming productive contributors. People have wound up here for stranger reasons than that. —Ganesha811 (talk) 19:22, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I think that "Unbiased" is impossible to define much less achieve. But when bias reaches the point where it impacts the informativeness of coverage, perhaps some introspection is in order (including for systemic issues) rather than villainizing everyone who says so, including cherry picking the things that they said that have the worst optics. We want to keep Wikipedia strong, including reputation as an information source on politics-related articles. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:51, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

We aren't "unbiased", by our very nature we reflect the bias of reliable sources. For better or worse, academia and other similar careers (investigative journalism, etc.) tend to have more left leaning people in them. So it would be surprising if there was no "leftist bias" compared to public opinion on Wikipedia as that would require going against our current policies. (t · c) buidhe 18:18, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that is one of the causes of the problem. BTW, to be more specific, I would use the term "wp:Reliable sources" instead of "reliable sources". North8000 (talk) 18:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Simple vandalism, like simple violence, is not the best way to harm the community's health. Someone with the know-how of wikipedia internals and editor psychology could literally use the community against itself, stir up division, making every edit and reply feel like an act of war, and destroying the unmistakenable and unexhaustable source of balancing force: the simple joy of editing. Only when that day comes can we say that Wikipedia is dead. Hym3242 (talk) 15:27, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Thank you for this, and don't ever give up the ground. I think I work on articles no political entity would ever care about. But, then again .... First they came ... — Maile (talk) 00:20, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the excellent article, GW. I don't envy you wading through Musk's tweets, and appreciate your summary of the far-right voices and networks that are being amplified. Also shocked to hear cisgender is blacklisted on Twitter – what further proof do you need of the hypocrisy of Musk's claim to be interested in free speech? Any news about Musk, or America more generally, is grim reading at the moment. Jr8825 • Talk 12:43, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Seeing billionaires (especially those from the alt-right) have temper tantrums over not being able to buy this website and manipulate it to their fit is very entertaining to watch. Their supporters run on here and call us "biased" because we don't show the already shunned and/or debunked ideas they regurgitate (e.g gender dysphoria being a contagious "trend", Haitian immigrants eating cats, or that "Jews control the world") in a positive light. We are not for sale, and we are not an outlet for your hateful neo-Nazi beliefs, Elon Musk. 💽 🌙Eclipse 💽 🌹 ⚧ (she/they) talk/edits 15:25, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Opinion: Reflections one score hence (1,374 bytes · 💬)

Serendipity: What we've left behind, and where we want to go next (1,218 bytes · 💬)

  • Ya made me smirk, JPxG. Hope you're feeling better now. Kudos to all the rest of you who kept things going while I slacked off here. Cheers, --Andreas JN466 23:53, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Screw the historical record, JPxG, you know what we Signpost readers are all after: a healthy dose of self-deprecating snark. Toadspike [Talk] 15:59, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
  • As with JPxG, Vulcan will shout "TWENTY MORE YEARS" (and hopefully beyond that) –Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 12:58, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Technology report: New Calculator template brings interactivity at last (23,983 bytes · 💬)

I tried adding one of these to Heron's formula § Example. I already noticed one technical issue: if you add default values to the input fields, the output fields don't produce any output until a reader has made an input action to one of the inputs. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:30, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

That's sort of intentional to try and force people to also set a default value for the output fields. The default value is displayed for non-js users so i was hoping displaying that prior to any user interaction would force people to set a sensible default value. However if you want to get around that you can set explicit fallback text by doing something like
{{calculator ifenabled|scoped=true|refreshonload=true
|enabled=calculator stuff to do if js is enabled
|disabled=stuff shown if no js
}}
which will also make the output cells use the formula even before user interaction. Bawolff (talk) 10:12, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Really nice! All the best: Rich Farmbrough 10:23, 15 January 2025 (UTC).

  • I don't really see a BMI calculator as fitting inside the purpose of Wikipedia. Our job is to inform readers about notable subjects, not themselves. (t · c) buidhe 14:54, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
    Personally I don’t think a calculator that shows the result of a formula is any less encyclopedic than showing the formula. It’s just another way of demonstrating data, similar to images and audio. And as other commenters have pointed out, this isn’t a new feature for digital encyclopedias.  novov talk edits 01:09, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Wow. Nice feature! I definitely see the use potential for {{Weather box}} in pages and {{climate chart}} in Wikivoyage. It will help scale down the size of these boxes and improve readability. OhanaUnitedTalk page 15:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Thank you for building this. We have a really simple interface which is mostly great but sometimes I worry we're dating ourselves and becoming a less valuable resource by not having more interactive infographics (as above) and embedded/press-play-to-start animations and video. jengod (talk) 15:06, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • This is reminding me somewhat of the digital World Book Encyclopedia that I had on my iMac when I was kid, before Wikipedia was a thing... I used to love panning around in their little "bubble view" widgets... Cooljeanius (talk) (contribs) 15:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • This is neat. Thank you to all involved in making this happen. Ckoerner (talk) 16:32, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • But the box doesn't handle stones and pounds, just pounds. British scales measure in stones and pounds. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.8% of all FPs. 16:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • The fact that the page jumps so much from loading calculators is not great. Hopefully this implementation would be improved at some point. Loading in interactive components should not make the whole page jump. stjn 16:58, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
    Honestly, the more I looked around, the more I am critical of the implementation. None of the examples are adapted to mobile, styles are defined inline and without any consideration for mobile, many examples seem inaccessible (inputs lack labels etc.), and making them accessible is optional, not required. If Wikipedia needs interactivity, this still has a long way to go from ever becoming an acceptable solution for that. stjn 17:06, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
    I know it doesnt solve the problem, but you can switch to the desktop version of any mobile page on Safari by tapping the 'aA' button (top left, next to the url), then clicking 'Request Desktop Website'. Im sure there's a way to do it in other browsers. This lets you view the page without the annoying stuff. MrFattie (talk) 21:58, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
    This is 100% irrelevant to my comment. Mobile devices should be supported even if mobile version stopped existing tomorrow, especially for reader-facing templates and gadgets. Majority of Wikipedia’s readership comes from mobile, so mobile-first design is a must, not a maybe. stjn 22:13, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
    I'm curious now if there are certain articles or types of articles which tend to have mostly desktop viewers vs. mobile viewers. Photos of Japan (talk) 07:58, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
    There are, but they tend to be excluded from the Signpost's traffic reports. I believe the rationale is that such a phenomena is caused by bot traffic instead of genuine? But I'm not certain. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 16:40, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
    "In other browsers"?? When I view mobile I do it on the Android Wikipedia App. There is no aA button. There is no url. There appears to be no way to tell it to open the page in a browser from there, let alone to get the non-mobile view. If this is not working in mobile then we're not reaching a large fraction of our audience. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:38, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    To clarify, (like all gadgets) this does not work on the wikipedia app (The Wikipedia app also seems to have problems with some other rich media stuff like mw:extension:3D). Users of the Wikipedia app will get something similar to the non-javascript version. Which either means all the widget default values or fallback text if using {{Calculator ifenabled}} (you can test what it will roughly look like by adding ?safemode=1 to end of url, although image lazy loading can make it look different than that). The wikipedia mobile browser site will display it like normal. Like any template, the template may need to be designed carefully to look good at smaller widths, and @media queries in template styles can be helpful with that. Bawolff (talk) 05:00, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    FWIW, I did make an attempt to improve the accessibility of the examples in this article (Other than the initial one which is intended to be as simple as possible to get the idea across). I would be interested in the results of some actual accessibility testing. Bawolff (talk) 14:41, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
  • The first thing that comes to mind is the chessboard template; we could make it possible to click through a game instead of just showing one state. 3df (talk) 17:41, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
    I made a start at User:SD0001/Chess, although it needs a lot of adjustments for performance and the display (and even after that a dedicated chess gadget might be preferable to avoid putting too much in the page html). – SD0001 (talk) 18:29, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    Not sure what’s the point of reinventing the wheel when two attempts already exist, namely Template:Pgnviewer and mw:Extension:ChessBrowser. stjn 18:52, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    The script in {{pgnviewer}} is too visually heavy and relies on outdated UI frameworks. I think a minimalist version that looks exactly like {{chess diagram}} with just some extra buttons is more suitable for wide use. As for the extension, good luck ever getting it installed on the Wikimedia cluster. – SD0001 (talk) 19:58, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    The extension in question, developed by English Wikipedia user Wugapodes, is on beta cluster and since it would not require much maintenance and would solve a common problem across wikis, I do not see why it would be rejected. But even if we take that premise as fact, it is certainly better than the example at your user page which renders 102 chess boards to do simple animations. stjn 21:53, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    My point is that it does not matter how much better it is if it's not going to be deployed. Beta cluster deployment is a lower bar and doesn't require WMF team stewardship. As for "would not require much maintenance", that's not something you can say for any extension. In 5 minutes of going through the code, I can already see use of parser tags in a non-Parsoid-compatible way. Maintainability is not that relevant either – there have been extensions that are less than 100 lines of code which still spent more than a decade in the pipeline. – SD0001 (talk) 22:45, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    And my point is that the version in your userspace that consumes 1,9 MB out of 2 MB of post-expand include size is infinitely worse. stjn 23:29, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    Where have I said that my version is fit for use or that it is better? Can you please stop being so hostile? – SD0001 (talk) 04:35, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
    I wasn’t trying to be hostile. To me it just read like you were unnecessarily flippant about the previous efforts of others, while also presenting a mockup template which is demonstrably worse. Obviously I fully believe in your ability to write a good script/template/extension, given the breadth of your technical contributions to the movement. stjn 09:12, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
    I don't know about the technical details, but design-wise I think it looks great! Photos of Japan (talk) 07:30, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
    Prior to the development of the feature allowing scripts to be loaded for specific pages, community consensus had been reached to deploy the script required for {{Pgnviewer}}, but the interface admins disagreed and did not implement it. Thus the template's author and another editor shifted efforts towards creating an extension. I believe its deployment is still awaiting approval and testing support from the MediaWiki developer team. When the per-page script feature was developed and deployed, I posted notices on the chess WikiProject talk page to let them know. I appreciate, though, that after having spent years trying to get approval for a script to be deployed, that the interested parties from then may be a bit burnt out. Perhaps someone else would like to follow up. isaacl (talk) 19:39, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    Getting a new extension deployed as a volunteer is a challenging, Kafka-esque endeavor. The ChessBrowser developers got a lot further than most people who try have. Bawolff (talk) 08:56, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
    As an addenum to that, I generally hold the development philosophy that to prevent stagnation we should create safe spaces (Safe in the sense of cybersecurity and performance) for users to experiment and let them run wild within those spaces. I think the chess browser extension is a good demonstration of why. The developers of it did a great job. Its pretty, its accessible (It even captions the game for screen readers!), generally quite nice. It had one of the most respected WMF devs (Ori) pushing for it to be deployed, as well as the community tech team. Despite all that it was never deployed and it seems like the effort was abandoned. If we can't even get a feature like that deployed, what hope is there for Wikimedia to meet the changing future? There is a reason we are reading this on the Wikipedia signpost and not the Nupedia signpost. Bawolff (talk) 13:43, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
  • It looks incredible. Thanks for this. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 21:07, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Having a picture of a Chinese abacus on the front page, as a lead-in to a story about a widget, is kind of goofy. Marcus Markup (talk) 22:19, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
    An abacus is also known as a "counting frame". I think it's a decent choice of image for an article about a calculator tool. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:42, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
  • When using it on articles like Centimetre, when one removes the value to type in a new one, it shows NaN as the result of all calculations. This isn’t very intuitive for the average reader; there should be an option to just parse an empty input as zero instead. Overall though, very nice work, I think this is a great addition to the encyclopedia!  novov talk edits 01:06, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    There's a parameter that specifies what should be displayed in this case instead of NaN. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:19, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    I updated that article to use 0. 0 makes sense in that article but it doesn't always make sense, so im not sure if it should be the default across the board. NaN is arguably quite jargony (not to mention displaying "infinity" for 1/0 can also be a bit unexpected). I think other potential defaults might be "Error", "?", or just empty. Bawolff (talk) 05:26, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
    I think the default NaN text should be empty. – SD0001 (talk) 16:35, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Would it be possible for there to be the capability to enter full-screen or enlarge modules? I can open templates and enlarge them just fine, but modules just display as lines of code. JayCubby 00:57, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
    • Yah a click to enter full-screen mode is a great idea, like what we have for pictures. Sure will see if we can get it built. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:36, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
  • What an amazing breakthrough from the technological standpoint of Wikipedia. Thank you all so much for this! Cheers, atque supra! Fakescientist8000 22:33, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Woah!! Very cool!! Now lets see if the graph extension itself can get fixed :P Although, it seems this might allow us to supersede the graphs extension in many ways? CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 06:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
    User:CaptainEek we also built a CT scan viewer which you can see here Appendicitis#Diagnosis and we are working on an Our World in Data viewer at MDWiki:WikiProjectMed:OWID Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:34, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
    Wow, that's really cool. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 21:38, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
    There are definitely some things graph could do that this can't. It can't read data from external services (like page view service or WDQS.) although one could use a bot to work around that. The graph extension allowed for complex programability and non-form control based user input (that largely wasn't used) e.g. pacman which isn't doable in this system. There also might be more scalability concerns for very complex scenes in this system. That said, i think people underappreciate how much graph drawing you can do in plain wikitext, and most of the esoteric features of the graph extension did not find much use on Wikipedia. E.g. one of the example graphs in this article is just plain wikitext and css Module:Sandbox/Bawolff/graph. I also have a very experimental work in progress drawing api for lua modelled on browser canvas api Module:Sandbox/Bawolff/canvas. Bawolff (talk) 04:20, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Another interesting application of this gadget: the lead image in Four-dimensional space now uses it to allow readers to toggle between an animated and static view of a rotating hypercube, resolving (I hope) accessibility issues caused by readers finding animations distracting. Unfortunately (as with other uses of calculator) it doesn't work on mobile, though. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:39, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
    If you want to genuinely resolve accessibility issues, then animation should be opt-in, not opt-out. stjn 18:53, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    The perfect is the enemy of the good. And why second person? We should all want to resolve accessibilities. But in this case a better solution would be to convince Wikimedia to allow animated gifs to be on or off by default as a user preference rather than having to hack around them by this sort of gadget and rather than having to make all the people who would be better informed by seeing appropriate animations have to jump through hoops to reach them. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:40, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
    We could use the prefers-reduced-motion media query [2] to detect this.  novov talk edits 05:56, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
    Well, if there were some way to get the information from that query out of css, through the heavy filtering that Wikimedia imposes on us, to the gadget that controls the image switching, it would seem reasonable to use that information as a default for whether to start the gadget in animated or static mode. Do you know of such a way? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:07, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
    I was about to respond with, you can totally do this, but no, apparently TemplateStyles does not allow prefers-reduced-motion media selectors. I submitted a patch to try and change that, but it might take a while before it ever reaches here. (Edit: I guess technically we could accomplish this by adding the CSS to the gadget's CSS file, but ideally we wouldn't be adding template specific CSS there) Bawolff (talk) 08:23, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
    Tbh, it feels like the use case ‘readers should be able to stop animations’ is not exactly in scope for a gadget named Calculator, either. Even if the intention is obviously noble, the code used is already pretty smelly. stjn 09:19, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
    As far as I understand, WCAG guidelines on autostarting animations lasting more than 5 seconds is only that it needs a stop button, not that it needs to be opt-in. Bawolff (talk) 07:38, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
    To which it should be added that the Wikimedia developers have not provided us with any way to put a stop button on an inline animated image and have ignored and downranked decade-old phab tickets requesting this feature [3] [4]. So since they will not do it for us, I think that being able to do it through the calculator (while not as good as a less hacky solution that would apply more universally) is a big improvement. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:20, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
    I suppose there is the option of converting the GIF to webm, which would have video controls. Unfortunately there is no autoplay option for videos. Most websites on the internet use videos for "GIF"s with a setting of muted, looped and autoplay, but TMH only supports the first two. Bawolff (talk) 08:25, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
    There is a patch for autoplay, but this also requires (or rather people would expect) inline playback, and because of click to play requirements for javascript, inline playback is not implemented. I guess it would be ok, if we do JS'less playback, then inline is probably more feasible. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:26, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
    My experience with webm animations is that when I click on them they pop up a viewer, making it impossible to view the animation in the context of the article that it is supposed to be an animation for. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:19, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
    I too made a community wish request last month to provide controls on GIFs, but the request was archived: meta:Community Wishlist/Wishes/Make animated GIFs easier to control (pause play select). —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 21:53, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
    It works fine on my mobile phone. Photos of Japan (talk) 07:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2024 (1,883 bytes · 💬)

Minor suggestion on peak for #11

Thank you to all the contributors for compiling this list. I'd like to suggest a slight improvement on the #11 - 2024 Indian general election wherein the peak on Jun 4 can be updated to 'results announced' rather than '3 days after the end of the election'. Just like the peak for 2024 United States presidential election. Regards - DesiBoy101 (talk) 15:14, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

  • #25 "was asked by to form" One Direction, but by whom was he asked? Surely a word missing there ~ LindsayHello 17:23, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
    Probably missing by the show or by the show's management ... but I'll wait for the TOP25 folks to add that. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:22, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
@DesiBoy101:  Done, I'm not a signpost editor, it was an uncontroversial edit so I WP:BOLDly did it ~/Bunnypranav:<ping> 06:14, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Nice to see my suggestion to User:CAWylie for the 2024 Summer Olympics entry show up on here. 123957a (talk) 20:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)


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