User talk:That Coptic Guy
 | I am on Wikipedia intermittently in order to focus on my academic and professional pursuits and will be back again to full-time editing again soon. I apologize in advance if I don't get to your request or reply to your comment, talk page message, or otherwise. I still very much do see them in my emails though, so please know that although I am aware of what's happening in my circle, I won't necessarily have the time to log on and edit (but may be on intermittently--just not as often). Thanks for your understanding! |
 | Welcome to my Wikipedia user talk page. I await your comments. I will generally respond here to comments that are posted here, rather than replying via your talk page (or the article's talk page, if you are writing to me here about an article), so you may want to watch this page until you are responded to, or let me know where specifically you'd prefer the reply. |
 | This user does not mind criticism. Feel free to let them know if they did something wrong. |
Welcome to the 2025 WikiCup!
[edit]Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2025 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor, we hope the WikiCup will give you a chance to improve your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page ready for you to take part. Any questions on the scoring, rules or anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page.
For the 2025 WikiCup, we've implemented several changes to the scoring system. The highest-ranking contestants will now receive tournament points at the end of each round, and final rankings are decided by the number of tournament points each contestant has. If you're busy and can't sign up in January, don't worry: Signups are now open throughout the year. To make things fairer for latecomers, the lowest-scoring contestants will no longer be eliminated at the end of each round.
The first round will end on 26 February. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email), Epicgenius (talk · contribs · email), Frostly (talk · contribs · email), Guerillero (talk · contribs · email) and Lee Vilenski (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:14, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – January 2025
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2024).
Administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following an RFC, Wikipedia:Notability (species) was adopted as a subject-specific notability guideline.
- A request for comment is open to discuss whether admins should be advised to warn users rather than issue no-warning blocks to those who have posted promotional content outside of article space.
Technical news
- The Nuke feature also now provides links to the userpage of the user whose pages were deleted, and to the pages which were not selected for deletion, after page deletions are queued. This enables easier follow-up admin-actions.
Arbitration
- Following the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been elected to the Arbitration Committee: CaptainEek, Daniel, Elli, KrakatoaKatie, Liz, Primefac, ScottishFinnishRadish, Theleekycauldron, Worm That Turned.
Miscellaneous
- A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in January 2025 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles and redirects in the new pages feed. Sign up here to participate!
The Signpost: 15 January 2025
[edit]- From the editors: Looking back, looking forward
- Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2024
- In the media: Will you be targeted?
- Technology report: New Calculator template brings interactivity at last
- Opinion: Reflections one score hence
- Serendipity: What we've left behind, and where we want to go next
- Arbitration report: Analyzing commonalities of some contentious topics
- Humour: How to make friends on Wikipedia
Administrators' newsletter – February 2025
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2025).
Administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Oversighter changes
Technical news
- Administrators can now nuke pages created by a user or IP address from the last 90 days, up from the initial 30 days. T380846
- A '
Recreated' tag will now be added to pages that were created with the same title as a page which was previously deleted and it can be used as a filter in Special:RecentChanges and Special:NewPages. T56145
Arbitration
- The arbitration case Palestine-Israel articles 5 has been closed.
The Signpost: 7 February 2025
[edit]- Recent research: GPT-4 writes better edit summaries than human Wikipedians
- News and notes: Let's talk!
- Opinion: Fathoms Below, but over the moon
- Community view: 24th Wikipedia Day in New York City
- Arbitration report: Palestine-Israel articles 5 has closed
- Traffic report: A wild drive
The Signpost: 27 February 2025
[edit]- Serendipity: Guinea-Bissau Heritage from Commons to the World
- Technology report: Hear that? The wikis go silent twice a year
- In the media: The end of the world
- Recent research: What's known about how readers navigate Wikipedia; Italian Wikipedia hardest to read
- Opinion: Sennecaster's RfA debriefing
- Tips and tricks: One year after this article is posted, will every single article on Wikipedia have a short description?
- Community view: Open letter from French Wikipedians says "no" to intimidation of volunteer contributors
- Traffic report: Temporary scars, February stars
WikiCup 2025 March newsletter
[edit]The first round of the 2025 WikiCup ended on 26 February. As a reminder, we are no longer disqualifying the lowest-scoring contestants; everyone who competed in round 1 will advance to round 2 unless they have withdrawn or been banned from Wikipedia. Instead, the contestants with the highest round-point totals now receive tournament points at the end of each round. Unlike the round points in the main WikiCup table, which are reset at the end of each round, tournament points are carried over between rounds and can only be earned if a competitor is among the top 16 round-point scorers. This table shows all competitors who have received tournament points so far.
Round 1 was very competitive compared with previous years; two contestants scored more than 1,000 round points, and the top 16 contestants all scored more than 500 round points. The following competitors scored more than 800 round points:
Gog the Mild (submissions) with 1,168 round points, mainly from 4 featured articles and 4 good articles on old military history, in addition to an assortment of GA and FA reviews.
Generalissima (submissions) with 1,095 round points, mainly from 2 FAs, 2 featured lists, 8 GAs, and 16 Did You Know articles mainly on historical topics.
BeanieFan11 (submissions), with 866 round points from 20 GAs, 23 DYKs, and 2 In the News articles primarily about athletes.
Sammi Brie (submissions), with 846 round points from 16 GAs about radio and TV stations, 45 GA reviews, and 3 DYKs.
Hey man im josh (submissions), with 816 round points from 5 FLs about sports and Olympic topics, 46 FL reviews, 3 ITN articles, and a large number of bonus points.
MaranoFan (submissions), with 815 round points primarily from 3 FAs and 1 GA about music, in addition to 9 article reviews.
The full scores for round 1 can be seen here. During this round, contestants have claimed 18 featured articles, 26 featured lists, 1 featured-topic article, 197 good articles, 38 good-topic articles and more than 100 Did You Know articles. In addition, competitors have worked on 23 In the News articles, and they have conducted nearly 550 reviews.
Remember that any content promoted after 26 February but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2, which begins on 1 March. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, feel free to review one of the nominations listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:13, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – March 2025
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2025).
Administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Oversighter changes
Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment is open to discuss whether AI-generated images (meaning those wholly created by generative AI, not human-created images modified with AI tools) should be banned from use in articles.
- A series of 22 mini-RFCs that double-checked consensus on some aspects and improved certain parts of the administrator elections process has been closed (see the summary of the changes).
- A request for comment is open to gain consensus on whether future administrator elections should be held.
Technical news
- A new filter has been added to the Special:Nuke tool, which allows administrators to filter for pages in a range of page sizes (in bytes). This allows, for example, deleting pages only of a certain size or below. T378488
- Non-administrators can now check which pages are able to be deleted using the Special:Nuke tool. T376378
Miscellaneous
- The 2025 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, Arcticocean, Ameisenigel, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, Galahad, Nehaoua, Renvoy, Revi C., RoySmith, Teles and Zafer as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
- Following the 2025 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: 1234qwer1234qwer4, AramilFeraxa, Daniuu, KonstantinaG07, MdsShakil and XXBlackburnXx.
The Signpost: 22 March 2025
[edit]- From the editor: Hanami
- News and notes: Deeper look at takedowns targeting Wikipedia
- In the media: The good, the bad, and the unusual
- Recent research: Explaining the disappointing history of Flagged Revisions; and what's the impact of ChatGPT on Wikipedia so far?
- Traffic report: All the world's a stage, we are merely players...
- Gallery: WikiPortraits rule!
- Essay: Unusual biographical images
- Obituary: Rest in peace
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
Administrators' newsletter – April 2025
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2025).
Administrator changes
Bureaucrat changes
CheckUser changes
Oversighter changes
Miscellaneous
- Sign up for The Core Contest, a competition running from 15 April to 31 May to improve vital articles.
The Signpost: 9 April 2025
[edit]- Opinion: Crawlers, hogs and gorillas
- Debriefing: Giraffer's RfA debriefing
- Obituary: RHaworth, TomCat4680 and PawełMM
- Traffic report: Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, off to report we go...
- News from Diff: Strengthening Wikipedia’s neutral point of view
- Comix: Thirteen
Hi, thank you for your message! I'm generally not that active on English Wikipedia (I'm more of an Italian Wikipedia guy), but when I saw the AI-generated image on Sham Ennessim, I was like, "Wait a minute..." (Interestingly, that was the day I learned about this holiday, my Egyptian friend told me that her family was painting eggs and I was surprised to note all the similarities with Easter, especially given how Sham Ennessim falls on the day after Easter!). Anyway, I decided to read the small debate that went down in the talk page as well, and I think it's kinda silly :P It's almost common sense that this kind of image shouldn't be used, and I wouldn't resort to minor phrasing choices in the rules to make my case. SuperBowser (talk) 06:47, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
The Signpost: 1 May 2025
[edit]- In the media: Feds aiming for WMF's nonprofit status
- Recent research: How readers use Wikipedia health content; Scholars generally happy with how their papers are cited on Wikipedia
- Arbitration report: Sysop Tinucherian removed and admonished by the ArbCom
- Discussion report: Latest news from Centralized discussions
- Traffic report: Of Wolf and Man
- Disinformation report: At WikiCredCon, Wikipedia editors and Internet Archive discuss threats to trust in media
- News from the WMF: Product & Tech Progress on the Annual Plan
- Comix: By territory
- Community view: A deep dive into Wikimedia
- Debriefing: Barkeep49's RfB debriefing
Administrators' newsletter – May 2025
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2025).
Administrator changes
Rusalkii
NaomiAmethyst (overlooked last month)
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, administrator elections were permanently authorized on a five-month schedule. The next election will be scheduled soon; see Wikipedia talk:Administrator elections for more information. This is an alternate process to the RfA process and does not replace the latter.
- An RfC was closed with consensus to allow editors to opt-out of seeing "sticky decorative elements". Such elements should now be wrapped in {{sticky decoration wrapper}}. Editors who wish to opt out can follow the instructions at WP:STICKYDECO.
- An RfC has resulted in a broad prohibition on the use of AI-generated images in articles. A few common-sense exceptions are recognized.
Miscellaneous
- A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in May 2025 to reduce the backlog of articles in the new pages feed. Sign up here to participate!
The Signpost: 14 May 2025
[edit]- In the media: Wikimedia Foundation sues over UK government decision that might require identity verification of editors worldwide
- Disinformation report: What does Jay-Z know about Wikipedia?
- Technology report: WMF introduces unique but privacy-preserving browser cookie
- Debriefing: Goldsztajn's RfA debriefing
- Obituary: Max Lum (User:ICOHBuzz)
- Community view: A Deep Dive Into Wikimedia (part 2)
- Comix: Collection
- From the archives: Humor from the Archives
Administrators' newsletter – June 2025
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2025).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- An RfC is open to determine whether the English Wikipedia community should adopt a position on AI development by the WMF and its affiliates.
Technical news
- A new feature called Multiblocks will be deployed on English Wikipedia on the week of June 2. See the relevant announcement on the administrators' noticeboard.
- History merges performed using the mergehistory special page are now logged at both the source and destination, rather than just the source as previously, after this RFC and the resolution of T118132.
Arbitration
- An arbitration case named Indian military history has been opened. Evidence submissions for this case close on 8 June.
Miscellaneous
- Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election is open until 17 June 2025. Read the voting page on Meta-Wiki and cast your vote here!
- An Articles for Creation backlog drive is happening in June 2025, with over 1,600 drafts awaiting review from the past two months. In addition to AfC participants, all administrators and new page patrollers can help review using the Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in the Gadgets settings. Sign up here to participate!
- The Unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in June 2025 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!
The Signpost: 24 June 2025
[edit]- News and notes: Happy 7 millionth!
- In the media: Playing professor pong with prosecutorial discretion
- Disinformation report: Pardon me, Mr. President, have you seen my socks?
- Recent research: Wikipedia's political bias; "Ethical" LLMs accede to copyright owners' demands but ignore those of Wikipedians
- Traffic report: All Sinners, a future, all Saints, a past
- Debriefing: EggRoll97's RfA2 debriefing
- Community view: A Deep Dive Into Wikimedia (part 3)
- Comix: Hamburgers
Administrators' newsletter – July 2025
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2025).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following a talk page discussion, speedy deletion criterion G13 has been amended to remove "Userspace with no content except the article wizard placeholder text."
- WP:Manual of Style/Superscripts and subscripts was upgraded to a guideline following a RfC discussion.
Miscellaneous
- The 2025 Developing Countries WikiContest will run from 1 July to 30 September. Sign up now!
- Administrator elections will take place this month. Administrator elections are an alternative to RFA that is a gentler process for candidates due to secret voting and multiple people running together. The call for candidates is July 9–15, the discussion phase is July 18–22, and the voting phase is July 23–29. Get ready to submit your candidacy, or (with their consent) to nominate a talented candidate!
The Signpost: 18 July 2025
[edit]- News and notes: Is no WikiNews good WikiNews? — Election season returns!
- In the media: How bad (or good) is Wikipedia?
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Medicine reaches milestone of zero unreferenced articles
- Recent research: Knowledge manipulation on Russia's Wikipedia fork; Marxist critique of Wikidata license; call to analyze power relations of Wikipedia
- News from the WMF: Form 990 released for the Wikimedia Foundation’s fiscal year 2023-2024
- Discussion report: Six thousand noticeboard discussions in 2025 electrically winnowed down to a hundred
- Comix: Divorce
- Traffic report: God only knows
Administrators' newsletter – August 2025
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2025).
Administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following a request for comment, a new speedy deletion criterion, G15, has been enacted. It applies to pages generated by a large language model (LLM) without human review.
- Following a request for comment, there is a new policy outlining the granting of permissions to view the IP addresses of temporary accounts. Temporary account deployment on the English Wikipedia is currently scheduled for September 2025, and editors can request access to the permission ahead of time. Admins are encouraged to keep an eye on the request page; there will likely be a flood of editors requesting the permission when they realize they can no longer see IP addresses.
Technical news
- Administrators can now restrict the "Add a Link" feature to newcomers. The "Add a Link" Structured Task helps new account holders get started with editing. Administrators can configure this setting in the Community Configuration page.
Arbitration
- The arbitration case Indian military history has been closed.
- South Asia (WP:CT/SA) is designated a contentious topic. The topic area is specifically defined as
All pages related to the region of South Asia (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal), broadly construed, including but not limited to history, politics, ethnicity, and social groups.
- The contentious topic designations for Sri Lanka (SL) and India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan (IPA) are folded into this new contentious topic.
- The community-authorized general sanctions regarding South Asian social groups (GS/CASTE) are rescinded and folded into this new contentious topic.
- South Asia (WP:CT/SA) is designated a contentious topic. The topic area is specifically defined as
- The arbitration case Article titles and capitalisation 2 has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case closed on 31 July.
- The arbitration case Transgender healthcare and people has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case will close on 11 August.
Miscellaneous
- Wikimania 2025 is happening in Nairobi, Kenya, and online from August 6 to August 9. This year marks 20 years of Wikimania. Interested users can join the online event. Registration for the virtual event is free and will remain open throughout Wikimania. You can register here now.
The Signpost: 9 August 2025
[edit]- News and notes: Court order snips out part of Wikipedia article, editors debate whether to frame shreds or pulp them
- Discussion report: News from ANI, AN, RSN, BLPN, ELN, FTN, and NPOVN
- Disinformation report: The article in the most languages
- Community view: News from the Villages Pump
- Crossword: Accidental typography
- Traffic report: I'm not the antichrist or the Superman
Administrators' newsletter – September 2025
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2025).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- An RfC is open on whether use of emojis with no encyclopedic value in mainspace and draftspace (e.g., at the start of paragraphs or in place of bullet points) should be added as a criterion under G15.
Technical news
- Administrators can now access the Special:BlockedExternalDomains page from the Special:CommunityConfiguration list page. This makes it easier to find. T393240
Arbitration
- The arbitration case Article titles and capitalisation 2 has been closed.
- An RfC is in progress to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
The Signpost: 9 September 2025
[edit]- News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation loses a round in court
- In the media: Congress probes, mayor whitewashed, AI stinks
- Disinformation report: A guide for Congress
- Recent research: Minority-language Wikipedias, and Wikidata for botanists
- Technology report: A new way to read Wikisource
- Traffic report: Check out some new Weapons, weapon of choice
- Essay: The one question
Cite Unseen September 2025 updates
[edit]Hello! Thank you for using Cite Unseen. We are excited to share details about a big update we just deployed. With grant support from Wikimedia CH, we've added several new features, including a citation filtering dashboard, settings dialog, support for localization, and the ability to easily suggest domain categorizations. Cite Unseen now also lives on Meta Wiki, as part of our effort to serve all Wikimedia projects. Our source lists are now also on Meta-Wiki, where they can be collaboratively edited by the community.
Please see our newsletter on Meta-Wiki for full details. If you have feature ideas, notice any issues with our new updates, or have any questions, please get in touch via our project talk page. Thank you!
This message was sent via global message delivery. You received this message as you've been identified as a user of Cite Unseen. If you are not a Cite Unseen user, or otherwise don't want to receive updates in the future, you can remove yourself from our mailing list here.
The Signpost: 2 October 2025
[edit]- News and notes: Larry Sanger returns with "Nine Theses on Wikipedia"; WMF publishes transparency report
- In the media: Extraordinary eruption of "EVIL" explained
- Disinformation report: Emails from a paid editing client
- Discussion report: Sourcing, conduct, policy and LLMs: another 1,339 threads analyzed
- Recent research: Is Wikipedia a merchant of (non-)doubt for glyphosate?; eight projects awarded Wikimedia Research Fund grants
- Opinion: Some disputes aren't worth it
- Obituary: Michael Q. Schmidt
- Traffic report: Death, hear me call your name
- Comix: A grand spectacle