User talk:HouseBlaster

Welcome to my talk page!

My pronouns are he/they.
I prefer to keep discussions unfragmented. If you leave me a message here, I will respond to it here as an effort to keep the entire conversation in one place. By the same token, if I leave a comment on your talk page, please respond to it there.
I am an administrator, which just means I have some extra tools to help you out. If you need help, ask! If I am not online and you need help urgently, you can find a recently active admin using this tool.
Talk page watchers are welcome to add their input!
I am aware of the following contentious topics (if you don't know what this means, feel free to ignore this bullet point!): abortion, American politics, Armenia-Azerbaijan, biographies of living persons, Eastern Europe, gender and sexuality, historical elections, infoboxes, the Manual of Style and article titles, Palestine-Israel, and Yasuke.

Thank you!

Archives

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Tech News: 2025-22

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

Weekly highlight

A community-wide discussion about a very delicate issue for the development of Abstract Wikipedia is now open on Meta: where to store the abstract content that will be developed through functions from Wikifunctions and data from Wikidata. The discussion is open until June 12 at Abstract Wikipedia/Location of Abstract Content, and every opinion is welcomed. The decision will be made and communicated after the consultation period by the Foundation.

Updates for editors

Since last week, on all wikis except the largest 20, people using the mobile visual editor will have additional tools in the menu bar, accessed using the new + toolbar button. To start, the new menu will include options to add: citations, hieroglyphs, and code blocks. Deployment to the remaining wikis is scheduled to happen in June.
The #ifexist parser function will no longer register a link to its target page. This will improve the usefulness of Special:WantedPages, which will eventually only list pages that are the target of an actual red link. This change will happen gradually as the source pages are updated. [1]
This week, the Moderator Tools team will launch a new filter to Recent Changes, starting at Indonesian Wikipedia. This new filter highlights edits that are likely to be reverted. The goal is to help Recent Changes patrollers identify potentially problematic edits. Other wikis will benefit from this filter in the future.
Upon clicking an empty search bar, logged-out users will see suggestions of articles for further reading. The feature will be available on both desktop and mobile. Readers of Catalan, Hebrew, and Italian Wikipedias and some sister projects will receive the change between May 21 and mid-June. Readers of other wikis will receive the change later. The goal is to encourage users to read the wikis more. Learn more.
Some users of the Wikipedia Android app can use a new feature for readers, WikiGames, a daily trivia game based on real historical events. The release has started as an A/B test, available to 50% of users in the following languages: English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Turkish.
The Newsletter extension that is available on MediaWiki.org allows the creation of various newsletters for global users. The extension can now publish new issues as section links on an existing page, instead of requiring a new page for each issue. [2]
View all 32 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

The previously deprecated ipblocks views in Wiki Replicas will be removed in the beginning of June. Users are encouraged to query the new block and block_target views instead.
Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

Meetings and events

Wikidata and Sister Projects is a multi-day online event that will focus on how Wikidata is integrated to Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. The event runs from May 29 – June 1. You can read the Program schedule and register.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:02, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Broda Gbemsky on User:Broda Gbemsky (13:36, 27 May 2025)

Hello , how can I set up my Wikipedia account up? --Broda Gbemsky (talk) 13:37, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Broda Gbemsky: Your Wikipedia account is all set up! If you want to create a "user page", you can check out Help:User page. But that is optional—your account is ready to use. Best, House Blaster (he/they) 19:56, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much, I really appreciate. Broda Gbemsky (talk) 09:56, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

SuggestBot summon

SuggestBot is making a list of articles that you might like to edit. You will receive these suggestions soon. In the meantime, you might be interested in checking out the following WikiProjects. If you're interested in a project, feel free to add yourself to the member list and introduce yourself on the project talk page!

WikiProject_Linguistics (project page, talk page)
WikiProject_Classical_Greece_and_Rome (project page, talk page)
WikiProject_Scouting (project page, talk page)

House Blaster (he/they) 20:55, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees 2025 Selection & Call for Questions

Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees 2025 Selection & Call for Questions because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.

More languages • Please help translate to other languages.

Dear all,

This year, the term of 2 (two) Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees will come to an end [1]. The Board invites the whole movement to participate in this year’s selection process and vote to fill those seats.

The Elections Committee will oversee this process with support from Foundation staff [2]. The Governance Committee, composed of trustees who are not candidates in the 2025 community-and-affiliate-selected trustee selection process (Raju Narisetti, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, Lorenzo Losa, Kathy Collins, Victoria Doronina and Esra’a Al Shafei) [3], is tasked with providing Board oversight for the 2025 trustee selection process and for keeping the Board informed. More details on the roles of the Elections Committee, Board, and staff are here [4].

Here are the key planned dates:

May 22 – June 5: Announcement (this communication) and call for questions period [6]
June 17 – July 1, 2025: Call for candidates
July 2025: If needed, affiliates vote to shortlist candidates if more than 10 apply [5]
August 2025: Campaign period
August – September 2025: Two-week community voting period
October – November 2025: Background check of selected candidates
Board’s Meeting in December 2025: New trustees seated

Learn more about the 2025 selection process - including the detailed timeline, the candidacy process, the campaign rules, and the voter eligibility criteria - on this Meta-wiki page [link].

Call for Questions

In each selection process, the community has the opportunity to submit questions for the Board of Trustees candidates to answer. The Election Committee selects questions from the list developed by the community for the candidates to answer. Candidates must answer all the required questions in the application in order to be eligible; otherwise their application will be disqualified. This year, the Election Committee will select 5 questions for the candidates to answer. The selected questions may be a combination of what’s been submitted from the community, if they’re alike or related. [link]

Election Volunteers

Another way to be involved with the 2025 selection process is to be an Election Volunteer. Election Volunteers are a bridge between the Elections Committee and their respective community. They help ensure their community is represented and mobilize them to vote. Learn more about the program and how to join on this Meta-wiki page [link].

Thank you!

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Results

[2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Committee:Elections_Committee_Charter

[3] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Committee_Membership,_December_2024

[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee/Roles

[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2025/FAQ

[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2025/Questions_for_candidates

Best regards,

Victoria Doronina

Board Liaison to the Elections Committee

Governance Committee

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:07, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Snow

Hm, not sure why it stopped snowing. Polygnotus (talk) 03:38, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Polygnotus: It now requires the use of {{sticky decoration wrapper}} or equivalent CSS, per WP:STICKYDECO. (I broke the fix, which lead to the funky display.) Best, House Blaster (he/they) 03:51, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, but that breaks it. So what you need to do is see where that css is embedded and do this. Polygnotus (talk) 03:58, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That was the exact edit I made which you reverted to fix my broken attempt

I can try to make a JWB run tonight to finish the stragglers which have not been given class=sticky-decoration. Best, House Blaster (he/they) 04:03, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And that's

Done. House Blaster (he/they) 04:23, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, gotta love snow! Polygnotus (talk) 04:33, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the drive!

Welcome, welcome, welcome HouseBlaster! I'm glad that you are joining the June 2025 drive! Please, have a cup of WikiTea, and go cite some articles.

Fix a random page lacking sources

Cielquiparle (talk) 03:48, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

	The Technical Barnstar
	Thank you for implementing support for multiple contentious topics in Module:Contentious topics talk banner. I accidentally stumbled upon this feature when using {{Contentious topics/talk notice}} and it was a very pleasant surprise. — Newslinger talk 10:37, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of course :) It was fun to learn some Lua, even if I hate the language. Later today {{ct/prtn}} is getting merged into {{contentious topics/talk notice}}, which will hopefully make life easier on everyone! House Blaster (he/they) 15:29, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's excellent. Thank you again! — Newslinger talk 10:43, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Anabelbridget on Ōharae no Kotoba (10:41, 1 June 2025)

Hello everyone my name is Anabel Bridget and I’m here to meet a lot of people and want share some part of the world you have not been … what do you see about how the technology in the whole world 🌎 growing and where do you think you would see yourself in next 5years --Anabelbridget (talk) 10:41, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Anabelbridget! Let me know if you have any questions about Wikipedia :) House Blaster (he/they) 15:30, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you

I just noticed the edit you made on my userpage fixing that (very tiny, but very important) alignment issue. Thanks! :) Cheers, atque supra! Fake scientist 8000 14:02, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of course :) House Blaster (he/they) 15:29, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-23

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

Weekly highlight

The Chart extension is now available on all Wikimedia wikis. Editors can use this new extension to create interactive data visualizations like bar, line, area, and pie charts. Charts are designed to replace many of the uses of the legacy Graph extension.

Updates for editors

It is now easier to configure automatic citations for your wiki within the visual editor's citation generator. Administrators can now set a default template by using the _default key in the local MediaWiki:Citoid-template-type-map.json page (example diff). Setting this default will also help to future-proof your existing configurations when new item types are added in the future. You can still set templates for individual item types as they will be preferred to the default template. [3]
View all 20 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

Starting the week of June 2, bots logging in using action=login or action=clientlogin will fail more often. This is because of stronger protections against suspicious logins. Bots using bot passwords or using a loginless authentication method such as OAuth are not affected. If your bot is not using one of those, you should update it; using action=login without a bot password was deprecated in 2016. For most bots, this only requires changing what password the bot uses. [4]
From this week, Wikimedia wikis will allow ES2017 features in JavaScript code for official code, gadgets, and user scripts. The most visible feature of ES2017 is async/await syntax, allowing for easier-to-read code. Until this week, the platform only allowed up to ES2016, and a few months before that, up to ES2015. [5]
Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

Meetings and events

Scholarship applications to participate in the GLAM Wiki Conference 2025 are now open. The conference will take place from 30 October to 1 November, in Lisbon, Portugal. GLAM contributors who lack the means to support their participation can apply here. Scholarship applications close on June 7th.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:52, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Sophiahall759 (08:35, 3 June 2025)

why are my edits not visible --Sophiahall759 (talk) 08:35, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher) @Sophiahall759: They were reverted with the summary of Unsourced, promotional, presumably WP:UPE - UtherSRG (talk) 11:28, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Arrow Real Estate Group (21:38, 4 June 2025)

Hi, I wanted to make a page about Arrow Real Estate. Can you walk me through that process? Thank you. --Arrow Real Estate Group (talk) 21:38, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The first thing you need to do is change your username to something else. Account usernames like yours imply that multiple people are using the account, which is strictly prohibited by our policies. To start a new article, you can follow the advice at Help:Your first article. If you are on Arrow Real Estate's payroll, you must disclose that fact. In addition, I'd give our notability guidelines for companies a quick read-through. Best, House Blaster (he/they) 23:41, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – June 2025

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2025).

Administrator changes

Interface administrator changes

0xDeadbeef

CheckUser changes

L235

Oversight changes

L235

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!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:17, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Spicegitere (08:34, 7 June 2025)

hello how do one start editing? plus does one earn through this? --Spicegitere (talk) 08:34, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Spicegitere! Wikipedia is entirely volunteer-run; you do you earn anything. To get started with editing, we have some suggestions for tasks at your homepage. Best, House Blaster (he/they) 13:57, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Peter taiwo (15:43, 7 June 2025)

How do I write a biography for someone --Peter taiwo (talk) 15:43, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter taiwo: Welcome! Creating a new article from scratch is extremely challenging, and new editors are strongly recommended to spend a few months learning how Wikipedia works, by making improvements to some of our existing seven million articles before trying it. When you do decide to have a go at a new article, you are highly encouraged to read Help:Your first article. If you haven't already also check out the tutorial; it's a lot of fun! Happy editing! House Blaster (he/they) 16:04, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from FrodoMarsh (04:45, 8 June 2025)

Hi HouseBlaster, I'm a relatively new editor and have been working pretty heavily on improving the article for Shawn Ashmore. I'm aiming to nominate it for Good Article status soon, and I'd really appreciate any feedback you might have, whether on content, sourcing, structure, or anything else that stands out. If you have a moment to take a quick look and share any thoughts, it would mean a lot.

Here’s the link! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Ashmore --FrodoMarsh (talk) 04:45, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I'll take a look when I am more awake; me actively editing does not mean I am ignoring you :) Attaining GA status is a very noble goal! Best, House Blaster (he/they) 05:20, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@FrodoMarsh: My number one piece of advice for people trying to write good articles is to read the good article criteria. To some specifics:

IMDb is not a reliable source—so any citations should be replaced—but it makes a great link in the external links section
Shawn Ashmore#Recent work and foray into video games (2016–present) is a pretty large section; can it be broken up? MOS:RECENT is part of the MOS required for GA status, and maybe the video game stuff can go in its own section?
I'd move the image at Shawn Ashmore#Career to the right of the page, where most images go. It also is encouraged (but not required for GA status) for images of people to be "looking towards the text", which would also point to aligning the image to the right
I'd link to wikt:pyrokinetic or explain in a footnote; I doubt many readers are familiar with that word.
Spot check sources not added by you—they may contain WP:V or WP:CLOP issues. This is just general advice; I have no reason to think this is a big problem for Shawn

Hopefully there is some good advice here; let me know if you have any questions in particular! Best, House Blaster (he/they) 23:30, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much! I've made most of these changes, the spot checking will take some time but all the same, great advice and feedback, I really appreciate it. FrodoMarsh (talk) 01:35, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Kurt WFS (17:57, 9 June 2025)

Hello!

My boss, the owner of several companies, has asked me to create a bio wiki for him. I've used AI to remove some of the marketing-style text, but there is still a considerable amount remaining. The only reference sources I've been able to find so far are his LinkedIn page. He's in a hurry, but I warned him that the review process could take a while. Would I be better off starting with a bare-bones page and trying to add some content back in after the fact? --Kurt WFS (talk) 17:57, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, here's the link to what I have so far. Draft:John David Kissell Kurt WFS (talk) 18:32, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Kurt WFS: You would be better off telling your boss that this is impossible. See when your boss tells you to edit Wikipedia. If you can't find multiple high-quality (New York Times-calibre), independent sources (that means his LinkedIn, interviews, sponsored content, etc. are all out) covering him in detail, the article will be deleted. There is zero amount of editing, zero amount of blood, sweat, or tears that can fix this. Best, House Blaster (he/they) 20:18, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So even if we kept it to the absolute basic facts about him, without independent sources the article is not going to be approved, correct? Kurt WFS (talk) 20:32, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Kurt WFS: Correct. House Blaster (he/they) 20:36, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see from the person of notability article what the criteria are. Thanks for the links! Kurt WFS (talk) 20:52, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-24

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

Weekly highlight

The Trust and Safety Product team is finalizing work needed to roll out temporary accounts on large Wikipedias later this month. The team has worked with stewards and other users with extended rights to predict and address many use cases that may arise on larger wikis, so that community members can continue to effectively moderate and patrol temporary accounts. This will be the second of three phases of deployment – the last one will take place in September at the earliest. For more information about the recent developments on the project, see this update. If you have any comments or questions, write on the talk page, and join a CEE Catch Up this Tuesday.

Updates for editors

The watchlist expiry feature allows editors to watch pages for a limited period of time. After that period, the page is automatically removed from your watchlist. Starting this week, you can set a preference for the default period of time to watch pages. The preferences also allow you to set different default watch periods for editing existing pages, pages you create, and when using rollback. [6]

Example of a talk page with the new design, in French.

The appearance of talk pages will change at almost all Wikipedias (some have already received this design change, a few will get these changes later). You can read details about the changes on Diff. It is possible to opt out of these changes in user preferences ("Show discussion activity"). [7][8]
Users with specific extended rights (including administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, and stewards) can now have IP addresses of all temporary accounts revealed automatically during time-limited periods where they need to combat high-speed account-hopping vandalism. This feature was requested by stewards. [9]
This week, the Moderator Tools and Machine Learning teams will continue the rollout of a new filter to Recent Changes, releasing it to several more Wikipedias. This filter utilizes the Revert Risk model, which was created by the Research team, to highlight edits that are likely to be reverted and help Recent Changes patrollers identify potentially problematic contributions. The feature will be rolled out to the following Wikipedias: Afrikaans Wikipedia, Belarusian Wikipedia, Bengali Wikipedia, Welsh Wikipedia, Hawaiian Wikipedia, Icelandic Wikipedia, Kazakh Wikipedia, Simple English Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia. The rollout will continue in the coming weeks to include the rest of the Wikipedias in this project. [10]
View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

AbuseFilter editors active on Meta-Wiki and large Wikipedias are kindly asked to update AbuseFilter to make it compatible with temporary accounts. A link to the instructions and the private lists of filters needing verification are available on Phabricator.
Lua modules now have access to the name of a page's associated thumbnail image, and on some wikis to the WikiProject assessment information. This is possible using two new properties on mw.title objects, named pageImage and pageAssessments. [11][12]
Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:14, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]