User talk:Novem Linguae

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WatchlistAFD.js

Hello, I hope you are well. Just here to let you know that User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/WatchlistAFD.js, a script that I love to have, seems to have stopped working for me. Unfortunately I have a very limited knowledge of coding so I wouldn't know where to start, but I thought I'd let you know. Love your work! GMH Melbourne (talk) 00:41, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know. Will see if I can find some time to work on this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:01, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

CiteHighligher

You made reference to the CiteHighligher script in your !vote on the AFD for Barron Trump. Can you point me in the direction of the script. TarnishedPath^talk 01:45, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh sorry, I probably should have linked it. User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/CiteHighlighter. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:00, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. TarnishedPath^talk 02:13, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please restore my edits.

You recently reverted my edits on edgelord, and you vaguely said that the citation “didn’t include edgelord”. even though the citation may not say “edgelord”, it very much implies it. I’m hoping that you’ll restore my works since i believe i violated no policy or guideline. If i did violate any guideline, then inform me with an elaborate explanation. 2A00:23C4:908:E101:2D08:FCD3:B4B6:8C5F (talk) 08:17, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey there. Thanks for your good faith contribution. However you need to be more careful that your citations support your statements. In this case, it is not appropriate to say that "X is an edgelord" and support it with a citation that doesn't even have the word edgelord in it. Besides failing WP:V and being WP:OR, there are also WP:BLP concerns. Hope this makes sense. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:58, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

UserHighlighterSimple

First I want to say thanks for anrfc-lister, makes listing a discussion so easy.
Second I have a question about UserHighlighterSimple. What I'm looking for is to highlight non-EC users in the most minimal way, similar to how blocked editors are effected by the "Strike out usernames that have been blocked" preference. I don't want to change the general signature format, or use any of the other functionality, but just give the user name some simple change that makes it easy to identify. Reading the documentation this seems like it should be possible using the common.css configuration, but I don't understand how. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:17, 18 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying ANRFC-lister :)

UserHighlighterSimple's default is to put a box around users with less than 500 edits. Users with less than 500 edits are almost entirely non-EC users. Are you aware of the box and think it's not visible enough?

Have you checked out User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/UserHighlighterSimple#Config settings? If you follow those directions exactly, then edit the .UHS-no-permissions { border: 1px solid black !important; } part to something else, you can change the styling of users with less than 500 edits. For example, to do a strikethrough, you could change that to .UHS-no-permissions { text-decoration: line-through; } –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:00, 18 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Having a box around user with less than 500 edits would be fine, but I don't seem to be able to get it to work. I thought that this .js[1] and this .css[2] would achieve that, but I've seem to have got something wrong as it's doesn't appear to be working. To clarify I just want to highlight the new users without changing other signatures. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:32, 18 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This line looks wrong: .window.userHighlighterSimpleNoColors = true;. Try removing the period at the beginning and see if that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:44, 18 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for helping! It's working now, I'm going to go fiddle with the CSS. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:58, 18 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. Enjoy your fiddling :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:00, 18 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Review count and patrol-patrol

Hello. (Still about review count at XTools) Just making sure: patrol-patrol is globally considered to be part of the review count (even though technically speaking it's not pagetriage), right? (And so XTools should too.) That's the impression I gathered from some NPP ranking queries, but better be safe than sorry. Thanks and have a good day, — Alien 3
3 3 01:29, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @Alien333. What's patrol-patrol? Can you give some additional context? I know what Special:UserGroupRights patroller and reviewer are by themselves but have never seen patrol-patrol combined like that. Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:08, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I meant patrol-patrol as in log_type = "patrol" AND log_action = "patrol" in the logging table. (internally in XTools we group the two with a dash, and I forgot that it's only us :)). So I meant the "default" MW patrol feature, which as you said is not often used anymore on ENWP. — Alien 3
3 3 18:38, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ah OK. Well anyway, PageTriage is only installed on enwiki, so anything that's not enwiki can definitely keep using the old system. So the kind of decisions you'd need to make for the ticket we were talking about is 1) what to name the Page Curation count, and 2) whether to keep displaying Patrol and Page Curation side by side, or hide Patrol. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:04, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering if Patrol shouldn't be counted as part of the Page Curation count, as some (the NPP hall of fame queries at any rate) have counted it in, but now that you say it keeping the two shouldn't hurt. Thanks for the help! — Alien 3
3 3 19:10, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think Page Curation should only query the Page Curation log, not the Patrol log. WP:PatrolVsReview talks a bit more about the differences. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:17, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Page deletion by non admin

Hi, Novem Linguae! I wanted to ask if there's a technical error. Here it's appearing that TomAlvor deleted that page. But, he only has 22 edits and obviously not an admin! I use minerva skin please tell what issue it was. _saluere, Ɔþʱʏɾɪʊs^⚔ 12:12, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Ophyrius. The software lets non-admins delete redirect pages with no other history, if it is done as part of a page move. Looks like that is what happened here. That is, TomAlvor moved a page. Hope that makes sense. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:35, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, sorry! I didn't know about that.😅 _saluere, Ɔþʱʏɾɪʊs^⚔ 14:57, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure no worries :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:27, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

beat me to it!

saw you fixed the watchlist, thanks :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:53, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Appreciate the instantaneous fix

One time I get woozy... but really appreciate it. qedk (t 愛 c) 22:54, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the move-subpages to template editor close

Hi, I think that the close was a bit too early. It's been only 9 days since the discussion was move to VPP, and my concerns were raised only yesterday. While, I do see a consensus so far, I don't think that people have thought this proposal through, as I fail to see any advantage that granting move-subpages alone would give. It should either be as give them everything that page movers already have (except maybe move-category) like BD2412 says or make no changes and grant extended-mover on a case-by-case basis like Aaron Liu says. Thanks! —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 12:55, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the message. I've started Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Revert close? to see if others feel the same way. If someone else also thinks it was too soon, I'll probably revert. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:50, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, thanks! —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 16:06, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:Sinicasyaycami

Sinicasyaycami (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Hi there, can we do anything about this user? Thanks. Tony Holkham (Talk) 22:21, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure.

Done. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:23, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can we also delete the AI-generated vandalism image they used? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sinicasyaycami.jpg I don't wanna use any markup so it doesn't show up as an image on your talk page. It was uploaded to Commons first so it may need to be pointed to the admins there Gatemansgc (TɅ̊LK) 22:27, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like someone started the process at c:Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Sinicasyaycami.jpg –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:29, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's been nominated for deletion on Commons. Tony Holkham (Talk) 22:31, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

YAY! I'd also suggest a revdel of their edit summaries, this is a LTA and would be nice to WP:DENY them from having trophies in the page histories. Gatemansgc (TɅ̊LK) 22:54, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds time consuming since it is spread across multiple pages. Another volunteer is free to revdel those if they want. But in the spirit of WP:DENY perhaps it'd make sense to not spend too much more time on this :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:57, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Let's hope they enjoyed it while it lasted... Cheers, T. Tony Holkham (Talk) 22:27, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OWID

We have done a lot of updates so are posting again for feedback and potential approval.Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#OWID_visualization_within_MediaWiki_(Part_2) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:03, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nice. Subscribed. Let's see what folks say now. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:06, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Only minor concerns raised but not much engagement.[3] Thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:11, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like the only comment was an objection to deploying. Unfortunately that is not a great outcome. Maybe fix the concern there, then make yet another VPT thread in a couple weeks, and ping everyone that participated in the second to last discussion (since that one was well attended). –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:15, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies

Greetings. Apologies to both you and older ≠ wiser for accidentally amnending the older ≠ wiser signature. Lapsus manus. The bolding was intended to assist the closer's work but I guess it's not needed. Thanks. -The Gnome (talk) 06:49, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@The Gnome. No worries. A couple years ago when I was newer I tried adding bold to an AFD and got reverted, so I get the impression that people like to control their !vote and how intense it is. I've also been reverted for fixing comment typos. Nowadays I leave comment content alone and pretty much only change bullets, indent, and headings. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:24, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Holding Former ... Governmental Information" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Holding Former Government Officials Accountable for Election Interference and Improper Disclosure of Sensitive Governmental Information has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 June 9 § Holding Former Government Officials Accountable for Election Interference and Improper Disclosure of Sensitive Governmental Information until a consensus is reached. Grnrchst (talk) 15:49, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	Thank you for all your work at phab:T378287. You deserve a ton of appreciation :) – DreamRimmer ■ 13:45, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks buddy. I'm glad you got to play a part in that too :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:09, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd extend that appreciation for wrangling Extension:SecurePoll through the process and getting WP:AELECT off the ground and into the running! Sohom (talk) 14:00, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Precious anniversary

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:49, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unblock-review

Seems to have stopped working entirely. I still haven't learned how to debug these things, but now nothing is appearing at all. Yes, I know, bugs, github, etc...but I want to verify it's happening to someone else too. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 14:25, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Jpgordon. Looks like Special:Diff/1296857619 broke it. I updated some code. Try it now. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:02, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

yay thanks. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 13:46, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

...and then it stopped working again. Hm. Strange magic. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 14:04, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Works here: User talk:Datawikiperson. Fails here: User talk:Digital Disruptors. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 14:08, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Jpgordon. Looks like some of the old templates are still using the "old way" that I had just removed in favor of the "new way". Just now I wrote a patch to support both. Try it now. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:59, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Both work now, thanks! --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 00:18, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Aah, sorry my edit led to this. I did think about scripts relying on the unblock template but not expect the style attributes to cause issues :( Sohom (talk) 00:39, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. HTML is not a stable interface. I think you approving the edit request was fine. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:46, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

anrfc-lister.js

Hi,

Your script at present has options to list requests for closer to the Admin, RFC, Deletion and other sections of WP:CR. I don't know when it happened but someone added sections for Merges and Requested Moves. Any chance of an update to your script? TarnishedPath^talk 14:55, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@TarnishedPath. Done. [4]. Thanks for reporting. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:05, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Minor issue, a few questions, possible script need

Hello Novem - you gave me a useful solution for a .js script previously, and I have seen your script contributions, so am seeking your interpretation again (and assistance to fix, if possible, please) of a user template test I'm running on both my user page and sandbox. It is {{User Wikipedian For|year=2005|month=04|day=17|sc=y}}

Questions: 1. On my sandbox page, the counter advances automatically each 24 hr. What triggers it to read the date and update the function precisely at GMT 00:00:01?

The counter has never worked automatically on my user page. I tried placing it inside or outside a wikitable or style template (no effect), and have updated it manually by clicking on the GMT clock displayed on the upper right of my screen (this works). Using {{purge}} manually also works on my user page.

I've sensed that some format on my user page obstructs an autopurge at 1 second past 00:00 GMT, because the sandbox counter always works well. I've checked other user pages where this function is used (usually, outside of a table), and they update automatically daily.

2. For some of your work, I've seen what may be automatic "purge" functions. Is there a way to install a script that refreshes a page on the 24 hr clock, and therefore would not require manual attention?

3. If a script for a page purge at 00:00:01 GMT doesn't exist, could one be created?

Apologies for introducing such a minor issue, but curiosity about how it happens and how to fix it steers me to seek your thoughts and solution. Thanks. Zefr (talk) 15:10, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) Pages are cached as much as possible to reduce server load, and it is not possible to autopurge them at a fixed time using a user script, since that requires you to be online. There are some approved bots for automatic purging, but they are not currently active. You can use the following script, and once installed, it will automatically purge your user page when you visit it. Please do not visit too often, as frequent purging will not be helpful due to how MediaWiki handles caching. A few visits a day should be enough.

$(document).ready(function() {
    if (mw.config.get('wgPageName') === 'User:Zefr') {
        $.post(mw.util.wikiScript('api'), {
            action: 'purge',
            titles: mw.config.get('wgPageName'),
            format: 'json'
        }).done(function() {
            mw.notify('Page purged successfully!', { type: 'success' });
        });
    }
});

DreamRimmer (talk) 09:48, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, DreamRimmer, but the main query remains: the sandbox counter updates automatically - how? - and having a script purge for the user page requiring a page visit is not different than going to the page and clicking on the clock (I do not want to visit my user page very often). Other users, and possibly other autopage functions on Wikipedia, have counters or autopurges that require no page visit.

How does an autopurge bot get activated?

Except for clearing my own cache manually, I am always logged-in and online (sandbox recognizes this; user page doesn't).

What page factors are different between the sandbox and user page that allow auto-updating on the sandbox page while blocking it on the user page? Zefr (talk) 17:14, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey there. In general if a template makes a calculation, the page will need to be purged or you will need to make an edit to the page before that calculation updates. Are you perhaps editing your sandbox frequently, causing an update? I do not use automatic purging in any of my user scripts. If me and DR end up stumped, a good place to crowdsource technical questions and answers is WP:VPT. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:38, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply. I rarely use my sandbox, but the counter there ticks along on its own each day at GMT 00:00:01, or seems to. Simply by looking at my sandbox page, would the counter be triggered to update? If so, why doesn't looking at my user page autotrigger the counter?

I know and have high regard for VPT, but feel this counter issue is not a community-value topic to bring there. Just an itch I can't scratch...

Have been reviewing and enjoying CiteHighlighter.js in my article editing, with thanks. Zefr (talk) 23:06, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps because there are other counters on my sandbox page, the user counter gets triggered by the page refresh to keep the date and article count constant. For example, I've kept this one as info.

Today is Wednesday, September 17, 2025. Currently, there are 7,057,955 articles on the English Wikipedia.

I'll add it to my user page as a test, and see what happens tomorrow. Zefr (talk) 01:15, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AfC reviews

Tracked in github.com
Issue #25
Resolved

Hi Novem Linguae. Hope you're doing well. I just noticed that [5] is not updating recent reviewed draft. Can you please address the issue? Thank You! Fade258 (talk) 14:47, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Fade258. Fixed. Do a Ctrl-F5 to hard reload the page, which will update the JavaScript files and fix the bug. Thanks for reporting. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:29, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Novem Linguae, Still not working. Can you look again? Fade258 (talk) 00:21, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Fade258. When I visit https://apersonbot.toolforge.org/afchistory/?user=Fade258, I see some entries from July 4, which should indicate the bug is fixed, since the bug involved the last couple days of entries not being detected. Can you please go into more detail about what's broken? –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:30, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Novem Linguae. Since, I am a mobile user, I even didn't see any entries from June 30. How it happens? Fade258 (talk) 06:04, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you try closing and reopening the tab? Did you try closing and reopening the browser app? (The idea being to clear your caches so that the .js file with the new code loads instead of grabbing an old cached version of the .js file.)

Can you please paste the URL you are visiting, and provide a screenshot? –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:46, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Novem Linguae, Now it is working after clearing my browser cache. Thank You for your help. Fade258 (talk) 07:20, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Query

Hi Novem Linguae, I noticed your comment here and here referencing 7,700 edits, noting the same metrics being used. Based on these, is the implication that the youngest account age approved as admin was 2 years? Ie they're based on successful RfA minimum values if not mistaken? Just trying to do my homework prior to voting hence the question. Thanks, CNC (talk) 08:01, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@CommunityNotesContributor. Howdy! The 7,700 edits comes from Sohom Datta's AELECT last year, when he had 7,735 edits around that time. Was pretty exciting actually because the previous record before him was 0xDEADBEEF who had around 8,000. Well, record within the last 5 or so years anyway. GoldenRing passed with a really low edit count, but it was in 2017.

The 2 years tenure is just a subjective impression, and I don't have data to back that one up. Hope that helps explain some of the criteria I'm checking. Feel free to use your own criteria of course. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:06, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Gotcha and yeh I was curious about youngest account specifically to know what the record is, but I guess this data might be unknown without calculating it over past 5 or so years. 2 years sounds about right to me, based on what I've seen so far. Cheers for info, CNC (talk) 08:27, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@CommunityNotesContributor: You might find this data useful. – DreamRimmer ■ 18:17, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page access for 24.198.139.17

Should 24.198.139.17's talk page access be revoked? They have continued to bludgeon the process and (attempt to) waste others' time even after being blocked. The Grand Delusion^{(Send a message)} 05:47, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@The Grand Delusion. Hey there. Thanks for the message. That talk page is a bit of a timesink, but I don't think their behavior quite rises to the level of revoking TPO. If they keep it up I'm sure someone will take additional action against them. For now I think things are OK. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:55, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A Barnstar for You

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		Thank you for your asynchronous script, which helped me complete my one that I had no idea how to finish for several years! --𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝐸𝑎𝑐ℎ ... 𝑁𝑒𝑥𝑡 14:00, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@For Each ... Next. You're very welcome. Happy scripting. See you in a year when you've made a dozen user scripts and become a MediaWiki developer. There's so many programming rabbit holes around here :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:03, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Voting phase looks good

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!

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

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]

Can you please add the permalink of the withdrawal to the candidate page?

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

	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

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

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

There was a request by Sohom for an interface administrator (somebody who can say "hey, I'll keep updating and fixing this". Wondering if you would be willing to play that roll as we continue to improve things? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:43, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Doc James. Hey there. Thanks for thinking of me for the role. Unfortunately I have a lot on my plate and am also unfamiliar with that code, so I don't think I'd be a great fit for this. However I am happy to continue helping in my current capacity which is to give you advice every once in awhile so this doesn't get too stuck. Hope that's OK and sorry for declining. Happy editing. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:12, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All good. Hopefully have most requests completed soon. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:01, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

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...

IP made legal threats [7]. 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

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!

	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

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!

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

Thanks for the revert [8], 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)

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

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 -- Recon rabbit 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. -- Recon rabbit 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

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

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

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]