User talk:Billinghurst

Do hungry time-travellers ever go back four seconds?

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billinghurst (talk page)

IRC cloak request: I confirm that my freenode nick is sDrewth

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Wikisource has a number of active Wikiprojects that could use your help in tackling these large additions to our library. US National Archives Project Work: Portal:National Archives and Records Administration Collection

Category:Authors with missing death dates -> Category:Authors without death dates

explore making this change. They are not missing if they are not dead, so we should cater for both scenarios without confusing things. Only would be missing of the person is alive 130 years after death. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:43, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

link templates — to build

• Dictionary of Indian Biography
  • ... link Y
  • ... lkpl Y

— billinghurst sDrewth 23:47, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

• The Builders of American Literature
• check whether useful for Oregon: Her history, her great men, her literature

• Convert Template:American Review link
• Build Template:American Historical Review link

DNB contributor template cleanup

Hi. I've been recently working on cleaning up the DNB contributor templates for ambiguous ones to match in line with existing similar ones. Can you please turn these into disambiguation pages similar to what's in Category:Dictionary of National Biography ambiguous contributor templates and disambiguate these with AWB? They're transcluded in so many pages, so they would require too many tabs to be opened if done manually.

• Template:DNB CM: ambiguous given Template:DNB CM Maclean
• Template:DNB EG: ambiguous given Template:DNB EG Green
• Template:DNB FR: ambiguous given Template:DNB FR Rogers
• Template:DNB GCB: ambiguous given Template:DNB GCB Bourne
• Template:DNB HMS: ambiguous given Template:DNB HMS Spooner
• Template:DNB JAH: ambiguous given Template:DNB JAH Herbert
• Template:DNB JHL: ambiguous given Template:DNB JHL Longford
• Template:DNB AM: redundant to Template:DNB AM Miller. but Template:DNB AM Mackie exists.
• Template:DNB JH: redundant to Template:DNB JH Humphreys, but Template:DNB JH Hooper exists.
• Template:DNB TS: redundant to Template:DNB TS Seccombe, but Template:DNB TS Sinclair exists.

During the cleanup, I also ran into Template:DNB AH Hartshorne, which seems to have been created in error since none of the DNB contributor lists attach Albert Hartshorne to any initial but "A.H-e." Making it a redirect to Template:DNB AH-e would be misleading because "A.H." was never used for his work on the DNB, so I might consider it for deletion. ミラP@Miraclepine 03:03, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

@Miraclepine: Please leave them for the moment as I am talking about Xover about a better way to deal with these. The current situation is ugly, and it is just getting more complex and unsustainable. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:30, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. I've subscribed to the conversation on Xover's talk page for further developments in the meanwhile. ミラP@Miraclepine 04:29, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

August 2023 to do

• records checks
  • track death for Author:Michael Barrett
  • detail for Author:John George Anthony Skerl
  • Author:Thomas Helsby
  • Author:Charles Everitt
  • revisit author:Robert Edward Anderson
  • Author:Adam Luke Gowans
  • Author:Reginald Littleboy
  • Author:Griffith Price Williams
  • Author:Mrs. Ernest Newman
  • Author:John Pre Vanewords
  • Author:Laura Ensor
  • author:Armin Tenner
  • author:Ponsonby Annesley Lyons
  • Author:Patrick Laurence Connellan
  • Author:John Fraser (fl. 1883) US cleric
  • Author:George Hay (Physiologist) Glasgow 1883, though apparently visiting and living western side of Atlantic
  • Author:William Simons, Charleston, SC, 1880s
  • Author:Wilfred L. Steel , can see person b. 1890, though that doesn't seem right, living vicinity of Stone, Staffs in 1913, though no clear records for person of that name in 1911
  • Author:William Browning Smith, is it really William?
  • Author:Robert Edward Anderson London 1880s
  • Author:John Gibson (d. 1887) Scottish scientist
  • Author:Herbert Rix
  • Author:John Stephen EB9
  • Author:Montagu Browne or is it Alexander Montagu Browne
• Author:Algernon Blackwood continue moving works to subpages of parents
• ponder St. Nicholas pages, have edited by through subpages, not just volumes, and the illustrators have been added as related_authors; definitely needs work, apply {{default layout|Layout 2}} to the pages, and remove the css code that sets a max-width
• {{al}} set this up so it substitutes automatically, then clean up
• {{pol}} set this up so it substitutes automatically, then clean up
• Translations from Camoens; and Other Poets, with Original Poetry needs a AuxToC built, and contributor components rather than authors, maybe also use override_translator rather than translator for cleanliness
• Works to consider
  • find the best ocr of https://archive.org/search?query=Peasant+Proprietorship
• Think about "redirects here" for disambig pages (The ..., The ...s, A ..., ...s)
• DNB contributor => 1st supplement separation from 1885-1900, and each their own? also remove {{sc}} from usages
• bring over my /archive/ edit filters from metawiki
• more work to do on Index:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/styles.css and template:hussey Churches table header related pages
• EB9 contributor => {{contributed to}}, will need noinit variable, and also formatting internal
• transcribe obit noted at Author talk:William Prideaux Courtney
• transcribe obit noted at Author talk:Israel Davis

DNB contributor

• DNB contributor
• DNB contributor 2ndSupp
• DNB contributor 3rdSupp

1. need to ensure that all data is present on author pages
2. push "contributor to creative work" / "biographer" / "initials"
3. construct the QS components (see if we can do anything with harvest tool first)

Petscan / QS pushes

• Category:Ornithologists as authors needs push in, then tidy up

— billinghurst sDrewth 23:49, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Sep 2023 to do

• Template:ShowTransclude

  Look to convert this template to instead utilise <ref follow=...>

• Fix ToC Page:Horses and roads.djvu/11++ to use css
• double transclusion of same index: The Haughs of Crumdel / Haughs of Crumdel (2) => shuffling, editing and deletions required

— billinghurst sDrewth 22:31, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2026-35

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• View all 42 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, an issue where image thumbnails in Abstract Wikipedia could fail to display after the corresponding file was moved on Wikimedia Commons, has now been fixed. Thumbnails will now update correctly when files are moved. [3]

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• Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

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MediaWiki message delivery 20:45, 24 August 2026 (UTC)

Tech News: 2026-36

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

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• A new format for the Community Wishlist is open for feedback. You can read the proposed ideas on Meta. This new process plans to improve how wishes are triaged, voted on, and prioritized in a way that is transparent and balanced across project families and language editions. This consultation is open for two weeks.

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Updates for technical contributors

• The domain of URLs for thumbnails is changing from upload.wikimedia.org to thumb.wikimedia.org. The old URLs will continue to work for the foreseeable future but MediaWiki will advertise the new domain instead. URLs to other types of media such as original files, videos and transcodes will still be served from upload.wikimedia.org. [11]
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• Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

In depth

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MediaWiki message delivery 20:53, 31 August 2026 (UTC)

Tech News: 2026-37

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

Updates for editors

• Add a Link has been upgraded for English Wikipedia users with improved detection of links that have different capitalization. This will help reduce ambiguous suggestions caused by differences in capitalization in article titles, including articles about cultural goods. A second phase of improvements is planned, which will also prepare the feature for release in other languages. [12] [13]
• The Article guidance feature will be enabled by default for junior editors on Simple English and Turkish Wikipedia starting 10 September 2026 following an experiment. Junior editors with 0 to 99 edits will automatically see the feature when they click a red link or use the "Madde oluşturto" option on Turkish Wikipedia to create a new article. The change is intended to help junior editors create higher-quality articles that meet each Wikipedia’s standards. Additional improvements will continue based on the experiment results and community feedback.
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• A visually simplified Minerva navigation bar is being tested for logged-out readers using mobile web on the Bengali, Czech, English, Farsi, and Polish Wikipedias. The experiment aims to determine whether simplifying the navigation improves reader retention. The test will run from August 31 to September 28, and no action is required from users.
• WMDE Technical Wishes is working on improving auto-generated reference names in VisualEditor. Editors will only notice a slight change starting this week. When adding automatic reference names the numbering will start at :1 instead of :0. Read more on the project page. [15]
• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 23. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [16]
• View all 25 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, an issue where Parsoid could mishandle nested nowiki tags, causing content to be lost and displaying unwanted text has now been fixed. [17]

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• Interface administrators can configure gadgets from MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition. The definition format has been updated and no longer requires the ResourceLoader option, as gadgets are always loaded through ResourceLoader. This simplifies gadget configuration by removing an option that is no longer necessary, making gadget definitions easier for administrators. [18]
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MediaWiki message delivery 18:44, 7 September 2026 (UTC)