Wikinews:Admin action alerts

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In anticipation of DPL being disabled

I've started working through Category:Event infoboxes removing DPL and replacing it with static lists. It's time-consuming and I alone won't get through all infoboxes, before the project is marked read-only and DPL likely is disabled.

All admin are encouraged to help. See the edit histories of the following as examples of how I do it:

Template:2005 London bombing infobox
Template:2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
Template:2006EuropeanChampionshipsAthletics
Template:2007 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel
Template:2007 Taipei 101 Run Up
Template:2007 Taipei IT Month

We'll need to do similar work on normal infoboxes, which are more complicated, as well as the Main page, etc.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 14:40, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

I was going to suggest raw HTML or even subst: the templates. How were you doing it, Michael? Are you looking at the web page's code and copy/pasting the HTML? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:30, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Some of the infoboxes are not admin-protected, so I will help with replacing the DPL with static lists where I can. I just did that for Template:War in Georgia (2008). --Metropolitan90 (talk) 15:55, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Using subst might be a much better solution...Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 12:26, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Are you looking at the web page's code and copy/pasting the HTML?

Yes, that is essentially what I'm doing. Several categories of infoboxes are 'cookie-cutter' in that they are set up the same. For example, most of the Category:Country infoboxes are set up the same, so it's relatively easy to rebuild them slightly and copy/paste the DPL output as a static list using wikitext. I linked to two examples below and have since done several in the same manner. It is more pragmatic than ideal, and better alternatives are welcome.

We still have roughly 1,428 pages using DPL—most of them are likely articles with infoboxes that use DPL. So there is less work than actually having to touch that many individual pages.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 19:16, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Courtesy link: Category:Infoboxes. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:05, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

I have also done the following:

Template:WDSC2007

Template:Tour de France 2007

So I recommend that the admins focus on the protected templates and leave the unprotected templates for editors like me to handle. Each template takes only a few minutes to edit. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:07, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Much appreciated and I'll start focussing only on protected first.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 12:27, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

• @Michael.C.Wright: Is there a reason not to keep using Template:Infosection in these infoboxes, rather than replacing it with <div style="background: #bce1ff; color: #202122; padding: 2px; text-align: center; style; font-size: normal;">...? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:10, 12 April 2026 (UTC)
  • Also, I notice that the underlying articles linked from Template:WDSC2007 are displaying the updated infobox (see 2007 World Deaf Swimming Championships Day 5: A fantastic ending, for example), but those from Template:Tour de France 2007 and Template:War in Georgia (2008) are not (see Tour de France: Alberto Contador wins the grand tour, for example). I'm not sure what the difference is. (The updated infoboxes use the correct dates for the underlying articles, rather than dating everything 17 February 2025.) --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:42, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

    The 17 February 2025 date was the result of work we did with the license upgrade and is therefore going to be incorrect according to the publish date, unfortunately. As I've removed DPLs, I have not been adding a date. Just a bulleted list that I copied and pasted.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 12:25, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

    I knew about the 17 February 2025 problem from before. My point was that if I edit the dates in the infobox to be the correct date instead of 17 February 2025, I expect that if the infobox is displayed on other articles, it should be the corrected infobox rather than the uncorrected version. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 12:54, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

    Ahh, sorry. I read it wrong.

I just tested and do see that some of the changes aren't propagating as expected. I tested with Tour de France: Alberto Contador wins the grand tour and tried to purge that page using ?action=purge on the end of the URL and that didn't pull in the changes. However, when I used {{subst:Tour de France 2007}} at that article, it did indeed pull in the changes. So I imagine (hope?) that we can carry on and eventually the changes will propagate. I have seen in the past, notably when I created categories such as Category:Peer reviewed/Passed (exception)/Michael.C.Wright, that it took days for the categories to be populated as expected.

Unless of course someone else knows what's going on under the hood and knows a better approach.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 13:12, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T423512. It is possible that our disabling FlaggedRevs in the template namespace affected how pages transclude templates that were previously controlled by FlaggedRevs (which was what reviewers use to "sight" stable versions).

The work-around for the Main page was to recreate the templates, which is not feasible here given the number of templates we're updating.

I've updated the Phabricator ticket with this information in hopes that a more systemic solution is available, considering pending closure, DPL being disabled, etc., etc.,Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 22:28, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

• • I don't know of any and you're right, it might be better to simply replace the DPL.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 12:26, 13 April 2026 (UTC)
• I believe all that is left in Category:Event infoboxes are infoboxes that call {{Infobox}}, which utilizes Template:Infobox/p2 to generate DPLs. If someone has any ideas on how to tackle that, it would be a huge help in reducing the number of pages using DPL. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 15:49, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Courtesy link to all pages using DPL (note that pages in the main and category namespaces have it transcluded from a template): Category:Pages using the DynamicPageList extension. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:19, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

State infoboxes

I am now rebuilding Category:State infoboxes to be static. See the following, completed examples:

• Template:Alabama
• Template:Alaska

I'm working in alphabetical order. Feel free to start at the bottom and work upwards if you'd like to lend a hand. The first two were fully protected, so this may be a job only for admins, unfortunately.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 15:49, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Done The states infoboxes are now converted from DPL to staticMichael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 16:55, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Country Infoboxes

I am now rebuilding Category:Country infoboxes to be static, following the same process as done for State infoboxes. See the following, completed examples:

• Template:Afghanistan
• Template:Albania

One was protected, one was not. Feel free to jump in where you can. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 17:10, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Infoboxes in sections J, K, and L of Category:Country infoboxes are completed. I'll continue down the list from M later today or tomorrow (Pacific Time), unless someone else gets there first.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 18:02, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

I will add that should we migrate and are able to continue our use of DPL (which remains unclear) these changes should be easily revert-able. Most of my updates to these infoboxes were a single edit.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 21:28, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

The good news is that Miraheze would support our DPL should we fork to them.
The bad news is we don't know if WMF NY is going to assume stewardship of the project (we need a parent, 501(C)(3) to operate), if the WMF is going to relinquish the name and logo, or when those decisions are even expected to be made.
Therefore, I think we should continue our work winding things down. The older pages using DPL can remain static long-term or even permanently if we do migrate and the newer pages/templates can have DPL restored easily by reverting the changes.
I think later today I'll try to set up a project page to track and document what we've done to wind-down the project.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 12:32, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I have created the following page to ID and track work we want to do before the project is marked read-only:

Wikinews:2026 Wind-down Wikinews

This work assumes no migration will be done. If we migrate, some or even all of the work may need to be reverted. See m:Migration of Wikinews and future hosts for any updates on a potential migration.Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 15:54, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Imminent migration tasks

Hello,

I stopped reviewing for next few weeks to allocate resources for migration. I am requesting you to please let me know what I can do to help. Link to the migration discussion "meta:Migration of Wikinews and future hosts", and I would like to invite you to participate. For now there is one possible venue with joined Miraheze and Wikimedia NYC hosting but their communication appears to be happening off-wiki as far as I know and I do not know their possible result nor the timing of that discussion. I am grateful for anything that you may do to help.

If the migration is completed I am willing to commit to reviewing more timely and to build an infrastructure and workflow that results in reasonably accurate and fresh stories being published and to help the group grow.

I refused to help with article archival, because I do not wish to be involved in quality checks at this stage. If there are specific non-controversial tasks related to migration that you would like my help with, please let me know.

Many thanks.

Regards, -- Gryllida (talk) 11:12, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Star walker

User:Star walker troll sockpuppet of AnotherWikipedian @Michael.C.Wright Don Don 11:39, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Anohthterwikipedian @Anohthterwikipedian Don Don 11:41, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

I am not a CheckUser and therefore I can not check for sock accounts.

We now use global check user services (through Stewards), which you are welcome to request here: m:SRCU. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 12:30, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

abuse filter mismatch for Adding email addresses to articles

I received a warning for an edit to Wikimedia Foundation closes Wikinews after 21 years regarding the abuse rule "Adding email addresses to articles". This pertained to the addition of a {{verify}} link to the Wikimedia-l posting in which Victoria Doronina announced the closure of Wikinews. I'm posting here because the abuse filter warning says, "Please send us a note if you received this message in error" (with "send us a note" linked to Wikinews:Admin action alerts. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:05, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

• Note that it may not be necessary to do anything about this before Wikinews closes. However, if the same abuse filter is used on other Wikimedia sites, it may be desirable to review it at a later date. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:23, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

  It triggered because you have fewer than 1,000 edits and the URL essentially contains an email address "wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org."

I updated the filter in an attempt to permit similar URLs. Do you mind testing it again? Thanks. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 12:46, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

I did try it again just now, but again the edit was blocked. As I said before, with Wikinews about to close, this isn't necessarily something that needs to be dealt with this week before the closure. If the article can get reviewed without that source being tagged with {{verify}}, that's fine. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:10, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

As I said before, with Wikinews about to close, this isn't necessarily something that needs to be dealt with this week before the closure.

I understood that. I was just curious if I could fix the problem.

When I tested the changes, it indicated the edits would not match the filter. But this is my first time working with the abuse filter. I could have tested it incorrectly and not know it. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 12:54, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

Delete files

Somebody should probably delete all the files in Category:Media files on Wikimedia Commons, as well as check if any other files should be moved and deleted. Star walker (talk) 10:28, 1 May 2026 (UTC)