Qcne

Semi-retired

This user is no longer very active on Wikipedia.

The Signpost: 21 June 2026

• From the editors: Ways for beginners to support The Signpost community journalism
  Pointing the way to your contribution to The Signpost!

• News and notes: Community Tech development team disbanded
  And English Wikipedia reaches a milestone in number of highly active editors.

• Disinformation report: PR for the people?
  Or, "PR using PR for PR"?

• Recent research: Proposed tagging system for AI involvement; successful and unsuccessful AI tools for contributors
  And other new research publications.

• In the media: Who won a 14th century battle and who won the 2026 Iran war?
  Media take issue with portrayals of recent and medieval history on Wikipedia. Plus a team supporting Wikipedians gets dissolved, and a few other things.

• Community view: Putting the Wish into the Wishlist
  A history of the Wikimedia community's request process to Foundation developers.

• In focus: A global standard for Neutral Point of View
  Wikipedians are commenting on a proposed global standard for neutral point of view.

• On the bright side: Flowers, blue helmets, reefs, pride, and Juneteenth
  Nice things around the world.

• Op-ed: Breathe, Don’t Panic, there is a different story about Wikimedia + AI futures
  We can build a strategy about AI that doesn't just center on readers; there are still plenty of humans to write the encyclopedia and work on diverse global knowledge.

• Opinion: Wikimedia Foundation staff develop union and Wikimedia user community reacts
  Why should editors support the Wiki Workers United union drive? Lessons the Wikimedia movement can learn from other labor struggles.

• Technology report: Community Tech team is disbanded, controversy erupts
  WMF disbands Community Tech, sparking community backlash over the future of the Wishlist and concerns about unionization.

• Traffic report: 'Cause this is thriller, thriller night
  Horror movies and Michael Jackson dominate theaters in the lead-up to the World Cup.

• WikiConference report: Report of Volunteer Supporters Network Annual Meeting 2026
  Outreach staff of Wikimedia chapters host a global discussion.

• Comix: Take your turn
  In a maze of twisty little edits, all alike.

• Humour: Group of banned T-shirt makers comes out of hiding to sell new Wikipedia-themed merchandise
  It ain't WikiProject United Nations, but you will find some PUNs.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:19, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2026 Issue 11

Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on June 5. Please help translate.

---

Highlights

The Wikimania program is now live!

• Community Wishlist: Weigh in on proposals and open questions on how the wishlist will operate in the future.
• Simplifying account creation: The Foundation is working on improving the account creation process to reduce potential friction for newcomers to create an account. Improvements include making "Create Account" icon more prominent on mobile, simplifying the registration form, and introducing real-time username validation.
• New U4C members elected: The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) has new members and has two remaining vacancies in Middle East & North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Wikimania conference program: The Wikimania 2026 program is now live! Take a moment to review the program, and, if you are logged in, you can mark your "must see” sessions with a star to start building your personal schedule. Register for a virtual ticket here, if you haven't signed up yet.
• Neutral Point of View: A proposal for a baseline NPOV standard for Wikipedias that do not have one was published, with a community discussion open until July 15, 2026.

Annual Goals Progress on Infrastructure
See also newsletters: Wikimedia Apps · Growth · Product Safety and Integrity · Readers · Research · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org

Screenshot showing the Explore Feed refresh in the Wikipedia app (from the Community tab entry point)

• App Explore feed: The redesigned App Explore feed, now called "Home", has been released to all Android users. The update introduces a refreshed feed experience along with the first set of new content modules, including Did You Know, Places of Interest, Random Article, and a new end-of-feed experience. Additional content and improvements are planned in future releases.
• Wikipedia games: The Which came first? daily trivia game is now available in the beta version of the Wikipedia iOS app in English, German, French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Turkish. The game uses historical events from Wikipedia’s “On This Day” content and challenges readers to guess which of two events happened first.
• Reusing references: Sub-referencing, a new MediaWiki feature that allows editors to reuse references with different details, has been rolled out to Group 1 wikis and French Wikipedia following a successful pilot phase.
• Article guidance: The Article guidance feature is being tested with some editors creating new articles on the Simple English, French, and Turkish Wikipedias. The experiment will soon begin on the Arabic and Bangla Wikipedias as well. The outlines guide less experienced editors in creating high-quality articles. A quick guide to markups used in outlines can be found on this page. Example outlines that can be adapted and instructions for how to adapt them are on this section of the project page.
• Mobile Page Previews: The Page Previews experiment on mobile web has concluded with the decision not to roll out the feature. The results showed no statistically significant impact on reader retention – the primary success metric. Page Previews, which are already available on desktop and in the apps, display a thumbnail, lead paragraph, and link to the full article when readers tap a blue link.
• Wikifunctions: You can now add images to Abstract Wikipedia and the loading and display of test results when viewing Functions has been improved.
• Wikidata: The Foundation is migrating the Wikidata Query Service (WDQS) away from the Blazegraph backend since it no longer scales efficiently with Wikidata’s growth. The migration will take place in several phases. Here is the timeline.
• Growth features: Growth features are now available at Wikidata!  Wikidata administrators are still configuring the features through Community Configuration, but this update enables access to Mentorship (if configured), Impact, the Help Panel, and a simplified Newcomer Homepage (without Suggested Edits).
• Mentors' management: The Growth team will soon provide a system to automatically suspend or remove inactive mentors from the list of mentors. Communities can already start configuring the process in the Community Configuration.
• Collaborative Contributions: If you need help setting up the Collaborative Contributions and the Goal setting features, check out these video guides. These features allow you to view which edits are made during an event and allows the group to track progress against a goal with a public progress bar. Learn more.
• Latest experiments: An upcoming experiment is testing whether we can serve readers better when a footnote click in read mode shows the full bibliographic information rather than flying them to the reference list. See all live, upcoming, and completed experiments in Product & Technology.
• Tech News: The latest highlights from Tech News week 24 and 25 include how the user interface icon library is being updated. Most of the ~300 icons have been slightly refined and ~30 new icons have been added. See also the 62 community submitted tasks that were resolved over the last two weeks.

Annual Goals Progress on Volunteer Support
See also blogs: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog · WikiLearn News · The Wikipedia Library · list of movement events

• Digital Safety: Join a conversation about Using AI Safely. It'll explore risks & concerns of using AI tools in personal and organisational contexts and practical strategies to reduce those risks. It will take place at 03:30 UTC & 14:30 UTC on June 26. This session is not about using AI to edit Wikipedia. It's focused entirely on safe personal and organisational use.
• Don't Blink: Read the latest developments from around the world about protecting the Wikimedia model, its people and its values. Highlights include exploring the implications that new child safety regulations have on privacy online.
• Grantmaking strategy & Affiliate model: Members of the Global Resources Distribution Committee (GRDC) and the Affiliations Committee (AffCom) met to advance two key movement initiatives: the development of a new Grantmaking strategy and a refreshed Affiliate Model. They produced initial proposals and advanced work on both initiatives ahead of broader conversations planned for Wikimania 2026.

Annual Goals Progress on Effectiveness
See also: Progress on the annual plan

• Enterprise: SimPPL Uses Wikimedia Enterprise to Map Online Conversations and Fact-Check Social Media.

Other Movement curated newsletters & news
See also: Diff blog · Goings-on · Planet Wikimedia · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · Actualités du Wiktionnaire (fr) · Regards sur l’actualité de la Wikimedia (fr) · Wikimag (fr) · Education · GLAM · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters

Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate

For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. If you have feedback or suggestions about the bulletin, let us know at foundationbulletinwikimedia.org. For questions about the Wikimedia Foundation's work, contact us!

MediaWiki message delivery 22:38, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia proposals request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) on a "Wikipedia proposals" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

(replacing Yapperbot) SodiumBot (botop|talk|contribs) 04:31, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Spreading Peace

Issac I Navarro (talk) wishes you peace!

Spread peace and goodwill by adding {{subst:WikiPeace}} to other's talk pages with a friendly message.

I hope that when you see this message, it is uplifting. I wanted to say Thank you for your input on the RfC and DYK for Talk:Clop (erotic fan art). The subject is very surprising/a lot, to say the least. I wanted to express my appreciation and gratitude for your overall contributions to Wikipedia. Cheers. Issac I Navarro (talk) 01:03, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, @Issac I Navarro. qcne (talk) 12:00, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

How can I get help determining AI usage

Invasions of Kuwait (1793-1808) flags as AI to me, but I'm not really skilled in that. Beyond some weirdness on the page itself, and definitely in the creation edit summary, the user's history also flags at me. I'm just wondering how I can reach out to someone to help look into it, and you're listed as a contact on the AI Cleanup project. Jerod Lycett (talk) 11:57, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Hiya - have you posted to the Wikipedia:AI noticeboard? I agree the prose reads concerningly AI-generated, but it could also be a English as as second language issue. As I do not read Arabic I am not best placed to judge the sources and content. qcne (talk) 11:59, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2026

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2026).

Administrator changes

• Chipmunkdavis
• TechnoSquirrel69

• Mlaffs
• SpuriousQ
• Lectonar
• Dennis Brown
• Hog Farm

CheckUser changes

• Giraffer
• TonyBallioni

• Dbeef
• EdJohnston

Oversight changes

• Giraffer
• TonyBallioni

L235

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment asks whether the criteria for autoconfirmed and extended confirmed should be modified.
• A request for comment proposes an addendum for the Real name section of the Username policy.

Technical news

• The special page Special:RangeCalculator has been created for any users to use to find an IP range. (phab:T268429)
• The "indefinitely" button in Special:Block for temporary accounts can be replaced with a preferred block duration stated on MediaWiki:ipb-indefinite-expiry-temporary-account. (phab:T427125)

Arbitration

• Following a series of motions, changes to the contentious topics procedure to restructure awareness have been implemented.
• The arbitration case Michael Jackson has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• The 2026 Developing Countries WikiContest will run from 1 July to 30 September. Sign up now!
• 10 candidates have been appointed to the U4C.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:08, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Updated article about Ryan Huling (writer)

Hello Qcne,

Thanks again for your notes. I have revised my article about the American writer Ryan Huling, which now includes credible secondary sources (e.g. WSJ book review, LA Times profile), and a neutral tone. Could you please review/approve at your earliest convnience? Sam orbital (talk) 15:21, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Sam orbital.

Tone is now fine, but I am afraid there are still not enough really in-depth secondary sources that discuss/critique him as an author without relying on an interview. The WSJ would work as a source for the book not the person, and the LA Times profile is far too short. qcne (talk) 16:46, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

You're invited to the Mentorship noticeboard

Hi, Qcne. You are cordially invited to the brand new Wikipedia:Mentorship noticeboard. I get the impression sometimes that we mentors are each toiling in our own cubbyhole or hamster wheel, quietly answering mentee questions with little to no interaction with other mentors. I think we have a lot to share and learn from each other, and I know it will make me feel better just having the opportunity to interact with you and other mentors there, and I hope it will for you, too. Looking forward to hearing your feedback. Please take the § Survey when you get there! Mathglot (talk) 00:59, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Hey

Hi Qcne, hope all's well? I noticed your semi-retirement notice. I'm not here to try to change your mind, it's obviously your call, and no one else's, how much time you spend here. I'm just here to tell you that your contributions are, and always were, very much valued and appreciated, however much or little of them you put in. Hope you stick around, and if there's anything I can do to make things better, just let me know (or e-mail me, if that works better). Don't be a stranger now, you hear! -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 05:18, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

+1, it's easy to get burnt out. Come back when you're ready! —ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) 10:16, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2026 Issue 12

Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on June 19. Please help translate. This edition uses the new annual plan goals for this fiscal year (July 2026–June 2027).

---

Highlights

• Wikipedia 25: Wikipedia's 25th birthday was celebrated with various projects designed to grow awareness and support for Wikipedia and the people who make it possible. This includes the virtual birthday event on January 15, which garnered 10,000 live viewers and 15,000 reactions. Find more details on all related projects and results in the program report.
• Sustainable use of Wikimedia infrastructure: A valid user-agent string will now be required for automated dumps downloads from the dumps.wikimedia.org website. Automated requests that provide a generic or empty user-agent will be blocked. This extends enforcement of the long standing user-agent policy. Access to dumps through Wikimedia Cloud Services will not change.
• Increasing account creation: The experiment providing direct access to “Create account” and “Log in” actions on mobile increased account creation by about 20% without negatively affecting edit quality. The feature will now be rolled out to all wikis on mobile web.

Annual Goals Progress on Engage
See also: Growth · Product Safety and Integrity · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · The Wikipedia Library · list of movement events · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia

With Sub-referencing editors can reuse and add details to a main reference.

• Add A Link: The Foundation deployed Add A Link as a default-on suggestion within Suggestion Mode. It is now launched on all wikis to all editors who have opted in to the Suggestion Beta Feature.
• Reusing references: Sub-referencing, the new MediaWiki feature that allows editors to reuse references with different details, was deployed to most small and medium-sized Wikipedia language versions.
• Wikifunctions: Check out the 71 new functions with implementations to get a taste of what functions have been created.
• Range calculator: The special page Special:RangeCalculator has been created. It allows users to find an IP range without needing to rely on external tools. Until now, this tool was only available to CheckUsers.
• Captcha verification: Abuse filters that are set to “require CAPTCHA verification” now also affect users with the skipcaptcha right, which includes most autoconfirmed users. Bots are exempted. This change only affects edits that trigger an abuse filter.
• Latest experiments: An upcoming experiment is testing two variations of a "thank you" badge shown to donors after a recent donation to deepen the relationship between donors and the Wikimedia movement. See all live, upcoming, and completed experiments in Product & Technology.
• Account security on private wikis: Two-factor authentication will become mandatory for user accounts on private wikis. This will protect private information from being exposed by an account with a compromised password.
• Tech News: The latest highlights from Tech News week 26 and 27 include users will now get a notification when they are blocked or unblocked from editing, or if this block changes. See also the 65 community submitted tasks that were resolved over the last two weeks.
• Team Challenges: The core organizing team for Wikimania is introducing Team Challenges, a different approach to Wikimania Hackathon. This year, Wikimedians and professionals from other fields will join forces to undertake one of the 2026 technical challenges.

Annual Goals Progress on Enable
See also: Research newsletter · WikiLearn News · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org

• Wikimedia Hackathon: A look at the 2026 edition of Wikimedia Hackathon which brought together 216 participants from 29 countries building, collaborating, and shaping the future together.
• Wikimedia Hubs: The Hub Fund will pause funding for new pilots in fiscal year 2026–2027 to align with the work on the Ecosystem of Movement Organizations and the Global Resource Distribution Committee. Existing pilots in transition will be offered an additional year of funding.

Annual Goals Progress on Protect
See also: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog

• Open Knowledge And Digital Rights: Wikimedians shared their reflections on how Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum reinforced the role of our movement within broader digital rights conversations.

Annual Goals Progress on Reach
See also: Wikimedia Apps · Readers

• Journalism Award: Wikimedia Foundation announced three journalists from Africa as recipients of the Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards, run in partnership with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ). The awards celebrate the essential role journalists play in creating well-researched articles that volunteer editors can use as source materials to develop content on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. In total, 320 submissions were received from 40 African countries.

Other Movement-curated newsletters & news
Diff blog · Goings-on · Planet Wikimedia · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · Actualités du Wiktionnaire (fr) · Regards sur l'actualité de la Wikimedia (fr) · Wikimag (fr) · Education · GLAM · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters

Subscribe or unsubscribe · Receive the bulletin by email · Help translate

For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. If you have feedback or suggestions about the bulletin, let us know at foundationbulletin@wikimedia.org. For questions about the Wikimedia Foundation's work, contact us!

MediaWiki message delivery 23:54, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Happy birthday to yah!

	Birthday cake
	Happy birthday! Froglord (Finnfrog99) (talk) 09:46, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

Never give up, you are the man who thinks newspapers and academic papers are useless that means you are the special. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-37992-71 (talk) 08:00, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Incorrect Redirect

Muhindo fik (talk) 20:38, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Muhindo fik. Do you have a question? qcne (talk) 20:39, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I have also seen you're an AFC reviewer could you mind if you review some of the drafts I worked on. I am so disappointed eversince I submitted no review done and I have more projects. Muhindo fik (talk) 20:42, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Heelo @Qcne the article you have moved from sandbox to draft space has an incorrect talk page redirect which goes to another article's talk page when you click talk page on Draft Uganda National Media Group (UNMG Muhindo fik (talk) 20:40, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I've removed that redirect. qcne (talk) 20:42, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you Muhindo fik (talk) 20:42, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Reconsideration Request: Draft:Attaullah Chohan

Hello Qcne,

I hope you are doing well. I am writing to respectfully ask for a reconsideration regarding the rejection of Draft:Attaullah Chohan.

I completely understand the initial concerns regarding the lack of sources. However, I have just updated the draft with multiple high-quality, independent, and reliable secondary sources to establish notability under WP:NMUSIC. These include detailed coverage from prominent regional and international publications such as:

• The Nation (major English daily)
• Daily Times (comprehensive feature on the project 'Sheesha Bar')
• Emarat Al Youm and Al-Watan (established UAE media outlets)

Since these reliable independent sources provide significant coverage of my musical career and releases, I kindly request you to take a quick look at the updated draft and consider reversing the rejection so it can be properly reviewed.

Thank you so much for your time and guidance. Attaullahchohanmusic (talk) 23:42, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Attaullahchohanmusic.

Of the four sources:

1. www.nation.com.pk is a promotional piece.
2. emaratalyoum.com is a promotional piece.
3. alwatan.ae is a promotional piece.
4. dailytimes.com.pk is a promotional piece.

All those sources are clear promotional pieces designed to promote you/your work and were obviously written in return for payment. They therefore are useless sources on Wikipedia. qcne (talk) 23:47, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

A new draft

Hello @Qcne: I hope you are well, I wrote a new draft called Reze (Chainsaw Man), I had translated it from the Chinese Wikipedia, can you review it? Thanks :) ألفريدو (talk) 22:20, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi @ألفريدو. I think this is acceptable now. However; the draft is about half a plot summary. The five-paragraph Appearances' section can be reduced substantially, probably to two or three concise paragraphs? If you do that, I'll gladly accept. qcne (talk) 16:49, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Qcne: I don't think the section is big, but now the section is consisting of 2 paragraphs. You can see the draft. Thanks :) ألفريدو (talk) 17:22, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 July 2026

• News and notes: An exclusive club
  Wikipedia Co-Founder Larry Sanger gets a community ban for canvassing.

• In the media: Battle for a soul – who won?
  Commissars, winners and losers, blocks or bans, a Wiki red card, social engineering on wikis, and Swift action!

• Opinion: We need to innovate with Wikimedia decision-making
  Rules we can actually read, trust and change!

• Recent research: LLMs and NPOV, 20 years of user blocks, Esperanto and Volapük Wikipedias
  And other research findings.

• News from Diff: How to host Wikicurious in your own community
  The Wikicurious team shares their approach to Wiki-event organizing.

• Community view: CUNY Newmark Wikimedian-in-Residence Quarterly Brief – April to June 2026
  Quarterly update on the activities of the City University of New York's Wikimedian-in-Residence, Richard Knipel.

• Special report: Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act – for now
  A possible future recategorization by the UK Government remains an existential threat to Wikipedia.

• On the bright side: Fatherhood, weather, and diplomacy
  Father's Day, Canada Day, and the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence.

• Op-ed: A Layup Easy Proposal for Wikimedia at 25: Spend 25% of Donations on the Community
  If strategy priority 1.1 is supporting the community, can we not increase the support to the community? Increasing grantmaking to 25% of the budget would be a move toward equality in the movement.

• Traffic report: The grass was greener, the light was brighter
  We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of World Cup.

• Comix: schnozzed
  on lollerskates

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:24, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Don't feed the trolls

Recommend you peruse WP:Long-term_abuse/ChronicleBooks885 for no particular reason. ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 11:15, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

oh. qcne (talk) 11:22, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

ur actually why ppl dont edit and create articles

ur actually why ppl dont edit and create articles ARSENALMARSTER (talk) 19:16, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

@ARSENALMASTER: Calm down bro, why are you saying that? ألفريدو (talk) 19:28, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia style and naming request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Rafah on a "Wikipedia style and naming" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

SodiumBot (botop|talk|contribs) 13:31, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Articles for Creation backlog drive

Hello Qcne:

WikiProject Articles for creation is holding a month long Backlog Drive in August!
The goal of this drive is to reduce the backlog of unreviewed drafts to less than a month of outstanding reviews from the current 3+ months. Bonus points will be given for reviewing drafts that have been waiting more than 30 days. The drive is running from 1 August 2026 through 31 August 2026.

You may find Category:AfC pending submissions by age or other categories and sorting helpful.

Barnstars will be given out as awards at the end of the drive.
There is a backlog of over 5000 pages, so start reviewing drafts. We're looking forward to your help! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:38, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

• If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page.