User talk:Augnablik

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Guild of Copy Editors – December 2025 Newsletter

Guild of Copy Editors December 2025 Newsletter

Hello, and welcome to the December newsletter, a quarterly digest of Guild activities since September. If you'd like to be notified of upcoming drives and blitzes, and other GOCE activities, the best method is to add our announcements box to your watchlist.

Election news: The Guild's coordinators play an important role in the WikiProject, making sure ~~nearly~~ everything runs smoothly and on time. Editors experienced in drives or blitzes and in good standing (unblocked and without sanctions) are invited to nominate themselves or another editor (with their permission, of course) to be a Guild coordinator until 23:59 on 15 December (UTC). The voting phase begins at 00:01 on 16 December and runs until 23:59 on 31 December. Questions may be asked of candidates at any stage in the process. Elected coordinators will serve a six-month term from 1 January through 30 June 2026.

September Drive: 43 of the 63 editors who signed up for the September Backlog Elimination Drive edited 693,541 words in 265 articles. Barnstars awarded are here.

October Blitz: 14 of the 15 editors who signed up for the October Copy Editing Blitz edited 75,108 words in 31 articles. Barnstars awarded are here.

November Drive: 38 of the 65 editors who signed up for the November Backlog Elimination Drive edited 590,816 words in 240 articles. Barnstars awarded are posted here.

December Blitz: The December Blitz will begin at 00:00 on 14 December (UTC) and will end on 20 December at 23:59. Sign up here. Barnstars awarded will be posted here.

Progress report: As of 01:49, 8 December 2025 (UTC), GOCE copy editors have completed 293 requests since 1 January, and the backlog of tagged articles stands at 1,730 articles.

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators, Dhtwiki, GoldRomean, Miniapolis and Mox Eden.

To stop receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:25, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your thread has been archived

Hello Augnablik! The thread you created at the Teahouse, Teahouse host list, has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days.

You can still read the archived discussion. If you have follow-up questions, please create a new thread.

See also the help page about the archival process. The archival was done by lowercase sigmabot III, and this notification was delivered by KiranBOT, both automated accounts. You can opt out of future notifications by placing {{bots|deny=KiranBOT}} on top of the current page (your user talk page). —KiranBOT (talk) 03:04, 17 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tildes

Re your comment to this deletion: Special:Diff/1328166062.

I'm not sure what the primary problem was, but the characters used in that comment were ˜˜˜˜ whilst they should be ~~~~.

Best regards. --CiaPan (talk) 06:49, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't a tilde the character above the number 1 on the keyboard? If not, please tell me how you got the symbols in your message. I'm glad you picked up on my problem before I finally found a workaround. Augnablik (talk) 06:58, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, typically it is as a diacritic, and usually it is obtained as a diacritic by pressing it before the diacriticized character. For example, the sequence ~a results in ã. So, you need to type tilde, space ~ to obtain a tilde character alone.
Automatic diacritic composing would not work if the character following the diacritic can not be composed - then both are inserted in a text separately, in the order of typing. Specifically, the tilde can't be diacriticised by a tilde, so pressing two tildes in a sequence results in two separate tildes. Do it twice and you should get four tildes (not 'tilded' spaces) for your automatic signature.
CiaPan (talk) 07:23, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some further reading: Dead key.

CiaPan (talk) 07:35, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If I understand you correctly, then the problem was that I didn't put a space between each tilde. I rarely type messages in the Source editor as I was doing with that troublesome message, thuCite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).s I'm not used to having to type the 4-tilde sequence. But I had heard that it's what had to be done. I don't recall hearing that spacing has to be done as well.

Keyboards vary. The one I type on, which is typical of British PCs, has a standardised layout shown in this image: File:ISO_keyboard_(105)_QWERTY_UK.svg. The tilde character is above the # character on the right of the layout. You may have a more US-style keyboard with layout as File:Qwerty.svg which puts the ~ character at the very top left of the main keys. On my keyboard, I can press the ~ character once, twice, or more times without placing extra space characters in between. So signing in source mode is as simple as four ~ in a row. It is the wiki software that renders these four ~ as my signature + timestamp. Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:44, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There indeed be mentors lurking!

This is the second time in the short span of a few weeks, Mike, that you've opened my eyes to some interesting differences between the UK and the US. I do indeed have a keyboard like what's shown in File:Qwerty.svg. That's how all the keyboards I've always had are laid out. I'd never have guessed that two English-speaking countries might use different keyboards. (But come to think of it, all the US keyboard layout is also what the computer keyboards I've ever seen in India look like ...)

Apparently Cia Pan is your compatriot, judging from his spelling of a word in his messaging above. Which means he was speaking from a different keyboard perspective than mine. I wonder how often keyboard differences account for confusion in Wiki discussions. Augnablik (talk) 16:29, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid you made a little mistake. If you check Mike's and my User: pages, you'll find out we come from two different countries, about 1500 km / 1,000 mi (and The Channel) apart.

If you check my User: page closer, you'll also notice my en-3 level notice. So deducing based on my spelling may be quite unreliable...

CiaPan (talk) 08:42, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not a "little" mistake, CiaPan! Przepraszam.

I don't think that you made a spelling mistake but instead learned your English from a teacher and/or instructional materials that followed British format. The word I was referring to was whilst, by the way. And also by the way, your English is fantastic. Augnablik (talk) 11:59, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Augnablik: Several English speaking Wikipedians told me so, that's why I've raised my self-rating from en-2 to en-3. However, it seems so good offline only, when I can think what to say and then review my writing and fix it before sending, sometimes even verify it with an online dictionary or translator. It would appear much worse if we talked by phone or face to face.

CiaPan (talk) 16:12, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we are asked to self-rate our foreign language ability in carrying on a conversation but only in writing. After all, how often are Wikipedia editors called on to speak in person?

Wesołych Świąt!

Augnablik (talk) 20:04, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year from Poland! 😀 CiaPan (talk) 21:18, 19 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the Dead key reference, CiaPan. Would you explain what chain= refers to, if it's not done there?

The default 'chain' parameter value is a plus character which usually denotes simultaneous press, like Ctrl+X. Defining it explicitly as chain= makes it empty, so key symbols get concatenated to one another, which means consecutive presses. You can read about its use at the template's documentation page {{key press}}. --CiaPan (talk) 16:10, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A bit challenging for me to grasp, CiaPan, but thanks. I'm still not succeeding with tildes in the Source editor, but at least I can copy my User code from elsewhere, though I won't get an automatic time stamp or a Reply option for others to use. Augnablik (talk)

__________________________________

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Augnablik (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

As far as I know, I haven't done anything to warrant being blocked from editing and sending messages in Wikipedia. Augnablik (talk) 12:56, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Decline reason:

This account is not directly blocked. If you are unable to edit, please exactly follow the instructions which appear when you attempt to do so. Yamla (talk) 13:20, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

@Yamla, thanks for the quick reply and the news that I haven't been directly blocked. That's a relief.

To be honest, I didn't find the information on the "you're blocked" messages I've been getting very helpful. I don't have one to refer to today because the messages appear unpredictably, but as I recall, they advise starting an account or logging in — even though I'm already logged into my existing account.

If I'm not directly blocked, I don't understand why I keep getting the same message off and on, not permanently, and for a varying span of days.

When I tried to read up on this situation after your good news, I was surprised to see that quite a few other editors have faced similar blocking messages that they too questioned, as well as to find still other suggestions about how to remedy the situation: like using a VPN or fiddling with the router. Which would be a bit beyond my current technical skills, but I'll learn if it would help end this ongoing issue.

I'd be grateful for your thoughts on the above.

Unfortunately, there's not much I can say without information on the IP address or address range in question. At least, not much more than you've already heard. That is, if you are using a proxy or a VPN, disable it and wait a full 24 hours. Otherwise, make sure you are signed in. If it happens again, make a clear note of the IP address involved and all the other information the block message says. --Yamla (talk) 12:30, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging and signing

(talk page stalker) Sorry you're having this bother, Augnablik. I noticed you haven't signed your latest message to Yamla. That means your ping won't work, see WP:PING. I've pinged them for you now. Bishonen | tålk 11:39, 7 January 2026 (UTC).[reply]

Oh, thank you, Bishonen. I remember now that when I wrote that message I was in the Source rather than the Visual editor as usual. Will I ever remember after 3 years with Wikipedia? Augnablik (talk) 15:53, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]