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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Gilles2014 (talk | contribs) at 22:06, 19 November 2020 (→‎I need your help, please). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Old discussions: June 2013 to May 2014, June 2014 to May 2015, June 2015 to May 2016, June 2016 to May 2017, June 2017 to May 2018, June 2018 to May 2019, June 2019 to May 2020

Leisure

I think my think let a waste of but let me just ask you prove you username is two ways. 1. What are all editors doing in Wikipedia 2. What is whatamidoing doing is whatamidoing talkpage. Ask me whatamidoing,your pal,Tbiw (talk) 13:14, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

All editors aren't doing the same thing. But what are you doing, Tbiw? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:24, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Am editing.fun,Tbiw (talk) 18:04, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Drafting message about signature changes for editors

At WP:VPT, you wrote In the coming months, I'll start contacting active editors whose signatures are invalid. Let me know if you would like help editing such a message once you have some sort of draft. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:41, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Jonesey95, Yes, yes, yes, yes! I want your help!
Have you looked at https://signatures.toolforge.org/api/ ? We can get a list for a single error at a time, and I think we should send specific messages. That way, if your problem is "A", then you don't have to read/be confused by the instructions for fixing problems B, C, D, and E as well. Also, we can split up the lists, so that we don't have a huge number of people asking for help at the same time. We'll eventually need to contact about a thousand editors here; most of the other big Wikipedias have 100–200 users with errors. At the smaller wikis, there may be very few editors affected.
User:AntiCompositeNumber, is the API limited to the reports that are pre-generated? If I wanted, e.g., to see the list for the Italian Wikipedia or the English Wikivoyage, does that require effort on your part? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:13, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Whatamidoing (WMF), Yes, I have to run the report server-side or add it to the cron job. Unfortunately the site-level reports take a long time to run, much longer than the HTTP timeout. That means I would have to implement some sort of asynchronous queuing system, and that's much more work than logging in to Toolforge and running a command.
So if you want the report for a site, just let me know which site and if you want a one-off or recurring run. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 02:19, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Upon closer inspection, at the last run, the only wiki taking an excessive amount of time to complete is enwiki. The other wikis in the cronjob take 1-3 minutes to complete, except for Commons at 4 minutes. Enwiki takes 22 minutes to complete. Of course, those other wikis have less than 200 signatures with errors each, while enwiki has 1276. I'll work on adding live generation to the API. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 02:40, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@AntiCompositeNumber: Is it possible to do live generation with enwiki (and maybe Commons) blocked from that? Live generation for the smallest wikis (because there are hundreds) probably makes more sense than pre-generation. They won't be wanted very frequently.
As for a list, here's the list of Wikipedias that have more than 2,000 active editors each month: frwiki, eswiki, dewiki, jawiki, ruwiki, itwiki, zhwiki, arwiki, ptwiki, fawiki, plwiki, nlwiki trwiki, ukwiki, hewiki, idwiki, cswiki, kowiki, svwiki, viwiki, huwiki (in descending order). The English Wiktionary almost rises to that size, but none of the other language-specific sister projects do, and you already have the reports up for the multi-lingual sites. So maybe we want a total of about 30 pre-generated reports, and the rest can be done live when/if anyone wants them? (Feel free to pick a different cutoff point.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:37, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've added a ?purge=true parameter to the report APIs. There's not a ton of safety around it and I'm not planning to put it on the frontend version, but it should work for what you need. It'll still store the result as well, which will make it available in the report list for everyone. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 04:14, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I would be worried about spamming editors with multiple messages if there are multiple errors in the signature should those errors go unfixed between error A FYI message and error B FYI message. --Izno (talk) 04:11, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at the reports, but I don't understand them. I understand missing end tags, stripped tags, and misnested tags, but what is "plain-fancy-sig" and why are there so many users with errors? As for sending messages, I think we should focus on editors who have edited in the past few months first. Is there a way to find those? I haven't tried all of the reports, so maybe the data I am looking for is in there somewhere. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:29, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
plain-fancy-sig is for signatures that don't contain any wikimarkup at all. That pretty much means that the editor has the "Treat the above as wiki markup" box ticked in their preferences but should have it un-ticked. Most of these are new users who don't know what the signature box even is. The site-level reports only include users with at least 1 edit in the last 30 days. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 04:40, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Izno, if you have multiple errors, then the attempt to fix the first error will force you to fix the others, so you are unlikely to get multiple messages (unless we're very fast at sending out the messages).
@AntiCompositeNumber, do you have any way to check Special:GlobalPreferences? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:23, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Then I'd be worry about misleading editors (who likely have no idea what's going on) by saying "you have this error" and then they go to fix that one error and get "no, not good enough". As a certain person has opined about reliable sources and WP:BURDEN, if I recall, not the best interaction. :) --Izno (talk) 16:53, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but I don't think GlobalPreferences works with signatures. I don't see any option for it in Special:GlobalPreferences at least. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 00:34, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That may be because of the problems concerned with namespaces translated into the local language. For example, my signature used here on en.wp looks like this: 
[[User:Redrose64|<span style="color:#a80000; background:#ffeeee; text-decoration:inherit">Red</span>rose64]] &#x1f339; ([[User talk:Redrose64|talk]])
whereas the one that I use at Wicipedia Cymraeg looks like this: 
[[Defnyddiwr:Redrose64|Redrose64]] ([[Sgwrs Defnyddiwr:Redrose64|sgwrs]]; [[:en:User:Redrose64|at English Wikipedia]])
I could use my English signature on every single Wikimedia wiki, and it would work regardless of the local language; but I couldn't use my Welsh signature elsewhere (except b:cy:, q:cy:, s:cy: and wikt:cy:), because Defnyddiwr: and Sgwrs Defnyddiwr: are not recognised in any language other than Welsh. If I carefully set my Welsh signature to 
[[User:Redrose64|Redrose64]] ([[User talk:Redrose64|sgwrs]]; [[:en:User:Redrose64|at English Wikipedia]])
it would still work there and could then be universal (other than that untranslated "sgwrs"), but would the residents of non-English wikis be aware of that requirement to use English namespaces? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:54, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If it's not in GlobalPrefs right now, then we don't have to worry about that right now. That's one off my mental list. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:47, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
AntiCompositeNumber, I checked enwiki's report today, and plain-fancy-sig is down to 836 (as of 23 July 2020). I think this is just due to the prefs refusing to let new errors be created. Do you happen to remember the original numbers? I think there were about 1,000 plain-fancy-sig names and 1,200 all together. If I'm right, then maybe a quarter of the errors could disappear without intervention. If that's the case, then we should probably wait another week or two to let the newbies wash out of the system. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:58, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This was from a few months ago:
{
    "errors": {
        "html5-misnesting": 1,
        "interwiki-user-link": 14,
        "link-username-mismatch": 63,
        "misnested-tag": 21,
        "missing-end-tag": 42,
        "no-user-links": 1070,
        "obsolete-font-tag": 352,
        "obsolete-tag": 5,
        "plain-fancy-sig": 1011,
        "sig-too-long": 1,
        "stripped-tag": 10,
        "tidy-font-bug": 43,
        "total": 1527
    },
    "meta": {
        "active_since": "2020-02-18T22:02:53.988100",
        "last_update": "2020-03-19T22:02:53.988079",
        "site": "en.wikipedia.org"
    }
}
I don't have anything newer than that. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 20:29, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
A few months ago is perfect. Thanks, AntiCompositeNumber. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:08, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What should the message to editors look like?

Given the wide variety of issues that we are hoping to correct, the desire to minimize the number of messages editors receive, and the inactivity of many editors shown in the report (I did a semi-random sample and found that many recently active editors only had a few edits in the last year, and almost no edits to talk pages), I propose that we send a pretty simple message explaining that there is a problem with their signature and that the easiest way to fix it is to uncheck the custom signature box.

We can provide a link to the relevant user preference, a link the page that attempts to explain the problems (although it will be overwhelming for the vast majority of editors, who hardly know anything about wikicode), and instructions for requesting help with reformatting their custom signature.

How should they ask for help? Ping the person who leaves the message? That may be too complicated for some editors, even if we provide a copy/paste example of how to ping someone, like "Copy this code immediately below this message: :{{ping|Jonesey95}}, please help me fix my custom signature. ~~~~" – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:55, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably worth a page at meta or somewhere else with a WP:Fix my sig vibe. Better than pinging the messenger (we don't want poor WAID to be The One). --Izno (talk) 05:23, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I might be able to talk them into creating a "role account" (named something like "User:SignatureMessageBot") to deliver the messages. If we put the "Fix my sig" page on MediaWiki.org, then we can get it translated, too.
@Jonesey95, more than 90% of those plain-fancy-sig folks just need to uncheck a box, click the save button, and maybe post a message somewhere to see whether they like the result. Because there are so many of them, I think we could pick the first 50 or 100 and run a "test" message, to see whether it works. So if the first message seems to be ineffective or confusing, then we could change it (e.g., add screenshots, or whatever we need). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:20, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea of a dedicated messaging user. I would be happy to watch the messaging user's talk page for help requests; we'd have to use something other than ping to track help requests though, unless you wanted to deal with all of them (ugh). You might think about making the user name a little bit future-proof, since there may be other change-related messaging to do. New user accounts are cheap, though, so your name idea should work fine. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:52, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
How does this sound, as a starting point?

You have a custom signature set in your account preferences. A change in the software that runs Wikipedia has made your current custom signature incompatible with the software; to fix it, please update your preferences.

1. Find the signature section in the first tab of Special:Preferences.

2. Uncheck the box (☑︎→☐) that says "Treat the above as wiki markup".

3. Click the blue Save button at the bottom of the page.

After you do this, please check your signature to make sure that you are satisfied with the result. If you want to re-customize your signature, there are instructions at Wikipedia:Signatures#Customizing how everyone sees your signature. If you have followed these instructions and still need help, please leave a message at <page>.

Izno and Jonesey95, what do you think? Is this simple enough? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:08, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Now that I re-read it, "please check your signature" may be too vague for some people. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:12, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have taken the liberty of modifying the text above directly rather than copying it and making changes to the copy. But will these steps work right? I haven't looked at this section of the prefs in *many* years, and my vague memory is that there used to be some sort of check box that allowed editors to choose between a standard signature and a custom signature. Now it looks like simply unchecking the box leaves your signature looking like a mess of code, which is not what we want. I think we need to add a step telling people to completely delete their custom sig from the box. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:22, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
AIUI, after the change, unchecking the checkbox will put the user in the position where they can no longer use what's in the custom signature field without fixing that field. Could use some checking/testing on whichever beta wiki includes the signature changes.
I think "After you do this, please check your signature to make sure that you are satisfied with the result." doesn't quite work, since there will be many people who are not satisfied with the result (it will be the basic signature), for whom the next sentence will be a duplicate. Just remove it?
Maybe better still would be to prepare the user for what is happening i.e. in the first paragraph:

You have a custom signature set in your account preferences. A change in the software that runs Wikipedia has made your current custom signature incompatible with the software. You will either need to fix the signature or reset your signature to the default. To reset your signature to the default:

(see steps).

To fix your signature, see Wikipedia:Signatures#Customizing how everyone sees your signature. If you want help with either thing, please leave a message <page>.

--Izno (talk) 18:51, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Izno, did you try the steps yourself? They did not result in a plain signature for me. They resulted in me having my custom signature, but in wikicode format, as shown in my mess of code link above. I'm pretty sure we don't want that result for people. I do like your new intro, however. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:54, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Jonesey95: You tested in a place where the change is not deployed. It's correct that resulted as it does on this wiki. As I said, I believe it is the case that the system will reset your signature entirely after the change is deployed, but we need to test/ask the devs in case I missed a pivot on that point. --Izno (talk) 20:55, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No, I think that the problem with Jonesey95's sig in that diff is that his sig box does contain wikitext, so he should have that box ticked. The point behind that (mis)feature is for displaying a nick. The idea seems to be that if I want my sig to display my userpage link as [[User:WhatamIdoing|WAID]], then I can type (only) WAID in the box, tick the fancy-sig box, and it will assemble the userpage link for me. If you've already provided it with the wikitext, then you shouldn't untick the treat-as-wikitext box. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:54, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Testing: box *un*ticked, with plain text in the field. mi mi mi mi me (talk) 16:56, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's what I expected it to do. As of Monday, of course, you can't put that plain text in the field and tick the box. The error message says, in red and bold, "Your signature must include a link to your user page, talk page or contributions. Please add it, for example: [[User:Whatamidoing (WMF)|Whatamidoing (WMF)]] ([[User talk:Whatamidoing (WMF)|talk]])" (very nice error message, Matma Rex). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:58, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I know I'm not great at communication sometimes, so I'll try a brief summary.
  1. I have custom wikicode in my signature, as will most people receiving the instructions above.
  2. The instructions above told me to uncheck the "Treat..." box and click Save.
  3. When I did that, my sig became undesirable raw wikicode, not a blank default signature.
  4. Therefore, I think there is a step missing, which would tell people to blank their custom sig.
Or maybe I failed to follow the instructions. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:44, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Jonesey95, you followed the instructions perfectly, but you failed to magically guess my unstated assumptions. Not your fault, obviously. I'd even meant to mention the focus, but forgot. This particular message is for the people who have that box ticked but have no wikitext in that box. Most of the people in this list have this problem. We'll need a separate message (with different, and probably more complicated, instructions) for HTML-type errors. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:07, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We should probably mention that they can optionally blank that field, too. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:09, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Draft for fancy-sig

You have a custom signature set in your account preferences. A change to Wikipedia's software has made your current custom signature incompatible with the software.

The problem: Your preferences are set to interpret your custom signature as wikitext. However, your current custom signature does not contain any wikitext.

The solutions: You can reset your signature to the default, or you can fix your signature.

Solution 1: Reset your signature to the default:
  1. Find the signature section in the first tab of Special:Preferences.
  2. Uncheck the box (☑︎→☐) that says "Treat the above as wiki markup."
  3. Remove anything in the Signature: text box.
  4. Click the blue "Save" button at the bottom of the page. (The red "Restore all default settings" button will reset all of your preference settings, not just the signature.)
Solution 2: Fix your custom signature:
  1. Find the signature section in the first tab of Special:Preferences.
  2. Uncheck the box (☑︎→☐) that says "Treat the above as wiki markup."
  3. Click the blue "Save" button at the bottom of the page.

More information is available at Wikipedia:Signatures#Customizing how everyone sees your signature. If you have followed these instructions and still want help, please leave a message at Wikipedia talk:Signatures.

I don't think that transcluding MediaWiki:tog-fancysig is a good idea. For users with the default language (en - English), like me, it extends over several lines and it's unclear that there are no further directions here, and that they continue with "Remove anything in the ...". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:34, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I got totally lost in that section as well. I have simplified the above by replacing {tog-fancysig} with its first sentence. I have also added instructions for fixing, instead of blanking, the custom signature. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:17, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'd been hoping that it would pick up just the opening line, and not the long explanation.
Jonesey95, this message will only go to people whose only problem is that they ticked the fancy-sig box without providing a fancy sig. Nobody with misnested tags or linter errors will get this message, so adding instructions about that will just confuse the people who get this. We'll need to write a separate message for every error. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 05:31, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested users for a quick test:

User:2018rebel User:33ryantan User:A.JulianEditor User:ABHINAVKUMARSAHAI User:APhysicae

Update: I posted this message to these five users' talk pages. We should be able to check in a few days to see whether it was understandable, etc. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:45, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Three of those five appear to have fixed their prefs. I have sent the draft with a few tweaks (like adding a link to Help:Wikitext) to the 76 names at User:Whatamidoing (WMF)/sandbox2. This is everyone in the current report whose name alphabetizes before "B". Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 05:13, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I sent out about ten customized messages last week to people with Linter errors in their signatures. It took some time, but there are only a few dozen of those. I haven't checked to see if they have fixed their sigs yet. If you want to stick to the "no wikitext" and "no link to user page" editors, I'll try to pick off the Linter errors over time. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:53, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Linter errors are the hard ones. Thanks for taking those on. Right now, I'm just doing the "plain fancy sig" errors. One person replied saying that he thought it was fixed now, and the tool for checking individual sigs was satisfied. We can check back later to see what effect it has. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:01, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
About three weeks ago, I sent a message to 76 editors with plain-fancy-sig errors. Today, I checked the list. About 50 had either fixed the problem or haven't edited during the last 30 days. Almost 50 other editors (editors who weren't active in early August) joined the list. Today, I've contacted everyone who appeared on yesterday's cron-job update and who hadn't previously received a message about this.

Report updates (arbtitrary break)

AntiCompositeNumber, I don't know what the pattern is for occasional accounts (if you make a total of 12 edits per year, are you more likely to make one each month, or 12 in one day?), but I think that a broader timespan might be appropriate for these reports. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:46, 3 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've bumped it to 90 days. I'll see how long that takes to run, and if it's not too crazy long we can go higher if you need it. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 18:03, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That took the total count from just under 900 to 1,960, for the record. Of those, 1,618 are "plain fancy sig" errors. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:50, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
But hopefully from here, the numbers will only go down.
@AntiCompositeNumber, how much trouble would it be for you to take the list of folks I've already spammed and diff it against the list of folks who still need to be spammed? The list was short yesterday (I'd only contacted 76 before now), so I did it manually, but doing this for hundreds of names sounds like a recipe for errors. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:58, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've added a "target" value for the "format" parameter, which will use the format from User:Whatamidoing (WMF)/sandbox2. If you include a URL in the filter_page parameter, it will not include usernames linked from that page. It's not the cleanest way to implement it, but it'll work. [1] for example. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 20:13, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You are amazing. Thank you so much. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:48, 7 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
All right, I've now delivered a total of 1,746 of these messages. We should be able to see how much difference it makes fairly soon. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:06, 7 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Nice! I have delivered 49 customized messages to editors with Linter errors in their signatures. On the current report, there are 195 such errors, and some editors have multiple errors in their signatures, so I think I have hit about 1/3 to 1/2 of the error count so far. I have been doing them in groups of ten or twelve, and then I get tired and worry about making careless errors, so I take a break. I'll get them all eventually. At some point, we'll have to flip a switch and just reset these signatures, but we can probably give it a few months. Maybe we can aim for January or February, which would be about six months after the start of validation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:35, 8 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The report was just refreshed, and the error count has dropped to 1,653 total (down by 300), including 1,342 "plain fancy signature" errors (down by almost 300) and 167 Linter errors (down by 30). Since my note above, I have delivered a few dozen more customized messages. It is slow going, but I have gotten some thanks and it appears that some editors have fixed their signatures. A few have probably dropped off the report due to inactivity, but I'm guessing that our work is causing most of the decrease. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:50, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We extended the report to 90 days, so nobody's dropping off due to inactivity. We will get a few extra people added to the list due to re-activation of old accounts (people who weren't active during the previous 90-day period but who made an edit, e.g., on Monday).
Jonesey95, have you tried contacting any of the "Mismatch between link and username" editors? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:25, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The extension to 90 days happened a couple of weeks ago, so it is possible that some editors whose last edit was in early June have dropped off the list. As long as the numbers keep going down, I'm happy with it. We'll need to notify the editors who appear on refreshed list for the first time (after being inactive for 90+ days), though. As for the "Mismatch between link and username" editors, I have contacted only one or two who had Linter errors as well, as far as I can remember. All of my section headers have been of the form "User_talk:username#Custom_signature_fix_needed", so if you go to an editor's User talk page and that header leaves you at the top of the page, you should be safe to leave them a message. You can also look for that pattern in my Contributions to see the list of editors I have contacted so far. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:40, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like Anomalocaris contacted one of them about a signature problem almost three years ago.
@Jonesey95, if you could re-contact that editor and also leave a note at User talk:Hustle77, then that would take care of everyone on the "mismatch" list who has multiple errors.
I tried out a shorter, simpler message at the English Wikivoyage (see voy:User talk:Moheen#Signature problem), and two of the three have already fixed their sigs. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:35, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed Doodledoo's signature, since it is substed from a page, and I notified Hustle77. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:35, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Bad signature?

Is this a case of a bad sig? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:23, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No. It has no Linter errors, and it links to the editor's user name, so it technically meets all of the guidelines. It is confusing, though, and Jim Evans should probably use something less confusing. You can test signatures with the tool in that first link, if you are curious. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:19, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Help with signatures

Hello. I received a notice from a user on my talk page on ptwiki. The notice, which I disagree strongly disagree, said that my signature is at odds with the new rules. It turns out that my emoji cannot be characterized as an image, moreover, it does not produce any visual pollution or Christmas tree. Anyway, I did a test, using this tool, and it appears that my signature is all clear. I would very much like to see your opinion on the situation. Best regards. ✍A.WagnerC (talk) 19:22, 4 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

https://signatures.toolforge.org/check/pt.wikipedia.org/A.WagnerC says that it is likely okay, and I can't think of any reason why it would not be okay. A Unicode character is a Unicode character, no matter how picturesque is appears to humans. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much. ✍A.WagnerC (talk) 20:48, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations

The Visual Editor has gone leaps and bounds ahead since it launched. It's a wonderful project. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 7.3% of all FPs 11:31, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Adam Cuerden. It's too bad that it was released so early, but it's not bad now. There are even features that most people don't know about, like being able to drag-and-drop a CSV file into an article, and have it auto-convert to a table. Maybe give it a try again? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:49, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
With all the work you do about images, you might find the built-in image search tool particularly convenient. You can search Commons from inside the editor, from the Insert > Image menu item. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:50, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's quite useful for a lot of things, although (last I tried this kind of image, it's been a while, I must say) it wouldn't pull up en-Wiki-only images - probably to avoid Fair Use spreading, but images like File:Lawson Wood - Parliamentary Recruiting Committee - Your King & Country Need You.jpg got hidden too. I tend to leave it off a fair bit of the time for two reasons: Firstly If your main goal is a semi-bot-like replacement of File:foo.jpg with File:Foo restored and cleaned up and properly named.jpg, with the exact thumbnail size and caption of the original, it's easier to just make the small switch directly, and I can search for the filename using Cntrl-F to go right there in wikitext, but not when it's an image. This is, of course, not a Visual Editor weakness.
The second reason is I haven't internalised the keyboard shortcuts for VE, but do know the wikitext shortcut-equivalents, but that's just me having been here for, what, 15 years now? If I were a new user, I'd use VE, but VE's biggest advantage is intuitiveness, and I've already paid my training costs for wikitext long ago. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 7.3% of all FPs 13:54, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense. You can swap images in articles (while preserving the caption and other settings), but you have to scroll until you see the image.
Some of the keyboard shortcuts are the same. A few have 'secret' shortcuts, which match the wikitext code. For example, typing a pair of square brackets will open link tool. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure at some point we'll all be using it. I can't imagine anyone new wanting to learn Wikitext without a very good reason. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 7.3% of all FPs 21:02, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I decided to have a go with using it on the Ariane (Massenet) poster I restored to replace and add it. Other than the slight load time, replacing it was pretty easy in templates, but I did hit an odd issue: I went to add the image to an article. I type in - I'm pretty sure it was File:Albert Pierre-René Maignan - Jules Massenet - Ariane.jpg - and it had two suggestions: The png (File:Albert Pierre-René Maignan - Jules Massenet - Ariane.png) and the Original (File:Albert Pierre-René Maignan - Jules Massenet - Ariane - Original.jpg) - and I couldn't immediately see how to tell it, Uh, no, the one I typed in. It might've been that the JPEG was only recently uploaded at the time, though, and the others were longer-standing (It takes about 3-4 days to restore an image of that size). Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 7.3% of all FPs 16:53, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Checked, and it seems to work perfectly fine now. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 7.3% of all FPs 16:56, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the note, Adam Cuerden. I've never quite been able to decide whether the main risk factor is recent uploads, or that I've given it the whole name. (It sometimes gives me empty search results when I know the file exists. I once asked for a 'yes, add the file I told you to add, even if you can't verify that it exists right now' button, but the devs thought the disadvantages outweighed the benefits. In the meantime, I usually take off the .tla at the end of the file name, and then it has always been able to find the file I wanted.)
Theoretically, you should get the same results that you would see at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?sort=relevance&search=File%3AAlbert+Pierre-René+Maignan+-+Jules+Massenet+-+Ariane.jpg&title=Special:Search&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&advancedSearch-current=%7B%7D&ns6=1&ns12=1&ns14=1&ns100=1&ns106=1&ns0=1 (the main search page, not the box in the corner). I'm glad you got it sorted out in the end. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:41, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sort of About the Editing Enhancements NewsLetter

The Editing Newsletter, describing some new features, was copied onto my user talk page (and presumably the talk pages of many other users). It had a few 'mw"' links. My question is about clicking on those links. I can click on them, and I go to a MediaWiki page. So far, so good. But then it says I am not logged in. Why not? If I click on a link to another language Wikipedia, or to Wiktionary, I am logged in as myself. Why not with Mediawiki? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:02, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Robert McClenon, do you by any chance happen to have third-party cookies turned off? That's a problem for the single-login system. Have you tried logging in there? (Same username and password.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:01, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know. As an engineer, I only know technical stuff if I have researched technical stuff. I didn't try to log in, but assumed that I could if I tried; but I don't have to log in on other Wikipedias if I am logged in in English. Hmmm. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:37, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback to Editing news

How do you post feedback to the Editing news that are posted regularly on my talk page? I was quite annoyed by the graph that was recently posted (the y axis didn't start at zero, so it portrayed a false image of the situation to the readers' mind; graphs should always start at zero, *especially* if they are meant to illustrate a large increase or decrease which obviously was the case here. Otherwise they exaggerate the change. It's not enough to say that people should look at the numbers on the y axis; most people don't.). Jhertel (talk) 14:58, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) The file used was File:Reply Tool weekly edits- March - June, 2020.png. The y axis starts at zero, although the zero label is missing, which may have been confusing. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:16, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Jhertel, thanks for the comment. I use Special:MassMessage to deliver the newsletter here, and I get one of my teammates to deliver the newsletter from the Meta-Wiki mailing lists. (Yes, there are multiple mailing lists, for historical reasons, and about once every two years, it turns out to be convenient, because I want to send a note only to the English Wikipedia.)
Jonesey is correct that the graph does start at zero, but it's odd that Superset doesn't display the zero on the Y axis. (The image is a screenshot out of Superset.) MPopov (WMF), do you know anything about that, or even whom to ask about that? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:08, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Whatamidoing (WMF) Yep, just checked and line charts in Superset can be customized to (1) display Y axis bounds (off by default when creating a new chart) and (2) have specific min/max Y axis bounds (empty and dynamically determined by default when creating a new chart). (I do not endorse these defaults.) My suggestion would be for PPelberg (WMF) to toggle Y axis bounds on and set Y axis bound min to 0 and re-upload the screenshot with the same filtering/aggregation settings used in the original upload + those two customizations. – MPopov (WMF) (talk) 14:27, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, @MPopov (WMF). I can't find the buttons to display the Y-axis bounds, but maybe I'm on the wrong type of chart. I was looking at https://superset.wikimedia.org/superset/dashboard/152/ by ESanders (WMF). It has a line graph that starts at zero but doesn't label the zero. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:07, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome, Whatamidoing (WMF)! When looking at a dashboard you can click the three-dot "kebab" icon for any chart to bring up a small menu and then click "Explore chart" which will take you to a page where you can make modifications to it. From there you won't be able to save it back to that dashboard (unless ESanders (WMF) adds you as a co-admin of that dashboard) but you'll be able to save it for yourself or add it to your own dashboard. Hope that helps! If you would like any help with this synchronously, Product Analytics has office hours and you're welcome to book an appointment :) – MPopov (WMF) (talk) 15:06, 8 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I know how to "Explore chart", but I can't find anything about Y-axes. I've booked an appointment for later this week. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:00, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Signing up for Editing news

I'm pleased to have just discovered Editing news 2020, which you edit. Thanks for it. I did, however, find that the link at the top of Editing news 2020 #4 to the Subscription list took me to a non-existent page in En Wikipedia mainspace. I think it's because the newsletter is generated at meta.wikimedia.org where there's an initial m. in the address. I did manage to find the behind-the-scenes link at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter and have signed up. Others may have trouble working this out. Oronsay (talk) 16:30, 7 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Oronsay. I've fixed the link in Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Updates/August 2020. I hope that nobody else was struggling with that. Perhaps someday I will merge the English Wikipedia list with the global list. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:49, 7 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Test

Me. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

17:21, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Thou. User:Example (talk) 17:21, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:21, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You. User:Example (talk) 17:21, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Test test test Ad Huikeshoven, Mar(c), the custom edit summary is in the "Advanced" tab under the box. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:29, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Whatamidoing! Yeah, I've been using the feature since the 18th. I noticed the (un)collapsed state of the Advanced part isn't remembered between uses of the reply tool though. WIth kind regards — Mar(c). [talk] 13:50, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, @Mar(c). Depending upon how much other stuff they're thinking about putting in there, I might not want it to be uncollapsed. Maybe I'd prefer the ability to Tab ↹ to it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:50, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Subheading

Hello. Test (talk)

00:46, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

I need your help, please

Hello Whatamidoing (WMF), I want to continue working as an administrator on the Haitian Wikipedia. Could you help me by inciting contributors to vote?--Gilles2014 (talk) 20:13, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Gilles2014, has a discussion been started yet? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:18, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing, I recently created a new specific section to discuss and vote on the "kafe" page on the Haitian Wikipedia.--Gilles2014 (talk) 21:00, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing, at the Wikimedia level, I asked to extend my administrator function which expires today. There are no new votes. What to do?--Gilles2014 (talk) 22:06, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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