User talk:EdSaperia
Welcome!
[edit]Welcome to Wikipedia, EdSaperia! Thank you for your contributions. I am Marek69 and have been editing Wikipedia for quite some time, so if you have any questions feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. You can also check out Wikipedia:Questions or type {{helpme}}
at the bottom of this page. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
- Introduction
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- How to edit a page
- Help pages
- How to write a great article
Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes (~~~~); that will automatically produce your username and the date. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!
Marek.69 talk 15:34, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
A kitten for you!
[edit]Thank you for the lack of Pommy butt crack. :) And for being a well dressed Brit. The braces and waistcoat did an excellent job at hiding your probably attractive butt crack.
LauraHale (talk) 17:44, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Cloud seeding vandalism
[edit]Please refrain from editing articles with the "cloud-to-butt" browser extension installed. Even though the vandalism was inadvertent, it still required cleanup. Kolbasz (talk) 18:37, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
- So it turns out that my delightful coworkers installed that extension onto my computer a few months ago and I hadn't noticed until this happened... EdSaperia (talk) 19:17, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Real Life Barnstar
[edit]This may not be much compared to UK Wikimedian of the Year 2014, but you certainly deserve it:
The Real-Life Barnstar | ||
EdSaperia, you have without a doubt earned this Real Life Barnstar as director of the largest Wikimania held so far, in London 2014. The whole Wikimedia community is in your debt for making this showcase event a great success. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC) |
- Thank you so much MartinPoulter! My first ever barnstar too :) EdSaperia (talk) 15:17, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
The Signpost: 13 August 2014
[edit]- Special report: Twitter bots catalogue government edits to Wikipedia
- Traffic report: Disease, decimation and distraction
- Wikimedia in education: Global Education: WMF's Perspective
- Wikimania: Promised the moon, settled for the stars
- News and notes: Media Viewer controversy spreads to German Wikipedia
- In the media: Monkey selfie, net neutrality, and hoaxes
- Featured content: Cambridge got a lot of attention this week
Wikimania user
[edit]Ed, if you're interested, I've created fairly basic userboxes for all of the Wikimania, like this one:
This user attended Wikimania 2014 in London, United Kingdom. |
Cheers! bd2412 T 16:06, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks! Want to update it to use the 2014 logo? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimania_2014_London_Shard_Logo_Large.png EdSaperia (talk) 10:59, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
The Signpost: 20 August 2014
[edit]- Traffic report: Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero
- WikiProject report: Bats and gloves
- Op-ed: A new metric for Wikimedia
- Featured content: English Wikipedia departs for Japan
The Signpost: 27 August 2014
[edit]- In the media: Plagiarism and vandalism dominate Wikipedia news
- News and notes: Media Viewer—Wikimedia's emotional roller-coaster
- Traffic report: Viral
- Featured content: Cheats at Featured Pictures!
The Signpost: 03 September 2014
[edit]- Arbitration report: Media viewer case is suspended
- Featured content: 1882 × 5 in gold, and thruppence more
- Traffic report: Holding Pattern
- WikiProject report: Gray's Anatomy (v. 2)
The Signpost: 10 September 2014
[edit]- Traffic report: Refuge in celebrity
- Featured content: The louse and the fish's tongue
- WikiProject report: Checking that everything's all right
The Signpost: 17 September 2014
[edit]- WikiProject report: A trip up north to Scotland
- News and notes: Wikipedia's traffic statistics are off by nearly one-third
- Traffic report: Tolstoy leads a varied pack
- Featured content: Which is not like the others?
The Signpost: 24 September 2014
[edit]- Featured content: Oil paintings galore
- Recent research: 99.25% of Wikipedia birthdates accurate; focused Wikipedians live longer; merging WordNet, Wikipedia and Wiktionary
- Traffic report: Wikipedia watches the referendum in Scotland
- WikiProject report: GAN reviewers take note: competition time
- Arbitration report: Banning Policy, Gender Gap, and Waldorf education
WikiProject leaflets from Wikimania
[edit]Hi Ed! I don't know if you are the best person to ask about this but I'm interested in getting the WikiProject leaflets printed for Wikimania reprinted, as our project is doing some upcoming events that I think they would be useful at. RE: our project leaflet. Were these pamphlets originally printed using Wikimania funds and/or who has the design/printing information and is/was in command of this project? Thanks, OR drohowa (talk) 17:10, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- Hi OR drohowa! Indeed these were printed using Wikimania funds, so you'll have to find some resources to get them done. You can find the file here: https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_art_and_Feminism_Leaflet_front_copy.png EdSaperia (talk) 18:42, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
The Signpost: 01 October 2014
[edit]- From the editor: The Signpost needs your help
- Dispatches: Let's get serious about plagiarism
- WikiProject report: Animals, farms, forests, USDA? It must be WikiProject Agriculture
- Traffic report: Shanah Tovah
- Featured content: Brothers at War
VisualEditor newsletter—September and October 2014
[edit]Since the last newsletter, the Editing team has reduced technical debt, simplified some workflows for template and citation editing, made major progress on Internet Explorer support, and fixed over 125 bugs and requests. Several performance improvements were made, especially to the system around re-using references and reference lists. Weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org.
There were three issues that required urgent fixes: a deployment error that meant that many buttons didn't work correctly (bugs 69856 and 69864), a problem with edit conflicts that left the editor with nowhere to go (bug 69150), and a problem in Internet Explorer 11 that caused replaced some categories with a link to the system message, MediaWiki:Badtitletext (bug 70894) when you saved. The developers apologize for the disruption, and thank the people who reported these problems quickly.
Increased support for devices and browsers
[edit]Internet Explorer 10 and 11 users now have access to VisualEditor. This means that about 5% of Wikimedia's users will now get an "Edit" tab alongside the existing "Edit source" tab. Support for Internet Explorer 9 is planned for the future.
Tablet users browsing the site's mobile mode now have the option of using a mobile-specific form of VisualEditor. More editing tools, and availability of VisualEditor on smartphones, is planned for the future. The mobile version of VisualEditor was tweaked to show the context menu for citations instead of basic references (bug 68897). A bug that broke the editor in iOS was corrected and released early (bug 68949). For mobile tablet users, three bugs related to scrolling were fixed (bug 66697, bug 68828, bug 69630). You can use VisualEditor on the mobile version of Wikipedia from your tablet by clicking on the cog in the top-right when editing a page and choosing which editor to use.
TemplateData editor
[edit]A tool for editing TemplateData will be deployed to more Wikipedias soon. Other Wikipedias and some other projects may receive access next month. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation. When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "Edit template data" button at the top. Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.
Other changes
[edit]Several interface messages and labels were changed to be simpler, clearer, or shorter, based on feedback from translators and editors. The formatting of dialogs was changed, and more changes to the appearance will be coming soon, when VisualEditor implements the new MediaWiki theme from Design. (A preview of the theme is available on Labs for developers.) The team also made some improvements for users of the Monobook skin that improved the size of text in toolbars and fixed selections that overlapped menus.
VisualEditor-MediaWiki now supplies the mw-redirect
or mw-disambig
class on links to redirects and disambiguation pages, so that user gadgets that colour in these in types of links can be created.
Templates' fields can be marked as 'required' in TemplateData. If a parameter is marked as required, then you cannot delete that field when you add a new template or edit an existing one (bug 60358).
Language support improved by making annotations use bi-directional isolation (so they display correctly with cursoring behaviour as expected) and by fixing a bug that crashed VisualEditor when trying to edit a page with a dir
attribute but no lang
set (bug 69955).
Looking ahead
[edit]The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon, perhaps in late October.
The team is also working on support for adding rows and columns to tables, and early work for this may appear within the month. Please comment on the design at Mediawiki.org.
In the future, real-time collaborative editing may be possible in VisualEditor. Some early preparatory work for this was recently done.
Supporting your wiki
[edit]At Wikimania, several developers gave presentations about VisualEditor. A translation sprint focused on improving access to VisualEditor was supported by many people. Deryck Chan was the top translator. Special honors also go to संजीव कुमार (Sanjeev Kumar), Robby, Takot, Bachounda, Bjankuloski06 and Ата. A summary of the work achieved by the translation community has been posted here. Thank you all for your work.
VisualEditor can be made available to most non-Wikipedia projects. If your community would like to test VisualEditor, please contact product manager James Forrester or file an enhancement request in Bugzilla.
Please join the office hours on Saturday, 18 October 2014 at 18:00 UTC (daytime for the Americas; evening for Africa and Europe) and on Wednesday, 19 November at 16:00 UTC on IRC.
Give feedback on VisualEditor at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta. To help with translations, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact Elitre at Meta. Thank you!
The Signpost: 08 October 2014
[edit]- In the media: Opposition research firm blocked; Australian bushfires
- Featured content: From a wordless novel to a coat of arms via New York City
- Traffic report: Panic and denial
- Technology report: HHVM is the greatest thing since sliced bread
The Signpost: 15 October 2014
[edit]- Op-ed: Ships—sexist or sexy?
- Arbitration report: One case closed and two opened
- Featured content: Bells ring out at the Temple of the Dragon at Peace
- Technology report: Attempting to parse wikitext
- Traffic report: Now introducing ... mobile data
- WikiProject report: Signpost reaches the Midwest
The Signpost: 22 October 2014
[edit]- Featured content: Admiral on deck: a modern Ada Lovelace
- Traffic report: Death, War, Pestilence... Movies and TV
- WikiProject report: De-orphanning articles—a huge task but with a huge team of volunteers to help
The Signpost: 29 October 2014
[edit]- Featured content: Go West, young man
- In the media: Wikipedia a trusted source on Ebola; Wikipedia study labeled government waste; football biography goes viral
- Maps tagathon: Find 10,000 digitised maps this weekend
- Traffic report: Ebola, Ultron, and Creepy Articles
VisualEditor newsletter—November 2014
[edit]Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and requests, and worked on support for editing tables and for using non-Latin languages. Their weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org. Informal notes from the recent quarterly review were posted on Meta.
Recent improvements
[edit]The French Wikipedia should see better search results for links, templates, and media because the new search engine was turned on for everyone there. This change is expected at the Chinese and German Wikipedias next week, and eventually at the English Wikipedia.
The "pawn" system has been mostly replaced. Bugs in this system sometimes added a chess pawn character to wikitext. The replacement provides better support for non-Latin languages, with full support hopefully coming soon.
VisualEditor is now provided to editors who use Internet Explorer 10 or 11 on desktop and mobile devices. Internet Explorer 9 is not supported yet.
The keyboard shortcuts for items in the toolbar's menus are now shown in the menus. VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme from the User Experience / Design group. The appearance of dialogs has already changed in one Mobile version. The appearance on desktops will change soon. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" design and the new "MediaWiki" theme which will replace it.)
Several bugs were fixed for internal and external links. Improvements to MediaWiki's search solved an annoying problem: If you searched for the full name of the page or file that you wanted to link, sometimes the search program could not find the page. A link inside a template, to a local page that does not exist, will now show red, exactly as it does when reading the page. Due to a error, for about two weeks this also affected all external links inside templates. Opening an auto-numbered link node like [1] with the keyboard used to open the wrong link tool. These problems have all been fixed.
TemplateData
[edit]The tool for quickly editing TemplateData will be deployed to all Wikimedia Foundation wikis on Thursday, 6 November. This tool is already available on the biggest 40 Wikipedias, and now all wikis will have access to it. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation. When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "Edit template data" button at the top. Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.
You can use the new autovalue setting to pre-load a value into a template. This can be used to substitute dates, as in this example, or to add the most common response for that parameter. The autovalue can be easily overridden by the editor, by typing something else in the field.
In TemplateData, you may define a parameter as "required". The template dialog in VisualEditor will warn editors if they leave a "required" parameter empty, and they will not be able to delete that parameter. If the template can function without this parameter, then please mark it as "suggested" or "optional" in TemplateData instead.
Looking ahead
[edit]Basic support for inserting tables and changing the number of rows and columns in tables will appear next Wednesday. Advanced features, like dragging columns to different places, will be possible later. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon. To help editors find the most important items more quickly, some items in the toolbar menus will be hidden behind a "More" item, such as "underlining" in the styling menu. The appearance of the media search dialog will improve, to make picking between possible images easier and more visual. The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap.
The user guide will be updated soon to add information about editing tables. The translations for most languages except Spanish, French, and Dutch are significantly out of date. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language. Talk to us if you need help exporting the translated guide to your wiki.
You can influence VisualEditor's design. Tell the VisualEditor team what you want changed during the office hours via IRC. The next sessions are on Wednesday, 19 November at 16:00 UTC and on Wednesday 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC. You can also share your ideas at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
Also, user experience researcher Abbey Ripstra is looking for editors to show her how they edit Wikipedia. Please sign up for the research program if you would like to hear about opportunities.
If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Thank you!
— Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:41, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
The Signpost: 05 November 2014
[edit]- In the media: Predicting the flu, MH17 conspiracy theories
- Traffic report: Sweet dreams on Halloween
The Signpost: 12 November 2014
[edit]- In the media: Amazon Echo; EU freedom of panorama; Bluebeard's Castle
- Traffic report: Holidays, anyone?
- Featured content: Wikipedia goes to church in Lithuania
- WikiProject report: Talking hospitals
The Signpost: 26 November 2014
[edit]- Featured content: Orbital Science: Now you're thinking with explosions
- WikiProject report: Back with the military historians
- Traffic report: Big in Japan
The Signpost: 03 December 2014
[edit]- In the media: Embroidery and cheese
- Featured content: ABCD: Any Body Can Dance!
- Traffic report: Turkey and a movie
- WikiProject report: Today on the island
The Signpost: 10 December 2014
[edit]- Op-ed: It's GLAM up North!
- Traffic report: Dead Black Men and Science Fiction
- Featured content: Honour him, love and obey? Good idea with military leaders.
The Signpost: 17 December 2014
[edit]- Arbitration report: Arbitration Committee election results
- Featured content: Tripping hither, tripping thither, Nobody knows why or whither; We must dance and we must sing, Round about our fairy ring!
- Traffic report: A December Lull
VisualEditor newsletter—December 2014
[edit]Did you know?
Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on table editing and performance. Their weekly status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.
VisualEditor was deployed to several hundred remaining wikis as an opt-in beta feature at the end of November, except for most Wiktionaries (which depend heavily upon templates) and all Wikisources (which await integration with ProofreadPage).
Recent improvements
[edit]Basic support for editing tables is available. You can insert new tables, add and remove rows and columns, set or remove a caption for a table, and merge cells together. To change the contents of a cell, double-click inside it. More features will be added in the coming months. In addition, VisualEditor now ignores broken, invalid rowspan
and colspan
elements, instead of trying to repair them.
You can now use find and replace in VisualEditor, reachable through the tool menu or by pressing ⌃ Ctrl+F or ⌘ Cmd+F.
You can now create and edit simple <blockquote>
paragraphs for quoting and indenting content. This changes a "Paragraph" into a "Block quote".
Some new keyboard sequences can be used to format content. At the start of the line, typing "* " will make the line a bullet list; "1. " or "# " will make it a numbered list; "==" will make it a section heading; ": " will make it a blockquote. If you didn't mean to use these tools, you can press undo to undo the formatting change. There are also two other keyboard sequences: "[[" for opening the link tool, and "{{" for opening the template tool, to help experienced editors. The existing standard keyboard shortcuts, like ⌃ Ctrl+K to open the link editor, still work.
If you add a category that has been redirected, then VisualEditor now adds its target. Categories without description pages show up as red.
You can again create and edit galleries as wikitext code.
Looking ahead
[edit]VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme designed by the User Experience group. The new theme will be visible for desktop systems at MediaWiki.org in late December and at other sites early January. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" theme and the new "MediaWiki" one which will replace it.)
The Editing team plans to add auto-fill features for citations in January. Planned changes to the media search dialog will make choosing between possible images easier.
Help
[edit]- Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
- Translations of the user guide for most languages are oudated. Ukrainian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Dutch translators are nearly current. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language.
- Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Wednesday, 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC.
- File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.
- The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta.
Thank you! WhatamIdoing (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
The Signpost: 24 December 2014
[edit]- From the editor: Looking for new editors-in-chief
- In the media: Wales on GamerGate
- Featured content: Still quoting Iolanthe, apparently.
- WikiProject report: Microsoft does The Signpost
- Traffic report: North Korea is not pleased
The Signpost: 31 December 2014
[edit]- News and notes: The next big step for Wikidata—forming a hub for researchers
- In the media: Study tour controversy; class tackles the gender gap
- Traffic report: Surfin' the Yuletide
- Featured content: A bit fruity
The Signpost: 07 January 2015
[edit]- In the media: ISIL propaganda video; AirAsia complaints
- Featured content: Kock up
- Traffic report: Auld Lang Syne
The Signpost: 14 January 2015
[edit]- WikiProject report: Articles for creation: the inside story
- News and notes: Erasmus Prize recognizes the global Wikipedia community
- Featured content: Citations are needed
- Traffic report: Wikipédia sommes Charlie
The Signpost: 21 January 2015
[edit]- From the editor: Introducing your new editors-in-chief
- Anniversary: A decade of the Signpost
- News and notes: Annual report released; Wikimania; steward elections
- In the media: Johann Hari; bandishes and delicate flowers
- Featured content: Yachts, marmots, boat races, and a rocket engineer who attempted to birth a goddess
- Arbitration report: As one door closes, a (Gamer)Gate opens
The Signpost: 28 January 2015
[edit]- From the editor: An editorial board that includes you
- In the media: A murderous week for Wikipedia
- Traffic report: A sea of faces
VisualEditor News 2015—#1
[edit]Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's appearance, the coming Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.
The Wikimedia Foundation has named its top priorities for this quarter (January to March). The first priority is making VisualEditor ready for deployment by default to all new users and logged-out users at the remaining large Wikipedias. You can help identify these requirements. There will be weekly triage meetings which will be open to volunteers beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Tell Vice President of Engineering Damon Sicore, Product Manager James Forrester and other team members which bugs and features are most important to you. The decisions made at these meetings will determine what work is necessary for this quarter's goal of making VisualEditor ready for deployment to new users. The presence of volunteers who enjoy contributing MediaWiki code is particularly appreciated. Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins.
Due to some breaking changes in MobileFrontend and VisualEditor, VisualEditor was not working correctly on the mobile site for a couple of days in early January. The teams apologize for the problem.
Recent improvements
[edit]The new design for VisualEditor aligns with MediaWiki's Front-End Standards as led by the Design team. Several new versions of the OOjs UI library have also been released, and these also affect the appearance of VisualEditor and other MediaWiki software extensions. Most changes were minor, like changing the text size and the amount of white space in some windows. Buttons are consistently color-coded to indicate whether the action:
- starts a new task, like opening the ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-savedialog⧽ dialog: blue ,
- takes a constructive action, like inserting a citation: green ,
- might remove or lose your work, like removing a link: red , or
- is neutral, like opening a link in a new browser window: gray.
The TemplateData editor has been completely re-written to use a different design (T67815) based on the same OOjs UI system as VisualEditor (T73746). This change fixed a couple of existing bugs (T73077 and T73078) and improved usability.
Search and replace in long documents is now faster. It does not highlight every occurrence if there are more than 100 on-screen at once (T78234).
Editors at the Hebrew and Russian Wikipedias requested the ability to use VisualEditor in the "Article Incubator" or drafts namespace (T86688, T87027). If your community would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace on your wiki, then you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.
Looking ahead
[edit]The Editing team will soon add auto-fill features for citations. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to contribute to the Citoid service's definitions for each website, to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections.
We will need editors to help test the new design of the special character inserter, especially if you speak Welsh, Breton, or another language that uses diacritics or special characters extensively. The new version should be available for testing next week. Please contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF) if you would like to be notified when the new version is available. After the special character tool is completed, VisualEditor will be deployed to all users at Phase 5 Wikipedias. This will affect about 50 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh. The date for this change has not been determined.
Let's work together
[edit]- Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
- Please help complete translations of the user guide for users who speak your language.
- Join the weekly bug triage meetings beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins. Contact James F. for more information.
- Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 19:00 UTC.
Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Translations are available through Meta. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 04 February 2015
[edit]- Op-ed: Is Wikipedia for sale?
- In the media: Gamergate and Muhammad controversies continue
- Traffic report: The American Heartland
- Featured content: It's raining men!
- Arbitration report: Slamming shut the GamerGate
- WikiProject report: Dicing with death – on Wikipedia?
- Technology report: Security issue fixed; VisualEditor changes
- Gallery: Langston Hughes
The Signpost: 11 February 2015
[edit]- From the editors: We want to know what you think!
- In the media: Is Wikipedia eating itself?
- Featured content: A grizzly bear, Operation Mascot, Freedom Planet & Liberty Island, cosmic dust clouds, a cricket five-wicket list, more fine art, & a terrible, terrible opera...
- Traffic report: Bowled over
- WikiProject report: Brand new WikiProjects profiled
- Gallery: Feel the love
The Signpost: 18 February 2015
[edit]- In the media: Students' use and perception of Wikipedia
- Special report: Revision scoring as a service
- Gallery: Darwin Day
- Traffic report: February is for lovers
- Featured content: A load of bull-sized breakfast behind the restaurant, Koi feeding, a moray eel, Spaghetti Nebula and other fishy, fishy fish
- Arbitration report: We've built the nuclear reactor; now what colour should we paint the bikeshed?
The Signpost: 25 February 2015
[edit]- News and notes: Questions raised over WMF partnership with research firm
- In the media: WikiGnomes and Bigfoot
- Gallery: Far from home
- Traffic report: Fifty Shades of... self-denial?
- Recent research: Gender bias, SOPA blackout, and a student assignment that backfired
- WikiProject report: Be prepared... Scouts in the spotlight
The Signpost: 25 February 2015
[edit]- News and notes: Questions raised over WMF partnership with research firm
- In the media: WikiGnomes and Bigfoot
- Gallery: Far from home
- Traffic report: Fifty Shades of... self-denial?
- Recent research: Gender bias, SOPA blackout, and a student assignment that backfired
- WikiProject report: Be prepared... Scouts in the spotlight
The Signpost: 04 March 2015
[edit]- From the editor: A sign of the times: the Signpost revamps its internal structure to make contributing easier
- Traffic report: Attack of the movies
- Arbitration report: Bradspeaks—impact, regrets, and advice; current cases hinge on sex, religion, and ... infoboxes
- Interview: Meet a paid editor
- Featured content: Ploughing fields and trading horses with Rosa Bonheur
- Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
The Signpost: 11 March 2015
[edit]- Special report: An advance look at the WMF's fundraising survey
- In the media: Gamergate; a Wiki hoax; Kanye West
- Traffic report: Wikipedia: handing knowledge to the world, one prank at a time
- Featured content: Here they come, the couple plighted –
- Op-ed: Why the Core Contest matters
The Signpost: 18 March 2015
[edit]- From the editor: A salute to Pine
- Featured content: A woman who loved kings
- Traffic report: It's not cricket
.
The Signpost – Volume 11, Issue 12 – 25 March 2015
[edit]- News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation adopts open-access research policy
- Featured content: A carnival of animals, a river of dung, a wasteland of uncles, and some people with attitude
- Special report: Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2014
- Traffic report: Oddly familiar
- Recent research: Most important people; respiratory reliability; academic attitudes
The Signpost, 1 April 2015
[edit]- In the media: Wiki-PR duo bulldoze a piñata store; Wifione arbitration case; French parliamentary plagiarism
- Featured content: Stop Press. Marie Celeste Mystery Solved. Crew Found Hiding In Wardrobe.
- Traffic report: All over the place
- Special report: Pictures of the Year 2015
The Signpost: 01 April 2015
[edit]- In the media: Wiki-PR duo bulldoze a piñata store; Wifione arbitration case; French parliamentary plagiarism
- Featured content: Stop Press. Marie Celeste Mystery Solved. Crew Found Hiding In Wardrobe.
- Traffic report: All over the place
- Special report: Pictures of the Year 2015
VisualEditor News #2—2015
[edit]Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's performance, the Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.
The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 11:00 (noon) PDT (18:00 UTC). You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.
Recent improvements
[edit]VisualEditor is now substantially faster. In many cases, opening the page in VisualEditor is now faster than opening it in the wikitext editor. The new system has improved the code speed by 37% and network speed by almost 40%.
The Editing team is slowly adding auto-fill features for citations. This is currently available only at the French, Italian, and English Wikipedias. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections by contributing to the Citoid service's definitions for each website.
Citoid requires good TemplateData for your citation templates. If you would like to request this feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.
The special character inserter has been improved, based upon feedback from active users. After this, VisualEditor was made available to all users of Wikipedias on the Phase 5 list on 30 March. This affected 53 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh.
Work continues to support languages with complex requirements, such as Korean and Japanese. These languages use input method editors ("IMEs”). Recent improvements to cursoring, backspace, and delete behavior will simplify typing in VisualEditor for these users.
The design for the image selection process is now using a "masonry fit" model. Images in the search results are displayed at the same height but at variable widths, similar to bricks of different sizes in a masonry wall, or the "packed" mode in image galleries. This style helps you find the right image by making it easier to see more details in images.
You can now drag and drop categories to re-arrange their order of appearance on the page.
The pop-up window that appears when you click on a reference, image, link, or other element, is called the "context menu". It now displays additional useful information, such as the destination of the link or the image's filename. The team has also added an explicit "Edit" button in the context menu, which helps new editors open the tool to change the item.
Invisible templates are marked by a puzzle piece icon so they can be interacted with. Users also will be able to see and edit HTML anchors now in section headings.
Users of the TemplateData GUI editor can now set a string as an optional text for the 'deprecated' property in addition to boolean value, which lets you tell users of the template what they should do instead (T90734).
Looking ahead
[edit]The special character inserter in VisualEditor will soon use the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki will also have the option of creating a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Instructions for customizing the list will be posted at mediawiki.org.
The team is discussing a test of VisualEditor with new users, to see whether they have met their goals of making VisualEditor suitable for those editors. The timing is unknown, but might be relatively soon.
Let's work together
[edit]- Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
- Can you translate from English into any other language? Please check this list to see whether more interface translations are needed for your language. Contact us to get an account if you want to help!
- The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
- File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.
Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!
-Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 17:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 08 April 2015
[edit]- Traffic report: Resurrection week
- Featured content: Partisan arrangements, dodgy dollars, a mysterious union of strings, and a hole that became a monument
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Christianity
- Arbitration report: New Functionary appointments
- Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
The Signpost: 08 April 2015
[edit]- Traffic report: Resurrection week
- Featured content: Partisan arrangements, dodgy dollars, a mysterious union of strings, and a hole that became a monument
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Christianity
- Arbitration report: New Functionary appointments
- Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
The Signpost: 15 April 2015
[edit]- Traffic report: Furious domination
The Signpost: 22 April 2015
[edit]- In the media: UK political editing; hoaxes; net neutrality
- Featured content: Vanguard on guard
- Traffic report: A harvest of couch potatoes
- Gallery: The bitter end
The Signpost: 29 April 2015
[edit]- Featured content: Another day, another dollar
- Traffic report: Bruce, Nessie, and genocide
- Recent research: Military history, cricket, and Australia targeted in Wikipedia articles' popularity vs. quality; how copyright damages economy
- Technology report: VisualEditor and MediaWiki updates
The Signpost: 06 May 2015
[edit]- News and notes: "Inspire" grant-making campaign concludes, grantees announced
- Featured content: The amorous android and the horsebreeder; WikiCup round two concludes
- Special report: FDC candidates respond to key issues
- Traffic report: The grim ship reality
The Signpost: 13 May 2015
[edit]- Foundation elections: Board candidates share their views with the Signpost
- Traffic report: Round Two
- In the media: Grant Shapps story continues
- Featured content: Four first-time featured article writers lead the way
The Signpost: 20 May 2015
[edit]- From the editor: Your voice is needed: strategic voting in the WMF election
- Traffic report: Inner Core
- News and notes: A dark side of comedy: the Wikipedia volunteers cleaning up behind John Oliver's fowl jokes
- Featured content: Puppets, fungi, and waterfalls
- In the media: Jimmy Wales accepts Dan David Prize
- WikiProject report: Cell-ebrating Molecular Biology
- Arbitration report: Editor conduct the subject of multiple cases
VisualEditor News #3—2015
[edit]Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has created new interfaces for the link and citation tools, as well as fixing many bugs and changing some elements of the design. Some of these bugs affected users of VisualEditor on mobile devices. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.
A test of VisualEditor's effect on new editors at the English Wikipedia has just completed the first phase. During this test, half of newly registered editors had VisualEditor automatically enabled, and half did not. The main goal of the study is to learn which group was more likely to save an edit and to make productive, unreverted edits. Initial results will be posted at Meta later this month.
Recent improvements
[edit]Auto-fill features for citations are available at a few Wikipedias through the citoid service. Citoid takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. If Citoid is enabled on your wiki, then the design of the citation workflow changed during May. All citations are now created inside a single tool. Inside that tool, choose the tab you want (⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-auto⧽, ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-manual⧽, or ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-reuse⧽). The cite button is now labeled with the word "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽" rather than a book icon, and the autofill citation dialog now has a more meaningful label, "⧼Citoid-citeFromIDDialog-lookup-button⧽", for the submit button.
The link tool has been redesigned based on feedback from Wikipedia editors and user testing. It now has two separate sections: one for links to articles and one for external links. When you select a link, its pop-up context menu shows the name of the linked page, a thumbnail image from the linked page, Wikidata's description, and/or appropriate icons for disambiguation pages, redirect pages and empty pages. Search results have been reduced to the first five pages. Several bugs were fixed, including a dark highlight that appeared over the first match in the link inspector (T98085).
The special character inserter in VisualEditor now uses the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki can also create a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Please read the instructions for customizing the list at mediawiki.org. Also, there is now a tooltip to describing each character in the special character inserter (T70425).
Several improvements have been made to templates. When you search for a template to insert, the list of results now contains descriptions of the templates. The parameter list inside the template dialog now remains open after inserting a parameter from the list, so that users don’t need to click on "⧼visualeditor-dialog-transclusion-add-param⧽" each time they want to add another parameter (T95696). The team added a new property for TemplateData, "Example", for template parameters. This optional, translatable property will show up when there is text describing how to use that parameter (T53049).
The design of the main toolbar and several other elements have changed slightly, to be consistent with the MediaWiki theme. In the Vector skin, individual items in the menu are separated visually by pale gray bars. Buttons and menus on the toolbar can now contain both an icon and a text label, rather than just one or the other. This new design feature is being used for the cite button on wikis where the Citoid service is enabled.
The team has released a long-desired improvement to the handling of non-existent images. If a non-existent image is linked in an article, then it is now visible in VisualEditor and can be selected, edited, replaced, or removed.
Let's work together
[edit]- Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
- The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug.
- If your Wikivoyage, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, or other community wants to have VisualEditor made available by default to contributors, then please contact James Forrester.
- If you would like to request the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.
Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 03 June 2015
[edit]- News and notes: Three new community-elected trustees announced, incumbents out
- Discussion report: The deprecation of Persondata; RfA – A broken process; Complaints from users on Swedish Wikipedia
- Featured content: It's not over till the fat man sings
- Technology report: Things are getting SPDYier
- Special report: Towards "Health Information for All": Medical content on Wikipedia received 6.5 billion page views in 2013
- Traffic report: A rather ordinary week
The Signpost: 10 June 2015
[edit]- News and notes: Chapter financial trends analyzed, news in brief
- Traffic report: Two households, both alike in dignity
- Featured content: Just the bear facts, ma'am
- Technology report: Wikimedia sites are going HTTPS only
The Signpost: 17 June 2015
[edit]- Arbitration report: An election has consequences
- News and notes: Labs outage kills tools, self; news in brief
- Featured content: Great Dane hits 150
- Discussion report: A quick way of becoming an admin
- WikiProject report: Western Australia speaks – we are back
The Signpost: 24 June 2015
[edit]- From the editor: The Signpost tagging initiative
- Featured content: One eye when begun, two when it's done
- Technology report: 2015 MediaWiki architecture focus and Multimedia roadmap announced
- News and notes: Board of Trustees propose bylaw amendments
- Arbitration report: Politics by other means: The American politics 2 arbitration
The Signpost: 01 July 2015
[edit]- News and notes: Training the Trainers; VP of Engineering leaves WMF
- In the media: EU freedom of panorama; Nehru outrage; BBC apology
- WikiProject report: Able to make a stand
- Featured content: Viva V.E.R.D.I.
- Traffic report: We're Baaaaack
- Technology report: Technical updates and improvements
The Signpost: 08 July 2015
[edit]- News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation annual plan released, news in brief
- In the media: Wikimania warning; Wikipedia "mystery" easily solved
- Traffic report: The Empire lobs back
- Featured content: Pyrénées, Playmates, parliament and a prison...
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 15 July 2015
[edit]- Op-ed: On paid editing and advocacy: when the Bright Line fails to shine, and what we can do about it
- Traffic report: Belles of the ball
- WikiProject report: What happens when a country is no longer a country?
- News and notes: The Wikimedia Conference and Wikimania
- Featured content: When angels and daemons interrupt the vicious and intemperate
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 22 July 2015
[edit]- From the editor: Change the world
- News and notes: Wikimanía 2016; Lightbreather ArbCom case
- Wikimanía report: Wikimanía 2015 report, part 1, the plenaries
- Traffic report: The Nerds, They Are A-Changin'
- WikiProject report: Some more politics
- Featured content: The sleep of reason produces monsters
- Gallery: "One small step..."
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 29 July 2015
[edit]- News and notes: BARC de-adminship proposal; Wikimania recordings debate
- Recent research: Wikipedia and collective intelligence; how Wikipedia is tweeted
- In the media: Is Wikipedia a battleground in the culture wars?
- Featured content: Even mammoths get the Blues
- Traffic report: Namaste again, Reddit
The Signpost: 05 August 2015
[edit]- Op-ed: Je ne suis pas Google
- News and notes: VisualEditor, endowment, science, and news in brief
- WikiProject report: Meet the boilerplate makers
- Traffic report: Mrityorma amritam gamaya...
- Featured content: Maya, Michigan, Medici, Médée, and Moul n'ga
VisualEditor News #4—2015
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Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team have been working on mobile phone support. They have fixed many bugs and improved language support. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving language support and functionality on mobile devices.
Wikimania
[edit]The team attended Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City. There they participated in the Hackathon and met with individuals and groups of users. They also made several presentations about VisualEditor and the future of editing.
Following Wikimania, we announced winners for the VisualEditor 2015 Translathon. Our thanks and congratulations to users Halan-tul, Renessaince, जनक राज भट्ट (Janak Bhatta), Vahe Gharakhanyan, Warrakkk, and Eduardogobi.
For interface messages (translated at translatewiki.net), we saw the initiative affecting 42 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 56.5% before the translathon, and 78.2% after (+21.7%). In particular, Sakha improved from 12.2% to 94.2%; Brazilian Portuguese went from 50.6% to 100%; Taraškievica went from 44.9% to 85.3%; Doteli went from 1.3% to 41.2%. Also, while 1.7% of the messages were outdated across all languages before the translathon, the percentage dropped to 0.8% afterwards (-0.9%).
For documentation messages (on mediawiki.org), we saw the initiative affecting 24 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 26.6% before translathon, and 46.9% after (+20.3%). There were particularly notable achievements for three languages. Armenian improved from 1% to 99%; Swedish, from 21% to 99%, and Brazilian Portuguese, from 34% to 83%. Outdated translations across all languages were reduced from 8.4% before translathon to 4.8% afterwards (-3.6%).
We published some graphs showing the effect of the event on the Translathon page. Thank you to the translators for participating and the translatewiki.net staff for facilitating this initiative.
Recent improvements
[edit]Auto-fill features for citations can be enabled on each Wikipedia. The tool uses the citoid service to convert a URL or DOI into a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. You can see an animated GIF of the quick, simple process at mediawiki.org. So far, about a dozen Wikipedias have enabled the auto-citation tool. To enable it for your wiki, follow the instructions at mediawiki.org.
Your wiki can customize the first section of the special character inserter in VisualEditor. Please follow the instructions at mediawiki.org to put the characters you want at the top.
In other changes, if you need to fill in a CAPTCHA and get it wrong, then you can click to get a new one to complete. VisualEditor can now display and edit Vega-based graphs. If you use the Monobook skin, VisualEditor's appearance is now more consistent with other software.
Future changes
[edit]The team will be changing the appearance of selected links inside VisualEditor. The purpose is to make it easy to see whether your cursor is inside or outside the link. When you select a link, the link label (the words shown on the page) will be enclosed in a faint box. If you place your cursor inside the box, then your changes to the link label will be part of the link. If you place your cursor outside the box, then it will not. This will make it easy to know when new characters will be added to the link and when they will not.
On the English Wikipedia, 10% of newly created accounts are now offered both the visual and the wikitext editors. A recent controlled trial showed no significant difference in survival or productivity for new users in the short term. New users with access to VisualEditor were very slightly less likely to produce results that needed reverting. You can learn more about this by watching a video of the July 2015 Wikimedia Research Showcase. The proportion of new accounts with access to both editing environments will be gradually increased over time. Eventually all new users have the choice between the two editing environments.
Let's work together
[edit]- Share your ideas and ask questions at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback.
- Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help.
- If your wiki would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace, you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.
- Please file requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the styling menu in Phabricator.
- The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
- The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, usually on Tuesdays at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q1 blocker, though. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the main VisualEditor project with the bug.
If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact Elitre directly, so that she can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:01, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 12 August 2015
[edit]- News and notes: Superprotect, one year later; a contentious RfA
- In the media: Paid editing; traffic drop; Nicki Minaj
- Wikimanía report: Wikimanía 2015, part 2, a community event
- Traffic report: Fighting from top to bottom
- Featured content: Fused lizards, giant mice, and Scottish demons
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
- Blog: The Hunt for Tirpitz
The Signpost: 19 August 2015
[edit]- Travelogue: Seeing is believing
- Traffic report: Straight Outta Connecticut
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 26 August 2015
[edit]- In focus: An increase in active Wikipedia editors
- In the media: Russia temporarily blocks Wikipedia
- News and notes: Re-imagining grants
- Featured content: Out to stud, please call later
- Arbitration report: Reinforcing Arbitration
- Recent research: OpenSym 2015 report
The Signpost: 02 September 2015
[edit]- Special report: Massive paid editing network unearthed on the English Wikipedia
- News and notes: Flow placed on ice
- Discussion report: WMF's sudden reversal on Wiki Loves Monuments
- Featured content: Brawny
- In the media: Orangemoody sockpuppet case sparks widespread coverage
- Traffic report: You didn't miss much
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 09 September 2015
[edit]- Gallery: Being Welsh
- Featured content: Killed by flying debris
- News and notes: The Swedish Wikipedia's controversial two-millionth article
- Traffic report: Mass media production traffic
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 16 September 2015
[edit]- Editorial: No access is no answer to closed access
- News and notes: Byrd and notifications leave, but page views stay; was a terror suspect editing Wikipedia?
- In the media: Is there life on Mars?
- Featured content: Why did the emu cross the road?
- Traffic report: Another week
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 23 September 2015
[edit]- In the media: PETA makes "monkey selfie" a three-way copyright battle; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Featured content: Inside Duke Humfrey's Library
- WikiProject report: Dancing to the beat of a... wikiproject?
- Traffic report: ¡Viva la Revolución! Kinda.
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 30 September 2015
[edit]- Recent research: Wiktionary special; newbies, conflict and tolerance; Is Wikipedia's search function inferior?
- Tech news: Tech news in brief
VisualEditor update
[edit]- This note is only delivered to English Wikipedia subscribers of the visual editor's newsletter.
The location of the visual editor's preference has been changed from the "Beta" tab to the "Editing" section of your preferences on this wiki. The setting now says Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta. This aligns en.wiki with almost all the other WMF wikis; it doesn’t mean the visual editor is complete, or that it is no longer “in beta phase” though.
This action has not changed anything else for editors: it still honours editors’ previous choices about having it on or off; logged-out users continue to only have access to wikitext; the “Edit” tab is still after the “Edit source” one. You can learn more at the visual editor’s talk page.
We don’t expect this to cause any glitches, but in case your account no longer has the settings that you want, please accept our apologies and correct it in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences. Thank you for your attention, Elitre (WMF) -16:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 07 October 2015
[edit]- Op-ed: Walled gardens of corruption
- Traffic report: Reality is for losers
- Featured content: This Week's Featured Content
- Arbitration report: Warning: Contains GMOs
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 14 October 2015
[edit]- WikiConference report: US gathering sees speeches from Andrew Lih, AfroCrowd, and the Archivist of the United States
- News and notes: 2015–2016 Q1 fundraising update sparks mailing list debate
- Traffic report: Screens, Sport, Reddit, and Death
- Featured content: A fistful of dollars
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 21 October 2015
[edit]- Editorial: Women and Wikipedia: the world is watching
- In the media: "Wikipedia's hostility to women"
- Special report: One year of GamerGate, or how I learned to stop worrying and love bare rule-level consensus
- Featured content: A more balanced week
- Arbitration report: Four ArbCom cases ongoing
- Traffic report: Hiding under the covers of the Internet
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
VisualEditor News #5—2015
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Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs, added new features, and made some small design changes. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for languages like Japanese and Arabic, making it easier to edit on mobile devices, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.
Recent improvements
[edit]Educational features: The first time you use the visual editor, it now draws your attention to the Link and ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽ tools. When you click on the tools, it explains why you should use them. (T108620) Alongside this, the welcome message for new users has been simplified to make editing more welcoming. (T112354) More in-software educational features are planned.
Links: It is now easier to understand when you are adding text to a link and when you are typing plain text next to it. (T74108, T91285) The editor now fully supports ISBN, PMID or RFC numbers. (T109498, T110347, T63558) These "magic links" use a custom link editing tool.
Uploads: Registered editors can now upload images and other media to Commons while editing. Click the new tab in the "Insert Images and media" tool. You will be guided through the process without having to leave your edit. At the end, the image will be inserted. This tool is limited to one file at a time, owned by the user, and licensed under Commons's standard license. For more complex situations, the tool links to more advanced upload tools. You can also drag the image into the editor. This will be available in the wikitext editor later.
Mobile: Previously, the visual editor was available on the mobile Wikipedia site only on tablets. Now, editors can use the visual editor on any size of device. (T85630) Edit conflicts were previously broken on the mobile website. Edit conflicts can now be resolved in both wikitext and visual editors. (T111894) Sometimes templates and similar items could not be deleted on the mobile website. Selecting them caused the on-screen keyboard to hide with some browsers. Now there is a new "Delete" button, so that these things can be removed if the keyboard hides. (T62110) You can also edit table cells in mobile now.
Rich editing tools: You can now add and edit sheet music in the visual editor. (T112925) There are separate tabs for advanced options, such as MIDI and Ogg audio files. (T114227 and T113354) When editing formulæ and other blocks, errors are shown as you edit. It is also possible to edit some types of graphs; adding new ones, and support for new types, will be coming.
On the English Wikipedia, the visual editor is now automatically available to anyone who creates an account. The preference switch was moved to the normal location, under Special:Preferences.
Future changes
[edit]You will soon be able to switch from the wikitext to the visual editor after you start editing. (T49779) Previously, you could only switch from the visual editor to the wikitext editor. Bi-directional switching will make possible a single edit tab. (T102398) This project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab, similar to the system already used on the mobile website. The "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time.
Let's work together
[edit]- Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. This feedback page uses Flow for discussions.
- Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help, and report it on Phabricator (Korean - Japanese) or on Wikipedia (Korean - Japanese).
- Local admins can set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki. If you need help, then please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.
- The weekly task triage meetings are open to volunteers. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration, though. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the main VisualEditor project with the bug.
If you can't read this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!
— Whatamidoing (WMF) 04:16, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 28 October 2015
[edit]- From the editor: The Signpost's reorganization plan—we need your help
- News and notes: English Wikipedia reaches five million articles
- In the media: The world's Wikipedia gaps; Google and Wikipedia accused of tying Ben Carson to NAMBLA
- Arbitration report: A second attempt at Arbitration enforcement
- Traffic report: Canada, the most popular nation on Earth
- Recent research: Student attitudes towards Wikipedia; Jesus, Napoleon and Obama top "Wikipedia social network"; featured article editing patterns in 12 languages
- Featured content: Birds, turtles, and other things
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
- Community letter: Five million articles
The Signpost: 04 November 2015
[edit]- News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation finances; Superprotect is gone
- In the media: Ahmadiyya Jabrayilov: propaganda myth or history?
- Traffic report: Death, the Dead, and Spectres are abroad
- Featured content: Christianity, music, and cricket
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 11 November 2015
[edit]- Arbitration report: Elections, redirections, and a resignation from the Committee
- Discussion report: Compromise of two administrator accounts prompts security review
- Featured content: Texas, film, and cycling
- In the media: Sanger on Wikipedia; Silver on Vox; lawyers on monkeys
- Traffic report: Doodles of popularity
- Gallery: Paris
The Signpost: 18 November 2015
[edit]- Special report: ArbCom election—candidates’ opinions analysed
- In the media: Icelandic milestone; apolitical editing
- Discussion report: BASC disbanded; other developments in the discussion world
- Arbitration report: Ban Appeals Subcommittee goes up in smoke; 21 candidates running
- Featured content: Fantasia on a Theme by Jimbo Wales
- Traffic report: Darkness and light
The Signpost: 25 November 2015
[edit]- News and notes: Fundraising update; FDC recommendations
- Featured content: Caves and stuff
- Traffic report: J'en ai ras le bol
- Arbitration report: Third Palestine-Israel case closes; Voting begins
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 02 December 2015
[edit]- Op-ed: Whither Wikidata?
- Traffic report: Jonesing for episodes
- Featured content: This Week's Featured Content
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 09 December 2015
[edit]- News and notes: ArbCom election results announced
- Gallery: Wiki Loves Monuments 2015 winners
- Traffic report: So do you laugh, or does it cry?
- Featured content: Sports, ships, arts... and some other things
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 16 December 2015
[edit]- In the media: Wales in China; #Edit2015
- Arbitration report: GMO case decided
- Featured content: An unusually slow week
- WikiProject report: Women in Red—using teamwork and partnerships to elevate online and offline collaborations
- Traffic report: A feast of Spam
VisualEditor News #6—2015
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Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs and expanded the mathematics formula tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for languages such as Japanese and Arabic, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.
Recent improvements
[edit]You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing.
The LaTeX mathematics formula editor has been significantly expanded. (T118616) You can see the formula as you change the LaTeX code. You can click buttons to insert the correct LaTeX code for many symbols.
Future changes
[edit]The single edit tab project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab, like the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as a cookie for logged-out users and as an account preference for logged-in editors. Logged-in editors will be able to set a default editor in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences in the drop-down menu about "Editing mode:".
The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the following Wikipedias in early 2016: Amharic, Buginese, Min Dong, Cree, Manx, Hakka, Armenian, Georgian, Pontic, Serbo-Croatian, Tigrinya, Mingrelian, Zhuang, and Min Nan. (T116523) Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. The developers would like to know how well it works. Please tell them what kind of computer, web browser, and keyboard you are using.
In 2016, the feedback pages for the visual editor on many Wikipedias will be redirected to mediawiki.org. (T92661)
Testing opportunities
[edit]- Please try the new system for the single edit tab on test2.wikipedia.org. You can edit while logged out to see how it works for logged-out editors, or you can create a separate account to be able to set your account's preferences. Please share your thoughts about the single edit tab system at the feedback topic on mediawiki.org or sign up for formal user research (type "single edit tab" in the question about other areas you're interested in). The new system has not been finalized, and your feedback can affect the outcome. The team particularly wants your thoughts about the options in Special:Preferences. The current choices in Special:Preferences are:
- Remember my last editor,
- Always give me the visual editor if possible,
- Always give me the source editor, and
- Show me both editor tabs. (This is the current state for people using the visual editor. None of these options will be visible if you have disabled the visual editor in your preferences at that wiki.)
- Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help, and report it on Phabricator (Korean - Japanese) or on Wikipedia (Korean - Japanese).
If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!
Whatamidoing (WMF), 00:54, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 30 December 2015
[edit]- News and notes: WMF Board dismisses community-elected trustee
- Arbitration report: Second Arbitration Enforcement case concludes as another case is suspended
- Featured content: The post-Christmas edition
- Traffic report: The Force we expected
- Year in review: The top ten Wikipedia stories of 2015
- In the media: Wikipedia plagued by a "Basket of Deception"
- Gallery: It's that time of year again
The Signpost: 06 January 2016
[edit]- News and notes: The WMF's age of discontent
- In the media: Impenetrable science; Jimmy Wales back in the UAE
- Arbitration report: Catflap08 and Hijiri88 case been decided
- Featured content: Featured menagerie
- WikiProject report: Try-ing to become informed - WikiProject Rugby League
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 13 January 2016
[edit]- Community view: Battle for the soul of the WMF
- Editorial: We need a culture of verification
- In focus: The Crisis at New Montgomery Street
- Op-ed: Transparency
- Traffic report: Pattern recognition: Third annual Traffic Report
- Special report: Wikipedia community celebrates Public Domain Day 2016
- News and notes: Community objections to new Board trustee
- Featured content: This Week's Featured Content
- Arbitration report: Interview: outgoing and incumbent arbitrators 2016
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 20 January 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Vote of no confidence; WMF trustee speaks out
- In the media: 15th anniversary news round-up
- Traffic report: Danse Macabre
- Featured content: This week's featured content
The Signpost: 27 January 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Geshuri steps down from the Board
- In the media: Media coverage of the Arnnon Geshuri no-confidence vote
- Recent research: Bursty edits; how politics beat religion but then lost to sports; notability as a glass ceiling
- Traffic report: Death and taxes
- Featured content: This week's featured content
The Signpost: 03 February 2016
[edit]- From the editors: Help wanted
- Special report: Board chair and new trustee speak with the Signpost
- Arbitration report: Catching up on arbitration
- Traffic report: Bowled
- Featured content: This week's featured content
The Signpost: 10 February 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Another WMF departure
- In the media: Jeb Bush swings at Wikipedia and connects
- Featured content: This week's featured content
- Traffic report: A river of revilement
The Signpost: 17 February 2016
[edit]- Featured content: This week's featured content
- Traffic report: Super Bowling
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
The Signpost: 24 February 2016
[edit]- Special report: WMF in limbo as decision on Tretikov nears
- Op-ed: Backward the Foundation
- Traffic report: Of Dead Pools and Dead Judges
- Arbitration report: Arbitration motion regarding CheckUser & Oversight inactivity
- Featured content: This week's featured content
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
VisualEditor News #1—2016
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Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Indic, and Han scripts, and improving the single edit tab interface.
Recent changes
[edit]You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing. This function is available to nearly all editors at most wikis except the Wiktionaries and Wikisources.
Many local feedback pages for the visual editor have been redirected to mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
You can now re-arrange columns and rows in tables, as well as copying a row, column or any other selection of cells and pasting it in a new location.
The formula editor has two options: you can choose "Quick edit" to see and change only the LaTeX code, or "Edit" to use the full tool. The full tool offers immediate preview and an extensive list of symbols.
Future changes
[edit]The single edit tab project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab. This is similar to the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as an account preference for logged-in editors, and as a cookie for logged-out users. Logged-in editors will have these options in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences:
- Remember my last editor,
- Always give me the visual editor if possible,
- Always give me the source editor, and
- Show me both editor tabs. (This is the state for people using the visual editor now.)
The visual editor uses the same search engine as Special:Search to find links and files. This search will get better at detecting typos and spelling mistakes soon. These improvements to search will appear in the visual editor as well.
The visual editor will be offered to all editors at most "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers would like to know how well the visual editor works in your language. They particularly want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect the following languages: Japanese, Korean, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Thai, Aramaic and others.
Let's work together
[edit]- Please try out the newest version of the single edit tab on test2.wikipedia.org. You may need to restore the default preferences (at the bottom of test2wiki:Special:Preferences) to see the initial prompt for options. Were you able to find a preference setting that will work for your own editing? Did you see the large preferences dialog box when you started editing an article there?
- Can you read and type in Korean, Arabic, Japanese, Indic, or Han scripts? Language engineer David Chan needs help from people who often type in these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help. Report your results on wiki (Korean – Japanese – all languages).
- Learn how to improve the "automagical" citoid referencing system in the visual editor, by creating Zotero translators for popular sources in your language! Join the Tech Talk about "Automated citations in Wikipedia: Citoid and the technology behind it" with Sebastian Karcher on 29 February 2016.
If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thanks!
– Whatamidoing (WMF) 17:46, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 02 March 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Tretikov resigns, WMF in transition
- Featured content: This week's featured content
- Traffic report: Brawling
The Signpost: 09 March 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Katherine Maher named interim head of WMF; Wales email re-sparks Heilman controversy; draft WMF strategy posted
- Technology report: Wikimedia wikis will temporarily go into read-only mode on several occasions in the coming weeks
- WikiCup report: First round of the WikiCup finishes
- Traffic report: All business like show business
The Signpost: 16 March 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Wikipedia Zero: Orange mobile partnership in Africa ends; the evolution of privacy loss in Wikipedia
- In the media: Wales at SXSW; lawsuit over Wikipedia PR editing
- Discussion report: Is an interim WMF executive director inherently notable?
- Featured content: This week's featured content
- Technology report: Watchlists, watchlists, watchlists!
- Traffic report: Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States
- Wikipedia Weekly: Podcast #119: The Foundation and the departure of Lila Tretikov
The Signpost: 23 March 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Lila Tretikov a Young Global Leader; Wikipediocracy blog post sparks indefinite blocks
- In the media: Angolan file sharers cause trouble for Wikipedia Zero; the 3D printer edit war; a culture based on change and turmoil
- Traffic report: Be weary on the Ides of March
- Editorial: "God damn it, you've got to be kind."
- Featured content: Watch out! A slave trader, a live mascot and a crested serpent awaits!
- Arbitration report: Palestine-Israel article 3 case amended
- Wikipedia Weekly: Podcast #120: Status of Wikimania 2016
The Signpost: 1 April 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Trump/Wales 2016
- WikiProject report: Why should the Devil have all the good music? An interview with WikiProject Christian music
- Traffic report: Donald v Daredevil
- Featured content: A slow, slow week
- Technology report: Browse Wikipedia in safety? Use Telnet!
- Recent research: "Employing Wikipedia for good not evil" in education; using eyetracking to find out how readers read articles
- Wikipedia Weekly: Podcast #121: How April Fools went down
Do you want one Edit tab, or two? It's your choice
[edit]The editing interface will be changed soon. When that happens, editors who currently see two editing tabs – "Edit" and "Edit source" – will start seeing one edit tab instead. The single edit tab has been popular at other Wikipedias. When this is deployed here, you may be offered the opportunity to choose your preferred appearance and behavior the next time you click the Edit button. You will also be able to change your settings in the Editing section of Special:Preferences.
You can choose one or two edit tabs. If you chose one edit tab, then you can switch between the two editing environments by clicking the buttons in the toolbar (shown in the screenshots). See Help:VisualEditor/User guide#Switching between the visual and wikitext editors for more information and screenshots.
There is more information about this interface change at mw:VisualEditor/Single edit tab. If you have questions, suggestions, or problems to report, then please leave a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback.
Whatamidoing (WMF) 19:22, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 14 April 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Denny Vrandečić resigns from Wikimedia Foundation board
- In the media: Wikimedia Sweden loses copyright case; Tex Watson; AI assistants; David Jolly biography
- Featured content: This week's featured content
- Traffic report: A welcome return to pop culture and death
- Arbitration report: The first case of 2016—Wikicology
- Gallery: A history lesson
The Signpost: 24 April 2016
[edit]- Special report: Update on EranBot, our new copyright violation detection bot
- Traffic report: Two for the price of one
- Featured content: The double-sized edition
- Arbitration report: Amendments made to the Race and intelligence case
The Signpost: 2 May 2016
[edit]- In the media: Wikipedia Zero piracy in Bangladesh; bureaucracy; chilling effects; too few cooks; translation gaps
- Traffic report: Purple
- Featured content: The best ... from the past two weeks
The Signpost: 17 May 2016
[edit]- Op-ed: Swiss chapter in turmoil
- In the media: Wikimedia's Dario Taraborelli quoted on Google's Knowledge Graph in The Washington Post
- Featured content: Two weeks for the prize of one
- Traffic report: Oh behave, Beyhive / Underdogs
- Arbitration report: "Wikicology" ends in site ban; evidence and workshop phases concluded for "Gamaliel and others"
- Wikicup: That's it for WikiCup Round 2!
The Signpost: 28 May 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Upcoming Wikimedia conferences in the US and India; May Metrics and Activities Meeting
- Special report: Compensation paid to Sue Gardner increased by almost 50 percent after she stepped down as executive director
- Featured content: Eight articles, three lists and five pictures
- Op-ed: Journey of a Wikipedian
- Arbitration report: Gamaliel resigns from the arbitration committee
- Recent research: English as Wikipedia's Lingua Franca; deletion rationales; schizophrenia controversies
- Traffic report: Splitting (musical) airs / Slow Ride
The Signpost: 05 June 2016
[edit]- News and notes: WMF cuts budget for 2016-17 as scope tightens
- Featured content: Overwhelmed ... by pictures
- Traffic report: Pop goes the culture, again.
- Arbitration report: ArbCom case "Gamaliel and others" concludes
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Video Games
The Signpost: 15 June 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Clarifications on status and compensation of outgoing executive directors Sue Gardner and Lila Tretikov
- Special report: Wikiversity Journal—A new user group
- Featured content: From the crème de la crème
- In the media: Biography disputes; Craig Newmark donation; PR editing
- Traffic report: Another one with sports; Knockout, brief candle
Editing News #2—2016
[edit]Editing News #2—2016 Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter
Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Arabic and Indic scripts, and adapting the visual editor to the needs of the Wikivoyages and Wikisources.
Recent changes
[edit]The visual editor is now available to all users at most Wikivoyages. It was also enabled for all contributors at the French Wikinews.
The single edit tab feature combines the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab. It has been deployed to several Wikipedias, including Hungarian, Polish, English and Japanese Wikipedias, as well as to all Wikivoyages. At these wikis, you can change your settings for this feature in the "Editing" tab of Special:Preferences. The team is now reviewing the feedback and considering ways to improve the design before rolling it out to more people.
Future changes
[edit]The "Save page" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information is available on Meta.
The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including: Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Urdu, Persian, Bengali, Assamese, Aramaic and others.
The team is working with the volunteer developers who power Wikisource to provide the visual editor there, for opt-in testing right now and eventually for all users. (T138966)
The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. It will look like the visual editor, and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices around September 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.
Let's work together
[edit]- Do you teach new editors how to use the visual editor? Did you help set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki? Have you written or imported TemplateData for your most important citation templates? Would you be willing to help new editors and small communities with the visual editor? Please sign up for the new VisualEditor Community Taskforce.
- Learn how to improve the "automagical" citoid referencing system in the visual editor, by creating Zotero translators for popular sources in your language! Watch the Tech Talk by Sebastian Karcher for more information.
If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!
Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 21:09, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 04 July 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Board unanimously appoints Katherine Maher as new WMF executive director; Wikimedia lawsuits in France and Germany
- Op-ed: Two policies in conflict?
- In the media: Terrorism database cites Wikipedia as a source
- Featured content: Triple fun of featured content
- Traffic report: Goalposts; Oy vexit
The Signpost: 21 July 2016
[edit]- Discussion report: Busy month for discussions
- Featured content: A wide variety from the best
- Traffic report: Sports and esports
- Arbitration report: Script writers appointed for clerks
- Recent research: Using deep learning to predict article quality
The Signpost: 04 August 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Foundation presents results of harassment research, plans for automated identification; Wikiconference submissions open
- Obituary: Kevin Gorman, who took on Wikipedia's gender gap and undisclosed paid advocacy, dies at 24
- Traffic report: Summer of Pokémon, Trump, and Hillary
- Featured content: Women and Hawaii
- Recent research: Easier navigation via better wikilinks
- Technology report: User script report (January to July 2016, part 1)
The Signpost: 18 August 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Focus on India—WikiConference produces new apps; state government adopts free licenses
- Special report: Engaging diverse communities to profile women of Antarctica
- In the media: The ugly, the bad, the playful, and the promising
- Featured content: Simply the best ... from the last two weeks
- Traffic report: Olympic views
- Technology report: User script report (January–July 2016, part 2)
- Arbitration report: The Michael Hardy case
The Signpost: 06 September 2016
[edit]- Special report: Olympics readership depended on language
- WikiProject report: Watching Wikipedia
- Featured content: Entertainment, sport, and something else in-between
- Traffic report: From Phelps to Bolt to Reddit
- Technology report: Wikimedia mobile sites now don't load images if the user doesn't see them
- Recent research: Ethics of machine-created articles and fighting vandalism
The Signpost: 29 September 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Wikipedia Education Program case study published; and a longtime Wikimedian has made his final edit
- In the media: Wikipedia in the news
- Featured content: Three weeks in the land of featured content
- Arbitration report: Arbcom looking for new checkusers and oversight appointees while another case opens
- Traffic report: From Gene Wilder to JonBenét
- Technology report: Category sorting and template parameters
Editing News #3—2016
[edit]Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter • Subscribe or unsubscribe on the English Wikipedia
Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has mainly worked on a new wikitext editor. They have also released some small features and the new map editing tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the list of work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, releasing the 2017 wikitext editor as a beta feature, and improving language support.
Recent changes
[edit]- You can now set text as small or big.[2]
- Invisible templates have been shown as a puzzle icon. Now, the name of the invisible template is displayed next to the puzzle icon.[3] A similar feature will display the first part of hidden HTML comments.[4]
- Categories are displayed at the bottom of each page. If you click on the categories, the dialog for editing categories will open.[5]
- At many wikis, you can now add maps to pages. Go to the Insert menu and choose the "Maps" item. The Discovery department are adding more features to this area, like geoshapes. You can read more on MediaWiki.org.[6]
- The "Save" button now says "Save page" when you create a page, and "Save changes" when you change an existing page.[7] In the future, the "Save page" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information is available on Meta.
- Image galleries now use a visual mode for editing. You can see thumbnails of the images, add new files, remove unwanted images, rearrange the images by dragging and dropping, and add captions for each image. Use the "Options" tab to set the gallery's display mode, image sizes, and add a title for the gallery.[8]
Future changes
[edit]The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining 10 "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next month. The developers want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including Thai, Burmese and Aramaic.
The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. The 2017 wikitext editor will look like the visual editor and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices in October 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.
Let's work together
[edit]Do you teach new editors how to use the visual editor? Did you help set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki? Have you written or imported TemplateData for your most important citation templates? Would you be willing to help new editors and small communities with the visual editor? Please sign up for the new VisualEditor Community Taskforce.
If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:18, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 14 October 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Fundraising, flora and fauna
- Discussion report: Cultivating leadership: Wikimedia Foundation seeks input
- Technology report: Upcoming tech projects for 2017
- Featured content: Variety is the spice of life
- Traffic report: Debates and escapes
- Recent research: A 2011 study resurfaces in a media report
The Signpost: 4 November 2016
[edit]- In the media: Washington Post continues in-depth Wikipedia coverage
- Wikicup: WikiCup winners
- Discussion report: What's on your tech wishlist for the coming year?
- Technology report: New guideline for technical collaboration; citation templates now flag open access content
- Featured content: Cream of the crop
- Traffic report: Un-presidential politics
- Arbitration report: Recapping October's activities
The Signpost: 4 November 2016
[edit]- News and notes: Arbitration Committee elections commence
- Featured content: Featured mix
- Special report: Taking stock of the Good Article backlog
- Traffic report: President-elect Trump