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Books and Bytes - Issue 9

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 9, November-December 2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • New donations, including real-paper-and-everything books, e-books, science journal databases, and more
  • New TWL coordinators, conference news, a new open-access journal database, summary of library-related WMF grants, and more
  • Spotlight: "Global Impact: The Wikipedia Library and Persian Wikipedia" - a Persian Wikipedia editor talks about their experiences with database access in Iran, writing on the Persian project and the JSTOR partnership

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-03

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

  • Rotated PDF files in landscape format used to show too small. They will now display correctly. You may need to purge older files. [1]
  • You can now use the {{!}} magic word instead of Template:!. Many wikis used the template to create a pipe (|) in tables and templates. You can delete the template. [2]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf14) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since January 7. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from January 13. It will be on all Wikipedias from January 14 (calendar).
  • A bug in VisualEditor sometimes added a ☀ (Sun) character. This is now fixed. [3]
  • The search and replace tool in VisualEditor is now much faster in long pages. [4]
  • The TemplateData editor now uses the same design as VisualEditor. [5] [6] [7]
  • The thumb option is now shown in your language in the help of the classic editor toolbar. [8]

Future changes

  • You can sign up to answer questions from designers. It will help them make editing easier. [9]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:47, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-04

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can download the new version of the Wikipedia app for Android. The new version shows lead images, better galleries and content from Wikidata. It also has many other new features.[10] [11]
  • Programs and bots still can't read information about images on many wikis. You can see the list of wikis with the most files to fix. Wikipedia in Italian, Indonesian and Japanese language have the most files to fix. On the biggest wikis you should use bots. Bots can add information templates to groups of files. You can ask other tech users to help you.

Problems

  • All JavaScript on Commons was broken for a few minutes on Tuesday. It was because of old code in the HotCat tool. The same problem happened on some Wikipedias on Wednesday. It is now fixed. [12]

Software changes this week

  • There are no software changes this week and next week due to annual meetings. [13]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:13, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

There is a new WikiProject you may be interested in

This is a form letter sent out to members of WikiProject Lead section cleanup.

I am contacting you because you are listed as a participant of the now defunct WikiProject Lead section cleanup. I have created a new WikiProject, WikiProject Lede Improvement Team (name subject to change), that likely has the same goals as the project that you signed up for was supposed to have. If improving the lede sections of articles is something you are still interested in, please stop by and add yourself as a participant. As well, if you have any thoughts regarding your previous experience with lede section cleanup, please stop by and share them. Thank you,  DiscantX 08:39, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-05

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

This week

  • There are no software changes this week due to annual meetings. [15]

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

RfC - Helper Script access

An RfC has been opened at RfC to physically restrict access to the Helper Script. You are invited to comment. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:33, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-06

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

  • There was a security issue on Wikimedia Labs. Many Labs tools were down after the issue was fixed. [18]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since January 14. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 3. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 4 (calendar).
  • The "Save page" button in the VisualEditor toolbar is now blue rather than green. This is the same as on the mobile site. [19]
  • You can now edit pages on the draft namespace with VisualEditor on the Russian Wikipedia and Hebrew Wikipedia. You can ask to get VisualEditor for a namespace on your wiki. When your community agrees, ask in Phabricator. [20] [21]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:31, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News 2015—#1

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

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

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

Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Translations are available through Meta. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-07

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

Problems

  • MediaWiki was reverted to the previous version on February 4. It was because of a performance issue. It was restored later. [23]
  • UploadWizard was broken on February 4 because of the revert of MediaWiki. [24]
  • All sites were broken for 30 minutes on February 5. It was due to a network problem. [25]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 5. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 10. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 11 (calendar).
  • You can have one user page for all wikis. Your Meta user page will show if you don't have a user page on a wiki. You can test this tool on test wikis. [26] [27] [28]
  • You can search for media files in VisualEditor more easily. Images are bigger and you see the size and license. [29] [30]
  • It is easier to review your changes when you save the page in VisualEditor. The window is wider. [31]
  • You can read the latest news about VisualEditor. You can now join weekly meetings with developers. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The first meeting is on February 11 at 20:00 (UTC).

Future changes

  • Administrators will soon be able to delete change tags used fewer than 5,000 times. [32]
  • In the future you will be able to have personal lists of articles on the mobile site. [33]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:27, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Add your own

Phab:'s a wiki (sort of). You can add the "§ VisualEditor Q3 Blockers" project to any bug or feature request that you think needs to be considered for blocker status. Tasks nominated after the meeting (which starts in 78 minutes) will be considered at the next meeting. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:41, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Thanks; very helpful. While we're discussing Phab, a question: Is there a protocol/norm for responding to what I think is a premature closing of a task? [As in, "Here's my opinion, and I'm in charge, so I'm closing the task without waiting for your response."] If not, I'll just muck around in Phab, or complain at a Feedback page, but I'd prefer to keep discussions to one place, which seems to be Phab, if I can have a constructive discussion there. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:09, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
mw:Bug management/Phabricator etiquette is the only written advice that I'm aware of. The practice, to the best of my possibly-not-very-good knowledge depends on whether your objection is more "reasoning" or "technical facts". If the former, people usually seem to send e-mail to the person who closed it ("I see you closed this as unimportant, but I think it's really important because..."); if the latter ("This was closed as fixed, but I'm still experiencing this problem"), then they post directly in the ticket.
The overall trend seems to be that technical decisions are made at Phabricator, so the most efficacious option is probably to keep as much of the conversation at Phab as you can. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:34, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-08

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 17. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 18 (calendar).
  • On Wednesday your Meta user page will be shown if you don't have a user page on a wiki. [34] [35] [36]
  • You can now change the order of categories in VisualEditor using drag-and-drop. [37]
  • In VisualEditor, you now need to make a change before you can "Apply Changes" to citations and templates. [38]
  • The way the cursor moves in VisualEditor is changing. Your browser now handles the cursor directly. Most of you will see no change. In right-to-left text, the cursor now moves in a 'visible' rather than 'logical' way. This is like other sites but you may be surprised at first.​ [39]

Meetings

  • The VisualEditor Team had their first public bug triage meeting on February 11. They will post the results on the meeting page. [40]
  • You can join the second weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on February 18 at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join. [41]
  • You can join a meeting with the developers of the Content Translation tool. It will be on February 18 at 13:00 (UTC). [42]

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:57, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on WP:AN#Closure review: Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/RfC to physically restrict access to the Helper Script

Hello! You have been selected to receive an invitation to participate in the closure review for the recent RfC regarding the AfC Helper script. You've been chosen because you participated in the original RfC. Should you wish to respond, your contribution to this discussion will be appreciated. This message is automated. Replies will not be noticed. --QEDK ♠ T ♥ C 14:23, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Heather Bresch

I was wondering if you might have some advice on how to handle this. I was thinking I might need to start an RFC on the article's Talk page and ping the editors that participated here to get more editors involved? The problem is, I'd end up doing about 3-4 RFCs for every... little... change... which isn't practical, but I know of no better way. CorporateM (Talk) 15:21, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

To John Broughton: CorporateM has approached a significant number of other editors with this message on the topic of Heather Bresch. No worries if you do actually want to get involved. But I'm growing somewhat frustrated by the tactic: instead of being satisfied with posting to a noticeboard, approach editors one by one until he chances across someone who agrees with him. It's an obvious variant of canvassing. (And just in case you're not aware of the context: CorporateM is being paid by Bresch's employer, Mylan, to fluff up her biography.) Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:37, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
It was archived without discussion at BLPN, but ANI could be another option, as it tends to have more participation and the drama boards is probably appropriate. I was thinking that by asking those that participated in the AfD to participate in the article, that is a random selection of editors that have shown an interest in a related subject and have some familiarity with the situation. Naturally I would have to provide an utterly neutral RFC and notification if I go that route. CorporateM (Talk) 17:00, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
@Nomoskedasticity: Perhaps you can help me understand the situation better. You said that CorporateM wasn't "satisfied with posting to a noticeboard"; CorporateM said the posting was archived without any discussion. If that's the case, are you saying that CorporateM should have stopped looking for other input when his first try got none? More generally, what do you suggest is the best thing that he could do to get others involved, or should he do nothing at all, now, other than possibly continue to post at the article talk page? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:14, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
CorporateM has posted at BLPN several times in the last few weeks about Bresch. Some of those posts have led to discussion at BLPN itself ([43]); others have brought additional people to the article talk page. That's all well and good. But what's going on with the repeated posting to the talk pages of individual editors isn't an attempt to get "more" input -- it's an attempt to get input agreeing with CorporateM's attempts to do what his client wants. If the BLPN posts had accomplished that (instead of gaining involvement from some people who didn't agree with those attempts), he wouldn't have wanted "more" input. Again, I have no objection to your taking a look at the article and then being as involved as you want to be. But I think it's appropriate for me to point out some of the context here: this is a paid editor trying to accomplish his goals using a specific tactic in doing so. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:50, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
The BLPN post Nomo linked to shows general support for reducing the weight of the controversy, which previously dominated the article. It's not as if they disagreed with me so I went looking elsewhere for someone to take my side. They supported that there was a problem (as did quite a few editors) but didn't take any action besides a passing comment. After an editor from IRC trimmed the controversy, they were merely reverted by Nomo, who alleged there was no consensus, since editors had only stated their objections to the UNDUE and BLP problem on BLPN and user Talk pages, rather than the article Talk page. Consensus was not clearly established and carried out until a large number of editors got involved. CorporateM (Talk) 21:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-09

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 25. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 26 (calendar).
  • It is now easier to see template fields in VisualEditor. The fields are bigger. [48]
  • It is now easier to see when a button is disabled in VisualEditor. [49]
  • Sometimes when you copy-pasted a template in VisualEditor, it was replaced by HTML. This problem is now fixed. [50]
  • Tools in Labs will stop working for a few hours on February 24. [51]

Meetings

  • You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on February 26 at 00:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • At the moment you need to log in to edit Wikimedia wikis on mobile devices. You can say if anyone should be allowed to edit on the mobile sites. The discussion ends on March 15.
  • Images in the interface will soon work better in Opera 12. [52]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:28, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-10

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

  • A Lua function to use Wikidata has changed. You need to update the pages that use it. [53]
  • You can use the Content Translation tool on Wikipedia in Uzbek and Minangkabau. You need to enable it in your Beta options.
  • You can now hide banners if you don't have an account. [54] [55]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 3. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 4 (calendar).
  • You can use the Content Translation tool on Wikipedia in Punjabi and Kyrgyz. You can ask for the tool in other languages.
  • Editing the fake blank line in VisualEditor is now simpler. This change also fixed a few bugs. [56] [57] [58] [59]
  • The TemplateData editor now warns you if a related page already has TemplateData. [60]
  • The TemplateData table now tells you if a template doesn't take any parameters. [61]

Meetings

  • You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 4 at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
  • You can join technical meetings in France and Mexico this year. You will be able to ask for help if you can't pay yourself. [62]

Future changes

  • You will be able to get a direct link for a section of a page. [63]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:41, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 10

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 10, January-February 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - ProjectMUSE, Dynamed, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and Women Writers Online
  • New TWL coordinator, conference news, and a new guide and template for archivists
  • TWL moves into the new Community Engagement department at the WMF, quarterly review

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:40, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry if ...

... my sarcasm didn't come through. That point was that there is so much paid editing going on, but "at least 5" paid editors have disclosed since June. Actually I did look around for quite some time, and I think I did find up to about 5 declarations. I'll see what I can remember and maybe update this over the next few days.

  • @CorporateM: - tries to do it the right way and declares at every opportunity. Still, it seems a bit forced (hard to explain) at times. I assume everybody knows CorpM, pretty much a good guy. I've pinged him in case he knows others who have declared.
  • @BlackCab: see Talk:A2_milk/Archive_1#Arbitrary_break:_BCM7, his declaration was on his user page, but apparently he's quit the paid editing business and taken it off his user page. My feeling - while I watched it - was that while he was likely working in good faith, he did not come in with an informed neutral outlook. Thus he was causing a bit of a mess, that took others awhile to cleanup.
  • There was a huge mess at Banc de Binary right as the ToU were changed. At least one of BdB's paid edits did declare, but I don't think (IMHO) BdB had the least idea how to conduct ethical business on Wikipedia. The extremely serious legal problems they had with the SEC and the CFTC suggests a general problem as well.

(i'll remember more later)

Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:48, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

@Smallbones: - Thanks, that's helpful. I'm actually surprised how few editors openly declare they are paid editors. I understand that to some extent - they have to limit their edits, mostly, to article talk pages, and have to know how to ask for help when talk posts languish or they run into (what they think is) unreasonable opposition, and there are certainly other editors who are quite willing to harass paid editors, regardless of what they do. Still, it seems to me that there are advantages of being on the right side of the law, so to speak - the ability to ask for help, the ability to show clients exactly what your work looks like, and the ability to build reputation without risking being blocked (or, alternatively, to use throwaway accounts, which again doesn't allow reputation to be built.)
So yes, if you do remember others, or come across others, I'd like to know. (One more that I do know of is User:I'm Tony Ahn.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:09, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
Forced? Maybe, not sure what that means. "Pretty much" a nice guy, I suppose implies "sometimes a jerk" - I'll cop to that ;-)
Regarding Banc de Binary, that page has at least 30 primary sources cited for contentious material, which is to say almost all of them. If it were a BLP, I would be allowed to delete almost the entire page regardless of consensus or edit-warring. I'm not sure if that page reflects more poorly on the paid editor, or on the Wikipedia community. Both sides seem so eager to point fingers at the others' deficiencies.
From what I've seen on-and-off by chance, Bell Pottinger is doing pretty decent work these days. I helped @HOgilvy: with Dany Bahar a while back and it was a good piece - a rare find for COI-produced pages. Plus they assumed good faith even with a tad of badgering - I was impressed.
The Request Edit queue will give you dozens of disclosed COIs, but mostly for people who work directly for the org or person. PRSA's survey found that only 1% of PR respondents out-sourced to a paid editing firm, so that seems representative.
The problem with disclosure is that doing something evil in the open is even more frustrating than doing it in secret, so in actuality it all boils down to the edits.CorporateM (Talk) 22:05, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-11

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can now create books on almost all wikis. It doesn't work yet on wikis using the language converter. [64] [65]
  • VisualEditor had problems with categories in Safari. It sometimes moved or removed the categories. The issue is now fixed. [66] [67] [68]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 10. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 11 (calendar).
  • In VisualEditor the "Edit beta" button is now called "Edit" on the English Wikipedia. [69] [70]
  • The feedback tool in VisualEditor now looks like the other tools. It also asks for information about your browser to help fix bugs. [71] [72]
  • You now see the VisualEditor toolbar even if the rest of the page is still loading. [73] [74]
  • You now see more information when you edit a link, a reference or other items in VisualEditor. You also see a clearer edit button in those tools. [75] [76]
  • If you use the ContentTranslation tool you now see red links in the list of articles in other languages. The link is red if the article doesn't exist in the language of your options or of your browser. You can translate the article by clicking on the red link.

Meetings

  • You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 11 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
  • You can join a technical meeting in France in May. You can ask for help if you can't pay yourself. [77]

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:18, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 March 2015

Tech News: 2015-12

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • The servers that resize images are using new software. You should report new problems that you notice with images. [80]
  • You can now see lists of bugs about Commons, Wikisource and Wiktionary. [81]
  • It is now easier to add special characters in VisualEditor. You can edit the list of characters for your wiki. [82] [83]

Problems

  • Wikis were broken for a few minutes on Thursday due to a code error.

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 17. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 18 (calendar).
  • A puzzle piece icon (icon) now shows hidden templates in VisualEditor. You can edit the template by clicking the icon. For example, you can now edit anchor templates. [84] [85]
  • You can now add examples, and details about old parameters, in TemplateData. [86] [87]

Meetings

  • You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 18 at 23:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • The list of bad user names on your wiki will no longer work. The global list will replace it. You can ask to add rules for bad user names on Meta. [88] [89]
  • You can comment on how you want to see Wikidata edits in your watchlist on other wikis. [90]
  • The final steps of single user login (SUL) will happen in April. You can see the rules to rename accounts. [91]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:15, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-13

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 24. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 25 (calendar).
  • The text of a reference is now more visible when you click on it. It has a blue background. Many wikis already have the blue color. Those wikis can now remove it from their CSS page. [92]
  • VisualEditor is now much faster. For many users it is now at least as fast as the wikitext editor. [93] [94] [95]
  • When you add a list of references in VisualEditor, you now see it right away. You can still change its group by editing it. [96]

Meetings

  • You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 25 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • Talk pages using "LiquidThreads" on mediawiki.org will soon use the new system. [97]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:09, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Invitation

A gummi bear holding a sign that says "Thank you"
Thank you for using VisualEditor and sharing your ideas with the developers.

Hello, John Broughton,

The Editing team is asking for your help with VisualEditor. I am contacting you because you posted to a feedback page for VisualEditor. Please tell them what they need to change to make VisualEditor work well for you. The team has a list of top-priority problems, but they also want to hear about small problems. These problems may make editing less fun, take too much of your time, or be as annoying as a paper cut. The Editing team wants to hear about and try to fix these small things, too. 

You can share your thoughts by clicking this link. You may respond to this quick, simple, anonymous survey in your own language. If you take the survey, then you agree your responses may be used in accordance with these terms. This survey is powered by Qualtrics and their use of your information is governed by their privacy policy.

More information (including a translateable list of the questions) is posted on wiki at mw:VisualEditor/Survey 2015. If you have questions, or prefer to respond on-wiki, then please leave a message on the survey's talk page.

Thank you, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:56, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-14

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can now hide site banners even if you don't have an account. [98]
  • You can now add citations more easily with VisualEditor on the French and Italian Wikipedia. The tool adds the information when you add some types of links. In the future you will be able to add this tool to your wiki. [99] [100] [101]
  • All sites should now be faster if you have a recent browser. [102]
  • You could see a serious bug when editing some templates with VisualEditor. It was fixed quickly. [103]
  • VisualEditor could break when you edited an image. The issue was fixed quickly. [104]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 31. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 1 (calendar).
  • VisualEditor is now the main editing tool on 53 more Wikipedias. [105]
  • You can now edit the mobile site of all wikis without an account. [106]
  • You can test a new tool on the beta mobile site on the English Wikipedia. With the new tool, you can create lists of articles. [107]
  • You can now see that VisualEditor is opening even if you're not looking at the top of the page. [108]
  • VisualEditor doesn't leave empty titles with just nowiki tags any more. [109] [110] [111] [112]

Meetings

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:18, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #2—2015

Did you know?

With Citoid in VisualEditor, you click the 'book with bookmark' icon and paste in the URL for a reliable source:


Screenshot of Citoid's first dialog


Citoid looks up the source for you and returns the citation results. Click the green "Insert" button to accept its results and add them to the article:


Screenshot of Citoid's initial results


After inserting the citation, you can change it. Select the reference, and click the "Edit" button in the context menu to make changes.


The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

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

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

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

  • 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)

Tech News: 2015-15

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Problems

  • The import tool was broken for a few days. Imports didn't add log entries. You can delete and import pages again if necessary. [119]
  • Labs was broken several times this week. [120] [121] [122] [123]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since April 1. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from April 7. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 8 (calendar).
  • You can now add the same special characters with VisualEditor as with the wikitext editor. [124]
  • Many bugs around copy-paste in VisualEditor are now fixed. [125] [126]
  • You can now use basic tools of VisualEditor in the new talk tool. You can add links, bold and italics. You can also mention people. [127]

Meetings

  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the Editing team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on April 8 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • You can again comment on how you want to see Wikidata edits in your watchlist on other wikis. [128]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:42, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

A new reference tool

Hello Books & Bytes subscribers. There is a new Visual Editor reference feature in development called Citoid. It is designed to "auto-fill" references using a URL or DOI. We would really appreciate you testing whether TWL partners' references work in Citoid. Sharing your results will help the developers fix bugs and improve the system. If you have a few minutes, please visit the testing page for simple instructions on how to try this new tool. Regards, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:47, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-16

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Problems

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since April 8. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from April 14. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 15 (calendar).
  • Developers will start to rename 1.5 million accounts on Wednesday. After that all accounts will be unique and will work on all wikis. [134] [135]
  • All users can now test link previews ("Hovercards") on several Wikipedias. [136]

Meetings

  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the Editing team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on April 15 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:40, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-17

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • There was sometimes a problem when saving a page in VisualEditor. It is now fixed on all wikis. [137]
  • VisualEditor sometimes showed empty warnings for wikis using Flagged Revisions. This is now fixed on all wikis. [138]
  • You can get the new version of the Wikipedia app for iOS. With it you can share facts with your friends. [139]
  • If you write JavaScript, you should stop using importScript and importStylesheet. [140]

Problems

  • There was a problem with Labs on Monday. [141]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since April 15. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from April 21. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 22 (calendar).
  • Developers are renaming 1.5 million accounts. After that all accounts will be unique and will work on all wikis. [142] [143] [144]
  • If your wiki has the auto-fill tool for citations, you can now use it when you edit a reference. [145]
  • You can now give examples for template options in TemplateData. [146]

Meetings

  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on April 22 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:30, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-18

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • All accounts are now unique and work on all wikis. [149] [150]
  • You can read a report from experts who tested the security of MediaWiki. [151]
  • There was a problem between VisualEditor and an antivirus software. It is now fixed. [152]
  • You can help test VisualEditor to see if it works in your language. [153]

Problems

  • Some Labs tools had problems due to a software bug. [154]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since April 22. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from April 28. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 29 (calendar).
  • It is now clearer that you can delete several rows and columns when you edit tables in VisualEditor. [155]
  • You now see more information when you search for a template in VisualEditor. [156]
  • You can now cancel when you add citations on desktop, or edit links on mobile, in VisualEditor. [157]
  • You can now see the list of other formats for videos only after they're ready. [158]

Meetings

  • You can join the next weekly meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on April 29 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:10, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Joining the Signpost

Hey John, you've been a frequent voice on Signpost talk pages for several years. Have you ever thought about coming on board and helping us out? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:05, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Support request with team editing experiment project

Dear tech ambassadors, instead of spamming the Village Pump of each Wikipedia about my tiny project proposal for researching team editing (see here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Research_team_editing), I have decided to leave to your own discretion if the matter is relevant enough to inform a wider audience already. I would appreciate if you could appraise if the Wikipedia community you are more familiar with could have interest in testing group editing "on their own grounds" and with their own guidance. In a nutshell: it consists in editing pages as a group instead of as an individual. This social experiment might involve redefining some aspects of the workflow we are all used to, with the hope of creating a more friendly and collaborative environment since editing under a group umbrella creates less social exposure than traditional "individual editing". I send you this message also as a proof that the Inspire Campaign is already gearing up. As said I would appreciate of *you* just a comment on the talk page/endorsement of my project noting your general perception about the idea. Nothing else. Your contribution helps to shape the future! (which I hope it will be very bright, with colors, and Wikipedia everywhere) Regards from User:Micru on meta.

Tech News: 2015-19

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can now chat with other users in Phabricator. [159]
  • There was a rare problem with VisualEditor. The text of another wiki could be added to your edit. The issue is now fixed. [160] [161]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since April 29. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from May 5. It will be on all Wikipedias from May 6 (calendar).
  • It is now easier to add a link in VisualEditor. You can see an image and a description about the page. [162]

Meetings

  • You can join a meeting with the Language team. The meeting will be on May 5 at 14:30 (UTC). [163]
  • You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on May 6 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.
  • You can join an event in France on May 22−25. You need to sign up before May 8. [164]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:12, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 11

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 11, March-April 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - MIT Press Journals, Sage Stats, Hein Online and more
  • New TWL coordinators, conference news, and new reference projects
  • Spotlight: Two metadata librarians talk about how library professionals can work with Wikipedia

Read the full newsletter



MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:25, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-20

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can now make charts and maps on your wiki with the new "graph" tool. If you have an old browser, you will see images instead. It uses a tool called Vega; you can learn how to use it and write help pages for your wiki. You can use the Vega edit tool to make charts and copy the code to your wiki. Charts and maps use complex code and you should put them into templates. In the future, you will be able to create charts with VisualEditor. [165] [166] [167]
  • You can apply for technical jobs to develop tools for the community. [168]
  • The logos of all wikis are now in a new place. It will make pages load faster. You can still ask to change the logo. You can also use local CSS for brief changes. [169] [170]

Problems

  • There was a problem that caused slow editing. [171]
  • Pages were sometimes removed from your watchlist in VisualEditor. This problem is now fixed. [172]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since May 6. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from May 12. It will be on all Wikipedias from May 13 (calendar).
  • You can now use data from Wikidata on more pages. The page doesn't need to be linked to the Wikidata item. It works on a few wikis and more wikis will be added soon. [173] [174]
  • You should get fewer errors when you add files to Commons. [175]
  • When you use an external link to link to a wiki page, VisualEditor now converts it to a wiki link. [176]
  • When you add a link in VisualEditor, you see pages that match what you type. It is now easier to see where they match. [177]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on May 13 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:43, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-21

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since May 13. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from May 19. It will be on all Wikipedias from May 20 (calendar).
  • References are now always in the right order. Also, the reference list now only shows references used on the page. [178]
  • You can no longer create an account with a colon ':' in it. If you already have one, it still works. [179]
  • The toolbar in VisualEditor now looks different. It is easier to see the icons. [180]
  • You won't be able to use e-mail lists for a few hours on Tuesday. [181] [182]
  • UploadWizard now shows better matches when you add a category to your file. [183]
  • A test about VisualEditor will start on the English Wikipedia on Thursday. [184]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on May 21 at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
  • You can join a technical meeting in France this week.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:21, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-22

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

  • VisualEditor was broken for 30 minutes on Tuesday. The problem was due to a tool it uses. [185]
  • Some Labs tools had issues last week. [186] [187]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since May 20. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from May 26. It will be on all Wikipedias from May 27 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on May 28 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:16, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-23

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

  • Many wikis were slow for a few hours on Wednesday due to a code error. Sometimes the pages did not load at all and showed an error. [189]
  • Some tools in Labs were broken on Wednesday and Thursday. [190]
  • Edit tags added by the software were broken on all wikis from May 23 to May 28. [191] [192]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since May 27. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from June 2. It will be on all Wikipedias from June 3 (calendar).
  • You won't be able to use e-mail lists for a few hours on Tuesday. [193]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 3 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:39, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #3—2015

Did you know?

When you click on a link to an article, you now see more information:

Screenshot showing the link tool's context menu


The link tool has been re-designed:

Screenshot of the link inspector


There are separate tabs for linking to internal and external pages.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

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

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

  • 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)

Ping

Hi John,

The research project about VisualEditor will be moving into the data-analysis phase this week, so I'm personally asking a few "regulars" at WP:VEF to let me know if they’d seen anything unusual during the last week or two. (You're in the top 10 all-time editors at WP:VEF.) Anyway, if you've seen anything or have any thoughts on it, then please let me know. There's a thread open at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback#Test feedback if you want, or you can always leave a note at my talk page or send me e-mail.

Also, my current "when I have some time" goal is to replace screenshots at the user guide. It's a bit of a mess; linking, tables, and citations all need to be re-done almost from scratch. I'm currently thinking that the citation section will need to be split, with a main/summary style. On the upside, we might be able to talk about how to add ==Further reading== items using citation templates. Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:25, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): I don't tend to pay attention to what other editors are doing; you've quite correctly asked the folks who do, at Wikipedia talk:Recent changes patrol. So I can't be helpful with the analysis, at least up-front. I do have some background in analytics, and am quite interested in (hopefully preliminary) results from the A/B testing.
On the matter of the user guide, it's quite a challenge to keep that current, agreed. I've thought about a second version of WP:TMM, based on VE rather than the wikitext editor (and with screencasts rather than step-by-step written tutorials), but that makes no sense until the UI stabilizes a great deal more. If you want help on the text of the updated user guide, please let me know.
Regarding ==Further reading==, yes, the entries in that section are in fact citations without the <ref> tag wrappers. The same situation applies to citing a source on a talk page - while this can be done as a footnote, it's better to leave the <ref> tags off. The solution might be as simple as a checkbox, visible when the cite dialog starts, that is labeled "not a footnote" - if checked, the output of the cite process would have the normal <ref> tags omitted.
Finally, I note that I'm going to be at WMF in San Francisco on Friday the 26th, in the afternoon, for an editathon in conjunction with the American Library Association annual conference. If you're around, it would be great to say "hi". -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:36, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
Quick link for you: User:EpochFail keeps a public worklog at m:Research talk:VisualEditor's effect on newly registered editors, so if you want to drop by and see what's happening (or contribute your own, even), then you can always find the latest. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:33, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

User guide - citations

Heads up that I've created a royal mess for you at mw:Help:VisualEditor/User guide/Citations, and that I hope you'll feel like re-structuring, re-organizing, and re-writing it. (In my defense, I'll add that splitting the page off like this means that there is currently zero translation markup on it, which means that section editing is possible once again.)

I haven't counted, but I think I need to create about another dozen screenshots. What do you think about using this for the basic order?
  1. Toolbar/basic introduction to the pieces we're using (do we need this?)
  2. Adding a basic citation via the Insert menu (assuming that the Basic citation item is supposed to be in the Insert menu; I'm confirming), including viewing the citation by selecting it to see the context menu.
  3. Inserting a references list at the end of the page.
  4. Adding citations if Citoid is enabled:
    1. Automagic version, including the insert-then-edit sequence
    2. Manual version, focused on templates but mentioning the existence of the free-form "Basic"
    3. Re-using
  5. Adding citations if Citoid is not enabled:
    1. Cite menu
    2. Using one of the citation templates
    3. Mentioning the existence of "Basic"
    4. Re-using
  6. Inserting citation templates without putting them in ref tags, e.g., for ==Further reading== or shortened citations.
"Editing an existing one" is missing here, but I'm not sure whether that should go after the "basic citation" item or in each subsection, or at the end (before the ==Further reading== section). What do you think? (I need to get back over to VPPR to answer some questions, and I'm hoping to get offline later today, but ping me whenever you want.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:29, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
...and the "Basic" item is being yanked from the Insert menu. So my proposed structure is now invalid. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:35, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): Well, you've definitely interested me. I'll start with a question: what do you mean by "Citoid is not enabled"? I started editing a page while logged out (using /veaction=edit), and still saw what looked like Citoid to me. I ask, of course, because if Citoid is always enabled, the user guide is simpler. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:40, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): Okay, I can answer my own question: "enabled" is a yes/no thing for each language Wikipedia, rather than being related to whether a user is logged on or not.
To answer your question, regarding what I think, I still like the organization of the existing user manual (edit existing; reuse; create new). Suggested changes:
  • Add "The toolbar" section, as with the new page you've created, numbered section 5.1, and renumbering 5.1 through 5.3 to be 5.2 through 5.4
  • For the (renumbered) section 5.4, add a new 5.4.1, Using the automatic citation. That would include a disclaimer that some wikis may not have enabled this, in which case see 5.4.2 and 5.4.3
  • For the (renumbered) sections 5.4.2 and 5.4.3., discuss, if necessary, very briefly, the two routes by which a user might get to these citation options. [Do you have screenshots of the alternative path, for wikis that haven't enabled Citoid? I'm really, really hoping that the initial Cite dialog box is the same, but with two tabs, not three, in which case the two paths are trivially different, but it would be very nice to see this confirmed, or not. Or, alternatively, could you tell me a wiki where Citoid is not yet enabled?] -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:50, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
I will cheerfully follow your advice about the order.
No, the design isn't the same. I can make all the screenshots for you. Without Citoid = what everyone had a couple of months ago. You can see it still at simple: (random article there). And then there's actually the minor complication of not having the citation templates enabled, which is still true at small Wikipedias (and mediawiki.org). See the Ido Wikipedia for what that looks like.
This multi-interface complication is why I split the citation page off to a sub-page. I decided that we can do a better job with a classic split-page style (summary on the main page, details on the subpage) because of this. (Also, Wikipedians in particular might only want information about how to cite stuff. I expect that some of the bigger Wikipedias will omit the entire section about "Adding citations if Citoid is not enabled", because it won't be relevant to them.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:11, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): Having just tried to edit the new page using VE (that was a FAIL), and then looking at it using the wikitext editor, I'm inclined to believe that it's undesirable to ask/expect editors in any language to delete a subsection that doesn't apply to them, as you're suggesting, or to delete parts of a subsection, as I was thinking of suggesting. So, here's an alternative: create three versions of the page Help:VisualEditor/User guide/Citations, one named "Citations-Full", one named "Citations-Templates", and one named Citations-Basic". Each of the three pages would then not need any "if" statements, and while a bit more work to create, the versions would be fairly similar, so not that much more work.
The other half of this is to enable wikis to select which of the three versions would be active in the main user guide. The main user guide would have three transclusions, next to each other, with two of them commented out. [Perhaps "Citations-Basic" would be the default, not commented out, in deference to the smallest wikis.] Then all that is needed, other than the translations themselves, for wikis where the default transcluded page is the wrong one (say, for en wiki), is simply to edit the main user guide to comment out the default transclusion and uncomment the preferred alternative.
Does that make sense to you? Am I missing something? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:02, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes. Actually, now that you suggest it, it seems perfectly obvious that the end user (the audience for the page) is best served by having exactly what s/he needs for the local wiki, rather than three sets of options.
I can open the page in VisualEditor, but I haven't sorted out how to insert an image in a table cell. It's all still wrapped in table formatting (which we can remove if you want). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:02, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Quick summary, so I can get things right for you:

Elitre is going to update her list of pages for translators soon, so I'd like to have the pages/page titles settled by early next week. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:35, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

I think that mw:Help:VisualEditor/User guide/Citations-Templates is ready for you. Please let me know what other screenshots you want, or if anything's wrong. There are a couple that are out of date in minor ways, but I think I fixed all of the howlers. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:08, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): Okay, done. Some notes:
  • File:VisualEditor - Editing references 18.png has out-of-date text in the search box (the narrative for the image is different, and correct).
  • The value for {{Intcurrent}} is showing, in the user guide, as "Insert", but the image, File:VisualEditor - Editing references - Cite book required fields.png shows "Insert citation". (I'm guessing that the image is wrong.)
  • In the user manual, I use the phrase "general references", in plain text. That wording appears as a default in the Reference dialog; I'm guessing that it's a VE field/parameter/whatever.
  • Similarly, I've used this phrase - click on "Add template" - twice in the user guide, but almost certainly there is a VE field/parameter/whatever for this.
  • And similarly, in the "Editing an existing footnote" section, you'll find this phrase - Clicking on the "Edit" button - and this - clicking on "Edit".
  • To answer a question of yours, elsewhere, I have mixed feelings about showing a Basic footnote that isn't a citation. On the one hand, it's a bit limited to associate footnotes with nothing other than citations in the user manual. On the other hand, footnotes other than citations aren't common, and beginners really ought to focus on citations, not on other types of footnotes. Plus adding complexity to the user manual has potential costs. All in all, I'd personally rather err on the side of excess simplicity, since editors encountering non-citation footnotes presumably can puzzle them out. But if you decide differently, that's fine, and I've revised the text in the manual so that it fits better with a non-citation footnote. (As an aside, the image you provided can't be used; it's a screenshot of a basic footnote being modified, rather than being created.)
  • Finally, in revising the manual, I'm favorably impressed by how much more obvious the flow of user actions seem to be - for example, now clicking on "Edit" rather than, previously, clicking directly on the text of a template in order to start editing that template. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:05, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Animated gifs

Do you think that any of these animated gifs would be desirable for the user guide? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:36, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF):Interesting. I'm inclined to say "no" for two reasons. The lesser is because if two of these are close to one another in the user manual, that would be distracting. The more major reason is that the gifs running continually is a big negative. When you're reading the user guide, you're going to be distracted. Worse, you can't tell when the gif begins, because it's on a loop; while you can eventually puzzle it out, that takes time.
If the gifs were small video clips, where the user clicks the play icon, and the clip runs for five seconds or so, I'd definitely be in favor. (I've said a number of times that, in hindsight, the tutorials in WP:TMM should have been screencasts; I think these are really good for step-by-step procedures.) I also suggest slowing down the pace a bit (in screencasts, this is accomplished implicitly because of the voice-over narration), and typing in text, rather than pasting it, at least the first time the text is used. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:58, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Terminology

Basic footnote, context menu
Basic footnote, editing dialog

What do you think about the idea in phab:T85679? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:37, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

I think this is classic developer behavior - (a) identify a problem [correctly], (b) treat something that is non-technical (in this case, a semantical problem) as a technical matter (in this case, by not asking the community to help), and (c) assign the lowest priority to a task that has absolutely minimal programming work, almost guaranteeing that - despite the minimal programming work involved [as opposed to community discussion] - the problem will not actually be addressed. [To restate (c): not comparing the cost to the benefits]
More constructively: I'd be happy to see the user guide consistently refer to citations and references as "footnotes", and to say something along the lines of "a footnote normally contains information about a source which provides reliable information in support of the text in an article", and "footnotes are often called 'citations' or 'references'". If you agree, I'll be happy to edit the user guide accordingly. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:00, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
If you are happy with that, then I'm happy with it.
My next question: What do you think about using a non-bibliographic example for the basic/manual footnote? You can see my proposed screenshots above (in my sandbox, if you want to fix it or change the content). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:27, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-24

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from June 9. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from June 10. It will be on all Wikipedias from June 11 (calendar). [194] [195]
  • If you use the Monobook skin, the buttons and other controls now look more the same in VisualEditor and other tools. [196]
  • When you edit links and other items in VisualEditor, you now need to apply your change before closing the tool. [197]
  • The title of dialogs is now easier to see when it is near long buttons. [198]

Meetings

Future changes

  • If you have a bot, you may need to fix it. The default continuation mode of the API for action=query will change at the end of June. [200]

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15:21, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library needs you!

The Wikipedia Library

Call for Volunteers

The Wikipedia Library is expanding, and we need your help! With only a couple of hours per week, you can make a big difference in helping editors get access to reliable sources and other resources. Sign up for one of the following roles:

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Sign up to help here :)

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Franklin Center

Oops, sorry for the misunderstanding, and thanks for the clarification. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:47, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

@DrFleischman: No problem - I appreciated your clear edit summary, which let me figure out what was going on. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:57, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-25

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Users have created more than 5000 articles with the new translation tool. [201]
  • Editing a page is now faster. This is because some statistics about edit filters were removed. [202]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 17 June. It will be on all Wikipedias from 18 June (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • Developers are working on a new tool to get and send newsletters. If you read or write a newsletter, share your ideas about it. [204]
  • If you use Pywikibot, soon you won't be able to use compat anymore. [205] [206] [207]

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15:04, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-26

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Some wikis can now be used only with HTTPS. This includes the English, Russian and Chinese Wikipedias, among others. Soon all wikis will use only HTTPS for all users. [208] [209]
  • You can't use HTTPS wikis with Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP. You need to use another browser. [210]

Problems

  • On June 15, search was broken on all wikis for several hours. [211] [212] [213]
  • On June 16, images were broken for several hours on wikis that use InstantCommons. [214] [215] [216]
  • Many Labs tools were broken for several days. Almost all of them are back now. They may be missing some data for the last 10 days. [217] [218] [219]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from June 23. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from June 24. It will be on all Wikipedias from June 25 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 23 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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15:24, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Requesting your cooperation

Hello,

I usually volunteer to study different communities and Wiki-projects. You can glance thru some of my blogposts here. I am also trying to study NIH-WMF collaboration and made some initial progress. But I need your cooperation as I believe you were also one of the instructors who rendered their valuable service in this direction. --Muzammil (talk) 12:09, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

@Hindustanilanguage: I'd be happy to help, if I can. Yes, I was one of the volunteers at Wikipedia:Academy/NIH 2009, though not (in my opinion) one of the more involved, or important, members of the Wikipedia group at that event.
It's probably best to send me an email, describing what sort of information you're looking for. You can do that via "Email this user" (on the tools menu at the left, as I'm sure you're aware, but I mention just in case). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:06, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
Hi John, the WMF blog team has changed some of its policies regarding blogposts. I've requested some clarification regarding possible new blogposts. Once I get this, I'll revert to you. Otherwise there is no point in us putting effort when the outcome is not used anywhere. --Muzammil (talk) 09:51, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-27

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Long lines in code blocks now look better. [220]
  • You can now see graphs in VisualEditor. [221]
  • When you read a page on the mobile site, you can now see a link to go to its talk page. [222]
  • The code coloring tool has changed. You can now use many more languages. It now also works on mobile. [223] [224] [225]
  • You can look at a new site to learn how to reuse data from Wikimedia sites. [226]

Problems

  • JavaScript was broken on some wikis due to a code error. VisualEditor and other tools that use JavaScript were broken. [227]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from June 30. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 1. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 2 (calendar).
  • You can now use a tool in VisualEditor to add and edit code in color. [228]
  • When you edit a sentence in the Translate tool, it can show you older translations. They help you save time if they look alike. The older translations should now work better. If you see problems, you should report them. [229]
  • If you are an admin or have other special rights, you now need a strong password. [230]
  • Bot and JavaScript coders: The old continuation mode of the API for action=query doesn't work any more. [231]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 30 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future

  • When you create a new account, it will also create one on Meta-Wiki and mediawiki.org. [232]

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15:56, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Reference errors on 2 July

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:17, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-28

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • On the mobile site, you now see more information when you search for a page. It now shows the description from Wikidata. [233]

Problems

  • The code of long pages is not colored any more. You may see this problem on the pages of long gadgets. [234]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 7. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 8. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 9 (calendar).
  • The "Page information" tool shows how many users watch the page. You can now see how many are active. [235] [236]
  • You can now translate articles into English with the new translation tool. [237]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on July 7 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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15:13, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

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Send on behalf of The Wikipedia Library using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:31, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-29

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Problems

  • There was a problem with editing on Thursday. Some tools like bots and VisualEditor were broken on all wikis for 10 minutes. [239]
  • There was a problem with images on Thursday. They were broken on all wikis for 15 minutes. [240]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 14. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 15. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 16 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join a technical meeting at Wikimania in Mexico City this week. [241]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:06, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 12

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 12, May-June 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - Taylor & Francis, Science, and three new French-language resources
  • Expansion into new languages, including French, Finnish, Turkish, and Farsi
  • Spotlight: New partners for the Visiting Scholar program
  • American Library Association Annual meeting in San Francisco

Read the full newsletter

The Interior 15:23, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-30

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 21. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 22. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 23 (calendar).
  • You now see more warnings in the image viewer. They tell you to be careful when using the image, for example if it shows a person. [242]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on July 21 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • Soon you won't be able to use MathJax to display math. [243]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

03:05, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-31

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Problems

  • There was a problem with some Lua modules on July 22 and 23. Some pages using them did not list them in "what links here". You can fix those pages with a null edit: edit and save the page without making any change.
  • There was a problem with the abuse filter page on big wikis on July 23. It was due to a code error. [249]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 28. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 29. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 30 (calendar).
  • JavaScript authors: You cannot use wgNoticeUserData to get edit counts anymore. [250]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on July 28 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:05, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Progress

Hi John,

With Ceyockey's help, I made some progress on a new area for the user guide: how to add content in a ref, after a citation template. You can see the results at mw:Help:VisualEditor/User guide/Citations-Full#Manually_editing_an_automatic_citation. I think that I included enough text to show you what I meant, but it needs help. Also, once you're happy with that, we should re-do it (mostly swapping in new images) for the non-Citoid system. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Well, I do have to say that the first steps in that process are (technical term) ugly. I've posted a suggestion at WP:VE/F to eliminate them, though there are clearly tradeoffs; I'm hoping someone can build on my suggestion.
In the meantime, I've edited the user guide, so - it's back to you. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:14, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
I completely agree with you about the ugliness of the process. IMO it's less-ugly without the citoid service installed (but still not pretty). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 14:24, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Bill Niederst listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Bill Niederst. Since you had some involvement with the Bill Niederst redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Magioladitis (talk) 12:11, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-32

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • The ContentTranslation extension has been updated:
    • You can now type in list paragraphs on wikis with right-to-left scripts. [251]
    • Some user interface updates changed how details in the ContentTranslation extension look. [252] [253] [254] [255]
  • The error page you see when the sites are not working is now simpler and easier to read. It also shows the Wikimedia logo. [256]
  • MediaWiki now supports redirects for CSS pages. [257]
  • Bots can't guess captchas unlimited times anymore. [258]

Problems

  • There was a problem with thumbnails on wikis with local images on July 24 and 25. It was due to a code error. [259]
  • We can't search by file type on Wikimedia wikis now. [260]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from August 5. It will be on all Wikipedias from August 6 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on August 4 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:51, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Lists

I have just realized that we have almost nothing about lists in the user guide, and since this is now possible:

  • Beginning
    • Three characters
      1. First pig builds a house of straw.
      2. Second pig builds a house of sticks.
      3. Third pig builds a house of bricks.
  • Middle
    • Introduce the wolf.
      • Blow down the straw house.
      • Blow down the stick house.
  • End
    • Wolf fails to blow down the brick house.
    • Kill the wolf.

it's probably time. I've created a placeholder at mw:Help:VisualEditor/User guide#Editing lists. Whenever I get good screenshots made for you, I'll let you know. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:52, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Sounds good - let me know when you'd like me to jump in. And just a quibble, but the last item probably should be something like "Wolf runs away", both for political correctness and to correspond to the traditional version described in The Three Little Pigs. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:14, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
BTW, I'm thinking about taking a few hours to create a fake article for the purpose of making screenshots and maybe even videocasts. See mw:Topic:Smg3tzz5xft57kua for a summary. I'm thinking about using an astronomy theme, because we can use some awesome NASA photos without needing to worry about attribution. What do you think? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:12, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

mw:Help:VisualEditor/User guide#Editing lists awaits you. I've got two screenshots for one step; one's in place and the other is linked, so you can pick whichever you like. Any screenshot can be redone, or I can add circles and arrows (but not paragraphs typed on the back) to anything that you would like. If you need more or different ones, just let me know. This is my first test run for the sample article idea. I may turn it into an article about a fictional word, but for right now, it was easier to use simple facts.

Also, in terms of overall layout, do you prefer all images on the left or right, or do you prefer having them alternate (e.g., images on the left for the citation section, and images on the right for the table section)? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:45, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): I've done some editing. Regarding your question of image placement, I've never considered that. Upon reflection, I suggest that when the image shows something that the user is supposed to do, the image should be on the left, as, for example, with the first image in the "Editing lists" section. (Conceptually: the user sees the image, then - looking right - sees instructions on what do.) But when the image is passive - simply showing what has happened, as, for example, "Here is the result of increased indentation", then the image should be to the right. (Conceptually: the text announces what the user is seeing.) Hopefully that makes sense to you, but if not - or where it doesn't give clear guidance - I don't see any reason why images shouldn't remain [mainly] on the left.
Also, I did a bit of editing of the next two sections. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:14, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Feature

About this: It's a feature, not a bug. Bugs are unintentional.  ;-) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:30, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): I wasn't aware of that subcategory of the "feature" class; thanks for pointing it out. I spent an interesting year, in 1999, coordinating the U.C. Berkeley response to an interesting feature: squeezing what ideally would have been an eight-character field (MMDDYYYY) into only six spaces (MMDDYY). That, of course, had been a necessary feature back in the days of 80-column punched cards. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:54, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #4—2015

Read this in another language • Local subscription list • Subscribe to the multilingual edition

Did you know?

You can add quotations marks before and after a title or phrase with a single click.

Select the relevant text. Find the correct quotations marks in the special character inserter tool (marked as Ω in the toolbar).

Screenshot showing the special character tool, selected text, and the special character that will be inserted


Click the button. VisualEditor will add the quotation marks on either side of the text you selected.

Screenshot showing the special character tool and the same text after the special character has been inserted


You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

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

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

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

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

  • 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)

Public Storage

Hi John. I seem to remember (and correct me if I'm wrong) that you were sort of encouraging me not to bother you with day-to-day Request Edits for minor stuff, but you were interested in helping when things got sticky. This page has been a bit of a drama explosion, in particular due to a GA review that was picked up just hours after I nominated (usually takes months) and completed within a short time frame. The original article was written by someone that was engaged in a lawsuit with the company and I was recruited to put something more encyclopedic in place.

This discussion is where things are at right now. If you have time to participate, I think having an un-involved editor that wasn't engaged in the drama about the GA review participate for a while would help prevent people from strangling each other. CorporateM (Talk) 04:57, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

If I'm not bothering you too much this could also use a diplomatic, un-involved editor's sustained attention, but it's difficult to get anyone involved for more than a single post. I suspect on many counts other editors are correct - I'm a bit outside my element on medical pages, but once someone mocks me for being a paid editor, at that point I no longer know on which points I may legitimately be incorrect, and on which points they may just not want me contributing. Also, one of the other editors and I got in a spat on the Acupuncture page a while back that was followed by a short period of stalking and finding argument on other pages. I don't think they are still stalking me and it would be routine for us to encounter each other by chance, but it seems ripe for similar problems/drama as the PS page. I'd understand if you don't have time for both.
In other news, I just hit 40 GAs. These two are somewhat rare in being so problematic. CorporateM (Talk) 01:35, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Congratulations on the 40 GAs! I realize that your goal isn't to demonstrate that paid editors can add lots of value to Wikipedia, but since that's a topic of interest to me, I'm glad you're providing an excellent example.
I think the PS discussion is moving in a constructive direction, so I'm happy; let's see how things progress. As for Invisalign article, it looks like there are at least two open issues: the lead paragraph(s?), and the arrangement of (some?) sections of the article. Is that correct, or are there more than those two? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:27, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Paid editors can be helpful in some cases, but I always remind people that I only accept 30% of inquiries I receive, because in most cases there is no ethical way to obtain the article-subject's desired outcome without breaching Wikipedia's policies. A lot of potential clients say their article is overly critical, and I respond by saying that more criticism is actually needed, etc.. Recently I've seen a few cases where PR reps were bringing borderline attack pages to our attention - very useful. In most cases I can persuade article-subjects to abstain just through education and consulting - they aren't evil.
Yah those are the two open discussions right now. With the article-structure, for the sake of focusing on one thing at-a-time, I was trying to focus the discussion on whether there should be a separate Cost section, rather than consolidating it with a "Comparison to" or "Advantage/Disadvantages" section. Both Dental Update[1] and the other accessible source[261] mention costs in more of a pros/cons, advantages/disadvantages context, so I think we should follow suite with the sources, rather than creating a dedicated section on the product's main disadvantage and not even mentioning its primary benefit (aesthetics). CorporateM (Talk) 05:18, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
I can provide PDFs by email if you need access to some of the sources. There's literally only 3 MEDRS-compliant sources in PubMed, so it's not a lot, but I remember the Dental Update piece being very hard to get the full-text of. CorporateM (Talk) 05:22, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
  1. ^ Malik, Ovals; McMullin, Allbhe; Waring, David (April 2013). "Invisible Orthodontics Part 1: Invisalign". Dental Update. PMID 23767109.

Tech News: 2015-33

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • MediaWiki can now hide the signature button when you edit a content page. [262]
  • The "Your preferences have been saved" message has changed. You can now see more easily what was saved when you change preferences several times. [263]
  • You can now play Ogg video files in some browsers that don't support this format. This solution uses JavaScript and works on desktop browsers only for now. It will work on mobile later. [264]
  • You can now use the same tools to edit style in VisualEditor on mobile as in desktop browsers. [265]
  • It is now easier to see if there is a JavaScript error in a user or site script. [266]
  • JavaScript authors:
  • The content translation tool now works better. It is easier to use math, and useless tags are no longer added. [271]

Problems

  • More edits have been rejected due to loss of session data lately. This is now fixed. [272]
  • Importing a Lua module sometimes didn't work. This is now fixed. [273]
  • Text was sometimes lost in the content translation tool. One part of the problem is now fixed. [274]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from August 12. It will be on all Wikipedias from August 13 (calendar).
  • UploadWizard is getting a new look. The look of buttons and checkboxes has already changed. This week, UploadWizard gets a new date picker. The other text fields will change soon. [275]
  • You can now test VisualEditor on mobile devices of all sizes. [276]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on August 11 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • Some things in the watchlist will get a new look. [277]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

14:57, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

IYO, What happens to pageviews count when a page is moved?

Hi John,

Just reading the section about moving a page in your Missing Manual book, and wondering whether you could advice on the following challenge:

I'm trying to use the very cool stats.grok.se to get page-views data for article.

1. One challenge is that the data in stats.grok is per URL, not per article, so when the page is moved.

2. Using the Wikipedia API I managed to get hold of all the dates and URL changes I need, The new link data is only relevant from when the change is mad, BUT I'm not sure how to treat old-link page-views after the date of the page move:

3. After the page-move - there are many times pageviews numbers for the same days on both links. For example: for this movie: - these data start 21 Aug 2008, but the Revision history shows that was a date of a link change. AND - Old link data continues after the link change date.

If New_link_data was always the maximum page-views, I could assume the old location is still getting hits just as users are being redirected from it to the new page location. but this is not he case. Also I know that redirects to the old-location don't get automatically redirected to the new location. I have two options of getting a measure of number of daily hits for an article, as far as I can see:

A. On the date of page move - start using new-location data and ignore old-location data B. From the date of page move, add the pageviews for old and new locations for each day of data.

My problem is: - Option A will be an under-estimation if some users who are interested in the article still only get to the old location (e.g. from redirects). BTW what do such users see - just a redirect message? - Option B will be an over-estimation if the redirect creates 2 hits for a user which is re-directed - one in the old location and another in the new location. I'd appreciate any advice. Again - great tool! Thanks, Michael

I'd be grateful for any advice about the issue or who I should ask! Kind Regards Michael

MichaelWhite1982 (talk) 12:41, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

@MichaelWhite1982: Interesting question. I'm not quite sure I understand "Also I know that redirects to the old-location don't get automatically redirected to the new location." That's not how redirects work - they are automatic, unless the redirect is to a page on another wiki (for example, mediawiki.org) - and that's not relevant to articles.
More to the point, I'd recommend posting this question to WP:VPT - that's where all the technical people hang out, and this is the sort of question that would interest them - and someone might be able to answer it off-the-cuff. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:15, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks John. I have and indeed got great answers. Apparently simply summing the page views per day on the old and new locations is the answer since there won't be cases of a duplicated hit. MichaelWhite1982 (talk) 20:32, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:House Races 2006

Template:House Races 2006 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:53, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-34

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Many Wikipedias can now use information from any Wikidata item in any Wikipedia article. Before they could only use the Wikidata item that matched the subject of the article. [278] [279] [280]
  • Some auto-saving problems and other issues in the Content Translation tool are now fixed. Please report to the Content Translation feedback page if you still have problems. [281]

Problems

  • Older gadgets that are not using ResourceLoader are not loading anymore. They need to be updated. [282] [283]
  • On August 12 the machine translation servers and the Content Translation tool didn't work. This was fixed on the same day. [284]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from August 19. It will be on all Wikipedias from August 20 (calendar).
  • You can soon watch when something is added to or removed from a category. [285]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on August 18 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:17, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Sample page

I think that mw:Help:Sample page is nearly done, except:

  1. adding an infobox (which one?) (and maybe some other template);
  2. maybe adding something that uses computer code or preformatted text; and
  3. simplifying the language, to make things easier on the translators (says the woman who just added a section from a John Donne poem  ;-).

The next use will be screenshots for citations. I've added three citations: one manually formatted about a book, and two using a citation template (a 2008 version of {{cite journal}}). Can you think of anything else that I should add? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:03, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): I agree that an infobox would be good. {{Infobox planet}} comes to mind. The article Earth uses this; if you go with that infobox, it obviously would be best to use only a few parameters. I don't see a good reason to use another template.
Code is used relatively rarely in Wikipedia articles; I don't see the need. Plus, with VE, it's not really different than bolding or making text italics.
I've done a bit of editing to simplify the language, but it seems pretty straightforward. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:20, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. I added a few more things today. I've also agreed that James F can have it in British English.  :-) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:04, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I've reached the "test drive" stage. I've replaced most of the screenshots above mw:Help:VisualEditor/User_guide#Editing_templates. Eventually, I'm going to have to get back to figuring out the main citation section. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:36, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I've made some progress over the last few days. There are a handful of obvious problems, like images on the wrong side of the table or half the size they should be. But I think that everything *except* the main refs section and templates is done. I made some progress on the templates section, but it needs more. The Tables section definitely needs a complete re-write.
Feel free to request any more/different screenshots that you want. I expect to be online a lot this week, so I should be able to give you any screenshots you want. Also, I've added a hatnote at the top to discourage translation markup, to make it easier for you to get the writing done without having to fight the translation code. You may remove it whenever you are ready to have it marked for translation. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 05:16, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): I thought, while I'm at it, to play around a bit more with the sample page, since that is still marked as not for translation. If you were happy with it as it was, feel free to revert.
As for user manual, I've finished editing it, I think - but if you see sections that you'd like another review of, just let me know.
In the "Editing Templates" section, some issues:
  • I've set up one new subsection heading in the "Editing Templates" section, and put text where I suggest putting two other subsection headings.
  • You'll find excess translate sections that should be deleted; please review the translation chunking throughout this section, since I moved text between rows.
  • And a "transclusion" link that isn't behaving.
  • I'm fine with the screenshots except
  • File:VisualEditor - Template editing 1.png, which is out-of-date: the pop-up window contains an "Edit" link
  • All the images that are in what I'm suggesting be the "Template parameters" subsection have "Show options" as a button/link - but that's now been changed. Given that I'm suggesting that one image be deleted, I think the remaining four images need changing.
  • The first two images in the "Substituting templates" section (again, "Show options" is no longer what is in the dialog).
The "Editing tables" section and "Editing references" sections are done, too. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:20, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
I had the same problem with the "Transclusion" item and have referred it to Guillaume, who is the master of all things related to the translation extension. I can't tell from your comment whether I owe you six or nine images. However, several of those are already on my list, and my hope is to get those done late today or tomorrow. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:09, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): I've revised the wording of my comment, above, to make it clearer. The images I think need revision now total seven. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:40, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I've made a few changes, and have left a few notes about what still needs to be done at mw:Help_talk:VisualEditor/User_guide#Updates. There will be more, but it should all be small tweaks from here. I am removing the "don't translate this yet!" tag and will let Shirayuki mark it up whenever he wants to. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:00, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-35

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Disambiguation pages are now excluded from the random page function. [286]

Problems

  • There was a problem with CAPTCHAs in VisualEditor. This has now been fixed. [287]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from August 26. It will be on all Wikipedias from August 27 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on August 25 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

13:02, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-36

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • VisualEditor will now automatically create a link when you type in or paste an ISBN, PMID, or RFC. [288][289]
  • The link editor in VisualEditor is now a bit wider. It's now the same width as the automatic citation tool. [290]
  • VisualEditor gadget authors can no longer use the backwards-compatibility module ext.visualEditor.viewPageTarget.init. Use ext.visualEditor.desktopArticleTarget.init instead. [291]
  • Gadget writers can now use mediawiki.ForeignApi to communicate between different Wikimedia wikis. [292]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from September 1. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from September 2. It will be on all Wikipedias from September 3 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on September 1 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

21:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-37

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can now mention up to 50 users in a post and they will get a notification. Previously you could notify up to 20 users. [294]
  • A new version of the Wikidata Toolkit has been released. It now has Wikibase API support. [295]
  • You can now use Wikidata to find all good or featured articles in a Wikipedia version. [296]

Problems

  • There was a problem with Tool Labs due to kernel issues. This has been fixed. [297]
  • The Content Translation tool published some pages with the same reference repeated several times. This has been fixed. [298][299]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from September 8. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from September 9. It will be on all Wikipedias from September 10 (calendar).
  • The maximum character length when you search for something on the Wikimedia wikis is now 300 characters. [300]
  • The notifications list has been split into two lists. As a first step, notifications about messages on your user talk page will be placed in the second list. Feedback is requested at the Echo talk page. [301][302]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on September 8 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
  • You can join the Wikitech ambassadors mailing list. The list is for Wikimedians interested in spreading information about Wikimedia technology news. See how to join.

Future changes

  • The Wikimedia mailing lists will be moved to a new server and the software will be upgraded. This will happen on September 9 at 14:00 (UTC). The mailing lists will not be working during the move. It can take up to four hours. [303]
  • Wikidata will soon be able to store measurements, such as a mountain's height or the distance between two places. [304][305]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:29, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Your feedback on a short series of tutorials

Hi John,

I was told that I should speak with you about a short series of videos I'm making about how to edit Wikipedia. If you are interested, could you email me at vgrigas@wikimedia.org ? I'd love your feedback. VGrigas (WMF) (talk) 20:49, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-38

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can now use the Wikidata query service. [306]
  • Belarusian-Taraškievica Wikipedia was moved from be-x-old.wikipedia.org to be-tarask.wikipedia.org. This caused some issues, but most of them were resolved. [307]
  • Language preferences might not be changed immediately when you adjust them. Language selection might work slower. Please report any problems. [308][309]

Problems

  • There was a problem when editing International Standard Book Numbers in Visual Editor. This has now been fixed. [310]
  • The Wikimedia mailing lists should have been upgraded on September 9. It didn't work as planned and will now happen later. [311]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from September 15. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from September 16. It will be on all Wikipedias from September 17 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on September 15 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • ContentTranslation will show more data on the Special:ContentTranslationStats page. For example, it will show translation trends and information about deleted translations. [312]
  • The first version of the translation suggestions feature will be deployed soon. [313]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:17, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-39

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • There is now an experimental Wikimedia maps service. You can give feedback here. [314][315]
  • Last week a few issues with UploadWizard were fixed. Before this was done, UploadWizard would stop you from uploading your files if something went wrong. [316][317][318][319]
  • More Wikipedias can now use information from any Wikidata item in any Wikipedia article. Previously they could only use the Wikidata item that matched the subject of the article. [320]
  • The VisualEditor welcome dialogue has been changed. The intention is to make it more helpful for new users. [321]

Problems

  • Wikimedia Labs' HTTPS certificate expired for most of Tuesday 15 September. To reach Wikimedia Labs and Tool Labs securely you had to ignore your browser's security error message. There was no risk to data security during this time. [322]
  • Last week the notification system was split into two parts. This was temporarily undone because of a bug and performance concerns. It will return to two parts this week. [323][324]
  • UploadWizard couldn't upload files larger than 5 MB when using chunked uploads. This has now been fixed. [325]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from September 22. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from September 23. It will be on all Wikipedias from September 24 (calendar).
  • The page move tool has been switched over to the new standard look for forms. [326]
  • You can now choose whether to extend a link or not when editing one in VisualEditor. This means it is easier to choose how much of what you type before and after the link is part of it. [327]
  • Wikibooks can now use data from Wikidata. [328]

Meetings

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:29, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-40

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • In UploadWizard, the dialog to see an image preview has been removed. You already see the images in the thumbnails when you upload them. [329]
  • UploadWizard dialogs look a bit different now. They have been updated to the new OOUI look. [330]
  • You can now edit music scores in VisualEditor. You can add new sheet music scores and get live updates when you edit one. [331]
  • When you send an e-mail to another editor using Special:EmailUser, that user will now get a notification on the wiki as well. [332]
  • You can now see 500 images when you upload images from Flickr with UploadWizard. Before this change the limit was 50. [333]
  • The Wikimedia mailing lists have been upgraded. [334]
  • MediaWiki developers spent a day looking at proposed code changes in Gerrit. The goal was to clean up the backlog and give feedback to volunteer developers. [335]

Problems

  • Some visitors had problems reaching the Wikimedia sites for an hour on September 24. [336][337]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from September 29. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from September 30. It will be on all Wikipedias from October 1 (calendar).
  • There will be a new beta feature that allows editors to use Flow on their user talkpage if they want to. Each wiki can decide if they want to enable it. [338]
  • The Content Translation tool can give translation suggestions. This feature will now be available in more languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Turkish, Japanese, Italian, and Catalan. [339]

Meetings

Future changes

  • The Wikimedia Foundation developers want the community to decide who can use OAuth in the future. You can discuss it on Meta.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:15, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 13

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 13, August-September 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - EBSCO, IMF, more newspaper archives, and Arabic resources
  • Expansion into new languages, including Viet and Catalan
  • Spotlight: Elsevier partnership garners controversy, dialogue
  • Conferences: PKP, IFLA, upcoming events

Read the full newsletter

The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:30, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-41

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • The link editor in the visual editor now shows results below the search box. This improves the usability on desktop and mobile. [341]
  • The description at Special:ChangeEmail now clearly explains that the page can also be used to remove your email. [342]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from October 6. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 7. It will be on all Wikipedias from October 8 (calendar).
  • UploadWizard will remind users to add a category. [343]
  • UploadWizard's category selectors will be easier to use. [344]
  • A new Cite error will be shown if a named reference is defined more than once in the same article. [345]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor update

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)

This ain't an alternative form of the WIP template, correct? Thanks a lot for the updates you made, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 17:06, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
@Elitre (WMF): You're welcome. And no, I'm not planning to personally revise that page. In general, I'm sort-of waiting for VE to be less beta-ish before I'm willing to invest time in rewriting the English-language user guide. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:34, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-43

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Tech News is trying to make reading the newsletter easier. The Recurrent item icon means the item is in the newsletter every week, but with new dates. The For technical readers icon means the item is mainly relevant for readers with technical knowledge. You can leave feedback on this change.
  • Timestamps in the protection log will now be in the user's timezone. Previously they would show Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). [346]

Problems

  • A problem with MediaWiki made some pages show no content on October 14. This has now been fixed. [347]
  • Some templates were misplaced in the Flow description bar. This could make it impossible to click on links. This will be fixed this week. [348]
  • The deployment of the new MediaWiki version was stopped on October 14. No new code was deployed for the rest of week. This meant planned changes did not happen. [349]

Changes this week

  • Changes that were planned to happen last week will happen this week. [350]
  • Wikispecies, Meta and MediaWiki.org will be able to use Wikidata for sitelinks. [351][352][353][354]

Meetings

  • Recurrent item You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 20 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:02, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-44

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from October 27. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 28. It will be on all Wikipedias from October 29 (calendar).
  • The first time you use the visual editor, pop-ups will explain why and when you should use the citation and link tools. [355]
  • You will be able to upload images to Wikimedia Commons from inside the wikitext editor by clicking "Upload" in the "Insert file" dialog. You will also be able to drag and drop them into an article when using the visual editor. [356][357]
  • When you edit a code block in visual editor, you will have the syntax highlighted. [358][359]
  • Index and Page namespaces on Wikisource will be defined as content namespaces in $wgContentNamespaces. [360]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:04, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #5—2015

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Did you know?
You can use the visual editor on smartphones and tablets.

Screenshot showing the menu for switching from the wikitext editor to VisualEditor

Click the pencil icon to open the editor for a page. Inside that, use the gear menu in the upper right corner to "Switch to visual editing".

The editing button will remember which editing environment you used last time, and give you the same one next time. The desktop site will be switching to a system similar to this one in the coming months.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

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

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

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 5

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)

Hi John,
I've added placeholders for the image uploading feature at the user guide. I think that design is stable, so I'll make screenshots soon.
If memory serves, the musical scores work the same as poems in terms of interface. I'm therefore weakly inclined to omit them, but I would be happy to follow your advice either way. If there anything else in this list that you think should be included? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:06, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): My inclination would be to have separate sections for poems and musical scores, because I think that people jump to the section of interest, rather than reading the manual linearly - so length isn't an issue. It is a bit more work to write, of course.
As for what else should be included, I'd recommend a separate high-level item that covers switching in mid-edit to the wikitext editor; obviously this would become switching to and from the wikitext editor, once this week's code changes take effect. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:37, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
I've made notes in Phab about it, and cc:d you. This way I won't forget.  ;-) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:55, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-45

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can now see how many editors are using a gadget on a wiki on Special:GadgetUsage. [361]
  • If you are using the mobile version of Wikipedia, you can now see Wikidata descriptions under article titles in search results. [362]
  • Editing conflicts are now detected when you edit on a mobile device. Before, this did not work properly on mobile. [363]

Problems

  • On October 26 the Wikimedia sites went down for ten minutes. [364]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 4. It will be on all Wikipedias from November 5 (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • A help link will be added to Special:Search. Administrators might have to update the MediaWiki:Search-summary message to avoid two help links. [365]
  • Empty list items could be allowed in the future. If so, this could affect some templates. [366]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:43, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Updates/August 15, 2013

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.

You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. This is a notice that the page you created was tagged as a test page under section G2 of the criteria for speedy deletion and has been or soon may be deleted. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. Liz Read! Talk! 13:43, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-46

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Superprotect has been removed. [367]
  • You can now switch between the wikitext editor and the visual editor without saving. You will not lose the changes you have made. [368]
  • JSON dumps of the production search indexes are now available. They can be imported to Elasticsearch. [369]

Problems

  • Some translations for the Thanks and Echo extensions were missing. Translators have been asked to help and this should be solved soon. [370]

Changes this week

  • Thumbnails of 16-bit TIFF files will be displayed properly. Before, this didn't work. [371]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 10. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 11. It will be on all Wikipedias from November 12 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 10 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:18, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-47

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes this week

  • You can use TemplateData to indicate how you want a template to be displayed in wikitext. Tools like VisualEditor that edit templates will soon use this information. [374]
  • Echo notification icons in MonoBook will look more like other icons in the theme. [375]
  • The Community Tech team is doing a community wishlist survey to understand what they should be working on. They are now accepting proposals in all languages. You can create your proposal in the small box above the blue button and click it when you're done.
  • Wikis can make the welcome notification link to a specific page. [376]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 17. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 18. It will be on all Wikipedias from November 19 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 17 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • Internet Explorer 8 will no longer have JavaScript support. You will still be able to browse and edit Wikipedia, but will not be able to use some features. This can be solved by upgrading to a newer version or switching to a different browser. The change will happen in January 2016. [377][378]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:39, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:09, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:33, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-48

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • A new Pageview API has been announced. Feedback is requested to help decide which data to add to it next.

Changes this week

  • There are no MediaWiki deployments this week (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • From 1 December, the MediaWiki API will no longer support the dbg, txt, and yaml output formats. [379]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:26, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-49

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

The symbol for advanced news items has been changed. This is because the symbols were too similar. If a news item is for more technical readers it now looks like this: . You can give feedback on this change.

Problems

  • On September 29 users' skin preferences were removed by mistake on small and medium-sized wikis. This changed preferences back to Vector. Restoring all data would cause even more problems. Affected users who want to have their preference changed back globally can ask for it as a comment on Phabricator task T119206 until December 21 2015. [380]
  • Some scheduled tasks were not working properly from September to recently. This meant some pages in the special pages namespace were not updated. It has now been fixed. [381]

Changes this week

  • Wikinews, Wikispecies, MediaWiki.org and Meta will be able to use information from Wikidata. [382][383]
  • There are no MediaWiki deployments this week (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • Category watchlists are now available on test wikis and MediaWiki.org. The plan is to enable it on most wikis in January. [384]
  • Cross-wiki notifications are being developed. When this is done you will not have to go to the wiki where something happened to be notified. [385]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-50

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Revision scoring will help to automatically identify bad-faith and good-faith edits. The point is to make it easier to block vandals and welcome newcomers. It currently supports Wikidata and 14 Wikipedias. [386]

Problems

  • Meta was not given access to information from Wikidata last week. This will happen later. [387]

Changes this week

  • You will be able to use wikilinks in Flow topic titles. [388]
  • IP users will have a toolbar with links to the user talk page and user contributions. Some Wikipedias already have this feature. [389]
  • You will be able to edit the graph size in the visual editor. You can either specify the size in the graph dialog or drag it to be the size you want it to be. [390]
  • It will be easier to write math in the visual editor if you don't know LaTeX. You can use symbol buttons instead. [391]
  • You will be able to use syntax highlighting when you write math with LaTeX in the visual editor. [392]
  • UploadWizard will look a bit different. [393]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 December. It will be on all Wikipedias from 10 December. (calendar).
  • New MediaWiki versions will now be on Catalan and Hebrew Wikipedia on Wednesdays. Other Wikipedias get the new MediaWiki version on Thursdays. [394]

Meetings

Future changes

  • A new beta feature will show users links to related articles at the bottom of an article. It will not be enabled by default. [395]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:52, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Advice on the Introduction to tables tutorial

Hi,

I've found your contributions and opinions on help pages useful previously so if you have a moment would you mind taking a look at the Introduction to tables tutorial?

It's has been partially complete for a few years. I've had a go at updating it but it would be really useful to have a few other editors have a quick look over to see what content and detail level the community think needs to be included. The centralised talk page for discussion is here

Any suggestions or advice on content and depth would be helpful. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 12:25, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 14

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 14, October-November 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - Gale, Brill, plus Finnish and Farsi resources
  • Open Access Week recap, and DOIs, Wikipedia, and scholarly citations
  • Spotlight: 1Lib1Ref - a citation drive for librarians

Read the full newsletter

The Interior, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:12, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-51

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes this week

  • Meta will be able to use information from Wikidata. [396]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 December. It will be on all Wikipedias from 17 December. (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:42, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-52

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News

  • Because of the holidays, the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 11 January 2016.
  • The writers of the technical newsletter are asking for your opinion. Did you get the information you wanted this year? Did we miss important technical news in 2015? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us! You can write in your language. Thank you!

Recent changes

  • CompletionSuggester is a new suggestions algorithm for Search. It is available as a Beta feature since 17 December. (more information)
  • The Multimedia team is running an A/B test for the cross-wiki upload tool. They are testing four different interfaces. The test is running from 16-23 December. (more information)

Changes this week

  • There is no deployment of MediaWiki scheduled until 12 January 2016 (calendar).

Meetings

  • Should administrators and other users with advanced tools need stronger passwords? You can discuss about it in a Request for Comments.
  • No meeting with the VisualEditor team on 22 and 29 December, and 5 January.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:29, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #6—2015

Read this in another language • Subscription list

Did you know?

A new, simpler system for editing will offer a single Edit button. Once the page has opened, you can switch back and forth between visual and wikitext editing.

Screenshot showing a pop-up dialog for switching from the wikitext editor to VisualEditor
If you prefer having separate edit buttons, then you can set that option in your preferences, either in a pop-up dialog the next time you open the visual editor, or by going to Special:Preferences and choosing the setting that you want:
Screenshot showing a drop-down menu in Special:Preferences

The current plan is for the default setting to have the Edit button open the editing environment you used most recently.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

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

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

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

  • 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)

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