User talk:Ocaasi/Archive 8
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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
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.
- 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.
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
- Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
- Please help complete translations of the user guide for users who speak your language.
- Join the weekly bug triage meetings beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins. Contact James F. for more information.
- Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 19:00 UTC.
Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Translations are available through Meta. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 04 February 2015
- News and notes: No men beyond this point: the proposal to create a no-men space on Wikipedia
The Signpost talks with the creator of a grant proposal to create an on-wiki exclusive space for women to discuss issues.
- Op-ed: Is Wikipedia for sale?
Hundreds of posted jobs offer money to edit Wikipedia. These jobs appear to be thriving, with tens of thousands of dollars changing hands each month.
- In the media: Gamergate and Muhammad controversies continue
Media fallout continues from the January 29 decision in the mammoth Gamergate arbitration case.
- Traffic report: The American Heartland
The American heartland appears to dominate the Report this week, with Chris Kyle leading the Report.
- Featured content: It's raining men!
Three featured articles, five featured lists, and thirty-nine featured images were promoted this week.
- Arbitration report: Slamming shut the GamerGate
One case has been closed, two cases remain open, a third is undergoing a review, and three clarification or amendment requests remain open.
- WikiProject report: Dicing with death – on Wikipedia?
A small band of dedicated editors seek to improve articles relating to a less lively topic. If you haven't yet guessed, this week's focus is WikiProject Death.
- Technology report: Security issue fixed; VisualEditor changes
The Signpost has arranged to mirror Tech news from the Meta-Wiki.
- Gallery: Langston Hughes
A new Signpost feature.
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
- You can now use
{{#lsth: PageName | SectionName }}to transclude a section with its title.
Problems
- MediaWiki was reverted to the previous version on February 4. It was because of a performance issue. It was restored later.
- UploadWizard was broken on February 4 because of the revert of MediaWiki.
- All sites were broken for 30 minutes on February 5. It was due to a network problem.
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.
- You can search for media files in VisualEditor more easily. Images are bigger and you see the size and license.
- It is easier to review your changes when you save the page in VisualEditor. The window is wider.
- 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.
- In the future you will be able to have personal lists of articles on the mobile site.
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)
Any data on TWA usage?
Hi Jake, Just curious if usage of TWA has gone up since the link was added to the welcome template. Thanks, --Biblioworm 18:01, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
- Hey Biblioworm, it will be easier to see a definitive jump (if one exists) after a few weeks. One context is that for the first 6 months of TWA, User:HostBot was inviting people automatically, then the bot stopped doing that for about 6 months, and now we have Welcome template but no HostBot invites. So I'd expect that we see more of a return to earlier levels and only a relative increase over no invites or templates at all. We don't have a very easy way to track game completion without doing a database query; we get an approximate look by checking the global usage for the final badge received in the game: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:GlobalUsage/TWA_badge_12.png
- Just looking through the page history of those users, it doesn't look like more than a couple dozen recent completions. Jake Ocaasi t | c 19:34, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
This Month in GLAM: January 2015
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Talkback from Technical 13
Message added 20:21, 11 February 2015 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
— {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 20:21, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Percent of spam on Wikipedia
Hi Jake - I'm writing something about GLAMs and the GLAM-Wiki Initiative, and I was hoping you could help me find a particular piece of information. If I remember correctly, you talked briefly about spam in your presentation at ALA 2014 (Las Vegas). Did you have a percentage for the number of Wikipedia edits marked as spam? Or would you know if that statistic exists and where I could look for it? Thanks! extabulis (talk) 19:25, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
- Hi Extabulis! Nice to see you on-wiki. I have not used spam stats in any presentations. The closest I can find is our revert rate, which across all of Wikipedia is around 9%. That's the number of edits that are entirely removed and returned to their prior state, a large number of which are vandalism or spam: http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/EditsRevertsEN.htm I hope that helps! Excited that you're writing about GLAM-Wiki :) Please share a link whenever it's published. Cheers, Jake Ocaasi t | c 20:09, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks very much - this is great! I'll definitely share a link. Hopefully I'll have another to share soon: our fall intern participated in the TWL Interns program and wrote a great post about her experience. I've been meaning to ask you or Sadads whether there's a place we can share that. Perhaps on the program page in a results section? We're still working on a few edits before I send it to our blog coordinator, but I hope to have it posted on our blog within the next month or so. extabulis (talk) 20:31, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
- Hey Extabulis: I have been meaning to talk with you more about the Interns program, and we would most certainly be able to crosspost it with the Wikimedia Foundation blog as well (probably with a bit of a frame). I will get an email off to you: in the meantime. Cheers, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 20:39, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
- Hey Astinson! Sounds great - I look forward to your email. extabulis (talk) 20:51, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
- Hey Extabulis: I have been meaning to talk with you more about the Interns program, and we would most certainly be able to crosspost it with the Wikimedia Foundation blog as well (probably with a bit of a frame). I will get an email off to you: in the meantime. Cheers, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 20:39, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks very much - this is great! I'll definitely share a link. Hopefully I'll have another to share soon: our fall intern participated in the TWL Interns program and wrote a great post about her experience. I've been meaning to ask you or Sadads whether there's a place we can share that. Perhaps on the program page in a results section? We're still working on a few edits before I send it to our blog coordinator, but I hope to have it posted on our blog within the next month or so. extabulis (talk) 20:31, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 11 February 2015
- From the editors: We want to know what you think!
Please take this survey about the Signpost.
- News and notes: One editor faces likely ban for work on Wikipedia; Jimmy Wales awarded $1 million
Also: GLAM-Wiki Conference; Ombudsman Commission announced; Slovak Wikipedia now has 200,000 articles
- In the media: Is Wikipedia eating itself?
Edina edit war illustrates disconnect between new and experienced editors; Wikipedia is "astroturf's dream come true"; Canadian government investigating even more Wikipedia editing; academics on Gamergate as "clash of civilizations"?
- Featured content: A grizzly bear, Operation Mascot, Freedom Planet & Liberty Island, cosmic dust clouds, a cricket five-wicket list, more fine art, & a terrible, terrible opera...
Two articles, three lists, and twenty five pictures became featured.
- Traffic report: Bowled over
Wikipedia presents itself as a repository for the world, and while that is a noble sentiment, it is still true that, Conservapedian complaints notwithstanding, the English language Wikipedia is very often the American Wikipedia, and never has that been more apparent than this week.
- WikiProject report: Brand new WikiProjects profiled
This week, we bring three of the most recently created WikiProjects to come into being on the English Wikipedia. While many long-established projects are becoming inactive, (as we have covered before), that doesn't stop new ones forming every now and then to cover a topic that a group of editors feel should be better cared for.
- Gallery: Feel the love
This week, we feature subjects that are about love of all kinds.
Valentine Greets!!!
 |
Valentine Greets!!! |
|
Hello Ocaasi, love is the language of hearts and is the feeling that joins two souls and brings two hearts together in a bond. Taking love to the level of Wikipedia, spread the WikiLove by wishing each other Happy Valentine's Day, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Spread the love by adding {{subst:Valentine Greetings}} to other user talk pages. |
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.
- You can now change the order of categories in VisualEditor using drag-and-drop.
- In VisualEditor, you now need to make a change before you can "Apply Changes" to citations and templates.
- 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.
Meetings
- The VisualEditor Team had their first public bug triage meeting on February 11. They will post the results on the meeting page.
- 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.
- You can join a meeting with the developers of the Content Translation tool. It will be on February 18 at 13:00 (UTC).
Future changes
- You can comment on a proposal about abandoned Labs tools.
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)
Structured Data on Commons update
Greetings,
After a delay in updates to the Structured data on Commons project, I wanted to catch you up with what has been going on over the past three months. In short: The project is on hold, but that doesn't mean nothing is happening.
The meeting in Berlin in October provided the engineering teams with a lot to start on. Unfortunately the Structured Data on Commons project was put on hold not too long after this meeting. Development of the actual Structured data system for Commons will not begin until more resources can be allocated to it.
The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Germany have been working to improve the Wikidata query process on the back-end. This is designed to be a production-grade replacement of WikidataQuery integrated with search. The full project is described at Mediawiki.org.This will benefit the structured data project greatly since developing a high-level search for Commons is a desired goal of this project.
The Wikidata development team is working on the arbitrary access feature. Currently it's only possible to access items that are connected to the current page. So for example on Vincent van Gogh you can access the statements on Q5582, but you can't access these statements on Category:Vincent van Gogh or Creator:Vincent van Gogh. With arbitrary access enabled on Commons we no longer have this limitation. This opens up the possibility to use Wikidata data on Creator, Institution, Authority control and other templates instead of duplicating the data (what we do now). This will greatly enhance the usefulness of Wikidata for Commons.
To use the full potential of arbitrary access the Commons community needs to reimplement several templates in LUA. In LUA it's possible to use the local fields and fallback to Wikidata if it's not locally available. Help with this conversion is greatly appreciated. The different tasks are tracked in phabricator, see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T89594 .
Volunteers are continuing to add data about artworks to Wikidata. Sometimes an institution website is used and sometimes data is being transfered from Commons to Wikidata. Wikidata now has almost 35.000 items about paintings. This is done as part of the WikiProject sum of all paintings. This helps us to learn how to d:Wikidata:WikiProject Visual arts/Item structuremodel and refine metadata about artworks. Experience that will of course be very useful for Commons too.
Additionally, the metadata cleanup drive continues to produce results. The drive, which is intended to identify files missing {{information}} or the like structured data fields and to add such fields when absent, has reduced the number of files missing information by almost 100,000 on Commons. You can help by looking for files with similarly-formatted description pages, and listing them at Commons:Bots/Work requests so that a bot can add the {{information}} template on them.
At the Amsterdam Hackathon in November 2014, a couple of different models were developed about how artwork can be viewed on the web using structured data from Wikidata. You can browse two examples here and here. These examples can give you an idea of the kind of data that file pages have the potential to display on-wiki in the future.
The Structured Data project is a long-term one, and the volunteers and staff will continue working together to provide the structure and support in the back-end toward front-end development. There are still many things to do to help advance the project, and I hope to have more news for you in the near future. Contact me any time with questions, comments, concerns.
The Signpost: 18 February 2015
- Editorial: Recent retirements typify problem of admin attrition
Go Phightins! shares his thoughts on admin attrition and the size of the administrative backlog.
- In the media: Students' use and perception of Wikipedia
The Australian ("Wikipedia not destroying life as we know it", February 11) and Times Higher Education ("Wikipedia should be 'better integrated' into teaching", February 10) reported on a recent study performed at Monash University, titled "Students’ use of Wikipedia as an academic resource – patterns of use and perceptions of usefulness".
- Special report: Revision scoring as a service
The authors of this report inform us that the "goal in the Revision Scoring project is to do the hard work of constructing and maintaining powerful AI so that tool developers don't have to. This cross-lingual, machine learning classifier service for edits will support new wiki tools that require edit quality measures."
- Gallery: Darwin Day
Darwin Day is observed annually on February 12 to commemorate the life and work of scientist Charles Darwin. Here is a selection of images of life on the Galápagos Islands, where Darwin made key observations leading to his scientific theory of evolution by natural selection.
- Traffic report: February is for lovers
This week saw the 57th Annual Grammy Awards (#13 on the Top 25) held on 8 February dominating the traffic chart, as music lovers checked out Sam Smith (#3) picking up four awards, Beck taking album of the year, and performances including Sia (#9), Madonna (#11), and Annie Lennox (#16). But Valentine's Day (#1) proved the perfect time for the release of Fifty Shades of Grey, with the movie coming in at #5, the book of the same name at #2, and the primary actors at #14 and #15.
- Featured content: A load of bull-sized breakfast behind the restaurant, Koi feeding, a moray eel, Spaghetti Nebula and other fishy, fishy fish
Five pictures, six lists, and seventeen pictures were promoted
- Arbitration report: We've built the nuclear reactor; now what colour should we paint the bikeshed?
The most significant item on ArbCom's agenda this fortnight has been the closure of the Wifione case and subsequent fallout, although the fallout from GamerGate continues to linger.
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
- All new accounts are now global.
- Your Meta user page is now shown if you don't have a user page on a wiki. You can report problems if you see any. You can ask a bot to delete your old user pages.
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.
- It is now easier to see when a button is disabled in VisualEditor.
- Sometimes when you copy-pasted a template in VisualEditor, it was replaced by HTML. This problem is now fixed.
- Tools in Labs will stop working for a few hours on February 24.
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.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:29, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 25 February 2015
- News and notes: Questions raised over WMF partnership with research firm
A report from the external research firm Lafayette Practice has declared that the Wikimedia Foundation is the "largest known participatory grantmaking fund." Several concerns have been raised with the report, the phrase being used (participatory grantmaking), the now-former Wikipedia article on that phrase, and an alleged conflict of interest by WMF staff members.
- Op-ed: Text from Wikipedia good enough for Oxford University Press to claim as own
Doc James tells us that "The one good thing that has come out of all of this is that Wikipedia’s content passing a major textbook publisher review processes is some external validation of Wikipedia’s quality."
- In the media: WikiGnomes and Bigfoot
Andrew McMillen's February 3 profile of and his quest to rid Wikipedia of the phrase "comprised of" has been one of the most widely circulated and commented upon media stories about the encyclopedia recently.
- Featured content: The Moon, Mars, Venus, and Saturn, in no particular order. Also, Kaiser Kong.
Eleven articles and twenty pictures were promoted in the week covered by this report.
- Gallery: Far from home
The Gallery is an occasional Signpost feature highlighting quality images and articles from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons based on a particular theme, as well as an article you could help improve. This week, we feature subjects that are "far from home".
- Traffic report: Fifty Shades of... self-denial?
An odd juxtaposition this week, as interest in Fifty Shades of Grey coincided with the observance of the Chinese New Year and the annual festival of penance, Ash Wednesday.
- Recent research: Gender bias, SOPA blackout, and a student assignment that backfired
A monthly roundup of Wikimedia-related research
- WikiProject report: Be prepared... Scouts in the spotlight
This week's project is on a youth activity, one of the largest in the world; its project is commensurately large, containing around 136 active editors. It's WikiProject Scouting, a group of editors whose remit is everything relating to the Scouting movement, which has around 42 million members worldwide and celebrated the centenary of its founding only eight years ago.
- Blog: Join the Wikimedia strategy consultation
Editor's note: the Blog will be a recurring Signpost section that will highlight a recent post from the Wikimedia blog, run by the Wikimedia Foundation. This week's installment is written by Philippe Beaudette, the Foundation's Director of Community Advocacy, and focuses on planning for the future of the Wikimedia movement.
The Signpost: 25 February 2015
- News and notes: Questions raised over WMF partnership with research firm
A report from the external research firm Lafayette Practice has declared that the Wikimedia Foundation is the "largest known participatory grantmaking fund." Several concerns have been raised with the report, the phrase being used (participatory grantmaking), the now-former Wikipedia article on that phrase, and an alleged conflict of interest by WMF staff members.
- Op-ed: Text from Wikipedia good enough for Oxford University Press to claim as own
Doc James tells us that "The one good thing that has come out of all of this is that Wikipedia’s content passing a major textbook publisher review processes is some external validation of Wikipedia’s quality."
- In the media: WikiGnomes and Bigfoot
Andrew McMillen's February 3 profile of and his quest to rid Wikipedia of the phrase "comprised of" has been one of the most widely circulated and commented upon media stories about the encyclopedia recently.
- Featured content: The Moon, Mars, Venus, and Saturn, in no particular order. Also, Kaiser Kong.
Eleven articles and twenty pictures were promoted in the week covered by this report.
- Gallery: Far from home
The Gallery is an occasional Signpost feature highlighting quality images and articles from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons based on a particular theme, as well as an article you could help improve. This week, we feature subjects that are "far from home".
- Traffic report: Fifty Shades of... self-denial?
An odd juxtaposition this week, as interest in Fifty Shades of Grey coincided with the observance of the Chinese New Year and the annual festival of penance, Ash Wednesday.
- Recent research: Gender bias, SOPA blackout, and a student assignment that backfired
A monthly roundup of Wikimedia-related research
- WikiProject report: Be prepared... Scouts in the spotlight
This week's project is on a youth activity, one of the largest in the world; its project is commensurately large, containing around 136 active editors. It's WikiProject Scouting, a group of editors whose remit is everything relating to the Scouting movement, which has around 42 million members worldwide and celebrated the centenary of its founding only eight years ago.
- Blog: Join the Wikimedia strategy consultation
Editor's note: the Blog will be a recurring Signpost section that will highlight a recent post from the Wikimedia blog, run by the Wikimedia Foundation. This week's installment is written by Philippe Beaudette, the Foundation's Director of Community Advocacy, and focuses on planning for the future of the Wikimedia movement.
Wikipedia Library and WikiEdu
Hi Jake,
It just occurred to me that we at WikiEdu don't really utilize the Wikipedia Library's resources in any way I can think of...and I don't know why. I'm hoping you'll indulge a few questions -- and I'm also hoping these aren't redundant to conversations you've had with my colleagues in the past (this message is just based on a thought I had rather than an official inquiry).
Is there a good brochure-type overview of what the Library offers? What are your thoughts on one for higher education students in particular?
Regarding databases: We support classes in the US/CA working on the English Wikipedia, but some don't have access to all the databases the Library does. Does a request for database access for students in a class conflict with the terms you've arranged with the publishers? What if it's on a per-student as needed basis rather than a whole class? (The problem I could see is that it could be seen as institutional rather than individual access, even though the institution wouldn't actually be involved).
Regarding the resource exchange, I was surprised not to find any clear overview of copyright issues. From looking at the talk page, it looks like people have identified parts of database terms of service that state the resources can be shared with other individuals privately for educational purposes, but before I direct instructors/students there I feel like I'd need something more concrete (to the extent anything regarding fair use can be concrete).
Thanks very much, and feel free to email me if it's easier for you (ryan [at] wikiedu [dot] edu). --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:17, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
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.
- 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.
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.
- The TemplateData editor now warns you if a related page already has TemplateData.
- The TemplateData table now tells you if a template doesn't take any parameters.
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.
Future changes
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
The Signpost: 04 March 2015
- From the editor: A sign of the times: the Signpost revamps its internal structure to make contributing easier
We received a large amount of feedback in our survey indicating that our readers found the idea of contributing to the Signpost difficult due to our opaque internal structure.
- News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation and OTRS team both publish reports, indicate operating changes
The Wikimedia Foundation released their Quarterly Report last week covering the three months October to December of 2014.
- Editorial: Conspiracy theories distract from real questions about grantmaking report
Last week, my colleagues on the Signpost produced a news report covering a minor controversy about a report commissioned by the Wikimedia Foundation. Written by the staff of The Lafayette Practice, a French research firm, it proclaimed the WMF as a leader in the practice of participatory grantmaking.
- Traffic report: Attack of the movies
The Report this week is dominated by the Academy Awards, taking the top 4 spots and 13 of the Top 25.
- Arbitration report: Bradspeaks—impact, regrets, and advice; current cases hinge on sex, religion, and ... infoboxes
In the first of what the author hopes will become a regular feature of the Arbitration report, the Signpost speaks to veteran arbitrator Newyorkbrad, who recently retired from the committee after almost seven years of arbitrating. The Signpost was keen to hear his thoughts on his time on the committee and on the past, present, and future of ArbCom.
- Interview: Meet a paid editor
Before being indefinitely blocked, User:FergusM1970 made more than 4600 edits on the English Wikipedia, spread over eight years. In the last two years, he was paid to edit several articles for clients that included the Venezuelan energy company Derwick Associates. We spoke with him about his experiences.
- In the media: Kanye West rebranded; Wikipedia in court; editors for hire
Numerous news outlets are reporting that the domain loser.com now redirects to the Wikipedia article for rapper Kanye West. Page views on West's Wikipedia article skyrocketed to almost 250,000 views on March 2, up from less than 19 thousand the previous day.
- Featured content: Ploughing fields and trading horses with Rosa Bonheur
Two featured articles, four featured lists, and 38 featured pictures were promoted this week..
- Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
The Signpost has arranged to mirror Tech news from Meta-Wiki to supplement the long-form tech coverage in our infrequent Technology report..
- Blog: Black History Month edit-a-thons tackle Wikipedia’s multicultural gaps
Black History Month is celebrated annually in the United States in February, to commemorate the history of the African diaspora. For this occasion, Wikipedians worked together to honor black history and to address Wikipedia's multicultural gaps in the encyclopedia, hosting Wikipedia edit-a-thons throughout the United States, from February 1 to 28, 2015.
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.
- VisualEditor had problems with categories in Safari. It sometimes moved or removed the categories. The issue is now fixed.
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.
- The feedback tool in VisualEditor now looks like the other tools. It also asks for information about your browser to help fix bugs.
- You now see the VisualEditor toolbar even if the rest of the page is still loading.
- 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.
- 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.
Future changes
- You can get help to become a developer. You can learn more on the Google Summer of Code and Outreachy pages.
- You will soon be able to read technical reports in Phabricator.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:19, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
This Month in GLAM: February 2015
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The Signpost: 11 March 2015
- Special report: An advance look at the WMF's fundraising survey
The Wikimedia Foundation gave the Signpost an advance copy of the results of a survey of English Wikipedia readers regarding Wikimedia fundraising, due for official release today.
- News and notes: WikiWomen's History Month—meetups, blog posts, and "Inspire" grant-making campaign
The community has arranged a number of commemorative initiatives focused on the gender gap, under the banner "WikiWomen's History Month".
- In the media: Gamergate; a Wiki hoax; Kanye West
ThinkProgress tech reporter Lauren C. Williams wrote a long article on how the Gamergate controversy has spilled over onto Wikipedia.
- In focus: WMF to NSA: "stop spying on Wikipedia users"
In an effort to protect and maintain the privacy of Wikipedia's thousands of editors, the Wikimedia Foundation has filed a lawsuit against the United States' National Security Agency, Department of Justice, and the Attorney General.
- Traffic report: Wikipedia: handing knowledge to the world, one prank at a time
A dull week, with only three new entries in the top 10; a UFC champion, a Google Doodle and a Hindu festival involving people throwing powder at each other (though that does sound fun).
- Featured content: Here they come, the couple plighted –
Six featured articles, three featured lists, and forty featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Op-ed: Why the Core Contest matters
I continue to be excited about the Core Contest because I see it as a way of encouraging the expansion of broad articles that are typically neglected by our article improvement incentives.
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.
- You can now see lists of bugs about Commons, Wikisource and Wiktionary.
- It is now easier to add special characters in VisualEditor. You can edit the list of characters for your wiki.
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 (
) now shows hidden templates in VisualEditor. You can edit the template by clicking the icon. For example, you can now edit anchor templates. - You can now add examples, and details about old parameters, in TemplateData.
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.
- You can comment on how you want to see Wikidata edits in your watchlist on other wikis.
- The final steps of single user login (SUL) will happen in April. You can see the rules to rename accounts.
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)
The Signpost: 18 March 2015
- From the editor: A salute to Pine
We announce with sadness and gratitude that Signpost publication and newsroom manager Pine will be stepping back to focus on other Wikipedia and Wikimedia-related endeavors.
- News and notes: SUL finalization imminent; executive office shake-ups at the Foundation
This process is now entering its long-awaited final phase with the upcoming SUL finalization, scheduled for April 15, less than a month away. ... Wikimedia Foundation chief talent and culture officer Gayle Karen Young announced her retirement from the Foundation this week. Young will be replaced in that role by interim chief operating officer Terry Gilbey. According to the Foundation's job description for the title as it was applied in the past, Gilbey will be in charge of "overall administration and business operations of the Wikimedia Foundation."
- In the media: NYPD editing articles regarding allegations of police brutality and misconduct
On March 13, Kelly Weill of Capital New York revealed that numerous Wikipedia edits originated from 1 Police Plaza, the headquarters of the NYPD. Most of the attention has focused on a number of their edits to articles about incidents of alleged police brutality and controversial police practices.
- Op-ed: Does the Wikimedia fundraising survey address community concerns?
The publication of the Wikimedia survey findings on fundraising questions came three months after significant concerns were voiced about the design and wording of the December 2014 fundraising banners and e-mails.
- Featured content: A woman who loved kings
Four featured articles, four featured lists, and thirty-five featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Traffic report: It's not cricket
If not for Kayne West's dubious repeat at #1, the 2015 Cricket World Cup (#2) would have made the top spot, albeit in a generally slow news week.
.
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.
- VisualEditor is now much faster. For many users it is now at least as fast as the wikitext editor.
- When you add a list of references in VisualEditor, you now see it right away. You can still change its group by editing it.
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.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:10, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
quick question
do you know if the CURE Award for top 300 medical editors will be given this year? (just curious)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:25, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
- Hi User:Ozzie10aaaa, I don't, but I bet that Doc James does. Thanks for asking! Cheers, Jake Ocaasi t | c 23:00, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
- Will look into it with our data person. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:33, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost – Volume 11, Issue 12 – 25 March 2015
- News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation adopts open-access research policy
Last week the WMF announced the release of its long-awaited open-access policy.
- Op-ed: How my father's railroad image collection now benefits the world: the value of digitization
Once when I was young, growing up in the 1990s, my father pulled his collection of railroad slides out from the basement, set up his projector, and shared a glimpse into American railway history with our family.
- Featured content: A carnival of animals, a river of dung, a wasteland of uncles, and some people with attitude
Four featured articles, three featured lists, and twenty-two featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Special report: Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2014
The Wikipedia Commons annual Picture of the Year contest has concluded, with 6,698 people voting, its largest participation yet.
- Traffic report: Oddly familiar
This week's list is reminiscent of lists from the early days of this project: a preponderance of famous faces, Reddit threads, and Google Doodles.
- Recent research: Most important people; respiratory reliability; academic attitudes
The authors attempt to answer the question "Who are the most important people of all times?" Their findings clearly show that different Wikipedias give different prominence to different individuals.
- Blog: The Wikipedia Library Team reflects on its new Visiting Scholars program
A university gives a top Wikipedia editor free and full access to the university library's entire online content—and the Wikipedia editor, who is unpaid and not on campus, then creates and improves Wikipedia articles in a subject area of interest to the institution.
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.
- 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.
- All sites should now be faster if you have a recent browser.
- You could see a serious bug when editing some templates with VisualEditor. It was fixed quickly.
- VisualEditor could break when you edited an image. The issue was fixed quickly.
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.
- You can now edit the mobile site of all wikis without an account.
- 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.
- You can now see that VisualEditor is opening even if you're not looking at the top of the page.
- VisualEditor doesn't leave empty titles with just nowiki tags any more.
Meetings
- You can join a meeting with the Wikidata team. The meeting will be on IRC on March 31 at 16:00 (UTC).
- You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
- 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 1 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.
15:19, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost, 1 April 2015
- In focus: WMF's latest strategy document shows successes, vagueness, and the need for better data
The Wikimedia Foundation this week released a State of the WMF report, a 38-page "snapshot" of where it is and where it wants to go in the future.
- In the media: Wiki-PR duo bulldoze a piñata store; Wifione arbitration case; French parliamentary plagiarism
TruthRevolt targets another editor; edit stage right; the Nine Best Hoaxes to Have Hit Wikipedia
- Featured content: Stop Press. Marie Celeste Mystery Solved. Crew Found Hiding In Wardrobe.
Six featured articles, first featured lists, and twenty-four featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Traffic report: All over the place
The Report is more of a mix of random topics than usual this week. The top spot is taken by Bhutanese passport, a Wikipedia article which contained a crazed spoken word version which drew widespread attention.
- News and notes: New edits-by-mail option will "revolutionize" Wikipedia and its editor base
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) will announce later today that it will begin accepting edits by mail for all of the projects under its scope, including Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons.
- Special report: Pictures of the Year 2015
The Wikimedia Commons' annual Picture of the Year contest has concluded. The first 53 top-voted entries were disqualified because they were all nude.
Talk back
Message added 05:40, 1 April 2015 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
The Signpost: 01 April 2015
- In focus: WMF's latest strategy document shows successes, vagueness, and the need for better data
The Wikimedia Foundation this week released a State of the WMF report, a 38-page "snapshot" of where it is and where it wants to go in the future.
- In the media: Wiki-PR duo bulldoze a piñata store; Wifione arbitration case; French parliamentary plagiarism
TruthRevolt targets another editor; edit stage right; the Nine Best Hoaxes to Have Hit Wikipedia
- Featured content: Stop Press. Marie Celeste Mystery Solved. Crew Found Hiding In Wardrobe.
Six featured articles, first featured lists, and twenty-four featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Traffic report: All over the place
The Report is more of a mix of random topics than usual this week. The top spot is taken by Bhutanese passport, a Wikipedia article which contained a crazed spoken word version which drew widespread attention.
- News and notes: New edits-by-mail option will "revolutionize" Wikipedia and its editor base
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) will announce later today that it will begin accepting edits by mail for all of the projects under its scope, including Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons.
- Special report: Pictures of the Year 2015
The Wikimedia Commons' annual Picture of the Year contest has concluded. The first 53 top-voted entries were disqualified because they were all nude.
VisualEditor News #2—2015
With Citoid in VisualEditor, you click the 'book with bookmark' icon and paste in the URL for a reliable source:
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:
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!
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 join a new email list for important news about Wikimedia Labs.
- You can read the last monthly report. In the future you can read team reports every three months. You can see current work on the roadmap.
- The number of articles in Special:Statistics is now updated once a month.
- You can use a new version of the Wikipedia app for Android. Using the app, you can now share a fact with your friends.
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.
- Labs was broken several times this week.
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.
- Many bugs around copy-paste in VisualEditor are now fixed.
- 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.
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.
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)
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 join a new email list for important news about Wikimedia Labs.
- You can read the last monthly report. In the future you can read team reports every three months. You can see current work on the roadmap.
- The number of articles in Special:Statistics is now updated once a month.
- You can use a new version of the Wikipedia app for Android. Using the app, you can now share a fact with your friends.
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.
- Labs was broken several times this week.
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.
- Many bugs around copy-paste in VisualEditor are now fixed.
- 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.
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.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:42, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
This Month in GLAM: March 2015
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The Signpost: 08 April 2015
- Op-ed: We are drowning in promotional artspam
Wikipedia has been gravitating towards a vehicle for business and product promotion for too long.
- News and notes: Advancement department to be created at the Foundation, milestone fixes
March saw a number of high-level hirings and executive reorganizations in the Wikimedia Foundation.
- In the media: Wikipedia on 60 Minutes, Kickstarter, and in the classroom
The venerable CBS news program 60 Minutes profiled Wikipedia and the Wikimedia community.
- Traffic report: Resurrection week
How appropriate that the theme of Easter week would be resurrection from the dead.
- Featured content: Partisan arrangements, dodgy dollars, a mysterious union of strings, and a hole that became a monument
Four featured articles, seven featured lists, and 23 featured pictures were promoted this week.
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Christianity
With Holy Week having recently drawn to a close, it is an apt time to examine WikiProject Christianity, which was created in 2006, and boasts over 200 active members.
- Arbitration report: New Functionary appointments
The Committee has voted on the 2015 appointments to the Functionary team.
- Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community.
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)
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 read the latest news about VisualEditor.
- You can now use the new translation tool on 22 Wikipedias. You now see the tool the first time you create a new page.
- The list of bad user names on your wiki no longer works. The global list replaces it. You can ask to add rules for bad user names on Meta.
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.
- All users can now test link previews ("Hovercards") on several Wikipedias.
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.
16:41, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
A kitten for you!
Wikipedia Adventure - a small suggestion
Hi Ocaasi, long time no see. I'm just dropping by to voice a small concern regarding the Wikipedia Adventure - a user whom I happen to be watching is currently working through it, and as a result of Mission One ended up posting some personal information on their userpage that I felt it was necessary to redact. Since the Adventure is likely to be popular with younger users, would it be at all possible to slightly amend this section in order to put a bit more emphasis on not revealing personal information like your real name, age, school or location for editors under the age of majority? Cheers, Yunshui 雲水 11:37, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
- Hey Yunshui, will this do? Cheers, Jake Ocaasi t | c 17:24, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
- That looks fine to me - can't say we didn't warn them! Thanks for being so quick off the mark. Yunshui 雲水 07:22, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
- What a coincidence that I found this (being the user you mentioned). --LewisMCYoutube (talk) 09:32, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
- That looks fine to me - can't say we didn't warn them! Thanks for being so quick off the mark. Yunshui 雲水 07:22, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 15 April 2015
- News and notes: Erik Möller leaving Foundation; annual plan grants under community review
The Wikimedia Foundation's vice president for engineering, Erik Möller, will leave the WMF on April 30.
- In the media: Saving Wikipedia; Internet regulation; Thoreau quote hoax
Time profiles Lila Tretikov, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, and paints a grim picture of the challenges faced by Tretikov and the encyclopedia.
- Blog: Single-User Login provides access to all wikis
Later this month, everyone will be able to use the same user name on every wiki, thanks to Single-User Login.
- Traffic report: Furious domination
If it wasn't for Easter, Fast and Furious related articles would have taken the top four spots this week. The latest installment of the movie franchise, Furious 7, tops the chart for the second straight week.
- Featured content: Au-delà de les Alpes, le chien lit de Sainte Bernard. Sous les pavés, les trimes d'argent! Mes enfants, suivez-moi!
Six featured articles, four featured lists, and fourteen featured pictures were promoted this week.
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.
- VisualEditor sometimes showed empty warnings for wikis using Flagged Revisions. This is now fixed on all wikis.
- You can get the new version of the Wikipedia app for iOS. With it you can share facts with your friends.
- If you write JavaScript, you should stop using importScript and importStylesheet.
Problems
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.
- If your wiki has the auto-fill tool for citations, you can now use it when you edit a reference.
- You can now give examples for template options in TemplateData.
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
- You will soon be able to add and remove tags on edits.
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)
The Signpost: 22 April 2015
- Special report: Sony emails reveal corporate practices and undisclosed advocacy editing
A Signpost investigation of the released data has revealed Sony's corporate practices regarding Wikipedia and uncovered what appears to be undisclosed advocacy editing of Wikipedia by Sony employees and possibly by others.
- In the media: UK political editing; hoaxes; net neutrality
Wikipedia appears to have been drawn into the drama of the upcoming, hotly contested UK general election.
- News and notes: Call for candidates as the movement approaches the Wikimedia Board elections
The Affiliates Committee this week announced the organization of a community referral for comment, currently open on the meta-wiki, to address upcoming changes to the way that the Affiliations Committee will review movement-affiliated user-groups in the future.
- In focus: 2015 Wikimedia Foundation election preparations underway
2015 will see through the biennial community election for the three community-elected seats on the Board of Trustees—the "ultimate corporate authority" of the Wikimedia Foundation and the level at which the strategic decisions regarding the Wikimedia movement are made.
- Featured content: Vanguard on guard
Six featured articles and fifteen featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Traffic report: A harvest of couch potatoes
Couch potatoes rule this week, as 9 of the top 10 slots were taken by either movies, TV, or sports.
- Gallery: The bitter end
The Gallery is an occasional Signpost feature highlighting quality images and articles from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons based on a particular theme.
A barnstar for you!
 |
The Brilliant Idea Barnstar |
| I would like to dedicate this Barnstar for your "Wikipedia Adventure Project". Dineshkumar Ponnusamy (talk) 14:26, 27 April 2015 (UTC) |
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.
- You can read a report from experts who tested the security of MediaWiki.
- There was a problem between VisualEditor and an antivirus software. It is now fixed.
- You can help test VisualEditor to see if it works in your language.
Problems
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.
- You now see more information when you search for a template in VisualEditor.
- You can now cancel when you add citations on desktop, or edit links on mobile, in VisualEditor.
- You can now see the list of other formats for videos only after they're ready.
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.
15:11, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
Help to create Wiki Adventure in Tamil
Hi, I really loved the concept of The Wikipedia Adventure project, I would like to create the translated version in Tamil Wikipedia too. Need your source code and assistance for the same. Thanks. --Dineshkumar Ponnusamy (talk) 14:25, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
- Hi Dineshkumar Ponnusamy! Of course, all of the source code and Wikipedia page designs are free and open to use. You can find them all listed and documented here: WP:TWA/Index. I am excited about your idea to adapt this to Tamil Wikipedia. I have to say that it is probably a 3 month project for a single person to do, since it involves translation, page creation, code modifying, and bugtesting. I think it's worth it, especially if you have a team, but it does take a big effort! Please let me know if you need guidance, which I'm happy to provide within my challenging time-constraints working on The Wikipedia Library. You might learn a lot from other communities that have adapted TWA, such as Catalan WP. Cheers! Jake Ocaasi t | c 14:42, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for sharing the code and your valuable suggestions Ocaasi! Hopefully will form the team. I guess I'll manage it to complete by this June. Definitely will reach out to you if got stuck or have some suggestions. Cheers! --Dineshkumar Ponnusamy (talk) 08:35, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 29 April 2015
- Wikimania: Choice of small village for Wikimania 2016 ruffles feathers
Esino Lario is set to host Wikimania 2016, but volunteers and others have raised a host of concerns that raise serious questions about the town's suitability for hosting such a large conference.
- News and notes: Wiki Loves Monuments evaluation sees diminishing returns and increasing cost
The evaluations reveal that in the last three years, WLM has possibly fallen victim to its own success and seen diminishing returns.
- In the media: Scottish MEP blocked for edit warring; ranking articles by importance
David Coburn, a Member of the European Parliament for the Scotland region for the UK Independence Party, was blocked from editing Wikipedia on April 6.
- Featured content: Another day, another dollar
Ten featured articles, nine featured lists, and twenty-eight featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Traffic report: Bruce, Nessie, and genocide
Though the continued predominance of movies, TV, and sports noted in last week's report largely continues, three additional topics joined the Top 10 this week.
- Recent research: Military history, cricket, and Australia targeted in Wikipedia articles' popularity vs. quality; how copyright damages economy
Reader demand for some topics (e.g. LGBT topics or pages about countries) is poorly satisfied, whereas there is over-abundance of quality on topics of comparatively little interest, such as military history.
- Technology report: VisualEditor and MediaWiki updates
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.
- There was a rare problem with VisualEditor. The text of another wiki could be added to your edit. The issue is now fixed.
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.
Meetings
- You can join a meeting with the Language team. The meeting will be on May 5 at 14:30 (UTC).
- 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.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:16, 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
The Signpost: 06 May 2015
- News and notes: "Inspire" grant-making campaign concludes, grantees announced
The Wikimedia Foundation this week announced the winning grantees in March's "Inspire" grant-making campaign.
- Featured content: The amorous android and the horsebreeder; WikiCup round two concludes
Seven articles, three lists, and ten pictures were promoted to "featured" status this week. The second round of the WikiCup has ended.
- In the media: Guggenheim image donation; Wiki campaign gets advertising award
artnet and The Next Web report (May 6) that the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is releasing a hundred images of works in its collection under Creative Commons licences in conjunction with a May 19 editathon.
- Special report: FDC candidates respond to key issues
Elections have begun for five community members of the Funds Dissemination Committee, the Foundation's volunteer body for judging and recommending millions of dollars worth of annual grants to affiliates in the movement. The election lasts just eight days, from Sunday 3 May until 23:59 UTC on Sunday 10 May, so at the time of publication, voters will need to act promptly.
- Traffic report: The grim ship reality
Like colliding ocean liners, rousing entertainment and harsh reality merged ungainly in this week's top 10 list. The much heralded pay-per-view pummeling of Manny Pacquiao by Floyd Mayweather, Jr. dominated the list's top slots, giving this list one of its highest total view counts in months.
This Month in GLAM: April 2015
| ||||||
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.
- You can apply for technical jobs to develop tools for the community.
- 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.
Problems
- There was a problem that caused slow editing.
- Pages were sometimes removed from your watchlist in VisualEditor. This problem is now fixed.
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.
- You should get fewer errors when you add files to Commons.
- When you use an external link to link to a wiki page, VisualEditor now converts it to a wiki link.
- When you add a link in VisualEditor, you see pages that match what you type. It is now easier to see where they match.
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.
15:57, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 13 May 2015
- Foundation elections: Board candidates share their views with the Signpost
Three community-elected seats on the Board of Trustees—the ultimate governing authority of the Wikimedia Foundation—will be decided by Wikimedians in the election to be held 17–31 May.
- News and notes: Swedish Wikimedia chapter organizes simultaneous Wikidata contests
This week has been a busy one for the Wikidata project, with nearly simultaneous Wikidata contests, both organized by Wikimedia Sweden, now underway.
- Traffic report: Round Two
Casual viewers may think I've posted the same list twice. But no, readers just happen to be really interested in May 2's Big Fight. In fact, last week was just the weigh-in and the trash talk. This week, the numbers actually increased.
- In the media: Grant Shapps story continues
Grant Shapps, who was the co-chairman of the UK's Conservative Party until this week, has been accused of maliciously editing the Wikipedia biographies of his party's rivals.
- Op-ed: What made Wikipedia lose its reputation?
There is a public misconception of Wikipedia: that any anonymous editor can edit Wikipedia at any time, and cannot be tracked or identified.
- Featured content: Four first-time featured article writers lead the way
Eight articles, one list, and five pictures were promoted to featured status on the English Wikipedia in a slow week.
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 watch a video about the new graph tool.
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.
- You can no longer create an account with a colon ':' in it. If you already have one, it still works.
- The toolbar in VisualEditor now looks different. It is easier to see the icons.
- You won't be able to use e-mail lists for a few hours on Tuesday.
- UploadWizard now shows better matches when you add a category to your file.
- A test about VisualEditor will start on the English Wikipedia on Thursday.
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.
15:31, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Taylor and Francis online
Jake, is there any progress on the front of getting Taylor & Francis Online for WP editors through the Wikipedia Library program. They've got the journal Labor History, which would be a massive help to me. Thanks. —Tim //// Carrite (talk) 15:38, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
- @Carrite: We are finalizing an agreement with them! We hope to announce that signup in June. Jake Ocaasi t | c 17:04, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
Thanks!
Thanks for inviting me to the adventure! I will be there! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bsliangel (talk • contribs) 16:52, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 20 May 2015
- From the editor: Your voice is needed: strategic voting in the WMF election
The Wikimedia Foundation's bi-annual Board of Trustees election is open for voting. Of the ten seats on the board, three are elected representatives of the global Wikimedia community—you.
- In focus: The awful truth about Wikimedia's article counts
The article counts of many Wikimedia wikis suddenly changed on 29 March 2015: as the Signpost reported at the time, sixty-five wikis fell below milestones tracked at the Wikimedia News Meta page, and three increased to new milestones.
- Traffic report: Inner Core
The list is topped this week by Danish scientist Inge Lehmann, thanks to a Google Doodle celebrating her 127th birthday. Lehmann discovered in 1936 that the Earth has a solid inner core. It is sometimes surprising to realize how recently such basic scientific knowledge of the Earth, which we now take for granted, was discovered.
- News and notes: A dark side of comedy: the Wikipedia volunteers cleaning up behind John Oliver's fowl jokes
Wikipedia editors logging in on May 19 found themselves walking into an unexpected amount of anti-vandal work to keep the site in line with its extensive biographies of living persons policy. A plethora of Wikipedia articles related to the United States House Committee on Appropriations, and the fifty-one representatives serving on it, have been hit by a raft of anonymous editors making often vulgar edits referencing "chicken fucker," or more creative combinations: "sexual conduct", "sexual congress", "fornicator", "intimate relations", or "trysts with chickens."
- Featured content: Puppets, fungi, and waterfalls
Three articles, seven lists, and seven pictures were featured on the English Wikipedia.
- In the media: Jimmy Wales accepts Dan David Prize
Jimmy Wales and five others accepted the 2015 Dan David Prize at Tel Aviv University on May 17. The prize comes with US$1 million, ten percent of which goes to doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships.
- WikiProject report: Cell-ebrating Molecular Biology
This week, we had the pleasure of interviewing WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology, which has come a long way since our last interview in 2008. Like most projects, it has a long member list, but only a small subset of that group regularly contributes. With 28 featured articles and 58 top-importance start class ones, the project has clearly had some success, but has a ways to go. We talked to three regular project contributors.
- Arbitration report: Editor conduct the subject of multiple cases
The Arbitration Committee has an unusually large case load at present. Although perhaps not on a par with the high-profile, multi-party cases seen towards the end of last year and the beginning of this year, with five open cases the arbitrators are likely to be kept busy for the next several weeks.
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.
- Some Labs tools had issues last week.
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
- You can add your ideas of new tools to help active users like you.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:27, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
MfD nomination of Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure
Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure (2nd nomination) and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Reaper Eternal (talk) 17:49, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
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.
- Some tools in Labs were broken on Wednesday and Thursday.
- Edit tags added by the software were broken on all wikis from May 23 to May 28.
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.
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.
16:43, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks
Thanks for inviting me to the Wikipedia Adventure -- Currently underway! Sketches0993 (talk) 11:17, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
VisualEditor News #3—2015
When you click on a link to an article, you now see more information:
The link tool has been re-designed:
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)
The Signpost: 03 June 2015
- News and notes: Three new community-elected trustees announced, incumbents out
The Wikimedia Foundation's volunteer election committee has announced the election results for the three vacant seats on the Board of Trustees. Dariusz Jemielnak, James Heilman, and Denny Vrandečić are set to take up their two-year terms on the Board. They will replace the three incumbents, all of whom stood this time unsuccessfully: Phoebe Ayers, Samuel Klein, and María Sefidari.
- Blog: How Wikipedia covered Caitlyn Jenner’s transition
Caitlyn Jenner—the American hero of the 1976 Olympics, a film actor, and prominent member of Keeping Up with the Kardashians—may now be the most famous openly transgender person in the world.
- Discussion report: The deprecation of Persondata; RfA – A broken process; Complaints from users on Swedish Wikipedia
Since the dawn of Wikipedia, or at least since 22 December 2005, the template named Persondata has existed.
- Featured content: It's not over till the fat man sings
Two featured articles and ten featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Technology report: Things are getting SPDYier
Over the past few weeks, developers have been working on improving Wikimedia's performance when users connect to it using SPDY.
- Special report: Towards "Health Information for All": Medical content on Wikipedia received 6.5 billion page views in 2013
Wikipedia appears to be the single most used website for health information globally, exceeding traffic observed at the NIH, WebMD, WHO et al..
- In the media: Anonymous Australian editing targets football player, shooting victim
More UK government vandalism; legend has it; minding the gender gap
- Traffic report: A rather ordinary week
The traffic report is nothing unusual this week, with a Google Doodle for astronaut Sally Ride topping the list, the accidental death of famous mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr. at #2, and the normal fare of recent popular American movies and television.
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).
- If you use the Monobook skin, the buttons and other controls now look more the same in VisualEditor and other tools.
- When you edit links and other items in VisualEditor, you now need to apply your change before closing the tool.
- The title of dialogs is now easier to see when it is near long buttons.
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 9 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join a meeting with the Language team. The meeting will be on June 10 at 14:30 (UTC).
Future changes
- If you have a bot, you may need to fix it. The default continuation mode of the API for
action=querywill change at the end of June.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:03, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
This Month in GLAM: May 2015
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The Wikipedia Library needs you!
The Wikipedia Library
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:
- Account coordinators help distribute research accounts to editors.
- Partner coordinators seek donations from new partners.
- Outreach coordinators reach out to the community through blog posts, social media, and newsletters or notifications.
- Technical coordinators advise on building tools to support the library's work.
Delivered on behalf of The Wikipedia Library by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:16, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 10 June 2015
- News and notes: Chapter financial trends analyzed, news in brief
This week saw the publication of the Chapter-wide Financial Trends Report 2013, a now-completed research project that examines the finances and outlays of the 36 movement-affiliated chapters.
- Traffic report: Two households, both alike in dignity
"Happy families are all alike," Leo Tolstoy said, "but unhappy families are unhappy after their own fashion."
- In the media: Arbitration case attracts media coverage; Wikipedia in Israel
UK media covers Wikipedia Arbitration case; Lila Tretikov visits Israel.
- Featured content: Just the bear facts, ma'am
Four featured articles, two featured lists, one featured topic, and twenty-eight featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Technology report: Wikimedia sites are going HTTPS only
Today it was announced that Wikimedia sites are going to become HTTPS only, finishing up 10 year effort of rolling out HTTPS.
- Blog: Making Wikipedia’s medical articles accessible in Chinese
The Medical Translation Project, an ambitious attempt to improve and translate Wikipedia’s medical content from English into other languages, began in 2012.
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.
- Editing a page is now faster. This is because some statistics about edit filters were removed.
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
- 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 16 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join a meeting with the Wikidata team. It will be on June 19 at 16:00 (UTC).
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.
- If you use Pywikibot, soon you won't be able to use
compatanymore.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:04, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
those training badges, just asking why...
- hello, I'm just bothering you because i saw your username in the hist of one of those student training badges. I was just wondering, when the badges are awarded automatically, why are they placed on user pages instead of appended to user talk pages? It sorta doesn't make sense to me. Cheers. • Arch♦Reader 05:41, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
- Hi Arch! A talk page is for messages and awards given from one user to another. A userpage is to show off those awards and other marks of achievement. We placed the badges on the userpage because they show off the achievement of meaningful learning through The Wikipedia Adventure, because those are real 'skills' of the user, in real Wikipedia and not just in the game. It's also ok to move them wherever you want them to go, but that's why we wanted them on the userpage. Otherwise, how'd you like the game (if you played it?) Cheers, Jake Ocaasi t | c 05:49, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
- I've been editing for 8 years, so I didn't play the game. ;-) But your answer seems reasonable. I hope the game includes one question that explains the difference between user page & user talk, because I saw one neophyte (forgot who) putting userpage-type info on their talk page. Good luck in all things. • Arch♦Reader
- Hi Arch! A talk page is for messages and awards given from one user to another. A userpage is to show off those awards and other marks of achievement. We placed the badges on the userpage because they show off the achievement of meaningful learning through The Wikipedia Adventure, because those are real 'skills' of the user, in real Wikipedia and not just in the game. It's also ok to move them wherever you want them to go, but that's why we wanted them on the userpage. Otherwise, how'd you like the game (if you played it?) Cheers, Jake Ocaasi t | c 05:49, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 17 June 2015
- In the media: Wikipedia wins Asturias Prize; printing out Wikipedia; HTTPS switch
The Princess of Asturias Foundation announced that Wikipedia would be the recipient of the 2015 Princess of Asturias award in the category of International Cooperation.
- Arbitration report: An election has consequences
The Arbitration Committee delivered its final decision in a case that reached the attention of the UK national press.
- In focus: Three weeks to save freedom of panorama in Europe
This would end a long-standing tradition in many countries that the skyline and the public scene should belong to everybody.
- Op-ed: Making a difference in Wikipedia, one GA at a time
We need to be ever-diligent in ensuring that articles remain of high quality.
- Technology report: HTTPS-only rollout completed; proposal to enable VisualEditor for new accounts
The rollout of HTTPS only has now been completed across all Wikimedia wikis.
- Interview: A veteran’s Wikipedia edits help him understand the brutality behind Yugoslavia’s wars
We interviewed an Australian veteran who deployed to the region as a peacekeeper and now writes articles on the region's history to help him understand what he encountered there.
- News and notes: Labs outage kills tools, self; news in brief
A more than usually severe outage Wikimedia Labs occurred after a massive database corruption implosion on June 17.
- Featured content: Great Dane hits 150
Six featured articles, seven featured lists, and seven featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Discussion report: A quick way of becoming an admin
Author's note: This might be a violation of WP:BEANS; read at your own risk.
- WikiProject report: Western Australia speaks – we are back
It wouldn't be the WikiProject report if we didn't feature an Australian topic once in a while, so this week we're looking at the left side.
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.
- You can't use HTTPS wikis with Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP. You need to use another browser.
Problems
- On June 15, search was broken on all wikis for several hours.
- On June 16, images were broken for several hours on wikis that use InstantCommons.
- 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.
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.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:24, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Your thoughts?
Timeline of Philadelphia has a discussion about selection and inclusion criteria. Two editors are discussing it, but we have divergent views. More opinions would be helpful. - SummerPhDv2.0 13:19, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 24 June 2015
- From the editor: The Signpost tagging initiative
Over more than a decade of weekly publication, The Signpost has accumulated an incredibly lengthy and detailed record about the issues, controversies, successes, and failures of the English Wikipedia community and the movement at large.
- Op-ed: Content Translation beta is coming to the English Wikipedia
The Wikimedia Foundation's Language Engineering team plans to introduce Content Translation—a tool that makes it easier to translate Wikipedia articles into different languages—as a beta feature on the English Wikipedia.
- Special report: Small impact of the large Google Translation Project on Telugu Wikipedia
During 2009–2011 Google ran the Google Translation Project (GTP), a program utilising paid translators to translate most popular English Wikipedia articles to various Indian language Wikipedias.
- Featured content: One eye when begun, two when it's done
Four articles and nine pictures were promoted to featured status this week.
- Recent research: How Wikipedia built governance capability; readability of plastic surgery articles
One paper looks at the topic of Wikipedia governance in the context of online social production.
- Technology report: 2015 MediaWiki architecture focus and Multimedia roadmap announced
This past week saw the kick-off of the 2015 MediaWiki architecture focus of improving our content platform.
- News and notes: Board of Trustees propose bylaw amendments
The Board of Trustees is the "ultimate corporate authority" of the Wikimedia Foundation and the level at which the strategic decisions regarding the Wikimedia movement are made ...
- In the media: Turkish Wikipedia censorship; "Can Wikipedia survive?"; PR editing
The Hürriyet Daily News reports that the Turkish Wikipedia has posted banners on the top of the encyclopedia to warn users that a number of articles are being blocked by the Turkish government.
- Blog: 7,473 volumes at 700 pages each: meet Print Wikipedia
After six years of work, a residency in the Canadian Rockies, endless debugging, and more than a little help from my friends, I have made Print Wikipedia.
- Arbitration report: Politics by other means: The American politics 2 arbitration
Clausewitz' pithy summary of warfare as "politics by other means" seems to be the motto of some Wikipedia editors.
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.
- You can now see graphs in VisualEditor.
- When you read a page on the mobile site, you can now see a link to go to its talk page.
- The code coloring tool has changed. You can now use many more languages. It now also works on mobile.
- You can look at a new site to learn how to reuse data from Wikimedia sites.
Problems
- JavaScript was broken on some wikis due to a code error. VisualEditor and other tools that use JavaScript were broken.
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.
- 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.
- If you are an admin or have other special rights, you now need a strong password.
- Bot and JavaScript coders: The old continuation mode of the API for
action=querydoesn't work any more.
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
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:56, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 01 July 2015
- News and notes: Training the Trainers; VP of Engineering leaves WMF
This week The Center for Internet and Society published a promotional blog post highlighting the heritage of the center's creation of the Train the Trainer program.
- In the media: EU freedom of panorama; Nehru outrage; BBC apology
A week now remains until the vote, expected on 9 July, when the European Parliament will express either its approval, disapproval, or lack of opinion on the question of freedom of panorama in the European Union.
- WikiProject report: Able to make a stand
Here to share their wisdom are Dodger67, Penny Richards, LilyKitty, and Mirokado of WikiProject Disability
- Featured content: Viva V.E.R.D.I.
Four featured list and twelve featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Traffic report: We're Baaaaack
For the week of June 21 to 27, 2015, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages.
- Technology report: Technical updates and improvements
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community.
- Blog: These Texans are on a quest to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of their state’s revolution
Like many editors of the world's largest encyclopedia, Karanacs was browsing the site's articles and found that they were of relatively poor quality—and that the traditional narrative she'd learned was not necessarily accurate.
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.
Problems
- The code of long pages is not colored any more. You may see this problem on the pages of long gadgets.
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.
- You can now translate articles into English with the new translation tool.
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.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:13, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
This Month in GLAM: June 2015
| ||||||
Hi and sorry, but I reverted your addition to the watchlist notifications. Editors normally have to propose these messages on the talk page and get consensus before posting. I don't think it is appropriate for this step to be skipped just because you have the technical ability to edit this page. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:42, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
- Hi MSGJ and thanks for your note. I was pretty surprised when I saw that you had removed it, particularly because it's never happened before despite using watchlist notices semi-regularly in the past 3 years. I'm not sure I agree with the principle that admins should have to get full approval every time, as part of their position indicates trust in judgement. Is this documented anywhere? I'm open to discussing further and won't take it personally if we find ourselves doing so at another time, which unfortunately won't be now as I'm slammed with Wikimania preparations.
- In any case, we retargeted our strategy with a geonotice which is more appropriate given the U.S.-centric nature of position. Best, Jake Ocaasi t | c 16:32, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
JC's Girls
Hi Jake,
Might you have time to review an article I currently have up for featured status? It's called JC's Girls. The reviewers who have contributed to the FAC so far seem sharply divided, and I would greatly appreciate your thoughts.
The Signpost: 08 July 2015
- Editorial: So you want to get your message out. Where do you turn?
It seems like a good time to discuss the various communications channels available to community members.
- News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation annual plan released, news in brief
Lila Tretikov this week posted an email to the wikimedia-l mailing list announcing the final publication of the Wikimedia Foundation's 2015 annual plan.
- In the media: Wikimania warning; Wikipedia "mystery" easily solved
The mayor of Esino Lario warns that Wikimedia 2016 is "at risk of disappearing".
- Traffic report: The Empire lobs back
It's July 4 weekend and on this list that means only one thing: Wimbledon. Sure, the American Independence Day gets noticed too, but it can't hold a candle to that staggeringly British sporting event.
- Featured content: Pyrénées, Playmates, parliament and a prison...
12 featured articles, 2 featured lists, and 15 featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community.
NPYS4
 |
NPYS4 |
| The NPYS4 for helping the world NPYS4 (talk) 20:23, 11 July 2015 (UTC) |
- Thanks so much, that means a lot to me! Jake Ocaasi t | c 10:41, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
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 a list of pages with errors in code coloring.
Problems
- There was a problem with editing on Thursday. Some tools like bots and VisualEditor were broken on all wikis for 10 minutes.
- There was a problem with images on Thursday. They were broken on all wikis for 15 minutes.
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
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)
You've got mail!
Message added 17:40, 13 July 2015 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
First ever volunteer at DRN
I was doing some wandering down memory lane today, and noticed that you were the first ever DRN volunteer :) Steven Zhang Help resolve disputes! 11:56, 14 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
The Signpost: 15 July 2015
- Op-ed: On paid editing and advocacy: when the Bright Line fails to shine, and what we can do about it
"How long will this take?" This is one of the first questions new clients ask. They come to us because the Wikipedia entry about the company at which they work is wrong, incomplete, or even just outdated. The answer varies ...
- Traffic report: Belles of the ball
However coy they may be about it in public, Americans love to win. And when they do, they make no secret of it.
- WikiProject report: What happens when a country is no longer a country?
We return this week with an interview with a historical project that's still fairly active, WikiProject Former countries.
- In the media: Shapps requests WMUK data; professor's plagiarism demotion
In The Register, Andrew Orlowski reports that three weeks ago, Grant Shapps filed a request with Wikimedia UK (WMUK) under the Data Protection Act 1998 "for all data relating to him".
- Blog: Wikimedia Foundation releases third transparency report
The Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to announce the release of our latest transparency report.
- News and notes: The Wikimedia Conference and Wikimania
Wikimania 2015 is underway in Mexico City, and one of its sessions—a scheduled follow-up to the annual Wikimedia Conference that was held in Berlin in May—is good reason to provide a retrospective of that Conference.
- Featured content: When angels and daemons interrupt the vicious and intemperate
One featured article, seven featured lists, and 14 featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community
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.
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
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
03:06, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
Library edit
You're welcome. It was the least I could do. I ALWAYS like to do the least I can do.
Seriously, I had to leave you a note. Not only do I enjoy your music, but your user page looks to be the most useful, and most user-friendly, that I have found throughout Wikipedia. THANK YOU. I will be bookmarking it and revisiting it. Thank you. Rags (talk) 14:24, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 22 July 2015
- From the editor: Change the world
We want to take a moment to ask you to consider contributing to the Signpost.
- News and notes: Wikimanía 2016; Lightbreather ArbCom case
Wikimania features remarks from some leading players from the Wikimedia Foundation as well as the free knowledge movement.
- Wikimanía report: Wikimanía 2015 report, part 1, the plenaries
WMF's Executive Director, Lila Tretikov, gave the opening plenary address.
- In the media: Novelists annotate Wikipedia; Wales promotes TPO; Working for free
Three novelists "have found a way to control the Wikipedia narrative" by using the annotation website Genius to annotate their own Wikipedia articles.
- Traffic report: The Nerds, They Are A-Changin'
Summary:When I was a kid, being a nerd meant wanting to go to Pluto.
- WikiProject report: Some more politics
WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom
- Featured content: The sleep of reason produces monsters
Three featured articles, two featured lists, and 29 featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Gallery: "One small step..."
46 years ago this week, humanity set foot on the Moon.
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
Community technical news.
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 redirects to link to JavaScript pages.
- You cannot use the compact user bar any more.
- You can change your options to see bigger images.
- You can watch short videos about how to use VisualEditor.
- You can now edit pages linked in "what links here" more easily.
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.
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
wgNoticeUserDatato get edit counts anymore.
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)
WikiProject Women
Hi, I see you recently joined Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red. I've made a proposal to merge this project into Wikipedia:WikiProject Women at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red, so we can not only cover missing articles but focus on general quality of women's biographies. If interested please put your name down on the WP:Women page at the bottom.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:07, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Hey, thought you might be interested to know that Medicine.wiki is now active, in case you and/or other Wiki Project Med participants want to contribute in some way. ---Another Believer (Talk) 19:35, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 29 July 2015
- News and notes: BARC de-adminship proposal; Wikimania recordings debate
An RFC proposes to create a "Bureaucrats' Admin Review Committee" (BARC) composed of bureaucrats empowered to remove adminship rights.
- Op-ed: My life as an autistic Wikipedian
Two years ago, I discovered that I was on the autism spectrum.
- Recent research: Wikipedia and collective intelligence; how Wikipedia is tweeted
An article argues that Wikipedia displays some key characteristics of a collective intelligence process.
- In the media: Is Wikipedia a battleground in the culture wars?
"Editors representing rival political tribes [are] frequently attempting to impose their respective narratives as the official version of one or another cultural controversy."
- Featured content: Even mammoths get the Blues
Five featured articles, five featured lists, and sixteen featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Traffic report: Namaste again, Reddit
For the first time since this list began, India-related topics have claimed both the top two slots.
Very Nice
Very Nice Awesome Work Dear :) Thanks --Hazrat Waqar (talk) 12:08, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
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:
- The error page you see when the sites are not working is now simpler and easier to read. It also shows the Wikimedia logo.
- MediaWiki now supports redirects for CSS pages.
- Bots can't guess captchas unlimited times anymore.
Problems
- There was a problem with thumbnails on wikis with local images on July 24 and 25. It was due to a code error.
- We can't search by file type on Wikimedia wikis now.
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)
The Signpost: 05 August 2015
- Editorial: Wikipedia better equipped to deal with systemic bias than traditional publishers
That particular artists would be omitted through oversight or happenstance is reasonable, but that one of the world's leading publishers of art books is completely unaware of their major omissions is startling.
- Op-ed: Je ne suis pas Google
The public interest in remembering the facts about trials and convictions is, in my view, at least as strong as any "right to be forgotten."
- News and notes: VisualEditor, endowment, science, and news in brief
VisualEditor is now on slow roll-out on the English Wikipedia.
- WikiProject report: Meet the boilerplate makers
The Report checks in with WikiProject Templates.
- In the media: Probe into Nehru edits launched; dangers of the right to be forgotten
The Indian government has launched an investigation into the source of Wikipedia edits regarding Jawaharlal Nehru that caused outrage in that country.
- Traffic report: Mrityorma amritam gamaya...
Death is no stranger to this list, but it has never cast such a pall as this week, when for the first time half the slots in the top 10 were devoted to it, including the top 3.
- Featured content: Maya, Michigan, Medici, Médée, and Moul n'ga
Three featured articles, seven featured lists, and twenty-two featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Blog: Get help editing Wikipedia with the new “Co-op” mentorship program
What if there was a gathering place on Wikipedia for newer editors to find a mentor?
VisualEditor News #4—2015
Read this in another language • Local subscription list • Subscribe to the multilingual edition
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).
Click the button. VisualEditor will add the quotation marks on either side of the text you selected.
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)
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.
- The "Your preferences have been saved" message has changed. You can now see more easily what was saved when you change preferences several times.
- 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.
- You can now use the same tools to edit style in VisualEditor on mobile as in desktop browsers.
- It is now easier to see if there is a JavaScript error in a user or site script.
- JavaScript authors:
- You can no longer use the Sajax library. You can see a list of pages to fix.
- You can no longer use
document.writeon Wikimedia wikis. You can see a list of pages to fix.
- The content translation tool now works better. It is easier to use math, and useless tags are no longer added.
Problems
- More edits have been rejected due to loss of session data lately. This is now fixed.
- Importing a Lua module sometimes didn't work. This is now fixed.
- Text was sometimes lost in the content translation tool. One part of the problem is now fixed.
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.
- You can now test VisualEditor on mobile devices of all sizes.
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
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
14:58, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
This Month in GLAM: July 2015
| ||||||
Women in Red
 |
Formal merge proposal |
| There is currently a merge discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red#Formal merge proposal. As you are a member of WiR, this is a courtesy notification in case you want to join in the discussion. Thank you. Rosiestep (talk) 02:48, 12 August 2015 (UTC) |
The Signpost: 12 August 2015
- News and notes: Superprotect, one year later; a contentious RfA
Superprotect was a novel page protection level implemented on August 10 last year, without warning.
- In the media: Paid editing; traffic drop; Nicki Minaj
The Atlantic discusses "The Covert World of People Trying to Edit Wikipedia—for Pay".
- Forum: Community voices on paid editing
The community speaks out on paid editing.
- Wikimanía report: Wikimanía 2015, part 2, a community event
Our ongoing Wikimanía coverage.
- Traffic report: Fighting from top to bottom
The charts are led this week by UFC women's champion Ronda Rousey, who won her last match at UFC 190 (#9) in 34 seconds.
- Featured content: Fused lizards, giant mice, and Scottish demons
Watch out for icebergs.
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
Wikimedia technical news.
- Blog: The Hunt for Tirpitz
During World War II, the German battleship Tirpitz was a major threat to Allied convoys travelling across the North Atlantic and Arctic Sea.
The Wikipedia Adventure
@Ocaasi:, remember me? Just wanted to congratulate you with the start of this. It really looks great and I do think there should be a userbox template. I'll try to make one, see if it works. 
Lotje (talk) 15:04, 13 August 2015 (UTC).
@Ocaasi: Just found what I was looking for, the {{Wikipedia:TWA/Userbox}} right on your userpage! Thnks. Lotje (talk) 05:04, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for sending me the Wikipedia Adventure!
Dear Ocaasi,
Thank you so much for sending me the link to The Wikipedia Adventure tutorial. It was very, very helpful. Your past work in Wikipedia is most impressive, and I am have also been involved in alternative (non-pharmaceutical natural medicine) for many years. As Hippocrates observed, let food me your medicine and let you medicine be your food, except most of the junk food in the supermarkets is not fit to eat. Thank you again for the help. Harry W Braun III Harry W Braun III (talk) 17:54, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
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.
- 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.
Problems
- Older gadgets that are not using ResourceLoader are not loading anymore. They need to be updated.
- On August 12 the machine translation servers and the Content Translation tool didn't work. This was fixed on the same day.
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.
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)
The Signpost: 19 August 2015
- Op-ed: WP:THREATENING2MEN: The English Wikipedia's misogynist infopolitics and the hegemony of the asshole consensus
Nothing makes Wikipedians more angry than a discussion of gender and feminism on Wikipedia.
- In the media: Politically controversial science; "Wikipedia hates women"
A new article in PLOS ONE about Wikipedia's science coverage has attracted media attention.
- Featured content: Dead parrots, live frogs, a symbolic kiss and what do we get? Enrique Iglesias!
This week's featured content.
- Travelogue: Seeing is believing
Tony the Tiger tours New York City.
- Traffic report: Straight Outta Connecticut
It's a long way from the leafy bowers of Greenwich, Connecticut to the concrete barrens of Compton, California.
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
Community technical news.
- Blog: How Wikipedia responds to breaking news
Wikipedia is capable of covering news like any news agency.
Thank you for taking part in the Community Health learning campaign!
Hi Ocaasi,
I wanted to share back with you the drawing you contributed to the community health mural we hosted in Mexico City. Thanks for taking part! The campaign is going on until Sunday this weekend, and users are still very active answering some questions related to community health. We would love to see your views there, as well!
Happy editing! María (WMF) (talk) 20:00, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
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 CAPTCHAs in VisualEditor. This has now been fixed.
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)
Is TWA too encouraging?
Hello Ocaasi, and thank-you for the Bach Cello Suite! The reason for my attention-grabbing headline is this: Over at the GA Help Desk we encountered an enthusiastic young person who finished The Wikipedia Adventure, then immediately embarked on a flurry of activity outlined here: Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Bulk reviews and nominations by new editor
It was rather unfortunate: It is causing one of us a bit of work to back out their changes, and I'm sure the poor young editor feels badly now after such initial enthusiasm. I hope you agree that what we have to do is necessary, but more than that, I came here to ask: Does TWA encourage new editors to achieve so much so quickly? I'm sure it urges them to be bold of course, but hopefully it also includes a small caution as well? I have not checked to read it for myself, as I am afraid the portal will write to my user space without my permission. I truly respect you for your efforts at TWA as I have heard good things about it. Thank-you for your time. Prhartcom (talk) 21:17, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
- Hi Prhartcom! Thanks for your friendly heads up. I have a few thoughts. The first, and least helpful, is that over-eager contributors often turn into prolific contributors once they settle down and learn the ropes. That doesn't help you, of course. Second, this contributor appears to have a history of editing and doesn't fit the typical newbie profile that TWA aims for; in other words, this isn't typical behavior. Last, and most importantly, as you would glean from a 1-hour romp through TWA (which does edit your userpages, but quite trivially and clean-up-ably), TWA really doesn't encourage editors to do anything but go exploring. TWA doesn't mention GA in any form, so discovering it would be a feat of sheer determination and unbridled initiative. It's the kind of action that I don't think any warning could stop, nor a situation uniquely caused by TWA's positive tone. I can't quite bring myself to add 'cautions' about editing Wikipedia into a game about it's openness and potential for mastery over time--because WP:Be Bold is how newbies learn. That's not saying going to nominate 18 articles at GAN was sane or reasonable in any way, but I think it's just the kind of thing that happens some time around here, and we have to accept it as part of the process of being open and teaching newcomers. Happy to discuss further. Check out the game, please, if you have a specific suggestion about how/where such a warning would be appropriate. I think you'll see TWA is likely not the active reagent here. Best, Jake Ocaasi t | c 22:54, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 26 August 2015
- In focus: An increase in active Wikipedia editors
Does the data mean good news for the encyclopedia?
- In the media: Russia temporarily blocks Wikipedia
The Russian Wikipedia is blocked, more blocks may be on the on the horizon.
- Op-ed: Wikimania—can volunteers organize conferences?
Should paid event staff supplement the work of volunteers?
- News and notes: Re-imagining grants
The Wikimedia Foundation's grant structure.
- Featured content: Out to stud, please call later
This week's featured content.
- Arbitration report: Reinforcing Arbitration
The recently closed Arbitration Enforcement case.
- Recent research: OpenSym 2015 report
A look at the research presented at the OpenSym 2015 conference.
WikiProject Unreferenced articles
It's been years since I last checked Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Unreferenced articles, but thanks for your suggestion! I've added the Wikipedia Library banner to the project page. Hope everything is going well. By the way, please feel free to join the WikiProject you wish. The hallways around there have gotten quieter and the dust keeps settling on our slowly shrinking piles of unreferenced articles, but some of us are still active. Altamel (talk) 16:48, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
You're invited! Women in Red World Virtual Edit-a-thon on Women in Leadership
| You are invited! → World Virtual Edit-a-thon on Women in Leadership ← Come and join us remotely! | |
|---|---|
 |
Dates: 7 to 20 September 2015  The Virtual Edit-a-thon, hosted by Women in Red, will allow all those keen to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Women in Leadership to participate. As it is a two-week event, inexperienced participants will be able to draw on the assistance of more experienced editors while creating, translating or improving articles on women who are (or have been) prominent in leadership. All levels of Wikipedia editing experience are welcome. RSVP and find more details →here← --Ipigott (talk) 09:25, 30 August 2015 (UTC) |
JSTOR
Hi Ocaasi, I left a proposal at Wikipedia talk:The Wikipedia Library/JSTOR/Archive1#Export Citations to have an option for Wikipedia's citation style in "Export Citations" but it didn't got any further responses except Johnbod's comment. So I am assuming it can't be done or is technically unfeasible. Is it so?
The reason I am badgering for this is I am seeking more co-operation between Wikisource and Wikipedia and have "identified"/started transcription projects of several public domain "book series" (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and others are on the line...). It is true as Johnbod said that cut&paste works well if you are dealing with a single or a couple of articles but certainly doesn't in the scale I am doing things. Two other people I know (Billinghurst and John Carter) probably also can attest to this.
In light of this I wonder if you (or someone else) can take this matter with JSTOR. Best regards. Solomon7968 21:31, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
- I'm actually attempting to get together a few "library" pages right now, like those at Category:WikiProject libraries, for currenly well-regarded works still included in recent bibliographies that are in the public domain. And my wikisource:User:John Carter lists a few reference books in the PD as well. Having said all that, I am not myself necessarily sure that JSTOR is necessarily the way to go. Internet Archive, at least so far as I have seen, includes access to most of those I've found, although, I have to admit, it would be great to have the others as well. I would myself love to see wikisource do a bit more specifically regarding PD encyclopedic or overview articles which are still considered good enough for inclusion in bibliographies of modern reference works. And, believe it or not, there actually are quite a few of them. John Carter (talk) 21:48, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
- John Carter, this sounds like a cool project, can you explain more? We're working on a bibliography of free resources as part of our Library, so there might be some opportunity for collaboration there.
- Solomon, it probably could be done, but might not be easy to do well. For example, the Wikipedia citations from Trove (National Library of Australia) are fairly widely used, but have also been problematic in terms of formatting (for example, linking the publication The Chronicle to the general Wikipedia article chronicle). The Interior might know who at JSTOR to talk to, but he's on vacation at the moment. In the interim though, since JSTOR support BibTex export, you can try using a tool like BibTex2Wiki to convert. For some reason this version of that tool has fewer options than the older, so there might be a better option. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:44, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
- You can of course use Zotero plugin to do the conversion to Wiki citation format. I just retested RIS export from JSTOR to Zotero followed by export from Zotero to Wikipedia citation template and the only extra step is that you have to saves it to a file and then open in it a text editor rather than show on screen. It might work more efficiently for bulk cases since you can export a large set of references from Zotero to Wiki citation format. (PS - see steps here) Shyamal (talk) 06:28, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
- Awesome Shyamal! I just tested Zotero with this and it took me less than a minute to do the whole thing. Almost certainly it would have taken me some 10 mins otherwise. This process really needs more advertising. Solomon7968 07:08, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
- I always thought this was obvious and well-known! I run Wikipedia workshops for researchers and for many, bibliographic tools are second nature. Obviously assumptions are a problem. Shyamal (talk) 07:21, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
- Awesome Shyamal! I just tested Zotero with this and it took me less than a minute to do the whole thing. Almost certainly it would have taken me some 10 mins otherwise. This process really needs more advertising. Solomon7968 07:08, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
- You can of course use Zotero plugin to do the conversion to Wiki citation format. I just retested RIS export from JSTOR to Zotero followed by export from Zotero to Wikipedia citation template and the only extra step is that you have to saves it to a file and then open in it a text editor rather than show on screen. It might work more efficiently for bulk cases since you can export a large set of references from Zotero to Wiki citation format. (PS - see steps here) Shyamal (talk) 06:28, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
In lieu of JSTOR doing something, why don't we have a tool at ToolLabs that can take the other formats, and convert into a WP citation format. Alternatively and maybe better look to a means to have a tool that takes these references and plugs them into Wikidata, then have a citation type template here that takes the Wikidata using the arbitrary data linking and spits out something neat. I think pinging Lydia or Magnus to see what could be scoped would be truly more useful to get those refs into WD, and therefore permanently available, and more readily updateable. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:46, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
- @Nikkimaria: There unfortunately really isn't that much more to say other than I have gotten a few pages together to date, and have quite a few more in longhand waiting to be transferred based on other similar topical reference works. Ideally, for the OCD type among us, which probably includes me to some extent, I think, some years ago now, and it certainly feels like years ago at this point, I added to the Bibliography of encyclopedias pages all the PD reference works included in the old 1986 Sheehy Guide to Reference. I have since, off and on, more off than on recently, downloaded the current Guide to Reference from the ALA site and been adding the encyclopedic type sources it contains to the bibliography lists. And, on the talk pages of the library pages, I am also trying to add a version of the list ranking works by the number of bibliographies from that list they are included in. The ones most commonly cited might be among the more valuable sources for wikisource to have available in proofread versions which could serve of at least partial basis for all the still-missing articles we have compared to other encyclopedic sources. Ideally, I guess, my goal might be to have pages like Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Encyclopedic articles, which probably should be renamed Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Prospectus and Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Library included in the average project banner, where such pages exist. But, having been going through the ranking list for the Religion Library page for about a week now, believe me when I say that such efforts take a lot of time. John Carter (talk) 18:32, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
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.
- The link editor in VisualEditor is now a bit wider. It's now the same width as the automatic citation tool.
- VisualEditor gadget authors can no longer use the backwards-compatibility module
ext.visualEditor.viewPageTarget.init. Useext.visualEditor.desktopArticleTarget.initinstead. - Gadget writers can now use mediawiki.ForeignApi to communicate between different Wikimedia wikis.
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
- The Wikidata API will be updated with breaking changes. This will probably happen on September 9.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:37, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
You're invited! Smithsonian APA Center & Women in Red virtual edit-a-thon on APA women
| Asian Pacific American Women World Virtual Edit-a-thon | |
|---|---|
 |
|
Five minutes to help make WikiProjects better
Hello!
First, on behalf of WikiProject X, thank you for trying out the WikiProject X pilot projects. I would like to get some anonymous feedback from you on your experience using the new WikiProject layout and tools. This way, we will know what we did right, and if we did something horribly wrong, we can try to fix it. This feedback won't be associated with your username, so please be completely honest. We are determined to improve the experience of Wikipedians, and your feedback helps us with that. (You are also welcome to leave non-anonymous feedback at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject X.)
Please complete the survey here. The survey has two parts: the first part asks for your username, while the second part contains the survey questions. These two parts are stored separately, so your username will not be associated with your feedback. There are only nine questions and it should not take very long to complete. Once you complete the survey I will leave a handwritten note on your talk page as a token of my appreciation.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, Harej (talk) 17:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 02 September 2015
- Special report: Massive paid editing network unearthed on the English Wikipedia
Nearly 400 accounts blocked in largest paid-editing bust ever.
- News and notes: Flow placed on ice
The WMF collaboration team announced this week that Flow will no longer be under active development.
- Discussion report: WMF's sudden reversal on Wiki Loves Monuments
A conflict regarding fundraising banners on the Italian Wikipedia is resolved.
- Featured content: Brawny
This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 16 August to 24 August.
- In the media: Orangemoody sockpuppet case sparks widespread coverage
Also vital statistics regarding Ja Rule.
- Traffic report: You didn't miss much
The late-summer smash success of Straight Outta Compton remains the chief talking point of the English-speaking world, interrupted only by the welcome return of a Google Doodle.
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
Community technical news.
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.
- A new version of the Wikidata Toolkit has been released. It now has Wikibase API support.
- You can now use Wikidata to find all good or featured articles in a Wikipedia version.
Problems
- There was a problem with Tool Labs due to kernel issues. This has been fixed.
- The Content Translation tool published some pages with the same reference repeated several times. This has been fixed.
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.
- 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.
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.
- Wikidata will soon be able to store measurements, such as a mountain's height or the distance between two places.
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)
The Signpost: 09 September 2015
- Gallery: Being Welsh
The National Library is now releasing some of the nation's most treasured collections to Wikimedia Commons for everyone to use and enjoy.
- Featured content: Killed by flying debris
Tony1 interviews a prolific featured content participant, Ian Rose.
- Op-ed: DYK, or proudly displaying incorrect information on the Main Page with alarming regularity
Fram tells us why DYK is a problem.
- News and notes: The Swedish Wikipedia's controversial two-millionth article
First bot-created article generated from Wikidata; the Orange Bar of Doom has finally met its doom; active editor numbers still on the rise; arbitrator to resign; ne templates added in wake of Orangemoody case
- Traffic report: Mass media production traffic
This week's theme in popular articles revolved entirely around mass media productions.
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
section begin "tech-newsletter-content"
- In the media: Calling all scientists!; More Wikipedia editors in the Netherlands than all of Africa combined
A recap of Wikipedia in the media this week
This Month in GLAM: August 2015
| ||||||
Nomination of The Beijing Axis for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article The Beijing Axis is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Beijing Axis until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Primefac (talk) 23:10, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
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.
- 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.
- Language preferences might not be changed immediately when you adjust them. Language selection might work slower. Please report any problems.
Problems
- There was a problem when editing International Standard Book Numbers in Visual Editor. This has now been fixed.
- The Wikimedia mailing lists should have been upgraded on September 9. It didn't work as planned and will now happen later.
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.
- The first version of the translation suggestions feature will be deployed soon.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:18, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 16 September 2015
- Editorial: No access is no answer to closed access
On Wikipedia's commitment to open access and its obligations to readers and editors.
- News and notes: Byrd and notifications leave, but page views stay; was a terror suspect editing Wikipedia?
WMF CFO to depart, notifications come and go, and questions about the possible editing by a recently arrested terrorism suspect.
- In the media: Is there life on Mars?
Probably not. Also, Whitehall still editing Wikipedia.
- Featured content: Why did the emu cross the road?
This week's featured content.
- Traffic report: Another week
No particular trends to spot in this week's top article traffic.
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
Community technical news.
Ocaasi: Thank you. I am getting a bit of confrontation by some user who keep "Undoing" systematically my edits. My edits are truthful and yet , because I am new am I supposed to defer to them although some of the information they put while not totally false is still less precise that the one I am giving.
I supposed this was a collaborative effort and yet I am simple being"UNDOED" for no good reason.
Please illustrate me how this is supposed to work?
I am only trying to do the best for the community but it feels like I'm stepping on someones toes.
Read the History , and the Talk page of Proteus and see for yourself.
Thanks Rudy235 (talk) 22:48, 20 September 2015 (UTC)