User talk:GermanJoe/Archive 9
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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.
Recent changes
- Checkusers and stewards can now view private data such as the IP address in the abuse log. This data is removed regularly. [1]
Problems
- Last week's MediaWiki version was rolled back because of a bug. [2][3]
- Since the deployment train last week until late evening on 20 February UTC, when you thanked someone for an edit, the thank went to the latest unthanked edit to that page. It didn't matter which edit you tried to give thanks for. This has been fixed. [4]
- Special:Statistics did not take newly created pages into account since 13 February 2018. Because of this the statistics are recreated. [5][6][7]
Changes later this week
- Users with version 10 of the Internet Explorer browser will no longer get JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis. If you use this browser on your computer, you can try upgrading to a newer version. [8]
The Wikinews wikis will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 27 February. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed in the middle of 2018. [9][10]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 February. It will be on all wikis from 1 March (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 27 February at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 28 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:52, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
Editing News #1—2018
Read this in another language • Subscription list for the English Wikipedia • Subscription list for the multilingual edition
Did you know that you can now use the visual diff tool on any page?
Sometimes, it is hard to see important changes in a wikitext diff. This screenshot of a wikitext diff (click to enlarge) shows that the paragraphs have been rearranged, but it does not highlight the removal of a word or the addition of a new sentence.
If you enable the Beta Feature for "⧼visualeditor-preference-visualdiffpage-label⧽", you will have a new option. It will give you a new box at the top of every diff page. This box will let you choose either diff system on any edit.
Click the toggle button to switch between visual and wikitext diffs.
In the visual diff, additions, removals, new links, and formatting changes will be highlighted. Other changes, such as changing the size of an image, are described in notes on the side.
This screenshot shows the same edit as the wikitext diff. The visual diff highlights the removal of one word and the addition of a new sentence. An arrow indicates that the paragraph changed location.
You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.
Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has spent most of their time supporting the 2017 wikitext editor mode, which is available inside the visual editor as a Beta Feature, and improving the visual diff tool. Their work board is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, supporting the 2017 wikitext editor, and improving the visual diff tool.
Recent changes
- The 2017 wikitext editor is available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices. It has the same toolbar as the visual editor and can use the citoid service and other modern tools. The team have been comparing the performance of different editing environments. They have studied how long it takes to open the page and start typing. The study uses data for more than one million edits during December and January. Some changes have been made to improve the speed of the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual editor. Recently, the 2017 wikitext editor opened fastest for most edits, and the 2010 WikiEditor was fastest for some edits. More information will be posted at mw:Contributors/Projects/Editing performance.
- The visual diff tool was developed for the visual editor. It is now available to all users of the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. When you review your changes, you can toggle between wikitext and visual diffs. You can also enable the new Beta Feature for "Visual diffs". The Beta Feature lets you use the visual diff tool to view other people's edits on page histories and Special:RecentChanges. [11]
- Wikitext syntax highlighting is available as a Beta Feature for both the 2017 wikitext editor and the 2010 wikitext editor. [12]
- The citoid service automatically translates URLs, DOIs, ISBNs, and PubMed id numbers into wikitext citation templates. This tool has been used at the English Wikipedia for a long time. It is very popular and useful to editors, although it can be tricky for admins to set up. Other wikis can have this service, too. Please read the instructions. You can ask the team to help you enable citoid at your wiki.
Let's work together
- The team is planning a presentation about editing tools for an upcoming Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting.
- Wikibooks, Wikiversity, and other communities may have the visual editor made available by default to contributors. If your community wants this, then please contact Dan Garry.
- The
<references />block can automatically display long lists of references in columns on wide screens. This makes footnotes easier to read. This has already been enabled at the English Wikipedia. If you want columns for a long list of footnotes on this wiki, you can use either<references />or the plain (no parameters){{reflist}}template. If you edit a different wiki, you can request multi-column support for your wiki. [13] - If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly. We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation. Thank you!
—User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:14, 28 February 2018 (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 make longer edit summaries. [14]
Changes later this week
- You can notify users in edit summaries. They will get a ping just as if they had been mentioned on a wiki page. [15]
- On Special:AbuseLog you can now choose to list only actions that actually made an edit. Other actions are when the filter warned the editor or blocked the edit from being made. There are also more search options. [16][17]
- Wikis can enable Citoid to provide automatic reference look-up in the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor, but it is complex. The tool will now warn in the JavaScript console if the configuration isn't correct. Soon Citoid will disable itself if the configuration isn't correct. Check that your wiki is configured correctly. You can ask for help if you need it. [18]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 March. It will be on all wikis from 8 March (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 March at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- In the future you will be able to use global preferences. This means you could change a preference for all wikis instead of having to change it every time for each wiki. You can now test global preferences and give feedback.
- You can now read about planned works on maps during 2018. This will be done by June. You can give feedback on the planned maps work.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:12, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
The Bugle: Issue CXLIII, March 2018
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 10:36, 12 March 2018 (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
- 3D models can now be uploaded to Commons. [19]
- Page Previews has been updated to use HTML for previews. This has fixed many issues. An A/B test was done on English and German Wikipedia to measure how it is used. Other changes were also made. [20]
- Some edits have to be checked against too many conditions before they can trigger an abuse filter. If that is the reason no filter is triggered the edit will be tagged for review. [21]
- Auto-saving has been added to the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. Right now it is meant to help if your browser crashes or if you accidentally close a tab. [22]
Problems
- The abuse filter did not tag all edits that should have been tagged after last week's MediaWiki version had come to the wikis. It was fixed on 9 March (UTC). [23]
Changes later this week
- You can notify users in edit summaries. They will get a ping just as if they had been mentioned on a wiki page. This was originally planned to happen last week. [24]
- It is now possible to specify the block parameters for each filter in Special:AbuseFilter. The parameters include block duration and if the user should be blocked from editing their own talk page. The block duration is separate for anonymous and registered users. [25][26]
- A hundred Wikimedia wikis will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 13 and 14 March. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed in the middle of 2018. [27][28][29]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 March. It will be on all wikis from 15 March (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 13 March at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 14 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:44, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
Request
Hello. Help improve the quality of Maureen Wroblewitz. Thanks you very much.171.248.53.250 (talk) 09:49, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
- Hello. I am sorry, but I am not knowledgeable about model articles, so won't be of much help. After a brief look, a few quick tips though: the article focusses far too much on trivial and secondary details, such as routine guest appearances and commercial PR endorsements. Such content should be trimmed down, not developed any further. An encyclopedic article should focus on her main accomplishments, and only on the most significant details of her career and life. Regarding sources: the vast majority of used sources are social media annoucements and low-quality lifestyle reporting. Their usage should be reduced and replaced with reliable journalistic sources whereever possible. Hope these tips are helpful, even though I probably won't be able to help with further improvements. GermanJoe (talk) 17:54, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
MITx
Hi GermanJoe, I appreciate your edits for the most part. However, I disagree with the one on MITx as you have reverted it to "Learners who successfully complete course requirements in the verified track receive a certificate of accomplishment, but no academic credit is offered." That is no longer true with the launch of their MicroMasters program, a page I have created and currently awaiting approval. MIT has admitted its first batch of students through its edX platform with advanced standing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clarevoyance (talk • contribs)
- Hello @Clarevoyance:, thank you for pointing this out. I have removed the outdated information (it was unsourced anyway). Of course you could re-insert a brief mention of the actual situation, if you can find a truely independent reliable source with details about it. By the way, please sign your posts with 4 tilde characters ~~~~ at the end. This will automatically add your user signature and a timestamp. Best regards. GermanJoe (talk) 14:54, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
- No problem and thank you! Clarevoyance (talk) 15:01, 19 March 2018 (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
- On March 12 early morning UTC, the number of 503 error messages increased due to an issue on esams datacenter. It has been fixed. [30]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 March. It will be on all wikis from 22 March (calendar).
Meetings
- There is no Editing team meeting this week.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- From April 4, the autopatrol status of edits will only be accessible in the Recent Changes database table, so only for 30 days. [31][32]
- In-Context Help and Onboarding is a new project, aiming to improve retention of new wiki editors. The goal is to give them short tutorials and other training experiences based on their activity. Collaboration team is expecting feedback and comments on the project talk page, especially from people working with newcomers.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:03, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Hi @GermanJoe: you reverted an edit I made to Online dating service because, I think, you believe it to be an external link in the main body of the article. It isn’t though - it’s a link to another Wikipedia article. Mccapra (talk) 04:19, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
- Hello @Mccapra:, thank you for pointing this out. I guess the link's name with a ".com" threw me off in a hasty edit, apologies for the erroneous edit summary. Still, I believe it would be better to omit this Wiki-link and add the site to Comparison of online dating websites instead, where all Wiki-notable sites with their own articles are listed. Per WP:EASTEREGG we should generally avoid linking terms to differing topics: so a link on "online dating service for Jewish people" should only link to a general article about this broad topic, not to 1 specific provider of such services (JWed is also not the only provider, as far as I know). Please feel free to ask me if you have further questions. Best regards. GermanJoe (talk) 12:12, 23 March 2018 (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.
Changes later this week
- Some of the interface icons and text sizes will change slightly, as part of the updates for improved accessibility and consistency. These icons are used in many features, including Notifications, Recent Changes, Beta Features, Visual Editor, 2017 Wikitext Editor, Code Editor, and others. While editor toolbars, dialogs, and menus will appear slightly bigger; elements on special pages will be slightly smaller. Functionality will not change. [33] [34]
- The deprecated #toc and #toctitle CSS ids have been removed. If your wiki was still using these for fake Tables of Content (ToC) then these might lose their styling. They can be replaced with .toc and .toctitle classes where appropriate. [35]
- TemplateStyles will be deployed to the Wikivoyages on 28 March 2018. [36]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 March. It will be on all wikis from 29 March (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 27 March at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be one hour earlier than usual on 28 March at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- From 9 April, the sort order of categories will be distorted for a short time. We are upgrading versions of an internationalisation library (ICU) and using a maintenance script to update existing database entries. This will last anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on wiki size. Read more details. [37]
- Changes are coming to search for Serbian projects. Cyrillic and Latin variants of a word and different grammatical forms of a word will be able to find each other. Read more on MediaWiki in Serbian or English.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:04, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
April 2018 Milhist Backlog Drive
G'day all, please be advised that throughout April 2018 the Military history Wikiproject is running its annual backlog elimination drive. This will focus on several key areas:
- tagging and assessing articles that fall within the project's scope
- adding or improving listed resources on Milhist's task force pages
- updating the open tasks template on Milhist's task force pages
- creating articles that are listed as "requested" on the project's various lists of missing articles.
As with past Milhist drives, there are points awarded for working on articles in the targeted areas, with barnstars being awarded at the end for different levels of achievement.
The drive is open to all Wikipedians, not just members of the Military history project, although only work on articles that fall (broadly) within the scope of military history will be considered eligible. This year, the Military history project would like to extend a specific welcome to members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red, and we would like to encourage all participants to consider working on helping to improve our coverage of women in the military. This is not the sole focus of the edit-a-thon, though, and there are aspects that hopefully will appeal to pretty much everyone.
The drive starts at 00:01 UTC on 1 April and runs until 23:59 UTC on 30 April 2018. Those interested in participating can sign up here.
For the Milhist co-ordinators, AustralianRupert and MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:53, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
March 2018 The Herbstman Collection "Spam" Editing you did
IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO GERMANJOE MARCH 30, 2018
Dear Sir,
You removed a link from several articles that WAS NOT SPAM. This links was to an educational online liberty that has provided much content for many articles on Wikipedia. As the administrator of this online museum, I wish to inform you that it holds the copyright for the rare images that it has contributed to many Wiki articles.
As you may not be familiar with this online resource, this online financial library has contributed to the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Museum of American Finance, and several major universities its material from visual archives, all for the purpose of educating the public on US Financial History and the US National Debt. This non-profit takes in NO MONEY and SELLS NOTHING. It is purely educational.
It is entitled to make contributions to Wikipedia, and be cited as an external link. Here is the quote taken from Wikipedia: External Links: What Can Normally be Linked:
3. Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues..
By labeling the External Link to this as "SPAM," you unfairly diminish the work of this non-profit. Indeed, many Museums and other institutions contribute to Wikipedia, and have their external links accordingly. I hope this is a simple misunderstanding, and that you will no longer target the work this institution as contributed to Wikipedia. Please contact me if you wish to discuss. I thank you
- Hello @JHerbstman:, thank you for your message. A minor technical point: please sign your messages in Wikipedia talkpages and forums with 4 tilde characters ~~~~ at the end. This will add an automatic signature.
- Non-profits and charitable organizations are not exempt from our linking policies, in fact no external contributor is. I wasn't diminishing your site's external work, but non-profit organizations are just as capable of self-promotion as commercial enterprises - and such activities are fully prohibited here no matter the circumstances. When other editors revert additions for your own or closely-connected sites, please do not re-insert them but suggest such links on the article's talkpage (see also WP:SELFCITE "when in doubt ..." regarding references).
- Regarding external links: I have kept the added external links to your website now, but you should ask for feedback from other uninvolved editors before you add more links to other articles. If possible (depending on your site's layout), such links should directly point to topic-related information instead of a general root domain, where the reader must continue to search for specific information. That would make access to the topic-related information easier for interested readers.
- Regarding image captions: Image information like source and attribution are usually not provided in the image caption, but in the image's file page (I have removed these redundant references again). See MOS:CAPTION and MOS:CREDITS for more details.
- I hope this additional information is helpful, but please feel free to ask if you have any further questions. Best regards. GermanJoe (talk) 18:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you GermanJoe for getting back so quickly. As a non-expert in Wikipedia, I value help (including yours) in making sure the contributions I make comply with spirit of the Wikipedia platform. I wanted to let you know that the edits for each of the External Links submitted, I believed we were sending readers directly to the relevant part of the collection were they could learn more about that particular part of US Treasury Bond history. Again, I am no expert in Wikipedia editing, and appreciate any help!
FYI, our Foundation is, to date, the only one of its kind in the world that has systematically organized a "visual history" of United States Treasury debt. Believe it or not, most of the Treasury Bond imagery available online (i.e. a Google Image Search) are images either taken from numismatic auction houses, dealers, or private collectors. With the US National Debt being a very important subject matter, our Foundation's aim is simply to allow the public free and open access to some of the visual history of this debt. In an age where everything seems to be online, I realize this may sound odd, but NONETHELESS:
There are no publicly available catalogues of the visual history of US Treasury Bonds. The Herbstman Collection was the first of its kind, and so I hope this explains some of my passion on this matter.
I really appreciate your help in this. Best wishes. User:JHerbstman —Preceding undated comment added 18:36, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
- Hello, @JHerbstman:, I am glad I could help with a few points (and really wasn't trying to dismiss your site's off-Wiki accomplishments). About that technical aspect for external links: the currently added external links point to the "root domain" of your website http://www.theherbstmancollection.com, not to a specific topic section. For example, if you wanted to link to your specific page about the "War of 1812 notes", you would use http://www.theherbstmancollection.com/war-of-1812 as link instead. This will skip your site's front page and directly lead the reader to the topic-relevant content. Other similar sub-pages seem to exist for all other sub-collections, and just need to be replaced accordingly. Best regards. GermanJoe (talk) 19:03, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Making the updates as we speak! Thank you again for all of your help!User:JHerbstman —Preceding undated comment added 19:32, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you again GermanJoe. Your help has really been appreciated! User:JHerbstman
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
- Template Wizard script available for testing. It will show up as a puzzle-piece icon in the 2010 WikiEditor. You can click on the icon to insert a template.
- The Wikimedia Communities and Contributors survey is to be sent to participants around the world this week. If you are volunteer developer, and have contributed code to any pieces of MediaWiki, gadgets, or tools, please take 20 to 40 minutes to complete the survey.
Problems
- MediaWiki deployment train has been rolled back to version 1.31.0-wmf.26 on week 13, due to a multiplication of lost connections during MySQL queries. Some of the recent changes may have not been applied. They will be deployed next week. [38][39][40]
- The Notifications badge icons were overlapping other links. This has been fixed. [41]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 April. It will be on all wikis from 5 April (calendar).
- User subpages ending in
.jsonwill now be protected from other people editing them, like.jsand.csspages already are. If you have a tool that stores static configuration, you can now use a subpage likeUser:Example/mygadget.jsonto do this without concerns. [42] - Tidy will be replaced by RemexHtml on the next set of wikis. On April 4, we plan to turn off Tidy on all Wikiquotes (except frwikiquote) and Wikimedia chapters and user groups wikis. 23 wikis will have Tidy replaced this time. [43][44][45]
- AbuseFilter will transition to use OOUI starting April 4, and the rule editor will also be changed to a CodeEditor (ACE) similar to what is found on user JavaScript pages. The move to OOUI will continue over the next few weeks. [46] [47]
- In Special:Preferences, the preference "Reload the watchlist automatically whenever a filter is changed (JavaScript required)" is now only visible for users who have opt-out the New Filters for the Watchlist. [48]
- You can see names of individual abuse filters in Special:AbuseLog. Now if the name of an abuse filter contains some wikisyntax like links, it will not change to a link when displayed. [49]
- You can now search through filter patterns at Special:AbuseFilter. You may specify either a plain string or a regular expression and the matching filters will show a snippet of their pattern with the match highlighted. [50]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 3 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 4 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- If you're using, creating or improving Lua modules, you can give your feedback to help harmonizing the modules across wikis and add more useful functions.
- On April 11th, we plan to turn off Tidy on all wikis with less than 50 entries in all high priority linter categories. About 60 wikis will have Tidy replaced. Currently about 600 wikis have had Tidy replaced and we have another 300 wikis to go. We plan to finish this transition from Tidy to RemexHtml by end of June 2018. Please follow T175706 to monitor progress of Tidy replacement. [51][52]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:28, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
The Bugle: Issue CXLIIV, April 2018
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 09:55, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for infobox reformat
Thanks for fixing the infobox on HMS Blackpool. I didn't know what was wrong with the format and I appreciate the help. :) Matthewethanchowtoy (talk) 01:09, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Thank You
Thank You for the tips. Check out my new User page. PW102281 (talk) 01:27, 9 April 2018 (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
- Some pages have templates that describe problems with that article. There is now more information for mobile readers and what is wrong with the article and how they could help fix it. [53]
- You can now thank users for many more actions than edits to a page. This was one of the top ten requests in the Wishlist Survey last year. [54]
- The sort order of categories will have errors for a short time starting Monday 9 April (UTC). We are upgrading versions of an internationalisation library (ICU) and using a script to update the database. This will take between a few hours and a few days depending on wiki size. You can read more details. [55]
- Tag filter titles will now work better on wikis where the tag filter title is in a language that is written in another direction than the language of that wiki. This could for example be an English title (written from left to right) on a Hebrew or an Arabic wiki (written from right to left). [56]
Problems
- The bookmark icon for saved filters on the recent changes page disappeared because of new icon changes. This has now been fixed. [57]
- For a week in March rollbacks got both the
rollbackand theundotag on the recent changes page and other pages where you see tags. This has now been fixed. [58]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 April. It will be on all wikis from 12 April (calendar).
- Patrolled edits now have three states instead of two. Recent changes filters are updated to show unpatrolled, autopatrolled and manually patrolled edits. [59]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 10 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 11 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The iOS and Android apps will get synced reading lists later in April.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:08, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Userbox Template.
Can I adjust Userbox templates to make something on my userpage?PW102281 (talk) 19:27, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
- @PW102281: - pre-defined userboxes should usually not be changed (as these templates are shared among hundreds and thousands of editors. Some of them have parameters to add user-specific information, but that depends on the specific template and you'd have to look up the template's documentation for details. You can also create (and freely change) your "own" userboxes, see Wikipedia:Userboxes for more info. But I haven't created any of these myself, so my experience in this aspect is limited. Hope this helps a bit. GermanJoe (talk) 20:33, 9 April 2018 (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.
Changes later this week
- Profiling statistics for an abuse filter tell how often edits match the filter. The statistics for the abuse filters were reset after 10000 actions. Wikis can now decide to reset it more or less often. They can file a phabricator task to do so. [60]
- Abuse filters will now treat integers and floats more precisely. For example, 5/2 was rounded down to 2 but will now be 2.5 and 2*4 will be the integer 8 and not the floating-point number 8.0. Division values are the only ones changed. For the rest only strict comparisons (
===and!==) will be affected leaving the values unchanged. [61][62] - The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 April. It will be on all wikis from 19 April (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 17 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 18 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The new PDF renderer could not create PDFs from books. Books are in this case collections of pages on a Wikimedia wiki. PediaPress will take over development of the books-to-PDF function. [63]
- Pywikibot will no longer support Python 2.7.2 and 2.7.3. [64]
- Volunteer developers can fill out the Wikimedia Communities and Contributors survey. The last day is April 22 (UTC). This is a third-party service survey. See the privacy statement.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
Upcoming changes to wikitext parsing
Hello,
There will be some changes to the way wikitext is parsed during the next few weeks. It will affect all namespaces. You can see a list of pages that may display incorrectly at Special:LintErrors. Since most of the easy problems have already been solved at the English Wikipedia, I am specifically contacting tech-savvy editors such as yourself with this one-time message, in the hope that you will be able to investigate the remaining high-priority pages during the next month.
There are approximately 10,000 articles (and many more non-article pages) with high-priority errors. The most important ones are the articles with misnested tags and table problems. Some of these involve templates, such as infoboxes, or the way the template is used in the article. In some cases, the "error" is a minor, unimportant difference in the visual appearance. In other cases, the results are undesirable. You can see a before-and-after comparison of any article by adding ?action=parsermigration-edit to the end of a link, like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Foss?action=parsermigration-edit (which shows a difference in how {{infobox ship}} is parsed).
If you are interested in helping with this project, please see Wikipedia:Linter. There are also some basic instructions (and links to even more information) at https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2018-April/001836.html You can also leave a note at WT:Linter if you have questions.
Thank you for all the good things you do for the English Wikipedia. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
Invitation to WikiProject Portals
The Portals WikiProject has been rebooted.
You are invited to join, and participate in the effort to revitalize and improve the Portal system and all the portals in it.
There are sections on the WikiProject page dedicated to tasks (including WikiGnome tasks too), and areas on the talk page for discussing the improvement and automation of the various features of portals.
Many complaints have been lodged in the RfC to delete all portals, pointing out their various problems. They say that many portals are not maintained, or have fallen out of date, are useless, etc. Many of the !votes indicate that the editors who posted them simply don't believe in the potential of portals anymore.
It's time to change all that. Let's give them reasons to believe in portals, by revitalizing them.
The best response to a deletion nomination is to fix the page that was nominated. The further underway the effort is to improve portals by the time the RfC has run its course, the more of the reasons against portals will no longer apply. RfCs typically run 30 days. There are 19 days left in this one. Let's see how many portals we can update and improve before the RfC is closed, and beyond.
A healthy WikiProject dedicated to supporting and maintaining portals may be the strongest argument of all not to delete.
We may even surprise ourselves and exceed all expectations. Who knows what we will be able to accomplish in what may become the biggest Wikicollaboration in years.
Let's do this.
See ya at the WikiProject!
Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 10:21, 21 April 2018 (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 Wikipedias now have Page Previews.
- The iOS and Android apps now have synced reading lists. This means you can save articles to a private list that can be seen on your other devices if you use the apps.
- The icons in the 2010 wikitext editor have changed. [65]
- The visual editor and the 2017 wikitext ask you to write an edit summary after you press
Publish. This button now also shows an ellipsis. This is to show that pressingPublishis not the last step. [66]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 April. It will be on all wikis from 26 April (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 24 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 25 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- <mapframe> will come to most Wikipedias in May. This means that you can put interactive maps in the articles. Nine Wikipedias that use a strict version of flagged revisions will not get this feature in May. [67]
- The rollback function could change. This was a German community request. All editors with rollback rights can leave feedback on the proposed solution. The last day to leave feedback is 4 May (UTC).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:16, 23 April 2018 (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 parameter for unpatrolled edits in recent changes filters changed name. You might need to update saved filters and links. [68]
Problems
- We are migrating wikis from Tidy to Remex. Because of a bug the 250 wikis which do not yet use Remex were switched on 23 April. This is two months early. This meant that pages with broken wikitext showed wrongly to readers. The bug was undone the next day. You can help fix broken wikitext to avoid this problem when your wiki switches. Tidy will be removed on all wikis before July 2018. You can follow the process on Phabricator. [69]
Changes later this week
- You will be able use CodeMirror in the 2017 wikitext editor on all wikis. CodeMirror helps with syntax highlighting. It has previously been a beta feature and only available on wikis with scripts that are written from left to right. [70]
- When an administrator blocks someone they will have a calendar they can use to choose when the block ends. This is to make it easier to pick a specific date. [71]
- You can soon turn on the Performance Inspector in the Editing section in your preferences. It shows information about the performance of pages. This could be the size of modules in the page, how many CSS selectors are defined on the page and how many are used, or the size of the images on the page. This tool is intended to help editors fix pages that load slowly. [72]
- There is a new abuse filter function called
equals_to_any. You can use it to check if its first argument is equal (===) to any of the following ones. For example you can use it to check if the page's namespace is amongst a given set of values in a more compact way than you could earlier. You can read more on mediawiki.org. - The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 May. It will be on all wikis from 3 May (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 1 May at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 2 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The Wikimedia Cloud Services team is working on a new project called Toolhub. The goal is to make it easier for Wikimedians to discover software tools they can use. You can leave feedback on the talk page or email jhare
wikimedia.org to leave private feedback. - All wikis with fewer than 100 high-priority linter errors in all namespaces will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 2 May. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Wikibooks wikis with fewer than 100 high-priority linter errors in the main namespace will switch on 9 May. Tidy will be removed on all wikis before July 2018. [73][74][75]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:18, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
about kurd mastiff (pshdar)
Hello. the kurdish breed has a many diffrents to kangal dog. for example
1- soft and loose skin 2-big dewlap (jowl) 3-non-cartilaginous eyers 4- body anatomy(like fish ; wide brisket and thin back) 5- coat colors (black,blue,gray) 6-longer history (5000 years a go-assyrian in today kurdistan area)
this is (special )breed dog.
thanks for editing my article
Mohamad137026 (talk) 15:27, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- @Mohamad137026:, the best place to discuss this would really be Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dogs, where other editors with more knowledge about dog-related topics may be able to offer additional advice. See also my WP:Teahouse answer for additional tips (just in case you haven't seen it already). Hope this helps a bit, but I won't be able to offer breed-related content advice (just general Wiki tips and observations). GermanJoe (talk) 16:38, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Good-faith edits
Apologies for my poor edits to Blue State Digital with names of people who don't have Wikipedia pages. I should have created well-researched and referenced pages first before adding any names to notable alumni. Sorry if I broke etiquette, I'm quite new to this and am still learning. Bobatherine (talk) 17:00, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Hello @Bobatherine:, no problem at all. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask me (WP:Teahouse is also a good forum, when you need advice about Wiki-editing). Best regards. GermanJoe (talk) 17:31, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- @Bobatherine: (re-ping, typo in 1st). GermanJoe (talk) 17:32, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- @GermanJoe: maybe you can guide me ... is this a sufficiently sourced/references and quality page? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Ben_Self This was one of the names I added in that list.
- @Bobatherine: - this looks like a good start, but would benefit from 1-2 additional in-depth sources (it might or might not get through a review with only 3). Also, large parts of the draft have no immediate inline-references - where is the information in the 2nd-6th paragraph coming from? You should indicate the source of this information with additional inline-references directly after the verified statement(s). And if you want to re-use the same reference several times, you can create a so-called "named reference" (see WP:REFB#Same reference used more than once for more details). GermanJoe (talk) 17:54, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- @GermanJoe: okay, I think I get it ... let me clean this one up a bit and get back to you for some more feedback. I want to make sure it's up to appropriate standards. Also, I don't think I can publish right? Someone else has to?
- @Bobatherine: when the draft is good to go, you can submit it for review by placing {{subst:submit}} (without the nowiki coding) on top of it. I just noticed the article talkpage message by the way (the ping didn't work): researching a complete article is indeed a lot of work, but there is no need to rush it. As long as you are working on a promising draft, it usually won't get deleted. Once submitted, an experienced AfC reviewer will take a look and give you additional feedback. One quick additional tip: consider splitting the article's main body in a few additional sections. The article's lead introduction (see MOS:LEAD) should only summarize the most notable points. Additional details should be put into sub-sections (for example "Early life and education", "Blue State Digital", "Personal life" just as suggestions). It's a relatively short article, so 2-3 sections would be enough to organize the content in a more accessible manner. GermanJoe (talk) 16:07, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- @GermanJoe: I have four BSD articles going now and here's one that I think seems reasonably well researched, referenced, and possibly ready to push through a more formal review process. Can I get your thoughts? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Tom_Cochran_(technologist) ... am I missing anything significant? These certainly are more work than the average person would guess!
- @Bobatherine:, a minor issue I noticed in some sentences in these drafts is Wikipedia's requirement for a totally and completely uninvolved "point of view" in the narrative (WP:NPOV). To give you a quick example: "secure, stable and scalable" is a subjective assessment of quality, that is only based on the topic's own claim in an interview. Generally, such subjective assessments should be avoided. In rare cases where such an assessment is needed in encyclopedic context, it must be sourced to a truely independent expert source. Wikipedia articles should focus on objective facts reported by independent sources about the topic, not on what the topic or its representatives say or think about themselves. To be clear, most parts of these drafts are OK regarding their PoV. But I'd recommend to double-check any subjective claims or statements that may be seen as taking the topic's own PoV.
- Secondly, and I was a bit hesitant to ask this: do you have any personal or professional connection to Blue State Digital? I certainly don't want to discourage any contributions, but if you have such a connection you should make sure to read WP:COI (and WP:PAID in case it applies). Editors with such a "conflict of interest" can contribute to Wikipedia via drafts and suggestions on article talkpages, but have to follow specific guidelines - most importantly such connections to the edited topic must be transparently disclosed (you'll find more details in the 2 linked guidelines). I do hope you don't mind the question to avoid future misunderstandings - I'll be glad to help with any other further questions and advice regardless. GermanJoe (talk) 11:45, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- @GermanJoe: Greetings! Thanks for those links, a lot to read in there. Having been a former Blue State Digital employee, I think that disqualifies me (or should) from adding to or creating any pages related to the company. I apologize, I should have read more guidelines and rules before wading into editing or creating any pages. I should just stick to topics where I don't or haven't had any direct connection. Looks like I should pause, put that disclosure into the talk page, and ask for uninvolved editors to review, edit, or delete the drafts? Bobatherine (talk) 17:57, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Bobatherine:, thank you for being transparent about this. If you are just a former employee with no current financial interest, you may be biased with certain aspects, but that's quite common for editors who write about topics where they have personal knowledge and history - I wouldn't call that a strong "conflict of interest" as defined by WP:COI (your drafts will be reviewed by other editors anyway). As a recommendation: you should briefly mention this fact on your userpage User:Bobatherine, so other editors are aware of it if need be. But in my opinion such a past connection doesn't preclude you from editing BSD-related articles. Just be careful to avoid PoV statements as mentioned in my first point above. GermanJoe (talk) 18:33, 4 May 2018 (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 Wikimedia Commons mobile app has a new version. It is now easier to find nearby places that need pictures. It helps you with direct uploads and title and category suggestions. The app only works on Android phones. [76]
Problems
- The abuse filters had a problem with blocks where you had changed how long they last. It used the default length everywhere. This was in late April. Abuse filter users should make sure the right block length is used and change them if needed. This is only for filters where how long blocks last had been changed. [77]
Changes later this week
- The advanced search function beta feature will be on all Wikimedia wikis. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. [78]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 May. It will be on all wikis from 10 May (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 8 May at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 9 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- All wikis with fewer than 100 high-priority linter errors in the main namespace will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 16 May. Other wikis will switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed on all wikis before July 2018. [79][80]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:28, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
The Bugle: Issue CXLIV, May 2018
|
The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 15:00, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
Hello, I am writting about my page BOŽIDAR DJURICA I have removed all questionable (or subjective) sentences. Van you please check if it is OK? Thanks NIko Osolni username niniosola Niniosola (talk) 14:34, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
- Hello @Niniosola:, I have moved your message to my main user talkpage (/Tools is just a personal subpage to store some tools) - hope you don't mind. Thank you for removing most of the promotional content. But the article has another fundamental problem, the lack of truely independent reliable sources with in-depth coverage about the topic (see WP:GNG and WP:RS for more information). Passing mentions, self-published information and coverage in affiliated publications are not sufficient to establish a topic's "notability" (in Wikipedia's own sense of the term).
- Also, just in case, do you have any connection to this author or his publisher? If you have, please make sure to read Wikipedia's "conflict of interest" guideline at WP:COI and disclose this connection as described in the linked text. Thank you for your consideration. If you have any more questions, I'd be glad to help. But it would probably be better to add AFD-related comments directly to the AFD page for this article (you can start such additional messages as Comment to avoid duplicate voting). The decision about deleting or keeping this article is up to all contributing editors in the AfD discussion and the closing administrator, not only me. GermanJoe (talk) 16:35, 14 May 2018 (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
- Dynamic maps are now available on most Wikipedias. Labels on maps can also be in different languages.
- The new Advanced Search interface is now available as a Beta Feature on all wikis. This makes it easier to learn about and to use many of the powerful options in our search. Feedback is appreciated. [81]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 May. It will be on all wikis from 17 May (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 16 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- In the mobile view, warnings for when something is wrong with a page are not as clear as they should be. The developers are working on this. You can give feedback and suggestions.
- The developers are working on making the Wikipedia Android app available in more languages. You can give feedback, suggestions and help test it. Read more on mediawiki.org [82]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:23, 14 May 2018 (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.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 May. It will be on all wikis from 24 May (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- It could become easier to reference different pages of a book in an article. You can give feedback. The last day for feedback is 27 May.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:34, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
Thank you very much
The RfC discussion to eliminate portals was closed May 12, with the statement "There exists a strong consensus against deleting or even deprecating portals at this time." This was made possible because you and others came to the rescue. Thank you for speaking up.
By the way, the current issue of the Signpost features an article with interviews about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.
I'd also like to let you know that the Portals WikiProject is working hard to make sure your support of portals was not in vain. Toward that end, we have been working diligently to innovate portals, while building, updating, upgrading, and maintaining them. The project has grown to 80 members so far, and has become a beehive of activity.
Our two main goals at this time are to automate portals (in terms of refreshing, rotating, and selecting content), and to develop a one-page model in order to make obsolete and eliminate most of the 150,000 subpages from the portal namespace by migrating their functions to the portal base pages, using technologies such as selective transclusion. Please feel free to join in on any of the many threads of development at the WikiProject's talk page, or just stop by to see how we are doing. If you have any questions about portals or portal development, that is the best place to ask them.
If you would like to keep abreast of developments on portals, keep in mind that the project's members receive updates on their talk pages. The updates are also posted here, for your convenience.
Again, we can't thank you enough for your support of portals, and we hope to make you proud of your decision. Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 08:49, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
P.S.: if you reply to this message, please {{ping}} me. Thank you. -TT