User talk:Saehrimnir

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Welcome[edit]

Welcome!

Hello, Saehrimnir, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:08, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Barnstar[edit]

The Original Barnstar
This barnstar is awarded to everyone who - whatever their opinion - contributed to the discussion about Wikipedia and SOPA. Thank you for being a part of the discussion. Presented by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Your HighBeam account is ready![edit]

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Thanks for helping make Wikipedia better. Enjoy your research! Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 21:00, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for April 15[edit]

Hi. When you recently edited Livermore Municipal Airport, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Ft (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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You're invited: San Francisco WikiWomen's Edit-a-Thon 2![edit]

San Francisco WikiWomen's Edit-a-Thon 2! You are invited!
The San Francisco WikiWomen's Edit-a-Thon 2 will be held on Saturday, June 16, 2012 at the Wikimedia Foundation offices in San Francisco. Wikipedians of all experience levels are welcome to join us! This event will be specifically geared around encouraging women to learn how to edit and contribute to Wikipedia. Workshops on copy-editing, article creation, and sourcing will be hosted. Bring a friend! Come one, come all!
EdwardsBot (talk) 23:32, 22 May 2012 (UTC) · Unsubscribe[reply]

San Francisco Wiknic 2012[edit]

San Francisco Wiknic at Golden Gate Park
You are invited to the second Great American Wikinic taking place in Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco, on Saturday, June 23, 2012. We're still looking for input on planning activities, and thematic overtones. List your add yourself to the attendees list, and edit the picnic as you like. Max Klein {chat} 18:35, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you would not like to receive future messages about meetups, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Meetup/San Francisco/Invite.

You're invited! - Wiki Loves Monuments - San Francisco Events [edit]

Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco

Hi! As part of Wiki Loves Monuments, we're organizing two photo events in the San Francisco Bay Area and one in Yosemite National Park. We hope you can come out and participate! Feel free to contact User:Almonroth with questions or concerns.

There are three events planned:

We look forward to seeing you there!

You are receiving this message because you signed up on the SF Bay Area event listing, or have attended an event in the Bay Area. To remove yourself, please go here. EdwardsBot (talk) 00:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You're invited! Ada Lovelace Day San Francisco[edit]

You're invited! Ada Lovelace Day San Francisco[edit]

October 16 - Ada Lovelace Day Celebration - You are invited!
Come celebrate Ada Lovelace Day at the Wikimedia Foundation offices in San Francisco on October 16! This event, hosted by the Ada Initiative, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Wikimedia Foundation. It'll be a meet up style event, though you are welcome to bring a laptop and edit about women in STEM if you wish. Come mix, mingle and celebrate the legacy of the world's first computer programmer.

The event is October 16, 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm, everyone is welcome!

You must RSVP here - see you there!
SarahStierch (talk) 19:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Edit-a-thon tomorrow (Saturday) in Oakland[edit]

Hi, I hope you will be joining us tomorrow afternoon at the Edit-a-thon at Tech Liminal, in Oakland. We'll be working on articles relating to women and democracy (and anything else that interests you). It's sponsored by the California League of Women Voters, Tech Liminal, and me.

If this is the first you are hearing of this event, my apologies for the last-minute notice! I announced it on the San Francisco email list and by a banner on your watchlist, but I neglected to look at the San Francisco invitation list until this evening. If you can't make it this time, I hope to see you at a similar event soon! -Pete (talk) 04:52, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wiknic 2013
Sunday, June 23rd · 12:34pm · Lake Merritt, Oakland
Theme: Hyperlocal list-making
Lake Merritt Wild Duck Refuge (Oakland, CA)

This year's 2013 SF Wiknik will be held at Lake Merritt, next to Children's Fairyland in Oakland. This event will be co-attended by people from the hyperlocal Oakland Wiki. May crosspollination of ideas and merriment abound!

Location and Directions[edit]

  • Location: The grassy area due south of Children's Fairyland (here) (Oakland Wiki)
    • Nearest BART: 19th Street
    • Nearest bus lines: NL/12/72
    • Street parking abounds
EdwardsBot (talk) 04:40, 3 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You're invited...[edit]

to two upcoming Bay Area events:

  • Maker Faire 2013, Sat/Sun May 18-19, San Mateo -- there will have a booth about Wikimedia, and we need volunteers to talk to the public and ideas for the booth -- see the wiki page to sign up!
  • Edit-a-Thon 5, Sat May 25, 10-2pm, WMF offices in San Francisco -- this will be a casual edit-a-thon open to both experienced and new editors alike! Please sign up if on the wiki page if you can make it so we know how much food to get.

I hope you can join us at one or both! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 17:33, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am not here on the 18/19 but I will join you for the Edit-a-Ton


You've got mail[edit]

Hello, Saehrimnir. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Hello Saehrimnir, I'm following up on an email I sent you last week, asking for your insights on editor engagement. If you didn't get that email, could you please contact me at fflorin@wikimedia.org, so I can tell you more? Thanks! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 19:51, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Edits to chemboxes[edit]

Hi, I see that you are performing edits to chemboxes in many articles. Most of it seems to be rearranging (due to visualeditor), minor spelling changes in fields (which do not have an effect and are against our policy) or do actually 'nothing' (?). Could you please be explain? --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:46, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how many of them you looked at but there are only 3 of them which actually change nothing yet but are preparation for simplification of one parameter the rest are correction of misspelled parameters which are doing the opposite of nothing, because if it is misspelled the value is not displayed.--Saehrimnir (talk) 10:00, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for fixing the broken parameters, but your edits are also affecting the layout of the chemboxes. Removing all the line breaks (like this edit, for example) makes it extremely difficult for other editors to figure out what changes you've made and to navigate editing the chembox in the future. -- Ed (Edgar181) 10:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I figured that and will now use the sourcecode instead of VE.--Saehrimnir (talk) 11:10, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. -- Ed (Edgar181) 11:31, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, thanks for the cooperation! I see you repaired quite some really broken chemboxes. Could you explain what simplification you have in mind? --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:13, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The one I was referring to just that I thought about only allowing one spelling of odor. In the meantime I noticed that some of the parameters are only used <5 times so they could be just put in the text of the respective article. I can tell once I fixed all the wrong and non implemented parameters and then read out the values again.--Saehrimnir (talk) 10:16, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I guess the message is that if you foresee making changes throughout many chemboxes, it might be a good idea, as well as collegial, to communicate your plans. Occasionally some editors decide to single handedly implement well intentioned but non-consensus changes across many chemboxes. Then we have problems. The place to hold this conversation is here. --Smokefoot (talk) 16:51, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I definitely was not going to change anything without consensus.--Saehrimnir (talk) 16:56, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
For parameter names like odour/odor and similar, it is better to make the template understand that properly (so that it will accept both parameters) and leave the articles alone for that. There will always be editors who will use either spelling when they create the article, it is a bit senseless to follow those around for type of edits, doing edits that are avoidable (once in a while you will encounter someone who is sensitive about it, and insist that when he writes an article in UK-EN, that he wants to keep it that way ...). --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:02, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your edit request[edit]

Just to let you know, I have moved your edit request from Template talk:Chembox Properties to Wikipedia talk:Chemical infobox#Edit request on 11 July 2013 so that more editors will be able to see it. Normally edit requests shouldn't be placed under redirects, as then other editors won't notice them. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 04:38, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The placement was done by the request link. And in the "new section" view there is no way to see that the talkpage is an redirect. This is very unintuitive for newer users. Is it possible to fix this somehow that the new section is created in the redirect target instead?--Saehrimnir (talk) 15:13, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good point - I've tweaked MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext so that this shouldn't happen any more. This is possible due to the introduction of Lua and thanks to Wnt's hard work on Module:Redirect. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 16:47, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Great. Thanks--Saehrimnir (talk) 16:53, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your rollback request[edit]

Hi Saehrimnir, I have granted rollback rights to your account in accordance with your request. Please be aware that rollback should be used to revert vandalism/spam/blatantly unconstructive edits, and that using it to revert any other type of edit - such as by revert-warring or reverting edits you disagree with - can lead to it being removed from your account...sometimes without any warning depending on the admin who becomes aware of any misuse. If you think an edit should require a reason for reverting, use a manual edit summary instead of using the rollback tool. For practice, you may wish to see Wikipedia:New admin school/Rollback. Good luck. Acalamari 11:24, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for granting the rights and the guidance. --Saehrimnir (talk) 14:57, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Flow Newsletter[edit]

Hey Saehrimnir. I'm dropping you a note to let you know (or remind you) about Flow, the structured discussion system for Wikipedia that we're building. You may have heard about some of the longer-term vision for Flow in the past, but in the last two months we've been moving quickly to narrow down the short-term scope of the project, and we're keen to get feedback.

First: we've written up an explanation of the "minimum viable product" – the set of features that will be in the first, on-wiki deployment. Because discussions on Wikipedia are complex and varied, we're approaching Flow development as an incremental process of uncovering user needs for different types of discussion. The first release will be limited to a few WikiProject talkpages only, with the goal of testing out our first stab at peer-to-peer discussion functionality and improving it based on feedback from the WikiProject members who use it. If you've got any thoughts on the MVP, or on the philosophy we're trying to follow with this software, let us know on the Flow talkpage. If you know of a WikiProject that might be interested in testing this out, let Maryana know on her talkpage :)

Second: we're having a set of discussions around some experimental features we'll be trying in the first release. These include indenting and nesting of comments and comment editing. If you've got any practical thoughts on these, we'd appreciate hearing them. For background and feedback on the design, there are the ongoing set of design iteration notes, a Design FAQ, and a page for design feedback.

The software prototype is still in early development, and changing daily in small ways, with major goals updating every 2 weeks. If you've got comments about other bits of the software, we'll be holding an IRC office hours session in #wikimedia-office at 18:00 UTC on 17 November to talk about Flow as a whole, and fielding questions on the talkpage before and after then.

Third: this is a pre-newsletter announcement of a new WP:Flow/Newsletter signup page! If you'd like further updates, details, and requests for input, please add your name there.

Thanks, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Due to multiple-human-error (the best kind of error!) the Office Hours meeting was announced with the wrong month. The logs for today's (quiet) meeting, can be seen at m:IRC office hours#Office hour logs.
The updated time and date of our next IRC office hours meeting is: 18:00 UTC on 24 October. Thanks, and sorry about the mixup. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:48, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes: The Wikipedia Library Newsletter[edit]

Books and Bytes

Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2013

by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

Greetings Wikipedia Library members! Welcome to the inaugural edition of Books and Bytes, TWL’s monthly newsletter. We're sending you the first edition of this opt-in newsletter, because you signed up, or applied for a free research account: HighBeam, Credo, Questia, JSTOR, or Cochrane. To receive future updates of Books and Bytes, please add your name to the subscriber's list. There's lots of news this month for the Wikipedia Library, including new accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved...

New positions: Sign up to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer Wikipedia Librarian

Wikipedia Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted.

New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis??

New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges

News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY

Announcing WikiProject Open: WikiProject Open kicked off in October, with several brainstorming and co-working sessions

New ways to get involved: Visiting scholar requirements; subject guides; room for library expansion and exploration

Read the full newsletter


Thanks for reading! All future newsletters will be opt-in only. Have an item for the next issue? Leave a note for the editor on the Suggestions page. --The Interior 21:21, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure![edit]

Hi! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
-- 19:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library's Books and Bytes newsletter (#2)[edit]

Welcome to the second issue of The Wikipedia Library's Books & Bytes newsletter! Read on for updates about what is going on at the intersection of Wikipedia and the library world.

Wikipedia Library highlights: New accounts, new surveys, new positions, new presentations...

Spotlight on people: Another Believer and Wiki Loves Libraries...

Books & Bytes in brief: From Dewey to Diversity conference...

Further reading: Digital library portals around the web...

Read Books & Bytes

The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs) 16:48, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia Library Survey[edit]

As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi t | c 15:35, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You're invited: Art & Feminism Edit-a-thon[edit]

Art & Feminism Edit-a-Thon - You are invited!
Hi Saehrimnir! The first Art and Feminism Edit-a-thon will be held on Saturday, February 1, 2014 in San Francisco.

Any editors interested in the intersection of feminism and art are welcome. Wikipedians of all experience levels are invited! Experienced editors will be on hand to help new editors.
Bring a friend and a laptop! Come one, come all! Learn more here!

SarahStierch (talk) 09:09, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes New Years Double Issue[edit]

Books & Bytes

Volume 1 Issue 3, December/January 2013

(Sign up for monthly delivery)

Happy New Year, and welcome to a special double issue of Books & Bytes. We've included a retrospective on the changes and progress TWL has seen over the last year, the results of the survey TWL participants completed in December, some of our plans for the future, a second interview with a Wiki Love Libraries coordinator, and more. Here's to 2014 being a year of expansion and innovation for TWL!

The Wikipedia Library completed the first 6 months of its Individual Engagement grant last week. Here's where we are and what we've done:

Increased access to sources: 1500 editors signed up for 3700 free accounts, individually worth over $500,000, with usage increases of 400-600%
Deep networking: Built relationships with Credo, HighBeam, Questia, JSTOR, Cochrane, LexisNexis, EBSCO, New York Times, and OCLC
New pilot projects: Started the Wikipedia Visiting Scholar project to empower university-affiliated Wikipedia researchers
Developed community: Created portal connecting 250 newsletter recipients, 30 library members, 3 volunteer coordinators, and 2 part-time contractors
Tech scoped: Spec'd out a reference tool for linking to full-text sources and established a basis for OAuth integration
Broad outreach: Wrote a feature article for Library Journal's The Digital Shift; presenting at the American Library Association annual meeting
...Read Books & Bytes!

Books & Bytes, Issue 4[edit]

Books and Bytes

Volume 1, Issue 4, February 2014

News for February from your Wikipedia Library.

Donations drive: news on TWL's partnership efforts with publishers

Open Access: Feature from Ocaasi on the intersection of the library and the open access movement

American Library Association Midwinter Conference: TWL attended this year in Philadelphia

Royal Society Opens Access To Journals: The UK's venerable Royal Society will give the public (and Wikipedians) full access to two of their journal titles for two days on March 4th and 5th

Going Global: TWL starts work on pilot projects in other language Wikipedias

Read the full newsletter


MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:00, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You're invited! WikiWomen's Edit-a-thon at the University of California, Berkeley[edit]

Saturday, April 5 - WikiWomen's Edit-a-thon at the University of California, Berkeley - You are invited!
The University of California, Berkeley's Berkeley Center for New Media is hosting our first edit-a-thon, facilitated by WikiWoman Sarah Stierch, on April 5! This event, focused on engaging women to contribute to Wikipedia, will feature a brief Wikipedia policy and tips overview, followed by a fast-paced energetic edit-a-thon. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Please bring your laptop and be prepared to edit about women and women's history!

The event is April 5, from 1-5 PM, at the Berkeley Center for New Media Commons at Moffitt Library.

You must RSVP here - see you there! SarahStierch (talk) 22:17, 13 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes - Issue 5[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 5, March 2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

  • New Visiting Scholar positions
  • TWL Branch on Arabic Wikipedia, microgrants program
  • Australian articles get a link to librarians
  • Spotlight: "7 Reasons Librarians Should Edit Wikipedia"

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:54, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes, Issue 6[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 6, April-May 2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

  • New donations from Oxford University Press and Royal Society (UK)
  • TWL does Vegas: American Library Association Annual plans
  • TWL welcomes a new coordinator, resources for library students and interns
  • New portal on Meta, resources for starting TWL branches, donor call blitzes, Wikipedia Visiting Scholar news, and more

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:59, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor not opening[edit]

Saehrimnir, I remember that you were having problems with VisualEditor not opening in Firefox a while ago. Do you happen to have WP:HotCat turned on as a gadget in your preferences? I'm still trying to figure out what's causing this problem. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 05:10, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Yes I have HotCat activated although it seems not to do its job in en anyway (no sybols at the Categories for quick add and removal at all). It works as intended in de and commons. I tested to deactivate it but still the same. In de it VE still works despite HotCat being activated. But I did implement the disambiguation tool from de in my personal .js here. Maybe I try to deactivate this.--Saehrimnir (talk) 16:46, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've turned off HotCat here (as you noticed, it is a "dumbed down" version anyway), and I'm getting better results in Firefox, but it's still not perfect. I have no problems in Safari. If removing the dab tool helps, then please let me know. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:13, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Saehrhimnir, you might take the VisualEditor background color line out of User:Saehrimnir/common.js. I don't think it will hurt, but that looks like CSS code to me, not JavaScript, so it's probably not doing anything useful for you anyway (and maybe removing it will help). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Whatamidoing (WMF): Heureka that did it. Thanks so much for keeping investigating. --Saehrimnir (talk) 10:43, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:09, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia Library: New Account Coordinators Needed[edit]

Hi Books & Bytes recipients: The Wikipedia Library has been expanding rapidly and we need some help! We currently have 10 signups for free account access open and several more in the works... In order to help with those signups, distribute access codes, and manage accounts we'll need 2-3 more Account Coordinators.

It takes about an hour to get up and running and then only takes a couple hours per week, flexible depending upon your schedule and routine. If you're interested in helping out, please drop a note in the next week at my talk page or shoot me an email at: jorlowitz@gmail.com. Thanks and cheers, Jake Ocaasi via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:41, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

July 2014[edit]

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Open education may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

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Books and Bytes - Issue 7[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 7, June-July 2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • Seven new donations, two expanded partnerships
  • TWL's Final Report up, read the summary
  • Adventures in Las Vegas, WikiConference USA, and updates from TWL coordinators
  • Spotlight: Blog post on BNA's impact on one editor's research

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:20, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

TWL coordination[edit]

Thanks for volunteering as a potential coordinator for The Wikipedia Library. We have a brief questionnaire here for you to complete. Please try to have this done within the next week if possible. Thanks! Nikkimaria (talk) 03:03, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This makes me happy to see :) -Pete (talk) 17:54, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Lets see how happy they are. ;-) --Saehrimnir (talk) 09:34, 28 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Saehrimnir, sorry it's taken a while to get back to you. Your responses look great, and I wondered if you would be interested in helping with cross-project coordination with de.wiki. If so, would you mind emailing Ocaasi? Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 04:29, 12 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You're invited! Litquake Edit-a-thon in San Francisco[edit]

You are invited!Litquake Edit-a-thonSee you there!
  In the area? You're invited to
   San Francisco Meetup # 22
  Date: October 11, 2014
  Time: 1-5 pm
  Place: 149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105
  prev: Meetup 21 - next: Meetup 23 | All SF meetups & events

The Edit-a-thon will occur in parallel with Litquake, the San Francisco Bay Area's annual literature festival. Writers from all over the Bay Area and the world will be in town during the nine day festival, so the timing is just right for us to meetup and create/translate/expand/improve articles about literature and writers. All levels of Wikipedia editing experience are welcome. This event will include new editor training. RSVP →here←. --Rosiestep (talk) 02:47, 27 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 8[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 8, August-September2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • TWL now a Wikimedia Foundation program, moves on from grant status
  • Four new donations, including large DeGruyter parntership, pilot with Elsevier
  • New TWL coordinators, Wikimania news, new library platform discussions, Wiki Loves Libraries update, and more
  • Spotlight: "Traveling Through History" - an editor talks about his experiences with a TWL newspaper archive, Newspapers.com

Read the full newsletter



MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You've got mail![edit]

Hello, Saehrimnir. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 23:45, 26 October 2014 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Nikkimaria (talk) 23:45, 26 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Now Available (November 2014)[edit]

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says sign up today :)

The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for, free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for:

  • DeGruyter: 1000 new accounts for English and German-language research. Sign up on one of two language Wikipedias:
  • Fold3: 100 new accounts for American history and military archives
  • Scotland's People: 100 new accounts for Scottish genealogy database
  • British Newspaper Archive: expanded by 100+ accounts for British newspapers
  • Highbeam: 100+ remaining accounts for newspaper and magazine archives
  • Questia: 100+ remaining accounts for journal and social science articles
  • JSTOR: 100+ remaining accounts for journal archives

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 23:25, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contact Ocaasi (WMF).
This message was delivered via the Mass Message to the Book & Bytes recipient list.

Account creator right granted[edit]

Hello, per this message on the admins' incidents noticeboard, I've granted you the account creator userright. The use you're planning for it is rather unorthodox, and may well be disabled as a side effect of this proposal, but it'll do for now. Another solution would be to write a bot to send out the mass-mailings. Graham87 08:50, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Yes I saw that it might work only for a short time.--Saehrimnir (talk) 10:36, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Adding my email address[edit]

Hello. I registered my email address in wiki as you asked and I hope to get the access to the Gruyter. It would be really helpful for me. Thanks a lot in advance. ماني a.k.a. [[User:Mani1]] (talk) 15:16, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi I don't know what went wrong but I still don't see the email link neither in en nor in fa.--Saehrimnir (talk) 18:14, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Now Available (December 2014)[edit]

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says sign up today :)

The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for, free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for:

Other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page. Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team.00:25, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contact Ocaasi (WMF).
This message was delivered via the Mass Message tool to the Book & Bytes recipient list.

DeGruyter[edit]

Hi,

I've filled November 30th the Google form for De Gruyter access, but I haven't received any further news.

Have processed requests accounts already been created or is still pending? --Dereckson (talk) 00:23, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are still some difficulties on the side of De Gruyter which we hope to overcome soon and then the accounts should be mailed out soon. Best--Saehrimnir (talk) 16:05, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, have these issues been resolved? I completed the Google form on the 25th of Jan and am yet to receive access to De Gruyter. Please advise. Thanks :) -- Cpt.a.haddock (talk) 06:31, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi the account generation only happens monthly. You now should have got an email with an access token and instructions. Best --Saehrimnir (talk) 07:10, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Received! Many thanks and much wuv :) --Cpt.a.haddock (talk) 10:44, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 9[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

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

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

Read the full newsletter

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

VisualEditor News 2015—#1[edit]

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's appearance, the coming Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

The Wikimedia Foundation has named its top priorities for this quarter (January to March). The first priority is making VisualEditor ready for deployment by default to all new users and logged-out users at the remaining large Wikipedias. You can help identify these requirements. There will be weekly triage meetings which will be open to volunteers beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Tell Vice President of Engineering Damon Sicore, Product Manager James Forrester and other team members which bugs and features are most important to you. The decisions made at these meetings will determine what work is necessary for this quarter's goal of making VisualEditor ready for deployment to new users. The presence of volunteers who enjoy contributing MediaWiki code is particularly appreciated. Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins. 

Due to some breaking changes in MobileFrontend and VisualEditor, VisualEditor was not working correctly on the mobile site for a couple of days in early January. The teams apologize for the problem.

Recent improvements[edit]

The new design for VisualEditor aligns with MediaWiki's Front-End Standards as led by the Design team. Several new versions of the OOjs UI library have also been released, and these also affect the appearance of VisualEditor and other MediaWiki software extensions. Most changes were minor, like changing the text size and the amount of white space in some windows. Buttons are consistently color-coded to indicate whether the action:

  • starts a new task, like opening the ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-savedialog⧽ dialog:  blue ,
  • takes a constructive action, like inserting a citation:  green ,
  • might remove or lose your work, like removing a link:  red , or
  • is neutral, like opening a link in a new browser window:  gray.

The TemplateData editor has been completely re-written to use a different design (T67815) based on the same OOjs UI system as VisualEditor (T73746). This change fixed a couple of existing bugs (T73077 and T73078) and improved usability.

Search and replace in long documents is now faster. It does not highlight every occurrence if there are more than 100 on-screen at once (T78234).

Editors at the Hebrew and Russian Wikipedias requested the ability to use VisualEditor in the "Article Incubator" or drafts namespace (T86688, T87027). If your community would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace on your wiki, then you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.

Looking ahead[edit]

The Editing team will soon add auto-fill features for citations. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to contribute to the Citoid service's definitions for each website, to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections.

We will need editors to help test the new design of the special character inserter, especially if you speak Welsh, Breton, or another language that uses diacritics or special characters extensively. The new version should be available for testing next week. Please contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF) if you would like to be notified when the new version is available. After the special character tool is completed, VisualEditor will be deployed to all users at Phase 5 Wikipedias. This will affect about 50 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh. The date for this change has not been determined.

Let's work together[edit]

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

RSC Gold[edit]

Good day, Thanks for getting back to me. I don't have time right now to go find my list of relevent contributions since I'm in the middle of changing jobs and moving. If you feel others deserve the account more than me because of that, I have no problem at all with that. My relevent contributions are more on microbiology than pure chemistry. I also contribute on Wikiversity (French version) to develop courses on Environment which the RSC Gold includes. Thank you and have a great day, Amqui (talk) 19:47, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

SF edit-a-thons on March 7 and 8[edit]

ArtAndFeminism (3/7) and International Women's Day (3/8)!

Dear fellow Wikipedian,

In celebration of WikiWomen's History Month, the SF Bay Area Wikipedia community has two events in early March -- please consider attending!

First, we have an ArtAndFeminism edit-a-thon, which will take place at the Kadist Art Foundation from 12 noon to 6pm on Saturday, March 7. We'll be one of many sites worldwide participating in this edit-a-thon on March 7th. So join us as we help improve Wikipedia's coverage of women artists and their works!

Second, we will be celebrating International Women's Day with the International Women's Day edit-a-thon on Sunday, March 8 from 1pm to 5pm at the Wikimedia Foundation. Our editing focus will be on women, of course!

I hope to see you there! Rosiestep (talk) - via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:06, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To opt out of future mailings about SF meetups, please remove your name from this list.

Books and Bytes - Issue 10[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

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

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

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:41, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation[edit]

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

Hello, Saehrimnir,

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

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

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

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

De Gruyter registration[edit]

Hello Saehrimnir. I tried to activate my De Gruyter account as per your instructions, but all I got back was the following e-mail message:

Dear user, With your email address you are registered for De Gruyter alerting services. We have tried to send a message to your in-box that can only be viewed in HTML-mode. Unfortunately your email-client does not display HTML-emails. To make sure that our emails are displayed correctly, please allow HTML in your email-client, if possible. In case you have any questions concerning the subject of our original message, please do not hesitate to contact us. If at any time you no longer want to receive information via email from us, please let us know at newsletter@degruyter.com. Kind regards, De Gruyter Online

Though they say I can contact them with questions about the message, they don't specify any means of doing so. (The e-mail address in the "From" field is noreply@degruyter.com, so I doubt that I'll get any response by replying to it.) If you're in touch with De Gruyter, could you please let them know that their activation e-mails are unreadable for those who are not using HTML-capable e-mail clients, or who have HTML disabled for reasons of privacy, security, or accessibility? —Psychonaut (talk) 17:37, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the lack of reply due to some real world things. I relayed your complain and we will hopefully have a answer soon.--Saehrimnir (talk) 11:56, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor News #2—2015[edit]

Did you know?

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


Screenshot of Citoid's first dialog


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


Screenshot of Citoid's initial results


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


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

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's performance, the Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 11:00 (noon) PDT (18:00 UTC). You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.

Recent improvements[edit]

VisualEditor is now substantially faster. In many cases, opening the page in VisualEditor is now faster than opening it in the wikitext editor. The new system has improved the code speed by 37% and network speed by almost 40%.

The Editing team is slowly adding auto-fill features for citations. This is currently available only at the French, Italian, and English Wikipedias. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections by contributing to the Citoid service's definitions for each website.

Citoid requires good TemplateData for your citation templates. If you would like to request this feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

The special character inserter has been improved, based upon feedback from active users. After this, VisualEditor was made available to all users of Wikipedias on the Phase 5 list on 30 March. This affected 53 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including AfrikaansAzerbaijaniBretonKyrgyzMacedonianMongolianTatar, and Welsh.

Work continues to support languages with complex requirements, such as Korean and Japanese. These languages use input method editors ("IMEs”). Recent improvements to cursoring, backspace, and delete behavior will simplify typing in VisualEditor for these users.

The design for the image selection process is now using a "masonry fit" model. Images in the search results are displayed at the same height but at variable widths, similar to bricks of different sizes in a masonry wall, or the "packed" mode in image galleries. This style helps you find the right image by making it easier to see more details in images.

You can now drag and drop categories to re-arrange their order of appearance ​on the page.

The pop-up window that appears when you click on a reference, image, link, or other element, is called the "context menu". It now displays additional useful information, such as the destination of the link or the image's filename. The team has also added an explicit "Edit" button in the context menu, which helps new editors open the tool to change the item.

Invisible templates are marked by a puzzle piece icon so they can be interacted with. Users also will be able to see and edit HTML anchors now in section headings.

Users of the TemplateData GUI editor can now set a string as an optional text for the 'deprecated' property in addition to boolean value, which lets you tell users of the template what they should do instead (T90734).

Looking ahead[edit]

The special character inserter in VisualEditor will soon use the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki will also have the option of creating a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Instructions for customizing the list will be posted at mediawiki.org.

The team is discussing a test of VisualEditor with new users, to see whether they have met their goals of making VisualEditor suitable for those editors. The timing is unknown, but might be relatively soon.

Let's work together[edit]

  • Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
  • Can you translate from English into any other language? Please check this list to see whether more interface translations are needed for your language. Contact us to get an account if you want to help!
  • The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
  • File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

-Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 17:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A new reference tool[edit]

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) 18:48, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 11[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

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

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

Read the full newsletter



MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:31, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor News #3—2015[edit]

Did you know?

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

Screenshot showing the link tool's context menu


The link tool has been re-designed:

Screenshot of the link inspector


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

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

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has created new interfaces for the link and citation tools, as well as fixing many bugs and changing some elements of the design. Some of these bugs affected users of VisualEditor on mobile devices. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

A test of VisualEditor's effect on new editors at the English Wikipedia has just completed the first phase. During this test, half of newly registered editors had VisualEditor automatically enabled, and half did not. The main goal of the study is to learn which group was more likely to save an edit and to make productive, unreverted edits. Initial results will be posted at Meta later this month.

Recent improvements[edit]

Auto-fill features for citations are available at a few Wikipedias through the citoid service. Citoid takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. If Citoid is enabled on your wiki, then the design of the citation workflow changed during May. All citations are now created inside a single tool. Inside that tool, choose the tab you want (⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-auto⧽, ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-manual⧽, or ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-reuse⧽). The cite button is now labeled with the word "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽" rather than a book icon, and the autofill citation dialog now has a more meaningful label, "⧼Citoid-citeFromIDDialog-lookup-button⧽", for the submit button.

The link tool has been redesigned based on feedback from Wikipedia editors and user testing. It now has two separate sections: one for links to articles and one for external links. When you select a link, its pop-up context menu shows the name of the linked page, a thumbnail image from the linked page, Wikidata's description, and/or appropriate icons for disambiguation pages, redirect pages and empty pages. Search results have been reduced to the first five pages. Several bugs were fixed, including a dark highlight that appeared over the first match in the link inspector (T98085).  

The special character inserter in VisualEditor now uses the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki can also create a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Please read the instructions for customizing the list at mediawiki.org. Also, there is now a tooltip to describing each character in the special character inserter (T70425).

Several improvements have been made to templates. When you search for a template to insert, the list of results now contains descriptions of the templates. The parameter list inside the template dialog now remains open after inserting a parameter from the list, so that users don’t need to click on "⧼visualeditor-dialog-transclusion-add-param⧽" each time they want to add another parameter (T95696). The team added a new property for TemplateData, "Example", for template parameters. This optional, translatable property will show up when there is text describing how to use that parameter (T53049).

The design of the main toolbar and several other elements have changed slightly, to be consistent with the MediaWiki theme. In the Vector skin, individual items in the menu are separated visually by pale gray bars. Buttons and menus on the toolbar can now contain both an icon and a text label, rather than just one or the other. This new design feature is being used for the cite button on wikis where the Citoid service is enabled.

The team has released a long-desired improvement to the handling of non-existent images. If a non-existent image is linked in an article, then it is now visible in VisualEditor and can be selected, edited, replaced, or removed.

Let's work together[edit]

  • Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
  • The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug.
  • If your Wikivoyage, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, or other community wants to have VisualEditor made available by default to contributors, then please contact James Forrester.
  • If you would like to request the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia Library needs you![edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Call for Volunteers

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

  • 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.
Sign up to help here :)

Delivered on behalf of The Wikipedia Library by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:16, 11 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 12[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

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

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

Read the full newsletter

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

De Gruyter[edit]

Hi Saehrimnir. Just wondering when you thought you might be processing the couple of requests at Wikipedia:De Gruyter? I'm enthusiastic to get access to a particular source so I can start editing an article :) Sam Walton (talk) 14:55, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

OK will do.--Saehrimnir (talk) 15:41, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor News #4—2015[edit]

Read this in another languageLocal subscription listSubscribe to the multilingual edition

Did you know?

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

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

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


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

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


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

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team have been working on mobile phone support. They have fixed many bugs and improved language support. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving language support and functionality on mobile devices.

Wikimania[edit]

The team attended Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City. There they participated in the Hackathon and met with individuals and groups of users. They also made several presentations about VisualEditor and the future of editing.

Following Wikimania, we announced winners for the VisualEditor 2015 Translathon. Our thanks and congratulations to users Halan-tul, Renessaince, जनक राज भट्ट (Janak Bhatta), Vahe Gharakhanyan, Warrakkk, and Eduardogobi.

For interface messages (translated at translatewiki.net), we saw the initiative affecting 42 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 56.5% before the translathon, and 78.2% after (+21.7%). In particular, Sakha improved from 12.2% to 94.2%; Brazilian Portuguese went from 50.6% to 100%; Taraškievica went from 44.9% to 85.3%; Doteli went from 1.3% to 41.2%. Also, while 1.7% of the messages were outdated across all languages before the translathon, the percentage dropped to 0.8% afterwards (-0.9%).

For documentation messages (on mediawiki.org), we saw the initiative affecting 24 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 26.6% before translathon, and 46.9% after (+20.3%).  There were particularly notable achievements for three languages. Armenian improved from 1% to 99%; Swedish, from 21% to 99%, and Brazilian Portuguese, from 34% to 83%. Outdated translations across all languages were reduced from 8.4% before translathon to 4.8% afterwards (-3.6%).

We published some graphs showing the effect of the event on the Translathon page. Thank you to the translators for participating and the translatewiki.net staff for facilitating this initiative.

Recent improvements[edit]

Auto-fill features for citations can be enabled on each Wikipedia. The tool uses the citoid service to convert a URL or DOI into a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. You can see an animated GIF of the quick, simple process at mediawiki.org. So far, about a dozen Wikipedias have enabled the auto-citation tool. To enable it for your wiki, follow the instructions at mediawiki.org.

Your wiki can customize the first section of the special character inserter in VisualEditor. Please follow the instructions at mediawiki.org to put the characters you want at the top. 

In other changes, if you need to fill in a CAPTCHA and get it wrong, then you can click to get a new one to complete. VisualEditor can now display and edit Vega-based graphs. If you use the Monobook skin, VisualEditor's appearance is now more consistent with other software.  

Future changes[edit]

The team will be changing the appearance of selected links inside VisualEditor. The purpose is to make it easy to see whether your cursor is inside or outside the link. When you select a link, the link label (the words shown on the page) will be enclosed in a faint box. If you place your cursor inside the box, then your changes to the link label will be part of the link. If you place your cursor outside the box, then it will not. This will make it easy to know when new characters will be added to the link and when they will not.

On the English Wikipedia, 10% of newly created accounts are now offered both the visual and the wikitext editors. A recent controlled trial showed no significant difference in survival or productivity for new users in the short term. New users with access to VisualEditor were very slightly less likely to produce results that needed reverting. You can learn more about this by watching a video of the July 2015 Wikimedia Research Showcase. The proportion of new accounts with access to both editing environments will be gradually increased over time. Eventually all new users have the choice between the two editing environments.

Let's work together[edit]

  • Share your ideas and ask questions at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback.
  • Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help.
  • If your wiki would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace, you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.
  • Please file requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the styling menu in Phabricator.
  • The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
  • The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, usually on Tuesdays at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q1 blocker, though. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the main VisualEditor project with the bug.

If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact Elitre directly, so that she can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:01, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Access to WBIS[edit]

Hi Saehrimnir, I have access to the de Gruyter archive through the Wikipedia Library and I'd have one question: do you know if we have access to the WBIS database? I've noticed that when I access the WBIS page, it says that I have free access, but when I try to access the actual database, I cannot login using the same de Gruyter credentials. In case we don't have access or you don't know, no problem; I was just wondering. Thank you, Continua Evoluzione (talk) 16:05, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately we don't have access. It says "free access" in a lot of places were its actually not possible for technical reasons. In this case this are two different systems where the authentication is not linked. But since already some more people inqired about that we will make sure to ask about access to this database when we talk about the extension of the Program. --Saehrimnir (talk) 05:43, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thank you for your reply, Continua Evoluzione (talk) 10:21, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 13[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

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

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

Read the full newsletter

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

VisualEditor update[edit]

This note is only delivered to English Wikipedia subscribers of the visual editor's newsletter.

The location of the visual editor's preference has been changed from the "Beta" tab to the "Editing" section of your preferences on this wiki. The setting now says Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta. This aligns en.wiki with almost all the other WMF wikis; it doesn’t mean the visual editor is complete, or that it is no longer “in beta phase” though.

This action has not changed anything else for editors: it still honours editors’ previous choices about having it on or off; logged-out users continue to only have access to wikitext; the “Edit” tab is still after the “Edit source” one. You can learn more at the visual editor’s talk page.

We don’t expect this to cause any glitches, but in case your account no longer has the settings that you want, please accept our apologies and correct it in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences. Thank you for your attention, Elitre (WMF) -16:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

De Gruyter[edit]

Greetings! Thanks for approving my request for access to De Gruyter. I was wondering when the processing will be completed, because there are several sources I am interested in seeing. Thanks! --hmich176 18:11, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor News #5—2015[edit]

Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletter

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

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

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

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

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

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs, added new features, and made some small design changes. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for languages like Japanese and Arabic, making it easier to edit on mobile devices, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.

Recent improvements[edit]

Educational features: The first time you use the visual editor, it now draws your attention to the Link and ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽ tools. When you click on the tools, it explains why you should use them. (T108620) Alongside this, the welcome message for new users has been simplified to make editing more welcoming. (T112354) More in-software educational features are planned.

Links:  It is now easier to understand when you are adding text to a link and when you are typing plain text next to it. (T74108T91285) The editor now fully supports ISBN, PMID or RFC numbers. (T109498, T110347, T63558)  These "magic links" use a custom link editing tool.

Uploads:  Registered editors can now upload images and other media to Commons while editing. Click the new tab in the "Insert Images and media" tool. You will be guided through the process without having to leave your edit. At the end, the image will be inserted. This tool is limited to one file at a time, owned by the user, and licensed under Commons's standard license. For more complex situations, the tool links to more advanced upload tools. You can also drag the image into the editor. This will be available in the wikitext editor later.

Mobile:  Previously, the visual editor was available on the mobile Wikipedia site only on tablets. Now, editors can use the visual editor on any size of device. (T85630)  Edit conflicts were previously broken on the mobile website. Edit conflicts can now be resolved in both wikitext and visual editors. (T111894) Sometimes templates and similar items could not be deleted on the mobile website. Selecting them caused the on-screen keyboard to hide with some browsers. Now there is a new "Delete" button, so that these things can be removed if the keyboard hides. (T62110) You can also edit table cells in mobile now.

Rich editing tools:  You can now add and edit sheet music in the visual editor. (T112925)  There are separate tabs for advanced options, such as MIDI and Ogg audio files. (T114227 and T113354)  When editing formulæ and other blocks, errors are shown as you edit. It is also possible to edit some types of graphs; adding new ones, and support for new types, will be coming.

On the English Wikipedia, the visual editor is now automatically available to anyone who creates an account. The preference switch was moved to the normal location, under Special:Preferences.

Future changes[edit]

You will soon be able to switch from the wikitext to the visual editor after you start editing. (T49779) Previously, you could only switch from the visual editor to the wikitext editor. Bi-directional switching will make possible a single edit tab. (T102398) This project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab, similar to the system already used on the mobile website. The "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time.

Let's work together[edit]

If you can't read this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

Whatamidoing (WMF) 04:16, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:04, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:11, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 14[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

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

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

Read the full newsletter

The Interior, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:13, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor News #6—2015[edit]

Read this in another languageSubscription list

Did you know?

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

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

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

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

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs and expanded the mathematics formula tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for languages such as Japanese and Arabic, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.

Recent improvements[edit]

You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing.

The LaTeX mathematics formula editor has been significantly expanded. (T118616) You can see the formula as you change the LaTeX code. You can click buttons to insert the correct LaTeX code for many symbols.

Future changes[edit]

The single edit tab project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab, like the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as a cookie for logged-out users and as an account preference for logged-in editors. Logged-in editors will be able to set a default editor in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences in the drop-down menu about "Editing mode:".

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the following Wikipedias in early 2016: Amharic, Buginese, Min Dong, Cree, Manx, Hakka, Armenian, Georgian, Pontic, Serbo-Croatian, Tigrinya, Mingrelian, Zhuang, and Min Nan. (T116523) Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. The developers would like to know how well it works. Please tell them what kind of computer, web browser, and keyboard you are using.

In 2016, the feedback pages for the visual editor on many Wikipedias will be redirected to mediawiki.org. (T92661)

Testing opportunities[edit]

  • Please try the new system for the single edit tab on test2.wikipedia.org. You can edit while logged out to see how it works for logged-out editors, or you can create a separate account to be able to set your account's preferences. Please share your thoughts about the single edit tab system at the feedback topic on mediawiki.org or sign up for formal user research (type "single edit tab" in the question about other areas you're interested in). The new system has not been finalized, and your feedback can affect the outcome. The team particularly wants your thoughts about the options in Special:Preferences. The current choices in Special:Preferences are:
    • Remember my last editor,
    • Always give me the visual editor if possible, 
    • Always give me the source editor, and 
    • Show me both editor tabs.  (This is the current state for people using the visual editor. None of these options will be visible if you have disabled the visual editor in your preferences at that wiki.)
  • Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help, and report it on Phabricator (Korean - Japanese) or on Wikipedia (Korean - Japanese).

If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

Whatamidoing (WMF), 00:54, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes - Issue 15[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 15, December-January 2016
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - Ships, medical resources, plus Arabic and Farsi resources
  • #1lib1ref campaign summary and highlights
  • New branches and coordinators

Read the full newsletter

The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:20, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor News #1—2016[edit]

Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Did you know?
Among experienced editors, the visual editor's table editing is one of the most popular features.
Screenshot showing a pop-up menu for column operations in a table
If you select the top of a column or the end of a row, you can quickly insert and remove columns and rows.

Now, you can also rearrange columns and rows. Click "Move before" or "Move after" to swap the column or row with its neighbor.

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

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Indic, and Han scripts, and improving the single edit tab interface.

Recent changes[edit]

You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing. This function is available to nearly all editors at most wikis except the Wiktionaries and Wikisources.

Many local feedback pages for the visual editor have been redirected to mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.

You can now re-arrange columns and rows in tables, as well as copying a row, column or any other selection of cells and pasting it in a new location.

The formula editor has two options: you can choose "Quick edit" to see and change only the LaTeX code, or "Edit" to use the full tool. The full tool offers immediate preview and an extensive list of symbols.

Future changes[edit]

The single edit tab project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab. This is similar to the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as an account preference for logged-in editors, and as a cookie for logged-out users. Logged-in editors will have these options in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences:

  • Remember my last editor,
  • Always give me the visual editor if possible,
  • Always give me the source editor, and
  • Show me both editor tabs.  (This is the state for people using the visual editor now.)

The visual editor uses the same search engine as Special:Search to find links and files. This search will get better at detecting typos and spelling mistakes soon. These improvements to search will appear in the visual editor as well.

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at most "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers would like to know how well the visual editor works in your language. They particularly want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect the following languages: Japanese, Korean, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Thai, Aramaic and others.

Let's work together[edit]

If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thanks!

Whatamidoing (WMF) 17:47, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do you want one Edit tab, or two? It's your choice[edit]

How to switch between editing environments
Part of the toolbar in the visual editor
Click the [[ ]] to switch to the wikitext editor.
Part of the toolbar in the wikitext editor
Click the pencil icon to switch to the visual editor.

The editing interface will be changed soon. When that happens, editors who currently see two editing tabs – "Edit" and "Edit source" – will start seeing one edit tab instead. The single edit tab has been popular at other Wikipedias. When this is deployed here, you may be offered the opportunity to choose your preferred appearance and behavior the next time you click the Edit button. You will also be able to change your settings in the Editing section of Special:Preferences.

You can choose one or two edit tabs. If you chose one edit tab, then you can switch between the two editing environments by clicking the buttons in the toolbar (shown in the screenshots). See Help:VisualEditor/User guide#Switching between the visual and wikitext editors for more information and screenshots.

There is more information about this interface change at mw:VisualEditor/Single edit tab. If you have questions, suggestions, or problems to report, then please leave a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback.

Whatamidoing (WMF) 19:22, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bay Area WikiSalon series kickoff, April 27[edit]

Please join us in San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism
Panel discussion at a recent Wikipedia & Journalism event.

The last Wednesday evening of every month, wiki enthusiasts in the San Francisco Bay Area will gather to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas. We have two brief presentations lined up for our kickoff event in downtown San Francisco:

  • The Nueva Upper School recently hosted the first ever high school Wikipedia edit-a-thon. We will hear what interests them about Wikipedia, what they have learned so far, and what they hope to achieve.
  • Photojournalist Kris Schreier Lyseggen, author of The Women of San Quentin: The Soul Murder of Transgender Women in Male Prisons, will tell us about her work and how she researched the topic.

We allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. We will have beverages and light snacks.

Please note: You must register here, and bring a photo ID that matches your registration name. The building policy is strict on this point.

For further details, see here: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, April 2016

We hope to see you -- and until then, happy editing! - Pete, Ben & Wayne

Books & Bytes - Issue 16[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 16, February-March 2016
by The Interior (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs)

  • New donations - science, humanities, and video resources
  • Using hashtags in edit summaries - a great way to track a project
  • A new cite archive template, a new coordinator, plus conference and Visiting Scholar updates
  • Metrics for the Wikipedia Library's last three months

Read the full newsletter

The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:16, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Pending changes reviewer granted[edit]

Hello. Your account has been granted the "pending changes reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on pages protected by pending changes. The list of articles awaiting review is located at Special:PendingChanges, while the list of articles that have pending changes protection turned on is located at Special:StablePages.

Being granted reviewer rights neither grants you status nor changes how you can edit articles. If you do not want this user right, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time.

See also:

Thanks for the quick granting of the rights.--Saehrimnir (talk) 10:43, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation to the Bay Area WikiSalon series on May 25[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

The last Wednesday evening of every month, wiki enthusiasts gather at Bay Area WikiSalon to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.

We allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. We will have beverages and light snacks.

Please note: You must register here, and bring a photo ID that matches your registration name. The building policy is strict on this point.

For further details, see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, May 2016


See you soon! Pete F, Ben Creasy, and Checkingfax via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:15, 9 May 2016 (UTC) | Subscribe/Unsubscribe to the SF Meetups notice.[reply]

Books & Bytes - Issue 17[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 17, April-May 2016
by The Interior, Ocaasi, UY Scuti, Sadads, and Nikkimaria

  • New donations this month - a German-language legal resource
  • Wikipedia referals to academic citations - news from CrossRef and WikiCite2016
  • New library stats, WikiCon news, a bot to reveal Open Access versions of citations, and more!

Read the full newsletter

The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:36, 16 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation to the Bay Area WikiSalon series, Wednesday, June 29[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

The last Wednesday evening of every month, wiki enthusiasts gather at Bay Area WikiSalon to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.

We make sure to allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. We will have beverages and light snacks. We will also have:

  • A brief report on Pride edit-a-thon recently held at the San Francisco Publice Library, coordinated by Merrilee:
    What topics might we cover in a follow up?
    Find out more about resources your public library provides to help with editing (hint, it's more than just books!)
    Special announcement (secret for now but come and find out more!)
  • Join in on an in person Wikidojo!
    Are you curious how your peers approach writing a Wikipedia article? This exercise, pioneered by Wikipedians Nikola Kalchev and Vassia Atanassova in 2015 and conducted in many places around the world, will help us all - from first-time wiki users to veteran Wikipedians - share ideas, while building an article together. If you have ideas (relating to Bay Area history, ideally) about a new article we could build (stubs and short existing articles are fine), please submit them ahead of time to coordinator Pete Forsyth. (User talk page or email is fine.)
    Announcements and impromptu topics are welcome, too!

Please note: You must register here, and bring a photo ID that matches your registration name. The building policy is strict.

For further details, see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, June 2016


See you soon! Pete F, Ben, Stephen and Checkingfax | (Subscribe or Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here)

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:07, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

REMINDER/invitation to the Bay Area WikiSalon series, Wednesday, June 29 at 6 p.m.[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco tonight!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

If you cannot join in person or want to view portions later:

We will have:

  • Light snacks, and time to mingle
  • A brief report on the Pride edit-a-thon recently held at the San Francisco Public Library, that was coordinated by Wiki editor Merrilee
  • A special announcement (secret for now but come and find out more!)
  • Join in on a brief in person Wikidojo!
  • Announcements and impromptu topics are welcome, too!

Please register at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1cjLRrSTlEkGOPTQ-h6A0WvSFI4ZmIUl6jEHp_RYas-E/viewform and bring a photo ID that matches your registration name. The building policy is strict.

For further details, see: Bay Area WikiSalon, June 2016


See you tonight! Pete F, Ben, Stephen and MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:48, 29 June 2016 (UTC) | (Subscribe or Unsubscribe to this talk page notice)[reply]

Editing News #2—2016[edit]

Editing News #2—2016 Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Did you know?

It's quick and easy to insert a references list.

Screenshot showing a dropdown menu with many items

Place the cursor where you want to display the references list (usually at the bottom of the page). Open the "Insert" menu and click the "References list" icon (three books).

If you are using several groups of references, which is relatively rare, you will have the opportunity to specify the group. If you do that, then only the references that belong to the specified group will be displayed in this list of references.

Finally, click "Insert" in the dialog to insert the References list. This list will change as you add more footnotes to the page.

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

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Arabic and Indic scripts, and adapting the visual editor to the needs of the Wikivoyages and Wikisources.

Recent changes[edit]

The visual editor is now available to all users at most Wikivoyages. It was also enabled for all contributors at the French Wikinews.

The single edit tab feature combines the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab. It has been deployed to several Wikipedias, including Hungarian, Polish, English and Japanese Wikipedias, as well as to all Wikivoyages. At these wikis, you can change your settings for this feature in the "Editing" tab of Special:Preferences. The team is now reviewing the feedback and considering ways to improve the design before rolling it out to more people.

Future changes[edit]

The "Save page" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information is available on Meta.

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including: Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Urdu, Persian, Bengali, Assamese, Aramaic and others.

The team is working with the volunteer developers who power Wikisource to provide the visual editor there, for opt-in testing right now and eventually for all users. (T138966)

The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. It will look like the visual editor, and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices around September 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.

Let's work together[edit]

If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 21:10, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Library: RSC Gold access[edit]

Hi Saehrimnir

I submitted a request for access to an RSC Gold account over a month ago. Are you still processing requests? Thank you, Sandbh (talk) 06:53, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Late breaking invitation to the Bay Area WikiSalon series, July 27 (Wednesday) - change of venue - tonight[edit]

Please join us in the Mission at Noisebridge (one time change of venue)!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

We hope you can join us today, Wednesday, from 6 p.m. on, at our July Bay Area WikiSalon. This month only, we are going to be at Noisebridge, a hackerspace/makerspace 1.5 blocks from the 16th & Mission BART station (see the link for directions). Some of us will be working on the Wikipedia article on basic income. All info here. Some good news - we do not have to be as strict about advance RSVP at Noisebridge, so bring spontaneous guests! (Registering ahead of time is still helpful, as always, as it will help us plan ahead.)

Come and hang out, have some light snacks. Wi-Fi is available, so please bring your editing device if you plan to edit.

Also, Pete just published a writeup of the Wikidojo exercise we did last month. Your comments welcome, if he missed anything! http://wikistrategies.net/ghost-town-royals-wikidojo

The last Wednesday evening of every month, wiki enthusiasts gather at Bay Area WikiSalon to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas. Mark you calendars now.

We allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend.


See you soon! Pete F, Ben Creasy, Stephen and Wayne | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here)

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:05, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation to the Bay Area WikiSalon series, Wednesday, August 31[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

Hi folks,

We would like to invite you to this month's Bay Area WikiSalon. The last Wednesday evening of every month, wiki enthusiasts gather to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.

We make sure to allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. We will have beverages and light snacks. We will also have a brief presentation for your education and possible enjoyment:

  • Former EFF intern Marta Belcher will discuss crowdsourcing her Stanford Law School graduation speech using a wiki. The "WikiSpeech" was the subject of prominent national media attention in 2015, and more than half of her classmates contributed to writing and editing the commencement address via a wiki.

Please note: You should register here, and bring a photo ID that matches your registration name. The building policy is strict on the I.D. part. This also helps us figure out how much food and drink to bring in! Feel free to stop by even if only to say a quick hello, but you might have to give us a last minute call if you forget to RSVP. Also, don't be shy about hitting us up if you have thoughts on speakers or wiki-related activities.

For further details, see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, August 2016


See you soon! Pete F, Ben, Stephen and Checkingfax | (Subscribe or Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here)

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:05, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tonight: Live and archived links for Bay Area WikiSalon[edit]

Bay Area WikiSalon, Wednesday, August 31:

If you cannot join us in person tonight, we are streaming (and later archiving) the presentation by former EFF intern Marta Belcher. We expect her to be live starting between 6:30 or 6:45 p.m. PDT and talking and taking questions for about 30 minutes thereafter.

Here is the YouTube stream link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t8V79s2-og
Here is the link to join the Hangout on Air: https://hangouts.google.com/call/ezrol7dafjfwxfh2ilpkjyxoaue

You can search for it on the Commons and YouTube later too.

Wayne, Pete, Ben, and Stephen

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:50, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes - Issue 18[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 18, June–July 2016
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi, Samwalton9, UY Scuti, and Sadads

  • New donations - Edinburgh University Press, American Psychological Association, Nomos (a German-language database), and more!
  • Spotlight: GLAM and Wikidata
  • TWL attends and presents at International Federation of Library Associations conference, meets with Association of Research Libraries
  • OCLC wins grant to train librarians on Wikimedia contribution

Read the full newsletter

The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:25, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation to the Bay Area WikiSalon series, Wednesday, September 28[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

Hi folks,

We would like to invite you to this month's Bay Area WikiSalon. The last Wednesday evening of every month, Wikipedia and Wikimedia enthusiasts gather to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.

We will have no formal agenda to allow people to freely share ideas and perhaps learn about Wikipedia through hands-on editing. Co-organizer Ben Creasy will be looking at election-related articles to enhance the information available in the upcoming November elections.

Official logo of Wiki Loves Monuments

Co-organizer Stephen LaPorte has suggested doing an upload-a-thon for Wiki Loves Monuments. Niki, the California coordinator for WLM will be in attendance. WLM is an annual event and the official dealine is Friday the 30th for submissions to count towards awards.

Or, you can grab a couch, a booth, or a stool and do your own thing.

Wikimedia community logo (public domain)

Please note: You should register here, and bring a photo ID that matches your registration name. The building policy is strict on the I.D. part. This also helps us figure out how much food and drink to bring in! Feel free to stop by even if only to say a quick hello, but you might have to give us a last minute call if you forget to RSVP. Also, don't be shy about hitting us up if you have thoughts on future speakers or wiki-related activities.

For further details, please see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, September 2016. Mark your calendars now for the 3rd Wednesday in October, the 26th, when we will have a brief presentation.


See you soon! Pete F, Ben, Stephen and Checkingfax | (Subscribe or Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here)

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:35, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New newsletter for Notifications[edit]

Hello

You are subscribing to the Notifications newsletter on English Wikipedia.

That newsletter is now replaced by the monthly and multilingual Collaboration team newsletter, which will include information and updates concerning Notifications but also concerning Flow and Edit Review Improvements.

Please subscribe!

All the best, Trizek (WMF) (talk) 10:51, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nomos[edit]

Hi, Saehrimnir, do you have any update on Wikipedia:Nomos? Best, — Pajz (talk) 09:46, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Me too, I am still waiting for word re approval--Woogie10w (talk) 12:17, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #3—2016[edit]

Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletterSubscribe or unsubscribe on the English Wikipedia

Did you know?

Did you know that you can easily re-arrange columns and rows in the visual editor?

Screenshot showing a dropdown menu with options for editing the table structure

Select a cell in the column or row that you want to move. Click the arrow at the start of that row or column to open the dropdown menu (shown). Choose either "Move before" or "Move after" to move the column, or "Move above" or "Move below" to move the row.

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

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has mainly worked on a new wikitext editor. They have also released some small features and the new map editing tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the list of work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, releasing the 2017 wikitext editor as a beta feature, and improving language support.

Recent changes[edit]

  • You can now set text as small or big.[1]
  • Invisible templates have been shown as a puzzle icon. Now, the name of the invisible template is displayed next to the puzzle icon.[2] A similar feature will display the first part of hidden HTML comments.[3]
  • Categories are displayed at the bottom of each page. If you click on the categories, the dialog for editing categories will open.[4]
  • At many wikis, you can now add maps to pages. Go to the Insert menu and choose the "Maps" item. The Discovery department are adding more features to this area, like geoshapes. You can read more on MediaWiki.org.[5]
  • The "Save" button now says "Save page" when you create a page, and "Save changes" when you change an existing page.[6] In the future, the "Save page" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information is available on Meta.
  • Image galleries now use a visual mode for editing. You can see thumbnails of the images, add new files, remove unwanted images, rearrange the images by dragging and dropping, and add captions for each image. Use the "Options" tab to set the gallery's display mode, image sizes, and add a title for the gallery.[7]

Future changes[edit]

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining 10 "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next month. The developers want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including Thai, Burmese and Aramaic.

The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. The 2017 wikitext editor will look like the visual editor and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices in October 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.

Let's work together[edit]

Do you teach new editors how to use the visual editor? Did you help set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki? Have you written or imported TemplateData for your most important citation templates? Would you be willing to help new editors and small communities with the visual editor? Please sign up for the new VisualEditor Community Taskforce.

If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are invited to a Wednesday evening event in SF[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

Hi folks,

Please copy and share this on other talk pages. We would like to invite you to this month's Bay Area WikiSalon. The last Wednesday evening of every month, Wikipedia and Wikimedia enthusiasts gather at the Wikimedia Foundation lounge to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.

We will have no meaty agenda this month, but we will allow a brief period for:

  • Open mic for anybody who attended WikiConference North America 2016 in San Diego last week and wants to share their takeaway
  • Question & answer
  • Open mic for announcements
  • Maybe a focus on some topical election article editing with Ben?

Or, you can grab a couch, a booth, a stool or counter and do your own thing.


Please note: You should register here, and bring a photo ID that matches your registration name. The building policy is strict on the I.D. part. This also helps us figure out how much food and drink to bring in! Feel free to stop by even if only to say a quick hello, but you might have to give us a last minute call if you forget to RSVP. Also, don't be shy about hitting us up if you have thoughts on future speakers or wiki-related activities.

For further details, please see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, October 2016.


PS: Mark your calendars ahead now for the 3rd Wednesday in November, the 30th (the week after Thanksgiving), at 6 p.m. when our WikiSalon will host a super awesome top secret mystery guest mingling in our midst. We will announce specifics at the upcoming WikiSalon.


See you soon! Pete F, Ben, Stephen, Jacob, and Checkingfax | (Subscribe or Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here)

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:51, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 19[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 19, September–October 2016
by Nikkimaria, Sadads and UY Scuti

  • New and expanded donations - Foreign Affairs, Open Edition, and many more
  • New Library Card Platform and Conference news
  • Spotlight: Fixing one million broken links

Read the full newsletter



19:07, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open![edit]

Hello, Saehrimnir. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Everybody is invited to the November 30 Bay Area WikiSalon[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

Details and RSVP here.


See you soon! Pete F, Ben Creasy, and Checkingfax | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here)

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:54, 29 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bay Area WikiSalon series: Everybody is invited this Wednesday evening at 6[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

The last Wednesday evening of every month, wiki and open-source enthusiasts gather at Bay Area WikiSalon to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.

Before and after the brief presentation we allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. We will have beverages and light snacks.


In addition, this month we will have:

  • a brief presentation from User:Cullen328 (Jim Heaphy) about the Wikipedia Teahouse
  • spontaneous lightning talks from the floor
  • community announcements from the floor

For details and to RSVP see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, December 2016


See you soon! Ben Creasy and Checkingfax | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here)

+++++
P.S. Any help spreading the word through social media or other avenues is most welcome! We plan to announce this on various sites and invite various groups; if you would like to join in, check our meta planning page, and please note any announcements you are sending out: meta:Monthly WikiSalon in San Francisco#Announcements and promotion

Please feel free to add to, refine, reorganize or edit the above linked page: it is a wiki!

We need more helpers and organizers, so if you see a need, please jump in, or talk to us about it! You can add your username to the meta page where appropriate, or create a new role!

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:44, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder invitation to the December Bay Area WikiSalon[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

Hi, everybody.

We are excited to remind you of the ninth in the Bay Area WikiSalon series that is coming up this Wednesday evening at 6 p.m.

  • Details (RSVP suggested) here (RSVP helps us know how much food and drink to bring in)

What is a WikiSalon? A monthly safe and inclusive meatspace event conducted in organized chaos and we all clean up the mess afterwards. Livestream links for the presentation are available during presentation months, and will be forthcoming for those of you that cannot attend. December is a presentation month.


Hope to see you there! Wayne (and Ben) - co-organizers
Any last minute questions or suggestions? Please ping or email Ben or me. | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here)

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:10, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Archived link for December Bay Area WikiSalon[edit]

Hi, y'all. In case you missed it and want to watch the archive reel; the topic was The Wikipedia Teahouse and the presenter was well respected Wikimedian Jim Heaphy [[User:Cullen328]]

  • Archive link (also includes intro, announcements, and a lightning talk)
  • Details about Bay Area WikiSalon for December here

The full title of Jim's presentation was: Welcoming and Helping New Editors: A Month at the Wikipedia Teahouse: an overview of the Teahouse and an analysis of over 300 Teahouse conversations during the month of August, 2016

Jim gave a longer version of this presentation in October at WikiConference North America 2016 in San Diego, California.


Cheers! Co-organizer Checkingfax - and co-organizer Ben Creasy | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here)


PS: Mark your calendars now for Sunday, January 15 at 2 p.m. which will be Wikipedia's 16th Birthday party hosted by Bay Area WikiSalon! Details to follow soon. If you want to help plan it, get in touch with us ASAP!

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:43, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are invited to a birthday bash to Celebrate Wikipedia's 16th Birthday![edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
Cut the cake

Wikipedia Day 16 SF is a fun Birthday bash and edit-a-thon on Sunday, January 15, 2017, hosted by Bay Area WikiSalon at the Wikimedia Foundation's Chip Deubner Lounge in the South of Market Street business district.

Wikimedia Community logo

For details and to RSVP, please see: Wikipedia:Meetup/SF/Wikipedia Day 2017

The San Francisco gathering is one of a number of Wikipedia Day celebrations worldwide.


See you soon! Ben Creasy, Checkingfax and Slaporte | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this notice)


PS: We need volunteers to help make this a fun and worthwhile event. Please add your name to the Project page, and what you can offer. It is a wiki, so please make direct edits to the page.

Bay Area WikiSalon usually meets the last Wednesday evening of every month as an inclusive and safe place to collaborate, mingle, munch and learn about new projects and ideas.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:52, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder invitation to the Wikipedia Day 16 birthday bash & edit-a-thon[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
Cut the cake

Wikipedia Day 16 SF is a fun Birthday bash and edit-a-thon on Sunday, January 15, 2017, hosted by Bay Area WikiSalon at the Wikimedia Foundation's Chip Deubner Lounge in the South of Market Street business district and everybody is invited!

Wikimedia Community logo
Details and RSVP here

See you Sunday! Ben Creasy, Checkingfax and Slaporte


PS: We still need more volunteers to help make this a fun and worthwhile event. Please add what you can offer and your name to the Project page or Talk about it. It is a wiki, so please make direct edits to the Project page. The event is already growing due to volunteers that have stepped up so far.


Bay Area WikiSalon meets one evening of every month as an inclusive and safe place to collaborate, mingle, munch or learn about new projects and ideas.

Note: the previous invitation had a bum wikilink. Sorry! | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this notice) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:43, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 20[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 20, November-December 2016
by Nikkimaria (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs), Samwalton9 (talk · contribs)

  • Partner resource expansions
  • New search tool for finding TWL resources
  • #1lib1ref 2017
  • Wikidata Visiting Scholar

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:59, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bay Area WikiSalon invitation for February 22[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

The last Wednesday evening of every month, wiki enthusiasts gather at Bay Area WikiSalon to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.

We allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. We will have beverages (including beer and wine) plus light snacks.


Please note: You should RSVP here, and bring a photo ID that matches your registration name. This also helps us figure out how much food and drink to bring in.


For further details, see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, February 2017


See you soon! Ben Creasy and Wayne | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:47, 15 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bay Area WikiSalon February reminder[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

Wednesday, February 22, 2017 at 6 p.m.


For details and to RSVP: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, February 2017


See you soon! Ben Creasy and Wayne (co-coordinators) | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:59, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your invitation: Bay Area WikiSalon series at Noisebridge[edit]

Please join us in San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

The last Wednesday evening of every month, wiki enthusiasts gather at Bay Area WikiSalon to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas. This month we are meeting at Noisebridge makerspace/hackerspace in the Mission near 16th Street BART (temporary change of venue). The good news is this means that you can bring spontaneous guests if you forget to RSVP!

We allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. We will have beverages (including beer and wine) plus light snacks.


If possible, please RSVP as it helps us figure out how much food and drink to bring in. For further details and to RSVP, please see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, March 2017


See you soon! Co-coordinators Ben Creasy and Wayne
(Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:06, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder: Tonight is Bay Area WikiSalon at Noisebridge[edit]

Please join us in San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

Details and to RSVP: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, March 2017 (optional, but helpful for food and special needs accommodations)

We are meeting at Noisebridge makerspace/hackerspace (temporary venue change) near 16th ST BART in SF.


See you soon! Co-coordinators Ben Creasy and Wayne
(Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:52, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 21[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 21, January-March 2017
by Nikkimaria (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), UY Scuti (talk · contribs), Samwalton9 (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

  • #1lib1ref 2017
  • Wikipedia Library User Group
  • Wikipedia + Libraries at Wikimedia Conference 2017
  • Spotlight: Library Card Platform

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wednesday night you are invited! Bay Area WikiSalon[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

The last Wednesday evening of every month, wiki enthusiasts gather for the Bay Area WikiSalon series to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.

We allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. We will have beverages (including beer and wine) plus light snacks. We will have some announcements and lightning talks from the floor, and a breakout session. This is our one year anniversary, so there will be cake!


Please RSVP here, and bring a photo ID that matches your registration name. This also helps us figure out how much food and drink to bring in.


See you soon! Ben Creasy and Wayne
(Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:19, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #1—2017[edit]

Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletter

VisualEditor
Did you know?

Did you know that you can review your changes visually?

Screenshot showing some changes to an article. Most changes are highlighted with text formatting.
When you are finished editing the page, type your edit summary and then choose "Review your changes".

In visual mode, you will see additions, removals, new links, and formatting highlighted. Other changes, such as changing the size of an image, are described in notes on the side.

Toggle button showing visual and wikitext options; visual option is selected.

Click the toggle button to switch between visual and wikitext diffs.

Screenshot showing the same changes, in the two-column wikitext diff display.

The wikitext diff is the same diff tool that is used in the wikitext editors and in the page history.

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

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has spent most of their time supporting the 2017 wikitext editor mode which is available inside the visual editor as a Beta Feature, and adding the new visual diff tool. Their workboard 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 as a beta feature, and improving the visual diff tool.

Recent changes[edit]

A new wikitext editing mode is available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices. The 2017 wikitext editor has the same toolbar as the visual editor and can use the citoid service and other modern tools. Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures to enable the ⧼Visualeditor-preference-newwikitexteditor-label⧽.

A new visual diff tool is available in VisualEditor's visual mode. You can toggle between wikitext and visual diffs. More features will be added to this later. In the future, this tool may be integrated into other MediaWiki components. [8]

The team have added multi-column support for lists of footnotes. The <references /> block can automatically display long lists of references in columns on wide screens. This makes footnotes easier to read. You can request multi-column support for your wiki. [9]

Other changes:

  • You can now use your web browser's function to switch typing direction in the new wikitext mode. This is particularly helpful for RTL language users like Urdu or Hebrew who have to write JavaScript or CSS. You can use Command+Shift+X or Control+Shift+X to trigger this. [10]
  • The way to switch between the visual editing mode and the wikitext editing mode is now consistent. There is a drop-down menu that shows the two options. This is now the same in desktop and mobile web editing, and inside things that embed editing, such as Flow. [11]
  • The Categories item has been moved to the top of the Page options menu (from clicking on the "hamburger" icon) for quicker access. [12] There is also now a "Templates used on this page" feature there. [13]
  • You can now create <chem> tags (sometimes used as <ce>) for chemical formulas inside the visual editor. [14]
  • Tables can be set as collapsed or un-collapsed. [15]
  • The Special character menu now includes characters for Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics and angle quotation marks (‹› and ⟨⟩) . The team thanks the volunteer developer, Tpt. [16]
  • A bug caused some section edit conflicts to blank the rest of the page. This has been fixed. The team are sorry for the disruption. [17]
  • There is a new keyboard shortcut for citations: Control+Shift+K on a PC, or Command+Shift+K on a Mac. It is based on the keyboard shortcut for making links, which is Control+K on a PC or Command+K on a Mac. [18]

Future changes[edit]

  • The VisualEditor team is working with the Community Tech team on a syntax highlighting tool. It will highlight matching pairs of <ref> tags and other types of wikitext syntax. You will be able to turn it on and off. It will first become available in VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode, maybe late in 2017. [19]
  • The kind of button used to Show preview, Show changes, and finish an edit will change in all WMF-supported wikitext editors. The new buttons will use OOjs UI. The buttons will be larger, brighter, and easier to read. The labels will remain the same. You can test the new button by editing a page and adding &ooui=1 to the end of the URL, like this: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Sandbox?action=edit&ooui=1 The old appearance will no longer be possible, even with local CSS changes. [20]
  • The outdated 2006 wikitext editor will be removed later this year. It is used by approximately 0.03% of active editors. See a list of editing tools on mediawiki.org if you are uncertain which one you use. [21]

If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:19, 9 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Everybody is invited to the May 31 Bay Area WikiSalon series![edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

The last Wednesday evening of every month, wiki enthusiasts gather at Bay Area WikiSalon to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas. This month we are taking it on the road to Noisebridge makerspace/hackerspace!

We allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. We will have beverages (including beer and wine) plus light snacks. There will be periodic guided tours of Noisebridge. You can stay late, on your own! YeeHaw!


For details and to RSVP, see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, May 2017


See you soon! Ben Creasy and Wayne
(Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:08, 24 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 22[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 22, April-May 2017

  • New and expanded research accounts
  • Global branches update
  • Spotlight: OCLC Partnership
  • Bytes in brief

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:35, 20 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Bay Area WikiSalon is an unSalon this month![edit]

Please stay where you are for an unSalon!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

We are taking July off! Please gather your thoughts for changes that you would like to see in the next 10 months and present them at our July 26 WikiSalon.

Ordinarily, the last Wednesday evening of every month, wiki enthusiasts gather at the Bay Area WikiSalon series to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.

We normally allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend.


Mark your calendars now for Wednesday, July 26 at 6 p.m.! The venue will be the Noisebridge hackerspace/makerspace on Mission Street in San Francisco.


Sincerely, Ben Creasy and Wayne | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:44, 28 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Black Woman is God Edit-a-Thon in San Francisco, July 22[edit]

You're invited to The Black Woman is God Edit-a-Thon at SOMArts in San Francisco on Saturday July 22, 1-4 pm. It'll be at 934 Brannan Street (between 8th & 9th). Everyone is welcome to join this editing event, held in conjunction with The Black Woman is God exhibition to raise the online visibility of Black women artists and challenge the gaps in art history that erase or minimize Black women’s contributions as artists, activists and social change-makers. (Message requested by Dreamyshade and delivered on 14:23, 9 July 2017 (UTC). You can subscribe/unsubscribe to San Francisco event talk page notices here.)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 23[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 23, June-July 2017

  • Library card
  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Spotlight: Combating misinformation, fake news, and censorship
  • Bytes in brief

Chinese, Arabic and Yoruba versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:03, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 24[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 24, August-September 2017

  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
    • Star Coordinator Award - last quarter's star coordinator: User:Csisc
  • Wikimania Birds of a Feather session roundup
  • Spotlight: Wiki Loves Archives
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic, Kiswahili and Yoruba versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:53, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What is Talk Page Theatre? Come find out![edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
Classic theatre meme

Come find out what "Talk Page Theatre" is all about! The last Wednesday evening of every other month, wiki enthusiasts gather at Bay Area WikiSalon to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.


We allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. We will have beverages (including beer and wine) plus light snacks. We will be at the NEW Wikimedia Foundation offices! w00t!!!


Please note: You should RSVP here, and bring a photo ID that matches your registration name. This also helps us figure out how much food and drink to bring in.


For further details, see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, November 2017


See you soon! Ben Creasy, Nikikana, and Wayne | ( Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice ) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:30, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2017 election voter message[edit]

Hello, Saehrimnir. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 25[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 25, October – November 2017

  • OAWiki & #1Lib1Ref
  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Spotlight: Research libraries and Wikimedia
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic, Korean and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:57, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your access to AWB may be temporarily removed[edit]

Hello Saehrimnir! This message is to inform you that due to editing inactivity, your access to AutoWikiBrowser may be temporarily removed. If you do not resume editing within the next week, your username will be removed from the CheckPage. This is purely for routine maintenance and is not indicative of wrongdoing on your part. You may regain access at any time by simply requesting it at WP:PERM/AWB. Thank you! MusikBot II talk 20:24, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Books and Bytes - Issue 26[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 26, December – January 2018

  • #1Lib1Ref
  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Spotlight: What can we glean from OCLC’s experience with library staff learning Wikipedia?
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:36, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #1—2018[edit]

Read this in another languageSubscription list for the English WikipediaSubscription list for the multilingual edition

Did you know?

Did you know that you can now use the visual diff tool on any page?

Screenshot showing some changes, in the two-column wikitext diff display

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.

Toggle button showing visual and wikitext options; visual option is selected

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.

Screenshot showing the same changes to an article. Most changes are highlighted with text formatting.

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[edit]

  • 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. [22]
  • Wikitext syntax highlighting is available as a Beta Feature for both the 2017 wikitext editor and the 2010 wikitext editor. [23]
  • 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[edit]

  • 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. [24]
  • 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)[reply]

SFMOMA Edit-a-Thon in San Francisco, March 8[edit]

You're invited to an Art+Feminism Edit-a-Thon at SFMOMA in San Francisco on Thursday March 8, 5-9 pm. It'll be at 151 Third Street, 2nd floor, free to the public. Everyone is welcome to participate in an evening of communal updating of Wikipedia entries on subjects related to gender, art, and feminism. (This message is from User:Dreamyshade. You can subscribe/unsubscribe to San Francisco event talk page notices here.)
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:58, 4 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes - Issue 27[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 27, February – March 2018

  • #1Lib1Ref
  • New collections
    • Alexander Street (expansion)
    • Cambridge University Press (expansion)
  • User Group
  • Global branches update
    • Wiki Indaba Wikipedia + Library Discussions
  • Spotlight: Using librarianship to create a more equitable internet: LGBTQ+ advocacy as a wiki-librarian
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic, Chinese and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:49, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bay Area WikiSalon invitation![edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

Periodically, on the last Wednesday evening of the month, wiki enthusiasts gather at Bay Area WikiSalon to munch, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.

We allow time for announcements, informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Bring a friend! Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. This months focus is images!

We will have beverages (including beer and wine) plus light snacks (maybe pizza too!).


For further details and to RSVP, please see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, May 2018 (note: we are meeting at the new WMF HQ at 120 Kearny Street!)

See you soon! Ben Creasy, Nikikana, Stephen, and Wayne | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:22, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE! Bay Area WikiSalon moved to June 6![edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

Our apologies, but we are rescheduling to Wednesday, June 6 at 6:00 p.m. due to a WMF host scheduling conflict.


For further details and to RSVP, please see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, June 2018 (note: we are meeting at the new WMF HQ at 120 Kearny Street!)

See you soon! Niki, Ben, Stephen, and Wayne | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:38, 25 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

REMINDER: Bay Area WikiSalon is Wednesday, June 6[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
Wikimedia community logo
Leila (WMF) shares

When: Wednesday, June 6 at 6:00 p.m.


For details and to RSVP, please see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, June 2018 (note: we are meeting at the new WMF HQ at 120 Kearny Street!)

See you soon! Niki, Lodewijk, Ben, Stephen, and Wayne | (Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:41, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 28[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 28, April – May 2018

  • #1Bib1Ref
  • New partners
  • User Group update
  • Global branches update
    • Wikipedia Library global coordinators' meeting
  • Spotlight: What are the ten most cited sources on Wikipedia? Let's ask the data
  • Bytes in brief

Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Italian and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:33, 20 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bay Area WikiSalon invitation for July 25![edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
Wikimedia Community logo
A Wikipedia panel discussion about journalism

Periodically, on the last Wednesday evening of the month, wiki enthusiasts gather at the Bay Area WikiSalon series to munch, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.

We allow time for announcements, informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Bring a friend! Kid/family friendly. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. This months focus is reliable sources!

We will have beverages (including beer and wine) plus light snacks (maybe pizza too!).


For further details and to RSVP, please see: Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, July 2018 (note: we are meeting at the new WMF HQ at 120 Kearny Street!)

See you soon! Avik (User:Quantumavik), Lodewijk (User:Effeietsanders), Ben Creasy (User:Ben Creasy), Stephen (User:Slaporte), and Wayne (User:Checkingfax)
(Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:14, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 29[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 29, June – July 2018

Hindi, Italian and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:02, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bay Area WikiSalon invitation for September 26![edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
Wikimedia Community logo
WikiSalon attendees

Periodically, on the last Wednesday evening of the month, wiki enthusiasts gather at the Bay Area WikiSalon series to munch, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas.

We allow time for announcements, informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Bring a friend! Kid/family friendly. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. This months' focus is Did you know ... ?

We will have beverages (including beer and wine) plus light snacks (maybe pizza too!).


Details and RSVP here (note: we are meeting at the new WMF HQ at 120 Kearny Street!)

See you soon! Avik (User:Quantumavik), Lodewijk (User:Effeietsanders), Ben Creasy (User:Ben Creasy), Stephen (User:Slaporte), and Wayne (User:Checkingfax)
(Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:45, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Last call for RSVPs for Wednesday evening[edit]

Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
Wikimedia Community logo
WikiSalon attendees

Hey, folks.​ Reminder:​ Wednesday evening ​at 6 ​is the Bay Area WikiSalon series​.​


Details and RSVP here (note: we are meeting at the new WMF HQ at 120 Kearny Street!)

See you soon! Avik (User:Quantumavik), Lodewijk (User:Effeietsanders), Ben Creasy (User:Ben Creasy), Stephen (User:Slaporte), and Wayne (User:Checkingfax)
(Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:32, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes, Issue 30[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 30, August – Septmeber 2018

  • Library Card translation
  • Spotlight: 1Lib1Ref spreads to the Southern Hemisphere and beyond
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:43, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #2—2018[edit]

Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletterSubscription list on the English Wikipedia

Did you know?

Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?

Screenshot showing the location of the pencil icon

Tap on the pencil icon to start editing. The page will probably open in the wikitext editor.

You will see another pencil icon in the toolbar. Tap on that pencil icon to the switch between visual editing and wikitext editing.

Toolbar with menu opened

Remember to publish your changes when you're done.

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 wrapped up most of their work on the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual diff tool. The team has begun investigating the needs of editors who use mobile devices. Their work board is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are fixing bugs and improving mobile editing.

Recent changes[edit]

Let's work together[edit]

  • The Editing team wants to improve visual editing on the mobile website. Please read their ideas and tell the team what you think would help editors who use the mobile site.
  • The Community Wishlist Survey begins next week.
  • 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!

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:12, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2018 election voter message[edit]

Hello, Saehrimnir. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes, Issue 31[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 31, October – Novemeber 2018

  • OAWiki
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:34, 21 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You are cordially invited to Stanford University to celebrate Wikipedia's birthday[edit]

Join us in celebrating Wikipedia's 18th birthday at Stanford University!
Wikimedia Community logo
I am delighted to invite you to the 2019 Wikipedia Day party at Stanford, which will be held on Tuesday, January 15, 2019, at 5:00-8:30pm.

There will be pizza, cake, and refreshments; both newcomers and experienced Wikimedians are welcome! We will have a beginner track with tutorials, and an advanced track with presentations, lightning talks, and tips and tricks. Admission is free, and you do NOT have to be a Stanford University student to attend.

Details and RSVP here • register here

See you soon! All the best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c)
(Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here) | MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:40, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes, Issue 32[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 32, January – February 2019

  • #1Lib1Ref
  • New and expanded partners
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:30, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes, Issue 33[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 33, March – April 2019

  • #1Lib1Ref
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:41, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

June 2019[edit]

Information icon Hello, I'm Flix11. I wanted to let you know that one or more of your recent contributions to Pentadecanoic acid have been undone because they appeared to be promotional. Advertising and using Wikipedia as a "soapbox" are against Wikipedia policy and not permitted; Wikipedia articles should be written objectively, using independent sources, and from a neutral perspective. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you. Flix11 (talk) 04:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes Issue 34, May – June 2019[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 34, May – June 2019

  • Partnerships
  • #1Lib1Ref
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:21, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #1—July 2019[edit]

Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Did you know?

Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?

Every article has a pencil icon at the top. Tap on the pencil icon to start editing.

Edit Cards

Toolbar with menu opened

This is what the new Edit Cards for editing links in the mobile visual editor look like. You can try the prototype here: 📲 Try Edit Cards.

Welcome back to the Editing newsletter.

Since the last newsletter, the team has released two new features for the mobile visual editor and has started developing three more. All of this work is part of the team's goal to make editing on mobile web simpler.

Before talking about the team's recent releases, we have a question for you:

Are you willing to try a new way to add and change links?

If you are interested, we would value your input! You can try this new link tool in the mobile visual editor on a separate wiki.

Follow these instructions and share your experience:

📲 Try Edit Cards.

Recent releases[edit]

The mobile visual editor is a simpler editing tool, for smartphones and tablets using the mobile site. The Editing team has recently launched two new features to improve the mobile visual editor:

  1. Section editing
    • The purpose is to help contributors focus on their edits.
    • The team studied this with an A/B test. This test showed that contributors who could use section editing were 1% more likely to publish the edits they started than people with only full-page editing.
  2. Loading overlay
    • The purpose is to smooth the transition between reading and editing.

Section editing and the new loading overlay are now available to everyone using the mobile visual editor.

New and active projects[edit]

This is a list of our most active projects. Watch these pages to learn about project updates and to share your input on new designs, prototypes and research findings.

  • Edit cards: This is a clearer way to add and edit links, citations, images, templates, etc. in articles. You can try this feature now. Go here to see how: 📲Try Edit Cards.
  • Mobile toolbar refresh: This project will learn if contributors are more successful when the editing tools are easier to recognize.
  • Mobile visual editor availability: This A/B test asks: Are newer contributors more successful if they use the mobile visual editor? We are collaborating with 20 Wikipedias to answer this question.
  • Usability improvements: This project will make the mobile visual editor easier to use.  The goal is to let contributors stay focused on editing and to feel more confident in the editing tools.

Looking ahead[edit]

  • Wikimania: Several members of the Editing Team will be attending Wikimania in August 2019. They will lead a session about mobile editing in the Community Growth space. Talk to them about how editing can be improved.
  • Talk Pages: In the coming months, the Editing Team will begin improving talk pages and communication on the wikis.

Learning more[edit]

The VisualEditor on mobile is a good place to learn more about the projects we are working on. The team wants to talk with you about anything related to editing. If you have something to say or ask, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.

PPelberg (WMF) (talk) and Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 35, July – August 2019[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 35, July – August 2019

  • Wikimania
  • We're building something great, but..
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • A Wikibrarian's story
  • Bytes in brief

Read the full newsletter

On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:58, 27 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #2 – Mobile editing and talk pages – October 2019[edit]

Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Inside this newsletter, the Editing team talks about their work on the mobile visual editor, on the new talk pages project, and at Wikimania 2019.

Help[edit]

What talk page interactions do you remember? Is it a story about how someone helped you to learn something new? Is it a story about how someone helped you get involved in a group? Something else? Whatever your story is, we want to hear it!

Please tell us a story about how you used a talk page. Please share a link to a memorable discussion, or describe it on the talk page for this project. The team would value your examples. These examples will help everyone develop a shared understanding of what this project should support and encourage.

Talk Pages[edit]

The Talk Pages Consultation was a global consultation to define better tools for wiki communication. From February through June 2019, more than 500 volunteers on 20 wikis, across 15 languages and multiple projects, came together with members of the Foundation to create a product direction for a set of discussion tools. The Phase 2 Report of the Talk Page Consultation was published in August. It summarizes the product direction the team has started to work on, which you can read more about here: Talk Page Project project page.

The team needs and wants your help at this early stage. They are starting to develop the first idea. Please add your name to the "Getting involved" section of the project page, if you would like to hear about opportunities to participate.

Mobile visual editor[edit]

The Editing team is trying to make it simpler to edit on mobile devices. The team is changing the visual editor on mobile. If you have something to say about editing on a mobile device, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.

Edit Cards[edit]

What happens when you click on a link. The new Edit Card is bigger and has more options for editing links.

Toolbar[edit]

The editing toolbar is changing in the mobile visual editor. The old system had two different toolbars. Now, all the buttons are together. Tell the team what you think about the new toolbar.
  • In September, the Editing team updated the mobile visual editor's editing toolbar. Anyone could see these changes in the mobile visual editor.
    • One toolbar: All of the editing tools are located in one toolbar. Previously, the toolbar changed when you clicked on different things.
    • New navigation: The buttons for moving forward and backward in the edit flow have changed.
    • Seamless switching: an improved workflow for switching between the visual and wikitext modes.
  • Feedback: You can try the refreshed toolbar by opening the mobile VisualEditor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on the Toolbar feedback talk page.

Wikimania[edit]

The Editing Team attended Wikimania 2019 in Sweden. They led a session on the mobile visual editor and a session on the new talk pages project. They tested two new features in the mobile visual editor with contributors. You can read more about what the team did and learned in the team's report on Wikimania 2019.

Looking ahead[edit]

  • Talk Pages Project: The team is thinking about the first set of proposed changes. The team will be working with a few communities to pilot those changes. The best way to stay informed is by adding your username to the list on the project page: Getting involved.
  • Testing the mobile visual editor as the default: The Editing team plans to post results before the end of the calendar year. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: VisualEditor as mobile default project page.
  • Measuring the impact of Edit Cards: The Editing team hopes to share results in November. This study asks whether the project helped editors add links and citations. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: Edit Cards project page.

PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 36[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 36, September – October 2019

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:21, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You are cordially invited to the SPIE Photonics West edit-a-thon on 02.02.2020[edit]

Join us for the SPIE Photonics West edit-a-thon this Sunday, 02.02.2020!
Wikimedia Community logo
I am delighted to invite you to the SPIE Photonics West 2020 edit-a-thon, at Park Central Hotel (Franciscan I, 3rd Level / 50 Third Street / San Francisco, California), on Sunday, February 2, 2020, at 5:00-7:00pm.

Newcomers and experienced Wikimedians are welcome to participate alongside SPIE conference attendees. Admission is free. Training will be provided.

Details and sign-in here

See you soon! All the best, --Rosiestep (talk) 06:59, 31 January 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 37[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 37, November – December 2019

Read the full newsletter

On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:10, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2020 #1 – Discussion tools[edit]

Read this in another languageSubscription list

Screenshot showing what the Reply tool looks like
This early version of the Reply tool automatically signs and indents comments.

The Editing team has been working on the talk pages project. The goal of the talk pages project is to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily. This project is the result of the Talk pages consultation 2019.

Reply tool improved with edit tool buttons
In a future update, the team plans to test a tool for easily linking to another user's name, a rich-text editing option, and other tools.

The team is building a new tool for replying to comments now. This early version can sign and indent comments automatically. Please test the new Reply tool.

  • On 31 March 2020, the new reply tool was offered as a Beta Feature editors at four Wikipedias: Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian. If your community also wants early access to the new tool, contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF).
  • The team is planning some upcoming changes. Please review the proposed design and share your thoughts on the talk page. The team will test features such as:
    • an easy way to mention another editor ("pinging"),
    • a rich-text visual editing option, and
    • other features identified through user testing or recommended by editors.

To hear more about Editing Team updates, please add your name to the "Get involved" section of the project page. You can also watch these pages: the main project page, Updates, Replying, and User testing.

PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:45, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Issue 38, January – April 2020[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 38, January – April 2020

  • New partnership
  • Global roundup

Read the full newsletter

On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --15:58, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 39, May – June 2020[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 39, May – June 2020

  • Library Card Platform
  • New partnerships
    • ProQuest
    • Springer Nature
    • BioOne
    • CEEOL
    • IWA Publishing
    • ICE Publishing
  • Bytes in brief

Read the full newsletter

On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:13, 11 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2020 #2 – Quick updates[edit]

Read this in another languageSubscription list

Mockup of the new reply feature, showing new editing tools
The new features include a toolbar. What do you think should be in the toolbar?

This edition of the Editing newsletter includes information the Wikipedia:Talk pages project, an effort to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily. The central project page is on MediaWiki.org.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2020 #3[edit]

On 16 March 2020, the 50 millionth edit was made using the visual editor on desktop.

Seven years ago this week, the Editing team made the visual editor available by default to all logged-in editors using the desktop site at the English Wikipedia. Here's what happened since its introduction:

  • The 50 millionth edit using the visual editor on desktop was made this year. More than 10 million edits have been made here at the English Wikipedia.
  • More than 2 million new articles have been created in the visual editor. More than 600,000 of these new articles were created during 2019.
  • Almost 5 million edits on the mobile site have been made with the visual editor. Most of these edits have been made since the Editing team started improving the mobile visual editor in 2018.
  • The proportion of all edits made using the visual editor has been increasing every year.
  • Editors have made more than 7 million edits in the 2017 wikitext editor, including starting 600,000 new articles in it. The 2017 wikitext editor is VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode. You can enable it in your preferences.
  • On 17 November 2019, the first edit from outer space was made in the mobile visual editor.
  • In 2019, 35% of the edits by newcomers, and half of their first edits, were made using the visual editor. This percentage has been increasing every year since the tool became available.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:06, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2020 #4[edit]

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Reply tool[edit]

The number of comments posted with the Reply Tool from March through June 2020. People used the Reply Tool to post over 7,400 comments with the tool.

The Reply tool has been available as a Beta Feature at the Arabic, Dutch, French and Hungarian Wikipedias since 31 March 2020. The first analysis showed positive results.

  • More than 300 editors used the Reply tool at these four Wikipedias. They posted more than 7,400 replies during the study period.
  • Of the people who posted a comment with the Reply tool, about 70% of them used the tool multiple times. About 60% of them used it on multiple days.
  • Comments from Wikipedia editors are positive. One said, أعتقد أن الأداة تقدم فائدة ملحوظة؛ فهي تختصر الوقت لتقديم رد بدلًا من التنقل بالفأرة إلى وصلة تعديل القسم أو الصفحة، التي تكون بعيدة عن التعليق الأخير في الغالب، ويصل المساهم لصندوق التعديل بسرعة باستخدام الأداة. ("I think the tool has a significant impact; it saves time to reply while the classic way is to move with a mouse to the Edit link to edit the section or the page which is generally far away from the comment. And the user reaches to the edit box so quickly to use the Reply tool.")[26]

The Editing team released the Reply tool as a Beta Feature at eight other Wikipedias in early August. Those Wikipedias are in the Chinese, Czech, Georgian, Serbian, Sorani Kurdish, Swedish, Catalan, and Korean languages. If you would like to use the Reply tool at your wiki, please tell User talk:Whatamidoing (WMF).

The Reply tool is still in active development. Per request from the Dutch Wikipedia and other editors, you will be able to customize the edit summary. (The default edit summary is "Reply".) A "ping" feature is available in the Reply tool's visual editing mode. This feature searches for usernames. Per request from the Arabic Wikipedia, each wiki will be able to set its own preferred symbol for pinging editors. Per request from editors at the Japanese and Hungarian Wikipedias, each wiki can define a preferred signature prefix in the page MediaWiki:Discussiontools-signature-prefix. For example, some languages omit spaces before signatures. Other communities want to add a dash or a non-breaking space.

New requirements for user signatures[edit]

  • The new requirements for custom user signatures began on 6 July 2020. If you try to create a custom signature that does not meet the requirements, you will get an error message.
  • Existing custom signatures that do not meet the new requirements will be unaffected temporarily. Eventually, all custom signatures will need to meet the new requirements. You can check your signature and see lists of active editors whose custom signatures need to be corrected. Volunteers have been contacting editors who need to change their custom signatures. If you need to change your custom signature, then please read the help page.

Next: New discussion tool[edit]

Next, the team will be working on a tool for quickly and easily starting a new discussion section to a talk page. To follow the development of this new tool, please put the New Discussion Tool project page on your watchlist.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:48, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 40[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 40, July – August 2020

  • New partnerships
    • Al Manhal
    • Ancestry
    • RILM
  • #1Lib1Ref May 2020 report
  • AfLIA hires a Wikipedian-in-Residence

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --10:15, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 40[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 40, July – August 2020

  • New partnerships
    • Al Manhal
    • Ancestry
    • RILM
  • #1Lib1Ref May 2020 report
  • AfLIA hires a Wikipedian-in-Residence

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --14:26, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 41[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 41, September – October 2020

  • New partnership: Taxmann
  • WikiCite
  • 1Lib1Ref 2021

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --10:48, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2021 #1[edit]

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Reply tool[edit]

Graph of Reply tool and full-page wikitext edit completion rates
Completion rates for comments made with the Reply tool and full-page wikitext editing. Details and limitations are in this report.

The Reply tool is available at most other Wikipedias.

  • The Reply tool has been deployed as an opt-out preference to all editors at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.
  • It is also available as a Beta Feature at almost all Wikipedias except for the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias. If it is not available at your wiki, you can request it by following these simple instructions.

Research notes:

  • As of January 2021, more than 3,500 editors have used the Reply tool to post about 70,000 comments.
  • There is preliminary data from the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedia on the Reply tool. Junior Contributors who use the Reply tool are more likely to publish the comments that they start writing than those who use full-page wikitext editing.[27]
  • The Editing and Parsing teams have significantly reduced the number of edits that affect other parts of the page. About 0.3% of edits did this during the last month.[28] Some of the remaining changes are automatic corrections for Special:LintErrors.
  • A large A/B test will start soon.[29] This is part of the process to offer the Reply tool to everyone. During this test, half of all editors at 24 Wikipedias (not including the English Wikipedia) will have the Reply tool automatically enabled, and half will not. Editors at those Wikipeedias can still turn it on or off for their own accounts in Special:Preferences.

New discussion tool[edit]

Screenshot of version 1.0 of the New Discussion Tool prototype.

The new tool for starting new discussions (new sections) will join the Discussion tools in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures at the end of January. You can try the tool for yourself.[30] You can leave feedback in this thread or on the talk page.

Next: Notifications[edit]

During Talk pages consultation 2019, editors said that it should be easier to know about new activity in conversations they are interested in. The Notifications project is just beginning. What would help you become aware of new comments? What's working with the current system? Which pages at your wiki should the team look at? Please post your advice at mw:Talk:Talk pages project/Notifications.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:02, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes - Issue 42[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 42, November – December 2020

  • New EBSCO collections now available
  • 1Lib1Ref 2021 underway
  • Library Card input requested
  • Libraries love Wikimedia, too!

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --14:00, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 42[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 42, January – February 2021

  • New partnerships: PNAS, De Gruyter, Nomos
  • 1Lib1Ref
  • Library Card

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --11:27, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 43[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 43, March – April 2021

  • New Library Card designs
  • 1Lib1Ref May

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --11:12, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2021 #2[edit]

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Junior contributors comment completion rate across all participating Wikipedias
When newcomers had the Reply tool and tried to post on a talk page, they were more successful at posting a comment. (Source)

Earlier this year, the Editing team ran a large study of the Reply Tool. The main goal was to find out whether the Reply Tool helped newer editors communicate on wiki. The second goal was to see whether the comments that newer editors made using the tool needed to be reverted more frequently than comments newer editors made with the existing wikitext page editor.

The key results were:

  • Newer editors who had automatic ("default on") access to the Reply tool were more likely to post a comment on a talk page.
  • The comments that newer editors made with the Reply Tool were also less likely to be reverted than the comments that newer editors made with page editing.

These results give the Editing team confidence that the tool is helpful.

Looking ahead

The team is planning to make the Reply tool available to everyone as an opt-out preference in the coming months. This has already happened at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.

The next step is to resolve a technical challenge. Then, they will deploy the Reply tool first to the Wikipedias that participated in the study. After that, they will deploy it, in stages, to the other Wikipedias and all WMF-hosted wikis.

You can turn on "Discussion Tools" in Beta Features now. After you get the Reply tool, you can change your preferences at any time in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

00:27, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 45[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 45, May – June 2021

  • Library design improvements continue
  • New partnerships
  • 1Lib1Ref update

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --11:04, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Triphosphoric acid pKa values[edit]

Hi, Saehrimnir! I saw that (way back in ~2013), you added the pKa values to the Chembox for Triphosphoric acid. Do you happen to know what source you used for those values? (There appears to be substantial variation in the literature.) Thanks, Bernanke's Crossbow (talk) 19:05, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 46[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 46, July – August 2021

  • Library design improvements deployed
  • New collections available in English and German
  • Wikimania presentation

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --11:15, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 47[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 47, September – October 2021

  • On-wiki Wikipedia Library notification rolling out
  • Search tool deployed
  • New My Library design improvements

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --16:59, 10 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 48[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 48, November – December 2021

  • 1Lib1Ref 2022
  • Wikipedia Library notifications deployed

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --15:13, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 49[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 49, January – February 2022

  • New library collections
  • Blog post published detailing technical improvements

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --10:06, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Editing newsletter 2022 – #1[edit]

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New editors were more successful with this new tool.

The New topic tool helps editors create new ==Sections== on discussion pages. New editors are more successful with this new tool. You can read the report. Soon, the Editing team will offer this to all editors at most WMF-hosted wikis. You can join the discussion about this tool for the English Wikipedia is at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Enabling the New Topic Tool by default. You will be able to turn it off in the tool or at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.

The Editing team plans to change the appearance of talk pages. These are separate from the changes made by the mw:Desktop improvements project and will appear in both Vector 2010 and Vector 2022. The goal is to add some information and make discussions look visibly different from encyclopedia articles. You can see some ideas at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project#Prototype Ready for Feedback.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

23:15, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 50[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 50, March – April 2022

  • New library partner - SPIE
  • 1Lib1Ref May 2022 underway

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --12:52, 1 June 2022 (UTC) (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 51[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 51, May – June 2022

  • New library partners
    • SAGE Journals
    • Elsevier ScienceDirect
    • University of Chicago Press
    • Information Processing Society of Japan
  • Feedback requested on this newsletter
  • 1Lib1Ref May 2022

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --16:45, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation to Local Wikimania Event in San Francisco this Friday[edit]

Hi!

Wikimania is happening and hopefully you're enjoying the sessions. While it's fairly last minute, you're warmly invited to participate in the local Wikimania-themed meetup in the Wikimedia Foundation office this Friday (tomorrow!). You will have to register in advance, but we would love to see more people from the WikiSalon community participate! For more information and registration, please check out meta:Wikimania 2022/San Francisco Meetup.

The event will involve hacking, teaching, learning, and celebrating and we'll have snacks. We will have the opportunity to watch live sessions at Wikimania together in the afternoon. The rest of the day we'll have opportunity to participate in the hackathon, and we may have some on-demand workshops/learning sessions.

In case we run out of space, it's first-come-first-serve so let us know soon! Hope to see you there.

(Subscribe/Unsubscribe to this talk page notice here)

On behalf of the Bay Area Wiki Salon team and Bittakea, Effeietsanders

Editing news 2022 #2[edit]

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Graph showing 90-minute response time without the new tool and 39-minute response time with the tool
The [subscribe] button shortens response times.

The new [subscribe] button notifies people when someone replies to their comments. It helps newcomers get answers to their questions. People reply sooner. You can read the report. The Editing team is turning this tool on for everyone. You will be able to turn it off in your preferences.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:35, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 52[edit]

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 52, July – August 2022

  • New instant-access collections:
    • SpringerLink and Springer Nature
    • Project MUSE
    • Taylor & Francis
    • ASHA
    • Loeb
  • Feedback requested on this newsletter

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --12:21, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 53[edit]

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 53, September – October 2022

  • New collections:
    • Edward Elgar
    • E-Yearbook
    • Corriere della Serra
    • Wikilala
  • Collections moved to Library Bundle:
    • Ancestry
  • New feature: Outage notification
  • Spotlight: Collections indexed in EDS

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --11:19, 17 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 54[edit]

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 54, November – December 2022

  • New collections:
    • British Newspaper Archive
    • Findmypast
    • University of Michigan Press
    • ACLS
    • Duke University Press
  • 1Lib1Ref 2023
  • Spotlight: EDS Refine Results

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --14:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2023 #1[edit]

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This newsletter includes two key updates about the Editing team's work:

  1. The Editing team will finish adding new features to the Talk pages project and deploy it.
  2. They are beginning a new project, Edit check.

Talk pages project

Screenshot showing the talk page design changes that are currently available as beta features at all Wikimedia wikis. These features include information about the number of people and comments within each discussion.
Some of the upcoming changes

The Editing team is nearly finished with this first phase of the Talk pages project. Nearly all new features are available now in the Beta Feature for Discussion tools.

It will show information about how active a discussion is, such as the date of the most recent comment. There will soon be a new "Add topic" button. You will be able to turn them off at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion. Please tell them what you think.

Daily edit completion rate by test group: DiscussionTools (test group) and MobileFrontend overlay (control group)

An A/B test for Discussion tools on the mobile site has finished. Editors were more successful with Discussion tools. The Editing team is enabling these features for all editors on the mobile site.

New Project: Edit Check

The Editing team is beginning a project to help new editors of Wikipedia. It will help people identify some problems before they click "Publish changes". The first tool will encourage people to add references when they add new content. Please watch that page for more information. You can join a conference call on 3 March 2023 to learn more.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 55[edit]

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 55, January – February 2023

  • New bundle partners:
    • Newspapers.com
    • Fold3
  • 1Lib1Ref January report
  • Spotlight: EDS SmartText Searching

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --12:45, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 56[edit]

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 56, March – April 2023

  • New partner:
    • Perlego
  • Library access tips and tricks
  • Spotlight: EveryBookItsReader

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --10:03, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 57[edit]

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 57, May – June 2023

  • Suggestion improvements
  • Favorite collections tips
  • Spotlight: Promoting Nigerian Books and Authors

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --11:22, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 58[edit]

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 58, July – August 2023

  • New partners - De Standaard and Duncker & Humblot
  • Tech tip: Filters
  • Wikimania presentation

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --14:27, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 59[edit]

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 59, September – October 2023

  • Spotlight: Introducing a repository of anti-disinformation projects
  • Tech tip: Library access methods

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --16:15, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 60[edit]

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 60, November – December 2023

  • Three new partners
  • Google Scholar integration
  • How to track partner suggestions

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --13:36, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Books & Bytes – Issue 61[edit]

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 61, January – February 2024

  • Bristol University Press and British Online Archives now available
  • 1Lib1Ref results

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --16:32, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]