User talk:Daylen/Archive 2019/1
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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Tech News writers, editors and translators wish you a pleasant 2019 year.
Recent changes
- RelatedSites extension has been undeployed. It was used to create interwiki links on Wikivoyage, now handled by Wikidata. [1]
MediaWiki logstash logging is moving to a new infrastructure. This is an ongoing deployment. [2]
codesearch.wmflabs.org has been updated, with new and updated repositories and a new search options for code. [3]
On several wikis, an account named "Edit filter" has been created on December 17 to perform some technical maintenance on AbuseFilter. This account has sysop rights but it's a system user and no human can use it. The account already existed on wikis where AbuseFilter can perform blocks, which are issued using this account. See T212268 for more information and future plans.
Problems
In AbuseFilter, the "Throttle" action takes three parameters: count, period and groups. They must now strictly respect the requirements listed on mediawiki.org. A list of broken filters is on Phabricator. If you're familiar with AbuseFilter, please take a look and fix them. [4]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 8. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from January 9. It will be on all wikis from January 10 (calendar).
Meetings
- Search Platform Office Hours is rescheduled to January 9. Check the details for time and date.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:29, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- You can now use Google Translate in the content translation tool. [5][6]
- You can now add captions to files on Commons. Captions are short descriptions of the file. They can be translated to all languages we use. They can't use wikitext markup.
- Earlier a quoted HTML attribute had to be followed by a space. Now it doesn't. This means that some pages could look different when you save them even if you didn't edit that part of the text. [7][8]
Templates with <templatestyles> could not show the difference between the live template and the sandbox version when they were tested. This has now been fixed. <templatestyles> has a new
wrapper
parameter now. You can use it for selectors like.mw-parser-output <wrapper parameter value> <selector from CSS page>
. [9]
Problems
- When you see an edit in the recent changes feed or in the history of a page some of them have tags. Some tags are added automatically. You can also add tags manually. Tags for edits that have been added manually can be edited. This didn't work for a little while. This has now been fixed. [10]
Changes later this week
- You can move files from your wiki to Wikimedia Commons and keep the file history with the new FileExporter. It will be a beta feature on all wikis from 16 January. If you want to test it you activate it and check your wiki's configuration file.
- Users who could cause more damage to the wikis if someone took over their account have to have more secure passwords. This includes administrators and other user groups. They can't use passwords that are in a list of common passwords. Accounts with common passwords are easy to take over. The list of common passwords was made longer a few weeks ago and has a different error message. Some user groups have been added to those who can't use common passwords. This is to protect all accounts with user rights that could cause damage. [11]
The AbuseFilter variable
minor_edit
has been removed. It was deprecated in 2016. Now you can't use it. You can fix the filters using it. You can find them if you use the search bar on Special:AbuseFilter.The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 15
17:55, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Tech News
- Some people did not get last week's issue of Tech News. This was because of a problem with MassMessage. If you did not get last week's issue, you can read it on Meta. [12]
Recent changes
- The content translation tool can now use version 2 as the default version for users who turned on the beta feature. For example it adds the tracking category
Pages with unreviewed translations
to translations that might have used machine translations without fixing the problems. This is so others can find them. You can find this category inSpecial:TrackingCategories
on Wikipedias. - https://mediawiki2latex-large.wmflabs.org can now convert collects of up to 800 pages to PDF, EPUB or ODT. Previously this was 200 pages.
Problems
- When a template was edited with the visual editor, it would sometimes put all information on one line. This makes it difficult to read for editors who use the wikitext editor. It also makes it more difficult to see what happened in a diff. This problem affected edits made between 8 and 17 January and is now fixed. [13]
- MassMessage is used to post a message to many pages. It has not been working reliably. Some messages have not been posted to everyone. [14][15]
- Because of a database problem that had to be fixed immediately you could not edit most wikis for a couple of minutes on 17 January (UTC). This has now been fixed. [16]
Changes later this week
- You will be able to use template styles in the
Module
namespace. [17] The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 January. It will be on all wikis from 24 January (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:37, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
Hi Daylen - I just did a major rewrite and cleanup of the The Interpublic Group of Companies article. I expanded their history, added info about the different divisions, updated the financials and rewrote the lede. While I was in the middle of cleaning it up, an IP editor began editing and deleting information without providing proper sourcing. During their editing spree, I saw you tagged the article with the advert tag. I undid their changes, and I think I've removed anything that could be considered advertorial and removed the tag, but am giving you a courtesy heads up. If you think it's still advertorial, let's discuss on the talk page - I'll start a discussion about the recent edits, and the IP editor can participate also if he/she wants to. Cheers. TimTempleton (talk) (cont) 17:41, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks, @Timtempleton:! I was guessing that the edits were coming from a COI account, but had no evidence to back it up, resulting in the use of an advert tag due to the promotional tone of those edits. I was planning to revisit the article one week after originally tagging it (on January 26th) to reassess the situation. Thank you for undoing the changes and I agree that the tag can be removed due to the rewrite. Have a great day! Daylen (talk) 23:44, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
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Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:51, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- The Wikimedia servers use HHVM to run the PHP code. They are going to use PHP7 and stop using HHVM. You can test PHP7 with a new beta feature. That way you can help find and report problems.
Problems
- When someone moves a page to a name that already exists that page that had the name the article is moved to is deleted. For a couple of months this didn't always work. Some users saw an error message instead. This has now been fixed. [18]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 30 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:15, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
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Thanks for uploading File:Vroom.com screenshot.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 19:11, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
This Month in Education: January 2019
The Signpost: 31 January 2019
- Op-Ed: Random Rewards Rejected
- News and notes: WMF staff turntable continues to spin; Endowment gets more cash; RfA continues to be a pit of steely knives
- Discussion report: The future of the reference desk
- Featured content: Don't miss your great opportunity
- Arbitration report: An admin under the microscope
- Traffic report: Death, royals and superheroes: Avengers, Black Panther
- Technology report: When broken is easily fixed
- News from the WMF: News from WMF
- Recent research: Ad revenue from reused Wikipedia articles; are Wikipedia researchers asking the right questions?
- Essay: How
- Humour: Village pump
- From the archives: An editorial board that includes you
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Thanks for uploading File:Allied Wallet logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Randykitty (talk) 20:56, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- It was easy to untick a box by accident in Special:Preferences. This will now be fixed. [19]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 February. It will be on all wikis from 7 February (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 6 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:12, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Merger discussion for ZuiTube
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An article that you have been involved in editing—ZuiTube—has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Mrwoogi010✉ 17:06, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
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Thanks for uploading File:Play.it website screenshot.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:55, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- You can use the
ambox
CSS class to show page issues to mobile readers. When you useambox
there are classes you can use.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 February. It will be on all wikis from 14 February (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:45, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
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Growth team updates #5
Welcome to the fifth newsletter for the new Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
New projects for discussion
We began the "Personalized first day" project with the welcome survey so that we could gather information about what newcomers are trying to accomplish. The next step is to use that information to create experiences that help the newcomers accomplish their goal – actually personalizing their first day. We asked for community thoughts in the previous newsletter, and after discussing with community members and amongst our team, we are now planning two projects as next steps: "engagement emails" and "newcomer homepage".
- Engagement emails: this project was first discussed positively by community members here back in September 2018, and the team how has bandwidth to pursue it. The idea is that newcomers who leave the wiki don't get encouraged to return to the wiki and edit. We can engage them through emails that send them the specific information they need to be successful – such as contact from a mentor, the impact of their edits, or task recommendations. Please read over the project page, and comment on its discussion page with any ideas, questions, or concerns. Do you think this is a good idea? Where could we go wrong?
- Newcomer homepage: we developed the idea for this project after analyzing the data from the welcome survey and EditorJourney datasets. We saw that many newcomers seem to be looking for a place to get started – a place that collects their past work, options for future work, and ways to learn more. We can build this place, and it can connect to the engagement emails. The content of both could be guided by what newcomers say they need during their welcome survey, and contain things like contact from a mentor, impact of their edits, or task recommendations. Please read over the project page, and comment on its discussion page with any ideas, questions, or concerns. Do you think this is a good idea? Where could we go wrong?
Initial reports on newcomer activity
We have published initial reports on each of the team's first two projects. These reports give the basic numbers from each project, and there are many more questions we will continue to answer in future reports. We're excited about these initial findings. They have already helped us define and design parts of our future projects.
- Welcome survey: the initial report on welcome survey responses is available here. Some of the main findings:
- Most users respond to the survey, giving it high response rates of 67% and 62% in Czech and Korean Wikipedias, respectively.
- The survey does not cause newcomers to be less likely to edit.
- The most common reason for creating an account in Korean Wikipedia is to read articles—not for editing—with 29% of Korean users giving that responses.
- Large numbers of respondents said they are interested in being contacted to get help with editing: 36% in Czech and 53% in Korean.
- Understanding first day: the initial report on what newcomers do on their first day is available here. Some of the main findings:
- Large numbers of users view help or policy pages on their first day: 42% in Czech and 28% in Korean.
- Large numbers of users view their own User or User Talk page on their first day: 34% in Czech and 39% in Korean.
- A majority of new users open an editor on their first day – but about a quarter of them do not go on to save an edit during that time.
Help panel deployment
The help panel was deployed in Czech and Korean Wikipedias on January 10. Over the past four weeks:
- About 400 newcomers in each wiki have seen the help panel button.
- About 20% of them open up the help panel.
- About 50% of those who open it up click on one of the links.
- About 5% of Czech users ask questions, and about 1% of Korean users ask questions.
We think that the 20% open rate and 50% click rate are strong numbers, showing that a lot of people are looking for help, and many want to help themselves by looking at help pages. The somewhat lower numbers of asking questions (especially in Korean Wikipedia) has caused us to consider new features to allow people to help themselves. We're going to be adding a search bar to the help panel next, which will allow users to type a search that only looks for pages in the Help and Wikipedia namespaces.
How to create a good feedback page?
What is the way to built a good help page? What blocks you when writing an help page? Your replies will help to create better help contents to newcomers, that would be used on Help panel.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot, 14:15, 13 February 2019 (UTC) • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
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Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:55, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
List of smartwatches listed at Redirects for discussion
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/28/Information.svg/30px-Information.svg.png)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect List of smartwatches. Since you had some involvement with the List of smartwatches redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. uKER (talk) 09:26, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- When you thank someone on the mobile web you will now have two seconds to cancel the thank. This is in case you clicked on the thank button by accident. [20]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 February. It will be on all wikis from 21 February (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 20 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- There is a proposal to add a red link to mobile search results if there is no page with that name. This is how it works on desktop. You can leave feedback. [21]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
23:13, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
Schoolwork - also for macOS
Hello Daylen,
I've noticed that Schoolwork is also available for macOS. Is it ok if I update Schoolwork (Apple) or do you rather do it yourself? (see references below) Best regards, --Coel Jo (talk) 00:54, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
- https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/06/apples-free-schoolwork-app-now-available-for-teachers/
- https://www.apple.com/education/docs/getting-started-with-classroom-mac.pdf
- @Coel Jo: You're always welcome to edit the article; however, make sure that you're using reliable secondary sources. Apple's website is a primary source, so it's best to refrain from using it while citing facts on Wikipedia (see WP:PRIMARY). In this instance, I am currently in the process of updating the article to include platform support for macOS. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know! Cheers, Daylen
Talk to us about talking
![" icon depicting two speech Bubbles"](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/OOjs_UI_icon_speechBubbles-rtl.svg/120px-OOjs_UI_icon_speechBubbles-rtl.svg.png)
The Wikimedia Foundation is planning a global consultation about communication. The goal is to bring Wikimedians and wiki-minded people together to improve tools for communication.
We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis, whatever their experience, their skills or their devices.
We are looking for input from as many different parts of the Wikimedia community as possible. It will come from multiple projects, in multiple languages, and with multiple perspectives.
We are currently planning the consultation. We need your help.
We need volunteers to help talk to their communities or user groups.
You can help by hosting a discussion at your wiki. Here's what to do:
- First, sign up your group here.
- Next, create a page (or a section on a Village pump, or an e-mail thread – whatever is natural for your group) to collect information from other people in your group. This is not a vote or decision-making discussion: we are just collecting feedback.
- Then ask people what they think about communication processes. We want to hear stories and other information about how people communicate with each other on and off wiki. Please consider asking these five questions:
- When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you?
- What about talk pages works for newcomers, and what blocks them?
- What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
- What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to the technical limitations?
- What are the important aspects of a "wiki discussion"?
- Finally, please go to Talk pages consultation 2019 on Mediawiki.org and report what you learned from your group. Please include links if the discussion is available to the public.
You can also help build the list of the many different ways people talk to each other.
Not all groups active on wikis or around wikis use the same way to discuss things: it can happen on wiki, on social networks, through external tools... Tell us how your group communicates.
You can read more about the overall process on mediawiki.org. If you have questions or ideas, you can leave feedback about the consultation process in the language you prefer.
Thank you! We're looking forward to talking with you.
Trizek (WMF) 15:08, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
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Thanks for uploading File:Semantic Scholar logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 03:48, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- There is a new version of the iOS Wikipedia app. It has for example syntax highlighting and new toolbars to make it easier to write wikitext. It also has night mode, a find-on-page function and other things. You can give feedback and suggestions. [22]
Changes later this week
- When you look at your watchlist or the recent changes page you can use the new filters for edit review. There you can choose tags to filter different edits. Empty tags will no longer be shown. [23]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 February. It will be on all wikis from 28 February (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 27 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The Wikipedia app for Android will invite users to add Wikidata descriptions to Wikidata objects that have Wikipedia articles but no Wikidata descriptions. It will only invite users who have added a number of Wikidata descriptions in the app without being reverted. This is to avoid spam and bad edits. You can read more and leave feedback.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:17, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
EmployBridge Update
Hello Daylen, I noticed that you edited the EmployBridge wikipedia page back in 2017. A lot has changed at the company since and I have submitted a request to review some proposed changes on the EmployBridge talk page. Would you be able to fact check those proposed changes and help get the page updated? In the spirit of transparency, I do have a paid COI notification on my profile because I do work for EmployBridge. Any and all assistance in getting the page up to date is greatly appreciated! DanielleNeal2 (talk) 17:41, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
- Hi @DanielleNeal2: Please see Spintendo's comment on the talk page about how the content was written. Once that has been fixed, feel free to ping me again and I would be happy to look at it. Just note that I've been quite busy lately, so it will likely be faster just to put the edit request tag at the top of the section. Additionally, the three job titles you included are not considered notable for inclusion in the article's infobox. We typically stick with company founders, the CEO, and in some cases, the board chair and CFO. Have a great day! Cheers, Daylen (talk) 21:11, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
This Month in Education: February 2019
The Signpost: 28 February 2019
- From the editors: Help wanted (still)
- News and notes: Front-page issues for the community
- Discussion report: Talking about talk pages
- Featured content: Conquest, War, Famine, Death, and more!
- Arbitration report: A quiet month for Arbitration Committee
- Traffic report: Binge-watching
- Technology report: Tool labs casters-up
- Gallery: Signed with pride
- From the archives: New group aims to promote Wiki-Love
- Humour: Pesky Pronouns
Nomination for deletion of Template:Pet food brands
Template:Pet food brands has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:41, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 March. It will be on all wikis from 7 March (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 6 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- You can give feedback on the future of talk pages.
- The mobile website will use the standard fonts on your computer or phone instead of a generic font. This will make it easier to read text in many scripts. [24][25]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:38, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Please participate to the talk pages consultation
Hello
Our team at the Wikimedia Foundation is working on a project to improve the ease-of-use and productivity of wiki talk pages. As a Teahouse host, I can imagine you’ve run into challenges explaining talk pages to first-time participants.
We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis – to ask questions, to resolve differences, to organize projects and to make decisions. Communication is essential for the depth and quality of our content, and the health of our communities. We're currently leading a global consultation on how to improve talk pages, and we're looking for people that can report on their experiences using (or helping other people to use) wiki talk pages. We'd like to invite you to participate in the consultation, and invite new users to join too.
We thank you in advance for your participation and your help.
Trizek (WMF), 08:37, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Please participate to the talk pages consultation - link update
The previous message about the talk pages consultation has a broken link.
The correct link has been misinterpreted by the MassMessage tool. Please use the following link: Wikipedia:Talk pages consultation 2019.
Sorry for the inconvenience, Trizek (WMF), 08:48, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Pages can use geocoordinates from Wikidata with the
mw.wikibase.entity:formatStatements
Lua function or the#statements
parser function. If they do, they will now be shown using a Kartographer<maplink>
if the wiki can use Kartographer. You can report bugs or ask questions on Phabricator. - There is now an EventStream to see when links are added or removed on Wikimedia wikis. You can read the discussions and plans.
Problems
- Some wikis will not be able to edit for a short period of time on 19 March (UTC). This will start at 15:00 UTC. It will last up to 15 minutes but probably shorter. You can see the list of affected wikis. This is because of network maintenance. You can still read the wikis.
- Editors who use Firefox to edit with the visual editor had a problem with copying text. When they tried to select text that included footnotes, templates or block images in the middle they would often only get part of the text. This has now been fixed. [26]
- Some maps didn't work for a while on 8 March. This has been fixed. [27][28]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 March. It will be on all wikis from 14 March (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:29, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Growth team updates #6
Welcome to the sixth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Plans for the next three months
The Growth team has been working on features to increase new editor retention for the last seven months. We have made a lot of progress and learned a lot, and we've just finished planning for our next three months. During the next three months, we're going to focus on iterations of the help panel and the newcomer homepage. We have decided not to start the engagement emails project, because we think that we will be able to do better work by improving the projects we have already started. Specifically, these are our team goals:
- Deploy and iterate on newcomer homepage
- Continued iteration on help panel
- Make the help panel available to more wikis
- Add a fourth Wikipedia to our set of target wikis
- Publish in-depth quantitative reporting on the data from this year
- Assemble a report on what our team has learned so far about newcomers
Newcomer homepage
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Homepage_mockup_2019-03-14.png/220px-Homepage_mockup_2019-03-14.png)
We have recently decided on the specifications for an initial version that we can deploy and iterate on:
- Shown in the User space
- Desktop only (mobile comes next)
- Four modules
- Help module: help links and ability to ask help desk questions
- Mentorship module: all newcomers assigned a mentor to whom they can ask questions
- Impact module: shows the number of pageviews for pages the newcomer edited
- Account completion module: gives some very simple recommendations of how to get started (add an email, start your user page)
- Layout not yet personalized for each user
We're currently running live user tests on this configuration. Future work will include adapting the homepage for mobile, working on a task recommendation module, and considering how to encourage newcomers to visit their homepage.
Help panel
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Help_panel_viwiki_2019-03-14.png/220px-Help_panel_viwiki_2019-03-14.png)
During the last month, the help panel was deployed on Vietnamese Wikipedia, adding it to Czech and Korean Wikipedias.As of 2019-03-14:
- 2,425 newcomers have seen the help panel
- 422 of them have opened it
- 175 have clicked links
- 27 have run searches
- 40 have asked questions
We have been analyzing the data around usage, and we'll be publishing numbers in the coming weeks. At a high level, we see at least some users are being helped by the panel, with many clicking on links, running searches, and asking questions. We do not yet see any problems that have arisen from the help panel. Therefore, we think that the help panel is generally a positive feature – though data is still coming that will allow us to see its numerical impact. If other wikis are interested in using the help panel, please contact us on our team's talk page, in the language of your choice.
Over the past month, we have iterated on the help panel to take into account the usage patterns we are seeing. You can see in the accompanying image how the help panel currently looks.
- We added a search capability, in which users can search the Help and Wikipedia namespaces.
- The help panel was previously available whenever a newcomer was in "edit" mode. We are now also showing the help panel when a newcomer is in "read" mode on a page in the Help, Wikipedia, or User namespaces.
We want to see whether users find the "search" useful. If so, we may spend time on improving search results. We're also looking forward to learning whether exposing the help panel in "read" mode in more namespaces will increase usage.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:19, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- When you use rollback you will be able to get a confirmation prompt on most wikis. It asks you if you wanted to do the rollback. This is to avoid misclicks. You will have to opt in to get it. On German Wikipedia it will be an opt-out feature from 28 March. [29][30]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 March. It will be on all wikis from 21 March (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 20 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Admins will be able to block someone from editing a page or a namespace. This already works on a few Wikimedia wikis. You can read more. If your wiki wants to be an early tester of this, you can tell the developers. [31]
Toolforge will shut down the Ubuntu Trusty job grid. This will happen the week of 25 March. Tools that use this grid needs to be moved to the new Debian Stretch job grid. If they haven't, they will be taken offline. Maintainers can restart the tools later. Users may not be able to use them in the meanwhile. You can see a list of affected tools.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:44, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
New mailing list for Wikimedia Canada
Good day, this message is to inform you that Wikimedia Canada has created a new mailing list operated by Mailman. This mailing list is for all discussions related to the Wikimedia movement in Canada, in both English and French. Announcements from Wikimedia Canada will always be bilingual, but you are welcomed to discuss in any language of your choice. The old google group will be abandoned. To join this mailing list, please go to [32]. To send messages to the list, write to general(at)discussions.wikimedia.ca. Also, please forward this message to anybody who may be interested. Thank you and do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. JP Béland (WMCA) (talk) 13:50, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- The new version of the content translation tool will be used for all new translations. The older version will still be used for translations that were started with it. Most users won’t see any change. More than 80% of the published translations are already using the new version. [33]
Problems
- There was a problem with editing with Safari on iOS. When you wrote an edit summary you couldn't save the edit. This has now been fixed. [34]
- The editing toolbar sometimes disappears when you scroll on iOS devices. This will be fixed soon. [35]
- Wikis can over-ride interface messages on-wiki. A problem meant that sometimes an old versions of any changed messages were shown instead. This included the sitenotice and other important parts of the interface. This was fixed at around 2019-03-22 16:00 (UTC). Logged-out users may still get the wrong message. Purging the page should fix it for them. [36]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 March. It will be on all wikis from 28 March (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 27 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:05, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
This Month in Education: March 2019
Orphaned non-free image File:2015 Florida Power & Light Logo.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:2015 Florida Power & Light Logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 02:22, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost: 31 March 2019
- From the editors: Getting serious about humor
- News and notes: Blackouts fail to stop EU Copyright Directive
- In the media: Women's history month
- Discussion report: Portal debates continue, Prespa agreement aftermath, WMF seeks a rebranding
- Featured content: Out of this world
- Arbitration report: The Tides of March at ARBCOM
- Traffic report: Exultations and tribulations
- Technology report: New section suggestions and sitewide styles
- News from the WMF: The WMF's take on the new EU Copyright Directive
- Recent research: Barnstar-like awards increase new editor retention
- From the archives: Esperanza organization disbanded after deletion discussion
- Humour: The Epistolary of Arthur 37
- In focus: The Wikipedia SourceWatch
- Special report: Wiki Loves (50 Years of) Pride
- Community view: Wikipedia's response to the New Zealand mosque shootings
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- Notifications tell you about things that happen on the wiki. You can turn on notifications about new links to pages you created. For performance reasons you can no longer get e-mails about this. [37]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 April. It will be on all wikis from 4 April (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 3 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:29, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Alfred Android app screenshot.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:Alfred Android app screenshot.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:25, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Airtag logo.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:Airtag logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. DannyS712 (talk) 04:08, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
Bring your idea for Wikimedia in Education to life! Launch of the Wikimedia Education Greenhouse
![]() Are you passionate about open education? Do you have an idea to apply Wikimedia projects to an education initiative but don’t know where to start? Join the the Wikimedia & Education Greenhouse! It is an immersive co-learning experience that lasts 9 months and will equip you with the skills, knowledge and support you need to bring your ideas to life. You can apply as a team or as an individual, by May 12th. Find out more Education Greenhouse. For more information reachout to mguadalupe |
—MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:16, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- More wikis are now testing visual editor section editing for mobile users. You can read more.
- Admins on French and Polish Wikipedia can block someone from editing a page or a namespace. If your wiki wants to get these blocks before they are available to all wikis, you can tell the developers. [38][39]
Problems
- You will be able read but not edit most wikis for 30 minutes on 11 April at 05:00 (UTC). This is because of a hardware problem. You can see a list of the affected wikis. [40]
- A map update caused some problems on 29 March and 30 March. It was rolled back. [41]
- Pages on some Wikivoyages had problems with the top headline. This has been fixed. [42]
Changes later this week
- When you add an edit summary the VisualEditor will search your recent edit summaries in case you want to re-use one. This works in both the visual and wikitext modes on desktop. It also works on the mobile site. [43]
- The Wikimedia wikis will get a URL shortener. This will work from 11 April. You can read more. [44]
The
{{REVISIONID}}
magic word will no longer work. This is for performance reasons. When you preview a page it will return""
(empty string). When you read a page it will return"-"
(dash). For now this will only affect content namespaces. [45]The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 April. It will be on all wikis from 11 April (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 10 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- You will be able to preview references. This means that when you hover over the link you will get a popup that shows you a preview of the reference. It will work much like page previews. This is so you don't have to go to the bottom of the page to see a reference. This will now be available as a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia. [46][47]
The Wikidata JSON output will change. Empty containers will be serialised as empty objects. This is a breaking change that will affect tools that use JSON outputs and APIs. It will happen on 30 April. You can read more and see how to test your code.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:24, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- All wikis now have the TemplateWizard for the wikitext editor.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 April. It will be on all wikis from 18 April (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Wikidata will get a new constraint status called
suggestion
. This will change how theWikibaseQualityConstraints
constraint checking API works. [48][49] - You can test the
depicts
property for structured data on Commons.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
23:00, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:PartSource logo.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:PartSource logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 00:38, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Product Hunt screenshot 2017.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:Product Hunt screenshot 2017.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 02:35, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
File:Elasticsearch logo.svg listed for discussion
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/28/Information.svg/30px-Information.svg.png)
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Elasticsearch logo.svg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Steel1943 (talk) 13:42, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- The advanced search function URL now shows which namespaces you search in. The namespace field is collapsed by default on the search page. You can also add new fields to the search interface through a hook. [50][51][52]
- The wikis now look slightly different in the mobile web version. [53]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Wikipedia articles will have the
sameAs
meta property. It adds structured data. This makes it easier for search engines to find Wikipedia articles. It also makes it easier to reuse content. There will an A/B test. [54][55]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:08, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
This Month in Education: April 2019
This Month in Education Volume 8 • Issue 4 • April 2019 Contents • Headlines • Subscribe In This Issue |
Growth team updates #7
Welcome to the seventh newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Newcomer homepage release this week
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Screenshot_of_newcomer_homepage_feature_in_Mediawiki.png/220px-Screenshot_of_newcomer_homepage_feature_in_Mediawiki.png)
Like the other Growth team features, this will be deployed in a controlled experiment, in which half of newcomers will have access to their homepage and half will not. Users with the feature will be able to access it by clicking their username at the top of their browser, and it will only be available on desktop -- not mobile. Experienced users who want to see their homepage will be able to turn it on in their preferences.
Wikis receiving the newcomer homepage can expect these things:
- Additional questions will come to the help desk from the "help module" on the homepage.
- Mentors who have signed up for the "mentorship module" will start to receive questions on their user talk pages.
- More users may create and edit user pages through the "start module".
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Newcomer_homepage_mobile_mockup_2019-04-15.png/220px-Newcomer_homepage_mobile_mockup_2019-04-15.png)
Recent and future homepage development
The most important piece developed for the homepage over the last month is the "start module", which gives newcomers clear actions to take when they are new: add/confirm their email, go through a tutorial, start their user page. We learned about the need for this module from user tests last month. The next priorities for the newcomer homepage are:
- Mobile design: to work well in mobile browsers, the homepage needs a separate design and engineering. See the accompanying mockups for potential mobile designs.
- Features for discovery: only about 15% - 30% of newcomers will discover their homepage by clicking their username at the top of their browser. We are going to be designing additional ways for newcomers to find out about it.
- Additional modules: the initial version contains some of the simpler modules. Potential upcoming modules include task recommendations and a feed of activity on the wiki.
Other updates
- Help panel leading indicators: our team published data on the help panel's initial performance. The evaluation exposes some areas for improvement, but we think the help panel's behavior so far is healthy and that it is not having a negative impact on the wikis. We will be publishing additional data, making plans, and asking for community thoughts around the future of the help panel over the course of the next two weeks. If you are interested in trying out the help panel on your wiki, please let us know on our team's talk page.
- Long term plans: the team had a week of planning meetings, in which we talked about some longer-term ideas for Growth work. Some of the top ideas are: to extend the newcomer homepage to help user's build their identity through a user profile, and to revisit the "engagement emails" project that the team put on hold. Over the next month, we will be asking for community conversation around how the team can spend our time in the next fiscal year, that starts in July.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:18, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- The Wikipedia app for Android now invites users to add Wikidata descriptions to Wikidata objects that have Wikipedia articles but no Wikidata descriptions. It will only invite users who have added a number of Wikidata descriptions in the app without being reverted. This is to avoid spam and bad edits. [56][57]
Problems
- Tech News was late last week because of a MassMessage bug. Other newsletters had the same problem. [58]
Changes later this week
- You will see when you last refreshed the recent changes page. This is so you can see how recent the changes are. [59]
- When you write a comment in Structured Discussions but have not posted it yet your web browser will save it in
local storage
instead ofsession storage
. This means you do not lose them even if you close your web browser. Structured Discussions used to be called Flow. [60] - You will be able to turn off milestone notifications. Milestone notifications congratulate you when you have made certain numbers of edits. [61]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 May. It will be on all wikis from 2 May (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 1 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The Wikidata
wb_terms
table will be dropped. This will affect some Wikidata tools. They need to be updated. The table has become too big which is causing problems. This will happen on 29 May. You can read more. You can ask for help if you need it.Wikimedia wikis will soon use a token when you log out. This changes how the API works. Some tools might need to be updated. [62]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:27, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost: 30 April 2019
- News and notes: An Action Packed April
- In the media: Is Wikipedia just another social media site?
- Discussion report: English Wikipedia community's conclusions on talk pages
- Featured content: Anguish, accolades, animals, and art
- Arbitration report: An Active Arbitration Committee
- Traffic report: Mötley Crüe, Notre-Dame, a black hole, and Bonnie and Clyde
- Technology report: A new special page, and other news
- Gallery: Notre-Dame de Paris burns
- News from the WMF: Can machine learning uncover Wikipedia’s missing “citation needed” tags?
- Recent research: Female scholars underrepresented; whitepaper on Wikidata and libraries; undo patterns reveal editor hierarchy
- From the archives: Portals revisited
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- Special:Watchlist can show the wrong information. It does not always show which edits are read and which are unread. The developers are working on solving the problem. [63]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 May. It will be on all wikis from 9 May (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 8 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:27, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Microsoft Teams logo.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:Microsoft Teams logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:39, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 May. It will be on all wikis from 16 May (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 15 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
00:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Timeless Newsletter • Issue 4
Welcome to the fourth issue of the Timeless newsletter, with a cat! Or maybe not.
Un chat qui miaule???
It's true! The angry cat, a fundamental part of Timeless, has resulted in confusion and bug reports all across the projects and phabricator. And now it shall be immortalised forever in the new, shiny Timeless logo.
Updates:
After putting off the project for three months because I got hit in the head with a flight of stairs, and then putting off the project for another two months while working out what the status of the grant was, I have now put off the project even more in order to focus on my other project for a bit. So progress lately has been a bit whims-based as a result:
- The project now has a logo. For some reason.
- The angry cat in the background is now customisable! Behold: not a cat. What would you like to replace it with on your project?
- I broke, unbroke, and then sort of sideways broke all the form styles. Help.
Radar:
- The French Wiktionary voted to set Timeless as their default skin, with results possibly as you might expect: I ran away and hid, and the WMF said no. A bit of discussion later and we largely agreed that all else aside, this is a bit of a branding issue, but we love the enthusiasm! Also the bug reports that inevitably come out of such a discussion. I'm still working on properly going through those.
- Theme support is still stuck in limbo, but now we have another skinning RfC. tl;dr, we wanna replace the entire skinning system, and Skizzerz'll write a prototype later.
I will be fully resuming work on Timeless next week, or maybe the week after, depending on what madness (or illness) comes out of the Hackathon in Prague. Please come talk to me there to discuss strategy!
Orphaned non-free image File:AnchorFree logo.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:AnchorFree logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:23, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Call for submissions for the Community Growth space at Wikimania 2019
Welcome to a special newsletter from the Growth team! This special newsletter is not about Wikimedia Foundation Growth team projects. Instead, it is a call for submissions for the Community Growth space at Wikimania 2019. We think that many people who receive this newsletter may have something valuable to contribute to this space at Wikimania. We haven't translated the newsletter, because Wikimania's language is English.
Please see below for the message from the organizers of the Community Growth space at Wikimania.
---
Wikimania 2019 is organized into 19 “spaces”, which are all accepting proposals for sessions. This message comes from the team organizing the Community Growth space.
Since you are interested b Growth team projects, and potentially involved in welcoming newcomers initiatives on your wiki, we would like to invite you to submit a proposal to the Community Growth space because of the actions you’ve done around newcomers on wikis. The deadline for submission is June 1. See below for Community Growth submission topics and session formats. Topics and sessions have to be in English.
In the Community Growth space, we will come together for discussions, presentations, and workshops that address these questions:
- What is and is not working around attracting and retaining newcomers?
- How should Wikimedia activities evolve to help communities grow and flourish?
- How should our technology and culture evolve to help new populations to come online, participate and become community members?
Recommended topics: please see this link for the list for the list of recommended topics. If you do not plan to submit a proposal, you can also suggest additional topics here. If your topic does not fit into our space, remember that there are 18 other spaces that could welcome you sharing your knowledge and perspective.
Types of session. We prefer sessions that are participatory, interactive, promote conversations, and give a voice to parts of our movement that are heard less often. Please see this link for the list of recommended session formats.
Poster submissions. Posters are also a good way to introduce a topic, or show some results of an action. Please consider submitting one!
More information about the Community Growth space, topics, and submission formats is available on the proposal page.
Please submit your proposal. The reviews will happen at the beginning of June.
If you have questions about Wikimania in general, please ask them on the Wikimania wiki.
On behalf of the Community Growth leadership team, Trizek (WMF), 11:44, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Bloom Energy Page Updates
My name is Conner and I work in the marketing department at Bloom Energy. I shared a draft of an improved version of the "Bloom Energy" page that is more fleshed-out, current, and better cited than the current page, including successes and failures in good measure. Nobody responded on Talk yet, so I was hoping you might have a minute to take a look and provide any feedback, since I have a conflict of interest as a Bloom employee. Conner at Bloom Energy (talk) 20:21, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- The report for phase 1 of the talk pages consultation 2019 has been published. Communities are invited to start phase 2 of the consultation on their wikis.
Problems
- File descriptions for files from Commons were not shown properly on other Wikimedia wikis for a few days. For example the image descriptions and license information were missing. This has now been fixed. [64][65]
- Some diffs show an error message when you try to see them. The developers are working on fixing it. It could be because of some edit comments. [66][67]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 May. It will be on all wikis from 23 May (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 22 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The content translation tool on Wikipedia can use machine translations. There is a system to stop translations where the editors do not fix machine translation mistakes. This warns or stops them if they seem to just copy what the machine translation gives them. If this system is too strict or not strict enough you can tell the language team. [68]
The Wikidata
wbeditentity
API endpoint will remove all aliases if the request includes an empty alias. This is how it supposed to work. It has not been working this way because of a bug. This will start on 12 June. [69]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
13:03, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Dashlane logo.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:Dashlane logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 02:28, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
Big changes to the replica database will happen on 3 June. Some tools on Cloud Services will stop working if the maintainers do not update them to use the new schema. This probably affects tools that query for revisions or log entries made by a user. [70][71]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 May. It will be on all wikis from 30 May (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 29 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:33, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
This Month in Education: May 2019
Orphaned non-free image File:Mailchimp logo 2018.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:Mailchimp logo 2018.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:38, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost: 31 May 2019
- From the editors: Picture that
- News and notes: Wikimania and trustee elections
- In the media: Politics, lawsuits and baseball
- Discussion report: Admin abuse leads to mass-desysop proposal on Azerbaijani Wikipedia
- Arbitration report: ArbCom forges ahead
- Technology report: Lots of Bots
- News from the WMF: Wikimedia Foundation petitions the European Court of Human Rights to lift the block of Wikipedia in Turkey
- Essay: Paid editing
- From the archives: FORUM:Should Wikimedia modify its terms of use to require disclosure?
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- You can now write all special letters in all African Wikipedia languages. This works in the desktop version. [72]
- There is now a field called
depicts
on Commons. This is a way to show what is in a picture with the help of Wikidata. It is still in development. [73] - Some tools on Toolforge may break on or after 3 June because of database changes. Maintainers should update their tools to use the new schema. [74][75]
Problems
- You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for 30 minutes on 19 June at 05:00 (UTC). This is to fix a hardware problem. [76]
Changes later this week
- Some wikis have one tab for the visual editor and one tab for a wikitext editor. Others wikis just have one tab. If your wiki has two tabs, clicking a link to create a new page has always opened a wikitext editor. It will now open the editor you used the last time you edited. [77]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 May. It will be on all wikis from 6 May (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 5 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:24, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
Your draft article, Draft:Android Messages
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/1d/Information_icon4.svg/48px-Information_icon4.svg.png)
Hello, Daylen. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Android Messages".
In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply and remove the {{db-afc}}
, {{db-draft}}
, or {{db-g13}}
code.
If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.
Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 09:28, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:AngelList logo.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:AngelList logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 02:24, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Abacus Data Systems logo.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:Abacus Data Systems logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 02:25, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- When you create a PDF from a page on the wiki this is now done by Proton. Before this we used Electron. It should look the same but work better. Both use Chromium. This is a different system from when you collect several articles into a book and make a PDF from them. [78][79]
- The Flagged Revisions extension now uses the standard OOUI icons. There will be additional minor fixes for positioning in the next deployment. [80]
Bots and other scripts that do not set an identifiable User-Agent may find their requests strictly rate-limited until they identify themselves properly. [81]
Problems
- Please check if the Flagged Revisions configuration on your wiki is as you expect (or as it was a few weeks ago). If not, please report it. [82]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 12 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:06, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
Growth team updates #8
Welcome to the eighth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
May was a busy month, and we apologize for a slightly late newsletter.
General news
- The Growth team will begin to work with the Arabic Wikipedia community as a new target wiki. This is in addition to Korean, Czech, and Vietnamese Wikipedias.
- Several members of the Growth team attended Wikimedia Hackathon. To see what we worked on and learned, read this update (in English).
- Wikimania 2019 is coming up in August. The conference will include a "Community Growth" space, for sessions about how our communities expand through software and programs.
Early results from newcomer homepage release
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Newcomer_homepage_screenshot_2019-06-03.png/220px-Newcomer_homepage_screenshot_2019-06-03.png)
- The newcomer homepage was deployed in Czech and Korean Wikipedias on May 6 for desktop users. It is deployed in an A/B test, so that half of newcomers have access to the homepage and half do not. They access it by clicking on their username in their personal tools along the top of the window.
- After about a month of usage, we see a few interesting trends. We think that the usage is going well so far, as we continue to work on the feature
- About half of users who visit the homepage click on a link or button.
- About half of users visit the homepage more than once, with about a fifth of users visiting on multiple days.
- Users are interacting with all the different modules on the page -- there is no clear favorite.
- Users have been asking questions to their mentors -- but not on the help desk.
Next steps for homepage
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Mockup_of_mobile_newcomer_homepage_for_Mediawiki_software_2019-06-04.png/220px-Mockup_of_mobile_newcomer_homepage_for_Mediawiki_software_2019-06-04.png)
- Because we are seeing good reactions to the homepage from the first users, we are prioritizing work that helps more users find their homepage:
- Mobile homepage: the team is currently building the mobile version of the homepage. We tested this design with five users, giving us confidence that the design is strong.
- Features to aid discovery: only a minority of newcomers who have a homepage will find their homepage on their own. The team is designing features that help newcomers learn where to find their homepage. The most important feature will point to the homepage link using a GuidedTour.
- User tests showed that the most important thing to add to the homepage are clear task recommendations to help newcomers get started with editing right away. This is the module that we will be working on next.
Future of team in the next year
- The Growth team has been working since September 2018, and we're now planning for the work we'll be doing for the next fiscal year, which begins in July.
- Though we have not yet developed a feature that clearly increases growth in our target wikis, we believe that the features we have been developing have high potential to increase growth if we continue to work on them.
- Therefore, the team will continue to work on the features we have started, and we will develop related features that improve the overall newcomer experience. These features may include:
- Improvements to how newcomers can build their user pages and develop their on-wiki identity. See initial notes here.
- Improvements to how newcomers receive notifications on-wiki and through email, so that they quickly find out if other users are contacting them.
- Processes that help newcomers get awards or recognition for good work.
- Ways for newcomers to see the activity on the wiki and find others who share their interests.
- We will start discussions with communities to help us define these ideas before we work on them.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
09:02, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Concordia Healthcare logo.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:Concordia Healthcare logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:39, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for 30 minutes on 19 June at 05:00 (UTC). This is to fix a hardware problem. [83]
Changes later this week
- MIDI files can soon be played without the Score extension. You can then add them with
[[File:Filename.midi]]
. Lateroverride_midi
andoverride_audio
will stop working. Instead you will need to add the MIDI file below the music score. [84] - A new video player will soon replace the old one. You will be able to enable it as a beta feature in your preferences. It will later be enabled for everyone if there are no big problems. [85]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 June. It will be on all wikis from 20 June (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 19 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
Some gadgets and user scripts still use the old
wgEnableAPI
andwgEnableWriteAPI
values. These values are always true. They will soon be removed. This might break the gadgets and scripts. You should fix your gadgets to not use these values. [86]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:37, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 14
Updates: I've been focusing largely on the development side of things, so we are a lot closer now to being ready to actually start discussing deploying it and testing it out here.
There's just a few things left that need to be resolved:
- A bunch of language support issues in particular, plus some other release blockers, such as the fact that currently there's no good way to find any hubs people do create.
- We also probably need some proper documentation and examples up to even reference if we want a meaningful discussion. We have the extension documentation and some test projects, but we probably need a bit more. Also I need to be able to even find the test projects! How can I possibly write reports about this stuff if I can't find any of it?!
Some other stuff that's happened in the meantime:
- Midpoint report is out for this round of the project, if you want to read in too much detail about all the problems I've been running into.
- WikiProject Molecular Biology have successfully set up using the old module system that CollaborationKit is intended to replace (eventually), and it even seems to work, so go them. Based on the issues they ran into, it looks like the members signup thing on that system has some of the same problems as we've been unable to resolve in CK, though, which is... interesting. (Need to change the content model to the right thing for the formwizard config to take. Ugh, content models.)
Until next time,
-— Isarra ༆ 21:43, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- The new version of MediaWiki for last week was not fully released due to issues. It was removed from most wikis on Tuesday and from test wikis on Thursday. [87]
- Most wikis were slow and then briefly read-only last week due to one of the database servers having a problem. It is now replaced. [88]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 June. It will be on all wikis from 27 June (calendar).
Meetings
- You can watch or join the next Wikimedia Language showcase. It will be about the usage of Machine Translation in Wikimedia projects. The showcase will be on 26 June at 13:00 (UTC). A recording will be kept for later viewing
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 26 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:29, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Busuu logo.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:Busuu logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:34, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
The June 2019 Signpost is out!
- Discussion report: A constitutional crisis hits English Wikipedia
- News and notes: Mysterious ban, admin resignations, Wikimedia Thailand rising
- In the media: The disinformation age
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
- Traffic report: Juneteenth, Beauty Revealed, and more nuclear disasters
- Technology report: Actors and Bots
- Special report: Did Fram harass other editors?
- Recent research: What do editors do after being blocked?; the top mathematicians, universities and cancers according to Wikipedia
- From the archives: Women and Wikipedia: the world is watching
- In focus: WikiJournals: A sister project proposal
- Community view: A CEO biography, paid for with taxes
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- The development of Wikidata Bridge has started. The goal is to allow Wikidata edits from Wikipedia. [89]
Problems
- Sometimes pages load slowly for users routed to the Amsterdam data center. Investigation is in progress. [90]
- Wikidata query service was overloaded between 11:50 UTC until 13:15 UTC on June 24. It has been fixed. [91]
Changes later this week
- You will be able to read but not to edit all wikis for a short amount of time, on 3 July at 06:00 (UTC). This is to move a database. [92]
- There is no deployment of a new version of MediaWiki on the wikis this week (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 3 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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21:22, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
This Month in Education: June 2019
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- For event organizers, if you request a temporary lift of the IP cap for mass account creation, this will now also raise the edit rate limit for those new accounts at the event, which will prevent another bottleneck. [93]
- Administrators at all Wiktionary, Wikivoyage, and Wikisource wikis are now able to use the new partial blocks feature. [94]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 July. It will be on all wikis from 11 July (calendar).
- The design of MediaWiki's software windows will change for desktop users. Layout will be simpler, buttons will be bolder and clearer, and close buttons will be just icons. This is like the mobile design. This will affect ContentTranslation, VisualEditor, TemplateWizard, and other tools. [95]
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 10 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Wikidata will be in read-only mode on 30 July from 05:00 to 05:30 UTC because of a server switch. [96]
There will be a change in the name format of new Wikidata RDF dumps starting on 15 July. [97]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:12, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Google Authenticator for Android icon.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:Google Authenticator for Android icon.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:35, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- The mobile web will get more advanced editing tools. Seven more Wikipedias can use them now. This works for Arabic, Indonesian, Italian, Persian, Japanese, Spanish and Thai Wikipedia. You can try the tools on the mobile web and give feedback. [98]
Changes later this week
The abuse filter system user will soon do maintenance edits on broken abuse filters. This user is called
Edit filter
and has administrator rights. This is meant to fix technical problems. It will not do any other changes. You can read more.The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 July. It will be on all wikis from 18 July (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The Wikipedia app for Android will invite users to add image captions to images on Commons. It will only invite users who have added a number of edits in the app without being reverted. This is to avoid spam and bad edits. You can read more and leave feedback. [99]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:29, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Communities interested by easing newcomers' first steps can now benefit from the Growth team experiments on their wikis. Check the conditions and the request process.
- The Coolest Tool Award 2019 is looking for nominations. You can recommend tools by July 29. The awarded tools will be presented at Wikimania. [100]
Problems
- The release of the last version of MediaWiki (1.34.0-wmf.14) has been blocked for groups 1 and 2. [101]
Changes later this week
- Phabricator database will be moved to a different server. Writes will be blocked on Thursday 25 July, between 05:30 and 06:00 AM UTC. Reads will remain unaffected. [102]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 July. It will be on all wikis from 25 July (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 24 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Some items in the visual editor will change later this week. This will make it easier to edit links, citations, and templates on both desktop and mobile. [103][104]
- With advanced search turned on you will be able to choose the sorting order of the search results when you do a search. [105][106]
- Users who edit from IP addresses whitelisted on a request for temporary lift of the IP cap for mass account creation will bypass CAPTCHAs. This will happen in August. If you think this should not happen for some reason, please let us know.
The variable
user_wpzero
will be removed from AbuseFilter. A list of filters needing a fix is provided.
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13:07, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
Growth team updates #9
Welcome to the ninth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Opening Growth features to more wikis
The Growth team has existed for about one year. During that time, we have developed several features that we think can help increase retention. Though we are still gathering data to detect scientifically whether the features increase retention, we think that some of the features are ready to be deployed on more wikis that want to experiment with them. If your community is enthusiastic about welcoming newcomers, we encourage you to contact us so that we can verify together if your wiki is eligible.
Then, go through the checklist to start the process of getting these features:
- Help panel: allow newcomers to find help and ask questions while they edit.
- Welcome survey: learn what topics and types of edits newcomers are interested in.
- EditorJourney: learn what workflows newcomers go through on their first day.
General news
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Screenshot_of_feature_to_show_users_where_to_find_help_desk_responses_2019-07-17.png/220px-Screenshot_of_feature_to_show_users_where_to_find_help_desk_responses_2019-07-17.png)
- A new quarter of the year has started, and the team has set our goals for the next three months. The most important goals are:
- Newcomer homepage: increase activity through a task recommendations module. Now that we have seen several weeks of positive activity on the newcomer homepage, we think that the most important thing to add is a way for newcomers to find tasks to work on. The challenge will be recommending the right kind of tasks at the right point of their journey.
- Newcomer homepage: increase feature discovery rate by 100%. Right now, only 20% - 30% of newcomers ever visit their homepage. We want to double that number by making sure all newcomers know how to find it.
- Help panel: increase usefulness through improvements to affordance, search, and UX flow. We have looked closely at data and anecdotes from the usage of the help panel, and we plan to pursue specific improvements to increase its effectiveness (see accompanying image of a feature that helps newcomers find responses to their questions).
- Wikimania is coming up next month, which includes a "Community Growth" space. We hope to see people from all communities there to talk about how to bring newcomers into our movement.
- We have started to deploy features to our team's fourth target wiki: Arabic Wikipedia. That wiki is the biggest one we target, it has a high percentage of mobile users, and also is our first right-to-left language. This will help us make sure that our features are valuable for as many types of users as possible.
Mobile homepage and early analysis
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Screenshot_of_feature_to_increase_discovery_of_newcomer_homepage_2019-07-17.png/220px-Screenshot_of_feature_to_increase_discovery_of_newcomer_homepage_2019-07-17.png)
- The mobile version of the newcomer homepage was deployed to Czech, Korean, and Vietnamese Wikipedias. Now, newcomers can access their homepage from both desktop and mobile devices.
- We have published our first set of data about the performance of the newcomer homepage. In summary, we are happy with the homepage's performance so far. We see about half of visitors clicking on something, and the majority of them returning to the homepage multiple times.
- Because we see positive usage of the homepage, we will deploy several small features in the next two weeks that help more newcomers discover their homepage (see accompanying image of a feature that helps newcomers discover their homepage from their empty Contributions page).
- As listed in our goals above, we'll be starting to focus on adding task recommendations to the newcomer homepage. We'll be publishing early thoughts on this feature so that community members can give their thoughts and advice.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
14:26, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Gusto-logo.png
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:Gusto-logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 02:26, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- Wikidata will be in read-only mode on 30 July from 05:00 to 05:30 UTC because of a server switch. [107]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 July. It will be on all wikis from 1 August (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 31 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:42, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
This Month in Education: July 2019
The Signpost: 31 July 2019
- In the media: Politics starts getting rough
- Discussion report: New proposals in aftermath of Fram ban
- Arbitration report: A month of reintegration
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
- Community view: Video based summaries of Wikipedia articles. How and why?
- News from the WMF: Designing ethically with AI: How Wikimedia can harness machine learning in a responsible and human-centered way
- Recent research: Most influential medical journals; detecting pages to protect
- Special report: Administrator cadre continues to contract
- Traffic report: World cups, presidential candidates, and stranger things
Orphaned non-free image File:Cruise Automation logo.svg
![⚠](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ambox_warning_blue.svg/35px-Ambox_warning_blue.svg.png)
Thanks for uploading File:Cruise Automation logo.svg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:30, 31 July 2019 (UTC)