Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-10-31/On the bright side

There are many opportunities to discuss bad news, problems, and concerns in the Wikiverse, and I think that having candid discussions about these issues is often important. Many days I spend more time thinking about problems than about what is going well. However, also I think that acknowledging the good side and taking a moment to be appreciative can be valuable.

I encourage you to add your comments about what's making you happy this month to the talk page of this Signpost piece.

I thank WMF Engineering and Site Reliability Engineering (specifically Marostegui, Samwilson, and Joe) for timely engagement with a problem that some users encountered in September. See phab:T232698. Also see the Wikimedia Production Excellence newsletter for August 2019.

Also, I would like to thank User:Ата for making rapid translations into Ukranian on the few occasions that I have requested them, including the Ukranian translation for this email's subject line. Ата appears to be a frequent translator.

Hello,

this week’s email is coming from a new sender, since Pine always says we’re also allowed to start the thread :)

I am thankful that the software migration from HHVM to PHP7 in production is mostly completed. Many people participated in this work, but some especially prominent (Phabricator) names seem to be Jdforrester-WMF, Krinkle, jijiki, Joe, and Reedy – apologies to the people that I inevitably missed. This migration also unlocks many code style improvements that were previously blocked on HHVM compatibility requirements, and Daimona has been very active here, modernizing code and configuration across lots of source code repositories: thank you!

The Commons Picture of the Day for 15 October 2019 was taken in Germany. The English description is "Gracht castle in Erftstadt, Rhein-Erft-Kreis (Germany)"; there are no other descriptions or captions yet. The photo was taken by User:A.Savin.

Additional translations of the subject line of this email would be appreciated on Meta.

What’s making you happy this week? You are welcome to write in any language. You are also welcome to start a WMYHTW thread next week.

Lucas
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lucas_Werkmeister )

PS: Did you know? In Germany, the week starts on Monday, not Sunday! I kept the email subject aligned to Sunday, though, in case referring to the “week of 14 October” would confuse anybody :)

— https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2019-October/093723.html

Preface

User:Lucas Werkmeister started last week's WMYHTW email thread on Wikimedia-l and I was waiting for an Amharic translation, so I decided to delay this content from the week of 13 October to the week of 20 October. The Amharic translation was kindly provided by User:ክርስቶስሰምራ.

English Wikiquote of the Day for 30 September

Silence is an ocean. Speech is a river. When the ocean is searching for you, don't walk into the language-river. Listen to the ocean, and bring your talky business to an end. Traditional words are just babbling in that presence, and babbling is a substitute for sight.  
— Rumi

New affiliate recognitions from the Affiliations Committee

• North-West Russia Wiki-Historians User Group
• Wikimedians of Saint Petersburg User Group
• Wikimedians of Santali Language User Group
• Wikimedia Stewards User Group

English Wiktionary Words of the Day

• 
  An allée of pleached trees in Boboli Gardens, Florence, Italy
• 
  Pleached trees at Arley Hall, Cheshire, England
• 
  Martial arts activities at Noma Dōjō in Tokyo, Japan
• 
  Professor Inagaki Genshiro with a bow and arrow in a dōjō of the University of Tsukuba
• 
  A map that was made in the year 1635 of what some Europeans called "The Orient" by Dutch cartographer Willem Blaeu

"pleach":
(transitive) To unite by interweaving, as (horticulture) branches of shrubs, trees, etc., to create a hedge; to interlock, to plash.

"dojo":
1. (martial arts) A training facility, usually led by one or more sensei; a hall or room used for such training.
2. (by extension) A room or other facility used for other activities, such as meditation or software development.
3. The dojo loach, Japanese weather loach, or pond loach (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus), a freshwater fish native to East Asia.

"orient":
1. (transitive) To build or place (something) so as to face eastward.
2. (transitive, by extension) To align or place (a person or object) so that his, her, or its east side, north side, etc., is positioned toward the corresponding points of the compass; (specifically, surveying) to rotate (a map attached to a plane table) until the line of direction between any two of its points is parallel to the corresponding direction in nature.
3. (transitive) To direct towards or point at a particular direction.
4. (transitive, reflexive) To determine which direction one is facing.
5. (transitive, often reflexive, figuratively) To familiarize (oneself or someone) with a circumstance or situation.
6. (transitive, figuratively) To set the focus of (something) so as to appeal or relate to a certain group. 7. (intransitive) To change direction to face a certain way.

Images from Commons

• 
  Sunset in Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park (Scottish Gaelic: Pàirc Nàiseanta Loch Laomainn is nan Tròisichean), Scotland. Photo by User:Podzemnik.
• 
  Knapweed fritillary (Melitaea phoebe) butterfly, seen in Bulgaria. Bulgaria declared independence on 5 October 1908. Photo by User:Charlesjsharp.
• 
  The dome of the Spanish Synagogue (Hebrew: בית הכנסת הספרדי, Czech: Španělská synagoga, German: Spanische Synagoge) in Josefov, Prague, Czech Republic. Photo by User:Uoaei1.
• 
  Another view of the synagogue. Photo by User:Stefan Fadinger.

Product and Technology news

• Desktop Improvements Project Information at mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements.
• Documentation regarding using Docker for MediaWiki development started by David Barratt at mw:Docker/Hub.

Newsletter news

• 
  Space Shuttle Discovery lands after mission STS-124
• 
  The logo for WikiProject India on Wikidata
• 
  Slides from the "How to grow the technical community by 2030" presentation at Wikimania 2019 by User:Tgr

• The final issue of the Discovery Weekly Update newsletter was published. Thank you to User:CKoerner (WMF) for writing so many issues of the newsletter.
• The WikiProject India Newsletter on Wikidata published its first issue.
• The Technical Community Newsletter published its first issue.

Off wiki

• 
  Location of Ethiopia
• 
  Skyline view of Addis Abba, the capital city

The 2019 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Abiy Ahmed, the current Prime Minister of Ethiopia and a former cyberintelligence officer. He helped to resolve a lengthy armed conflict and has made reforms in Ethiopia's government. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/11/abiy-ahmed-ethiopian-prime-minister-wins-2019-nobel-peace-prize.

Halloween fun

• 
  A walking plant was seen at the Anime North 2019 convention. 31 October is Halloween, and the primary author of this publication generally likes plants.
• 
  Cast members of the television show Mission: Impossible for the production season that started in 1970. A Halloween-ish music video that features Lindsey Sterling and The Piano Guys playing the theme music from the show is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p0BqUcQ7i0. I like the video with the exception of the ending.

Donation of 2000 medical images

• 
  "This is aspirated vegetable material consisting of an ovoid structure representing the starchy content of edible seeds of certain pod-bearing plants..."
• 
  "Cutaneous mercury granuloma is a rare disorder caused by the introduction of elemental Hg into skin..."
• 
  "Foreign body giant cell reaction to nylon suture material"
• 
  "Cholesterol crystals in tissue usually provoke a foreign body giant cell reaction. This image shows cholesterol extravasated from a ruptured epidermal cyst."
• 
  "Basaloid squamous cell carcinoma CT scan..."; "Peripheral nodule in right lung"
• 
  "Brain - CT scan - Metastatic pulmonary adenocarcinoma"

User:Netha Hussain announced that Dr. Yale Rosen, a pathologist, agreed to donate his entire collection of approximately 2000 pathology images to Wikimedia Commons.

New affiliate recognition from the Affiliations Committee

• Community Wikimedia User Group Haïti

Project milestone for Italian Wiktionary

• Italian Wiktionary has passed 500,000 entries.
• See also this page on stats.wikimedia.org which shows a significant increase in Italian Wiktionary content pages during the year 2019.

English Wiktionary Word of the Day for October 14

"Woozle effect: The phenomenon whereby frequent citation of earlier publications leads to a mistaken public belief in something for which there is no evidence, giving rise to an urban myth." Regarding the etymology for this term, Wiktionary says in part: "A reference to the book Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) by English author A. A. Milne (1882–1956), in which the characters Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet follow their own tracks in the snow, believing them to be the tracks of the imaginary 'Woozle'."

Survival and adventure in Watership Down

Watership Down "is a survival and adventure novel by English author Richard Adams, published by Rex Collings Ltd of London in 1972. Set in southern England, around Hampshire, the story features a small group of rabbits. Although they live in their natural wild environment, with burrows, they are anthropomorphised, possessing their own culture, language, proverbs, poetry, and mythology. Evoking epic themes, the novel follows the rabbits as they escape the destruction of their warren and seek a place to establish a new home (the hill of Watership Down), encountering perils and temptations along the way."

I first learned of these Watership Down quotes from User:OohBunnies!:

"All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you; digger, listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed."

"Look. Look. That's the place for us. High, lonely hills, where the wind and the sound carry, and the ground's as dry as straw in a barn. That's where we ought to be. That's where we have to get to."

"The Sound of Her Voice"

• 
  Avery Brooks, the actor who portrayed Captain Sisko
• 
  Debra Wilson, who provided the voice for Captain Cusak
• 
  A burial at sea ceremony aboard the real USS Enterprise (CVN 65)
• 
  Friendship, by Uruguan painter Petrona Viera

Many relationships in the Wikiverse involve remote communication. Someone who influenced my early days in the Wikiverse was User:Sonia, who graciously took me under her wing. I remember her as being intelligent and kind. She left the Wikiverse years ago, and I miss her. As far as I know, Sonia is alive and well, somewhere in the world. I wish that I could have met her in person.

Mindful of Sonia and the many other people that I know through remote communications, I am sharing a video clip from the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Sound of Her Voice".

Some background information is necessary here. This contains plot spoilers. (For a more thorough summary of the episode and a commentary by Michelle Erica Green, see https://www.trektoday.com/reviews/ds9/the_sound_of_her_voice.shtml.) In this episode, Captain Benjamin Sisko and the crew of the USS Defiant (NX-74205) receive a distress call from Captain Lisa Cusak, who is the sole survivor of the destruction of her ship. The Defiant begins a six day journey to rescue Captain Cusak. The Defiant's crew members have voice conversations with Cusak during their journey, and the crew members form friendships with her. Unfortunately, when the Defiant arrives at Cusak's location, she is deceased. The video clip that I link below shows the end of the episode. Sisko and the crew of the Defiant have an Irish wake for their friend. Chief O'Brien shares reflections that I think are applicable to many friendships, especially friendships across long distances like many of us have in the Wikiverse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yryqc8RETgE

WMYHTW reflections

I am glad that generally people like these WMYHTW emails, and I appreciate the positive feedback about them. I think that these emails encourage a collegial environment in Wikimedia-l, and I hope that they are good for morale. However, they are time consuming to write. I have a backlog of Wikimedia emails that I have not read, I want complete a few of my long delayed Wikimedia video tutorials, and I have many off wiki demands on my time. As I wrote in September, I need to reduce the amount of time that I spend writing these pieces. Perhaps shorter contributions from me to WMYHTW will lead to other people feeling that there is more space for them to make their own WMYHTW contributions.

WMYHTW should not be about me, but I will say that of the projects that I could do for the community, this has become one of my favorites. Before I started writing WMHYTW emails, I spent a lot of my time being vigilant for problems and wondering what would go wrong next. The habit of writing these pieces has slowly changed how I think. I thank the community members who accept and encourage the WMYHTW initiative, and the Wikimedians on Facebook who gave me the idea for this practice.

Off wiki

• 
  Mozilla's Internet Health Report for 2019
• 
  Engineers cleaning a test mirror for the James Webb Space Telescope
• 
  A seal of a merchant. Seals are used in East Asia in much the same way that signatures are used in Europe.

• From the Mozilla Blog: "Examining AI’s Effect on Media and Truth"
• From the BBC: "What Japan can teach us about cleanliness"
• From the BBC: "The beautiful ways different cultures sign emails"

Skillful translations of the sentence "What's making you happy this week?" would be very much appreciated. If you see any inaccuracies in the translations in this article then please {{ping}} User:Pine in the discussion section of this page, or boldly make the correction to the text of the article. Thank you to everyone who has helped with translations so far.

What's making you happy this month? You are welcome to write a comment on the talk page of this Signpost piece.