Meta:Babel/Archives/2020-07

Feedback on movement names

Hello. Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language. Please help translate to your language if necessary. Thank you!

There are a lot of conversations happening about the future of our movement names. We hope that you are part of these discussions and that your community is represented.

Since 16 June, the Foundation Brand Team has been running a survey in 7 languages about 3 naming options. There are also community members sharing concerns about renaming in a Community Open Letter.

Our goal in this call for feedback is to hear from across the community, so we encourage you to participate in the survey, the open letter, or both. The survey will go through 7 July in all timezones. Input from the survey and discussions will be analyzed and published on Meta-Wiki.

Thanks for thinking about the future of the movement, --The Brand Project team, 20:33, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Note: The survey is conducted via a third-party service, which may subject it to additional terms. For more information on privacy and data-handling, see the survey privacy statement.

Software change

The mw:New requirements for user signatures will begin on Monday, 6 July 2020. This is a change to MediaWiki software that will prevent editors from accidentally setting certain types of custom signatures, such as a custom signature that creates Special:LintErrors (such as <span>...<span> instead of <span>...</span>) or a signature that does not link to the local account.

Few editors will be affected (only about 40 here at Meta-Wiki). If you want to know whether your signature (or any individual editor) is okay, you can check your signature at https://signatures.toolforge.org/check You are not required to fix an invalid custom signature immediately. Starting Monday, editors will not be able to create new invalid signatures to Special:Preferences. Later, we will contact affected editors. Eventually, invalid custom signatures will stop working. There will be an announcement in m:Tech/News then. You can subscribe to m:Tech/News. You can also put mw:New requirements for user signatures on your watchlist.

If you have questions, then please ping me or ask questions at mw:Talk:New requirements for user signatures. Please also share this information with your communities. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:43, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

There's a specific report for Meta-Wiki at https://signatures.toolforge.org/reports/meta.wikimedia.org Let's see: Aron Manning and Tony1, it looks like you both have missing HTML end tags in your sigs, but I can't figure out what the alleged problems are. @AntiCompositeNumber, can you help? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:32, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): In case of Tony, will replacing font tags work? I have seen the error mentioned as unclosed one, but still.. Adithyak1997 (talk) 17:37, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

For Tony I believe removing spaces from </font > should fix it. Majavah ^{talk/contribs/sul} 17:42, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Thank you for the notification! All good now. —Aron Man.🍂 edits🌾 18:05, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

• This is the syntax for my signature: [[User:Tony1|<b style="color:darkgreen">Tony</b>]] [[User talk:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen">(talk)</span>]] I see no use of "font", with or without spacing. Tony (talk) 08:10, 4 July 2020 (UTC) PS I'd love the system not to log me out days after I've logged in and clicked on keep logged in. Tony (talk) 08:10, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

• All users were logged out due to a security bug earlier in the week. RhinosF1 (talk) 08:57, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

{{REVISIONID}} on Spam blacklist

Should be Snippet for logging: {{sbl-diff|28028103}} instead of Snippet for logging: {{sbl-diff|-}} (copy from edit mode) 176.122.109.86 16:18, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

176... I'm not sure what you are asking here - are you trying to make an edit request for that page? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:21, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Not done Think that they are saying that REVISIONID is not working on that page, and similarly Title blacklist, and they are trying to give us a solution, though is not a solution. REVISIONID was turned off on some WMF wikis due to its expense, Tech/News/2019/15. Not sure why they are fussing about it, as they are not the user of that functionality, and admins have been managing perfectly fine.  — billinghurst sDrewth 21:29, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Though I do note that it REVID is still retrievable through js and api, it is just the magic word that has been neutered in main ns.  — billinghurst sDrewth 21:41, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Second note, it is the use of the magic word IN that namespace, not the use of the magic word for pages FROM that namespace. Hence why it works when displayed above, though fails on the page itself.  — billinghurst sDrewth 21:48, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: DannyS712 (talk) 18:10, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Editing news 2020 #3

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

More than 50 million edits have been made using the visual editor on desktop.

Seven years ago this month, the Editing team offered the visual editor to most Wikipedia editors. Since then, editors have achieved many milestones:

• More than 50 million edits have been made using the visual editor on desktop.
• More than 2 million new articles have been created in the visual editor. More than 600,000 of these new articles were created during 2019.
• The visual editor is increasingly popular. The proportion of all edits made using the visual editor has increased every year since its introduction.
• In 2019, 35% of the edits by newcomers (logged-in editors with ≤99 edits) used the visual editor. This percentage has increased every year.
• Almost 5 million edits on the mobile site have been made with the visual editor. Most of these edits have been made since the Editing team started improving the mobile visual editor in 2018.
• On 17 November 2019, the first edit from outer space was made in the mobile visual editor. 🚀 👩‍🚀
• Editors have made more than 7 million edits in the 2017 wikitext editor, including starting 600,000 new articles in it. The 2017 wikitext editor is VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode. You can enable it in your preferences.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

12:55, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: DannyS712 (talk) 18:10, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Announcing a new wiki project! Welcome, Abstract Wikipedia

Hi all,

It is my honor to introduce Abstract Wikipedia, a new project that has been unanimously approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Abstract Wikipedia proposes a new way to generate baseline encyclopedic content in a multilingual fashion, allowing more contributors and more readers to share more knowledge in more languages. It is an approach that aims to make cross-lingual cooperation easier on our projects, increase the sustainability of our movement through expanding access to participation, improve the user experience for readers of all languages, and innovate in free knowledge by connecting some of the strengths of our movement to create something new.

This is our first new project in over seven years. Abstract Wikipedia was submitted as a project proposal by Denny Vrandečić in May 2020 after years of preparation and research, leading to a detailed plan and lively discussions in the Wikimedia communities. We know that the energy and the creativity of the community often runs up against language barriers, and information that is available in one language may not make it to other language Wikipedias. Abstract Wikipedia intends to look and feel like a Wikipedia, but build on the powerful, language-independent conceptual models of Wikidata, with the goal of letting volunteers create and maintain Wikipedia articles across our polyglot Wikimedia world.

The project will allow volunteers to assemble the fundamentals of an article using words and entities from Wikidata. Because Wikidata uses conceptual models that are meant to be universal across languages, it should be possible to use and extend these building blocks of knowledge to create models for articles that also have universal value. Using code, volunteers will be able to translate these abstract “articles” into their own languages. If successful, this could eventually allow everyone to read about any topic in Wikidata in their own language.

As you can imagine, this work will require a lot of software development, and a lot of cooperation among Wikimedians. In order to make this effort possible, Denny will join the Foundation as a staff member in July and lead this initiative. You may know Denny as the creator of Wikidata, a long-time community member, a former staff member at Wikimedia Deutschland, and a former Trustee at the Wikimedia Foundation . We are very excited that Denny will bring his skills and expertise to work on this project alongside the Foundation’s product, technology, and community liaison teams.

It is important to acknowledge that this is an experimental project, and that every Wikipedia community has different needs. This project may offer some communities great advantages. Other communities may engage less. Every language Wikipedia community will be free to choose and moderate whether or how they would use content from this project.

We are excited that this new wiki-project has the possibility to advance knowledge equity through increased access to knowledge. It also invites us to consider and engage with critical questions about how and by whom knowledge is constructed. We look forward to working in cooperation with the communities to think through these important questions.

There is much to do as we begin designing a plan for Abstract Wikipedia in close collaboration with our communities. I encourage you to get involved by going to the project page and joining the new mailing list . We recognize that Abstract Wikipedia is ambitious, but we also recognize its potential. We invite you all to join us on a new, unexplored path.

Yours,

Katherine Maher (Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation)

Sent by m:User:Elitre (WMF) 19:56, 9 July 2020 (UTC) - m:Special:MyLanguage/Abstract Wikipedia/July 2020 announcement

This section was archived on a request by: DannyS712 (talk) 18:10, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Updating Requests for new languages

It would be nice to have a bot to update that page - which is necessary every time the "status" in the {{new wiki request}} template used on the subpages is changed. Manually editing that page is quite tedious. Does someone have an idea or can recommend a better place to ask for help for this? --MF-W 14:10, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@MF-Warburg: Wouldn't it be better to have a snippet on a page that is able to be included into the parent page? I am thinking something like each request has a protected subpage with the status that is imported into that page. So Requests for new languages/Wikiversity Turkish 2 has a Requests for new languages/Wikiversity Turkish 2/status that can also be imported into both the page and the corresponding template for Requests for new languages. One status change changes both. We can leave the pages open, or hard protect, or filter protect these as required.  — billinghurst sDrewth 01:28, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: DannyS712 (talk) 18:11, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Meta:Snowball, revisit again

Background:

1. Meta:Snowball - "Don't close discussions early; we don't do Snowball closures on Meta-Wiki"
2. Talk:Steward_requests/Global_permissions/2018 - overriding the above, but this does not allow non-stewards to close the request
3. Meta:Babel/Archives/2020-05#Propose_to_amend_Meta:Snowball - @Ajraddatz:'s opinion: "Votes have been and can continue to be closed when they are clearly in the wrong place, the person has absolutely no chance of passing, etc."
4. Steward_requests/Global_permissions#Global_rename_for_ThesenatorO5-2 and User_talk:MrJaroslavik#SRGP_snow_closures - @-revi:'s opinion: "SRGP does not allow "non-steward closure" even for snow closure." Note in this case the closer is involved

We should clearly states:

1. Who can close Meta discussion such as RfA (in Meta:Snowball) - My opinion in May 2020 discussion still stands
2. Who can close Steward requests/Global permissions - I suggests this should be unchanged; alternatively "may be closed by any uninvolved user in good standing if the requester is indefinitely blocked in Meta or globally locked" can be added

--GZWDer (talk) 00:39, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

There are multiple adjunct functions in play here. Meta hosts stewards, we don't set their policy. Meta hosts global banners we don't set their policy, and so on. Certain parts of Metawiki are staff or committee generated, they manage their components.

Stewards decide who closes and the processes for how closures occur at Steward requests/Global permissions, that is theirs to manage, it is not for our decision here. Metawiki community generally manages the broad aspects of all pages, we don't prescribed all the approaches for all the sections. The philosophy for Meta administrators is no snowball, so we don't. If you want to have discussions about who can close what, then that is a different conversation, and I think unrelated to snowball  — billinghurst sDrewth 01:36, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I think the spirit of Meta:Snowball has always been to avoid closing succeeding discussions early (reading its last paragraph) as consensus can change based on an idea that you might not have thought about. But I agree that for requests that are obviously going to fail, a bureaucrat (for Meta-Wiki RfXs: this is not currently the case) or a steward (for other steward requests; this is currently the case) should be allowed to speedily close earlier, provided —I insist— that the request is obviously not going to pass after a reasonable ammount of time has elapsed. If you allow me the joke-comparison: there's no point standing still when you see a grand piano falling upon you. In case there's any doubt, the discussion should be kept open.

The current status is as follows:

• For steward requests I think the paragraph at SRGP is clear enough that snow closures are allowed, on which circumstances can they happen and who can do them: "[f]or requests that are unlikely to pass under any circumstances, they may be closed by a steward without further discussion (after a reasonable amount of input)" (emphasis mine). This wording was added as per community consensus and specifically for steward requests so it's lex specialis and takes precedence.
• For requests for permissions at Meta:Requests for adminship I think this is a task for bureaucrats to decide as "judges of consensus", but currently it looks we don't do SNOW closures on RfXs one way or another.

Thanks, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 15:46, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: DannyS712 (talk) 18:11, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Edit request

copied from Module_talk:WikidataIB

{{edit request}}

Hello, In order to get the wikipedian in residence table to work optimally, a few edits are needed to Module:WikidataIB (per this discussion). Could an admin please make the following update:

• Module:WikidataIB/sandbox → Module:WikidataIB

Thank you! T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 01:17, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

@Evolution and evolvability: is this an update that we can (re-)import rather than otherwise edit. I much prefer to have it matched to an original if at all possible.If yes, then which wiki is the base?  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:48, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Deactivated this ER, as it is a duplicate of the one already open and is polluting Category:Meta protected edit requests. Also, this seems to be the wrong venue for this request, and now the discussion is getting forked. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:41, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: I'll have to ping RexxS to answer whether it's possible to import from another wiki (is there one that's the effective 'master copy'?). @Xaosflux: Apologies if this is the wrong venue. Please let me know the preferred venue - It can be tricky to find out for the inexperienced! T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 00:42, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

@Evolution and evolvability: don't move this now - but normally if you need admin help here use WM:RFH. It is certainly possible to import from other projects - where did this module originate? — xaosflux ^Talk 01:26, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

(Edit conflict.) @Billinghurst, Evolution and evolvability, and Xaosflux: because I develop code in an external IDE, the "master" copy is stored locally on my home network, although at least one of the versions on enwiki, commons, or here will match that, depending on who was the last person to ask for a new feature or bug fix. That allows me to meet requests rapidly, but I concede that it makes it a little more difficult to use the import facility. As I needed to test this latest patch on meta, it meant the sandbox actually held the latest on-wiki version. Nevertheless, I've just updated the enwiki module en:Module:WikidataIB to the latest version, so you can import it from there if you prefer that to copying across the sandbox from here. I'm happy to accommodate whichever way you prefer to work. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 01:33, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

@Evolution and evolvability and RexxS: It is my general feel that having a means of demonstrating that we have a standard and stable version is best. We can import directly from enWP and Commons, and the history will only bring in what is new and specific, so it keeps things simple. If we need wikidata as an import source, that can be added. Otherwise do we have some general version control to identify that we are importing something stable/standard/approved.  — billinghurst sDrewth 06:58, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: That's an increasingly important point. According to Wikidata's entry for the module (Module:WikidataIB (Q25714577)), it's now in use on over 100 projects, and on Commons it's in use on 2 million pages, so we are going to need some means of helping folks update when needed. The nature of modules, of course, is that there are multiple independent functions that don't interfere with each other. The main function (getValue) has been quite stable for some time, but newer functions such as qualsToTable that I recently wrote for Thomas to use here may undergo updates/upgrades/bug fixes for a while. The simplest mechanism for version control is to datestamp the code in the first line, which I'll start doing anyway. If folks would like a more sophisticated system, then we should discuss that and try to find something we could easily implement. What do you think? --RexxS (talk) 10:33, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

@RexxS: Orrrrrrrrrrr when does it becomes its own extension? It should be ubiquitous for what it does.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:00, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Done — xaosflux ^Talk 02:06, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: DannyS712 (talk) 18:11, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

Hi greetings, I have started a discussion regarding a new proposal on translations at Meta talk:Babylon#Academy for translations. I humbly request you to participate in it. Thank you.--Path slopu (talk) 10:49, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: DannyS712 (talk) 18:11, 4 August 2020 (UTC)