Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2012-03

Network connectivity from 82.113.119.254

Hi, sorry for asking right here but I am having loads of problems connecting to various wikimedia/wikipedia projects and thus can not even find where to look for help:( In wireskark I see a HTTP get from my side, followed by

5820	1624.264335	10.45.177.254	91.198.174.225	HTTP	GET /w/index.php?title=Kolleg_St._Blasien&curid=9388891&diff=475478323&oldid=454779940 HTTP/1.1 
5821	1624.685130	91.198.174.225	10.45.177.254	TCP	http > 42053 [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=756 Win=7360 Len=0 TSV=1919350797 TSER=408872611
5822	1624.685132	91.198.174.225	10.45.177.254	TCP	http > 42053 [RST, ACK] Seq=1 Ack=756 Win=7360 Len=0 TSV=1919350797 TSER=408872611

This is the end of the connection most of the time. My IP is behind a NAT of my mobile provider afaics and worked perfectly till today. Thanks for any help. Richiez 11:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed response, and I wish that I had some useful information. :) If you're still having a problem, you might want to ask at en:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). There may be other points of use, but I find that forum helpful for technical issues. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:22, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the hint. I found quick help on IRC #wikimedia-tech. Richiez (talk) 13:36, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

User Jagwar

Jagwar has added tons of information, particularly to the wiktionary of his mothertongue, often by bot and as I do not speak Malagasy I cannot judge its quality, but he also does this to other wiktionaries like the Tagalog one. And no, it is not always good information, see e.g. this addition. This may well be a Finnish word, but a Dutch one it certainly is not. And no this is not the only example. There are more language misidentifications.

Is it appropriate that he pollutes the smaller wiktionaries that do not have much of a user community with this kind of stuff? Am I supposed to police the entire wiktiosphere to see what strange words are added to my mothertongue? The problem with this is that potential users who do speak Tagalog will be scared off forever because no one likes to come and first have put in a lot of effort to clean things up that someone else has dumped there. This is imho not fair to the speakers of e.g. Tagalog.

Jcwf (talk) 00:38, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Another example, this time from Fidjian. I really don't know the word "homem" in my mothertongue Dutch, that is apparently called A Vosa Vaka-Dautia in Fidjian. Apparently the translation for homem is daulohomemi. Interesting for a word that does not exist.. ~~

I see that he's blocked on en.wikt for bot abuse. Does he know the languages he's adding words from? Did he seek community approval for the bot as per bot policy? He's the only active sysop in his own Wiktionary but still has to follow some global policies. Have tl and fj sysops/community been warned? Nemo 11:54, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I doubt very very much that he knows ànd Dutch ànd Finnish ànd Fidjian while being Malagasy. The problem is that there are no tl or fj communities to warn. And if Jagwar is allowed to continue there probably never will be Jcwf (talk) 14:35, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

His bot on en.wikt was not just unapproved, it also did lots of horrible mistakes, like entering the example sentence as the lemma instead of the headword. He's generally not to be trusted. -- Liliana • 16:38, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

addendum: here's an excerpt from his deleted contribs, in case you're interested:

(show/hide) 07:10, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m ''a beached whale'' (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 07:10, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m Being in a basket. (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 07:09, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m 'Aven't you got a drink (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 07:08, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m Who has been baptised. (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 07:05, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m He tripped and fell on the '''banked''' corners of the road. (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 07:05, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m lit or illuminated from behind (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 07:04, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m ''fabric-'''backed''' tape'' (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 07:02, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m His first '''avowed''' intent (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 07:01, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m That has been modified by autoxidation (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 07:01, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m phosphorylated as a result of autophosphorylation (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 07:00, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m Subject to (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 07:00, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m correlated via autocorrelation (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:58, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m drawn towards (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:56, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m restricted or confined; especially (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:52, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m Pointed-to by an arrow (in a diagram) (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:52, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m claimed falsely (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:50, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m having been placed into an archive (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:34, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m and at som tyme they were so '''amated''' that aythir toke others swerde in the stede of his owne. (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:33, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m ''Their pleasure was '''alloyed''' with misfortune.'' (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:31, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m That has been modified by alkylation (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:26, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m ''Our servers are kept in an '''air-conditioned''' room.'' (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:24, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m angry or unhappy because of an unjust treatment. (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:18, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m infused with air; aerated (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:17, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m Having been adrenalectomized (subjected to adrenalectomy). (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:16, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m Furnished with an addendum (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:15, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m Developed postfetally; not congenital. (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:14, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m Modified by the addition of an acid (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:14, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m That has been reacted with acetic acid (or one of its derivatives) (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:08, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m '''''absinthiated''' wine'' (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 06:06, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m '' The sore was '''abscessed''' and filled with pus. '' (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 05:03, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m anglisy : weevil (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 03:27, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m islandey : einslaga (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 03:13, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m anglisy : to and fro (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 03:13, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m Mianiana tsy tes: manao fianianana tsy marina. (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 02:22, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m anglisy : taro (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 00:22, 25 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m (angl. solfa) a.: Famakia-mozika amin'ny soratra. (Importing Malagasy word)
(show/hide) 21:56, 24 November 2011 (diff | deletion log | view) . . m hindi : गुलाब (Importing Malagasy word)

-- Liliana • 16:40, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm very concerned about his bot (ab)use as well. I have already fixed all Limburgish entries, but the amount of Dutch entries that are wrong is so high that it's demotivating even to see the cat. I've spoken to him multiple times about his bot use, but he never really listens. --OosWesThoesBes (talk) 13:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

FYI: I have fixed wikt:tl:aloittelija by deleting double interwiki links and the Dutch translation. It looks as if it could very well be a Finnish word, so I didn't remove the Finnish translation. The interwiki links are still wrong (pointing at a non-existing Malagasy page while lacking the Finnish and Fijian pages). I also removed Dutch and Swedish from wikt:fj:homem. However, I guess the right thing to do is to write a bot which reverts all of this user's edits since there seem to be too many of them. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:16, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I have been lately warned about this discussion and I would like to express my opinion as first concerned by this discussion.

Unlike what Stefan2 said, I don't think deleting all my contribs are not the right thing to do, although I have made "horrible" mistakes in some wikis like the English language Wiktionary. Making errors can occur, even for expert programmers. Mass-deleting content just because a few hundred pages on more than 25,000 pages (on foreign language-wikis from my POV) is imho quite disproportionate, as I upgrade my script when I found wrong cases. --Jagwar ^{交談 homewiki} 14:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Mass deletion may not be a good idea because it can be designed by means similar to the ones that generated the problem: see this discussion about tl.wikt. This case was averted and I just hope there were no more similar cases because they might have ended up with deletion of right content edited by others. I had long discussions with Jagwar in his discussion pages in fj.wikt and mg.wikt and I suggested him to add warning templates to all the new pages he created with his bot. He only did it in fj.wiktionary but never in tl.wikt or mg.wikt despite I (actually, we, he too) have spotted many mistakes in both sites. I am also concerned about user Ikotobaity who has added as well tons of bot-generated new lemmata in places like kn.wikt or te.wikt roughly using the same kind of bot scripts and methods as Jagwar. Jagwar, upgrading your scripts is not always a solution good enough because you keep adding bulk information when fine discretion and discern is needed. You mention disproportion but you do not seem to acknowledge the disproportion of some of your mistakes: when you create hundreds of thousands of editions of the usual dictionary content (i.e. not declined or conjugated regular forms), even a low rate of error (say 1%) generates thousands of pages with mistakes and ambiguities, most of them virtually unattestable by most users at least for many years. --87.217.184.146 04:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, if the bot made the problem, use the bot to solve the problem. I'll admit I have not been active lately on the Tagalog Wiktionary due to other commitments, but doing this cleanup work is no walk in the park. I appreciate the contributions, but if these are contributions which in this case are rife with spelling errors, grammatical errors and, most especially, the wrong use of existing denomyms for places in the Tagalog language, then I better hope he helps me clean up the mess. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 10:02, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not that concerned about spelling/grammatical errors, but I am concerned about wrong translations. Spelling or grammar errors can be easily spotted by native speakers of a language by simply browsing the language category. Translation errors cannot: you need users who are fluent in both the language of the wiki and the language of the translation, and be honest, how many users speak Dutch and Malagasy? I don't know any.. --OosWesThoesBes (talk) 12:02, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

About the "Proposals for new projects" process

Hello everyone. I have a quick question about the process of proposing new projects: after the project is listed in this page, what has to be done? Is a fixed number of supporters required for a project to be accepted? For example, the "Rodovid" project is listed since 2006 and has 94 votes. Will it ever be implemented? Is more support needed?

I would like to know the next steps (if they exist). Thanks in advance! --Racso ^¿¿¿??? 03:44, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Hola Racso. El proceso es lento y tortuoso - no es raro que todavía haya solicitudes abiertas de hace años. Las wikis no se crean por el número de comentarios a favor o en contra que reciba la propuesta mas sólo será creado si cumple con todos los requisitos de WM:LPP. El LangCom es el encargado de gestionar esta tarea. Un saludo. —Marco Aurelio (Nihil Prius Fide) 14:05, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

¡Gracias por la respuesta! Sigo teniendo algunas dudas:

1. Me parece que los requisitos que mencionas y el LangCom tienen más que ver con la incorporación de nuevos idiomas que de nuevos proyectos, ¿no?
2. Si no tienen que ver los comentarios a favor, ¿de qué sirven? ¿Y a qué podría deberse que no se cierren como "reprobados" los proyectos que ya llevan un tiempo? Es decir, no le veo mucha utilidad a tener proyectos listados ahí como "en espera" si sencillamente no van a ser aceptados nunca por su misma naturaleza.

¡Saludos! --Racso ^¿¿¿??? 19:24, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Hola de nuevo. Sí, me he equivocado. No sé por qué me confundí con Requests for new languages. Disculpas. Entonces tu lo que quieres crear es un proyecto nuevo, ¿no? - En este caso la página Proposals for new projects apunta a seguir las instrucciones de New project policy, la cual está marcada como obsoleta. Creo que las únicas reglas a seguir pues son las que indica la propia página del proyecto; aunque si quieres puedes preguntarle a Robin que de estos temas él es el entendido.

Respecto a los comentarios a favor y en contra se tienen en cuenta como prueba del interés o desinterés por crear el proyecto. Si, por ejemplo, el proyecto que propones (no una solicitud de lengua nueva) tiene muchos apoyos y está en línea con las metas de la Fundación y el Patronato da su visto bueno puede que te lo creen. Aunque te digo, mi contacto con ese area del proyecto ha sido más bien tangencial.

Un saludo. —Marco Aurelio (Nihil Prius Fide) 19:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: Enable WikiLove on Meta

(moved to Babel)

I went to give some stewards some wikilove, and noticed it isn't enabled. How would the community feel about having it enabled?

Am I even asking this in the correct place? --Ryan Lane (WMF) (talk) 22:09, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Just stewards? and unfortunately I think not, per this pages's header, Meta:Babel would be best suited for this. The Helpful One 22:17, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Heh. Well, I just had the want to give wikilove to stewards right now, since they helped me out. I'll move this thead to Meta:Babel.--Ryan Lane (WMF) (talk) 22:24, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Highlights, February 2012

Highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia engineering report for February 2012, with a selection of other important events from the Wikimedia movement

• Wikimedia Foundation Highlights:
  • Legal and Community Advocacy department launched
  • Teahouse project kicks off
  • MediaWiki 1.19 deployed
• Data and Trends
• Financials
• Other movement highlights:
  • Chapters and Foundation discuss finances
  • Wikimedians concerned about ACTA
  • German "community project budget" results announced

About · Subscribe/unsubscribe · Distributed via Global message delivery, 07:30, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Something seriously wrong with this page

when you go to Help:System_message the page is an 'brought to you by ass puss production' overlay. I have no idea how this peace of vandalism got there.--1Veertje (talk) 13:14, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

the same is true for Help:Link where I got to when I followed: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Link#Subpage_feature

Thanks for the heads-up, should be fixed now (it was a simple case of template vandalism). Regards, HaeB (talk) 13:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I have a concern

There is only one moderator in the Korean Wiktionary. He is A-heun. He is often rude to some contributors as there's only a handful of contributors in the Korean Wiktionary. I occasionally make some contributions for it, mainly from contents from the English and Russian Wikitionaries. Most of the times, he unreasonably deletes or reverts contributions back (for example, I expanded 아르바이트 in the English Wikitionary, and this moderator called A-heun reverted some quality contributions back in the equivalent article in the Korean Wiktionary). First of all, there's only ONE moderator who is moderating the Korean Wiktionary and he often scares away new contributors. This does not look good for the Korean Wiki Projects. --KoreanQuoter (talk) 15:18, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Detecting and fixing broken stats

Occasionally on-wiki stats will get off-track (especially the article count after articles are imported). It seems that this is usually not fixed until someone submits (and someone else fulfills) a bug report (example for vep:) requesting that an appropriate maintenance script be run on the command line (e.g., updateArticleCount.php). My question is this: is there a policy (or at least a convention) about when such scripts are run? It seems silly to have to wait for a bug report to be acted upon to fix this problem that apparently happens every time articles are imported into a wiki. (For years now, apparently, there has been a request to make Special:Import automatically update relevant site statistics, but this has not yet been implemented.) Seeing as how complete site stats (for all WMF wikis) are generated "from scratch" every month based on XML dumps, it should be relatively easy (the different definitions of "articles" across different projects notwithstanding) to compare on-wiki article counts (and whatever other stats are similarly "unreliable") to the dump-derived "official" counts every time the dumps are done. Then if there's any significant discrepancies (say, more than 1% or 2%?), the appropriate script could be run automatically (or, at the very least, a request could automatically be generated to do so). Before I request something like this in a bug report, does anyone have any relevant information I should know or opinions about the matter? - dcljr (talk) 04:18, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

The onwiki stats are almost always an approximation, like all magic words I am aware off. Look at translatewiki:MediaWiki:Historywarning for an example. It does not say that the page has X versions, it says that the page has "approximately" X versions. Since the magic words for page-counting are a little strange on (almost) all s:-projects, I am updating the page-count by help of the API daily. (It at least works on a minor project.) This does not answer your q above, but put it in a little perspective. i.e. Never trust onwiki-stats and magic words. -- Lavallen (talk) 11:44, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Disarmament crisis

I don't know why, but I think this is useful reading right now. :-) Nemo 22:03, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

what about some protections for access to Wiki, Meta and all «vitales» sections ?

hello ; I'm following as I can the problems about <vitales> pages Wiki, Meta and of all other <sections> victims of «vandales» (French word) ; don't you want to do something for protecting these sections, too important in my mind for letting <vandales> make vandalism in these pages ; excuse me for my English, it is tired today ; I hope you will understand me ; with my best salutations, --Buster Keaton (talk) 12:47, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll hazard that you're referring to biographical articles, yes? If so, then you should know that there are many anti-vandalism tools like Huggle and the abuse filter that try to reduce the amount of vandalism that makes it into articles. That being said, some stuff still gets through and though we try to do our utmost to make sure vandalism is reverted quickly, we cannot guarantee it. You might be interested in the Wikimedia Foundation Board's resolution on the issue of biographies of living people. Killiondude (talk) 07:40, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia experimented with using the flagged revisions extension. This enables a "reviewed" version to be displayed to the reader, hiding all changes until a Reviewer checks them. QU ^TalkQu 08:25, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

no, not at all, but thanks for your answer/question ; my message was only a new intervention about this message on Editing Wikipedia Forum : I would like to propose that we up the protection for the main page from edit=autoconfirmed to edit=sysop. For a lead entry page, it really should be better protected, and while the COIBot should not be editing here, and we will look to the fix, it may just be safer to tighten the control anyway. billinghurst sDrewth 15:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC), and these messages agreeing this one : Totally agree. -Barras 15:34, 8 February 2012 (UTC) — Totally agree. -Barras 15:34, 8 February 2012 (UTC) — Good decision PS, thx. billinghurst sDrewth 13:23, 22 February 2012 (UTC) ;

I only remembered this question of protection on Wikimedia Forum, but I maybe understood wrongly the 1rst message of User Billinghurst (as I wrote yesterday, my English is sometimes very tired ; I'm now working on several projects of my own work, in French, that will occupy me till next year) ; anyway, I know there are many tools to reduce the vandalism everywhere on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki, and others Wikis ; they work very well ; thanks and best salutations, --Buster Keaton (talk) 13:15, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Syntax highlighting of Common Lisp on Wikipedia

Not sure where to put this suggestion, but here we go. IMHO, the theme for Common Lisp syntax highlighting is terrible. Look here, for example. The yellow used for keywords is too light, and the green used for parentheses is so light, it's almost invisible. Both should be made darker. Melikamp (talk) 06:07, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Syntax highlighting is done with an external library via the SyntaxHighlight GeSHi MediaWiki extension. I believe it's possible to override the styling on a per-site basis by editing MediaWiki:Geshi.css. You can also file a bug in Bugzilla (Wikimedia and MediaWiki's bug tracker) requesting that the default colors be adjusted, if you'd like. It may be an upstream bug, but it should still be filed in Bugzilla as a starting point. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:58, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposed update for www.wikimedia.org content

In the middle of last year I proposed update text for www.wikimedia.org portal. I think that fits the following structure for describe the Wikimedia community/movement/ownership succinctly:

First Variant	Second Variant	Third Variant
Welcome to Wikimedia <... Vision text... > <... Mission text... > Wikimedia projects: <project logos> <... Wikimedia movement explanation... >	<... Vision text... > Welcome to Wikimedia <... Wikimedia movement explanation... > <... Mission text... > (quoting) Wikimedia projects: <project logos>	<... Vision text... > Welcome to Wikimedia <... Wikimedia movement explanation... > <WMF logo> <... Mission text... > (quoting) Wikimedia projects: <logo1> <logo2> <logo3> <logo4> <logo5> <logo6> <logo7> <logo8> <logo9> <logo10> <logo11> <logo12>
Each paragraph corresponds to own range of issues: Vision text - answer to the question "why?" Mission text - "how to realized our vision?" List of projects - "where, by what means?" Wikimedia definition is explanation of Wikimedia at broader context. Together for the visitor it should make it clear about the place where he was, and his sense of what all these beautiful logos.
See Www.wikimedia.org template/temp2-en as illustration of this point (please click "preview portal" tab to see how it looks). This version used the full texts from "Vision" and "Mission" statements, and summary of Wikimedia movement page. Translations: Russian, ...	See also little refactored version (please click "preview portal" tab to see how it looks). At this version changed: (1) "Vision" is highlighted and raised above the welcome title; (2) Explanation of "Wikimedia movement" made the first paragraph; (3) "Mission" quoted briefly; (4) "title" captions for project logos and their links are taken from Template:Main Page/Sisterprojects/en Translations: Russian, ...	See also more refactored version (please click "preview portal" tab to see how it looks). based on idea of Ruslik

If it is possible here, it would be good to try autodetect of userlanguage and make multi-language translations of these texts (and launch a campaign to translate into all possible languages). But for the first step, I propose to simply replace the English text. Until now, many people do not understand the difference between Wikipedia and Wikimedia, and between Wikimedia and the Wikimedia Foundation (and why things work in general). This update may help someone in this sense.

Suggestions? Objections? Approval? As I heard, require a broad consensus for this change. Let's try to achieve it! --Kaganer (talk) 15:11, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi, the preview portal tab doesn't work for me (I'm using the ancient monobook). The Helpful One 15:33, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Maybe JavaScript is disabled and/or popups is blocked? Should be open popup window with html-rendered content. I swith to monobook and all is worked... --Kaganer (talk) 16:29, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Nope, I use Javascript all the time (User:Thehelpfulone/common.js), it does open a popup window but the window is just blank. I'm using Google Chrome. The Helpful One 16:31, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I also using Chrome. I have also seen this effect in several cases - Ctrl+F5 for Www.wikimedia.org template/temp2 page is helped for me. --Kaganer (talk) 16:50, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it only seems to work the first time in Chrome for me. I haven't had a chance to poke at it. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:34, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

• I don't think adding a lot of text is a good idea. Can you explain what you see as the deficiencies with the current design? --MZMcBride (talk) 21:49, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

  No deficiencies in the design, there are deficiencies in the content.

  I am once again faced with the problem of perception of the portal during the CentralNotice/May_2011_Update translation campain. See Talk:CentralNotice/May_2011_Update#ru translation and Talk:Translation_teams/ru/English-Russian_Wikimedia_Glossary#CentralNotice.2FMay_2011_Update.23ru.

  This portal - the first site in the search results for the query "wikimedia". At that time there was written only "Wikimedia is owned and operated by the Wikimedia Foundation". Now the text has become a little better. But anyway - this is the first site facing the person who wants to understand "what this strange "Wikimedia" is?". And a brief information (but that will explain the fundamental issues) must be placed directly on the page. To the people passing on further links, in principle, already knew where to hit and what's the deal (and why all this is intended).

  To do this, I suggest using the key laconic texts - Vision and Mission of Wikimedia, and immediately make it clear that the movement is not limited to the Wikimedia Foundation.

  No less important I think to make this portal is multilingual.

  Perhaps there are other ideas for the development of this portal, but I think the current state of abnormal relative to the importance of the role Wikimedia projects, which they occupy.--Kaganer (talk) 22:49, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Hmmmm, I don't disagree (though I'd like to see translations in place before adding a bunch of text).

See Russian translation example. --Kaganer (talk) 01:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

What I think the problem is is that this was a specific design previously. When you throw a bunch of text on top of it, it doesn't work. You need a new design. :-) Maybe make the logos smaller and in a different arrangement? And figure out a way to make that text less overwhelming. It should be as simple and neat as possible. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:34, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

My version is illustration only, no target prototype. I am willing to work with the design, but once we decide what to tell in this page. First - the "what", then - the "how". --Kaganer (talk) 00:51, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh, okay. As page elements, the vision and mission statements are fine. But people should feel free to use artistic license to present them in ways that simply aren't blobs of static text. And I'm not sure about an explanation on the main page... maybe a "learn more" link to somewhere else, if people really want to learn more about the Wikimedia movement? --MZMcBride (talk) 01:10, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, but "Learn more..." - where? This is a problem... I don't know an ideal place for this link.--Kaganer (talk) 01:20, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

See also little refactored version. --Kaganer (talk) 11:56, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

• Seems logical. A front page should provide information, not just links. Lvova (talk) 10:43, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
• The long text shifts logos down. I suggest splitting the page into columns: at the left – smaller logos; at the right in a narrower column – the text under the Wikimedia logo. Ruslik (talk) 18:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

  Long texts wrote Leo Tolstoy and James Joyce. This is a short text ;) This version is similar to your idea? (text column is specifically placed on the left instead of right; this my point: text - first, pictures - later). --Kaganer (talk) 22:03, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

  Yes, I meant something like this. Ruslik (talk) 11:33, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

What do you think about more concise text? I made a mock-up here: Www.wikimedia.org template/temp. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:34, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I think this is a good solution. Maybe add "Vision" text as a footer? As a some postscriptum... --Kaganer (talk) 08:56, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I added a footer. What do you think? --MZMcBride (talk) 14:12, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes. I just added a dividing line and changed the color. --Kaganer (talk) 16:51, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I like the line; not a huge fan of the color. I think it's a bit distracting. I refactored some of the code. Maybe a bit more padding is needed above the line?

Personally, I think this is a good enough improvement to put live. I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:27, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, so be it. I agree - the interval between the logo and line must be not less than interval between the line and footer text. It is better to be equal. --Kaganer (talk) 18:42, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I also think it necessary to add more descriptive "title" texts for all logotypes from my version (based on {{Sisterprojects}}). --Kaganer (talk) 18:47, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I synced it live: <https://www.wikimedia.org/>. The hover-over text (the titles) were all inconsistent, so I switched them to just project name. If you want to update Www.wikimedia.org template/temp with better titles (or let me know what you want the titles to be), I can sync the changes later. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:41, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Img title texts and alt texts is updated. Please check it (i seen extended popup descriptions). --Kaganer (talk) 21:43, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I made a few tweaks and resynced the page. Let me know if anything else needs to be done. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:55, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

The best ;) Now needed delete my works temp pages, or save them for history? --Kaganer (talk) 08:52, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

They're obscure subpages. I don't think there's any issue with leaving them around.

Thanks for all your help with this. I think the page looks much better. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 12:54, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Win 8; VS 11; HTML 5 and Hacks

I have some concerns here about this Windows 8 with Visual Studios 11 (BETA) which includes HTML 5 (and all the goodies galore) - having had this, not yet reinstalled it - not sure if I will; it is of interest how one can easily override Mac/Apple/Linux/Windows(any version)/et. al. with this simple but powerful feature if it gets into the wrong hands, especially for developers who have other things in their minds.

How does Wikipedia as a WHOLE itself going to protect itself, for once people have attained knowledge, codes to DIY's (Do It Yourself) even if they have been already approved and registered or just registered; they would blow Wiki right off the wall out of simplicity in addition, the ability to lock it down? Are the Techs in Wiki prepared for this is my concern? I certainly don't want a "wrecked up Wiki". But I know enough things getting into the wrong hands is going to wreck everything from financial industries to you name it - under the sun. What concerns me is, not so much as BOTS, but the fact of sooner or later someone is going to realize they can create one that can discern and pick up from a stolen 4G Phone using their DNS/IP - before one knows it, it's already been programmed where web design pages are in a total wreck, leeching to breeches, whereas the entire situation is scary enough to even think about it.

Same way with iPAD 4 which has the near-same capabilities as per se as indicated above.

To make the matters worse, one can already develop something (probably is or are at this current state; that which I cannot answer) - which can easily be transmitted to a Cell Phone right now. Do you realize how many cell phones that have been discarded and there are dumpster divers (people who raid dumpsters by breaking locks or picking locks or those who were left unlocked for garbage trucks to pick up trash) stashing up on phones and reinstating them illegally? Lost phones (it really wasn't lost - it was more or less "pick-pocketed" just like the old days when wallets were the thing they used to pick-pocketed frequently), then smash them and turn them in as "found" at this XXXX location which by reason of serial number on phone can be traced back to the owner. What they do not realize is the database in it has been all erased and so severely damaged is the phone that the owner has no choice but to obtain another phone. (That latter report pertaining to lost phones and being destroyed was provided to me after several customers coming in when I was looking FOR a phone, this caused me to retreat from obtaining a cell phone period, after one had departed and was furious, for he had 32 GB memory card in there and the phone only had 8 GB memory card in it; he accused them of stealing it and he had receipts and proof of purchases. When returned at another date, I made an inquiry about phones, and the Rep merely made a comment of "Oh, we get all sorts of stories all the time. They never called or contacted us that their phone was lost or stolen, so the fault was theirs." However of interest, I must add, just within seconds a very Professional businessman walked in, about his cell; that was stolen, while my mother hung around close by to hear them and I was over on the other side just to hear what was being stated; my mom informed me that the Assistant Manager reported to him that he never called and notified them even though he had provided them the case number, and he could not pull it up; no such case number was found. That man was becoming very angry with the Manager and threatened to call the Police on them, what happened after that is virtually unknown, for my mom walked over and told me "I can't find anything, let's go" and the Rep, who wanted a sale; I didn't feel so comfortable there. Apologized to him and told him there was absolutely nothing my mother or I could find, "Sorry", and we departed quickly. What irritated me was, for someone who drives a nearly $200+k sports car, you would think he would receive better treatment, a "Red Carpet Treatment"; but no. Only then and there I learned from my mother what all went on from there and never again wil I seek for a Cell Phone. In addendum, I must add, I have been to other Major Stores; and inquired within about these things, and the same story was almost like a canned answer, which was far more common than one realizes.)

When I asked about what they did with the old phones, was informed they were tossed into the garbage dumpster. To me personally, it really is stupidity there; for dumpster-divers steal them, restore them, and no one would ever be able to find or locate whom or who did it without any usage of wired or wireless DNS/IP Provider; even the User's to Admin's account could very well be locked out all the way to emails; would Anti-Virus to Security Systems hold up to these types of invasions? That is my question and my answer is a 50/50 coin toss. I have seen phones available and had been offered one through "black market" cheap, unlocked, but I want no part of this; these are fly-by night "morons", but to "catch a thief" is nearly impossible because they are everywhere.

Advanced technology is great - but to leave others in a vulnerable state isn't; doesn't anyone agree? Even the Servers (regardless of what they are - would be in its vulnerable state, even though many keeps them up to par) but .... there is a fine line there as how far one can go.

This is only my humble opinion and concerns having loved Wiki since the beginning, but now, security and safety for all at this point has come to mind.

Anyone else have any comments or say-so on this area? I've been following closely on all the Tech Reports and inclusions of bugs and glitches in the BETA's - that which can easily be reinstated (violation of Microsoft Genuine Product once the Public release has been made).

AwahiliGuni (talk) 01:20, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm having a little trouble understanding what you are saying, but (correct me if I am wrong), I think that you are concerned, essentially, that new hardware devices and/or software tools will make it easier to hack into the servers that host the various projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Hacking is not that easy in real life. Compromising a system by exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities is very rare compared to substantially simpler techniques such as phishing and other forms of social engineering in order to obtain credentials that have access to sensitive functions. New operating systems and IDEs such as Windows 8 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2011 are not going to make it any easier to hack into websites than they are now. I personally have found MSVS in particular to be an incredibly well-built and useful piece of software, but it cannot write any substantial code other than basic templates by itself. We (humanity) are probably many, many, many years from being able to create software that can reliably and automatically breach the security measures that are typically used by most websites to prevent unauthorized access. If we were able to do this, we would also be able to write similar programs that deliberately attempt to find these security holes and automatically close them (or at least suggest changes that could be made to mitigate the threat).

Based on what you wrote, it appears that your perception of how hacking is accomplishws may have been influenced by "hacking" attempts as portrayed in films or TV shows. In real life, hacking is utterly nothing like the way it is portrayed in films - if it was, you can bet that all popular websites would be hacked hundreds of times daily. I will admit I know very little about how to compromise website security measures, but I can absolutely guarantee that software such as Windows 8 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2011 and languages such as HTML 5 will not make it substantially easier to do so, nor will devices such as the iPad 4. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 04:01, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

If you don't mind me asking, AwahiliGuni, are you an aspie?

It's just you describe things in so many many words and from an unusual viewpoint. By the way, usually new OS platforms are too new to have as large a database of hacks to beware. For example, when Apple computers came out they boasted having few if any viruses, it seems like they still say that. Also, usually the older the device the more hacks there are and like wise about as many fixes. Like PC's are probably more of an issue than these new fangled devices, especially the Apple devices ;-) Hang in there

Global user rights on FlaggedRev wikis

As global rollbackers already have the autopatrol right and global sysops additionally can patrol edits actively, I suggest to add the right autoreview-restore, which only marks reverts to a checked revision as checked, to the global rollback user group.

Global sysops should IMHO be granted the rights autoreview, review, unreviewedpages and stablesettings because local administrators usually also have these permissions on wikis where the flagged revisions extension is enabled.

Regards --Iste (D) 18:47, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Coming from a project with extensive use of FlaggedRevs (en.wikibooks), I concur with the above re global rollbackers.

• I disagree with stablesettings. Which version of a page should be displayed by default and who should be able to configure the stable settings is a content decision and so should be left to the local community. It isn't required in order to deal with vandalism.
• I disagree with autoreview for the same reason - it is a content setting. Unless a Global Sysop is knowledgeable about the project then they won't be aware whether their edits are "good" or "bad" content. This right isn't needed to fight vandalism and who it goes to should be a local community decision. Global Sysops have no expertise on content norms on a project and therefore need their edits reviewed locally.
• I see no reason at all for unreviewedpages.

I see the fact that local sysops have these rights is irrelevant as the role of a Global Sysop is intended to be different. Adding these rights to Global Sysops would make some projects opt out as they hand content controlling capability to people with no knowledge of the local content guidelines. QU ^TalkQu 19:26, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't find it very logical to grant global sysops patrol and autopatrol permissions, but not the corrsponding reviewing rights which have exactly the same purpose. I also can't agree that these rights are unimportant to fight vandalism, as every vandalism revert has to be checked by a local user if a global rollbacker or global sysop doesn't at least have the autoreview-restore permission, so this actually doesn't have much to do with content decisions. By the way, unwatchedpages is a content right that global sysops have, but which is normally not needed for fighting vandalism. Regards --Iste (D) 20:00, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

If you read what I wrote you will see that I didn't disagree with autoreview-restore. Autoreview is very different. With the former this causes a rollback to not need an independent review - fine because it is returning the page to a state where it has already been reviewed by a member of the local community. In contrast autoreview means ANY edit the Global Sysop makes is reviewed. That is, going in and adding new content gets reviewed. This defeats the object of FlaggedRevs as it would allow someone with no knowledge of the content policies to go in, make edits, and not have them reviewed. If a Global Sysop wants to contribute new content to a project then they need to go through the normal process of getting the autoreview right once they have met the quality standards set by that local community. As for having other rights that aren't needed, well, that's not a justification for adding more unneeded rights is it. QU ^TalkQu 20:20, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, then there should be a general discussion considering the evidence of rights such as patrol. If a user can be trusted to mark edits in a language he doesn't speak as patrolled, I see no reason not to grant him the review and autoreview permissions which are definitely useful for "routine maintenance" which is also a purpose of global sysop rights. Regards --Iste (D) 20:34, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Can't be done. This was already tried in the past (as a test); and the test failed. FlaggedRevs rights won't be assinged to those groups as it's a pure content issue that needs to be addressed by the local community of those projects. Stewards don't have those rights either. Regards. —Marco Aurelio (Nihil Prius Fide) 21:13, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Anonymous users not allowed on PCP

I've just tried to leave a comment in the comment section of "Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Zulu Wikipedia" but I couldn't get through. The following reason was provided «Anonymous users not allowed on PCP». I do not know if this reason is fair, fishy, scary or just ludicrous but it reminded me one of the reasons why I put down to the very minimum my visits and edits in Meta. I am writing this to let know anyone reading this who did not know about it and to leave here what I wanted to say there (I could have created an ad hoc account but I personally find that option ridiculous). This is what I had written:

«What I have seen for years (especially on Wiktionaries) does not make me think Incubator is really helpful except in very specific cases (these mainly being when highly IT- or wiki-savvy editors start editing in specific language projects). Actually, I think Incubator is rather detrimental for most of the projects it touches and I find it especially damaging to (actual or proportional) minority languages for obvious reasons: if it is already difficult to find editors in those languages, let alone finding editors ready for the Incubator environment where editing is heavily burdened with systematically tagged links. Besides, the Incubator is basically mere top-down imposed and tacitly condoned bureaucracy. If moving projects to the Incubator were helpful by default I would support the idea, unfortunately I do not think it is. Actually, I think a Meta project called something like "Proposals for taking projects out of the Incubator" would make more sense than this "Proposals for closing projects". Regards.» --95.18.128.214 19:36, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposals for taking projects out of the Incubator exists, it is called Requests for new languages. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 20:19, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

It is now possible for IPs again to edit Proposals for closing projects. --MF-W 22:20, 25 March 2012 (UTC)