Wikivoyage/Lounge/Archive/2013-09

Finnish

Could someone create subdomain for Finnish language? There is quite many Finnish articles in Wikitravel, which could be imported to Wikivoyage. --Olli (talk) 10:12, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

There is already a Finnish version on incubator. It will be available under wikivoyage.org as soon as the community is strong enough to be viable as a language version of its own.--Aschmidt (talk) 18:40, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

If the former WT Finnish community is still around, I guess a request could be filed directly to Langcom, without having the Incubator version first. If there is no community, I think it is better indeed to go through the incubator.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:50, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

It's probably better to import the Finnish version of Wikitravel instead of restarting from scratch. Also, Finnish was one of the languages which got enough votes on the Wikivoyage e.V. site to allow the project to be opened there, although a few of the language versions with enough votes (e.g. Finnish) never opened, for some unknown reason. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:03, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

The reason is as follows. These votes appeared after the migration of en: in the end of August. At that time only four other languages had got sufficient support, while others were left for the future. --Atsirlin (talk) 23:09, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

At the end there was now time, because we started the migration to the WMF. But the finish content is available. Maybe the WMF should be asked whether they can import it. -- DerFussi 12:18, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

See also incubator:Incubator:Wikivoyage import. It seems that there are plans to import more languages and that the first ones will be imported on 1 December. I hope that Finnish and the other languages will follow later. --Stefan2 (talk) 12:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

So, will the Finnish Wikivoyage be published in near future or not? Is there really a need to configure the Incubator or something? --Kulmalukko (talk) 15:13, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The Spanish and Portuguese Wikivoyages are being created right now. I think Romanian will be next, and hopefully the others will be created soon after. It might be helpful to create a request for Finnish here and fill in the correct settings. –sumone10154^(talk) 16:44, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for a tip. Now I have created the request for Finnish WV. --Kulmalukko (talk) 18:08, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

As I understand the 8 language editions have long been "Approved" for import (-> Requests for new languages#Wikivoyage or earlier in Wikivoyage/New language versions) but nobody feels responsible, and except talk nothing productive happens. Or who can finally import it? --Alan ffm (talk) 18:22, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The developers are working on creating the Spanish [1] and Portuguese [2] versions right now. –sumone10154^(talk) 18:38, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

And what is the status or where is the problem with all the other approved language versions? What are we waiting for? --Alan ffm (talk) 19:23, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

As I just said, the developers are working on Spanish and Portuguese first (those versions got the most support on their request pages), and the others will be next. Also, the remaining versions (besides Romanian and Finnish) don't have a request page yet with the needed settings. –sumone10154^(talk) 22:00, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, now I've created also a polish request page with the settings -> Requests for new languages/Wikivoyage Polish -- Alan ffm (talk) 01:24, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

There are already the Spanish and Porguguese versions visible. When the Finnish version Wikivoyage is expected to be started? --Kulmalukko (talk) 08:18, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the delay is now. You could try asking User:MF-Warburg. –sumone10154^(talk) 21:42, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Should something still be done before the Finnish version will be started? (Request exists.) --Kulmalukko (talk) 12:33, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

It should be approved by the Language Committee, then a bugzilla request should be filed.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:54, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Now the request status has been verified for 10 days. How long should it take before the Finnish Wikivoyage actually starts? --Kulmalukko (talk) 15:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Normally not long after the Bugzilla request. So now we are waiting the Language Committee's decision to accept it... and then Bugzilla request will be made. --Stryn (talk) 20:54, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Requests for new languages#Wikivoyage tells that the Finnish version has been approved, but the request page doesn't mention anything about this. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:16, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

How the status approved should be shown in request page? Should the verification be changed into final decision? --Kulmalukko (talk) 11:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

The WV Fi request was created 9 months ago. The request was verified almost 3 months ago. Nothing is happened. Have the Language Committee decided that Finnish Wikivoyage will not be opened? --Kulmalukko (talk) 15:54, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I do not think anybody here can answer this question. The Language Committee would be a better place to ask.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:28, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Ok. --Kulmalukko (talk) 18:32, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Looking to gather a unified technical wishlist

Hi, Wikivoyagers! I am the Engineering Community Manager at the Wikimedia Foundation, which means I'm a liaison for people who want to improve the technical capabilities of our projects. In the en:voy:Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub#Presentation for Wikimania thread, I asked for more details about the English Wikivoyage's technical wishlist. There are some details in en:voy:Wikivoyage:Roadmap, and en:voy:User:Peterfitzgerald provided some more, but I would very much love a unified technical wishlist for all the Wikivoyages. And that way, developers could take a look and see which are things that less technical Wikivoyagers could do (with built-in wiki administration tools, a bit of training and some "how-to" guides), and which are things that need MediaWiki or other experts to write code. For instance, you probably do not need any developers' support to set up your site to participate in the Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest -- there are readymade templates you can simply add to your site.

Ideally, for the requests that do need developers to work on them, we'd make sure that there's a bug filed for each thing that people want. I know Wikivoyagers have already done that for several requests (for example, bug 44590: GeoCrumbs doesn't handle cases where a destination on a region boundary #isIn: more than one region and bug 43977: grouped edits not patrollable).

I know 80% of the people reading this already know what's in this paragraph, but I just want to repeat it for the other 20%: "How to create a good first bug report" is a guide you can use to tell us if you see a technical problem on a Wikimedia website. It shows you how to file a defect report ("bug report") in our Bugzilla site so the engineers can see it and follow up. You can also use this method to request things. It's a good rule of thumb to file a request in Bugzilla whenever you think "oh it would be handy to have such-and-such functionality" and to mark it as an "enhancement". For instance, if you want an extension like WikiLove installed, the procedure includes filing a Bugzilla request.

And for those of you who want to know about new features you can use: Tech/News is a weekly human-readable tech newsletter that tells you about new things that are going to affect you. You can subscribe at Global message delivery/Targets/Tech ambassadors to get it delivered directly to your talk page and/or to the pub/salon/cafe on your Wikivoyage. Right now, in that delivery list, I only see one user who has it delivered to a wikivoyage.org page -- I think several of you might find it useful.

I hope this is helpful! Where can this wishlist live? Here on meta, as a subpage of Wikivoyage?

Thanks. Sharihareswara (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Sumana, this is very helpful indeed. My private opinion is that the list should be on Meta, with notification at all Wikivoyage village pumps. You may also want to look at Wikivoyage/Summit, some issues (including communication) are currently being discussed there.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:30, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I think Wikivoyage/Wishlist would be the best place. Discussion would still need to take place on the individual language versions (so voy:Wikivoyage:Roadmap will still have a use), but it would be very helpful to have all tech requests collected in one place! --Peter ^Talk 20:05, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Just wanted to raise this question again. Can I have a unified wishlist to show our bug wrangler and engineers? Thanks! Sharihareswara (WMF) (talk) 23:32, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

(And thanks for the reminder - I've viewed the Summit discussion, and that's interesting and useful.) Sharihareswara (WMF) (talk) 23:36, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

@Sharihareswara (WMF): a rough draft at Wikivoyage/Wishlist. Everyone else should chip in their thoughts as well.

@DerFussi: perhaps send a message round to all the pubs for translation and discussion? -- torty3 (talk) 12:58, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think it would be good to send around.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:13, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for putting this together! Did you also get input from the other pubs as well? As is, I'm sending a link to Andre Klapper (the Bug Wrangler), and the product managers for VisualEditor and MediaWiki Core, and Lydia Pintscher of Wikimedia Germany (who knows a lot about Wikidata). Sharihareswara (WMF) (talk) 23:49, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I picked up most of it from looking around, so it definitely still needs more input (@DerFussi:?). The ideas are also not fully formed, just mostly tossed around as potential improvements by different Wikivoyagers, depending on the technical effort required and not purely consensus. I think more in-depth discussion should go on at Talk:Wikivoyage/Wishlist. -- torty3 (talk) 13:07, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Global spam blacklist

I'm getting a very negative vibe on Talk:Spam blacklist#Hotel web site regarding Wikivoyage. They seem disinclined to do anything for us, be it add a site to the global blacklist due to spamming on Wikivoyage, or remove one from the blacklist so that we can link to them from our guides. We might have an image problem developing here. LtPowers (talk) 18:37, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I can technically remove it, but is it really so hard to whitelist it? The comments do not seem to be negative about Wikivoyage specifically. They might say that in other situations too. If you really want, I can see if this really should be kept on the bl. PiRSquared17 (talk) 18:46, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The hotels are maybe not the best example here, since they are individual businesses; it's just where the discussion developed. I have another request slightly farther up the page to remove the official tourism site for the city of Daugavpils, Latvia that I see as more important. "Add it to the whitelist" shouldn't be the default suggestion when dealing with non-Wikipedia projects, because we have 15 projects and editing 15 whitelists is a pain the butt compared to just removing an entry from the blacklist. However, the reason I brought it up here is because of comments like "Wikivoyage is a spam-magnet by itself" and "I think there is a bit of an unwritten code here on the blacklist that we do not blacklist unless it expands outside of wikivoyage, the rest of the spamming is 'your' problem"; these are troubling to me. LtPowers (talk) 19:20, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I can't say that he's totally wrong, maybe rude :-) but not wrong. I think that the greatest part of the hotel that we have on voy aren't advised by traveller, but from advertiser (not necessarely spammer). The problem is that is too difficult to understand who they are, and it's a waste of time to discuss with them all the times. I always try to ask to whitelist those sites, and a couple of times I got the green light. I agree that the other wikis doesn't need them. The wrong thing that he said is that an Italian hotel is used just by it:voy, because an article of an Italian city can be included by all the voy versions. It could be useful (but I don't know if technically possible) if wikivoayge can have a project-whitelist, on top of the several standard local-whitelist. --Andyrom75 (talk) 21:12, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

A project (e.g., Wikivoyage or Wikipedia, not a single wiki like en:voy or en:w:) whitelist would be interesting. Nothing like that exists now. Do you think this issue about different project families having different standards for linking should be brought up somewhere, like on a RfC? PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:44, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that would be enough if we would discuss about it inside the voy community (in this thread, informing all the lounges through the DerFussi tool about this discussion) because is something that affect just wikivoyage. If we come out with an ok (as I suppose) I would just open an enhancement request on bugzilla. But if someone think that we need to discuss with people from other wiki we should move to an RfC discussion. --Andyrom75 (talk) 06:46, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

You're right, but it might be nice to notify the anti-spam people about this. They might want to know about a cross-Wikivoyage whitelist. PiRSquared17 (talk) 23:38, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Good point. If they have a community/group page we can have a brief discussion there too. On the other hand, if your was just an example of a numerous amount of different communty, well... go for RfC :-) I just would like to put into the discussion only the people affected by this proposal.--Andyrom75 (talk) 07:01, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

The issue is that the links usually get added beyond wikivoyage and to multiple wikis where they are in fact spam, though maybe less so at the wikivoyages. The expectation that 50+ WPs should blacklist a url, whereas 15 Vy should not whitelist does not seem equitable where the site is clearly a commercial site and has been spammed. [There are consequences for sites that spam and I hope that you can acknowledge that their misbehaviour should not be ignored by the Voyages.] With relation to the other comment, you misinterpret and jump to conclusions on what the other person said. We have bots that monitor links and these are interpreted by humans, so where we see the links being added to the Voyages, we often do not revert such links as we would on the other wikis. Your rules about commercial links are a lot looser and comparatively it is too hard for us to know your rules of what is in and out.

I know of no request from the Voyages to blacklist a site that has been refused, so your extrapolation I think lacks accuracy. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:43, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

• I personally think this is a good idea, but is not currently technically feasible. PiRSquared17 (talk) 15:14, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Are you talking of the whole "project whitelist" idea o to discuss with just the voy+anti-spam communities? If just the second, let's go for the RfC as you have suggested, otherwise let's talk about it. --Andyrom75 (talk) 07:51, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

To inquire about the possibility of a project-wide whitelist, I would suggest that you raise a bugzilla: request and see what is possible. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:43, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I would welcome the development of project-wide whitelists (wikivoyage only, wikiversity only and even wikipedia-only). The different project-types do look differently at spam-issues, and what is spam in one community is not always spam in another community - however, when it develops to a mediawiki-wide situation it is a concern that can sometimes only be stopped by a global blacklist. Asking to de-list because 15 out of >800 MediaWiki projects don't think it is spam is a bit unreasonable (having 785 wikis having to blacklist it, or having to combat the editors spamming it there .. 'if my hotelsite is fine on voy:en:Paris, why is it not on w:en:Paris?' (and that is often how xwiki spam develops, moving from the smaller or a subgroup of wikis to cross-wiki, going from places where it is fine to everywhere, venturing into places where it is not fine too often). Otherwise the solution is, unfortunately, probably going to be to whitelist it over the projects that have use for it (which is cumbersome, but that is the technical limit). I do note that this is not a wikivoyage-only problem, wikiversity has similar 'issues' - self-promotion is there to a certain extend 'encouraged', and also that has sometimes 'spilled over'. Note that a MediaWiki wide whitelist would also be welcome in this regard, we now sometimes have to write difficult blacklist rules to filter out good stuff from the bad ones (the mostly redirect sites, but not always redirect sites, e.g. bit.ly and co.cc), having the whole domain blacklisted globally, and whitelist the good stuff makes it easier to handle (and what is useful on one wiki is sometimes useful on all wikis ..). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 09:48, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Just opened the request on bugzilla. Feel free to add comments. --Andyrom75 (talk) 17:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)