The Grid
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Welcome to the drive!
editWelcome, welcome, welcome The Grid! I'm glad that you are joining the drive! Please, have a cup of WikiTea, and go cite some articles.
CactiStaccingCrane (talk)18:56, 1 February 2024 UTC [refresh]via JWB and Geardona (talk to me?)
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Tech News: 2024-29
editLatest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Tech News survey
- Please help us to improve Tech News by taking this short survey. The goal is to better meet the needs of the various types of people who read Tech News. The survey will be open for 3 more days. The survey is covered by this privacy statement. Some translations are available.
Recent changes
- Wikimedia developers can now officially continue to use both Gerrit and GitLab, due to a June 24 decision by the Wikimedia Foundation to support software development on both platforms. Gerrit and GitLab are both code repositories used by developers to write, review, and deploy the software code that supports the MediaWiki software that the wiki projects are built on, as well as the tools used by editors to create and improve content. This decision will safeguard the productivity of our developers and prevent problems in code review from affecting our users. More details are available in the Migration status page.
- The Wikimedia Foundation seeks applicants for the Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC). This group will bring technical contributors and Wikimedia Foundation together to co-define a more resilient, future-proof technological platform. Council members will evaluate and consult on the movement's product and technical activities, so that we develop multi-generational projects. We are looking for a range of technical contributors across the globe, from a variety of Wikimedia projects. Please apply here by August 10.
- Editors with rollback user-rights who use the Wikipedia App for Android can use the new Edit Patrol features. These features include a new feed of Recent Changes, related links such as Undo and Rollback, and the ability to create and save a personal library of user talk messages to use while patrolling. If your wiki wants to make these features available to users who do not have rollback rights but have reached a certain edit threshold, you can contact the team. You can read more about this project on Diff blog.
- Editors who have access to The Wikipedia Library can once again use non-open access content in SpringerLinks, after the Foundation contacted them to restore access. You can read more about this and 21 other community-submitted tasks that were completed last week.
Changes later this week
- This week, dark mode will be available on a number of Wikipedias, both desktop and mobile, for logged-in and logged-out users. Interface admins and user script maintainers are encouraged to check gadgets and user scripts in the dark mode, to find any hard-coded colors and fix them. There are some recommendations for dark mode compatibility to help.
Future changes
- Next week, functionaries, volunteers maintaining tools, and software development teams are invited to test the temporary accounts feature on testwiki. Temporary accounts is a feature that will help improve privacy on the wikis. No further temporary account deployments are scheduled yet. Please share your opinions and questions on the project talk page. [1]
- Editors who upload files cross-wiki, or teach other people how to do so, may wish to join a Wikimedia Commons discussion. The Commons community is discussing limiting who can upload files through the cross-wiki upload/Upload dialog feature to users auto-confirmed on Wikimedia Commons. This is due to the large amount of copyright violations uploaded this way. There is a short summary at Commons:Cross-wiki upload and discussion at Commons:Village Pump.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. You can also get other news from the Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin.
I need to talk something out with you.
editI've recently been editing info for Music Sounds Better with You, adding background information on the gay scenes in which the genre developed, and the musician's context of them in making the song. I've also been adding info that falls under moderate and informational. I wholly expect my edits to be copy edited on that page for flow, clarity, and GA status. The article also had factual inaccuracies that I had fixed, until they were unrighteously reverted.
Make no mistake: a Good Article can and should be developed further after assessment. I have developed it with non-contentious, factual, supplementary information that falls under policy for inclusion. Another editor, simply based off of their dislike for the need of it to be perfect without any basic work, has been reverting my, and two other editors' worth of changes without justification. The info I add does not fall under policy for removal. I need you to realize this so Wikipedia editing can be done properly, and I ask you to please revert your reversion of my reversion on that page. I will not do something technically considered edit-warring on behalf of anyone's misguided ideas.
Do have a good one, @The Grid. I thank you for your tireless contributions across Wikipedia. This matter of simple copyediting does not constitute what is currently occurring on Music Sounds Better with You. I urge you to take proper action. BarntToust (talk) 13:51, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
- Hey, it looks like further discussion is on the talk page but I'll stand back so that discussion can pursue versus feeling trapped. Thanks for your edits to the article regardless of how this turns out. I know the feeling of stepping of toes very well on here. Just don't get too caught up and any criticisms presented isn't bulverism. – The Grid (talk) 16:25, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
The Signpost: 22 July 2024
edit- Discussion report: Internet users flock to Wikipedia to debate its image policy over Trump raised-fist photo
- News and notes: Wikimedia community votes to ratify Movement Charter; Wikimedia Foundation opposes ratification
- Obituary: JamesR
- Crossword: Vaguely bird-shaped crossword
Tech News: 2024-30
editLatest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature News
- Stewards can now globally block accounts. Before the change only IP addresses and IP ranges could be blocked globally. Global account blocks are useful when the blocked user should not be logged out. Global locks (a similar tool logging the user out of their account) are unaffected by this change. The new global account block feature is related to the Temporary Accounts project, which is a new type of user account that replaces IP addresses of unregistered editors that are no longer made public.
- Later this week, Wikimedia site users will notice that the Interface of FlaggedRevs (also known as "Pending Changes") is improved and consistent with the rest of the MediaWiki interface and Wikimedia's design system. The FlaggedRevs interface experience on mobile and Minerva skin was inconsistent before it was fixed and ported to Codex by the WMF Growth team and some volunteers. [2]
- Wikimedia site users can now submit account vanishing requests via GlobalVanishRequest. This feature is used when a contributor wishes to stop editing forever. It helps you hide your past association and edit to protect your privacy. Once processed, the account will be locked and renamed. [3]
- Have you tried monitoring and addressing vandalism in Wikipedia using your phone? A Diff blog post on Patrolling features in the Mobile App highlights some of the new capabilities of the feature, including swiping through a feed of recent changes and a personal library of user talk messages for use when patrolling from your phone.
- Wikimedia contributors and GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) organisations can now learn and measure the impact Wikimedia Commons is having towards creating quality encyclopedic content using the Commons Impact Metrics analytics dashboard. The dashboard offers organizations analytics on things like monthly edits in a category, the most viewed files, and which Wikimedia articles are using Commons images. As a result of these new data dumps, GLAM organisation can more reliably measure their return on investment for programs bringing content into the digital Commons. [4]
Project Updates
- Come share your ideas for improving the wikis on the newly reopened Community Wishlist. The Community Wishlist is Wikimedia’s forum for volunteers to share ideas (called wishes) to improve how the wikis work. The new version of the wishlist is always open, works with both wikitext and Visual Editor, and allows wishes in any language.
Learn more
- Have you ever wondered how Wikimedia software works across over 300 languages? This is 253 languages more than the Google Chrome interface, and it's no accident. The Language and Product Localization Team at the Wikimedia Foundation supports your work by adapting all the tools and interfaces in the MediaWiki software so that contributors in our movement who translate pages and strings can translate them and have the sites in all languages. Read more about the team and their upcoming work on Diff.
- How can Wikimedia build innovative and experimental products while maintaining such heavily used websites? A recent blog post by WMF staff Johan Jönsson highlights the work of the WMF Future Audience initiative, where the goal is not to build polished products but test out new ideas, such as a ChatGPT plugin and Add a Fact, to help take Wikimedia into the future.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. You can also get other news from the Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin.
Tech News: 2024-31
editLatest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
- Editors using the Visual Editor in languages that use non-Latin characters for numbers, such as Hindi, Manipuri and Eastern Arabic, may notice some changes in the formatting of reference numbers. This is a side effect of preparing a new sub-referencing feature, and will also allow fixing some general numbering issues in Visual Editor. If you notice any related problems on your wiki, please share details at the project talkpage.
Bugs status
- Some logged-in editors were briefly unable to edit or load pages last week. These errors were mainly due to the addition of new linter rules which led to caching problems. Fixes have been applied and investigations are continuing.
- Editors can use the IP Information tool to get information about IP addresses. This tool is available as a Beta Feature in your preferences. The tool was not available for a few days last week, but is now working again. Thank you to Shizhao for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Project updates
- There are new features and improvements to Phabricator from the Release Engineering and Collaboration Services teams, and some volunteers, including: the search systems, the new task creation system, the login systems, the translation setup which has resulted in support for more languages (thanks to Pppery), and fixes for many edge-case errors. You can read details about these and other improvements in this summary.
- There is an update on the Charts project. The team has decided which visualization library to use, which chart types to start focusing on, and where to store chart definitions.
- One new wiki has been created: a Wikivoyage in Czech (
voy:cs:
) [5]
Learn more
- There is a new Wikimedia Foundation data center in São Paulo, Brazil which helps to reduce load times.
- There is new user research on problems with the process of uploading images.
- Commons Impact Metrics are now available via data dumps and API.
- The latest quarterly Technical Community Newsletter is now available.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 25
editHey there, welcome to the 25th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter, covering all our favorite new and updated user scripts since 1 March 2024. We've got a ton of wonderful editors taking back their pitchforks today. Don't worry, for they come in peace, to forcibly fix and extend existing scripts you use with sheer passion. There's so many, them forks have got what's basically their own column now! gift us with some rows before it's too late Aaron Liu (talk) 04:01, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Got anything good? Tell us about your new, improved, old, or messed-up script here!
Featured script
edit- inline-diff-inline-patrol by Ponor is this edition's featured script. By loading diffs inline on every page that shows a list of changes, it implements the 2023 community wish m:Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Admins and patrollers/Inline diffs and inline patrol. Hopefully we won't need this script anymore soon, with the WMF's focus on the backlog...
Improve a script
edit- Many of our favorite scripts such as Fred Gandt/userResourceManager, Guarapiranga/search-shortcuts and Bradv/Superlinks haven't been updated for Vector 2022. You could be the one to change that!
- Elominius/media timer works, but its UI looks alien. Someone could improve it...
- To a lesser extent, the same goes for PrimeHunter/Search sort. I wish someone would integrate the sorts into the sort menu instead of adding 11 portlet links.
- We want...
- ...watchlist notices support for Aaron Liu/Watchlyst Greybar Unsin
- ...a tool to automatically fix CAT:BROKENREFs, preferably a fork/addition to TheJJJunk/ARA
- ...a fix/fork of DannyS712/SectionRemover to make it work
Requested scripts
edit- Automatically delink all duplicate links within the same section per MOS:LINKONCE.
- Collapsible parentheses in body text, which had a ridiculously long original request title and was accidentally moved to WP:US/L by me. Oops!
- An easily configurable script to add a link to the #p-vector-user-menu-overflow portlet with a name, target, and icon. This one should be a relatively easier one. I would do it myself, but I'm too busy rotting away on Celeste (video game).
- Preview an edit under the mobile viewport on desktop, with perhaps MediaWiki:Gadget-mobile-sidebar.js used for inspiration.
- ...and many more, all available at Wikipedia:User scripts/Requests. Jeeputer and Nardog have been the most active on the page in the past five months.
Updated scripts
edit- After the RIIJ update, Aaron Liu: Watchlyst Greybar Unsin has a dismiss button that allows you to mark an item as read in one click and cycle to the next Watchlist item.
- Lordseriouspig/StatusChangerImproved is just like Enterprisey's script, except you select your status from a dropdown instead of cycling through them with a button. The WMF operates out of car-centric infrastructure anyway. Shame!
Newly maintained scripts
edit- Aaron Liu has created Duplinks from Evad37/duplinks-alt; his fork adds a config variable to automatically highlight duplicate links on the loading of any page where the portlet link would've appeared.
- BilledMammal/Move+ expands the powers of User:TheTVExpert/rmCloser to include common procedures done with the art of moving pages.
- On a holiday? Somewhere? Gotta learn ye ABCs? CanonNi/StatusSetter puts the fun into Enterprisey/StatusChanger with a quadruple more statuses. That starts with a C!
- In our continuing trend(s?), DaxServer/DiscussionCloser forks DannyS712/DiscussionCloser to make it work. Sadly, this is the end of our lexicographic combo.
- Andrybak:
- user-tabs-on-contribs is a fork of User:Enterprisey/user-tabs-on-contribs for Vector 2022.
- Archiver is a fork of User:Enterprisey/archiver with automatic calculation of the destination archive subpage and with support for non-Vector skins.
- Quite coincidentally, Elli/OneClickArchiver has been forked from User:Equazcion/OneClickArchiver to work with the mw:Heading HTML changes.
- FlightTime/OneClickArchiver forks the same thing but also no longer nonsensically prepends {{clear}} to page archives.
New scripts
editPadlock for semi−move protection−designed by User:Chaotic Enby - Andrybak/Not around can help you mark talk pages of inactive users with {{not around}}.
- BrandonXLF/AddCopied automatically tags talk pages of pages you've copied between with {{copied}}.
- Bugghost/UserRoleIndicator adds text labels (which default to emoji) to user links that label the user's usergroups. Wow, that's a mouthful
- CanonNi/AlertAssistant adds a Twinkle-style dialog for alerting users about contentious topics.
- CFA/AttributeTranslation automatically tags articles translated from other places with appropriate attribution.
- In the defense of the 'pedia, the humble Jeeputer/defconIndicator adds the WP:WIKIDEFCON status to the toolbar.
- Tired of staring at a bunch of filtering text and waiting for darn filter logs to load? Msz2001/AbuseFilter analyzer can parse abuse filters into a visual syntax tree and evaluate locally on-demand!
- Polygnotus/DuplicateReferences finds references with the same link and displays the number of them along with a button to add the {{duplicated citations}} tag under the references section. Being lazy has never been easier!
- fastest gun on the net Ponor/really-quick-block really quick add to contribution lists three buttons awesome
- TheTechie/Help Me Tool is a quick and easy way of responding to {{help me}} requests.
- Per MOS:CONFORM, ZKang123/TitleCaseConverter converts all citation titles to... title case, unfortunately.
Tech News: 2024-32
editLatest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
- Two new parser functions will be available this week:
{{#dir}}
and{{#bcp47}}
. These will reduce the need forTemplate:Dir
andTemplate:BCP47
on Commons and allow us to drop 100 million rows from the "what links here" database. Editors at any wiki that use these templates, can help by replacing the templates with these new functions. The templates at Commons will be updated during the Hackathon at Wikimania. [6][7] - Communities can request the activation of the visual editor on entire namespaces where discussions sometimes happen (for instance Wikipedia: or Wikisource: namespaces) if they understand the known limitations. For discussions, users can already use DiscussionTools in these namespaces.
- The tracking category "Pages using Timeline" has been renamed to "Pages using the EasyTimeline extension" in TranslateWiki. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match.
Project updates
- Editors who help to organize WikiProjects and similar on-wiki collaborations, are invited to share ideas and examples of successful collaborations with the Campaigns and Programs teams. You can fill out a brief survey or share your thoughts on the talkpage. The teams are particularly looking for details about successful collaborations on non-English wikis.
- The new parser is being rolled out on Wikivoyage wikis over the next few months. The English Wikivoyage and Hebrew Wikivoyage were switched to Parsoid last week. For more information, see Parsoid/Parser Unification.
Learn more
- There will be more than 200 sessions at Wikimania this week. Here is a summary of some of the key sessions related to the product and technology area.
- The latest Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is available.
- The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: New design previews for Translatable pages; Updates about MinT for Wiki Readers; the release of Translation dumps; and more.
- The latest quarterly Growth newsletter is available.
- The latest monthly MediaWiki Product Insights newsletter is available.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
Administrators' newsletter – August 2024
editNews and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2024).
- Global blocks may now target accounts as well as IP's. Administrators may locally unblock when appropriate.
- Users wishing to permanently leave may now request "vanishing" via Special:GlobalVanishRequest. Processed requests will result in the user being renamed, their recovery email being removed, and their account being globally locked.
- The Arbitration Committee appointed the following administrators to the conflict of interest volunteer response team: Bilby, Extraordinary Writ
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SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly; your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. -- SuggestBot (talk) 12:03, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
Tech News: 2024-33
editLatest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
- AbuseFilter editors and maintainers can now make a CAPTCHA show if a filter matches an edit. This allows communities to quickly respond to spamming by automated bots. [8]
- Stewards can now specify if global blocks should prevent account creation. Before this change by the Trust and Safety Product Team, all global blocks would prevent account creation. This will allow stewards to reduce the unintended side-effects of global blocks on IP addresses.
Project updates
- Nominations are open on Wikitech for new members to refresh the Toolforge standards committee. The committee oversees the Toolforge Right to fork policy and Abandoned tool policy among other duties. Nominations will remain open until at least 2024-08-26.
- One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in West Coast Bajau (
w:bdr:
) [9]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
The Signpost: 14 August 2024
edit- In the media: Portland pol profile paid for from public purse
- Discussion report: Twitter marks the spot
- News and notes: Another Wikimania has concluded
- Special report: Nano or just nothing: Will nano go nuclear?
- Opinion: HouseBlaster's RfA debriefing
- Traffic report: Ball games, movies, elections, but nothing really weird
- Humour: I'm proud to be a template