Be a Wikimedia fundraising "User Experience" volunteer![edit]
Thank you to everyone who volunteered last year on the Wikimedia fundraising 'User Experience' project. We have talked to many different people in different countries and their feedback has helped us immensely in restructuring our pages. If you haven't heard of it yet, the 'User Experience' project has the goal of understanding the donation experience in different countries (outside the USA) and enhancing the localization of our donation pages.
I am (still) searching for volunteers to spend some time on a Skype chat with me, reviewing their own country's donation pages. It will be done on a 'usability' format (I will ask you to read the text and go through the donation flow) and will be asking your feedback in the meanwhile.
The only pre-requisite is for the volunteer to actually live in the country and to have access to at least one donation method that we offer for that country (mainly credit/debit card, but also real time banking like IDEAL, E-wallets, etc...) so we can do a live test and see if the donation goes through. **All volunteers will be reimbursed of the donations that eventually succeed (and they will be very low amounts, like 1-2 dollars)**
By helping us you are actually helping thousands of people to support our mission of free knowledge across the world. If you are interested (or know of anyone who could be) please email ppena@wikimedia.org. All countries needed (excepting USA)!!
Thanks!
Pats Pena
Global Fundraising Operations Manager, Wikimedia Foundation
Bugzilla request to deploy Universal Language Selector here[edit]
A user has submitted bugzilla:44032 to deploy Narayam or Universal Language Selector (ULS) on mulWS. From my (limited) view of where WMF is progressing, it seems to make sense that mulWS (w|sh)ould look to preferably deploy mw:Extension:Universal Language Selector. A quick search finds this and this covers the matter. For those who have seen WebFonts in various places, this is the successor to that.
“
The primary aim is to allow users to select a language and configure its support in an easy way.
The extension provides the following features:
Flexible and easy way to select a language from a large set of languages.
Selection can be based on geographical region based browsing, searching.
Search can be based on ISO language code, language name written in current user interface language or in its own script(autonym)
Cross language search - search language names using any script
Autocompletion of language names
Auto correction of spelling mistakes in search strings
Geo IP based language suggestions
Language selection based on users browser/OS language
Input methods
An easily selectable input method collection, readily available in every editable field
Provides a large set of input methods for wide range of languages
Per-language input method preferences
Webfonts
A large collection of fonts to choose for each language to use as embedded font for the page
The change will only take place if a community discussion has taken place (which I am obviously starting), though it would be useful that the community's considered opinion be added to the bugzilla to allow the extension to be added, or for the status quo to remain. billinghurstsDrewth 05:09, 17 January 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Not that it is my bugzilla, however, I propose that the mulWS community looks to support the deployment on mulWS of the Universal Language Selector Extension
closing as supported and noting to that effect in Bugzilla. I hope that the admins are happy with that approach. If not please disagree in the bugzilla and note whatever reason and for it not to progress. billinghurstsDrewth 08:03, 2 February 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
ULS is now deployed. Tpt (talk) 20:07, 15 February 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Is it known than ULS is not compatible with FF 3.6, and perhaps other version ? By not compatible I mean than if you click on the link and start to interact with the window, it display a huge grey area and you can't do anything to recover except close the tab. — Phe
I don't know. You should report this issue on bugzilla. Tpt (talk) 14:45, 16 February 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Creating Index pages starting from the "Search" field is a bit rough. Thus I propose to add a new special page to the ProofreadPage extension (potential name: "Special:CreateIndexPage") and to add it to the sidebar's toolbox, under "Upload file".
The special page may include:
an introductory text ("Would you like to transcribe a text from its scans? Ensure they have been uploaded either to Wikimedia Commons or here to {{SERVERNAME}}. Then enter the file name without the "File:" prefix in the below text field. [[$1|Learn more about Index pages]]")
a text field for entering the file name without the "File:" prefix. Beside the field, a notification may appear when text is typed or pasted:
✔ This file exists on {{SERVERNAME}} if there is a file with that name on that domain or both on Wikimedia Commons and on that domain
✔ This file exists on Wikimedia Commons if there is a file with that name on Wikimedia Commons only
✘ This file exists neither on Wikimedia Commons nor on {{SERVERNAME}} if there isn't a file with that name
the "Create button"
The special page is especially intended for newcomers. What is your opinion? Who knows how to do this in practice?--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 18:17, 17 January 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Answer as contributor: I believe that, instead of creating a new special page and a new link in the sidebar, a better thing to do to help newcomers is maybe to make more visible the link to the index pages in the file pages (an example of file page) because, before creating an index page, the user will search for a scan and, so, go to the file page. But there is an issue with that work-flow: this link isn't shown currently in commons if the description of the file doesn't use the book template with the Wikisource field. <dream>In the future, it would be wonderful to have a specific version of the upload wizard for books that allow to set fields of the Book template and create the index page in Wikisource</dream>. Tpt (talk) 20:06, 18 January 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Answer as ProofreadPage maintainer: if there is a consensus of the community to create this index page, I am ready to create it and integrate it into the extension. It's a very easy thing.
Can I come back to the basic premise. Do people searching at one of the Wikisources arrive with the intention of transcribing a book? Further if they are new to the sites, is the first thing that we want them to be doing is to say "I will transcribe 'such and such' a book? and start on the process from scratch and in isolation? My guess is that we will have a whole lot of Index: pages created and not a lot more in the way of transcription, and I am seeing other possible errors like .jpg book covers, etc. having an index page. To me, the introductory component is correct and this is about the engagement and the help. If we don't have a specific work, then we should be looking to engage people context specific and helpful information, point them to where they can find help and ask questions about how to start. We may come to having a special tool, however, the wish and intent to transcribe should first be tested and supported.
To Tpt's suggestion about File: ns pages, I do like your idea on being clever in that regard. I cannot see how you have implemented MediaWiki:Proofreadpage image message, though presume that it relies on an #ifexist: test. So we just need the ability to configure when the result is does not exist and I would suggest that it is to help pages (specialised?) where each WS can have their context relevant and customised help text. billinghurstsDrewth 23:50, 19 January 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
No, most people visiting Wikisource do not have the intention of transcribing a book. Nevertheless, we must lead visitors to transcribe a book. As an example, Commons and YouTube have got an "Upload" button. Wikipedia articles start from red links, as well as Wikisource author pages and main-namespace pages. Instead, Index pages have got no place to start from. This does not mean that we should encourage users to starting transcriptions that they will never finish.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 19:57, 21 January 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Erasmo, to lead our visitors would result into making them angry and with some reason don’t you think so? :) there is no obligation to do that. — Clear indications about how to help to build the world library that we are building, in case our readers wish to help, is a different thing though, so I agree with this side of your proposition. --Zyephyrus (talk) 14:14, 22 January 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I wrote lead in the sense of guide them to the right place. Other websites are more successful because thy are more intuitive.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 16:51, 22 January 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There is a strange synchronicity because I discussed the very same issue in private with other wikilibrarians just few days ago :-). My original idea was to pre-load the template book in Commons, when there a .djvu is uploaded. this would be useful for wikilibrarians and would add a bit of coherence there.
A special Upload Wizard, for wikisources, is of course much needed. It would be very useful for both experienced users and newcomers to be able to just stay on Wikisource and upload (from here!) a book on Commons. But this would also need a lot of work for metadata. As you all very well know we write metadata on Commons (book template), Wikisource (index and ns0 header) and sometimes even Wikipedia. It would be massively useful to store the data on Wikidata, and have them all transcluded in various wiki projects when needed. Moreover, just think about that we never use OpenLibrary/Worldcat/OPAC metadata for our books, and that we are just recataloguing them for the nth time... Could we maybe discuss a strategy as Wikilibrarians all together? Aubrey (talk) 15:59, 28 January 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Really, I think we should wait for further developments in order to use Wikidata for this purpose. Currently, Wikidata handles neither Wikisource links nor infoboxes.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 19:02, 30 January 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Wikimedia sites to move to primary data center in Ashburn, Virginia. Read-only mode expected.[edit]
(Apologies if this message isn't in your language.) Next week, the Wikimedia Foundation will transition its main technical operations to a new data center in Ashburn, Virginia, USA. This is intended to improve the technical performance and reliability of all Wikimedia sites, including this wiki. There will be some times when the site will be in read-only mode, and there may be full outages; the current target windows for the migration are January 22nd, 23rd and 24th, 2013, from 17:00 to 01:00 UTC (see other timezones on timeanddate.com). More information is available in the full announcement.
If you would like to stay informed of future technical upgrades, consider becoming a Tech ambassador and joining the ambassadors mailing list. You will be able to help your fellow Wikimedians have a voice in technical discussions and be notified of important decisions.
Wikimedia Commons is happy to announce that the 2012 Picture of the Year competition is now open. We're interested in your opinion as to which images qualify to be the Picture of the Year for 2012. Voting is open to established Wikimedia users who meet the following criteria:
Users must have an account, at any Wikimedia project, which was registered before Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000 [UTC].
This user account must have more than 75 edits on any single Wikimedia project before Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000 [UTC]. Please check your account eligibility at the POTY 2012 Contest Eligibility tool.
Users must vote with an account meeting the above requirements either on Commons or another SUL-related Wikimedia project (for other Wikimedia projects, the account must be attached to the user's Commons account through SUL).
Hundreds of images that have been rated Featured Pictures by the international Wikimedia Commons community in the past year are all entered in this competition. From professional animal and plant shots to breathtaking panoramas and skylines, restorations of historically relevant images, images portraying the world's best architecture, maps, emblems, diagrams created with the most modern technology, and impressive human portraits, Commons features pictures of all flavors.
For your convenience, we have sorted the images into topic categories. Two rounds of voting will be held: In the first round, you can vote for as many images as you like. The first round category winners and the top ten overall will then make it to the final. In the final round, when a limited number of images are left, you must decide on the one image that you want to become the Picture of the Year.
Wikimedia Commons celebrates our featured images of 2012 with this contest. Your votes decide the Picture of the Year, so remember to vote in the first round by January 30, 2013.
Thanks,
the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year committee
Help turn ideas into grants in the new IdeaLab[edit]
I apologize if this message is not in your language. Please help translate it.
Do you have an idea for a project to improve this community or website?
Do you think you could complete your idea if only you had some funding?
Do you want to help other people turn their ideas into project plans or grant proposals?
Please join us in the IdeaLab, an incubator for project ideas and Individual Engagement Grant proposals.
The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking new ideas and proposals for Individual Engagement Grants. These grants fund individuals or small groups to complete projects that help improve this community. If interested, please submit a completed proposal by February 15, 2013. Please visit https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG for more information.
Grant application for: "New Wikisource relationship with Commons, Wikidata and Wikipedia"[edit]
Since the Wikidata project is allowing us new ways of handling content, I have started a grant proposal to define a vision about how to integrate Wikisource content in Commons and Wikipedia. Please, check my grant application and share your thoughts. Thanks! --Micru (talk) 06:42, 28 January 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Copied the above from commons:COM:VP: for mysterious reasons, it wasn't shared with Wikisource. --Nemo 08:20, 31 January 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Please comment on Individual Engagement Grant proposals until February 21[edit]
I apologize if this message is not in your language. Please help translate it.
The Wikimedia Foundation is considering Individual Engagement Grant proposals from community members. Please join the discussion and share your thoughts about these ideas, until February 21. The following proposal may be of particular relevance for this Wikimedia project:
fr:Fable de Schleicher is proposed for deletion on the french-speaking wikisource (writen by August Schleicher, 1821 – 1868 ; see w:en:Schleicher's fable for some more explanations). What do you think : could these texts be import on oldwikisource or not ?
I mounted into it.wikisource, commons and it.wikivoyage a sctipt derived from the tool suggested [here] and it runs.It adds a link to wikidata into any page with an item into wikidata; and it saves into a $("body").data() variable the whole set of data got from wikidata. I'm going to test a old.wikisource version of it here into User:Alex brollo/common.js: feel free to use it if you like. Italic text--Alex brollo (talk) 17:35, 4 March 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Convert complex templates to Lua to make them faster and more powerful[edit]
(Please consider translating this message for the benefit of your fellow Wikimedians)
Greetings. As you might have seen on the Wikimedia tech blog or the tech ambassadors list, a new functionality called "Lua" is being enabled on all Wikimedia sites today. Lua is a scripting language that enables you to write faster and more powerful MediaWiki templates.
If you have questions about how to convert existing templates to Lua (or how to create new ones), we'll be holding two support sessions on IRC next week: one on Wednesday (for Oceania, Asia & America) and one on Friday (for Europe, Africa & America); see m:IRC office hours for the details. If you can't make it, you can also get help at mw:Talk:Lua scripting.
If you'd like to learn about this kind of events earlier in advance, consider becoming a Tech ambassador by subscribing to the mailing list. You will also be able to help your fellow Wikimedians have a voice in technical discussions and be notified of important decisions.
Many of the ideas listed there are too generic ("Write an extension"), improvements of existing features ("Improve Extension:CSS") or work-in-progress tasks ("Fix Parsoid bugs"). Many others are not directly related with development, and therefore not suitable either for GSOC.
After this filtering, we seem to be left with:
Article evolution playback tool idea
An easy way to share wiki content on social media services
Write an extension to support XML Sitemaps without using command line
Extension:OEmbedProvider
Add support for x3d 3D files to MediaWiki
Allow smoother and easier Wikimedia Commons pictures discovery
Build an interwiki notifications framework and implement it for InstantCommons
Automatic category redirects
(If you think your project should also be considered here please speak up!)
Most of these projects seem to be extension (and PHP?) centric. Can we have more diversity? Maybe gadgets and templates are too simple for a GSOC project? What about the mobile front? Do we have skin development projects that could make it here? Anything in the DevOps area? Anything the MediaWiki core maintainers would like to see happening?
It would be also nice to have more candidates benefiting specific Wikimedia projects. Beyond Wikipedia, we have several proposals related to Commons. Wikidata seems to be joining soon. What else? Could this be a chance to help Wiktionary, Wikibooks or any other project with specific needs craving for tech attention?
Also to the many students that have already showed their interest: feel free pushing your project ideas now!
We have some information at Wikisource:Wishlist, however, this is probably the opportunity to think of a fresh idea that is an opportunity for a short and limited time period.
I am going to send similar to the Wikisource-l mailing list and to enWS, and ask for them to contribute here. I think that something that is holistic for the WSes is more likely than a single wiki suggestion. billinghurstsDrewth 01:59, 23 March 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I would say that a proper metadata handling system is maybe the first priority, but maybe we can accomplish that via Lua templates on WS and metadata stored in Wikidata.
Another thing would be working with OKFN tools for seeking and integration (TEXTUS, for example).
Well, there's a lot of stuff we can do :-) Aubrey (talk) 11:45, 23 March 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
An idea: One-click import from the Internet Archive, with Djvu upload to Wikimedia Commons, same metadata, right copyright template, create Index page on the right language version of Wikisource, create all Pages with the existing OCR text, so they are ready for Google indexing, and later proofreading.
The user finds an interersting book at the Internet Archive.
User presses one button.
The text is ready for proofreading.
No, I'm not volunteering to write the software. --LA2 (talk) 16:21, 23 March 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I've opened a GSoc proposal about Proofread Page in order to improve Page: pages edition interface and allow edition of these pages with the Visual Editor. Tpt (talk) 06:29, 9 April 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
idea (hope not too late); request wikisource upload wizard - process flow = upload pdf to commons -> automatically convert to deja-vu -> automatically create work & toc at wikisource -> automatically match and split pages at source
the objective is to provide a tool for cultural professionals who are not coders to upload their content. design of user experience will be the hard part ? Slowking4 (talk) 16:32, 9 April 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Wikisource improvements for Summer of Code 2013[edit]
Hello! I am planning to submit a proposal regarding Extension:Collection for this summer's Google Summer of Code and Outreach Program for Women. I'm still working to narrow down the focus of this project, as I have many ideas on what can be improved (idea page can be found at User:GorillaWarfare/GSoC). My ideas include improvements that would affect Wikisource. Currently, printing or saving a Wikisource book is quite challenging, as the Collection extension has no way of identifying which pages make up a book. One of my project ideas is implementing a method to associate various pages with a book, an idea which will have more benefits to Wikisource than just improving printing and export. The other parts of my proposal include improving Extension:Collection's ease of use, improving exportation quality and possibly expanding the list of formats to which books and articles can be exported, adding easy formatting options to Extension:Collection, and various others.
I was hoping to get some feedback from the Wikisource community about these ideas. Do you think they're feasible (keeping in mind I'm certainly not planning to tackle all of these in a three-month period)? Are these changes you'd personally like to see? Are there other related improvements that you'd be interested in? Really, any advice/critique/comments/suggestions would be very much appreciated. Thank you! – GorillaWarfare(talk) 13:31, 8 April 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Hi! That is great, Aubrey and me we are working on this grant. Maybe we could have a talk soon? I'll send you an email with more information.--Micru (talk) 18:21, 9 April 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
As an update, I've started my actual proposal. Instead of focusing on Extension:Collection, I'm going to focus my proposal on Extension:BookManager. The problem with effectively printing an entire book is blocked by the need to organize a book's individual pages and chapters into a single unit, and I'm excited about the developments that solving this problem will allow: dependencies of bug 15071. I'm hoping to receive feedback on this, as it's an extension I'm really hoping to see deployed on Wikisource and Wikibooks. – GorillaWarfare(talk) 02:12, 16 April 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Here's a list of issues that would use help of people using the Collection extension and knowing if they're still valid. Same can be said of those on bugzilla, which at least are not lost. --Nemo 11:26, 12 April 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
At English Wikisource we are in the process of approving a policy to allow translations with a requirement that requires a "scan supported original language work on the appropriate language wiki". It has been pointed out in this discussion that do to different copyright concerns, some works that are PD in English are not PD in the original language. Would here (oldwikisource) be an appropriate language wiki for works that are PD in the US but not in the country/language of origin? JeepdaySock (talk) 14:39, 17 April 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
See here and older discussion. But I don't think it's a good idea anymore, because it might lead to competition with the other WS-language-domains etc. --D.H (talk) 15:17, 17 April 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I disagree, the first link D.H. provides is to long standing policy; such works do and should exist here. For example, the pre-1923 works of Hermann Hesse won't be PD in Germany and therefore not eligible for posting on de.ws until 2032. They are PD in the US, this would include the German version of Siddhartha and many of his other works. I am currently (albeit very slowly) working on a collection of his poetry here.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:09, 26 April 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Implementing Easier and More Efficient Metadata Tags on Wikisource[edit]
Disclosure: I am contracted by Creative Commons LRMI Project.
I would like to propose adopting the use of a by-default-disabled Mediawiki metadata feature that would greatly improve the organization and search engine visibility of the content of Wikisource. These metadata tags are part of Schema.org which was developed by Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex, and can be viewed here. The benefit of these tags is that when used within educational content such as on Wikisource, the information contained on the page is made into a way that is easily intelligible to machines by changing just one line with the Mediawiki configuration. An example of MediaWiki using Schema can be seen by using Google's testing tool. These metatags were originally developed by LRMI but their recent adoption of Schema.org is a huge milestone that has great potential to improve the efficiency of the way we are able to search educational resources and content on places like Wikisource. Maximilian.Klein.LRMI (talk) 22:21, 18 April 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There is a new request for comment on Meta-Wiki concerning the removal of administrative rights from long-term inactive Wikimedians. Generally, this proposal from stewards would apply to wikis without an administrators' review process.
We are also compiling a list of projects with procedures for removing inactive administrators on the talk page of the request for comment. Feel free to add your project(s) to the list if you have a policy on administrator inactivity.
All input is appreciated. The discussion may close as soon as 21 May 2013 (2013-05-21), but this will be extended if needed.
Wikisource vision development: News April 2013[edit]
I apologize if this message is not in your language. Please help translate it.
Dear Wikisourcerors, it has been almost a month since we have started with the Elaborate Wikisource strategic vision grant and we would like to share some news with you:
In case some Wikisources want to use Wikidata to store book metadata and share it with Commons, we have started Wikidata:Books task force to decide which properties are needed. We think it's very important to discuss book metadata there, both for Wikisource and for all other projects.
We also started some relevant Requests for Comments for Wikisource:
First contacts have been initiated with Open Library, Internet Archive and Open Knowledge Foundation for possible partnerships. Please check out this page.
And that's it for now! During the month of May, we (Aubrey and Micru) would like to organize at least one Skype or Google Hangout meeting for the users of each one of the 10 biggest wikisources plus another one or two for the other languages (depending on interest). We want to know your opinion on what Wikisource should become in the next years.
Thanks! --Micru and Aubrey 01:01, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
The default position of the "edit" link in page section headers is going to change soon. The "edit" link will be positioned adjacent to the page header text rather than floating opposite it.
Section edit links will be to the immediate right of section titles, instead of on the far right. If you're an editor of one of the wikis which already implemented this change, nothing will substantially change for you; however, scripts and gadgets depending on the previous implementation of section edit links will have to be adjusted to continue working; however, nothing else should break even if they are not updated in time.
Ideas to do this all the way to 2009 at least. It is often difficult to track which of several potential section edit links on the far right is associated with the correct section, and many readers and anonymous or new editors may even be failing to notice section edit links at all, since they read section titles, which are far away from the links.
Tech newsletter: Subscribe to receive the next editions[edit]
Latest Tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes.
Recent software changes
(Not all changes will affect you.)
The latest version of MediaWiki (version 1.22/wmf4) was added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 13, and to the English Wikipedia (with a Wikidata software update) on May 20. It will be updated on all other Wikipedia sites on May 22. [1][2]
A software update will perhaps result in temporary issues with images. Please report any problems you notice. [3]
MediaWiki recognizes links in twelve new schemes. Users can now link to SSH, XMPP and Bitcoin directly from wikicode. [4]
The UploadWizard on Commons now shows links to the old upload form in 55 languages (bug 33513). [10]
Future software changes
The next version of MediaWiki (version 1.22/wmf5) will be added to Wikimedia sites starting on May 27. [11]
An updated version of Notifications, with new features and fewer bugs, will be added to the English Wikipedia on May 23. [12]
The final version of the "single user login" (which allows people to use the same username on different Wikimedia wikis) is moved to August 2013. The software will automatically rename some usernames. [13]
A new discussion system for MediaWiki, called "Flow", is under development. Wikimedia designers need your help to inform other users, test the prototype and discuss the interface. [14].
The Wikimedia Foundation is hiring people to act as links between software developers and users for VisualEditor. [15]
Important note: This is the first edition of the Tech News weekly summaries, which help you monitor recent software changes likely to impact you and your fellow Wikimedians.
If you want to continue to receive the next issues every week, please subscribe to the newsletter. You can subscribe your personal talk page and a community page like this one. The newsletter can be translated into your language.
The Notifications feature, active on the English Wikipedia, now supports local blacklists and whitelists. It is possible to hide users (for example certain bots) from all notifications on the wiki. Also, e-mail notifications are now grouped. [17][18]
The first stable release of MediaWiki 1.21 for sites outside Wikimedia was published on May 25. [19]
The tool storing information about languages (CLDR) was updated to the latest version (23.1). [20]
Due to a software issue, users couldn't enable or disable Gadgets. The issue is now fixed.
Future software changes
MediaWiki will stop supporting XHTML 1.0 and HTML versions lower than version 5. HTML5 will now be the default language for pages created by the software. [21][22]
The software will check if all uploaded files are secure and match their type. [23]
I'm in serious need of help at Wikilivres.ca. We have been under persistent attack by spammers, and no-one has the technical skills to implement Captcha's or other countermeasures. Less urgent but still important is a need to upgrade the software from version 1.16, and to deal with the extremely slow speed of the site. Help will be very appreciated. Eclecticology (talk) 09:37, 2 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Hi! A quick fix is maybe to block the account creation right of anonymous user. It can be done by adding to your LocalSettings.php
That would be great! I have given User:Alan.ca your name and mediawiki link so that he can give the necessary permissions. I have cPanel access to the site but that does not seem to be enough. I could say more about the situation ... but not in public. Eclecticology (talk) 23:38, 3 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Sorry, I've to do something unexpected this week and the next one. So I won't be able to work on Wikilivres these two weeks. Sorry again. Tpt (talk) 17:10, 4 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
OK, I can understand. Still if you make contact with Alan, please get the shell access when you can even if you need to wait before using it. Meanwhile, if someone else can help with the spamming that too would be good. Eclecticology (talk) 03:49, 5 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The most important is to stop the spam bot, e.g by blocking its IP address (or the range of its IP adresses)... If you are beaurocrat of the wiki you should have access to special page with this fiture. After that is a good idea to delete all user pages with the spam using a bot (now there are more then 1000 such pages). I can help of cource but without special rights I am not able to do much. Electron<Talk?> 09:11, 5 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The spam has been coming from multiple IP addresses in multiple ranges. I have been using range blocks without much effect. Eclecticology (talk) 06:17, 7 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Maybe a good idea is to block as wide IP ranges as possible temporally (eg. for a week or two) - it will stop to create new user accounts and won't stop the present users to edit. Site will be visible for everyone but no one can create new accoun't. The spam bot creates about 100 new user account per day and this can be a problem in the future. So... Electron<Talk?> 07:42, 7 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes.
Recent software changes
(Not all changes will affect you.)
The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf5) was added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 29. It will be enabled on the English Wikipedia on June 3, and on all other Wikipedias on June 5. [30]
The Tamil Wikipedia shared a Lua module they created to automate their Main Page. [31]
There is now a test wiki to test new features in right-to-left languages. [32]
The Thanks feature was added to the English Wikipedia; users can now thank others for individual edits. [33]
The new interface for account creation and log-in is now the default on 30 wikis, including the English Wikipedia, Commons, Meta, and Wikidata. The feature will be added to all wikis after June 5. Users can return to the old look by adding ?useNew=0 to the web address. [34]
Videos are now played in pop-up windows if their size on the page is smaller than 200 pixels (800 pixels on the English Wikipedia). [35]
Opening your talk page now marks notifications as read, for wikis using the Notifications feature. (bug 47912) [36].
All autoconfirmed users can now reset transcoding of video files; previously only administrators could do this. [37]
The Nearby feature allows people who use mobile devices to see Wikipedia articles about objects and places around them. [38]
Future software changes
The PostEdit feature is now part of MediaWiki, and will work on all wikis. (bug 48726) [39]
MediaWiki will now be updated every week, starting on June 6. Thanks to this, bugs will be fixed and features will be added faster than they are now. [41]
Hi, apologies for posting this in English, but I wanted to alert your community to a discussion on Meta about potential changes to the Wikimedia Trademark Policy. Please translate this statement if you can. We hope that you will all participate in the discussion; we also welcome translations of the legal team’s statement into as many languages as possible and encourage you to voice your thoughts there. Please see the Trademark practices discussion (on Meta-Wiki) for more information. Thank you! --Mdennis (WMF) (talk)
Uploading here test scripts: request for comments[edit]
While waiting for a formal purpouse and a detailed project, I'd like to begin to post here some templates, js scripts and Lua modules, and one or two Italian or - better - multilengual books to test tools. I usually work into it.source only (dealing with scripts) and I'd like to test them into a different environment, to generalize them and to discuss them into a different community. If you agree with my project, what can be the best strategy to avoid confusion and any drawback to this community? --Alex brollo (talk) 12:40, 4 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think that we could use a page like Wikisource:Lua modules as a collector, and put all the scripts in Module: namespace. To avoid conflict, every module could have the name in the language from the wiki it comes from, so to have also a direct source. For example, you could copy it:Modulo:Dati in Module:Dati. What do you think? --Aubrey (talk) 20:23, 6 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Really I was thinking about a unique prefix so that candidate file for sharing (js, templates, modules) would be clearly identified/retrieved by a bot to be copied (or called when js) into other projects. Convention should be, to edit then here only (t.i. never edit their copies into other projects). A prefix could be character "!": i.e., a work copy of it.source Template:Pg and Modulo:Pg could be uploaded here as Template:!pg and Module:!pg. A global bot could update local copies into willing projects easily. Doc of local copies of pages could mention the convention "edit into oldwikisorce, since your edits of this will not been saved". IMHO it could run. --Alex brollo (talk) 22:00, 6 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes.
Recent software changes
(Not all changes will affect you.)
The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf6) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 6, and to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 10. It will be enabled on all Wikipedias on June 13. [42]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.
Recent software changes
(Not all changes will affect you.)
The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22wmf7) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 13. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on June 17, and on all Wikipedias on June 20. [50]
VisualEditor was temporarily disabled on Wikipedia sites on June 14 due to an issue that inserted a lot of HTML code. The issue is now fixed and VisualEditor works as before.
Users can now use VisualEditor to add images and other media items from their local wikis and Wikimedia Commons. [52].
The new Disambiguator extension, which was previously part of MediaWiki itself, was enabled on test wikis. It adds the magic word __DISAMBIG__ to mark disambiguation pages. [54]
The newly enabled Campaigns extension allows Wikimedia Foundation data analysts to track account creations that result from a specific outreach campaign.
Future software changes
Universal Language Selector will be added to the Catalan (ca), Cebuano (ceb), Persian (fa), Finnish (fi), Norwegian Bokmål (no), Portuguese (pt), Ukrainian (uk), Vietnamese (vi), Waray-Waray (war) and Chinese (zh) Wikipedias on June 18. [55]
Starting on June 18, VisualEditor will be randomly enabled by default for half of newly created accounts on the English Wikipedia to test stability, performance and features. [56]
Two new webfonts (UnifrakturMaguntia and Linux Libertine) will be added to wikis that use Universal Language Selector. [57][58]
It will now be possible to hide the sidebar while using the Translate extension to reduce distractions (bug #45836). [59]
Very interesting talk. But.... They all should use a standard format: why? To make user editing simpler? To produce a cleaner wiki code for bots, or other uses? To produce a cleaner, standardized html to be used in html/xhtml/xml exports? --Alex brollo (talk) 05:59, 20 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
For all those purposes: see dvncmd.tk for an example; I don't know exactly which is the best format ever, but we should at least be consistent within all language versions, to ease cross-wikiness (and save storage, too). --Ricordisamoa 06:04, 20 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Can we list here a set of requisites of an "ideal" poem tag?
Here some requisite I'd like:
simple but "elastic" wiki code (covering indentation of verses, spacing between strophes, broken verses very common in theater texts
clean, well-structured html easy to parse
verse numbering with anchors to all verses to make verse-specific linking easy
easy selective transclusion of sets of verses
.....
IMHO, Scribuntu/Lua should be explored to get all these results, keeping in mind the features of VisualEditor. No present solution respects "ideal requisites". --Alex brollo (talk) 07:50, 20 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Gujarati language domain of wikisource came in to existence on 27th March 2012. Why it is still listed at Wikisource:Languages? Also there are many Gujarati pages exist here. All of them are already transferred to Gujarati domain then why duplication? Thank you.--Vyom25 (talk) 18:16, 21 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.
Recent software changes
(Not all changes will affect you.)
The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22wmf8) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 20. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on June 24, and on all Wikipedias on June 27. [61]
Universal Language Selectorwas successfully enabled on the Catalan (ca), Cebuano (ceb), Persian (fa), Finnish (fi), Norwegian Bokmål (no), Portuguese (pt), Ukrainian (uk), Vietnamese (vi), Waray-Waray (war) and Chinese (zh) Wikipedias. [62]
The new interface for account creation and log–in is now the default on all Wikimedia wikis. The old look is no longer available (bug #46333). [63]
It is now possible to synchronise local CSS and JavaScript files with the beta cluster. This should make it easier to test software features before they are enabled on live wikis. [67]
Future software changes
The default link to a help page on editing, visible below the editing window, will change on almost 600 Wikimedia wikis and will now link to MediaWiki.org (bug #45977). [68]
Universal Language Selector will be enabled on wikis without language versions (such as Wikisource and Wikispecies) on June 25. [69]
The AbuseFilter extension will allow filtering links and HTML code for page creations. [70]
As far as I can see this proposal comes from people who don't have any contributions in the Wikisource's realisations.--Zyephyrus (talk) 15:16, 24 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.
Recent software changes
(Not all changes will affect you.)
The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf9) was added to test wikis on June 27. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on July 8, and on all Wikipedias on July 11.
On Wikisource, the canonical names of the "Index" and "Page" namespaces in the Proofread Page extension are no longer localized (bug #47596). Please check scripts that depend on $wgCanonicalNamespace. [76]
A JavaScript problem caused the "View history" and "Add topic" tabs in the Vector skin to be moved into the drop-down menu on right-to-left wikis. The issue is now fixed and links are visible as before (bug #50196). [77]
Tech news #26 incorrectly reported that audio transcoding was added to TimedMediaHandler; it was actually statistics about audio transcoding that were added. [85]
Universal Language Selector will be enabled on 2013-07-09[edit]
On July 9, 2013, Universal Language Selector (ULS) will be enabled on this wiki. The ULS provides a flexible way to configure and deliver language settings like interface language, fonts, and input methods (keyboard mappings). Making it available here is the last phase of making ULS available on all Wikimedia wikis.
There's a reasonable need to get a shared, standard set of templates, modules, js scripts for wikisource projects - all projects sharing a common, identical goal and facing with the same, identical issues, and needing the same set of international, standard metadata. Nevertheless it's very difficult to synchronize efforts, while working into different "boiling" projects; and I personally found very frustrating to admit that some painful efforts to solve specific issues turned out to be simply a "rediscovering the wheel". :-(
Oldwikisource, given its "neutral" character, could be IMHO the perfect project to share the best of source projects, and there's a perfect kind of works that could uploaded into oldwikisource and proofreaded using common, shared styles & tools: they are multilanguage works.
Presently, we are going to upload and proofread a three-language (French, German, Italian and some English too) magazine: Histoire des Alpes - Storia delle Alpi - Geschichte der Alpen. It's released under CC-BY-SA-2.0 licence, My idea is, to upload it into oldwikisource, transcluding it by Iwpage into any interested projecy - the proofreading/formatting job being done into oldwikisource, with common tools, common templates, common modules, common "styles". What do you think about?
And you "oldwikisourcians" ... what do you think about? --Alex brollo (talk) 17:47, 5 July 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm nearly sure we have discussed multilanguage works here some years ago... but I cannot find it. -jkb- (talk) 19:18, 5 July 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I got an encouraging reply into wikisource-l; if there aren't strong objections, I'm going to try in a few days after some more discussion.... just to see what will happen. Obviously I'll use this opportunity to load here the best of it.source templates and scripts; any of you is strongly encouraged to fix them or replace them with something better, this is the real goal of my test: to discussi, find and share here best solutions for common issues. :-) --Alex brollo (talk) 23:18, 6 July 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Common templates are a very good idea, but how are you going to make them work? Currently, there is a lot of (nearly) identical templates here on the oldwikisource copied from different language versions. E.g. for extra letter-spacing there are at least {{LetterSpacing}} from en-wiki (used in Irish Gaelic texts), {{Sparrt}} from nl-wiki (used in Afrikaans texts), {{SperrSchrift}} from de-wiki (used in some German texts, I also started to use it for Volapük recently), {{Razr}} from ru-wiki (used in Tatar texts), and {{Rozpinane}} also from de-wiki, but renamed (used in Upper Sorbian texts). Ideally, they all should just link to the same template, but they don't. Nobody looks after templates in any centralized manner here. Users of German dialects tend to copy templates from de-wiki, users of languages from ex-USSR – from ru-wiki, and so on. -- Shruggy (talk) 10:22, 26 August 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
You are right, but imagine what will happen if multilanguage works (writtein in major languages) would be not only allowed, but encouraged here, best template imported from major projects, then classified for action, discussed, compared and tested. I see that statement that forbids to load here books written in major languages (but some rare exceptions) as the main problem to remove. And another old issue is problems to build an interproject link pointing to oldwikisource - I see bugs open about this problem but I don't understand if the bug has been solved. --Alex brollo (talk) 07:40, 2 September 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
VisualEditor deployment has been delayed by a week. It is now planned to enable the editor for logged–in editors on chosen Wikipedias on July 22, and on all Wikipedias on July 29.
A bug that made it impossible to save VisualEditor edits that triggered a CAPTCHA has been fixed. [86]
Uploading files has been restricted on Meta Wiki to administrators and the newly created uploader group. An exemption doctrine policy is being developed (bug #50287). [87]
Emergency priority CentralNotice banners will always be shown unless users have hidden them, ignoring cookies set for lower priority banners. [88]
Future software changes
MediaWiki will allow choosing a specific page of a PDF document or a thumbnail of a video file to show up inside the
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.
Recent software changes(Not all changes will affect you.)
The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf10) was added to test wikis on July 11. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on July 15, and on all Wikipedias on July 18. [95]
The Disambiguator extension was enabled on all Wikimedia wikis on July 9 (bug #50174). To use it, add the __DISAMBIG__ code to disambiguation templates (see example). [96]
A new version of the Single User Login system for global accounts will be enabled on July 17. Users will now automatically go back to the previous page instead of seeing the "Login success" page with logos. [98]
The software that resizes images on all wikis will change on July 18. Resizing of big images will be faster and more reliable, and the resolution limit for GIF, PNG and TIFF files (currently set at 50 megapixels) will be removed. [99]
Edit tags (mostly used by AbuseFilter) will now also be on diff pages. They include a link to Special:Tags before the edit summary. Wikis that use links in tag messages should remove them. [100][101]
Global edit filters are currently in testing and will be added to wikis later. [102]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.
Recent software changes(Not all changes will affect you.)
The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 18. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on July 22, and on all Wikipedias on July 25. [105]
The schedule to add VisualEditor to non-English Wikipedias has been changed: the new editor will be available for logged-in users on the German (de), Spanish (es), French (fr), Hebrew (he), Italian (it), Dutch (nl), Polish (pl), Russian (ru) and Swedish (sv) Wikipedias on July 24, and for all users on those wikis on July 29. [107]
A warning is now displayed if an edit made with VisualEditor matches an edit filter (bug #50472).
Hello, Sorry for English but It's very important for bot operators so I hope someone translates this.
Pywikipedia is migrating to Git so after July 26, SVN checkouts won't be updated If you're using Pywikipedia you have to switch to git, otherwise you will use out-dated framework and your bot might not work properly. There is a manual for doing that and a blog post explaining about this change in non-technical language. If you have question feel free to ask in mw:Manual talk:Pywikipediabot/Gerrit, mailing list, or in the IRC channel. Best Amir (via Global message delivery). 13:55, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Reply[reply]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes; not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 25. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on July 29, and on all Wikipedias on August 1. [112]
Wikivoyage was offline for around 40 minutes on July 24. [113]
The Notifications and Thanks extensions were added to Meta-Wiki on July 26; other wikis will get them soon. [115]
It is now possible to add edit summaries on Wikidata using the API; the feature will be added to user interface soon. [116]
The software that resizes large PNG images on all wikis was changed on July 25. Resizing of PNG files bigger than 35 megapixels should be faster and more reliable now. [117]
Three new webfonts (Gentium, Old Persian and Shapour) will be added to Universal Language Selector. [118], [119], [120]
Special:MIMESearch, which gives a list of files by type, will be enabled on all Wikimedia wikis with MediaWiki version 1.22/wmf12 (bug #13438). [121]
A mailing list to discuss multimedia features was started; users are encouraged to sign up.
On July 24, VisualEditor was added for logged-in users on the German (de), Spanish (es), French (fr), Hebrew (he), Italian (it), Polish (pl), Russian (ru) and Swedish (sv) Wikipedias; it will be added for all users on those wikis on July 29. [122]
A preference to completely disable VisualEditor while it is in beta phase was added on July 24. [123]
As I told into a previous post (Wikisource:Scriptorium#Multilanguage_works) I'm going to explore the possibility to upload here some volumes of a recent multilingual (Italian, French, German and some English) magazine, released under CC-2.0-BY-SA. I know that running rules state that this magazine should be uploaded into language-specific source subdomains (splitting it into subdomains and sharing work with Iw tools), but IMHO this could be a test case to do something different: to proofread multilingual works here, with a shared, inter-subdomain set of templates, modules, tools, conventions. Ideally, dufferent users of different subdomains should import here, and compare, best tools/practices of their subdomain, getting some interesting results:
www.wikisource.org could be used as a discussion arena - in practice;
best tools and templates would be compared and refined;
usual users of this project could test and use best tools from major source subdomains.
Presently I uploaded Index:Labi 1996.djvu and Index:Labi 1997.djvu; the first one is already uploaded into it.source, and I'll fill pages with tl|Iwpages (while waiting for your comments). The second one is the real test. --Alex brollo (talk) 16:24, 30 July 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
HTTPS for logged in users on Wednesday August 21st[edit]
“
As we outlined in our blog post on the future of HTTPS at the Wikimedia Foundation[0], the plan is to enable HTTPS by default for logged in users on August 21st, this Wednesday. We are still on target for that rollout date.
As this can have severe consequences for users where HTTPS is blocked by governments/network operators in addition to users who connect to Wikimedia sites via high latency connections, we've set up a page on MetaWiki describing what is going on and what it means for users and what they can do to report problems.
Please help watch out for any unintended consequences on August 21st and report any negative issues to us as soon as you can. Bugzilla:, IRC (#wikimedia-operations), or the (forthcoming) OTRS email are all fine.
Greetings. Starting on August 21 (tomorrow), all users with an account will be using HTTPS to access Wikimedia sites. HTTPS brings better security and improves your privacy. More information is available at m:HTTPS.
If HTTPS causes problems for you, tell us on bugzilla, on IRC (in the #wikimedia-operations channel) or on meta. If you can't use the other methods, you can also send an e-mail to https@wikimedia.org.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
New features
The previous version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf13) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on August 15. It was enabled on non-Wikipedia sites on August 19, and on all Wikipedias on August 22. [130]
The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf14) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on August 22. It will be enabled on non-Wikipedia sites on August 26, and on all Wikipedias on August 29. [131]
You can now use the <wbr> HTML5 tag to say where a word can be cut. (52468) [134]
Gadget authors: you can now use the wikipage.content hook, so that your scripts are re-run when a page is changed after the document-ready event (for example using Ajax). (30713) [135]
Problems fixed
There was a bug where file redirects didn't work when a file was renamed; it is now fixed. There is still an issue with purging, but it should be fixed soon. (52200)
Maintenance reports provided by special pages will now all be updated on each wiki every six months. This will for example give you recent information on uncategorized pages, unused templates and most wanted pages (see details).
There was a bug that caused false positives for anti-blanking edit filters; it is now fixed. (52077) [136]
The "edit" and "edit source" tabs and section edit links can now be changed more easily; for example, some wikis are using "edit source" for wikitext editing, and "edit beta" for VisualEditor. You can ask for the same change in bugzilla.
You can now edit references that are added inside a <references> block. (51741)
You can now test on mediawiki.org new basic tools to add and edit struck text (with the button for the <s> tag), lower text ( for <sub>), upper text ( for <sup>), underlined text ( for <u>), computer code ( for <code> and <tt>), math text ( for <math>), Egyptian hieroglyphs ( for <hiero>), and to say that text is in another language ( for lang="ar" dir="rtl"). (51609, 51612, 51611, 51590, 51610, 52352)
You can now use VisualEditor with the Opera browser. [137]
Future
Starting on August 26, you will be able to use data from Wikidata on Wikivoyage sites. [138]
Starting on August 27, you will also get notifications on the mobile site if you're logged in to a wiki using notifications. [139]
Starting on August 28, all users with an account will be using HTTPS to access Wikimedia sites. HTTPS brings better security and improves your privacy. Some countries (like China) will not use HTTPS. If HTTPS causes problems for you, tell us on meta. [140]
Starting on August 29, you will get the code editor interface to edit JavaScript and CSS pages on all wikis. [141]
The plan to use Solr for search in MediaWiki was changed; instead, Elasticsearch is now planned. [142]
Please be patient if I repeat myself about multilingual works here; this is what I sent yesterday to wikisource-l.
«
I ignored oldwikisource rules, and I uploaded there some Index pages from a multilingual magazine collecting articles in French, German, Italian with English summaries, one of them is https://wikisource.org/wiki/Index:Labi_1997.djvu
The try is to test oldwikisource features and issues and to to import there and test some useful templates (in Lua too) and editing scripts to expose there to wikisource community and possibily to begin to build a set of shared ideas.
My proposal is, to remove the prohibition to upload there multilingual works, even if their language is covered by a specific project; to encourage users to upload into oldwikisource any multilingual work; to create a specific interwiki code (mul:) to allow links to them; and to encourage any user to import into oldwikisource best ideas of their favourite project, and to discuss them after comparison with other functionally similar solutions.
Can be, that this would decrease a little bit the deep, growing difference in styles, scripts, templates among wikisource projects.
If wikisource community thinks that I've to remove my uploads since I'm going into a wrong way and disrupting something that needs to be saved, please tell me and I'll do.
I'm pretty sure, this text is neither in sk, nor in sl. It uses letters ę and ǫ which are common scientific transliterations of little (ѧ) and big yus (ѫ), so most probably it is Old Church Slavonic. It's just not written in Cyrillic script, that's all. Perhaps the original is Glagolitic. -- Shruggy (talk) 10:47, 13 September 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yep, it's Old Church Slavonic; it's the romanization of Прогласъ. However, I don't think we need a romanization of it. —Angr 23:05, 6 November 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Announcement: English Wikisource to trial new CirrusSearch[edit]
For the community to note that from this week that English Wikisource will be set up with a pilot of the new search infrastructure CirrusSearch via the addition of mw:Extension:CirrusSearch. I volunteered the enWS community for the pilot and there are significant advantages for the Wikisources in overcoming existing shortcomings in the present indexing systems, and in testing and refining new search functionality prior to a full roll-out. More information about the project at CirrusSearch and the page contains the process by which the developers will be assessing in the pilot.
The implementation will be that we will have the new index turned on as a secondary backend so that the indexes and indexing will be running besides each other. It is my understanding that new data will be indexed very shortly after each save, unlike the current daily reindexing of new data. billinghurstsDrewth 06:46, 21 September 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
First, I’d like to apologize for the English. If you can, please help to translate this for other members of your community.
The legal team at the Wikimedia Foundation would greatly appreciate your input on the best way to manage the "community logo" (pictured here) to best balance protection of the projects with community support. Accordingly, they have created a “request for consultation” on Meta where they set out briefly some of the issues to be considered and the options that they perceive. Your input would be invaluable in helping guide them in how best to serve our mission.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
New features
Special:Listfiles can now display old versions of files a user has uploaded. A new link was also added (Special:AllMyFiles) that gives a list of all files the current user has ever uploaded (that haven't been deleted).
There is now an Android application to contribute to translatewiki.net from mobile devices. [143]
Notifications inform you of new activity that affects you -- and let you take quick action.
(This message is in English, please translate as needed)
Greetings!
Notifications will inform users about new activity that affects them on this wiki in a unified way: for example, this new tool will let you know when you have new talk page messages, edit reverts, mentions or links -- and is designed to augment (rather than replace) the watchlist. The Wikimedia Foundation's editor engagement team developed this tool (code-named 'Echo') earlier this year, to help users contribute more productively to MediaWiki projects.
We're now getting ready to bring Notifications to almost all other Wikimedia sites, and are aiming for a 22 October deployment, as outlined in this release plan. It is important that notifications is translated for all of the languages we serve.
There are three major points of translation needed to be either done or checked:
Notifications help on mediawiki.org. This page can be hosted after translation on mediawiki.org or we can localize it to this Wikipedia. You do not have to have an account to translate on mediawiki, but single-user login will create it for you there if you follow the link.
This community consultation was commenced on September 24. The following day, two individuals filed a legal opposition against the registration of the Community logo.
The question is whether the Wikimedia Foundation should seek a collective membership mark with respect to this logo or abandon its registration and protection of the trademark.
We want to make sure that everyone get a chance to speak up so that we can get clear direction from the community. We would therefore really appreciate the community's help in translating this announcement from English so that everyone is able to understand it.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
You can now create and edit references inside media captions. [151]
You now need to press the "delete" key twice to delete a template, reference or image; the first time, they only become selected, to avoid accidental deletion of infoboxes and similar content. [152]
When you resize images, you will now still see them, and their size will also be seen in the center. [153][154]
MediaWiki 1.22wmf22 was added to test wikis on October 17. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on October 21 and all Wikipedia wikis on October 24 (calendar).
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
New features
The "Toolbox" section in the site sidebar is now called "Tools" in English. You can do the same in your language by editing the interface text on translatewiki.net. Someone else may have already done it. [157]
On wikis with VisualEditor, you can now use it on pages in the File, Help and Category spaces. [158]
Problems
On October 22 (UTC), an error in the site settings caused *.wikimedia.org sites (like Meta-Wiki and Commons) to redirect to wikimediafoundation.org for a few hours. [159]
Future
MediaWiki 1.23wmf1 was added to test wikis on October 24. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on October 28 and all Wikipedia wikis on October 31 (calendar).
In the next days, servers in San Francisco will start providing (cached) content to users located in Oceania. If you are in that area and notice problems, please tell us. [160]
You will soon be able to test new features easily using the "Beta Features" view. VisualEditor will be in the list on sites where it works and isn't automatically enabled. Another example is a set of changes in the article text style.
Wikidata to support language links in January 2014[edit]
English: Support for Wikisource language links on Wikidata is expected to be enabled on January 13, 2014. The coordination/proposal page for Wikisource integration is here (on Wikidata), with discussions on the talk page. The Anonymouse (talk) 05:28, 3 November 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
español: Apoyo en Wikidata para enlaces interlingüísticos (interwikis) de Wikisource se espera estar habilitar en el 13 de enero de 2014. La página de coordinación/propuesta para integrar Wikisource está aquí (en Wikidata), con los discusiones en la página de discusión. The Anonymouse (talk) 05:28, 3 November 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
New features
The style and colors for warning boxes, error messages, and success messages in all skins of MediaWiki has been changed. [161]
You will soon be able to switch from editing in VisualEditor to editing wikitext directly without having to save the page. You can't yet switch from wikitext to VisualEditor but developers hope to make it possible in the future. [162]
Problems
There was a problem on October 31 during the activation of MediaWiki 1.22wmf2 on test wikis. mediawiki.org was also broken, and if you had problems logging in, it was probably because of this as well.
Future
Because of the problem with MediaWiki 1.22wmf2, the calendar has changed. It will be added to mediawiki.org and non-Wikipedia sites on November 4, and all Wikipedia sites on November 7.
JavaScript / Gadget developers
Due to a recent change, gadgets and user scripts that use jQuery UI should explicitly load the appropriate modules, as they may not be loaded by default. [163]
Developers have started to remove long-deprecated methods. You should check the JavaScript console (in debug=true mode) and look for deprecation warnings and their stack trace. [164]
(Apologies for writing in English. Please translate if necessary)
We would like to let you know about Beta Features, a new program from the Wikimedia Foundation that lets you try out new features before they are released for everyone.
Think of it as a digital laboratory where community members can preview upcoming software and give feedback to help improve them. This special preference page lets designers and engineers experiment with new features on a broad scale, but in a way that's not disruptive.
Beta Features is now ready for testing on MediaWiki.org. It will also be released on Wikimedia Commons and MetaWiki this Thursday, 7 November. Based on test results, the plan is to release it on all wikis worldwide on 21 November, 2013.
Here are the first features you can test this week:
Media Viewer — view images in large size or full screen
Would you like to try out Beta Features now? After you log in on MediaWiki.org, a small 'Beta' link will appear next to your 'Preferences'. Click on it to see features you can test, check the ones you want, then click 'Save'. Learn more on the Beta Features page.
Beta Features was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation's Design, Multimedia and VisualEditor teams. Along with other developers, they will be adding new features to this experimental program every few weeks. They are very grateful to all the community members who helped create this project — and look forward to many more productive collaborations in the future.
Enjoy, and don't forget to let developers know what you think! Keegan (WMF) (talk) 20:50, 5 November 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
New features
You can now use the "Autonym" font of the Universal Language Selector (ULS) to display the name of languages (for example in navigation templates) in their correct script. To do this, add the CSS class "autonym" to the elements that include language names. Note that this font only works for the name of languages, not for any other text. [165]
Problems
There was a problem with Parsoid (the program used by VisualEditor to convert wikitext to annotated HTML) on November 4, between 19:40 and 20:40 (UTC). Encoding issues caused non-ASCII characters (including those with diacritics, like "é") to be broken when converted to wikitext and saved to the page. [166]
Future
The Beta Features tool is now available on Commons and Meta-Wiki. With it, you can test new features before they're added for everyone. The plan is to add this tool to all wikis on November 21. [167]
MediaWiki 1.23wmf3 was added to test wikis on November 7. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on November 12 and all Wikipedia wikis on November 14 (calendar). [168]
The MassMessage tool will be added to all wikis on November 14. It will make it simpler to send messages across wikis. [169]
The button of the Search page will soon be changed to be blue and bigger (see the difference). [170]
You will soon be able to add a page name as parameter for {{REVISIONID}}, {{REVISIONUSER}} and {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}} and similar functions, by writing for example {{REVISIONID:Apple}}. [171]
In the future, when you hide a CentralNotice banner on a wiki, it will also be hidden on other Wikimedia sites. [172]
) Are there any verifyability policies for wikisource (as like wikipedia)? I found lots of text, without reference in detail publication, so I cant judge, whether it is copyrighted or not. And also some known copyrighted materials found. Our Bengali Wikipedia/wikisource is too small. In wikisource one admin Bellayed Bhai.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
There was a problem caused by too many requests to the database on November 14. [173]
Future
MediaWiki 1.23wmf4 was added to test wikis on November 14. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on November 19 and all Wikipedia wikis on November 21 (calendar).
The new Search tool (CirrusSearch) will be added to *.wikimedia.org, Wikimania and Wikisource wikis on November 19, and Wiktionary wikis on November 21 (except where it's already available). Once it is added, you can test it by adding &srbackend=CirrusSearch to the address of the search results page. It will become the main search engine on Wikivoyage wikis on November 21. [174]
The MassMessage tool will be added to all wikis on November 19 instead of November 14. It will make it simpler to send messages across wikis. [175]
The Wikimedia legal team invites you to participate in the development of the new Wikimedia trademark policy.
The current trademark policy was introduced in 2009 to protect the Wikimedia marks. We are now updating this policy to better balance permissive use of the marks with the legal requirements for preserving them for the community. The new draft trademark policy is ready for your review here, and we encourage you to discuss it here.
We would appreciate if someone would translate this message into your language so more members of your community can contribute to the conversation.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
New features
The Beta Features announced before are now available on all Wikimedia wikis. You can test new features easily by changing your Beta preferences. VisualEditor is one of those features on sites where it works and isn't automatically enabled. There is also a new media viewer and changes in the article text style. [176]
Tools developers can now create tools that use the OAuth protocol to connect to accounts on Wikimedia sites. As a user, you can use those tools to make edits and other changes with your account without giving the tool your password. [177]
Currently I'm editing a Javanese script Bible, the first digital version of it, so please forgive the flooding of the RC list. Bennylin (talk) 11:36, 4 December 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The CommonsMetadata feature was added to all wikis. It creates metadata information about multimedia files (like their license) that can be read automatically by computer programs. It not only works for Commons, but for all wikis, and you can use it for files on your wiki by editing templates used to describe metadata. [179]
You can now paste formatted content copied from external sources (not just as plain text) into VisualEditor; this includes copy/pasting from other VisualEditor windows. [181]
You can now open VisualEditor by adding ?veaction=edit to the page URL, regardless of your user preferences. [182]
Many bugs have been fixed, and VisualEditor should also look faster, for example when you save a page. [183]
Problems
Due to issues, the new search tool ("CirrusSearch") was recently removed from wikis where it was enabled, then added again. [184]
Future
MediaWiki 1.23wmf6 was added to test wikis on December 5. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on December 10 and all Wikipedia wikis on December 12 (calendar).
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The toolbar is now simpler; all text styles (bold, italics, underline, subscript, etc.) are in the same menu, and the "More" menu is called "Insert". [188]
You can now use a basic tool to add special characters to your text. You can add more characters (useful in your language) by editing the MediaWiki interface on translatewiki.net.
The tool to add and edit mathematical text is now called "formula". [189]
Problems
There was a problem with the "Create a book" tool (Collection); books could only be exported to PDF format. The change has been undone. [190]
The log-in system for external tools ("OAuth") was broken on wikis that tested the new search tool. It was fixed last week. [191][192]
MediaWiki 1.23wmf7 was added to test wikis on December 12. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on December 17 and all Wikipedia wikis on December 19 (calendar).
You will soon be able to select the language of SVG images that have translations using a drop-down menu on the image page. (see example) [194]
GLAMToolset, a tool to help GLAM groups (like museums) upload many pictures to Commons, will be added to Commons on December 17. [195]
A Draft namespace will be added to the English Wikipedia to make it easier to create new pages. You will be able to use VisualEditor for drafts if you have enabled it. [196][197]
Hello dear, hope you are enjoying holidays. I want to ask that what is the process of uploading books containg JPG photos not text or PDF files. Further what is required number of pages to assign seprate domain name to any language wikisource. What is process of being an Admin? Ameen Akbar (talk) 20:35, 21 December 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent software changes
The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf8) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on December 19. It will be enabled on non-Wikipedia wikis on December 31 and on all Wikipedia wikis on January 2, 2014 (calendar).
You can now test the new search tool ("CirrusSearch") on all Wikisource, Wiktionary and Wikimedia chapter wikis hosted on Foundation servers. Enable "New search" in your Beta features preferences. [199]
There was a bug where notifications were not sent when the signature of the user leaving the message linked to a translated namespace. The problem was fixed in the software and will soon be fixed on Wikimedia sites. [200][201]
You can now use the log-in system for external tools (OAuth) on all Wikimedia wikis that use the unified login. [202]
If your wiki adds stars or other icons to interwiki links for featured articles in other languages, you may need to change the JavaScript code. [203]
You can thank other users for their edits even if your browser does not have JavaScript. [204][205]
(This is a message to all Wikisource editions. Sorry for writing in English. I hope someone can translate this for me on the non-English editions.)
Hi!
I am Wikidata's product manager. If you are unfamilar with Wikidata please have a look at d:Q3107329 for example.
As you might already have heard Wikisource will be the fourth project supported by Wikidata after Wikipedia, Wikivoyage and Commons. We are currently planning this for January 14th. From this point on you will be able to handle the links between projects in Wikidata. This means you will only have to maintain them once instead of having them duplicated in every article. However fear not: the local interwiki links will still continue to work and they will overwrite what comes from Wikidata.
This is the first step of Wikidata supporting Wikisource. In a second step we will enable access to the actual data on Wikidata like biographical data about authors. I do not have a date for that yet however.
The planning is happening at d:Wikidata:Wikisource. We are still looking for some more ambassadors who can help during the process and make sure everything goes smoothly for you. Please add your name to the list at d:Wikidata:Wikisource if you're willing to do this.
If you have questions please also post them on the discussion page of d:Wikidata:Wikisource.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent software changes
You can now see the text of DjVu and PDF files in search results on wikis testing the new search tool (CirrusSearch). [219][220]
With the new version of the Wikibase DataModel extension, you can install it outside Wikimedia wikis. [221]
CirrusSearch will be added as the second search method for Spanish (es), French (fr), Portuguese (pt) and Russian (ru) wikis on December 30. Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies and Wikinews users will also be able to enable it in their Beta Features options.
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