User talk:Billinghurst/2014

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in 2014, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion.

Tech News: 2014-01

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). [1] [2]
• With the new version of the Wikibase DataModel extension, you can install it outside Wikimedia wikis. [3]

VisualEditor news

• Images are now shown inside VisualEditor as HTML5 <figure /> elements. Comments are welcome. [4]
• You can now test a basic version of VisualEditor on mobile devices; see this article as an example.

Problems

• On December 23, Wikimedia Labs was broken for 4 hours due to an NFS problem. [5]

Future software changes

• 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.
• AbuseFilter log entries will be visible in CheckUser tool reports. [6] [7]
• It will soon be possible to search for log entries done by users without an account. [8] [9]
• It will no longer be possible to globally hide users with more than 1,000 edits. [10] [11]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:40, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-02

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 (1.23wmf9) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 2. It will be enabled on non-Wikipedia wikis on January 7 and on all Wikipedia wikis on January 9 (calendar).
• The old note-taking site (Etherpad) was removed on December 30, 2013. You can see most of the documents on the new site. [12]

Problems

• On January 2, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata and all Wikivoyage projects were broken for 2 hours due to language cache update issues.
• On the same day, it was not possible to edit most wikis for about 30 minutes, due to a database replication problem.

Future software changes

• The new search tool (CirrusSearch) will be added as the default search method for Italian Wikipedia, French Wikisource, Wikidata and all Wikivoyage sites, and as a second search method for the German Wikipedia and all Wikibooks sites on January 6. [13]
• Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian Wikipedia users will also be able to enable CirrusSearch in their Beta Features options. [14]
• Plural form rules for some languages will be changed. Many translations of the user interface for Belarusian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian and other languages will need to be changed. [15] [16] [17]
• You will see a warning when you try to delete a page linked to from other pages. [18] [19]
• You will be able to hide redirect pages on the list of protected pages. [20] [21]
• You will be able to use keyboard shortcuts in the Translate tool, by pressing Alt+1 and similar key groups. [22] [23]
• E-mails sent by MediaWiki will include the name of the site in their From: line. You will be able to change this name on your wiki by editing the MediaWiki:Emailsender page. [24] [25]
• Images viewed in the Beta Features media viewer will load faster. [26] [27]

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08:34, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-03

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 read a recent blog post about how Tech News is put together, translated and sent to you across wikis each week.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf10) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 9. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 14, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 16 (calendar).
• Searching in the File: namespace on Wikimedia Commons may be slow due to a search engine issue. [28]

VisualEditor news

• VisualEditor will be added for all users on several Wikipedias on January 13. [29]
• You can now add and remove __NOTOC__, __FORCETOC__ and __NOEDITSECTION__ in the page metadata menu. [30] [31] [32]

Problems

• For a few hours on January 6, it was not possible to edit pages using the Translate tool on Wikimedia Commons and the Wikimania 2013 wiki, due to a settings error. [33] [34]
• For about 20 minutes on January 9, there were problems with CSS and JavaScript due to high server load.

Future software changes

• Wikidata will be added to all Wikisource wikis on January 14. [35]
• The new search tool (CirrusSearch) will be added as the second search method for the English Wikipedia on January 13. On Wikibooks and the German Wikipedia, you will also be able to test it by adding it in your Beta Features options.
• You will soon be able to export page collections into other formats than PDF. [36]
• It will soon be possible to upload groups of photos from Flickr using UploadWizard. [37] [38]
• The Wikimedia Foundation has shared a multimedia vision for 2016. You are invited to comment. [39]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:33, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-04

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 (1.23wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 16. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 28, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 30 (calendar).
• You can now see relatively recent results on special pages like Special:DoubleRedirects, Special:UncategorizedPages or Special:WantedCategories. They were disabled before because they were very slow. The results are now updated once a month. [40]
• As of January 16, you can make and use guided tours on the Asturian, Farsi and Russian Wikipedias. If you want this tool on your wiki, you need to translate it and ask in Bugzilla. [41] [42]
• You can give comments on an idea to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages. [43]
• You can watch a video to learn how to report problems in Bugzilla. [44]

VisualEditor news

• In the toolbar, the menu to edit the styles (like bold, italic, etc.) now has a down arrow (). The order of the Insert menu has also changed a little.
• You can now edit <gallery /> tags with a very basic tool. [45]
• You can now see a help page about keyboard shortcuts in the page menu. [46]
• When you change categories, you will now see them when you save the page. [47]
• When you edit templates, you will now see the parameters in the right order. The ones that you must add have a star (*). [48] [49]
• The page will now be saved faster, thanks to a new way of coding the text that sends 40% less text to the servers. [50]
• Your wiki can ask to test a new tool to edit TemplateData. [51]

Problems

• There was a problem with search on the English and German Wikipedias between January 6 and January 14. You could not see new pages and changes in search results. [52]
• There were "pool timeouts" errors on several wikis on January 13; it was caused by a code change that was made to fix another problem. [53]
• On January 17, Bugzilla and Wikimedia Labs were broken for about 20 minutes due to network problems. IRC channels with recent changes (irc.wikimedia.org) were broken for about two hours. [54]

Future software changes

Orange bar with new messages

• If you have removed JavaScript in your web browser, you will soon be able to see the orange bar saying that you have new messages. If you have changed how the bar looks with a gadget, you may need to change the gadget again. [55] [56]
• You will soon be able to add a given Flickr user to a blacklist so that their files can't be uploaded using UploadWizard on Wikimedia Commons and other wikis. [57]
• You will see a warning when you try to delete a page included in at least one other page. [58]
• You will so longer see disambiguation pages in Special:LonelyPages. [59] [60]

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10:21, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

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Renaming of Tales of John Oliver Hobbes

Thanks so much for changing the file name. Could you tell me how you did it?Jason Boyd (talk) 17:27, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

@Jason Boyd: At Commons and at English Wikisource I am an administrator at both and have advanced rights to do such things. Files at Commons are harder and when they are tied to a file here and need administrator intervention, and it is usually easiest to get it done from here, a request at Wikisource:Administrators' noticeboard would suffice, usually with a nice subject line to clear the right attention. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:31, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-05

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

• Pages from Wikimedia sites now load faster in your browser thanks to "module storage", a way for your browser to save data like JavaScript and CSS on your computer to avoid downloading them again. See video. [61]
• The code used to show videos has changed. You should be able to play the video on the page, with the play button on top of the video. If you see the play button on the right of the video, or if clicking on the video leads you to the original file, please file a bug or tell User:Bawolff. [62]
• The Special:ActiveUsers page will be removed because it's too slow. [63]
• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 16. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 28, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 30 (calendar).

Problems

• On January 21, Universal Language Selector was turned off on all Wikimedia sites because it makes pages load slowly. If you want to use web fonts, or write in scripts that aren't on your keyboard, you need to add it as an option in your preferences. It will be turned back on when the issues are resolved. [64]
• For about 20 minutes on the same day, there were problems with CSS and JavaScript due to high server load.

Future software changes

• You can give comments about the new version of "Winter", a proposal to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages. [65]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:46, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

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I know what you did in the . . . .

Thanks for all your behind (and in front of) the scene help, and guidance.— Ineuw talk 02:50, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-06

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 (1.23wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 30. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on February 4, and all Wikipedia wikis on February 6 (calendar).
• Global AbuseFilter rules are now active on all small wikis. [66] [67]
• The buttons used in pages like log-in, account creation and search are now using the same colors and styles. [68] [69]
• You can now link to diffs using [[Special:Diff/12345]] and similar links. [70]
• There is no longer an option to hide tables of contents on all pages. [71]
• Searching in the File: namespace on Wikimedia Commons is now faster, after a bug was fixed on January 29. [72]
• All Wikimedia wikis now have high-resolution favicons. [73]

VisualEditor news

• You can now see a list of keyboard shortcuts by pressing Ctrl+/ inside VisualEditor. [74]

Future software changes

• Edits and files hidden with the Oversight tool will be moved to the RevisionDelete system. The Oversight tool will then be removed from Wikimedia wikis. [75] [76] [77]
• For languages where not all sister projects exist, you will be able to link to other language projects using double interwikis (:ko:v, :v:ko, etc.). [78]
• It will soon be possible to use the GettingStarted tool on other wikis than the English Wikipedia. You can translate it on Translatewiki.net. [79]
• You will soon be able to include the Special:Contributions page into other pages. [80]
• You will be able to see where a file is used inside MultimediaViewer, the new tool for viewing media files. [81] [82]
• It will soon be possible to send MassMessage messages using the API. [83]
• You will soon see audio statistics on the Special:TimedMediaHandler page. [84]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:30, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

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TUSC token d91ad562a2ec917955d6510fb2e7bdc6

I am now proud owner of a TUSC account!

thanks...

...for opposing my global ban. I dare say I was very much impressed by your actions – I had changed my estimation of you after you blocked me at Meta, but maybe I was wrong. Your actions in this sad case were very considerate, kind and (I think) upstanding. I'll try not to disappoint. ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:27, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Mate, I try to play fair, not pre-judge, and try very hard to remember that while there is a sum of parts with the WMF community, each community is still self-managing and able to develop its own character. This community has some examples of people with reputations from other sites proving to be valuable community members, such communities can be trusted to make wise decisions. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:39, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-07

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 (1.23wmf13) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on February 6. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on February 11, and all Wikipedia wikis on February 13 (calendar).
• The Vector search box was changed to fix old display and accessibility issues; for example, you can now use full-text search even if you have disabled JavaScript. Please report any problems you see. The option to disable the "simplified search bar" on Vector will also be removed. [85] [86] [87] [88] [89]
• You are now notified when someone adds a link to your user page on wikis where it didn't work before (wikis with dates in the year-month-day order, including Hungarian, Japanese, Korean and some variants of Chinese). [90]

VisualEditor news

• You can now set media items' alt text and position, and directly set their size, in the media tool. [91] [92]
• The gallery tool was improved and several issues were fixed. [93] [94] [95]

Problems

• On February 3, all wikis were broken for about an hour due to a traffic balancing issue. [96]
• On February 6, some wikis were broken for about half an hour in total due to a problem with the Math extension.

Future software changes

• Some methods from Scribunto's mw.message library will be removed after February 18. If you use them in your templates or modules, please check to make sure that things will not break. [97] [98]
• You will soon be able to use GettingStarted on 23 new Wikipedias. It helps new users by listing possible tasks and giving help. The new version was also added to the English Wikipedia on February 7th. [99]
• You will soon see results from other wikis when you use the new search tool (CirrusSearch). [100] [101]
• The WikiLove tool was redesigned and should also load faster. [102]
• Edits made with WikiLove or after a GettingStarted suggestion will be tagged. [103] [104]
• It will soon no longer be possible to hide section editing links in your preferences. [105]
• You will soon be able to use the revision deletion feature via the API. [106]
• You will soon be able to choose mobile view on non-mobile devices using a Beta Feature option. [107] [108]
• If you have questions about Universal Language Selector, you can join an IRC meeting on February 12 at 17:00 UTC, in the #wikimedia-office channel on Freenode. [109]
• Developers are preparing for Google Summer of Code 2014. You can propose ideas. [110]
• bugzilla.wikimedia.org will be updated this week. You won't be able to access it from 22:00 UTC on February 12 until 01:00 UTC on February 13 at the latest. [111]
• The <poem> tag will be renamed to <lines>. The old tag will still work. [112]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:30, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

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Thank you

Thank you for your help at Author:Rick Alan Ross, much appreciated, — Cirt (talk) 15:47, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-08

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 (1.23wmf14) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on February 13. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on February 18, and all Wikipedia wikis on February 20 (calendar).
• You can now use the list of active users again. [113] [114]
• The new search tool (CirrusSearch) now gives more importance to content namespaces if you search in several namespaces. [115]
• You can now directly link to files viewed with MultimediaViewer, the new tool for viewing media files. [116]
• You can read the summary of the Wikimedia technical report for January 2014. [117]

Problems

• On February 9, Wikimedia Labs was broken for about 2 hours due to an XFS file system problem. [118]
• On February 11, there were problems with VisualEditor for about 20 minutes due to a server logging issue. [119]
• On the same day, for about 20 minutes there were issues with page loading due to database problems.
• There were issues with page loading between 21:00 UTC on February 13 and 11:00 UTC on February 14 for users in Europe. It was due to a cache server problem.
• On February 14, all sites were broken for about 15 minutes for users in Southeast Asia, Oceania and the western part of North America. It was due to problems with cache servers.

VisualEditor news

• The link tool now tells you when you're linking to a disambiguation or redirect page. [120]
• You can now change image display (like thumbnail, frame and frameless) with VisualEditor. [121]
• Wikitext warnings will now hide when you remove wikitext from paragraphs you are editing. [122]
• You will soon be able to create and edit redirect pages with VisualEditor. [123] [124] [125]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:38, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-09

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 (1.23wmf15) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on February 20. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on February 25, and all Wikipedia wikis on February 27 (calendar).
• The new search tool (CirrusSearch) was added to the Italian Wikiquote and all Wikiversity projects. Users can now enable it in their Beta options. [126] [127]
• The Universal Language Selector was enabled on all Wikimedia wikis again. You can enable web fonts in your ULS options (see how).

VisualEditor news

• You will soon be able to add and edit __STATICREDIRECT__, __[NO]INDEX__ and __[NO]NEWEDITSECTION__ in the page settings menu. [128] [129] [130]
• You will soon be able to use the Ctrl+Alt+S or ⌘+Opt+S shortcuts to open the save window in VisualEditor. [131] [132]
• You will soon be able to preview your edit summary when checking your changes in the save window. [133] [134]

Future software changes

• You will soon be able to use the <categorytree> tag again. [135]
• You will soon be able to post messages with the MassMessage tool in all talk namespaces. [136] [137]
• Notifications will soon work in all namespaces. [138][139][140]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

10:18, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

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Vale Ig2000

• w:uk:Обговорення користувача:Ig2000/Пам'ять
• w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-02-26/Special report

— billinghurst sDrewth 12:49, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-10

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 (1.23wmf16) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on February 27. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on March 4, and all Wikipedia wikis on March 6 (calendar).
• When users enable web fonts by default, Universal Language Selector will now log if they don't have fonts to display pages correctly. This information will be used by developers to improve font support in the future. Read more about missing fonts. [141]
• You can now use Guided tours on the Czech and Japanese Wikipedia. If you want this tool on your wiki, you need to translate it and ask in Bugzilla. [142] [143]
• You can now use information from Wikidata in all Wikisource wikis. [144]
• The multimedia team is now posting weekly updates on their mailing list. [145]

VisualEditor news

• You can now change image size to default for your wiki. If you add new images to pages, they will also be default size. [146] [147] [148]
• If you switch from VisualEditor to wikitext editing, your edit will now be tagged. [149]
• Template parameters now have a bigger, auto-sizing input box for easier editing. [150]
• VisualEditor now has Arabic, Finnish and Kölsch icons for text styling. If you want icons for your language, ask in Bugzilla. [151] [152] [153]

Future software changes

• The new tool for viewing media files will soon show a progress bar and a thumbnail while loading full images. [154] [155]
• You will soon be able to make user contributions show only page creations. [156] [157]
• Article Feedback Tool will be removed from the English and French Wikipedias on March 3. It will also no longer be possible to add this tool to any Wikimedia wiki. [158] [159]
• Wikis using the new search tool will come back to the old tool for a few hours starting at 00:00 UTC on March 6. [160]

Problems

• For about an hour on February 23, there were problems with page loading due to a MediaWiki bug. [161]

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09:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

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Shakspeare

Wondering why you disagree with the making of a redirect to the poem, Shakspeare (alt. spelling); I realize that there is already a redirect by the name of Shakespeare (Arnold) for the same purpose (and to the same version/link), but the spelling of the indexed poem is still "Shakspeare" in the text, and I felt it deserved representation in case someone used the search bar for that particular spelling of the name/poem. Further thoughts? Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:55, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

The alternative is appended with the name of the author. People going to enWS typing "Shakspeare" are not expecting to be directed to that page, and we are better to have them hit the search results and to see Author:William Shakespeare. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:16, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

How about adding a Shakspeare (Arnold) redirect to the mix? Unnecessary? I have seen the spelling both ways in Arnold's collections. Londonjackbooks (talk) 04:35, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

If it is a work known as "Shakspeare" the the disambiguation by the addition of (Arnold) would be fine, the thing is it likely that people will type it when looking. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:49, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:05, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-11

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 (1.23wmf17) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 6. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on March 11, and all Wikipedia wikis on March 13 (calendar).
• You can now use the new search tool (CirrusSearch) on all Wikiquote projects. You can now enable it in your Beta options. [162] [163]

VisualEditor news

• It is now easier to edit templates. Complex tools are now in the "advanced" mode. [164] [165]
• It is also easier to edit images. You now have more options and they are explained better. [166]
• VisualEditor adds fake blank lines so you can put your cursor there. They are now smaller and animated to be different from actual blank lines. [167]
• We have improved the tool to add special characters. The buttons are now larger. More changes are coming. [168]
• You can now use new keyboard shortcuts to undo the last action, clear formatting, and show the shortcut help window. [169] [170] [171]

Future software changes

• You will soon be able to use a Beta option to show a shorter list of language links. That way, Universal Language Selector will only show languages that are relevant to you. You will still be able to search for other languages. [172]
• CirrusSearch will soon automatically index newly imported pages. [173] [174]
• It will soon be possible to use CSS to style buttons in templates on all Wikimedia wikis, without needing JavaScript. [175]
• An IRC discussion with the Wikimedia Foundation Language Engineering team will take place on March 12 at 17:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on Freenode (time conversion). [176]

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09:10, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

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Index:Heralds of God.djvu

This would seem to be a copyvio - The author was still alive in 1990, and the original is listed as a 1946 publication by Hodder and Stoughton in the UK. The scans have been flagged for deletion at Commons on the basis that whilst the edition might be OK the work isn't. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:01, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Moved the file here. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:53, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Indian Biographical Dictionary

You have new messages

Hello, Billinghurst. You have new messages at GreyHead's talk page.
Message added 20:17, 15 March 2014 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

OTRS check

Response at Talk:Second address to Houses of the Oireachtas by Mary Robinson Jeepday (talk) 11:46, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Your daily dose of spam

Ask and ye shall receive. This one doesn't have an external link (yet), though... User:Vern4641skksmre —Clockery Fairfeld ^[t·c] 17:06, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Thx. Lucky whn my day has less than 50. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:09, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Dose #2. User talk:Gaga121 —Clockery Fairfeld ^[t] 15:48, 26 March 2014 (UTC) Nevermind, Prosody has already taken care of it. Thanks,—Clockery Fairfeld ^[t] 04:58, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-12

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 (1.23wmf18) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 13. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on March 18, and all Wikipedia wikis on March 20 (calendar).
• You can now view smaller versions of PNG images bigger than 20 megapixels. [177]
• You can now use the new search tool (CirrusSearch) on all small wikis. You can now enable it in your Beta options. [178] [179]
• You can read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for February 2014. [180]

VisualEditor news

• Searching for template parameters in now case-insensitive. [181] [182]
• Required template parameters now have an asterisk (*) next to their edit boxes. [183]
• Several template dialogs are now smaller, and their insert buttons have changed wording. [184]

Future software changes

• You will soon see an error message if you try to log-in or register with an invalid or taken username. [185]
• You can now test first version of a tool that includes OpenStreetMap maps inside the UploadWizard. Comments are welcome. [186]
• You will soon be able to use the Hovercards tool as a beta feature. [187]

Problems

• VisualEditor was slow to load on March 13 because of an API issue. [188]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:14, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

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The Fate of Fenella

Hi, how come this page hasn't been validated yet? —Lo Ximiendo (talk) 22:50, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Don't sweat these things, they get done. It (is|was)n't going anywhere, the remainder of the work still stands before us. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:06, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

How about this one? —Lo Ximiendo (talk) 01:15, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Goodness, which bit of the previous comment didn't make sense. Don't panic, all will be well. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:20, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

@Lo Ximiendo: all done — billinghurst sDrewth 15:23, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Oops

Very sorry for the revert—slip of the tongue finger! Best regards,—Clockery Fairfeld ^[t·c] 15:22, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

How do I expand the original images?

I would like to validate these pages but the print on the original page is too small to read. How do I expand it? Using "Ctrl+" expands print in the editing window, not the original text image. Cheers! Shir-El too 19:12, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

@Shir-El too: In your toolbar (vector or monobook) there are buttons to +/- the image size. If you have your toolbar turned off, then you should turn it on in your Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing. — billinghurst sDrewth 20:50, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks. My toolbar was activated. Haven't a clue what "vector or monobook" are, but I found a way to work by opening two windows, one for the edit and one for the image.

Now another problem: am validating "St. Oswald and the Church of Worcester" and on page 26, line 7 there is this "...vocabulo aet Breodune ...". The last proofreader left it as "at." I think it should be "et" unless there's a character for the Latin joined "a+e". {Will copy this note into the comments as well.} Cheers! Shir-El too 09:58, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Eurika! Someone used "æ" later on and I'm copying it! Cheers!

@Shir-El too: No need to copy-paste it, it's there on the toolbar—go to Special Characters, and look in the last few rows of the Latin tab. Best regards,—Clockery Fairfeld ^[t·c] 10:17, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

the Latin æt = years and the last proofreader was clearly some ninkampoop! It is one of my works ;-) And if you are using windows hold down altkey and while typing on num keypad 0230, then release and voila! The ae ligature is a regular show in 19thC works, and is a useful shortcut, as well as é (alt-0233). — billinghurst sDrewth 13:36, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-13

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 (1.23wmf19) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 20. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on March 25, and all Wikipedia wikis on March 27 (calendar).

VisualEditor news

• You can now double-click or press the ↲ Enter key on an image or template to change its settings. [189] [190]
• Pages that don't exist will now show as red links in the edit mode. [191]
• You will no longer be able to try to use VisualEditor on pages translated using the Translate extension, and you will see a warning if you try to edit pages marked for translation. [192]
• You will now see a full warning, including the most recent log entry, when you try to edit protected pages with VisualEditor. [193]

Future software changes

• Typography Refresh will be enabled for test wiki and MediaWiki.org users who use the Vector skin on March 27. For users on non-Wikipedia wikis, it will be enabled on April 1, and for Wikipedia users on April 3. If you don't use Vector as your skin, you will not be affected.
• You will be able to use the Hovercards tool as a beta feature on all wikis from March 26.
• You will soon be able to include the Whatlinkshere special page in other pages. [194] [195]

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18:56, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

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formatting Q

Why isn't {{Right|And}} working here? ~ DanielTom (talk) 12:29, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Seems to be pushing up against the noinclude tag; and pushing in a line return fixes the issue. Don't know why it has popped up as an issue at this time … at least there is a solution. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:35, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. ~ DanielTom (talk) 12:36, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Here, is it considered acceptable to simply type "For", instead of "Eor"? ~ DanielTom (talk) 13:23, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

And another question: here you used {{block center}}, but if I do the same in the next page, a break (line) that shouldn't be there interrupts/divides the verses. [You can see the problem here (Ctrl+F "Muse's charms").] How to fix it? ~ DanielTom (talk) 13:37, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

{{block center/s}} which is explained on the same page. There are numbers of opening and closing templates where we need to wrap around a page break. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:15, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Cool, thanks again. ~ DanielTom (talk) 14:32, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-14

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 (1.23wmf20) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 27. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on April 1, and all Wikipedia wikis on April 3 (calendar).
• Typography Refresh was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 27. You'll only see it if you use the Vector skin. For users on non-Wikipedia wikis, it will be enabled on April 1, and for Wikipedia users on April 3.
• CirrusSearch, the new search tool, was enabled as a beta feature on over 30 new wikis on March 27. [196] [197]

VisualEditor news

• Blocked users now see the same messages in VisualEditor as in the wikitext editor. [198] [199]
• The search box for re-using a reference in VisualEditor is now cleared after each use. [200]
• New links on sub-pages no longer point to the wrong location in VisualEditor. [201]
• VisualEditor's media dialog no longer breaks when opening some types of images. [202]

Future software changes

• You will not be able to use the Wikitech wiki for a short period around 16:00 UTC on April 1 due to a server change. [203]
• CirrusSearch will become the main search engine for all non-Wikipedia wikis except Commons, Meta and Incubator on April 2.
• You will soon be able to use a new special page listing duplicate files. [204]
• Deleting a version of a file or a version of its description page will soon be shown differently in the logs. [205]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:20, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

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ref inside ref

How to make the second ref appear here, after "everlasting course"? ~ DanielTom (talk) 11:37, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Inelegant, though it works. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:00, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, looks good. ~ DanielTom (talk) 12:14, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Please revert if too ugly; but I've taken the liberty of further editing the page to demonstrate an "old-fashioned" approach to nesting references. I believe {{#tag:ref}} used in this fashion co-exists O.K. with <ref>s on adjacent pages. Regrettably only the very innermost reference may use an actual <ref>-</ref> pair, but multiple "wrapping" citation layers are acceptable. AuFCL (talk) 12:35, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

@AuFCL: seems to work well, thanks. ~ DanielTom (talk) 22:31, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Bill, I'm not sure why you made a duplicate of the note /315 here, so I've now removed it, but please do restore it if necessary. (I'm also curious to know, why in the same page [/318], the break starting at "Here poetry..." doesn't appear.) Thx ~ DanielTom (talk) 23:52, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe ask before you remove. It was added due to the {{note}} being a hack, and it was the way to get the text to show in the transclusion. If the nested <ref> is working for you, then it is superfluous. In your refs, you are going to need to put in either <br/> or <p> to get your formatting. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Best practice

Minor question, but what is the best practice?

[[Author:Katharine Lee Bates|{{sc|Katharine Lee Bates}}]] or {{sc|[[Author:Katharine Lee Bates|Katharine Lee Bates]]}}? Londonjackbooks (talk) 00:23, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I always try to keep the formatting outside where possible, it keeps it simpler, and allows for reuse (IMNSHO), and if there is any bot work to do, it makes matching easier.

Thank you. Londonjackbooks (talk) 02:10, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Outside enables use of the pipe trick too. {{sc|[[Author:Katharine Lee Bates|]]}}. Moondyne (talk) 04:31, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-15

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 (1.23wmf21) was scheduled to be deployed to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on April 3, however it was temporarily put on hold due to localization issues. (calendar).
• Typography Refresh was enabled on non-Wikipedia wikis on April 1, and on all Wikipedias on April 3. You'll only see it if you use the Vector skin.
• CirrusSearch was enabled as the primary search method on over 400 non-Wikipedia wikis on April 2. [206]

Future software changes

• A new special page (Special:TrackingCategories) will soon list all the tracking categories on a wiki. [207] [208]
• All Wikiquote projects will start using language links from Wikidata on April 8. [209]
• The Hovercards feature will soon work with right-to-left languages. [210] [211]
• You will soon be able to download files directly from MediaViewer, the new multimedia tool. [212]
• MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on MediaWiki.org on April 10. Comments are welcome.
• You can help check that users can read CAPTCHAs in your language. [213]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-16

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

We are looking for contributors to help write new issues every week. If you would like to help, please contact us.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf22) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on April 10. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on April 15, and all Wikipedias on April 17 (calendar).
• MediaViewer was enabled for all users on MediaWiki.org on April 10. It will be enabled for all users on the Catalan (ca), Hungarian (hu) and Korean (ko) Wikipedias and English Wikivoyage on April 17. Comments are welcome. [214] [215] [216]
• Font issues caused by Typography refresh for Windows users were fixed on April 7. [217] [218]

VisualEditor news

• You will now see only three options when you try to add a template parameter in VisualEditor; you will see other options after a click. [219]
• The size changing controls in VisualEditor media editing dialog were simplified further.
• The wikitext editor tab will now fold into a drop-down menu in the Vector skin if there is not enough space on your screen. [220] [221]

Future software changes

• The font used for body text on Wikimedia wikis will change to your system default sans-serif font. This temporary change will be enabled on all non-Wikipedia wikis on April 15, and on all Wikipedias on April 17. [222] [223]
• Files from Commons seen on another wiki will soon have a tab saying "View on Wikimedia Commons". The create tab will change to "Add local description" (see screenshot). [224]
• You will soon be able to hide Notification and Hovercards pop-ups by pressing the Esc key. [225] [226] [227] [228]
• Shorter lists of language links will soon work in right-to-left languages. Languages that you have used before will be shown in the list. [229]
• You will soon be able to send messages with the MassMessage tool to all pages in a given category. [230] [231]
• The date format user preference will soon be moved to the appearance tab. [232] [233]
• An IRC discussion with the Wikimedia Foundation Multimedia team will take place on April 16 at 18:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on Freenode (time conversion). [234]

Problems

• Wikimedia Foundation servers were updated after a security bug called Heartbleed was discovered last week. You should change your password as an extra precaution. [235]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:17, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-17

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News updates

• You can now subscribe to an Atom or RSS feed to read Tech News in your news aggregator. The newsletter will now also show on the English Planet Wikimedia every Monday. [236]
• We are looking for contributors to help write a new issue every week. If you would like to help, please contact us.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf1) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on April 17. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on April 22, and all Wikipedias on April 24 (calendar).
• CirrusSearch was enabled as a beta feature on 27 new wikis on April 18. [237] [238]
• Problems with various fonts in SVG files were fixed last week. Files that use DejaVu Sans Condensed, DejaVu Serif Condensed, DejaVu Sans Light, Kochi Gothic and Kochi Mincho fonts now show correctly. [239] [240] [241] [242]
• The page view statistics site developed by Henrik (stats.grok.se) should now work faster. [243]
• You can read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for March 2014. [244]

VisualEditor news

• If you try to add a category which redirects to another category, VisualEditor will now suggest adding the target category directly. [245] [246]
• VisualEditor tabs will no longer appear on Education Program pages. [247] [248]
• You can now use VisualEditor on Meta-Wiki and the French Wikinews by enabling it in your preferences. [249] [250] [251]

Future software changes

• MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on the Czech (cs), Estonian (et), Finnish (fi), Hebrew (he), Polish (pl), Romanian (ro), Slovak (sk), Thai (th) and Vietnamese (vi) Wikipedias on April 24. Feedback is welcome. [252]
• Edits by anonymous users will now be marked with a new CSS class (mw-anonuserlink). This way, you can easily make those edits use a different color, font or background. [253] [254]
• The user preference to remember login will soon be removed from all wikis. The edit review preferences will be moved to the recent changes tab, and the preference for the WikiLove tool will be moved to the editing tab. [255] [256] [257] [258]
• You will soon be able to give parameters to preloaded templates. [259] [260]
• You will soon be able to use CodeEditor in read-only mode on pages that you cannot edit. [261] [262]
• It is now proposed to replace Bugzilla, Gerrit and other tools by a single tool called Phabricator. You can test Phabricator and add your opinion on MediaWiki.org. [263]
• An IRC discussion about Phabricator will take place on April 22 at 03:30 AM UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). [264]

Problems

• For about 40 minutes on April 17, there were problems with page loading due to high server load.
• There is a problem with the rendering of formulas with MathJax. If you enabled MathJax in your preferences, you might need to turn it off and on again. [265]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:34, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-18

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 (1.24wmf2) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on April 24. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on April 29, and all Wikipedias on May 1 (calendar).
• You can now use interwiki prefix c: to link to pages on Wikimedia Commons. [266]

VisualEditor news

• You will soon be able to set content language and direction with VisualEditor. [267]
• VisualEditor now works on all Wikipedias after broken MediaWiki:Common.js pages (and similar) were fixed last week. [268]
• VisualEditor dialogs now use an animation of moving lines rather than animated GIF images.

Future software changes

• CirrusSearch will be enabled as a beta feature on 41 new wikis, including Meta-Wiki and the Swedish (sv), Russian (ru), Polish (pl), Japanese (ja) and Chinese (zh) Wikipedias next week. This change means that CirrusSearch will now be enabled on all Wikimedia wikis.
• MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on the French (fr) and Dutch (nl) Wikipedias on May 1. Feedback is welcome. [269]
• The mobile version of Wikimedia wikis will soon include filters to limit the number of uploaded files that are copyright violations. [270]
• CodeEditor will soon have a status bar about errors and warnings. [271] [272]
• You can test a new version of Winter, a proposal to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages. Comments are welcome. [273]

Problems

• For about 30 minutes on April 21, there were problems with image scaling due to a high server load. [274] [275]
• On April 22, it was not possible to use the Collection extension for about 90 minutes due to a server move. [276] [277]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:22, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-19

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 (1.24wmf3) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 1. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 6, and all Wikipedias on May 8 (calendar).
• The Compact Personal Bar was added as a beta feature to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 1. It will be added as a beta feature to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 6, and to all Wikipedias on May 8. To test it, you can enable it now in your preferences on MediaWiki.org. [278]
• It is now easier to disable the CodeEditor tool. [279]

VisualEditor news

• External links in VisualEditor are now in the same light blue color as in MediaWiki. [280]
• The template tool now tells you if a parameter is obsolete. [281]
• You can now add "suggested" parameters in TemplateData; VisualEditor will add them like required ones. [282]
• There is a new type for TemplateData parameters: wiki-file-name for file names. [283][284]
• Editing formulae in VisualEditor will soon be enabled for all users. [285] [286]
• You will soon be able to try a new beta feature to edit text in another language. [287] [288]

Future software changes

• MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on the Japanese (ja), Portuguese (pt), Spanish (es), Swedish (sv) and Telugu (te) Wikipedias on May 8. Feedback is welcome. [289]
• You can help translate about 100 new language names that have been added to our data source. They are used, for example, as hover text for interwiki links. Send an e-mail to Nemo if you want to help.
• If you click on a redirect page in your watchlist, you will soon access the redirect itself. [290] [291]

Problems

• For about 40 minutes around 00:20 UTC on April 29, there were problems with page loading due to high server load.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:29, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-20

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 (1.24wmf4) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 8. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 13, and all Wikipedias on May 15 (calendar).

VisualEditor news

• A new citation system in VisualEditor was enabled on the English Wikipedia. It will soon be enabled on more wikis. [292]
• Templates that were previously broken in VisualEditor should now appear correctly. [293]

Future software changes

• It will soon be possible to move category description pages. Pages in changed categories will still have to be moved independently. [294] [295]
• You will soon be able to clear your watchlist with one click or through the API. [296] [297] [298] [299]
• You will soon be able to link to Flow posts and workflows with Special:Flow. [300] [301]
• The jQuery JavaScript library will soon be updated. Please check that your gadgets and scripts will still work. [302]
• The Vector skin will work faster, as the sidebar will no longer collapse partly after being loaded. [303] [304] [305]
• MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on Wikimedia Commons on May 15. Feedback is welcome.
• An IRC discussion about Phabricator will take place on May 14 at 18:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). [306]
• Toolserver tools will be stopped on June 30. Please make sure to change gadgets that link to the Toolserver to point to Tool Labs instead. [307]

Problems

• There were problems with generating file thumbnails for all wikis between May 3 and May 6 due to a configuration error. [308] [309]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

06:00, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-21

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News updates

• Tech News is one year old this week; thank you for being with us!

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf5) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 15. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 20, and all Wikipedias on May 22 (calendar).
• The jQuery JavaScript library was updated on May 16. Please check that your gadgets and scripts still work. [310] [311] [312]
• MediaViewer was enabled for all users on the Kannada (kn) and Telugu (te) Wikipedias on May 13. It will be enabled on the German (de), English (en), Italian (it) and Russian (ru) Wikipedias and on all Wikisource wikis on May 22. Feedback is welcome. [313] [314]
• VisualEditor was added as a beta feature to Wikimedia Commons on May 15. You can enable it in your preferences. [315] [316]
• You can read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for April 2014.

VisualEditor news

• VisualEditor's buttons and icons can now be accessed using keyboard keys. [317] [318]
• VisualEditor's new citation tool now matches templates like {{cite_web}} and not just {{Cite web}}. [319] [320]
• VisualEditor's welcome message will no longer be shown to users who have already seen it. [321] [322]
• VisualEditor now shows a clearer message when you cancel an edit. [323]
• The toolbar of the PageTriage extension will no longer be visible inside VisualEditor. [324] [325]

Future software changes

• User ID number will no longer be visible in preferences. [326] [327]

Problems

• For several hours on May 16, there were problems with loading gadgets on some wikis due to a server problem. [328]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:18, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-22

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 (1.24wmf6) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 22. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 27, and all Wikipedias on May 29 (calendar).
• MediaViewer will be enabled on all Wikisource wikis on May 29, and on the German (de) and English (en) Wikipedias on June 3. Feedback is welcome.

VisualEditor news

• VisualEditor's welcome message and wikitext warning now say that you can switch to source mode editing and keep your edits without saving them. [329] [330] [331] [332]
• A bug that caused files not to appear after saving edits in the File: namespace was fixed last week. [333] [334]
• VisualEditor tabs will no longer appear in namespaces where VisualEditor is disabled. [335] [336]
• It is now possible to edit inline images with VisualEditor; many minor bugs related to images have also been fixed. [337]
• VisualEditor will no longer convert spaces to underscores inside links to pages in namespaces that include spaces in their names. [338]

Future software changes

• Wikimedia Labs will stop working for about 10 minutes around 18:00 UTC on May 30 due to a server upgrade. [339]
• It will soon no longer be possible to upload different files under the same name at the same time using the UploadWizard tool. [340] [341]
• Links to TIFF, DjVu or PDF files created with the syntax [[File:Name.ext|thumb|page 15 is my favourite]] will now show an image caption if there is any text after page number; previously they caused the given page to appear. [342] [343] [344]
• You will soon see information about global blocks for IP addresses on their contributions page on your local wiki. [345] [346]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:29, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

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Ineuw's {{center| vs Billinghurst's {{center|

Billinghurst,

In Ineuw's work on Mexico he uses {{c| but when you worked on it you changed those to {<nowik/>{center| Why? What is the difference or do you also use macros to make these changes? Most Respectfully, —Maury (talk) 22:07, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Just part of a formatting and cleanup script. No fuss, the first is just a redirect to the second.

As a note, leaving open {{ is problematic, always wrap them in nowiki, or utilise &#123;&#123; to produce {{ — billinghurst sDrewth 04:00, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-23

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 (1.24wmf7) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 29. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 3, and to all Wikipedias on June 5 (calendar).
• CirrusSearch was enabled as the primary search method on all Wikipedias with less than 100,000 pages on May 30. [347]

VisualEditor news

• Templates that redirect to other templates now get the TemplateData of their target. [348]
• The toolbar of the PageTriage extension will no longer be visible after you save an edit with VisualEditor. [349] [350]
• VisualEditor now checks if your browser supports SVG files to avoid displaying broken icons. [351]
• There is now a new type for TemplateData parameters: date for dates and times in the ISO 8601 format. [352]

Future software changes

• MediaViewer will be enabled on the German (de) and English (en) Wikipedias on June 3. Feedback is welcome.
• You will soon see a warning if you visit a contributions page for a user that does not exist. [353] [354]
• The search tab will soon be removed from user preferences. You will be able to set your search preferences on Special:Search. [355] [356]
• You will soon see a label next to the little triangle arrow for the Actions menu in the Vector skin (screenshot). [357] [358]

Problems

• For about 20 minutes on May 29, all wikis were broken due to a configuration error. [359]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:07, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

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Author:C. Hayavando Rao

You placed a dated soft redirect template on this page after moving it. Are you sure we shouldn't want a permanent redirect here? It seems it would a useful redirect since the author was published under this callout. Not a very strong opinion on my part, but I was just wondering if you had thought much about it. —BirgitteSB 03:14, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Done — billinghurst sDrewth 03:25, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-24

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 (1.24wmf8) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 5. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 10, and to all Wikipedias on June 12 (calendar).
• You can now use guided tours on the Arabic (ar), Bengali (bn) and Norwegian (no) Wikipedias. If you want this tool on your wiki, you need to translate it and ask in Bugzilla. [360] [361]

VisualEditor news

• You should no longer be able to add empty references with VisualEditor. [362] [363]
• The "use an existing reference" button in the reference tool is now shown as disabled, rather than hidden, when the reference has content. [364] [365] [366]
• You will now see category contents again after saving an edit to a category page with VisualEditor. [367] [368]

Future software changes

• MediaViewer will be enabled by default on all wikis on June 12. Feedback is welcome. [369]
• You will be able to use information from Wikidata directly in Wikiquote pages starting on June 10. [370]
• On wikis with the Translate extension enabled, translation administrators will soon be able to use the page migration tool to import existing translations to the new system. [371] [372]
• You will soon see metadata on file description pages for Ogg files (example video, example audio). Some metadata with non-English characters may need to be purged or transcoded to UTF-8 before they show correctly. [373] [374]
• Templates containing <ref> or <references> tags will no longer need dummy parameters to prevent caching. [375] [376] [377]
• You will no longer be able to use Special:Thanks directly. The page will soon show an error message when you visit it. [378] [379]
• Hovercards will no longer flicker. [380]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:39, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-25

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Reminder

• You can subscribe to the wikitech-ambassadors mailing list to get news more quickly and to send feedback or report problems.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf9) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 12. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 17, and to all Wikipedias on June 19 (calendar).
• You can now read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for May 2014.

VisualEditor news

• You can now easily see the target of a link or other information using the context menu. [381]
• When you edit a reference, you can now empty it and click the "use an existing reference" button to switch it to re-use another reference. [382] [383]
• You can now add and edit {{DISPLAYTITLE}} and __DISAMBIG__ in the page settings menu. [384] [385] [386] [387]
• The tool to insert special characters is now wider and simpler; the order of mathematical symbols is now correct. [388] [389] [390]

Future software changes

• Media Viewer will be enabled by default on all wikis on June 19. Feedback is welcome. [391]
• You will no longer be able to use navigation popups and Hovercards at the same time. [392]
• You will no longer see image thumbnails on search results pages on Wikibooks and Wikisource wikis. [393] [394]
• It will soon be possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. [395] [396]
• Tablet users will be redirected to the mobile view of Wikimedia wikis starting on June 17. [397]
• The special page that lists most linked-to templates will soon include pages from all namespaces; it will also be renamed to Special:MostTranscludedPages. [398]
• An IRC discussion about Phabricator will take place on June 17 at 17:30 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). You can also read a blog post about the upcoming switch to Phabricator.
• You can now comment on the draft 2014-15 goals of the Wikimedia Foundation engineering department. [399]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:13, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

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{{SIC}}

Hi. I happened to notice you'd changed this template (but did not notice your edits to its /doc until after I'd already had a go at it.)

Oops. Please verify the result is still as you expect. Apologies if I've tripped you up. AuFCL (talk) 12:54, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

All looks fine. You did a holistic job, I just looked/hacked at the examples. Thanks for your updates. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:02, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Automated import of openly licensed scholarly articles

Hello Billinghurst,

We are putting together a proposal about the automated import of openly licensed scholarly articles, and since you are an active Wikisourceror, we'd appreciate yourcomments on the Scriptorium. For convenience, I'm copying our proposal here:

The idea of systematically importing openly licensed scholarly articles into Wikisource has popped up from time to time. For instance, it formed the core of WikiProject Academic Papers and is mentioned in the Wikisource vision. However, the Wikiproject relied on human power, never reached its full potential, and eventually became inactive. The vision has yet to materialise.

We plan to bridge the gap through automation. We are a subset of WikiProject Open Access (user:Daniel Mietchen, user:Maximilanklein, user:MattSenate), and we have funding from the Open Society Foundations via Wikimedia Deutschland to demo suitable workflows at Wikimania (see project page).

Specifically, we plan to import Open Access journal articles into Wikisource when they are cited on Wikipedia. The import would be performed by a group of bots intended to make reference handling more interoperable across Wikimedia sites. Their main tasks are:

• (on Wikipedia) signalling which references are openly licensed, and link them to the full text on Wikisource, the media on Commons and the metadata on Wikidata;
• (on Commons) importing images and other media associated with the source article;
• (on Wikisource) importing the full text of the source article and embedding the media in there;
• (on Wikidata) handling the metadata associated with the source article, and signalling that the full text is on Wikisource and the media on Commons.

These Open Access imports on Wikisource will be linked to and from other Wikimedia sister sites. Our first priority though will be linking from English Wikipedia, focusing on the most cited Open Access papers, and the top-100 medical articles.

In order to move forward with this, we need

• General community approval
• Community feedback on workflows and scrutiny on our test imports in specific.
• Bot permission. For more technical information read our bot spec on Github.

Maximilianklein (talk) 18:14, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-26

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 (1.24wmf10) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 19. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 24, and to all Wikipedias on June 26 (calendar).

VisualEditor news

• You can now drag-and-drop selections of content, not just files and templates. [400] [401]
• When dragging an item, you will now see a line that helps you to drop it. [402] [403]
• You can now only move an image to the start of a paragraph, not to the middle of it, so you don't accidentally split it. [404] [405]
• You will now be warned if you add wikitext to file captions and references. [406] [407]

Future software changes

• You will no longer be able to upload files on wikis that do not have any copyright tags. [408] [409]
• CirrusSearch will be enabled as the primary search method on additional 70 new wikis, including Meta-Wiki and Wikimedia Incubator, during the next week. [410]
• CirrusSearch results will soon take into account categories, the first paragraph and the wikitext of a page. You will also be able to use regular expressions to search the wikitext. It will take a few days for the changes to be enabled on all wikis. [411]
• You will soon be able to watch translations for e-mail notifications without receiving an e-mail when they are reviewed by another translator. [412] [413]
• An IRC meeting to organize old high priority MediaWiki bug reports will take place on June 24 at 17:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). [414]

Problems

• On June 19, all wikis were broken for about 15 minutes due to a high server load.
• Between June 13 and June 15 there were problems with the scaling of video files due to a configuration error. [415]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:20, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

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User_talk:William_Maury_Morris_II#Mahele_Book.2C_Hawaii_State_Archives

Can you see User_talk:William_Maury_Morris_II#Mahele_Book.2C_Hawaii_State_Archives?—KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:53, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

No.

Index:Wind in the Willows.djvu

OK, per the style guide you are correct :)

With that in mind I'm suitably trouted, and would apprecaite you matching the work to the style guide, It needs validating anyway :) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 15:01, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Withdrawing from this - also posted here, Wikisource:Scriptorium#Index:Wind_in_the_Willows.djvu, Not happy, and feeling rather incompetent. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 15:20, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Riders of the Purple Sage

While I appreciate your efforts to validate this work, you are introducing errors and inconsistencies on each page. Please do not do this. —EncycloPetey (talk) 00:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I beg your pardon? Would you like to be specific rather than just give me a spray? — billinghurst sDrewth 00:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

(1) Template calls are currently consistent throughout this work; you made them inconsistent by substitution of different template calls. (2) You have merged paragraphs that were and should remain separate. (3) You have altered the ellipses. The author's use of spacing is deliberate in this novel, and is used to convey natural speech and dialect, so altering it changes the tone and character of the work as well as introducing another inconsistency. (4) You have italicized the page number of one page, even though none of the page numbers are italicized. The apparent italics is the result of a repeated scanning error in the DjVu in which the bottom edges of pages have skewed orthography.

And all of this in just the three most recent page validation for this work. Earlier validation of yours on this work that I came across included: (5) Missing quotation marks or other punctuation. (6) Random character insertion in place of punctuation. (7) Incorrect paragraph breaks. I am struck by the inattention to spacing and punctuation, and the lack of care and consistency in "validating" works. —EncycloPetey (talk) 01:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

(1) These are the same templates, in fact these are the templates rather than the redirects, it makes zero change to the transcluded output, and presents an understandable template name to those not familiar to our shorthand. This has been discussed previously in Scriptorium and has been an accepted practice. 2) If paragraphs merged, then the output was merged prior and I seemingly did miss it. 3) Ellipses are meant to be displayed as ellipses (per style guide), so when they are left as separated periods they can line wrap, especially when these works are read on small screen devices. 4) Yes I did italicise, and I was noting that as I went back a few pages to note. They had been bolded, and that doesn't seem right either. Either way, they don't transclude to the main ns.

Re any earlier aspects, not something that I remember, and probably picked up through RC. I cannot comment more specifically than that about some historical edit, sight unseen. In relation to proofreading, this is meant to be a collaborative effort, and where someone may have weaknesses I thought that we looked to provide good guidance. So putting on your good graces, and providing helpful feedback should always be well-considered. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:49, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

(1) You are actually going to argue that making an internally consistent work inconsistent is accepted practice? I don't buy that argument, nor the hand-waving that "it has been discussed somewhere at some point." (2) I don't understand your reply here. The two paragraphs were separate prior to your edit, until you merged them in your edit. (3) The style guide says that "Ellipses should be entered as actual characters, with spacing to reflect the source document." (emphasis added). You did not preserve the spacing, so you did not follow the style guide to which you have referred. You collapsed the spacing with your edit, and (as I pointed out) this has the effect of changing the character of the work. The style guide points out that spacing within ellipses should be preserved, and does so for a very good reason.

I have provided feedback that you specifically and directly asked for. Chastising someone for responding to a direct request from you for specifics is disingenuous. —EncycloPetey (talk) 15:59, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

(1) Truly that is your argument? A change from a redirect of a template to the template itself is inconsistent? It is not a different template call. You argue for inconsequential matters; and if I did the entire work does your argument still hold. 2) I was talking output, and I admitted my oversight. 3) You haven't replaced it with the character, you have three periods, and you should not criticise the replacement as being erroneous (which you did), though arguing for a style is legitimate.

Let us see. 1) Revert. 2) First message. 3) Second message. I was not chastising you for responding, it was your aggressive approach. If that is how you treat all of our users, then heaven help us. If that is saved up for me, truly special. You are in a collaborative community, please tone down the aggression, and treat people with respect. None of us is perfect, as much as we like to be, but to note that helpful feedback is always appreciated. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:28, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Incorrect sequence: 1) Corrected edit. 2) 1st message. 3) Revert. 4) 2nd message. 5) 3rd message. You claim that you "admitted [your] oversight", but you haven't actually done that. It would help if you took responsibility for the errors you've made, rather than denying them, pawning them off into the passive voice, and resorting to ad hominem. "Collaborative" means "working together," and this is only possible when "together" is part of the meaning intended. I get the impression that you intend to do things your way regardless of what another editor, the style guide, or the community would do, appeals to the deity notwithstanding. Thus, any perceived aggression in my comments is entirely the result of unwarranted defensiveness.

The replacement of ". . ." with "..." is erroneous, per the style guide, as cited. Your change violates the style guide; therefore it is an error.

Validation is a process of correcting the errors and inconsistencies remaining in a work, not of wholesale change to one's personal style. If the changes were truly inconsequential, as you say, then there would be no reason to implement them, nor any reason to argue them. —EncycloPetey (talk) 02:03, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Wait a minute, EncycloPetey, I looked at one of Billinghurst's earlier edits, and you are not presenting the whole picture. On Page:Riders of the Purple Sage.djvu/186, the person before him had done some poor proofreading, and Billinghurst gave that person a hand. He corrected 24 errors and missed a spot on the 25th. Is that what you meant when you said Billinghurst inserted extraneous characters? If so, give the guy a break! ResScholar (talk) 06:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

@ResidentScholar: Please let it go. There is no point in arguing here. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:20, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-27

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 (1.24wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 26. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 1, and to all Wikipedias on July 3 (calendar).

VisualEditor news

• Context menus in VisualEditor will no longer flicker and disappear when you insert a new reference, formula, image, etc. [416] [417]
• A bug that prevented relocating items due to cache was fixed last week. [418] [419]
• VisualEditor will no longer scroll to the bottom of the page when you try to edit section 0. When you try to add a formula, VisualEditor will no longer scroll to the top of the page. [420] [421] [422] [423]
• Links to category pages or file pages added with VisualEditor will now work correctly. [424] [425]

Future software changes

• You will no longer be able to upload files on wikis that do not have any copyright tags. [426] [427]
• Toolserver tools will be stopped on June 30. Please make sure to change gadgets that link to the Toolserver to point to Tool Labs instead.
• CirrusSearch will be enabled on June 30 as the primary search method on 34 new wikis, including the Czech (cs), Danish (da), Finnish (fi) and Hebrew (he) Wikipedias. [428]
• All Wikimedia wikis will be using a security method called perfect forward secrecy starting on July 1. If you see a problem, please report it. [429] [430]
• Starting on July 1, it will be possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. [431]
• You will soon see block information when you visit the contributions page or try to edit the user page or user talk page of a user who is affected by an IP range block. [432] [433]
• You will soon be able to use {{!}} as a magic word to produce the pipe character, for instance for use in tables. [434]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

06:53, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

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Query re: File:Secrets of Crewe House frontispiece.png

Hello. Thanks for fixing this up. My initial attempt was an outright guess as you probably realised.

However, I am still confused by your change comment "{{do not move to Commons}} needs explicit parameter, it doesn't take positional", especially as your version generates a Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "{"., which I am almost certain is a result of {{PD/1923|expiry=1972}} not accepting a named expiry. Are you quite sure this component should not be {{PD/1923|1972}} as I believe I originally expressed it?

Oh, and for my own curiosity, just what does == {{int:filedesc}} == do please, as I cannot fathom it out at this time of night… (Today was a bit of a personal canine of the female variety analogy.) AuFCL (talk) 11:38, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Never mind/got it/fixed. Short summary: we are both idiots.

Still curious what that int:filedesc is doing, though. AuFCL (talk) 12:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Urk. Page is still sitting there on one of the tabs, and I haven't got back to it; too many distractions here tonight. It provides the word "Summary" [Mediawiki:Filedesc], like [Mediawiki:License-header] provides the word "Licensing". Basically means if someone visits us in another language, it will pull a language context definition. If the question why add it? Expected practice for Commons, and in 2043 (and duh I need to fix), when it migrates, it won't need changes (presuming that the format is the same in 2042, and that the sites will be there ... of course they will be. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:11, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Lace, Its Origin and History: missing image

Thanks for pointing this out, I have uploaded the vagrant image.—Keith Edkins (talk) 13:14, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-28

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News updates

• We are looking for contributors to help write a new issue every week. If you would like to help, please contact us.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 3. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 8, and to all Wikipedias on July 10 (calendar).
• CirrusSearch was enabled on July 1 as the primary search method on 36 new wikis, including the Norwegian (no), Portuguese (pt) and Ukrainian (uk) Wikipedias. [435]
• It is now possible to create Atom or RSS feeds for Word of the Day, Word of the Week and similar entries on Wiktionary wikis. [436] [437]
• You can now use a graphical interface to edit TemplateData information on the English (en), French (fr) and Italian (it) Wikipedias. [438] [439]

VisualEditor news

• Saving an edit with VisualEditor will now be much faster. [440] [441]
• You can now add a caption when you add a file to a page with VisualEditor. You can also change the file to a different one and keep the existing caption. [442] [443] [444]
• When you switch to the Edit source tab, you are now asked to keep your changes. You no longer need to find the option in the menus. [445] [446] [447]
• The reference tool that adds empty <ref></ref> tags is now at the bottom of the Cite menu, below references that use templates like {{Cite web}}. [448]
• Context menus will no longer be shown over items that you can edit directly, for example formulæ. [449] [450] [451]

Future software changes

• Starting on July 9, it will be possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. The feature was first scheduled for July 1, but was delayed due to bugs.
• A plan to enable CirrusSearch as the primary search method on the 11 largest Wikimedia wikis has now been prepared. [452]
• If you use references on a page, you will soon always see them at the bottom of the page, even if you forget to add the <references /> tag (or a template). [453] [454]
• Black-and-white XCF images will soon display correctly. [455] [456]
• Description pages of SVG files will soon always show download links for multiple resolutions (example). The links were previously shown only for SVG files in large original resolutions. [457] [458]

Problems

• Between July 2-3, there were problems with loading pages on multiple wikis due to a configuration issue. [459] [460]
• For a few hours on July 1, there were problems with uploading new files on Wikimedia Commons due to a configuration error. [461] [462]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:07, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

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Index:Notes_on_the_Anti-Corn_Law_Struggle.djvu

I've attempted to transcribe a chapter of this, However I typically use smaller block over blockquote, so I'd appreciate a guidance note on whether I need to change stuff over. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:24, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I am using blockquote, as large reams of smaller text are hard to read in Firefox. You can change it or I can when I get to it. Doesn't worry me which. — billinghurst sDrewth 16:34, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

File needs moving from Commons

Hi, in a hurry last night to give the PotM crew another book to work on I uploaded File:Great Speeches of the War.djvu to Commons. It's only during the night that I've realised I should have uploaded it here with a "do not move". Can you please do your magic to move it here? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 21:18, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Moved, and working on the fixes on our side. Can I ask why you don't use {{book}} in preference to {{information}}? For Commons uploads, if you utilise toollabs:ia-upload it will present that template and do the uploads easily. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:05, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

I usually swap to {{book}}, but only after uploading via the Upload Wizard. Next time I'm pulling an IA file, I'll have a look at this tool. P.S. Thanks for moving the file. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:08, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

BTW, I had to have a guess at the year that it could be copied to Commons. I have worked on Churchill's PMA + 15, which equals 2050. Once the work is completed, and have all the dates of death, we will need to go back and relabel. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:41, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-29

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 (1.24wmf13) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 10. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 15, and to all Wikipedias on July 17 (calendar).
• It is now possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. Please go to the username changes page on Meta if you want to rename your account on all wikis. [463] [464]
• You can now read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for June 2014.
• You can now read the latest issue of the Wikidata newsletter and translate it into your language.

VisualEditor news

• The tool to add templates and citations will now work for templates that include HTML comments or templates in their titles. [465] [466]
• The button to make images full size should now work correctly. [467] [468] [469]
• References will now be shown in the default font size again. [470]

Future software changes

• CirrusSearch will be enabled as the primary search method on the Dutch (nl) and Japanese (ja) Wikipedias on July 14, and on the Polish (pl) and Russian (ru) Wikipedias on July 16. [471]
• The Special:Version page will soon show the exact version of MediaWiki and all extensions installed on your wiki (example). [472] [473]
• It will soon no longer be possible to order printed books of wiki articles via PediaPress. You will still be able to create PDF files. [474]
• Pages that use {{DISPLAYTITLE:''title''}} more than once will soon show a warning. You can use {{DISPLAYTITLE:''title''|noerror}} to hide it. [475] [476]
• Pages that have the list of references added automatically will soon be added to a tracking category. Administrators will be able to configure [MediaWiki:Cite error refs without references category|the name of the category] on their wikis. [477] [478]
• Administrators will soon be able to easily merge histories of two pages using Special:MergeHistory. [479] [480]
• Administrators will soon see links to delete files on Special:ListFiles. [481]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:48, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

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And the Tor check entry?

in {{Anontools/ipv6}} might be nice. —unsigned comment by + (talk) .

yeah /me blames these stupid refreshes and data loss that take place when preview. They weren't protected, and could have done them fwiw. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:28, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. However, regarding your last point: And just how many people would have swallowed their hearts if I'd done so? How about protecting a few things chained from MediaWiki: space like the sign on the outside of the box hints? —unsigned comment by This Snippy act—sheesh! Why is the bar so low? (talk) .

We never have an issue with IPs making good edits, especially where a good edit summary is ued, and such usually you will sail through our patrol process. You will need to be more specific about MW/template pages about which you are concerned, I am not good at guessing. I don't presume that they are my templates as I believe that I have been particular about doing such. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:03, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

indent

I only want to indent the line starting with "Thus" here, not the others. How to fix it? ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:54, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

With poetry, you can just use some  es or use {{gap}} — billinghurst sDrewth 23:30, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Inactive external wikilinks

I agree with you on this, and have added language here to our draft policy on Wikilinks. Please adjust or re-craft the text if it does not seem to clearly convey its meaning. —EncycloPetey (talk) 01:31, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Is(/was) [MediaWiki:Cite references link accessibility label] protected unusually?

Hello.

Not sure you will know the answer to this (and it is in the line of pure curiosity—I really don't need to know but nevertheless…):

• after your initial edit of the above message I could not view the message source (reject: no permission, both logged in and not). However
• after @George Orwell III: made a further edit the contents and history are viewable (to both my pleb. login and when logged out.)

Regrettably I cannot report what the state was prior to either of your edits. Did one or the other of you happen to change page protection please? Or did you make your original change in some kind of stewardship guise.

I repeat I really do not need to know this, but remain curious and hopeful you might be at least able to point me in the right direction. AuFCL (talk) 10:32, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

The text is a Mediawiki: ns page, so you wouldn't be able to edit it unless you are an administrator (Edit the user interface (editinterface)). That is just the page itself, the history and talk page should not be impacted. As I created the file, it was just the default text from Mediawiki via Translatewiki. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:42, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Umm. Yes (& no.) Yes I agree your response is the official one. That said, No, it actually ain't normally true (or if it supposed to be, it broke a long, long time ago. My personal experience with MW is ~8 years now.)

I probably did not make myself clear. What I should have said is that normally non-privileged account access attempts are presented with the option of "View source" (whereas fully authorised ones get "Edit".) What had me intrigued was that both the above page and (for example) [MediaWiki:Cite references link many accessibility label] both presented me with "View source", but the latter actually responded to such action (as well as to "History" examination) yet the former aborted with the "No Permission" error message.

As you've probably guessed it was your post here which prompted my initial interest. AuFCL (talk) 11:11, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

The file that you point to was done as a redirect to its pair, so all I can guess is that a redirect in MW: ns confuses the view aspect. Dunno. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:16, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

<shrug/> Good a guess as any. Thanks for trying. Not worth pursuing further. AuFCL (talk) 11:22, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

When a message, summary, label or similar found in the default set(s) has not been "overridden" locally, landing on such a page is the same as creating it (e.g. edit mode is automatically run; in any other namespace, the blurb about 'no such article exists. Would you like to search for it? Would you like to create it? Would you....' usually comes up instead.)

Since you don't have the bit to create articles in that namespace, Wiki thinks you are in violation per your User rights and thus the 'no permission' bang comes up for you. Once a page has been created in the MW namespace (i.e. the default is overidden locally), landing on that page is the same as landing on any highly protected page (view source only, no moving & the like.)

I'm not sure this holds for pages once created and since deleted [:MediaWiki:Sun] or your ability to at least see the default regardless of the faux-creation thing [:MediaWiki:Sun/qqx] or [:MediaWiki:Sun/qqq] however. Compound these nuances with what I come to believe as pretty much a fact around here - that there are more regulars set to EN-GB than straight EN so not everyone "sees" the same message, summary, label & similar on any given page at any given moment - the MediaWiki namespace really needs some attention to achieve some sort of "uniformity" at this point. — George Orwell III (talk) 01:04, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Excellent answer. That is exactly what I was looking for (I told you I didn't really need to know) and it makes logical sense. Thanks to you both. Oh and in answer to the last, pages once created and later deleted retain that magical "viewable by plebians" state. I have checked/verified this. AuFCL (talk) 02:37, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-30

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 (1.24wmf14) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 17. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 22, and to all Wikipedias on July 24 (calendar).
• CirrusSearch was removed as the primary search method from Wikimedia Commons and the Spanish (es) Wikipedia due to a high server load. The plan to enable it on the Dutch (nl), Japanese (ja), Polish (pl) and Russian (ru) Wikipedias was also postponed to a later date. [482] [483] [484]
• The tool that stores information about languages (CLDR) was updated to its latest version. You can still help translate language names into your own language so they can be used in the sidebar and other places. [485]
• Translation memory for newly translatable pages should now offer more suggestions. [486] [487]
• A tool to convert MediaWiki pages to LaTeX is now available on Tool Labs. [488]

VisualEditor news

• Tablet users visiting the mobile version of Wikimedia wikis will be able to use a special version of VisualEditor starting on July 31. You can test the new tool by choosing the beta version of the mobile view in the Settings menu. Feedback is welcome. [489]
• All windows in VisualEditor have now a new design. Main action buttons will always be located in the top bar and will use simple words rather than icons. [490]
• You can now easily open links inside the link editor, for example to see their target. [491]
• Several bugs related to the positioning of the cursor around some items (like images and references) were fixed last week. [492] [493] [494] [495] [496] [497]

Future software changes

• It will soon be possible to watch individual discussions in the Topic namespace rather than whole pages for talk pages using Flow. [498]
• You can give comments about the new version of Winter, a proposal to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages. [499]
• An IRC meeting to organize Pywikibot bugs will take place from July 24 to July 27 on the channel #pywikibot on freenode. [500]
• A request for comments on how to improve MediaWiki API was re-started on MediaWiki.org. Your feedback is welcome.

Problems

• Mailing lists were broken for about 16 hours between July 14 and July 15 due to a server problem. [501]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:41, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

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Thumbnails on wikisource

Thank you for your pointer at Wikisource:Scriptorium#Vector_skin:_Thumbnail_style_update. I expect I shall get into trouble expressing this opinion but anyone making serious use of thumbnails on content pages in this project ought to be eligible for selection to be shot (at) as a warning to the others. Until something sensible comes along "|frameless" should be the default choice. Now let the games begin. AuFCL (talk) 00:53, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Just for fun before you accuse me of being pissy next time please be so kind as to have a quick read of mw:Talk:Thumbnail_style_update before hitting send. I absolutely give up. I simply cannot compete with this; I have not laughed so hard reading a technical treatise since the BoFH chronicles. AuFCL (talk) 01:02, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Place, community, culture and expectations. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:55, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 20.djvu/16

Hello Billinghurst, I am glad you visited the page in the subj. I have to note, though, that the intricate special characters are easier to copy from where they are on the original page. This was the reason I left the refs in their original position (so that it is easy to type in special chars and then put refs where they belong). There are other things that are not as easy for me, like references that extend to next pages, these Sacred Books have plenty of them (specifically, half or more of vol 21 "problematic" pages). Tar-ba-gan (talk) 10:43, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay, the page was popping up as having broken references, when I was doing that maintenance. I presume that you know about <ref name=…> and <ref follow=…> for continuing references. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:51, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, now I get why it attracted attention. Thanks for reminding how to make cont refs, this part is not something I use often, so I am forgetting. Tar-ba-gan (talk) 10:56, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

You have new messages

Hello, Billinghurst. You have new messages at Gleyshon's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Tech News: 2014-31

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 (1.24wmf15) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 24. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 29, and to all Wikipedias on July 31 (calendar).
• You can now download the latest version of the anti-vandalism tool Huggle.

VisualEditor news

• You can now create, edit, and view HTML comments in VisualEditor. [502] [503]
• The cancel button in VisualEditor toolbar has been removed. You can still use the Read tab and the Back button in your browser to cancel your edit. [504]
• If you try to use a template which has no suggested or required parameters in TemplateData, you will now be asked to add the parameters. [505] [506]
• You will no longer be able to edit a page if you can't create it, for example on pages protected against recreation. [507] [508]

Future software changes

• You will soon be able to filter Meta-Wiki's user rights log by wiki and user. [509] [510]
• Wikidata will soon be able to store data about article status, for example "good article" or "featured article". If your wiki has highlighted content, please make sure it is on Wikidata's list. [511]
• It will soon be possible to directly create empty pages, for example in the user namespace. [512] [513]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:08, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

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Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet. Volume 1

Hello Billinghurst, thanks for improving a page in the subj book. I have a question: the Introduction in it (with page numbers ) precedes the Table of Contents, does not figure in the latter, and takes some 40 pages. How do I manage it at all, so that to make it accessible? Tar-ba-gan (talk) 10:06, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tar-ba-gan: We would generally take liberties. Transclude the ToC onto the root page and put the remainder of the long text as a (the first) subpage. Reality of the web and usefulness. The page numbers will have gaps, but that is what it is. You can always add a note to the talk page of your action. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:14, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

block exemption

Can I have one on Wikisource? ~ DanielTom (talk) 21:22, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

You can edit, so it doesn't seem like you need one. — billinghurst sDrewth

No, I often get blocked when saving changes, which is really annoying. (Do you want me to email you the details?) ~ DanielTom (talk) 09:21, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

I have grabbed them from a CU and I see that there are a few 'anon. only' blocks, though you seem to be getting through those. If you are getting global blocks on some different IP addresses, then please do email them to me, and if they are from similar services used for the others, then I will look to modify those to anon only blocks. I much prefer to look to reduce the blocks on spambots and actual real users before granting IPBE. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:13, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay. ~ DanielTom (talk) 13:12, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Done — billinghurst sDrewth 16:06, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Sent you another. ~ DanielTom (talk) 23:18, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Done

Last is not blocked that I can see locally or globally. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:19, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@DanielTom: Done — billinghurst sDrewth 00:50, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Index:Literary Landmarks of Oxford.djvu

Firstly, You are going to scream at me :).

I've done a manual Match and Split, based on the chapters of the existing incomplete version, proofreading as I went.

I'm not going to start proofreading the other Chapters until you've reviewed.

More than happy to ask for a rollback or revert if there was an issue with histories :) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 19:15, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Go play. My purpose was to move the images that we had to Commons, and it seemed worthwhile to place the work to Commons, as I needed the metadata. I have no particularly interest in the work. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:58, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Done, chapters assembled, as well, (images missing) This seems to have been the fastest one I've yet done. which means I've probably missed something. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:18, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Index:Q Horati Flacci Carminum librum quintum.djvu

Mostly latin, there also appears to be a page numbering discrepancy. ie page 10 in thwe Djvu is page 12, Can you do a recheck to make sure it's not missing pages? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 15:32, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Nope, sorry cannot. No time. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:13, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: If it is missing any pages, it is front matter (cover, front endpapers, etc.). The rest of the content seems to be present and in order. You might consider revising pagination to read "1=3" instead of "10=12"; then the remaining pages will reflect correctly. Comparison with a third edition at Archive.org shows the same content pages (with different pagination), so I don't believe any content pages are missing... Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:50, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

There is also the issue that portions are not English.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:22, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

You could do a side-by-side like Francesca of Rimini. The pages alternate between translations. Londonjackbooks (talk) 18:56, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I could- but for the fact that the work isnt on Latin Wiklisource (yet).ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:18, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-32

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News updates

• Tech News will be presented at the Wikimania 2014 conference in London! If you will be attending the conference, please join us in Auditorium 2 at 14:30 local time on Sunday, August 10.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf16) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 31. Due to the Wikimania 2014 conference, it will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on August 12, and to all Wikipedias on August 14 (calendar). [514]
• You can now test a new tool to render wiki pages as PDF files. [515] [516] [517]
• You can now download an update to the archive of Wikimedia Commons files (uploaded up to December 31, 2013). If you have free space on your computer, please help preserve the files. [518]
• New users using the mobile Commons site now need to make 75 edits before they can upload a file. [519] [520]

VisualEditor news

• You will no longer see an edit confirmation message after making a null edit with VisualEditor. [521] [522]
• VisualEditor will no longer change underscores to spaces in category sort keys. [523]
• Many bugs that resulted in inserting the pawn and snowman symbols were fixed last week. [524] [525] [526] [527]
• Several bugs related to the use of references were also fixed. [528] [529] [530] [531]

Future software changes

• You will soon have a user option to watch pages where you revert edits. [532] [533]
• All Toolserver data will be deleted in September. If you want to back up your data, contact Toolserver administrators before August 31. [534]
• Pages in the Translations: namespace on wikis using the Translate extension will no longer be indexed by search engines. [535]

Problems

• Wikivoyage wikis were broken for about 45 minutes on July 29 due to a configuration problem. [536]
• Some users were not able to log in on test wikis and MediaWiki.org between July 31 and August 1. The problem is now fixed. [537]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

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Kinsey works

I think that the {{Fine block}} makes the text look like closer to the original and better, especially, with small caps, so I think it would be better if You use it too when validating my pages. Nonexyst (talk) 12:02, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

@Nonexyst: Not an issue, I was being consistent, while you were being reflective. I will let you fix up the validated pages, and I will do that on future edits. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:15, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-33

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

• Due to the Wikimania 2014 conference, there were no MediaWiki changes this week. The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf16) will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on August 12, and to all Wikipedias on August 14 (calendar). [538]
• Bureaucrats on all Wikivoyage wikis are no longer able to merge two accounts into one. [539]

VisualEditor news

• Tablet users visiting the mobile version of non-Wikipedia wikis will be able to use VisualEditor starting on August 12. The feature will also be enabled on all Wikipedias on August 14. [540]

Future software changes

• Internet Explorer 6 users will soon see a JavaScript-free version of Wikimedia wikis; JavaScript tools and scripts will no longer work on that browser. If you use Internet Explorer 6, make sure to update to a newer browser! [541] [542] [543]
• If you visit a special page that requires you to be logged-in, you will soon be automatically redirected to the log-in page instead of seeing a warning. [544] [545]
• You will now always see recent changes to the source language text when editing a translation with the Translate extension. [546] [547]
• An IRC meeting to discuss VisualEditor will take place on August 14 at 09:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). [548]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:43, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

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Great to meet you

Hey, although it was quick, it was great to meet you in person at Wikimania! Cheers, stephen (talk) 21:57, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it was way too short a time. With numbers of people the time was too short, or where I was looking to follow up, and they were busy, or just not findable. Neat time we need to RFID chip everyone, and auto-diary booking like/dislike function. Then set up for the WM version of speed-dating. All just for me. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:52, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-34

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 (1.24wmf17) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 14. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on August 19, and on all Wikipedias on August 21 (calendar).
• There is a new protection level called superprotection. At the moment, only some Wikimedia Foundation employees have access to it. Administrators can't edit "superprotected" pages. [549] [550] [551]
• You can now create empty pages directly. A [Mediawiki:Blankarticle|message] asks you to confirm that you want to create an empty page. [552] [553]
• You can search for Wikimedia tools using a new list of tools. [554]
• You can watch the first videos from Wikimania 2014. Some of them are about technical topics. More videos will come later.

Wikidata

• After August 19, you can use Wikidata for inter language links on Wikinews. [555]
• After August 19, you can use Wikidata for badges like "good" or "featured" articles. Next week, you will be able to show the badges in the article sidebar on Wikipedia, Wikisource and Wikiquote. [556]

Problems

• There was an issue with ProofreadPage and WikiEditor on Wikisource wikis. It is now fixed. [557] [558]

Tech news written by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:16, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

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User:Muhammadshahzadaslam

This user has added his own author page and what looks like abstracts of his own works. I think you'd have a little better tact in handling this, so I'd toss it in your lap.—Prosfilaes (talk) 21:06, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Gee thanks. A generous spirit! Done — billinghurst sDrewth 23:58, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-35

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

VisualEditor news

• There was a error when you put your cursor directly after a reference list. It is now fixed. [559]
• You can now add colors to links in the editor using gadgets. You can do this to see links to redirects or disambiguation pages. [560]
• If you use Internet Explorer, you will soon be able to use VisualEditor. [561] [562] [563]

Future software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf18) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 21. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on August 26, and on all Wikipedias on August 28 (calendar).
• After August 26, you will have a central JavaScript and CSS page. They will be on Meta-Wiki and will work on all wikis. Read more on the help page. [564]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:21, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

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While you're offering, though

I could use some pointers (if you have them) on an easy way to format the EB9 pages so that this doesn't end up looking like this. I assume there is a way to do it since the transcluded pages automatically scoot the text over for the page links but would want something user friendly if possible to allow more editors to use it. — LlywelynII 12:30, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

We transclude the text to the main ns: using sidenotes templates, and we may (or may not) force the display layer, which allows users to toggle through their preferred. More than that, has to wait until tomorrow. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:53, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

An Apology

In relation to the deletions (At commons), It seems I was being over-bold, so you and the community here collectively are due an apology.

I'd also like your feedback on developing a 'process' guideline so that 'undercut' deletions are effectively considered disruptive here. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:56, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to oputlaw 'undercut' deletions posted. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:05, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I was asking for mindfulness, and in my post, I used intemperate expression, for that I apologise. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:31, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

In relation to the dictionary

Commons:Commons:Undeletion_requests/Current_requests#File:Kaufmann_Visayan-English_Dictionary.djvu, based on your concerns about the other nominations I decided to see if this one was actually in the US CCE scans on Google. So far I've not found a mnetion of it under Kaufmann's name in the relevant places. (checked 1934/5) and relevant renewal records all of which came up blank so far. As noted at Commons, the version there had no front sheet to check the edition dates :( ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:44, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

The works were not completed; so those that were not clear-cut keep, and had been deleted, I simply left alone. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:32, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Inconsistency: entirely your problem.

Dear A.,

Highly amused to note the logical inconsistency betwixt and between:

1. Special:Diff/4952863/4960472
2. Special:Diff/5013994/5015247
3. Special:Diff/5017986/5018180

(of course I must regard the problem as being entirely of your making (despite the fact I happen to entirely agree with regards #3.)) However regards overall inconsistency, I cannot resist noting until the matter is entirely resolved I must regard you as functionally insane and your opinions therefore of diminishing (well, none whatsoever) significance.

N.B. Whilst I am not unsympathetic to the exigencies of your rôle; and indeed I do not dispute your commentary; however you chose to make us on opposite sides regarding any (future?) issues; thus this post. Your basic issue is: either you choose to bury the hatchet or swallow your pride; either way remains your problem.

Even though I represent the party who cares the least in this particular matter, I nonetheless await your decision. This comment represents my last remaining shred of respect for you; so if you choose to reject it you might as well take the (similarly logical) response. AuFCL (talk) 04:02, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Post 1 contains the best advice. When I have snippy moments, it is reasonable to point out to me to reflect upon them, whether it is comfortable for me to have the mirror there is irrelevant. I will plead guilty to being a human being and making errors at times. Also being human, I believe that I do good. Hopefully others will decide that my good acts, well outweigh my lapses. If you are expecting perfection from me ... <shrug> When someone pushes a pressure point in a community, it is right for each us to point out to the user what they are doing, and I thank you for taking this time, on this occasion, and I agree that it is something that we should look to attain respectfully.

You are in control of you, and may decide what you please, that is your right. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:28, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

An impressive answer; and one which tends to restore at least some faith in you.

With regards perfection however, of course I expect it of you. If I am willing to donate time to a project so heavily reliant upon $\mathrm {\left\{{\overset {OCR}{\underset {\overset {transcluding}{publishing}}{\overset {proofing}{validating}}}}\right\}}$ cycles; each one of which carries a reasonable expectation of achieving a level of perfection which would render the following cycle unnecessary, just how stupid do you think I am?

So further speaking rhetorically this time, what do you suppose my realistic expectations of observing that perfection I might so reasonably expect might be?

Sometimes a little friction is essential for a process to even function at all. AuFCL (talk) 00:49, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Probability of perfection … highly improbable
Probability of community-acceptable behaviour for most of the time … highly probable
Probability of apology (when failure of acceptable behaviour for most of the time) … highly probable
Probability of causing friction through actions … between unlikely and likely
Probability of putting community's best interests forward … highly probable
Of course, if you stop watching talk-type pages the likelihood of your observations of any adverse interactions with people will decrease significantly (mine or anyone's). — billinghurst sDrewth 03:56, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Once more I appear to have failed to clearly state my case. You appear to be recommending to me that I suppress any desire to express an opinion for fear it may exacerbate controversy; if so I disagree fundamentally with and utterly reject that. I trust that this is merely a misapprehension on my part. On the other hand I applaud the short sharp laying down of the law to transgressors (not excluding myself) where such action (and determination to stick to the line) is assessed likely to settle the matter once and for all; preferably without ongoing malice.

Aren't we both really arguing the same side of the case? I certainly perceive that we are in concord over your actions, if not necessarily over your stated objectives prior to those actions.

I hope this issue is clear now and consider this my last word on the matter unless you should choose to disagree. AuFCL (talk) 03:27, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Take a look at this

WS:News/2014-09#Improvements requested for the English Wikisource —Erasmo Barresi (talk) 16:22, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Thx. Edited, changes are suggested, but it is your call on how you go. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:09, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-36

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 test a new Beta Feature to see links to other wikis in the sidebar. The links come from Wikidata. [565] [566]
• You can now search pages that link to a page. Use the linksto: keyword in your search. [567] [568]
• A redirect to a section now changes the URL in the address bar of your browser. If "Dog" redirects to "Animals#Dog", you now see "Animals#Dog" instead of "Dog#Dog". [569] [570]
• If you are testing Flow, you now have a Flow tab in your Notifications. It is called "Messages". [571]

VisualEditor news

• You can no longer delete required fields in templates. [572]
• We fixed many Internet Explorer bugs. If you use Internet Explorer 11, you will get VisualEditor next week. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [573] [574] [575]
• VisualEditor now looks better in Monobook. [576]
• We fixed a bug where some of your typing could be undone when you used "cut" (Ctrl+X). [577]
• You will no longer see empty or deleted categories among the suggestions when you add a category. [578]

Future software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf19) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 28. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 2, and on all Wikipedias on September 4 (calendar).
• There is a proposal to build a database on Commons for file data. It will make it easier to see the author, license and topics. You can give feedback on this idea. You can also come to the IRC chat on September 3 at 18:00 (UTC) in #wikimedia-office at freenode. [579]
• You can give feedback on Media Viewer until September 7. You can say what needs to be improved and ask other people to give feedback too. [580]
• You can test a new version of the tool to show math. It uses MathML. Report bugs in bugzilla.
• You will no longer be able to upload images from the mobile site. [581]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:48, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

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Author:Grace Granville

Did you notice the discrepancy in birth dates? On here it still says ca. 1667. I'm not sure which one is correct, although 1654 seems the right one. The editor possibly used this source. —Azertus (talk) 09:26, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed it, and that is what led me to remove it at WD from what I had added from enWP, which was unsourced. I am going to leave it vague here, just hadn't got there yet, and who knows which is correct. Family history data shows both years, and my quick check of references doesn't show anything definitive. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:36, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Bilingual Swedish-Latin book on spiders

Hi Billinghurst, as briefly mentioned at Wikimania, I would appreciate help with setting up File:Clerck 1757 Svenska Spindlar - Aranei Svecici.pdf for transcription, which I tried here and suggested here and here, all unsuccessfully so far. Thanks and cheers, — Daniel Mietchen (talk) 02:06, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi @Daniel Mietchen:. It looks like the framework may not be properly set at oldwikisource, definitely something not right in the background. Let me ping @Zyephyrus, @Tpt: to see if they can help immediately, otherwise, I will have a look when I get home in a few days (tablet is less than ideal for that comparative work). — billinghurst sDrewth 06:00, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Created here and here, but I have no text, it must be added. —Zyephyrus (talk) 21:12, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I was poking around a bit for help on how to do an OCR (especially for Latin/ Swedish) for Wikisource but did not find any. Do you or Zyephyrus or anyone here have some pointers? — Daniel Mietchen (talk) 20:19, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

@Daniel Mietchen:Must be too obvious … under the "Proofreading tools" button on the toolbar (traditional or advanced) there is a big button labelled "OCR". Press it and it OCRs. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:40, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Note en passant: Make sure Preferences/Gadgets/Editing tools for Page: namespace/Disable OCR button Button in Page: namespace checkbox is unticked. AuFCL (talk) 02:59, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Haven't been in the Page namespace much, so it was not obvious to me. Found it now on the English and Swedish Wikisources, but not on the Latin one (I checked for gadgets to be set in the preferences). Anyway, since the Swedish alphabet contains the Latin one, it would seem possible to just do the OCR on the Swedish Wikisource and then transfer to the Latin one. — Daniel Mietchen (talk) 22:19, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

It is there in both, I did check prior to stating, maybe just push the page again. The OCR tool is loaded through "Mediawiki:Common.js", and gadgets are just there to offer to turn off the button in the toolbar. I think that it is on for all WS wikis, though you can always load it through your m:Special:MyPage/global.js see mw:Extension:GlobalCssJs — billinghurst sDrewth 23:12, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

The OCR button is hidden in the Proofread tools group, when you expand it other groups disappear: can you find that too? —Zyephyrus (talk) 23:25, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, found it now, thanks - seems the icon simply hadn't loaded. Is the OCR customized to the respective language version? Results for neither Latin nor Swedish are very promising for this book. — Daniel Mietchen (talk) 23:59, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

@Phe: are you able to provide better feedback on Daniel's question? — billinghurst sDrewth 03:18, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Lang is customized depending on the site the ocr request come. en.ws —> ocr in English etc. except for la.ws where the ocr use Italian as lang as there is no latin package. Actually the lang can't be chosen on a per book basis. — Phe 11:26, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

@Phe: @Daniel Mietchen: I'm guessing that the Swedish package is based on 20:th and 21:st century Swedish texts. That is not really suitable for an antiqua text from the 18:th century which is very different in many instances, long-s, different 'ä' and 'ö' types etc. That makes it hard to get a good OCR anyway but besides that isn't the facsimile that good. The text from the opposite side has bleeded through the page which makes for a lot of artifacts on the page that disrupts the OCRing.—Thurs (talk) 20:07, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I have been known to save a page image (as jpg) try one of the external OCR sites for a comparison. Sometimes those sites do better than we do. Sometimes if the work has not been through Internet Archive it is worth putting it through their derivation processes. Sometimes IA's derivation process does a crap job, and asking them to rederive a work can bring different results. Sometimes, it all is a bit too hard for whichever process. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:02, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-37

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

VisualEditor news

• From Thursday, Internet Explorer 11 users will get VisualEditor. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [582] [583] [584]

Future software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf20) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 9, and on all Wikipedias on September 11 (calendar).
• You will soon confirm a "Thanks" inline instead of in a dialog. [585]
• You can read more about the plan to move to Phabricator, a tool that will help people develop the MediaWiki software and report bugs. [586]

Problems

• There were problems with JavaScript and CSS on Friday, September 5 because of a code error.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:33, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

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Thanks for the welcome

Hello Billinghurst, thanks very much for the warm welcome and guidance. I'm very new to wikis so apologies for the elementary errors. Thanks too for the response to the help request. As mentioned I'm part of a wider group of sociologists who have been working on transcripts of military incidents - we will produce other modified transcripts (we usually work on them for around a year each) but the one mentioned is our most developed. In terms of contributing to discussions on transcripts, how is it best to do that? You can see the way we have done it here.Michaelmair (talk) 13:54, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

@Michaelmair: We were all new at wikis at one point, so we try to do guidance, and hopefully teach, rather than complain. Politely slap us, if we stray or forget that.

We see WS as the source/library, such as "here is the original text that passed contemporary peer review at the time of publication", rather than as the encyclopaedia, or place of analysis. Such that the body of a text is meant to be that source, headers of works can provide some neutral context, scene setting and linkage (even to talk pages). Talk pages themselves can provide further context, and links to pertinent off-site analysis. So with that background, if you are talking about correcting errors in transcriptions, then fix them, and add pertinent comment to the source (as I said before). If discussions for new transcripts, then where you were is a good start place (we try to keep help simple), and we can direct from there, of course noting Wikisource:What Wikisource includes. If you meant discussions to analysis of the transcript, if it is a published work and in the public domain, then it is ours, otherwise is not our bailiwick, and may be more relevant for our sister sites wikinews or wikibooks and then we link between them to discuss source <-> news <-> annotation/book; and of course Wikipedia for encyclopaedic review.

Does that answer your questions? Or have I missed your point? — billinghurst sDrewth 00:29, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

A compromise?

Hey, I've been thinking about our discussion about linking in archived scientific works and I think I've reached a compromise that will please both of us. Check out that example page again. If it looks the same as it did before bypass your cache (ctrl+F5 in Firefox or Chrome). Does this satisfy us both? Abyssal (talk) 13:33, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

@Abyssal: Personal opinion: there is more than I would link in a work if I was doing it. There are still words linked that I consider common words, and I believe anyone reading this technical work (the audience) would know those words (eg. cervical, suture, ...). That said, I (generally) would not unlink words if I came to validate the work. So if I came to the work now, my expectations would be … a consistency in linking style/approach, ie. not seeing the odd page in the work having the linking, AND how does a chapter look when it is transcluded to the main namespace? Is it a sea of links that swamp the work, or does it seem appropriate?

In the end, this is your effort, and you are the lead reproducer and at enWS have an approach that respects the lead contributor for a work. So I am not going to be (needlessly) critical and (hopefully) more provide an observer's reflective critique. Maybe you can get an outsider's view of what is the balance, and as a community that is probably the point of view needed, not managing my expectations. In the end that you read and consider my thoughts, and seek other opinion is all that I ask, and what you decide is okay if we are getting the consistency, and the overarching view. Thanks for asking. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:45, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Do you think the change to darker blue, less conspicuous links was an improvement, though? I was hoping to strike a balance between readability and integration with other Wikimedia content. Abyssal (talk) 01:43, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

No. It isn't our practice to change link colours to suit our needs to lessen the visual impact of overlinking, we have left links as the system defaults. Changing the colours doesn't change the basis of my issue. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:42, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

OK. I modeled the change to dark blue links on Template:Wg. I didn't know that kind of thing was controversial. A philosophical question in response to your distaste for my use of links: what is the drawback of a link if it's not drawing attention to itself by being the default bright blue color? Abyssal (talk) 12:08, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

My philosophical point about links and templates has been addressed as a more general discussion at WS:S. I think that more general discussion is more useful for that component and becomes not my opinion alone, and I keep my responses here relevant to my opinion about the pages in question, that hopefully separates philosophy from specifics. I hope that is okay. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:50, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

" Where's the Beef ? aka short "cuts"

Recently your bot changed three SHSP pages and I am wondering why short cuts were substituted or removed. I looked at Template:RunningHeader and saw that the "shortcut" of the beef (rh) is okay to use rather than RunningHeader. I also saw the following was changed.

 SDrewthbot (Talk | contribs)
m (expand diacritical templates, replaced: {{RunningHeader| → {{RunningHeader|, {{hyphenated word start| → {{hyphenated word start|, {{hyphenated word end| → {{hyphenated word end|, {{subst:oe}} → {{subst:oe}} using AWB)

I need to know if the short "cuts" are still allowed. Respectfully, —Maury (talk) 23:57, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Sure, shortcuts are still allowed, what ever gave you the idea that they weren't. I was doing the expansions, and the others are just general maintenance in passing. Not certain what is your issue. Ideally we would subst all the shortcut templates to expand normally, but I have never bothered to go that route. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:06, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

There is no issue now that I have read your statement about the above. However, rules and codes sometimes change fast on wikisource and your bot's changes sparked my question. Don't worry, be happy. Kindest regards, —Maury (talk) 00:20, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Shortcuts are easy to type, and that is their purpose, whereas the issue is that they are hard for newbies to comprehend, especially if they don't know what is a template in the first place. It is hard to find the right balance, however, if my bot is running through pages doing maintenance on a page, it replaces to the full. Though I don't send it through replacing just for the hell of it. As I said, ideally we would subst: expand on creation, but we haven't done it. That said, something like RunningHeader is easy to add to the header field on the Index: page, so we shouldn't need to overly use a shortcut. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Cleanup

Can you take a look and respond at WS:PD please? Been trying to cleanup some items with missing files. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:01, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Like most of us, I look at WS:PD when the mood takes me. We are used to long conversations there. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:55, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

where

does it say that you have to use that ugly template (which policy)? ~ DanielTom (talk) 23:38, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

That template matches many of our other templates that accurately describe a work, its source, and year of publication (where known). Useful and pertinent information is what we looking to provide. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:53, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-38

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• You can now change the style of links to disambiguation pages. This is done with the mw-disambig CSS class. [587] [588]
• There was a problem on right-to-left wikis with Wikidata log entries. The text was messy in watchlists and recent changes. The problem is now fixed. The same problem will be fixed soon for user names. [589] [590] [591]
• New users are randomly chosen for a test on 12 Wikipedias. They get messages with ideas of articles to edit. The ideas come from what they have already edited. [592]

Problems

• There was a problem with loading images on September 10. [593]

VisualEditor news

• If you don't select text when you add a link, the link now shows a number. [594]
• The citation tool no longer offers to reuse a citation if there are none on the page yet. [595] [596]
• You can now use help buttons in the "Page settings" menu to see what the options are for. [597]

Future software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf21) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 16, and on all Wikipedias on September 18 (calendar).
• These changes are coming with the new version:
  • If you use Internet Explorer 7, JavaScript will no longer work. JavaScript tools and scripts will no longer work in that browser. You should update to a newer browser. [598] [599] [600]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

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Undeletion and transfer here

Please see c:User talk:INeverCry#Request for temporary undeletion. At least he tried (although the re-deletion comment demonstrates low understanding of what I was after). Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:27, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Transferred, will be in category in RC header. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:01, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Dates?

Hi, for the St Andrews book I've found dates of death for all the authors except these three. When you have time could you see what you can find in your resources? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 20:36, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

• Thomas Ross Mills (b.1869)

  (parking) can find birth in Berwick, Northumberland, and census records up to 1901, and in St Andrews at the time. Nothing afterwards. There are deaths for "Thomas R Mills" of the age that correspond to year of birth, however, nothing definitive. First check of newspapers shows nothing evident, will need to try variations, and look to Scottish papers, and their record sets.

• Robert Norrie (Asst. Lecturer Univ Coll Dundee)

  Born 1878, Dundee, Angus (Forfar). Census records to 1911 (single holidaying with mother in England). Son of William and Ann(e) (?Findlay). Family tree info gives year of birth only.

• William Smith Denham (Ass. to Dept. Chemistry St Andrews)

  Born 1878/9, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland, can find census records to 1901. No evident death, need to separately try Scottish sources.

  Died 1964. Obituary. The Times (London, England), Tuesday, Jun 09, 1964; pg. 15; Issue 56033. Director of Research, British Silk Research Association (1921-34), aged 85, 1 June 1964, Sutton, Surrey.

Some research done above. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:37, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Julins Palmer

Actually it's no typo: see e.g. [601]. Charles Matthews (talk) 04:38, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

It is still the published word, so might be worth changing the message to be forthright. I have already created the redirect. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:19, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-39

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• You can test a new Beta Feature called HHVM. It should make editing faster. Please report bugs if you see them. [602]

Problems

• There was a problem on the English Wikipedia on September 19. It was due to edits on a template used on many pages.
• Sites were down for users in the Pacific area around 7:00 UTC on September 20. It was due to a problem in the San Francisco data center.
• There were two bad bugs messing up articles in some browsers in VisualEditor. We fixed the bugs and updated the sites. [603] [604]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf22) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 23, and on all Wikipedias on September 25 (calendar).
• If you have more than 2000 notifications, the oldest ones will be removed.[605] [606]
• In the "Vector" skin, the icon used for users will show a neutral gender. [607] [608]
• The VisualEditor template tool now tells you if a required field is missing. [609]
• The "Cancel" button of the VisualEditor save window is now called "Resume editing". This shows that you can still edit and you won't lose your changes. [610]
• There are new keyboard shortcuts in VisualEditor. Use Ctrl+Shift+6 for code and Ctrl+Shift+5 for strikethrough. [611] [612]
• In VisualEditor, you can now see that you are switching to the source editing mode. Before, it was not clear it was happening. [613]

Future site changes

• You can see a plan for the move to Phabricator. It's the new tool to track bugs. A guided tour will be done via video on September 24. [614]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:04, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

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Obliterating previous claim(s) to authorities.

<!— User:DoNotArchiveUntil 17:15, 27 August 2024 (UTC) —>

Please consider using {{authority control|$1}} instead of {{authority control}} when replacing a pre-existing set of imports/additions to this template. It does not interfere in anyway with any data "collection" or rendering and the like, but actually helps matters by proving some sense of an "anchor" for robot/gadget/crawl utilization.

Think of this as the last {{{ }}} in a string of {{{ | {{{ | {{{ | }}} | }}} }}} 's but with no " | " in the last one & the resulting behavior it causes. Thanks. — George Orwell III (talk)

That is an unnecessary level of complication. If it needs it, then code it. Trying to and needing to explain its use in that way seems nonsensical. Let us keep it simple.— billinghurst sDrewth 08:58, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Deleting the pre-existing, human applied info is driving the need for this so-called complication, not I, so please reconsider taking that approach. The amount of "work" needed to accomplish the same effect code-wise & on-the fly is a galactic waste of time and energy. The next incarnation will soon be upon us (see Module:WikidataF ) and "we" are already throwing away huge amounts of localized research just for the sake of what only appears to be 2nd phase progress.

Just tell me where/which script/toolbar you are loading this parameter-less template from and I will modify it for you. Nice and simple. It will most likely be obsolete in a week or two to boot! — George Orwell III (talk) 09:55, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

What is your issue today? Obliterating, deleting, complication ... can you please move away from the rhetorical to any specific issues and problems that are caused by my editing. From what I am seeing the pages that I leave have more or the same data and links, ie. no loss of functionality. All the data and more is now in Wikidata, and it gets there by a human. Nothing is thrown away. Your statements about localised links doesn't address the issue of link loss when pages are moved, deleted relocated at the other wikis, so that is a specious argument. This is all about making things as simple as possible, and with minimal maintenance. Ideally we should be completely removing the visible aspects of the sister links which can be managed by WD, and data pull. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:11, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

You've changed the point to somehow make this "my issue" because of "my words" when you are the one actually removing stuff that you claim won't matter either-way, nor make any difference at-the-end-of-the-day, so I kind of know where continuing any of this is going to go already (nowhere fast). I give up. retract my request(s) Delete away.

One thing I must insist you try the next time you need to expand or move an Author: page however; plz locate the 'Wikisource: #######' entry in the existing AuthCont template bar and copy down the URL linkage & number-string within it before you "actually" move anything. Of course, verify the link actually works while you are at it. Finally, check the same URL link and associated-ID aspects after you make your move(s). Before & after should be exactly the same & clicking on it should take you to the same page too. Nobody had to amend or detect anything to accomplish that. Would that have been simple enough for you?

Try to have a good day there anyway Mr. Lost-Links. :) George Orwell III (talk) 13:08, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Google Front pages/Watermarking

https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/ShakespeareFan00&offset=&limit=500&target=ShakespeareFan00

A bit of blunt approach, but I couldn't think of a better way of flagging files that might require to be 'evacuated' before certain people at commons decided to go on a 'freedom' purge :(

No objections to reverts of course.

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 00:31, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Google watermarking can just be ignored, if it becomes a major issue, we get someone to write a bot to replace the lead page with a blank one. It doesn't change the licensing of the work. Face the issue when it is an issue, and we can have the bitchfight at the time. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:23, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually @Phe:, how hard would it be to write a tool for toollabs that takes a file from Commons, removes and replaces the first page of a djvu/pdf, then puts the file back. Something similar to croptool and rotatebot. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:42, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

That would be a great tool to have but it only addresses the Google disclaimer page part of the "situation". If the recent application of Template:Watermarking is anything to go by, I think Shakes is also worried about the watermark typically found at the bottom of every page. That's an entirely different matter to say the least. — George Orwell III (talk) 09:53, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Lots of files have watermarks, and it is just a template c:template:Watermark and that is advisory, not a criteria for deletion. I would rather we show how radical that they are becoming, and how much their ways are problematic for the broader community. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:06, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

It was partly because the watermarking is a 'quality' issue , vs a licensing one that I wrote the template, I've also written {{front-sheet}} to flag works that have the front-page issue. I've also reviewed some of my recent Index status changes to make sure that what's in the relevant status categoy (File to Fix) are actually File with STRUCTURAL issues, which is why you should see a lot of Index pages in Recent changes.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:22, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

First, I'm pretty sure we're all clear by now that the best time and place to correct structural issues is before uploading the file in the first place. After that, the amount of labor already invested should help determine the next course of action for a structurally deficient source file.

There is not much to gain by "patching" a file uploaded 4 or 5 years ago that still only has the dozen or two pages originally created (e.g. a bunch of no-texts, the title page & maybe the ToC) out of the hundreds of the total-remaining done. Its frequently easier to find a replacement file (quality and/or edition permitting of course) or just patch the original source file first and re-derive that as the replacement instead. Folks can take on those kinds of tasks at their leisure.

At the same time, if there are hundreds of Pages already proofread of a source file and two or three dozen left to still "work out", it makes perfect sense to expend the effort to patch what we already know to be nearly vetted in full. The same goes for the old PoTM-turns-out-to-be-flawed-187-pages-into-transcription scenario.

The notion that uploading a bunch a stuff only to wind up "parking" them for months if not years will somehow entice new contributors before you can get them yourself in the interim has also proven to be load of made-up malarkey. A freshly derived file will more often than not require "less work" to bring to completion than an older file would because the process itself is constantly improving over that same period of time.

I'm fully in favor of such housekeeping & appreciate knowing of any file issues at a glance but even in the real world - sometimes a new replacement is far easier to maintain than trying to clean up something "old". — George Orwell III (talk) 11:16, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I will also note that in removing the front sheet, it might be "useful" if the layout could be patched for files we know (due to pagelist checking) have 'missing pages', The layout could be fixed temporarily by inserting a suitable "This page is missing in the source scans" page, something I've done myself on a few files after a suggestion by someone here.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:25, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

See my screed above re: placeholders & patching first but if a tool is developed to easily do some of the more minor placeholder-insertions/duplicate-deletions on the fly, I'm all for it too. — George Orwell III (talk) 11:16, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi, keeping watermark/front page is required by CC-BY and CC-BY-SA licence "attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor" ([615]). emphasis mine. — Phe 18:48, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Rescanned works don't get to be relicensed by the scanner just by 'sweat of the brow' effort. I woukld agree with approach for their works that they author and they license, but not where they slap a front page to a work. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:08, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok, we have probably the right in some country at least to remove the front-page, and I have little doubt watermark will need to be removed later. I really found this story idiotic, why the hell some commonist are making our work more difficult? there is nothing preventing to keep this except an internal policy of commons, perhaps it's time to use local repository as commons is less and less usable, it'll require less work rather to try to workaround commons policy. — Phe 00:51, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, though it means that a Wikisource'd translation will need to be double loaded. :-/ Otherwise I agree about the issue of Commonist-nitpickers and there losing the global picture. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:24, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

One of the toolwriters who runs a croptool has said that he may be able to build a tool, and I have given some examples with which he can play. I asked for djvu and pdf. It might work really well in conjunction with the toollabs:bub — billinghurst sDrewth 10:11, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-40

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• On Commons, you can now see what files are most used across all wikis. You can also see the same list for deleted or uncreated files. [616] [617]
• There are now many more translations for language names. [618]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf1) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 30, and on all Wikipedias on October 2 (calendar).
• Errors from Scribunto (Lua) are now shown on the page. Before, you had to click on "Script error" to see them. [619] [620]
• You can add an "autovalue" for a field in TemplateData. When users add the template to a page, the value will be added automatically. An example is when a clean-up template shows the date it was added. [621]
• If you change a user preference but don't save it, it now asks if you want to save it. [622] [623]
• The PDF export tool has changed. The new one has better language support but it doesn't offer ZIM and EPUB formats. [624]

Future changes

• You can watch a video showing Phabricator, the new tool to track bugs. You can also read more about the move from Bugzilla.
• JavaScript authors: Many old methods will be removed soon. Please check your scripts and gadgets and replace the old methods by the new ones if needed. [625]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:44, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

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Improve Template:header to handle arbitrary number of categories

I posted on the talk page here Template_talk:Header#Change_to_Support_More_than_10_Categories and you can see this change to the template in action here Template:Header/sandbox/sample and here Template:Header-wpoa/sandbox/example.

Edits to Template:Header are currently restricted, but I think this change would be a general improvement for any document with more than 10 categories added via the header template. Let me know if you think this change can be accepted.

— Mattsenate (talk) 22:54, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Commented there. We probably have numbers of similar improvements elsewhere that we need to find and resolve in a similar manner. [Us non-coders!] — billinghurst sDrewth 00:57, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Ping. I added a tiny bit and posted again on the thread here. Does not seem like there is any issue with giving this a whirl, do you think we should request any more feedback? — Mattsenate (talk) 22:51, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Month seems long enough for comment. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:23, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Curious

Hi, I'm curious about commons:Special:Diff/132346934. Which of the provisions does this satisfy? It's not a photograph or an artistic work, so I presume it was commercially published? I'm not familiar with UK copyright law — seeking to build my understanding. -Pete (talk) 19:10, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

It is a work that is covered by crown copyright which is now expired for the work ...

“	A work is Crown copyright if it was: created or published at any date before 1 June 1957 by or under the direction or control of the Crown … Therefore it applies to many records held in The National Archives, such as letters and reports by Crown servants, census returns, records of service in the armed forces, records created by the law courts, transportation records, war diaries and Cabinet minutes.	”
—Copyright and its related works section 7, nationalarchives.gov.uk

... and that is the only licence available for that work. If you can find something more applicable, then go for it. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:48, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-41

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can use the phab: and phabricator: interwikis to link to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org. [626] [627]
• Some wikis have a template to track bugs in Bugzilla. You should update it to work with Phabricator. You can look at the one on mediawiki.org to see how. [628] [629]
• You can look at Special:MediaStatistics to see what kind of files are on your wiki. [630]
• A new tool can now create thumbnails of large TIFF images. This concerns files larger than 50 megapixels. These thumbnails are also sharpened. You can comment on Commons. [631]
• The Media Viewer tool has a clearer link to the file page. It also has buttons to download, share and embed the file. You can enlarge images by clicking on them. [632]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf2) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since 2 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 7 October, and on all Wikipedias from 9 October (calendar).
• If you make a code mistake when editing a Lua script, you won't be able to save your edit. [633] [634]
• We fixed some more Internet Explorer bugs. If you use Internet Explorer 10, you will be able to use VisualEditor next week. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [635]
• On Thursday, the tool to edit TemplateData will come to 30 more wikis. [636] [637]
• You can help sort bugs in the Book and PDF export tool on October 8. [638]
• 1% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. [639]

Future changes

• You can look at the plan of the Mobile team for their future work. [640]
• More changes to Media Viewer are coming. It will be easier to disable it, and you will see the caption below the image. [641] [642]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

06:10, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

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Question concerning headers

Hallo Billinghurst, is there a difference in the syntax of the following two types of headers?

Type 1: {{RunningHeader|84|{{smaller|PORTRAITS OF PLACES.}}|{{x-smaller|[III.}}}}

Type 2: {{RunningHeader|84|{{smaller|PORTRAITS OF PLACES.}}|{{x-smaller|[III.}}}}

I ask because you changed the header on page 84 of Henry James' "Portraits of Places" from type 2 to type 1.

Kind regards from Germany, —ABrocke (talk) 18:08, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

No difference systematically, the second is a redirect to the first, and is part of my standard maintenance scripts. The former is just explanatory jargon for newbies. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:26, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-42

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• You can now log into Phabricator, the new tool to track bugs. Create your account and add your Bugzilla email address. We are copying the bugs from Bugzilla. Bugzilla is still open. [643] [644]
• You will now get the VisualEditor newsletter in your language if someone has translated it. You can add translations. You can know about the next translations by joining the translators list or asking Elitre (WMF).

Problems

• 10% of Tool Labs was down on October 7. [645]
• Tool Labs was also broken on October 11. [646]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf3) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since 9 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 14 October, and on all Wikipedias from 16 October (calendar).
• 5% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. You can also test it as a Beta Feature. [647]

Meetings

• You can join a meeting with Language developers on October 15, 2014 at 17:00 (UTC). [648]
• There is a proposal to organize file pages better. It would use the same tools as Wikidata. You can join a meeting about it on October 16, 2014 at 18:00 (UTC). [649]
• You can join a meeting about VisualEditor on October 18, 2014 at 18:00 (UTC). [650]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:53, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

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new texts

Any reason you cut 'New texts' down to six texts from seven?[651] Hesperian 01:02, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Attempted balance on the front page. I had earlier bumped it up from 6 to 7, and it often been that way on the count, and seems dependent on the length of the featured text. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:32, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Oh, we have a front page now? Nice. :-) Hesperian 02:00, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

You…insufferable…peacemaker, you!

Regarding this GOIII has a point, the code in Base.js is rather tortured and kind of odd. However at the same time it is somewhat unreasonable to expect a new user to "know" which is the more fundamental syntax: ## or <section… Isn't there a case for both coexisting at an equal level, rather than the current either/or dichotomy?

Oh, two strikes:

1. Assuming a sane world;
2. Assuming the whole situation did not arise through a bodgy unreviewed patch.

AuFCL (talk) 02:31, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I was not commenting on the code, I was commenting on the history of why it came about (baby ↔ bath water). If we looked at it now, we would just have a section <section name="bert">bert bert bert bert</section> as we no longer look to do the complicated exclusion components ... (yaddada). But what the heck, we can criticise all day, I am just really thankful for the tool that was built, and love every time we make it easier/better/... ThomasV built it on his lonesome, and it was a great improvement on what we had, and for which he had no support, and often no code releases into the Extension by WMF, so instead some things were pushed through by javascript so they could happen. Long tortuous history. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:49, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Yup. Picking up on that, and completely agree (sadly partly on both sides.) And my (I really should have appended 'apparently') "unreviewed" comment remains in force. Be nice if that can be addressed—maybe even to the satisfaction of all parties concerned (as if.)

I hope you are aware you were not meant to take the 'insufferable' as meant too unkindly, umm, you just figure it out. AuFCL (talk) 03:17, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Perfection is nice, though rarely the reality. Volunteerism should always be appreciated (see previous statement)

I was mortified (of course), for at least a whole picosecond. Not the worst thing that I have been called around WMF wikis, even in the past few days, and I knew that there was jest within. Such is the joys of of a profile. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:44, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

The process to attain perfection's easy to describe; somewhat harder to utilise in practice:

1. Start by setting all dials and controls to infinity.
2. Go for it!
3. If anything breaks, back off a quarter turn, make good and resume at step 2.
4. Verify result (may have to resume at step 3.) Declare success!

Warning: the above procedure might take significant unexpected resources. Femtosecond turnarounds may be considered to be anomalies. AuFCL (talk) 07:32, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Femtosecond turnarounds? Sounds like an out-there cuckolding experience. I don't think that I will given permission to come out to play. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:41, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Check template:tooltip

To check if this is working Page:National Life and Character.djvu/89 away from this PC.

Broken for me in Firefox 36.0a1 on Windows 7. Hesperian 05:02, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

It was a note to self (Ff32.0.3 and Chr 38.0.2125), however, Ff 36 ? that is bleeding edge. Living dangerously?!?

I know, but I was feeling helpful. Yep, otherwise known as Firefox Nightly. And yes, living dangerously — it is pretty stable in-and-of-itself, but it constantly breaks extensions, and I rely heavily on extensions. I'm regularly having to go safe mode, wipe my profile, etc. It's all good fun. Hesperian 05:24, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Template:SIC still works and is based on tooltip, so will need to explore the differences in implementation.

Guys? Now? I am having a déjà vu moment here, as I am sure I gave this guidance to somebody (else) quite recently. This is a known and documented issue with tooltip—see second bullet point. AuFCL (talk) 07:22, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, I have added that to the template. Thx. No point in having a tooltip that doesn't tip, which would be a tool. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:37, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Good try. However for me on standard FF 32.0.3 the apostrophes now appear in the pop-up (that is with the &quot; method applied.) Reverting to unprotected double-quotes breaks the pop-up again as before. On second thoughts I won't give you heartburn as to creative misuses still open to this solution. AuFCL (talk) 10:18, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Happy for you to leave all your notes and thoughts on the template's talk page for whomever is clever enough to have a better working solution. I am so outcome driven. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:37, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Enough playing. I shall give some thought to a better solution; but in my opinion right this instant the last version of {{tooltip}} (i.e. special:permalink/4584926, with associated special:permalink/4895644) constitutes a superior starting point. AuFCL (talk) 11:05, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Done Applied exercise in cracking nut with excessive force. Don't care if you misunderstand that. YP. AuFCL (talk) 11:44, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-43

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. You can read translations.

Recent changes

• You can test a new system to see math using MathML. Go to your display options and choose "⧼mw math mathml⧽".
• You can add badges in Wikidata for quality articles and featured lists. [652] [653]

File information cleanup

• You can join a wiki project to help tools read file information. It will help people reuse files.
• See how to fix metadata. You can fix it by adding markers to templates and adding templates to files.
• You can see a list of files missing machine-readable information on your wiki.
• The files missing readable data are also in these categories: no license, no description, no author or no source. [654]

Problems

• Developers fixed a security problem. If you use Internet Explorer 6, you won't be able to log in any more. You should use a newer browser. [655]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf4) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 16. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 21, and on all Wikipedias from October 23 (calendar).
• 10% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. You can also test it as a Beta Feature. [656]
• If you add the same parameter twice in a template, it now puts the page in a tracking category. [657] [658]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

13:47, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

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Some questions

Hi, happy to see you here. I have some question doing Korea-related work here:

1. Relocation of the Capital City - There is official case number for this (we usually call the case by number) should I move it? or current name is better?
2. Copyright Act of South Korea is outdated, any template to mark as such?

— revi_msg 16:01, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

For question 2., you can write that it's out of date in Talk:Copyright Act of South Korea in the notes section of the {{textinfo}} template. —Rochefoucauld (talk) 20:07, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Re 1. Will the addition of a redirect suffice? Or we can move it and leave a redirect. We are pretty open to both, though do like clear, descriptive titles for the obvious reason of search engine results and we like distinctive titles as specificity is also good. We are generous with redirects as works can have many variations of title.

Re 2. As said in 1, we should move it to something has a year that reflects its descriptive title. If just moving, we would have a redirect at existing page. If you are bringing the new act, then the existing page will become a disambiguation page. As a note, Wikisource pages are not outdated as the represent a publication at the time of the publication. We are not an authoritative repository for the law today, though hopefully we can offer an accurate copy of a document as it was published at its time of publication. The notes section of the work can have something that says that the legislation was active between xxxx and yyyy, then add <edition = yes and put in more descriptive and pertinent notes, which could include off-site links to reference or verify. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:16, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

1. Ok, I found some conventions at Category:Supreme Court of Korea decisions has "Case Number+Summary". I think this is a good idea.

2. I wanted to say "This law is no longer effective, because this law has been revised, revoked, or country has been fallen." or such. — revi_msg 03:52, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Okay to 1). To 2), it should be specific. "This legislation was revoked in XXXX, and superseded by [[new legislation]]. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:19, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-44

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

• There was an issue with files from Commons on October 21. You could only see those with names between 140 and 159 characters by visiting Commons itself. [659]
• There was a problem with cut and paste in VisualEditor in Firefox. It was fixed quickly. [660]
• There was a problem with editing math in VisualEditor. It was fixed quickly. [661]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will now come to Wikipedia sites every Wednesday, instead of every Thursday. [662]
• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf5) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 23. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 28, and on all Wikipedias from October 29 (calendar).
• VisualEditor now uses autovalues for templates if they are in TemplateData. [663] [664] [665]
• VisualEditor's menu items now show their shortcuts beside them. [666]
• VisualEditor now opens faster when you click "edit". [667]
• The rules for plurals in translations changed in some languages. Interface translations are currently not being updated from translatewiki.net; this process will start again on November 6. [668]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

05:20, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

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Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies, from the papers of Thomas Jefferson

Billinghurst, Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies, from the papers of Thomas Jefferson has 2 spaces before each sentence. You validated one of them with 2 spaces but you also proofread another and used one space. My understanding is that there are to be one extra space between sentences. Which should it be? 2 spaces is the easiest because all pages have it but that is not the rule as I understand the situation. Which shall it be? Kindest regards and Ta-Ta for now... —Maury (talk) 00:37, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Consecutive spaces in html are concatenated, so one space or seven spaces = one space. In short, I probably didn't fuss over it or tried to be perfect, and removed in passing where it was obvious. It is not something to which I particularly paid specific attention, and it is not mentioned in our style.

With regard to the practice of single versus double spaces between sentences, it is an old typewriter set width font issue, where it was a (typing) practice to put the extra space. With the transition to both justified typography, and to proportional fonts, it stopped being a standard practice, and I think that my touch-typing practice is now to do singles, and I would have to look at my own history to even see what I do, as I couldn't even tell you what is my norm. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:33, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

The Structured Data Bee, vol. 1, issue 1

Greetings, thank you for signing up for the Structured Data newsletter and its first edition. With this newsletter, the Structured data team plans on keeping you informed of technical progress, events, and communications to talk about the project, and continued information on how you can participate. This newsletter will be sent approximately every two weeks, and future editions will be translatable prior to publication. If you're new to Wikidata and want more information about how it works in relation to Wikimedia Commons, you can read an introduction to Wikidata for Commons being drafted.

Tech and design

• The software development for this process is still in the planning phases. The idea is to have some functional prototyping done for experimentation and feedback by the end of the year.
• The initial roadmap for development has been posted on Commons. The roadmap is a rough outline and is open to iterations as the team learns where and when to focus its energies.
• There is a page set up for design ideas about what structured data could potentially look like.
• There are forthcoming requests for comment about the particulars of technical architecture on mediawiki.org. Keep an eye on the commons:Commons:Structured data/Get involved page for notification of when the RfCs are posted.

Events and chats

• There was a week-long meeting between the Wikimedia Foundation's Multimedia team, the Wikidata team, and community members, held in Berlin, Germany, at the office of Wikimedia Deutchland on October 6-10. You can read an overview of the event in on this page on Commons. There are also plenty of pictures available on Wikimedia Commons.

• If you would like to read more detail about what was discussed, there are etherpads of notes taken for each day of the event.

• The next IRC office hour to discuss the structured data project will be held on November 20, from 19:30 to 20:30 UTC.

• The second IRC office hour (logs) was held on October 16, and the first (logs) on September 3.

Getting involved

• You've signed up for the newsletter. That's a great first step!
• While working prototypes are being developed, there is a drive to make all files contain machine-readable data on Wikimedia projects.

• The information and sign-up page is located on Meta, at File metadata cleanup drive.
• The MrMetadata tool on labs that will identify files on your wiki(s) that need information templates added.

• A hub has been launched to facilitate communication and documentation for this work.

• There is a frequently-asked questions page that is finishing drafting and will need translated. Keep an eye out for when it is ready if you are interested in translating.
• There will be active organization of the Get involved page as community participation is further organized. There will be work groups, similar to specific Wikiprojects, dedicated to particular aspects of structured data like licensing presentation, design, API performance, and even helping out with this newsletter and other community communications.

There will be much more information and activities around the proposal to develop structured data on Wikimedia Commons. This project is a major undertaking and an important step as the chief provider, repository, and curator of media for Wikimedia projects.

Thank you for your participation in such an extensive project, let me know if you're interested in participating in this newsletter. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 04:43, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-45

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• The "Special:Cite" page is now called "Special:CiteThisPage". That way, you know it's to cite the page, not to add a reference. [669]
• You can no longer use the insource: keyword for text searches. It caused issues with the new search tool. It will come back later. [670] [671]

Problems

• There was a bug in VisualEditor with Internet Explorer. It hid tools like the link editor when you opened them. The bug was fixed on Monday. [672]
• Issues with the new search tool caused geo data code to show up on pages on Monday and Friday. The mobile "nearby" tool was also broken. The problem is now fixed. [673] [674] [675]
• HHVM caused server issues on Thursday. They are now fixed.

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf5) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 29. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 4, and on all Wikipedias from November 5 (calendar).
• Some wikis have icons at the top of a page to show if it is protected or featured. Icons show up using CSS. You can now use the <indicator> tag in these templates instead to add the icons. [676] [677]
• VisualEditor now tells you if you're editing a re-used reference. This helps you avoid changing it if you just want to add a new one. [678]
• The icons in VisualEditor's template editor tool for adding more fields are back, along with other fixes. [679] [680] [681] [682] [683]
• After November 6, all wikis will have the tool to edit TemplateData. [684] [685] [686]

Future changes

• The new search tool will come to the last wikis in the coming weeks. This includes Wikipedia in French, Chinese, German and English. [687]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:28, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

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Alternatively randomly have a selected that requires validation. [internal error]

Got "internal error" Kindest regards, —Maury (talk) 11:03, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

The bot is erroring. :-( I will see if I can find someone with the keys to restart it. Thanks for the notification. (dratted thing was working yesterday or the day before) — billinghurst sDrewth 11:23, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

@William Maury Morris II: it is back, though I have been told that it was due to database query issues, and it may not be fully effective while that load is present on toollabs. :-/ — billinghurst sDrewth 12:45, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Somebody will work it out now that someone is alerted.

Meanwhile, in the following, "November is validation month (again)", I think (again) looks bad. When I saw that one word, I thought "boring!" = once again and yet I often do validations throughout the year. I get to read many new works by doing so as I have done today on Henry VIII and company. I don't believe again is needed. It just seems counter-productive to me emotionally. Respectfully, —Maury (talk) 14:37, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Comedy of (mis)edits at Author:Killingworth William Hedges

I think I have restored your edit state as it ought to have ended up before you reverted (well, you get the idea: how to mess up an edit session group without actually having an edit conflict at any point in time.)

In amongst the mess above I want to draw one lesson: if the wikidata= parameter is never actually needed any more; then why is it still supported in the template? Please consider either deprecating or removing it altogether. 121.216.15.218 05:53, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi. The parameters need to remain as they provide the links, they do need to be struck from the template's instructions, which I have done. Thanks. We are still in the process of cleansing them after spending the time adding them. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:35, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

IP

Is it blocked at pt.wikipedia? ~ DanielTom (talk) 10:53, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

w:pt:Special:BlockList — billinghurst sDrewth 11:01, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. It was blocked indefinitely by a local admin. Too bad. ~ DanielTom (talk) 11:07, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Maybe politely ask m:User talk:Teles. Indefinite blocks on IP addresses are bad practice.— billinghurst sDrewth 11:11, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-46

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• You may see a new tool on the mobile site of the English Wikipedia. It asks simple questions to make the article better. In the future, your answers will go to Wikidata. [688] [689]
• The MediaWiki API now shows information in a nice format. You can translate it in translatewiki.net. [690]

File information cleanup

• Reminder: You can help fix file information on your wiki. It will help robots understand the information. After that, it will be easier for you to search files and re-use them.
• You can join two IRC chats this week to learn more about the file cleanup project. One will be on Wednesday at 18:00 (UTC) and the other on Thursday at 04:00 (UTC). You can ask questions during the chat if you need help to fix files on your wiki.
• You can see a list of files to fix on the Labs tool. You can report bugs and ask questions on the talk page.

Problems

• Wikimedia Labs was broken for a few hours on Thursday. It was due to a hardware problem. [691]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf7) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since November 5. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 11, and on all Wikipedias from November 12 (calendar).
• You can now use more editing tools for tables in VisualEditor. You can add rows and columns, merge cells, and edit table captions. [692] [693]
• The style and insert menus in the toolbar of VisualEditor now show fewer tools. This helps you see the most common tasks. You can see all items by clicking "More". [694]
• The way windows inside VisualEditor work has changed. VisualEditor should be faster and have fewer bugs. [695]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:00, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-47

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf8) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since November 12. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 18, and on all Wikipedias from November 19 (calendar).
• The new search tool ("CirrusSearch") will be on the English Wikipedia from November 19. [696]

Move from Bugzilla to Phabricator

• The tool to track bugs will change on November 21.
• You won't be able to add or edit bugs between November 21 and November 24.
• You can make the change easier for you by creating your account.
• Bugzilla will be frozen after the change. You will see, edit and report bugs in Phabricator.
• You can join two IRC chats to learn more about the change. The chats will be on Tuesday, November 18 at 16:00 (UTC) and 23:00 UTC. [697]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:28, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2014-48

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• The move from Bugzilla to Phabricator is done. You can now report bugs in Phabricator. [698]

Problems

• There was a problem when editing tables in VisualEditor. VisualEditor was trying to fix bad values for the colspan or rowspan option. VisualEditor now leaves the bad values to avoid making things worse. This was fixed on November 17. [699]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf9) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since November 19. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 25, and on all Wikipedias from November 26 (calendar).
• You will be able to try VisualEditor on many new wikis for the first time. After November 26, VisualEditor will become available on Wikidata, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, and Wikinews wikis. You can find it in your Beta options. [700]
• VisualEditor now tells you if your edit needs to be approved. [701]
• You can now use VisualEditor's tools directly when you resume editing after closing the save window. [702]
• VisualEditor's table editing tools now work better in right-to-left languages. [703] [704]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:31, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

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Full names

Hi there, I need some help to figure out the full name of two biographers:

• D. C. Boulger biographer of w:William Bentinck
• J. J. Mcleod Innes biographer of w:Henry Lawrence

Solomon7968 (talk) 11:36, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

@Solomon7968: Boulger, Demetrius Charles, 1853-1928, and Innes, John James McLeod 1830-1907 ‎— billinghurst sDrewth 11:46, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh god, I spent ages on that. You are a great resource, thank you. Solomon7968 (talk) 12:05, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

http://viaf.org for those — billinghurst sDrewth 12:09, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

And I spent ages on ODNB, Google Books... , will keep it in mind in future. Solomon7968 (talk) 12:30, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I will try to remember to do a page of source material for searching for authors, and section out extra sources to which I have access. There are already some sources added to my user page, but I can see value in making it more general, maybe something like Help:Identifying authors that links (back and forth) with Help:Author pages. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:50, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

A really good idea... and I think it would be particularly helpful for authors who mostly wrote for academic journals/newspapers/portions of one book under the editorship of another author (say DNB articles or example this case, I can’t find anything for the authors in VIAF.) Solomon7968 (talk) 06:23, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

POTM award

Hello Billinghurst, last award was a surprize, while I cannot in full consciousness deny that I took part in some of the works, because I have been sweatshop kind of busy lately but still visited Wikisource, without fixed objectives. How do you find out about contributors participation and judge about their eligibility for awards? I would like to look into my contributions critically and try to organize my work better given your advice. Best regards and thanks for your many good works, Tar-ba-gan (talk) 14:51, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

@Tar-ba-gan: PotM is a participation award where we celebrate any contribution to our goals, without qualification or quantification measures. November is validation month where we try to concentrate on finishing other people's contributions, and when I went through the works that we validated, your contributions were there.

If you are looking for how to track your contributions, then apart from just looking at your list, or at the "related changes" link from an Index page, you can always look to use the supercount tool at Toollabs: ("Edit count" link at the bottom of your contributions) and for a fuller analysis set up a configuration file m:Special:MyPage/EditCounterGlobalOptIn.js (it just needs to be created, the content is irrelevant). Here is mine as an example 23:55, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! My work at the moment lack structure, thanks to having part-times in 6 different places that are quite away from each other. I did make edits to all works mentioned, but I feel like I have to remove 2 where I feel I did not do much.

I have 1 more question. I have been unable to find out anything about James Hutson, a missionary in Sichuan, China, around early 20th century (he had some similarly named colleagues in China too). It is only known that he wrote this book: Index:Chinese Life in the Tibetan Foothills.djvu and yes I tried VIAF (not for very long tho) and I generally am good at web search and author investigation, so this is tough and I have to ask for your help. TIA, Tar-ba-gan (talk) 13:19, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Found author, and have populated data. I will leave the Wikidata for you (just in case), though if you don't want to do that, then please let me know and I will get it done. For the birth details, I am relying on the family tree research as being correct; I didn't verify. There may be an obituary in The Times for 1929-01-08>+, if you have access to a resource with access, especially as it was a London death. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:36, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! I didn't have a clue! Sorry, these days won't be able to do anything much at all on the web, please add info as you wish (and I have but a very vague idea of access to The Times) Tar-ba-gan (talk) 18:29, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

I didn't see anything in the Times for 1929. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:24, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-50

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• All users are now getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. [705]
• You can join a video chat about Phabricator on December 11 at 18:00 (UTC). Phabricator is the new tool to report issues. [706]

Problems

• There was a problem with Phabricator on November 29. It was due to a network issue. [707]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf11) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since December 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from December 9. It will be on all Wikipedias from December 10 (calendar). [708]
• You can now exit VisualEditor by pressing the "Esc" key. [709]
• It is now easier to use VisualEditor with IMEs. Typing in Malayalam now works better. [710] [711]
• The new version of OOjs UI fixed many issues with the size and layout of buttons in dialogs. [712] [713] [714]
• (Lua) You can no longer use mw.text.unstrip to get the HTML from special page transclusion. You can see a list of scripts to fix. [715] [716]

Future changes

• Starting next week JavaScript tools won't work if they use jQuery Migrate. [717]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:10, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

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How to convert Bugzillas into Tasks

Saw your request on Phabricator to open a tracking project and thought you should know — all the existing bugzilla designations were imported into phabricator with a + offset of 2000 and the addition of a prefix; the letter T.

• So Bugzilla: 35925 of old is now task T37925

( 35925 + 2000 = 37925 ) ; prefix that result with ' T ' and you're on your way.

Plus any live bugzilla link should redirect itself to Phabricator by now too. — George Orwell III (talk) 20:41, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Firstly I would have needed to remember the dratted tracking number, which I didn't, and would never have going forward. It was suggested to me that for what we are doing across WS that a project was more amenable to our needs. <shrug> They can come up with whichever solution that they think best. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:59, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

British author names

Hi, Are we supposed to retain words like "Sir", "Lord", "Marquis", "Marquess", "Earl" while creating author pages or we need to strip them off? Also is this peculiar to British authors? Solomon7968 (talk) 20:45, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Also Viscount and Baron. Solomon7968 (talk) 20:48, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Those are titles, and not part of the author's name. They might appear in the blurb summarizing the author's identity, but should not be part of the pagename in the Author: namespace. —EncycloPetey (talk) 21:14, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Peerages have been noted in the description, and there are some that have been placed into the first/last name fields, and not changed. With the honorific "Sir" there are many cases of it being used in the first name component and where this has happened, we enforce the use of the defaultsort parameter, reason being is that it is harder to separately note a knighthood in the description, and it is only display anyway. We did move the author pages (leaving redirects) to not have page names with titles, or honorifics, though I cannot say that we have done an audit recently to check whether more have been created. So in short, not to use titles or honorifics in page name, though, there has been use in author fields, and where used then make sure that defaultsort parameter is added. Do feel welcome to utilise redirects for titles where it is a commonly used and unique for a person, eg. Lord Byron, but not for Duke of Buckingham as there have been many of those.

It is one of those situations where we are rule-guided, so if you think that you have a good case create it and discuss it on WS:S. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:12, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks both. The Lord Byron=George Gordon Byron sums it up well, I have got some similar situation. Solomon7968 (talk) 09:38, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-51

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• You may see a new tool tested on the mobile site of the English Wikipedia. It asks simple questions to make the article better. In the future, your answers will go to Wikidata. [718]
• You can watch a video to learn how to use Phabricator to manage projects. [719]
• You can test a new version of the Content Translation tool.

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf12) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since December 10. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from December 16. It will be on all Wikipedias from December 17 (calendar). [720]
• You can now find and replace text in VisualEditor. You can open the tool via the menu, Ctrl+F or Cmd+F. [721]
• VisualEditor now doesn't change the space at the end of a text that you make bold. [722]
• The "Apply changes" button in the reference window of VisualEditor is now disabled until you make a change. [723]

Future changes

• The star image of the watchlist may change soon. [724] [725]
• You won't be able to use Phabricator on December 18, 2014. It will be down between 00:00 and 08:00 (UTC). [726] [727]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:43, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

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Author page request

Hi! Can you please help with the death-year and authority control of Author:Kshitish Chandra Sen? I found the birth-year at this site, but am unable to find the death-year. Hrishikes (talk) 04:09, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Indian biographical resources are not something with which I am particularly knowledgeable, especially not later in the 20th century. Apologies as I don't think that I can be much help. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:00, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks still for digging out the resources on talk page, from which I have included the 1949 work in his translation list. Hrishikes (talk) 12:08, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Addendum: I have tracked this author upto 1964. He passed B.A. from Cambridge, was in the I.C.S. from 1913 to 1948, retired as judge of Bombay High Court, later headed India's Industrial Tribunal and West Bengal Police Commission and did a translation for Swami Vivekananda Centenary Committee in 1964. More is beyond me. Can you please review the position to see if more can be unearthed, to substitute the query mark at his death-year? Hrishikes (talk) 06:31, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

@Hrishikes: You are going to need someone with good research skills for Indian biographical information. The person sounds like they are notable, and as such would do with articles at enWP and the respective Indic language WPs. It would be more worthwhile consulting with those who specialise in modern Indian biographies. I have no clue about any .in biographical, and any newspaper obituary may be in English speaking Indian newspaper archives, or the local newspapers. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:54, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Apology - template deletion

I apologise for deleting all those templates, and to make amends I've been going through the Uncategorised Template list and putting templates from that into the appropriate category — where known. —kathleen wright5 (talk) 09:08, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Apology isn't necessary, misunderstandings occur, and it was readily fixable, and they were not all bad deletions, and obviously we needed to do more to identify their use. Thanks for the work that you do. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:58, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks

Hello Billinghurst,

thanks for your greetings. I am not every day in the en:wikisource, mostly in the en:wikipedia, so I will redirect my page here to en:wp. Thanks again and let me know if I can help you. —Keysanger (talk) 18:01, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-52

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• The Technical Operations team is now using Phabricator to track their tasks. The Operations team manages the Wikimedia servers. In the future you will be able to see the tasks that are not private. [728]

Software changes this week

• There will be no software changes this week and next week. This is because of the end-of-year holidays. The next update of MediaWiki will be on January 6. [729]

Future changes

• The system that displays citations will change in the future. The new system will not change the style of citations. [730]
• A new design for VisualEditor will come in January. You can try it now on test wikis. [731]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:52, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2015-01

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Software changes

• There are no technical changes this week.

Feedback about Tech News in 2014

• The writers of the technical newsletter are asking for your opinion. Did you get the information you wanted this year? Did we miss important technical news in 2014? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us at m:Talk:Tech/News. You can write in your language. Thank you!

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:51, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

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