User talk:Billinghurst/2018

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in 2018, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion.

Template:Nopt

Didn't work here. (but you said yourself it was experimental) Page:Railways Act 1921 (ukpga 19210055 en).pdf/88 as shown by the oputput here [Railways_Act_1921#Sch6]

Mediwiki needs PROPER termination/continuation markers (for sitautions like this), which I don't see happening on a reasonable timescale.. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:05, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Its use at the start of the body is not analogous to what you are trying to do. Don't blame Mediawiki for your fantasy templates, that is some ugly shit you are trying to do there crammed into one template. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:17, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Okay let's try a simple table for that formatting shall we? {{nop}} works, but is not necessarily liked by linter {{nopt}} makes the header look ugly. This is almost certainly down to what is and isn't being treated as a newline, context. As I said there is need for termination/continuation markers, so that markup like this can be written to be whitespace independent, such that contributors like myself aren't constantly playing endless rounds of hunt the semantic, just to get content that displays consistently. (Sigh) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 15:25, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

On doing some careful testing in Special:ExpandTemplates, it indeed proved to be down to precisely where newlines/whitespace occur in relation to all the templates..

Examples follow:

This goes wrong:

{{cl-act-paragraph/x|split=table|text={{{!}}class="wikitable"
{{!}}-
{{!}}item1
{{!}}item2
}}
{{cl-act-paragraph/x|split=table|text={{nopt}}
{{!}}-
{{!}}item3
{{!}}item4
{{!}}} 
}}

As does :

{{cl-act-paragraph/x|split=table|text={{{!}}class="wikitable"
{{!}}-
{{!}}item1
{{!}}item2}}{{cl-act-paragraph/x|split=table|text={{nopt}}
{{!}}-
{{!}}item3
{{!}}item4
{{!}}} 
}}

But in a different way, the only difference being where a line feed is encounted in the markup.

It would of course be desirable if there was a way of writing table markup in templates/transclusion that did not rely on precise whitespace behaviour. That's what I was trying to get at.

In the end I basicly said &^%^ it, and took out any attempt to wrap the cl-act-paragrpah handling around the table, which means it will all of course break or look bad if cl-act-paragraph ever gets updated to handle sidetitles differently... ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:30, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

I've also closed the ticket I raised as task T185750, because the issue seems to be to do with the complexity of certain template interactions and not the syntax as such.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:20, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

On a related issues how does #pages transclude... Does it put in linefeeds between pages or not? I'm trying to figure out what might have broken ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:25, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Long ago in IRC we talked about your templates, and I said that they were overly complex, and horribly time-consuming and difficult to problem solve. I said that I don't build my templates that way because it is simply too hard. You continued to harangue me about them through that medium to the point that I irc-ignored your voice (you are the only one ever where I have done that). I stopped supporting your templates at that time, and I will not be rejoining efforts to support your templates. The support forums for enWS are WS:Scriptorium and WS:Scriptorium/Help and for general fixes that is still the recommended place for help. Things in life doesn't give me the ultimate patience to deal with your needs or demands, nor the way that you impart them. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:20, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

(Sigh) :( ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:44, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

WD images

If there are multiple images available at WD for a person, how do I direct it to choose a specific image for inclusion in a WS Author page? Londonjackbooks (talk) 22:23, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

It's easiest to just pick one and add it with the "image=" parameter in the header. Anything else would be subject to the whims of editors at WD. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:53, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Was wondering because Author:Agnes Repplier has one image used at WP (I guess w/ image parameter set), and a different one here at WS (with no image parameter set). Didn't know how that worked... Whether WD sets a default image, and how. Londonjackbooks (talk) 22:58, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) EncycloPetey is correct, but there is something odd going on with Wikidata here. I think you are talking about Author:Apsley George Benet Cherry-Garrard? Currently, pulling the image parameter from WD, it is a redlink because the relevant code, {{#invoke:Wikidata|getValue|P18|FETCH_WIKIDATA}}, is fetching both WD images in a list, unlike e.g. Author:Agnes Repplier, where only one is selected. Any ideas? BethNaught (talk) 23:02, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I would like to use that image for Cherry-Garrard; and I knew Repplier had two different images used, so I was trying to compare to see how it all worked. Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:23, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

There is a ranking system, apparently (see Agnes Repplier WD page). I am not sure how to change Cherry-Garrard's from normal to preferred. Will look into it. Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:26, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Think I figured it out. Thanks all! Let me know if there's anything else I need to know... Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:33, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@Londonjackbooks: The catch with relying on WD ranking is that anyone could change the ranking at any time. That's why, for people with multiple images, I recommend using "image=" instead. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:19, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Sounds good. Which makes me think, we are then also at the mercy of WD for birth/death date changes made now as well. Londonjackbooks (talk) 00:22, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

But oh, then aren't we back to BethNaught's discovery about the redlink issue if someone at WD changes both the images back to normal rank? Londonjackbooks (talk) 00:32, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

The dates at WD tend to be well-managed. I have seen instances where an author has two birth years, but our header can handle that, and displays both options with a slash (e.g. Author:Scott Joplin). But that's because it's possible to display two dates without breaking things. Displaying two images creates an issue, and yes, some other project might decide that a different image should rank higher, or that neither should. So the best practice when dealing with multiple images is probably setting our own choice locally. There are also a few times where I have found the image at WD was of such poor quality that I simply replaced it with a different, similar one of higher quality. But again, there was only one image in place at WD in those situations. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:49, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

• @Londonjackbooks: At WD, please just click the edit link of the image statement, then choose one to be preferred. More information at d:Help:Ranking. I do try to keep away from manually adding an image link here unless it is truly necessary. Note that I regularly check for broken images and maintain, and there is a category on my user page for those.— billinghurst sDrewth 01:15, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes. I had figured out how to do that, and did; but EP suggested that since the preference could be changed in the future at WD (with no 'warning' here), to use the image parameter anyway... Ugh. Local vs. global... Londonjackbooks (talk) 01:20, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Sure it can be changed, and they can be changed for the better or for worse, and the truth is that it is usually for the better. I go over there and do that myself. Re change at WD affecting us, that can be said for any of the data that we pull from WD, it is a risk that we need to manage. And I attempted to cover that with "truly necessary", if we have to have a certain image, then do it, in general, the image is just a head and or a body, and we prefer the most relevant, better shot where possible. We have automatically added many images just by linking, and as I remove our image links, they are generally improved by pulling WD links, though on some occasions, I will add our image as preferred over the default.

PS. You can add WD edits into your Watchlist through your preferences, if that interests you, though it can add to the intensity if you also have bot edits under scrutiny. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:35, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Noted. I suppose there is a lesson in there (for the better...risk...manage) that can be widely applied as well. Thanks for the dose of optimism & realism. Londonjackbooks (talk) 01:46, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

While I can produce a level of snark, I am generally all about practicality and risk management. I do keep an eye towards idealism, I try not to let its inachieveability to be a blocker to progress. Not called Captain Practical by some for no reason, and for some it is almost said lovingly. :-) — billinghurst sDrewth 01:54, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

"Idealism" was on my mind, but being that "ere I attain it I must die", I chose "optimism" instead—being more practical. There can be no progress without risk & responsibility—or without passing the "trade" on to the next generation or "contributor" Londonjackbooks (talk) 02:23, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-02

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

• On Wikidata, the "save" button when you edit is now called "publish". This means all Wikimedia wikis have now changed from "Save page" to "Publish changes". This is to help new editors understand what it does. [1][2]
• Some edits will get an automatic tag on all wikis. This will happen when making a page a redirect, blanking a page, removing almost all content, undoing an edit, or rolling back an edit. You can see the tags for example in the recent changes feed, article history, user contributions or on your watchlist. Some wikis had already marked edits like these in other ways. [3]
• Special:UnusedFiles shows files that have been uploaded but are not used. It will show a file that is not used on the wiki it has been uploaded to, even if the file is used on another wiki. The new Special:GloballyUnusedFiles page on Commons only shows files that are not used on any wiki. [4]
• Structured discussions now uses the 2017 wikitext editor instead of its old custom one. This will work with your preference for wikitext or visual editor. The documentation has been updated. [5][6]

Problems

• Older versions of the Chrome web browser on mobile devices may see the PDF download button, but it does not work. The developers are looking into the problem. [7]
• With the new filters in the recent changes, "Exclude selected" in "Namespaces" did not work for "Saved filters" between 13 December and 2 January. When you loaded the saved filter all other namespaces were excluded instead. This has now been fixed. If you made any changes to your saved filters between 13 December and 2 January, you need to save your filters with excluded namespaces again. [8]
• The latest version of Google Chrome broke how section links are shown in the address bar. You now see #R%C3%A9sum%C3%A9 instead of #Résumé even if MediaWiki did not encode it that way. This happened in early December. This problem has been solved. The fix will be in Chrome 64 (23 January) or Chrome 65 (6 March). [9]
• Some POST requests to the API took longer than usual in parts of December. This affected the Wikidata UI and some gadgets the most. It has now been fixed. [10]

Changes later this week

• Wikidata will be moved to its own database servers. This is because it is growing and needs more resources. Because of this you will be able to read but not edit Wikidata and the German Wikipedia between 06:00 and 06:30 UTC on 9 January. You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. This includes editing the language links on other wikis. [11]
• The font size in the editing window will change slightly for some users. It will now look the same on all browsers and operating systems. [12][13]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 January. It will be on all wikis from 11 January (calendar).
• WikiEditor's ResourceLoader modules have been simplified to one: ext.wikiEditor. All the other modules are now deprecated aliases and should be removed. [14]

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 9 January at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 10 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

16:19, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Raincheck

Re this: it's been a while, and I feel that my feet are "more firmly on bedrock". Although life has sometimes got in the way, I'm still here and I feel I've learned more about WS, and my worries on that score are gone. So I wanted to ask you if I am still fit in your opinion to wield a mop here; I wish to run if so. Thanks, BethNaught (talk) 21:29, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

@BethNaught: Thanks for considering this and getting back to me. Typically after someone is nominated they would accept the nomination and indicate their familiarity to WS:Adminship. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:00, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-3

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

• Bureaucrats on Wikimedia wikis where the Translate extension is installed can now add and remove the translation administrator permission by default. Administrators of wikis where this extension is enabled can add and remove this permission to or from themselves. Wikis that used a different configuration before have not changed. [15]
• There is a new Discourse test support channel for Wikimedia developers. You can ask questions or answer others questions about MediaWiki and Wikimedia software development. [16]

Problems

• Last week's MediaWiki update was rolled back. This was because of a bug that changed non-ASCII characters when a page was edited. [17][18]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 January. It will be on all wikis from 18 January (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 16 January at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• A few hundred wikis with less than ten high-priority errors in Linter categories will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 31 January. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed in the middle of 2018. [19][20]

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

18:45, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Template:Statute table/titles/footer

https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Statute_table/titles/footer&oldid=7202248

Can you explain what was being attempted here? Currently redirecting it causes a "stripped tag" concern in relation to the pages where it is used.

https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Short_Titles_Act_1896/First_Schedule/1831&action=edit&lintid=746570

being an example. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:43, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Phew

Well, that's a relief. If "before I boldly..." had been followed by "take my leave"—or something along those lines—I'd feel obligated to pick up a few extra mops around here, and I so dislike cleaning and maintenance. Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:25, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

:-p

You cannot quietly doing anything around here, it is like a small country town. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:26, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Keeps one humble and honest; or else it drives you insane ;)
Let me know if there are any maintenance tasks where I could be of use. I am sometimes in the mood for the mundane—helps if I know I'm being helpful. Londonjackbooks (talk) 01:48, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks... and another even more esoteric problem....

For suggesting nopt, which I am consdering replacing my uses of {{nopt}} with....

However, whilst this has solved the "Fostered Content issue" , I'm now seeing something more estoeric here.

Somewhere whitespace is "escaping" into the rendering of the templated header on Page:Public General Statutes 1896.djvu/36. :(

I've considering taking a break, until someone has had a chance to check a certain Mediawiki patch mentioned in a Phabricator ticket is fully integrated which should render "fixes" like {{nop}} {{nopt}} and so on unnecessary by removing the limitation/glitch in mediwiki that requires them ( which is what ideally should have been done 5 years ago when these issues first arose. :( ) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:45, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Patience. I am supposedly quietly confirming something, so until then it is an idea only. I still believe that the place for these problems is in front of the community, so either WS:S or WS:scriptorium/Help. RL is just too demanding for me to reliably answer questions, or be the solution driver for many things. I am not getting the time for my own transcribing, as I do maintenance for others. Re Mediawiki, we choose it as our base, not the other way around, so sometimes you have to live with imperfections. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:35, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

From my own investigations it seems the escaping whitespace may be due to how the sectionlisation is done, and the precise handling of whitsepace vs linefeeds, but I won't ask you to do anything further on this currently as you would like to get back to doing actual content generation. In respect of both of the 'complex' works I've recently had issues with, I am considering finding someone to write a Lua module to do the generation, for performance reasons. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:55, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Also on the subject of {{nopt}} {{nop}} {{newlistitem}} etc... https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T163073 which I had previously closed as no-one responded. :( ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:39, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

H. S. Graham

At your leisure, can you find full name of H. S. Graham, Royal Engineers. Died 5th November 1918....? Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:04, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in, but Author:Henry S. Graham? According to the notes I made back in 2008 here, he did die in 1928. Even more surprisingly, the links are still active from back then, see here and here. Carcharoth (talk) 16:19, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Hang on, am confused now. There is an H. S. Graham of the Royal Engineers, who died on 5 November 1918. Did you mean them or the other one? The Grave Registration Report form on the CWGC website (scroll down and click the image on the right) says the full name of the soldier who died on 5 November 1918 is Herbert Spink Graham. There will be a family grave up in Penrith, but there is no photo online. Carcharoth (talk) 16:48, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not sure. Whichever is referenced in Muse in Arms. I searched for "H. S. Graham" with "Royal Engineers" coming up relatively empty for full names other than a death date. It is likely to be Author:Henry S. Graham (for Muse in Arms)? Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:51, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

@Londonjackbooks, @Carcharoth: The 1918 death for HSG had the rank "pioneer", so that is unlikely to be the Captain. The 1928 death HSG is Henry Salkeld Graham from St Austell, who is a law clerk/solicitor, later living Wimbledon (1911). Someone has the latter in their family tree, though no war records attached, however, looks single, so that would be no in depth record search. Military records take a little longer to dig through. I can do some in depth searching later if we believe that we are on the right track. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:17, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/185340714 — billinghurst sDrewth 03:31, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=o0lmH8Fcin1qwe0za1sqkg&scan=1 birth 1888

Thanks (both of you) for looking into it. You'll forgive if I leave it to you experts to hash out. Apologies if I made things confusing with my less-than-thorough initial search :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 03:38, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Some war records here phab:M240 in phabricator (you will need to login there). Not confusing at all, known pitfalls are useful. Someone has to identify them. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:19, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

New users (sigh)

https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Nopt&diff=prev&oldid=7210490

was a revert I just made, I'm assuming a new user that mistakenly edited, but that template wasn't widely used.

They were also perhaps in error claiming to be an administrator here on their user page... They weren't listed as such on the page that lists confirmed ones.

Perhaps you'd be willing to help this user avoid the usual pitfalls? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:01, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

They then posted this - https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:ShakespeareFan00&direction=prev&oldid=7210526 . Assuming they are just really confused, but would appreciate an experienced viewpoint on this. Disengaging. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:12, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, it is a new account for the problem editor last week. Managed for the moment, though I guess it will recur. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:00, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-04

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

• Filters on Special:RecentChangesLinked will get the new look similar to on the recent changes page. Special:RecentChangesLinked will also get some new features. [21][22]

Problems

• With the new OOUI look menus and popups can open upwards instead of downwards. This was meant to make long dropdown menus easier to use. Sometimes these menus have been overlapped by other things. This is now fixed. [23]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 24 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• irc.wikimedia.org will be rebooted on 22 February. Some bots use this to get the recent changes feed. They need to be able to reconnect automatically or they will not work until they have been fixed. Most bots can reconnect automatically. [24]

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

23:55, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Just came across

this, and I wasn't sure exactly how to work it out. Londonjackbooks (talk) 11:57, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Ah, if that was all... thanks. Londonjackbooks (talk) 12:10, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Gee, I didn't even get the time to save my witty instruction. Take my sleeping head, gently lift it from the desk and drop it swiftly. Weirdly, everything else from the day looks the sane [25] so dunno what happened. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:14, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, displays of wit usu. go over my head—sleepy or otherwise. Londonjackbooks (talk) 12:25, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Float left/right

I know you've removed the section about this, but FYI display:block; is redundant when specifying float:left/right. So sayeth the intarwebz. My experiments seem to confirm that the display is ignored. So, I suppose you can just remove the display property entirely? Inductiveload—talk/contribs 15:23, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

At 2:26 am, it is all intergreek to me. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:27, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Well past the witching hour and into the WTFing hour. I know it well ;-) Inductiveload—talk/contribs

The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night

Thank you for editing The_Book_of_the_Thousand_Nights_and_One_Night. But even though the use of the "pages" template instead of "page" may be preferred, there are a couple of advantages of "page" that are lost with your changes:

• Setting custom page numbers, instead of generic "cvr" from the index file. I guess I could rename the pages in the index, but the current names are what I understood from the recommendations at the time I did it.

• Transcluding only parts of a page, specifically excluding repeated headers in the toc pages.

How strong is the preference for "pages"? If it's just a matter of "newer is better", I'd rather leave the old. Jellby (talk) 08:58, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

@Jellby: There are some inherent issues with Page, and always has been, so converting to <Pages> has always been ongoing. I would have only arrived at the work for fixing identified and flagged errors in works such as that, the conversion was secondary while there. Fixing page numbering is easy, and I would have argued that crap like "cvr" should never have been in place, and they should be numbered according to the work. With repeated headers, I would encourage you to wrap those components in a <noinclude> so that they display on page, though not in tranclusion, which is I handle those pages. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:58, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Personal strong opinion is that 1=cvr 2to6=blk 7=cvr 8to10=blk 11=prt 12=blk 13=cvr 14=blk 15=ded 16=blk 17=toc 18=blk ... is truly unnecessary. When transcluded it is blindingly obvious what they are, and there is zero need to have a page anchor as you would within a chapter and to a page of text. I much prefer the neat 1to18="–" ... — billinghurst sDrewth 10:08, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: As I interpret Help:index_pages, these pages should actually be named with roman numerals, since they are part of the logical flow (the first numbered page is "vii" in Vol. I, for instance, so I count back to start with "i"). Jellby (talk) 16:21, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Even better :-) — billinghurst sDrewth 23:09, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

If we do something like this then we don't need sections and just have some good simple transclusions. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:20, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-07

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

• TemplateStyles has been deployed to the Swedish Wikipedia. TemplateStyles is a feature to make it easy to add CSS to templates without administrator privileges. This allows for better adaptability to screen sizes, especially on mobile where are half our total page views. If your community would like to be the next to have the feature, please submit a task on Phabricator. [26][27][28]
• Registration pages now collect keyboard/mouse usage information for research on identifying spambots.

Changes later this week

• You can opt in to a new beta feature that lets you use visual diffs on history pages. [29]
• The visual editor shows and lets you edit templates in one way, and reference lists in another. This meant that templates that only contain a fake reference list, like {{reflist}}, would not get updated as you edited. Now they will update as you edit, but you will no longer be able to visually edit them as templates. [30]
• The abuse filter extension has a new feature contains_all that you may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string. [31]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 February. It will be on all wikis from 15 February (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 13 February at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 14 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The settings page and beta options for the mobile website are being improved. [32]

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

21:59, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

How one stops cron mail?

Hi. How can I stop mails about wikisource-bot cron jobs? Thanks— Mpaa (talk) 20:59, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I need to ask on the mailing list, I haven't found that bit in the help pages. Mail filter would be my immediate answer. Sorry, haven't managed to get that clear time to resolve that bit. :-( — billinghurst sDrewth 21:53, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Sort an answer in cloud@lists. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:17, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Two page .pdf

Hello @Billinghurst:,

You advised me to make pages for two pages from a book 📖 I uploaded to Wikimedia Commons but I can't seem to find a pre-existing book on Wikisource where this has been done, can you recommend an example so I could copy its prose? Thank you in advance. -- DonTrung (徵國單)  (討論 🤙🏻) (方孔錢 ☯) 19:49, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

No, I cannot easily pinpoint a work where I have done it. It is just page numbering which is a presentation output; so get your work uploaded, and index page created and we can fix up that presentation component afterwards. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:27, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-08

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 explanation of the abbreviations on the recent changes page could overlap with the list of changes. This has been fixed. [33][34]
• You can now see statistics for pageviews per wiki per country. You can see this on maps or in a table. [35]

Problems

• Linter is reporting estimated counts instead of actual counts for some wikis. This is because of performance problems. You might notice a false higher number in linter counts for some categories. This will be fixed as soon as the performance problem has been fixed. [36]
• Last week the way that Visual Editor displays references lists was changed. As a result, the references generated by specific templates like {{sfn}} are not visible in the references list whilst editing. [37][38]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 February. It will be on all wikis from 22 February (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 20 February at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The way edit summaries and log comments are stored in the database is being changed. In the future this will make longer comments possible. [39]
• Edit conflicts could be solved in a different way in the future. You can test a new prototype.

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

22:54, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Template:Ordered list

I could really use a {{Ordered list/s}} and {{Ordered list/e}} for a work I'm currently proofing/validating. Who would be best to ask for help, and is such a thing even feasible? --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:33, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I've thought the same many times. I find the way MediaWiki handles the OL tag very confusing, but have managed to figure out bits of it. Might be worth bringing up on a tech mailing list, or in Phabricator? -Pete (talk) 20:56, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Why do we need a template? Use # and if you need to push the numbering on a subsequent page, say 3, you can do something like #<li value=3>. If you want to get really anal for the page namespace you can do something like the following at the start of the body of the Page:

<noinclude>
::</noinclude>text that continues over the page in second dot point
#<li value=3>text in the third dot point

3. text in the third dot point... — billinghurst sDrewth 00:23, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Very helpful technique, thanks for pointing that out. -Pete (talk) 01:06, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

 Comment I am uncertain why {{ordered list}} has a safesubst: within it, as I don't see that it is actually doing anything. From a light set of testcases it appears to behave the same with and without it. If you remove that component, then if it is necessary, you can build the same /s and /e templates without them. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:36, 21 February 2018 (UTC) it creates item1_value=5 type labels

WRT "why do we need a template" -- I am not strongly advocating any specific solution, merely agreeing with what take EncycloPetey to be saying -- that the current options available are somewhat lacking. Or maybe I just haven't found good enough documentation. I have at times used HTML, at other times been able to manage with wikitext, and often tried code which I expected to work, but did not. Maybe I could start a page at Help:Ordered list and assemble the collective wisdom there? -Pete (talk) 01:05, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Note about the list I'm formatting: It's an outline, where the sort of marking, the style, etc. vary at different levels of indentation, and some of the individual items begin on one page and continue onto the next, which is where the biggest headache occurs. I can't see how an <li> tag could work for an individual item that spans pages. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:21, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I wish I could remember the complex cases I've dealt with. It's really tricky stuff. Noinclude seems to work sometimes when spanning pages, not others. It seems to me the HTML tags are very fussy about whether there are line breaks or not, which makes it tough to make readable code. -Pete (talk) 04:41, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

But as a general rule, keep in mind that you have two options with the <li> tag. You can either do:

<li> here's your list item </li> or:

<li /> here's your list item

The first format makes it easier to span pages, because with separate opening and closing tags, you can wrap one of them in a "noinclude" statement. -Pete (talk) 04:44, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

But the general method doesn't seem to work at all when the item is to be preceded by a Roman numeral (letter(s)) instead of an Arabic numeral. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:11, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I've created Help:Ordered list, and would welcome any efforts to help flesh it out. (I'll try to chip away at it in coming days, but I suspect you guys have a better handle on the details than I do.) So far all I've tried to do is frame the issues involved, there's no specific advice there yet. I might suggest we move this discussion over too Help talk:Ordered list. -Pete (talk) 06:38, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry for blundering all over this discussion. I started blabbing without really understanding what was under discussion, and that probably detracted from actual problem-solving. I doubt I have the technical know-how to help, but I'd like to try if possible. @EncycloPetey:, is roman numeral lists spanning page breaks the only thing you're wrestling with, or are there other components to the problem? (I don't understand how {{ordered list}} works well enough to imagine how a "/s" and "/e" version might help, but I'm trying to familiarize myself with its use.) -Pete (talk) 03:57, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

"Random" Lint "fixes" in Page: namespace

Firstly, ALL of the edits I refer to below were made in good faith.

I said elsewhere I had concerns about un-cordinated fixes in respect of Page: and Index namespace and the formatting in them getting out of step, across a work (and it's transclusion).

That's partly why I'd moved to looking at Author: Portal: and Help: namespace pages on the grounds that there should be less context to consider.

I appreciate other contributors are also attempting fixes in Page: namespace, Special:Contributions/JustinCB being some examples.

However in places, a slower more considered analysis would have shown that a wider context needed to be considered in making repairs. The most recent examples with this particular users "fixes" were the replacement of {{smaller}} with {{smaller block}} or multiple {{smaller}} entries within the context of a page.. (example being: Page:Women of distinction.djvu/246 )

I left a somewhat terse comment here but: User_talk:JustinCB#Page:Women_of_distinction.djvu/246 you and others have told me in the past told me to slow down, and now I find myself telling someone else to slow down. (sigh).

Because of concerns about 'random' fixes, I'd in respect of Page: fixes more recently been trying to find works I'd actually assisted in proofreading/validating on the grounds that I'd be more likely to recall how (or why) I'd used a particular formatting, That maybe a slower approach, but it's probably better than 'blind' fixes made within the context of a single page. (Aside: This may also be why a bot approach may be unsuited to many of the fixes needed for parser migration.). It's a shame there isn't an easy way at present to 'filter' Special:LintErrors output by prefix. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 22:49, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, pick the low hanging fruit, to make the list shorter. I have been looking at the works, and we can probably bot in batches per work, once we know what is there, it just needs to be judicious and deliberate. Rushing and blindly botting is not going to be as useful or as effective. In the end, better to do nothing than to foul up the works. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:07, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

As an aside, I've now got 100 or so works I helped with to re-check, given that these are from when I was new here, and re-checking the proofreading/validation seemed reasonable.. Would make sense to check them for Linter derived concerns when the relevant tools support Page: namespace (Known issue so not overly concerned in flagging it to the developers.).. What would be useful though is if Special:LintErrors/X pages had a prefix: filter, like some other pages, so that the results can be trimmed down to a specfic group of pages.. Worth raising a Phabricator ticket for that feature? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:12, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Linter error reporting was not designed for WS where we do long collective and/or joined works, so suggestions to them on how it could work better for collective works is a reasonable suggestion for phabricator improvement. Their thinking is pages in isolation, whereas we are working on 1) transcluding multiple pages, 2) multiple collective pages with the same error. That they don't know our sites intimately is not their fault, and we should always politely suggest efficiency improvements. Even if they allow for working on something based on PrefixIndex / subpages would be advantageous. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:21, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Speaking of which is there a page to start noting particular conditions to look for?

{{anchor+|[[File:example.svg|100px|center]]}} being one example I can think of straightaway, I've also seen images floated inside a {{float right}}, which whilst it works... probably shouldn't given HTML5 sturcturing conventions..... ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 00:31, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I am unaware of a page, though consider something like Wikisource:Maintenance/Linter errors — billinghurst sDrewth 01:02, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

(On Prefix filter for linter) - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T185685, your opinions appreciated.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:08, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Global Collaboration products newsletter: 2018-01

Latest news from the Wikimedia Global Collaboration team, about Notifications, Structured discussions, Edit Review Improvements and Content translation. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.

What's new?

• The Global Collaboration report for December is now available (in English).
• Filters are better integrated on Related Changes (see below).
• Structured discussions now use the 2017 wikitext editor (see below).

Edit Review Improvements [More information • Help pages]

Bug fixes

• When searching, a click on a filter capsule moved the list of filters. [40]
• On Related Changes page, the page name entry box didn't show the entirety of long page names. [41]
• Transcludeing Special:RelatedChanges on a page added unexpected parameters to the URL. [42]
• Filter menu was opening upwards. [43]
• ORES preferences on Recent Changes and Watchlist preferences pages have been rationalized. [44]
• Users are now prevented from clicking on a link when they click outside of the dropdown menu to close it. [45]

Work in progress

• Filters on Related Changes page are better integrated and get new features, for instance: [46]
  • The standard auto-completion mechanism is available when you search for a page to look at.
  • It is more clear if you are looking to pages linked from the target page or to the target page.
  • You no longer need to click the "Show" button; the page updates automatically when a page is positively identified via autocompletion.

Content translation [More information • Help pages]

Recent changes

• Further enhancement are made for list (Suggestions/In-progress/Published) items on mobile screens. Long titles no longer overflow or overlap with other interface elements. [47]
• Various changes to the "New translation" dialog and the selected page for translation have been made: [48]
  • Longer titles of selected pages are displayed in smaller. Some space has been added around to increase readability.
  • Language codes are not truncated by ellipsis anymore. Only full, autonym language names are subject to truncation.
  • Minimal screen sizes and selected suggestion dialog have been revisited. They are more consistent in responding to screen size changes.
  • Discard button is no longer shown on small screen sizes.
• Language filters no longer render wrong or non-existent language codes. [49]
• The "New translation" dialog now shows a loading indicator and doesn't display an error when you change the source language after an unsuccessful research. [50]

Structured discussions [More information • Help pages]

Recent changes

• Structured discussions now uses the 2017 wikitext editor instead of its old custom one. This works with your preference for wikitext or visual editor. [51][52]
  • The documentation has been updated and needs translations updates.
• Prométhée, from French Wikipedia, has created some gadgets to customise Structured discussions interface.
  • The documentation is ready to be translated.

Future changes

• Structured discussions does not always follow wiki's configurations concerning talk pages indexation. This will be fixed. [53]
• Hidden topics will not be indexed by search engines anymore. [54]

Notifications [More information • Help pages]

Bug fixes

• User rights change notifications were displaying a broken link. This is now fixed. [55]
• "Mark as read" buttons had a bad appearance for users who don't have JavaScript activated. [56]

Collaboration team's newsletter prepared by the Global Collaboration team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

00:56, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Use of smaller/larger &c. block

Can you please explain when (and perhaps why) "smaller/larger block" should be used/not used as opposed to merely "smaller" or "larger" in certain cases? Londonjackbooks (talk) 04:03, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Background (and it may be known)

• span =< p =< div
• spans are directly joinable (on a page and between pages); to join split divs we bridge with /s and /e templates, otherwise we get a new p
• template:smaller is span (only usable up to a p in length), template:smaller_block is div (usable p and beyond)

but we decided that smaller block has a lessened line height (awareness that a span cannot have a line height, only p and div), so if we have a long length smaller span (multiple lines within the parent p) the mix of span and div templates is crap (technical description)
at this stage we haven't gone to div templates with span equivalent line-height
when we randomly fix pages within a work, as you know there may be or will be similar templating to fix, or in use that doesn't need fixing, however, can change the look. Let me know what I have missed or overly abbreviated, or needs extending. Some of it may need some examples, so we can go and play in the sandbox to demonstrate if that helps. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:40, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to explain. It is late here (too late to build sand castles). I will wrap my head around the above in the morning and get back with you if I need a visual. Have a good one, Londonjackbooks (talk) 04:50, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Nope. I'm hopeless. So, what I am not understanding is if you use smaller/larger with multiple lines of text, what is crap (exactly/technically) if it renders? (this is where I am dim) I understand on a purely aesthetic level where multiple lines of poetry are concerned, for example, but not on a technical level for things such as were changed here. If it is too late for you to get into this, later will be fine... Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 11:46, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Let me try it as a narrative. [This is one of those situations where the little steps need to be understood, and watching eyes and face understand is so much easier so one can adopt the right style.]

Background: (known points though worth stating up front) www is html in its presentation; mediawiki is not html, so it has a renderer to output in html. Current renderer is to html4, mediawiki needing to move to html5 renderer; upgrade is occurring by WMF across wikis, and they are doing stepwise as wikis get their errors under control (see the wikitech announcements in WS:S)

Current mediawiki renderer is able to interpret our misuse of span/p/div (hierarchy described above) and currently fixes our miscoding and renders things how it thinks we are wanting; so with your cited example where we (mis)write our templates to

<span (format code)><p></p>
<p></p></span>

the current renderer gently and quietly sighs, and codes it to

<p><span (format code)></span></p>
<p><span (format code)></span></p>

The recently introduced linter error system is now providing the audible sigh, and saying "here, here, and ... here" are miscoded. WMF is providing the advanced warning that the new renderer (for up to html5) isn't so tolerant or amenable.

I am guessing that if we coded as per the first example that it will say something like "yeah nah", take this

<p><span (format code)></span></p>
<p></p>

so only get the span format code in the first <p>.

So back to the cited example, the edit where we converted to the block templates does

<div (format code)><p></p>
<p></p></div>

so the format code is sitting outside the paragraphs. [Noting that while enWS could write paragraph level coded templates, we don't as divs can be paragraphs]

This div coding still allows us to insert span code inside the paragraphs, eg. float templates, and still allows us to determine whether the p or span code inherits or doesn't inherit the code of their parent tag. [html also insert divs inside other divs for coding; save that for another day]

Outside the apparent weirdness of html, and css. The important thing to remember is that the hierarchy of the tags, and that they have to be nested to work reliably. This is no different to how word processing apps work, or the visual editor of mediawiki, it just manages the nesting and coding for you (is more idiot-proof).

How did I go? Apologies for length of response. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:05, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

No—no apologies! Thank you. Can I backtrack a second? When you stated "smaller is span (only usable up to a p in length)", my brain translates that to mean "TITLE" (below) is one p, and "Subtitle" is another p (do I have that wrong?), and therefore the following formatting shouldn't work (although it currently renders as desired). Are you saying in your latest illustration that while it works currently (due to the current renderer's conversion), it will not work in the future? I think that is where my confusion lies.

{{center|{{smaller|TITLE

Subtitle}}}}

Londonjackbooks (talk) 00:38, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

That is correct, the current renderer does a good job of fixing miscoding (not perfect). The best current example of "fail" is with use of ''' (which is span) with an end of line (EOL). Similarly author links with a EOL split fail. If you look at a page's source, you will see that the rendered has put in two spans inside the paragraphs and coded properly. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:28, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

(ec) Ok. So my next duh question is, how can I discern between which templates are spans and which are divs? What is {{center}}, for example? [And as an aside, why do you personally change {{c}} to {{center}} when you come across them? BTW, I do now as well, following your example, but I never knew why] Londonjackbooks (talk) 01:40, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate your time, and patience. Don't need an answer now, as I am calling it a night soon. Have a good one, and thanks! :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 02:41, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Anything inline, or in the flow of a paragraph, is span. If a template affects the whole paragraph or more, then it is div, a block. So center has to be div, as you cannot centre a couple of words within a sentence, you have to do the block.

The only way to truly know whether one of our templates is a div or span is to check the guts of the template, though I think that we need to start explicitly stating what type of template something may be inline or block, though some of the new descriptive bits for TemplateData does this. Don't worry, it took me a long time to learn, and only through imperatives, not desire. As I am only partially educated in html and css, my go to site is https://www.w3schools.com/ — billinghurst sDrewth 03:33, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Great, thanks much. Will make note of all. :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 09:53, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

P.S. If we see a contributor formatting with {{center|{{larger| & the like, should we inform them of the issue? or will a bot eventually come along one day to make corrections? Londonjackbooks (talk) 12:26, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

If it is a single line and in that order, then it is okay as it is a paragraph (fits the minm. div definition, and it fits the maxm. span definition, and we have <div><span></span></div>). If they had the span template outside, then that is incorrect. With regard to telling people, (slight waving of hands) it depends whether they are watching their edits or not. All about opportunity. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:32, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Aye, Cap'n (sloppy salute), makes sense. Londonjackbooks (talk) 12:37, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Is {{sc}} a span or a div? Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:26, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

It's a span. You can tell by opening the code and seeing the "span" tag in the template. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:37, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

There it is! So, would it then have the same issues as {{smaller}}, etc. when it wraps more than a single line? Would the following be a no-no:

{{block right|{{sc|Laura Stedman,<br />
George M. Gould.}}}}

Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:42, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Answered my own question. I didn't realize there was a small-caps block template. Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:45, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

@Londonjackbooks: remember that span can cover up to a paragraph so you can do ...

{{block right|{{sc|Laura Stedman,<br />George M. Gould.}}}}

as it is the hard return that causes the break for the coding. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:36, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Oh! Another piece of my puzzle :) Thanks. Londonjackbooks (talk) 00:41, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Block expiration time

Just curious for future reference: Why block 'indefinite' for User account (spambot/abused &c.) and '1 month' for IP address account? Londonjackbooks (talk) 03:49, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Spambot accounts will always be spambots, so we don't want to see them again => infinite. IP addresses can be anyone, especially as they are often dynamically allocated. Blocking a dynamic IP address for a day will often be sufficient, however, they could be there for a week, a month is usually enough to know; if they come back after a month, then I will hit them for a year. (Spambots can often be an hijacked PC so thinking how long you are between router reboots, refreshes, etc. is what we are trying to cover.) It is less usual for us to have an editor on an IP, so randomly having someone blocked as a consequence of another block is pretty rare; even more so when the IP addresses are non-English speaking countries. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:59, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

OK. More questions surface, but another time. Sorry for the interruption, but thanks. Londonjackbooks (talk) 04:02, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Not an issue. I have been doing spam and spambots for so long, I can neglect what is second nature to me is not obvious to others. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:35, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

You are owed an apology...

I'll keep this short, but essentially I now consider I was being unreasonable to expect an overly-complex template to be supported. Therefore I think I need to offer an apology.

I would however like to offer my thanks for having the extraordinary patience to handle an 'exploding' contributor with the integrity and common sense that should be encouraged. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:34, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-05

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

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 31 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Foundation is working on how to get less unmaintained code on Wikimedia wikis. This could be by finding maintainers or removing unmaintained features. They are now looking for feedback on what do do with AbuseFilter, the IRC RecentChanges feed, the RelatedSites extension and TimedMediaHandler. You can leave feedback on the linked talk pages. [57]

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

17:06, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Bobbili Zamindari

Can you help me in completing the book : A Revised and Enlarged Account of the Bobbili Zemindari in a proper format. There are few pages to be proofread. Title page and Table of Contents to be looked into. Thanking you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:11, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

@Rajasekhar1961: I have fixed the chapters and the transclusions, all pages are now contained. I have updated the lead page with its ToC. I will leave you to finish your proofreading. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:51, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you very much sir. Can we make subsections in the chapters.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 09:54, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

@Rajasekhar1961: We can do lots of things, it is about the value, and whether it adds clarity and purpose. Sub-sections? to which chapter and what were you thinking. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:56, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Addendum to my part. I am not certain about the chapters with the same name, they being A Revised and Enlarged Account of the Bobbili Zemindari/Bobbili Zemindari/The Founder of The Samasthanam and A Revised and Enlarged Account of the Bobbili Zemindari/The Founder of The Samasthanam as I find that confusing. I would recommend working with Hrishikes (talk • contribs) to resolve that. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:55, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-06

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

• Bureaucrats can now add and remove the accountcreator permission by default. This means the user can help create a large number of accounts, for example for an editathon. Wikis can change this if they want to. [58]
• The Wikidata vandalism dashboard is a new tool to monitor vandalism on Wikidata labels and descriptions. It is filtered by language. [59]
• Info pages for file pages now show the file's SHA1 hash value in the table of basic information. This is so users can see that the file is the same as the one they uploaded. [60]

Problems

• Special:Export has a higher error rate right now. This means that the export does not always work. You should check to make sure your page exports worked. The developers are working on fixing this. [61]

Changes later this week

• When you review an edit made with the visual editor you can check a visual diff of your changes besides the wikitext diff. If you pick one diff type it will remember and show you that in future. The visual diff will now be the type first shown to new users. [62]
• When you use a gallery to show images you can define the size, like gallery widths="150px". You could use em or % instead of px but it would make no difference. You can now only use 150px or nothing (150). If you write something else, instead of treating it like px, it will not work. [63]
• The wording when you send a thanks message will change. Instead of Yes or No it will say Thank and Cancel. It will also be easier to understand that all thanks are public. [64]
• Redirects connected to Wikidata can create double Wikidata items. There will now be a tracking category for this. Wikis that don't want it can disable it. [65]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 February. It will be on all wikis from 8 February (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 February at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Education Program extension will be removed on 30 June. It is replaced by the Programs and Events Dashboard. [66][67]

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

20:51, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-09

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

• Checkusers and stewards can now view private data such as the IP address in the abuse log. This data is removed regularly. [68]

Problems

• Last week's MediaWiki version was rolled back because of a bug. [69][70]
• Since the deployment train last week until late evening on 20 February UTC, when you thanked someone for an edit, the thank went to the latest unthanked edit to that page. It didn't matter which edit you tried to give thanks for. This has been fixed. [71]
• Special:Statistics did not take newly created pages into account since 13 February 2018. Because of this the statistics are recreated. [72][73][74]

Changes later this week

• Users with version 10 of the Internet Explorer browser will no longer get JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis. If you use this browser on your computer, you can try upgrading to a newer version. [75]
• The Wikinews wikis will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 27 February. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed in the middle of 2018. [76][77]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 February. It will be on all wikis from 1 March (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 27 February at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 28 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

19:52, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

The Devil's Pool

Do you think we need to locally host File:Devils Pool (1895).djvu? The author and lead translator pose no issue, but the second translator died in 1960 (and was apparently only 18 at the time credited with assisting in translation). The book was simultaneously published in the UK and US, so it's not clear to me whether it's in PD in its "country of origin". --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:48, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: It is Commons, let us just play safe. moved it will need local updating. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:40, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

I have deleted here and undeleted at Commons. As US translators the 1923 publication rules. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:08, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Duplicated posts in the Scriptorium

Hi. I won't touch the duplicated posts in the Scriptorium, but I know that it is because we had an simultaneous editing clash. I added some minor info to your Preferences comment and uploaded the image of what I see on the screen. — Ineuw talk 01:10, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Cratinus date of death

Whatever algorithm we're using, it's not working for Author:Cratinus. His date of death comes out as "?" instead of somewhere in the three year range WD has. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:51, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Not certain that our algorithm needed to cope with the variation at WD; amended the data there. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:19, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the (re-)welcome message! (Though I'm curious how you noticed me - are you following Special:NewPages or something like that?) Thanks also for the correction on subpage titling/numbering - clearly there are some things I have forgotten in my (semi-)absence from WS. :) - Htonl (talk) 22:09, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

@Htonl: Way less romantic; category watch on Category:Works with non-existent author pages‎‎ one of those maintenance spaces that I try to jump on early, also good for seeing some weird and wonderfuls. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:43, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Collaboration products newsletter: 2018-02

Latest news from the Wikimedia Global Collaboration team, about Map improvements 2018, Notifications, Structured discussions and Edit Review Improvements. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.

What's new?

• Collaboration and Language are now going their way separately. Updates about Content Translation are not included in this newsletter anymore. Please refer to the Language report.
• Collaboration has a new project: Map improvements 2018.
  • The team’s engagement with maps is based on 2017 Community Wishlist proposal Kartographer Improvements, though the work won’t be restricted to items named there.
  • The project is currently in its very early research and planning stages.
  • It has a limited term that’s scheduled to conclude at the end of June 2018.

Edit Review Improvements [More information • Help pages]

Recent changes

• es.wikipedia, es.wikibooks, sv.wikipedia, and simple.wikipedia get ORES predictions on Recent Changes (and on Watchlist through "⧼eri-rcfilters-beta-label⧽" Beta feature). [78][79][80][81]

Problems

• The explanation of the abbreviations on the recent changes page could overlap with the list of changes. This has been fixed. [82][83]
• On Related changes it was not possible to use Saved filters for several articles. It has been fixed. [84]
• Transclude special:relatedchanges on a subpage removed #contentSub. This is now fixed. [85]

Notifications [More information • Help pages]

Recent changes

• The wording when you send a thanks message has changed. Instead of Yes or No it says Thank and Cancel. It is also now easier to understand that all thanks are public. [86]
• A notification is now sent to account owner on multiple unsuccessful login attempts. [87]

Problems

• Between week 7 and 20 February, when you thanked someone for an edit, the thank went to the latest unthanked edit to that page. It didn't matter which edit you tried to give thanks for. This has been fixed. [88]
• Long page titles on Special:Notifications were not truncated. This is now fixed. [89]

Structured discussions [More information • Help pages]

Recent changes

• You can now press CTRL + ENTER to post a new message. [90]
• It wasn't possible to create a description of a Structured discussions board. This has been fixed. [91]

Problems

• On wikis using the Beta feature, it is not possible to enable or disable Structured discussion from the Beta page. However, admins can create and move the pages.

Collaboration team's newsletter prepared by the Collaboration team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

11:29, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-10

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 now make longer edit summaries. [92]

Changes later this week

• You can notify users in edit summaries. They will get a ping just as if they had been mentioned on a wiki page. [93]
• On Special:AbuseLog you can now choose to list only actions that actually made an edit. Other actions are when the filter warned the editor or blocked the edit from being made. There are also more search options. [94][95]
• Wikis can enable Citoid to provide automatic reference look-up in the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor, but it is complex. The tool will now warn in the JavaScript console if the configuration isn't correct. Soon Citoid will disable itself if the configuration isn't correct. Check that your wiki is configured correctly. You can ask for help if you need it. [96]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 March. It will be on all wikis from 8 March (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 March at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• In the future you will be able to use global preferences. This means you could change a preference for all wikis instead of having to change it every time for each wiki. You can now test global preferences and give feedback.
• You can now read about planned works on maps during 2018. This will be done by June. You can give feedback on the planned maps work.

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

17:12, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Pachelbel date of birth

We're not getting a value at all from WD for Author:Johann Pachelbel's date of birth. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:28, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

I kind of made a hit-and-run change at WD setting rank; there is an "unknown value" statement that was likely a factor. I have to run, but if someone can perhaps double-check/merge info, etc. at WD? Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 21:09, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, the problem is that the only date we really have is a "latest possible date", so we need an "ante" that date, and I don't know how to set such a thing, or whether our templates will handle it successfully. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:27, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

d:Help:Ranking explains how to prefer values, and if you deprecate (which has been done here) also look at d:Help:Deprecation where you can justify your action. You could start with d:Help:Statements if you need step back. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:23, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

If we have something to query the statements that 1 Sep is not the correct date, then we can look to add other statements that are of lower ranking, and push a preferred, though here they would need to be factually supported, and there are references there that state 1 Sep as a birth date. I feel that conversation is better at the author talk page with pings, rather than a user talk page. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:26, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Arnold James

Looking for b/d dates for an Arnold James ("A. J."). Published "The Tryst" in The Muse &c. and according to a contact: "in a volume of 'Wheels,' the poetry collection edited by the Sitwells. That makes me wonder if he weren't English? There are four men with that first/last name combination listed on the Lives of the First World War/Imperial War Museum site, but very little information on any of them." Thanks whether yes or no. Londonjackbooks (talk) 21:16, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

P.S. He was a soldier. Londonjackbooks (talk) 21:32, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Without further detail that is going to be pretty hopeless task as there will be no confirmatory information, and the name is not uncommon. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:14, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

No problem. I've been looking around with no luck. I'll create an author page anyway with known works, and any facts on author Talk page. Perhaps a miracle will occur. Londonjackbooks (talk) 22:38, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-11

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

• 3D models can now be uploaded to Commons. [97]
• Page Previews has been updated to use HTML for previews. This has fixed many issues. An A/B test was done on English and German Wikipedia to measure how it is used. Other changes were also made. [98]
• Some edits have to be checked against too many conditions before they can trigger an abuse filter. If that is the reason no filter is triggered the edit will be tagged for review. [99]
• Auto-saving has been added to the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. Right now it is meant to help if your browser crashes or if you accidentally close a tab. [100]

Problems

• The abuse filter did not tag all edits that should have been tagged after last week's MediaWiki version had come to the wikis. It was fixed on 9 March (UTC). [101]

Changes later this week

• You can notify users in edit summaries. They will get a ping just as if they had been mentioned on a wiki page. This was originally planned to happen last week. [102]
• It is now possible to specify the block parameters for each filter in Special:AbuseFilter. The parameters include block duration and if the user should be blocked from editing their own talk page. The block duration is separate for anonymous and registered users. [103][104]
• A hundred Wikimedia wikis will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 13 and 14 March. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed in the middle of 2018. [105][106][107]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 March. It will be on all wikis from 15 March (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 13 March at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 14 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

19:44, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Periods and sentences

I'm baffled by your current pattern of removing periods from the end of sentences. [108] Is this something you're doing on purpose, or is it an artefact of an automated tool you're using? --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:02, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Re:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey

I don't understand why you reverted my edit. The previous table of contents was lacking the symbols between chapter titles and page number, which I replicated using {{Dotted TOC page listing}}. If it was possible to successfully incorporate the full typesetting of the source, why should that be neglected? Legofan94 (talk) 03:42, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

The display artefacts of a table of contents are not a requirement and that is a long held principle. Where a person has taken to a format we have also generally allowed that formatting to stand unless it causes particular issues. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:55, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi there. I was notified of this issue when Legofan94 came to us on the Wikimedia Discord. I am curious where this "long held principle" is described (a Wikisource guideline?), or if it has been discussed before. I am also curious if it applies to more detailed formatting. Other things I am curious about is potential screenreader issues and what your personal opinion is of Legofan's styling. We may want to move this to the relevant talk page, though. Maplestrip (talk) 15:13, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

@Maplestrip: That is a rather rich and pompous question, I wonder whether you even asked that in the reverse case.

With all due respect, go away. Please do not think that you can pop up in this community and think that you have the knowledge or ability to act as an arbitrator. We do manage grown-up conversations here. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:00, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't have the knowledge of this community to act as an arbitrator. I only have experience with Wikipedia and Commons, really. I did ask these questions to Legofan, but they didn't know of any such guidelines either. I am a bit worried that I may be affected by what Wikipedia calls canvassing, but I hope to be transparent about that. I've always had somewhat of an interest in Wikisource, so this may give me a better idea of how this community works. If you want somekind of arbitrator to get involved, I'd be happy to get that done, though I don't really know how that process works (there isn't a page called WS:Arbitration. Maybe WS:Scriptorium? I've never even really been in contact with such pages on Wikipedia, so I'm out of my element as far as arbitration is concerned). Maplestrip (talk) 10:05, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

If you don't know how this community works, then appearing on my user talk page in this manner is truly weird. No, I don't wish for you to be here to arbitrate, and you seem to have missed my intimation that this community has the maturity to manage its discussions and resolutions. I would also say that your approach to me has elements of naivety, and one where it is evident that you haven't done any research prior to contacting me. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:44, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

I am approaching this from naivite, sure, hence why I asked which guidelines or former discussions are relevant to this issue. I didn't intend to attack you or any such thing, I was simply intrigued by the problem and would love to know more about how Wikisource deals with these stylization, page ownership, that kind of thing. It appears I picked the wrong "disagreement" to start out with. From you comments on maturity, I assume this kind of thing comes up a lot in the community and has a pretty complex history, huh? Maplestrip (talk) 11:24, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

It is the end of Friday after a busy week, and in some ways you are asking me to regurgitate 10 years of history of development of style guide and operating practice, and you are asking about a page where dot leaders on a page were reverted on a work done by me in 2009. Add you are appear here when someone has addressed the matter to an outsider to the local community in a form of complaint about me reverting their edit. Yeah, an interesting way to start a conversation about how Wikisource works.

We try to encapsulate our information into the welcome message, particularly style guide, the page for Wikipedians, and about proofreading from page scans. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:40, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, I apologize for coming in at an awkward moment. I didn't expect this to be quite as difficult a topic as it is. I didn't intend to come across as hostile or even really counteractive, so I'm sorry that this happened. I figured dot leaders on a page not edited since 2009 would have been a relatively low-tension topic, and I often find that user talk pages can be a good place to quickly learn about a project and how guidelines are practiced. I'm sorry I caused harm... I'll leave you alone. Maplestrip (talk) 12:13, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

No, it is not so much an awkward moment, I was expressing that I am not feeling the most tolerant and I have you yapping away in an area in which you have no knowledge, and you are riding in on your hero pony. I would reflect to you that it would seem that you have little knowledge and experience with successful issue resolution. In a sociological sense, taking an interventionist approach where you have no credibility is doomed to failure. If you take a step back you can see that this approach fails in many places through the wikimedia sites. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:32, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

"Hero pony"? I accept that I apparently shouldn't have butted into this conversation, but I did so purely out of curiosity and I'm upset that you are of such strong belief that I had such ulterior motives. I'm sorry that you are not feeling the most tolerant, but that doesn't mean that you need to be so rude. I can't understand why you opted to go for personal attacks rather than to just discuss Wikisource page styling. I'm sure there is a concensus on Wikisource to use page styling as set up by the page creator, and I'm sure that your version of the page works better for screenreaders. All you had to do was just say so and I would have believed you (the latter was my assumption already). You keep saying I have no credibility on Wikisource, but I've never made any claims about Wikisource. I just asked a couple of questions.

I guess at this point I am just getting emotional. I have put a request for comment at WS:Scriptorium. I don't even know if it is for conflict resolution or for the improvement of the page we were originally talking about. I would simply like to attract the attention of an experienced editor who is more tolerant of newcomers. Maplestrip (talk) 08:40, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

@Maplestrip: With all due respect, you'll find few editors more experienced or tolerant of "newcomers". But the impression of you that I got from your initial post was not as one who comes as a curious newcomer, but as one establishing a line of questioning under the guise of curiosity. If you were merely being curious, your timing and placement was unfortunate and perhaps poorly chosen? In forums such as this, much often gets lost/misunderstood in translation and interpretation where personality enters in. I would consider that in this case—before emotion gets the upper hand. If it is improvement of library content that is truly the desired end, then my suggestion is to move on from here and address formatting questions at a more appropriate Talk page. Londonjackbooks (talk) 10:41, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, @Londonjackbooks:. I'm sorry for the disruption I have caused, Billinghurst. Maplestrip (talk) 11:16, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-12

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

• On March 12 early morning UTC, the number of 503 error messages increased due to an issue on esams datacenter. It has been fixed. [109]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 March. It will be on all wikis from 22 March (calendar).

Meetings

• There is no Editing team meeting this week.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• From April 4, the autopatrol status of edits will only be accessible in the Recent Changes database table, so only for 30 days. [110][111]
• In-Context Help and Onboarding is a new project, aiming to improve retention of new wiki editors. The goal is to give them short tutorials and other training experiences based on their activity. Collaboration team is expecting feedback and comments on the project talk page, especially from people working with newcomers.

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

15:03, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Collaboration products newsletter: 2018-03

Latest news from the Wikimedia Collaboration team, about Map improvements 2018, Notifications, Structured discussions and Edit Review Improvements. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.

What's new?

The Collaboration team has announced the start of a new project: In-Context Help and Onboarding. The idea is to improve retention of new wiki editors by giving them short tutorials and other training experiences related to, and triggered by, their current activities on the wikis (that’s the “in context” part). The project follows from the conclusions of the New Editor Experiences research. The work is in its very early stages, but we’d like to hear from people with ideas on the subject—particularly if you have experience supporting or training new contributors.

Map improvements 2018 [More information]

• Maps using Maplink and Mapframe functions now include an extra zoom level (level 19). This is part of the Kartographer Improvements, the number one request of the 2017 Community Wishlist survey. [112]

Edit Review Improvements [More information • Help pages]

• Number of edit to show in recent changes information text was incorrect in Special:Preferences. It has been rephrased. [113]

Notifications [More information • Help pages]

Recent changes

• You can notify users in edit summaries. They will get a ping just as if they had been mentioned on a wiki page. That new feature has been documented. [114]
• Preferences panel on Special:Notifications was overlapping other elements. This has been fixed. [115]

Future changes

• An important work is under progress to allow thanks of log entry. This is done by the Community Tech team. [116]

Structured discussions [More information • Help pages]

Recent changes

• Structured Discussions extension has been uninstalled from wikis not using it. However, it is still possible for a community to request a trial of Structured discussions. [117]

Problems

• It was not possible to opt-in and opt-out Structured discussions on wikis using it as a Beta feature. It is now fixed. [118]

Future changes

• The visual editor and 2017 wikitext editor interface is going to change for consistency. The toolbar, dialogs and menus will appear slightly bigger; some icons will look different. Content or functionality will not change. That change will apply to Structured Discussions as well. [119]

Collaboration team's newsletter prepared by the Global Collaboration team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

12:24, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-13

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

Changes later this week

• Some of the interface icons and text sizes will change slightly, as part of the updates for improved accessibility and consistency. These icons are used in many features, including Notifications, Recent Changes, Beta Features, Visual Editor, 2017 Wikitext Editor, Code Editor, and others. While editor toolbars, dialogs, and menus will appear slightly bigger; elements on special pages will be slightly smaller. Functionality will not change. [120] [121]
• The deprecated #toc and #toctitle CSS ids have been removed. If your wiki was still using these for fake Tables of Content (ToC) then these might lose their styling. They can be replaced with .toc and .toctitle classes where appropriate. [122]
• TemplateStyles will be deployed to the Wikivoyages on 28 March 2018. [123]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 March. It will be on all wikis from 29 March (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 27 March at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be one hour earlier than usual on 28 March at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• From 9 April, the sort order of categories will be distorted for a short time. We are upgrading versions of an internationalisation library (ICU) and using a maintenance script to update existing database entries. This will last anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on wiki size. Read more details. [124]
• Changes are coming to search for Serbian projects. Cyrillic and Latin variants of a word and different grammatical forms of a word will be able to find each other. Read more on MediaWiki in Serbian or English.

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

20:04, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Harassment by an admin

Please see my talk. I do not feel like User:EncycloPetey is acting in a manner befitting an admin and he's harassing me. Frankly, I've had many interactions with him that were inappropriate and I am put out and not sure where to go with this grievance. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:18, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

N.b. Replying to your questions every time you ping me is not harassment. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:44, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

WS:AN — billinghurst sDrewth 09:15, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Butler's translation of the Odyssey

I thought this pattern of page accesses was interesting. This is the page views for The Odyssey (Butler), and it suddenly spiked to 400 when the updated (now scan-backed) version was announced as New—with an increase far out of proportion to other items that were listed on the Main Page at the time—but it's continued to have high access even after it was no longer listed on the Main page. Some evidence then for a demand / interest in major works of literature through our site. Also, I presume the earlier spikes to 100 are the result of some class somewhere assigning the work, possibly with an instructor directing students to us as a source for a free copy. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:47, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-14

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

• Template Wizard script available for testing. It will show up as a puzzle-piece icon in the 2010 WikiEditor. You can click on the icon to insert a template.
• The Wikimedia Communities and Contributors survey is to be sent to participants around the world this week. If you are volunteer developer, and have contributed code to any pieces of MediaWiki, gadgets, or tools, please take 20 to 40 minutes to complete the survey.

Problems

• MediaWiki deployment train has been rolled back to version 1.31.0-wmf.26 on week 13, due to a multiplication of lost connections during MySQL queries. Some of the recent changes may have not been applied. They will be deployed next week. [125][126][127]
• The Notifications badge icons were overlapping other links. This has been fixed. [128]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 April. It will be on all wikis from 5 April (calendar).
• User subpages ending in .json will now be protected from other people editing them, like .js and .css pages already are. If you have a tool that stores static configuration, you can now use a subpage like User:Example/mygadget.json to do this without concerns. [129]
• Tidy will be replaced by RemexHtml on the next set of wikis. On April 4, we plan to turn off Tidy on all Wikiquotes (except frwikiquote) and Wikimedia chapters and user groups wikis. 23 wikis will have Tidy replaced this time. [130][131][132]
• AbuseFilter will transition to use OOUI starting April 4, and the rule editor will also be changed to a CodeEditor (ACE) similar to what is found on user JavaScript pages. The move to OOUI will continue over the next few weeks. [133] [134]
• In Special:Preferences, the preference "Reload the watchlist automatically whenever a filter is changed (JavaScript required)" is now only visible for users who have opt-out the New Filters for the Watchlist. [135]
• You can see names of individual abuse filters in Special:AbuseLog. Now if the name of an abuse filter contains some wikisyntax like links, it will not change to a link when displayed. [136]
• You can now search through filter patterns at Special:AbuseFilter. You may specify either a plain string or a regular expression and the matching filters will show a snippet of their pattern with the match highlighted. [137]

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 3 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 4 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• If you're using, creating or improving Lua modules, you can give your feedback to help harmonizing the modules across wikis and add more useful functions.
• On April 11th, we plan to turn off Tidy on all wikis with less than 50 entries in all high priority linter categories. About 60 wikis will have Tidy replaced. Currently about 600 wikis have had Tidy replaced and we have another 300 wikis to go. We plan to finish this transition from Tidy to RemexHtml by end of June 2018. Please follow T175706 to monitor progress of Tidy replacement. [138][139]

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

19:28, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Structured Data on Commons Newsletter - Spring 2018

Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter and contribute to the next issue. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!

Community updates

• Our dedicated IRC channel: wikimedia-commons-sd ^webchat
• Several Commons community members are working on ways to integrate Wikidata in Wikimedia Commons. While this is not full-fledged structured data yet, this work helps to prepare for future conversion of data, and helps to understand how Wikidata and Commons can work better together.
  • Thanks to Jarekt and other contributors, some Commons templates can now be filled via Wikidata: {{Creator}} (Phabricator) and {{Institution}} (Phabricator). Work is ongoing on the {{Artwork}} template (Phabricator).
  • Thanks to Mike Peel and others, Wikidata-powered infoboxes can now be added to Commons categories, with the template {{Wikidata Infobox}}. (Example)
  • Multichill is working on an experimental workflow to upload images to Commons via Wikidata (and using metadata from Wikidata). See a part of it here.

Things to do / input and feedback requests

• Join the community focus group!
• Do you want to help out translating messages about Structured Data on Commons from English to your own language? Sign up on the translators page.
• Contribute to the next newsletter.

Discussions held

• Conversation about licensing and copyright modeling.
• High-level discussion on ontology for Commons.
• Review first designs for multilingual captions.
• IRC office hour, 13 February

Events

• Wikimedia Conference, Berlin, 20-22 April (+ Learning Days 18-19 April): several sessions and workshops around Structured Commons
• EuropeanaTech Conference, Rotterdam, 15-16 May: several presentations + a full workshop day on Monday 14 May about Wikidata and Structured Commons
• Wikimedia Hackathon, Barcelona, 18-20 May: Structured Commons as a focus area.

Partners and allies

• We are still welcoming (more) staff from GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) to become part of our long-term focus group (phabricator task T174134). You will be kept in the loop of the project, and receive regular small surveys and requests for feedback. Get in touch with Sandra if you're interested - your input in helping to shape this project is highly valued!

Research

• The research about GLAM contributions to Wikimedia Commons is concluded. A blog post on the Wikimedia blog provides a summary, and you can read the full results on meta.wikimedia.org.

Development

• Prototypes will be available for Multilingual Captions soon.

Stay up to date!

• Follow the Structured Data on Commons project on Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/34/
• Subscribe to this newsletter to receive it on a talk page of your own choice.
• Join the next IRC office hour and ask questions to the team! The date for next quarter will be announced soon.

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk)

Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery - 19:48, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Author:Kālidāsa

The WD items for this author claims that he flourished in the 5th century, but was born and died in the 4th century, which is impossible. The dates of birth and death are cited from the BnF, but the BnF entry says (in French) "4th or 5th century", rather than simply 4th, for both his birth and death. I've no idea how to correctly code this information. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:25, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

His author page now has no dates at all, neither locally nor from Wikidata. Was that intentional?

It had dates after I edited it. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:09, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

(ec) I don't think that it makes that much difference if we said approximately 4th century or 5th century, it is meant to be as accurate as possible, though it is still indicative, and we are not trying to be the encyclopaedia. That said @Samwilson: Can author pages please have a fallback to use d:Property:P2031 and d:Property:P2032 when floruit isn't used. We have issues displaying in more general data, and floruit cannot span centuries. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:17, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Good idea. I've started a thread at Module talk:Author. Let's talk there. Sam Wilson 05:38, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Did you purge after editing the WD item? I've had the dates linger after an edit until purging. But there have been no changes to the WD item since you edited it, and none to our Author page since this edit you made. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes I did purge, there has been the occasional issue where there has been data lag when the bots have been hammering it, and this would appear to be one of those cases. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:19, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

On a slightly related issue, we're getting red-linked categories for another Sanskrit writer Author:Bharata Muni. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:20, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Are you sure that you want to go back to 1000 BCE? Do you mean "1. century"? — billinghurst sDrewth 05:10, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

We don't know which century he lived in, so it's generating "1st millenium". Note that I didn't add the dates. This is what we're getting automatically from the information at WD. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:47, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-15

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

• Some pages have templates that describe problems with that article. There is now more information for mobile readers and what is wrong with the article and how they could help fix it. [140]
• You can now thank users for many more actions than edits to a page. This was one of the top ten requests in the Wishlist Survey last year. [141]
• The sort order of categories will have errors for a short time starting Monday 9 April (UTC). We are upgrading versions of an internationalisation library (ICU) and using a script to update the database. This will take between a few hours and a few days depending on wiki size. You can read more details. [142]
• Tag filter titles will now work better on wikis where the tag filter title is in a language that is written in another direction than the language of that wiki. This could for example be an English title (written from left to right) on a Hebrew or an Arabic wiki (written from right to left). [143]

Problems

• The bookmark icon for saved filters on the recent changes page disappeared because of new icon changes. This has now been fixed. [144]
• For a week in March rollbacks got both the rollback and the undo tag on the recent changes page and other pages where you see tags. This has now been fixed. [145]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 April. It will be on all wikis from 12 April (calendar).
• Patrolled edits now have three states instead of two. Recent changes filters are updated to show unpatrolled, autopatrolled and manually patrolled edits. [146]

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 10 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 11 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The iOS and Android apps will get synced reading lists later in April.

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

18:08, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Direction

Hi Billinghurst. I am not sure how to encourage a User to perhaps move beyond mere page creation and to attempt some basic elements of proofreading. I made an inquiry at their Talk page; they answered in the section above the section I created. Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:09, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Conversation is all I can see, though only to what is reasonable and practicable, in finding the balance between allowing contributions and to protect the project from those who aren't understanding what we are trying to achieve, or do not seem willing to understand and to work with us. If we are having to put in more work than is reasonable and practicable, then we reach a crux point and may use the other tools available to us. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:34, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Actually, I will correct myself. Lead by example. Make changes to what they should be and point and explain why. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:37, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-16

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

Changes later this week

• Profiling statistics for an abuse filter tell how often edits match the filter. The statistics for the abuse filters were reset after 10000 actions. Wikis can now decide to reset it more or less often. They can file a phabricator task to do so. [147]
• Abuse filters will now treat integers and floats more precisely. For example, 5/2 was rounded down to 2 but will now be 2.5 and 2*4 will be the integer 8 and not the floating-point number 8.0. Division values are the only ones changed. For the rest only strict comparisons (=== and !==) will be affected leaving the values unchanged. [148][149]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 April. It will be on all wikis from 19 April (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 17 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 18 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The new PDF renderer could not create PDFs from books. Books are in this case collections of pages on a Wikimedia wiki. PediaPress will take over development of the books-to-PDF function. [150]
• Pywikibot will no longer support Python 2.7.2 and 2.7.3. [151]
• Volunteer developers can fill out the Wikimedia Communities and Contributors survey. The last day is April 22 (UTC). This is a third-party service survey. See the privacy statement.

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

15:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Frankenstein

When this is completed and checked, I'd suggest nominating it for October FT instead of sharing November with other works. I've already nominated Jekyll and Hyde for October, but given this year is the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein, and given the enormous impact of that work, I'd say it's the better choice for FT. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:34, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-17

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

• All Wikipedias now have Page Previews.
• The iOS and Android apps now have synced reading lists. This means you can save articles to a private list that can be seen on your other devices if you use the apps.
• The icons in the 2010 wikitext editor have changed. [152]
• The visual editor and the 2017 wikitext ask you to write an edit summary after you press Publish. This button now also shows an ellipsis. This is to show that pressing Publish is not the last step. [153]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 April. It will be on all wikis from 26 April (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 24 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 25 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• <mapframe> will come to most Wikipedias in May. This means that you can put interactive maps in the articles. Nine Wikipedias that use a strict version of flagged revisions will not get this feature in May. [154]
• The rollback function could change. This was a German community request. All editors with rollback rights can leave feedback on the proposed solution. The last day to leave feedback is 4 May (UTC).

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

18:16, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Du you think

the Du in Du Maurier should be du? as it is at WP? A trifle, but that's how it goes... Londonjackbooks (talk) 01:10, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I was doing other things. Feel free to fix, as I have no informed opinion on the matter. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:17, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Opinion: It should be lowercase. Not only is the "du" lowercase on Wikipedia, but also in his DNB article. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:21, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I think so too, and I can make the change, but I will ask of someone real quick... if it be quick... Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 01:25, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Revert

I reverted your removal of my comments. I made constructive comments in relation to the outright slander by JesseWaugh that you have no trouble tolerating. Is it really the policy to allow people to be called Nazis but to delete comments that are suggest constructive solutions?104.163.159.237 10:06, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Within reason you can have comments about users on the user talk pages, but not so off-topic on our deletion discussion page. Further, as an random IP address, I am not sure how you can be slandered. When you are editing from a Wikimedia account, then maybe I will consider your sniping commentary differently. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:47, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-18

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 parameter for unpatrolled edits in recent changes filters changed name. You might need to update saved filters and links. [155]

Problems

• We are migrating wikis from Tidy to Remex. Because of a bug the 250 wikis which do not yet use Remex were switched on 23 April. This is two months early. This meant that pages with broken wikitext showed wrongly to readers. The bug was undone the next day. You can help fix broken wikitext to avoid this problem when your wiki switches. Tidy will be removed on all wikis before July 2018. You can follow the process on Phabricator. [156]

Changes later this week

• You will be able use CodeMirror in the 2017 wikitext editor on all wikis. CodeMirror helps with syntax highlighting. It has previously been a beta feature and only available on wikis with scripts that are written from left to right. [157]
• When an administrator blocks someone they will have a calendar they can use to choose when the block ends. This is to make it easier to pick a specific date. [158]
• You can soon turn on the Performance Inspector in the Editing section in your preferences. It shows information about the performance of pages. This could be the size of modules in the page, how many CSS selectors are defined on the page and how many are used, or the size of the images on the page. This tool is intended to help editors fix pages that load slowly. [159]
• There is a new abuse filter function called equals_to_any. You can use it to check if its first argument is equal (===) to any of the following ones. For example you can use it to check if the page's namespace is amongst a given set of values in a more compact way than you could earlier. You can read more on mediawiki.org.
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 May. It will be on all wikis from 3 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 1 May at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 2 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Cloud Services team is working on a new project called Toolhub. The goal is to make it easier for Wikimedians to discover software tools they can use. You can leave feedback on the talk page or email jharewikimedia.org to leave private feedback.
• All wikis with fewer than 100 high-priority linter errors in all namespaces will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 2 May. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Wikibooks wikis with fewer than 100 high-priority linter errors in the main namespace will switch on 9 May. Tidy will be removed on all wikis before July 2018. [160][161][162]

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

16:18, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Q on copyright, inclusion &c.

Wondering, because I still don't grasp copyright issues: With regard to this file, I see that 'someone' made the file available under public domain. Was it the uploader or the compiler? There is no link or explanation available anywhere. I am not understanding what is required to have this 'work' uploaded to Commons or WS. Londonjackbooks (talk) 12:36, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

<shrug> wrong choice is my guess. I have amended to {{PD-old}}. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:56, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

OK, I'll belabor. Let me know at what point I should inquire elsewhere.... The poems are indeed 'old', but they are extracted from some other source that is not documented anywhere (see individual Index pages). I was under the impression that copyright protections exist on compilations (with regard to poem order, etc.). When was this particular 'work' compiled, by whom, and did the compiler release the compilation into the public domain? Londonjackbooks (talk) 13:03, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

The LEL works and their appearance always seem to be less than perfect. In the end, they are all published from old sources, so I just gently shake my head, and decide to not upset that apple cart. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:19, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Ohkay. Thanks. Londonjackbooks (talk) 13:25, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-19

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 Wikimedia Commons mobile app has a new version. It is now easier to find nearby places that need pictures. It helps you with direct uploads and title and category suggestions. The app only works on Android phones. [163]

Problems

• The abuse filters had a problem with blocks where you had changed how long they last. It used the default length everywhere. This was in late April. Abuse filter users should make sure the right block length is used and change them if needed. This is only for filters where how long blocks last had been changed. [164]

Changes later this week

• The advanced search function beta feature will be on all Wikimedia wikis. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. [165]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 May. It will be on all wikis from 10 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 8 May at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 9 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• All wikis with fewer than 100 high-priority linter errors in the main namespace will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 16 May. Other wikis will switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed on all wikis before July 2018. [166][167]

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

16:27, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Sorry

for being a buttinsky. Not my place. Londonjackbooks (talk) 01:15, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

There is never a problem to give some a polite poke if you think that they are unnecessarily or indiscriminately pushing a boundary. We are a society, and society needs to keep us within the society norms where an individual may not. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:05, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

I thought it more of a misunderstanding... If I thought a boundary was being pushed, I would have gladly left that to you :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 01:31, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

I wasn't meaning anyone else. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:52, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I am befuddled. But I won't belabor. All's well that ends well :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 09:51, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Template:BLI link

fix to work with article templates

I am working on that. Is my blackletter styling of the journal title going to be discouraged?--RaboKarbakian (talk) 13:53, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: {{BLore1 link}}, also, I have requested a sdelete of {{BLI link}}, I am here checking on overall satisfaction, etc.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 00:49, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Styles on author pages are not encouraged, as we look to have a standard presentation and one that is able to be done by all. Same with putting styles into any of our header templates. Keeping it simple. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:02, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Standard section notation

This is about the ===header=== notation mentioned on my talk page. All times in my day, but especially early in it, there is a tendency for me to see|read what I want to see|read.

Did you say that this style of h1-6 notation is discouraged?

I have actually and mostly unsuccessfully been trying to include it, as I have read things about getting the TOC from it, etc.

My problem(s) with it include: that there is no guarantee of the nesting once the work or piece of the work is used apart from the main and that it needs to be included in a template for it not to appear previously styled.

Such good news, I really needed to confirm it.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 13:52, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

@RaboKarbakian: It is not encouraged to be used in the Page: namespace, as generally it does not reflect the formatting of the work. That is not to say never as there may be an occasion, just not usual. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:59, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for cleaning up the mess I left with Sunset (magazine)/Volume 32. Pete (talk) 17:34, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-20

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

• Dynamic maps are now available on most Wikipedias. Labels on maps can also be in different languages.
• The new Advanced Search interface is now available as a Beta Feature on all wikis. This makes it easier to learn about and to use many of the powerful options in our search. Feedback is appreciated. [168]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 May. It will be on all wikis from 17 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 16 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• In the mobile view, warnings for when something is wrong with a page are not as clear as they should be. The developers are working on this. You can give feedback and suggestions.
• The developers are working on making the Wikipedia Android app available in more languages. You can give feedback, suggestions and help test it. Read more on mediawiki.org [169]

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

22:22, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Author info

I was not able to find the death year of Author:Walter Francis, but I think it is findable. Birth data, father's name etc. available at 1 and 2. Father's burial data at 3. Can you help? Hrishikes (talk) 12:37, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

@Hrishikes: It will be a tough find. For example looking at 1944 probate records, there are four gentleman of that name. With no reference for place or period of return you are going to be chasing tail and require full diligence in proving claims. You might get lucky if you can find someone to check UK National Archives card index [170] — billinghurst sDrewth 13:15, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

FFS You are truly blessed Hrishikes, and I stun myself with my skills and ingenuity. <eyeroll> I will add the data to the talk page. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:37, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I was already convinced about your skills. Thanks a lot. Amended Wikidata. Hrishikes (talk) 14:40, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Any idea about death year of this author? Hrishikes (talk) 07:25, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Done and entered in situ @Hrishikes:. So much easier than fixing wireless network routers and dodgy network cards. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:44, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Hrishikes (talk) 14:54, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

POTM

Hi,

Apologies if I'm being dim, but I wanted to propose a work for POTM, but I can't seem to find a "join" mechanism for the process? I was however pretty sure that just adding my name to the list of members was not the right way of going about things, not only because it appeared rather rude, but also because all I wanted to do was propose one work rather than propose myself as an active participant - I'm afraid I just dip in when I can! In the end I have added Index:In bad company and other stories.djvu to the "List of suggested works not actioned" section of the proposals page. Apologies if this isn't the right way to do it. I think Boldrewood would possibly work for the December short stories collection slot. Although there's quite a lot of Australian science and politics on WS (most of it proofread by you!), I'm not sure there's much fiction, is there? Again, apologies if I haven't followed the correct process. CharlesSpencer (talk) 13:28, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

WT:POTM is the place for suggestions. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:12, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

@CharlesSpencer: If you think it will make a good candidate for December, you can propose it as an "Option B" for December 2018—same page Billinghurst linked to—and remove it from where you listed it at "suggested works not actioned". Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:27, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Mediaeval Leciester Illustration list...

I've attempted a fix, but it uses a {{nowrap}} to wrap a {{ditto}} that I'm not entirely comfortable with

Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/14 Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/15

Can you review and possibly suggest an alternate? {{TOCstyle}} might be if I can tweak a call to it to have the appropriate leaders.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:39, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Test here User:ShakespeareFan00/Leicester Illustration list test , It looks ugly because of how the leader symbol is being dealt with. (sigh) :(

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:44, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

You know that I don't go near TOCstyle, hence why I prodded. You may wish to see whomever else in the community may be able to assist if that is to be retained. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:33, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

diff of the month

Right there: https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3ABLVolSpeciesheader&type=revision&diff=7440760&oldid=7430767

I have a lot to thank you for but that link is the big one! --RaboKarbakian (talk) 17:28, 17 May 2018 (UTC) (I took the "Manage" in Manage Template Data button waaay too literally....)

Chapter moves ("Eleven years...")

Many thanks for moving all the chapters from roman to arabic numerals. It was a project I've been putting off for a long time (the lame excuse of this free software fanboy...AWB is one of the very few things that makes me boot up Windows any more, so I rarely do it!) It was only after I was fairly deep into that work that the preference for arabic numerals was pointed out to me.

One quibble, though, maybe worthy of consideration for future moves. I have made a number of links from English Wikipedia and elsewhere to the individual chapters. (["[[Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier" chapter site:en.wikipedia.org for instance]) In hindsight, that was a silly thing to do without first resolving the naming thing. However, the lack of redirects now makes it a bit of a project for me to find and fix all of those. I don't mind doing it. (I do mind, a little, that I probably won't find all of them...but such is life.)

In trying to understand what was going on, I found this interesting discussion from 2013. It was an informative read, and @Hesperian: made a valid point I hadn't considered, regarding pages that are moved as part of disambiguation projects. However, I didn't see any points in there in favor of deleting non-disambiguation-related redirects. I also consulted Wikisource:Deletion policy#Miscellaneous, but also came up short on reasons to eschew redirects like this.

Is there something I'm missing? It seems to me that preserving redirects in a case like this has no downside (apart from the "search prefix" thing somebody mentioned, which is probably not that big a deal...is it?) But it has a big upside, in that it keeps our library useful and relevant in ways that are difficult to anticipate. I'd emphasize that one point that I've found never fails to impress academics and librarians, is how liberal Wikipedia is about creating and maintaining redirects. We've all had problems from time to time with deeplinks on corporate, government, and media sites...I like to think that it's one of the things we simply "do better" at Wikimedia.

Is there anything I'm missing here? At this point I'm more interested in the general practice, than in this one particular issue, which I'm happy to address myself. And again, thanks for handling all the page moves! -Pete (talk) 21:39, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Update: I fixed all the links I could find on enwp, enwikt, and enwq, as well as those here on Wikisource. I think that should the specific issue with this work, though there might be a few strays on Commons. -Pete (talk) 00:05, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

@Peteforsyth: Dealing with existing links, and presuming that you used the same linking methodology …

• wikipedia: w:Special:Search/insource:"wikisource:en:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier"
• wiktionary: wikt:Special:Search/insource:"wikisource:en:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier"
• wikibooks:b:Special:Search/insource:"wikisource:en:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier"
• commons:c:Special:Search/insource:"wikisource:en:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier"
• wikiquote: q:Special:Search/insource:"wikisource:en:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier"

and I fixed the remaining at enWP. 01:41, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the links, I didn't know about the "insource" code. (Found it documented here, though...nice addition to the old toolbox.) I added "/Chapter" into your code, and it turned up one more stray broken link, which I'll fix. -Pete (talk) 23:55, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

and a created auxiliary when we have the real one? Interesting, as we try not to create what already exists

“	This template creates a special boxed table of contents within a mainspace page. It is intended for adding tables of contents to works that did not originally feature such a navigation device.	”
—Template:Auxiliary Table of Contents

— billinghurst sDrewth 01:49, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I asked about it at the Scriptorium, and with some advice from more experienced Wikisourcers that's the arrangement we came up with. Seemed at the time like the best of various imperfect choices. I felt that the TOC in the original, which (a) didn't include the "introduction" or the "list of illustrations" and (b) was several pages long, since it included lengthy summaries of each chapter, was not so useful for a digital presentation. However, in hindsight, now that it's complete, I'm not sure I feel that way any more; it's hard to imagine a use case in which somebody knows (by number) what chapter they want to go to, without any indication at all of what's contained in that chapter. To me, it seems "good enough," but if you think it's worth redoing it, I will. However, I'm still not sure I can fully imagine a better alternative...the two-works-in-one-volume thing still makes it a little hard for me to imagine what the front page(s) should look like, in the absence of an auxiliary TOC. Could you describe an alternative, or maybe point me toward an example of a similar work that is better organized in its WS transcription?

Possible alternative: a single front page for both works, with a simplified Aux TOC listing only the Introduction, TOC, and List of Illustrations for each work? -Pete (talk) 23:19, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Even that alternative might not be ideal, though. I think it's important to have a "front page" for each of the two works within the volume, so they can be linked to directly. For instance, a web page about George Custer should link to the "front" of that work, with a header that permits navigating to Eleven Years.... Since there are not individual, thorough title pages in the original work, I'm not sure what that "front page" would look like, without an auxiliary TOC. Maybe just very simple ones, like this, with a link to the introduction, TOC, and list of illustrations? (Having to click through from title page to introduction, and then to TOC, to get anywhere within the work seems onerous.) -Pete (talk) 23:46, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

That is covered by that text, and the adequacy of the ToC for navigation. On occasions I have been known to embed "auxiliary ToC" into a Page: ns wrapped in an "includeonly"( where it can be elegantly done. I personally don't find that a long ToC on a root page is problematic, it is presented somewhere, so if it is on the scroll, so what, per My Life in Two Hemispheres. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:33, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I think I've found and implemented a relatively elegant answer...could you please take a look through the early pages of each book and let me know what you think? -Pete (talk) 03:18, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

 Comment With regard to redirects. It is one of those imperfect situations with imperfect solutions, and in the end came about from often hard lessons (it took years to fix redirects of moved subpages). It is why we had been strong on our guidance, and had been strong on our patrolling (which has weakened in the past while). I try to capture use of roman numeral chapters early, and maybe I should be writing a filter to flag it earlier. [We should next to never require them for fictional works.] I do wish there was a more ready means to find interwiki links, and maybe I should see if someone has written such a toolforge tool. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:21, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-21

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 May. It will be on all wikis from 24 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• It could become easier to reference different pages of a book in an article. You can give feedback. The last day for feedback is 27 May.

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

17:33, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Strip first page

Hi. I finally have some time for the bot deleting/whitening the first djvu page. The idea is that a template in placed on the File page to fix and a bot similar to archiveBot finds the pages, downloads the file, fixes it and re-uploads it. The idea is that wikisource-bot runs it. Few questions. - Does it have a bot flag on Commons?
- Would you mind defining the template & params?
- which actions shall we allow (IMHO no point in just whitening, for new works deleting is most interesting)
- once above is sorted out we can do a few tests locally
What do you think?— Mpaa (talk) 20:30, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

• Permission is required to run the bot, though not a requirement to have a flag c:Commons:Bots. I don't see that this is a problem, and I am happy to put that proposal to the Commons community.
• I am a "keep it simple stupid person", I am just seeing that we are wanting to replace a page, for me enhancing it to me runs the risk of fouling the image<->text alignment. I also see that doing it this way stops much malicious use of someone repeatedly snipping front pages. So not sure we need parameters.
• as the function of IAupload being able to remove the front page, I not particularly inclined to get overly fussed about new files

Where the heck are our previous discussions and work on this, I cannot find them through the archives. I cannot even find the list of files that I prepared which needed the front page removed. Clearly I a useless tonight. I cannot even find where we did the tests in our file: ns. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:58, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Worked out how to find it. Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2017-03#Task proposal for Wikisource-bot — billinghurst sDrewth 11:02, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Can find files at Commons pretty easily c:special:search/"this is a digital copy of a book". Less easy here at that search doesn't work. We do have a good start list at User:Wikisource-bot/Lead google page

OK, I forgot about this discussion. I have created {{blank djvu cover}} at Commons.— Mpaa (talk) 21:49, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

maintenance

• Category:Redirects connected to a Wikidata item
• identify wikidata-linked categories and add {{plain sister}}; we probably also need a methodology to easily identify and add when link OR we add it to all categories?

— billinghurst sDrewth 08:53, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-22

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 now use global preferences on most wikis. This means you can set preferences for all wikis at the same time. Before this you had to change them on each individual wiki. Global preferences will come to the Wikipedias later this week. [171][172]
• It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked. [173]
• Wikidata now supports lexicographical data. This helps describe words.
• There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups. [174]
• Some rare invisible Unicode characters have recently been banned from page titles. This includes soft hyphens (U+00AD) and left-to-right (U+2066) and right-to-left (U+2067) isolate markers. Existing pages with these characters will soon be moved by a script. [175]
• There's a new Wikimedia Foundation team to support the Wikimedia technical communities. It's called the Technical Engagement team. Most of the team members did similar work in other teams before this. [176]

Problems

• Some translatable pages are showing old translations instead of latest ones. The cause of this issue has been fixed. We will update all pages automatically to show the latest translations. [177]

Changes later this week

• There will be a new special page named PasswordPolicies. This page gives information about the password rules for each user group on that wiki. [178]
• A new way to see moved paragraphs in diffs is coming to most wikis. This is to make it easier to find the moved paragraphs and the changes in them. [179]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 May. It will be on all wikis from 31 May (calendar).
• Wikis can enable Citoid to provide automatic reference look-up in the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. This is complex. The tool will now disable itself if the configuration isn't correct. It has warned about this in the JavaScript console since February. Check that your wiki is configured correctly. You can ask for help if you need it. [180]

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 29 May at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 30 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Content Translation drafts which have not been updated in over a year will be removed. This allows other users to translate those articles. [181]
• A survey is collecting information on what users think about how Wikimedia wiki pages are loaded. This information could be used in future development. [182]
• Some wikis will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 30 May and 13 June. Wikis with fewer than 100 linter issues in the main namespace in all high-priority linter categories will switch. This includes Wikidata. Tidy will probably be removed on all wikis in the first week of July. [183][184]

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

12:40, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

AWB run

Why are you removing alt text? Please use {{ping}} if you respond here. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:23, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

@Koavf: When removing images and relying on the best image from WD, the alt text cannot be certain to align with the image. If we need something like that, then we will need to get it from WD by the legend component. Apart from that ... COI. Also note that AWB is just the tool here, it is all manual as I need to check for image presence, so I am reviewing every change, so this was a purposeful choice. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:23, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, if I misunderstand you but you're saying that you deliberately removed alt text? Are you doing that en masse and not replacing it? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:34, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

It is quite unusual for us to use alt text, it was primarily done where we had a group shoot to identify individuals. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:38, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

If you'll permit an interjection, I don't expect we'll ever get alt text from wikidata, because alt text is supposed to capture the intent of including the image in a given textual context. There's a good visual example at w:WP:MOSALT that postulates using a picture of the Queen of England in a fashion article, with alt text "An elderly woman wearing a black hat". Hesperian 05:45, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Alt? Oh, I thought he was meaning "image_caption". Duh! Thanks Hesperian. Koavf: there is not even an alt parameter in {{author}} so stop trying to add it. Why do we even have to go around this roundabout, you should be able to read the doc page as well as me? — billinghurst sDrewth 07:56, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

We should have alt text for all images for Web accessibility. Why wouldn't we? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:24, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

If we wish to fill alt, it IMNSHO should pick up the default caption as the alt text, or image_caption where used, and if we ever get to update the WD call, it should use media legend. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:02, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Alt text and captions serve two different purposes. Captions supplement an image and alt text replaces it. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:41, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

It is known. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:48, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks!

I’m finished with the Swift 19-volume set. Over the last 5 years (my anniversary was two days ago) I have touched each of the 8600 pages at least twice, and many of them several times, as I learned how to create legible text out of codes. While I learned a lot from the Wikisource Help pages, I couldn’t have completed the volumes without the help of Greek and Latin experts, someone who created a beautiful piece of sheet music (at the end of volume 16), and several (many?) persons who helped with columns and margins and other fancy page layouts. My biggest thanks, though, are reserved for Beeswaxcandle (talk), Hesperian, billinghurst sDrewth, —Maury (talk), and EncycloPetey (talk) – all of you have been incredible with your help and encouragement!

I’m not sure what I’ll tackle next. It may be something fun (are any of Mark Twain’s works waiting?) or other early 18th century works (I might as well continue to use the huge data base of links to people and works of the era). For today, though, I am sending Swift out to the future, hoping that people will once again remember him for more than Gulliver.
Susanarb (talk) 05:15, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

@Susanarb: aw shucks. What you have produced is truly magnificent, though I do think that you need to add your work to Template:new texts and show it off to the world. Things like this need to be showcased! Have we also got all these works plugged into Wikidata. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! Shimmy on the inside, job well done. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:24, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

psst https://twitter.com/billinghurstwik/status/1002087169085788160

Abuse filters

Hey! I've reworked all the filters that needed obvious improvements. I added comments explaining the changes. I've also got the stale filter bot task running, you can view the report at User:MusikBot/StaleFilters/Report. Some of those haven't been tripped in a long time, so you might consider disabling them. I have the offset (number of days after which to consider a filter stale) set to 6 months. Also note the number of stale filters is written to User:MusikBot/StaleFilters/Total. On enwiki we show this at MediaWiki:Abusefilter-status, so that you can easily see what needs tending to at the top of Special:AbuseFilter. The code would be something like:

There {{plural:{{User:MusikBot/StaleFilters/Total}}|is|are}} [[User:MusikBot/StaleFilters/Report|{{User:MusikBot/StaleFilters/Total}} stale {{plural:{{User:MusikBot/StaleFilters/Total}}|filter|filters}}]] with no hits in the past {{User:MusikBot/StaleFilters/Offset}} days ({{purge}})

producing:

There are 6 stale filters with no hits in the past 180 days ()

Kind regards, — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:05, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

On two JavaScript tools

Hi, regarding your unused image administration issue as of phab:T195188 and ResultListSort gadget some input below.

• MediaWiki:Gadget-ResultListSort.js
  • The gadget tests the namespace first, and if not Special: immediately terminates.
  • You might save user resources by providing the following clause:

if ( mw.config.get( "wgNamespaceNumber" )  ===  -1 ) {
   mw.loader.load("https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=User:PerfektesChaos/js/resultListSort/r.js&action=raw&bcache=1&ctype=text/javascript");
}

• dependencies
  • Well, they don’t help much, but don’t do any harm.
  • If the gadget decides that it shall start real work it will request them anyway and wait if necessary.
  • As you probably know the effect of the declaration of dependencies= is that those modules will be provided as one single package collected for the entire page rather than transferred in pieces via network, which saves overhead for single requests and deliveries.
    • user,user.options − mandatory part of every page, registered or anonymous
    • mediawiki.util − required on certainly all pages somewhere; very popular
    • mediawiki.user − most probably already requested in many pages, for banner advertising and various other purposes
  • The only effect might be that the initial execution of the gadget is slightly postponed.

You might try the following fairy thing:

if ( mw.config.get( "wgCanonicalSpecialPageName" )  ===  "Blankpage"   &&
     mw.config.get( "wgTitle" ).indexOf( "/filesMetaData" )  >  0 ) {
   mw.loader.load("https://de.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?title=User:PerfektesChaos/js/filesMetaData/d.js&action=raw&bcache=1&ctype=text/javascript");
}

• Then visit Special:Blankpage/filesMetaData and wait a little while.
• It just jumped off the egg, is pure BETA and has no documentation yet but will explain itself.
• During the next months I am going to complete that,

Enjoy --PerfektesChaos (talk) 13:47, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Laurence Eusden

On en.WP there is a portrait w:File:Eusden.JPG marked as a candidate for transfer to Commons. If this image meets the requirements, could you help transwiki the image? Eusden is the only poet laureate in the current PotM whose Author page is lacking an image. (No, I can't do this myself. I've looked over the suggested process and can't get it to cooperate with my Mac. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:12, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Never mind. Since the image didn't originate with the uploader and has no source information there, I'll just upload directly rather than transwiki it. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:19, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

There is no import ability for images, you can import the page (file data), though not the image. For images you have to use the image transfer processes which are typically Toolforge bots. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:27, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

I did import c:File:John Beames civil servant in British India, author.jpg from enWP. The imported file included the image and original upload log. Hrishikes (talk) 03:13, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Terminology difference, that was transferred, not imported. Transfer is using third party tool, import is via Special:import. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:43, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

OK. Hrishikes (talk) 04:10, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Connected

Internet is up and running at our new location. Who might know what works I am legally able to upload/edit at the English Wikisource from our current non-US location? Not sure if that is even a consideration. Any insight? Londonjackbooks (talk) 12:54, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Who knows where you are, and could prove it anyway? If you use the IA-upload tool, are you even uploading a work, or is it a bot just doing it in your name US -> US. Of academic interest only IMNSHO. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:15, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Ok. Sounds good. Thanks. Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:08, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

That is, if I explained my question sufficiently. For example, my question is with regard to copyright law in certain countries... not with regard to identity. How do I know what laws to follow with regard to uploading/editing of works? How would I know/find out? Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:14, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that was my reply. If you are uploading local works to your location, then maybe, maybe we should explore this. In 90 days the only data that will sit beside your upload is your account name and data that you add to the edit. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:22, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks for clarifying. Londonjackbooks (talk) 04:41, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

For instance, am I able to continue editing Index:Lisbon and Cintra, Inchbold, 1907.djvu while in Portugal? The book was published in London in 1907; author died in 1939. Or even Index:The Muse in Arms, Osborn (ed), 1917.djvu (also pub London, 1917). At your leisure, I realize it is late there. No hurries on an answer, and feel free to pass my questions off to someone else :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 13:18, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

If it is at Commons, then you can edit. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:34, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Good news. Thanks. Londonjackbooks (talk) 18:33, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-23

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 MonoBook skin has been optimised for mobile devices. It now looks different. [185]
• Planet Wikimedia collects blogs about Wikimedia. It will now use the Rawdog feed aggregator to do this instead of Planet. [186][187]
• Redirect links in Special:WhatLinksHere now link to the original page and not the target page. This was done earlier and changed the used messages on some pages. This was a problem for wikis that customized the message. A new change fixed this by using the old messages with one more parameter for customization. Wikis that already changed their customized messages will have to move the customization back again. [188]

Problems

• You will not be able to edit some wikis between 06:00 and 06:30 UTC on 13 June. You can see if your wiki is one of them.
• MassMessage did not work 24–28 May. This is also why last week's Tech News was late. [189]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 June. It will be on all wikis from 7 June (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 5 June at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 6 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The new filters for edit review tools and interface for watchlists will leave beta. This is planned to happen in June or early July. [190][191]

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

21:54, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

override_author

This shouldn't be needed except in places like Header template. For linking text within a page, there is not reason for it. You might want to check whatever script you're running. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:22, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Power fail had me reset AWB, and I obviously had an old tick box in the settings that I missed for an old disambiguation. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:08, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Media legend and alt text

We've had a couple of people ask about "alt" text for images. While it makes no sense for us to add such things here, there is a solution I think. Since we're taking images (usually) from Wikidata now, could we pull the "alt" text from the English media legend, if it exists? Then, people who favor alt text would be encouraged to add a short description at Wikidata rather than here, and everyone would benefit. Is this worthwhile, do you think? --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:21, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

There is a conversation above about it with Koavf and Hesperian making comment. I wasn't going to be having that sort of policy-setting sort of conversation here, though happy to have comment. Putting in alt= text is easy technically, it becomes the conversation about what we do. To keep it simple, I would suggest that if it is imperative for something that we implement alt={{PAGENAME}} as a base within {{author}}, and then if there is some consensus on more, then we look to how that happens. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:36, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Joseph Tom Burgess

Thanks for helping with spelling errors. Clarke was a bad one, imo.

I can see that there must have been a problem with Author:Joseph Tom Burgess, because you were able to move it. What I can't see is what the problem was. A weird space maybe? --RaboKarbakian (talk) 22:48, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

@RaboKarbakian: Joesph. If you need to see the detail you can look in the page's history and/or the move log. Otherwise <shrug> it happens to all of us (been there done that, that dratted typoing gets me), it is why we have an open system, processes of review, and understanding that it is our shared system. As you probably have noted, getting the authors organised is a bit of a passion. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:54, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, you are really good. Crazy good, maybe. I actually decided that it would be easier to tackle the TOC Module than try to match or even begin to keep up with you--and I usually enjoy and don't back down from a challenge.

I did check the log. I cut and pasted and compared them on a text editor which was armed with a monotone font, all before bothering you. (Billinghurst moved page Author:Joesph Tom Burgess to Author:Joseph Tom Burgess.... I could find nothing, though I know it is there.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 23:02, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that it is great what you are doing, and you are learning our quirks well. Please don't shy away, as there is so much that needs doing, and getting it 80-100% there is waaaaaay better than not attempting anything. It is a wiki, and we incrementally improve it. And to note that I am still fixing some of the errors from the late 2000s from pages I created then. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:38, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Looking for unused PDF

Your phab:T195188 issue seems to me reasonably supported by filesMetaData@PerfektesChaos.

Enjoy --PerfektesChaos (talk) 10:42, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-24

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

• In the Wikipedia app for Android or iOS users can create reading lists. The reading lists can be seen on different devices if you are logged in to your account. There is now a browser extension so you can add pages to your reading list from a web browser. At the moment it works with Firefox and Chrome. [192]
• There is a new version of Pywikibot. Pywikibot is a tool to automate tasks on MediaWiki wikis. [193]

Problems

• The MonoBook skin was changed to make it work better for mobile users. This caused some problems. The change was rolled back to fix them. The new version is now back on the wikis. MonoBook users can opt out from the new responsive design. [194]

Changes later this week

• The new filters for edit review tools and interface for watchlists will leave beta. For most wikis this will happen on 18 June. For the rest it will happen on 25 June. [195][196]

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 June. It will be on all wikis from 14 June (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the Readers Web team IRC office hour. There you can discuss tools to contribute on the mobile web for the existing MediaWiki skins. The meeting will be on 18 June at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 12 June at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• You will be able to move local wiki files to Commons and keep their original data intact. This is planned to come to the first wikis in June.

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

21:55, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

{{NSRW article link}} RETF replacements

Recording what was used for AWB for record keeping purposes. (not seeking comment)

<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\{\{small-caps\|\[\[The New Student's Reference Work\/([^\|]+?)\|[^\]]+?\]\]\}\}" replace="{{NSRW article link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\[\[The New Student's Reference Work\/([^\|]+?)\|{{(sc|small-caps)\|([^\]]+?)}}\]\]" replace="{{NSRW article link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\[\[The New Student's Reference Work\/([^\|]+?)\|<span style="font-variant:small-caps">([^\<]+?)\<\/span\>\]\]" replace="{{NSRW article link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\[\[The New Student's Reference Work\/([^\|]+?)\|(q.( |&nbsp;)v.)\]\]" replace="{{NSRW article link|$2|$1|nosc=yes}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\[\[The New Student's Reference Work\/([^\|]+?)\|([^\]]+?)\]\]" replace="{{NSRW article link|$2|$1|nosc=yes}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="( |\|)([A-Z])\<small\>([A-Z]+?)\<\/small\>" replace="$1{{subst:ucfirst:{{subst:lc:$2$3}}}}" />

— billinghurst sDrewth 13:00, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

link templates list — AWB RETF

(as above)

<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?(\'+)?\[\[The New Student's Reference Work\/([^\|]+?)\|.+" replace="* {{NSRW link|$2}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[Collier's New Encyclopedia \(1921\)\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{Collier's link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[1911 Encyclopædia Britannica\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{EB1911 link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* \[\[Author:([^\|]+)\|[^\]]+\]\] \(\d{4}\), ?"?\[\[Popular Science Monthly\/Volume (\d{1,3})\/([^\/]+?)\/([^\|]+?)\|.+" replace="* {{PSM link|$4|$2|$3|author=$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[Complete Encyclopaedia of Music\/([A-Z])\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{CEM link|$1|$2}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{DGRA link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[A Dictionary of the English Language\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{DEL link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[Catholic Encyclopedia \(1913\)\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{CE link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[Easton's Bible Dictionary \(1897\)\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{EBD link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[(.*?) \(DNB00\).+" replace="* {{DNB link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[(.*?) \(DNB(01|12)\).+" replace="* {{DNB link|year=$2|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="(\*.{0,5}\[\[Encyclopaedia Biblica.+)" replace="<!--$1-->" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[Littell\'s Living Age\/Volume (\d+)\/Issue (\d{1,4})\/([^\|]+)\|[^\]]+\]\]" replace="* {{Littell's link|$3|$1|$2}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{SBDEL link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[The Atlantic Monthly\/Volume (\d+)\/Number (\d+)\/([^\|]+)\|[^\]]+\]\]" replace="*{{Atlantic Monthly link|$3|$1|$2}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[Weird Tales\/Volume (\d+)\/Issue (\d+)\/([^\|]+)\|[^\]]+\]\]" replace="*{{Weird Tales link|$1|$2|$3}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[Century Magazine\/Volume (\d+)\/Issue (\d{1,4})\/([^\|]+)\|[^\]]+\]\]" replace="* {{Century Magazine link|$3|$1|$2}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[A Dictionary of Music and Musicians\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{DMM link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="{{EB9 link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="{{DGRG link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[The American Cyclopædia \(1879\)\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{AmCyc link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[The Encyclopedia Americana \(1920\)\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{Americana link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[Appletons\' Cyclopædia of American Biography\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{Appletons' link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[A Compendium of Irish Biography\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{IrishBio link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[Men-at-the-Bar\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{Men-at-the-Bar|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[Men of the Time, eleventh edition\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="*{{Men of the Time link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{DGRBM link|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[(.+) \(EAm06\)\|.+" replace="* {{Americana link|year=1906|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[CIA World Fact Book, 2004\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{factbook link|year=2004|$1}}" />
<Typo word="<enter a name>" find="\* ?"?\[\[The World Factbook \((\d{4})\)\/([^\|]+)\|.+" replace="* {{factbook link|year=$1|$2}}" />

— billinghurst sDrewth 15:18, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Tweetdeck access on mobile?

I would assume not, due to its complex nature, but is there no way that you know of to access Tweetdeck on mobile? I've only wished to do so on a couple occasions in the past, so it is not an imperative. Londonjackbooks (talk) 06:51, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Supposedly you can do it from the existing Twitter app if you believe something like this page, however, I don't get those options. @Samwilson: are you accessing through android or iphone app? — billinghurst sDrewth 07:45, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I can get to Tweetdeck's login page, but once I log in, it takes me straight to my Twitter account with no access to other accounts. Thanks for checking :) Will wait to hear anything from Samwilson. Londonjackbooks (talk) 07:58, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

@Londonjackbooks, @Billinghurst: No, I've not figured out how to do anything with multiple accounts from mobile. I just use Tweetdeck on desktop. Sam Wilson 00:45, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Hmm, @Peteforsyth: You seem to wear many hats at Twitter, do you have any idea? Londonjackbooks (talk) 05:06, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

• Does this help? https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/08/twitter-enables-account-sharing-in-its-mobile-app-powered-by-tweetdeck-teams/ -Pete (talk) 16:18, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Been there, and it says

… Once a part of a Team, Twitter for iOS and Android users can tweet, Direct Message, Like and Retweet from a Team account using the main Twitter mobile app.

and in the app, from the authorised account @billinghurstwik I get no visualisation of @wikisource_en. From tweetdeck, all is good. Where it says

“

Can I use Teams outside of TweetDeck? Yes, you can Tweet, Direct Message, like, or Retweet from a team account from the Twitter for iOS or Android apps.

”

I have an absolute blank on how that works. I cannot fathom it, and that has become three of us. I cannot see how I add it, as looking up accounts takes passwords. <shrug> — billinghurst sDrewth 02:29, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@Peteforsyth: What Billinghurst said :) Lots about the fact that you can use a supposed app, nothing about how. Thanks for looking though, and if I am missing anything from /related to your link, please let me know! Londonjackbooks (talk) 04:30, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome, mate.

I have been depending on wikipedia for info and entertainment for more than 10 years, its high time I give some back to the community. Jamerson fargone (talk) 10:36, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

@Jamerson fargone: Hah! Welcome here, less entertainment and more cooperation with only the occasional dust-up here. We do try to find texts with scan-backing, as that allows two-pass proofreading. WS:S will be helpful for questions. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:42, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-25

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

• Syntax highlighting has been a beta feature on Wikimedia wikis with text written from left to right. It is now a normal feature. It is based on CodeMirror. [197]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 19 June at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 20 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Some old web browsers will not be able to read the Wikimedia wikis. This is because they use an insecure way to connect to them. This means that we get less security for everyone else too. This affects about 0.08% of all traffic to the Wikimedia wikis. This affects for example those who read Wikipedia on a PlayStation 3. [198][199]
• The new filters for edit review tools and interface for watchlists will leave beta. Because there is no new MediaWiki version this week it will happen on 25 June for most wikis. For the rest it will happen in early July. [200][201]
• All wikis that have not already done so will switch to use the Remex parsing library on 5 July. This is to replace Tidy. You can help fix remaining errors. [202]

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

21:47, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Wikisource:Books

Does this page (and its subpages) serve any real purpose anymore? It doesn't seem to be maintained by anyone. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:57, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikisource.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2017-06&end=2018-05&pages=Wikisource:Books would indicate that it serves a purpose. The usefulness and correctness of the page are different questions with different answers, especially in 2018. It is old and there are better ways to do it, especially with Wikidata being available. I would definitely think that the targets of the links are of less value. Heaps of scope for better, and heaps of scope for automating stuff from Wikidata pulls to that space. The target is a great target. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:46, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Wondering

The last couple Wikisource Twitter posts since the 20th have been posted from the Billinghurst account. Is that what was meant, or were they meant to be scheduled using Wikisource_en's account? Londonjackbooks (talk) 08:25, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Pretty certain that is just a problem between the seat and the keyboard. OOOORRRR I am such a glory hog. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:06, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Londonjackbooks (talk) 11:07, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-26

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

• PAWS, our JupyterHub system, got an upgrade and a logo. Several bugs should be fixed.

Problems

• When a link text was in italics or had other formatting you could sometimes not edit it in the visual editor. This has now been fixed. [203][204]

Changes later this week

• Content translation users who translate between any two of Arabic, English, French, Japanese and Russian will be asked to be part of a research project. This is to create better tools for translating articles. [205]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 June. It will be on all wikis from 28 June (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 26 June at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 27 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

23:10, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

validation blues (should be green)

Hello there! Suggestive programs for special day exercises/Lincoln Day

I changed my workflow today and made all of the links on the page before putting it into the main namespace.

If you are only going to validate the one page, I can go ahead and just undo it. I am not happy about redoing it. Perhaps this is the moment that validation means nothing to me.

They have been a problem, not all of the headings are the same as the title. It seemed *useful* to me to link them one article at a time.

So, I am looking at undoing and releasing my soul from all caring or serious taking of validation or perhaps you have a suggestion on how I am to proceed from here.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 02:56, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: Maybe you know how to handle this properly? File:Missing page.jpg is the last page of that pdf. I thought (maybe) if I used {{book}} and put the pdf file in image and the page number in imagepage that it would auto-magically add the page to the display.

Now at File:School Song Knapsack-0149.jpg. File fixes should be requested at WS:S in the relevant section. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:41, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

And that also is the reason I was proceeding cautiously, the unfortunate naming of the file. Another person has to clean that up, making it the one big mistake today. I did not want to make another.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 03:32, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

@RaboKarbakian: have a squiz at special:permalink/7529154. Here we are using accepted templates and expected tags that make things consistent. It would be unusual for us to pull a <section> tag as it obfuscates page numbering, and I only do it when <pages> won't work, or I don't want the page numbering. It is not our practice to force formatting like justification, that would normally be left to the default layouts, or people wanting to force it through their own common.js. Philosophically we have tried to allow people have their choice to impose, so you hardly see us force fonts, hard sizes, ... Similarly we have tried to move away from old html labels, and allow for css to rule.

To your opening statements, I have not made changes that have affected your ability to transclude. Your section covered the whole page, so just transclude the page without mention of a section, that section marking was superfluous. If you are referring to the coding changes, then at any point someone was going to come along and validate according to the style guide, it is why we have it, and why we point all users to it. I will have to look at your second statement set separately later. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:10, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

I am very sorry I over-reacted. Thank you for your time and patience.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 13:11, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Task: Index:Hamel Telegraph history England 1859.pdf

Need to get the bot to go and touch all the pages to get the proofread status to show. If that fails then may have to null edit. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:52, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Done pywikibot script is

 jsub -quiet -N cron-tools.wikisource-bot-touch-broken1 python pwb.py touch.py -lang:en -family:wikisource -prefixindex:Page:name_name_name...

— billinghurst sDrewth 03:24, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

DC & AD

Do the new {{BC}} and {{AD}} work the way we'd like them too? Looking for a second opinion before saying anything. -- EncycloPetey 03:28, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: Not that approach. @Beleg Tâl: Published style manuals say that BC and AD should be capitals as they abbreviate Before Christ and Anno Domini, of course we may size them smaller after that. Whereas am/pm, ante-meridian and post-meridian are lower case that can be capitalised with "sc". These things do matter.

With regard to a universal with our works and space; some have full spaces, some have none, some may have thin spaces. A user can use a template if it reflects their work. As a template works better than bald, as it does at least allow us to have an informed default. Whether we would pursue that for our users is a different matter. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:45, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

This template is the simplest way I could think of to have upper-case AD and BC display as small-caps, as they are displayed in so many works. I put a thin space for a compromise with spaced and non-spaced versions but this can be modified by parameter in future. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 11:29, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl: Except that they are treated as lower case by the software. Copy-paste the contents of the displayed result, and you get lower case. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:38, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

One would think so, but the displayed text matches searches and copy/pastes as uppercase. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 15:40, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not talking about the displayed text. I'm saying that if I copy-paste, I get lowercase letters. If you can uppercase copying and pasting, that's great. However, I do not. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:19, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Mistyped: I meant to say that I got a different result, not seem to doubt what you observed. That it matched a case sensitive search is merely interesting. These templates are as cute as a pail full of kittens … CYGNIS INSIGNIS 18:03, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: is it a browser thing? It definitely copy-pastes as uppercase for me. A.D. -> A. D. Windows 10, Firefox. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 22:44, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Possibly; or platform-specific. I'm using Firefox on a Mac. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:46, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

What is wrong with {{smaller}} with upper case? It works and is nice and simple. In fact, it is what is in place across our wiki. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:45, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

utf-8 as I know it

I am going to quit tonight, though, I have an hour to kill. I have been gathering my memories of utf-8 and character rendering in general as I have known it since 2001. I am going to share this with you here and now, instead of making new sections, etc.

The hackers I first encountered (this is before "cli" was added to some softwares) were mostly from Europe. They wanted to read their mail with first, nice fonts. A way to serve ttf fonts was worked on. I endured three different ways to configure fonts on my computer before ending up with what we have been using now for a while. They read their mail from terminals or terminal-emulators. html4 had all the entities needed, but the hackers are (or were) the kind of snobs who were not fond of html mail.

ttf then otf truly improved life on the terminal emulators. Hinted fonts are very nice on the eye compared to what we were using before. The expansion of the characters that a font can render, the unicode consortium who were doing this task, had the greatest of my respect. utf-8 was very very good for the cosmopolitan world of hackers.

That was before emoji. I consider emoji to be a personal punishment for me in particular for straying from my use of html entities and into using the actual font characters. Probably I am wrong but it is a something in the greater world that annoys me at least as much as me not following documentation that is less than 5 months old annoys you.

I am being annoyed by the trashing of my once beautiful world.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 02:43, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

This is not about utf-8, this is about not using curly single or double quotes. I have linked to the Wikisource:style manual and referred you to this document on multiple occasions about how we do things. If you want to restart the conversation about our style, and adapting it, then go for it, the place to start it is WS:S [The conversation has been had, and had, over the years.], blithely continuing with numerous elements that are outside our style and practice "just because" should be expected to be challenged, and can be expected to be changed. We are reproducing works in the web environment, where we maintain the words of the author(s). The stylistic variations of printers and compositers that produced a book are not maintained, that has proved problematic for the web and the multitude of devices, fonts, ... that the web throws at us. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:57, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

This "restart" is because I had a spare hour to fill due to the attention my work was getting. Amd I have spent some time thinking about the difference between dogma and instinct in the interim. Instinct is a reaction to a situation. Dogma is when people do not really know why.

* It would help me greatly if you could show me that the <pages /> is not just a pretty wrapper for {{#lst:articleX|chapter1}}. Metawiki is gpl? The greatest requirement for gnu/gpl is the source being available.

I am sorry to say that I really need to see that this is not just one persons goal, no matter how respectable or accomplished this person is. One person can clear all of the talent from a project far easier than he can make people leave all their knowledge at the door and use only his or hers.

Software, which is stupid, especially when compared to a living being, does not work a few hours earlier and then cease to work without someone or something changing it. This is a bigger fact than previous yet apparently not public discussions, as a link to these discussions was requested by me from you. It would be nice to know the agenda of whomever was messing with the software yesterday.

You are right about max-width. I need reminding about that.

I have starred the important thing. I know the license which you are using, it allows me to ask for the source and I would say that for my compliance it is a requirement that the full terms of the license be demonstrated. The source code that demonstrates your claims. --RaboKarbakian (talk) 13:36, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

<sigh> I have said it to you. Page numbering feeds from Index pages to main namespace pages through use of pages. I haven't said what I thought was obvious, that these hyperlinked page numbers are the means to enter Page: ns pages from a work; for validation, and other proofreading. pages also allows for an absolute string of pages to be transcluded, and it provides a standard and understandable means for all users to be able to see and to undertake the task. That said, on some occasions it is not more than a glorified wrapper for #lst, it is also the consistent wrapper that the community has adopted. Noting that the use of {{page}} is regularly problematic and our typical means of losing pages from transcluded works. We are a community and the community consensus sets the standard. We have learnt the value of KISS. We have seen things with users get themselves into horrible messes.

Now if you want to accuse me of a one-person crusade, then you are approaching a FRO. I am not here to explain every freaking decision that this community has made to arrive at the style guide over the years, with the development of components, etc. You may just have to take experience and lessons learnt in this game for granted. OR, go back through the years of discussions, and the revisions. If you think that I am having fun updating your works, NO. I had hoped that I could lead and demonstrate. I will keep updating as I have seen the consequences of code drift, and the use of problematic templates, some of which still plague us today as these experimental templates seemed like a good idea at the time.

With regard to software issues, ... WS:S for what has been reported locally; and no-one was playing with the software yesterday, though the consequences of earlier changes did come through in the past few days as things propagated. The place for support is the community at Scriptorium, a plethora of people with knowledge and history of this place. If you want to find ProofreadPage code then mw:Extension:ProofreadPage — billinghurst sDrewth 14:02, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

I am sorry that you are spending time typing of sighing instead of showing your claims. The recent claim is that mobile devices are unable to handle html5! It is a reasonable claim perhaps, but without THE SOURCE to back your claim or a link to the previous discussion I am unable to know that your claims are true! Certainly you can remember these discussions or the date of them and find them in the history here. You are representing all of the people who participated in these discussions.

If mobile devices are not handling html5 or simply ignoring it, the whole structure here and many many of the templates will need to be deleted. Please be very cautious with these claims.

My understanding of this comes from a conversation a very long time ago. It made sense. Working with it did not involve obedience to one persons words but to an overlying and underlying logic. I can provide a name and an approximate date if you need it. This understanding has followed me and helped me to sort through software logic problems. And determine the mental facilities of discussions I have lurked on.

Would you like to see the apache help for Server Side Includes? That combined with the storyline of Lawrence of Arabia might assist you to understand what I think has happened here. Apache (the software) is not GPL or GNU, yet they have made their source accessible and the documentation is not bad. This thing we are discussing is SSI and that <pages /> is a pretty wrapper around the php that accomplishes the task. I have not looked at the code. Please, tell me specifically where I am mistaken. I require an expert.

It is easier to change software than it is to change a mind and a persons hands-on experiences. Let me know if you would like to see the documentation for SSI. That is sincere and should improve your understanding of software we are sharing here.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 16:45, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

xwiki abuse

@Billinghurst: Hi Billinghurst, I'm writing you here because I've seen this is the main wiki where you edit and because here you're an abusefilter and sysop. I think I've found a few proxies used recently by a single user who hides behind them to make similar unconstructive edits in different pages, and a few socks used to do the same kind of edits created recently. If I write here the suspicious proxies IP ranges, will you be able to block them (as they're forbidden on Wikipedia) and do the same with the socks created over such ranges (as they weren't created for reasons according to community standards)? Let me know, please, I'd like to be helpful to the project by reporting vandals in bad faith who use proxies and socks such as this one! Kbstudio0121 (talk) 08:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

@Kbstudio0121: The stewards are the only people who can manage crosswiki vandals comprehensively, especially with regard to abused proxies, so please make your reports to m:SRG—I am no longer a steward so restricted in what I can do. If you need to discuss crosswiki abuse matters with me, then meta is the better place to have such discussions at m:User talk:Billinghurst/2018 where matters can be coordinated, or I can point you to each of the places set for managing abuse. This is the place that I talk wikisource. :-) — billinghurst sDrewth 08:59, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for replying! Well, since the vandal has edited only in en.wikipedia as far as I know, and since you've already read my message, may I tell you about this issue so that you can advise me where or whom to ask? Kbstudio0121 (talk) 10:44, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Problems at English Wikipedia belong at English Wikipedia. I suggest that reporting to w:WP:ANI is the means to progress. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:49, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I'll try as you said! So you do think it's possible that, following this way, admins will check whether the socks I'm talking about were used over the proxy IP ranges I'm talking about or not, right? Kbstudio0121 (talk) 10:59, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

If you are demonstrating that there is abuse taking place, then admins will be interested. If the admins think that something needs escalating to checkusers, then they will do so. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:51, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Understood :-) Kbstudio0121 (talk) 12:09, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

fix Template:Do not move to Commons to work fully

1. not to show templates in top cat, only for other cats
2. drop out to able to be moved based on year

seems that expiry has been set, +1. Either change guidance to include + 1, or reset the expiries. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:09, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Uploading a handwritten diary to Wikidata

I'm most active in Wikipedia and Wikicommons and not so clued up with Wikisource and I have been approached by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, they are looking to donate one of Nelson Mandela's handwritten diary to Wikisource, Mandela wrote this diary in the 60s while receiving military training in some African countries. Anyway they've asked me to show them how to upload it to Wikisource but I'm not well clued up with that process. Some of his works were published here ( not on a free licence), Is there somewhere I can read to see how to go about uploading this diary to Wikisource? Bobbyshabangu (talk) 06:53, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

@Bobbyshabangu: What a magnificent gift to the public. Generally I would be encouraging that the Mandela Foundation to process through the Commons licencing C:Com:copyright tags and c:Com:OTRS process, as if the US and originating countries' copyright is managed then all okay; generally we would only upload a work here due to it being US public domain, though not origianting country. If something is uploaded there in either a DjVu format, or a PDF format, we can take that work and set up a transcription project here. Such would be an open project, and I can say that the community would be willing to assist. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:30, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

billinghurst I forgot to mention that the reason they are looking to donate this diary to Wikisource under a free license is because Mandela's centenary birthday of 18 July coincides with the start of Wikimania in Cape Town. Thank you so much I'll advice and perhaps show them as such. Bobbyshabangu (talk) 08:46, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

@Bobbyshabangu: Magic! I would be happy to set it up, and raise it with the community. It will take time to proofread and validate, though I think that this sort of work just needs some shepherding as I think that there will be volunteers, and probably not just locally. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:06, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

upload query

Hi, excuse me bothering you about this. I believe there is path at Commons to upload our files directly, bypassing the need to pull and push the data. I also want the large jp2 (zipped, rich jpg) data, and wonder if that can appear at Commons and I can grab individual page for local image manipulation. I have never bother to pursue this path, but my data metering is currently expensive. I am only interested in one article, in this volume which the journal host Taylor Francis has paywalled. Hope this is clear, cheers. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 11:54, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

@Cygnis insignis: Are you meaning toollabs:ia-upload for pulling djvu files from IA? It enables the book template to be used, though it still needs correcting. No to jp2, they are not acceptable files at commons, more info at c:Commons:File types. We still rely on Hesperian to pull them here by labelling with {{raw image}}. We don't have such a script usable by Wikisource-bot. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:13, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. That is the thing I recalled, but the jpg file is the heavy lifting. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 12:28, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

@Cygnis insignis: then upload the djvu, mark the images, and hassle Hesperian when he gets back from school hols to do the upload. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:31, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-27

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 database for tags will be changed. This will happen on 2 July on French Wikipedia and 9 July on all other wikis. Please report if recent changes get slower or you can't save edits. This could especially affect editors who use the database on ToolForge. [206]

Problems

• Last week's MediaWiki update was rolled back. This was because of a database problem. [207]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 3 July at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 4 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

00:46, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Expiry year

If you are correct in making this edit [208] then we should adjust all of our licensing templates. Right now, if an author died in 1948, our {{PD/1923}} licensing template will say:

Which means that it is not in PD in the UK, and should not be uploaded to Commons. The template changes in the year following. So, either your edit is in error, or our templates are. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Several Indian books were touched in this series of edits, so I can say this: in India, calendar year is followed for copyright. If an author died in any month of 1957, 60 years period is calculated from January 1 of 1958 to December 31 of 2017. The work comes into PD on January 1 of 2018. Hrishikes (talk) 17:29, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

As I understand things, the same is true for the UK, which is why H. G. Wells' works entered PD in the UK in January 2017, though he died in August 1946. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:18, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: No no no. We had just had some incorrect usage of the templates, and numbers by me, as I thought it worked the same as our PD templates. One series has < and the other has <= so one changes at the end of a year, and the other changes at the beginning of a year. So think here that we set a year of death in PD, and we set an end of copyright in expiry. Both still apply in the year after. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:35, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Ah, so the various templates (PD, renewal, notCommons) treat the expiry date differently. Well, that's not confusing at all... :P --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:57, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Oh, you are questioning the operating practice, not the actions. I did go through that point of difference (fbomb cussing) and decided to fix the problem first, then after that we can look at how we manage the difference in approach. Changing the practice in a use of template could just lead to it being broken the other way, and that is a community decision, not a sole operator. Yep, it is dumb, but hey, we do that with strings of templates where we rely on positional params, and invert their order. (fgo figure). — billinghurst sDrewth 04:01, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Structured Data on Commons Newsletter - Summer 2018

Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter and contribute to the next issue. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!

Community updates

• Our dedicated IRC channel: wikimedia-commons-sd ^webchat
• Since our last newsletter, the Structured Data team has moved into designing and building prototypes for various features. The use of multilingual captions in the UploadWizard and on the file page has been researched, designed, discussed, and built out for use. Behind the scenes, back-end work on search is taking place and designs are being drawn up for the front-end. There will soon be specifications published for the use of the first Wikidata property on Commons, "Depicts," and a prototype is to be released to go along with that.

Things to do / input and feedback requests

• A workshop on what Wikidata properties Commons will need. This workshop will be open for the entire month of July 2018 at minimum.

• Join the community focus group!
• Do you want to help out translating messages about Structured Data on Commons from English to your own language? Sign up on the translators page.
• Contribute to the next newsletter.

Discussions held

• In late February there was a discussion around how Commons generally sees data being modeled.

• The first discussion on copyright and licensing with Commons was held in March. This was a "high level" discussion, there will be a consultation later this summer about the deeper mapping of copyright and licensing in a structured way.
• In April there was an exercise for GLAM partners in metadata and ontology mapping.
• A discussion about the design for Multilingual Captions on the file page took place in May. You can still review the designs and leave feedback.
• There was an IRC office hour in June to discuss progress so far and future plans.

Wikimania 2018

• Three sessions about Structured Commons are officially scheduled for Wikimania 2018 - Cape Town, South Africa - July 2018.
  • Wikimedia Commons and GLAM needs around the world (Friday 20 July, 10:30 local time)
  • Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons and knowledge equity (Friday 20 July, 14:00 local time)
  • Design challenge workshop: How can multilingual structured metadata bring knowledge equity to Commons? (Friday 20 July, 14:30 local time)
• Structured Data on Commons is also a focus area during the Wikimania 2018 Hackathon. We will, among other things, do 'live' modelling of Wikidata properties for Commons - an offline spin-off of the community consultation taking place on wiki.

Partners and allies

• We are still welcoming (more) staff from GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) to become part of our long-term focus group (phabricator task T174134). You will be kept in the loop of the project, and receive regular small surveys and requests for feedback. Get in touch with Sandra if you're interested - your input in helping to shape this project is highly valued!
• Structured Data on Commons was presented to GLAM audiences during EuropeanaTech 2018 in Rotterdam (15 May 2018) and at the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Forum in Berlin (4 June 2018).

Research

Two research projects about Wikimedia Commons are currently ongoing, or in the process of being finished:

1. Research:Curation workflows on Wikimedia Commons—a project that seeks to understand the current workflows of Commons contributors who curate media (categorize it, delete it, link to it from other projects, etc.).
2. Research:Technical needs of external re-users of Commons media—soliciting feedback from individuals and organizations that re-use Commons content outside of Wikimedia projects, in order to understand their current painpoints and unmet needs.

Development

• Prototypes will be available for Depicts soon.

Stay up to date!

• Follow the Structured Data on Commons project on Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/34/
• Subscribe to this newsletter to receive it on a talk page of your own choice.
• Join the next IRC office hour and ask questions to the team! The date for next quarter will be announced soon.

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk)

Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery - 21:07, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Structured Data Newsletter - Research link fix

Greetings,

The newsletter omitted two interwiki prefixes, breaking the links on non-meta wikis as you might see above. Here are the correct links:

1. m:Research:Curation workflows on Wikimedia Commons—a project that seeks to understand the current workflows of Commons contributors who curate media (categorize it, delete it, link to it from other projects, etc.).
2. m:Research:Technical needs of external re-users of Commons media—soliciting feedback from individuals and organizations that re-use Commons content outside of Wikimedia projects, in order to understand their current painpoints and unmet needs.

My apologies, I hope you find the corrected links helpful.

- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Problem resolved

For reasons unbeknownst to me, my bot flag was up but not working. Strangely, my regular edits were not showing up in recent changes, but AWB edits were. I restarted AWB, and the bot flag now appears to be working normally. BD2412 T 14:40, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

AWB needs a fresh login after the bot right has been assigned. I would still prefer that editing in that fully automated mode at that rate without eyeball review be undertaken with a specific bot account rather than with your main account. It simply avoids this problem, and it clearly differentiates reviewed and semi-automated edits to the community. The ability for admins to operate in flood mode was not to allow such autonomous editing, nor to escape the restrictions of Wikisource:Bots — billinghurst sDrewth 05:00, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

My edits are manual. I lay eyes on every screen as I go through. It is actually possible to see five or six per second and tell that there is nothing amiss with the edit, particularly where the error and the fix are both obvious. BD2412 T 03:40, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Bot request

Hi Billinghurst,

There are some questions added on विकिस्रोत:आंतरविकि दूतावास. Hope you have a look at them, Thanking you, --Tiven2240 (talk) 04:04, 9 July 2018 (UTC) (Admin Marathi wikipedia & Wikisource)

Thanks. Done — billinghurst sDrewth 05:59, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-28

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

• WebM video files have smaller file size but still be of the same quality. Creating WebM files will take longer time. [209]
• The new filters for edit review tools and interface for watchlists will leave beta. This was supposed to already have happened but was delayed. For most wikis this will happen on 9 July. For the rest it will happen on 16 July. [210]
• All wikis now use the Remex parsing library instead of Tidy. This could cause errors. You can help fix the errors. [211]

Problems

• When you rolled back an edit it could get both the Rollback and Undo tags. This has been fixed. [212]
• Rollbacks from autopatrolled users were not marked as patrolled. This has been fixed. [213]

Changes later this week

• When you edit a link in the visual editor there will be two separate buttons to change which page the link goes to (target) or its text (label). [214][215]
• On the mobile version you can find a link to an editor's contributions from their user page. Now this will work even if they haven't created a user page. [216]
• When you edit a discussion on the mobile version you sometimes get your signature automatically added. This will now not happen if you have already added a signature manually. This is to avoid double signatures. [217]
• Structured discussions toolbars will have more style options. [218]
• When you look at Wikimedia code in Gerrit there will be a new interface. It is on by default for new users. This is also true for developers. This is to make it easier to understand what is happening. [219]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 July. It will be on all wikis from 12 July (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 10 July at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 11 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Today all administrators can edit CSS and JavaScript for the entire wiki. There will be a new user group for editing CSS and JavaScript. Administrators will no longer automatically be able to do this. This is because it is a security risk when all administrator accounts can edit JavaScript even if they never plan to or do not know how it works. You can read more. [220]
• Page previews will be on by default for new accounts. [221]

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

23:10, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

The Difference

Hello Billinghurst. I was wondering where you stumbled upon a poem entitled "The Difference" by Robert Louis Stevenson? Londonjackbooks (talk) 05:04, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Not certain. Looking at what I did on the day and surrounds doesn't particularly enlighten me beyond saying that I was disambiguating a range of pages though what particularly brought me to that I work I cannot definitively say. Remove it if you think that it is incorrect or valueless. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:04, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

I'll keep looking around for one. I was hoping one existed, and that there was perhaps a relationship between that poem and Mrs. Coates', as hers mentions him. If I come up empty, I'll remove. Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 08:45, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Author:Lessel Hutcheon

Lieutenant, Royal Flying Corps during World War I. If you are able, I am in need of b/d dates, and any other pertinent info. Obrigada, Londonjackbooks (talk) 05:39, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Over and above, thanks. I can update WD, if you'd like; also, is the photograph public domain? Can I upload a cleaner version to Commons & cite the source? Londonjackbooks (talk) 05:56, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

@Londonjackbooks: There is more available for marriage and stuff. If you need more, then please let me know. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:57, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! Added to WD. You may have missed my question above with regard to photograph. Londonjackbooks (talk) 06:04, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

adding that at the author talk page. real time conversations! I am used to twelve hour delays. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:06, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Not sure how to interpret what all the added info means as far as uploading the photograph to Commons is concerned. P.S. Real time conversation with me can be laborious :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 06:15, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

So no publication date would be in my favor ("less likely to be considered"... for deletion?)? There is a date underneath the photograph: 25 Nov. 1915. Would that be the likely photograph date? Londonjackbooks (talk) 06:26, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

For copyright purposes images are artistic in nature. To my understanding, identification photographs are not considered of merit, they are usually a generic photographer that captures an image for a purpose other than artistic.I know that passport photographs are not copyrightable in Australia as they are prescribed in what is shown, and they have been done for the purpose which would exclude copyright. One would think that for ID papers, the same would apply. Exactly how Commons handles it will depend on who reviews it and how the data is expressed. I would think that the date shown is the date of aviation qualification, match that with the image of the licence. If born 1897, what age do you think he is in the photo? — billinghurst sDrewth 08:31, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Older than 18? younger than 25? I am bad at guessing age. Londonjackbooks (talk) 08:50, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

then call it "circa 1922", UK-based, unknown author European author. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:23, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Will get to it :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 10:15, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Last bug: License to apply? Londonjackbooks (talk) 10:40, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

{{PD-UK-unknown}} and {{PD-US}} based on {{circa|1922}} — billinghurst sDrewth 04:32, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Done. Thank you. Londonjackbooks (talk) 04:57, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

James Kennedy

We've little information thus far about Author:James Kennedy (d.1859) , but there is a James Kennedy, politician, on Wikidata who died that year , and might be worth researching. This sort of thing falls more within your area of expertise than mine. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:01, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Obituary here: The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review, Volume 206 (died age 60). Had one son. MarkLSteadman (talk) 00:49, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

MLS, good get ... p. 658 At Notting-hill, aged 60, James Kennedy, esq., barrister-at-law, formerly M.P. for Tiverton, and late H.M.'s Judge in the Mixed Court of Justice at Havana. I will poke at the genie records when I get a chance. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:30, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-29

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 now use global preferences on Wikimedia wikis. You can set them on the global preferences page. [222]
• You can now see a new log of pages being created at Special:Log/create. It includes pages which are later deleted. It is now available on all Wikimedia wikis except Commons and Wikidata. [223]
• You can see how many pageviews a wiki had from specific countries. The Wikistats2 maps have now been updated. [224]

Changes later this week

• Your watchlist will show changes from the last seven days instead of three. If you have already set a length preference it will not change. [225]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 17. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from July 18. It will be on all wikis from July 19 (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on July 17 at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on July 18 at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Some articles have messages to readers about problems with the article. For example that it does not cite sources or might not be neutral. Readers do not see these messages on the mobile version. The developers now want to show them. You can read more and leave feedback.
• You can use <inputbox> to create search boxes for specific pages. For example to search the archives of a community discussion page. Instead of prefix:Page name you will see a text that explains which pages are being searched. You can read more and leave feedback.

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

16:01, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Helsinki summit

Hello, I notices you are an admin here. I raiswd the issue previously on AN but thought it be better to ask admins personally instead. I think the transcript of Putin-Trump summit press conference is important enough to be included. Here's a transcript from White House website. Shall I create an article or does one already exist? MonsterHunter32 (talk) 03:43, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

@MonsterHunter32: no clue, I haven't look at new creations in the past few days. I would suggest that NewPages is the place to check, it shouldn't be overly long, alternatively the pages for Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump where it should be added. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:09, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Found nothing anywhere. There's also no link to a Wikisource transcript on the Wikipedia page, I doubt it won't have been there if it was already created. I'll create one now. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 06:27, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I’ve added it, Remarks by President Trump and President Putin of the Russian Federation in Joint Press Conference. Please make any changes you want to. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 06:55, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I think an external link on the Wikipedia article to the transcript might be benificial for the readers. Is it allowed however to add it? I won't ask you again if it cannot be done, but I doubt adding a link will cause any problem. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 17:34, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

@MonsterHunter32: The {{Header}} template includes a parameter for links to wikipedia as

wikipedia =

which can be added if there is an article on Wikipedia about the work. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:43, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I was talking about adding a link on the Wikipedia article to the transcript that I added. Is it possible to do that or will it violate proxy editing prohibition if someone added it when I asked them? MonsterHunter32 (talk) 00:01, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

@MonsterHunter32: Wikipedia has a template called w:Template:Wikisource-inline that can be added to a page's "External links" section for these situations. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:44, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

I am blocked from editing on Wikipedia. I'm asking whether anyone else is allowed to place it on the Wikipedia article upon being asked by a blocked user. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 00:52, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

If the work meets the standards for inclusion on Wikisource, and is relevant to the Wikipedia article, then it shouldn't matter who adds the link. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:54, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, I’ve created Remarks by President Trump and President Putin of the Russian Federation in Joint Press Conference. I think it would be beneficial to the readers if a link to it is added to w:2018 Russia–United States summit, where the press conference took place. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 00:57, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Done Please take this to WS:S, WS:S/H or personal talk pages. 01:18, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Actually I was asking if you or EncycloPetey could add the link there. But I'll take it at another place then. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 01:35, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Author's death year

At present, if the author's death year is absent in Wikidata, the author is shown as living in English Wikisource, e.g. 1. In Bengali Wikisource, no such categorisation is made if death year is absent in WD, e.g. 2. The author is shown as living only when the death year is customised as "no value" in WD, e.g. 3. Hrishikes (talk) 14:45, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Bot operation

Can you please respond here? Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:07, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Second listing

Hello, Billinghurst. Sorry I didn't notice the same text was added again. I was copying the format but forgot to replace the earlier article with the new article I created. Thanks for the removal from New Texts. I'll correct it. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 09:47, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

It is fixed, just leave it alone. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:49, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

When I said "fixed", I was referring to adding the new article Remarks by President Trump and President Niinistö of the Republic of Finland at Working Break. I added the new one, hope you don't mind. The previous one was about Trump and Putin, sorry for the mistake earlier. 10:06, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, please do not link author pages to Wikipedia, that is pretty unhelpful. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:08, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Alright, I only linked to Wikipedia because the person Sauli Niinistö has no author page on Wikisource. Should I just leave it as a redlink or remove the brackets? MonsterHunter32 (talk) 10:20, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for creating an author article for Sauli Niinistö. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 10:25, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

task

Run bot through Index:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu and others in series I ⋅ II ⋅ III ⋅ IV ⋅ V ⋅ VI ⋅ VII

to extract text layers. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:36, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Whole work needs redoing, a mixture of editions — billinghurst sDrewth 09:54, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

disambiguate

to do Author:John Rae

Done — billinghurst sDrewth 09:53, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-30

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

• When you log in to your account you can choose to keep being logged in. This checkbox now works better than before on the mobile version for users without JavaScript. [226]
• Wikis that use Citoid can automatically generate citations for Swedish news sites. This only works in the visual editor. This now works for Swedish public service radio. More will come. Others could use this to add news sites in other languages in the future. [227]
• Editors can do max 90 edits per minute. This is new since last month. This does not affect bots or administrators. [228]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 July. It will be on all wikis from 26 July (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 25 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

09:44, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

disambiguate Author:Charles Warren

Author:Charles Warren — billinghurst sDrewth 06:05, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Done — billinghurst sDrewth 14:03, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-31

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 design on Special:Log has changed. It will change again soon. Developers are working on fixing problems. [229]

Problems

• Deployment of 1.32.0-wmf.13 has been partially delayed. All deployments have been resumed and successfully done after bug fixes. [230][231]
• Deployment of 1.32.0-wmf.14 has been partially delayed. [232][233]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 August. It will be on all wikis from 2 August (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 31 July at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 1 August at 15:00 (UTC) as well as at 23:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• After a community discussion, a new group for users will be created. "Interface administrators" will be the only users allowed to edit interface pages like MediaWiki:Common.css or MediaWiki:Common.js. This is done to avoid technical issues and improve security. That change will be effective by the end of August 2018.

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

14:05, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-32

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

• Special:NewPages now has the OOUI look. [234]

Problems

• The MediaWiki version that was released two weeks ago was late to some Wikimedia wikis. This was because of bugs. It was on all wikis 30 July. [235][236]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 August. It will be on all wikis from 9 August.

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 7 August at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 8 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

19:39, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

engravers and engravings and the moving targets that are words

That version of Tales contains engravings by at least two different people.

I had a discussion once with someone about the word "calligraphy". I was using the word to describe a style of font and the other person said that the word described a skill. I understood the point but needed a word to describe a style of font I needed that could be understood by others and the word did not exist.

The word engraving at commons is or was having the same problem. I am using the word to describe a style or type of illustration and someone or group over there took it very seriously that the word "Engraving" be used to describe single works. Lack of an understood/known "entry-level" word to describe the style is a problem for me and probably others as I looked at the attempts of others to categorize images.

I am enjoying these lesser known artists. Tennial, Crane the Dalzials have beautiful and well known works -- so are these others. So, this is a longish @Billinghurst:, once again, filled with problems. --RaboKarbakian (talk) 14:25, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

"engraving" can be used as both the noun and the verb, just like painting. I too enjoy finding the work of lesser known people, bringing it out to a larger audience. I also think that some of our shorter works, especially journal works, are more digestible, though maybe I am completely wrong on that assumption. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:25, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

IHRA

Thanks for letting me know re [237].

It is definitely NOT copyrighted - it was only adopted by IHRA in 2016; for many years it has been used by various public organizations. I will bring proof shortly. Is there a process for undeletion? If you could do so (temporarily) I will quickly add the out of copyright confirmations.

Onceinawhile (talk) 10:20, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Here is a good example of the text on an out of copyright publication of the text (from 2007, nine years before IHRA’s adoption).

Per their copyright statement: “Unless a copyright is indicated, information on the State Department’s main website is in the public domain and may be copied and distributed without permission.”

Onceinawhile (talk) 10:27, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi Billinghurst, did you see my message above? In case helpful, please see a few other examples of government publication [238], [239], [240], [241].

It might help to remove IHRA from the title of the page, consistent with the wikipedia article. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:37, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

I am still unsure that we are talking about a publication that fits within WS:WWI. A webpage or a definition is not a work, it would seem something that is part of a publication. It may be more appropriate taking your request to WS:CV and broach it through that forum rather than bring it to a user talk page, so the community can look at it collectively, not have one person's opinion alone. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:01, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

OK. The only reason the conversation is here is that the deletion happened without discussion and there is no page to link to or talk page to use.

Since the above proves that there is a case to be heard regarding copyright, could you please undelete the page so I can link to it in the CV discussion?

Also, so that I can open a sensible CV discussion, please could you also let me know what the argument for copyvio is, now that I have shown that the work predates IHRA (whose copyright tag on their website prompted the initial deletion) and that it is used by multiple governments whose publications are public domain? Onceinawhile (talk) 21:08, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Siberia and the Exile System main namespace layout

This book's layout did not take into account the there are two volumes and used main namespace names like Chapter I, Chapter II, etc, which does not allow to join two volumes into one.

One solution is to use the chapter titles in the main ns, since there is no duplicate title, see HERE. Or we use Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1 and Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2. In either case the pages need to be moved/renamed.— Ineuw talk 03:18, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ineuw: I still disagree with that approach of it becoming two works at the root level. If we have to split the work into volumes, it would be preferable to have WORK/Volume_1/Chapter_1 ... /Chapter_n, then WORK/Volume_2/Chapter_1 etc. If it was reprinted today as a one volume work of 30+ chapters, we would have no qualms. I again state that I would omit volumes and just continue chapter numbering even though that is not what the publisher did as it makes sense for our presentation style. I understand that it was printed as two volumes at the time, and that was a publishers decision, and should not have us bound presenting in a lesser way. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:37, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

The reason I split it into two volumes with the chapter titles was to save time (mine). The previous editor's efforts were easily converted by simply adding "Vol 1" and "Vol 2" to the name. But, agree with you that it should have been /Volume 1/..... /Volume 2/....., and I am willing to redo it. I just followed bad examples. — Ineuw talk 19:32, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-33

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

• CSS in templates can now be stored in a separate page on all wikis. This is called TemplateStyles. This is to make it easier to edit how templates look. [242]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 14 August at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 15 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The developers are planning more ways to block users. This could be blocking someone from just a page or a namespace. You can read more. You can leave feedback on the talk page. [243]

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

17:53, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Re:

You're welcome. RaymondSutanto (talk) 01:24, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Undeletion request

Hi Billinghurst, per above at #IHRA, please could you undelete the article so I can get on and start a wider discussion? It's been more than a week since the article's summary execution. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:49, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I read around the policy pages and figured out that I should open discussion at Wikisource:Proposed_deletions#Undelete_IHRA_Working_Definition_of_Antisemitism. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:08, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikisource-bot

Hi. I think you can speed up the throttling for ongoing touch campaign. IMO, 10-15 pages per minute should be OK with no effect on users. Bye.— Mpaa (talk) 18:46, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

It was set quicker, it seems to have its own throttling. In the end I didn't think that the rate particularly mattered. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:57, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-34

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 August. It will be on all wikis from 23 August (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 22 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The 2018 Community Wishlist Survey begins on 29 October. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 29 October to 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.
• Legacy JavaScript global variables have been deprecated for seven years. They will soon be removed from all wikis. Gadgets and scripts that use them will stop working. You can test your community's gadgets on "group0" wikis. For example Test Wikipedia or mediawiki.org. The legacy JavaScript global variables are already disabled there. You can read the migration guide to fix old scripts. [244]

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

<section end="technews-2018-W3 16:46, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Please,advice

On December 26, 1996, in a report in the Bangkok Post, the Rajabat Institute Council, the collective governing body of all of Thailand's teachers colleges, declared that it would bar homosexuals from enrolling in any of its colleges nationwide. The announcement brought strong criticism from human rights groups and many others, who are urging the repeal of this discriminatory policy. On January 25th, Suraporn Danaitangtrakul, a Deputy Education Minister, proposed that the Institute set a new criteria to bar people with "improper personalities," but not certain groups such as homosexuals. Anjaree, a lesbian group in Thailand, supported Mr. Saraporn's ideas but said the term "improper personalities" needs to be more clearly defined. Furthermore, members of Anjaree are working with other human and civil rights groups to request that the ban be dropped and that an anti-discrimination clause be added to the charter of the colleges. They are currently planning a conference to discuss opposition to the ban. In a recent positive development, the Commission on Justice and Human Rights of the Thai Parliament has discussed the matter and decided that the ban goes against human rights principles. This occurred after hearing testimonies from psychiatrists confirming that homosexuals were not sick or abnormal. Members of Anjaree were also asked to present lesbian and gay arguments against the ban.

https://www.outrightinternational.org/content/thailand-gays-and-lesbians-banned-enrolling-teacher-training-schools

You deleted my above statement .Could you please advise me ,If there is away to record my concern and set thing straight.

Where can l distributed the truth that my idea was never approved by the Ministry of Education because the Minister of Education at that time was against it.Suraporn Danaitangtrakul (talk) 02:09, 21 August 2018 (UTC) Duputy Minister of Education Thailand 1996-1997

Wikisource is a site for published works; I pointed to Wikisource:What Wikisource includes on your talk page. I am unaware of a site for making political statements. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:21, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Latest message for Collaboration team newsletter; Growth team's newsletter invite

Hello

Sorry to use English if that's not your favorite language.

You are receiving this message because you were reading the Collaboration team newsletter.

The Collaboration team doesn't longer exists. That team was working on building features that encourage collaboration. This is the latest message for that newsletter.

The Growth Team, formed in July 2018, supports some former Collaboration projects. The Growth Team's main objective is to ease new editors' first steps on wikis, through software changes. You can discover all objectives and missions of the Growth team on its page.

If you wish to be informed about Growth team's updates about easing new users first steps, you can subscribe to the new list to get updates. The first message from Growth –with a call for feedback on a new project– will be posted in a few days!

If you have questions or you want to share experiences made on your wiki about new users' first steps, please post them on the team talk page, in any language.

On behalf of the Growth team, Trizek (WMF) (talk) 10:29, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-35

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

Recent changes

• You can now see moved paragraphs in diffs in the mobile view. It also works on all languages in the desktop view. [245]
• Bureaucrats on all Wikimedia wikis can now remove the interface admin user right. [246]

Problems

• Some diffs show lines in the wrong order. The developers are working on fixing it. [247]

Changes later this week

• The message you see when you thank a user will change. This is to make it easier to understand. [248]
• AWB will stop adding using AWB in the edit summary. Instead it will add a tag that says AWB. [249]
• Some abuse filter variables have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title. [250]
• Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age. [251]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 August. It will be on all wikis from 30 August (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 28 August at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 29 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.

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

16:16, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikidata entry for subpages

The Empire and the century/The Indian Army has a separate entry in wikidata. Can we follow similar method for the other books in English wikisource. Are there are any limitations.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 11:52, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, if pertinent. The guidance for WD and how we do books and editions at d:Wikidata:WikiProject Books. If the parts of a work have a separate subjects, then you can link appropriately. For the 63 volumes of the DNB we have done each of the biographies. One wouldn't do it for novels, though you could do it for poetry. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:14, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you very much sir.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 12:28, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Can we create subpages for each of the Convocation addresses in Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras. Can you create one entry there and help. Thank you.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 13:38, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes we can. Creating the items for the parts is the last component. You need to ensure that the author pages exist and are linked, and the parent edition exists. I also use the "Add Wikidata..." gadget through the article link. I cannot help tonight, too late for me to focus there. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:43, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I have created entries in Wikidata: [252] and [253]. Are they accurate.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 07:37, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

null edits

Pages in this index needs to be null-edited, but they are fully protected. Any hints? Ankry (talk) 05:13, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ankry: no longer protected — billinghurst sDrewth 06:30, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Pages (eg. Page:GeorgeTCoker.djvu/1) are still protected. Ankry (talk) 07:40, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I have touched all the pages, it is easier to do that then to remove protection. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:14, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

That should also be OK. Unfortunately not all. See the list (at the bottom). However, no hurry; I'll prepare coplete list when bot finishes. Ankry (talk) 19:28, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

It was late, I had removed the protection from those, and then I decided to just kick the remainder. All done now. I just kicked those Special:RecentChangesLinked/Index:GeorgeTCoker.djvu — billinghurst sDrewth 03:18, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-36

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

• There is a new user right for users who can edit CSS and JavaScript for the entire wiki. Before this all admins could edit CSS and JavaScript. This was a security risk. This group is called interface administrators. Administrators can delete user CSS and JavaScript pages. [254][255]
• There will be an A/B test on the Wikipedia mobile website. It starts this week. It tests how we show templates that show information about an article. The test will last two weeks. [256][257]
• You can now use different CSS rules for different skins when you edit templates. This is because of TemplateStyles. [258]
• wp10 in ORES is now called articlequality. [259]
• When you get a new message on your talk page you get a yellow message in the toolbar. The preference to show or not show this has been removed. [260]

Problems

• UploadWizard had problems with campaigns. Users could not upload files. This has now been fixed. [261]
• You can get a notification when a link is made to a page you created. This has not worked since June. It was fixed last week. [262]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 September. It will be on all wikis from 6 September (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 5 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Foundation Readers department will work on advanced mobile editing. You can read more about this and other things they plan to work on over the next year. You can also see the presentation.
• The RelatedSites extension will be removed from Wikivoyage.
• Unused projects on the Wikimedia Cloud virtual private server will be removed. This will happen in October. Projects can be marked if they are being used. [263]

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

16:47, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

fancy styled single pages not allowed

I made an informed decision to use the fancy styled pages when there was more than one page but not when there is only one page or less, until such time as a method is established to suppress the overcooked css.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 09:32, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Or you can just follow the community's determined and accepted style manual, and the css can work itself out in the wash. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:36, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

My favorite soap opera on television was actually a commercial for coffee. It got dropped because they did not actually sell coffee as much as they were simply entertaining.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 14:23, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Expand name

Did you mean for this to be moved to Thomas Michael Kettle? Londonjackbooks (talk) 05:04, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

One would think so. Fixed. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:09, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Thought maybe, but didn't want to presume in case you knew something I didn't (which is always a possibility). Londonjackbooks (talk) 05:44, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-37

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

Recent changes

• When you added or edited a template with the visual editor the input boxes were very big. This has been fixed. The input boxes will now be smaller until you click on them. Then they will change size to fit the text. [264]

Problems

• Some diffs showed lines in the wrong order. This was fixed last week. [265]
• Marking a cross-wiki notification as read didn't work every time. The other wiki was not updated. This has now been fixed. [266]
• <maplink> did not work for a few days. This was because of a bug. This has now been fixed. [267]
• {{subst:REVISIONUSER}} is used by some templates. For a period edits saved with {{subst:REVISIONUSER}} would save the previous user's name and not your username. This is now fixed. Edits made before the bug was fixed will still be wrong and need to be corrected. [268]
• When you move a page the title still shows the old page name. The developers are working on fixing this. [269]

Changes later this week

• Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.
• Because of the data centre test there will be no new version of MediaWiki this week. Changes for this week will come next week instead.

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 11 Septmber at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 12 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The developers work on making the wikis work better on mobile phones. There is a list of common problems when making content easier to read in the mobile view. You can add things to the page and ask others to help.

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

22:35, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

To do (link template)

{{Once a Week link}}: needs /Series n/Volume n

Source needs a master wikidata template that can be used from templates within.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 13:48, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Templating from Wikidata is unfortunately a retroactive task. We cannot even get all of our works added, so it is not yet reliable. With all the fields in the template completed, we have the opportunity to possibly extract data into WD, and populate that way. Who knows, we may get there one day. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:25, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

The People of India

I have started creating the chapter pages in this multivolume work. The People of India/Sonthals. Is it O.K. Please check for any errors.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 06:53, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Looks okay, though not knowing the work is disadvantageous. You may wish to consider asking the community at WS:S as someone with a little more time can probably assist better.

You may wish to consider how you wish to capture and represent volume information. You can do it by introducing an extra layer in your hierarchy, or simply by labelling, either showing it in the title lime, or simply having a regular set of text in the notes field. The are pros and cons with both methods. Representing that information is important. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:31, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Related changes

Do you know of a way to generate a list of, say, two-hundred most recent changes to an Index? Similar to related changes, but without being limited to the last 30 days... which is not always a helpful tool if an Index hasn't been worked on in a while and one wishes to view latest activity regardless of how long ago it was last worked on. Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 12:32, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Related changes is just souped up recent changes so has all those limitations. From the api, should be able to generate a list of pages with using the prefixindex as a generator and list them by last edited date, or get a mysql query. What exactly are you trying to determine or generate? — billinghurst sDrewth 13:53, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

There have been times in the past where I have not worked on an Index for some time. For example, Poems that Every Child Should Know. In the interest of keeping formatting consistent, I would like to know if any pages (not on my watchlist; or, on my watchlist that I may have missed) in the Index of any given work were edited by other contributors since I worked on it last. You will have to explain to me what everything you wrote from "api" to "mysql" means ;) No hurry if it is late. Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 14:18, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

If you are looking for pages that you can further proofread, then I recommend that you use the gadget that red rings pages. w:API (mw:API:Main page)and w:MySQL; (wikitech:Help:MySQL queries); Special:Prefixindex — billinghurst sDrewth 14:44, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Nope. Detecting unproofread pages is obvious just by visiting the Index page. I am looking for pages that have already been edited (but not by me) since I last worked on a given Index. Thanks for the links though. I will explore those. Londonjackbooks (talk) 14:50, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

You misunderstand. There is a gadget (Pages I can validate ...); use that, it will work for proofread pages as you desire. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:04, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Once I locate that gadget (I may be back!), will it also work for pages I proofread (past tense) that others have edited since then (validated or not)? My intent is to check for changes to formatting. Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:14, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

It is called "pages I can validate", so it knows the editor and the person who marked as proofread. It is a 30 sec. tweak. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:19, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

I see, it is in my Preferences. Of course, I overthought things, like I would have to tweak my .js page or something... I stumbled across the following conversation (and a couple other related conversations), and was wondering if it may be something relevant to what I am looking to do? Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:39, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

All iterations. It was zoom-speeded earlier this year, and I am not sure where Hesperian's version is sitting. Personally I find it works fine as is. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:45, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. Still not finding the gadget ideal (for my purposes). A generated list of edits by date would be better. It would give better direction by revealing edit summaries—giving better insight into editing behavior if someone has come along making changes to formatting &c. If no such tool currently exists, it should :) I'll keep thinking. Thanks. Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:51, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Pondering changes to page transclusion and scripts

When you have the time (no hurry), I would appreciate your thoughts on the conclusions I draw in the (long and rambling, sorry) thread here: WS:S#Page numbers borked with hyphenated words.

Long story short: the use of empty inline elements (span) to mark page transitions when works are transcluded to mainspace triggers bugs in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox (not tested in IE). To avoid this I am considering making a proposal (up in the relevant section of WS:S) to add a w:zero-width space character (​) to the existing code in MediaWiki:Proofreadpage pagenum template.

I would also appreciate your thoughts on the viability, desirability, and possible approaches for splitting page numbering and layouts into separate scripts, and Gadget-ifying both, for MediaWiki:PageNumbers.js (I left some half-chewed thoughts on its talk page too).

These all seem like good ideas and doable to me, but I am not confident of my ability to accurately assess them, and so would appreciate your thoughts before attempting to pursue them further. But, as mentioned, no hurry (I know you're busy); I just didn't want it to get archived off WS:S and forgotten. Regards, --Xover (talk) 06:14, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't use {{hws}} as I only find it useful to educate newbies, but otherwise pointless, and instead I just add the hyphenated text to the footer. Adding artificial spaces doesn't seem the ideal solution for something that is just meant to do nothing in the main namespace. Noting that the span element is only to allow the decorative hover text, in the Page: namespace, we would just be better of to run the occasional bot through and move _{{hws|... downstream of the noinclude that forms the footer. Simplest solution is to just kill the span tags. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:43, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

{{hws}}, though that's where the adventure started, turned out to be a red herring. Anything that affects the number of whitespace characters before or after a page transition can potentially trigger these bugs. And even apart from these specific bugs, empty inline elements are known to be quite quirky and poorly specified: it would be a good idea in general to avoid relying on them for anything.

I don't understand your argument that the span tags should best be removed: without them there is no page marker and MediaWiki:PageNumbers.js cannot work? --Xover (talk) 07:20, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

to delete (later)

Transactions of the Linnean Society of London/Volume 12/Article 1
Transactions of the Linnean Society of London/Volume 12/Article 2
Transactions of the Linnean Society of London/Volume 12/Article 3
Transactions of the Linnean Society of London/Volume 12/Article 4
Transactions of the Linnean Society of London/Volume 12/Article 5
Transactions of the Linnean Society of London/Volume 12/Article 6

after resolution of issue.— billinghurst sDrewth 23:01, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Done — billinghurst sDrewth 22:07, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-38

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 changes

• The Wikimedia Commons mobile app has a new version. Images uploaded using Nearby are now automatically added to the associated Wikidata item. You can browse other images on Commons. You can see your achievements and your upload statistics. It has also fixed some bugs. [270]
• MediaWiki web requests now have a time limit of 60 seconds for GET requests and 200 seconds for POST requests. [271]

Problems

• You could not see the menu on the notifications page on the mobile version. This has now been fixed. [272]

Changes later this week

• Special:AncientPages can hide disambiguation pages. [273]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 September. It will be on all wikis from 20 September (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 19 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The developers are testing new mobile web navigation. You can use it and give feedback.

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

21:58, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

https://books.google.com/books?id=F4EsAAAAYAAJ import

import work so we can migrate text French Constitution of 1848 — billinghurst sDrewth 12:34, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Done — billinghurst sDrewth 09:55, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

leftoutdent

consider whether this, or a variation, is better ...

<div class='leftoutdent' style='margin-left:auto !important; margin-right:auto;' >

• Dictionary of Indian Biography/Andrew, Sir William Patrick
• The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Martin, His Honour the Hon. Sir James

check desktop and mobile, squish, broad

then see what we can do with longer and shorter

• The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Martin, Arthur Patchett
• Alumni Oxonienses

— billinghurst sDrewth 23:53, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Tech request

Hi, I just posted a request on the enwp Village Pump. I wonder if this is something you might be able to help with, or if you might have suggestions of how to refine the request, or better places to make it? It's a bit of a sticky problem for our project, and I'd like to come up with a nice clean answer (both for us, and for similar future projects). Hope you're able to take a look and share your thoughts. w:en:Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#WikiProject_request_for_technical_assistance -Pete (talk) 23:58, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

E-mail

I have just sent you an urgent e-mail. If you have not received it, please inform me. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:28, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: Thanks. I have done a patch job, though not particularly familiar with that zone I think that I have recovered what is necessary. I will do a bit more, though not that flush with available time. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:23, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Well that sucked up a lot of unavailable time. <shrug> — billinghurst sDrewth 02:43, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: btw the means to most likely identify problematic changes is via the related changes link as it should identify templates, and other transclusions that are more recent, which is usually the case with such issues. If it is an old change, then it takes some digging and can be a little ugly. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:25, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-39

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

Changes later this week

• The preferences form will change to use the standard look. If you see any problems please report them on Phabricator. [274]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 September. It will be on all wikis from 27 September (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 26 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

15:23, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Treatise on Relics

Hello, respected colleague @Billinghurst:. I'm new to en. Wikisource. Help me please. I do not know where to put the source. file:///C:/Users/1/Downloads/32136-pdf.pdf (p. 162-208) Wlbw68 (talk) 11:33, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

@Wlbw68: On Talk:Treatise on Relics you can use {{textinfo}}. If this is a file on the web, adding a hyperlinks is sufficient. We are going to need to know the time of publication so we can know that the translation is also out of copyright. I am a little confused why the work has a translator, though once you have provided source information I am hoping that I will understand a little more. Thanks. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:20, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-40

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 changes

• Ordinary pages can no longer be loaded as javascript. You could do this using ?action=raw&ctype=text/javascript in the URL. Only fully protected pages in the MediaWiki: namespace or user javascript subpages can be loaded as javascript now. This is for better security. [275][276]

Problems

• New and updated translations from translatewiki.net will not reach the wikis for a while. You can still translate messages on translatewiki.net. The Wikimedia wikis will be updated with the new translations later. This is because of work on the translation system. [277][278]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 October. It will be on all wikis from 4 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 3 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the meeting with the Wikimedia Foundation Search Platform team. The meeting will be on 3 October at 15:00 UTC. See how to join if you want to know how the search function works or have questions.

Future changes

• Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.

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

17:35, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-41

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

• The Education Program extension was removed from all Wikimedia projects. You can use the Programs and Events Dashboard or the Fountain instead. [279]

Problems

• There was a problem when you copied and pasted from a table with the visual editor. It could add href where it shouldn't be. This has now been fixed. [280]

Changes later this week

• Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.
• Because of the data centre test there will be no new version of MediaWiki this week. Changes for this week will come next week instead.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 10 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

23:38, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

SBDEL Link

Can year of publication be added to {{SBDEL Link}}? If so can you? Bob Burkhardt (talk) 19:07, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Done oops for missing it. I added the page ref, though it is probably less of a concern for that work, but what the heck. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:29, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Library Guy (talk) 21:21, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Popular Science Monthly and contributor

Look to update the headers of Popular Science Monthly pages to convert the <br /> author detail to utilise contributor = — billinghurst sDrewth 09:56, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Done

Need to run a check for use of [[Author: in headers of these pages. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:56, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-42

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

Problems

• Some pages, edits and users disappeared for a short while after the server switch. Missing content and users was fixed within a day. Some preferences and other things might take a few more days to fix. [281]
• Wikis are updated with new and updated translations from translatewiki.net again. This will happen once a week. The developers are working on fixing the problem so we can have translation updates more often again. [282]

Changes later this week

• When you create an abuse filter that prevents edits you can now write a specific error message for it. Before this all abuse filters that prevented edits had the same error message. [283]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 October. It will be on all wikis from 18 October (calendar).

Meetings

• There will be no more meetings with the Editing team. This is because not enough Wikimedians were interested. To tell developers which bugs you think are the most important you can use Phabricator as normal. [284]
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

22:40, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Link templates to create

The Ancestor

• Template:The Ancestor link and shortcut as TA link
• Template:The Ancestor lkpl and shortcut as TA lkpl

The English Historical Review

• Template:English Historical Review link and shortcut as EHR link
• Template:English Historical Review lkpl and shortcut as EHR lkpl

— billinghurst sDrewth 21:54, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Pseudonym

Hi. I would like to thank you for various corrections you do from time to time at pages I have founded here. However, I would also like to ask you to move back the author pages Author:Petr Bezruč and Author:Otakar Březina. The reason is that these authors are known only through their pseudonyms and vast majority of readers do not even know that these are pseudonyms. See also Help:Author pages where there is quite clearly written: "The full name of the author is preferred, unless he/she is better known by a pseudonym." Thanks. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:04, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Except that isn't the practice; my understanding is that all pseudonyms have been moved. They will still be findable as redirects exist, still get listings. That incorrect text rem'd. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:19, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

We still have more than a few authors under their much better known pseudonyms. I'm not aware of any decision to change that practice. It's true that we don't prefer pseudonyms, but for some authors, their "real" name is written in more than one way with no clear preferred form, or else their "real" name is wholly unknown except to the literary scholar. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:49, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

I do agree with EncycloPetey and before I read this I had also asked for a wider opinion at Scriptorium. I also think that help pages are here to help and serve as guides and I do not consider it to be a good practice to change them without wider discussion when they do not support one's opinion. I came here a short time ago and I do try to follow local rules, but if such a practice were more common, I would not know what to follow. I believe that if somebody does not like something stated at a page like this they should ask the community if they really agree with changing it. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 22:08, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-43

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 October. It will be on all wikis from 25 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 24 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Community Wishlist Survey begins on 29 October. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 29 October to 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.

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

23:11, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Bot rights for User:Wikisource-bot

Ok. I'm sorry. I've delayeda and don't remembered. --Agremon (talk) 16:33, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-44

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

Recent changes

• You can post proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals until 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.
• The wikis now have a content security policy report. This means that you might get a warning in your javascript console when you load external resources in your user scripts. For security reasons it is recommended that you don't do this. It might not be possible to load external resources in your scripts in the future. [285]

Problems

• Your watchlist can show which changes you have already seen. This did not work for a few days. It has been fixed. [286]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 October. It will be on all wikis from 1 November (calendar).
• The 2006 wikitext editor is no longer available. It will be removed from Special:Preferences. It has not been the standard editor for a long time. It was replaced by the 2010 wikitext editor. [287][288]

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 31 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

20:09, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-45

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 changes

• You can now use TemplateWizard to edit templates. This works only with the 2010 wikitext editor and not in the visual editor or the 2017 wikitext editor. If you click on you can enter the information in a pop-up. You can turn on TemplateWizard in your beta feature preferences. [289]

Changes later this week

• You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. The interface for the two-column edit conflict will change. You can read more.
• When you edit with the visual editor you can use the "Automatic" citation tab. This helps you generate citations. You will now be able to write plain text citations or the title of a journal article or a book in this tab. This will search the Crossref and WorldCat databases and add the top result. [290]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 November. It will be on all wikis from 8 November (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

17:29, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-46

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 changes

• Some old mobile browsers can use the watchlist again. This has not worked for a while. These browsers are called grade C browsers. This helps for example Windows Phone 8.1 with Internet Explorer and Lumia 535 with Windows 10. [291]

Problems

• You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. Users who use this view saw the edit conflict resolution page when they wanted to see a preview. This has been fixed. [292][293][294]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 November. It will be on all wikis from 15 November (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 14 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• You can use the content translation tool to translate articles. The developers are working on a new version. One of the changes will be a maintenance category. Articles where users add a lot of text from machine translation without changing it will be in that category. This is so the community can review it. The users will also have been warned before they publish the article that it has a lot of unchanged text from machine translations. [295]

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

19:22, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-47

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

Recent changes

• You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can vote until 30 November.
• There is an A/B test for sameAs data. This is to make it easier to find the right information with a search engine. This changes the metadata for a wiki page. It doesn't change how the page looks. [296]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikimedia wikis use templates to show readers there are problems with the content on some pages. For example if there are no sources or the page needs to be rewritten. The mobile website will soon show more information when you use these templates. Some templates may need to be updated. [297]
• The Education Program extension was removed from all Wikimedia projects. The database tables used by the extension will be archived. This will happen in a month. If you want the information on your wiki you should move it to a normal wiki page. [298]

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

23:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-48

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

• On wikis with translatable pages you could create a mess when you moved a page that had translatable subpages. A subpage is when you use / to create a new page: /wiki/Page/Subpage. The subpages would be moved but not the translations. The subpages are no longer automatically be moved. This is to make it safer to move pages. [299]

Changes later this week

• The advanced search interface will be available by default on all Wikimedia wikis. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. It's already active on German, Farsi, Arabic and Hungarian Wikipedia. [300]
• Special:UnusedCategories show empty categories with no files or other categories. You can soon choose to not show soft redirect categories or some maintenance categories there. You can do this with the magic word __EXPECTUNUSEDCATEGORY__. [301]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 November. It will be on all wikis from 29 November (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 28 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The mw.util.jsMessage() function was deprecated in 2012. It will be removed next week. Look for the warning Use of "mw.util.jsMessage" is deprecated in the JavaScript console to know if you use an affected script or gadget. If you are a gadget maintainer you should check if your JavaScript code contains mw.util.jsMessage. There is a migration guide. It explains how to use mw.notify instead. [302]

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

22:22, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-49

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

• Admins will not be able to unblock themselves if they are blocked by someone other than themselves. This is because it can cause damage if someone else takes over an admin account and other admins can't block them. If this is a problem for your community you can report it on Phabricator. You can also ask questions on Meta. There is a discussion on Phabricator about how to solve this if two admins fight with each other on a small wiki. [303]
• Small SVG images are now bigger when you see them in MediaViewer. [304]
• You can go to a section from the edit summary by clicking on the section name. Before this you had to click on the arrow. [305]
• When you jumped to a footnote that was referenced several times in an article it could be difficult to see where you were in the text. Now there are jump marks and highlights to help you find your way back. [306][307]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 5 December at 16:00 (UTC) and at 23:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

16:12, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Structured Data on Commons Newsletter - Fall 2018 edition

Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!

Community updates

• Multilingual Captions, the first feature release for Structured Data, is coming in January of 2019
  • Be on the lookout for the beta testing announcement
  • Help using captions has been set up, if you'd like to go ahead and see the workflow
• Two IRC office hours were held since the last newsletter
  • Log for 4 October
  • Log for 1 November
• Our dedicated IRC channel: wikimedia-commons-sd ^webchat

Things to do / input and feedback requests

Current:

• Help determine and propose properties on Wikidata for Commons
• Review designs for structured licensing and copyright
• Join the community focus group!

Since the last newsletter:

• Review a prototype for searching structured Commons (October 2018)
• "Good coverage" for depicts tagging (Sept. 2018)
• Review and discuss mockups for displaying the new metadata section of the file page (18 September - 9 October 2018)
• Depicts statements draft requirements (14 August - 31 August 2018)
• Identify Wikidata properties that Commons will need (26 June - 14 August 2018)

Presentations / Press / Events

• Presentation by Keegan on the first features to be released for Structured Data, presented at Wikiconference North America, Columbus, Ohio, October 2018.
• Sandra presented a project update at the GLAM-Wiki conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, November 2018, as part of an update and panel discussion.
• Structured Data on Commons was the subject of a keynote presentation by Sandra (see slides) at the Baltic Audiovisual Archives Council conference in Tallinn, Estonia, November 2018.

Partners and allies

• The info portal on Structured Commons now includes a section on GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums).
• We are currently planning the first GLAM pilot projects that will use structured data on Wikimedia Commons. One project has already started: the Swedish Heritage Board researches and develops a prototype tool to provide improved metadata (translations, data additions...) from Wikimedia Commons back to the source institution. Read the project brief.
• The documentation for batch uploads of files to Wikimedia Commons will be improved in 2019, as part of preparing for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons. To prepare, the GLAM team at the Wikimedia Foundation wants to understand better which types of documentation you already use, and how you like to learn new GLAM-Wiki skills and knowledge. Fill in a short survey to provide input!

Stay up to date!

• Follow the Structured Data on Commons project on Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/34/
• Subscribe to this newsletter to receive it on a talk page of your own choice.

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk)

Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery - 17:58, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-50

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 December. It will be on all wikis from 13 December (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 12 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• New accounts will need passwords that are at least 8 characters long. Admins, interface admins, bureaucrats, oversighters, CentralNotice admins, global renamers, check users, stewards and some other user groups will need passwords that are at least 10 characters long. This is because an attacker could cause damage to the wikis if they took over these accounts. [308][309]
• When you hover over a footnote it will show you the reference as a pop-up. This is so you don't have to jump down to the bottom of the page to see a reference. This will happen in 2019. Some wikis already have gadgets that do this. You will be able to turn it off. [310]

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

17:33, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-51

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

Tech News

• Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 7 January 2019.

Recent changes

• Some templates that show notices about the content of the page will now be shown on the mobile website. In many cases they were hidden before. [311][312]
• Admins can no longer unblock themselves, except for self-blocks. A blocked admin can block the user who blocked them but no one else. This is so no one can block all admins on a wiki without being stopped. [313]
• The ParserMigration extension has been removed. It compared the result of two versions of the MediaWiki wikitext parsing pipeline. It was used when we moved to the Remex parsing library instead of Tidy.

Problems

• <ref> tags can use parameters such as "name" or "group". For example <ref name="adams" group="books">. If a <ref> tag has more than two parameters all parameters are ignored. You don't get a warning that they don't work. This will soon be fixed. [314]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 December. It will be on all wikis from 20 December (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 19 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Foundation Android app team are working on making it easier to edit on mobile phones. You can read more about these plans. If you have an Android phone and speak at least two languages you can help testing in English. Tell Dchen (WMF) you want to be part of the testing by writing on her talk page or email her.
• tiles.wmflabs.org and wma.wmflabs.org will stop working. They have no maintainers and run an old operating system. Tools which use it could stop working. This includes the mapnik gadget, hill shading, and hike and bike layers. New maintainers could help out and keep it going. [315]

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

20:35, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

To review

• Done Category:EB9:Authors outside of how the community determined that we would develop pages. [plonk for later]
• Done Template:NSRW-signature style of attribution not used, by consensus of community — time to update
• Done template:OGL needs an author: ns version created for use. Currently only has works version.

— billinghurst sDrewth 12:35, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

header WP links and the use of main subject at WD

Done

have a check to see that where we have (encyclopaedic) pages in main namespace that link wikipedia = through header, that these items at wikidata may or may not have "main subject" wikilink. Can or should we be pulling that link via WD to manage deleted and moved items, and also be prepared for any item that has a future wp link. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:35, 20 March 2018 (UTC)