This is an archive of past discussions with User:Fluffernutter. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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 charts and maps on your wiki with the new "graph" tool. If you have an old browser, you will see images instead. It uses a tool called Vega; you can learn how to use it and write help pages for your wiki. You can use the Vega edit tool to make charts and copy the code to your wiki. Charts and maps use complex code and you should put them into templates. In the future, you will be able to create charts with VisualEditor. [1][2][3]
You can apply for technical jobs to develop tools for the community. [4]
The logos of all wikis are now in a new place. It will make pages load faster. You can still ask to change the logo. You can also use local CSS for brief changes. [5][6]
Pages were sometimes removed from your watchlist in VisualEditor. This problem is now fixed. [8]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since May 6. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from May 12. It will be on all Wikipedias from May 13 (calendar).
You can now use data from Wikidata on more pages. The page doesn't need to be linked to the Wikidata item. It works on a few wikis and more wikis will be added soon. [9][10]
You should get fewer errors when you add files to Commons. [11]
When you use an external link to link to a wiki page, VisualEditor now converts it to a wiki link. [12]
When you add a link in VisualEditor, you see pages that match what you type. It is now easier to see where they match. [13]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on May 13 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our next evening "WikiWednesday" salon and knowledge-sharing workshop by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.
This month will also feature on our agenda: recent and upcoming editathons, the organization's Annual Meeting, and Chapter board elections.
We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming editathons, and other outreach activities.
After the main meeting, pizza and refreshments and video games in the gallery!
7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles, 137 West 14th Street
Featuring a keynote talk this month to be determined! We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 15:58, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since May 13. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from May 19. It will be on all Wikipedias from May 20 (calendar).
References are now always in the right order. Also, the reference list now only shows references used on the page. [14]
You can no longer create an account with a colon ':' in it. If you already have one, it still works. [15]
The toolbar in VisualEditor now looks different. It is easier to see the icons. [16]
You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on May 21 at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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
VisualEditor was broken for 30 minutes on Tuesday. The problem was due to a tool it uses. [21]
The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since May 20. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from May 26. It will be on all Wikipedias from May 27 (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on May 28 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You blocked one of them a short while ago. As far as I can see, though, this one is still unblocked—or is it caught in a range-block? (Keep forgetting how to check for those) AddWittyNameHere (talk) 00:53, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
@AddWittyNameHere: The second one isn't blocked, but given the singlemindedness of the user(s) behind the IPs, my guess is that semi'ing the page accomplished the same thing. Feel free to give me a poke if the IP spins up somewhere else and needs blocking, though. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:57, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
The IP that was edit warring the unexplained removal of content from the article has been blocked for 3 months so will be unlikely to be able to contribute to a discussion. The protect locked in his version. There should be no further need for the full protect and the article should be restored to the status quo version that existed before the IP edits. Geraldo Perez (talk) 22:59, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Hi Fluffernutter, I respectfully posit that full protection at Monster High is probably not warranted. The IP was repeatedly removing content without an explanation, which in any other situation would be considered run-of-the-mill vandalism, not a dispute, which is easily resolved through semi-protection. Any chance you might consider lowering the protection level a tick? Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 23:00, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, that was weird. I protected because it didn't strike me as clear vandalism so much as a content dispute with an IP who didn't know what they were doing, which left me with the choice of blocking everyone involved in the edit war, or just stopping the war, but looking now at the rest of the IP's edits, I probably extended a bit too much good faith there. Give me a minute to check the article's longer-term history and I'll either remove the protection or bump it down. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 23:06, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
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
Many wikis were slow for a few hours on Wednesday due to a code error. Sometimes the pages did not load at all and showed an error. [25]
Some tools in Labs were broken on Wednesday and Thursday. [26]
Edit tags added by the software were broken on all wikis from May 23 to May 28. [27][28]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since May 27. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from June 2. It will be on all Wikipedias from June 3 (calendar).
You won't be able to use e-mail lists for a few hours on Tuesday. [29]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 3 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.
May drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's backlog-reduction drive. Of the 38 people who signed up, 29 copyedited at least one article, and we got within 50 articles of our all-time low in the backlog. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.
Coordinator elections:
Nominations are open through June 15 for GOCE coordinators, with voting from June 16–30. Self-nominations are welcome and encouraged.
Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Miniapolis, Jonesey95, Biblioworm and Philg88.
To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
When you click on a link to an article, you now see more information:
The link tool has been re-designed:
There are separate tabs for linking to internal and external pages.
The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.
Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has created new interfaces for the link and citation tools, as well as fixing many bugs and changing some elements of the design. Some of these bugs affected users of VisualEditor on mobile devices. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.
A test of VisualEditor's effect on new editors at the English Wikipedia has just completed the first phase. During this test, half of newly registered editors had VisualEditor automatically enabled, and half did not. The main goal of the study is to learn which group was more likely to save an edit and to make productive, unreverted edits. Initial results will be posted at Meta later this month.
Recent improvements
Auto-fill featuresfor citations are available at a few Wikipedias through the citoid service. Citoid takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. If Citoid is enabled on your wiki, then the design of the citation workflow changed during May. All citations are now created inside a single tool. Inside that tool, choose the tab you want (⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-auto⧽, ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-manual⧽, or ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-reuse⧽). The cite button is now labeled with the word "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽" rather than a book icon, and the autofill citation dialog now has a more meaningful label, "⧼Citoid-citeFromIDDialog-lookup-button⧽", for the submit button.
The link tool has been redesigned based on feedback from Wikipedia editors and user testing. It now has two separate sections: one for links to articles and one for external links. When you select a link, its pop-up context menu shows the name of the linked page, a thumbnail image from the linked page, Wikidata's description, and/or appropriate icons for disambiguation pages, redirect pages and empty pages. Search results have been reduced to the first five pages. Several bugs were fixed, including a dark highlight that appeared over the first match in the link inspector (T98085).
The special character inserter in VisualEditor now uses the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki can also create a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Please read the instructions for customizing the list at mediawiki.org. Also, there is now a tooltip to describing each character in the special character inserter (T70425).
Several improvements have been made to templates. When you search for a template to insert, the list of results now contains descriptions of the templates. The parameter list inside the template dialog now remains open after inserting a parameter from the list, so that users don’t need to click on "⧼visualeditor-dialog-transclusion-add-param⧽" each time they want to add another parameter (T95696). The team added a new property for TemplateData, "Example", for template parameters. This optional, translatable property will show up when there is text describing how to use that parameter (T53049).
The design of the main toolbar and several other elements have changed slightly, to be consistent with the MediaWiki theme. In the Vector skin, individual items in the menu are separated visually by pale gray bars. Buttons and menus on the toolbar can now contain both an icon and a text label, rather than just one or the other. This new design feature is being used for the cite button on wikis where the Citoid service is enabled.
The team has released a long-desired improvement to the handling of non-existent images. If a non-existent image is linked in an article, then it is now visible in VisualEditor and can be selected, edited, replaced, or removed.
The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug.
If your Wikivoyage, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, or other community wants to have VisualEditor made available by default to contributors, then please contact James Forrester.
If you would like to request the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.
Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
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 this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from June 9. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from June 10. It will be on all Wikipedias from June 11 (calendar). [30][31]
If you use the Monobook skin, the buttons and other controls now look more the same in VisualEditor and other tools. [32]
When you edit links and other items in VisualEditor, you now need to apply your change before closing the tool. [33]
The title of dialogs is now easier to see when it is near long buttons. [34]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 9 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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
Users have created more than 5000 articles with the new translation tool. [37]
Editing a page is now faster. This is because some statistics about edit filters were removed. [38]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 17 June. It will be on all Wikipedias from 18 June (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 16 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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 wikis can now be used only with HTTPS. This includes the English, Russian and Chinese Wikipedias, among others. Soon all wikis will use only HTTPS for all users. [44][45]
You can't use HTTPS wikis with Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP. You need to use another browser. [46]
Problems
On June 15, search was broken on all wikis for several hours. [47][48][49]
Many Labs tools were broken for several days. Almost all of them are back now. They may be missing some data for the last 10 days. [53][54][55]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from June 23. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from June 24. It will be on all Wikipedias from June 25 (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 23 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our evening "WikiWednesday" salon and knowledge-sharing workshop by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.
We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming editathons, and other outreach activities.
After the main meeting, pizza and refreshments and video games in the gallery!
7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles, 137 West 14th Street
Featuring a keynote talk this month to be determined! We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 05:44, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)
By motion, the Arbitration Committee authorises the following injunction effective immediately:
The case is to be opened forthwith and entitled "Arbitration enforcement";
During the case, no user who has commented about this matter on the AN page, the AE page or the Case Requests page, may take or initiate administrative action involving any of the named parties in this case.
Reports of alleged breaches of (2) are to be made only by email to the Arbitration Committee, via the main contact page.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
When you read a page on the mobile site, you can now see a link to go to its talk page. [58]
The code coloring tool has changed. You can now use many more languages. It now also works on mobile. [59][60][61]
You can look at a new site to learn how to reuse data from Wikimedia sites. [62]
Problems
JavaScript was broken on some wikis due to a code error. VisualEditor and other tools that use JavaScript were broken. [63]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from June 30. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 1. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 2 (calendar).
You can now use a tool in VisualEditor to add and edit code in color. [64]
When you edit a sentence in the Translate tool, it can show you older translations. They help you save time if they look alike. The older translations should now work better. If you see problems, you should report them. [65]
If you are an admin or have other special rights, you now need a strong password. [66]
Bot and JavaScript coders: The old continuation mode of the API for action=query doesn't work any more. [67]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 30 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future
When you create a new account, it will also create one on Meta-Wiki and mediawiki.org. [68]
You are receiving this message either because you are a party to the Arbitration enforcement arbitration case, because you have commented in the case request, or the AN or AE discussions leading to this arbitration case, or because you have specifically opted in to receiving these messages. Unless you are a party to this arbitration case, you may opt out of receiving further messages at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement/Notification list. The drafters of the Arbitration enforcement arbitration case have published a revised timetable for the case, which changes what you may have been told when the case was opened. The dates have been revised as follows: the Evidence phase will close 5 July 2015, one week earlier than originally scheduled; the Workshop phase will close 26 July 2015, one week later than originally scheduled; the Proposed decision is scheduled to be posted 9 August 2015, two weeks later than originally scheduled. Thank you. On behalf of the arbitration clerks, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:58, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
Motion passed in AE arbitration case granting amnesty and rescinding previous temporary injunction
This message is sent at 12:53, 5 July 2015 (UTC) by Arbitration Clerk User:Penwhale via MassMessage on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. You are receiving this message because your name appears on this list and have not elected to opt-out of being notified of development in the arbitration case.
On 5 July, 2015, the following motion was passed and enacted:
Paragraphs (2) and (3) of the Arbitration Committee's motion of 29 June 2015 about the injunction and reporting breaches of it are hereby rescinded.
The Arbitration Committee hereby declares an amnesty covering:
the original comment made by Eric Corbett on 25 June 2015 and any subsequent related comments made by him up until the enactment of this current motion; and
the subsequent actions related to that comment taken by Black Kite, GorillaWarfare, Reaper Eternal, Kevin Gorman, GregJackP and RGloucester before this case was opened on 29 June 2015.
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 the mobile site, you now see more information when you search for a page. It now shows the description from Wikidata. [69]
Problems
The code of long pages is not colored any more. You may see this problem on the pages of long gadgets. [70]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 7. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 8. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 9 (calendar).
The "Page information" tool shows how many users watch the page. You can now see how many are active. [71][72]
You can now translate articles into English with the new translation tool. [73]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on July 7 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
There was a problem with editing on Thursday. Some tools like bots and VisualEditor were broken on all wikis for 10 minutes. [75]
There was a problem with images on Thursday. They were broken on all wikis for 15 minutes. [76]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 14. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 15. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 16 (calendar).
Meetings
You can join a technical meeting at Wikimania in Mexico City this week. [77]
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 this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 21. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 22. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 23 (calendar).
You now see more warnings in the image viewer. They tell you to be careful when using the image, for example if it shows a person. [78]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on July 21 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
Soon you won't be able to use MathJax to display math. [79]
You are invited to join us the "picnic anyone can edit" in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, as part of the Great American Wiknic celebrations being held across the USA. Remember it's a wiki-picnic, which means potluck.
1pm–7pm - come by any time! @ Bartel-Pritchard Square entrance (Prospect Park West and 15th St), immediately on the lawn to your left as you walk through the lovely lotus columns.
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 redirects to link to JavaScript pages. [80]
There was a problem with some Lua modules on July 22 and 23. Some pages using them did not list them in "what links here". You can fix those pages with a null edit: edit and save the page without making any change.
There was a problem with the abuse filter page on big wikis on July 23. It was due to a code error. [85]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 28. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 29. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 30 (calendar).
JavaScript authors: You cannot use wgNoticeUserData to get edit counts anymore. [86]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on July 28 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.