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Worked more on support for lexicographical data (specifically support for lexicographic category and statements on forms)
Dealt with issues after the deployment of automatic interwiki links for Wiktionary
Worked on constraint violation user script based on your feedback (improving messages to make it more understandable, layout, etc)
Add support for the following new language codes for monolingual text properties: brx, chn, cop, gez, quc, kjh, nr (will become available in a few days)
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 users have a problem with the watchlist. Some changes in categories make the watchlist a blank page. The developers are working on this. Until this is fixed you can try some things that have helped other editors if you have this problem. You can turn on Hide categorization of pages in your watchlist preferences. You can turn off Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent in your watchlist preferences. You can remove problematic categories from Special:EditWatchlist/raw. [1]
There was a problem with the visual editor for several days. You could not save edits that triggered a CAPTCHA. This would for example be when a new user added external links in references. This was fixed on 2 May. [2]
Changes this week
When you edit you can switch between the visual editor and the wikitext editor. This works if the wiki you edit has the visual editor. The menu will now say Visual editing and Source editing instead of Switch to visual editing and Switch to code editing. This is because it was confusing when the menu said you could switch to the editor you were already using. [3]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 May. It will be on all wikis from 11 May (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 9 May at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
You will be able to get a notification when a page you created is connected to a Wikidata item. This will come to Wikivoyage on 9 May. If there are no problems it will come to most Wikipedias on 30 May. It will come to other projects and English, French and German Wikipedia later in the summer. It will be opt-in for existing users and opt-out for new users. [4][5]
Markup that looks like code for language variants might need to be fixed. If -{ is used in transclusions or web addresses it has to be escaped appropriately. You can use -<nowiki/>{ for transclusions and %2D{ in web addresses. A transclusion could for example be when you use -{ in a template: {{1x| sad :-{ face }}. This is because of some code fixes to the preprocessor and affects all wikis. [6][7]
Did you know that you can review your changes visually?
When you are finished editing the page, type your edit summary and then choose "Review your changes".
In visual mode, you will see additions, removals, new links, and formatting highlighted. Other changes, such as changing the size of an image, are described in notes on the side.
Click the toggle button to switch between visual and wikitext diffs.
The wikitext diff is the same diff tool that is used in the wikitext editors and in the page history.
You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.
A new wikitext editing mode is available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices. The 2017 wikitext editor has the same toolbar as the visual editor and can use the citoid service and other modern tools. Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures to enable the ⧼Visualeditor-preference-newwikitexteditor-label⧽.
A new visual diff tool is available in VisualEditor's visual mode. You can toggle between wikitext and visual diffs. More features will be added to this later. In the future, this tool may be integrated into other MediaWiki components. [8]
You can now use your web browser's function to switch typing direction in the new wikitext mode. This is particularly helpful for RTL language users like Urdu or Hebrew who have to write JavaScript or CSS. You can use Command+Shift+X or Control+Shift+X to trigger this. [10]
The way to switch between the visual editing mode and the wikitext editing mode is now consistent. There is a drop-down menu that shows the two options. This is now the same in desktop and mobile web editing, and inside things that embed editing, such as Flow. [11]
The Categories item has been moved to the top of the Page options menu (from clicking on the icon) for quicker access. [12] There is also now a "Templates used on this page" feature there. [13]
You can now create <chem> tags (sometimes used as <ce>) for chemical formulas inside the visual editor. [14]
Tables can be set as collapsed or un-collapsed. [15]
The Special character menu now includes characters for Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics and angle quotation marks (‹› and ⟨⟩) . The team thanks the volunteer developer, Tpt. [16]
A bug caused some section edit conflicts to blank the rest of the page. This has been fixed. The team are sorry for the disruption. [17]
There is a new keyboard shortcut for citations: Control+Shift+K on a PC, or Command+Shift+K on a Mac. It is based on the keyboard shortcut for making links, which is Control+K on a PC or Command+K on a Mac. [18]
Future changes
The VisualEditor team is working with the Community Tech team on a syntax highlighting tool. It will highlight matching pairs of <ref> tags and other types of wikitext syntax. You will be able to turn it on and off. It will first become available in VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode, maybe late in 2017. [19]
The kind of button used to Show preview, Show changes, and finish an edit will change in all WMF-supported wikitext editors. The new buttons will use OOjs UI. The buttons will be larger, brighter, and easier to read. The labels will remain the same. You can test the new button by editing a page and adding &ooui=1 to the end of the URL, like this: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Sandbox?action=edit&ooui=1 The old appearance will no longer be possible, even with local CSS changes. [20]
If you aren't reading this in your preferred 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! User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:18, 9 May 2017 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2017-05-09T19:18:00.000Z","author":"Whatamidoing (WMF)","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Whatamidoing_(WMF)-2017-05-09T19:18:00.000Z-Future_changes","replies":[],"displayName":"User:Whatamidoing (WMF)"}}-->
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 ISBNs to automatically generate citations in the visual editor. This works on wikis that have enabled Citoid. [22]
The mediawiki.util library does not load automatically any more. Your Special:MyPage/common.js may use it. If you have technical problems that started a couple of weeks ago you can try adding mw.loader.using('mediawiki.util').done(function(){ as the first line in the file and }); as a last one. Tech News wrote about this in the 2017/18 issue. [24]
Changes this week
The RevisionSlider extension will be a default feature on all wikis. RevisionSlider is an easier way to move between changes in the page history. It has been a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia and a beta feature on all wikis. You will be able to turn it off in your preferences. [25]
There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
Administrators will soon be able to search through deleted pages. [26][27]
Markup that looks like code for language variants might need to be fixed. Tech News wrote about this last week. If -{ is used in transclusions or web addresses it has to be escaped appropriately. You can use -<nowiki/>{ for transclusions and %2D{ in web addresses. This is because of some code fixes to the preprocessor and affects all wikis. You can now see the full list of wikis with this problem and help fix them to avoid that things break later this month. You might find false positives. You can read more about what to fix. [28][29]
Older unreported changes
Your Meta user page is shown on all wikis where you don't have a local user page. You can now add the magic word __NOGLOBAL__ to your Meta user page to stop this. [30][31]
“New Filters for Edit Review” beta released: As of May 9, the New Filters for Edit Review beta has been released to all wikis. The beta lets users review edits on Recent Changes using an easier and more powerful interface and many new tools, including user-defined highlighting and, on some wikis, predictive filters powered by ORES, a machine-learning program. You must opt in to the beta to try it out.
Tell us your ideas—but don’t wait: The team is focused right now in making changes to the New Filters beta. But in a few months, we’ll be moving on to other projects. So now is the time to give the new tools a try and then tell us what you think. What works well? What could make things better for you?
In the medium-term: By the end of summer, we plan to complete a suite of improvements that will, among other things: incorporate all the remaining Recent Changes tools into the new filtering interface; create new ways for reviewers to move back and forth through the filter queue; implement a “Reverted” filter; and, finally, bring the New Filters UI and tools to Watchlist.
Have time for a talk? We're looking for people we can interview about their experiences with the new beta. If you’re a regular user of Recent Changes and have tried the new features—and if you can spare an hour to chat in English with our design researcher—please email dchenwikimedia.org with the subject line “user interview.” Let us know how to get in touch with you and what time zone (city, country...) you’re in.
Wish you had ORES on your wiki? Some of the more interesting New Filters for Edit Review features are dependent on the machine-learning service ORES, which is available only on a small but growing list of wikis. For ORES to work on a wiki, volunteers from that wiki must train it by scoring some thousands of sample edits. Here’s a link that explains how the process works and how you can get it started on your wiki.
On wikis where Flagged Revisions are used, an edit highlighted as bad by ORES will not be highlighted anymore when the edit is reviewed by someone. [32]
You can highlight pages that are in your Watchlist in Recent Changes. 3 different filters are available: in watchlist, not in watchlist, new changes in watchlist. [33]
Wikidata, Dutch, Czech, Hebrew, Estonian and Finnish Wikipedia now have the new filters available as a Beta feature, and ORES is enabled by default on those wikis. [34]
All wikis now have the Recent changes Filters as a Beta feature. [35]
Users are invited to opt in to the Recent changes Filters beta when they visit the Recent Changes page. [36]
On wikis that have ORES predictions enabled by default, it is now possible to choose how to display the predictions in watchlist and recent changes pages. [37]
Future changes
It will be possible soon to save and retreive your favorite filters combinations. [38]
We are working on adding filter groups for last revisions, edits from Wikidata and reverted edits. [39][40][41]
When an article you have created is linked to a Wikidata item, you can receive a notification. Wikidata and all the Wikivoyages have it since May 9th, other wikis will follow. [42]
Special:Notifications tabs is now set to "Unread" if there are any unread messages. [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 this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 May. It will be on all wikis from 25 May (calendar).
There will be a <div> tag around HTML from the MediaWiki wikitext parser. Gadgets with code that does not follow recommendations could have problems with this. You can report new problems you think are related to this. [47]
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE)11:57, 23 May 2017 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2017-05-23T11:57:00.000Z","author":"Lea Lacroix (WMDE)","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Lea_Lacroix_(WMDE)-2017-05-23T11:57:00.000Z-Wikidata_weekly_summary_#261","replies":[]}}-->
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Everybody is invited to the May 31 Bay Area WikiSalon series!
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Please join us in downtown San Francisco!
The last Wednesday evening of every month, wiki enthusiasts gather at Bay Area WikiSalon to collaborate, mingle, and learn about new projects and ideas. This month we are taking it on the road to Noisebridge makerspace/hackerspace!
We allow time for informal conversation and working on articles. Newcomers and experienced wiki users are encouraged to attend. Free Wi-Fi is available so bring your editing devices. We will have beverages (including beer and wine) plus light snacks. There will be periodic guided tours of Noisebridge. You can stay late, on your own! YeeHaw!
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Welcome to Women in Red's June 2017 worldwide online editathons.
Past: WikiCite, May 23rd-25th in Vienna. Documentation will be available soon, in the meantime you can check on Twitter and the video streams to see what happened