Meta:Babel

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Note: If you seek the language competence templates, see Meta:Babel templates.

This page experimentally allows language localisation.

[edit] Visitor counter request

Hello,
especially for smaller wikis it is very interesting how many visitors are attracted daily/monthly!

WikiCharts was/is a nice idea, but figures have been wrong for the last months, and the last weeks (like several times, now) it just does not work!

I have made a JavaScript script which will do similar for combined use with an external (Wikimedia or own) server.

My script eventually will only count the number of visitors/IPs, and it will not expose sensitive referrers, except a given meaningless address!

External (non-Wikimedia) server? Please read wikt:als:Benutzer:Melancholie/monobook.js carefully!

Here my question: Is this idea conform to our Privacy policy? If not, will you allow projects to expand their privacy policy a little bit towards this feature? --- Best regards, Melancholie 02:58, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

You may be interested in user:midom's statistics at http://dammit.lt/wikistats/ .Hillgentleman 21:32, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for this link! It's better than nothing, but it is not really a Visitor Counter but a Hit Counter! My suggested counter will be a pure visitor counter! The "problem" with Midom's hit counter is that it is based on the squid access-log stream, and thus probably most bots, reloads, crawlers etc. are counted, too! --- Thanks, Melancholie 06:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

P.s.: Furthermore (like so often) only Wikipedia, Commons and Meta have been considered for that stats, yet!

It would be great if every article would display history of visits.--Piotrus 14:56, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia users and editors have been asking for this for ages. Everyone wants a timestamped visitor counter for each page. The problem appears to be twofold: First, coding time and second, computation resources. -Kslays 21:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the first one is a problem! Huji 07:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hidden Categories?

[edit] New Babel templates

Previous discussion is archived.

[edit] Color change

I don't see any reason provided in the discussions why the colors were changed. The new colors really are counter-intuitive. Moreover, as it was already noticed, meta is the central coordination platform for all Wikimedia wikis. Having a different color code for babel templates will confuse everyone. I see the color code can be personalized in the new template, but I think default colors should be the old ones. Thanks. guillom 08:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Ik ben het helemaal eens met Guillom. De kleuren die er nu op gezet zijn, zijn triest en ongelukkig gekozen. Het voelt zowat als een beschuldiging met het donkergrijs als je "slechts" een -1 hebt, terwijl het eigenlijk een complimentje hoort te zijn. De standaardkleuren dienen sowieso de oude te zijn wat mij betreft, en ook alleen in de taal waar het over gaat als het aan mij ligt. Mensen zijn intelligent genoeg om te snappen wat er staat, zeker als er meermalen onder elkaar hetzelfde staat. Ik zie dan ook niet de noodzaak in om nu na tien dagen discussieren hier dit botmatig dwingend te gaan wijzigen. Ik zie overigens ook niet in waarom de oude sjablonen niet naar de nieuwe kunnen blijven bestaan, en waarom dit nu weer allemaal onder "old" geplaatst moet worden. Dit soort veranderingen kan wmb beter langzaamaan gaan, zodat mensen er aan kunnen wennen en het zelf kunnen doorvoeren. Effeietsanders 14:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Translation: "I totally agree with Guillom. The colors that we put on now are sad and unfortunate. It feels almost like an accusation with a dark gray if you "only" have a -1, whereas it should actually be a compliment. The old standard should anyway be what I am concerned, and only in the language it is about if it was up to me. People are intelligent enough to understand what it says, especially if there are several others on the page with the same standard. I therefore see no need, after ten days here discussing, for this mandatory bot work to go ahead. I also see no reason why the old templates cannot continue to exist alongside the new , and why now all of the "old" templates need to be placed. This kind of change can be made more slowly, so that people can get used to it and it can carry itself out." —translated by Pathoschild.

The new colour scheme was chosen as a progression of related colours. If you don't like the colours, suggestions are more than welcome. However, you are more than welcome to use the old babel format, and this is explicitly stated in the edit summaries when updating. Compare:

{{user nl}}

{{babelold|nl|N}}

{{user language|nl|N}}

{{babelold}} contains the babel format in one template but uses the new text and categories. We could conceivably place it on every babel template page, but this would be more work in the future and most users would not even realize the templates are superseded. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 20:03:23, 09 February 2008 (UTC)

You say "However, you are more than welcome to use the old babel format". Well, you are the one declaring the "old" template is deprecated and using scripts on thousands of userpages to switch to your new template with colors you only have chosen. If you really want to let users choose, then don't replace the babel box by your new template, replace it by the "babelold" template, so that you don't change the appearance of every single userpage on this wiki. Besides, the "progression of related colours" may look like a good idea to yourself, but how does one know that a light green means a lower level than a dark green? At least, in most cultures it is commonly accepted that red means "not ok" and green means "ok". guillom 21:30, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

PS: I know you're trying to make things better, but I would really like to see more attention to the pursuit of consensus. guillom 21:30, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

This was discussed quite a bit before implementation. I invited comment repeatedly in several multilingual IRC channels, particularly #wikimedia and #wikimedia-translation, before I even posted the product of our discussion here. This proposal was to change the default templates, not to introduce a redundant system (which is a bad idea).

Ideally, there should be nobody at all using {{babelold}}. If someone switches to {{babelold}}, that means they're not satisfied with the new template, and I'm personally contacting them to discuss whether the template can be changed to their liking. So far, a very tiny percentage (much less than one percentage point) have expressed dissatisfaction with the new template.

With regards to the colours, there is a clear relation between the colours for every level ( 1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  N ), much more so than the old colour scheme ( 1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ,  N ). If you have suggestions for a better colour scheme, these are very welcome. This template is the product of a lot of collaboration and suggestions. —{admin} Pathoschild 22:00:14, 09 February 2008 (UTC)

The 4th and 5th level are almost not used on meta, and their color in the "old" color code is surely not ideal. Though, I see you don't propose any better color for these two levels though, your template actually doesn't even allow them, probably because the most used templates are the blue and green ones, and the one you forgot, the level  0 . I think this color scale ( 0 ,  1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  N ) is more intuitive: green means "ok, you can talk to me in this language", blue means "so-so" and red means "not ok, I am not able to communicate in this language".

The new color code you propose ( 1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  N ) makes sense when all colors are next to each other: once can understand that green means "ok" and the less green there is, the less ok it is. Though, "grey" doesn't really mean "not ok". Besides, there is no difference between  level 0  and  level 1 , though there is a real difference between these two: one means "I cannot communicate in this language" and the other means "I have basic knowledge in this language".

What about something like: ( 0 ,  1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  N ,  Pro )? This is probably not ideal yet, but we could work on it. You may note this fixes the inconsistency with the professional "babel-5" template which is supposed to be a better level than only "native". guillom 10:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

People interested in this discussion may wish to take a look at User:Pathoschild/Sandbox4 where a new color set was proposed : ( 0 ,  1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  N ,  P ) (knowing that the P level may not be implemented). guillom 13:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for being a bit late, but I'd like to ask that some distinction between the colors for 0 and 1 be made. If we use the greening scheme, I would suggest that 1 be a very light grayish green or something instead of exactly the same as 0. Alternatively make 0 reddish and keep 1 at gray?? (I use -0 a lot on wikis where I do not speak the native language) Thanks. ++Lar: t/c 00:27, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

It makes a sense to give different colors to 0 and 1. While I don't know the proposal of Guillom is intuitive, it may be an option (at least it is more eye-pleasure). Red / Green scaling may be another option, I suppose. --Aphaia 00:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The reason levels 0 and 1 don't have separate colours is that level 0 isn't recognized as a standard level; the template only allows English to bypass the level validation for 0, and without a category. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:48:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I think there's a lot of value in recognising 0 as a standard level, (I tried 0 with ja and it seemed to work for me in a test edit so maybe I don't quite follow what you meant?) and in any case the color should be different than 1, standard or not. The old boxes worked that way on many wikis. ++Lar: t/c 03:04, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

No, using {{user language|ja|0}} should display something like "This user speaks Japanese at a level." (note the missing adjective), with the page categorized to Incorrect user language level. A more visible error message is possible, but that would require special coding to make an exception for English. I'm not strongly opposed to a zeroth level, but please wait until we finish discussing the fourth level before proposing it. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 04:08:18, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Well since I don't read japanese, all I saw was that the template didn't throw an error. And it shouldn't. The old system has -0 templates. I would prefer not to discuss one digit at a time, but instead discuss the notion that the new system should be as powerful as the old system was, and not mandate a different, more restrictive way of thinking about things. That's what I allude to below but I'll reiterate it here, because that's what I do :). Many many wikis use -0, have categories set up for it, have old system boxes that use it, etc. and therefore the new system should support that, or it won't be portable. And portability, a single template, a single set of translated strings, etc., is a big selling point for me. It's basically the whole reason I haven't been opposing the change entirely, I was sold on the idea that a simpler, more regular system would be more portable. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be as powerful as the old one, as expressive... we need 0-5 and N because that's what existing wikis use. ++Lar: t/c 04:17, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Add zeroeth level

[edit] Localization updates

The {{user language}} localizations need to be updated to reflect the recent changes. I've contacted all the translators, and most have already been updated. Please update any localizations in your languages listed at User:Pathoschild/User language update. —{admin} Pathoschild 22:29:48, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Advanced password checking for flagged users

[edit] HELP!

[edit] New gadget: Contributions Range

When enabled, lets you enter CIDR ranges (/16 and /24 - /32) in Special:Contributions as well as wildcard prefix searches, for example: "Splark*"

Thanks to User:Splarka for the gadget! ~Kylu (u|t) 16:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Very good, thank you very much Splarka. --Anonymous Dissident^Talk 08:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RFC: Suffrage for local elections on Meta-wiki

• Requesting input here: Requests for comments/Meta-wiki suffrage in regards to local elections ~Kylu (u|t) 04:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RfC — rethinking the list of the top ten wikipedias

Please comment on the discussion at Top Ten Wikipedias. Waldir 19:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Meta talk:Requests for adminship#Radical_idea

I just want all metapedians to join the discussion there. Thanks — VasilievVV 14:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Translating gadget descriptions

Is there a way to translate gadget descriptions? Like MediaWiki:Gadget-BiDiEditing/fr being a French version of MediaWiki:Gadget-BiDiEditing (or I suppose it might be MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition/fr translating MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition).

Also, is there a way to change the page so it uses labels on the text? On all other preference panes, clicking the text activates the check box as well. I'd love to see this extended to gadgets as well. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The extension currently does not allow localisation of dynamic messages... Maybe a feature request at mw:Extension talk:Gadgets could help. Siebrand 14:28, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] SpamReportBot

Just noting, I have flagged the above account as a bot, as it was flooding recent changes. If anyone feels this was a mistake, please reverse it, or let me know. Thanks, Majorly (talk) 21:55, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Bah, majorly thanks for the flag. The bot does counterspam statistics, which will be useful for the folks working the blacklist. As I said to majorly I did not think it would be a big deal, as it should be doing only a few edits an hour, that is after it gets the initial statistics reports down. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 22:04, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Meta:Requests for deletion#Images

Regarding Image:Imagepageexample2.PNG & Image:Imagepageexample3.PNG

Some assistance from users both cool-headed and legally-minded would be welcome. College IP law course attendance a plus. :) ~Kylu (u|t) 20:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Title blacklist

Now global title blacklist is live Wikimedia-wide — VasilievVV 03:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Great news.. I love that title blacklist extension :-) --Meno25 19:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] mul-{{test}}

Looking at the recent Recentchanges ... do we need to multiligualize {{test}} and so on? It seems pointless to put a warning in English in case a user wrote in Japanese or French and they give no sign they are capable to read English. --Aphaia 13:14, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Definitely - "steal" from Commons maybe? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Go for it! --Aphaia 19:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Filtering the users' rigths log

How can I filter http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=rights&user=&page= for getting the rigths of the users in huwiki? I want to get user:<anybody>@huwiki. Bináris 20:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Have a look in preferences, and then gadgets. Under the interface section is an option to filter logs. Majorly (talk) 20:49, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, I found it and switched on, but I still cannot write the query, beacuse I am very much beginner with regex (altough I have tried). Could you please help me to query the rights for anyusers@huwiki? Bináris 07:06, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

This filter seems to work wrong: it checks changed rights instead of target user — 12:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, that's why I couldn't do it! Bináris 15:06, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

You can use this tool to do it. For the rights changes of the users of huwiki, see [1] (note that this also includes users of huwikisource and huwikibooks). Korg 17:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

That's great, thank you very much! Bináris 20:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] SUL admins

I observed situation on SR/SUL. Since SUL was enabled, there were a lot of usurpation requests (~100) with I high request rate. When SUL is publically available, there most probably will be a big backlog. So, I propose so a new group (SUL admins) who will have access to Special:CentralAuth (or grant it to meta sysops), since it doesn't allow to make something really harmful, unrevertable or not logged and doesn't reveal private info — VasilievVV 13:09, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it makes more sense (if additional hands are needed; and I agree the volume is large - whether it's beyond a reasonable workload for the stewards is for them to determine) to make this a 'crat right, rather than an admin one (or creating a new usergroup). Bureaucrats deal with user-account stuff - user rights, user renames... seems like administering SUL fits right in! – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 13:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Mike. Majorly (talk) 16:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree with both! Huji 16:27, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

On pl-wiki we responded to the higher volume of SUL usurpations by electing a couple of new bureaucrats (this is actually when I joined the club there, too). Pundit 19:51, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

See bugzilla:13810 — VasilievVV 16:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Easier than holding an extra set of steward elections before SUL gets rolled out. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Will stewards still be able to deal with CentralAuth then? (Otherwise we'd need 30 additional bureaucrats when they enable SUL for all... *ggg*) --Thogo (talk) 11:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course — VasilievVV 17:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Global blocking

For those who may have missed it, there is discussion happening about global blocking over there. Input is always welcome. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 14:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Many tables can't be copied well

Please see

• MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Wikitable borders in email and outside web pages

I sometimes want to copy wikipedia tables and lists into my web pages, or into my email. The standard table created by the table button in the Wikipedia editing form does not add the necessary bit of code to allow tables to show up easily outside wikipedia. So the tables lose their borders when pasted into my web pages, or into my email. A jumbled mess. A simple solution awaits! border="1" - See the above talk page link. --Timeshifter 20:55, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Simple English Wikiquote

Per a previous motion to close on 1 May 2008, MF-Warburg closed this interminable, two-year discussion today. He closed it as "keep". 64 editors supported closing the project, 56 opposed closure. While MF-Warburg did not elaborate on his decision, presumably he made it on the lack of sufficient consensus to eliminate a project.

In November 2007, a non-admin, Prince Kassad "closed" the discussion as "close", stating this was not a useful project. This was quickly overturned as an invalid action by a non-admin.

Today, Prince Kassad struck MF-Warburg's decision, calling it invalid since MF-Warburg gave no reason for his decision.

I believe MF-Warburg's decision was entirely proper and within his rights as an admin. I believe Prince Kassad's actions, while surely made in good faith, were invalid and inappropriate. I have temporarily protected the page for one week so that only admins can edit it and I have referred any further discussion to the talk page. Note that there was already a previous, robust discussion of this project on the talkpage.

Disclaimer: for the record, I am a supporter of keeping this project open. --A. B. ^(talk) 14:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

MF-Warburg is not an admin, at least on Meta. I'm not sure who has authority to close them, but I assumed it was Meta admins. Majorly (talk) 14:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, heck. Thanks for catching that, Majorly. I thought he was. Well then, this is just like Prince Kassad's invalid November closure all over again.

I feel OK stopping the discussion and protecting the page, however as a partisan of keeping that project alive, I think another, more neutral admin should make the final decision and close the discussion.

This matter needs to be settled now -- the closure discussion has dragged on for two years. --A. B. ^(talk) 15:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I closed this discussion because of the "motion to close" that was there. Nobody objected and 64/56 is not enough support so the result should be of course keep. I made this decision although I am not an admin here (why should only admins be allowed to close discussions?). I have yet closed other project closing proposals and nobody ever protested (except Yaroslav Zolotaryov...). --MF-W 16:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Probably nobody complained because the others were uncontroversial (except for Yaroslav Zolotaryov's and that's an entirely different, very long story!). Besides, you know more about our small projects than >95% of Meta admins. I always thought you were an admin; I hope you will consider becoming one here.

Perhaps an admin's not needed. We don't have a formal procedure and have not needed one before. In any event, VasilievVV has closed it as "keep" the same as you did. --A. B. ^(talk) 18:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disable local uploads on Meta

Since, as per the inclusion policy, unfree content is not allowed on Meta, I propose that we disable local uploads and instead use Commons for all images. Commons is much better set up to handle images and is in a better position to manage any issues. I'd welcome any comments on this issue and any suggestions as to why this might not be worth doing. Regards. Adambro 13:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggest not to disable it at all, but limit to sysops for some rare cases, like it's done on Incubator — VasilievVV 14:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. The majority of uploads here are deleted immediately, but some images are uploaded. The policy is also wrong in practise, as Meta has several unfree images hosted. However, such images can be uploaded by admins only. It'll make less work in having to delete them. Majorly (talk) 14:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Limiting to sysops seems sensible. Leaves the option open in those limited circumstances where it might be appropriate. Adambro 14:24, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Meta is much used for marketing materials (see Presentations, etc.). Where are we supposed to upload these files, given that some people on Commons claim Commons shouldn't host text documents? Note that this is an open question: I am not really against disabling local upload on meta, I'd just like to be sure that all materials uploaded and to upload to meta will be accepted on Commons. I think this should be discussed with people from Commons as well, because Commons' scope is unclear about this. guillom 06:53, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

When we talk about "uploads" everyone starts with thinking about images. However, an important part of uploads are non-image files such as PDF documents, Powerpoint presentations, etc. Some of such things are only related to Meta and as long as there is no licensing problem, it is fine if they are uploaded on Meta, not Commons. So in short, I'm not sure if we should disable uploads. Huji 17:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

On another note, I open another discussion: Meta:EDP. Please provide feedback on this in the talk page. Thanks Anthere 23:35, 3 May 2008 (UTC)