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Editing News #2—2018

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Did you know?

Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?

Tap on the pencil icon to start editing. The page will probably open in the wikitext editor.

You will see another pencil icon in the toolbar. Tap on that pencil icon to the switch between visual editing and wikitext editing.

Remember to publish your changes when you're done.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has wrapped up most of their work on the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual diff tool. The team has begun investigating the needs of editors who use mobile devices. Their work board is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are fixing bugs and improving mobile editing.

Recent changes

• The Editing team has published an initial report about mobile editing.
• The Editing team has begun a design study of visual editing on the mobile website. New editors have trouble doing basic tasks on a smartphone, such as adding links to Wikipedia articles. You can read the report.
• The Reading team is working on a separate mobile-based contributions project.
• The 2006 wikitext editor is no longer supported. If you used that toolbar, then you will no longer see any toolbar. You may choose another editing tool in your editing preferences, local gadgets, or beta features.
• The Editing team described the history and status of VisualEditor in this recorded public presentation (starting at 29 minutes, 30 seconds).
• The Language team released a new version of Content Translation (CX2) last month, on International Translation Day. It integrates the visual editor to support templates, tables, and images. It also produces better wikitext when the translated article is published. [1]

Let's work together

• The Editing team wants to improve visual editing on the mobile website. Please read their ideas and tell the team what you think would help editors who use the mobile site.
• The Community Wishlist Survey begins next week.
• 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. We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation. Thank you!

—Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

14:17, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Meta talk:Administrators

Hello,

There's an ongoing discussion about changing our inactive administrator policy. Any comment is welcome.

Regards. Matiia (talk) 23:31, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Changes to CentralNotice Access

A source of concern for some time has been that there are more people with access to CentralNotice than know how to or want to use the system. This is mainly been maintained because of CentralNotice's reliance on the MediaWiki namespace rather than a specific policy. Following the separation of interface-admin rights from general admins rights along with activity requirements for Meta Admin it has been decided to apply both of these policies to CentralNotice Administrators effective immediately as we look to proactively improve our security posture and promote a culture of security.

From today, only individuals with the “centralnotice-admin” user group will be able to modify campaigns and banners. Meta administrators will no longer be able access CentralNotice or make changes to centralnotice banners through the MediaWiki namespace.

CentralNotice-admins who have not made actions related to CN in the last 12 months as of November 16th 2018 will have the CentralNotice right removed but without prejudice. They will eligible to re-request the rights should the need arise or that they intend to work with CentralNotice on a longer term basis.

Meta-admins who have been active in the last 12 months in CentralNotice and will be added to the CentralNotice admin group by the Meta Bureaucrats shortly. Similarly Meta admins who have previously worked with CentralNotice but who have not done so in the last 12 months are eligible to re-request the rights should the need arise or that they intend to work with CentralNotice on a longer term basis without prejudice.

CentralNotice admins will also be required to undertake additional measures to secure their accounts.

It's understood this may cause some temporary disruption but I will be providing additional supports to communities in their access and use of CentralNotice through this period. Thank you all for your support and patience through this. Seddon (WMF) (talk) 05:25, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

@Seddon (WMF): and to where has this conversation been taking place? I haven't seen any invitation to participate. I was understanding that we operated with consensus, rather than by decree.  — billinghurst sDrewth 10:34, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

@Seddon (WMF): Thanks for separate follow-up email.

If you reread your post above, it is the generic big brother words that are troublesome. When a matter is undertaken, the powers that made the decision can be named. Not the amorphous nature used here which simply lacks accountability. I don't think if there are specific security concerns that you will get argument that changes should be made, and that may outweigh community consensus, however, that can be done courteously in a means sympathetic with our community approach. That said, you have now also set and direct a community policy again without identification of who has made that policy, and that is not the role of WMF staff here at meta, unless one is implementing something on the direction of the Board or the ED. If you are doing it on that, or similar authority, then say it. This is meta and staff should be cognisant of that; and you have been round long enough to know the culture of your fellow dinosaurs. You are also implementing an authority that changes the natures of the wikis, and where the Foundation may be seen as being put in greater control of day to day events. If you had applied a similar approach at enWP you would have faced a riot! So please look to update your communications around this process and identify what is staff-imposed and on whose authority, and what belongs to the community.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:01, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Seddon asked us Meta bureaucrats to implement the described changes. I have done so now. --MF-W 10:44, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

@MF-Warburg: I've touched CN's in the l2 months and are an admin and int-admin with 2FA, but don't see this access added - does a request need to be filed? — xaosflux ^Talk 12:34, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

I acted based on a list Seddon gave me. Looks like it may have been incomplete. I would wait for a correction to be made, if none happens, then please file a request. --MF-W 12:55, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

@Seddon (WMF): for comment. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:11, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

I used to make an edit to banners translation (even earlier this month) and still excluded? Can I edit translations without being barked by system? — regards, Revi 04:01, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Some admins were indeed left out. It is fixed now. --MF-W 01:17, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Meta:Urbanity

This is de facto policy according to the description, but what do we need to do to make it de jure policy? Unless there is any stuff that raises a big red siren, I think we can do formal stuff and make it de jure. — regards, Revi 15:04, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Do you want some specific change? Unless that is the case, I do not see any reason to deviate from common practice. Not everything has to be written in stone, unless it is controversial. --Vogone (talk) 15:17, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Mostly agree with Vogone. I don't think the issue is with the policy, it is possibly the lack of clarity that we will utilise non-compliance to block. We do not heavily link to it; it is not mentioned in our welcome message; and we do not have a block policy. With each of those it could be said that there is not sufficient emphasis on this from the community.  — billinghurst sDrewth 20:53, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Meta-Wiki intentionally avoids having very detailed behavioural policies, because if we summed up all the different expectations and habits of people from hundreds of projects we would end up having dozens of megabytes of text for every user to read. Meta also happens to be the place where many of the "universal" or ancient wiki or Wikimedia principles are discussed and summarised, which often provide useful guidance.

So I see it fitting that Meta:Urbanity was created as a mere explanation of how to read and use previously expressed policies and principles, and I'm not aware of any case where explicitly making it policy would have helped. I don't rule out that there may be, though. Nemo 22:14, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Updating requirements for autoconfirmed accounts

At the moment, autoconfirmed accounts at Meta are set after 4 days and zero edits. This is being problematic for some spam accounts, and at least one LTA who is creating accounts, and then waiting out the autoconfirmed period, then vandalising semi-protected pages. I propose that we have our configuration amended to be

• autoconfirmage 4 days; and
• autoconfirmedits 5 edits

In a conversation with user:Ajraddatz I suggested 10 as used at other wikis, however, they counter-proposed to 5.  — billinghurst sDrewth 05:47, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Votes

Propose discussion for 14 days, so closing 3 December 2018 if no disagreement.

• support as proposer.  — billinghurst sDrewth 05:47, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support - would provide a bit of a buffer to keep autoconfirmed protection useful, while not preventing experienced users from across Wikimedia from participating here. I would be OK with either 5 or 10, but would lean towards 5 for now. We can always raise to 10 if this continues to be an issue. – Ajraddatz (talk) 05:53, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support --Rschen7754 06:07, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
• Supportmake sense to do this. I will prefer 7/50 as per my homewiki but this is better than nothing.--Cohaf (talk) 06:22, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support and agree with Cohaf as well. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 10:30, 19 November 2018 (UTC)