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This is the general discussion forum for Meta (this wiki). Before you post a new comment please note the following: You can comment here in any language. This forum is primarily for discussion of Meta policies and guidelines, and other matters that affect more than one page of the wiki. If your comment only relates to a single page, please post it on the corresponding discussion page (if necessary, you can provide a link and short description here). For notices and discussions related to multilingualism and translation, see Meta:Babylon and its discussion page. For information about how to indicate your language abilities on your user page ("Babel templates"), see User language. To discuss Wikimedia in general, please use the Wikimedia Forum. Consider whether your question or comment would be better addressed at one of the major Wikimedia "content projects" instead of here.

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Gadget / Gadget definition namespaces - are they operative?

Thanks, —MarcoAurelio 10:22, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Ping? —MarcoAurelio 12:42, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Ping-ping? —MarcoAurelio 23:02, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I think that you are asking in the wrong place. Read mw:ResourceLoader/Version_2_Design_Specification#Gadget_Manager, then probably hunt out someone like Krinkle for an answer.  — billinghurst sDrewth 11:54, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

New project - WikiBarCodes

Hi there. We have a new idea for Wiki sister project. Please, take a look at that (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiBarCodes), give your opinion, and so on. I appreciate any help. Thank you in advance. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by AlexandrKalaur (talk • contribs) 13:10, 14 May 2017‎ (UTC) (UTC)

Policies and guidelines for user pages on Wikipedia

Hello! I am not sure that this question is being asked in the right forum, but as I don´t know where else to put it I hope that if it is in the wrong place that some kind person can help me place it right. I would like to know if policies and guidelines for user pages differ on different languages on Wikipedia? My user page that looks the same in maybe 10-20 languages keeps being deleted in the Spanish Wikipedia and I can´t understand why. I have asked why on my discussion page there and on one of the editors discussion pages, that deleted it but I have received no answer or help to change what ever they think is wrong with it. I can´t see what could possibly be wrong or break any rules and in no other language have there ever been any complaints during my years here. So if anyone can help me get an explanation and straighten out what rules apply for user pages (and if/why they don´t apply for the Spanish Wikipedia for some reason) I would be thankful. Frökennostalgi (talk) 15:58, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Just a comment: I think it's deleted because of "Great swedish actors/artists" etc. as they have nothing to do with the fact what are you working on the Wikipedia. They are just personal opinions, and should not be listed on the user page. "Pages that I want to create" and such should be fine (even in English). There is no global policy for user pages, and some projects are stricter than the others. Stryn (talk) 17:24, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your take on it Stryn! I would never have been able to guess that. You can actually delete an entire user page just because a person writes one opinion on their own page? That seems very harsh, without a warning or anything. On the Swedish Wikipedia's user pages you can write freely about any subjects you wish, expressing your personality and views so this is quite different. Had I written it in actual articles I would understand that the sentence would be deleted, but not the whole page. And the fact that no one seems to bother to answer me puzzles me a bit. Ok, it seems like the Spanish Wikipedia is very strict in this case and maybe it should be made clear whats ok and whats not, it would help if it differs this much on the different projects. I will try to recreate my user page again, without this sentence and see how it goes. I don´t want to be blocked there because they differ so much in rules from the other languages and I keep breaking them, not understanding them. But hopefully this will be ok then. Frökennostalgi (talk) 18:20, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

The right forum would be the Wikimedia Forum. Typically wikis have less tolerance for the content of user pages if the user is not very active on the wiki. What gets accepted or not is very discretionary and varies a lot across wikis, which is one of the many reasons Terms of use#paid-contrib-disclosure has spectacularly failed to be enforced in practice. Nemo 19:03, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer and information Nemo! I will ask my question in that forum also then, and see if there are any more thoughts on this issue, in the right forum for it. Best regards, Frökennostalgi (talk) 20:07, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Update: they deleted my user page again, even though I asked them to contact me instead so I could correct whatever was wrong (and after changing what we guessed was wrong). I don´t understand this. Is there anyone who can help me with this? They seem very hard to communicate with and indifferent to my tries. Frökennostalgi (talk) 07:47, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

@Frökennostalgi: Here's one other point. I think most projects are more tolerant about user-page content when it's about you and not promotional, and a lot of the "gray area" has to do with what's considered truly promotional and what's simply something about you that you want to share that's at least remotely relevant to your work on the project. Most projects are less tolerant of your making your user page an editorial forum for your opinion on something. And that's all the more true when you say something like "Great Swedish actors"—a statement like that requires a source. If you say something like: "Much of my work on Wikipedia is about Swedish actors and films; here are some that I particularly like", that is a different and more allowable statement than "Here is a list of great Swedish actors". StevenJ81 (talk) 15:50, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Substituting welcome template

Hi, all. I would like to ask for input from the community about the issue of substituting the {{welcome}} template on user talk pages. My bot was approved and has been running this task for years but @Billinghurst: now objects saying that this task is without value. (Full discussion is included below.) Please comment on whether I should continue to run this task or stop the bot. Thank you. --Meno25 (talk) 15:33, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I personally don't substitute the welcome template when I use it, because I appreciate being able to update links a nd translations later. --Nemo 16:15, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

• Comment Pretty much what I was saying. A 2007 bot approval looked at with fresh eyes. I don't doubt that it was approved in 2007, a few wiki-generations ago, relatively early in meta-age, and as a process imported from a single language wiki (enWP). I simply don't see that this old process has value.  — billinghurst sDrewth 14:52, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Merits of the argument aside, you come off as really hostile and aggressive in your comments to Meno25, in my opinion. I really applaud Meno25 for not replying in-kind and instead being helpful, constructive, and reasonable, explaining how the current situation came to be and offering to reëxamine the previous decisions made. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:07, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
• As noted above, we've traditionally substituted all talk page templates, welcome templates included, to preserve the messages as they were at the time of delivery. Does anybody care about preserving the messages as they were? If not, we should change the default guideline to not substitute talk page templates and individual users can choose to substitute on their own talk pages at their own discretion. If we do want to try to preserve the messages as they were delivered, substituting by default makes some sense.

  I can see arguments both ways, but I don't think either view is that crazy. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:10, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

• I, too, see arguments both ways. I'm inclined to side with those who don't want to substitute, because to the extent that the information in the welcome template should continue to be useful the template might have to update from time to time. But I could see wanting the record to reflect the time of the posting, too. In my mind, the only thing one needs to be careful about is this: If we are not going to substitute the template, then the user or bot that leaves the template needs to sign the talk page outside the template. I'd like there to be an accurate record of when the edit itself was made. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:52, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

• Here at meta there is a bot that adds the template signs and outside the template. I know that I sign outside of the template. We also have a history for each user page and welcome messages typically are added at or about the time of the account creation, never before, and hardly ever a long time after. Further, since when and with what regularity have we actually done a post-mortem analysis of a user talk page to see what message someone was given prior to reflecting on someone's editing behaviour? So we have a requirement that is actually useful on a very rare occasions, compared with a modern, active welcome message that would be useful pretty well every day, especially with low traffic, low archiving talk pages of users.  — billinghurst sDrewth 14:27, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Some user scripts and gadgets will break on Meta during July

The MediaWiki devs have been slowly improving the accessibility of the user interface. The next step in this transition will change the appearance of some buttons and may break some outdated (non-updated or unmaintained) user scripts and gadgets.

Most editors will only notice that some buttons are slightly larger and have different colors:

• Comparison of old and new styles
• 

  Buttons before the change

• 

  Buttons after the change

You can see and use the old and new versions now. These links will take you to Meta's sandbox page, but the same approach works at all WMF wikis.

However, this change also affects some user scripts and gadgets. Unfortunately, some of them may not work well in the new system and will need to be updated. If you maintain any user scripts or gadgets that are used for editing, please see mw:Contributors/Projects/Accessible editing buttons for information on how to test and fix your scripts. Outdated scripts can be tested and fixed now.

This change has already been deployed to the Persian and Polish Wikipedias. This change will probably reach Meta on Wednesday, 5 July 2017, along with several other larger Wikipedias. Later in July, it will reach other Wikipedias (including the English and German Wikipedias), and then other sites (e.g., the Wikisources and Commons) after that.

Please leave a message at mw:Talk:Contributors/Projects/Accessible editing buttons if you have any questions. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:28, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Using Phabricator to report bugs and plan updates on Meta-Wiki gadgets

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T167983

I propose that we do what Wikidata did and use Phabricator to report bugs and plan improvements in our Gadgets. Few of us know how to code, debug, etc. a Gadget. Maybe having a central place stuff like that can be reported and worked upon would be a good idea? Regards, —MarcoAurelio 22:18, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Edit the text of a banner

Hi there,

Could someone please edit the text 2 in French in Special:CentralNoticeBanners/edit/wle_2017_ch?

It should be informez-vous, not informez vous.

Thanks. --Thibaut120094 (talk) 17:16, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Already fixed by Linedwell and I marked it as "published" so it goes live. Stryn (talk) 17:28, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. --Thibaut120094 (talk) 19:26, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Module:Protection banner/config

I think we need to customize Module:Protection banner/config to avoid the Module to output very specific enwiki links and categories. Unfortunately I do not know Lua so I am leaving this here and maybe anyone can have a look at it. Thanks, —MarcoAurelio 22:15, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to remove Programs and Participation namespaces

Three years ago, a proposal to remove the Participation namespace was made, with no action taken. Three years later I am re-opening the proposal and adding the "Programs" namespace to it (which had been defunct for years and only recently did I move the last remaining pages). My goal in removing these namespaces is to reduce UI clutter and discourage the use of long-deprecated namespaces. Existing redirects should be preserved. See the Phabricator task. Harej (WMF) (talk) 17:13, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

• Please remove. Better to remove all the namespaces that we don't need. Stryn (talk) 17:26, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
• +1, obviously good to remove. Thanks for following up. --Nemo 18:52, 27 June 2017 (UTC)