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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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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)

Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Simple English Wikibooks (3)

The project's own domain should be closed and redirected to the Incubator. 83.24.99.100 19:08, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

@83.24.99.100: This is a request for Phabricator. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:35, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Not quite. Closing the domain requires either deletion or a change in policy (Closing projects policy). --Nemo 20:00, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

That's already closed for years, isn't that? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 07:37, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

While the project has been closed for years, the domain is still accessible, so in that sense the domain is still "open" even though the project isn't.--FeralOink (talk) 00:13, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Since Simple English Wikibooks is not written in a language, I don't know if it can be redirected to the Incubator. I make this observation based on the comments in the closure of Simple English Wikibooks proposal. Usually, when a project is closed, it is moved to the incubator until there's enough interest to give it its own domain again. Due to the languages rule, Simple English Wikibooks can't be restarted, so would it be appropriate to even move it to the Incubator? I don't have any objection to closing the domain for a closed project.--FeralOink (talk) 00:30, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

The appropriate way to handle this is to enter a new proposal at PCP. Per CPP, this would be a type 2 proposal, and the request would be to delete Simple English Wikibooks, with any worthwhile content exported to (?).

I will say that by current policy the contents would not be imported to Incubator. They would likely be placed into a new category, or namespace, or other subdivision of English Wikibooks. What I don't know is if (a) that was ever done, (b) whether the Wikijunior content of English Wikibooks covers most of that ground, or (c) if there is worthwhile content to salvage. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:33, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Some user(talk) pages are having double colons in their soft redirect links and hence they are broken

e.g. @Jimmy Xu: has [[::w:zh:User:Jimmy Xu|:w:zh:User:Jimmy Xu]] but in source codes there's only one leading colon ({{Softredirect|:w:zh:User:Jimmy Xu}}), I don't know if someone broke {{Interwiki redirect}} or not. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 03:12, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

No need to add the leading double colon before w, as it comes automatically from the template. Stryn (talk) 05:03, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

The problem is those users don't actually add double colons, but it's for some reasons rendering as :: in output. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 23:03, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Comment I tried some fix recently. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:55, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

TemplateStyles extension

There is a new TemplateStyles extension that lets you define per-template stylesheets, as opposed to inline styles in HTML tags or overloading MediaWiki:Common.css with template-specific code. Currently they are looking for some wikis to serve as early test cases. I think this extension would help significantly with making portals on Meta mobile-responsive and would help with cleaning code out of Common.css. If you would like Meta to be one of the early users of the extension, please comment here or on the Phabricator task. Harej (WMF) (talk) 18:44, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I see that they already have three wikis where this new extension is going to be tested. Looks promising but I'd prefer that they do the initial testing on other wikis and if the results are satisfactory then I won't oppose having it installed here as well. Regards, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 23:28, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Increase AbuseFilter autodisable threshold for Meta-Wiki

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T173633

Hello. It happened recently that in periods of low recent changes activity an insistent vandal can trigger the failsafe of the AbuseFilter extension and disallow the filter from taking some actions, such as blocking, by continuing to vandalize the wiki. See for example what happened on August 2nd with Special:AbuseFilter/57. As such I propose to increase the limit so filters can't be fooled even in periods of low activity to 0.30 as in Commons and 25 edits as in Commons as well. Thank you for your consideration. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 12:46, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Some gadgets are using the thumbnailing backend very inefficiently (easy fix)

The following gadgets: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T168929#3381562 invoke thumb.php on the wikis directly. This is very inefficient on Wikimedia wikis, as it bypasses our cached thumbnailing infrastructure and forces these images to be rendered on the fly every time they are displayed. This makes them slow to the gadget users, in addition to be a wasteful use of infrastructure.

The fix is very simple, though, and I am looking for interface editors who could do it on those wikis.

Typically, those gadgets build URLs like this:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/thumb.php?f=Gnome-mime-application-msword.svg&w=18

Where in that particular example an 18px thumbnail of that SVG file is generated.

The same can be achieved and leverage all our caching goodness with the following syntax:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath?file=Gnome-mime-application-msword.svg&width=18

That's it! It's really an easy win for everyone to update those URLs.

--GDubuc (WMF) (talk) 15:13, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Adminstrators

Hello users, I would like to ask a question, how can I be an adminstrator in the meta (or better to give my name here)?--S--------D (talk) 06:48, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi, you have to place your request at Meta:Requests for adminship, but I strongly recommend you to gain more experience in the project before requesting the rights. Regards.--Syum90 (talk) 07:40, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

"Please note: Ill-considered nominations for adminship can be draining and deflating to both the community and the candidate. Any successful candidate will need to be able to demonstrate sufficient experience within the Wikimedia community, in addition to a familiarity with Meta-Wiki. If a candidate is not already a local administrator or holder of advanced permissions on a Wikimedia content project, he or she is less likely to pass a request for adminship here at Meta-Wiki." —MarcoAurelio (talk) 10:50, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Maintenance of Meta-Wiki Gadgets

It would be awesome if we could get a process or a page where requests for creation or updates on Meta-Wiki gadgets could occur, as well as active mantainers. Currently requests to have gadgets fixed or updated are spread all over the place with the result of no one working on those. At this thread, Nemo and MZMcBride were not opposed to use Phabricator for such requests as it happens with Wikidata. Some Gadgets such as Pathoschild's ones were ported to GitHub, others sitting here lack active maintenance. Andre and myself are worried that, if we create a #MetaWiki-Gadgets project at Phab, similar as we do on Wikidata, we could end creating yet another place where things are reported but no one looks at them. Therefore I'd like to ask you one more time for your opinion on this. Thanks. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 11:00, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, I think we could create a page called Meta:Gadgets, Meta:Gadgets management, Meta:Gadgets maintenance or something similar for this.--Syum90 (talk) 14:51, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

@Syum90: Thanks. The problem is not the place but if there are people avalaible for that task. I know no JS/CSS, for example. Regards, —MarcoAurelio (talk) 16:45, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

I have the same problem than you :-/ Syum90 (talk) 06:28, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

• I am rather pro some on-wiki venue. It is not that I am opposed to Phab, but keeping it on Phab makes it difficult to navigate to and fro the requests and the gadgets. I know a little bit of JS and CSS to write simple scripts for personal use or port and create very simple gadgets but I cannot be a maintainer for anything complex either. --Base (talk) 19:31, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
• Question: what would the role of MediaWiki talk:Gadgets-definition be under this scheme? It looks like historically people did hold discussions on that page, but not so much in recent days. Harej (WMF) (talk) 16:43, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
• I have withdrawn my proposal on Phabricator. While it had some kind of support, the low level of participation here anticipates that the project would be just another place where things would be reported and nobody cared about them. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 19:52, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Your feedback is welcome!

Hey everyone, TL;DR, see Technical Collaboration/Community collaboration in product development/Tech ambassadors and translators to provide feedback on the role of tech ambassadors and tech translators until August 22nd, or in person at Wikimania. All details on page. Any help spreading the word is certainly appreciated :) Ciao, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:06, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

For some, 'diversity' = 'the uniformity of monolingualism'.

moved from Talk:Small Wiki Monitoring Team. Stryn (talk) 14:55, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Banners are not being enabled by Meta Admins, even after they have been translated well in advance. Cy-wiki (Welsh Wicipedia) started a discussion here which is getting nowhere. All foreign language banners will be banned on cywiki in the next few weeks, and we suggest cooperation with other smaller language wikis which are being bullied in this way. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 08:24, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

You can always ping admins so they can then publish the banners. Stryn (talk) 14:54, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

@Llywelyn2000: I saw you post this here and at another forum as well. On the other thread, there was a fairly simple explanation that involved oversight rather than malice. Are you convinced that this is a deliberate strategy? If so, why even have projects in (e.g.) Welsh or Dinka? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:20, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, "deliberate strategy" makes it sounds like conspiracy theories, but if somebody enables a banner (or multiple) for all languages I'd call the effect (showing untranslated banners) quite deliberate. --Nemo 17:53, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

@Stryn: - yes, but the admins do not speak Welsh (and other languages); the ability to publish a banner should be given to the trusted translator.

@Koavf: / Justin - what you say here does not make sense. You say that "if admins are deliberately placing untranslated language banners on local wikis then why should small language wikis exist". What nonsense! Is that helping or hindering a discussion which aims at developing diversity of language rather than hindering it? If you want to engage with me then please be rationale and reasonable. 'deliberate strategy' - those are your words.

@Nemo bis: - yes, certainly the effect is deliberate; I think it boils down to laziness rather than malice.

Maybe the biggest problem smaller language wikis have is the lack of coordination, with no forum for a discussion. I'm certain that others are also outraged by untranslated banners. Is there one?

If no further changes are made then I will go ahead with the ban. And then I will try and find out if the other 250 smaller wikis are happy or unhappy about untranslated banners.

Llywelyn2000 (talk) 04:29, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

@Llywelyn2000: I'm not trying to put word in your mouth--I'm trying to understand your perspective. What is your allegation exactly? Are you saying that the leadership here is trying to undermine linguistic diversity? Or are you saying that they are being derelict in their duty? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:10, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

@Koavf: Find solutions not attempt to lay blame. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 08:19, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

@Llywelyn2000: Excellent. Is there anything I can do (as a non-admin) to help make sure that due diligence is done for tranlsated banners? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:24, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

There is something: CentralNotice/Calendar and its archive need to be filled with all the campaigns run in the past year or two. I noticed that someone removed items from the calendar without copying them to the archive, or even run campaigns without adding them to the calendar (there is information on some of those un-calendarised campaigns in the request page). --Nemo 08:52, 16 August 2017 (UTC)