Meta:Babel/Archives/2016-02

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Wikidata data access is here

Hey folks :)

I wanted to let you know that we enabled access to the data on Wikidata for you. This means you can now access data like the number of inhabitants of a city or get a link to a picture for a famous person and much more. You can access the data in two ways - via a parser function and via Lua. How to use it:

I hope this will help you do great things here. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. Good places to start are d:Wikidata:Meta-Wiki and d:Wikidata:Project chat.

Cheers --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 19:14, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. SecretName101 (talk) 22:32, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
This is awesome news. Thanks a lot to everyone who worked to make this happen! --Glaisher (talk) 15:09, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
We have waited for this feature for a long time, thanks for making it reality! --Vogone (talk) 02:58, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
I join to the thank you.--Syum90 (talk) 15:29, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
YAY! THANK YOU! --Ochilov (talk) 15:30, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
For some basic functionality, one might want to import d:Module:Wikidata to Module:Wikidata (LUA for those who don't want to write their own). --Jura1 (talk) 20:10, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Looking for reports of users being logged in as someone else

Hi all,

we had reports of a serious authentication error that resulted in people being logged into the wrong account. We are trying to collect information about what happened, and how many users it might have happened to. If you have any knowledge of such a thing happening in the last few weeks, please tell us at one of these places:

You can find more details at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T126069. It looks like only a few users have been affected, but to be on the safe side, we are in the process of logging everyone out (which takes a while, so it might have happened to you this week, or it might happen in the next few days). Apologies for the inconvenience.

-- Tgr_(WMF) (talk) 23:50, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

we are in the process of logging everyone out (which takes a while... >> this was deemed unacceptably slow, so we are going to log out everyone at the same time. This is probably going to happen within a few hours, so that we can do it while most editors are asleep. I apologize for the disruption. Please report any unexpected problems (apart from having to log in again) at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T124440 . --Tgr (WMF) (talk) 04:22, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

While most editors are asleep? Ths is a further sign of unacceptable americacentrism in the WMF. UTC is the time for everyone here, not some crazy western pacific stuff. Cant you comprehend, that the wikiverse is NOT circling around the US, but a global enterprise? Get used to it! Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 05:29, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Eating breakfast, whatever. Global edit totals are at the minimum around 06-07 UTC, as mentioned in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T124440#2010709. --~~ 16:28, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Is there be possible in 2016 to merge duplicated babel categories?

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T127009

For example:

Any possible actions? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 08:03, 7 February 2016 (UTC) PS:These categories annoyed me for years. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 08:04, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

The only way would be a bot, that changes zh-yue for yue in all Babel templates across the wikis. Or make the Babel extension identify zh-yue as synonym for yue. —MarcoAurelio 11:49, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Invitation to work on a new draft deletion policy

I'm working on a update of our old Meta:Deletion policy. I invite users interested to review and contribute to it at this page and its talk page. Thanks. —MarcoAurelio 17:00, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to opt-out Meta-Wiki from the automatic approval clause of the bot policy

I propose to opt-out Meta from the automatic approval clause of the standard bot policy. This clause allows bot operations only for interwiki and double redirect fixing, something that global bots already do. I see no need to allow such an access here and since we also have an stablished procedure to approve bots. In fact, I'd propose to opt-out Meta entirely from the bot policy, but double redirect fixing is a good task and I welcome global bot operators to do that task. Regards, —MarcoAurelio 14:48, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

  • Oppose Oppose We don't need more bureaucracy at Meta-Wiki. Nemo 14:53, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Support as proposer. This is not bureaucracy, it's community control of bots operating here. I'm sad that every attempt to get a bit of order here in Meta is rejected as "bureaucracy" when it is not. The chances of nowadays getting approval under this clause are extremelly rare too. —MarcoAurelio 15:14, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
    Also, the above argument by Nemo is wrong. The lack of clear rules and policies at Meta is the reason for it's organizational failure and user-unfriendlyness. Doing whatever we want is funny, but it's not how a project succeeeds. We can't be the coordination project if we can't even coordinate ourselves on how to manage our content, our permissions, etc. —MarcoAurelio 15:31, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
    I think it's the opposite. What confuses people are the special rules Meta-Wiki has. Often there is a need to be special; for bots there isn't, so let's follow a global policy that will be familiar to users. If Meta-Wiki doesn't show trust in global policies and processes, who will? Nemo 09:25, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
    Which special rules are you refering to? Besides, it is not about trust, but about need, and Meta-Wiki does not need this useless relict of automatic approval. —MarcoAurelio 14:22, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Support In my opinion we are a community big enough to manage our own bots, I'm totally agree with MA, in fact I was thinking on proposing the same.--Syum90 (talk) 15:33, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose, unnecessary, per Nemo. Global bots are approved on this wiki here, anyway, largely even by the very same users who control metawiki, and this proposal seems to me like an attempt to solve a non-existing problem. --Vogone (talk) 15:42, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
Not solving but transferring control to this local community and its bureaucrats.--Syum90 (talk) 09:21, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose, more bureaucracy. — regards, Revi 10:06, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
    Such as? For tasks other than double redirect fixing (and interwikis), operators still need to open a BRfA and get their bots approved. Automatic approval for this wiki is useless. In fact the whole global bot policy is leaning it's unusefulness. Fact is that this year 60 global bots lost their flag for inactivity, which shows there's a progressive discontinuation of the tasks for which global bot flags are needed. —MarcoAurelio 14:22, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
    Then this is rather an issue with the global bot flag itself than with Meta-Wiki policy. --Vogone (talk) 14:28, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
    If I were to propose anything to the global bot policy it'd be its abolition to be sincere. While double redirect fixing is a loable task, I don't think it justifies a global group just for that. Maybe others can find additional non-controversial and useful tasks to make the bot policy useful again? :-) Thanks. —MarcoAurelio 14:38, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Oppose Following my utilitarian principles, this seems more like a bunch of red tape for no good reason at all. If there is a problem with the global bots policy, fixing that is the right way to go about this, not this band-aid.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:18, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Proposal withdrawn, if you all think it's still useful, then it is. —MarcoAurelio 16:27, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

LUA for Template:Archive box auto?

Hi. I wonder if somebody would be able to create a LUA module for the template named above, so it can detect automatically both Archive 1, Archive 2 kind of archives, and archives under the standard archival system. Best regards, —MarcoAurelio 16:26, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Meta:Fair use versus Meta:Deletion policy

I see that a while ago a discussion on this board decided that fair use was not to be allowed on Meta, but the deletion policy doesn't mention "fair use" as a deletion reason at all. Is that an omission or by design (seeing as the deletion policy allows deletion discussions to be started for any reason)?Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:33, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

That's because it's easier to win the lottery JackPot than to get some policy updated or created here at Meta sadly. —MarcoAurelio 14:42, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
I see. Would it be OK to add "fair use" to the first speedy deletion criterion for files?Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:53, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
I think it might be covered under WM:CSD#G5, but I'd not oppose adding it as a special reason for files and media. —MarcoAurelio 12:21, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
G5 is for copyright infringement, I don't think that would cover a (valid) fair use at all even if it violates policy (and I dunno about insufficiently free licenses either). I'd rather broaden I1 from "Noncommercial or by-permission-only" to cover any nonfree files in general.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:12, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Please see this page for a draft on a new deletion policy. Thanks. —MarcoAurelio 17:02, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately, the current deletion policy contains a number of bugs. For example, WM:DP#Images says that we may speedily delete "Noncommercial or by-permission-only images." This looked fine until I spotted a file which was licensed under CC-BY-ND (and thus not covered by that criterion). Instead, the file had to be discussed for several months at WM:RFD. The proposal by User:MarcoAurelio says "Unfree files: files that are obviously copyright infringements, or are licensed under any non-free license, or that don't allow commercial use or reuse." This is ambiguous: it doesn't state what a "non-free license" is (but since non-commercial licences and licences which do not permit reuse are listed separately, such licences are arguably not non-free licences within the meaning of the proposal).
Fair use is another bug in the deletion policy, and we therefore had a deletion discussion at WM:RFD about fair use images which was open for over two years until the files finally were deleted. Meta's decision process is a bit slow. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:31, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, the first reply to my query here was a comment on the speed of processes here. Anyhow, discussion on proposing a new deletion policy is happening on the abovelinked user sandbox talk page.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:06, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #1—2016

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

The visual editor

Did you know?

Among experienced editors, the visual editor's table editing is one of the most popular features.

Screenshot showing a pop-up menu for column operations in a table

If you select the top of a column or the end of a row, you can quickly insert and remove columns and rows.

Now, you can also rearrange columns and rows. Click "Move before" or "Move after" to swap the column or row with its neighbor.

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 VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Indic, and Han scripts, and improving the single edit tab interface.

Recent changes

You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing. This function is available to nearly all editors at most wikis except the Wiktionaries and Wikisources.

Many local feedback pages for the visual editor have been redirected to mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.

You can now re-arrange columns and rows in tables, as well as copying a row, column or any other selection of cells and pasting it in a new location.

The formula editor has two options: you can choose "Quick edit" to see and change only the LaTeX code, or "Edit" to use the full tool. The full tool offers immediate preview and an extensive list of symbols.

Future changes

The single edit tab project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab. This is similar to the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as an account preference for logged-in editors, and as a cookie for logged-out users. Logged-in editors will have these options in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences:

  • Remember my last editor,
  • Always give me the visual editor if possible,
  • Always give me the source editor, and
  • Show me both editor tabs. (This is the state for people using the visual editor now.)

The visual editor uses the same search engine as Special:Search to find links and files. This search will get better at detecting typos and spelling mistakes soon. These improvements to search will appear in the visual editor as well.

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at most "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. This will affect the following languages, amongst others: Japanese, Korean, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Thai, Aramaic.

Let's work together

If you aren't reading this in your favorite 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!

Elitre (WMF), 19:21, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikimania 2016: call for posters, discussions and trainings

Hi people,
the calls for posters, discussions and trainings for Wikimania 2016 are officially opened, you can find all the relevant links on the conference wiki:

https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions

The calls will be closed on March 20.

Posters will be reviewed just to make sure that there aren't things which are too much out of scope. Since we have a whole village we will surely find places to attach them, even if we they will be a lot!

Discussions will be managed by a guiding committee who will work on the wiki to meld all the proposals and suggestions.

Trainings will be reviewed by the programme committee. Please note that we request that each training has at least 3-5 interested attendees in order to be put in the programme.

By the beginning of April we will have a first list of all the accepted proposals.

If you have questions we suggest you to ask them on the discussion pages on wiki, so that everyone will be able to see them (and their answers, of course).

We are looking forward to read your ideas! --Yiyi (talk) 12:46, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Grant 'editcontentmodel' userright to admins and massmessage senders on Meta-Wiki

In order to easy the process of creating mass message delivery lists through Special:CreateMassMessageList, and the apparent lack of further issues re. phab:T85847; what do you think if we enable this permission to sysops and MM senders here? Regards, —MarcoAurelio 16:56, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Since https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/196981/ is merged, this proposal is now withdrawn, as the editcontentmodel right will now be avalaible for all administrators. —MarcoAurelio 09:43, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
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