User talk:BDavis (WMF)/Archives/2018

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Small talk about Toollabsforge

Hi! Don't know if you know, but you were chosen (by Asaf) to be the friendly(!!) dev to answer some questions about Toolforge (here in Berlin conference). Can we have some small talk? I approximately know how you look like. Where could I find you (probably in European day) between the sessions? --Edgars2007 (talk) 21:39, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

@Edgars2007: I would be glad to talk with you. I'll be wandering around the conference Saturday and Sunday. The only place I know I will be for sure is in the talk that I am part of at 15:15 on Saturday. Come up to me anywhere you see me and we can chat. --BDavis (WMF) (talk) 21:44, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Timeless Newsletter • Issue 1

Newsletter • July 2018

Welcome to the first issue of the Timeless newsletter! This issue is being sent or forwarded to everyone who has at some point expressed an interest in the project, give or take, as well as a couple of other potentially relevant pages, so if you would like to continue (or start) receiving this newsletter directly, please sign up for further updates on the meta page.


The news:

The Timeless grant has been selected for funding, and the project is now underway!

While I've had a somewhat slow start working on the project for health reasons, I'm pleased to announce that everything described in the proposal is now either happening, or on its way to happening.

Current progress:

  • The project now has a hub on Meta to serve as a directory for the various related pages, workboards, and local discussions and help pages. It's probably incomplete, especially with regards to specific language projects that might have local pages for Timeless, so if you know of others, please add them!
  • Outreach: I've been talking to various people and groups directly about skinning, desktop/mobile interfaces, project management, specific component support, and other things, and have begun to compile a very shoddy list of skinning problems and random issues on mw.org based on this. Some of this may inform the direction of this project, or possibly this project will result in building a more proper list that can then be used for other things. We shall see.
  • Some development - task triage, code review, bug fixing, and various rabbit holes involving ...overflows.

General plan for the future:

  • Triage the rest of the workboard.
  • Catch up with all the talkpages and other bug reports that have been left various other places that are not the project workboard
  • Do all the bug fixes/features/other things!
  • Some proposals aimed at Commons and Wikisource in particular (maybe, we'll see)

Essentially, the grant as written shall be carried out. This was the plan, and remains the plan. Timelines remain fuzzy, but while there have been some initial delays, I don't particularly expect the timeline for project as a whole to change a whole lot.

Also, for anyone at Wikimania right now: I am also at Wikimania. Come talk to me in person!

Thank you all for your interest and support thus far!

-— Isarra 12:23, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

This issue has been sent regardless of signup status. To receive future issues please add yourself on the massmessage list.

Timeless Newsletter • Issue 2

The second issue of the Timeless newsletter is out.

The news: Themes are coming to Timeless! Your infobox and navbox templates in particular are probably going to look absolutely horrible in the new built-in night mode.


For more information, background, plans and progress updates, please see the full issue on Meta, complete with a ridiculous list of phabricator task links, gratuitous mention of other skins, and me complaining about the current state of MediaWiki skinning in general.

-— Isarra 01:48, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Approving an app for testing

Hi, I am just testing an app. The app is at localhost. Like the last time it throws "Invalid consumer" if the keys associated with the app is not valid. Can You please validate the app. Special:OAuthListConsumers/view/a226ae7f2d30de5d340b6516c2601383 Thank You Jnanaranjan sahu (talk) 06:16, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

it worked. Excuse me for unnecessary ping. Jnanaranjan sahu (talk) 06:54, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

The Community Wishlist Survey

Hi,

You get this message because you’ve previously participated in the Community Wishlist Survey. I just wanted to let you know that this year’s survey is now open for proposals. You can suggest technical changes until 11 November: Community Wishlist Survey 2019.

You can vote from November 16 to November 30. To keep the number of messages at a reasonable level, I won’t send out a separate reminder to you about that. /Johan (WMF) 11:24, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Timeless Newsletter • Issue 3

Newsletter • December 2018

Welcome to the third issue of the Timeless newsletter, complete with a somewhat dubious explanation of where I've been all this time.

Somewhat dubious explanation of where I've been all this time:

I suffered a rather bad concussion in October, which knocked me pretty much completely out of commission through November, and I'm still recovering even now. One person = bus factor of one, even though it wasn't actually a bus but a very short flight of stairs.

Updates:

  • Random bugs have been fixed. More bugs have been found. For a full list of horrors, see the workboard.
  • Implementing themes (T131991: the dark/night mode and winter variants of the skin) has proven far more complicated than initially thought, lacking either the extension, or preferably, some core support for this functionality. Thus:
    • I have submitted a Request for Comment proposing to merge Extension:Theme into core - this will enable skins to specify style variants as distinct options for users to select in their preferences by letting the skin specify the styles separately for each, a much neater way of implementing this than some of the existing hacks.
    • Jack Phoenix has already submitted a patch to do this. We simply need the buy-in and consensus to merge it, and to resolve whatever issues may arise from this wider review.

Comments on the RfC (MediaWiki wiki RfC page, task) or bugs, or further reports, are always appreciated.

Until next time, hopefully with no further injuries,

-— Isarra 22:35, 20 December 2018 (UTC)