Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2020-05

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in May 2020, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.

Colour change suggestion

On Requests for new languages, in the “Closed requests” section, reopened wikipedias has the same green shade of the opened. I would suggest to change them from green to dark green, to make distinction. Are you agree? --151.49.89.219 10:32, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it matters, really. Additionally, it's not just for editions of Wikipedia but all WMF projects. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:43, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: ~riley (talk) 09:35, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Planned maintenance operation (read-only time) on May 7

Hi, This is a reminder about the planned maintenance operation that will be performed on Thursday 7th May at 05:00 AM UTC. It's expected to last for 15 minutes. CentralAuth-based services (rename account, change password, etc.) may not work. See also: phab:T251157 -- Kaartic ^{correct me, if i'm wrong} 10:53, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Oops, I forgot to mention in the description that this wiki would go read only during the duration of the maintenance operation. -- Kaartic ^{correct me, if i'm wrong}

This section was archived on a request by: ~riley (talk) 09:36, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Confusion

I was blocked for "vandalism," however I do not see how I was vandalizing. My edits kept getting reverted with no edit summary, other then saying that the edits are revert, so I went to the person who was reverting, but then, those edits got reverted, and then, I got blocked for vandalism, which makes no sense! 2604:3D08:D180:4500:4C60:A3F4:95FD:EF8B 16:37, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi 2604:3D08:D180:4500:4C60:A3F4:95FD:EF8B, as you made that edit it doesn't appear that you are blocked. We would need more information to try to help further. Normally when someone is blocked there is a message on their talk page with more information. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:38, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, actually, there was two blocks, but I was mainly talking about the second block, but the second block was caused my the first block, so here pretty much what happened: I got blocked for "inserting nonsense in Proposals for closing projects, however, I did not understand what I did that is nonsense, so, I used Template:Unblock, I got a response saying "Decline reason: issue is probably 'repeated.' If you don't understand why nonsense, then please follow up with the blocking admin,' so I followed up saying "Yes, I do not understand," but then, User:Hasley, once, but then they kept getting reverted by User:Nieuwsgierige Gebruiker, due to that seeming like vandalism, I went to User:Nieuwsgierige Gebruiker to warn them, however, my edits kept getting reverted with no explanation, again, and then, I got blocked by someone.

As your are actively editing by commenting here, you are obviously no longer blocked under this account. If you are blocked under a specific address or username, you can file an unblocked request on your talk page of the blocked account or address. If you want to further this discussion you will need to be very specific about what is going on. Please note, if you are blocked and have changed addresses to bypass the block, you will only be further blocked. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:15, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — xaosflux ^Talk 18:15, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Add request

Please add Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Siberian on Requests for new languages. Thanks!!! --151.49.116.197 18:34, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Not done Page was deleted as a hoax. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 20:10, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: * Pppery * _{it has begun} 20:10, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Empty extra columns

Why there is a empty extra columns on Requests for new languages? I think they are useless... --151.49.89.219 20:16, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. This is a consequence of quirks with {{Lc-row}}. I at least added a column title so that there's something. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:32, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Please make any request about template fixes to talk:Requests for new languages — billinghurst sDrewth 03:59, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 03:59, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Wrong labels translation

In Commons, the File:Antonino Cannavacciuolo-signature.svg have a italian translation error in the label.

In the Details section, “SVG sviluppo” should be “Sviluppo SVG”. How can I fix? --2001:B07:6442:8903:E011:C9E4:72C8:9D85 13:40, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Previous requests: c:Commons:Help desk/Archive/2020/01#Wrong labels translation and c:Commons:Village pump/Technical/Archive/2020/01#Wrong labels translation

"Details" section? Very confusing. This only works in Italian so I've added a link. This wouldn't be too hard, but you need a template editor or administrator to edit the template:

In addition, someone who speaks Italian would have to confirm that your proposed change is correct. Blackcat is Italian off the top of my head. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 23:36, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello, not sure to have understood the problem. Which label are we talking about? -- Blackcat (talk) 07:51, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@Blackcat: https://ibb.co/mHFBqnk --2001:B07:6442:8903:B06C:D4E5:BC1A:2CEB 15:47, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Ok, fixed at the best I could. -- Blackcat (talk) 16:31, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 04:00, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

WikiGap Nigeria Online Contest: We seek your participation to close gender gap in Nigeria - (29 April-27 May)

Hello friends,

We invite you to help us close the gender gap about Nigerian women on Wikipedia.

There are amazing prizes to be won.

1st: HP Laptop 15-ra011nia Celeron 4GB RAM 500GB HDD FREE DOS
2nd: Mobile Phone: Canon 12 Air 6.55 inc
3rd: Zealot S7 Pro Portable Wireless Touch Control Bluetooth Speaker 4.2 With 10000maH and Powerbank
4th: 1TB Backup+Slim External Hard Drive
5th: 128GB Ultra OTG Dual USB Flash Drive
6th-15th: Wikipedia pencil, pin, and merchandise as supported by Wikimedia Sverige.

The contest runs through 29 April to 27 May 2020.

To join us click here

We rely so much on your support of this initiative.

Regards

@Olaniyan Olushola: You forgot to sign. The HP 15-ra011nia has an Intel Celeron N3060 dual core (it's kind of like an Intel Atom), DVD-writer and a 15.6" 1366 x 768 screen. The phone is probably a TECNO Camon 12 Air, not from Canon. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 14:40, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@Olaniyan Olushola: also the example that was to be followed ("To register, please follow the format of the Example below.") was removed by User:Kaizenify in this edit. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 14:50, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. @Olaniyan Olushola: Please ensure that you have used the announcement templates that puts text onto the front page. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:02, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikiask

Please leave your opinion on my latest proposal. Its a free online guidebook. Leave a message in the discussion if you have any thoughts, and if you are opposing, please state the reason clearly Arep Ticous 09:05, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

The right to control your own nonpublic information on Wikimedia

There is a access to nonpublic personal data policy, which is good as its goal is to protect the privacy of Wikimedians. What it doesn't provide though is control, or even access.

Control or access are luckily not needed frequently, but sometimes this is desirable. Some possible examples:

A mail that was sent to OTRS, but the sender has lost the original mail and wants a copy from OTRS.
OTRS permission is publicly being disputed and the sender wants to make the conversation public to clarify it. While the sender may be able to publish their mail to OTRS, they would be unable to prove that whatever they publish is everything they mailed to OTRS.
A user was investigated by a CheckUser and now wants/needs to prove to a third party what their IP was at that time. (would not be very common, but could help exonerate someone of an accusation when it happens)
A user is accused of sockpuppeteering but believes the CheckUser has erred and wants to explain to the broader community why they're innocent, or at least, understand why the CheckUser even believes they have socked.
A user has created a page or uploaded a file which has been deleted and they forgot to save/lost the original, so they want a copy.

Currently (unless a project happens to have some local policy for this, not sure if any project even does) there is no way to get access to one's own nonpublic information. Even less so is there any way for users to prove that any information they claim to be the nonpublic information is intact.

There is a bunch of ifs and buts here, but the basic principle should, in my opinion, be: if it's your data, you should have access to it. I'm considering the creation of a request for comment (that page doesn't seem very active..?) but some prior discussion is probably useful here. Also because I have no experience with the RfC process. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 00:32, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

None of your examples is a typical request for access. Private correspondence, backups of non-PII and transparency over internal processes are generally handled in different ways.

I suggest to focus on a more clear-cut case, preferably already regulated by some law (so that WMF doesn't feel a need to prevent the disclosure/access as illegal) and ideally of interest for a larger segment of our users. Nemo 06:54, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: I primarily started this thread because CheckUsers are human. They can (and do) make mistakes sometimes. There is the Ombudsman commission, but that page doesn't make their exact scope quite clear and blocked users aren't typically informed about its existence anyway. Plus it would be preferable to deal with cases within the community of a project whenever possible. The nonpublic data policy can be working against you when this happens, and that couldn't have been its intention. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 15:19, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Au contraire, I would argue that it is precisely the scope of the policy: to minimise the handling of personal information by trusting few people to access it for very specific purposes. We could probably increase the scrutiny of CheckUser actions by increasing the number of people with access, but that would hardly be progress for privacy. Again, it seems you're looking for some kind of process for community recall or appeal, so you should focus on that rather than dress it as something altogether different like a "request for access". Nemo 17:57, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: It's not the intention of the policy to frustrate attempts to request an unblock when a CheckUser has erred, just a side effect. I have the feeling you might better understand what I mean than I can explain it. A community appeal sounds interesting, I think that's worth looking into. Do you have any further thoughts on that? — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 00:08, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi Alexis Jazz. Related: phabricator:T387, phabricator:T29242, mw:Requests for comment/Retained account data self-discovery. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:54, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

New language request

In Requests for new languages is possible to request for new language. I found hundred of languages on Omniglot. Can I add them to the request page? --151.49.51.52 21:01, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Please see the links in the instructions at the top of Requests for new languages. Those will lead you to the details about how it works. TLDR: New projects must "demonstrate that there is sufficient community to build the project". Each language needs a community in order to build the related projects. Quiddity (talk) 02:34, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@Quiddity: I already know how to add language. I am asking about if that languages are eligible for the requests... --151.49.89.219 08:22, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, they are eligible if there are going to be sufficient potential members of the community to edit the wiki. This is a deliberately vague criterion because we do not want to be setting an objective benchmark. If you are going to propose specific wikis for these languages, I would suggest a different approach. Compare the Omniglot list against the list of Wikipedias to see if any of them already have a Wikipedia. Then compare the rest against the Incubator list of wikis and see if any of the Omniglot list already have an incubated space. Once the list has been pruned like this, find out how many speakers each language has (according to reliable sources) and remove any that have fewer than ten thousand speakers. If you look at the list of Wikipedias by speakers per article, the four smallest wikis are for constructed or dead languages. The smallest natural languages with wikis have at least ten thousand speakers each. Whatever languages are left on the list would probably be good candidates for applying for a space at the Incubator. If the incubated space grows, it can be considered for moving to its own wiki. I hope that helps. --Green Giant (talk) 21:05, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Please do not do it, if it's not a language in which you actually want to contribute. The request pages track projects that are in some stage of existing, not to track all the potential projects which could exist. --MF-W 00:22, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

logo & font license

Hello. I'm localizing a Wikipedia logo, the font i'm using is licensed under "SIL Open Font License (OFL)". Can i use this font? Please confirm. Thank you. --আফতাবুজ্জামান (talk) 20:50, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikimedia 2030 recommendations have been published

Full document
1-pager
Slides

Wikimedia 2030 recommendations guide how the Wikimedia movement should change to meet the Wikimedia vision in the upcoming decade. They are at a high level so that the ideas are flexible enough to be adapted to different global and local settings. The final set clarifies and refines the previous version, which was published in January. The team that finalized the content reviewed and integrated feedback and made the language as clear as possible.

The result is a 40-page document that outlines 10 recommendations, along with 10 underlying principles, a narrative of change, and a glossary. We encourage you to read the recommendations.

There are a couple of other formats for you to take a deeper dive if you wish, such as:

If you would like to comment, you are welcome to do so on the Meta-Wiki talk pages. However please note that these are the final version of the recommendations. No further edits will be made.

The focus of the movement strategy process will shift toward implementation. The Wikimedia Foundation is intending to host a series of virtual events. The goal will be to produce a plan to begin the implementation — to identify what initiatives must come first, and in what sequence, and with what resources and support. This series will have a wide scope to ensure various parts of the movement are engaged. We expect to share more details this month, and begin this work together through the summer and into the fall.

SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 14:50, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Changing the default skin: revisited

Let's face it. The MediaWiki software and Wikipedia has not had a default skin change in over 10 years. The Vector skin looks... old. The layout feels clunky, it is hard to use on mobile, and the use of gradients and old design code makes the Vector skin look dated compared to other modern skins introduced more recently, in particular Minerva and Timeless.

Isarra developed and is still working on the Timeless skin. It looks so much nicer, uses flat design, and will probably look Wikimedia projects look appealing for another decade to come. I do not like the choice of skins available, either, because the other skins (Modern, CologneBlue, Monobook) make Wikipedia look like it came out of the 1990s-2000s. My question for her is: are all the kinks and bugs in the Timeless skin fixed?

What makes the Vector skin look dated? Well, the design that Vector has used become antiquated with the introduction of flat design in 2012-2013. Other websites, including Microsoft, Google, wikiHow, and even Wikimedia Foundation have all switched over to using flat, responsive design. Because I use the Timeless skin, I get the advantages of this design, in particular the freedom of using whatever device I want on whatever size screen/window I want with very little constraints. If the Timeless skin was introduced, the mobile front end extension that Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects have used for the past several years would become deprecated, removing yet another dependency. The Vector skin does not have these same luxuries.

When I initially posted this several years ago, the Timeless skin was just introduced, so there were still a lot of design patches that were being worked on. Now, the Timeless skin feels more complete. Isarra can probably tell us (and me) when the Timeless skin will be ready. I am not requesting this because I dislike Vector, I am requesting this because it made sense in 2010-2011, but does not make any sense today. Wikipedia's appearance (and the appearance of any wiki that runs MediaWiki and uses the Vector skin by default) needs to evolve with the rest of the web. A a s i m 21:07, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

A first step could be to undeploy MobileFrontend and enable Timeless for mobile users: I think that would be quite uncontroversial. (But it would still be a huge increase in usage, so the fallout would be significant.)

As for ditching Vector, which is based on monobook, which is itself based on the original wikis... I think that's timeless, some 20 years young. Commercial software houses keep introducing new fads for the sake of it but that doesn't mean they're any better; usually they don't last long, soon everybody hates them and wonders why anyone ever thought they were a good idea. Nemo 21:14, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

We can still have the Vector skin after we make Timeless default. It is just that the default skin needs to be changed to a newer, responsive skin. I am not saying "ditch Vector", I am saying change the default to Timeless. A a s i m 01:13, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

I think we should change back to the Monobook skin. It just looks better. 73.189.119.24 01:19, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

The problem with Monobook is that, and yes I have used Monobook, its design goes as far back as 2004. That is also pretty old. We need something that can evolve with the changing times. A a s i m 04:24, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

That's the idea of skins in general. To allow the look to evolve without rebuilding the entire site. No skin will be designed with flexibility for the future in mind. You can't make a future-proof skin because you don't know what the future will bring. — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 05:09, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Minerva, Modern, Monobook, Timeless, Mobile.

Minerva looks like mobile. May be an improvement for mobile users.

Modern looks like 1998.

Monobook looks like 2001.

Timeless.. interesting, completely changes depending on window size. But I don't like the fixed unscrollable top bar. The only thing I might be interested in to be unscrollable would be a menu that opens the ToC.

@Awesome Aasim: Maybe you want to read mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Research and design: Phase 1. Pinging @AHollender (WMF). — Alexis Jazz (ping me) 04:17, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Hey Alexis Jazz, thanks for pinging a member of our team. I strongly encourage all of you (Awesome Aasim in particular) to read more on mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements and the subpages. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:10, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi SGrabarczuk (WMF): it is nice that you already are considering this problem. However, I think Vector still looks a bit dated (at the moment, maybe after you are done I will check the skin out and make a judgement call). I can't wait to see what you come up with! :D A a s i m 12:24, 21 May 2020 (UTC)