Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2018/November

reviewer feedback format
you are active reviewers currently. I am proposing that we make a guideline (tip/suggestion, not requirement) for
 * starting the reviewer feedback with one-two things which the contributor has succeeded at. (If they have succeeded at something that they did not do before, this needs to be emphasized.)

And also, when deleting an article,
 * leave 2-3 brief tips on the talk page of the contributor (next things which they need to learn)

It is my hypothesis that this approach may improve how people go about their next story. --Gryllida (talk) 05:28, 1 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I recall brianmc saying at some point, they'd gotten advice (at a workshop of some sort, maybe?) that when writing negative feedback, find something to say, then give the criticism, and then end on a positive note. This, I recall, he said was known by the vivid term "shit sandwich".  I find it difficult to do that, mostly, but since then I have tried to keep in mind that whatever positive I can honestly say could be useful to put at the start. --Pi zero (talk) 05:41, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) In "find something to say, then give the criticism, and then end on a positive note' does the "something to say" need to be positive or negative? Or it needs to be a "thanks for writing about this" (kind of a mix of neutral and positive)
 * 2) Why do you put positive content at the start? Gryllida (talk) 06:02, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Seems I left out a word, "find something positive to say, [...]". The idea, I think, in saying something good at the start, is to let them know, before diving into criticisms, that you're not being purely negative.  So they don't start out by thinking of you as as attacker.  As for the positive note, I have less of a handle on that.  It does seem like, if one wants to give them some encouragement to take action, the best place to do so would be at the end. --Pi zero (talk) 07:20, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Yea, I think the "+-+" format makes sense. Not sure which of the positive things goes to the start and which goes to the end. Gryllida (talk) 10:32, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I think a prompting-to-action could be a natural and somewhat positive way to end. Sometimes I can't think of anything particularly positive to say, for the start, and I don't try to force it (lest it come out sounding artificial).  A tactic I've found can work quite well, on the somewhat unusual cases where it applies, is that if I'm writing a not-ready review, and there are previous not-ready reviews for the same article, and the reporter did fix at least one thing that was mentioned in the previous review(s), I can start with a bullet noting what they fixed and thanking them for it. --Pi zero (talk) 17:50, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I think a prompting-to-action could be a natural and somewhat positive way to end. Sometimes I can't think of anything particularly positive to say, for the start, and I don't try to force it (lest it come out sounding artificial).  A tactic I've found can work quite well, on the somewhat unusual cases where it applies, is that if I'm writing a not-ready review, and there are previous not-ready reviews for the same article, and the reporter did fix at least one thing that was mentioned in the previous review(s), I can start with a bullet noting what they fixed and thanking them for it. --Pi zero (talk) 17:50, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

I remember that is what you did, pi, for my first article. And that rather felt sarcastic. Getting the story published was more important than any other thing. So did not say much. (It was published on the last day, after failing thrice, and three articles had failed prior to that.) My suggestion, don't. If you do not mean to. Or if you do not want to. It just feels awkward. •–• 18:37, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-41
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * The Education Program extension was removed from all Wikimedia projects. You can use the Programs and Events Dashboard or the Fountain instead.

Problems
 * There was a problem when you copied and pasted from a table with the visual editor. It could add  where it shouldn't be. This has now been fixed.

Changes later this week
 * Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.
 * Because of the data centre test there will be no new version of MediaWiki this week. Changes for this week will come next week instead.

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 10 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  23:38, 8 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Why was the education program extension removed? --Gryllida (talk) 03:17, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Gryllida: Because the Programs and Events Dashboard replaced it. Keeping old extensions around is difficult and expensive – T106123 lists why. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 16:06, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-45
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * You can now use TemplateWizard to edit templates. This works only with the 2010 wikitext editor and not in the visual editor or the 2017 wikitext editor. If you click on OOjs UI icon puzzle-ltr.svg you can enter the information in a pop-up. You can turn on TemplateWizard in your beta feature preferences.

Changes later this week
 * You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. The interface for the two-column edit conflict will change. You can read more.
 * When you edit with the visual editor you can use the "Automatic" citation tab. This helps you generate citations. You will now be able to write plain text citations or the title of a journal article or a book in this tab. This will search the Crossref and WorldCat databases and add the top result.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 November. It will be on all wikis from 8 November (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  17:29, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-42
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems
 * Some pages, edits and users disappeared for a short while after the server switch. Missing content and users was fixed within a day. Some preferences and other things might take a few more days to fix.
 * Wikis are updated with new and updated translations from translatewiki.net again. This will happen once a week. The developers are working on fixing the problem so we can have translation updates more often again.

Changes later this week
 * When you create an abuse filter that prevents edits you can now write a specific error message for it. Before this all abuse filters that prevented edits had the same error message.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 October. It will be on all wikis from 18 October (calendar).

Meetings
 * There will be no more meetings with the Editing team. This is because not enough Wikimedians were interested. To tell developers which bugs you think are the most important you can use Phabricator as normal.
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  22:40, 15 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Having removed editing team meeting, can you please open a new session of technical meeting at a date and time that is appropriate to the Australia/Sydney timezone? Thanks! --Gryllida (talk) 03:18, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Gryllida: One of the reasons why the editing meeting was cancelled is that there was little interest in attending them. Is there anything in particular you want to bring up? /Johan (WMF) (talk) 16:03, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I would like to participate in the technical meeting (not editing). Its current time for me is 2am. Gryllida (talk) 20:49, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Gryllida: Ah, right. Sorry, misunderstood you. Every first Wednesday of the month, that also takes place at 11 PM UTC, which should be less in the middle of the night, your time. See Technical Advice IRC Meeting. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 11:30, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * OK Thanks. :) Would you like to add this information to the technical newsletter in case others need it? Gryllida (talk) 20:32, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I've agreed with the organisers of the meeting that they are to update it when it happens, but that might not have worked as planned. I'll ping them again. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 22:31, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-46
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Some old mobile browsers can use the watchlist again. This has not worked for a while. These browsers are called grade C browsers. This helps for example Windows Phone 8.1 with Internet Explorer and Lumia 535 with Windows 10.

Problems
 * You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. Users who use this view saw the edit conflict resolution page when they wanted to see a preview. This has been fixed.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 November. It will be on all wikis from 15 November (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 14 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * You can use the content translation tool to translate articles. The developers are working on a new version. One of the changes will be a maintenance category. Articles where users add a lot of text from machine translation without changing it will be in that category. This is so the community can review it. The users will also have been warned before they publish the article that it has a lot of unchanged text from machine translations.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  19:21, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Change coming to how certain templates will appear on the mobile web
Change coming to how certain templates will appear on the mobile web



Hello,

In a few weeks the Readers web team will be changing how some templates look on the mobile web site. We will make these templates more noticeable when viewing the article. We ask for your help in updating any templates that don't look correct.

What kind of templates? Specifically templates that notify readers and contributors about issues with the content of an article – the text and information in the article. Examples like Template:Unreferenced or Template:More citations needed. Right now these notifications are hidden behind a link under the title of an article. We will format templates like these (mostly those that use Template:Ambox or message box templates in general) to show a short summary under the page title. You can tap on the "Learn more" link to get more information.

For template editors we have some recommendations on how to make templates that are mobile-friendly and also further documentation on our work so far.

If you have questions about formatting templates for mobile, please leave a note on the project talk page or file a task in Phabricator and we will help you.

CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 19:34, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-47
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can vote until 30 November.
 * Octicons-tools.svg There is an A/B test for  data. This is to make it easier to find the right information with a search engine. This changes the metadata for a wiki page. It doesn't change how the page looks.

Changes later this week
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * The Wikimedia wikis use templates to show readers there are problems with the content on some pages. For example if there are no sources or the page needs to be rewritten. The mobile website will soon show more information when you use these templates. Some templates may need to be updated.
 * The Education Program extension was removed from all Wikimedia projects. The database tables used by the extension will be archived. This will happen in a month. If you want the information on your wiki you should move it to a normal wiki page.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  23:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey vote
The Community Wishlist Survey. .

Hey everyone,

The Community Wishlist Survey is the process when the Wikimedia communities decide what the Wikimedia Foundation Community Tech should work on over the next year.

The Community Tech team is focused on tools for experienced Wikimedia editors. The communities have now posted a long list of technical proposals. You can vote on the proposals from now until 30 November. You can read more on the wishlist survey page.

/User:Johan (WMF)  18:13, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-48
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * On wikis with translatable pages you could create a mess when you moved a page that had translatable subpages. A subpage is when you use  to create a new page:  . The subpages would be moved but not the translations. The subpages are no longer automatically be moved. This is to make it safer to move pages.

Changes later this week
 * The advanced search interface will be available by default on all Wikimedia wikis. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. It's already active on German, Farsi, Arabic and Hungarian Wikipedia.
 * Special:UnusedCategories show empty categories with no files or other categories. You can soon choose to not show soft redirect categories or some maintenance categories there. You can do this with the magic word.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 November. It will be on all wikis from 29 November (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 28 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg The  function was deprecated in 2012. It will be removed next week. Look for the warning   in the JavaScript console to know if you use an affected script or gadget. If you are a gadget maintainer you should check if your JavaScript code contains  . There is a migration guide. It explains how to use   instead.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  22:21, 26 November 2018 (UTC)