Wikinews:Water cooler/technical/archives/2014/November

Template:Ping
I plan to rename the existing ping to, shift over the individual links (tedious but not really huge), and repurpose the name ping to do what everyone coming here from any of the other sisters expects it to do. Any lurking reason I should amend that plan? --Pi zero (talk) 13:02, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes. The ping url is borken, and I don't believe the functionality still exists. You should subst: the template into archived articles, then dispense with it. -  Amgine | t 16:13, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, good. I'd figured it was probably an ex-template.  subst is simple.  --Pi zero (talk)
 * Well... I started to subst a few of them, but got to thinking, and instead of doing any more (for now) I modified the template so if it gets no parameters it gives the old technorati behavior, and if it gets one parameter it gives (a simplified version of) the new notification-inducing behavior. --Pi zero (talk) 23:13, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

'Articles created' tool?
Why is this acting up? I hate it when we have an excellent tool, and then it just starts screwing up. Any meta-junkies out there who can look at it? --Bddpaux (talk) 20:16, 17 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Which tool are we talking about? --Pi zero (talk) 20:23, 17 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I've noticed in the past day or two that the SUL tools, provided at the bottom of Special:Contributions all pretty much all projects, including both en.wn and en.wp, appears to be no more. e.g., .  --Pi zero (talk) 20:28, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor coming to this wiki as a Beta Feature


''Hello. Please excuse the English. I would be grateful if you translated this message!''

VisualEditor, a rich-text editor for MediaWiki, will soon be available on this wiki as a Beta Feature. The estimated date of activation is Wednesday, 26 November.

To access it, you will need to visit the page after the deployment and tick the box next to "". (If you have enabled the "" option, VisualEditor will be automatically available for you.) There will also be a "" that you can enable if you need it.

Then, you just have to click on "" to start VisualEditor, or on "" to edit using wikitext markup. You can even begin to edit pages with VisualEditor and then switch to the wikitext editor simply by clicking on its tab at any point, and you can keep your changes when doing so.

A guide was just published at mediawiki.org so that you can learn how to support your community with this transition: please read and translate it if you can! You will find all the information about the next steps there. Please report any suggestions or issues at the main feedback page. You will also receive the next issues of the multilingual monthly newsletter here on this page: if you want it delivered elsewhere, for example at your personal talk page, please add the relevant page here. Thanks for your attention and happy editing, Elitre (WMF) 18:12, 21 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I'd really like to know whether this folly will eventually be forced on us. --Pi zero (talk) 02:59, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor coming to this wiki as a Beta Feature (errata)
''Please notice the correct direct link to access is this one. Thanks for your understanding! Elitre (WMF) 18:35, 21 November 2014 (UTC)''