Wikinews:Water cooler/technical/archives/2019/April

'welcome a bit' release: version 2
What's new:


 * avoid duplicate notifications if a page was added to two categories of interest;
 * added on-wiki notifications;
 * added workaround for DPL bug (T218016) which does not exclude Published category;
 * grouped new messages together not by category
 * corrected a loop to ensure the unsorted list of pages is fully processed even when one of the pages in the middle is too old

What's planned:


 * easier interface for signing up
 * including name of the article author(s) in the report
 * show which categories of interest each article belongs to
 * sort the list of new articles by date

How you can help:


 * If you program or know a friend who can program, especially in Perl but it does not matter as I can help with getting started, then send me your patches, or leave me a message. I am also available as 'Sveta' at the live chat, where it may be easier to talk about the code.
 * Test (and help the new articles!) by signing up HERE. Share your suggestions.
 * Invite your friends to participate. Reading new submissions is a good way for them to see how Wikinews works.

--Gryllida (talk) 19:11, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Mail??
I haven't signed in to my Wikinewsie e-mail in (at least) 2 years......what is the status of that situation?? --Bddpaux (talk) 13:53, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * There is a link to the mail at wikinewsie.org at the right top. Do you remember your password? Gryllida (talk) 04:15, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
 * No, but I've got it scribbled down at home. I'll check this weekend. --Bddpaux (talk) 15:05, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Bddpaux. --Gryllida (talk) 23:10, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, found my log-in credentials and tried logging in twice this morning only to get a message about Network problems.......any ideas about what's going on?? I need to contact a source and want to use my Wikinewsie acct. --Bddpaux (talk) 15:23, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh dear. :-( What is the text of the error message? Gryllida (talk) 03:46, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, it appears to be fine now! --Bddpaux (talk) 19:00, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Yay :-) Gryllida (talk) 20:05, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Wording of the develop template
It says


 * This article is under development. You are welcome to contribute to it.

Where 'contribute to it' is a link to edit the story. I propose to add ", or discuss" (where 'discuss' is a link to the talk page) to that line, since Darkfrog24 is being picky about it here, despite our previous extensive discussions of how and why asking others to step on your toes is a bad thing. --Gryllida (talk) 00:51, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I've suggested a rewording. --Pi zero (talk) 12:43, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Where? Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:14, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * develop --Pi zero (talk) 14:49, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks.
 * I don't see a discussion. I guess you jumped in and made a change.
 * I don't have any objection to adding "discuss its development or" but the issue Gryllida and I were talking about was not whether people are or aren't welcome to discuss changes on the talk page. So it's not hurting anything but it's not doing anything else either. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:03, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, approved the edit now Gryllida (talk) 20:49, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Translators portal for foreign-language sources
It would help me a lot of for articles with foreign sources we had a place where they can be copied and translated to English. Such translation assistance systems often offer paragraph by paragraph translation, relieving each translator from the need to complete 100% of the translation. This would have licencing issues. To overcome this the thing should only be readable by people who are logged in or would something else be needed? If the licensing is resolved, if we have ideas what software to use for this, it would be great and I would be willing to host it. I can only think of weblate now and I am not sure where it takes the source from.

This need came up with the Student Olympiad in Tyumen: the most difficult test for future neurosurgeons is English‎ article, which is why I think some such system would be great to have.

--Gryllida (talk) 03:45, 7 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I don't think there's any way we can host that on the wiki. As something we might want but can't do on the public wiki, it seems potentially a task for  . --Pi zero (talk) 11:33, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you for this response. I agree with you that this can be done at a space that is off wiki. I will get back to you when this becomes available. Gryllida (talk) 02:06, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

incomplete
I am not sure why this adds pages to 'Disputed' category but not 'Develop'. I thought the entire purpose of 'Develop' was to list everything that is not published. I just now realised that my script was following the latter category and not the former, and missed one page creation because of this (and I was unable to follow it, or help with the article drafting, on the day).

Please confirm whether it is intentional - if so, I'll begin tracking the Disputed category as well as Develop. I hope not. --Gryllida (talk) 02:06, 19 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Hm. That's a very old template, created when basic differences of Wikinews from Wikipedia were not yet understood.  The word "balance" isn't one we use, and comes across to me as a Wikipedian notion.  Has this template been used recently?  It seems like it would be used similarly to cleanup, which adds things to disputed but not develop. --Pi zero (talk) 02:55, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for confirming. Yes, it was used here. Gryllida (talk) 03:17, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
 * That appears to have been a simple case of using the wrong template; I've adjusted it to use develop. As for incomplete, it seems we might want to redesign it.  One approach would be simply to redirect it to develop. --Pi zero (talk) 03:30, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Subscribe to 'welcome a bit': UI is now available
Hello all,

A graphical interface is now available to subscribe to new drafts and new published articles on topics of interest.

How does it work?

It is a user script. When you install it, you see a 'subscribe' button next to the list of categories for an article. There you can select whether you would prefer to receive these notifications A) by email or B) by a talk page on-wiki, and whether you would prefer to learn of the new articles A) when they have been added as a draft or B) only after publication. Upon making this selection you are taken to the relevant page where these categories can be listed.

How do I install it?

The script name is User:Gryllida/js/wab-sub.js, and to install it, add

importScript('User:Gryllida/js/wab-sub.js');

to your Special:MyPage/common.js.

Who do I ask for help?

Please let me know what you think!! I expect to be making a next release of the notifications tool (the script which monitors new pages creations) later this month, and announce the changes here. I am normally available at the live chat as well.

--Gryllida (talk) 02:04, 23 April 2019 (UTC)