User talk:Benzband/Archives/September 2013


VisualEditor newsletter for September 5

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This Thursday's VisualEditor update was mostly about stability and performance improvements, and some preparatory work for major planned improvements, along with bug fixes for non-English language support and right-to-left text. Everything that the English Wikipedia received today has been running on Mediawiki for a week already.

Officially, the problem with the link inspector not linking to a specific section on a page (bug 53219) was fixed in this release, although that critical patch actually appeared here earlier.

A number of bugs related to copy-and-paste functionality were fixed (48604, bug 50043, bug 53362, bug 51538, among others). Full rich copy-and-paste from external sources into VisualEditor is expected "soon".

In other fixes, you can no longer add empty ref tags (<ref/>) (bug 53345). Selecting both an image and some text, and then trying to add a link, previously deleted the selected image and the text. This was fixed in bug 50127. There was another problem related to using arrow keys to move the cursor next to an inline image that was fixed (bug 53507).

Looking ahead: The next planned upgrade is scheduled for next Thursday, and you should expect to find a redesigned toolbar with drop-down menus that include room for references, templates, underline, strikethrough, superscript, subscript, and code formatting. There will also be keyboard shortcuts for setting the format (paragraph vs section headings).

If you are active at other Wikipedias, the next group of Wikipedias to have VisualEditor offered to all users is being determined at this time. Generally speaking, languages that depend on the input method editor are not going to receive VisualEditor this month. The current target date is Tuesday, September 24 for logged-in users only. You can help with translating the documentation. In several cases, most of the translation is already done, and it only needs to be copied over to the relevant Wikipedia. If you are interested in finding out whether a particular Wikipedia is currently on the list, you can leave a message for me at my talk page.

For other questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and other ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:35, 5 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

VisualEditor newsletter for September 19, 2013

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VisualEditor has been updated twice in the last two weeks. As usual, what is now running on the English Wikipedia had a test run at Mediawiki during the previous week.

As announced, the toolbar was redesigned to be simpler, shorter, and to have the ability to have drop-down groups with descriptions. What you see now is the initial configuration and is expected to change in response to feedback from the English Wikipedia and other Wikipedias. The controls to add <u> (underline), <sub> (subscript), and <sup> (superscript), <s> (strikethrough) and <code> (computer code/monospace font) annotations to text are available to all users in the drop-down menu. At the moment, all but the most basic tools have been moved into a single drop-down menu, including the tools for inserting media, references, reference lists, and templates. The current location of all of the items in the toolbar is temporary, and your opinions about the best order are needed! Please offer suggestions at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Toolbar.

In an eagerly anticipated upgrade to the reference dialog, newly added references or reference groups no longer need the page to be saved before they can be re-used (bugs 51689 and 52000). The 'Use existing reference' button is now disabled on pages which don't yet have any references (bug 51848). The template parameter filter in the transclusion dialog now searches both parameter name and label (bug 51670).

In response to several requests, there are some new keyboard shortcuts. You can now set the block/paragraph formatting from the keyboard: Ctrl+0 sets a block as a regular paragraph; Ctrl+1 up to Ctrl+6 sets it as a Heading 1 ("Page title") to Heading 6 ("Sub-heading 4"); Ctrl+7 sets it as pre-formatted (bug 33512). Ctrl+2, which creates level 2 section headings, may be the most useful.

Some improvements were made to capitalization for links, so typing in "iPhone" will offer a link to "iPhone" as well as "IPhone" (bug 50452).

Copying and pasting within the same document should work better as of today's update, as should copying from VisualEditor into a third-party application (bug 53364, bug 52271, bug 52460). Work on copying and pasting between VisualEditor instances (for example, between two articles) and retaining formatting when copying from an external source into VisualEditor is progressing.

Major improvements to editing with input method editors (IMEs; mostly used for Indic and East Asian languages) are being deployed today. This is a complex change, so it may produce unexpected errors. On a related point, the names of languages listed in the "languages" (langlinks) panel in the Page settings dialog now display as RTL when appropriate (bug 53503).

Looking ahead: The help/'beta' menu will soon expose the build number next to the "Leave feedback" link, so users can give more specific reports about issues they encounter (bug 53050). This change will make it easier for developers to identify any cacheing issues, once it starts reporting the build number (currently, it says "Version false"). Also, inserting a link, reference or media file will put the cursor after the new content again (bug 53560). Next week’s update will likely improve how dropdowns and other selection menus behave when they do not fit on the screen, with things scrolling so the selected item is always in view.

If you are active at other Wikipedias, the next group of Wikipedias to have VisualEditor offered to all users is being finalized. About two dozen Wikipedias are on the list for Tuesday, September 24 for logged-in users only, and on Monday, September 30 for unregistered editors. You can help with translating the documentation. In several cases, most of the translation is already done, and it only needs to be copied over to the relevant Wikipedia. If you are interested in finding out whether a particular Wikipedia is currently on the list, you can leave a message for me at my talk page.

For other questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and other ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:36, 19 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

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Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Kevin Simms, you added links pointing to the disambiguation pages Rugby player and England national rugby team (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot

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We are currently running a study on the effects of adding additional information to SuggestBot's suggestions. Participation in the study is voluntary. Should you wish to not participate in the study, or have questions or concerns, you can find contact information on the SuggestBot study page.

IMPORTANT CHANGES: We have modified the selection of articles SuggestBot suggests and altered the design to incorporate more information about the articles, as described in this explanation.

Note: All columns in this table are sortable, allowing you to rearrange the table so the articles most interesting to you are shown at the top. All images have mouse-over popups with more information.

Views/Day Quality Title Content Headings Images Links Sources Tagged with…
2,458   Albert Fish (talk) Add sources
30   So Red the Rose (talk)     Add sources
1,299   Charcoal (talk)   Add sources
6   The Element of Sonic Defiance (talk)           Add sources
64   Kashmiri Muslims (talk)         Add sources
2   2359 Debehogne (talk)           Add sources
7   Sue Draheim (talk)     Cleanup
164   Dera Sacha Sauda (talk)       Cleanup
1,307   Bihar (talk) Cleanup
4   Corbett School (talk)           Expand
289   Next-generation network (talk)         Expand
157   Manipal University (talk)   Expand
32   Construction set (talk)         Unencyclopaedic
209   Volvo Modular engine (talk)     Unencyclopaedic
8   Paigham Afaqui (talk)         Unencyclopaedic
31   Mike Park (talk)           Merge
48   Bone-mouth (talk)       Merge
857   Korsakoff's syndrome (talk)       Merge
91   Economics of global warming (talk) Wikify
10   USS Allen (DD-66) (talk)           Wikify
5   Ministry of Transport and Communications (Finland) (talk)           Wikify
1   Pentax pc35af (talk)           Orphan
3   R.M.K. College of Engineering & Technology (talk)         Orphan
1   Nagampeta (talk)           Orphan
48   Indus Motors Company (talk)       Stub
17   Live Fat, Die Young (talk)           Stub
42   Hectic (talk)           Stub
25   Less Talk, More Rock (talk)           Stub
6   Prototypes and Painkillers (talk)           Stub
413   Vorarephilia (talk)         Stub

Changes to SuggestBot's suggestions

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We have changed the number of suggested articles and which categories they are selected from. The number of stubs has been greatly reduced, the number of articles needing sources doubled, and two new categories added (orphans and unencyclopaedic articles). We have also modified the layout of the suggestions and added sortable columns with various types of information about each article. The first two columns are:

Views/Day
Daily average number of views an article's had over the past 14 days.
Quality
Predicted article quality on a 1- to 3-star scale. Placing your cursor over the stars should give you a pop-up describing the article's quality (Low/Medium/High), current assessment class, and predicted assessment class.

The method we use to predict article quality also allows us to assess whether an article might need specific types of work in order to improve its quality. The work needed might not correspond to cleanup tags added to the article, since our method is not based on those. We have added five columns reflecting this work assessment, where a red X indicates improvement is needed. Placing your cursor over an X should give you a pop-up with a short description of the work needed. The five columns seek to answer the following five questions:

Content
Is more content needed?
Headings
Does this article have an appropriate section structure?
Images
Is the number of illustrative images about right?
Links
Does this article link to enough other Wikipedia articles?
Sources
For its length, is there an appropriate number of citations to sources in this article?

SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!

If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. Regards from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 12:04, 25 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

'Template:Smiley2 ' misbehaving

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Hello Benzband,
I have found that the number 'switches'/parameters 4(shocked) & 5(confused) only seem to be swapped. Full details @ Wikipedia talk:Emoticons#Template not working as specified. Regards, \-∞-/-220 of Borg 06:45, 26 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! I've replied there. benzband (talk) 18:40, 26 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

October 2013 AFC Backlog elimination drive

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WikiProject Articles for creation Backlog Elimination Drive
 

WikiProject AFC is holding a one month long Backlog Elimination Drive!
The goal of this drive is to eliminate the backlog of unreviewed articles. The drive is running from October 1st, 2013 – October 31st, 2013.

Awards will be given out for all reviewers participating in the drive in the form of barnstars at the end of the drive.
There is a backlog of over 1000 articles, so start reviewing articles! Visit the drive's page and help out!

A new version of our AfC helper script is released! It includes many bug fixes, new improvements and features, code enhancements, and more. If you want to see a full list of changes, visit the changelog. Please report bugs and feature requests there, too! Thanks. --Mdann52talk to me!

This newsletter was delivered on behalf of WPAFC by EdwardsBot (talk) 15:01, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply