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Tech News: 2014-28

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News updates

• We are looking for contributors to help write a new issue every week. If you would like to help, please contact us.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 3. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 8, and to all Wikipedias on July 10 (calendar).
• CirrusSearch was enabled on July 1 as the primary search method on 36 new wikis, including the Norwegian (no), Portuguese (pt) and Ukrainian (uk) Wikipedias. [1]
• It is now possible to create Atom or RSS feeds for Word of the Day, Word of the Week and similar entries on Wiktionary wikis. [2] [3]
• You can now use a graphical interface to edit TemplateData information on the English (en), French (fr) and Italian (it) Wikipedias. [4] [5]

VisualEditor news

• Saving an edit with VisualEditor will now be much faster. [6] [7]
• You can now add a caption when you add a file to a page with VisualEditor. You can also change the file to a different one and keep the existing caption. [8] [9] [10]
• When you switch to the Edit source tab, you are now asked to keep your changes. You no longer need to find the option in the menus. [11] [12] [13]
• The reference tool that adds empty <ref></ref> tags is now at the bottom of the Cite menu, below references that use templates like {{Cite web}}. [14]
• Context menus will no longer be shown over items that you can edit directly, for example formulæ. [15] [16] [17]

Future software changes

• Starting on July 9, it will be possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. The feature was first scheduled for July 1, but was delayed due to bugs.
• A plan to enable CirrusSearch as the primary search method on the 11 largest Wikimedia wikis has now been prepared. [18]
• If you use references on a page, you will soon always see them at the bottom of the page, even if you forget to add the <references /> tag (or a template). [19] [20]
• Black-and-white XCF images will soon display correctly. [21] [22]
• Description pages of SVG files will soon always show download links for multiple resolutions (example). The links were previously shown only for SVG files in large original resolutions. [23] [24]

Problems

• Between July 2-3, there were problems with loading pages on multiple wikis due to a configuration issue. [25] [26]
• For a few hours on July 1, there were problems with uploading new files on Wikimedia Commons due to a configuration error. [27] [28]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:07, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

The Pacific Pumas CSD

Moved to User talk:Hasteur § The Pacific Pumas

 – Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:04, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Notice from Technical 13

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Template Editor Jackmcbarn. Thank you. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:43, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not going to post at WP:AN but I'm disappointed with your actions here. Please avoid closing requests where you may be considered "involved": specifically it would be better not to close requests to revert your own edits, but allow a neutral third-party to assess the request. It reduces the chance of drama which has occurred here. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:13, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Noted. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:14, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Template:Fb cl3 team

Unless you know how to fix what's happening in articles like 2013 Africa Cup of Nations#Team statistics I suggest you keep it as an "unreadable mess". Davykamanzi → talk • contribs • alter ego 16:43, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

@Davykamanzi: As a matter of fact, I do. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:47, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		for your work in resolving T68387. Ixfd64 (talk) 19:06, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-29

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf13) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 10. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 15, and to all Wikipedias on July 17 (calendar).
• It is now possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. Please go to the username changes page on Meta if you want to rename your account on all wikis. [29] [30]
• You can now read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for June 2014.
• You can now read the latest issue of the Wikidata newsletter and translate it into your language.

VisualEditor news

• The tool to add templates and citations will now work for templates that include HTML comments or templates in their titles. [31] [32]
• The button to make images full size should now work correctly. [33] [34] [35]
• References will now be shown in the default font size again. [36]

Future software changes

• CirrusSearch will be enabled as the primary search method on the Dutch (nl) and Japanese (ja) Wikipedias on July 14, and on the Polish (pl) and Russian (ru) Wikipedias on July 16. [37]
• The Special:Version page will soon show the exact version of MediaWiki and all extensions installed on your wiki (example). [38] [39]
• It will soon no longer be possible to order printed books of wiki articles via PediaPress. You will still be able to create PDF files. [40]
• Pages that use {{DISPLAYTITLE:''title''}} more than once will soon show a warning. You can use {{DISPLAYTITLE:''title''|noerror}} to hide it. [41] [42]
• Pages that have the list of references added automatically will soon be added to a tracking category. Administrators will be able to configure the name of the category on their wikis. [43] [44]
• Administrators will soon be able to easily merge histories of two pages using Special:MergeHistory. [45] [46]
• Administrators will soon see links to delete files on Special:ListFiles. [47]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:48, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

htmlBuilder vs mw.html

mw.html handles parameters with nowiki tags that are used in the css function differently to htmlBuilder. I've created a small testcase at Module talk:User:WOSlinker/sandbox to demonstrate the difference. -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:10, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

@WOSlinker: Yeah, I figured that out too. I'm trying to figure out the best way to fix that. Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:24, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Reverting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarch_butterfly

Can you tell me why you reverted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarch_butterfly? Southwest Monarch Study (talk) 05:49, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

First of all, Wikipedia prefers secondary sources rather than primary ones. Second, you have a blatant conflict of interest and seem to be spamming. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:47, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

About Imperia Online's Wiki Page and its potential deletion

Hello, Jackmcbarn!

I apologize for contacting you this way - I read about talk pages, deletions and so on, but couldn't figure out what the best way to share information is.

It's about Imperia Online's page that I created a few days ago and you nominated for deletion (I can now understand why, of course). Just wanted to add that there are more sources that talk about Imperia Online, but are in Bulgarian, so I didn't think there is a point in including them.

Here are two examples:

http://newtrend.bg/interviw/imperia-online-raboteshtite-modeli-na-predpriemachestvo-v-bulgaria

http://www.dnevnik.bg/tehnologii/2014/06/14/2318718_dobroslav_dimitrov_moni_dochev_imperia_online_vse/

I can provide more sources in Bulgarian if needed and I apologize once more for not being sure how to properly participate in the discussion.

Thank you for your time!

Best wishes, JustTryAnother — Preceding unsigned comment added by Justtryanother (talk • contribs) 06:52, 15 July 2014‎ (UTC)

If you have sources, add them to the article. If you want to participate in the discussion, just post on the AfD page. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:48, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Hey Jack, I'm currently in a discussion with another editor on the positioning of the {{coord}} template within articles. Per the style guide, this is placed after navigation boxes (if there are any) and above categories etc. The counter argument runs that it should be at the top of the article, based on the (seemingly sensible) idea that code should be placed where it will appear on the page when rendered. Is there any technical reason that you're aware of for the current placement, and would it be sensible to alter the policy? At present, {{coord}} is used in 935,769 pages in en:Wikipedia alone so any change is going to involve a lot of edits. I'd appreciate your comments. Best,  Philg88 ^♦talk 16:17, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

@Philg88: If possible, coordinates should be placed inside of the article's infobox, since infoboxes often contain code that uses the coordinates for things like maps. If, for some reason, the article doesn't have an infobox or the infobox doesn't take coordinates, then from a technical perspective, it doesn't matter where it is. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:32, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Jack, appreciate the quick response. Cheers,  Philg88 ^♦talk 17:05, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Module:Convert

At Module:Convert/sandbox your edit was "put the old version back in the sandbox to see if it's what made everything get slow". I have to ask, what got slow? Anything I should worry about? No need for a detailed explanation as it's just mild curiosity. I noticed you have a large amount of data at Module:Sandbox/Jackmcbarn. If you were really desperate, there is a dirty trick that can be used to greatly speed up access to data like that. Following an idea from Tim Starling, I once took some data like that and munged it into a single string. It turns out that a single gigantic string loads quickly, and the code to extract wanted data from the string runs quickly—I think it was ten times faster than loading the table. The downside is that the single string is super ugly and has to be generated by another script. Johnuniq (talk) 02:11, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: I never did figure out what the slowdown was, but restoring the old version didn't fix it, so it wasn't that at all. Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:58, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Adminship?

Hi Jack. :) So, you've been around here for a year now - how about running for adminship? While you haven't been very active in article-writing, I think your technical work and your new page/recent changes patrol work would give you a very good chance of passing an RfA. And I'd love to not have to answer your protected edit requests any more. ;) What do you say? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 10:49, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick change to Module:Delink!

Just wanted to say thanks for the quick change on Module:Delink! gnosygnu 07:30, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-30

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf14) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 17. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 22, and to all Wikipedias on July 24 (calendar).
• CirrusSearch was removed as the primary search method from Wikimedia Commons and the Spanish (es) Wikipedia due to a high server load. The plan to enable it on the Dutch (nl), Japanese (ja), Polish (pl) and Russian (ru) Wikipedias was also postponed to a later date. [48] [49] [50]
• The tool that stores information about languages (CLDR) was updated to its latest version. You can still help translate language names into your own language so they can be used in the sidebar and other places. [51]
• Translation memory for newly translatable pages should now offer more suggestions. [52] [53]
• A tool to convert MediaWiki pages to LaTeX is now available on Tool Labs. [54]

VisualEditor news

• Tablet users visiting the mobile version of Wikimedia wikis will be able to use a special version of VisualEditor starting on July 31. You can test the new tool by choosing the beta version of the mobile view in the Settings menu. Feedback is welcome. [55]
• All windows in VisualEditor have now a new design. Main action buttons will always be located in the top bar and will use simple words rather than icons. [56]
• You can now easily open links inside the link editor, for example to see their target. [57]
• Several bugs related to the positioning of the cursor around some items (like images and references) were fixed last week. [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63]

Future software changes

• It will soon be possible to watch individual discussions in the Topic namespace rather than whole pages for talk pages using Flow. [64]
• You can give comments about the new version of Winter, a proposal to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages. [65]
• An IRC meeting to organize Pywikibot bugs will take place from July 24 to July 27 on the channel #pywikibot on freenode. [66]
• A request for comments on how to improve MediaWiki API was re-started on MediaWiki.org. Your feedback is welcome.

Problems

• Mailing lists were broken for about 16 hours between July 14 and July 15 due to a server problem. [67]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:42, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Daniel Amen

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Daniel Amen. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:12, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Module for national football team rankings

Take a look at Wikipedia:Lua requests § National football team rankings and tell me what you think. Davykamanzi → talk • contribs • alter ego 04:30, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Delhi

Hi Jack. Apropos the shenanigans with Module:Location map/data/India Delhi I've now recreated the Delhi map to cover the same area as the PNG. The problem is, it comes in at just over 6Mb as oppossed to the 398k of PNG. I know Commons encourages transition to vector formats for various reasons, but it seems kinda crazy to replace an image with something 12 times the size. What's your take on this? Best,  Philg88 ^♦talk 08:58, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

@Philg88: Where is the SVG? I can probably reduce the size of it to something manageable. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:05, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I tried that with SVG Cleaner but you may be able to do a better job. Now uploaded to Location map India Delhi EN.svg. Cheers,  Philg88 ^♦talk 16:29, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

@Philg88: I see the problem. There's way too many minor roads in the map (the areas that are basically solid gray). When you turned the map data into an SVG, was there an option for what size roads to include? If there is, try it again with a lot fewer roads. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:36, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Alas no, the only tool that I'm aware of that will do the OSM XML -> SVG job is Maperitive, and that has no options for the export function. That said, I'll edit the file manually to remove the minor roads. Tedious, but necessary :) Will be done tomorrow them I'll update the module when I get the file size to around 1 Mb. Best,  Philg88 ^♦talk 16:43, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Update The image is now 2.69 MB - I did get it down to 1.36 MB with SVG Cleaner (see previous uploaded version) but it broke the syntax. Is that an acceptable size do you think? Cheers,  Philg88 ^♦talk 06:38, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@Philg88: I got it down to 2.04 MB. I'd say that it's fine now, since MediaWiki will thumbnail it automatically anyway. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:31, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

For some reason the map is rendering as mainly black - I've reverted to the previous version for now. Best  Philg88 ^♦talk 18:10, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

User talk:Lothar von Richthofen#New format for Template:Syrian Civil War detailed map

I was stalking user Lothar von Richthofen’s talk page & I saw you had left him a message with the title above. If you allow me, I would like to answer on his behalf & continue the discussion with you for 2 reasons:

1- I saw that Lothar von Richthofen has put a “semi-retired” tag on his page & seems to not be answering his talk page messages.

2- I am Lothar’s partner in terms of the map (so to speak) as I had created the first version (here).

To answer your message, I would say that I like your idea very much, in case you are still interested in implementing it (I know you posted the message a long time ago, so things might have changed on your end & I would totally understand…) I am sure I am talking on behalf of all editors of the map… Tradedia^talk 23:22, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tradedia: I've now implemented the change. Jackmcbarn (talk) 21:44, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-31

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf15) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 24. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 29, and to all Wikipedias on July 31 (calendar).
• You can now download the latest version of the anti-vandalism tool Huggle.

VisualEditor news

• You can now create, edit, and view HTML comments in VisualEditor. [68] [69]
• The cancel button in VisualEditor toolbar has been removed. You can still use the Read tab and the Back button in your browser to cancel your edit. [70]
• If you try to use a template which has no suggested or required parameters in TemplateData, you will now be asked to add the parameters. [71] [72]
• You will no longer be able to edit a page if you can't create it, for example on pages protected against recreation. [73] [74]

Future software changes

• You will soon be able to filter Meta-Wiki's user rights log by wiki and user. [75] [76]
• Wikidata will soon be able to store data about article status, for example "good article" or "featured article". If your wiki has highlighted content, please make sure it is on Wikidata's list. [77]
• It will soon be possible to directly create empty pages, for example in the user namespace. [78] [79]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:09, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

User:Mr.VidyaSagar

Hi, re this edit: I notice that the link to the MFD discussion page is red. Did you forget to start the nom? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:07, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

@Redrose64: No, it was part of a group nom and I forgot to specify the link. I'll do that now. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:09, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-32

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News updates

• Tech News will be presented at the Wikimania 2014 conference in London! If you will be attending the conference, please join us in Auditorium 2 at 14:30 local time on Sunday, August 10.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf16) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 31. Due to the Wikimania 2014 conference, it will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on August 12, and to all Wikipedias on August 14 (calendar). [80]
• You can now test a new tool to render wiki pages as PDF files. [81] [82] [83]
• You can now download an update to the archive of Wikimedia Commons files (uploaded up to December 31, 2013). If you have free space on your computer, please help preserve the files. [84]
• New users using the mobile Commons site now need to make 75 edits before they can upload a file. [85] [86]

VisualEditor news

• You will no longer see an edit confirmation message after making a null edit with VisualEditor. [87] [88]
• VisualEditor will no longer change underscores to spaces in category sort keys. [89]
• Many bugs that resulted in inserting the pawn and snowman symbols were fixed last week. [90] [91] [92] [93]
• Several bugs related to the use of references were also fixed. [94] [95] [96] [97]

Future software changes

• You will soon have a user option to watch pages where you revert edits. [98] [99]
• All Toolserver data will be deleted in September. If you want to back up your data, contact Toolserver administrators before August 31. [100]
• Pages in the Translations: namespace on wikis using the Translate extension will no longer be indexed by search engines. [101]

Problems

• Wikivoyage wikis were broken for about 45 minutes on July 29 due to a configuration problem. [102]
• Some users were not able to log in on test wikis and MediaWiki.org between July 31 and August 1. The problem is now fixed. [103]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks and Another Question

Thanks for your answer to my question. I had another question at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Complex_Template_Syntax_Question. -- Veggies (talk) 21:30, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

re: Module:Syrian Civil War detailed map

Hi, I noticed that you recently created a module for the above map, and I found discussions explaining why.
But there is a down side. Users already had problems creating correct entries, and now there is no preview available of changes. As well, the lines don't wrap, so much of most lines are not very visible.
I have an idea that might work. Could you separate the code from the data ? By data I mean the info in the marks section at the beginning of the module. And then add a preview option ?
So editors would modify the data file, which hopefully would wrap normally, preview to verify, much as would happen with the previous template.
Maybe (behind the scenes) :

1) Edit the regular file, and save to a temporary file.

2) Run a preview version of the module, which uses the temporary file.

3) Committing to the regular file when confirmed by the editor.

A plus would be that they couldn't accidentally mess with the code :)
So would that be feasible, given wp limitations and whatever time constraints you might have ?
(Not trying to rush anything.) André437 (talk) 07:51, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

@André437: There is a preview available; it just requires an extra step. Below the "Save page" button, there's a box called "Preview page with this module". Enter "Template:Syrian Civil War detailed map" or "Cities and towns during the Syrian Civil War" in the "Page title" box and hit "Show preview" there, and you'll see that page with your changes. If you want, I could write a user script to streamline that process. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:56, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't notice that it was a preview box below.

Yes, I think it would be a big plus if you could write a user script to streamline the process. Especially for inexperienced contributors, or those somewhat challenged by the keyboard.

I notice that line wrap doesn't work in browser display of modules. (At least with Mozilla Seamonkey =Firefox compatible, and Midori, respectively using gecko and webkit engines.) Is there something that you could do about that ? The line wrap helps see the location name, very useful to ensure that the editor is modifying the correct line.

BTW, I really appreciate all you have been doing to improve map page rendering. This latest module will help me (eventually) implement some ideas I mentioned to you in the past. André437 (talk) 00:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

@André437: I wrote the user script. To use it, add this line to Special:MyPage/common.js:

importScript('User:Jackmcbarn/modulePreview.js'); // Linkback: [[User:Jackmcbarn/modulePreview.js]]

It will autofill the preview name, so you'll just have to click the "Show preview" button like usual. (The only difference will be that it's in a different place.) Regarding line wrap, you can switch back to the original editor (that does support that) by clicking the /* button in the top-left corner of the edit box. Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:01, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the script. So any editor that wants to see the preview button has to import your script ?

I like the toggle of /*, since turning off line wrap can be handy at times as well. André437 (talk) 04:02, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

@André437: No, the script is just to autofill the preview box. Anyone can manually use it or turn CodeEditor off even without it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 04:03, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks :) André437 (talk) 04:45, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Here's how to turn on line wrapping when viewing a module page. It works on Javascript pages too:

/* wrap text within Javascript and Lua source boxes */
pre.source-javascript,
pre.source-lua {
  white-space: pre-wrap;
}

Put that in Special:MyPage/common.css, go back to Module:Syrian Civil War detailed map and use your browser's "reload" feature - Ctrl+F5 in Firefox. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:23, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Note that doing the above will keep you from using the toggle to re-enable line wrapping, which is useful often enough that it's probably a bad idea. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

You Did It!

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		For your technical work in improving the Template:Iraqi insurgency detailed map‎ and making our work that much more professional. Thanks! Veggies (talk) 11:07, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Clarifying my last edit on Syria map

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T23454

I did not break any links. Many towns do not have written material to link them to. So for example, many towns do not have their own Wikipedia article. In this case, we do not want the dots to link to a non-existent Wikipedia article. In this case, if a user clicks on the dot, he will receive a proposal to create a Wikipedia article about the town, which is not what we want. To avoid this, we put a “fake” link, for example we write in the code:

link = "#Abu Tabbah"

When a user clicks on the dot of Abu Tabbah town, the computer will go and look for the “anchor” named “Abu Tabbah" on the page. However, since we did not put in an “anchor” for “Abu Tabbah", the computer will not find anything and therefore will not do anything, which is what we want. So the end result is that when the user clicks on the dot of Abu Tabbah town, nothing happens.

However, I am sure many editors do not know all this, so I thought I would clarify this by replacing all the fake links by “#no” so that it is clear to the editors that the town dot is not associated with any link. Often editors just put something random as a value for the “link =” function because they don’t understand it, and I have to come and correct thing after them… So all the places where I put “#no”, it is because the icon has no link. Tradedia^talk 18:43, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

@Tradedia: If you don't want them to link anywhere, then just unlink them, rather than using fake anchors. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:45, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that if you don't use a fake link, the label no longer appears when you hold the cursor over the dot. Tradedia^talk 19:42, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

@Tradedia: That would be bugzilla:21454. I've submitted gerrit:153353 that will fix it. For now, though, I'd recommend using the anchor that the city would have if it were listed, rather than using #no, since I think that would lead to further confusion. Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:18, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Lua help needed

Hi Jack. I'm trying to put together a module that will put a project banner on an article's talk page and add that page to a dated category. While I know how to do this in template syntax, I'm afraid that with Lua it's a bit beyond me for now. Do you know of a similar existing module that I could use as a boilerplate? Cheers,  Philg88 ^♦talk 05:25, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

@Philg88: I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to do. If you point me to a template that does it, I'll be able to show you how to write a Lua module to do it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 14:50, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Jack, this is a template that does a similar thing (the new one is for the Guild of Copyeditors). I also want to use a dated category as is done here. Cheers,  Philg88 ^♦talk 16:21, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

@Philg88: If that's all you need to do, there's really no benefit to making it a module. You're better off just making it as a wikitext template. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:33, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

No problem, thanks for the input. Best,  Philg88 ^♦talk 05:33, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-33

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• Due to the Wikimania 2014 conference, there were no MediaWiki changes this week. The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf16) will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on August 12, and to all Wikipedias on August 14 (calendar). [104]
• Bureaucrats on all Wikivoyage wikis are no longer able to merge two accounts into one. [105]

VisualEditor news

• Tablet users visiting the mobile version of non-Wikipedia wikis will be able to use VisualEditor starting on August 12. The feature will also be enabled on all Wikipedias on August 14. [106]

Future software changes

• Internet Explorer 6 users will soon see a JavaScript-free version of Wikimedia wikis; JavaScript tools and scripts will no longer work on that browser. If you use Internet Explorer 6, make sure to update to a newer browser! [107] [108] [109]
• If you visit a special page that requires you to be logged-in, you will soon be automatically redirected to the log-in page instead of seeing a warning. [110] [111]
• You will now always see recent changes to the source language text when editing a translation with the Translate extension. [112] [113]
• An IRC meeting to discuss VisualEditor will take place on August 14 at 09:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). [114]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:43, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Please Undeletion

Hello, Jackmcbarn you nomination of MfD Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Naresh Krishna Raja is please undeletion process. please add your comments and tell my mistake. Naresh Krishna Raja 03:39, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand what you wrote. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:40, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Template:Infobox university

Hi, Could you please add "Language" to Template:Infobox university? In some countries most of the universities teach in the local language but some of them teach in English, so this addition could benefit lots of students. --AbYaSSer6 (talk) 12:49, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

@Bo yaser: It appears that Frietjes has already taken care of this. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:24, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-34

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf17) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 14. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on August 19, and on all Wikipedias on August 21 (calendar).
• There is a new protection level called superprotection. At the moment, only some Wikimedia Foundation employees have access to it. Administrators can't edit "superprotected" pages. [115] [116] [117]
• You can now create empty pages directly. A message asks you to confirm that you want to create an empty page. [118] [119]
• You can search for Wikimedia tools using a new list of tools. [120]
• You can watch the first videos from Wikimania 2014. Some of them are about technical topics. More videos will come later.

Wikidata

• After August 19, you can use Wikidata for inter language links on Wikinews. [121]
• After August 19, you can use Wikidata for badges like "good" or "featured" articles. Next week, you will be able to show the badges in the article sidebar on Wikipedia, Wikisource and Wikiquote. [122]

Problems

• There was an issue with ProofreadPage and WikiEditor on Wikisource wikis. It is now fixed. [123] [124]

Tech news written by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:17, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Location maps

I'am damn impressed by your work on Template:Location_map/Creating_a_new_map_definition, Module:Location_map. I will need to collaborate with you. Yug (talk) 21:00, 21 August 2014 (UTC) (Wikiatlas)

(talk page stalker) You're not the only one Yug, I have described Jack as a genius for what he's done on more than one occasion.  Philg88 ^♦talk 21:20, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Eliezer Yudkowsky

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Eliezer Yudkowsky. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:14, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

New template

Hi Jack, when you have a moment, please can you check that {{GOCE pending}} is OK? It's supposed to populate a monthly category and I just want to make sure that the code doesn't do anything horrible to the framework. Thanks,  Philg88 ^♦talk 09:32, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@Philg88: It looks fine now. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:20, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, much appreciated. It just occurred to me if by any chance you could add a sig field and date in small font, i.e. displays "This template was added by $user $date" inside the box. Syntax is then the template name and four tildes for the sig. I'll fix up the /doc afterwards. Cheers,  Philg88 ^♦talk 16:34, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Replied at TFD

I replied, I imagine you already have seen that. Glad to have caught it in time. At least give me the SVG back because I don't have it any more. That was a labour of love, took me and the Hungarian missus days to correct the coords. The corners are out but I don't know why (wrong projection I expect). Si Trew (talk) 22:47, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

That's really not fixable, and the coordinates being wrong on a map is an end-of-the-world deal-breaker. Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:52, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-35

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

VisualEditor news

• There was a error when you put your cursor directly after a reference list. It is now fixed. [125]
• You can now add colors to links in the editor using gadgets. You can do this to see links to redirects or disambiguation pages. [126]
• If you use Internet Explorer, you will soon be able to use VisualEditor. [127] [128] [129]

Future software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf18) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 21. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on August 26, and on all Wikipedias on August 28 (calendar).
• After August 26, you will have a central JavaScript and CSS page. They will be on Meta-Wiki and will work on all wikis. Read more on the help page. [130]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:21, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

AN APOLOGY

Dear Jackmcbarn,yoy send me amessage and I agree with you.The only thing I want to know is how to edit on Template:Syrian_Civil_War_detailed_map.I appreciate your help — Preceding unsigned comment added by DCGT888 (talk • contribs) 13:23, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

You don't. Edit Module:Syrian Civil War detailed map instead. Jackmcbarn (talk) 13:50, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-36

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• You can now test a new Beta Feature to see links to other wikis in the sidebar. The links come from Wikidata. [131] [132]
• You can now search pages that link to a page. Use the linksto: keyword in your search. [133] [134]
• A redirect to a section now changes the URL in the address bar of your browser. If "Dog" redirects to "Animals#Dog", you now see "Animals#Dog" instead of "Dog#Dog". [135] [136]
• If you are testing Flow, you now have a Flow tab in your Notifications. It is called "Messages". [137]

VisualEditor news

• You can no longer delete required fields in templates. [138]
• We fixed many Internet Explorer bugs. If you use Internet Explorer 11, you will get VisualEditor next week. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [139] [140] [141]
• VisualEditor now looks better in Monobook. [142]
• We fixed a bug where some of your typing could be undone when you used "cut" (Ctrl+X). [143]
• You will no longer see empty or deleted categories among the suggestions when you add a category. [144]

Future software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf19) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 28. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 2, and on all Wikipedias on September 4 (calendar).
• There is a proposal to build a database on Commons for file data. It will make it easier to see the author, license and topics. You can give feedback on this idea. You can also come to the IRC chat on September 3 at 18:00 (UTC) in #wikimedia-office at freenode. [145]
• You can give feedback on Media Viewer until September 7. You can say what needs to be improved and ask other people to give feedback too. [146]
• You can test a new version of the tool to show math. It uses MathML. Report bugs in bugzilla.
• You will no longer be able to upload images from the mobile site. [147]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:49, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Horadiz

I find the info about Horadiz disturbing for armenian community, Horadiz village is under armenian domain, territory and map, not azerbaijani. Not only Horadiz but many other surrounding villages of Karabagh. I hope you can change that, thanks

"Hello, I'm Jackmcbarn. Your recent edit to the page Horadiz appears to have added incorrect information, so I have removed it for now. If you believe the information was correct, please cite a reliable source or discuss your change on the article's talk page. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:00, 3 September 2014 (UTC)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.145.111.130 (talk)

Please provide a reliable source to back up your statement. Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:20, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-37

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

VisualEditor news

• From Thursday, Internet Explorer 11 users will get VisualEditor. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [148] [149] [150]

Future software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf20) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 9, and on all Wikipedias on September 11 (calendar).
• You will soon confirm a "Thanks" inline instead of in a dialog. [151]
• You can read more about the plan to move to Phabricator, a tool that will help people develop the MediaWiki software and report bugs. [152]

Problems

• There were problems with JavaScript and CSS on Friday, September 5 because of a code error.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:33, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Technical Barnstar
	For fixing issues with templates before most even find or realize the existence of the issue, I hereby present to you this barnstar. Also, thanks for your prompt and accurate input regarding issues with templates and modules; your efforts really are helping to prevent Wikipedia from imploding on itself. Steel1943 (talk) 14:19, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Did you mean X?

Thanks so much for the help with the redundant messages! I was unaware that my addition to {{No article text}} checked for a missing parenthesis, and I also had no idea that was already had something that was performing this function. Nyttend (talk) 01:54, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: Carnall

Hello Jackmcbarn. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Carnall, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: there are links to multiple existing articles and it therefore does not qualify for deletion via G6. Thank you. SmartSE (talk) 22:21, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-38

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 software changes

• You can now change the style of links to disambiguation pages. This is done with the mw-disambig CSS class. [153] [154]
• There was a problem on right-to-left wikis with Wikidata log entries. The text was messy in watchlists and recent changes. The problem is now fixed. The same problem will be fixed soon for user names. [155] [156] [157]
• New users are randomly chosen for a test on 12 Wikipedias. They get messages with ideas of articles to edit. The ideas come from what they have already edited. [158]

Problems

• There was a problem with loading images on September 10. [159]

VisualEditor news

• If you don't select text when you add a link, the link now shows a number. [160]
• The citation tool no longer offers to reuse a citation if there are none on the page yet. [161] [162]
• You can now use help buttons in the "Page settings" menu to see what the options are for. [163]

Future software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf21) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 16, and on all Wikipedias on September 18 (calendar).
• These changes are coming with the new version:
  • If you use Internet Explorer 7, JavaScript will no longer work. JavaScript tools and scripts will no longer work in that browser. You should update to a newer browser. [164] [165] [166]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

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