User talk:Mistbreeze/Archive 12
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VisualEditor News 2015—#1
Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's appearance, the coming Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.
The Wikimedia Foundation has named its top priorities for this quarter (January to March). The first priority is making VisualEditor ready for deployment by default to all new users and logged-out users at the remaining large Wikipedias. You can help identify these requirements. There will be weekly triage meetings which will be open to volunteers beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Tell Vice President of Engineering Damon Sicore, Product Manager James Forrester and other team members which bugs and features are most important to you. The decisions made at these meetings will determine what work is necessary for this quarter's goal of making VisualEditor ready for deployment to new users. The presence of volunteers who enjoy contributing MediaWiki code is particularly appreciated. Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins.
Due to some breaking changes in MobileFrontend and VisualEditor, VisualEditor was not working correctly on the mobile site for a couple of days in early January. The teams apologize for the problem.
Recent improvements
The new design for VisualEditor aligns with MediaWiki's Front-End Standards as led by the Design team. Several new versions of the OOjs UI library have also been released, and these also affect the appearance of VisualEditor and other MediaWiki software extensions. Most changes were minor, like changing the text size and the amount of white space in some windows. Buttons are consistently color-coded to indicate whether the action:
- starts a new task, like opening the ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-savedialog⧽ dialog: blue ,
- takes a constructive action, like inserting a citation: green ,
- might remove or lose your work, like removing a link: red , or
- is neutral, like opening a link in a new browser window: gray.
The TemplateData editor has been completely re-written to use a different design (T67815) based on the same OOjs UI system as VisualEditor (T73746). This change fixed a couple of existing bugs (T73077 and T73078) and improved usability.
Search and replace in long documents is now faster. It does not highlight every occurrence if there are more than 100 on-screen at once (T78234).
Editors at the Hebrew and Russian Wikipedias requested the ability to use VisualEditor in the "Article Incubator" or drafts namespace (T86688, T87027). If your community would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace on your wiki, then you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.
Looking ahead
The Editing team will soon add auto-fill features for citations. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to contribute to the Citoid service's definitions for each website, to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections.
We will need editors to help test the new design of the special character inserter, especially if you speak Welsh, Breton, or another language that uses diacritics or special characters extensively. The new version should be available for testing next week. Please contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF) if you would like to be notified when the new version is available. After the special character tool is completed, VisualEditor will be deployed to all users at Phase 5 Wikipedias. This will affect about 50 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh. The date for this change has not been determined.
Let's work together
- Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
- Please help complete translations of the user guide for users who speak your language.
- Join the weekly bug triage meetings beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins. Contact James F. for more information.
- Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 19:00 UTC.
Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Translations are available through Meta. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 04 February 2015
- Op-ed: Is Wikipedia for sale?
- In the media: Gamergate and Muhammad controversies continue
- Traffic report: The American Heartland
- Featured content: It's raining men!
- Arbitration report: Slamming shut the GamerGate
- WikiProject report: Dicing with death – on Wikipedia?
- Technology report: Security issue fixed; VisualEditor changes
- Gallery: Langston Hughes
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 use
{{#lsth: PageName | SectionName }}to transclude a section with its title. [1]
Problems
- MediaWiki was reverted to the previous version on February 4. It was because of a performance issue. It was restored later. [2]
- UploadWizard was broken on February 4 because of the revert of MediaWiki. [3]
- All sites were broken for 30 minutes on February 5. It was due to a network problem. [4]
Software changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 5. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 10. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 11 (calendar).
- You can have one user page for all wikis. Your Meta user page will show if you don't have a user page on a wiki. You can test this tool on test wikis. [5] [6] [7]
- You can search for media files in VisualEditor more easily. Images are bigger and you see the size and license. [8] [9]
- It is easier to review your changes when you save the page in VisualEditor. The window is wider. [10]
- You can read the latest news about VisualEditor. You can now join weekly meetings with developers. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The first meeting is on February 11 at 20:00 (UTC).
Future changes
- Administrators will soon be able to delete change tags used fewer than 5,000 times. [11]
- In the future you will be able to have personal lists of articles on the mobile site. [12]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:27, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 11 February 2015
- From the editors: We want to know what you think!
- In the media: Is Wikipedia eating itself?
- Featured content: A grizzly bear, Operation Mascot, Freedom Planet & Liberty Island, cosmic dust clouds, a cricket five-wicket list, more fine art, & a terrible, terrible opera...
- Traffic report: Bowled over
- WikiProject report: Brand new WikiProjects profiled
- Gallery: Feel the love
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Software changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 17. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 18 (calendar).
- On Wednesday your Meta user page will be shown if you don't have a user page on a wiki. [13] [14] [15]
- You can now change the order of categories in VisualEditor using drag-and-drop. [16]
- In VisualEditor, you now need to make a change before you can "Apply Changes" to citations and templates. [17]
- The way the cursor moves in VisualEditor is changing. Your browser now handles the cursor directly. Most of you will see no change. In right-to-left text, the cursor now moves in a 'visible' rather than 'logical' way. This is like other sites but you may be surprised at first. [18]
Meetings
- The VisualEditor Team had their first public bug triage meeting on February 11. They will post the results on the meeting page. [19]
- You can join the second weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on February 18 at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join. [20]
- You can join a meeting with the developers of the Content Translation tool. It will be on February 18 at 13:00 (UTC). [21]
Future changes
- You can comment on a proposal about abandoned Labs tools.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:57, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 18 February 2015
- In the media: Students' use and perception of Wikipedia
- Special report: Revision scoring as a service
- Gallery: Darwin Day
- Traffic report: February is for lovers
- Featured content: A load of bull-sized breakfast behind the restaurant, Koi feeding, a moray eel, Spaghetti Nebula and other fishy, fishy fish
- Arbitration report: We've built the nuclear reactor; now what colour should we paint the bikeshed?
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
- All new accounts are now global. [22]
- Your Meta user page is now shown if you don't have a user page on a wiki. You can report problems if you see any. You can ask a bot to delete your old user pages. [23] [24] [25]
Software changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 25. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 26 (calendar).
- It is now easier to see template fields in VisualEditor. The fields are bigger. [26]
- It is now easier to see when a button is disabled in VisualEditor. [27]
- Sometimes when you copy-pasted a template in VisualEditor, it was replaced by HTML. This problem is now fixed. [28]
- Tools in Labs will stop working for a few hours on February 24. [29]
Meetings
- You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
- You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on February 26 at 00:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- At the moment you need to log in to edit Wikimedia wikis on mobile devices. You can say if anyone should be allowed to edit on the mobile sites. The discussion ends on March 15.
- Images in the interface will soon work better in Opera 12. [30]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:29, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 25 February 2015
- News and notes: Questions raised over WMF partnership with research firm
- In the media: WikiGnomes and Bigfoot
- Gallery: Far from home
- Traffic report: Fifty Shades of... self-denial?
- Recent research: Gender bias, SOPA blackout, and a student assignment that backfired
- WikiProject report: Be prepared... Scouts in the spotlight
The Signpost: 25 February 2015
- News and notes: Questions raised over WMF partnership with research firm
- In the media: WikiGnomes and Bigfoot
- Gallery: Far from home
- Traffic report: Fifty Shades of... self-denial?
- Recent research: Gender bias, SOPA blackout, and a student assignment that backfired
- WikiProject report: Be prepared... Scouts in the spotlight
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
- A Lua function to use Wikidata has changed. You need to update the pages that use it. [31]
- You can use the Content Translation tool on Wikipedia in Uzbek and Minangkabau. You need to enable it in your Beta options.
- You can now hide banners if you don't have an account. [32] [33]
Software changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 3. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 4 (calendar).
- You can use the Content Translation tool on Wikipedia in Punjabi and Kyrgyz. You can ask for the tool in other languages.
- Editing the fake blank line in VisualEditor is now simpler. This change also fixed a few bugs. [34] [35] [36] [37]
- The TemplateData editor now warns you if a related page already has TemplateData. [38]
- The TemplateData table now tells you if a template doesn't take any parameters. [39]
Meetings
- You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
- You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 4 at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join technical meetings in France and Mexico this year. You will be able to ask for help if you can't pay yourself. [40]
Future changes
- You will be able to get a direct link for a section of a page. [41]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:41, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
Books and Bytes - Issue 10
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 10, January-February 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)
- New donations - ProjectMUSE, Dynamed, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and Women Writers Online
- New TWL coordinator, conference news, and a new guide and template for archivists
- TWL moves into the new Community Engagement department at the WMF, quarterly review
The Signpost: 04 March 2015
- From the editor: A sign of the times: the Signpost revamps its internal structure to make contributing easier
- Traffic report: Attack of the movies
- Arbitration report: Bradspeaks—impact, regrets, and advice; current cases hinge on sex, religion, and ... infoboxes
- Interview: Meet a paid editor
- Featured content: Ploughing fields and trading horses with Rosa Bonheur
- Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
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 create books on almost all wikis. It doesn't work yet on wikis using the language converter. [42] [43]
- VisualEditor had problems with categories in Safari. It sometimes moved or removed the categories. The issue is now fixed. [44] [45] [46]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 10. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 11 (calendar).
- In VisualEditor the "Edit beta" button is now called "Edit" on the English Wikipedia. [47] [48]
- The feedback tool in VisualEditor now looks like the other tools. It also asks for information about your browser to help fix bugs. [49] [50]
- You now see the VisualEditor toolbar even if the rest of the page is still loading. [51] [52]
- You now see more information when you edit a link, a reference or other items in VisualEditor. You also see a clearer edit button in those tools. [53] [54]
- If you use the ContentTranslation tool you now see red links in the list of articles in other languages. The link is red if the article doesn't exist in the language of your options or of your browser. You can translate the article by clicking on the red link.
Meetings
- You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
- You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 11 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join a technical meeting in France in May. You can ask for help if you can't pay yourself. [55]
Future changes
- You can get help to become a developer. You can learn more on the Google Summer of Code and Outreachy pages. [56]
- You will soon be able to read technical reports in Phabricator. [57]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:19, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
Sunday March 22: Wikipedia Day NYC Celebration and Mini-Conference
| Sunday March 22: Wikipedia Day NYC 2015 | |
|---|---|
  You are invited to join us at Barnard College for Wikipedia Day NYC 2015, a Wikipedia celebration and mini-conference for the project's 14th birthday. In addition to the party, the event will be a participatory unconference, with plenary panels, lightning talks, and of course open space sessions. We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects.
We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 21:58, 9 March 2015 (UTC) | |
(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)
The Signpost: 11 March 2015
- Special report: An advance look at the WMF's fundraising survey
- In the media: Gamergate; a Wiki hoax; Kanye West
- Traffic report: Wikipedia: handing knowledge to the world, one prank at a time
- Featured content: Here they come, the couple plighted –
- Op-ed: Why the Core Contest matters
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 servers that resize images are using new software. You should report new problems that you notice with images. [58]
- You can now see lists of bugs about Commons, Wikisource and Wiktionary. [59]
- It is now easier to add special characters in VisualEditor. You can edit the list of characters for your wiki. [60] [61]
Problems
- Wikis were broken for a few minutes on Thursday due to a code error.
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 17. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 18 (calendar).
- A puzzle piece icon (
) now shows hidden templates in VisualEditor. You can edit the template by clicking the icon. For example, you can now edit anchor templates. [62] [63] - You can now add examples, and details about old parameters, in TemplateData. [64] [65]
Meetings
- You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
- You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 18 at 23:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The list of bad user names on your wiki will no longer work. The global list will replace it. You can ask to add rules for bad user names on Meta. [66] [67]
- You can comment on how you want to see Wikidata edits in your watchlist on other wikis. [68]
- The final steps of single user login (SUL) will happen in April. You can see the rules to rename accounts. [69]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:15, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 18 March 2015
- From the editor: A salute to Pine
- Featured content: A woman who loved kings
- Traffic report: It's not cricket
.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 24. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 25 (calendar).
- The text of a reference is now more visible when you click on it. It has a blue background. Many wikis already have the blue color. Those wikis can now remove it from their CSS page. [70]
- VisualEditor is now much faster. For many users it is now at least as fast as the wikitext editor. [71] [72] [73]
- When you add a list of references in VisualEditor, you now see it right away. You can still change its group by editing it. [74]
Meetings
- You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
- You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 25 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Talk pages using "LiquidThreads" on mediawiki.org will soon use the new system. [75]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:10, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost – Volume 11, Issue 12 – 25 March 2015
- News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation adopts open-access research policy
- Featured content: A carnival of animals, a river of dung, a wasteland of uncles, and some people with attitude
- Special report: Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2014
- Traffic report: Oddly familiar
- Recent research: Most important people; respiratory reliability; academic attitudes
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 hide site banners even if you don't have an account. [76]
- You can now add citations more easily with VisualEditor on the French and Italian Wikipedia. The tool adds the information when you add some types of links. In the future you will be able to add this tool to your wiki. [77] [78] [79]
- All sites should now be faster if you have a recent browser. [80]
- You could see a serious bug when editing some templates with VisualEditor. It was fixed quickly. [81]
- VisualEditor could break when you edited an image. The issue was fixed quickly. [82]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 31. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 1 (calendar).
- VisualEditor is now the main editing tool on 53 more Wikipedias. [83]
- You can now edit the mobile site of all wikis without an account. [84]
- You can test a new tool on the beta mobile site on the English Wikipedia. With the new tool, you can create lists of articles. [85]
- You can now see that VisualEditor is opening even if you're not looking at the top of the page. [86]
- VisualEditor doesn't leave empty titles with just nowiki tags any more. [87] [88] [89] [90]
Meetings
- You can join a meeting with the Wikidata team. The meeting will be on IRC on March 31 at 16:00 (UTC). [91]
- You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
- You can join the next weekly meeting with the Editing team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on April 1 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:18, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost, 1 April 2015
- In the media: Wiki-PR duo bulldoze a piñata store; Wifione arbitration case; French parliamentary plagiarism
- Featured content: Stop Press. Marie Celeste Mystery Solved. Crew Found Hiding In Wardrobe.
- Traffic report: All over the place
- Special report: Pictures of the Year 2015
The Signpost: 01 April 2015
- In the media: Wiki-PR duo bulldoze a piñata store; Wifione arbitration case; French parliamentary plagiarism
- Featured content: Stop Press. Marie Celeste Mystery Solved. Crew Found Hiding In Wardrobe.
- Traffic report: All over the place
- Special report: Pictures of the Year 2015
VisualEditor News #2—2015
With Citoid in VisualEditor, you click the 'book with bookmark' icon and paste in the URL for a reliable source:
Citoid looks up the source for you and returns the citation results. Click the green "Insert" button to accept its results and add them to the article:
After inserting the citation, you can change it. Select the reference, and click the "Edit" button in the context menu to make changes.
The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.
Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's performance, the Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.
The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 11:00 (noon) PDT (18:00 UTC). You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.
Recent improvements
VisualEditor is now substantially faster. In many cases, opening the page in VisualEditor is now faster than opening it in the wikitext editor. The new system has improved the code speed by 37% and network speed by almost 40%.
The Editing team is slowly adding auto-fill features for citations. This is currently available only at the French, Italian, and English Wikipedias. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections by contributing to the Citoid service's definitions for each website.
Citoid requires good TemplateData for your citation templates. If you would like to request this feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.
The special character inserter has been improved, based upon feedback from active users. After this, VisualEditor was made available to all users of Wikipedias on the Phase 5 list on 30 March. This affected 53 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh.
Work continues to support languages with complex requirements, such as Korean and Japanese. These languages use input method editors ("IMEs”). Recent improvements to cursoring, backspace, and delete behavior will simplify typing in VisualEditor for these users.
The design for the image selection process is now using a "masonry fit" model. Images in the search results are displayed at the same height but at variable widths, similar to bricks of different sizes in a masonry wall, or the "packed" mode in image galleries. This style helps you find the right image by making it easier to see more details in images.
You can now drag and drop categories to re-arrange their order of appearance on the page.
The pop-up window that appears when you click on a reference, image, link, or other element, is called the "context menu". It now displays additional useful information, such as the destination of the link or the image's filename. The team has also added an explicit "Edit" button in the context menu, which helps new editors open the tool to change the item.
Invisible templates are marked by a puzzle piece icon so they can be interacted with. Users also will be able to see and edit HTML anchors now in section headings.
Users of the TemplateData GUI editor can now set a string as an optional text for the 'deprecated' property in addition to boolean value, which lets you tell users of the template what they should do instead (T90734).
Looking ahead
The special character inserter in VisualEditor will soon use the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki will also have the option of creating a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Instructions for customizing the list will be posted at mediawiki.org.
The team is discussing a test of VisualEditor with new users, to see whether they have met their goals of making VisualEditor suitable for those editors. The timing is unknown, but might be relatively soon.
Let's work together
- Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
- Can you translate from English into any other language? Please check this list to see whether more interface translations are needed for your language. Contact us to get an account if you want to help!
- The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
- File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.
Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!
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 join a new email list for important news about Wikimedia Labs. [92]
- You can read the last monthly report. In the future you can read team reports every three months. You can see current work on the roadmap. [93] [94]
- The number of articles in Special:Statistics is now updated once a month. [95]
- You can use a new version of the Wikipedia app for Android. Using the app, you can now share a fact with your friends. [96]
Problems
- The import tool was broken for a few days. Imports didn't add log entries. You can delete and import pages again if necessary. [97]
- Labs was broken several times this week. [98] [99] [100] [101]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since April 1. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from April 7. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 8 (calendar).
- You can now add the same special characters with VisualEditor as with the wikitext editor. [102]
- Many bugs around copy-paste in VisualEditor are now fixed. [103] [104]
- You can now use basic tools of VisualEditor in the new talk tool. You can add links, bold and italics. You can also mention people. [105]
Meetings
- You can join the next weekly meeting with the Editing team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on April 8 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:42, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 08 April 2015
- Traffic report: Resurrection week
- Featured content: Partisan arrangements, dodgy dollars, a mysterious union of strings, and a hole that became a monument
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Christianity
- Arbitration report: New Functionary appointments
- Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
A new reference tool
Hello Books & Bytes subscribers. There is a new Visual Editor reference feature in development called Citoid. It is designed to "auto-fill" references using a URL or DOI. We would really appreciate you testing whether TWL partners' references work in Citoid. Sharing your results will help the developers fix bugs and improve the system. If you have a few minutes, please visit the testing page for simple instructions on how to try this new tool. Regards, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:48, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
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 read the latest news about VisualEditor.
- You can now use the new translation tool on 22 Wikipedias. You now see the tool the first time you create a new page. [107]
- The list of bad user names on your wiki no longer works. The global list replaces it. You can ask to add rules for bad user names on Meta. [108] [109]
Problems
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since April 8. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from April 14. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 15 (calendar).
- Developers will start to rename 1.5 million accounts on Wednesday. After that all accounts will be unique and will work on all wikis. [112] [113]
- All users can now test link previews ("Hovercards") on several Wikipedias. [114]
Meetings
- You can join the next weekly meeting with the Editing team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on April 15 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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16:41, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
April 29: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
| Wednesday April 29, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC | |
|---|---|
 You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our inaugural evening "WikiWednesday" salon and knowledge-sharing workshop by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming editathons, and other outreach activities. After the main meeting, pizza and refreshments and video games in the gallery!
Featuring a keynote talk this month on Lady Librarians & Feminist Epistemologies! We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 18:28, 14 April 2015 (UTC) | |
(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)
The Signpost: 15 April 2015
- Traffic report: Furious domination