User talk:HereAndSometimesThere

Looking for a little guidance
} Rachel.dicerbo (talk) 07:40, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to "adopt" you and answer any questions you have! Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:07, 13 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you so much! I would really appreciate any help or insight you could provide. How do we get started? Rachel.dicerbo (talk) 02:55, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Is there anything in particular you've had problems with while editing/exploring Wikipedia? Would you like suggestions for where you can help out? If so, what are your areas of interest? (Both in terms of the subject areas you'd like to improve, and--if you have any sense for this--what types of tasks you might want to take on, or skills you have that could be useful...) By the way, if you'd like to make sure I'm notified promptly of your messages on this page, you can use the code  which pings me in the notification area at the top of the screen. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:06, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I'll be heading to an edit-a-thon this weekend and will develop a better idea of my weaker points. Right now I feel pretty confident in copyediting, and my areas for growth fall under "everything else". :)
 * Good luck at the edit-a-thon! If you're looking for articles to copyedit, they can be found here (general category) or here (special requests).  If you want to avoid seeing code while you are copyediting, you can try out the visual editor by enabling it in your settings (scroll down, check, and save -- you may also have to purge your browser if you don't see the "edit beta" tab). The visual editor is in beta, so just double-check that it hasn't done anything crazy to the page after you save edits made using the visual editor mode.  Or you can just edit in the normal fashion, without the visual editor -- here is a useful cheatsheet to code you're likely to see/use. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:26, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

 * Hi !  We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission.  I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Start Page
 * The Wikipedia Adventure Lounge
 * The Teahouse new editor help space
 * Wikipedia Help pages

--

Oh, dear.
Welcome to the madness. :) RasputinAXP  20:38, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
 * :) Rachel.dicerbo (talk) 16:53, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Peggy Shaw


The article Peggy Shaw has been proposed for deletion because it appears to have no references. Under Wikipedia policy, this newly created biography of a living person will be deleted unless it has at least one reference to a reliable source that directly supports material in the article.

If you created the article, please don't be offended. Instead, consider improving the article. For help on inserting references, see Referencing for beginners, or ask at the help desk. Once you have provided at least one reliable source, you may remove the prod blp tag. Please do not remove the tag unless the article is sourced. If you cannot provide such a source within seven days, the article may be deleted, but you can when you are ready to add one. G S Palmer (talk) 19:09, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I had a moment of panic then realized this is a 7-day warning. Phew! Thank you so much! Rachel.dicerbo (talk) 19:18, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi Rachel. I saw your message on my talk page: don't worry about it, proposed deletion isn't instant, like speedy deletion.  You have a week before it might get deleted, and if you add sources you can remove the template from the page right away.  No rush!
 * By the way, you said you "could not figure out how to "@" [me] to get [my] attention". I believe what you're looking for is Template:Reply to, produced by , which renders as .  Hope that helps!  G S Palmer (talk) 19:28, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Never mind the above. I see you already got it figured out while I was typing.  G S Palmer (talk) 19:29, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Back at you!
It was such a pleasure to work with you at WikiCon - I'm looking forward to reading your final version of the Peggy Shaw article. You should consider nominating it for a Did You Know? front page article when you've finished.

Keep in touch, and keep being bold! Levendowski(talk) — Preceding undated comment added 00:51, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation and such.
Hello, Rachel! Everything you ever wanted to know about disambiguation can be found at WP:DPL. We have a monthly contest where the most linked-to disambiguation pages are listed, and editors vie for a place in the Hall of Fame by fixing as many as we can from the list. We do have other lists - lots and lots of lists. There are some editors who know how to make lists of links meeting certain conditions, for example R'n'B's lists of disambiguation links on pages where the title includes the disambiguation term. Also, download WP:AWB, you can do all sorts of things with that. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:18, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi BD2412, thank you so much for this information! I'll take a spin around this and see what I can do :) --Rachel.dicerbo (talk) 03:16, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'll be around if you need anything. bd2412  T 03:57, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I have picked out a disambiguation fix to get you started, so you can see how the process works. The article is Shereefa Lloyd, an Olympic sprinter. One link very early on this page points to a disambiguation page rather than the correct target article. Your mission: find that link, and fix it! The fix, in this case, is straightforward. You need only go to the disambiguation page, find the right target article there, and make it so that the errant link in the article points to that target article. bd2412 T 01:35, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I tried it, BD2412 Did I do it right? :D --Rachel.dicerbo (talk) 17:39, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Exactly right. There are a number of more complex disambiguation scenarios that you will run into eventually - for example, someone may write in an article that the subject was "born in Clarendon Park" without giving any indication which Clarendon Park is intended (in which case some research would be needed), or they may refer to a notable "Clarendon Park" that is missing from Wikipedia (in which case a red link should be created pointing to what would be the correct title), or they may refer to a non-notable "Clarendon Park" (in which case the term should be unlinked). For example, last month I fixed a number of links to Stacey Johnson and found that some were intended for an Olympic fencer with no article; I therefore created Draft:Stacey Johnson (fencer), which I (or someone) will eventually get into article shape and move from draft space to the mainspace. You will also occasionally run into messes like Fish stew, which up until this morning was tagged as a disambiguation page (clearly it's just a list of kinds of fish stew, which is its own topic).
 * I see that you used Visual Editor to make the edit - it turns out to be good for this kind of work where the correct link is an expanded form of the incorrect link. I would like to show you the dabsolver, just so you can see another tool that does this with some additional useful bells and whistles. When you have passed 500 article space edits, you will be eligible to use the AutoWikiBrowser, which is a fantastic tool for making large numbers of common fixes, including disambiguation fixes. You might be able to get authorization to use it earlier based on your WMF role, but it's probably better for you to earn it the usual way. By the way, I must admit that disambiguation is not the most important thing to be done in Wikipedia; I happen to do a lot of it and therefore have an inflated sense of how important it is. However, if you keep at it, you may eventually place in the top three participants in the monthly disambiguation contest, in which case you will win a free Wikimedia t-shirt. Cheers! bd2412  T 18:04, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Squee! Thanks! I did use VE; probably next time I should use Wiki Markup. I hear you on it not being "the most important part" of editing Wikipedias, but I'd like to have a better sense of how it all works so that I feel more informed. I'll take a look at the other links you posted and see if I can help on any of them! :) -Rachel.dicerbo (talk) 20:06, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, let's just throw you in at the deep end. Go to Disambiguation pages with links/October 2014, pick a disambiguation page from the list, and fix all of the incoming links to that page. Let me know which one you do. It shouldn't be too bad - most of these have only ten or eleven incoming links, which is much better than the lists from years ago, which had hundreds. In going through a few of these, you are bound to come across the usual assortment of problems. Never fear to be bold in cutting them down! bd2412  T 20:21, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I think I lost the plot, here - the link pages all mostly lead somewhere already, such as with the Guggenheim_Museum. So I tried adding a link to Antisymmetric on the Antisymmetry page (added the third link) - did I get it right? -Rachel.dicerbo (talk) 03:22, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Those both happen to be problematic pages (math dabs are always a headache, Guggenheim is a problem because the link may intentionally refer to multiple museums associated with the same family). Let's start with something more clear-cut - try Northern Pride, which has only three links on the page. Go there and click "What links here" to see what pages are linking to that disambiguation page. Then limit the view to those in article space. Those are pages with a link needing to be fixed. If you go to those pages, you should be able to find a link to "Northern Pride", which needs to be corrected to point to the right Northern Pride. Cheers! bd2412  T 03:56, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I think I got it! Thanks for the extra instruction! I need to turn in for the day but will try another list (I looked at Elizabeth and wasn't sure if it might be a bit of an overwhelming list for me - how do you all know whenthe links have all been fixed? I suppose I'll learn the tools as I get more into it all!) Thank you! -Rachel.dicerbo (talk) 04:55, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Try this - go to Princeton, and click "What links here". Near the top of the page, go to the "Namespace" field and select "(Article)", then click "Go". You can see now that there are many links, but most point to Princeton (disambiguation). These are okay, since that redirect indicates that they are intentionally pointing to the disambiguation page. You can see the two links that are not redirects, and are not in the indented section under Princeton (disambiguation). Go to those pages and fix those links (both easy fixes, 90% of the time when someone links Princeton they intend Princeton University). Once you have fixed them, go refresh the "(Article)" selection on the "What links here" page for Princeton, and you will see that nothing is left that links to it outside of that redirect. A page is done for disambiguation purposes when the only incoming links are redirects and links to the "Foo (disambiguation)" link. bd2412 T 17:11, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I think I finally got it! Let me see if I can go it alone on my next editing try - I'll start with the main list and see if I can self-select and figure it out (finally :D) --Rachel.dicerbo (talk) 21:12, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Excellent. Be aware, however, that there are some easy pages, and some disambig hornets nests. It usually does not take long to figure out when a particular disambig is one or the other of those. Where you come across one, never fear to ask for help on the appropriate Wikiproject (I leave notes for the math people all the time, and for the Catholicism project for the countless "Saint"-something disambiguation pages). Happy hunting! bd2412  T 21:30, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Western honey bee copyedit
Hi, Rachel. Are you still planning to copyedit this article? All the best,  Mini  apolis  20:31, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi  Mini  - I'm really sorry; I haven't any edits to this yet. I'll respond on the Copy Editing page. Please accept my apologies! --Rachel.dicerbo (talk) 19:32, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
 * No apology needed, Rachel, and thanks for your help; I'll take a break from Sherlock Holmes and do it. Welcome to the GOCE and all the best,  Mini  apolis  02:16, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Tools
Hi Rachel, Here's a link to some tools which I find helpful: User:Rosiestep/Tools. --Rosiestep (talk) 20:57, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Never followed up on this - thank you so much! I ended up adding an ISBN citation :) --rachel (talk) 17:23, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It was great meeting you, too, Rachel. Till next time... --Rosiestep (talk) 02:47, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks
Thank you for helping organize that outstanding edit-a-thon yesterday. It was a pleasure meeting you. If you ever need the perspective of an experienced editor, feel free to ask. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  19:52, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Cullen328 - so sorry I missed this message! Thank you so much for attending. I actually would like to put you in touch with the mobile team at the Foundation if that would be OK with you - considering you were editing on mobile I think it would be great to speak with you about your experience! Could I put you in touch with my team member? Cheers, rachel (talk) 20:30, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, and a photo for you
Thanks again. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  05:05, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Please feel free to add to Performing arts
I think music in general or live music, should be added. 98.118.36.105 (talk) 03:34, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the encouragement. I *finally* added a section, but it's tiny so far. -rachel (talk) 04:52, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Invitation to participate in study
Hello,

I am E. Whittaker, I am working with Wikimedia’s Scoring Team to create a labeled dataset, and potentially a tool, to help editors deal with incivility when they encounter it on talk pages. A full write-up of the study can be found here: m:Research:Civil_Behavior_Interviews. We are currently recruiting editors to be interviewed about their experiences with incivility on talk pages. Would you be interested in being interviewed? I am contacting you because of your involvement in Wikipedia’s Women in Red project. The interviews should take ~1 hour, and will be conducted over BlueJeans (which does allow interviews to be recorded). If, so, please email me at ewhit@umich.edu in order to schedule an interview.

Thank you Ewitch51 (talk) 20:27, 24 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Ewitch51 - thanks for reaching out. I only very recently joined but have not yet been able to participate in the Women in Red Project, so I am probably not a good candidate for your study as I have no experiences to report! However, thank you very much for thinking of me :) HereAndSometimesThere (talk) 07:50, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Hello! Thanks for letting me know! Ewitch51 (talk) 18:44, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Editing News #2—2018
Read this in another language •  Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter  •  Subscription list on the English Wikipedia

Did you know?

Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?

Tap on the pencil icon to start editing. The page will probably open in the wikitext editor.

You will see another pencil icon in the toolbar. Tap on that pencil icon to the switch between visual editing and wikitext editing.



Remember to publish your changes when you're done.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has wrapped up most of their work on the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual diff tool. The team has begun investigating the needs of editors who use mobile devices. Their work board is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are fixing bugs and improving mobile editing.

Recent changes

 * The Editing team has published an initial report about mobile editing.
 * The Editing team has begun a design study of visual editing on the mobile website. New editors have trouble doing basic tasks on a smartphone, such as adding links to Wikipedia articles.  You can read the report.
 * The Reading team is working on a separate mobile-based contributions project.
 * The 2006 wikitext editor is no longer supported. If you used that toolbar, then you will no longer see any toolbar.  You may choose another editing tool in your editing preferences, local gadgets, or beta features.
 * The Editing team described the history and status of VisualEditor in this recorded public presentation (starting at 29 minutes, 30 seconds).
 * The Language team released a new version of Content Translation (CX2) last month, on International Translation Day. It integrates the visual editor to support templates, tables, and images.  It also produces better wikitext when the translated article is published.

Let's work together

 * The Editing team wants to improve visual editing on the mobile website.  Please read their ideas and tell the team what you think would help editors who use the mobile site.
 * The Community Wishlist Survey begins next week.
 * If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly.  We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation.

— Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:12, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

December 2018 GOCE newsletter
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:05, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

GOCE 2018 Annual Report
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:31, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

March GOCE newsletter
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:12, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

April 2019
--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:00, 25 March 2019 (UTC) via MassMessaging

(Please excuse this post if it is a duplicate!)

May you join this month's editathons from WiR!
--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:17, 27 April 2019 (UTC) via MassMessaging

June events with WIR
--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:42, 22 May 2019 (UTC) via MassMessaging

GOCE June newsletter
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:29, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

July events from Women in Red!
--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:40, 25 June 2019 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Editing News #1—July 2019
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Did you know?

Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?

Every article has a pencil icon at the top. Tap on the pencil icon to start editing.

 Edit Cards 



This is what the new Edit Cards for editing links in the mobile visual editor look like. You can try the prototype here: 📲 Try Edit Cards.

Welcome back to the Editing newsletter.

Since the last newsletter, the team has released two new features for the mobile visual editor and has started developing three more. All of this work is part of the team's goal to make editing on mobile web simpler.

Before talking about the team's recent releases, we have a question for you:

Are you willing to try a new way to add and change links?

If you are interested, we would value your input! You can try this new link tool in the mobile visual editor on a separate wiki.

Follow these instructions and share your experience:

📲 Try Edit Cards.

Recent releases
The mobile visual editor is a simpler editing tool, for smartphones and tablets using the mobile site. The Editing team has recently launched two new features to improve the mobile visual editor:


 * 1) Section editing
 * 2) * The purpose is to help contributors focus on their edits.
 * 3) * The team studied this with an A/B test. This test showed that contributors who could use section editing were 1% more likely to publish the edits they started than people with only full-page editing.
 * 4) Loading overlay
 * 5) * The purpose is to smooth the transition between reading and editing.

Section editing and the new loading overlay are now available to everyone using the mobile visual editor.

New and active projects
This is a list of our most active projects. Watch these pages to learn about project updates and to share your input on new designs, prototypes and research findings.


 * Edit cards: This is a clearer way to add and edit links, citations, images, templates, etc. in articles. You can try this feature now.  Go here to see how: 📲Try Edit Cards.
 * Mobile toolbar refresh: This project will learn if contributors are more successful when the editing tools are easier to recognize.
 * Mobile visual editor availability: This A/B test asks: Are newer contributors more successful if they use the mobile visual editor?  We are collaborating with 20 Wikipedias to answer this question.
 * Usability improvements: This project will make the mobile visual editor easier to use.  The goal is to let contributors stay focused on editing and to feel more confident in the editing tools.

Looking ahead

 * Wikimania: Several members of the Editing Team will be attending Wikimania in August 2019.  They will lead a session about mobile editing in the Community Growth space.  Talk to them about how editing can be improved.
 * Talk Pages: In the coming months, the Editing Team will begin improving talk pages and communication on the wikis.

Learning more
The VisualEditor on mobile is a good place to learn more about the projects we are working on. The team wants to talk with you about anything related to editing. If you have something to say or ask, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.

PPelberg (WMF) (talk) and Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

October Events from Women in Red
--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:35, 23 September 2019 (UTC) via MassMessaging

September 2019 GOCE Newsletter
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:58, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Editing News #2 – Mobile editing and talk pages – October 2019
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Inside this newsletter, the Editing team talks about their work on the mobile visual editor, on the new talk pages project, and at Wikimania 2019.

Help
What talk page interactions do you remember? Is it a story about how someone helped you to learn something new? Is it a story about how someone helped you get involved in a group? Something else? Whatever your story is, we want to hear it!

Please tell us a story about how you used a talk page. Please share a link to a memorable discussion, or describe it on the talk page for this project. The team would value your examples. These examples will help everyone develop a shared understanding of what this project should support and encourage.

Talk Pages
The Talk Pages Consultation was a global consultation to define better tools for wiki communication. From February through June 2019, more than 500 volunteers on 20 wikis, across 15 languages and multiple projects, came together with members of the Foundation to create a product direction for a set of discussion tools. The Phase 2 Report of the Talk Page Consultation was published in August. It summarizes the product direction the team has started to work on, which you can read more about here: Talk Page Project project page.

The team needs and wants your help at this early stage. They are starting to develop the first idea. Please add your name to the "Getting involved" section of the project page, if you would like to hear about opportunities to participate.

Mobile visual editor
The Editing team is trying to make it simpler to edit on mobile devices. The team is changing the visual editor on mobile. If you have something to say about editing on a mobile device, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.

Edit Cards



 * On 3 September, the Editing team released version 3 of Edit Cards. Anyone could use the new version in the mobile visual editor.
 * There is an updated design on the Edit Card for adding and modifying links. There is also a new, combined workflow for editing a link's display text and target.
 * Feedback: You can try the new Edit Cards by opening the mobile visual editor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on the Edit cards talk page.

Toolbar



 * In September, the Editing team updated the mobile visual editor's editing toolbar. Anyone could see these changes in the mobile visual editor.
 * One toolbar: All of the editing tools are located in one toolbar. Previously, the toolbar changed when you clicked on different things.
 * New navigation: The buttons for moving forward and backward in the edit flow have changed.
 * Seamless switching: an improved workflow for switching between the visual and wikitext modes.
 * Feedback: You can try the refreshed toolbar by opening the mobile VisualEditor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on the Toolbar feedback talk page.

Wikimania
The Editing Team attended Wikimania 2019 in Sweden. They led a session on the mobile visual editor and a session on the new talk pages project. They tested two new features in the mobile visual editor with contributors. You can read more about what the team did and learned in the team's report on Wikimania 2019.

Looking ahead

 * Talk Pages Project: The team is thinking about the first set of proposed changes.  The team will be working with a few communities to pilot those changes. The best way to stay informed is by adding your username to the list on the project page: Getting involved.
 * Testing the mobile visual editor as the default: The Editing team plans to post results before the end of the calendar year. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: VisualEditor as mobile default project page.
 * Measuring the impact of Edit Cards: The Editing team hopes to share results in November.  This study asks whether the project helped editors add links and citations.  The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: Edit Cards project page.

– PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Editing news 2020 #1 – Discussion tools
Read this in another language • Subscription list



The Editing team has been working on the talk pages project. The goal of the talk pages project is to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily. This project is the result of the Talk pages consultation 2019.



The team is building a new tool for replying to comments now. This early version can sign and indent comments automatically. Please test the new Reply tool.


 * On 31 March 2020, the new tool was offered as a Beta Feature editors at four Wikipedias:  Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian.  If your community also wants early access to the new tool, contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF).
 * The team is planning some upcoming changes. Please review the proposed design and share your thoughts on the talk page.  The team will test features such as:
 * an easy way to mention another editor ("pinging"),
 * a rich-text visual editing option, and
 * other features identified through user testing or recommended by editors.

To hear more about Editing Team updates, please add your name to the "Get involved"  section of the project page. You can also watch these pages: the main project page, Updates, Replying, and User testing.

– PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:45, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Editing news 2020 #2 – Quick updates
Read this in another language • Subscription list



This edition of the Editing newsletter includes information the Talk pages project, an effort to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily. The central project page is on MediaWiki.org.


 * Reply tool : This is available as a Beta Feature at the four partner wikis (Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian Wikipedias). The Beta Feature will get new features soon.  The new features include writing comments in a new visual editing mode and pinging other users by typing  . You can test the new features on the Beta Cluster.  Some other wikis will have a chance to try the Beta Feature in the coming months.
 * New requirements for user signatures : Soon, users will not be able to save invalid custom signatures in Special:Preferences. This will reduce signature spoofing, prevent page corruption, and make new talk page tools more reliable.  Most editors will not be affected.
 * New discussion tool : The Editing team is beginning work on a simpler process for starting new discussions.   You can see the initial design on the project page.
 * Research on the use of talk pages : The Editing team worked with the Wikimedia research team to study how talk pages help editors improve articles.  We learned that new editors who use talk pages make more edits to the main namespace than new editors who don't use talk pages.

– Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Editing news 2020 #3


Seven years ago this week, the Editing team made the visual editor available by default to all logged-in editors using the desktop site at the English Wikipedia. Here's what happened since its introduction:


 * The 50 millionth edit using the visual editor on desktop was made this year. More than 10 million edits have been made here at the English Wikipedia.
 * More than 2 million new articles have been created in the visual editor. More than 600,000 of these new articles were created during 2019.
 * Almost 5 million edits on the mobile site have been made with the visual editor. Most of these edits have been made since the Editing team started improving the mobile visual editor in 2018.
 * The proportion of all edits made using the visual editor has been increasing every year.
 * Editors have made more than 7 million edits in the 2017 wikitext editor, including starting 600,000 new articles in it. The 2017 wikitext editor is VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode.  You can enable it in your preferences.
 * On 17 November 2019, the first edit from outer space was made in the mobile visual editor.
 * In 2019, 35% of the edits by newcomers, and half of their first edits, were made using the visual editor. This percentage has been increasing every year since the tool became available.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:06, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Editing news 2020 #4
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this newsletter

Reply tool


The Reply tool  has been available as a Beta Feature at the Arabic, Dutch, French and Hungarian Wikipedias since 31 March 2020. The first analysis showed positive results.


 * More than 300 editors used the Reply tool at these four Wikipedias. They  posted more than 7,400 replies during the study period.
 * Of the people who posted a comment with the Reply tool, about 70% of them used the tool multiple times. About 60% of them used it on multiple days.
 * Comments from Wikipedia editors are positive. One said, أعتقد أن الأداة تقدم فائدة ملحوظة؛ فهي تختصر الوقت لتقديم رد بدلًا من التنقل بالفأرة إلى وصلة تعديل القسم أو الصفحة، التي تكون بعيدة عن التعليق الأخير في الغالب، ويصل المساهم لصندوق التعديل بسرعة باستخدام الأداة.  ("I think the tool has a significant impact; it saves time to reply while the classic way is to move with a mouse to the Edit link to edit the section or the page which is generally far away from the comment. And the user reaches to the edit box so quickly to use the Reply tool.")

The Editing team released the Reply tool as a Beta Feature at eight other Wikipedias in early August. Those Wikipedias are in the Chinese, Czech, Georgian, Serbian, Sorani Kurdish, Swedish, Catalan, and Korean languages. If you would like to use the Reply tool at your wiki, please tell User talk:Whatamidoing (WMF).

The Reply tool is still in active development. Per request from the Dutch Wikipedia and other editors, you will be able to customize the edit summary. (The default edit summary is "Reply".) A "ping" feature is available in the Reply tool's visual editing mode. This feature searches for usernames. Per request from the Arabic Wikipedia, each wiki will be able to set its own preferred symbol for pinging editors. Per request from editors at the Japanese and Hungarian Wikipedias, each wiki can define a preferred signature prefix in the page MediaWiki:Discussiontools-signature-prefix. For example, some languages omit spaces before signatures. Other communities want to add a dash or a non-breaking space.

New requirements for user signatures

 * The new requirements for custom user signatures began on 6 July 2020. If you try to create a custom signature that does not meet the requirements, you will get an error message.
 * Existing custom signatures that do not meet the new requirements will be unaffected temporarily . Eventually, all custom signatures will need to meet the new requirements. You can check your signature and see lists of active editors whose custom signatures need to be corrected.  Volunteers have been contacting editors who need to change their custom signatures.  If you need to change your custom signature, then please read the help page.

Next: New discussion tool
Next, the team will be working on a tool for quickly and easily starting a new discussion section to a talk page. To follow the development of this new tool, please put the New Discussion Tool project page on your watchlist.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:48, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Editing news 2021 #1
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this newsletter

Reply tool
The Reply tool  is available at most other Wikipedias.


 * The Reply tool has been deployed as an opt-out preference to all editors at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.
 * It is also available as a Beta Feature at almost all Wikipedias except for the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias. If it is not available at your wiki, you can request it by following these simple instructions.

Research notes:


 * As of January 2021, more than 3,500 editors have used the Reply tool to post about 70,000 comments.
 * There is preliminary data from the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedia on the Reply tool. Junior Contributors who use the Reply tool are more likely to publish the comments that they start writing than those who use full-page wikitext editing.
 * The Editing and Parsing teams have significantly reduced the number of edits that affect other parts of the page. About 0.3% of edits did this during the last month. Some of the remaining changes are automatic corrections for Special:LintErrors.
 * Венов_дијаграм.svg A large A/B test will start soon. This is part of the process to offer the Reply tool to everyone.  During this test, half of all editors at 24 Wikipedias (not including the English Wikipedia) will have the Reply tool automatically enabled, and half will not. Editors at those Wikipeedias can still turn it on or off for their own accounts in Special:Preferences.

New discussion tool
The new tool for starting new discussions (new sections) will join the Discussion tools in Special:Preferences at the end of January. You can try the tool for yourself. You can leave feedback in this thread or on the talk page.

Next: Notifications
During Talk pages consultation 2019, editors said that it should be easier to know about new activity in conversations they are interested in. The Notifications project is just beginning. What would help you become aware of new comments? What's working with the current system? Which pages at your wiki should the team look at? Please post your advice at mw:Talk:Talk pages project/Notifications.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:02, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Editing news 2021 #2
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this newsletter



Earlier this year, the Editing team ran a large study of the Reply Tool. The main goal was to find out whether the Reply Tool helped newer editors communicate on wiki. The second goal was to see whether the comments that newer editors made using the tool needed to be reverted more frequently than comments newer editors made with the existing wikitext page editor.

The key results were:


 * Newer editors who had automatic ("default on") access to the Reply tool were more likely to post a comment on a talk page.
 * The comments that newer editors made with the Reply Tool were also less likely to be reverted than the comments that newer editors made with page editing.

These results give the Editing team confidence that the tool is helpful.

Looking ahead

The team is planning to make the Reply tool available to everyone as an opt-out preference in the coming months. This has already happened at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.

The next step is to resolve a technical challenge. Then, they will deploy the Reply tool first to the Wikipedias that participated in the study. After that, they will deploy it, in stages, to the other Wikipedias and all WMF-hosted wikis.

You can turn on "Discussion Tools" in Beta Features now. After you get the Reply tool, you can change your preferences at any time in Special:Preferences.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

00:27, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Editing newsletter 2022 – #1
Read this in another language • Subscription list for the multilingual newsletter • Local subscription list



The New topic tool helps editors create new ==Sections== on discussion pages. New editors are more successful with this new tool. You can read the report. Soon, the Editing team will offer this to all editors at most WMF-hosted wikis. You can join the discussion about this tool for the English Wikipedia is at Village pump (proposals). You will be able to turn it off in the tool or at Special:Preferences.

The Editing team plans to change the appearance of talk pages. These are separate from the changes made by the Desktop improvements project and will appear in both Vector 2010 and Vector 2022. The goal is to add some information and make discussions look visibly different from encyclopedia articles. You can see some ideas at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

23:15, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Editing news 2022 #2
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter



The new [] button notifies people when someone replies to their comments. It helps newcomers get answers to their questions. People reply sooner. You can read the report. The Editing team is turning this tool on for everyone. You will be able to turn it off in your preferences.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (User talk:Whatamidoing (WMF)) 00:35, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Editing news 2023 #1
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this newsletter

This newsletter includes two key updates about the Editing team's work:


 * 1) The Editing team will finish adding new features to the Talk pages project and deploy it.
 * 2) They are beginning a new project, Edit check.

Talk pages project

The Editing team is nearly finished with this first phase of the Talk pages project. Nearly all new features are available now in the Beta Feature for.

It will show information about how active a discussion is, such as the date of the most recent comment. There will soon be a new "" button. You will be able to turn them off at Special:Preferences. Please tell them what you think.



An A/B test for on the mobile site has finished. Editors were more successful with. The Editing team is enabling these features for all editors on the mobile site.

New Project: Edit Check

The Editing team is beginning a project to help new editors of Wikipedia. It will help people identify some problems before they click "". The first tool will encourage people to add references when they add new content. Please watch that page for more information. You can join a conference call on 3 March 2023 to learn more.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 22 February 2023 (UTC)