User talk:K6ka/Archives/2021/March

Tech News: 2021-09
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
 * Wikis using the Growth team tools can now show the name of a newcomer's mentor anywhere through a magic word. This can be used for welcome messages or userboxes.
 * A new version of the VideoCutTool is now available. It enables cropping, trimming, audio disabling, and rotating video content. It is being created as part of the developer outreach programs.

Problems
 * There was a problem with the job queue. This meant some functions did not save changes and mass messages were delayed. This did not affect wiki edits.
 * Some editors may not be logged in to their accounts automatically in the latest versions of Firefox and Safari.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).

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

19:06, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2021). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg TJMSmith
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Boing! said Zebedee • Hiberniantears • Lear's Fool • Only • WGFinley

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news
 * A request for comment is open that proposes a process for the community to revoke administrative permissions. This follows a 2019 RfC in favor of creating one such a policy.
 * A request for comment is in progress to remove F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a, which covers immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
 * A request for comment seeks to grant page movers the delete-redirect userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target. The full proposal is at Page mover/delete-redirect.
 * A request for comment asks if sysops may place the General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 editnotice template on pages in scope that do not have page-specific sanctions?
 * There is a discussion in progress concerning automatic protection of each day's featured article with Pending Changes protection.

Technical news
 * When blocking an IPv6 address with Twinkle, there is now a checkbox with the option to just block the /64 range. When doing so, you can still leave a block template on the initial, single IP address' talkpage.
 * When protecting a page with Twinkle, you can now add a note if doing so was in response to a request at WP:RfPP, and even link to the specific revision.
 * There have been a number of reported issues with Pending Changes. Most problems setting protection appear to have been resolved (T273317) but other issues with autoaccepting edits persist (T275322).

Arbitration
 * By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, any gender-related dispute or controversy and associated people. Sanctions issued under GamerGate are now considered Gender and sexuality sanctions.
 * The Kurds and Kurdistan case was closed, authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for the topics of Kurds and Kurdistan, broadly construed.

Miscellaneous
 * Following the 2021 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AmandaNP, Operator873, Stanglavine, Teles, and Wiki13.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:14, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Growth team newsletter #17


Welcome to the seventeenth newsletter from the Growth team!

The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.

Structured tasks
Add a link: the team is continuing to engineer on our first "structured task", which will break down the workflow of adding wikilinks to articles, and assist newcomers with an algorithm to identify words and phrases that could be made into links.

Add an image: even as we build our first structured task, we have been thinking about the next one. "Add an image" is a structured task in which newcomers would be recommended images from Wikimedia Commons to add to unillustrated articles. This is an ambitious idea with many details to consider. We have already learned a lot from community members, and we encourage everyone to look at the project page and join the discussion.

Moving forward: more wikis to get the features
Last November, our team published the analysis of the impact of newcomer tasks. We announced that we found that the Growth features, and particularly newcomer tasks, lead to increased editing from newcomers. Because of these results, we believe all Wikipedias should implement these features.

We have started to contact more wikis to deploy the features, including Wikipedias of all sizes. Bengali Wikipedia recently began using Growth features, and Danish, Thai, Indonesian, and Romanian Wikipedias will be coming soon. Please contact us if you have questions regarding deployment.

We are looking for translators who can help by translating the interface. Translating is done on Translatewiki.net (it requires a different account that your Wikimedia one). Communities that already have the Growth features being deployed are invited to check on the translations. Access translations here.

Variant testing
As mentioned in our previous newsletter, we ran a test of two variants of the newcomer homepage, meant to find a version that increases users completing suggested edits. We have completed the experiment, and learned that one of the variants leads to more edits on desktop while the other leads to more edits on mobile. Therefore, we will deploy the strongest variants for each platform to all newcomers.

News for mentors
Mentor dashboard: we have interviewed mentors from several communities as we plan a mentor dashboard feature, which would help mentors track the progress of their mentees. We encourage all mentors to share their thoughts on tools that would help them.

Magic word for mentors: it is now possible to use a magic word, , to display the name of a given newcomer's mentor. This can be used on welcome messages, userboxes, etc.

Help panel questions going to mentors: in most wikis, newcomers using the help panel ask questions to the help desk. On Czech Wikipedia, we have experimented with sending these questions to mentors instead. This simplifies the newcomer experience, and only led to a increase in mentorship questions of about 30%. We tried this in Arabic, Bengali, French and Vietnamese Wikipedias, and we are making it the default experience.

'' Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. '' 16:02, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-10
 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
 * Section translation now works on Bengali Wikipedia. It helps mobile editors translate sections of articles. It will come to more wikis later. The first focus is active wikis with a smaller number of articles. You can test it and leave feedback.
 * Flagged revisions now give admins the review right.
 * When someone links to a Wikipedia article on Twitter this will now show a preview of the article.

Problems
 * Many graphs have JavaScript errors. Graph editors can check their graphs in their browser's developer console after editing.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * The New Discussion tool will soon be a new discussion tools beta feature for on most Wikipedias. The goal is to make it easier to start new discussions.

Future changes
 * There will be a number of changes to make it easier to work with templates. Some will come to the first wikis in March. Other changes will come to the first wikis in June. This is both for those who use templates and those who create or maintain them. You can read more.
 * Reference Previews will become a default feature on some wikis on 17 March. They will share a setting with Page Previews. If you prefer the Reference Tooltips or Navigation-Popups gadget you can keep using them. If so Reference Previews won't be shown.
 * New JavaScript-based functions will not work in Internet Explorer 11. This is because Internet Explorer is an old browser that doesn't work with how JavaScript is written today. Everything that works in Internet Explorer 11 today will continue working in Internet Explorer for now. You can read more.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  17:50, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-11
 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
 * Wikis that are part of the desktop improvements project can now use a new search function. The desktop improvements and the new search will come to more wikis later. You can also test it early.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Editors who put up banners or change site-wide JavaScript code should use the client error graph to see that their changes has not caused problems. You can read more.

Problems
 * Due to database issues the Wikimedia Beta Cluster was read-only for over a day.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).

Future changes
 * You can add a newline or carriage return character to a custom signature if you use a template. There is a proposal to not allow them in the future. This is because they can cause formatting problems.
 * You will be able to read but not edit 12 wikis for a short period of time on at 06:00 (UTC). This could take 30 minutes but will probably be much faster.
 * Octicons-tools.svg You can use Quarry for SQL queries to the Wiki Replicas. Cross-database  will no longer work from 23 March. There will be a new field to specify the database to connect to. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech. PAWS and other ways to do SQL queries to the Wiki Replicas will be affected later.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  23:21, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-12
 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
 * There is a Wikipedia app for KaiOS phones. They don't have a touch screen so readers navigate with the phone keys. There is now a simulator so you can see what it looks like.
 * The reply tool and new discussion tool are now available as the "" beta feature in almost all wikis except German Wikipedia.

Problems
 * You will be able to read but not edit twelve wikis for a short period of time on at 06:00 (UTC). This can also affect password changes, logging in to new wikis, global renames and changing or confirming emails. This could take 30 minutes but will probably be much faster.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Syntax highlighting colours will change to be easier to read. This will soon come to the first wikis.

Future changes
 * Flagged revisions will no longer have multiple tags like "tone" or "depth". It will also only have one tier. This was changed because very few wikis used these features and they make the tool difficult to maintain.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Gadgets and user scripts can access variables about the current page in JavaScript. In 2015 this was moved from  to  .   will soon no longer work.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:52, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

WikiLoop 2020 Year in Review
Dear editors, developers and friends:

Thank you for supporting Project WikiLoop! The year 2020 was an unprecedented one. It was unusual for almost everyone. In spite of this, Project WikiLoop continued the hard work and made some progress that we are proud to share with you. We also wanted to extend a big thank you for your support, advice, contributions and love that make all this possible.

Head over to our project page on Meta Wikimedia to read a brief 2020 Year in Review for WikiLoop.

Thank you for taking the time to review Wikipedia using WikiLoop DoubleCheck. Your work is important and it matters to everyone. We look forward to continuing our collaboration through 2021!

María Cruz MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:35, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 March 2021
 * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:44, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-13
 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
 * Some very old web browsers don’t work well with the Wikimedia wikis. Some old code for browsers that used to be supported is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers.
 * Octicons-tools.svg IRC recent changes feeds have been moved to a new server. Make sure all tools automatically reconnect to  and not to the name of any specific server. Users should also consider switching to the more modern EventStreams.

Problems
 * When you move a page that many editors have on their watchlist the history can be split. It might also not be possible to move it again for a while. This is because of a job queue problem.
 * Some translatable pages on Meta could not be edited. This was because of a bug in the translation tool. The new MediaWiki version was delayed because of problems like this.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).

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

17:29, 29 March 2021 (UTC)