Incubator:Wikimedia news
Global notifications for all Wikimedia projects are posted to this page; they usually contain information about some software changes. Additionally, the Signpost from English Wikipedia is posted here when a new issue comes out. Both of these are posted to make it easy for Incubator users to spot new issues by their watchlist. Older entries will occasionally be removed. Entries are not archived locally; instead,
For Incubator-specific news, see Incubator:News and/or the Community Portal for, e.g., policy discussions.
The Signpost: 1 August 2022[edit source]
- From the editors: Rise of the machines, or something
- News and notes: Information considered harmful
- In the media: Censorship, medieval hoaxes, "pathetic supervillains", FB-WMF AI TL bid, dirty duchess deeds done dirt cheap
- Op-Ed: The "recession" affair
- Eyewitness Wikimedian – Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary (part 3)
- Community view: Youth culture and notability
- Opinion: Criminals among us
- Arbitration report: Winds of change blow for cyclone editors, deletion dustup draws toward denouement
- Deletion report: This is Gonzo Country
- Discussion report: Notability for train stations, notices for mobile editors, noticeboards for the rest of us
- Featured content: A little list with surprisingly few lists
- Tips and tricks: Cleaning up awful citations with Citation bot
- On the bright side: Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war — three (more) stories
- Essay: How to research an image
- Recent research: A century of rulemaking on Wikipedia analyzed
- Serendipity: Don't cite Wikipedia
- Gallery: A backstage pass
- From the archives: 2012 Russian Wikipedia shutdown as it happened
Tech News: 2022-31[edit source]
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
- Improved LaTeX capabilities for math rendering are now available in the wikis thanks to supporting
Phantomtags. This completes part of the #59 wish of the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 August. It will be on all wikis from 4 August (calendar).
- The Realtime Preview will be available as a Beta Feature on wikis in Group 0. This feature was built in order to fulfill one of the Community Wishlist Survey proposals.
The Future changes
- The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated throughout August. Discussions will look different. You can see some of the proposed changes.
Future meetings
- This week, three meetings about Vector (2022) with live interpretation will take place. On Tuesday, interpretation in Russian will be provided. On Thursday, meetings for Arabic and Spanish speakers will take place. See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:19, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-32[edit source]
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
- GUS2Wiki copies the information from Special:GadgetUsage to an on-wiki page so you can review its history. If your project isn't already listed on the Wikidata entry for Project:GUS2Wiki you can either run GUS2Wiki yourself or make a request to receive updates. [1]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future meetings
- The Wikimania Hackathon will take place online from August 12–14. Don't miss the pre-hacking showcase to learn about projects and find collaborators. Anyone can propose a project or host a session. Newcomers are welcome!
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:47, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-33[edit source]
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 Persian (Farsi) Wikipedia community decided to block IP editing from October 2021 to April 2022. The Wikimedia Foundation's Product Analytics team tracked the impact of this change. An impact report is now available.
Changes later this week
- The Realtime Preview will be available as a Beta Feature on wikis in Group 1. This feature was built in order to fulfill one of the Community Wishlist Survey proposals.
Future changes
- The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated throughout August. Discussions will look different. You can see some of the proposed changes. [2][3][4]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:06, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
Invitation to join the Movement Strategy Forum[edit source]
The Movement Strategy Forum (MS Forum) is a multilingual collaborative space for all conversations about Movement Strategy implementation. We are inviting all Movement participants to collaborate on the MS Forum. The goal of the forum is to build community collaboration using an inclusive multilingual platform.
The Movement Strategy is a collaborative effort to imagine and build the future of the Wikimedia Movement. Anyone can contribute to the Movement Strategy, from a comment to a full-time project.
Join this forum with your Wikimedia account, engage in conversations, and ask questions in your language.
The Movement Strategy and Governance team launched the proposal for this MS Forum in May. After a 2-month review period, we have just published the Community Review Report. It includes a summary of the discussions, metrics, and information about the next steps.
We look forward to seeing you at the MS Forum! Qgil-WMF (talk) 11:51, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-34[edit source]
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
- Two problems with Kartographer maps have been fixed. Maps are no longer shown as empty when a geoline was created via VisualEditor. Geolines consisting of points with QIDs (e.g., subway lines) are no longer shown with pushpins. [5][6]
Changes later this week
- The colours of links and visited links will change. This is to make the difference between links and other text more clear. [7]
Future changes
- The new [subscribe] button helps newcomers get answers. The Editing team is enabling this tool everywhere. You can turn it off in your preferences. [8]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
00:09, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
The 2022 Board of Trustees election Community Voting period is now open[edit source]
Hi everyone,
The Community Voting period for the 2022 Board of Trustees election is now open. Here are some helpful links to get you the information you need to vote:
- Try the Election Compass, showing how candidates stand on 15 different topics.
- Read the candidate statements and answers to Affiliate questions
- Learn more about the skills the Board seeks and how the Analysis Committee found candidates align with those skills
If you are ready to vote, you may go to SecurePoll voting page to vote now. You may vote from August 23 at 00:00 UTC to September 6 at 23:59 UTC. To see about your voter eligibility, please visit the voter eligibility page.
Best,
Movement Strategy and Governance
This message was sent on behalf of the Board Selection Task Force and the Elections Committee
MNadzikiewicz (WMF) (talk) 12:59, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-35[edit source]
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 Realtime Preview is available as a Beta Feature on wikis in Group 2. This feature was built in order to fulfill one of the Community Wishlist Survey proposals. Please note that when this Beta feature is enabled, it may cause conflicts with some wiki-specific Gadgets.
Problems
- In recent months, there have been inaccurate numbers shown for various Special:Statistics at Commons, Wikidata, and English Wikipedia. This has now been fixed. [9]
Changes later this week
Future changes
- The Wikimedia Foundation wants to improve how Wikimedia communities report harmful incidents by building the Private Incident Reporting System (PIRS) to make it easy and safe for users to make reports. You can leave comments on the talk page, by answering the questions provided. If you have ever faced a harmful situation that you wanted to report/reported, join a PIRS interview to share your experience. To sign up please email Madalina Ana.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
23:02, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 31 August 2022[edit source]
- News and notes: Admins wanted on English Wikipedia, IP editors not wanted on Farsi Wiki, donations wanted everywhere
- Special report: Wikimania 2022: no show, no show up?
- In the media: Truth or consequences? A tough month for truth
- Discussion report: Boarding the Trustees
- News from Wiki Education: 18 years a Wikipedian: what it means to me
- In focus: Thinking inside the box
- Tips and tricks: The unexpected rabbit hole of typo fixing in citations
- Technology report: Vector (2022) deployment discussions happening now
- Serendipity: Two photos of every library on earth
- Featured content: Our man drills are safe for work, but our Labia is Fausta.
- Recent research: The dollar value of "official" external links
- Traffic report: What dreams (and heavily trafficked articles) may come
- Essay: Delete the junk!
- Humour: CommonsComix No. 1
- From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 years ago
The 2022 Board of Trustees election Community Voting is about to close[edit source]
Hello,
The Community Voting period of the 2022 Board of Trustees election started on August 23, 2022, and will close on September 6, 2022 23:59 UTC. There’s still a chance to participate in this election. If you did not vote, please visit the SecurePoll voting page to vote now. To see about your voter eligibility, please visit the voter eligibility page. If you need help in making your decision, here are some helpful links:
- Try the Election Compass, showing how candidates stand on 15 different topics.
- Read the candidate statements and answers to Affiliate questions.
- Learn more about the skills the Board seek and how the Analysis Committee found candidates align with those skills
- Watch the videos of the candidates answering questions proposed by the community.
Best,
Movement Strategy and Governance
MNadzikiewicz (WMF) (talk) 18:05, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-36[edit source]
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 later this week
On Special pages that only have one tab, the tab-bar's row will be hidden in the Vector-2022 skin to save space. The row will still show if Gadgets use it. Gadgets that currently append directly to the CSS id of
#p-namespacesshould be updated to use themw.util.addPortletLinkfunction instead. Gadgets that style this id should consider also targeting#p-associated-pages, the new id for this row. Examples are available. [10][11]
On Special pages that only have one tab, the tab-bar's row will be hidden in the Vector-2022 skin to save space. The row will still show if Gadgets use it. Gadgets that currently append directly to the CSS id of Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
23:19, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
Revised Enforcement Draft Guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct[edit source]
Hello everyone,
The Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines Revisions committee is requesting comments regarding the Revised Enforcement Draft Guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC). This review period will be open from 8 September 2022 until 8 October 2022.
The Committee collaborated to revise these draft guidelines based on input gathered from the community discussion period from May through July, as well as the community vote that concluded in March 2022. The revisions are focused on the following four areas:
- To identify the type, purpose, and applicability of the UCoC training;
- To simplify the language for more accessible translation and comprehension by non-experts;
- To explore the concept of affirmation, including its pros and cons;
- To review the balancing of the privacy of the accuser and the accused
The Committee requests comments and suggestions about these revisions by 8 October 2022. From there, the Revisions Committee anticipates further revising the guidelines based on community input.
Find the Revised Guidelines on Meta, and a comparison page in some languages.
Everyone may share comments in a number of places. Facilitators welcome comments in any language on the Revised Enforcement Guidelines talk page. Comments can also be shared on talk pages of translations, at local discussions, or during conversation hours. There are a series of conversation hours planned about the Revised Enforcement Guidelines; please see Meta for the times and details.
The facilitation team supporting this review period hopes to reach a large number of communities. If you do not see a conversation happening in your community, please organize a discussion. Facilitators can assist you in setting up the conversations. Discussions will be summarized and presented to the drafting committee every two weeks. The summaries will be published here.
MNadzikiewicz (WMF) (talk) 08:32, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-37[edit source]
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 search servers have been upgraded to a new major version. If you notice any issues with searching, please report them on Phabricator. [12]
Changes later this week
- Syntax highlighting is now tracked as an expensive parser function. Only 500 expensive function calls can be used on a single page. Pages that exceed the limit are added to a tracking category. [13]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
01:47, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-38[edit source]
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
templatelinkstable are now being dropped:tl_namespaceandtl_title. Any queries that rely on these fields need to be changed to use the new normalization field calledtl_target_id. See T299417 for more information. This is part of normalization of links tables. [14][15]
Changes later this week
- In Kartographer maps, you can use icons on markers for common points of interest. On Tuesday, the previous icon set will be updated to version maki 7.2. That means, around 100 new icons will be available. Additionally, all existing icons were updated for clarity and to make them work better in international contexts. [16][17]
Future changes
- In a group discussion at Wikimania, more than 30 people talked about how to make content partnership software in the Wikimedia movement more sustainable. What kind of support is acceptable for volunteer developers? Read the summary and leave your feedback.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 22:13, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
Growth team newsletter #22[edit source]
Welcome to the twenty-second newsletter from the Growth team!
Newcomers tasks reach the 500,000 edits milestone — more data publicly available[edit source]
As of the last week of June 2022, the newcomers of the world have completed over 500,000 newcomer tasks. In other words, newcomers have made over half a million Wikipedia edits via Growth’s “Suggested Edits” module.
- About 30% of those edits were completed on mobile devices.
- Usage continues to increase; in June 2022 almost 50,000 newcomer tasks were completed.
We have added some new data to Grafana. You can now check the number of edits and reverts by task types, or the number of questions asked to mentors. You can filter the data by wiki.
If you have any questions, or there is more data you want access to, please let us know.
Ongoing projects and explorations[edit source]
We are continuing our work on our new project, Positive Reinforcement. User testing of initial Positive Reinforcement designs was just completed. Interviews were conducted in Arabic, English, and Spanish. The outcome has been published on the Positive Reinforcement page. We are now utilizing user testing feedback along with prior community feedback to iterate and improve designs.
We are exploring the idea of a Copy Edit structured task. We have tested copy edits in Wikipedia articles for arwiki, bnwiki, cswiki, eswiki (Growth pilot-wikis) and enwiki with two different methods: LanguageTool and Hunspell. We will share more details here and on the associated Copy Edit page once the evaluation is complete.
Add an image was utilized at GLAM events in Argentina, Mexico, and Chile. For an overview of what was learned from these events, read: #1Pic1Article I: how Latin American heritage experts added images to Wikipedia (in English).
Experiments analysis[edit source]
Add a Link Experiment Analysis has been published. The most important points are:
- Newcomers who get the Add a Link structured task are more likely to be activated (i.e. make a constructive first article edit).
- They are also more likely to be retained (i.e. come back and make another constructive article edit on a different day).
- The feature also increases edit volume (i.e. the number of constructive edits made across the first couple weeks), while at the same time improving edit quality (i.e. the likelihood that the newcomer's edits aren't reverted).
Newcomer task edit type analysis has been published.
- Communities had expressed concern that newcomers whose initial edits were structured tasks wouldn’t go on to learn how to complete more difficult tasks. The Growth team data scientist conducted a Newcomer task edit type analysis to see if this was indeed the case.
- Results from analysis indicate that this likely isn’t a significant concern. More than 70% of users who start with the easy task "Add a link" also make another task type. Read the full analysis and methodology here.
News for mentors[edit source]
A new system for the mentors list
The configuration of the mentors list will change over the next weeks. In the future, mentors will sign up, edit their mentor description and quit using Special:MentorDashboard. This new system will make the development of new features for mentors much easier.
At the moment, the mentor list is a simple page anyone can edit, unless it’s protected. With the new page, mentors will be able to edit only their own description, while administrators will be able to edit the entire mentors' list if needed.
The deployment will happen first at the pilot wikis, then at all wikis. Existing lists of mentors will be automatically converted, no action will be needed from the mentors. [18][19]
Mentors will be informed about the next steps soon, by a message posted on the talk page of existing Mentor lists.
Learn more about this new structured page on mediawiki.org.
A tip for mentors
Did you know that mentors can filter their mentees' changes at Special:MentorDashboard (and star the ones that require attention)? This feature helps to keep an eye on newcomers' edits, helping mentors to fix minor details, and encourage them if necessary.
And did you know that mentors have special filters to highlight their mentees' edits at Special:RecentChanges? Look for the following filters in RecentChanges: Your starred mentees, Your unstarred mentees.
Other improvements
Some improvements will be made to the mentor dashboard in the coming weeks:
- While we now offer some options for mentors to take a break, the option to quit mentoring was not easy to find. This will be improved. [20]
- Mentors at wikis using FlaggedRevisions will have a way to discover their mentees' pending edits. [21]
- Dashboard discovery for new mentors will be improved. [22]
Recent changes and fixed bugs[edit source]
- We moved to a new Image Suggestions API. This new API will allow us to deploy Add an Image to more wikis. [23]
- Starting September 19, a few more wikis now offer Add an image to newcomers. These wikis are Greek Wikipedia, Polish Wikipedia, Chinese Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia, Romanian Wikipedia. [24]
- Add an image has been disabled for a few days due to technical issue. "Add an image" added a blank line instead of an image. This has been fixed. [25]
- In order to know if Special:EditGrowthConfig is used by communities, we now instrument page loads and saves of configuration. [26]
Have a question? A suggestion?[edit source]
Please let us know! You can also read our FAQ page.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:19, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
Announcing the preliminary results of the 2022 Board of Trustees election Community Voting period[edit source]
Hi everyone,
Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2022 Board of Trustees election process. Your participation helps seat the trustees the community seeks on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees.
These are the preliminary results of the 2022 Board of Trustees election:
You may see more information about the Results and Statistics of this Board election.
The Board will complete their review of the most voted candidates, including conducting background checks. The Board plans to appoint new trustees at their meeting in December.
Best,
Movement Strategy and Governance
This message was sent on behalf of the Board Selection Task Force and the Elections Committee
MNadzikiewicz (WMF) (talk) 06:22, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-39[edit source]
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
relattribute of links. Further details are in T315209.
Changes later this week
- Visual diffs will become available to all users, except at the Wiktionaries and Wikipedias. [27]
- Talk pages on the mobile site will change at the Arabic, Bangla, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Korean, and Vietnamese Wikipedias. They should be easier to use and provide more information. [28] [29]
- In the Module namespace, pages ending with
.jsonwill be treated as JSON, just like they already are in the User and MediaWiki namespaces. [30]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 00:27, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 30 September 2022[edit source]
- News and notes: Board vote results, bot's big GET, crat chat gives new mop, WMF seeks "sound logo" and "organizer lab"
- In the media: A few complaints and mild disagreements
- Special report: Decentralized Fundraising, Centralized Distribution
- Discussion report: Much ado about Fox News
- Traffic report: Kings and queens and VIPs
- Featured content: Farm-fresh content
- CommonsComix: CommonsComix 2: Paulus Moreelse
- From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 Years ago: September 2022
Tech News: 2022-40[edit source]
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
- Kartographer maps can now show geopoints from Wikidata, via QID or SPARQL query. Previously, this was only possible for geoshapes and geolines. [31] [32]
- The Coolest Tool Award 2022 is looking for nominations. You can recommend tools until 12 October.
Changes later this week
- Talk pages on the mobile site will change at the Arabic, Bangla, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Korean, and Vietnamese Wikipedias. They should be easier to use and provide more information. (Last week's release was delayed) [33] [34]
scribunto-consoleAPI module will require a CSRF token. This module is documented as internal and use of it is not supported. [5]- The Vector 2022 skin will become the default across the smallest Wikimedia projects. Learn more.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 00:21, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-41[edit source]
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 later this week
- On some wikis, Kartographer maps in full size view will be able to display nearby articles. After a feedback period, more wikis will follow. [35][36]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
14:06, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-42[edit source]
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 recently implemented feature of article thumbnails in Special:Search will be limited to Wikipedia projects only. Further details are in T320510. [37]
- A bug that caused problems in loading article thumbnails in Special:Search has been fixed. Further details are in T320406.
Changes later this week
mw.loadJsonData()to load data from JSON pages. [38]require( "strict" )to add errors for some possible code problems. This replaces "Module:No globals" on most wikis. [39]
Future changes
- The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated at most wikis. The "reply" button will look different after this change. [40]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 21:43, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-43[edit source]
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 have been some minor visual fixes in Special:Search, regarding audio player alignment and image placeholder height. Further details are in T319230.
- On Wikipedias, a new preference has been added to hide article thumbnails in Special:Search. Full details are in T320337.
Problems
- Last week, three wikis (French Wikipedia, Japanese Wikipedia, Russian Wikipedia) had read-only access for 25 minutes. This was caused by a hardware problem. [41]
Changes later this week
- Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Assamese Wikipedia, Bashkir Wikipedia, Balinese Wikipedia, Bavarian Wikipedia, Samogitian Wikipedia, Bikol Central Wikipedia, Belarusian Wikipedia, Belarusian (Taraškievica) Wikipedia, Bulgarian Wikipedia, Bhojpuri Wikipedia, Bislama Wikipedia, Banjar Wikipedia, Bambara Wikipedia, Bishnupriya Wikipedia, Breton Wikipedia, Bosnian Wikipedia, Buginese Wikipedia, Buryat Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [42]
- Starting on Wednesday October 26, 2022, the list of mentors will be upgraded at wikis where Growth mentorship is available. The mentorship system will continue to work as it does now. The signup process will be replaced, and a new management option will be provided. Also, this change simplifies the creation of mentorship systems at Wikipedias. [43][44][45]
- Pages with titles that start with a lower-case letter according to Unicode 11 will be renamed or deleted. There is a list of affected pages at m:Unicode 11 case map migration. More information can be found at T292552.
- The Vector 2022 skin will become the default across the smallest Wikipedias. Learn more.
Future changes
- The Reply tool and New Topic tool will soon get a special characters menu. [46]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 21:20, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 31 October 2022[edit source]
- From the team: A new goose on the roost
- News from the WMF: Governance updates from, and for, the Wikimedia Endowment
- Disinformation report: From Russia with WikiLove
- Featured content: Topics, lists, submarines and Gurl.com
- Serendipity: We all make mistakes – don’t we?
- Traffic report: Mama, they're in love with a criminal
Tech News: 2022-44[edit source]
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
- When using keyboard navigation on a Kartographer map, the focus will become more visible. [47]
- In Special:RecentChanges, you can now hide the log entries for new user creations with the filter for "New users". [48]
Changes later this week
- The maps dialog in VisualEditor now has some help texts. [49]
- It is now possible to select the language of a Kartographer map in VisualEditor via a dropdown menu. [50]
- It is now possible to add a caption to a Kartographer map in VisualEditor. [51]
- It is now possible to hide the frame of a Kartographer map in VisualEditor. [52]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 21:13, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Invitation to attend “Ask Me Anything about Movement Charter” Sessions[edit source]
Hello all,
During the 2022 Wikimedia Summit, the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) presented the first outline of the Movement Charter, giving a glimpse on the direction of its future work, and the Charter itself. The MCDC then integrated the initial feedback collected during the Summit. Before proceeding with writing the Charter for the whole Movement, the MCDC wants to interact with community members and gather feedback on the drafts of the three sections: Preamble, Values & Principles, and Roles & Responsibilities (intentions statement). The Movement Charter drafts will be available on the Meta page here on November 14, 2022. Community wide consultation period on MC will take place from November 20 to December 18, 2022. Learn more about it here.
With the goal of ensuring that people are well informed to fully participate in the conversations and are empowered to contribute their perspective on the Movement Charter, three “Ask Me Anything about Movement Charter" sessions have been scheduled in different time zones. Everyone in the Wikimedia Movement is invited to attend these conversations. The aim is to learn about Movement Charter - its goal, purpose, why it matters, and how it impacts your community. MCDC members will attend these sessions to answer your questions and hear community feedback.
The “Ask Me Anything” sessions accommodate communities from different time zones. Only the presentation of the session is recorded and shared afterwards, no recording of conversations. Below is the list of planned events:
- Asia/Pacific: November 4, 2022 at 09:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Chinese and Japanese.
- Europe/MENA/Sub Saharan Africa: November 12, 2022 at 15:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Arabic, French and Russian.
- North and South America/ Western Europe: November 12, 2022 at 15:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Spanish and Portuguese.
On the Meta page you will find more details; Zoom links will be shared 48 hours ahead of the call.
Call for Movement Charter Ambassadors
Individuals or groups from all communities who wish to help include and start conversations in their communities on the Movement Charter are encouraged to become Movement Charter Ambassadors (MC Ambassadors). MC Ambassadors will carry out their own activities and get financial support for enabling conversations in their own languages. Regional facilitators from the Movement Strategy and Governance team are available to support applicants with MC Ambassadors grantmaking. If you are interested please sign up here. Should you have specific questions, please reach out to the MSG team via email: strategy2030@wikimedia.org or on the MS forum.
We thank you for your time and participation.
On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,
MNadzikiewicz (WMF) (talk) 15:38, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-45[edit source]
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
- An updated version of the Event Registration tool is now available for testing at testwiki and test2wiki. The tool provides features for event organizers and participants. Your feedback is welcome at our project talkpage. More information about the project is available. [53]
Problems
- Twice last week, for about 45 minutes, some files and thumbnails failed to load and uploads failed, mostly for logged-in users. The cause is being investigated and an incident report will be available soon.
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 00:29, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Opportunities open for the Ombuds commission and the Case Review Committee[edit source]
Hi everyone! The Ombuds commission (OC) and the Case Review Committee (CRC) are looking for members. People are encouraged to nominate themselves or encourage others they feel would contribute to these groups to do so. There is more information below about the opportunity and the skills that are needed.
About the Ombuds commission
The Ombuds commission (OC) works on all Wikimedia projects to investigate complaints about violations of the privacy policy, especially in use of CheckUser and Oversight (also known as Suppression) tools. The Commission mediates between the parties of the investigation and, when violations of the policies are identified, advises the Wikimedia Foundation on best handling. They may also assist the General Counsel, the Chief Executive Officer, or the Board of Trustees of the Foundation in these investigations when legally necessary. For more on the OC's duties and roles, see Ombuds commission on Meta-Wiki.
Volunteers serving in this role should be experienced Wikimedians, active on any project, who have previously used the CheckUser/Oversight tools OR who have the technical ability to understand these tools and the willingness to learn them. They must be able to communicate in English, the common language of the commission. They are expected to be able to engage neutrally in investigating these concerns and to know when to recuse when other roles and relationships may cause conflict. Commissioners will serve two-year terms (note that this is different from past years, when the terms have been for one year).
About the Case Review Committee
The Case Review Committee (CRC) reviews appeals of eligible Trust & Safety office actions. The CRC is a critical layer of oversight to ensure that Wikimedia Foundation office actions are fair and unbiased. They also make sure the Wikimedia Foundation doesn’t overstep established practices or boundaries. For more about the role, see Case Review Committee on Meta-Wiki.
We are looking for current or former functionaries and experienced volunteers with an interest in joining this group. Applicants must be fluent in English (additional languages are a strong plus) and willing to abide by the terms of the Committee charter. If the work resonates and you qualify, please apply. Committee members will serve two-year terms (note that this is different from past years, when the terms have been for one year).
Applying to join either of these groups
Members are required to sign the Confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information and must be willing to comply with the appropriate Wikimedia Foundation board policies (such as the access to non-public information policy and the Foundation privacy policy). These positions requires a high degree of discretion and trust. Members must also be over 18 years of age.
If you are interested in serving in either capacity listed above, please write in English to the Trust and Safety team at ca
- Your primary projects
- Languages you speak/write
- Any experience you have serving on committees, whether movement or non-movement
- Your thoughts on what you could bring to the OC or CRC if appointed
- Any experience you have with the Checkuser or Oversight tools (OC only)
- Any other information you think is relevant
There will be two conversation hours to answer any questions that potential applicants may have:
- 17 October 2022, 03:00 UTC (other timezones) (Zoom meeting link) (add to calendar)
- 16 November 2022, 18:00 UTC (other timezones) (Zoom meeting link) (add to calendar)
The deadline for applications is 31 December 2022 in any timezone.
Please feel free to pass this invitation along to any users who you think may be qualified and interested. Thank you!
On behalf of the Committee Support team,
MNadzikiewicz (WMF) (talk) 11:08, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-46[edit source]
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
- At Wikidata, an interwiki link can now point to a redirect page if certain conditions are met. This new feature is called sitelinks to redirects. It is needed when one wiki uses one page to cover multiple concepts but another wiki uses more pages to cover the same concepts. Your feedback on the talkpage of the new proposed guideline is welcome. [54]
- The www.wikinews.org, www.wikiversity.org, and www.wikivoyage.org portal pages now use an automated update system. [55]
Changes later this week
- There will be a new link to directly "Edit template data" on Template pages. [56]
Future changes
- Starting in January 2023, Community Tech will be running the Community Wishlist Survey (CWS) every two years. This means that in 2024, there will be no new proposals or voting.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 21:52, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-47[edit source]
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 display of non-free media in the search bar and for article thumbnails in Special:Search has been deactivated. Further details are in T320661.
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 23:19, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 28 November 2022[edit source]
- News and notes: English Wikipedia editors: "We don't need no stinking banners"
- In the media: "The most beautiful story on the Internet"
- Disinformation report: Missed and Dissed
- Book review: Writing the Revolution
- Technology report: Galactic dreams, encyclopedic reality
- Essay: The Six Million FP Man
- Tips and tricks: (Wiki)break stuff
- Recent research: Study deems COVID-19 editors smart and cool, questions of clarity and utility for WMF's proposed "Knowledge Integrity Risk Observatory"
- Featured content: A great month for featured articles
- Obituary: A tribute to Michael Gäbler
- From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago
- CommonsComix: Joker's trick
Tech News: 2022-48[edit source]
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
- A new preference, “Enable limited width mode”, has been added to the Vector 2022 skin. The preference is also available as a toggle on every page if your monitor is 1600 pixels or wider. It allows for increasing the width of the page for logged-out and logged-in users. [58]
Changes later this week
- Mathematical formulas shown in SVG image format will no longer have PNG fall-backs for browsers that don't support them. This is part of work to modernise the generation system. Showing only PNG versions was the default option until in February 2018. [59][60][61]
- On some wikis that use flagged revisions, a new checkbox will be added to Special:Contributions that enables you to see only the pending changes by a user. [62]
Future changes
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 20:00, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Growth team newsletter #23[edit source]
Welcome to the twenty-third newsletter from the Growth team!
Highlights[edit source]
- Mentorship: We released the new structured mentor list to all wikis. This change makes mentorship easier to setup, manage and use.
- Positive reinforcement: An improved impact module is available for testing.
Positive reinforcement: an improved impact module to test[edit source]
The goal of the Growth team is to encourage newcomers to try editing for the first time, and encourage them to keep editing. We want to increase newcomers' motivation by showing them how impactful their edits are.
Newcomers have access to an impact module; you can find yours at Special:Impact. The revised impact module provides new editors with more context about their impact. It will display the number of edits, the number of thanks received, the last time they edited, the number of consecutive days they edited, and the number of views for the articles they edited.
This module will soon be available at our pilot wikis starting December 1. You can already test this new module at Beta Wikipedia. For safety reasons, do not use your regular account and password at Beta wiki. Create a new, specific account for this wiki, with a different password.
Structured tasks: improvements based on patroller feedback[edit source]
After the deployment of Structured tasks, we received feedback from various communities regarding how patrollers of recent changes were feeling overwhelmed by an increase in edits to check, and how some edits were poor quality or of poor relevance.
We made several improvements based on the feedback we received. Several points of improvement have already been addressed:
- Patroller fatigue:
- By default, newcomers can complete up to 25 "add a link" tasks and 25 "add an image" tasks per day. If patrollers are overburdened, each community can use Special:EditGrowthConfig to lower that limit.
- Quality of edits: what constitutes a "quality edit" is not a well defined concept. We initiated a discussion and summarized our findings. We also worked on the following improvements:
- Add a Link
- Underlinked articles are now prioritized, so it's less likely that newcomers are adding links to articles that are already have a lot of links.
- The confidence score was increased, so suggestions are more likely to be accurate.
- The default number of suggested links per article has been lowered to 3. This can be changed at Special:EditGrowthConfig. Communities can also exclude articles containing certain templates or categories from being suggested.
- Add an Image
- Lists will no longer receive "add an image" suggestions.
- Disambiguation pages will no longer receive "add an image" suggestions.
- We have many further improvements we plan to make to "add an image" in early 2023. [64]
- Add a Link
The Positive Reinforcement project will also address some of the concerns around encouraging newcomers to progress to higher value edits. The Growth team will soon work on strategies geared at "Leveling up" newcomers so they progress from easy to more difficult tasks.
Recent changes[edit source]
- All Wikipedias now have the same onboarding experience. Previously, at a few wikis, 20% of new accounts didn't get the Growth features when they created their account. These 20% of new accounts were used as a control group, in order to know if the Growth features were changing newcomers' behavior. Experiments have shown that Growth features improve activation and retention, and as we want to provide the same onboarding experience at all Wikipedias, we have decided to remove the control groups. We will utilize control groups when testing new features, and German Wikipedia keeps a control group at their request. [65]
- The quality score for "add a link" suggestions will change. We will suggest less links for each article, but they will be more accurate. We will first deploy it at our pilot wikis, and then to all other wikis where this feature is available. [66][67]
- Growth's features FAQ has been updated and expanded. This page centralizes all the information about Growth features. We invite you to read it, and, if you can, to translate it.
News for mentors[edit source]
- All Wikipedias can now setup and manage a mentorship program in an easier way.
- We changed the process to make it more reliable, easier to improve and easier to use.
- Wikipedias where mentorship hasn't been enabled yet can turn mentorship on following a new process. When done, mentors can sign-up by visiting
Special:MentorDashboard. - Wikipedias where the list of mentors already existed have been converted to the new system.
- A new special page —
Special:ManageMentors— now displays the list of mentors. This page can be transcluded on any other page. There are also new processes to signup as a mentor or to quit mentorship, and we improved community mentorship management.
- The Mentor dashboard's "Your mentees" module will have a new footer, called "Recent changes by your mentees". This footer will include a link to Recent changes, where mentors can see only edits made by their own mentees. [68]
Deployments[edit source]
- Add a link has been deployed to a 5th round of wikis. [69]
Improving this newsletter[edit source]
We plan to have a more regular newsletter, every two months. We also want to know if the current format suits you! Let us know what you like, what you like less and your suggestions of improvements: leave us a comment, in your preferred language.
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:58, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Join the Movement Charter Regional Conversation Hours[edit source]
Hi all,
As most of you are aware, the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) is currently collecting community feedback about three draft sections of the Movement Charter: Preamble, Values & Principles, and Roles & Responsibilities (intentions statement).
How can you participate and share your feedback?
The MCDC is looking forward to receiving all types of feedback in different languages from the community members across the Movement and Affiliates. You can participate in the following ways:
- Attend the community conversation hours with MCDC members. Details about the regional community conversation hours are published here
- Fill out a survey (optional and anonymous)
- Share your thoughts and feedback on the Meta talk page
- Share your thoughts and feedback on the MS Forum:
- Preamble
- Values & Principles
- Roles & Responsibilities (statement of intent)
- Send an email to: Template:Nospam if you have other feedback to the MCDC.
Community consultation hour for the United States and Canada will take place on Monday, 5 December 2022 on Zoom. You can check out more times here. The conversations will not be recorded, except for the section where participants are invited to share what they discussed in the breakout rooms. We will take notes and produce a summary report afterwards.
If you want to learn more about the Movement Charter, its goals, why it matters and how it impacts your community, please watch the recording of the “Ask Me Anything about Movement Charter” sessions which took place earlier in November 2022.
Thank you for your participation.
On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,
MNadzikiewicz (WMF) (talk) 13:51, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-49[edit source]
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
Changes later this week
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 00:39, 6 December 2022 (UTC)