Hi folks,
We're happy to let you know that the first version of Beta Features (1) has now been deployed worldwide on all wikis.
Beta Features is a new program that lets you test new features on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites before they are released widely. Think of it as a digital laboratory where community members can preview upcoming changes and help designers and engineers make improvements based on their feedback.
This first worldwide release includes these features:
* Media Viewer — view images in large size (2) (7)
* Typography Refresh — make text more readable (3)
* Near this page — see what other pages are nearby (4)
* VisualEditor Opt-in — edit pages without having to learn wiki code (5 - see below)
* VisualEditor Formulæ — edit algebra or equations on your pages (6 - see below)
(Note that Visual Editor Opt-in is only on a couple hundred sites where it was already available, but not enabled by default.)
We invite you to test these new features on your sites and let us know what you think. You can share your feedback about this Beta Features program on its discussion page (8) -- or about individual features on their respective discussion pages (see links 2-6 below). And if you find any technical bugs, please report them on Bugzilla (9).
We also invite you to join tomorrow's office hours IRC chat, this Friday, 22 November, 2013 at 18:00 UTC. (10)
Many thanks to all the community and team members who made this program possible! We hope it can help us improve Wikipedia together and provide a better experience for all our users around the world.
Enjoy,
Fabrice -- on behalf of the Multimedia, Visual Editor and Design teams
(1) About Beta Features:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer
(2) About Media Viewer v0.1:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer
(3) About Typography Refresh:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Typography_Update
(4) About Nearby Pages:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Beta_Features/Nearby_Pages
(5) About Visual Editor Opt-in:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Beta_Features/General
(6) About VisualEditor Formulæ:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Beta_Features/Formulae
(7) Media Viewer - New Version 0.2:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Lightbox_demo
(This new version displays larger images, for a more immersive experience. It is now on MediaWiki.org only and will be released to all wikis in early December.)
(8) Discuss Beta Features:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:About_Beta_Features
(9) Report a Bug:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=MediaWiki%20extensions…
(10) Office hours IRC chat - Friday, 22 November at 18:00 UTC:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Upcoming_office_hours
P.S.: If any community member would like to hide the 'Beta' link in their personal menu, they can easily remove it by going to their personal style page [[Special:MyPage/common.css]] and pasting in this CSS rule on a line by itself: "#pt-betafeatures { display: none; }" (do not include the quotes).
____________________________________________
Fabrice Florin
Product Manager, Multimedia
Wikimedia Foundation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)
Typo correction and vandalism reversion are certainly both entries to
editing, and it isn't just anti-vandalism where the opportunities have
declined in recent years. Typos are getting harder to find, especially in
stable widely read articles. Yes you can find plenty of typos by checking
new pages and recent changes, but I doubt our 5 edits a month editors are
going to internal maintenance pages like that. I suspect they are readers
who fix things they come across. It would be interesting to survey a sample
of them I suspect we'd find many who are reading Wikipedia just as much as
they used to, but if they only edit when they spot a mistake then of course
they will now be editing less frequently. And of course none of that is
actually bad, any more than is the loss of large numbers of vandals who
used to get into the 5 edits a month band for at least the month in which
they did their spree and were blocked..
The difficulty of getting precise measurements of "community health" makes
it a fascinating topic, and with many known factors altering edit levels in
sometimes poorly understood ways we need to be wary of oversimplifications.
No-one really knows what would have happened if the many edit filters
installed in the last four years had instead been coded as anti vandalism
bots, clearly our edit count would now be much higher, but whether it would
currently be higher or lower than in 2009 when the edit filters were
introduced is unknown. Nor should we fret that we shifted so much of our
anti-vandalism work from very quick reversion to not accepting edits.
However it isn't sensible to benchmark community health against past edit
levels, we should really be comparing community activity against readership
levels. If we do that there is a disconnect between our readership which
for years has grown faster than the internet and our community which is
broadly stable. To some extent this can be considered a success for Vector
and the shift of our default from a skin optimised for editing to one
optimised for reading. Of course if we want to increase editing levels we
always have the option of defaulting new accounts to Monobook instead of
Vector. My suspicion is also that the rise of the mobile device, especially
amongst the young, is turning us from an interactive medium into more of a
broadcast one. It is also likely to be contributing to the greying of the
pedia.
I am trying to list the major known and probable causes of changes of the
fall in the raw editing levels in a page on
wiki<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/Going_off_the_boil%3F>,
feedback welcome.
Jonathan
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 13:45:17 -0500
> From: "Marc A. Pelletier" <marc(a)uberbox.org>
> To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Copyright infringement - The real elephant
> in the room
> Message-ID: <528D033D.6060000(a)uberbox.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On 11/20/2013 01:06 PM, Richard Symonds wrote:
> > Not quite: I would argue that anti-vandalism work is a "gateway drug" to
> > the rest of the project. Just a hunch, though.
>
> I'm pretty sure that typo correction fills pretty much the same niche,
> though.
>
> -- Marc
>
>
>
> End of Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 116, Issue 32
> ********************************************
>
Hi Liam,
Thanks so much for your good feedback about Beta Features. (1)
I am glad you view this program as a positive development and think this tool can give users more control over their experience, as well as encourage more reasoned conversations during feature development, while reducing the stress for everyone. So like you, we're very hopeful about the potential of this tool for enabling more effective collaborations between foundation and community members.
Already, we're getting invaluable feedback on discussion pages like this one for Media Viewer (2). On that note, a newer version of Media Viewer is now ready for testing on MediaWiki.org, which displays larger images for a more immersive experience, as shown on this demo page (3). This new version will automatically be deployed on English Wikipedia's Beta Features section in early December, but we would love to get early feedback, if anyone is interested. To learn more, check out this overview of that new Media Viewer version. (4)
Last but not least, kudos to all the folks who contributed to this skunkworks program, across many different teams: Jared Zimmerman, Mark Holmquist, James Forrester, Jon Robson,May Galloway, Keegan Peterzell, and Erik Moeller, to name but a few :) While no particular team had a mandate to start this program, we all felt it was the right thing to do -- and just got it done. Sometimes the best projects come from these kinds of serendipitous collaborations. :)
Onward!
Fabrice
(1) About Beta Features:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/About_Beta_Features
(2) Discuss Media Viewer:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer
(3) New Version v0.2 of Media Viewer:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Lightbox_demo
(4) Media Viewer Next Version v0.2:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer#Next_Version
On Nov 22, 2013, at 12:39 AM, wikimedia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 13:38:30 +1100
From: Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt(a)gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc: Mark Holmquist <mholmquist(a)wikimedia.org>, Jared Zimmerman
<jared.zimmerman(a)wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Beta Features Launch Worldwide
Message-ID:
<CAAGzLhsj37moM+SY5sHsHXkgXqpodgzxf-CR3JYYR_uX5Fhs=Q(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
This is a very positive development in the manner by which new features are
given some visibility, tested and measured.
Making new features *opt-in*, and making it easy to return back is a
healthy way of getting wider usage and feedback IMO. Also, the ability for
a user to chose to automatically receive all new Beta functions, or to
manually select the individual elements that they like, is a nice touch
too. I think that, culturally as much as technologically, having a "beta
track" for ALL new elements is a good procedure to have. It will provide
consistent and clear expectations of what's happening (and a clear place to
provide feedback that is actually answered) - not having that is a large
factor IMHO in the negative reaction many features have previously
received.
I always really liked the manner in which the "Usability Initiative" (which
developed the vector skin a few years back) measured their success - the
proportion of people who turned "on" AND continued using new features. If I
recall correctly that was the first time the WMF used the "beta" concept
and I believe that the way it was rolled-out was the best practice example
of the WMF making a major change in a calm, clearly communicated,
responsive way. Interestingly, the things that caused controversy on the
day that that program's work became the default were the elements that were
added in at the at the last minute and therefore were not part of the Beta
- the v.2 logo, the 'collapsed' inter-language links box in the sidebar.
-Liam / Wittylama
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
_______________________________
Fabrice Florin
Product Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)
Dear Wikimedians,
Since 2008 Catrin has been working for Wikimedia Deutschland and was one of
Wikimedia Deutschlands first employees. We would like to thank Catrin for
five fabulous years, during which she has made a decisive contribution to
the growth and success of WMDE and its projects. Throughout this period,
Catrin has shown great commitment and taken a very active role in
furthering the cause of free knowledge, and she has succeeded in
establishing some excellent partnerships for us. She has used her
competence and expertise to develop the public relations department and
raise the quality of WMDE’s press work to a professional level. Catrin has
contributed to the strategic development of the association, and has been
an outstanding representative for it. Her excellent ideas have helped to
raise awareness and enhance the image of Wikimedia.
I would also like to thank Catrin in the name of the Supervisory Board for
her committed and successful work for WMDE and her tireless efforts to
promote free knowledge. We are sorry to lose her and wish her exciting new
challenges elsewhere, and all the best for her personal and professional
future.
With regards to her departure, Catrin says: “Although I have built up an
excellent team and have been able to work with the best colleagues in the
world over the past few years at WMDE, I have now decided to embark on a
different career path. The last five years have been like a journey through
the Wikiverse for me. I have met many people who have inspired me: people
who share their knowledge on a voluntary basis, allowing so many millions
of people – including myself – to benefit from their knowledge, and
colleagues who work collaboratively to spread the vision of freely
accessible knowledge to the world. I admire and am grateful to all these
special people in the Wikiverse, who have been so stimulating to work with
and who have made my time here so fascinating. I wish you all great success
and happiness in the future!”
Kind regards,
Pavel Richter
Executive Director
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Tel.: +49 - 30 - 219 158 260
Twitter: @pavel
The Wikimedia Foundation needs to wake up and deal with the "real tech
elephant in the room". Our primary issue is not a lack of FLOW, a lack of a
visual editor, or a lack of a rapidly expanding education program.
Our biggest issue is copyright infringement. We have had the Indian
program, we have had issues with the Education program, and I have today
come across a user who has made nearly 20,000 edits to 1,742 article since
2006 which appear to be nearly all copy and pasted from the sources he has
used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DrMicro#Copyright_infringement
This
has seriously shaken my faith in Wikipedia.
This is especially devastating as there is a tech solution that would have
prevented it. The efforts are being worked on by volunteers here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Turnitin and has been since at
least March of 2012. We NEED all tech resource at the foundation thrown at
this project. Other less important project like FLOW and the visual editor
need to be put on hold to develop this tool.
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sep11wiki
I think it's disrespectful to solicit contributions towards a memorial
website, and then to fail to maintain that memorial website in a
searchable format.
Today, searching the web for phrases in contributed memorial pages
brings up only ancient, presumably unmaintained Wikipedia mirrors,
such as these:
http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/da/Daniel_Brandhorsthttp://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Daniel_Brandhorst/
In time, those will disappear from the web, as all other copies have
done. Thus, relatives of the deceased will have no way to discover
that these pages ever existed.
In 2007, the September 11 wiki was moved to a non-Wikimedia site,
evidently hosted by an individual without the capacity to preserve
that content for posterity. It was offline after only 3 years.
The data is still on our servers. I propose bringing the wiki back up,
in read only mode, and leaving it like that either until such time as
there is interest from a non-profit or government organisation in
taking over the responsibility of indefinite hosting. It would only
take an hour or so of ops work. It could stay like that for decades
without needing any further maintenance.
-- Tim Starling
User:Jackson Peebles is no longer with us, he passed away in late
October. Jackson was a Western Michigan University Honors student
studying behavioral science and biology. He worked as an ice hockey
referreee and volunteered with the Red Cross. His Wikipedia efforts
focused on counter-vandalism and adoption, "greeting new users,
encouraging civility, and [obsessively] reviewing recent changes".
Jackson was a Teahouse host, an instructor in the Education Program,
and the lead on a Video Tutorials Project through the WMF. User:Go
Phightins! originaly adopted Jackson but he went on to run his own
adoption school and facilitated a Western Michigan University course
himself. Among his userboxes he said, "This user is not a Wikipedia
administrator but would like to be one someday."
Jackson was born in 1992 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He graduated Mattawan
High School and was Senior Class President there. At Western Michigan
University, he was a 2011 Medallion Scholar. He worked at the Waldo
Library at the reference desk and volunteered for the National
Alliance for Mental Illness. He was one of three students in the
nation invited to represent the US at the International Red Cross and
Red Crescent’s Global Youth Conference in Vienna in 2012.
Jackson had recently proposed a WMF Individual Engagment Grant called
Reimagining Wikipedia Mentorship. "I think this project is incredibly
important and should be pursued," User:EpochFail wrote in an
endorsement. The grant scored highly and looked likely to be funded.
"A very interesting concept...may become a 'keystone piece' in the new
editor onboarding process." wrote one IEG committee member. Another
wrote, "Taking a 'Teahouse approach' in building sustained motivation
and preventing editor dropouts is a wonderful opportunity to develop a
true mentor-mentee support system that would increase the activity of
new contributors." Finally, "Proposers are highly qualified and driven
mentors with a useful background in teaching new editors and
understanding the learning process."
He was excitedly planning a trip to Australia in the coming weeks.
On Wikipedia, Jackson earned barnstars in Mentorship, Random Acts of
Kindness and Resilience. Friends and teachers glowingly recalled his
sense of humor and his hard work ethic.
His last edit to our site was on October 21 2013, the day he died.
Jackson welcomed an i.p. editor to Wikipedia: "Thank you for your
contributions, such as the one you made to Nikah mut‘ah. I hope you
like the place and decide to stay."
Please leave remembrances and condolences at
http://enwp.org/User_talk:Jackson_Peebes. We'll try and contact the
family and share your thoughts with them. You can read more
reflections on Jackson's amazing life there. Donations to the
Kalamazoo NAMI chapter would have made Jackson very happy and are the
family's wish.
--Ocaasi14:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)