Wikitech-ambassadors June 2014

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by sterlingjacinta＠gmail.com 21 Jun '14

21 Jun '14

can somone help me on wikipedia like show me around i am new ---------- Sent via Mobile Mail

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Re: [Wikitech-ambassadors] CirrusSearch updates (with 1.24wmf10)
by matanya 21 Jun '14

21 Jun '14

Those are great news, Nik!

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Media Viewer is now live on all wikis
by Fabrice Florin 19 Jun '14

19 Jun '14

Hi folks, We're happy to announce that Media Viewer is now live on all wikis hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation! Media Viewer is testing well on all remaining Wikipedias (e.g.: Chinese, Arabic, Hindu, Indonesian, etc.) and sister sites (e.g.: MetaWiki, Wikibooks, Wikiquotes, Wikiversity, Wiktionary). The multimedia team worked hard in the last few weeks to develop a range of final features, in response to frequent community requests. We hope you will try them out and let us know what you think on the Media Viewer discussion page (1). 1. Features on All Wikis These features are now available on all wikis as of today: * View original file (#630) * Scroll down to see more info (#697) * Show Commons link to logged out users (#429) * Easy opt-out for registered users (#703) * Opt-out for anons (#704) You can test these features on this Featured Pictures page. (2) 2. Features on MediaWiki.org only: These features are now available on MediaWiki.org and will be deployed to all wikis in coming days: * Make it easier to find image information (#706) * Prominent links to different image sizes (#664) * Add more tooltips to Media Viewer (#546) * Disable MediaViewer for certain images (#511) * Track 'View original file’ and ‘Commons link' clicks (#715, #726) * Track Media Viewer Opt-outs (/#558, #675) You can test these features on this demo page (3) — and learn more on the updated help page (4). 3. Features in development Other tasks in development or analysis include: * Show attribution credits in download tool (#598) * Make 'Commons link' and 'Use this file' more discoverable (#732) * Click on image in Media Viewer to help view original file (#712) * Improve Media Viewer UI on tablets (zoom/scroll) (#716) * Remember the last selection for ‘Use this file' (#660) You can view more details about these features on our planning site. (5) 4. Feedback We keep getting generally positive feedback worldwide, with these latest results: (6) * A majority of global respondents find the tool useful (60% average across surveys) * Cumulative approval by language: English 29%, French 70%, Spanish 78%, Dutch 59%, Portuguese 81%, German 28%, Hungarian 62%, Catalan 71% * Daily approval rates have increased on English Wikipedia from about 23% a day after launch to 39% two weeks after launch (and German approval has also increased from 23% to 56% in the same period). * We anticipate further approval increases on these sites, as more new features get rolled out in coming days, based on community feedback. We are also starting to track the opt-out rates to see how many people turn off Media Viewer in their preferences. As of June 16, about 875 users had disabled this feature on the English Wikipedia, two weeks after launch: this represents about 0.34% of all registered users who viewed images on the site since launch. We are sorry that this small minority of users don’t like the tool, but we are glad that so many other users are finding it useful. Please let us know what you think of these new features on our main discussion page (1). Which do you like most? least? Are there other must-have features that need to be developed right away, before we move on to other projects? Thanks to all the community and team members for all you’ve done to make Media Viewer possible. :) Onward! Fabrice — for the Multimedia Team (1) Discussion page: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer#New_featu… (2) Featured Pictures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_pictures (3) Demo page: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Lightbox_demo (4) Help page: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Multimedia/Media_Viewer (5) Planning site: http://ur1.ca/gtyrp (6) Survey results: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/Media_Viewer/Survey _______________________________ Fabrice Florin Product Manager, Multimedia Wikimedia Foundation https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)

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Deployment of GlobalRenameUser delayed for two weeks
by Dan Garry 16 Jun '14

16 Jun '14

Hi everyone, Apologies for the short notice, but we're delaying the deployment of GlobalRenameUser for two weeks. The new rollout date is 1st July 2014, moved back from 17th June 2014. These two weeks are going to be used by Hoo man to do code quality improvements which will be reviewed by Legoktm and Chris Steipp. So that the deployment is not delayed indefinitely while we wait, we've agreed to time box these improvements to two weeks, thus arriving at the new date of 1st July. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager for Platform and Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation

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Tech newsletter (2014, week 25)
by Guillaume Paumier 16 Jun '14

16 Jun '14

Hi, The latest tech newsletter is now available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2014/25 . Below is the English version. You can help write the next newsletter: whenever you see information about Wikimedia technology that you think should be distributed more broadly, you can add it to the next newsletter at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/Next . More information on how to contribute is available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News#contribute . You can also contact me directly. As always, feedback (on- or off-list) is appreciated and encouraged. Other languages: العربية <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/25/ar> [image: 100%] • ‎čeština <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/25/cs> [image: 100%] • ‎English [image: 100%] • ‎español <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/25/es> [image: 22%] • ‎suomi <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/25/fi> [image: 83%] • ‎ français <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/25/fr> [image: 100%] • ‎עברית <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/25/he> [image: 100%] • ‎polski <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/25/pl> [image: 100%] • ‎українська <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/25/uk> [image: 100%] • ‎中文 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2014/25/zh> [image: 100%] Latest *tech news <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News>* from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2014/25> are available. *Reminder* - You can subscribe to the wikitech-ambassadors <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-ambassadors> mailing list to get news more quickly and to send feedback or report problems. *Recent software changes* - The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf9 <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.24/wmf9>) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 12. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 17, and to all Wikipedias on June 19 (calendar <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.24/Roadmap>). - You can now read a summary <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_engineering_rep…> of the Wikimedia technical report for May 2014. *VisualEditor news* - You can now easily see the target of a link or other information using the context menu. [1] <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/137191/> - When you edit a reference, you can now empty it and click the "use an existing reference" button to switch it to re-use another reference. [2] <http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=65689> [3] <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/136599/> - You can now add and edit {{DISPLAYTITLE}} and __DISAMBIG__ in the page settings menu. [4] <http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56868> [5] <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/129065/> [6] <http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=61073> [7] <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/133037/> - The tool to insert special characters is now wider and simpler; the order of mathematical symbols is now correct. [8] <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/138111/> [9] <http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60626> [10] <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/138304/> *Future software changes* - Media Viewer <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Extension:MultimediaViewer> will be enabled by default on all wikis on June 19. Feedback <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer> is welcome. [11] <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2014-June/000740.…> - You will no longer be able to use navigation popups <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/w:Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation_popups> and Hovercards <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Popups> at the same time. [12] <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2014-June/000742.…> - You will no longer see image thumbnails on search results pages on Wikibooks and Wikisource wikis. [13] <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=66455> [14] <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/139048/1> - It will soon be possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. [15] <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14862> [16] <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/92468/> - Tablet users will be redirected to the mobile view of Wikimedia wikis starting on June 17. [17] <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/138517/> - The special page that lists most linked-to templates <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MostLinkedTemplates> will soon include pages from all namespaces; it will also be renamed to Special:MostTranscludedPages. [18] <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/137967/> - An IRC discussion <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours> about Phabricator will take place on June 17 at 17:30 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion <http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20140617T1530>). You can also read a blog post <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/06/10/on-our-way-to-phabricator/>about the upcoming switch to Phabricator. - You can now comment on the draft 2014-15 goals <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/2014-15_Goals> of the Wikimedia Foundation engineering department. [19] <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2014-June/000739.…> *Tech news <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News> prepared by tech ambassadors <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/Ambassadors> and posted by MediaWiki message delivery <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/User:MediaWiki_message_d…> • Contribute <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News#contribute> • Translate <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2014/25> • Get help <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech> • Give feedback <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tech/News> • Subscribe or unsubscribe <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_message_delivery/Targets/Tech_ambass…>.* -- Guillaume Paumier Technical Communications Manager — Wikimedia Foundation

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Roadmap and deployment highlights - week of June 16th
by Greg Grossmeier 15 Jun '14

15 Jun '14

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the WMF Engineering Roadmap and Deployment update. The full log of planned deployments next week can be found at: <https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deployments#Week_of_June_16th> A quick list of notable items... == Tuesday == * MediaWiki deploy ** group1 to 1.24wmf9: All non-Wikipedia sites (Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikiversity, and a few other sites) ** <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.24/wmf9> * Mobile view ** Tablets will be sent to the mobile version of the project websites. Previously they were sent to the desktop version. There is a blog post and central notice drafted and ready to go out day of. * CentralAuth Global Rename Tool ** CentralAuth will now provide an interface to rename global users. ** More info at: <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:CentralAuth/Global_rename> == Thursday == * MediaWiki deploy ** group2 to 1.24wmf9 (all Wikipedias) ** group0 to 1.24wmf10 (test/test2/testwikidata/mediawiki) * MediaViewer ** Will be enabled on *all* wikis ** <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/Media_Viewer/Release_Plan#Timeline> Thanks and as always, questions and comments welcome, Greg -- | Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E | | identi.ca: @greg A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D |

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Wikimedia engineering report, May 2014
by Guillaume Paumier 15 Jun '14

15 Jun '14

Hi, The report covering Wikimedia engineering activities in May 2014 is now available. Wiki version: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2014/May Blog version: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/06/15/engineering-report-may-2014/ We're also proposing a shorter, simpler and translatable version of this report that does not assume specialized technical knowledge: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2014/May/summary Below is the HTML text of the report's summary As always, feedback is appreciated on the usefulness of the report and its summary, and on how to improve them. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Major news in May include: - changes to the mobile site to better show the editors behind the curtain <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/02/the-wikipedia-editors-behind-the-curt…> ; - the announcement of CyrusOne in Dallas <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/05/wikimedia-foundation-selects-cyrusone…> as the location of the new Wikimedia data center; - the Zürich hackathon <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/10/tech-wizards-behind-wikipedia-meet-in…> and Lila Tretikov's perspective <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/15/hacker-osmosis-ideas-european-hackath…> on it; - experiments by the Growth team to encourage more contributors to register <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/16/anonymous-editor-acquisition/>; - the one-year anniversary <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/20/celebrating-one-year-of-tech-news/> of the launch of Tech News; - the launch of Wikipedia Zero in Nepal <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/22/wikipedia-zero-shall-accelerate-wikip…> in partnership with NCELL; - the launch of a second request for proposals <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/27/request-for-proposals-mediawiki-relea…> for the release management of MediaWiki for third-party users. VisualEditor <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/VisualEditor/Portal> In May, the VisualEditor <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor> team worked on the performance stability of the editor, rolled out a major new feature to help users better edit articles, and made some improvements to other features to increase their ease of use and understandability, fixing 78 bugs and tickets <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?list_id=318847&order=priority%2C…>. The new citation editor is now available to all VisualEditor users on the English, Polish, and Czech Wikipedias, with instructions <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Citation_tool> on how to enable it on other wikis. The citation and template dialogs were simplified to avoid technical language and some outcomes that were unexpected for users. As part of this, the citation icons were replaced with a new, clearer set, and the template hinting system now lets wikis mark template parameters as "suggested", as a step below the existing "required" state. The formula editor <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Beta_Features/Formulae> is now available to all VisualEditor users, and a new Beta Feature giving a tool that lets you set the language of content <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Beta_Features/Language> was made available for testing and feedback. Following a new set of user testing, the toolbar was tweaked, moving the list and indent buttons to a drop-down to make them less prominent, and removing the gallery button which is rarely used and confused users. The mobile version of VisualEditor, currently available for alpha testers, was expanded to also have the new citation editor available, and had some significant performance improvements made, especially for long or complex pages. Work continued on making VisualEditor more performant and reliable, and key tasks like keyboard accessibility have progressed. The deployed version of the code was updated five times in the regular release cycle. Progress was also made on Parsoid <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid>, the parsing program that works behind the scenes of VisualEditor. The team continued with ongoing bug fixes and bi-weekly deployments. Besides the user-facing bug fixes, we also improved our tracing support (to aid debugging), and did some performance improvements. We also finished implementing support for HTML/visual editing of transclusion parameters. This is not yet enabled in production while we finish up any additional performance tweaks on it. As part of the Google Summer of Code program, one student is working on a wikilint project <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid/Linting/GSoC_2014_Application> to detect broken/bad wikitext in wiki pages. Editor engagement <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_editor_engagement> In May, the Flow <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow> team prepared the new front-end redesign of this new discussion system. We completed work on sorting topics on a board by most recent activity, and changed hidden post handling so that everyone can see hidden posts. Back-end improvements include optimizations on how we handle unique identifiers and generate standard URLs. We also accepted Special:Flow (a community-created improvement that makes it easier to create redirects to Flow boards) and made fixes for topic submission and replies for users without JavaScript. <https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=File:Growth_team_update_(June_2…> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Growth_team_update_(June_2014).pdf?page…> Growth team presentation slides from the monthly Metrics meeting The Growth <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Growth> team launched its A/B test of two methods for asking anonymous editors to sign up <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Anonymous_editor_acquisition/Signup_invites> on the English, German, French, and Italian Wikipedias. Full analysis of the test results <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Anonymous_editor_acquisition/Signu…> is expected in June, though preliminary data strongly suggests a positive impact on new registrations. Last but not least, Growth released two smaller enhancements to our data collection regarding article creation, including adding page identifiers to MediaWiki's deletion logs and tracking page restorations <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Schema:PageRestoration> across all wikis. Mobile <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering> This month, the Mobile Apps <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps> team worked on a series of navigation improvements to the iOS and Android alpha apps, focusing on the interface for searching, saving and sharing pages, and navigating to the table of contents. We also worked on restyling the global navigation menu and article content—typography, color, and spacing—to create a standardized experience across the mobile web and apps. In preparation for the launch of the Android app in June, we tackled a number of user-reported crashing bugs to ensure a more stable and reliable experience for our users. The Mobile web <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_web_projects> team continued to build out the basic features of VisualEditor for tablet users, providing the ability to add references via VisualEditor. We hope to finish refining the add and modify references workflow in preparation for graduating VE for tablets to the stable mobile site sometime in July. On the reader features side, we've made a number of tablet-related styling improvements (typography, spacing, and Table of Contents) to the stable mobile site. This should greatly improve the reading experience for tablet users who are already accessing the mobile version of our projects, and it is one of the last pieces of work we planned to get done before we begin redirecting all tablet users to the mobile site mid-June. The Wikipedia Zero <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero> team worked on restructuring ZeroRatedMobileAccess <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ZeroRatedMobileAccess> into several extensions, and added support for graceful image quality reduction <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Reducing_image_quality_…>, and worked on a proposal to use GIF images <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Unfragmented_ZERO_design> for Zero banners instead of ESI <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_Side_Includes>. We also added necessary library support to the reboots of the Wikipedia apps, performed limited app code review, added support for Nokia (now MS Mobile) proxies, and started work with the Design team on the final polish for the Wikipedia Zero experience in the forthcoming apps. In May we launched Wikipedia Zero with Ncell in Nepal, Sky Mobile (Beeline) in Kyrgyzstan and Airtel in Nigeria. We also added Opera Mini zero-rating in Umniah in Jordan. We served roughly 67 million free page views in May across 30 partners in 28 countries. We met with community members from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Jordan, as well as prospective partners in Brazil, and kicked off the carrier portal design with Noble Studios. -- Guillaume Paumier Technical Communications Manager — Wikimedia Foundation

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Hovercards opt-in and NavPopups
by Dan Garry 11 Jun '14

11 Jun '14

Hi everyone, We're rolling out an update to prevent Hovercards and Navigation Popups from both being active at the same time for any given user. This unintended interaction has been causing strange glitches and also a confusing user experience. Once the patch is live, if you've opted in to both Hovercards and Navigation Popups simultaneously, then Navigation Popups will be disabled. Once you disable Hovercards, Navigation Popups will begin to work again. This will *only* affect you if you're one of the few users that has both enabled. If you're using either Hovercards or Navigation Popups, or using neither, you'll see no change. Thanks! Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager for Platform and Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation

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Hovercards - Request for feedback and volunteer-wikis
by Nick Wilson (Quiddity) 11 Jun '14

11 Jun '14

The Hovercards Beta Feature [1] is inspired by the Navigation Popups gadget. The goal of Hovercards is to make the reading experience better for our readers. When readers hover over links to other articles, they are provided a short summary and image. They can decide whether they need to visit that subject more fully before continuing the current subject. We are looking for local project wikis who are interested in turning on the Hovercards feature for all readers, ahead of the future Beta Feature graduation. Please let us know, if your wiki might be interested in this. We're also looking for additional feedback on all aspects of the extension.[2] - [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Beta_Features/Hovercards [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Beta_Features/Hovercards Sidenotes: * The recent flickering-bug (primarily in Firefox) was fixed today. * There is a gerrit patch which is examining the conflict of Navigation Popups and Hovercards. https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/120188/ * We also plan to suggest some potential updates to the styles in the original Navpopups gadget, so that it has better usability and is visually consistent with Hovercard and Reference-tooltip styles. -- Quiddity Community Liaison

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Media Viewer Release on All Wikis on June 19
by Fabrice Florin 10 Jun '14

10 Jun '14

Hi folks, Just a quick note to let you know that we are pushing back the Media Viewer release on All Wikis to next week, so we can focus on addressing more community requests for that final release. So that deployment will take place on Thursday, June 19 instead of June 12. Please let us know if you have any questions. Learn more on our release plan page. (1) Thanks, Fabrice (1) https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/Media_Viewer/Release_Plan#Timeline _______________________________ Fabrice Florin Product Manager Wikimedia Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)

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Wikitech-ambassadors June 2014