User talk:Sven Manguard/2014 Q3

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POTD notification

POTD

Hi Sven,

Just to let you know that the Featured Picture File:ULPower UL260i.jpg is due to make an appearance as Picture of the Day on June 18, 2014. If you get a chance, you can check and improve the caption at Template:POTD/2014-06-18. Thank you for all of your contributions! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:28, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sven

Thanks for your visit to my talk page. My understanding from Wikipedia policy is that I am the keeper of that page, and have first call on how it is maintained, within WP policy. I have chosen to keep it virtually empty of discourse, and to shade it, for reasons that are my own. (They are essentially practical; for instance, like you, I tell people when I leave message, please reply here or there, so we do not lose track of where a conversation is taking place.) Hence, I, as steward of my page, just as you are steward of yours—I will not endeavor to change your structure or color schemes—have restored my shading to the page. You are welcome to click the edit tab as often as you wish, to see what I might be "hiding", mdr. But, alas, you will find nothing interesting. And, meanwhile, I can continue for the short time coming to be the user I wish to be. Please visit as often as you wish, and check user histories and my activities to see what was moved about. But allow me to determine my own background color at my own User Talk page (understanding that it does not prevent you or others from any access). Thank you. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 23:22, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Leprof 7272: The guidelines are conflicting in this matter. WP:UP#OWN states "Traditionally Wikipedia offers wide latitude to users to manage their user space as they see fit. However, pages in user space belong to the wider community. They are not a personal homepage, and do not belong to the user. They are part of Wikipedia, and exist to make collaboration among editors easier." Strictly reading WP:UP, yes, you have the right to make your talk page unreadable. You also have the right to remove content entirely. You are, however, going out of your way to make conversations on your talk page less accessable, which goes against the spirit of having a talk page. Sven Manguard Wha? 23:31, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, I am going out of my way to establish a pattern that my talk page needs, diminishingly, to be a place where any discourse takes place, and I have succeeded. I thank you for acknowledging, even if tacitly, that I have the right to do so, since everyone, through use of the Edit and View history tabs, still has access to the whole of my dialogs and behaviours. Again thank you, and note, the remaining visible barnstar is simply a short-term jest, and it too will disappear (for I do not believe in them)—for I get taken to task for pre-discussing edits, for (the rare occasion) when I forget to discuss them, for demanding citations too quickly, for not demanding citations quickly enough, etc. To be awarded for prior discussion, immediately following being taken to task for "edit, don't talk about editing" beforehand, was a karmic or stochastic juxtaposition too imbued with humour to pass up. Cheers, best wishes, and again, please come see all you wish. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 00:37, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

New England Wikimedians summer events!

Upcoming events hosted by New England Wikimedians!

After many months of doubt, nature has finally warmed up and summer is almost here! The New England Wikimedians user group have planned some upcoming events. This includes some unique and interesting events to those who are interested:

Although we also aren't hosting this year's Wikimania, we would like to let you know that Wikimania this year will be occurring in London in August:

If you have any questions, please leave a message at Kevin Rutherford's talk page. You can unsubscribe from future notifications for Boston-area events by removing your name from this list.

Requesting images from living people

Hey, Sven. I was wondering if you had any advice for people trying to get images from living people—we're hoping to get one for Megadeth. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 01:53, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I responded at User talk:Crisco 1492, so that everyone following that conversation can see it. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:53, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Charlie resurgence

Nice work, as usual. And nice publicity this week :-) How are things with you? – SJ + 01:55, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Decent enough, thanks for asking. I will shoot you an email this weekend to catch up. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:54, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
For the stuff mentioned in signpost, with games! 75* 01:52, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your GA nomination of Escape from Woomera

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Escape from Woomera you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of J Milburn -- J Milburn (talk) 13:40, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You've got mail!

Hello, Sven Manguard. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 19:58, 7 June 2014 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:58, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your GA nomination of Escape from Woomera

The article Escape from Woomera you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Escape from Woomera for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of J Milburn -- J Milburn (talk) 10:41, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sleeping Dogs

Hey man! Would you consider doing a peer review, or giving some feedback on Sleeping Dogs (video game)? I would like to get some feedback about issues that need to be resolved. After that, I would like to nominate it for a featured article. Thanks for you for your cooperation! URDNEXT (talk) 12:50, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

URDNEXT: I don't see myself spending any significant amount of time on Wikipedia any time soon, so I am going to have to decline. As you messaged over a dozen other people on the issue, however, I am sure that you'll get an answer from someone in good time. Sven Manguard Wha? 07:15, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's alright. Doing work on Wikipedia is kinda hard because most people do it for passion and for trying to make Wiki a better place. So then it kinda gets in the way of real life work and relashionships, making you have to manage your time better. Anyway, thanks for the reply! I appreciate it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by URDNEXT (talk • contribs) 12:59, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Literature

Congrats, Sven! Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:11, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, what? It was promoted? Yay! Thanks for letting me know! Sven Manguard Wha? 20:02, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Images

Hi Sven. A while back you and user:Crisco 1492 were saying that in my role as a COI contributor, I should be able to get some high-quality professional photography licensed under a Creative Commons. Although it's only for a marginally notable person with a handfull of profile stories about them, I thought I'd share this image I just got permission for. CorporateM (Talk) 16:47, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) OTRS permission found and approved ticket:2014062210006808. Look forward to seeing more good images through you. Cheers, TLSuda (talk) 17:37, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Probably the best images I have ever gotten my greedy hands on[1][2]. I wonder why German companies seem so much easier to work with. CC @Crisco 1492. CorporateM (Talk) 13:42, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you ever get the chance to go to a Wikimania (next year is Mexico City, so not too expensive if you wanted to foot the bill yourself, although scholarships are available) take a look at the Germans. They are very dedicated to open source (some of our better tools were implemented through the German chapter), and I think open culture has had a greater impact there. That or the Germans are better at calculating the risk/reward factor of donating images. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:56, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looking at how much they downsampled the images they did donate (52% for the storefront image), I'd say the latter is a bigger factor. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:59, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No idea. I've also been told that the Germans have more trust in their consultants and therefore give them more autonomy. I have a German counterpart that has me write the English versions for cos like Triumph. In those articles, the client doesn't even see the page before it's live and I've been heading more in that direction. I find that the corporate approval cycle is the most destructive to NPOV. To a certain extent though clients are subject-matter experts and I wouldn't want to take them out entirely, but if I can marginalize the approval process, I can more consistently do perfect-quality work without requiring as much help to carry me over to NPOV. They have also created more of a regulated industry through the court ruling. We have much to learn from them I think. CorporateM (Talk) 14:14, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, the initial message got buried in a flood of other messages and I didn't see this thread until now. This is awesome news. If we continue to have success on this front, we will be able to point to it when trying to convince others to release works. From my experience with freely licensed video game screenshots, it became a lot easier to get them once we had a bunch already, I guess because people could see that it wasn't some disastrous scam to part them from their intellectual property. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:17, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

POTD notification

POTD

Hi Sven,

Just to let you know that the Featured Picture File:The Splatters 03.jpg is due to make an appearance as Picture of the Day on July 8, 2014. If you get a chance, you can check and improve the caption at Template:POTD/2014-07-08. Thank you for all of your contributions! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:54, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2014 June newsletter

After an extremely close race, Round 3 is over. 244 points secured a place in Round 4, which is comparable to previous years- 321 was required in 2013, while 243 points were needed in 2012. Pool C's Smithsonian Institution Godot13 (submissions) was the round's highest scorer, mostly due to a 32 featured pictures, including both scans and photographs. Also from Pool C, Scotland Casliber (submissions) finished second overall, claiming three featured articles, including the high-importance Grus (constellation). Third place was Pool B's , whose contributions included featured articles Russian battleship Poltava (1894) and Russian battleship Peresvet. Pool C saw the highest number of participants advance, with six out of eight making it to the next round.

The round saw this year's first featured portal, with Republic of Rose Island Sven Manguard (submissions) taking Portal:Literature to featured status. The round also saw the first good topic points, thanks to Florida 12george1 (submissions) and the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season. This means that all content types have been claimed this year. Other contributions of note this round include a featured topic on Maya Angelou's autobiographies from Idaho Figureskatingfan (submissions), a good article on the noted Czech footballer Tomáš Rosický from Bartošovice v Orlických horách Cloudz679 (submissions) and a now-featured video game screenshot, freely released due to the efforts of Republic of Rose Island Sven Manguard (submissions).

The judges would like to remind participants to update submission pages promptly. This means that content can be checked, and allows those following the competition (including those participating) to keep track of scores effectively. This round has seen discussion about various aspects of the WikiCup's rules and procedures. Those interested in the competition can be assured that formal discussions about how next year's competition will work will be opened shortly, and all are welcome to voice their views then. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk · contribs) The ed17 (talk · contribs) and Miyagawa (talk · contribs) 18:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Modern equipment and uniform of the Pakistan Army

Please join the discussion to change the article's title - Rameshnta909 (talk) 11:43, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No thank you. My only involvement in that article was removing a large quantity of copyright violation images that I deleted on Commons. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:06, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fez

Re: User_talk:Czar/2014#Fez, I did one better: commons:File:FEZ trial gameplay HD.webmhd.webm czar ♔ 20:05, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Czar: Awesome! I processed the OTRS ticket for you. Feel free to ping me any time you send in permissions to OTRS, and I'll get them processed quickly. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:07, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I appreciate the help and the offer. Edge (video game) is up, if you're interested, and if you have a sec, can you take a look at Ridiculous Fishing's OTRS tickets? I was just checking on some of the screenshots and I think they were linked to the Broforce ticket by accident czar ♔ 18:56, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Czar: You're right about the Ridiculous Fishing tickets. I've changed them all over. The only one that wasn't there anymore is File:Ridiculous Fishing composite logo.png. Was that there originally, or did you derive it from the awkwardly stretched version at the top of the press sheet? Sven Manguard Wha? 21:58, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Edge is done too, now. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:31, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Czar: Wait a second... why am I doing this? You have OTRS access! Sven Manguard Wha? 05:51, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't remember whether I cropped it myself, but it's still the same image, so not sure how you'd want to handle it. Thanks for catching the other stuff. Can you do the OTRS on File:Greg Wohlwend headshot full frame.jpg. It keeps getting punted around by Commons admins since it's been in the queue so long. And, yes, I recently got OTRS access, but as I understand it, I can't OTRS my own submissions. czar ♔ 20:11, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose it's not a good idea to process your own tickets, although watching your uploads get deleted because the queue is backlogged can't be fun. Anyway, I've processed the Greg Wohlwend headshot. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:33, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Appreciated czar ♔ 03:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sports portal

Hi Sven -- am I right in thinking the Sports portal is one of yours? The formatting appears to have broken recently; it now appears to have a fixed width which is considerably greater than my monitor. (I've noticed a similar problem in a couple of non-featured portals over the past days.) Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 09:06, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot replicate that problem. I am using the latest version of Firefox (whatever absurdly high number they're on now), and it stretches and shrinks to fit the width of the window for me. Sven Manguard Wha? 07:41, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-31

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf15) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 24. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 29, and to all Wikipedias on July 31 (calendar).
  • You can now download the latest version of the anti-vandalism tool Huggle.

VisualEditor news

  • You can now create, edit, and view HTML comments in VisualEditor. [3] [4]
  • The cancel button in VisualEditor toolbar has been removed. You can still use the Read tab and the Back button in your browser to cancel your edit. [5]
  • If you try to use a template which has no suggested or required parameters in TemplateData, you will now be asked to add the parameters. [6] [7]
  • You will no longer be able to edit a page if you can't create it, for example on pages protected against recreation. [8] [9]

Future software changes

  • You will soon be able to filter Meta-Wiki's user rights log by wiki and user. [10] [11]
  • Wikidata will soon be able to store data about article status, for example "good article" or "featured article". If your wiki has highlighted content, please make sure it is on Wikidata's list. [12]
  • It will soon be possible to directly create empty pages, for example in the user namespace. [13] [14]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:09, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi from Boston and EN.wiki, not really Wikidata

Sven, We (you and tall Paul) met briefly at a New England meeting in Boston last summer. I asked you about the Harvard Square brewhouse gatherings --no longer ongoing, I learned-- and about Wikidata --which I promised to continue in person. Next NEng meeting I learned that you had flown, fled, eloped --relocated for good work, I hope.

Today I finally "fixed" a mistaken identity at Wikidata by brute force. My history User contributions for P64 - Wikidata shows no other recent activity. I invite you, as I invited Maximilianklein last hour in detail, to tell me whether this brute split is appropriate and sufficient. (User talk:Maximilianklein#Anne Bishop at Wikidata (WD) gives a longish report.)

You may notice that my past activity at Wikidata is not much. Meanwhile I guess I have added template {{Authority control}} to more than 200 en.wikipedia biographies, fixed dozens of mistaken identities in wiki biographies, and reported several errors to authorities (DNB; today my second try at library of congress LC). That is, I hope and trust you all will keep up by periodic re-import from the biographies to Wikidata.

P.S. Once before I tried to fix an identity problem here using brute force, after some frustrating time but less than one hour in the documentation. ... 2013-11-21 in my contributions history. I linked en:Darwin Teilhet and it:Darwin LeOra Teilhet (although they give different birthplaces, which I didn't try to reconcile) by deleting the link to EN.wiki in one page, adding it to the other. Probably I should have filed for Darwin Teilhet https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5226029 to be deleted here.

--P64 (talk) 01:10, 29 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-32

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News updates

  • Tech News will be presented at the Wikimania 2014 conference in London! If you will be attending the conference, please join us in Auditorium 2 at 14:30 local time on Sunday, August 10.

Recent software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf16) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 31. Due to the Wikimania 2014 conference, it will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on August 12, and to all Wikipedias on August 14 (calendar). [15]
  • You can now test a new tool to render wiki pages as PDF files. [16] [17] [18]
  • You can now download an update to the archive of Wikimedia Commons files (uploaded up to December 31, 2013). If you have free space on your computer, please help preserve the files. [19]
  • New users using the mobile Commons site now need to make 75 edits before they can upload a file. [20] [21]

VisualEditor news

Future software changes

  • You will soon have a user option to watch pages where you revert edits. [33] [34]
  • All Toolserver data will be deleted in September. If you want to back up your data, contact Toolserver administrators before August 31. [35]
  • Pages in the Translations: namespace on wikis using the Translate extension will no longer be indexed by search engines. [36]

Problems

  • Wikivoyage wikis were broken for about 45 minutes on July 29 due to a configuration problem. [37]
  • Some users were not able to log in on test wikis and MediaWiki.org between July 31 and August 1. The problem is now fixed. [38]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Some help with files

Hi Sven. I'm looking for someone who knows more than me about file useage on Wikipedia - you definitely fall into that category, so I'm hoping you can lend a hand. I'm currently pushing Morihei Ueshiba towards GA status, but have hit a stumbling block with some of the images. There are two image files on the page with attribution/permission issues:

  • File:Onisaburo Deguchi 2.jpg -- may not be PD in the US, and the source is a dead link. The uploader hasn't been active for a few years, so there's no point asking them...
  • File:Morihei-Ueshiba.jpg -- this is all over the web, so sourcing it shouldn't be an issue. I believe this photo is one which the Aikikai released into the public domain (I'm fairly sure it's post 1946, and possibly 56), but haven't been able to confirm that, so it may not be useable.

If you could spare five minutes to cast an eye over these and offer your advice, I'm be jolly grateful. Thanks, Yunshui 雲水 11:57, 4 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, a query regarding File:Takeda Sokaku.jpg - the link to the source is dead, but this image clearly originated elsewhere - can I legitimately replace the link with one to a different website that hosts the same image? Yunshui 雲水 12:00, 4 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-33

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

  • Due to the Wikimania 2014 conference, there were no MediaWiki changes this week. The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf16) will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on August 12, and to all Wikipedias on August 14 (calendar). [39]
  • Bureaucrats on all Wikivoyage wikis are no longer able to merge two accounts into one. [40]

VisualEditor news

  • Tablet users visiting the mobile version of non-Wikipedia wikis will be able to use VisualEditor starting on August 12. The feature will also be enabled on all Wikipedias on August 14. [41]

Future software changes

  • Internet Explorer 6 users will soon see a JavaScript-free version of Wikimedia wikis; JavaScript tools and scripts will no longer work on that browser. If you use Internet Explorer 6, make sure to update to a newer browser! [42] [43] [44]
  • If you visit a special page that requires you to be logged-in, you will soon be automatically redirected to the log-in page instead of seeing a warning. [45] [46]
  • You will now always see recent changes to the source language text when editing a translation with the Translate extension. [47] [48]
  • An IRC meeting to discuss VisualEditor will take place on August 14 at 09:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). [49]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:43, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-34

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf17) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 14. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on August 19, and on all Wikipedias on August 21 (calendar).
  • There is a new protection level called superprotection. At the moment, only some Wikimedia Foundation employees have access to it. Administrators can't edit "superprotected" pages. [50] [51] [52]
  • You can now create empty pages directly. A message asks you to confirm that you want to create an empty page. [53] [54]
  • You can search for Wikimedia tools using a new list of tools. [55]
  • You can watch the first videos from Wikimania 2014. Some of them are about technical topics. More videos will come later.

Wikidata

  • After August 19, you can use Wikidata for inter language links on Wikinews. [56]
  • After August 19, you can use Wikidata for badges like "good" or "featured" articles. Next week, you will be able to show the badges in the article sidebar on Wikipedia, Wikisource and Wikiquote. [57]

Problems

  • There was an issue with ProofreadPage and WikiEditor on Wikisource wikis. It is now fixed. [58] [59]

Tech news written by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:17, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-35

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

VisualEditor news

  • There was a error when you put your cursor directly after a reference list. It is now fixed. [60]
  • You can now add colors to links in the editor using gadgets. You can do this to see links to redirects or disambiguation pages. [61]
  • If you use Internet Explorer, you will soon be able to use VisualEditor. [62] [63] [64]

Future software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf18) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 21. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on August 26, and on all Wikipedias on August 28 (calendar).
  • After August 26, you will have a central JavaScript and CSS page. They will be on Meta-Wiki and will work on all wikis. Read more on the help page. [65]

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

09:21, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014 August newsletter

The final of the 2014 WikiCup begins in a few short minutes! Our eight finalists are listed below, along with their placement in Round 4:

  1. Smithsonian Institution Godot13 (submissions), a WikiCup newcomer, finished top of Pool A and was the round's highest scorer. Godot is a featured picture specialist, claiming large numbers of points due to high-quality scans of historical documents, especially banknotes.
  2. Scotland Casliber (submissions) is a WikiCup veteran, having been a finalist every year since 2010. In the semi-final, he was Pool B's highest scorer. Cas's points primarily come from articles on the natural sciences.
  3. Nepal Czar (submissions) was Pool A's runner-up. Czar's points come mostly from content related to independent video games, including both articles and topics.
  4. Oh, better far to live and die / Under the brave black flag I fly... Adam Cuerden (submissions) was Pool B's runner-up. Another featured picture specialist, many of Adam's points come from the restoration of historical media. He has been a WikiCup finalist twice before.
  5. Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions) won the WikiCup in 2012 and 2013, and enters this final as the first wildcard. She focuses on biology-related articles, and has worked on several high-importance articles.
  6. Florida 12george1 (submissions) is the second wildcard. George's points come primarily from meteorology-related articles. This year and last year, George was the first person in the competition to score.
  7. Colorado Sturmvogel 66 (submissions), the third wildcard, was the 2010 champion and a finalist last year. His writes mostly on military history, especially naval history.
  8. Canada Bloom6132 (submissions), the fourth and final wildcard, has participated in previous WikiCups, but not reached any finals. Bloom's points are mostly thanks to did you knows, featured lists and good articles related to sport and national symbols.

We say goodbye to this year's semi-finalists. Herm Matty.007 (submissions), Ohio ThaddeusB (submissions), United States WikiRedactor (submissions), Idaho Figureskatingfan (submissions), Greece Yellow Evan (submissions), Portugal Prism (submissions) and Bartošovice v Orlických horách Cloudz679 (submissions) have all performed well to reach this stage of the competition, and we hope they will all be joining us again next year.

There are two upcoming competitions unrelated to the WikiCup which may be of interest to those who receive this newsletter. The Stub Contest will run through September, and revolves around expanding stub articles, especially high-importance or old stubs. In addition, a proposal has been made for a new competition, the GA Cup, which the organisers plan to run next year. This competition is based on the WikiCup and aims to reduce the good article review backlog.

There is now a thread for brainstorming on how next year's WikiCup competition should work. Please come along and share your thoughts- What works? What doesn't work? What needs changing? Signups for next year's competition will be open soon; we will be in touch. If, at this stage of the competition, you are keen to help the with the WikiCup, please do what you can to participate in review processes. Our finalists will find things much easier if the backlogs at good article candidates, featured article candidates, featured picture candidates and the rest are kept at a minimum. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk · contribs) The ed17 (talk · contribs) and Miyagawa (talk · contribs) 22:09, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-36

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

  • You can now test a new Beta Feature to see links to other wikis in the sidebar. The links come from Wikidata. [66] [67]
  • You can now search pages that link to a page. Use the linksto: keyword in your search. [68] [69]
  • A redirect to a section now changes the URL in the address bar of your browser. If "Dog" redirects to "Animals#Dog", you now see "Animals#Dog" instead of "Dog#Dog". [70] [71]
  • If you are testing Flow, you now have a Flow tab in your Notifications. It is called "Messages". [72]

VisualEditor news

  • You can no longer delete required fields in templates. [73]
  • We fixed many Internet Explorer bugs. If you use Internet Explorer 11, you will get VisualEditor next week. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [74] [75] [76]
  • VisualEditor now looks better in Monobook. [77]
  • We fixed a bug where some of your typing could be undone when you used "cut" (Ctrl+X). [78]
  • You will no longer see empty or deleted categories among the suggestions when you add a category. [79]

Future software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf19) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 28. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 2, and on all Wikipedias on September 4 (calendar).
  • There is a proposal to build a database on Commons for file data. It will make it easier to see the author, license and topics. You can give feedback on this idea. You can also come to the IRC chat on September 3 at 18:00 (UTC) in #wikimedia-office at freenode. [80]
  • You can give feedback on Media Viewer until September 7. You can say what needs to be improved and ask other people to give feedback too. [81]
  • You can test a new version of the tool to show math. It uses MathML. Report bugs in bugzilla.
  • You will no longer be able to upload images from the mobile site. [82]

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

07:49, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-37

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

VisualEditor news

  • From Thursday, Internet Explorer 11 users will get VisualEditor. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [83] [84] [85]

Future software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf20) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 9, and on all Wikipedias on September 11 (calendar).
  • You will soon confirm a "Thanks" inline instead of in a dialog. [86]
  • You can read more about the plan to move to Phabricator, a tool that will help people develop the MediaWiki software and report bugs. [87]

Problems

  • There were problems with JavaScript and CSS on Friday, September 5 because of a code error.

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

09:33, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-38

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 software changes

  • You can now change the style of links to disambiguation pages. This is done with the mw-disambig CSS class. [88] [89]
  • There was a problem on right-to-left wikis with Wikidata log entries. The text was messy in watchlists and recent changes. The problem is now fixed. The same problem will be fixed soon for user names. [90] [91] [92]
  • New users are randomly chosen for a test on 12 Wikipedias. They get messages with ideas of articles to edit. The ideas come from what they have already edited. [93]

Problems

  • There was a problem with loading images on September 10. [94]

VisualEditor news

  • If you don't select text when you add a link, the link now shows a number. [95]
  • The citation tool no longer offers to reuse a citation if there are none on the page yet. [96] [97]
  • You can now use help buttons in the "Page settings" menu to see what the options are for. [98]

Future software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf21) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 16, and on all Wikipedias on September 18 (calendar).
  • These changes are coming with the new version:
    • If you use Internet Explorer 7, JavaScript will no longer work. JavaScript tools and scripts will no longer work in that browser. You should update to a newer browser. [99] [100] [101]

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

08:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-39

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 software changes

Problems

  • There was a problem on the English Wikipedia on September 19. It was due to edits on a template used on many pages.
  • Sites were down for users in the Pacific area around 7:00 UTC on September 20. It was due to a problem in the San Francisco data center.
  • There were two bad bugs messing up articles in some browsers in VisualEditor. We fixed the bugs and updated the sites. [103] [104]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf22) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 23, and on all Wikipedias on September 25 (calendar).
  • If you have more than 2000 notifications, the oldest ones will be removed.[105] [106]
  • In the "Vector" skin, the icon used for users will show a neutral gender. [107] [108]
  • The VisualEditor template tool now tells you if a required field is missing. [109]
  • The "Cancel" button of the VisualEditor save window is now called "Resume editing". This shows that you can still edit and you won't lose your changes. [110]
  • There are new keyboard shortcuts in VisualEditor. Use Ctrl+Shift+6 for code and Ctrl+Shift+5 for strikethrough. [111] [112]
  • In VisualEditor, you can now see that you are switching to the source editing mode. Before, it was not clear it was happening. [113]

Future site changes

  • You can see a plan for the move to Phabricator. It's the new tool to track bugs. A guided tour will be done via video on September 24. [114]

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

09:05, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-40

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 software changes

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf1) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 30, and on all Wikipedias on October 2 (calendar).
  • Errors from Scribunto (Lua) are now shown on the page. Before, you had to click on "Script error" to see them. [118] [119]
  • You can add an "autovalue" for a field in TemplateData. When users add the template to a page, the value will be added automatically. An example is when a clean-up template shows the date it was added. [120]
  • If you change a user preference but don't save it, it now asks if you want to save it. [121] [122]
  • The PDF export tool has changed. The new one has better language support but it doesn't offer ZIM and EPUB formats. [123]

Future changes

  • You can watch a video showing Phabricator, the new tool to track bugs. You can also read more about the move from Bugzilla.
  • JavaScript authors: Many old methods will be removed soon. Please check your scripts and gadgets and replace the old methods by the new ones if needed. [124]

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

09:44, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014 September newsletter

In one month's time, we will know our WikiCup 2014 champion. Newcomer Smithsonian Institution Godot13 (submissions) has taken a strong lead with a featured list (historical coats of arms of the U.S. states from 1876) and a raft of featured pictures. Reigning champion Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions) is in second place with a number of high-importance biology articles, including new FA Isopoda and new GA least weasel. Scotland Casliber (submissions), who is in his fifth WikiCup final, is in third, with featured articles Pictor and Epacris impressa.

Signups for the 2015 WikiCup are open. All Wikipedians, new and experienced, are warmly invited to sign up for the competition. Wikipedians interested in friendly competition may also like to sign up for the GA Cup, a new WikiCup-inspired competition which revolves around completing good article reviews. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk · contribs) The ed17 (talk · contribs) and Miyagawa (talk · contribs) 22:11, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-41

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 this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf2) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since 2 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 7 October, and on all Wikipedias from 9 October (calendar).
  • If you make a code mistake when editing a Lua script, you won't be able to save your edit. [132] [133]
  • We fixed some more Internet Explorer bugs. If you use Internet Explorer 10, you will be able to use VisualEditor next week. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [134]
  • On Thursday, the tool to edit TemplateData will come to 30 more wikis. [135] [136]
  • You can help sort bugs in the Book and PDF export tool on October 8. [137]
  • 1% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. [138]

Future changes

  • You can look at the plan of the Mobile team for their future work. [139]
  • More changes to Media Viewer are coming. It will be easier to disable it, and you will see the caption below the image. [140] [141]

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

06:10, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-42

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 software changes

Problems

  • 10% of Tool Labs was down on October 7. [144]
  • Tool Labs was also broken on October 11. [145]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf3) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since 9 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 14 October, and on all Wikipedias from 16 October (calendar).
  • 5% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. You can also test it as a Beta Feature. [146]

Meetings

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

08:54, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-43

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. You can read translations.

Recent changes

  • You can test a new system to see math using MathML. Go to your display options and choose "⧼mw math mathml⧽".
  • You can add badges in Wikidata for quality articles and featured lists. [150] [151]

File information cleanup

Problems

  • Developers fixed a security problem. If you use Internet Explorer 6, you won't be able to log in any more. You should use a newer browser. [153]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf4) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 16. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 21, and on all Wikipedias from October 23 (calendar).
  • 10% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. You can also test it as a Beta Feature. [154]
  • If you add the same parameter twice in a template, it now puts the page in a tracking category. [155] [156]

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

13:48, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Transfer to Common

Pls transfer the file William_Nassau.jpg from the en wikipedia to commons - thx Hendrik van Holland Hendrik van Holland (talk) 00:30, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Transfer to Common

Be so kind to transfer file Greek Cavalry Asia Minor 1921.jpg from the en Wikipedia to commons - thx Macedon-40 (talk) 17:21, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

About the XCOM competition

If I already have a copy of XCOM: Enemy Unknown in my Steam library, am I allowed to enter the competition? BlookerG (talk) 13:01, 26 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-44

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

  • There was an issue with files from Commons on October 21. You could only see those with names between 140 and 159 characters by visiting Commons itself. [157]
  • There was a problem with cut and paste in VisualEditor in Firefox. It was fixed quickly. [158]
  • There was a problem with editing math in VisualEditor. It was fixed quickly. [159]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will now come to Wikipedia sites every Wednesday, instead of every Thursday. [160]
  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf5) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 23. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 28, and on all Wikipedias from October 29 (calendar).
  • VisualEditor now uses autovalues for templates if they are in TemplateData. [161] [162] [163]
  • VisualEditor's menu items now show their shortcuts beside them. [164]
  • VisualEditor now opens faster when you click "edit". [165]
  • The rules for plurals in translations changed in some languages. Interface translations are currently not being updated from translatewiki.net; this process will start again on November 6. [166]

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

05:20, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Patrick Allen (Governor-General)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Patrick Allen (Governor-General) you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Cwmhiraeth -- Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:21, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-45

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 software changes

Problems

  • There was a bug in VisualEditor with Internet Explorer. It hid tools like the link editor when you opened them. The bug was fixed on Monday. [170]
  • Issues with the new search tool caused geo data code to show up on pages on Monday and Friday. The mobile "nearby" tool was also broken. The problem is now fixed. [171] [172] [173]
  • HHVM caused server issues on Thursday. They are now fixed.

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf5) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 29. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 4, and on all Wikipedias from November 5 (calendar).
  • Some wikis have icons at the top of a page to show if it is protected or featured. Icons show up using CSS. You can now use the <indicator> tag in these templates instead to add the icons. [174] [175]
  • VisualEditor now tells you if you're editing a re-used reference. This helps you avoid changing it if you just want to add a new one. [176]
  • The icons in VisualEditor's template editor tool for adding more fields are back, along with other fixes. [177] [178] [179] [180] [181]
  • After November 6, all wikis will have the tool to edit TemplateData. [182] [183] [184]

Future changes

  • The new search tool will come to the last wikis in the coming weeks. This includes Wikipedia in French, Chinese, German and English. [185]

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

17:28, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup awards

File:WikiCup Medal Gold FX.png
Awarded to Sven Manguard for the strongest contribution of featured portals in the 2014 WikiCup. J Milburn (talk · contribs), The ed17 (talk · contribs) and Miyagawa (talk · contribs) 20:51, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Awarded to Sven Manguard for participating in the 2014 WikiCup. J Milburn (talk · contribs), The ed17 (talk · contribs) and Miyagawa (talk · contribs) 20:51, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2014: The results

The 2014 WikiCup champion is Smithsonian Institution Godot13 (submissions), who flew the flag of the Smithsonian Institution. This was Godot13's first WikiCup competition and, over the 10 months of the competition, he has produced (among other contributions) two featured lists and an incredible 292 featured pictures, including architectural photographs and scans of historical documents. Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions), 2012 and 2013 WikiCup champion, came in second, having written a large number of biology-related articles. Scotland Casliber (submissions), WikiCup finalist every year since 2010, finished in third.

A full list of our prize-winners follows:

Congratulations to everyone who has been successful in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and a particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have participated this year. We warmly invite all of you to sign up for next year's competition. Discussions and polls concerning potential rules changes are also open, and all are welcome to participate. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2014 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk · contribs) The ed17 (talk · contribs) and Miyagawa (talk · contribs) 22:52, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Sven Manguard. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Tech News: 2014-46

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 software changes

  • You may see a new tool on the mobile site of the English Wikipedia. It asks simple questions to make the article better. In the future, your answers will go to Wikidata. [186] [187]
  • The MediaWiki API now shows information in a nice format. You can translate it in translatewiki.net. [188]

File information cleanup

Problems

  • Wikimedia Labs was broken for a few hours on Thursday. It was due to a hardware problem. [189]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf7) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since November 5. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 11, and on all Wikipedias from November 12 (calendar).
  • You can now use more editing tools for tables in VisualEditor. You can add rows and columns, merge cells, and edit table captions. [190] [191]
  • The style and insert menus in the toolbar of VisualEditor now show fewer tools. This helps you see the most common tasks. You can see all items by clicking "More". [192]
  • The way windows inside VisualEditor work has changed. VisualEditor should be faster and have fewer bugs. [193]

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

15:00, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-47

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf8) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since November 12. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 18, and on all Wikipedias from November 19 (calendar).
  • The new search tool ("CirrusSearch") will be on the English Wikipedia from November 19. [194]

Move from Bugzilla to Phabricator

  • The tool to track bugs will change on November 21.
  • You won't be able to add or edit bugs between November 21 and November 24.
  • You can make the change easier for you by creating your account.
  • Bugzilla will be frozen after the change. You will see, edit and report bugs in Phabricator.
  • You can join two IRC chats to learn more about the change. The chats will be on Tuesday, November 18 at 16:00 (UTC) and 23:00 UTC. [195]

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

18:28, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Copyright checks when performing AfC reviews

Hello Sven Manguard. This message is part of a mass mailing to people who appear active in reviewing articles for creation submissions. First of all, thank you for taking part in this important work! I'm sorry this message is a form letter – it really was the only way I could think of to covey the issue economically. Of course, this also means that I have not looked to see whether the matter is applicable to you in particular.

The issue is in rather large numbers of copyright violations ("copyvios") making their way through AfC reviews without being detected (even when easy to check, and even when hallmarks of copyvios in the text that should have invited a check, were glaring). A second issue is the correct method of dealing with them when discovered.

If you don't do so already, I'd like to ask for your to help with this problem by taking on the practice of performing a copyvio check as the first step in any AfC review. The most basic method is to simply copy a unique but small portion of text from the draft body and run it through a search engine in quotation marks. Trying this from two different paragraphs is recommended. (If you have any question about whether the text was copied from the draft, rather than the other way around (a "backwards copyvio"), the Wayback Machine is very useful for sussing that out.)

If you do find a copyright violation, please do not decline the draft on that basis. Copyright violations need to be dealt with immediately as they may harm those whose content is being used and expose Wikipedia to potential legal liability. If the draft is substantially a copyvio, and there's no non-infringing version to revert to, please mark the page for speedy deletion right away using {{db-g12|url=URL of source}}. If there is an assertion of permission, please replace the draft article's content with {{subst:copyvio|url=URL of source}}.

Some of the more obvious indicia of a copyvio are use of the first person ("we/our/us..."), phrases like "this site", or apparent artifacts of content written for somewhere else ("top", "go to top", "next page", "click here", use of smartquotes, etc.); inappropriate tone of voice, such as an overly informal tone or a very slanted marketing voice with weasel words; including intellectual property symbols (™,®); and blocks of text being added all at once in a finished form with no misspellings or other errors.

I hope this message finds you well and thanks again you for your efforts in this area. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC).[reply]

       Sent via--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your GA nomination of Patrick Allen (Governor-General)

The article Patrick Allen (Governor-General) you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Patrick Allen (Governor-General) for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Cwmhiraeth -- Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:24, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-48

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 move from Bugzilla to Phabricator is done. You can now report bugs in Phabricator. [196]

Problems

  • There was a problem when editing tables in VisualEditor. VisualEditor was trying to fix bad values for the colspan or rowspan option. VisualEditor now leaves the bad values to avoid making things worse. This was fixed on November 17. [197]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf9) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since November 19. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 25, and on all Wikipedias from November 26 (calendar).
  • You will be able to try VisualEditor on many new wikis for the first time. After November 26, VisualEditor will become available on Wikidata, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, and Wikinews wikis. You can find it in your Beta options. [198]
  • VisualEditor now tells you if your edit needs to be approved. [199]
  • You can now use VisualEditor's tools directly when you resume editing after closing the save window. [200]
  • VisualEditor's table editing tools now work better in right-to-left languages. [201] [202]

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

19:31, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 is just around the corner...

Hello everyone, and may we wish you all a happy holiday season. As you will probably already know, the 2015 WikiCup begins in the new year; there is still time to sign up. We have a few important announcements concerning the future of the WikiCup.

  • We would like to announce that Josh (J Milburn) and Ed (The ed17), who have been WikiCup judges since 2009 and 2010 respectively, are stepping down. This decision has been made for a number of reasons, but the main one is time. Both Josh and Ed have found that, over the previous year, they have been unable to devote the time necessary to the WikiCup, and it is not likely that they will be able to do this in the near future. Furthermore, new people at the helm can only help to invigorate the WikiCup and keep it dynamic. Josh and Ed will still be around, and will likely be participating in the Cup this following year as competitors, which is where both started out.
  • In a similar vein, we hope you will all join us in welcoming Jason (Sturmvogel 66) and Christine (Figureskatingfan), who are joining Brian (Miyagawa) to form the 2015 WikiCup judging team. Jason is a WikiCup veteran, having won in 2010 and finishing in fifth this year. Christine has participated in two WikiCups, reaching the semi-finals in both, and is responsible for the GA Cup, which she now co-runs.
  • The discussions/polls concerning the next competition's rules will be closed soon, and rules changes will be made clear on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring and talk pages. While it may be impossible to please everyone, the judges will make every effort to ensure that the new rules are both fair and in the best interests of the competition, which is, first and foremost, about improving Wikipedia.

If you have any questions or concerns, the judges can be reached on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, on their talk pages, or by email. We hope you will all join us in trying to make the 2015 WikiCup the most productive and enjoyable yet. You are receiving this message because you are listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk), The ed17 (talk), Miyagawa (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Figureskatingfan (talk) 18:54, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-50

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 software changes

  • All users are now getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. [203]
  • You can join a video chat about Phabricator on December 11 at 18:00 (UTC). Phabricator is the new tool to report issues. [204]

Problems

  • There was a problem with Phabricator on November 29. It was due to a network issue. [205]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf11) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since December 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from December 9. It will be on all Wikipedias from December 10 (calendar). [206]
  • You can now exit VisualEditor by pressing the "Esc" key. [207]
  • It is now easier to use VisualEditor with IMEs. Typing in Malayalam now works better. [208] [209]
  • The new version of OOjs UI fixed many issues with the size and layout of buttons in dialogs. [210] [211] [212]
  • (Lua) You can no longer use mw.text.unstrip to get the HTML from special page transclusion. You can see a list of scripts to fix. [213] [214]

Future changes

  • Starting next week JavaScript tools won't work if they use jQuery Migrate. [215]

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

17:11, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Vainglory OTRS

If you have a moment, can you process commons:Category:Vainglory? I smell a featured picture... czar ⨹ 02:49, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-51

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 software changes

  • You may see a new tool tested on the mobile site of the English Wikipedia. It asks simple questions to make the article better. In the future, your answers will go to Wikidata. [216]
  • You can watch a video to learn how to use Phabricator to manage projects. [217]
  • You can test a new version of the Content Translation tool.

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf12) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since December 10. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from December 16. It will be on all Wikipedias from December 17 (calendar). [218]
  • You can now find and replace text in VisualEditor. You can open the tool via the menu, Ctrl+F or Cmd+F. [219]
  • VisualEditor now doesn't change the space at the end of a text that you make bold. [220]
  • The "Apply changes" button in the reference window of VisualEditor is now disabled until you make a change. [221]

Future changes

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

16:44, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Merry Merry

To you and yours

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 13:59, 22 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-52

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 software changes

  • The Technical Operations team is now using Phabricator to track their tasks. The Operations team manages the Wikimedia servers. In the future you will be able to see the tasks that are not private. [226]

Software changes this week

  • There will be no software changes this week and next week. This is because of the end-of-year holidays. The next update of MediaWiki will be on January 6. [227]

Future changes

  • The system that displays citations will change in the future. The new system will not change the style of citations. [228]
  • A new design for VisualEditor will come in January. You can try it now on test wikis. [229]

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

16:52, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

File source and copyright licensing problem with File:Etheria GMA 7.jpg

File Copyright problem
File Copyright problem

Thanks for uploading File:Etheria GMA 7.jpg. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status and its source. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously.

If you did not create this work entirely yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, please add a link to the page from which it was taken, together with a brief restatement of the website's terms of use of its content. If the original copyright holder is a party unaffiliated with the website, that author should also be credited. You will also need to state under what licensing terms it was released. Please refer to the image use policy to learn what files you can or cannot upload on Wikipedia. The page on copyright tags may help you to find the correct tag to use for your file.

Please add this information by editing the image description page. If the necessary information is not added within the next days, the image will be deleted. If the file is already gone, you can still make a request for undeletion and ask for a chance to fix the problem.

Please also check any other files you may have uploaded to make sure they are correctly tagged. Here is a list of your uploads. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 15:36, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2015-01

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Software changes

  • There are no technical changes this week.

Feedback about Tech News in 2014

  • The writers of the technical newsletter are asking for your opinion. Did you get the information you wanted this year? Did we miss important technical news in 2014? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us at m:Talk:Tech/News. You can write in your language. Thank you!

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

16:52, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Dear Sven Manguard,
HAPPY NEW YEAR Hoping 2015 will be a great year for you! Thank you for your contributions!
From a fellow editor,
FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:35, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This message promotes WikiLove. Originally created by Nahnah4 (see "invisible note").

WikiCup 2015 launch newsletter

Round one of the 2015 WikiCup has begun! So far we've had around 80 signups, which close on February 5. If you have not already signed up and want to do so, then you can add your name here. There have been changes to to several of the points scores for various categories, and the addition of Peer Reviews for the first time. These will work in the same manner as Good Article Reviews, and all of the changes are summarised here.

Remember that only the top 64 scoring competitors will make it through to the second round, and one of the new changes this year is that all scores must be claimed within two weeks of an article's promotion or appearance, so don't forget to add them to your submissions pages! If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, and you hope to get it promoted before the end of the round, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAN, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which could otherwise be caused by the Cup. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs), Miyagawa (talk · contribs) and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs)
If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:51, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2015-03

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 software changes

  • Rotated PDF files in landscape format used to show too small. They will now display correctly. You may need to purge older files. [230]
  • You can now use the {{!}} magic word instead of Template:!. Many wikis used the template to create a pipe (|) in tables and templates. You can delete the template. [231]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf14) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since January 7. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from January 13. It will be on all Wikipedias from January 14 (calendar).
  • A bug in VisualEditor sometimes added a ☀ (Sun) character. This is now fixed. [232]
  • The search and replace tool in VisualEditor is now much faster in long pages. [233]
  • The TemplateData editor now uses the same design as VisualEditor. [234] [235] [236]
  • The thumb option is now shown in your language in the help of the classic editor toolbar. [237]

Future changes

  • You can sign up to answer questions from designers. It will help them make editing easier. [238]

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

16:47, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-04

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

Problems

  • All JavaScript on Commons was broken for a few minutes on Tuesday. It was because of old code in the HotCat tool. The same problem happened on some Wikipedias on Wednesday. It is now fixed. [241]

Software changes this week

  • There are no software changes this week and next week due to annual meetings. [242]

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

18:13, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

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