Wikipedia:Community Portal
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Contents
- 1 New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (December 2015)
- 2 Get involved in Wikipedia 15!
- 3 VisualEditor News #6—2015
- 4 Wikimania 2016 Scholarships - Deadline soon!
- 5 2016 WMF Strategy consultation
- 6 Xhosa is missing
- 7 VisualEditor News #1—2016
- 8 Completion suggestor
- 9 Updates to wiki search auto completion are arriving 10 March
- 10 New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (March 2016)
- 11 Open Call for Individual Engagement Grants
- 12 Server switch 2016
- 13 Wikipedia to the Moon
- 14 Wikipedia to the Moon: voting has begun
- 15 Compact Language Links enabled in this wiki today
- 16 Wikipedia to the Moon: invitation to edit
- 17 Editing News #2—2016
- 18 Open call for Project Grants
- 19 Save/Publish
New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (December 2015)[edit source]
Hello Wikimedians!
The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for, free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials from:
- Gale - multidisciplinary periodicals, newspapers, and reference sources - 10 accounts
- Brill - academic e-books and journals in English, Dutch, and other languages - 25 accounts
- Finnish Literature Society (in Finnish)
- Magiran (in Farsi) - scientific journal articles - 100 articles
- Civilica (in Farsi) - Iranian journal articles, seminars, and conferences - 50 accounts
Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including EBSCO, DeGruyter, and Newspaperarchive.com. Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 01:01, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
- Help us a start Wikipedia Library in your language! Email us at wikipedialibrary@wikimedia.org
- This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.
Get involved in Wikipedia 15![edit source]
This is a message from the Wikimedia Foundation. Translations are available.
As many of you know, January 15 is Wikipedia’s 15th Birthday!
People around the world are getting involved in the celebration and have started adding their events on Meta Page. While we are celebrating Wikipedia's birthday, we hope that all projects and affiliates will be able to utilize this celebration to raise awareness of our community's efforts.
Haven’t started planning? Don’t worry, there’s lots of ways to get involved. Here are some ideas:
- Join/host an event. We already have more than 80, and hope to have many more.
- Talk to local press. In the past 15 years, Wikipedia has accomplished extraordinary things. We’ve made a handy summary of milestones and encourage you to add your own. More resources, including a press release template and resources on working with the media, are also available.
- Design a Wikipedia 15 logo. In place of a single icon for Wikipedia 15, we’re making dozens. Add your own with something fun and representative of your community. Just use the visual guide so they share a common sensibility.
- Share a message on social media. Tell the world what Wikipedia means to you, and add #wikipedia15 to the post. We might re-tweet or share your message!
Everything is linked on the Wikipedia 15 Meta page. You’ll find a set of ten data visualization works that you can show at your events, and a list of all the Wikipedia 15 logos that community members have already designed.
If you have any questions, please contact Zachary McCune or Joe Sutherland.
Thanks and Happy nearly Wikipedia 15!
-The Wikimedia Foundation Communications team
Posted by the MediaWiki message delivery, 20:58, 18 Eyo Mnga 2015 (UTC) • Please help translate to your language • Uncedo
VisualEditor News #6—2015[edit source]
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter
Since the last newsletter, the visual editor team has fixed many bugs and expanded the mathematics formula tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for languages such as Japanese and Arabic, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.
Recent improvements[edit source]
You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing. The LaTeX mathematics formula editor has been significantly expanded. (T118616) You can see the formula as you change the LaTeX code. You can click buttons to insert the correct LaTeX code for many symbols.
Future changes[edit source]
The single edit tab project will combine the "Tshintsha" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Tshintsha" tab, like the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398, T58337) Initially, the "Tshintsha" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as a cookie for logged-out users and as an account preference for logged-in editors. Logged-in editors will be able to set a default editor in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences in the drop-down menu about "Editing mode:".
The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the following Wikipedias in early 2016: Amharic, Buginese, Min Dong, Cree, Manx, Hakka, Armenian, Georgian, Pontic, Serbo-Croatian, Tigrinya, Mingrelian, Zhuang, and Min Nan. (T116523) Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. The developers would like to know how well it works. Please tell them what kind of computer, web browser, and keyboard you are using.
In 2016, the feedback pages for the visual editor on many Wikipedias will be redirected to mediawiki.org. (T92661)
Testing opportunities[edit source]
- Please try the new system for the single edit tab on test2.wikipedia.org. You can edit while logged out to see how it works for logged-out editors, or you can create a separate account to be able to set your account's preferences. Please share your thoughts about the single edit tab system at the feedback topic on mediawiki.org or sign up for formal user research (type "single edit tab" in the question about other areas you're interested in). The new system has not been finalized, and your feedback can affect the outcome. The team particularly wants your thoughts about the options in Special:Preferences. The current choices in Special:Preferences are:
- Remember my last editor,
- Always give me the visual editor if possible,
- Always give me the source editor, and
- Show me both editor tabs. (This is the current state for people already using the visual editor. None of these options will be visible if you have disabled the visual editor in your preferences at that wiki.)
- Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at What to test if you can help, and report it on Phabricator (Korean - Japanese) or on Wikipedia (Korean - Japanese).
If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!
Elitre (WMF), 00:07, 25 Eyo Mnga 2015 (UTC)
Wikimania 2016 Scholarships - Deadline soon![edit source]
- Please help translate to your language
A reminder - applications for scholarships for Wikimania 2016 in Esino Lario, Italy, are closing soon! Please get your applications in by January 9th. To apply, visit the page below:
Patrick Earley (WMF) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:49, 5 EyoMqungu 2016 (UTC)
2016 WMF Strategy consultation[edit source]
- Please help translate to your language
Hello, all.
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has launched a consultation to help create and prioritize WMF strategy beginning July 2016 and for the 12 to 24 months thereafter. This consultation will be open, on Meta, from 18 January to 26 February, after which the Foundation will also use these ideas to help inform its Annual Plan. (More on our timeline can be found on that Meta page.)
Your input is welcome (and greatly desired) at the Meta discussion, 2016 Strategy/Community consultation.
Apologies for English, where this is posted on a non-English project. We thought it was more important to get the consultation translated as much as possible, and good headway has been made there in some languages. There is still much to do, however! We created m:2016 Strategy/Translations to try to help coordinate what needs translation and what progress is being made. :)
If you have questions, please reach out to me on my talk page or on the strategy consultation's talk page or by email to mdennis@wikimedia.org.
I hope you'll join us! Maggie Dennis via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:07, 18 EyoMqungu 2016 (UTC)
Xhosa is missing[edit source]
Xhosa is missing from this page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/There_is_also_a_Wikipedia_in_your_language
More than 100 languages are now listed.
Thank you, Varlaam (talk) 04:35, 1 Eyo Mdumba 2016 (UTC)
VisualEditor News #1—2016[edit source]
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter
Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Indic, and Han scripts, and improving the single edit tab interface.
Recent changes[edit source]
You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing. This function is available to nearly all editors at most wikis except the Wiktionaries and Wikisources.
Many local feedback pages for the visual editor have been redirected to mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
You can now re-arrange columns and rows in tables, as well as copying a row, column or any other selection of cells and pasting it in a new location.
The formula editor has two options: you can choose "Quick edit" to see and change only the LaTeX code, or "Edit" to use the full tool. The full tool offers immediate preview and an extensive list of symbols.
Future changes[edit source]
The single edit tab project will combine the "Tshintsha" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Tshintsha" tab. This is similar to the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "Tshintsha" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as an account preference for logged-in editors, and as a cookie for logged-out users. Logged-in editors will have these options in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences:
- Remember my last editor,
- Always give me the visual editor if possible,
- Always give me the source editor, and
- Show me both editor tabs. (This is the state for people using the visual editor now.)
The visual editor uses the same search engine as Special:Search to find links and files. This search will get better at detecting typos and spelling mistakes soon. These improvements to search will appear in the visual editor as well.
The visual editor will be offered to all editors at most "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. This will affect the following languages, amongst others: Japanese, Korean, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Thai, Aramaic.
Let's work together[edit source]
- Please try out the newest version of the single edit tab on test2.wikipedia.org. You may need to restore the default preferences (at the bottom of test2wiki:Special:Preferences) to see the initial prompt for options. Were you able to find a preference setting that will work for your own editing? Did you see the large preferences dialog box when you started editing an article there?
- Can you read and type in Korean, Arabic, Japanese, Indic, or Han scripts? Does typing in these languages feels natural in the visual editor? Language engineer David Chan needs to know. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org.
- Learn how to improve the "automagical" citoid referencing system in the visual editor, by creating Zotero translators for popular sources in your language! Join the Tech Talk about "Automated citations in Wikipedia: Citoid and the technology behind it" with Sebastian Karcher on 29 February 2016.
If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!
Elitre (WMF), 19:21, 26 Eyo Mdumba 2016 (UTC)
Completion suggestor[edit source]
Updates to wiki search auto completion are arriving 10 March[edit source]
Hello!
Please help translate to your language. Thank you!
The completion suggester beta feature will become the default at the first group of wikis on Thursday, 10 March. This initial rollout will start with some of the smaller wikis to ensure the change happens in an organized way. The remaining wikis will receive the update on Wednesday, 16 March. This update brings three major improvements to search. Improved search result ordering, a tolerance for a small number of spelling errors, and suggests fewer typos.
Since December 2015, 19,000 editors have already opted into the completion suggester beta feature. Contributors are encouraged to try out the feature ahead of the release. Please share any comments on the Completion Suggester discussion page in any language.
To learn more about the work of the Discovery department and other improvements to search, please check out the Wikimedia blog. Read about CirrusSearch, the MediaWiki extension that makes wiki search possible.- User:CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:09, 7 Eyo Kwindla 2016 (UTC)
New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (March 2016)[edit source]
Apologies for writing in English. Please help translate to your language
Hello Wikimedians!
The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for access to research materials from:
- Cambridge University Press - a major publisher of academic journals and e-books in a variety of subject areas. Access includes both Cambridge Journals Online and Cambridge Books. 25 accounts.
- Alexander Street Academic Video Online - a large academic video collection good for a wide range of subjects, including news programs (such as PBS and BBC), music and theatre, lectures and demonstrations, and documentaries. 25 accounts.
- Baylor University Press - a publisher of academic e-books primarily in religious studies and the humanities. 50 accounts.
- Future Science Group - a publisher of medical, biotechnological and scientific research. 30 accounts.
- Annual Reviews - a publisher of review articles in the biomedical sciences. 100 accounts.
- Miramar Ship Index - an index to ships and their histories since the early 19th century. 30 accounts.
Non-English
- Noormags - Farsi-language aggregator of academic and professional journals and magazines. 30 accounts.
- Kotobna - Arabic-language ebook publishing platform. 20 accounts.
Expansions
- Gale - aggregator of newspapers, magazines and journals. 50 accounts.
- Elsevier ScienceDirect - an academic publishing company that publishes medical and scientific literature. 100 accounts.
Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including Project MUSE, De Gruyter, EBSCO, Newspapers.com and British Newspaper Archive. Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 20:30, 17 Eyo Kwindla 2016 (UTC)
- You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contact Ocaasi (WMF).
- This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.
Open Call for Individual Engagement Grants[edit source]
Please help translate to your language:
Greetings! The Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) program is accepting proposals until April 12th to fund new tools, research, outreach efforts, and other experiments that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers. Whether you need a small or large amount of funds (up to $30,000 USD), IEGs can support you and your team’s project development time in addition to project expenses such as materials, travel, and rental space.
- Submit a grant request or draft your proposal in IdeaLab
- Get help with your proposal in an upcoming Hangout session
- Learn from examples of completed Individual Engagement Grants
With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) 15:47, 31 Eyo Kwindla 2016 (UTC)
Server switch 2016[edit source]
The Wikimedia Foundation will be testing its newest data center in Dallas. This will make sure Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to conduct a planned test. This test will show whether they can reliably switch from one data center to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.
They will switch all traffic to the new data center on Tuesday, 19 April.
On Thursday, 21 April, they will switch back to the primary data center.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop during those two switches. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.
You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.
- You will not be able to edit for approximately 15 to 30 minutes on Tuesday, 19 April and Thursday, 21 April, starting at 14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 07:00 PDT).
If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.
Other effects:
- Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped.
Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
- There will be a code freeze for the week of 18 April.
No non-essential code deployments will take place.
This test was originally planned to take place on March 22. April 19th and 21st are the new dates. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. They will post any changes on that schedule. There will be more notifications about this. Please share this information with your community. /User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:08, 17 Ekatshazimpuzi 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia to the Moon[edit source]
Hello! Sorry that this is in English only, but we are using village pump messaging in order to reach as many language communities as possible. Wrong page? Please fix it here.
This is an invitation to all Wikipedians: Wikimedia Deutschland has been given data space to include Wikipedia content in an upcoming mission to the Moon. (No joke!) We have launched a community discussion about how to do that, because we feel that this is for the global community of editors. Please, join the discussion on Meta-Wiki (and translate this invitation to your language community)! Best, Moon team at Wikimedia Deutschland 15:35, 21 Ekatshazimpuzi 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia to the Moon: voting has begun[edit source]
Hello, after six weeks of community discussion about Wikipedia to the Moon, there are now 10 different proposals for content for the mission. Starting today, you can vote for them on Meta-Wiki, and decide what we will work on: a Wikipedia canon, different lists, the Moon in 300 languages, an astronomy editathon, featured articles, articles about technology, endangered things, or DNA-related topics. You can even vote against community involvement. Voting is open until 24 June. Sorry that this message is again in English only, but we are using village pumps to reach as many communities as possible, so that everyone knows they can vote. Best, Moon team at Wikimedia Deutschland 15:31, 10 Eyesilimela 2016 (UTC)
Compact Language Links enabled in this wiki today[edit source]
Please help translate to your language
Compact Language Links has been available as a beta-feature on all Wikimedia wikis since 2014. With compact language links enabled, users are shown a much shorter list of languages on the interlanguage link section of an article (see image). Based on several factors, this shorter list of languages is expected to be more relevant for them and valuable for finding similar content in a language known to them. More information about compact language links can be found in the documentation.
From today onwards, compact language links has been enabled as the default listing of interlanguage links on this wiki. Using the button at the bottom, you will be able to see a longer list of all the languages the article has been written in. The setting for this compact list can be changed by using the checkbox under User Preferences -> Appearance -> Languages
The compact language links feature has been tested extensively by the Wikimedia Language team, which developed it. However, in case there are any problems or other feedback please let us know on the project talk page or on this discussion thread. It is to be noted that on some wikis the presence of an existing older gadget that was used for a similar purpose may cause an interference for compact language list. We would like to bring this to the attention of the admins of this wiki. Full details are on this phabricator ticket (in English).
Due to the large scale enablement of this feature, we have had to use MassMessage for this announcement and as a result it is only written in English. We will really appreciate if this message can be translated for other users of this wiki. Thank you. On behalf of the Wikimedia Language team: Runa Bhattacharjee (WMF) (talk) 07:04, 24 Eyesilimela 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia to the Moon: invitation to edit[edit source]
Three weeks ago, you were invited to vote on how to take Wikipedia articles to the Moon. Community voting is over and the winning idea is to send all ‘’featured articles and lists’’ to the Moon. This decision means that, starting today, Wikipedians from all language communities are warmly invited to intensively work on their best articles and lists, and submit them to Wikipedia to the Moon. The central site to coordinate between communities will be Meta-Wiki. You will find an overview and more information there. Hopefully, we will be able to represent as many languages as possible, to show Wikipedia’s diversity. Please feel kindly invited to edit on behalf of your community and tell us about your work on featured content!
Best, Moon team at Wikimedia Deutschland 14:10, 1 Eye Khala 2016 (UTC)
Editing News #2—2016[edit source]
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter
Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Arabic and Indic scripts, and adapting the visual editor to the needs of the Wikivoyages and Wikisources.
Recent changes[edit source]
The visual editor is now available to all users at most Wikivoyages. It was also enabled for all contributors at the French Wikinews.
The single edit tab feature combines the "Tshintsha" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Tshintsha" tab. It has been deployed to several Wikipedias, including Hungarian, Polish, English and Japanese Wikipedias, as well as to all Wikivoyages. At these wikis, you can change your settings for this feature in the "Editing" tab of Special:Preferences. The team is now reviewing the feedback and considering ways to improve the design before rolling it out to more people.
Future changes[edit source]
The "Gcina eliphepha" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information is available on Meta.
The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including: Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Urdu, Persian, Bengali, Assamese, Aramaic and others.
The team is working with the volunteer developers who power Wikisource to provide the visual editor there, for opt-in testing right now and eventually for all users. (T138966)
The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. It will look like the visual editor, and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices around September 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.
Let's work together[edit source]
- Do you teach new editors how to use the visual editor? Did you help set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki? Have you written or imported TemplateData for your most important citation templates? Would you be willing to help new editors and small communities with the visual editor? Please sign up for the new VisualEditor Community Taskforce.
- Learn how to improve the "automagical" citoid referencing system in the visual editor, by creating Zotero translators for popular sources in your language! Watch the Tech Talk by Sebastian Karcher for more information.
If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!
m:User:Elitre (WMF), 17:20, 3 Eye Khala 2016 (UTC)
Open call for Project Grants[edit source]
Please help translate to your language:
- Greetings! The Project Grants program is accepting proposals from July 1st to August 2nd to fund new tools, research, offline outreach (including editathon series, workshops, etc), online organizing (including contests), and other experiments that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers.
- Whether you need a small or large amount of funds, Project Grants can support you and your team’s project development time in addition to project expenses such as materials, travel, and rental space.
- Submit a grant request or draft your proposal in IdeaLab
- Get help with your proposal in an upcoming Hangout session
- Learn from examples of completed Individual Engagement Grants or Project and Event Grants
- Also accepting candidates to join the Project Grants Committee through July 15.
- With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) 15:25, 5 Eye Khala 2016 (UTC)
Save/Publish[edit source]
The Editing team is planning to change the name of the “Gcina eliphepha” button to “Publish page” and “Publish changes”. “Publish page” will be used when you create a new page. “Publish changes” will be used when you change an existing page. The names will be consistent in all editing environments.[1][2]
This change will probably happen during the week of 30 August 2016. The change will be announced in Tech News when it happens.
If you are fluent in a language other than English, please check the status of translations at translatewiki.net for “Publish page” and “Publish changes”.
The main reason for this change is to avoid confusion for new editors. Repeated user research studies with new editors have shown that some new editors believed that “Gcina eliphepha” would save a private copy of a new page in their accounts, rather than permanently publishing their changes on the web. It is important for this part of the user interface to be clear, since it is difficult to remove public information after it is published. We believe that the confusion caused by the “Gcina eliphepha” button increases the workload for experienced editors, who have to clean up the information that people unintentionally disclose, and report it to the functionaries and stewards to suppress it. Clarifying what the button does will reduce this problem.
Beyond that, the goal is to make all the wikis and languages more consistent, and some wikis made this change many years ago. The Legal team at the Wikimedia Foundation supports this change. Making the edit interface easier to understand will make it easier to handle licensing and privacy questions that may arise.
Any help pages or other basic documentation about how to edit pages will also need to be updated, on-wiki and elsewhere. On wiki pages, you can use the wikitext codes {{int:Publishpage}}
and {{int:Publishchanges}}
to display the new labels in the user's preferred language. For the language settings in your account preferences, these wikitext codes produce “Publish page” and “Publish changes”.
Please share this news with community members who teach new editors and with others who may be interested.
Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:03, 9 Eye Thupha 2016 (UTC)