User talk:Courcelles/Archive 108

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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. [1]
There was a problem with cut and paste in VisualEditor in Firefox. It was fixed quickly. [2]
There was a problem with editing math in VisualEditor. It was fixed quickly. [3]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will now come to Wikipedia sites every Wednesday, instead of every Thursday. [4]
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. [5] [6] [7]
VisualEditor's menu items now show their shortcuts beside them. [8]
VisualEditor now opens faster when you click "edit". [9]
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. [10]

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)

The Signpost: 29 October 2014

Featured content: Go West, young man

By the way, there is a monster at the end of this article

In the media: Wikipedia a trusted source on Ebola; Wikipedia study labeled government waste; football biography goes viral

Noam Cohen reports in The New York Times (October 26) that Wikipedia's "Ebola Virus Disease article has had 17 million page views in the last month," an indication of the public's reliance on the online encyclopedia.

Maps tagathon: Find 10,000 digitised maps this weekend

Rather than the usual WikiProject Report, this week our guest author Jheald is telling us about a campaign to identify thousands of old maps which have been digitised, to make them available for georeferencing and upload

Traffic report: Ebola, Ultron, and Creepy Articles

Ebola virus disease leads the Report for the fourth straight week. The rest of the list is primarily a mix of pop culture topics, including movie Avengers: Age of Ultron (#4) whose trailer was leaked early, and the death of Oscar de la Renta (#7). A BuzzFeed article on creepy Wikipedia articles, no doubt well-timed with Halloween (#9) around the corner, was responsible for three articles in the Top 25, including June and Jennifer Gibbons (#10), Taman Shud Case (#17), Joyce Vincent (#25). And the internet-run-amok controversy of Gamergate cracked the Top 25 for the first time at #19.

Recent research: Informed consent and privacy; newsmaking on Wikipedia; Wikipedia and organizational theories

In new research conducted in light of proposed changes to data protection legislation in the European Union (EU), authors Bart Custers, Simone van der Hof, and Bart Schermer conducted a comparative analysis of social media and user-generated content websites’ privacy policies along with a user survey (N=8,621 in 26 countries) and interviews in 13 different EU countries on awareness, values, and attitudes toward privacy online.

Firecrotch979

You blocked this user almost four years ago and they are now requesting unblock. They said they were in high school back then and they've grown up. I usually unblock in these circumstances, but I thought I'd defer to your opinion if you're available. Daniel Case (talk) 14:11, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

@Daniel Case: Likely fair to unblock the person but looking at it now, I can't say I like the username 'Fire Crotch' that much... that needs to be changed to something with less sexual connotations, IMO. Courcelles 16:33, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #131

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Events/Blogs/Press
- Wikidata turned 2 on Wednesday! Have a look at the notes from the community and development team and add your note. Also don't forget to check out all the cool presents (a painting, speed improvements, a huge load of unconnected articles that you can help connect via the Wikidata Game, WikidataLDF, a recent changes visualisation)!
- Wikidata II
Other Noteworthy Stuff
- Wikidata is nominated for 2 Open Data Awards! \o/ Magnus and Lydia will attend the award ceremony next week. Keep your fingers crossed for us.
- Wikidata as the central hub for open life science data
- What is Wikipedia about? Great data viz based on Wikidata
- Super Lachaise, a mobile app based on Wikidata for a cemetery in Paris
- Random items without statements
- Tutorial: How to make a “descendants of” timeline using Wikidata
- Updated statistics on the topics with most highly-rated articles on Wikipedia
Did you know?
- Newest properties: deepest point, Desa code of Indonesia, Slovene Cultural Heritage Register ID, Catalan object of cultural interest ID, Municipality code of Brazil, Pleiades identifier, MalaCards ID, natural product of taxon, official blog, University of Barcelona authority ID, Beilstein Registry Number, Gmelin Number
Development
- Worked around memory corruption in zend PHP
- HHVM beta feature is enabled again for Wikidata
- Fixes for various breaking changes in mediawiki core
- Work on language fall backs for new serialization code
- Work on fixing XML dumps
- Work on making Special:Version correct again for Wikidata extensions
- Implemented LabelLookup to improve performance further
- Worked more on remaining tasks for simple queries
- Poked remaining tasks for statements on properties
- Further improvements to the usability and workflow of sitelink editing
- Wrote browser tests for authority control gadget
Monthly Tasks
- Hack on one of these.
- Help fix these items which have been flagged using Wikidata - The Game.
- Help develop the next summary here!
- Contribute to a Showcase item

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · John F. Lewis 14:24, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

User talk:198.24.31.118

Hi Courcelles

I had to block the above IP earlier. I believe it is a user evading their block again. This is a government IP address, when I had a look at the IP range earlier I'm not entirely certain if I need to report this elsewhere as well. Could you please advise? 5 albert square (talk) 00:07, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

No need, I think. The kind of things that need to be told to ComCom are listed on the block form, and U.S. county government is just nowhere near that league of importance of places to block (UK Parliament, US Congress, the Pentagon, things of that ilk.) Courcelles 03:18, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

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

The "Special:Cite" page is now called "Special:CiteThisPage". That way, you know it's to cite the page, not to add a reference. [11]
You can no longer use the insource: keyword for text searches. It caused issues with the new search tool. It will come back later. [12] [13]

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. [14]
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. [15] [16] [17]
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. [18] [19]
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. [20]
The icons in VisualEditor's template editor tool for adding more fields are back, along with other fixes. [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]
After November 6, all wikis will have the tool to edit TemplateData. [26] [27] [28]

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. [29]

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 award

WikiCup 2014: The results

The 2014 WikiCup champion is 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. Cwmhiraeth (submissions), 2012 and 2013 WikiCup champion, came in second, having written a large number of biology-related articles. Casliber (submissions), WikiCup finalist every year since 2010, finished in third.

A full list of our prize-winners follows:

Godot13 (submissions) wins the prize for first place and the FP prize for 181 featured pictures in the final round.
Cwmhiraeth (submissions) wins the prize for second place and the DYK prize for 65 did you knows in the final round.
Casliber (submissions) wins the prize for third place and the FA prize for four featured articles in the final round.
Czar (submissions) wins the prize for fourth place
Sturmvogel 66 (submissions) wins a final 8 prize.
Bloom6132 (submissions) wins a final 8 prize.
12george1 (submissions) wins a final 8 prize.
ChrisGualtieri (submissions) wins the GA prize for 27 good articles in round 2 and the review prize for 28 good article reviews in round 1.
Caponer (submissions) wins the FL prize for three featured lists in round 2.
Sven Manguard (submissions) wins the FPo prize his work on featured portals.
Figureskatingfan (submissions) wins the topic prize for a nine-article featured topic in round 3.
ThaddeusB (submissions) wins the news prize for 28 in the news articles in round 3.

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) 22:51, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 November 2014

In the media: Predicting the flu, MH17 conspiracy theories

"Rachel Feltman, in The Washington Post (November 4), examined research in which a team, mostly from Los Alamos National Laboratory, headed by Kyle Hickman developed a model that enabled them "to successfully predict the 2013-2014 flu season in real time" by employing "an algorithm to link flu-related Wikipedia searches with CDC data from the same time." Apparently when individuals search for information about the flu and its symptoms in Wikipedia when they feel ill, this generates data useful in forecasting the the flu season."

Traffic report: Sweet dreams on Halloween

"It is, perhaps, ironic that humanity chose the week of Halloween to finally put its fears to bed. Let's face it: 2014 has been a year of tragedies, conflicts, plagues and pain, and eventually something had to break... Whether we at last came to terms with our limited ability to affect events, shoved those events under the carpet, or just decided to let go and move on, we turned our eye to more positive things, such as sports heroes, hotly anticipated movies, and lifelong learning; two Google doodles appeared in the top 25 for the first time since the beginning of August."

You've got mail!

Hello, Courcelles. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 22:34, 9 November 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.

–Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:34, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I got a kickback on this; are you using a new address? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:40, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #132

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Discussions
- Zero error rate - help improve the quality of Wikidata's data

Events/Blogs/Press
- Wikidata won the Open Data Award by the Open Data Institute in the category Publisher \o/ (blog post by ODI, blog post by WMDE)
- Tutorial: Create instant location based timelines using Wikidata queries
Did you know?
- Less than 23% of Wikidata items have no statement. Down from ~53% a year ago.
- Newest properties: consecrator, Slovene Cultural Heritage designation, penalty, charge, judge, defender, prosecutor, defendant, number of casualties, deepest point, Desa code of Indonesia, Slovene Cultural Heritage Register ID, Catalan object of cultural interest ID
Development
- Continued work on LabelLookup and related code to further improve performance
- Made it possible to show references in statements on property pages. (Remaining bugs before roll-out are issues with adding/editing/removing statements on property pages.)
- Further improvements to sitelink editing (The edit toolbar now floats so it doesn't scroll out of the page on a long list of sitelinks. An empty row for adding a new sitelink is shown by default when editing to make this faster and take less scrolling.)
- Further adapting of simple query code so we can get it to review at the Foundation again.
- Lots of bug fixes all over the place
Monthly Tasks
- Hack on one of these.
- Help fix these items which have been flagged using Wikidata - The Game.
- Help develop the next summary here!
- Contribute to a Showcase item

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) 11:05, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

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. [30] [31]
The MediaWiki API now shows information in a nice format. You can translate it in translatewiki.net. [32]

File information cleanup

Reminder: You can help fix file information on your wiki. It will help robots understand the information. After that, it will be easier for you to search files and re-use them.
You can join two IRC chats this week to learn more about the file cleanup project. One will be on Wednesday at 18:00 (UTC) and the other on Thursday at 04:00 (UTC). You can ask questions during the chat if you need help to fix files on your wiki.
You can see a list of files to fix on the Labs tool. You can report bugs and ask questions on the talk page.

Problems

Wikimedia Labs was broken for a few hours on Thursday. It was due to a hardware problem. [33]

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. [34] [35]
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". [36]
The way windows inside VisualEditor work has changed. VisualEditor should be faster and have fewer bugs. [37]

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)

You have mail!

Hello, Courcelles. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 13:43, 13 November 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.

— revi_msg 13:43, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #133

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

Events/Blogs/Press
- Upcoming office hours for Commons (Nov 20th) and Wikidata (Dec 3rd). More details on the office hour page.
- GLAM/Wikidata hackathon in Amsterdam
Other Noteworthy Stuff
- Help make sure these items have labels in your language
Did you know?
- Newest properties: NATO code for grade
Development
- Work on reviving the tree of life built from Wikidata data
- Added a "featured portal" badge (Q17580674)
- Improved the performance of getting labels and sitelinks in Lua (and decreased the memory usage)
- Did groundwork on applying page deletions to the repo
- Refactor initialization of EntityView so that we can use batched label lookup for improved performance.
- Added IRC to available protocolls for the URL datatype
- Improved calendar model display
Monthly Tasks
- Hack on one of these.
- Help fix these items which have been flagged using Wikidata - The Game.
- Help develop the next summary here!
- Contribute to a Showcase item

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · John F. Lewis 00:00, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 November 2014

In the media: Amazon Echo; EU freedom of panorama; Bluebeard's Castle

"Technology media outlets are abuzz after the November 6 unveiling of the Amazon Echo, an Internet-connected voice command device"; "The EUobserver talks (November 4) with Dimitar Dimitrov (User:Dimi z) about the lack of freedom of panorama in some European Union countries and its implications for Wikimedia projects"; "Scott Cantrell, classical music critic for the Dallas Morning News, recounts efforts to verify an uncited claim in the Wikipedia article for the Béla Bartók opera Bluebeard's Castle."

Traffic report: Holidays, anyone?

This was very much a week dominated by holidays and pop culture over current events, with new film Interstellar taking the top spot followed by holidays Day of the Dead (#2), Guy Fawkes and his Night (#4 and #5), and Halloween (#8, and its third week on the list). And a foursome of television shows, all return visitors, appear to setting up residence on the greater Top 25: The Walking Dead (#11), American Horror Story: Freak Show (#14), Gotham (#16), and The Flash (#18).

Featured content: Wikipedia goes to church in Lithuania

Nine articles, two lists, and 55 featured pictures were promoted during the week of 26 October.

WikiProject report: Talking hospitals

We return to our interview format this week, speaking with the participants of WikiProject Hospitals. This project, formed in 2010, has no Featured content and only three Good articles, yet aided by around 30 hard-working Wikipedians covers a topic that is essential to life.

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. [38]

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. [39]

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)

Restore article

Hello. Can you restore Constantinos Mintikkis? He is playing in a fully professional league, Cypriot First Division, as you can see in Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Fully professional leagues. [40]. Xaris333 (talk) 18:45, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Done as a contested WP:PROD. Courcelles 03:43, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Re. Recent health issues

I was just reading through your ArbCom candidate statement, and was very surprised to hear that you were dealing with such a serious medical condition. Here's hoping the remainder of your recovery goes well, and that you'll be back to your normal self in the near future. Kurtis ^(talk) 20:32, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I still need another surgery, but it is to the currently non-functioning eye, so hopefully wouldn't be debilitating for long. Courcelles 20:43, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
- Fingers crossed. I can only imagine how that must have felt. Going blind would be a scary and depressing experience — but thankfully, modern science has overcome so many hurdles in ophthalmology that it's a whole lot easier to have it restored. It's amazing how modern technology has done so much to elevate our quality of life. I wish you nothing but the best in the future and hope for a speedy recovery. :) Kurtis ^(talk) 11:22, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

🎈 release listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect 🎈 release. Since you had some involvement with the 🎈 release redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Fram (talk) 08:10, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I think I would have done it this morning if you hadn't. Courcelles 15:46, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 November 2014

Featured content: Orbital Science: Now you're thinking with explosions

Four articles, four lists, eleven pictures, and one topic were promoted.

In the media: A Russian alternative Wikipedia; Who's your grandfather?; ArtAndFeminism

Numerous media outlets are reporting on a November 14 statement on the website of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library announcing the formation of a Russian "alternative" to Wikipedia, a "regional electronic encyclopedia" dedicated to "Russian regions and the life of the country".

Recent research: Gender gap and skills gap; academic citations on the rise; European food cultures

The monthly roundup of research related to Wikimedia.

WikiProject report: Back with the military historians

It's time for this year's edition of the Report looking at possibly our largest wikiproject: Military history. Since our last interview in June 2013, the project has had no break in its huge quest to document everything in their scope, that is, militaries and conflicts of the past. As usual, its participants were eager to answer the questions posed by The Signpost and update us on how they are doing.

Traffic report: Big in Japan

Often times in popular culture, a subject will be quite popular among a distinct niche of people or region of the world, but little-known elsewhere -- like a musical artist that is boasted to be "big in Japan". The Traffic Report provides a bevy of examples this week.