User talk:Pointillist/Archive 2013

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Leave me a message if you think we can improve Wikipedia by collaborating. Thanks

Hey. Thanks for responding to "my" post. My flatmates used my computer without my permission. :(. I really enjoy Wikipedia, and the wiki principle. One of the reason it works, is because people like you are vigilant enough to stop trolls and improve articles with accurate information. I will speak with my roomies and make sure that this stops. Sorry for wasting your time! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.141.113.123 (talk) 20:21, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No problem and many thanks for the feedback. If you're using a shared IP address it might help to →create an account so your contributions don't get mixed up with any other edits from people on the same network. It may seem counter-intuitive but your privacy on Wikipedia is actually better protected if you have your own user account rather than just editing anonymously. But maybe there's a bigger issue here.... If you are letting your friends borrow your PC/tablet, you have to be really careful that you haven't got persistent cookies stored that will automatically log them in to your private stuff without asking for a password. Given that most of what we do online is being stored for ever in case it will be useful someday, letting someone else use your credentials could have really serious long-term consequences, much worse than a bit of messing around on Wikipedia. Safe surfing! - Pointillist (talk) 21:58, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Pointillist. I replied at my talk page. Regards, Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 14:12, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - Pointillist (talk) 23:46, 31 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why did you delete the comma after the date? When the complete date is written with month, day, AND year, you must have a comma after the year.

Example: It was March 2000 that I bought my car. It was March 8, 2000, that I bought my car.JWilly911 (talk) 21:23, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It was for consistency with some of the other dates in the article, e.g. "on October 17, 1987 at Rod's Hickory Pit" and "On January 10, 2006 the band". But having taken another look I see that all the dates in the Related projects section have a trailing comma. I don't feel strongly about it, so please do go ahead and restore the comma if you wish. If you do, I suggest you tidy up the other instances so that the same approach is taken throughout the article. - Pointillist (talk) 21:56, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Since you have over 25 edits at Talk:Jane Austen, you might want to participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels#Derivative works and cultural references templates regarding including navigation boxes for adaptations of and related subjects to an authors works on the author's bio page.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:43, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've commented thus:

Deeper consideration is needed: IMO we can't debate this without discussing what we want the "highest-level article" about an important novelist to achieve. For example, when a naïve reader searches for Jane Austen should they reach (a) an article about her life [with links to her works], (b) an article about her works [with links to everything else including their life], or (c) an overview page [that summarizes their life & works very tersely and links to everything]? - Pointillist (talk) 22:37, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chess Titans. Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 17:57, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Microsoft Mahjong. Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 17:57, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Spider Solitaire (Windows). Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 17:57, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Purble Place, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Pelmanism (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 21:29, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I like your application of the Consensus template. Cheers! —Ringbang (talk) 22:35, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for uploading File:Purble Shop character 144x144.png. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Werieth (talk) 14:53, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Y Fixed, thanks - Pointillist (talk) 15:18, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.

• The Wikipedia Adventure Start Page
• The Wikipedia Adventure Lounge
• The Teahouse new editor help space
• Wikipedia Help pages

-- 19:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Pointillist, the message on the Template for Memorial Day disturbs me. "Happy Memorial Day" is on it at the beginning and at the end. It is inappropriate because Anzac Day, Memorial Day and Remembrance Day are days which are observed to honor those who died in defense of their country.

It isn't a happy day for those who care.

Would you have time to work with the Editor who created the Template to revise the message?

Thank you.

Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 03:48, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm no expert on "WikiLove" templates but this one seems fairly harmless. It wouldn't really be appropriate for me to get involved with it, anyway. Memorial Day is a US holiday but I'm not a US citizen. I probably wouldn't approach it with the right instincts. For example, I really dislike the way politicians/commentators exploit memorial day (e.g. like this). In Britain we seem to have completely different assumptions about how politics relates to defense. I could go on, but we're here to build an encyclopedia! Happy editing - Pointillist (talk) 05:21, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I detest the exploitation and asked for your help because I value your opinion. I believe you would approach it appropriately. Living in Europe taught me a lot. Thank you. Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 09:12, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. All the same, I'd prefer not to get involved. - Pointillist (talk) 10:19, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Understood. Thank you. Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 10:24, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that you've added some links pointing to disambiguation pages. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

Edgar F. Codd (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to ACM

University of Oxford (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to ACM

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 Both fixed now - Pointillist (talk) 13:41, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that you've added some links pointing to disambiguation pages. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

Anna-Louise Plowman (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Michael Billington

Private Lives (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Michael Billington

Toby Stephens (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Michael Billington

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 All fixed now - Pointillist (talk) 11:33, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

		The Progressive Barnstar
		I couldn't find a barnstar that would adequately thank those involved in making the template editor user right RFC a reality, so I created this new one. The Progressive Barnstar recognizes those courageous enough to work towards a vision for change at Wikipedia. Pointillist, your suggestions and active involvement, intelligently answering people's various concerns during the RFC, are most appreciated. I consider the proposal a success at this point, no matter what the eventual outcome, and I thank you. equazcion (talk) 06:28, 18 Sep 2013 (UTC)

Did you know?

You can edit a page's categories in VisualEditor. Click the "Page settings" button (next to Cancel/Save) in the toolbar to open the category tool. It will show you a list of the current categories for that page.

To add a category, type the name of the category you want to add in the search field. To remove an existing category, click on the category in the list and then, in the dialog that opens, click on the "Remove" icon (trash can). "Options" will allow you to set a default sorting key.

For more details, read VisualEditor's user guide.

VisualEditor has been updated twice in the last two weeks. As usual, what is now running on the English Wikipedia had a test run at Mediawiki during the previous week.

As announced, the toolbar was redesigned to be simpler, shorter, and to have the ability to have drop-down groups with descriptions. What you see now is the initial configuration and is expected to change in response to feedback from the English Wikipedia and other Wikipedias. The controls to add <u> (underline), <sub> (subscript), and <sup> (superscript), <s> (strikethrough) and <code> (computer code/monospace font) annotations to text are available to all users in the drop-down menu. At the moment, all but the most basic tools have been moved into a single drop-down menu, including the tools for inserting media, references, reference lists, and templates. The current location of all of the items in the toolbar is temporary, and your opinions about the best order are needed! Please offer suggestions at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Toolbar.

In an eagerly anticipated upgrade to the reference dialog, newly added references or reference groups no longer need the page to be saved before they can be re-used (bugs 51689 and 52000). The 'Use existing reference' button is now disabled on pages which don't yet have any references (bug 51848). The template parameter filter in the transclusion dialog now searches both parameter name and label (bug 51670).

In response to several requests, there are some new keyboard shortcuts. You can now set the block/paragraph formatting from the keyboard: Ctrl+0 sets a block as a regular paragraph; Ctrl+1 up to Ctrl+6 sets it as a Heading 1 ("Page title") to Heading 6 ("Sub-heading 4"); Ctrl+7 sets it as pre-formatted (bug 33512). Ctrl+2, which creates level 2 section headings, may be the most useful.

Some improvements were made to capitalization for links, so typing in "iPhone" will offer a link to "iPhone" as well as "IPhone" (bug 50452).

Copying and pasting within the same document should work better as of today's update, as should copying from VisualEditor into a third-party application (bug 53364, bug 52271, bug 52460). Work on copying and pasting between VisualEditor instances (for example, between two articles) and retaining formatting when copying from an external source into VisualEditor is progressing.

Major improvements to editing with input method editors (IMEs; mostly used for Indic and East Asian languages) are being deployed today. This is a complex change, so it may produce unexpected errors. On a related point, the names of languages listed in the "languages" (langlinks) panel in the Page settings dialog now display as RTL when appropriate (bug 53503).

Looking ahead: The help/'beta' menu will soon expose the build number next to the "Leave feedback" link, so users can give more specific reports about issues they encounter (bug 53050). This change will make it easier for developers to identify any cacheing issues, once it starts reporting the build number (currently, it says "Version false"). Also, inserting a link, reference or media file will put the cursor after the new content again (bug 53560). Next week’s update will likely improve how dropdowns and other selection menus behave when they do not fit on the screen, with things scrolling so the selected item is always in view.

If you are active at other Wikipedias, the next group of Wikipedias to have VisualEditor offered to all users is being finalized. About two dozen Wikipedias are on the list for Tuesday, September 24 for logged-in users only, and on Monday, September 30 for unregistered editors. You can help with translating the documentation. In several cases, most of the translation is already done, and it only needs to be copied over to the relevant Wikipedia. If you are interested in finding out whether a particular Wikipedia is currently on the list, you can leave a message for me at my talk page.

For other questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and other ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:36, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Ossau-Iraty, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Basque Country (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Greetings. Because you participated in the August 2013 move request regarding this subject, you may be interested in participating in the current discussion. This notice is provided pursuant to Wikipedia:Canvassing#Appropriate notification. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:41, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know?

You can create and edit multi-level lists in VisualEditor. The first two icons let you set or remove list formatting.

The last two are used to increase or decrease the indentation level. This can also be done from the keyboard, by using Tab ↹ to indent the list and ⇧ Shift+Tab ↹ to outdent it.

For more information, read Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide.

VisualEditor is still being updated every Thursday. As usual, what is now running on the English Wikipedia had a test run at Mediawiki during the previous week. If you haven't done so already, you can turn on VisualEditor by going to your preferences and choosing the item, "MediaWiki:Visualeditor-preference-enable".

The reference dialog for all Wikipedias, especially the way it handles citation templates, is being redesigned. Please offer suggestions and opinions at mw:VisualEditor/Design/Reference Dialog. (Use your Wikipedia username/password to login there.) You can also drag and drop references (select the reference, then hover over the selected item until your cursor turns into the drag-and-drop tool). This also works for some templates, images, and other page elements (but not yet for text or floated items). References are now editable when they appear inside a media item's caption (bug 50459).

There were a number of miscellaneous fixes made: Firstly, there was a bug that meant that it was impossible to move the cursor using the keyboard away from a selected node (like a reference or template) once it had been selected (bug 54443). Several improvements have been made to scrollable windows, panels, and menus when they don't fit on the screen or when the selected item moves off-screen. Editing in the "slug" at the start of a page no longer shows up a chess pawn character ("♙") in some circumstances (bug 54791). Another bug meant that links with a final punctuation character in them broke extending them in some circumstances (bug 54332). The "page settings" dialog once again allows you to remove categories (bug 54727). There have been some problems with deployment scripts, including one that resulted in VisualEditor being broken for an hour or two at all Wikipedias (bug 54935). Finally, snowmen characters ("☃") no longer appear near newly added references, templates and other nodes (bug 54712).

Looking ahead: Development work right now is on rich copy-and-paste abilities, quicker addition of citation templates in references, setting media items' options (such as being able to put images on the left), switching into wikitext mode, and simplifying the toolbar. A significant amount of work is being done on other languages during this month. If you speak a language other than English, you can help with translating the documentation.

For other questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and other ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:37, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Almost every edit you made to the signatures guidelines are too substantial for WP:BOLD editing - was new WP:CONSENSUS obtained on the policy talkpage first? ES&L 18:01, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It probably looks that way because I prepped so much stuff offline and then pasted large changes in single edits. Apart from the final subsection Wikipedia:Signatures#Using_custom_CSS pretty much everything is existing material from a variety of other pages, and all I've done is to bring some of the technical details together in one place. In particular, the technique for CSS-ing your personal view of your own signature has been on the page for at least two years (diff), but it was buried within the guidelines for customizing the public version. I've been careful not to add any bias about whether signatures are a good or bad thing, too. Believe me, this is nowhere near "Bold"! Happy to discuss further if you like, though. - Pointillist (talk) 18:16, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I should mention that there's been some concern about the idea that Flow won't support custom signature formatting (if Jorm (talk · contribs) gets his way) on the grounds that people like to customize their sig so they can find their posts quickly on a crowded page. It turned out that the CSS technique (which afaik will work with Flow) wasn't widely known. That's what originally got me collecting the material in the first place. - Pointillist (talk) 18:25, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for sorting out File:Board describing visit by Oxford University Society of Change Ringers to Iffley Church.jpg : I really haven't got the hang of improving photos for Wikipedia - I always seem to end up with rotation problems - so your assistance is much appreciated! Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Jonathan A Jones: Sorry, I wasn't stalking you: the Troyte names rang a bell. Charles Arthur William Troyte (born 11 May 1842) was the author of the "On Change Ringing" books featured in The Nine Tailors. According to these Newcastle University notes both R.H.D. and J.E. Troyte on that panel were his younger brothers. Anyway, it took two minutes to fix in Photoshop—it wouldn't be much of a challenge for someone who can teach quantum electrodynamics. Next time I'm due up in Oxford I'll drop you a note in case you are free for a coffee/demo. I'd enjoy a chat anyway. - Pointillist (talk) 21:36, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Troyte's book was, I believe, quite influential in the early twentieth century, and I thought the peal board was an interesting early reference to him. Thanks for the Huntsham link; I might try to follow that up one day. I know that photo editing is meant to be easy, but whenever I do it (in Corel Paint) the orientation information gets trashed somehow. I don't normally have access to Photoshop but I do have it on one PC so I might try that next time. Do feel free to get in touch if you're visiting Oxford or Iffley! Jonathan A Jones (talk) 22:13, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll probably be up 19-24th Jan in the RSL/South Parks area. I'll email you when I know for sure. - Pointillist (talk) 22:29, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fine. That's Hilary week 1 in old money. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:34, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. This is a brief note to let you know about an update to the Main FAQ (the addition of a large table of Components of the discussion system), and also to specifically request your feedback on two items: our sandbox release plan, and a draft of the new contributors survey. We look forward to reading your input on these or other topics - Flow can only get better with your ideas! –Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:54, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pointillist, I started a discussion at conflict of interest limit based on a overview of what other editors said. Please review it when have the opportunity. DavidinNJ (talk) 21:15, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Expanding on a comment you made there:

A middle ground might be feasible, in which "anyone" can still edit, plus there's a class of editors whose contributions aren't expected to need checking, like autopatrolled but specifically recognizing the account's history of making only neutral well-sourced edits. This distinction already exists informally to some extent: I'm more likely to check a contribution from an IP address than one from a recognized account name, especially in articles about technology products and companies.

Have you seen this thought developed elsewhere in essays and discussions on WP? A number of tools have been built to capture some aspect of this type of reputation - including some of the good vandal-fighting and RC patrolling tools. I haven't seen that developed in a systematic way, however. If we could allow for some nuanced spectrum of connection / influence / reputation / affiliation, one that helps others decide where to devote their review & curation time, that might avoid the pitfalls (and gameability) of any binary good/bad system. – SJ + 23:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that was the point I was making. - Pointillist (talk) 23:28, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know?

VisualEditor's toolbar has a new feature (currently working only in some browsers), "Switch to source editing". By choosing this item, you can move directly into the wikitext source editor without saving. This is particularly useful if you need to make significant changes to tables, image galleries, or other elements that are not currently supported.

For more information about how to use VisualEditor, read Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some feature changes, major infrastructure improvements to make the system more stable, dependable and extensible, some minor toolbar improvements, and fixing bugs.

A new form parsing library for language characters in Parsoid caused the corruption of pages containing diacritics for about an hour two weeks ago. Relatively few pages at the English Wikipedia were affected, but this created immediate problems at some other Wikipedias, sometimes affecting several dozen pages. The development teams for Parsoid and VisualEditor apologize for the serious disruption and thank the people who reported this emergency at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and on the public IRC channel, #mediawiki-visualeditor.

There have been dozens of changes since the last newsletter. Here are some of the highlights:

• Accidental deletion of infoboxes and other items: You now need to press the Delete or ← Backspace key twice to delete a template, reference or image. The first time, the item becomes selected, and the second time, it is removed. The need to press the delete key twice should make it more obvious what you are doing and help avoid accidental removals of infoboxes and similar (bug 55336).
• Switch from VisualEditor to the wikitext editor: A new feature lets you make a direct, one-way editing interface change, which will preserve your changes without needing to save the page and re-open it in the wikitext editor (bug 50687). It is available in a new menu in the action buttons by the Cancel button (where the "Page Settings" button used to be). Note that this new feature is not currently working in Firefox.
• Categories and Languages are also now directly available in that menu. The category suggestions drop-down was appearing in the wrong place rather than below its input box, which is now fixed. An incompatibility between VisualEditor and the deployed Parsoid service that prevented editing categories and language links was fixed.
• File:, Help: and Category: namespaces: VisualEditor was enabled for these namespaces the on all wikis (bug 55968), the Portal: and Viquiprojecte: namespaces on the Catalan Wikipedia (bug 56000), and the Portal: and Book: namespaces on the English Wikipedia (bug 56001).
• Media item resizing: We improved how files are viewed in a few ways. First, inline media items can now be resized in the same way that has been possible with block ones (like thumbnails) before. When resizing a media item, you can see a live preview of how it will look as you drag it (bug 54298). While you are dragging an image to resize it, we now show a label with the current dimensions (bug 54297). Once you have resized it, we fetch a new, higher resolution image for the media item if necessary (bug 55697). Manual setting of media item sizes in their dialog is nearly complete and should be available next week. If you hold down the ⇧ Shift key whilst resizing an image, it will now snap to a 10 pixel grid instead of the normal free-hand sizing. The media item resize label now is centered while resizing regardless of which tool you use to resize it.
• Undo and redo: A number of improvements were made to the transactions system which make undoing and redoing more reliable during real-time collaboration (bug 53224).
• Save dialogue: The save page was re-written to use the same code as all other dialogs (bug 48566), and in the process fixed a number of issues. The save dialog is re-accessible if it loses focus (bug 50722), or if you review a null edit (bug 53313); its checkboxes for minor edit, watch the page, and flagged revisions options now layout much more cleanly (bug 52175), and the tab order of the buttons is now closer to what users will expect (bug 51918). There was a bug in the save dialog that caused it to crash if there was an error in loading the page from Parsoid, which is now fixed.
• Links to other articles or pages sometimes sent people to invalid pages. VisualEditor now keeps track of the context in which you loaded the page, which lets us fix up links in document to point to the correct place regardless of what entry point you launched the editor from—so the content of pages loaded through /wiki/Foobar?veaction=edit and /w/index.php?title=Foobar&veaction=edit both now have text links that work if triggered (bug 48915).
• Toolbar links: A bug that caused the toolbar's menus to get shorter or even blank when scrolled down the page in Firefox is now fixed (bug 55343).
• Numbered external links: VisualEditor now supports Parsoid's changed representation of numbered external links (bug 53505).
• Removed empty templates: We also fixed an issue that meant that completely empty templates became impossible to interact with inside VisualEditor, as they didn't show up (bug 55810).
• Mathematics formulae: If you would like to try the experimental LaTeX mathematics tool in VisualEditor, you will need to opt-in to Beta Features. This is currently available on Meta-wiki, Wikimedia Commons, and Mediawiki.org. It will be available on all other Wikimedia sites on 21 November.
• Browser testing support: If you are interested in technical details, the browser tests were expanded to cover some basic cursor operations, which uncovered an issue in our testing framework that doesn't work with cursoring in Firefox; the Chrome tests continue to fail due to a bug with the welcome message for that part of the testing framework.
• Load time: VisualEditor now uses content language when fetching Wikipedia:TemplateData information, so reducing bandwidth use, and users on multi-language or multi-script wikis now get TemplateData hinting for templates as they would expect (bug 50888).
• Reuse of VisualEditor: Work on spinning out the user experience (UX) framework from VisualEditor into oojs-ui, which lets other teams at Wikimedia (like Flow) and gadget authors re-use VisualEditor UX components, is now complete and is being moved to a shared code repository.
• Support for private wikis: If you maintain a private wiki at home or at work, VisualEditor now supports editing of private wikis, by forwarding the Cookie: HTTP header to Parsoid ($wgVisualEditorParsoidForwardCookies set to true) (bug 44483). (Most private wikis will also need to install Parsoid and node.js, as VisualEditor requires them.)

Looking ahead:

• VisualEditor will be released to some of the smaller Wikipedias on 02 December 2013. If you are active at one or more smaller Wikipedias where VisualEditor is not yet generally available, please see the list at VisualEditor/Rollouts.
• Public office hours on IRC to discuss VisualEditor with Product Manager James Forrester will be held on Monday, 2 December, at 1900 UTC and on Tuesday, 3 December, at 0100 UTC. Bring your questions. Logs will be posted on Meta after each office hour completes.
• In terms of feature improvements, one of the major infrastructure projects affects how inserting characters works, both using your computer's built-in Unicode input systems and through a planned character inserter tool for VisualEditor. The forthcoming rich copying and pasting feature was extended and greater testing is currently being done. Work continues to support the improved reference dialog to quickly add citations based on local templates.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 22:01, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 14:50, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know?

VisualEditor's toolbar has a new drop-down menu that contains all character formatting: bold, italics, subscript, superscript, strikethrough, computer code, underline, and the ability to remove all formatting from text.

For more information about how to use VisualEditor, read the user guide.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some toolbar improvements, fixing bugs, and improving support for Indic languages as well as other languages with complex characters. The current focus is on improving the reference dialog and expanding the new character inserter tool.

There have been dozens of changes since the last newsletter. Here are some of the highlights:

• Rich copying and pasting is now available. If you copy text from another website, then character formatting and some other HTML attributes are preserved. This means, for example, that if you copy a pre-formatted suggested citation from a source like this, then VisualEditor will preserve the formatting of the title in the citation. Keep in mind that copying the formatting may include formatting that you don't want (like section headings). If you want to paste plain, unformatted text onto a page, then use Control+⇧ Shift+V or ⌘ Command+⇧ Shift+V (Mac).
• Auto-numbered external links like [1] can now be edited just like any other link. However, they cannot be created in VisualEditor easily.
• Several changes to the toolbar and dialogs have been made, and more are on the way. The toolbar has been simplified with a new drop-down text styles menu and an "insert" menu. Your feedback on the toolbar is wanted here. The transclusion/template dialog has been simplified. If you have enabled mathematical formula editing, then the menu item is now called the formula editor instead of LaTeX.
• There is a new character inserter, which you can find in the new "insert" menu, with a capital Omega ("Ω"). It's a very basic set of characters. Your feedback on the character inserter is wanted here.
• Saving the page should seem faster by several seconds now.
• It is now possible to access VisualEditor by manually editing the URL, even if you are not logged in or have not opted in to VisualEditor normally.  To do so, append ?veaction=edit to the end of the page name.  For example, change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random?veaction=edit to open a random page in VisualEditor.  This is intended to support bug testing across multiple browsers, without requiring editors to login repeatedly.

Looking ahead: The transclusion dialog will see further changes in the coming weeks, with a simple mode for single templates and an advanced mode for more complex transclusions. The new character formatting menu on the toolbar will get an arrow to show that it is a drop-down menu. The reference dialog will be improved, and the Reference item will become a button in the main toolbar, rather than an item in the Insert menu.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:35, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Pointillist. You have new messages at DESiegel's talk page.
Message added 21:53, 4 January 2014 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]

DES ^(talk) 21:53, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Oh! What a Lovely War, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Brian Duffy (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:04, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed and improved - Pointillist (talk) 09:27, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

		Bringing you warm wishes for the New Year!
		May you and yours enjoy a healthful, happy and productive 2014! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:10, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know?

To add templates, go to the "Insert" menu and choose the "Transclusion" (puzzle piece) item. Enter the name of the template and click "Add template". If TemplateData exists for the template, then a list of possible parameters will appear. If not, you can add parameters yourself by typing the parameter name under "Add parameter". For unnamed parameters, use numbers ("1" for the first unnamed parameter).

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked mostly minor features and fixing bugs. A few significant bugs include working around a bug in CSSJanus that was wrongly flipping images used in some templates in right-to-left (RTL) environments (bug 50910) a major bug that meant inserting any template or other transclusion failed (bug 59002), a major but quickly resolved problem due to an unannounced change in MediaWiki core, which caused VisualEditor to crash on trying to save (bug 59867). This last bugs did not appear on any Wikipedia. Additionally, significant work has been done in the background to make VisualEditor work as an independent editing system.

As of today, VisualEditor is now available as an opt-out feature to all users at 149 active Wikipedias.

• The character inserter tool in the "Insert" menu has a very basic set of characters. The character inserter is especially important for languages that use Latin and Cyrillic alphabets with unusual characters or frequent diacritics. Your feedback on the character inserter is requested. In addition to feedback from any interested editor, the developers would particularly like to hear from anyone who speaks any of the 50+ languages listed under Phase 5 at mw:VisualEditor/Rollouts, including Breton, Mongolian, Icelandic, Welsh, Afrikaans, Macedonian, and Azerbaijani.
• meta:Office hours on IRC have been heavily attended recently. The next one will be held this coming Wednesday, 22 January at 23:00 UTC.
• You can now edit some of the page settings in the "options" dialog – __NOTOC__ and __FORCETOC__ as selection (forced on, forced off, or default setting; bugs 56866 and 56867) and __NOEDITSECTION__ as a checkbox (bug 57166).
• The automated browser tests were adjusted to speed them up and bind more correctly to list items in lists, and updated to a newer version of their ruby dependencies. You can monitor the automated browser tests' results (triggered every twelve hours) live on the server.
• Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide was updated recently to show some new and upcoming features.

Looking ahead: The character formatting menu on the toolbar will get a drop-down indicator next Thursday. The reference and media items will be the first two listed in the Insert menu. The help menu will get a page listing the keyboard shortcuts. Looking further out, image handling will be improved, including support for alignment (left, right, and center) and better control over image size (including default and upright sizes). The developers are also working on support for editing redirects and image galleries.

Subscriptions to this newsletter are managed at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Please add or remove your name to change your subscription settings. If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:00, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For asking a question at my RfA; I have replied there. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:41, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am fresh out of wiki kittens; please accept this cake as a thank you for your thoughtful comments during my (now withdrawn) RfA. What doesn't kill me... Cheers, Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:29, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Bed management, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Audit Commission (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed - Pointillist (talk) 13:01, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know?

You can easily re-use references by going to the Insert menu, choosing "Reference", and clicking on "Use an existing reference" in the lower left corner. A list of all references, their numbers, and their ref names (if any) will be shown. You can search the list for any author, title, date, or other keyword. Read the user guide for more information.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some small changes to the user interface, such as moving the reference item to the top of the Insert menu, as well as some minor features and fixing bugs, especially for rich copying and pasting of references.

The biggest change was the addition of more features to the image dialog, including the ability to set alignment (left, right, center), framing options (thumbnail, frame, frameless, and none), adding alt text, and defining the size manually. There is still some work to be done here, including a quick way to set the default size.

• The main priority is redesigning the reference dialog, with the goal of providing autofill features for ISBNs and URLs and streamlining the process. Current concept drawings are available at mw:VisualEditor/Design/Reference Dialog. Please share your ideas about making referencing quick and easy with the designers.
• A few bugs in the existing reference dialog were fixed. The toolbar was simplified to remove galleries and lists from the reference dialog. When you re-use references, it now correctly displays the references again, rather than just the number and name. If you paste content into a dialog that can't fit there (e.g. ==section headings== in references), it now strips out the inappropriate HTML.
• You can now edit image galleries inside VisualEditor. At this time, the gallery tool is a very limited option that gives you access to the wikitext. It will see significant improvements at a later date.
• The character inserter tool in the "Insert" menu is being redesigned. Your feedback on the special character inserter is still wanted, especially if you depend on Wikipedia's character inserters for your normal editing rather than using the ones built into your computer.
• You can now see a help page about keyboard shortcuts in the page menu (three bars next to the Cancel button) (T54844).
• If you edit categories, your changes will now display correctly after saving the page (T50560).
• Saving the page should be faster now (T61660).
• Any community can ask to test a new tool to edit TemplateData by leaving a note at T53734.

Looking ahead: The link tool will tell you when you're linking to a disambiguation or redirect page. The warning about wikitext will hide itself after you remove the wikitext markup in that paragraph. Support for creating and editing redirects is in the pipeline. Looking further out, image handling will be improved, including default and upright sizes. The developers are also working on support for viewing and editing hidden HTML comments, some behavioral magic words like DISPLAYTITLE, and in-line language setting (dir="rtl").

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 04:21, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:00, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]