The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for, free, full-access accounts to published research as part of ourPublisher 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
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 theirevents 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.
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!
Latest comment:9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Did you know?
A new, simpler system for editing will offer a single Edit button. Once the page has opened, you can switch back and forth between visual and wikitext editing.
If you prefer having separate edit buttons, then you can set that option in your preferences, either in a pop-up dialog the next time you open the visual editor, or by going toSpecial:Preferences and choosing the setting that you want:
The current plan is for the default setting to have the Edit button open the editing environment you used most recently.
You can read and help translatethe user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.
Since the last newsletter, thevisual editor team has fixed many bugs and expanded the mathematics formula tool. Their workboard is availablein Phabricator. Theircurrent priorities are improving support for languages such as Japanese and Arabic, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.
You canswitch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing. TheLaTeX 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.
Thesingle 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 theEditing tab ofSpecial:Preferences in the drop-down menu about "Editing mode:".
Please try the new system for thesingle edit tab ontest2.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 atthe feedback topic on mediawiki.org orsign 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 engineerDavid 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 atWhat 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 theTranslators mailing list orcontact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready.Thank you!
Latest comment:9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
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:
Latest comment:9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
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.)
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 createdm: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.
Among experienced editors, the visual editor's table editing is one of the most popular features.
If you select the top of a column or the end of a row, you can quickly insert and remove columns and rows.
Now, you can also rearrange columns and rows. Click "Move before" or "Move after" to swap the column or row with its neighbor.
You can read and help translatethe user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.
Since the last newsletter, theVisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is availablein Phabricator. Theircurrent priorities are improving support for Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Indic, and Han scripts, and improving the single edit tab interface.
You canswitch 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.
You can now re-arrange columns and rows intables, as well as copying a row, column or any other selection of cells and pasting it in a new location.
Theformula 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.
Thesingle 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 theEditing tab ofSpecial: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 asSpecial: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.
Please try out the newest version of thesingle edit tab ontest2.wikipedia.org. You may need to restore the default preferences (at the bottom oftest2wiki: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 seethe 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 engineerDavid Chan needs to know. Please see the instructions atmw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested atthe feedback thread on mediawiki.org.
If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to theTranslators mailing list orcontact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready.Thank you!
Thecompletion suggester beta feature will become the default at the first group of wikis onThursday, 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 totry out the feature ahead of the release. Please share any comments on the Completion Suggesterdiscussion page in any language.
To learn more about the work of the Discovery department and other improvements to search, please check outthe Wikimedia blog. Read aboutCirrusSearch, the MediaWiki extension that makes wiki search possible.
Uxolo ngokubhala ngesiNgesi.Please help translate to your language
Hello Wikimedians!
The TWL OWL says sign up today!
The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for free, full-access accounts to published research as part of ourPublisher 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 StreetAcademic 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.
Greetings! TheIndividual 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.
TheWikimedia 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 onTuesday, 19 April. OnThursday, 21 April, they will switch back to the primary data center.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, 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)
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 ithere.
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)
Hello, after six weeks of community discussion aboutWikipedia 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)
Screenshot of Compact Language Links interlanguage list
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 inthe 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 underUser 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 theproject 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 onthis phabricator ticket (in English).
Due to the large scale enablement of this feature, we have had to useMassMessage 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)
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 anoverview 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!
Place the cursor where you want to display the references list (usually at the bottom of the page). Open the "Insert" menu and click the "References list" icon (three books).
If you are using several groups of references, which is relatively rare, you will have the opportunity to specify the group. If you do that, then only the references that belong to the specified group will be displayed in this list of references.Finally, click "Insert" in the dialog to insert theReferences list. This list will change as you add more footnotes to the page.
You can read and help translatethe user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.
Since the last newsletter, theVisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is availablein Phabricator. Theircurrent priorities are improving support for Arabic and Indic scripts, and adapting the visual editor to the needs of the Wikivoyages and Wikisources.
The visual editor is now available to all users at mostWikivoyages. It was also enabled for all contributors at the French Wikinews.
Thesingle 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 ofSpecial:Preferences. The team is now reviewing the feedback and considering ways to improve the design before rolling it out to more people.
The "Gcina eliphepha" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. Moreinformation is available on Meta.
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 ageneral status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.
Learn how to improve the "automagical"citoid referencing system in the visual editor, by creatingZotero translators for popular sources in your language! Watch theTech 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 theTranslators mailing list orcontact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready.Thank you!
Greetings! TheProject 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.
TheEditing 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.
This change will probably happen during the week of 30 August 2016. The change will be announced inTech 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. TheLegal 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 inyour 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.
The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for free, full-access, accounts to published research as part of ourpublisher donation program. You can now sign up for new accounts and research materials from:
Nomos– Primarily German-language publisher of law and social sciences books and journals - 25 accounts
World Scientific– Scientific, technical, and medical journals - 50 accounts
Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today! --The Wikipedia Library Team 18:38, 30 Eye Thupha 2016 (UTC)
You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language! Please contactOcaasi (WMF).
Latest comment:9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
From September 13th on,RevisionSlider will be available as abeta feature in your wiki. The RevisionSlider adds a slider view to the diff page, so that you can easily move between revisions. The feature fulfills a wish from theGerman Community’s Technical Wishlist. Everyone is invited to test the feature and we hope that it will serve you well in your work!
Latest comment:9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Please help translate to your language:
Greetings! TheProject Grants program is currently accepting proposals for funding. There is just over a week left to submit before the October 11 deadline. If you have ideas for software, offline outreach, research, online community organizing, or other projects that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers, start your proposal today! Please encourage others who have great ideas to apply as well. Support is available if you want help turning your idea into a grant request.
Latest comment:9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello! I'm writing from the Wikimedia Foundation to invite you to give your feedback on a proposed move from CC BY-SA 3.0 to a CC BY-SA 4.0 license across all Wikimedia projects. The consultation will run from October 5 to November 8, and we hope to receive a wide range of viewpoints and opinions. Please, if you are interested,take part in the discussion on Meta-Wiki.
Did you know that you can easily re-arrange columns and rows in the visual editor?
Select a cell in the column or row that you want to move. Click the arrow at the start of that row or column to open the dropdown menu (shown). Choose either "Move before" or "Move after" to move the column, or "Move above" or "Move below" to move the row.
You can read and help translatethe user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.
Since the last newsletter, theVisualEditor Team has mainly worked on a new wikitext editor. They have also released some small features and the new map editing tool. Their workboard is availablein Phabricator. You can find links to the list of work finished each week atmw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Theircurrent priorities are fixing bugs, releasing the 2017 wikitext editor as abeta feature, and improving language support.
Invisible templates have been shown as a puzzle icon. Now, the name of the invisible template is displayed next to the puzzle icon. A similar feature will display the first part of hidden HTML comments.
Categories are displayed at the bottom of each page. If you click on the categories, the dialog for editing categories will open.
At many wikis, you can now addmaps to pages. Go to the Insert menu and choose the "Maps" item. The Discovery department is adding more features to this area, like geoshapes. You can read more at mediawiki.org.
The "Save" button now says "Save page" when you create a page, and "Save changes" when you change an existing page. In the future, the "Gcina eliphepha" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. Moreinformation is available on Meta.
Image galleries now use a visual mode for editing. You can see thumbnails of the images, add new files, remove unwanted images, rearrange the images by dragging and dropping, and add captions for each image. Use the "Options" tab to set the gallery's display mode, image sizes, and add a title for the gallery.
The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining 10"Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next month. 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 atthe feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, includingThai,Burmese andAramaic.
The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. The2017 wikitext editor 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 in October 2016. You can read about this project in ageneral status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.
If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to theTranslators mailing list orcontact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready.Thank you!
The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for free, full-access, accounts to published research as part of ourPublisher Donation Program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials from:
Foreign Affairs - Journal of international relations and U.S. foreign policy
OpenEdition - Journals in the social sciences and humanities
Latest comment:9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Please help translate to your language
Hello, machine translation support forContent Translation (beta feature) has now been extended and enabled for users ofXhosa Wikipedia using Yandex. It can be used when translating Wikipedia articles into Xhosa with Content Translation. To start using this service, please choose ‘’Yandex.Translate’’ from the ‘’Automatic Translation’’ dropdown menu that you see on the sidebar after you start translating an article. Please note, machine translation is available from all the languages that are supported by Yandex.Translate, but Content Translation can still be used in the usual manner for translating from all languages, with or without machine translation support.
Wikimedia Foundation’s Legal team and Yandex had collaborated earlier to work outan agreement that allows the use ofYandex.Translate without compromising Wikipedia’s policy of attribution of rights, privacy of our users and brand representation. Since November 2015, Yandex machine translation has been used for articles translated for Wikipedias in many languages. For more information, we request you to kindly take a look at the details aboutmachine translation services in Content Translation and aboutYandex translation services, including a summary of the legal contract. Please note, translations made using Content Translation are also used to improve machine translation services.
We have tested the service for use on the Xhosa Wikipedia, but there could be unknown problems that we are not aware of yet. Please do let us know on ourProject Talk page orphabricator if you face any problems using Content Translation. This message is only in English and we will be very grateful if it could be translated into Xhosa for other users of this Wikipedia. Thank you. On behalf of WMF Language team: --Runa Bhattacharjee (talk)13:43, 9 Eye Nkanga 2016 (UTC)Reply
We are having a problem with attackers taking over wiki accounts with privileged user rights (for example, admins, bureaucrats, oversighters, checkusers). It appears that this may be because of weak or reused passwords.
Community members are working along with members of multiple teams at the Wikimedia Foundation to address this issue.
In the meantime, we ask that everyone takes a look at the passwords they have chosen for their wiki accounts. If you know that you've chosen a weak password, or if you've chosen a password that you are using somewhere else, please change those passwords.
We in the Wikimedia Foundation's Editing department are responsible for making editing better for all our editors, new and experienced alike. We've been slowly improvingthe visual editor based on feedback, user tests, and feature requests. However, that doesn't work for all our user needs: whether you need to edit a wikitext talk page, create a template, or fix some broken reference syntax, sometimes you need to use wikitext, and many experienced editors prefer it.
Consequently, we've planned a "wikitext mode" for the visual editor for a long time. It provides as much of the visual editor's features as possible, for those times that you need or want wikitext. It has the same user interface as the visual editor, including the same toolbar across the top with the same buttons. It provides access to thecitoid service for formatting citations, integrated search options for inserting images, and the ability to add new templates in a simple dialog. Like in the visual editor, if you paste in formatted text copied from another page, then formatting (such as bolding) will automatically be converted into wikitext.
All wikis now have access to this mode as aBeta Feature. When enabled, it replaces your existingwikitext editor everywhere. If you don't like it, you can reverse this at any time by turning off the Beta Feature in your preferences. We don't want to surprise anyone, so it's strictly anopt-in-only Beta Feature. It won't switch on automatically for anyone, even if you have previously checked the box to "Automatically enable most beta features".
The new wikitext edit mode is based on the visual editor, so it requires JavaScript (as does thecurrent wikitext editor). It doesn't work with gadgets that have only been designed for the older one (andvice versa), so some users will miss gadgets they find important. We're happy towork with gadget authors to help them update their code to work with both editors. We're not planning to get rid of the current main wikitext editor on desktop in the foreseeable future. We're also not going to remove the existing ability to edit plain wikitext without JavaScript. Finally, though it should go without saying, if you prefer to continue using the current wikitext editor, then you may so do.
This is an early version, and we'd love to know what you think so we can make it better. Please leave feedback about the new modeon the feedback page. You may write comments in any language. Thank you.
The Wikimedia movement is beginning a movement-wide strategy discussion, a process which will run throughout 2017. For 15 years, Wikimedians have worked together to build the largest free knowledge resource in human history. During this time, we've grown from a small group of editors to a diverse network of editors, developers, affiliates, readers, donors, and partners. Today, we are more than a group of websites. We are a movement rooted in values and a powerful vision: all knowledge for all people. As a movement, we have an opportunity to decide where we go from here.
This movement strategy discussion will focus on the future of our movement: where we want to go together, and what we want to achieve. We hope to design an inclusive process that makes space for everyone: editors, community leaders, affiliates, developers, readers, donors, technology platforms, institutional partners, and people we have yet to reach. There will be multiple ways to participate including on-wiki, in private spaces, and in-person meetings. You are warmly invited to join and make your voice heard.
The immediate goal is to have a strategic direction by Wikimania 2017 to help frame a discussion on how we work together toward that strategic direction.
Regular updates are being sent to theWikimedia-l mailing list, and postedon Meta-Wiki. Beginning with this message, monthly reviews of these updates will be sent to this page as well.Sign up to receive future announcements and monthly highlights of strategy updates on your user talk page.
Here is a review of the updates that have been sent so far:
The core movement strategy team, team tracks being developed, introduction of the Community Process Steering Committee, discussions at WikiIndaba conference 2017 and the Wikimedia movement affiliates executive directors gathering in Switzerland
As we mentioned last month, the Wikimedia movement is beginning a movement-wide strategy discussion, a process which will run throughout 2017. This movement strategy discussion will focus on the future of our movement: where we want to go together, and what we want to achieve.
Regular updates are being sent to theWikimedia-l mailing list, and postedon Meta-Wiki. Each month, we are sending overviews of these updates to this page as well.Sign up to receive future announcements and monthly highlights of strategy updates on your user talk page.
Here is a overview of the updates that have been sent since our message last month:
This message, "We invite you to join the movement strategy conversation (now through April 15)", was sent through multiple channels byGregory Varnum on 15 and 16 of March 2017 to village pumps, affiliate talk pages, movement mailing lists, and MassMessage groups. A similar message was sent byNicole Ebber to organized groups and their mailing lists on 15 of March 2017. This version of the message is available for translation and documentation purposes
Dear Wikimedians/Wikipedians:
Today we are starting a broad discussion to define Wikimedia's future role in the world and develop a collaborative strategy to fulfill that role. You are warmly invited to join the conversation.
There are many ways to participate, by joining an existing conversation or starting your own:
Track A (organized groups): Discussions with your affiliate, committee or other organized group (these are groups that support the Wikimedia movement).
This is the first of three conversations, and it will run between now and April 15. The purpose of cycle 1 is to discuss the future of the movement and generate major themes around potential directions. What do we want to build or achieve together over the next 15 years?
We welcome you, as we create this conversation together, and look forward to broad and diverse participation from all parts of our movement.
Once the questions submission period has ended on April 20, the Elections Committee will then collate the questions for the candidates to respond to beginning on April 21.
The goal of this process is to fill thethree community-selected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. The election results will be used by the Board itself to select its new members.
The full schedule for the Board elections is as follows. All dates areinclusive, that is, from the beginning of the first day (UTC) to the end of the last.
April 7 (00:00 UTC) – April 20 (23:59 UTC) –Board nominations
April 7 – April 20 –Board candidates questions submission period
April 21 – April 30 –Board candidates answer questions
May 1 – May 14 –Board voting period
May 15–19 –Board vote checking
May 20 –Board result announcement goal
In addition to the Board elections, we will also soon be holding elections for the following roles:
Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC)
There are five positions being filled. More information about this election will be availableon Meta-Wiki.
One position is being filled. More information about this election will be availableon Meta-Wiki.
Please note that this year the Board of Trustees elections will be held before the FDC and Ombuds elections. Candidates who are not elected to the Board are explicitly permitted and encouraged to submit themselves as candidates to the FDC or Ombuds positions after the results of the Board elections are announced.
More information on this year's elections can be foundon Meta-Wiki. Any questions related to the election can be posted on theelection talk page on Meta-Wiki, or sent to the election committee's mailing list,board-electionswikimedia.org.
TheWikimedia Foundation will be testing its secondary data center in Dallas. This will make sure that 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 secondary data center onWednesday, 19 April 2017.OnWednesday, 3 May 2017, they will switch back to the primary data center.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, 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 20 to 30 minutes on Wednesday, 19 April and Wednesday, 3 May. The test will start at14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Thursday 20 April and Thursday 4 May).
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 code freezes for the weeks of 17 April 2017 and 1 May 2017. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.
Wikidata description editing is a new experiment being rolled out on the Wikipedia app for Android. While this primarily impacts Wikidata, the changes are also addressing a concern about the mobile versions of Wikipedia, so that mobile users will be able to edit directly the descriptions shown under the title of the page and in the search results.
We began by rolling out this feature several weeks ago to a pilot group of Wikipedias (Russian, Hebrew, and Catalan), and have seen very positiveresults including numerous quality contributions in the form of new and updated descriptions, and a low rate of vandalism.
We are now ready for the next phase of rolling out this feature, which is to enable it in a few days for all Wikipedias except the top ten by usage within the app (i.e. except English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Portuguese, Turkish, and Chinese). We will enable the feature for those languages instead at some point in the future, as we closely monitor user engagement with our expanded set of pilot communities.As always, if have any concerns, please reach out to us on wiki atthe talk page for this project or by email at reading@wikimedia.org. Thanks!
The Reading web team at the Wikimedia Foundation has been working to enablePage previews,a beta feature known previously as Hovercards, as opt-in behavior for logged-in users and the default behavior for logged-out users across Wikipedia projects. Page previews provide a preview of any linked article, giving readers a quick understanding of a related article without leaving the current page. For this project, we are expecting to collect feedback over the following few weeks and tentatively enable the feature in early May, 2017.
A quick note on the implementation:
For logged-in users who are not currently testing out the beta feature, Page previews will be off by default. Users may turn them on fromtheir user preferences page.
For logged-out users, the feature will be on by default. Users may disable it at any time by selecting the setting cog available in each preview.
For users of the Navigation popups gadget, you will not be able to turn on the Page previews feature while using navigational popups. If you would like to try out the Page preview feature, make sure to first turn Navigation popups off prior to turning Page previews on.
The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for free, full-access, accounts to published research as part of ourPublisher Donation Program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials from:
Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today! --The Wikipedia Library Team 18:52, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contactAaron.
TheWikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is the ultimate governing authority of the Wikimedia Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization registered in the United States. The Wikimedia Foundation manages many diverse projects such as Wikipedia and Commons.
From May 9, theTwo Column Edit Conflict View will be available as abeta feature on all wikis. The Two Column Edit Conflict View is a new interface for the edit conflict resolution page. It highlights differences between the editor's and the conflicting changes to make it easy to copy and paste pieces of the text and resolve the conflict. The feature fulfils a request for a more user-friendly edit conflict resolution from theGerman Community’s Technical Wishlist. Everyone is invited to test the feature and we hope that it will serve you well!
Did you know that you can review your changes visually?
When you are finished editing the page, type your edit summary and then choose "Review your changes".
In visual mode, you will see additions, removals, new links, and formatting highlighted. Other changes, such as changing the size of an image, are described in notes on the side.
Click the toggle button to switch between visual and wikitext diffs.
The wikitext diff is the same diff tool that is used in the wikitext editors and in the page history. You can read and help translatethe user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.
Anew wikitext editing mode is available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices. The2017 wikitext editor has the same toolbar as the visual editor and can use the citoid service and other modern tools. Go toSpecial:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures to enable the⧼Visualeditor-preference-newwikitexteditor-label⧽.
A newvisual diff tool is available in VisualEditor's visual mode. You can toggle between wikitext and visual diffs. More features will be added to this later. In the future, this tool may be integrated into other MediaWiki components.
You can now use your web browser's function to switch typing direction in the new wikitext mode. This is particularly helpful for RTL language users like Urdu or Hebrew who have to write JavaScript or CSS. You can use Command+Shift+X or Control+Shift+X to trigger this.
The way to switch between the visual editing mode and the wikitext editing mode is now consistent. There is a drop-down menu that shows the two options. This is now the same in desktop and mobile web editing, and inside things that embed editing, such as Flow.
TheCategories item has been moved to the top of thePage options menu (from clicking on the "hamburger" icon) for quicker access. There is also now a "Templates used on this page" feature there.
You can now create<chem> tags (sometimes used as<ce>) for chemical formulas inside the visual editor.
Tables can be set as collapsed or un-collapsed.
TheSpecial character menu now includes characters for Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics and angle quotation marks (‹› and ⟨⟩) . The team thanks the volunteer developer,Tpt.
A bug caused some section edit conflicts to blank the rest of the page. This has been fixed. The team are sorry for the disruption.
There is a new keyboard shortcut for citations:Control+Shift+K on a PC, orCommand+Shift+K on a Mac. It is based on the keyboard shortcut for making links, which isControl+K orCommand+K respectively.
The team is working on a syntax highlighting tool. It will highlight matching pairs of<ref> tags and other types of wikitext syntax. You will be able to turn it on and off. It will first become available in VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode, maybe late in 2017.
The kind of button used toBonisa Utshintsho,Gcina Utshitshi, and finish an edit will change in all WMF-supported wikitext editors. The new buttons will useOOjs UI. The buttons will be larger, brighter, and easier to read. The labels will remain the same. You can test the new button by editing a page and adding&ooui=1 to the end of the URL, like this:https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Sandbox?action=edit&ooui=1 The old appearance will no longer be possible, even with local CSS changes.
If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to theTranslators mailing list orcontact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready.Thank you!
I’m sorry for writing in English. It’d be great if someone could translate this message if necessary.
One of the most requested features for Wikidata is to enable editing of Wikidata’s data directly from Wikipedia, so the editors can continue their workflow without switching websites.
The Wikidata development team has been working on a tool to achieve this goal:fill and edit the Wikipedia infoboxes with information from Wikidata, directly on Wikipedia, via the Visual Editor.
We alreadyasked for feedback in 2015, and collected some interesting ideas which weshared with you in this thesis. Now we would like to present to you our first prototype and collect your feedback, in order to improve and continue the development of this feature.
We present this work to you very early, so we can include your feedback before and all along the development. You are the core users of this feature, so we want to make sure that it fits your needs and editing processes.
You will find the prototype, description of the features, and a demo video,on this page. Feel free to add any comment or feedback on the talk page. The page is currently not translated in every languages, but you can add your contribution by helping to translate it.
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to follow all the discussions on Wikipedia, so if you want to be sure that your feedback is read, please add it on the Wikidata page, in your favorite language. Thanks for your understanding.
RevisionSlider will be available as a default feature for all users on all wikis from May 17. The RevisionSlider adds a slider view to the diff page so that you can easily move between revisions. The slider view is collapsed by default, and will load by clicking on it. It can also be turned off entirely in the user preferences. RevisionSlider has been a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia for 6 months and a beta feature on all wikis for 8 months. The feature fulfills a wish from theGerman Community’s Technical Wishlist. Thanks to everyone who tested RevisionSlider and gave valuable feedback to improve the feature! We hope that RevisionSlider will continue to serve you well in your work.
The Wikimedia movement strategy core team and working groups have completed reviewing the more than 1800 thematic statements we received from the first discussion. They have identified5 themes that were consistent across all the conversations - each with their own set of sub-themes. These are not the final themes, just an initial working draft of the core concepts.
You are invited tojoin the online and offline discussions taking place on these 5 themes. This round of discussions will take place between now and June 12th. You can discuss as many as you like; we ask you to participate in the ones that are most (or least) important to you.
Here are the five themes, each has a page on Meta-Wiki with more information about the theme and how to participate in that theme's discussion:
Funds Dissemination Committee The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) makes recommendations about how to allocate Wikimedia movement funds to eligible entities. There are five positions being filled. More information about this role can be found atthe FDC elections page.
Funds Dissemination Committee Ombudsperson The Funds Dissemination Committee Ombudsperson receives complaints and feedback about the FDC process, investigates complaints at the request of the Board of Trustees, and summarizes the investigations and feedback for the Board of Trustees on an annual basis. One position is being filled. More information about this role can be found atthe FDC Ombudsperson elections page.
We will also be accepting questions to ask the candidates until May 28.You can submit your questions on Meta-Wiki. Once the questions submission period has ended on May 28, the Elections Committee will then collate the questions for the candidates to respond to.
The goal of this process is to fill thefive community-selected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Funds Dissemination Committee and thecommunity-selected ombudsperson. The election results will be used by the Board itself to make the appointments.
The full schedule for the FDC elections is as follows. All dates areinclusive, that is, from the beginning of the first day (UTC) to the end of the last.
May 15 (00:00 UTC) – May 28 (23:59 UTC) –Nominations
May 15 – May 28 –Candidates questions submission period
May 29 – June 2 –Candidates answer questions
June 3 – June 11 –Voting period
June 12–14 –Vote checking
June 15 –Goal date for announcing election results
Please feel free to post a note about the election on your project's village pump. Any questions related to the election can be posted onthe talk page on Meta-Wiki, or sent to the election committee's mailing list,board-electionswikimedia.org.
The MediaWiki developers have been slowly improving the accessibility of the user interface. The next step in this transition will change the appearance of some buttons and may break some outdated (non-updated or unmaintained) user scripts and gadgets.
You can see and use theold andnew versions now. Most editors will only notice that some buttons are slightly larger and have different colors.
Comparison of old and new styles
Buttons before the change
Buttons after the change
However, this change also affects some user scripts and gadgets. Unfortunately, some of them may not work well in the new system.If you maintain any user scripts or gadgets that are used for editing, please seemw:Contributors/Projects/Accessible editing buttons for information on how to test and fix your scripts. Outdated scripts can be tested and fixed now.
A quick update on the progress of enablingPage Previews (previously named Hovercards) on this project. Page Previews provide a preview of any linked article, giving readers a quick understanding of a related article without leaving the current page. As mentioned in December we're preparing to remove the feature from Beta and make it the default behavior for logged-out users. We have recently made a large update to the code which fixes most outstanding bugs.
Due to some issues with our instrumentation, we delayed our deployment by a few months. We are finally ready to deploy the feature. Page Previews will be off by default and available in the user preferences page for logged-in users the week of July 24th. The feature will be on by default for current beta users and logged-out users. If you would like to preview the feature, you can enable it as abeta feature. For more information seePage Previews. Questions can be lefton the talk page in your preferred language.
Note this is to apply to Wikipedia and not necessarily other sister projects, this is only to apply to websites where people are specifically advertising that they will edit Wikipedia for pay and not any other personal, professional, or social media accounts a person may have.
Latest comment:8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Discussion on synced reading lists
Hello,
The Reading Infrastructure team at the Wikimedia Foundation is developing a cross-platform reading list service for the mobile Wikipedia app. Reading lists are like bookmark folders in your web browser. They allow readers using the Wikipedia app to bookmark pages into folders to read later. This includes reading offline. Reading lists do not create or alter content in any way.
To create Reading Lists, app users will register an account and marked pages will be tied to that account. Reading List account preferences sync between devices. You can read the same pages on different mobile platforms (tablets, phones). This is the first time we are syncing preference data between devices in such a way. We want to hear and address concerns about privacy and data security. We also want to explain why the current watchlist system is not being adapted for this purpose.
In 2016 the Android team replaced the simple Saved Pages feature with Reading Lists. Reading Lists allow users to bookmark pages into folders and for reading offline. The intent of this feature was to allow "syncing" of these lists for users with many devices. Due to overlap with the Gather feature and related community concerns, this part was put on hold.
The Android team has identified this lack of synching as a major area of complaint from users. They expect lists to sync. The iOS team has held off implementing Reading Lists, as syncing was seen as a "must have" for this feature. A recenttechnical RfC has allowed these user stories and needs to be unblocked. Initially for Android, then iOS, and with web to potentially follow.
Reading lists are private, stored as part of a user's account, not as a public wiki page. There is no sharing or publishing ability for reading lists. No planned work to make these public. The target audience are people that read Wikipedia and want to bookmark and organize that content in the app. There is a potential for the feature to be available on the web in the future.
Watchlists offer similar functionality to Reading Lists. The Reading Infrastructure team evaluated watchlist infrastructure before exploring other options. In general, the needs of watchlists differ from Reading Lists in a few key ways:
Reading lists focus on Reading articles, not the monitoring of changes.
Watchlists are focused on monitoring changes of pages/revisions.
The Watchlist infrastructure is key to our contributor community for monitoring content changes manually and through the use of automated tools (bots). Because of these needs, expanding the scope of Watchlists to reading purposes will only make the project harder to maintain and add more constraints.
By keeping the projects separate it is easier to scale resources. We can serve these two different audiences and prioritize the work accordingly. Reading Lists are, by their nature, less critical to the health of Wikipedia/MediaWiki.
Multi-project support. Reading Lists are by design cross-wiki/project. Watchlists are tied to specific wikis. While there have been many discussion for making them cross-wiki, resolution is not in the near term.
For the initial deployment, the feature will be available to Google Chrome browsers on Android. Support for other mobile browsers to come in the future. For Chrome, the feature will use the native Android print functionality. Users can choose to download a webpage as a PDF.Mobile print styles will be used for these PDFs to ensure optimal readability for smaller screens.
Latest comment:7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi all,
We wanted to inform you that scholarship applications forWikimania 2018 which is being held in Cape Town, South Africa on July 18–22, 2018 are now being accepted.Applications are open until Monday, 22 January 2018 23:59 UTC.
Applicants will be able to apply for a partial or full scholarship. A full scholarship will cover the cost of an individual's round-trip travel, shared accommodation, and conference registration fees as arranged by the Wikimedia Foundation. A partial scholarship will cover conference registration fees and shared accommodation. Applicants will be rated using a pre-determined selection process and selection criteria established by the Scholarship Committee and the Wikimedia Foundation, who will determine which applications are successful. To learn more about Wikimania 2018 scholarships, please visit:wm2018:Scholarships.
It is highly recommended that applicants review all the material on the Scholarships page andthe associated FAQ before submitting an application. If you have any questions, please contact: wikimania-scholarships at wikimedia.org or leave a message at:wm2018:Talk:Scholarships. Please help us spread the word and translate pages!
Latest comment:7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Greetings,
"Military history" is one of the most important subjects when speak of sum of all human knowledge. To support contributors interested in the area over various language Wikipedias, we intend to form a user group. It also provides a platform to share the best practices between military historians, and various military related projects on Wikipedias. An initial discussion was has been done between the coordinators and members of WikiProject Military History on English Wikipedia. Now this discussion has been taken to Meta-Wiki. Contributors intrested in the area of military history are requested to share their feedback and give suggestions atTalk:Discussion to incubate a user group for Wikipedia Military Historians.
Did you know that you can now use thevisual diff tool on any page?
Sometimes, it is hard to see important changes in a wikitext diff. This screenshot of a wikitext diff (click to enlarge) shows that the paragraphs have been rearranged, but it does not highlight the removal of a word or the addition of a new sentence.
If youenable the Beta Feature for "⧼visualeditor-preference-visualdiffpage-label⧽", you will have a new option. It will give you a new box at the top of every diff page. This box will let you choose either diff system on any edit.
Click the toggle button to switch between visual and wikitext diffs.
In the visual diff, additions, removals, new links, and formatting changes will be highlighted. Other changes, such as changing the size of an image, are described in notes on the side.
This screenshot shows the same edit as the wikitext diff. The visual diff highlights the removal of one word and the addition of a new sentence.
You can read and help translatethe user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.
The2017 wikitext editor isavailable as a Beta Feature on desktop devices. It has the same toolbar as the visual editor and can use the citoid service and other modern tools. The team have been comparing the performance of different editing environments. They have studied how long it takes to open the page and start typing. The study uses data for more than one million edits during December and January. Some changes have been made to improve the speed of the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual editor. Recently, the 2017 wikitext editor opened fastest for most edits, and the 2010 WikiEditor was fastest for some edits. More information will be posted atmw:Contributors/Projects/Editing performance.
Thevisual diff tool was developed for the visual editor. It is now available to all users of the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. When you review your changes, you can toggle between wikitext and visual diffs. You can alsoenable the new Beta Feature for "Visual diffs". The Beta Feature lets you use the visual diff tool to view other people's edits on page histories andSpecial:RecentChanges.
Wikibooks, Wikiversity, and other communities may have the visual editor made available by default to contributors. If your community wants this, then please contactDan Garry.
If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to theTranslators mailing list orcontact us directly. We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation.Thank you!
From May 8,AdvancedSearch will be available as abeta feature in your wiki. The feature enhances thesearch page through an advanced parameters form and aims to makeexisting search options more visible and accessible for everyone. AdvancedSearch is a project byWMDE Technical Wishes. Everyone is invited to test the feature and we hope that it will serve you well in your work!
Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today! --The Wikipedia Library Team 18:03, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contactOcaasi (WMF).
To improve the security of our readers and editors, permission handling for CSS/JS pages has changed. (These are pages likeMediaWiki:Common.css andMediaWiki:Vector.js which contain code that is executed in the browsers of users of the site.)A new user group,interface-admin, has been created.Starting four weeks from now, only members of this group will be able edit CSS/JS pages that they do not own (that is, any page ending with.css or.js that is either in theMediaWiki: namespace or is another user's user subpage).
You can learn more about the motivation behind the changehere.
Please add users who need to edit CSS/JS to the new group (this can be done the same way new administrators are added, by stewards or local bureaucrats).This is a dangerous permission; a malicious user or a hacker taking over the account of a careless interface-admin can abuse it in far worse ways than admin permissions could be abused. Please only assign it to users who need it, who are trusted by the community, and who follow common basic password and computer security practices (use strong passwords, do not reuse passwords, use two-factor authentication if possible, do not install software of questionable origin on your machine, use antivirus software if that's a standard thing in your environment).
asannounced previously, permission handling for CSS/JS pages has changed: only members of theinterface-admin (Interface administrators) group, and a few highly privileged global groups such as stewards, can edit CSS/JS pages that they do not own (that is, any page ending with .css or .js that is either in the MediaWiki: namespace or is another user's user subpage). This is done to improve the security of readers and editors of Wikimedia projects. More information is available atCreation of separate user group for editing sitewide CSS/JS. If you encounter any unexpected problems, please contact me or file a bug.
TheWikimedia Foundation will be testing its secondary data centre. This will make sure that 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 do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre 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 secondary data center onWednesday, 12 September 2018.OnWednesday, 10 October 2018, they will switch back to the primary data center.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, all editing must stop when we switch. 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 up to an hour on Wednesday, 12 September and Wednesday, 10 October. The test will start at14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Thursday 13 September and Thursday 11 October).
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 code freezes for the weeks of 10 September 2018 and 8 October 2018. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.
This project may be postponed if necessary. You canread the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this.Please share this information with your community. /User:Johan(WMF) (talk)
The Editing team has begun a design study of visual editing on the mobile website. New editors have trouble doing basic tasks on a smartphone, such as adding links to Wikipedia articles. You canread the report.
The Language team releaseda new version of Content Translation (CX2) last month, onInternational Translation Day. It integrates the visual editor to support templates, tables, and images. It also produces better wikitext when the translated article is published.
The Editing team wants to improve visual editing on the mobile website.Please readtheir ideas and tell the team what you think would help editors who use the mobile site.
If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to theTranslators mailing list orcontact us directly. We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation.Thank you!
Latest comment:7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Change coming to how certain templates will appear on the mobile web
Please help translate to your language
Example of improvements
Hello,
In a few weeks the Readers web team will be changing how some templates look on the mobile web site. We will make these templates more noticeable when viewing the article. We ask for your help in updating any templates that don't look correct.
What kind of templates? Specifically templates that notify readers and contributors about issues with the content of an article – the text and information in the article. Examples likeTemplate:Unreferenced orTemplate:More citations needed. Right now these notifications are hidden behind a link under the title of an article. We will format templates like these (mostly those that use Template:Ambox or message box templates in general) to show a short summary under the page title. You can tap on the "Learn more" link to get more information.
Latest comment:6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Advanced Search will become a default feature on your wiki on November 28. This new interface allows you to perform specialized searches on thesearch page, even if you don’t know anysearch syntax. Advanced Search originates from theGerman Community’s Technical Wishes project. It's already a default feature on German, Arabic, Farsi and Hungarian Wikipedia. Besides, more than 40.000 users across all wikis have tested the beta version. Feedback is welcome on thecentral feedback page.
Latest comment:6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Please help translate to your language
Love is an important subject for humanity and it is expressed in different cultures and regions in different ways across the world through different gestures, ceremonies, festivals and to document expression of this rich and beautiful emotion, we need your help so we can share and spread the depth of cultures that each region has, the best of how people of that region, celebrate love.
Wiki Loves Love (WLL) is an international photography competition of Wikimedia Commons with the subject love testimonials happening in the month of February.
The primary goal of the competition is to document love testimonials through human cultural diversity such as monuments, ceremonies, snapshot of tender gesture, and miscellaneous objects used as symbol of love; to illustrate articles in the worldwide free encyclopedia Wikipedia, and other Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) projects.
The theme of 2019 iteration isCelebrations, Festivals, Ceremonies and rituals of love.
Sign up your affiliate or individually atParticipants page.
To know more about the contest, check out ourCommons Page andFAQs
There are several prizes to grab. Hope to see you spreading love this February with Wiki Loves Love!
A new beta feature will soon be released on all wikis: TheFileExporter. It allows exports of files from a local wiki to Wikimedia Commons, including their file history and page history. Which files can be exported is defined by each wiki's community:Please check your wiki'sconfiguration file if you want to use this feature.
The FileExporter has already been a beta feature onmediawiki.org,meta.wikimedia, deWP, faWP, arWP, koWP and onwikisource.org. After some functionality was added, it's now becoming a beta feature on all wikis. Deployment is planned for January 16. More information can be foundon the project page.
As always, feedback is highly appreciated. If you want to test the FileExporter, please activate it in youruser preferences. The best place for feedback is thecentral talk page. Thank you from Wikimedia Deutschland'sTechnical Wishes project.
You willnot be able to edit the wikis for up to 30 minutes on17 January 07:00 UTC. This is because of a database problem that has to be fixed immediately. You can still read the wikis. Some wikis are not affected. They don't get this message. You can see which wikis arenot affectedon this page. Most wikis are affected. The time you can not edit might be shorter than 30 minutes. /Johan (WMF)
The Wikimedia Foundation is planning aglobal consultation about communication. The goal is to bring Wikimedians and wiki-minded people together to improve tools for communication.
We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis, whatever their experience, their skills or their devices.
We are looking for input from as many different parts of the Wikimedia community as possible. It will come from multiple projects, in multiple languages, and with multiple perspectives.
We are currently planning the consultation. We need your help.
We need volunteers to help talk to their communities or user groups.
You can help by hosting a discussion at your wiki. Here's what to do:
Next, create a page (or a section on a Village pump, or an e-mail thread – whatever is natural for your group) to collect information from other people in your group. This is not a vote or decision-making discussion: we are just collecting feedback.
Then ask people what they think about communication processes. We want to hear stories and other information about how people communicate with each other on and off wiki. Please consider asking these five questions:
When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you?
What about talk pages works for newcomers, and what blocks them?
What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to the technical limitations?
What are the important aspects of a "wiki discussion"?
You can also help build the list of the many different ways people talk to each other.
Not all groups active on wikis or around wikis use the same way to discuss things: it can happen on wiki, on social networks, through external tools... Tell ushow your group communicates.
Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today! --The Wikipedia Library Team 17:40, 13 Eyo Kwindla 2019 (UTC)
You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contactOcaasi (WMF).
You willnot be able to edit most Wikimedia wikis for up to 30 minutes on11 April 05:00 UTC. This is because of a hardware problem. You can still read the wikis. Youcan see which wikis are affected. The time you can not edit might be shorter than 30 minutes. /Johan (WMF)
10:56, 8 EkaTshazimpuzi 2019 (UTC)
Wikimedia Foundation Medium-Term Plan feedback request
The mobile visual editor is a simpler editing tool, for smartphones and tablets using themobile site. The Editing team recently launched two new features to improve the mobile visual editor:
The purpose is to help contributors focus on their edits.
The team studied this with an A/B test.This test showed that contributors who could use section editing were1% more likely to publish the edits they started than people with only full-page editing.
This is a list of our most active projects.Watch these pages to learn about project updates and to share your input on new designs, prototypes and research findings.
Edit cards: This is a clearer way to add and edit links, citations, images, templates, etc. in articles. You can try this feature now.Go here to see how:📲Try Edit Cards.
Mobile toolbar refresh: This project will learn if contributors are more successful when the editing tools are easier to recognize.
Mobile visual editor availability: This A/B test asks:Are newer contributors more successful if they use the mobile visual editor? We are collaborating with20 Wikipedias to answer this question.
Usability improvements: This project will make the mobile visual editor easier to use. The goal is to let contributors stay focused on editing and to feel more confident in the editing tools.
Wikimania: Several members of the Editing Team will be attendingWikimania in August 2019. They will lead a session about mobile editing in theCommunity Growth space. Talk to the team about how editing can be improved.
Talk Pages: In the coming months, the Editing Team will beginimproving talk pages and communication on the wikis.
TheVisualEditor on mobile is a good place to learn more about the projects we are working on. The team wants to talk with you about anything related to editing. If you have something to say or ask, please leave a message atTalk:VisualEditor on mobile.
Last month, the Wikimedia Foundation's Trust & Safety teamannounced a future consultation about partial and/or temporaryoffice actions. We want to let you know that thedraft version of this consultation has now beenposted on Meta.
This is adraft. It is not intended to be the consultation itself, which will be posted on Meta likely in early September. Please do not treat this draft as a consultation. Instead, we ask your assistance in forming the final language for the consultation.
For that end, we would like your input over the next couple of weeks about what questions the consultation should ask about partial and temporary Foundation office action bans and how it should be formatted.Please post it on the draft talk page. Our goal is to provide space for the community to discuss all the aspects of these office actions that need to be discussed, and we want to ensure with your feedback that the consultation is presented in the best way to encourage frank and constructive conversation.
Please visitthe consultation draft on Meta-wiki and leave your comments on the draft’s talk page about what the consultation should look like and what questions it should ask.
Thank you for your input! -- TheTrust & Safety team 08:03, 16 EyeThupha 2019 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Foundation wants to work on two things that affect how we patrol changes and handle vandalism and harassment. We want to make the tools that are used to handle bad edits better. We also want to get better privacy for unregistered users so their IP addresses are no longer shown to everyone in the world. We would not hide IP addresses until we have better tools for patrolling.
We have an idea of what toolscould be working better and how a more limited access to IP addresses would change things, but we need to hear from more wikis. You can read more about the projecton Meta andpost comments and feedback. Now is when we need to hear from you to be able to give you better tools to handle vandalism, spam and harassment.
You can post in your language if you can't write in English.
Latest comment:6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello,
In arecent statement, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trusteesrequested that staff hold a consultation to "re-evaluat[e] or add community input to the two new office action policy tools (temporary and partial Foundation bans)".
Hello. The Readers Web team at the WMF will work on someimprovements to the desktop interface over the next couple of years. The goal is to increase usability without removing any functionality. We have been inspired by changes made by volunteers, but that currently only exist as local gadgets and user scripts, prototypes, and volunteer-led skins. We would like to begin the process of bringing some of these changes into the default experience on all Wikimedia projects.
We are currently in the research stage of this project and are looking for ideas for improvements, as well as feedback on our current ideas and mockups. So far, we have performed interviews with community members at Wikimania. We have gathered lists of previous volunteer and WMF work in this area. We are examining possible technical approaches for such changes.
We would like individual feedback on the following:
Identifying focus areas for the project we have not yet discovered
Expanding the list of existing gadgets and user scripts that are related to providing a better desktop experience. If you can think of some of these from your wiki, please let us know
Feedback on the ideas and mockups we have collected so far
We would also like to gather a list of wikis that would be interested in being test wikis for this project - these wikis would be the first to receive the updates once we’re ready to start building.
When giving feedback, please consider the following goals of the project:
Make it easier for readers to focus on the content
Provide easier access to everyday actions (e.g. search, language switching, editing)
Put things in logical and useful places
Increase consistency in the interface with other platforms - mobile web and the apps
Eliminate clutter
Plan for future growth
As well as the following constraints:
Not touching the content - no work will be done in terms of styling templates or to the structure of page contents themselves
Not removing any functionality - things might move around, but all navigational items and other functionality currently available by default will remain
No drastic changes to the layout - we're taking an evolutionary approach to the changes and want the site to continue feeling familiar to readers and editors
After this round of feedback, we plan on building a prototype of suggested changes based on the feedback we receive. You’ll hear from us again asking for feedback on this prototype.
Latest comment:6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
A new beta feature will soon be deployed to your wiki:Reference Previews. As you might guess from the name, this feature gives you a preview of references in the article text. That means, you can look up a reference without jumping down to the bottom of the page.
Reference Previews have already been a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia since April. Now they will become available on more wikis. Deployment is planned for October 24. More information can be foundon the project page.
As always, feedback is highly appreciated. If you want to test Reference Previews, please activate the beta feature in youruser preferences and let us know what you think. The best place for feedback is thecentral talk page. We hope the feature will serve you well in your work. Thank you from Wikimedia Deutschland'sTechnical Wishes project.
What talk page interactions do you remember? Is it a story about how someone helped you to learn something new? Is it a story about how someone helped you get involved in a group? Something else? Whatever your story is, we want to hear it!
Please tell us a story about how you used a talk page.Please share a link to a memorable discussion, or describe it on thetalk page for this project. The team wants your examples. These examples will help everyone develop a shared understanding of what this project should support and encourage.
TheTalk Pages Consultation was a global consultation to define better tools for wiki communication. From February through June 2019, more than 500 volunteers on 20 wikis, across 15 languages and multiple projects, came together with members of the Foundation to create a product direction for a set of discussion tools. ThePhase 2 Report of the Talk Page Consultation was published in August. It summarizes the product direction the team has started to work on, which you can read more about here:Talk Page Project project page.
The team needs and wants your help at this early stage. They are starting to develop the first idea. Please add your name to the"Getting involved" section of the project page, if you would like to hear about opportunities to participate.
The Editing team is trying to make it simpler to edit on mobile devices. The team is changing thevisual editor on mobile. If you have something to say about editing on a mobile device, please leave a message atTalk:VisualEditor on mobile.
In September, the Editing team updated the mobile visual editor's editing toolbar. Anyone could see these changes in the mobile visual editor.
One toolbar: All of the editing tools are located in one toolbar. Previously, the toolbar changed when you clicked on different things.
New navigation: The buttons for moving forward and backward in the edit flow have changed.
Seamless switching: animproved workflow for switching between the visual and wikitext modes.
Feedback: You can try the refreshed toolbar by opening the mobile VisualEditor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on theToolbar feedback talk page.
Talk Pages Project: The team is thinking about the first set of proposed changes. The team will be working with a few communities to pilot those changes. The best way to stay informed is by adding your username to the list on the project page:Getting involved.
Testing the mobile visual editor as the default: The Editing team plans to post results before the end of the calendar year. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist:VisualEditor as mobile default project page.
Measuring the impact of Edit Cards: This study asks whether the project helped editors add links and citations. The Editing team hopes to share results in November. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist:Edit Cards project page.
Latest comment:5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello
The Wikimedia Foundation’s Community Development team is seeking to learn more about the way volunteers learn and develop into the many different roles that exist in the movement. Our goal is to build a movement informed framework that provides shared clarity and outlines accessible pathways on how to grow and develop skills within the movement. To this end, we are looking to speak with you, our community to learn about your journey as a Wikimedia volunteer. Whether you joined yesterday or have been here from the very start, we want to hear about the many ways volunteers join and contribute to our movement.
To learn more about the project,please visit the Meta page. If you are interested in participating in the project, please completethis simple Google form. Although we may not be able to speak to everyone who expresses interest, we encourage you to complete this short form if you are interested in participating!
Latest comment:5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Sorry, for writing this text in English. If you could help to translate it, it would be appreciated.
You might know the new interface for edit conflicts (currently a beta feature). Now, Wikimedia Germany is designing an additional interface to solve edit conflicts on talk pages. This interface is shown to you when you write on a discussion page and another person writes a discussion post in the same line and saves it before you do. With this additional editing conflict interface you can adjust the order of the comments and edit your comment. We are inviting everyone to have a look atthe planned feature. Let us know what you think on ourcentral feedback page! -- For the Technical Wishes Team:Max Klemm (WMDE)14:15, 26 EyoMdumba 2020 (UTC)Reply
The team is planning some upcoming changes.Pleasereview the proposed design and share your thoughts on the talk page. The team will test features such as:
an easy way to mention another editor ("pinging"),
a rich-text visual editing option, and
other features identified through user testing or recommended by editors.
Xhosa Wikipedia logo is untranslated and left in English. Please add a localized logo for Xhosa Wikipedia. Thanks! --Agusbou2015 (talk) 21:47, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
This issue of theEditing newsletter includes information theTalk pages project, an effort to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily.
Reply tool: This is available as a Beta Feature at the four partner wikis (Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian Wikipedias). The Beta Feature is called "Discussion tools". The Beta Feature will getnew features soon. The new features include writing comments in a new visual editing mode and pinging other users by typing@. You cantest the new features on theBeta Cluster now. Some other wikis will have a chance to try the Beta Feature in the coming months.
New requirements for user signatures: Soon, users will not be able to save invalid custom signatures inSpecial:Preferences. This will reduce signature spoofing, prevent page corruption, and make new talk page tools more reliable. Most editors will not be affected.
Research on the use of talk pages: The Editing team worked with theWikimedia research team to study how talk pages help editors improve articles. We learned that new editors who use talk pages make more edits to the main namespace than new editors who don't use talk pages.
This is to invite you to join the Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos (WPWP) campaign to help improve Wikipedia articles with photos and win prizes. The campaign starts today 1st July 2020 and closes 31st August 2020.
The campaign primarily aims at using images from Wikimedia Commons on Wikipedia articles that are lacking images. Participants will choose among Wikipedia pages without photo images, then add a suitable file from among the many thousands of photos in the Wikimedia Commons, especially those uploaded from thematic contests (Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Folklore, etc.) over the years.
Please visit thecampaign page to learn more about the WPWP Campaign.
With kind regards,
Thank you,
Deborah Schwartz Jacobs, Communities Liaison, On behalf of the Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Organizing Team - 08:24, 1 EyeKhala 2020 (UTC)
feel free to translate this message to your local language when this helps your community
Hello. Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language.Please help translate to your language if necessary.Thank you!
There are a lot of conversations happening about the future of our movement names. We hope that you are part of these discussions and that your community is represented.
Since 16 June, the Foundation Brand Team has been running asurvey in 7 languages about3 naming options. There are also community members sharing concerns about renaming in aCommunity Open Letter.
Our goal in this call for feedback is to hear from across the community, so we encourage you to participate in the survey, the open letter, or both. The survey will go through 7 July in all timezones. Input from the survey and discussions will be analyzed and published on Meta-Wiki.
Thanks for thinking about the future of the movement, --The Brand Project team, 19:42, 2 EyeKhala 2020 (UTC)
Note: The survey is conducted via a third-party service, which may subject it to additional terms. For more information on privacy and data-handling, see thesurvey privacy statement.
More than50 million edits have been made using the visual editor on desktop.
Seven years ago this month, theEditing team offered the visual editor to most Wikipedia editors. Since then, editors have achieved many milestones:
More than50 million edits have been made using the visual editor on desktop.
More than2 million new articles have been created in the visual editor. More than 600,000 of these new articles were created during 2019.
The visual editor isincreasingly popular. The proportion of all edits made using the visual editor has increased every year since its introduction.
In 2019,35% of the edits by newcomers (logged-in editors with ≤99 edits) used the visual editor. This percentage hasincreased every year.
Almost5 million edits on the mobile site have been made with the visual editor. Most of these edits have been made since the Editing team started improving themobile visual editor in 2018.
Editors have made more than7 million edits in the 2017 wikitext editor, including starting600,000 new articles in it. The2017 wikitext editor is VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode. You canenable it in your preferences.
Latest comment:5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hi all,
It is my honor to introduce Abstract Wikipedia, a new project that has been unanimously approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Abstract Wikipedia proposes a new way to generate baseline encyclopedic content in a multilingual fashion, allowing more contributors and more readers to share more knowledge in more languages. It is an approach that aims to make cross-lingual cooperation easier on our projects, increase the sustainability of our movement through expanding access to participation, improve the user experience for readers of all languages, and innovate in free knowledge by connecting some of the strengths of our movement to create something new.
This is our first new project in over seven years. Abstract Wikipedia was submitted as a project proposal by Denny Vrandečić in May 2020[1] after years of preparation and research, leading to a detailed plan and lively discussions in the Wikimedia communities. We know that the energy and the creativity of the community often runs up against language barriers, and information that is available in one language may not make it to other language Wikipedias. Abstract Wikipedia intends to look and feel like a Wikipedia, but build on the powerful, language-independent conceptual models of Wikidata, with the goal of letting volunteers create and maintain Wikipedia articles across our polyglot Wikimedia world.
The project will allow volunteers to assemble the fundamentals of an article using words and entities from Wikidata. Because Wikidata uses conceptual models that are meant to be universal across languages, it should be possible to use and extend these building blocks of knowledge to create models for articles that also have universal value. Using code, volunteers will be able to translate these abstract “articles” into their own languages. If successful, this could eventually allow everyone to read about any topic in Wikidata in their own language.
As you can imagine, this work will require a lot of software development, and a lot of cooperation among Wikimedians. In order to make this effort possible, Denny will join the Foundation as a staff member in July and lead this initiative. You may know Denny as the creator of Wikidata, a long-time community member, a former staff member at Wikimedia Deutschland, and a former Trustee at the Wikimedia Foundation[2]. We are very excited that Denny will bring his skills and expertise to work on this project alongside the Foundation’s product, technology, and community liaison teams.
It is important to acknowledge that this is an experimental project, and that every Wikipedia community has different needs. This project may offer some communities great advantages. Other communities may engage less. Every language Wikipedia community will be free to choose and moderate whether or how they would use content from this project.
We are excited that this new wiki-project has the possibility to advance knowledge equity through increased access to knowledge. It also invites us to consider and engage with critical questions about how and by whom knowledge is constructed. We look forward to working in cooperation with the communities to think through these important questions.
There is much to do as we begin designing a plan for Abstract Wikipedia in close collaboration with our communities. I encourage you to get involved by going to the project page and joining the new mailing list[3]. We recognize that Abstract Wikipedia is ambitious, but we also recognize its potential. We invite you all to join us on a new, unexplored path.
Latest comment:5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
TheFileExporter and FileImporter will become a default features on all wikis until August 7, 2020. They are planned to help you to move files from your local wiki to Wikimedia Commons easier while keeping all original file information (Description, Source, Date, Author, View History) intact. Additionally, the move is documented in the files view history. How does it work?
Step 1: If you are an auto-confirmed user, you will see a link "Move file to Wikimedia Commons" on the local file page.
Step 2: When you click on this link, the FileImporter checks if the file can in fact be moved to Wikimedia Commons. These checks are performed based on the wiki'sconfiguration file which is created and maintained by each local wiki community.
Step 3: If the file is compatible with Wikimedia Commons, you will be taken to an import page, at which you can update or add information regarding the file, such as the description. You can also add the 'Now Commons' template to the file on the local wiki by clicking the corresponding check box in the import form. Admins can delete the file from the local wiki by enabling the corresponding checkbox. By clicking on the 'Import' button at the end of the page, the file is imported to Wikimedia Commons.
TheWikimedia Foundation will be testing its secondary data centre. This will make sure that 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 do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre 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 secondary data centre onTuesday, September 1st 2020.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. 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 up to an hour on Tuesday, September 1st. The test will start at14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday September 2).
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 code freezes for the week of September 1st, 2020. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.
This project may be postponed if necessary. You canread the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this.Please share this information with your community.
A significant portion of our collection now no longer requires individual applications to access! Read more in ourrecent blog post.
Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects! --The Wikipedia Library Team 09:49, 3 Eyo Msintsi 2020 (UTC)
Hello. Apologies for cross-posting, and that you may not be reading this message in your native language: translations of the following announcement may be available onMeta.Please help translate to your language.Thank you!
We are excited to sharea draft of the Universal Code of Conduct, which the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees called for earlier this year, for your review and feedback. The discussion will be open until October 6, 2020.
The UCoC Drafting Committee wants to learn which parts of the draft would present challenges for you or your work. What is missing from this draft? What do you like, and what could be improved?
Please join the conversation and share this invitation with others who may be interested to join, too.
To reduce language barriers during the process, you are welcomed to translate this message and theUniversal Code of Conduct/Draft review. You and your community may choose to provide your opinions/feedback using your local languages.
Hello. Please help pick a name for the new Wikimedia wiki project. This project will be a wiki where the community can work together on a library offunctions. The community can create new functions, read about them, discuss them, and share them. Some of these functions will be used to help create language-independent Wikipedia articles that can be displayed in any language, as part of the Abstract Wikipedia project. But functions will also be usable in many other situations.
There will be two rounds of voting, each followed by legal review of candidates, with voting beginning on 29 September and 27 October. Our goal is to have a final project name selected on 8 December. If you would like to participate, thenplease learn more and vote now at meta-wiki.Thank you! --Quiddity (WMF)
21:23, 29 Eyo Msintsi 2020 (UTC)
Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric
Latest comment:5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello. Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language.Please help translate to your language.
Today the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees starts two calls for feedback. One is about changes to the Bylaws mainly to increase the Board size from 10 to 16 members. The other one is about a trustee candidate rubric to introduce new, more effective ways to evaluate new Board candidates. The Board welcomes your comments through 26 October. For more details,check the full announcement.
Hi, I am using content translation tool to translate the page "Magema Magwaza Fuze" into isiXhosa. However, the system does not allow my translation around his picture. Can anyone help?Unisnomden (talk)
TheWikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that 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 do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre 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 back to the primary data center onTuesday, October 27 2020.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. 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 up to an hour on Tuesday, October 27. The test will start at14:00 UTC (14:00 WET, 15:00 CET, 10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 03:00 NZDT on Wednesday October 28).
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 code freezes for the week of October 26, 2020. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.
This project may be postponed if necessary. You canread the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens.Please share this information with your community.
Hello.Reminder: Please help to choose the name for the new Wikimedia wiki project - the library of functions. The finalist vote starts today. The finalists for the name are:Wikicode, Wikicodex, Wikifunctions, Wikifusion, Wikilambda, Wikimedia Functions. If you would like to participate, thenplease learn more and vote now at Meta-wiki.Thank you! --Quiddity (WMF)
The2021 Community Wishlist Survey is now open!This survey is the process where communities decide what theCommunity Tech team should work on over the next year. We encourage everyone to submit proposals until the deadline on30 Eye Nkanga, or comment on other proposals to help make them better.The communities will vote on the proposals between8 Eyo Mnga and21 Eyo Mnga.
The Community Tech team is focused on tools for experienced Wikimedia editors.You can write proposals in any language, and we will translate them for you. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing your proposals!
Latest comment:4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Sorry for sending this message in English. Translations are available onthis page. Feel free to translate it in more languages!
As you may know, you can include changes coming from Wikidata in your Watchlist and Recent Changes (in your preferences). Until now, this feature didn’t always include changes made on Wikidata descriptions due to the way Wikidata tracks the data used in a given article.
Starting on December 3rd, the Watchlist and Recent Changes will include changes on the descriptions of Wikidata Items that are used in the pages that you watch. This will only include descriptions in the language of your wiki to make sure that you’re only seeing changes that are relevant to your wiki.
This improvement was requested by many users from different projects. We hope that it can help you monitor the changes on Wikidata descriptions that affect your wiki and participate in the effort of improving the data quality on Wikidata for all Wikimedia wikis and beyond.
Note: if you didn’t use the Wikidata watchlist integration feature for a long time, feel free to give it another chance! The feature has been improved since the beginning and the content it displays is more precise and useful than at the beginning of the feature in 2015.
If you encounter any issue or want to provide feedback, feel free to usethis Phabricator ticket. Thanks!
Latest comment:4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello all,
The ceremony of the 2020Wikimedia Coolest Tool Award will take place virtually on Friday, December 11th, at 17:00 GMT. This award is highlighting tools that have been nominated by contributors to the Wikimedia projects, and the ceremony will be a nice moment to show appreciation to the tools developers and maybe discover new tools!
We invite all registered users to vote on the2021 Community Wishlist Survey. You can vote from now until21 December for as many different wishes as you want.
In the Survey, wishes for new and improved tools for experienced editors are collected. After the voting, we will do our best to grant your wishes. We will start with the most popular ones.
We, theCommunity Tech, are one of theWikimedia Foundation teams. We create and improve editing and wiki moderation tools. What we work on is decided based on results of the Community Wishlist Survey. Once a year, you can submit wishes. After two weeks, you can vote on the ones that you're most interested in. Next, we choose wishes from the survey to work on. Some of the wishes may be granted by volunteer developers or other teams.
Latest comment:4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
This is the announcement for theProject Grants program open call that started on January 11, with the submission deadline of February 10, 2021. This first open call will be focussed on Community Organizing proposals. A second open call focused on research and software proposals is scheduled from February 15 with a submission deadline of March 16, 2021.
For the Round 1 open call, we invite you to propose grant applications that fall under community development and organizing (offline and online) categories. Project Grant funds are available to support individuals, groups, and organizations to implement new experiments and proven ideas, from organizing a better process on your wiki, coordinating a campaign or editathon series to providing other support for community building. We offer the following resources to help you plan your project and complete a grant proposal:
Weekly proposals clinics via Zoom during the Open Call. Join us for#Upcoming_Proposal_Clinics|real-time discussions with Program Officers and select thematic experts and get live feedback about your Project Grants proposal. We’ll answer questions and help you make your proposal better. We also offer these support pages to help you build your proposal:
Program officers are also available to offer individualized proposal support upon request. Contact us if you would like feedback or more information.
We are excited to see your grant ideas that will support our community and make an impact on the future of Wikimedia projects. Put your idea into motion, andsubmit your proposal by February 10, 2021!
PNAS – Official journal of the National Academy of Sciences
EBSCO – New Arabic and Spanish language databases added
We have a wide array ofother collections available, and a significant number now no longer require individual applications to access! Read more in ourblog post.
Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects!
Latest comment:4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Please help translate to your language
Greetings!
You are invited to participate inFeminism and Folklore writing contest. This year Feminism and Folklore will focus on feminism, women's biographies and gender-focused topics for the project in league with Wiki Loves Folklore gender gap focus with folk culture theme on Wikipedia. folk activities, folk games, folk cuisine, folk wear, fairy tales, folk plays, folk arts, folk religion, mythology, etc.
You can help us in enriching the folklore documentation on Wikipedia from your region by creating or improving articles centered on folklore around the world, including, but not limited to folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, women and queer personalities in folklore, folk culture (folk artists, folk dancers, folk singers, folk musicians, folk game athletes, women in mythology, women warriors in folklore, witches and witch-hunting, fairy tales and more. You can contribute to new articles or translate from the list ofsuggested articles here.
You can also support us in translating theproject page and help us spread the word in your native language.
Learn more about the contest and prizes from ourproject page. Thank you.
Hello. Please help to choose a design concept for the logo of the new Wikifunctions wiki. Voting starts today and will be open for 2 weeks. If you would like to participate, thenplease learn more and vote now at Meta-Wiki.Thank you! --Quiddity (WMF)
TheUniversal Code of Conduct (UCoC) provides a universal baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire Wikimedia movement and all its projects. The project is currently in Phase 2, outlining clear enforcement pathways. You can read more about the whole project on itsproject page.
The Wikimedia Foundation is recruiting volunteers to join a committee to draft how to make the code enforceable. Volunteers on the committee will commit between 2 and 6 hours per week from late April through July and again in October and November. It is important that the committee be diverse and inclusive, and have a range of experiences, including both experienced users and newcomers, and those who have received or responded to, as well as those who have been falsely accused of harassment.
From 5 April – 5 May 2021 there will be conversations on many Wikimedia projects about how to enforce the UCoC. We are looking for volunteers to translate key material, as well as to help host consultations on their own languages or projects using suggestedkey questions. If you are interested in volunteering for either of these roles, pleasecontact us in whatever language you are most comfortable.
Latest comment:4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Example
From April 15, you can enable line numbering in some wikitext editors - for now in the template namespace, coming to more namespaces soon. This will make it easier to detect line breaks and to refer to a particular line in discussions. These numbers will be shown if you enable the syntax highlighting feature (CodeMirror extension), which is supported in the2010 and2017 wikitext editors.
Latest comment:4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
From April 29, it will be possible to suggest values for parameters in templates. Suggested values can be added toTemplateData and will then be shown as a drop-down list inVisualEditor. This allows template users to quickly select an appropriate value. This way, it prevents potential errors and reduces the effort needed to fill the template with values. It will still be possible to fill in values other than the suggested ones.
More information, including the supported parameter types and how to create suggested values:[1][2]. Everyone is invited to test the feature, and to give feedbackon this talk page.
Apologies as this message is not in your native language,Please help translate to your language.
The WMF language team is reaching out to your community, the Xhosa Wikipedia, about theContent translation tool.
We noticed that articles created with the Content Translation tool in your wiki are deleted frequently. We say this because, from our statistics, 44 articles were added to Xhosa Wikipedia in 2020. Out of the above figure, only 1 was translated using the Content Translation tool; 9 articles added with Content translation were deleted. The deletion rate and the tool's low usage signals a problem or deficiencies that might be peculiar to Xhosa Wikipedia. The Content Translation tool can increase content creation in your Wikipedia. Also, it is an excellent way to efficiently introduce newcomers to adding content and expand on existing ones.
So we, the WMF Language team will like to get answers from members of your community on the following questions:
What deficiencies do articles created with the Content translation tool have that makes them not of good quality?
What makes it challenging to use the tool to create content in your Wikipedia.
How can this tool be improved to make it more user-friendly and efficient to add good quality content in your language Wikipedia?
We believe that the answers to the above questions are good ways to get insight into improving the tool for your community and others. Please, feel free to provide us feedback in this thread oremail us your feedback using the title of this message as your subject.
Thank you so much, as we look forward to your participation.
--Iqonga lakho othetha kulo 18:56, 26 Inyanga kaCanz... 2021 (UTC) On behalf of the WMF Language team.
Welcome to the first issue ofUniversal Code of Conduct News! This newsletter will help Wikimedians stay involved with the development of the new code, and will distribute relevant news, research, and upcoming events related to the UCoC.
Please note, this is the first issue of UCoC Newsletter which is delivered to all subscribers and projects as an announcement of the initiative. If you want the future issues delivered to your talk page, village pumps, or any specific pages you find appropriate, you need tosubscribe here.
You can help us by translating the newsletter issues in your languages to spread the news and create awareness of the new conduct to keep our beloved community safe for all of us. Pleaseadd your name here if you want to be informed of the draft issue to translate beforehand. Your participation is valued and appreciated.
Affiliate consultations – Wikimedia affiliates of all sizes and types were invited to participate in the UCoC affiliate consultation throughout March and April 2021. (continue reading)
2021 key consultations – The Wikimedia Foundation held enforcement key questions consultations in April and May 2021 to request input about UCoC enforcement from the broader Wikimedia community. (continue reading)
Roundtable discussions – The UCoC facilitation team hosted two 90-minute-long public roundtable discussions in May 2021 to discuss UCoC key enforcement questions. More conversations are scheduled. (continue reading)
Phase 2 drafting committee – The drafting committee for the phase 2 of the UCoC started their work on 12 May 2021. Read more about their work. (continue reading)
Diff blogs – The UCoC facilitators wrote several blog posts based on interesting findings and insights from each community during local project consultation that took place in the 1st quarter of 2021. (continue reading)
Wikimania 2021 will behosted virtually for the first time in the event's 15-year history. Since there is no in-person host, the event is being organized by a diverse group of Wikimedia volunteers that form theCore Organizing Team (COT) for Wikimania 2021.
Event Program - Individuals or a group of individuals can submit their session proposals to be a part of the program. There will be translation support for sessions provided in a number of languages. See more informationhere.
Please note that the deadline for submission is 18th June 2021.
Announcements- To keep up to date with the developments around Wikimania, the COT sends out weekly updates. You can view them in the Announcement sectionhere.
Office Hour - If you are left with questions, the COT will be hosting some office hours (in multiple languages), in multiple time-zones, to answer any programming questions that you might have. Details can be foundhere.
When newcomers had the Reply tool and tried to post on a talk page, they were more successful at posting a comment. (Source)
Earlier this year, the Editing team ran a large study ofthe Reply Tool. The main goal was to find out whether the Reply Tool helpednewer editors communicate on wiki. The second goal was to see whether the comments that newer editors made using the tool needed to be reverted more frequently than comments newer editors made with the existing wikitext page editor.
The key results were:
Newer editors who had automatic ("default on") access to the Reply tool weremore likely to post a comment on a talk page.
The comments that newer editors made with the Reply Tool were alsoless likely to be reverted than the comments that newer editors made with page editing.
These results give the Editing team confidence that the tool is helpful.
Looking ahead
The team is planning to make the Reply tool available to everyone as an opt-out preference in the coming months. This has already happened at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.
TheWikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that 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 do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. 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 up to an hour on Tuesday, 29 June 2021. The test will start at14:00 UTC (07:00 PDT, 10:00 EDT, 15:00 WEST/BST, 16:00 CEST, 19:30 IST, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday 30 June).
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 code freezes for the week of June 28. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.
This project may be postponed if necessary. You canread the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens.Please share this information with your community.
Additionally,De Gruyter andNomos have been centralised from their previous on-wiki signup location on the German Wikipedia. Many other collections are freely available by simply logging in toThe Wikipedia Library with your Wikimedia login!
We are also excited to announce that the first version of a new design for My Library was deployed this week. We will be iterating on this design with more features over the coming weeks. Read more on theproject page on Meta.
Lastly, an Echo notification will begin rolling out soon to notify eligible editors about the library (T132084). If you can translate the notification please do soat TranslateWiki!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 13:23, 11 EyeThupha 2021 (UTC)
These guidelines are not final but you can help move the progress forward. The committee will revise the guidelines based upon community input.
Comments can be shared in any language on thedraft review talk page andmultiple other venues. Community members are encouraged to organize conversations in their communities.
There are planned live discussions about the UCoC enforcement draft guidelines:
Thank you for participating in the2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election! Voting closed August 31 at 23:59. The official data, including the four most voted candidates, will be announced as soon as theElections Committee completes their review of the ballots. The official announcement of the new trustees appointed will happen later, once the selected candidates have been confirmed by the Board.
6,946 community members from 216 wiki projects have voted. This makes 10.2% global participation, 1.1% higher than in the last Board elections. In 2017, 5167 people from 202 wiki projects cast their vote. A full analysis is planned to be published in a few days when the confirmed results are announced. In the meantime, you can check thedata produced during the election.
Diversity was an important goal with these elections. Messages about the Board election were translated into 61 languages. This outreach worked well. There were 70 communities with eligible voters voting in this election for the first time. With your help, next year’s Board of Trustees election will be even better.
10:03, 2 Eyo Msintsi 2021 (UTC)
The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey will happen in January
Latest comment:4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello everyone,
We hope all of you are as well and safe as possible during these trying times! We wanted to share some news about a change to the Community Wishlist Survey 2022. We would like to hear your opinions as well.
In the past, theCommunity Tech team has run the Community Wishlist Survey for the following year in November of the prior year. For example, we ran theWishlist for 2021 in November 2020. That worked well a few years ago. At that time, we used to start working on the Wishlist soon after the results of the voting were published.
However, in 2021, there was a delay between the voting and the time when we could start working on the new wishes. Until July 2021, we were working on wishes from theWishlist for 2020.
We hope having the Wishlist 2022 in January 2022 will be more intuitive. This will also give us time to fulfill more wishes from the 2021 Wishlist.
Encouraging wider participation from historically excluded communities
We are thinking how to make the Wishlist easier to participate in. We want to support more translations, and encourage under-resourced communities to be more active. We would like to have some time to make these changes.
A new space to talk to us about priorities and wishes not granted yet
We will have gone 365 days without a Wishlist. We encourage you to approach us. We hope to hear from you in thetalk page, but we also hope to see you at our bi-monthly Talk to Us meetings! These will be hosted at two different times friendly to time zones around the globe.
We will begin our first meetingSeptember 15th at 23:00 UTC. More details about the agenda and format coming soon!
Brainstorm and draft proposals before the proposal phase
If you have early ideas for wishes, you can use thenew Community Wishlist Survey sandbox. This way, you will not forget about these before January 2022. You will be able to come back and refine your ideas. Remember, edits in the sandbox don't count as wishes!
The Committee is expected to representdiversity in the Movement. Diversity includes gender, language, geography, and experience. This comprises participation in projects, affiliates, and the Wikimedia Foundation.
English fluency is not required to become a member. If needed, translation and interpretation support is provided. Members will receive an allowance to offset participation costs. It is US$100 every two months.
We are looking for people who have some of the followingskills:
Know how to write collaboratively. (demonstrated experience is a plus)
Are ready to find compromises.
Focus on inclusion and diversity.
Have knowledge of community consultations.
Have intercultural communication experience.
Have governance or organization experience in non-profits or communities.
Have experience negotiating with different parties.
The Committee is expected to start with 15 people. If there are 20 or more candidates, a mixed election and selection process will happen. If there are 19 or fewer candidates, then the process of selection without election takes place.
Will you help move Wikimedia forward in this important role? Submit your candidacyhere. Please contact strategy2030wikimedia.org with questions.
TheWikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that 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 do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre 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 back to the primary data center onTuesday, 14 September 2021.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. 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 up to an hour on Tuesday, 14 September 2021. The test will start at14:00 UTC (07:00 PDT, 10:00 EDT, 15:00 WEST/BST, 16:00 CEST, 19:30 IST, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday, 15 September).
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.
We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
This project may be postponed if necessary. You canread the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens.Please share this information with your community.
The meeting will not be recorded or streamed. Notes without attribution will be taken and published on Meta-Wiki. The presentation (first three points in the agenda) will be given in English.
We can answer questions asked in English, French, Polish, and Spanish. If you would like to ask questions in advance, add themon the Community Wishlist Survey talk page or send to sgrabarczuk@wikimedia.org.
Voting for the election for the members for the Movement Charter drafting committee is now open. In total, 70 Wikimedians from around the world are running for 7 seats in these elections.
Voting is open from October 12 to October 24, 2021.
The committee will consist of 15 members in total: The online communities vote for 7 members, 6 members will be selected by the Wikimedia affiliates through a parallel process, and 2 members will be appointed by the Wikimedia Foundation. The plan is to assemble the committee by November 1, 2021.
We are piloting a voting advice application for this election. Click yourself through the tool and you will see which candidate is closest to you! Check at <https://mcdc-election-compass.toolforge.org/>
The Board of Trustees is preparing a call for feedback about the upcoming Board Elections, from January 7 - February 10, 2022.
While details will be finalized the week before the call, we have confirmed at least two questions that will be asked during this call for feedback:
What is the best way to ensure fair representation of emerging communities among the Board?
What involvement should candidates have during the election?
While additional questions may be added, the Movement Strategy and Governance team wants to provide time for community members and affiliates to consider and prepare ideas on the confirmed questions before the call opens. We apologize for not having a complete list of questions at this time. The list of questions should only grow by one or two questions. The intention is to not overwhelm the community with requests, but provide notice and welcome feedback on these important questions.
Do you want to help organize local conversation during this Call?
Reach out if you have any questions or concerns. The Movement Strategy and Governance team will be minimally staffed until January 3. Please excuse any delayed response during this time. We also recognize some community members and affiliates are offline during the December holidays. We apologize if our message has reached you while you are on holiday.
Latest comment:3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Please help translate to your language
Greetings! You are invited to participate inFeminism and Folklore 2022 writing competion. This year Feminism and Folklore will focus on feminism, women biographies and gender-focused topics for the project in league with Wiki Loves Folklore gender gap focus with folk culture theme on Wikipedia.
You can help us in enriching the folklore documentation on Wikipedia from your region by creating or improving articles focused on folklore around the world, including, but not limited to folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, women and queer personalities in folklore, folk culture (folk artists, folk dancers, folk singers, folk musicians, folk game athletes, women in mythology, women warriors in folklore, witches and witch hunting, fairy tales and more. You can contribute to new articles or translate from the list of suggested articleshere.
You can also support us in organizing the contest on your local Wikipedia by signing up your community to participate in this project and also translating theproject page and help us spread the word in your native language.
Learn more about the contest and prizes from our project page. Feel free to contact us on ourtalk page or via Email if you need any assistance...
The Call for Feedback: Board of Trustees elections is now open and will close on 7 February 2022.
With this Call for Feedback, the Movement Strategy and Governance team is taking a different approach. This approach incorporates community feedback from 2021. Instead of leading with proposals, the Call is framed around key questions from the Board of Trustees. The key questions came from the feedback about the 2021 Board of Trustees election. The intention is to inspire collective conversation and collaborative proposal development about these key questions.
The Call for Feedback: Board of Trustees elections is now open and will close on 7 February 2022.
With this Call for Feedback, the Movement Strategy and Governance team is taking a different approach. This approach incorporates community feedback from 2021. Instead of leading with proposals, the Call is framed around key questions from the Board of Trustees. The key questions came from the feedback about the 2021 Board of Trustees election. The intention is to inspire collective conversation and collaborative proposal development about these key questions.
Welcome to the fifth issue of Movement Strategy and Governance News (formerly known as Universal Code of Conduct News)! This revamped newsletter distributes relevant news and events about the Movement Charter, Universal Code of Conduct, Movement Strategy Implementation grants, Board elections and other relevant MSG topics.
This Newsletter will be distributed quarterly, while more frequent Updates will also be delivered weekly or bi-weekly to subscribers. Please remember to subscribehere if you would like to receive these updates.
Call for Feedback about the Board elections - We invite you to give your feedback on the upcoming WMF Board of Trustees election. This call for feedback went live on 10th January 2022 and will be concluded on 16th February 2022. (continue reading)
Universal Code of Conduct Ratification - In 2021, the WMF asked communities about how to enforce the Universal Code of Conduct policy text. The revised draft of the enforcement guidelines should be ready for community vote in March. (continue reading)
Movement Strategy Implementation Grants - As we continue to review several interesting proposals, we encourage and welcome more proposals and ideas that target a specific initiative from the Movement Strategy recommendations. (continue reading)
The New Direction for the Newsletter - As the UCoC Newsletter transitions into MSG Newsletter, join the facilitation team in envisioning and deciding on the new directions for this newsletter. (continue reading)
Diff Blogs - Check out the most recent publications about MSG on Wikimedia Diff. (continue reading)
Many participants from across the movement have provided valuable input in these ongoing conversations. The UCoC and MSG teams want to thank the Drafting Committee and the community members for their contributions to this process.
Sincerely,
Movement Strategy and Governance Wikimedia Foundation
The Community Development team at the Wikimedia Foundation is supporting the creation of a global, community-driven Leadership Development Task Force. The purpose of the task force is to advise leadership development work.
The team is looking for feedback about the responsibilities of the Leadership Development Task Force. This Meta page shares the proposal for aLeadership Development Task Force and howyou can help. Feedback on the proposal will be collected from 7 to 25 February 2022.
Greetings from Wiki Loves Folklore International Team,
We are pleased to inform you thatWiki Loves Folklore an international photographic contest on Wikimedia Commons has been extended till the15th of March 2022. The scope of the contest is focused on folk culture of different regions on categories, such as, but not limited to, folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, folk activities, etc.
We would like to have your immense participation in the photographic contest to document your local Folk culture on Wikipedia. You can also help with thetranslation of project pages and share a word in your local language.
and improvements in the syntax highlighting extensionCodeMirror (4,5) (which is available on wikis with writing direction left-to-right).
All these changes are part of the “Templates” project byWMDE Technical Wishes. We hope they will help you in your work, and we would love to hear your feedback on the talk pages of these projects.
Avote in SecurePoll from 7 to 21 March 2022 is scheduled as part of the ratification process for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement guidelines. Eligible voters are invited to answer a poll question and share comments.Read voter information and eligibility details. During the poll, voters will be asked if they support the enforcement of the Universal Code of Conduct based on the proposed guidelines.
There are events scheduled to learn more and discuss:
Acommunity panel recorded on 18 February 2022 shares perspectives from small- and medium-sized community participants.
TheMovement Strategy and Governance (MSG) team is hosting Conversation Hours on 4 March 2022 at 15:00 UTC. Pleasesign-up to interact with the project team and the drafting committee about the updated enforcement guidelines and the ratification process. See theConversation Hour summaries for notes from 4 February 2022 and 25 February 2022.
You can comment on Meta-wiki talk pages in any language. You may also contact either team by email: msgwikimedia.org or ucocprojectwikimedia.org
Sincerely,
Movement Strategy and Governance Wikimedia Foundation
The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) provides a baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire movement. The revised enforcement guidelines were published 24 January 2022 as a proposed way to apply the policy across the movement. You canread more about the UCoC project.
You can also comment on Meta-wiki talk pages in any language. You may also contact the team by email: ucocprojectwikimedia.org
The Movement Strategy and Governance team of the Wikimedia Foundation would like to invite you to the next event about "Regional and Thematic Hubs". The Wikimedia Movement is in the process of understanding what Regional and Thematic Hubs should be. Our workshop in November was a good start (read the report), but we're not finished yet.
Over the last weeks we conducted about 16 interviews with groups working on establishing a Hub in their context (see Hubs Dialogue). These interviews informed a report that will serve as a foundation for discussion on March 12. The report is planned to be published on March 9.
The event will take place on March 12, 13:00 to 16:00 UTC on Zoom. Interpretation will be provided in French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, and Portuguese. Registration is open, and will close on March 10. Anyone interested in the topic is invited to join us.More information on the event on Meta-wiki.
International photographic contest Wiki Loves Folklore 2022 ends on 15th March 2022 23:59:59 UTC. This is the last chance of the year to upload images about local folk culture, festival, cuisine, costume, folklore etc on Wikimedia Commons. Watch out our social media handles for regular updates and declaration of Winners.
The writing competition Feminism and Folklore will run till 31st of March 2022 23:59:59 UTC. Write about your local folk tradition, women, folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, folk activities, folk games, folk cuisine, folk wear, folklore, and tradition, including ballads, folktales, fairy tales, legends, traditional song and dance, folk plays, games, seasonal events, calendar customs, folk arts, folk religion, mythology etc. on your local Wikipedia. Check if yourlocal Wikipedia is participating
A special competition calledWiki Loves Falles is organised in Spain and the world during 15th March 2022 till 15th April 2022 to document local folk culture andFalles in Valencia, Spain. Learn more about it onCatalan Wikipedia project page.
We look forward for your immense co-operation.
Thanks Wiki Loves Folklore international TeamIqonga lakho othetha kulo 14:40, 14 EyoKwindla 2022 (UTC)
Leadership Development Working Group: Apply to join! (14 March to 10 April 2022)
Feminism and Folklore 2022 which is an international writing contest organized at Wikipedia ends soon that is on31 March 2022 11:59 UTC. This is the last chance of the year to write about feminism, women biographies and gender-focused topics such asfolk festivals, folk dances, folk music, folk activities, folk games, folk cuisine, folk wear, fairy tales, folk plays, folk arts, folk religion, mythology, folk artists, folk dancers, folk singers, folk musicians, folk game athletes, women in mythology, women warriors in folklore, witches and witch hunting, fairy tales and more
Keep an eye on the project page for declaration of Winners.
We look forward for your immense co-operation.
Thanks Wiki Loves Folklore international TeamIqonga lakho othetha kulo 14:29, 26 EyoKwindla 2022 (UTC)
Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines ratification voting is now closed
The ratification voting process for therevised enforcement guidelines of theUniversal Code of Conduct (UCoC) came to a close on 21 March 2022. Over2300 Wikimedians voted across different regions of our movement. Thank you to everyone who participated in this process! The scrutinizing group is now reviewing the vote for accuracy, so please allow up to two weeks for them to finish their work.
The final results from the voting process will be announcedhere, along with the relevant statistics and a summary of comments as soon as they are available. Please check outthe voter information page to learn about the next steps. You can comment on the project talk pageon Meta-wiki in any language. You may also contact the UCoC project team by email: ucocprojectwikimedia.org
Welcome to the sixth issue of Movement Strategy and Governance News! This revamped newsletter distributes relevant news and events about the Movement Charter, Universal Code of Conduct, Movement Strategy Implementation grants, Board of trustees elections and other relevant MSG topics.
This Newsletter will be distributed quarterly, while the more frequent Updates will also be delivered weekly. Please remember to subscribehere if you would like to receive future issues of this newsletter.
Leadership Development - A Working Group is Forming! - The application to join the Leadership Development Working Group closed on April 10th, 2022, and up to 12 community members will be selected to participate in the working group. (continue reading)
Universal Code of Conduct Ratification Results are out! - The global decision process on the enforcement of the UCoC via SecurePoll was held from 7 to 21 March. Over 2,300 eligible voters from at least 128 different home projects submitted their opinions and comments. (continue reading)
Movement Discussions on Hubs - The Global Conversation event on Regional and Thematic Hubs was held on Saturday, March 12, and was attended by 84 diverse Wikimedians from across the movement. (continue reading)
Movement Strategy Grants Remain Open! - Since the start of the year, six proposals with a total value of about $80,000 USD have been approved. Do you have a movement strategy project idea? Reach out to us! (continue reading)
The Movement Charter Drafting Committee is All Set! - The Committee of fifteen members which was elected in October 2021, has agreed on the essential values and methods for its work, and has started to create the outline of the Movement Charter draft. (continue reading)
Introducing Movement Strategy Weekly - Contribute and Subscribe! - The MSG team have just launched the updates portal, which is connected to the various Movement Strategy pages on Meta-wiki. Subscriber to get up-to-date news about the various ongoing projects. (continue reading)
Diff Blogs - Check out the most recent publications about Movement Strategy on Wikimedia Diff. (continue reading)
Wiley – journals, books, and research resources, covering life, health, social, and physical sciences
OECD – OECD iLibrary, Data, and Multimedia published by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
SPIE Digital Library – journals and eBooks on optics and photonics applied research
Many other sources are freely available for experienced editors, including collections which recently became accessible to all eligible editors: Cambridge University Press, BMJ, AAAS, Érudit and more.
Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: log in today! --The Wikipedia Library Team 13:18, 26 EkaTshazimpuzi 2022 (UTC)
Latest comment:3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Fundamental changes in the template dialog.
Hello, more changes around templates are coming to your wiki soon:
Thetemplate dialog in VisualEditor and in the2017 Wikitext Editor (beta) will beimproved fundamentally: This should help users understand better what the template expects, how to navigate the template, and how to add parameters.
New editors were more successful with this new tool.
TheNew topic tool helps editors create new ==Sections== on discussion pages. New editors are more successful with this new tool. You canread the report. Soon, the Editing team will offer this to all editors at the 20 Wikipedias that participated in the test. You will be able to turn it off atSpecial:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation's operations. Community-and-affiliate selected trustees and Board-appointed trustees make up the Board of Trustees. Each trustee serves a three year term. The Wikimedia community has the opportunity to vote for community-and-affiliate selected trustees.
The Wikimedia community will vote to fill two seats on the Board in 2022. This is an opportunity to improve the representation, diversity, and expertise of the Board as a team.
We'd like to provide an update on the work on the Enforcement Guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct. After the conclusion of the community vote on the guidelines in March, theCommunity Affairs committee (CAC) of the Boardasked that several areas of the guidelines be reviewed for improvements before the Board does its final review. These areas were identified based on community discussions and comments provided during the vote. The CAC also requested review of the controversial Note in 3.1 of the UCoC itself.
Once more, a big thank you to all who voted, especially to all who left constructive feedback and comments! The project team is working with the Board to establish a timeline for this work, and will communicate this next month.
Wikimedians have provided many valuable comments together with the vote and in other conversations. Given the size and diversity of the Wikimedia community, there are even more voices out there who can give ideas on how to improve the enforcement guidelines and add even more valuable ideas to the process. To help the Revisions committee identify improvements, input on several questions for the committee’s review is requested. Visit the Meta-wiki pages (Enforcement Guidelines revision discussions,Policy text revision discussions) to get your ideas to the Committee - it is very important that viewpoints are heard from different communities before the Committee begins drafting revision proposals.
We are happy to share with you winning images for this year's edition. This year saw over 8,584 images represented on commons in over 92 countries. Kindly see imageshere
Our profound gratitude to all the people who participated and organized local contests and photo walks for this project.
We hope to have you contribute to the campaign next year.
An Election Compass is a tool to help voters select the candidates that best align with their beliefs and views. The community members will propose statements for the candidates to answer using a Lickert scale (agree/neutral/disagree). The candidates’ answers to the statements will be loaded into the Election Compass tool. Voters will use the tool by entering in their answer to the statements (agree/disagree/neutral). The results will show the candidates that best align with the voter’s beliefs and views.
Here is the timeline for the Election Compass
July 8 - 20: Community members propose statements for the Election Compass
July 21 - 22: Elections Committee reviews statements for clarity and removes off-topic statements
July 23 - August 1: Volunteers vote on the statements
August 2 - 4: Elections Committee selects the top 15 statements
August 5 - 12: candidates align themselves with the statements
August 15: The Election Compass opens for voters to use to help guide their voting decision
The Elections Committee will select the top 15 statements at the beginning of August. The Elections Committee will oversee the process, supported by the Movement Strategy and Governance team. MSG will check that the questions are clear, there are no duplicates, no typos, and so on.
Best,
Movement Strategy and Governance
This message was sent on behalf of the Board Selection Task Force and the Elections Committee
Welcome to the 7th issue of Movement Strategy and Governance News! The newsletter distributes relevant news and events about the implementation of Wikimedia'sMovement Strategy recommendations, other relevant topics regarding Movement governance, as well as different projects and activities supported by the Movement Strategy and Governance (MSG) team of the Wikimedia Foundation.
The MSG Newsletter is delivered quarterly, while the more frequentMovement Strategy Weekly will be delivered weekly. Please remember to subscribehere if you would like to receive future issues of this newsletter.
Movement sustainability: Wikimedia Foundation's annual sustainability report has been published. (continue reading)
Improving user experience: recent improvements on the desktop interface for Wikimedia projects. (continue reading)
Safety and inclusion: updates on the revision process of the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines. (continue reading)
Equity in decisionmaking: reports from Hubs pilots conversations, recent progress from the Movement Charter Drafting Committee, and a new white paper for futures of participation in the Wikimedia movement. (continue reading)
Stakeholders coordination: launch of a helpdesk for Affiliates and volunteer communities working on content partnership. (continue reading)
Leadership development: updates on leadership projects by Wikimedia movement organizers in Brazil and Cape Verde. (continue reading)
Internal knowledge management: launch of a new portal for technical documentation and community resources. (continue reading)
Innovate in free knowledge: high-quality audiovisual resources for scientific experiments and a new toolkit to record oral transcripts. (continue reading)
Evaluate, iterate, and adapt: results from the Equity Landscape project pilot (continue reading)
Other news and updates: a new forum to discuss Movement Strategy implementation, upcoming Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election, a new podcast to discuss Movement Strategy, and change of personnel for the Foundation's Movement Strategy and Governance team. (continue reading)
The Affiliate voting process has concluded. Representatives from each Affiliate organization learned about the candidates by reading candidates’ statements, reviewing candidates’ answers to questions, and considering the candidates’ ratings provided by the Analysis Committee. The selected 2022 Board of Trustees candidates are:
You may see more information about theResults andStatistics of this Board election.
Please take a moment to appreciate the Affiliate Representatives and Analysis Committee members for taking part in this process and helping to grow the Board of Trustees in capacity and diversity. These hours of volunteer work connect us across understanding and perspective. Thank you for your participation.
Thank you to the community members who put themselves forward as candidates for the Board of Trustees. Considering joining the Board of Trustees is no small decision. The time and dedication candidates have shown to this point speaks to their commitment to this movement. Congratulations to those candidates who have been selected. A great amount of appreciation and gratitude for those candidates not selected. Please continue to share your leadership with Wikimedia.
Thank you to those who followed the Affiliate process for this Board election. You may review the results of the Affiliate selection process.
The next part of the Board election process is the community voting period.You may view the Board election timeline here. To prepare for the community voting period, there are several things community members can engage with in the following ways:
Read candidates’ statements and read the candidates’ answers to the questions posed by the Affiliate Representatives.
An Election Compass is a tool to help voters select the candidates that best align with their beliefs and views. The community members will propose statements for the candidates to answer using a Lickert scale (agree/neutral/disagree). The candidates’ answers to the statements will be loaded into the Election Compass tool. Voters will use the tool by entering in their answer to the statements (agree/disagree/neutral). The results will show the candidates that best align with the voter’s beliefs and views.
Here is the timeline for the Election Compass:
July 8 - 20: Volunteers propose statements for the Election Compass
July 21 - 22: Elections Committee reviews statements for clarity and removes off-topic statements
July 23 - August 1: Volunteers vote on the statements
August 2 - 4: Elections Committee selects the top 15 statements
August 5 - 12: candidates align themselves with the statements
August 15: The Election Compass opens for voters to use to help guide their voting decision
The Elections Committee will select the top 15 statements at the beginning of August
Best,
Movement Strategy and Governance
This message was sent on behalf of the Board Selection Task Force and the Elections Committee
The Community Voting period for the2022 Board of Trustees election is now open. Here are some helpful links to get you the information you need to vote:
Try theElection Compass, showing how candidates stand on 15 different topics.
If you are ready to vote, you may go toSecurePoll voting page to vote now.You may vote from August 23 at 00:00 UTC to September 6 at 23:59 UTC. To see about your voter eligibility, please visit thevoter eligibility page.
Best,
Movement Strategy and Governance
This message was sent on behalf of the Board Selection Task Force and the Elections Committee
TheMovement Strategy Forum (MS Forum) is a multilingual collaborative space for all conversations about Movement Strategy implementation.
We are inviting all Movement participants to collaborate on the MS Forum. The goal of the forum is to build community collaboration, using an inclusive multilingual platform.
TheMovement Strategy is a collaborative effort to imagine and build the future of the Wikimedia Movement. Anyone can contribute to the Movement Strategy, from a comment to a full-time project.
Join this forum with your Wikimedia account, engage in conversations, and ask questions in your language.
The Movement Strategy and Governance team (MSG) launched the proposal for the MS Forum in May 2022. There was a 2-month community review period, which ended on 24 July 2022. The community review process included several questions that resulted in interesting conversations. You can read theCommunity Review Report.
Latest comment:3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The slides for our presentation at Wikimania 2022
Hello. I'm writing on behalf of theWikimedia Foundation Web team.In two weeks, we would like to make the Vector 2022 skin the default on this wiki.
We have been working on it for the past three years. So far, it has been the default on more than 30 wikis, including sister projects, all accounting for more than 1 billion pageviews per month. On average87% of active logged-in users of those wikis use Vector 2022.
It would become the default for all logged-out users, and also all logged-in users who currently use Vector legacy. Logged-in users can at any time switch toany other skins. No changes are expected for users of these skins.
[Why is a change necessary] The current default skin meets the needs of the readers and editors as these were 13 years ago. Since then, new users have begun using Wikimedia projects.The old Vector doesn't meet their needs.
[Objective] The objective for the new skin is to make the interface more welcoming and comfortable for readers and useful for advanced users. It draws inspiration from previous requests, theCommunity Wishlist Surveys, and gadgets and scripts. The work helped our code follow the standards and improve all other skins.We reduced PHP code in Wikimedia deployed skins by 75%. The project has also focused on making it easier to support gadgets and use APIs.
[Changes and test results] The skin introduces aseries of changes that improve readability and usability. The new skin does not remove any functionality currently available on the Vector skin.
The sticky header makes it easier to find tools that editors use often. It decreases scrolling to the top of the page by 16%.
The new table of contents makes it easier to navigate to different sections. Readers and editors jumped to different sections of the page 50% more than with the old table of contents. It also looks a bit different on talk pages.
The new search bar is easier to find and makes it easier to find the correct search result from the list. This increased the amount of searches started by 30% on the wikis we tested on.
The skin does not negatively affect pageviews, edit rates, or account creation. There is evidence of increases in pageviews and account creation across partner communities.
[Try it out] Try out the new skin by going to the appearance tab inyour preferences and selecting Vector 2022 from the list of skins.
It's possible to configure and personalize our changes. We support volunteers who create new gadgets and user scripts. Check outour repository for a list of currently available customizations, or add your own.
If no large concerns are raised, we plan on deploying in the week of October 3, 2022. If your community would like to request more time to discuss the changes, hit the button and write to us. We can adjust the calendar.
Latest comment:3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello Friends!
Apologies as this message is not in your native language,Please help translate to your language.
The WMF Language team is pleased to let you know that we will like to enable the Section and Content translation tool in Xhosa Wikipedia. For this, our team will love you to read about the tool and test the newSection Translation tool so you can:
Give us your feedback
Ask us questions
Tell us how to improve it
Below is background information about the tools and how you can test the Section translation tool.
Background information
Content Translation has been a successful tool for editors to create content in their language. More than one million articles have been created across all languages since the tool was released in 2015. However, the tool is not out of beta in Xhosa Wikipedia, limiting the discoverability of the tool and its use and blocking the enablement of the Section translation in your Wikipedia
Section Translation extends the capabilities of Content Translation to support mobile devices. On mobile, the tool will:
Guide you to translate one section at a time in order to expand existing articles or create new ones
Make it easy to transfer knowledge across languages anytime from your mobile device
We plan to enable the tools on Xhosa Wikipedia in the coming week if there are no objections from your community. After it is enabled, we’ll monitor the content created with the tools and process all the feedback. In any case, feel free to raise any concerns or questions you may already have as a reply to this message or onthe project talk page
Try the Section translation tool
Before the enablement, you can try the current implementation of the tool inour testing instance. Once it is enabled on Xhosa Wikipedia, you’ll have access tohttps://xh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ContentTranslation with your mobile device. You can select an article to translate, and machine translation will be provided as a starting point for editors to improve.
Provide feedback
Please provide feedback about Section translation onthe project talk page. We want to hear about your impressions on
The section translation tool
What do you think about our plans to enable it
Your ideas for improving the tool
Thanks and we look forward to your feedback and questions.
TheContent translation tool can be discovered by usersthrough several entry points. However, users not interested in translation can disable itfrom their preferences. Also, with theSection translation tool, you can start translating an article on your mobile device right when you notice it is missing in Xhosa. From a Wikipedia article in any language, switch languages and search for isiXhosa. If the article does not exist, an option to translate it will appear, as shown in the image below.
We know that these tools will help translators in your community to add content using any device with ease. Content created with the Content and Section Translation tool will be marked with the "contenttranslation" and “sectiontranslaiton” tag, respectively, for the community to review. We’ll monitor the content created, but we are interested in hearing about your experience using the tools and reviewing the content created with it.
Latest comment:3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello. I'm sorry for not communicating in your language. I'll be grateful if you translated my message. I'm writing on behalf of theWeb team working on the new skin,Vector 2022.
We wanted to apologize for the delays in the deployment of Vector 2022. We know many of you are waiting for this eagerly. We have been delaying the deployment because we have been working on the logos. It has taken us more time than originally expected. Once the logos are ready, we will let you know the exact date of deployment.We are planning for either the next (more likely) or the following week. If your wiki doesn't currently have a localized logo, we encourage you toreach out to us and we can help make one.
During the 2022 Wikimedia Summit, theMovement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) presented the first outline of the Movement Charter, giving a glimpse on the direction of its future work, and the Charter itself. The MCDC then integrated the initial feedback collected during the Summit. Before proceeding with writing the Charter for the whole Movement, the MCDC wants to interact with community members and gather feedback on the drafts of the three sections: Preamble, Values & Principles, and Roles & Responsibilities (intentions statement). The Movement Charter drafts will be available on the Meta pagehere on November 14, 2022. Community wide consultation period on MC will take place from November 20 to December 18, 2022. Learn more about ithere.
With the goal of ensuring that people are well informed to fully participate in the conversations and are empowered to contribute their perspective on the Movement Charter, three“Ask Me Anything about Movement Charter" sessions have been scheduled in different time zones. Everyone in the Wikimedia Movement is invited to attend these conversations. The aim is to learn about Movement Charter - its goal, purpose, why it matters, and how it impacts your community. MCDC members will attend these sessions to answer your questions and hear community feedback.
The “Ask Me Anything” sessions accommodate communities from different time zones. Only the presentation of the session is recorded and shared afterwards, no recording of conversations. Below is the list of planned events:
Asia/Pacific: November 4, 2022 at 09:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Chinese and Japanese.
Europe/MENA/Sub Saharan Africa: November 12, 2022 at 15:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Arabic, French and Russian.
North and South America/ Western Europe: November 12, 2022 at 15:00 UTC (your local time). Interpretation is available in Spanish and Portuguese.
On theMeta page you will find more details; Zoom links will be shared 48 hours ahead of the call.
Call for Movement Charter Ambassadors
Individuals or groups from all communities who wish to help include and start conversations in their communities on the Movement Charter are encouraged to becomeMovement Charter Ambassadors (MC Ambassadors). MC Ambassadors will carry out their own activities and get financial support for enabling conversations in their own languages.Regional facilitators from the Movement Strategy and Governance team are available to support applicants with MC Ambassadors grantmaking. If you are interested please sign uphere. Should you have specific questions, please reach out to the MSG team via email: strategy2030@wikimedia.org or on the MS forum.
We thank you for your time and participation.
On behalf of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee,
The Wikimedia Movement Strategy implementation is a collaborative effort for all Wikimedians.Movement Strategy Implementation Grants support projects that take the current state of aMovement Strategy Initiative and push it one step forward. If you are looking for an example or some guide on how to engage your community further on Movement Strategy and the Movement Strategy Implementation Grants specifically, you may find thiscommunity engagement package helpful.
The goal of this community engagement package is to support more people to access the funding they might need for the implementation work. By becoming a recipient of this grant, you will be able to support other community members to develop further grant applications that fit with your local contexts to benefit your own communities. With this package, the hope is to break down language barriers and to ensure community members have needed information on Movement Strategy to connect with each other. Movement Strategy is a two-way exchange, we can always learn more from the experiences and knowledge of Wikimedians everywhere. We can train and support our peers by using this package, so more people can make use of this great funding opportunity.
If this information interests you or if you have any further thoughts or questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us as yourregional facilitators to discuss further. We will be more than happy to support you. When you are ready, follow the steps onthis page to apply. We look forward to receiving your application.
Best regards, Movement Strategy and Governance Team Wikimedia Foundation
Hi everyone! The Ombuds commission (OC) and the Case Review Committee (CRC) are looking for members. People are encouraged to nominate themselves or encourage others they feel would contribute to these groups to do so. There is more information below about the opportunity and the skills that are needed.
About the Ombuds commission
The Ombuds commission (OC) works on all Wikimedia projects to investigate complaints about violations of the privacy policy, especially in use ofCheckUser andOversight (also known as Suppression) tools. The Commission mediates between the parties of the investigation and, when violations of the policies are identified, advises the Wikimedia Foundation on best handling. They may also assist the General Counsel, the Chief Executive Officer, or the Board of Trustees of the Foundation in these investigations when legally necessary. For more on the OC's duties and roles,see Ombuds commission on Meta-Wiki.
Volunteers serving in this role should be experienced Wikimedians, active on any project, who have previously used the CheckUser/Oversight tools OR who have the technical ability to understand these tools and the willingness to learn them. They must be able to communicate in English, the common language of the commission. They are expected to be able to engage neutrally in investigating these concerns and to know when to recuse when other roles and relationships may cause conflict. Commissioners will servetwo-year terms (note that this is different from past years, when the terms have been for one year).
About the Case Review Committee
The Case Review Committee (CRC) reviews appeals of eligible Trust & Safety office actions. The CRC is a critical layer of oversight to ensure that Wikimedia Foundation office actions are fair and unbiased. They also make sure the Wikimedia Foundation doesn’t overstep established practices or boundaries. For more about the role,see Case Review Committee on Meta-Wiki.
We are looking for current or former functionaries and experienced volunteers with an interest in joining this group. Applicants must be fluent in English (additional languages are a strong plus) and willing to abide by theterms of the Committee charter. If the work resonates and you qualify, please apply. Committee members will servetwo-year terms (note that this is different from past years, when the terms have been for one year).
If you are interested in serving in either capacity listed above, please write in English to the Trust and Safety team at cawikimedia.org (to apply to the OC) or to the Legal Team at legalwikimedia.org (to apply to the CRC) with information about:
Your primary projects
Languages you speak/write
Any experience you have serving on committees, whether movement or non-movement
Your thoughts on what you could bring to the OC or CRC if appointed
Any experience you have with the Checkuser or Oversight tools (OC only)
Any other information you think is relevant
The deadline for applications is 31 December 2022 in any timezone.
Please feel free to pass this invitation along to any users who you think may be qualified and interested. Thank you!
We are inviting you to share your ideas for technical improvements to our tools and platforms. Long experience in editing or technical skills is not required. If you have ever used our software and thought of an idea to improve it, this is the place to come share those ideas!
The dates for the phases of the Survey will be as follows:
Phase 1: Submit, discuss, and revise proposals – Monday, Jan 23, 2023 to Sunday, Feb 6, 2023
Phase 2: WMF/Community Tech reviews and organizes proposals – Monday, Jan 30, 2023 to Friday, Feb 10, 2023
Phase 3: Vote on proposals – Friday, Feb 10, 2023 to Friday, Feb 24, 2023
Phase 4: Results posted – Tuesday, Feb 28, 2023
If you want to start writing out your ideas ahead of the Survey, you can start thinking about your proposals and draft them inthe CWS sandbox.
We are grateful to all who participated last year. See you in January 2023!
You are humbly invited to organize theFeminism and Folklore 2023 writing competition from February 1, 2023, to March 31, 2023 on your local Wikipedia. This year, Feminism and Folklore will focus on feminism, women's issues, and gender-focused topics for the project, with aWiki Loves Folklore gender gap focus and a folk culture theme on Wikipedia.
You can help Wikipedia's coverage of folklore from your area by writing or improving articles about things like folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, women and queer folklore figures, folk game athletes, women in mythology, women warriors in folklore, witches and witch hunting, fairy tales, and more. Users can help create new articles, expand or translate from alist of suggested articles.
Organisers are requested to work on the following action items to sign up their communities for the project:
Create a page for the contest on the local wiki.
Set up a fountain tool or dashboard.
Create the local list and mention the timeline and local and international prizes.
Request local admins for site notice.
Link the local page and the fountain/dashboard link on themeta project page.
This year we would be supporting the community's financial aid for Internet and childcare support. This would be provided for the local team including their jury and coordinator team. This support is opt-in and non mandatory. Kindly fill inthis Google form and mark a mail tosupport@wikilovesfolklore.org with the subject line starting as [Stipend] Name or Username/Language. The last date to sign up for internet and childcare aid from our team is 20th of January 2023, We encourage the language coordinators to sign up their community on this link by the 25th of January 2023.
Learn more about the contest and prizes on ourproject page. Feel free to contact us on ourmeta talk page or by email us if you need any assistance.
The Editing team is beginninga project to help new editors of Wikipedia. It will help people identify some problems before they click "Publish changes". The first tool will encourage people to add references when they add new content. Pleasewatch that page for more information. You canjoin a conference call on 3March2023 to learn more.
TheWikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that 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 do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.
All traffic will switch on1 March. The test will start at14:00 UTC.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. 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 up to an hour onWednesday 1 March 2023.
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.
We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
This project may be postponed if necessary. You canread the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens.Please share this information with your community.
Wikimedia Ukraine, in cooperation with theMinistry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine andUkrainian Institute, has launched the third edition of writing challenge "Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month", which lasts from 1st until 31st March 2023. The campaign is dedicated to famous Ukrainian artists of cinema, music, literature, architecture, design and cultural phenomena of Ukraine that are now part of world heritage. We accept contribution in every language! The most active contesters will receiveprizes.
We invite you to take part and help us improve the coverage of Ukrainian culture on Wikipedia in your language! Also, we plan to set up abanner to notify users of the possibility to participate in such a challenge!
Do you want to host an in-person or virtual session at Wikimania 2023? Maybe a hands-on workshop, a lively discussion, a fun performance, a catchy poster, or a memorable lightning talk?Submissions are open until March 28. The event will have dedicated hybrid blocks, so virtual submissions and pre-recorded content are also welcome. If you have any questions, please join us at an upcoming conversation on March 12 or 19, or reach out by email at wikimania@wikimedia.org or on Telegram. More information on-wiki.
TheWikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that 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 do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.
All traffic will switch on26 April. The test will start at14:00 UTC.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. 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 up to an hour onWednesday 26 April 2023.
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.
We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
This project may be postponed if necessary. You canread the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens.Please share this information with your community.
As follow-up tothe message about the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines by Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Vice Chair, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, I am reaching out about the next steps. I want to bring your attention to the next stage of the Universal Code of Conduct process, which is forming a building committee for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C). I invite community members with experience and deep interest in community health and governance to nominate themselves to be part of the U4C building committee, which needs people who are:
Community members in good standing
Knowledgeable about movement community processes, such as, but not limited to, policy drafting, participatory decision making, and application of existing rules and policies on Wikimedia projects
Aware and appreciative of the diversity of the movement, such as, but not limited to, languages spoken, identity, geography, and project type
Committed to participate for the entire U4C Building Committee period from mid-May - December 2023
Comfortable with engaging in difficult, but productive conversations
Confidently able to communicate in English
The Building Committee shall consist of volunteer community members, affiliate board or staff, and Wikimedia Foundation staff.
The Universal Code of Conduct has been a process strengthened by the skills and knowledge of the community and I look forward to what the U4C Building Committee creates. If you are interested in joining the Building Committee, please eithersign up on the Meta-Wiki page, or contact ucocprojectwikimedia.org by May 12, 2023.Read more on Meta-Wiki.
We have recently become unable to access the WorldCat API which provided the ability to generate citations using ISBN numbers. The Wikimedia Foundation'sEditing team is investigating several options to restore the functionality, but will need to disable ISBN citation generation for now.
This affects citations made with theVisualEditor Automatic tab, and the use of the citoid API in gadgets and user scripts, such as the autofill button onrefToolbar. Please note that all the other automatic ways of generating citations, including via URL or DOI, are still available.
You can keep updated on the situationvia Phabricator, or by reading the next issues ofm:Tech News. If you know of any users or groups who rely heavily on this feature (for instance, someone who has an upcoming editathon), I'd appreciate it if you shared this update with them.
The next stage in the Universal Code of Conduct process is establishing a Building Committee to create the charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C). The Building Committee has been selected.Read about the members and the work ahead on Meta-wiki.
We are glad to announcethe new members and advisors of the Elections Committee. TheElections Committee assists with the design and implementation of the process to select Community- and Affiliate-Selected trustees for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. After an open nomination process, the strongest candidates spoke with the Board and four candidates were asked to join the Elections Committee. Four other candidates were asked to participate as advisors.
Thank you to all the community members who submitted their names for consideration. We look forward to working with the Elections Committee in the near future.
On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees,
Latest comment:2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello!
Apologies as this message is not in your language,⧼Please help translate⧽ to your language.
The WMF Language team has added another machine translation (MT) system forContent Translation in your Wikipedia called MinT; you can useMinT machine translation when translating Wikipedia articles using the Content and Section Translation tool.
The WMF Language team provides the MinT service. It is hosted in the Wikimedia Foundation Infrastructure withneural machine translation models that other organizations have released with an open-source license. MinT integrates translation based onNLLB-200,OpusMT,IndicTrans2 andSoftcatalà. This MT is set as optional in your Wikipedia. Still, you can choose not to use it by selecting "Start with empty paragraph" from the "Initial Translation" dropdown menu.
Since MinT is hosted in the WMF Infrastructure and the models are open source, it adheres to Wikipedia's policies about attribution of rights, your privacy as a user and brand representation. You can find more information about the MinT machine translation and the models onthis page.
Please note that the use of the MinT MT is not compulsory. However, we would want your community to:
use it to improve the quality of the Machine Translation service
provide feedback about its quality, andif you prefer the MinT machine translation as default in your Wikipedia.
We trust that introducing this MT is a good support to the Content Translation tool.
TheEnforcement Guidelines require aBuilding Committee form to draft a charter that outlines procedures and details for a global committee to be called theUniversal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C). Over the past few months, the U4C Building Committee worked together as a group to discuss and draft the U4C charter. The U4C Building Committee welcomes feedback about the draft charter now through 22 September 2023. After that date, the U4C Building Committee will revise the charter as needed and a community vote will open shortly afterward.
TheWikimedia Foundation will switch the traffic between its data centers. This will make sure that 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 do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.
All traffic will switch on20 September. The test will start at14:00 UTC.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. 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 up to an hour onWednesday 20 September 2023.
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.
We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
This project may be postponed if necessary. You canread the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens.Please share this information with your community.
Hi everyone! TheAffiliations Committee (AffCom),Ombuds commission (OC), and theCase Review Committee (CRC) are looking for new members. These volunteer groups provide important structural and oversight support for the community and movement. People are encouraged to nominate themselves or encourage others they feel would contribute to these groups to apply. There is more information about the roles of the groups, the skills needed, and the opportunity to apply on theMeta-wiki page.
Please review and comment on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees selection rules package from now until 29 October 2023. The selection rules package was based on older versions by the Elections Committee and will be used in the 2024 Board of Trustees selection. Providing your comments now will help them provide a smoother, better Board selection process.More on the Meta-wiki page.
Latest comment:2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
A new feature is coming to your wiki soon: Reference Previews are popups for references. Such popups have existed on wikis as local gadgets for many years. Now there is a central solution, available on all wikis, and consistent with thePagePreviews feature.
Reference Previews will be visible to everyone, including readers. If you don’t want to see them,you can opt out. If you areusing the gadgets Reference Tooltips or Navigation Popups, you won’t see Reference Previews unless you disable the gadget.
Reference Previews have been a beta feature on many wikis since 2019, and a default feature on some since 2021. Deployment is planned for November 22.
Latest comment:1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Since September 2022, it is possible to create geopoints using a QID. Many wiki contributors have asked for this feature, but it is not being used much. Therefore, we would like to remind you about it. More information can be found on theproject page. If you have any comments, please let us know on thetalk page. – Best regards, the team of Technical Wishes at Wikimedia Deutschland
Note: Apologies for cross-posting and sending in English.
Hello, theWikidata for Wikimedia Projects team at Wikimedia Deutschland would like to hear about your experiences using Wikidata in the sibling projects. If you are interested in sharing your opinion and insights, please consider signing up for an interview with us in thisRegistration form. Currently, we are only able to conduct interviews in English.
The front page of the form has more details about what the conversation will be like, including how we wouldcompensate you for your time.
For more information, visit ourproject issue page where you can also share your experiences in written form, without an interview. We look forward to speaking with you,Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 08:53, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
Reusing references: Can we look over your shoulder?
The Technical Wishes team at Wikimedia Deutschland is planning tomake reusing references easier. For our research, we are looking for wiki contributors willing to show us how they are interacting with references.
The format will be a 1-hour video call, where you would share your screen.More information here.
Interviews can be conducted in English, German or Dutch.
Please note that we probably won’t be able to have sessions with everyone who is interested. Our UX researcher will try to create a good balance of wiki contributors, e.g. in terms of wiki experience, tech experience, editing preferences, gender, disability and more. If you’re a fit, she will reach out to you to schedule an appointment.
You are humbly invited to organize theFeminism and Folklore 2024 writing competition from February 1, 2023, to March 31, 2023 on your local Wikipedia. This year, Feminism and Folklore will focus on feminism, women's issues, and gender-focused topics for the project, with aWiki Loves Folklore gender gap focus and a folk culture theme on Wikipedia.
You can help Wikipedia's coverage of folklore from your area by writing or improving articles about things like folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, women and queer folklore figures, folk game athletes, women in mythology, women warriors in folklore, witches and witch hunting, fairy tales, and more. Users can help create new articles, expand or translate from a generated list of suggested articles.
Organisers are requested to work on the following action items to sign up their communities for the project:
Create a page for the contest on the local wiki.
Set up a campaign onCampWiz tool.
Create the local list and mention the timeline and local and international prizes.
This year, the Wiki Loves Folklore Tech Team has introduced two new tools to enhance support for the campaign. These tools include theArticle List Generator by Topic andCampWiz. The Article List Generator by Topic enables users to identify articles on the English Wikipedia that are not present in their native language Wikipedia. Users can customize their selection criteria, and the tool will present a table showcasing the missing articles along with suggested titles. Additionally, users have the option to download the list in both CSV and wikitable formats. Notably, the CampWiz tool will be employed for the project for the first time, empowering users to effectively host the project with a jury. Both tools are now available for use in the campaign.Click here to access these tools
Learn more about the contest and prizes on ourproject page. Feel free to contact us on ourmeta talk page or by email us if you need any assistance.
Dear Wiki Community,You are humbly invited to participate in theWiki Loves Folklore 2024 an international photography contest organized on Wikimedia Commons to document folklore and intangible cultural heritage from different regions, including, folk creative activities and many more. It is held every year from the1st till the 31st of March.
You can help in enriching the folklore documentation on Commons from your region by taking photos, audios, videos, andsubmitting them in this commons contest.
You can alsoorganize a local contest in your country and support us in translating theproject pages to help us spread the word in your native language.
Feel free to contact us on ourproject Talk page if you need any assistance.
Read the charter, go vote and share this note with others in your community. I can confidently say the U4C Building Committee looks forward to your participation.
Read the charter, go vote and share this note with others in your community. I can confidently say the U4C Building Committee looks forward to your participation.
Thank you everyone for following the progress of the Universal Code of Conduct. I am writing to you today to announce the outcome of theratification vote on theUniversal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee Charter. 1746 contributors voted in this ratification vote with 1249 voters supporting the Charter and 420 voters not. The ratification vote process allowed for voters to provide comments about the Charter.
A report of voting statistics and a summary of voter comments will be published on Meta-wiki in the coming weeks.
Please look forward to hearing about the next steps soon.
Wikimedia Ukraine, in cooperation with theMFA of Ukraine andUkrainian Institute, has launched the forth edition of writing challenge "Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month", which lasts from 1st until 31st March 2024. The campaign is dedicated to famous Ukrainian artists of cinema, music, literature, architecture, design and cultural phenomena of Ukraine that are now part of world heritage. We accept contribution in every language! The most active contesters will receive prizes.
We invite you to take part and help us improve the coverage of Ukrainian culture on Wikipedia in your language! Also, we plan to set up abanner to notify users of the possibility to participate in such a challenge!ValentynNefedov (WMUA) (talk)
Report of the U4C Charter ratification and U4C Call for Candidates now available
TheUniversal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members are invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, pleasereview the U4C Charter.
Per the charter, there are 16 seats on the U4C: eight community-at-large seats and eight regional seats to ensure the U4C represents the diversity of the movement.
Read more and submit your application onMeta-wiki.
This year, the term of 4 (four) Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees will come to an end [1]. The Board invites the whole movement to participate in this year’s selection process and vote to fill those seats.
TheElections Committee will oversee this process with support from Foundation staff [2]. The Board Governance Committee created a Board Selection Working Group from Trustees who cannot be candidates in the 2024 community- and affiliate-selected trustee selection process composed of Dariusz Jemielniak, Nataliia Tymkiv, Esra'a Al Shafei, Kathy Collins, and Shani Evenstein Sigalov [3]. The group is tasked with providing Board oversight for the 2024 trustee selection process, and for keeping the Board informed. More details on the roles of the Elections Committee, Board, and staff are here [4].
Here are the key planned dates:
May 2024: Call for candidates and call for questions
June 2024: Affiliates vote to shortlist 12 candidates (no shortlisting if 15 or less candidates apply) [5]
June-August 2024: Campaign period
End of August / beginning of September 2024: Two-week community voting period
October–November 2024: Background check of selected candidates
Board's Meeting in December 2024: New trustees seated
Learn more about the 2024 selection process - including the detailed timeline, the candidacy process, the campaign rules, and the voter eligibility criteria - onthis Meta-wiki page, and make your plan.
Election Volunteers
Another way to be involved with the 2024 selection process is to be an Election Volunteer. Election Volunteers are a bridge between the Elections Committee and their respective community. They help ensure their community is represented and mobilize them to vote. Learn more about the program and how to join on thisMeta-wiki page.
Best regards,
Dariusz Jemielniak (Governance Committee Chair, Board Selection Working Group)
[5] Even though the ideal number is 12 candidates for 4 open seats, the shortlisting process will be triggered if there are more than 15 candidates because the 1-3 candidates that are removed might feel ostracized and it would be a lot of work for affiliates to carry out the shortlisting process to only eliminate 1-3 candidates from the candidate list.
TheWikimedia Foundation will switch the traffic between its data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster.
All traffic will switch on20 March. The test will start at14:00 UTC.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. 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 up to an hour onWednesday 20 March 2024.
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.
We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
This project may be postponed if necessary. You canread the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens.Please share this information with your community.
I am writing to you to let you know the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open now through May 9, 2024. Read the information on thevoting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, pleasereview the U4C Charter.
Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.
Latest comment:1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello all,
The next language community meeting is scheduled in a few weeks - May 31st at 16:00 UTC. If you're interested, you cansign up on this wiki page.
This is a participant-driven meeting, where we share language-specific updates related to various projects, collectively discuss technical issues related to language wikis, and work together to find possible solutions. For example, in the last meeting, the topics included the machine translation service (MinT) and the languages and models it currently supports, localization efforts from the Kiwix team, and technical challenges with numerical sorting in files used on Bengali Wikisource.
Do you have any ideas for topics to share technical updates related to your project? Any problems that you would like to bring for discussion during the meeting? Do you need interpretation support from English to another language? Please reach out to me at ssethi(__AT__)wikimedia.org andadd agenda items to the document here.
You can find the details onthis page, as well as the ways to give your feedback from today until the end of the day onJune 23, 2024, anywhere on Earth.
You can also share information about this with the interested project communities you work with or support, and you can also help us translate the procedure into more languages, so people can join the discussions in their own language.
Thank you again to everyone who participated in this process and much appreciation to the candidates for your leadership and dedication to the Wikimedia movement and community.
Over the next few weeks, the U4C will begin meeting and planning the 2024-25 year in supporting the implementation and review of the UCoC and Enforcement Guidelines. Follow their work onMeta-wiki.
The final text of theWikimedia Movement Charter is now up on Meta in more than 20 languages for your reading.
What is the Wikimedia Movement Charter?
The Wikimedia Movement Charter is a proposed document to define roles and responsibilities for all the members and entities of the Wikimedia movement, including the creation of a new body – the Global Council – for movement governance.
Join the Wikimedia Movement Charter “Launch Party”
Join the“Launch Party” onJune 20, 2024 at14.00-15.00 UTC (your local time). During this call, we will celebrate the release of the final Charter and present the content of the Charter. Join and learn about the Charter before casting your vote.
The voting to ratify theWikimedia Movement Charter is now open. The Wikimedia Movement Charter is a document to define roles and responsibilities for all the members and entities of the Wikimedia movement, including the creation of a new body – the Global Council – for movement governance.
Voting commenced on SecurePoll onJune 25, 2024 at00:01 UTC and will conclude onJuly 9, 2024 at23:59 UTC. Please read more on thevoter information and eligibility details.
After reading the Charter, pleasevote here and share this note further.
If you have any questions about the ratification vote, please contact the Charter Electoral Commission atcec@wikimedia.org.
A special election has been called to fill additional vacancies on the U4C. The call for candidates phase is open from now through July 19, 2024.
TheUniversal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of theUCoC. Community members are invited to submit their applications in the special election for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review theU4C Charter.
In this special election, according tochapter 2 of the U4C charter, there are 9 seats available on the U4C:four community-at-large seats andfive regional seats to ensure the U4C represents the diversity of the movement.No more than two members of the U4C can be elected from the same home wiki. Therefore, candidates must not have English Wikipedia, German Wikipedia, or Italian Wikipedia as their home wiki.
Read more and submit your application onMeta-wiki.
After carefully tallying both individual and affiliate votes, theCharter Electoral Commission is pleased to announce the final results of the Wikimedia Movement Charter voting.
Ascommunicated by the Charter Electoral Commission, we reached the quorum for both Affiliate and individual votes by the time the vote closed onJuly 9, 23:59 UTC. We thank all 2,451 individuals and 129 Affiliate representatives who voted in the ratification process. Your votes and comments are invaluable for the future steps in Movement Strategy.
The final results of theWikimedia Movement Charter ratification voting held between 25 June and 9 July 2024 are as follows:
Individual vote:
Out of 2,451 individuals who voted as of July 9 23:59 (UTC), 2,446 have been accepted as valid votes. Among these,1,710 voted “yes”;623 voted “no”; and113 selected “–” (neutral). Because the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast, 73.30% voted to approve the Charter (1710/2333), while 26.70% voted to reject the Charter (623/2333).
Affiliates vote:
Out of 129 Affiliates designated voters who voted as of July 9 23:59 (UTC), 129 votes are confirmed as valid votes. Among these,93 voted “yes”;18 voted “no”; and18 selected “–” (neutral). Because the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast, 83.78% voted to approve the Charter (93/111), while 16.22% voted to reject the Charter (18/111).
I am writing to you to let you know the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open now throughAugust 10, 2024. Read the information on thevoting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, pleasereview the U4C Charter.
Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.
The voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is closing soon. It is open through 10 August 2024. Read the information onthe voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility. If you are eligible to vote and have not voted in this special election, it is important that you vote now.
Why should you vote? The U4C is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community input into the committee membership is critical to the success of the UCoC.
Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.
Wikipedia is a center where the people find the information they want to know. I saw that the page "ISO 3166" has even surpassed the search bar! If you need information, look for it here, because, as you can see, Wikipedia is increasing the number of views. Even if we can't compete against a high-style Wikipedia, we can at least throw out the old prejudices of Wikipedia in xhosa, at least by not making it considered a Wikipedia at the bottom of the rankings. Iqonga lakho othetha kulo 15:15, 11 EyeThupha 2024 (UTC)
Coming soon: A new sub-referencing feature – try it!
Hello. For many years, community members have requested an easy way to re-use references with different details. Now, a MediaWiki solution is coming: The new sub-referencing feature will work for wikitext and Visual Editor and will enhance the existing reference system. You can continue to use different ways of referencing, but you will probably encounter sub-references in articles written by other users. More information onthe project page.
We want your feedback to make sure this feature works well for you:
Sign up here to get updates and/or invites to participate in user research activities.
Wikimedia Deutschland’sTechnical Wishes team is planning to bring this feature to Wikimedia wikis later this year. We will reach out to creators/maintainers of tools and templates related to references beforehand.
The next language community meeting is scheduled in a few weeks—on August 30th at 15:00 UTC. If you're interested in joining, you cansign up on this wiki page.
This participant-driven meeting will focus on sharing language-specific updates related to various projects, discussing technical issues related to language wikis, and working together to find possible solutions. For example, in the last meeting, topics included the Language Converter, the state of language research, updates on the Incubator conversations, and technical challenges around external links not working with special characters on Bengali sites.
Do you have any ideas for topics to share technical updates or discuss challenges? Please add agenda items to the documenthere and reach out to ssethi(__AT__)wikimedia.org. We look forward to your participation!
I am pleased to announce the following individual as regional members of the U4C, who will fulfill a term until 15 June 2026:
North America (USA and Canada)
Ajraddatz
The following seats were not filled during this special election:
Latin America and Caribbean
Central and East Europe (CEE)
Sub-Saharan Africa
South Asia
The four remaining Community-At-Large seats
Thank you again to everyone who participated in this process and much appreciation to the candidates for your leadership and dedication to the Wikimedia movement and community.
Over the next few weeks, the U4C will begin meeting and planning the 2024-25 year in supporting the implementation and review of the UCoC and Enforcement Guidelines. You can follow their work onMeta-Wiki.
TheWikimedia Foundation will switch the traffic between its data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster.
All traffic will switch on25 September. The switch will start at15:00 UTC.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.
A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. This banner will remain visible until the end of the operation.
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 up to an hour onWednesday 25 September 2024.
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.
We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
Apologies for cross-posting in English. Please consider translating this message.iThemplethi:Tracked
Hello everyone, a small change will soon be coming to the user-interface of your Wikimedia project.TheWikidata itemsitelink currently found under theGeneral section of theTools sidebar menu will move into theIn Other Projects section.
We would like the Wiki communities feedback so please let us know or ask questions on theDiscussion page before we enable the change which can take place October 4 2024, circa 15:00 UTC+2.More information can be found onthe project page.
We welcome your feedback and questions. Iqonga lakho othetha kulo 18:56, 27 Eyo Msintsi 2024 (UTC)
Invitation to Participate in Wiki Loves Ramadan Community Engagement Survey
Apologies for writing in English. Please help to translate in your language.We are excited to announce the upcomingWiki Loves Ramadan event, a global initiative aimed at celebrating Ramadan by enriching Wikipedia and its sister projects with content related to this significant time of year. As we plan to organize this event globally, your insights and experiences are crucial in shaping the best possible participation experience for the community.
To ensure that Wiki Loves Ramadan is engaging, inclusive, and impactful, we kindly invite you to participate in our community engagement survey. Your feedback will help us understand the needs of the community, set the event's focus, and guide our strategies for organizing this global event.
While these candidates have been ranked through the vote, they still need to be appointed to the Board of Trustees. They need to pass a successful background check and meet the qualifications outlined in the Bylaws. New trustees will be appointed at the next Board meeting in December 2024.
Applications for the committees open on 16 October 2024. Applications for the Affiliations Committee close on 18 November 2024, and applications for the Ombuds commission and the Case Review Committee close on 2 December 2024. Learn how to apply byvisiting the appointment page on Meta-wiki. Post to the talk page or emailcst@wikimedia.org with any questions you may have.
Latest comment:1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello everyone, I previously wrote on the 27th September to advise that theWikidata item sitelink will change places in the sidebar menu, moving from theGeneral section into theIn Other Projects section. The scheduled rollout date of 04.10.2024 was delayed due to a necessary request for Mobile/MinervaNeue skin. I am happy to inform that the global rollout can now proceed and will occur later today, 22.10.2024 at 15:00 UTC-2.Please let us know if you notice any problems or bugs after this change. There should be no need for null-edits or purging cache for the changes to occur. Kind regards, -Danny Benjafield (WMDE)11:28, 22 Eye Dwarha 2024 (UTC)Reply
Final Reminder: Join us in Making Wiki Loves Ramadan Success
We’re thrilled to announce the Wiki Loves Ramadan event, a global initiative to celebrate Ramadan by enhancing Wikipedia and its sister projects with valuable content related to this special time of year. As we organize this event globally, we need your valuable input to make it a memorable experience for the community.
Last Call to Participate in Our Survey: To ensure that Wiki Loves Ramadan is inclusive and impactful, we kindly request you to complete our community engagement survey. Your feedback will shape the event’s focus and guide our organizing strategies to better meet community needs.
Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts. Your input will truly make a difference!
Volunteer Opportunity: Join the Wiki Loves Ramadan Team! We’re seeking dedicated volunteers for key team roles essential to the success of this initiative. If you’re interested in volunteer roles, we invite you to apply.
This participant-driven meeting will be organized by the Wikimedia Foundation’s Language Product Localization team and the Language Diversity Hub. There will be presentations on topics like developing language keyboards, the creation of the Moore Wikipedia, and the language support track at Wiki Indaba. We will also have members from the Wayuunaiki community joining us to share their experiences with the Incubator and as a new community within our movement. This meeting will have a Spanish interpretation.
We’re happy to announce the launch ofWiki Loves Ramadan 2025, an annual international campaign dedicated to celebrating and preserving Islamic cultures and history through the power of Wikipedia. As an active contributor to the Local Wikipedia, you are specially invited to participate in the launch.
This year’s campaign will be launched for you to join us write, edit, and improve articles that showcase the richness and diversity of Islamic traditions, history, and culture.
To get started, visit thecampaign page for details, resources, and guidelines: Wiki Loves Ramadan 2025.
Addyour community here, and organized Wiki Loves Ramadan 2025 in your local language.
Whether you’re a first-time editor or an experienced Wikipedian, your contributions matter. Together, we can ensure Islamic cultures and traditions are well-represented and accessible to all.
Feel free to invite your community and friends too. Kindly reach out if you have any questions or need support as you prepare to participate.
Latest comment:10 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
My apologies for writing in English.Please help translate to your language.
I am writing to you to let you know the annual review period for the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines is open now. You can make suggestions for changes through 3 February 2025. This is the first step of several to be taken for the annual review.Read more information and find a conversation to join on the UCoC page on Meta.
You are humbly invited to organize theFeminism and Folklore 2025 writing competition from February 1, 2025, to March 31, 2025 on your local Wikipedia. This year, Feminism and Folklore will focus on feminism, women's issues, and gender-focused topics for the project, with aWiki Loves Folklore gender gap focus and a folk culture theme on Wikipedia.
You can help Wikipedia's coverage of folklore from your area by writing or improving articles about things like folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, women and queer folklore figures, folk game athletes, women in mythology, women warriors in folklore, witches and witch hunting, fairy tales, and more. Users can help create new articles, expand or translate from a generated list of suggested articles.
Organisers are requested to work on the following action items to sign up their communities for the project:
Create a page for the contest on the local wiki.
Set up a campaign onCampWiz tool.
Create the local list and mention the timeline and local and international prizes.
This year, the Wiki Loves Folklore Tech Team has introduced two new tools to enhance support for the campaign. These tools include theArticle List Generator by Topic andCampWiz. The Article List Generator by Topic enables users to identify articles on the English Wikipedia that are not present in their native language Wikipedia. Users can customize their selection criteria, and the tool will present a table showcasing the missing articles along with suggested titles. Additionally, users have the option to download the list in both CSV and wikitable formats. Notably, the CampWiz tool will be employed for the project for the first time, empowering users to effectively host the project with a jury. Both tools are now available for use in the campaign.Click here to access these tools
Learn more about the contest and prizes on ourproject page. Feel free to contact us on ourmeta talk page or by email us if you need any assistance.
Dear Wiki Community,You are humbly invited to participate in theWiki Loves Folklore 2025 an international media contest organized on Wikimedia Commons to document folklore and intangible cultural heritage from different regions, including, folk creative activities and many more. It is held every year from the1st till the 31st of March.
You can help in enriching the folklore documentation on Commons from your region by taking photos, audios, videos, andsubmitting them in this commons contest.
You can alsoorganize a local contest in your country and support us in translating theproject pages to help us spread the word in your native language.
Feel free to contact us on ourproject Talk page if you need any assistance.
Kind regards,
Wiki loves Folklore International Team--Iqonga lakho othetha kulo 02:36, 29 EyoMqungu 2025 (UTC)
Reminder: first part of the annual UCoC review closes soon
Latest comment:9 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
My apologies for writing in English.Please help translate to your language.
This is a reminder that the first phase of the annual review period for the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines will be closing soon. You can make suggestions for changes throughthe end of day, 3 February 2025. This is the first step of several to be taken for the annual review.Read more information and find a conversation to join on the UCoC page on Meta. After review of the feedback, proposals for updated text will be published on Meta in March for another round of community review.
Please share this information with other members in your community wherever else might be appropriate.
Latest comment:9 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello everyone!
We’re excited to announce that the nextLanguage Community Meeting is happening soon,February 28th at 14:00 UTC! If you’d like to join, simply sign up on thewiki page.
This is a participant-driven meeting where we share updates on language-related projects, discuss technical challenges in language wikis, and collaborate on solutions. In our last meeting, we covered topics like developing language keyboards, creating the Moore Wikipedia, and updates from the language support track at Wiki Indaba.
Got a topic to share? Whether it’s a technical update from your project, a challenge you need help with, or a request for interpretation support, we’d love to hear from you! Feel free toreply to this message or add agenda items to the documenthere.
Also, we wanted to highlight that the sixth edition of the Language & Internationalization newsletter (January 2025) is available here:Wikimedia Language and Product Localization/Newsletter/2025/January. This newsletter provides updates from the October–December 2024 quarter on new feature development, improvements in various language-related technical projects and support efforts, details about community meetings, and ideas for contributing to projects. To stay updated, you can subscribe to the newsletter on its wiki page:Wikimedia Language and Product Localization/Newsletter.
We look forward to your ideas and participation at the language community meeting, see you there!
Latest comment:8 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello Wikipedians,
Apologies as this message is not in your language,Please help translate to your language.
TheLanguage and Product Localization team has improved theContent Translation dashboard to create a consistent experience for all contributors using mobile and desktop devices. The improved translation dashboard allows all logged-in users of the tool to enjoy a consistent experience regardless of their type of device.
With a harmonized experience, logged-in desktop users now have access to the capabilities shown in the image below.
Notice that in this screenshot, the new dashboard allows: Users to adjust suggestions with the "For you" and "...More" buttons to select general topics or community-created collections (like the example of Climate topic). Also, users can use translation to create new articles (as before) and expand existing articles section by section. You can see how suggestions are provided in the new dashboard in two groups ("Create new pages" and "Expand with new sections")-one for each activity.In the current dashboard, you will notice that you can't adjust suggestions to select topics or community-created collections. Also, you can't expand on existing articles by translating new sections.
We will implementthis improvement on your wikion Monday, March 17th, 2025 and remove the current dashboardby May 2025.Please reach out with any questions concerning the dashboard in this thread.
Thank you!
On behalf of the Language and Product Localization team.
TheWikimedia Foundation will switch the traffic between its data centers.This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster.
All traffic will switch on19 March.The switch will start at14:00 UTC.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made.We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.
A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens.This banner will remain visible until the end of the operation.
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 up to an hour onWednesday 19 March 2025.
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.
We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week.However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
Latest comment:7 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The proposed modifications to theUniversal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and the U4C Charterare now on Meta-wiki for community notice in advance of the voting period. This final draft was developed from the previous two rounds of community review. Community members will be able to vote on these modifications starting on 17 April 2025. The vote will close on 1 May 2025, and results will be announced no later than 12 May 2025. The U4C election period, starting with a call for candidates, will open immediately following the announcement of the review results. More information will be posted onthe wiki page for the election soon.
Please be advised that this process will require more messages to be sent here over the next two months.
Wikimedia Ukraine, in cooperation with theMFA of Ukraine andUkrainian Institute, has launched the fifth edition of writing challenge "Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month", which lasts from14th April until16th May 2025. The campaign is dedicated to famous Ukrainian artists of cinema, music, literature, architecture, design, and cultural phenomena of Ukraine that are now part of world heritage. We accept contributions in every language!
The most active contesters will receive prizes.
If you are interested in coordinating long-term community engagement for the campaign and becoming a local ambassador, we would love to hear from you! Please let us know your interest.
We invite you to take part and help us improve the coverage of Ukrainian culture on Wikipedia in your language! Also, we plan to set up abanner to notify users of the possibility to participate in such a challenge!OlesiaLukaniuk (WMUA) (talk)
16:11, 16 EkaTshazimpuzi 2025 (UTC)
Vote now on the revised UCoC Enforcement Guidelines and U4C Charter
TheUniversal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review of the EG and Charter was planned and implemented by the U4C. Further information will be provided in the coming months about the review of the UCoC itself. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you mayreview the U4C Charter.
Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.
Get a sneak peak and help shape theVisual Editor user designs
Help us test the new design prototypes by participating in user sessions –sign up here to receive an invite. We're especially hoping to speak with people from underrepresented and diverse groups. If that's you, please consider signing up! No prior or extensive editing experience is required. User sessions will startMay 14th.
We plan to bring this feature to Wikimedia wikis later this year. We’ll reach out to wikis for piloting in time for deployments. Creators and maintainers of reference-related tools and templates will be contacted beforehand as well.
Thank you very much for your support and encouragement so far in helping bring this feature to life!
Latest comment:6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
(Apologies for posting in English)
Hi all! We have good news to share regarding the ongoing problem with graphs and charts affecting all wikis that use them.
As you probably know, theold Graph extension was disabled in 2023due to security reasons. We’ve worked in these two years to find a solution that could replace the old extension, and provide a safer and better solution to users who wanted to showcase graphs and charts in their articles. We therefore developed theCharts extension, which will be replacing the old Graph extension and potentially also theEasyTimeline extension.
After successfully deploying the extension on Italian, Swedish, and Hebrew Wikipedia, as well as on MediaWiki.org, as part of a pilot phase, we are now happy to announce that we are moving forward with the next phase of deployment, which will also include your wiki.
The deployment will happen in batches, and will start fromMay 6. Please, consultour page on MediaWiki.org to discover when the new Charts extension will be deployed on your wiki. You can alsoconsult the documentation about the extension on MediaWiki.org.
If you have questions, need clarifications, or just want to express your opinion about it, please refer to theproject’s talk page on Mediawiki.org, or ping me directly under this thread. If you encounter issues using Charts once it gets enabled on your wiki, please report it on thetalk page or atPhabricator.
TheContribute entry point is based on collaborative work with other product teams in the Wikimedia Foundation onEdit discovery, which validated the entry point as a persistent and constant path that contributors took to discover ways to contribute content in Wikipedia.
Therefore, enabling this entry point in your Wikipedia will help contributors quickly discover available tools and immediately click to start using them. This entry point is designed to be a central point for discovering contribution tools in Xhosa Wikipedia.
Who can access it
Once it is enabled in your Wikipedia, newcomers can access the entry point automatically by just logging into their account, click on the User drop-down menu and choose the "Contribute" icon, which takes you to another menu where you will find a self-guided description of what you can do to contribute content, as shown in the image below. An option to "view contributions" is also available to access the list of your contributions.
For experienced contributors, the Contribute icon is not automatically shown in their User drop-down menu. They will still see the "Contributions" option unless they change it to the "Contribute" manually.
We have gotten valuable feedback that helped us improve its discoverability. Now, it is ready to be enabled in other Wikis. One major improvement was tomake the entry point optional for experienced contributors who still want to have the "Contributions" entry point as default.
We plan to enable iton mobile for Wikis, where the Section translation tool is enabled. In this way, we will provide a main entry point to the mobile translation dashboard, and the exposure can still be limited by targeting only the mobile platform for now. If there are no objections to having the entry point for mobile users from your community, we will enable it by 26th May 2025.
We welcome your feedback and questions in this thread on our proposal to enable it here. Suppose there are no objections, we will deploy the "Contribute" entry point in your Wikipedia.
We look forward to your response soon.
Thank you!
On behalf of the WMF Language and Product Localization team. Iqonga lakho othetha kulo 20:21, 12 Inyanga kaCanz... 2025 (UTC)
Call for Candidates for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C)
Latest comment:6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The results of voting on the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) Charter isavailable on Meta-wiki.
Latest comment:6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
(Apologies for posting in English, if this is not your first language)
Hello all! We opened a discussion on Meta about a very delicate issue for the development ofAbstract Wikipedia: where to store the abstract content that will be developed through functions from Wikifunctions and data from Wikidata. Since some of the hypothesis involve your project, we wanted to hear your thoughts too.
We want to make the decision process clear: we do not yet know which option we want to use, which is why we are consulting here. We will take the arguments from the Wikimedia communities into account, and we want to consult with the different communities and hear arguments that will help us with the decision. The decision will be made and communicated after the consultation period by the Foundation.
This year, the term of 2 (two) Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees will come to an end [1]. The Board invites the whole movement to participate in this year’s selection process and vote to fill those seats.
The Elections Committee will oversee this process with support from Foundation staff [2]. The Governance Committee, composed of trustees who are not candidates in the 2025 community-and-affiliate-selected trustee selection process (Raju Narisetti, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, Lorenzo Losa, Kathy Collins, Victoria Doronina and Esra’a Al Shafei) [3], is tasked with providing Board oversight for the 2025 trustee selection process and for keeping the Board informed. More details on the roles of the Elections Committee, Board, and staff are here [4].
Here are the key planned dates:
May 22 – June 5: Announcement (this communication) and call for questions period [6]
June 17 – July 1, 2025: Call for candidates
July 2025: If needed, affiliates vote to shortlist candidates if more than 10 apply [5]
August 2025: Campaign period
August – September 2025: Two-week community voting period
October – November 2025: Background check of selected candidates
Board’s Meeting in December 2025: New trustees seated
Learn more about the 2025 selection process - including the detailed timeline, the candidacy process, the campaign rules, and the voter eligibility criteria - on this Meta-wiki page[link].
Call for Questions
In each selection process, the community has the opportunity to submit questions for the Board of Trustees candidates to answer. The Election Committee selects questions from the list developed by the community for the candidates to answer. Candidates must answer all the required questions in the application in order to be eligible; otherwise their application will be disqualified. This year, the Election Committee will select 5 questions for the candidates to answer. The selected questions may be a combination of what’s been submitted from the community, if they’re alike or related.[link]
Election Volunteers
Another way to be involved with the 2025 selection process is to be an Election Volunteer. Election Volunteers are a bridge between the Elections Committee and their respective community. They help ensure their community is represented and mobilize them to vote. Learn more about the program and how to join on this Meta-wiki page[link].
Latest comment:5 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello everyone,
(Apologies for posting in English if English is not your first language. Please help translate to your language.)
The Campaigns Product Team is planning a global deployment of theCampaignEvents extension to all Wikipedias, including this wiki, during theweek of June 23rd.
This extension is designed to help organizers plan and manage events, WikiProjects, and other on-wiki collaborations - and to make these efforts more discoverable.
Invitation Lists: A tool to help organizers find editors who might want to join, based on their past contributions.
Note: The extension comes with a new user right called"Event Organizer", which will be managed by administrators on this wiki. Organizer tools like Event Registration and Invitation Lists will only work if someone is granted this right. The Collaboration List is available to everyone immediately after deployment.
The extension is already live on several wikis, includingMeta, Wikidata, English Wikipedia, and more ( See the full deployment list)
If you have any questions, concerns, or feedback, please feel free to share them on the extension talkpage. We’d love to hear from you before the rollout.
This year, the Wikimedia community will vote in late August through September 2025 to fill two (2) seats on the Foundation Board. Could you – or someone you know – be a good fit to join the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees? [3]
Learn more about what it takes to stand for these leadership positions and how to submit your candidacy onthis Meta-wiki page or encourage someone else to run in this year's election.
Best regards,
Abhishek Suryawanshi Chair of the Elections Committee
On behalf of the Elections Committee and Governance Committee
A vision of relevant, accessible, and impactful free knowledge has always guided the Wikimedia Movement. As the ecosystem of Wikimedia projects continues to evolve, it is crucial that we periodically review existing projects to ensure they still align with our goals and community capacity.
Despite their noble intent, some projects may no longer effectively serve their original purpose.Reviewing such projects is not about giving up – it's about responsible stewardship of shared resources. Volunteer time, staff support, infrastructure, and community attention are finite, and the non-technical costs tend to grow significantly as our ecosystem has entered a different age of the internet than the one we were founded in. Supporting inactive projects or projects that didn't meet our ambitions can unintentionally divert these resources from areas with more potential impact.
Moreover, maintaining projects that no longer reflect the quality and reliability of the Wikimedia name stands for, involves a reputational risk. An abandoned or less reliable project affects trust in the Wikimedia movement.
Lastly,failing to sunset or reimagine projects that are no longer working can make it much harder to start new ones. When the community feels bound to every past decision – no matter how outdated – we risk stagnation. A healthy ecosystem must allow for evolution, adaptation, and, when necessary, letting go. If we create the expectation that every project must exist indefinitely, we limit our ability to experiment and innovate.
Because of this, SPTF reviewed two requests concerning the lifecycle of the Sister Projects to work through and demonstrate the review process. We chose Wikispore as a case study for a possible new Sister Project opening and Wikinews as a case study for a review of an existing project. Preliminary findings were discussed with the CAC, and a community consultation on both proposals was recommended.
Theapplication to consider Wikispore was submitted in 2019. SPTF decided to review this request in more depth because rather than being concentrated on a specific topic, as most of the proposals for the new Sister Projects are, Wikispore has the potential to nurture multiple start-up Sister Projects.
After careful consideration, the SPTF has decidednot to recommend Wikispore as a Wikimedia Sister Project. Considering the current activity level, the current arrangement allowsbetter flexibility and experimentation while WMF provides core infrastructural support.
We acknowledge the initiative's potential and seek community input on what would constitute a sufficient level of activity and engagement to reconsider its status in the future.
As part of the process, we shared the decision with the Wikispore community and invited one of its leaders, Pharos, to an SPTF meeting.
Currently, we especially invite feedback on measurable criteria indicating the project's readiness, such as contributor numbers, content volume, and sustained community support. This would clarify the criteria sufficient for opening a new Sister Project, including possible future Wikispore re-application. However, the numbers will always be a guide because any number can be gamed.
We chose to review Wikinews among existing Sister Projects because it is the one for which we have observed the highest level of concern in multiple ways.
Since the SPTF was convened in 2023, its members have asked for the community's opinions during conferences and community calls about Sister Projects that did not fulfil their promise in the Wikimedia movement.[1][2][3] Wikinews was the leading candidate for an evaluation because people from multiple language communities proposed it. Additionally, by most measures, it is the least active Sister Project, with the greatest drop in activity over the years.
While the Language Committee routinely opens and closes language versions of the Sister Projects in small languages, there has never been a valid proposal to close Wikipedia in major languages or any project in English. This is not true for Wikinews, where there was a proposal to close English Wikinews, which gained some traction but did not result in any action[4][5], see section 5 as well as a draft proposal to close all languages of Wikinews[6].
Initial metrics compiled by WMF staff also support the community's concerns about Wikinews.
Based on this report, SPTF recommends a community reevaluation of Wikinews. We conclude that its current structure and activity levels are the lowest among the existing sister projects. SPTF also recommends pausing the opening of new language editions while the consultation runs.
SPTF brings this analysis to a discussion and welcomes discussions of alternative outcomes, including potential restructuring efforts or integration with other Wikimedia initiatives.
Options mentioned so far (which might be applied to just low-activity languages or all languages) include but are not limited to:
Restructure how Wikinews works and is linked to other current events efforts on the projects,
Merge the content of Wikinews into the relevant language Wikipedias, possibly in a new namespace,
Merge content into compatibly licensed external projects,
Archive Wikinews projects.
Your insights and perspectives are invaluable in shaping the future of these projects. We encourage all interested community members to share their thoughts on the relevant discussion pages or through other designated feedback channels.
We'd be grateful if you want to take part in a conversation on the future of these projects and the review process. We are setting up two different project pages:Public consultation about Wikispore andPublic consultation about Wikinews. Please participate between 27 June 2025 and 27 July 2025, after which we will summarize the discussion to move forward. You can write in your own language.
I will also host a community conversation 16th July Wednesday 11.00 UTC and 17th July Thursday 17.00 UTC (call links to follow shortly) and will be around at Wikimania for more discussions.
Latest comment:4 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
(Apologies for posting in English, you can help by translating into your language)
Hello everyone, theWikidata For Wikimedia Projects team is excited to announce an upcoming change in how Wikidata edit changelogs are displayed in yourWatchlists andRecent Changes lists. If an edit is made on Wikidata that affects a page in another Wikimedia Project, the changelog will contain some information about the nature of the edit. This can include a QID (or Q-number), a PID (or P-number) and a value (which can be text, numbers, dates, or also QID or PID’s). Confused by these terms? See theWikidata:Glossary for further explanations.
The upcoming change is scheduled for17.07.2025, between1300 - 1500 UTC.The change will display the label (item name) alongside any QID or PIDs, as seen in the image below:
These changes will only be visible if you have Wikidata edits enabled in your User Preferences for Watchlists and Recent Changes, or have the active filter ‘Wikidata edits’ checkbox toggled on, directly on the Watchlist and Recent Changes pages.
Your bot and gadget may be affected! There are thousands of bots, gadgets and user-scripts and whilst we have researched potential effects to many of them, we cannot guarantee there won’t be some that are broken or affected by this change.
Further information and context about this change, including how your bot may be affected can be found on thisproject task page. We welcome your questions and feedback, please write to us on this dedicatedTalk page.
Temporary accounts are successfully live on 30 wikis, including many large ones like German, Japanese, and French. The change they bring is especially relevant to logged-out editors, who this feature is designed to protect. But it is also relevant to community members like mentors, patrollers, and admins – anyone who reverts edits, blocks users, or otherwise interacts with logged-out editors as part of keeping the wikis safe and accurate.
Why we are building temporary accounts
Our wikis should be safer to edit by default for logged-out editors. Temporary accounts allow people to continue editing the wikis without creating an account, while avoiding publicly tying their edits to their IP address. We believe this is in the best interest of our logged-out editors, who make valuable contributions to the wikis and who may later create accounts and grow our community of editors, admins, and other roles. Even though the wikis do warn logged-out editors that their IP address will be associated with their edit, many people may not understand what an IP address is, or that it could be used to connect them to other information about them in ways they might not expect.
Additionally, our moderation software and tools rely too heavily on network origin (IP addresses) to identify users and patterns of activity, especially as IP addresses themselves are becoming less stable as identifiers. Temporary accounts allow for more precise interactions with logged-out editors, including more precise blocks, and can help limit how often we unintentionally end up blocking good-faith users who use the same IP addresses as bad-faith users.
How temporary accounts work
Any time a logged-out user publishes an edit on this wiki, a cookie will be set in this user's browser, and a temporary account tied with this cookie will be automatically created. This account's name will follow the pattern:~2025-12345-67 (a tilde, current year, a number). On pages like Recent Changes or page history, this name will be displayed. The cookie will expire 90 days after its creation. As long as it exists, all edits made from this device will be attributed to this temporary account. It will be the same account even if the IP address changes, unless the user clears their cookies or uses a different device or web browser. A record of the IP address used at the time of each edit will be stored for 90 days after the edit. However, only some logged-in users will be able to see it.
What does this mean for different groups of users?
For logged-out editors
This increases privacy: currently, if you do not use a registered account to edit, then everybody can see the IP address for the edits you made, even after 90 days. That will no longer be possible on this wiki.
If you use a temporary account to edit from different locations in the last 90 days (for example at home and at a coffee shop), the edit history and the IP addresses for all those locations will now be recorded together, for the same temporary account. Users whomeet the relevant requirements will be able to view this data. If this creates any personal security concerns for you, please contact talktohumanrights at wikimedia.org for advice.
For community members interacting with logged-out editors
A temporary account is uniquely linked to a device. In comparison, an IP address can be shared with different devices and people (for example, different people at school or at work might have the same IP address).
Compared to the current situation, it will be safer to assume that a temporary user's talk page belongs to only one person, and messages left there will be read by them. As you can see in the screenshot, temporary account users will receive notifications. It will also be possible to thank them for their edits, ping them in discussions, and invite them to get more involved in the community.
For users who use IP address data to moderate and maintain the wiki
For patrollers who track persistent abusers, investigate violations of policies, etc.: Users whomeet the requirements will be able to reveal temporary users' IP addresses and all contributions made by temporary accounts from a specific IP address or range (Special:IPContributions). They will also have access to useful information about the IP addresses thanks to theIP Info feature. Many other pieces of software have been built or adjusted to work with temporary accounts, including AbuseFilter, global blocks, Global User Contributions, and more. (For information for volunteer developers on how to update the code of your tools – see the last part of the message.)
For admins blocking logged-out editors:
It will be possible to block many abusers by just blocking their temporary accounts. A blocked person won't be able to create new temporary accounts quickly if the admin selects theautoblock option.
It will still be possible to block an IP address or IP range.
Temporary accounts will not be retroactively applied to contributions made before the deployment. On Special:Contributions, you will be able to see existing IP user contributions, but not new contributions made by temporary accounts on that IP address. Instead, you should use Special:IPContributions for this.
If you want to test the temporary account experience, for example just to check what it feels like, go to testwiki or test2wiki and edit without logging in.
Tell us if you know of any difficulties that need to be addressed. We will try to help, and if we are not able, we will consider the available options.
Look at ourprevious message about requirements for users without extended rights who may need access to IP addresses.
To learn more about the project, check outour FAQ – you will find many useful answers there. You may alsolook at the updates (we have just posted one) andsubscribe to our new newsletter. If you'd like to talk to me (Szymon) off-wiki, you will find me on Discord and Telegram. Thank you!
TheWikimedia Foundation will switch the traffic between its data centers.This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster.
All traffic will switch on24 September.The switch will start at15:00 UTC.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations inMediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made.We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.
A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens.This banner will remain visible until the end of the operation.You can contribute to thetranslation or proofreading of this banner text.
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 up to an hour onWednesday 24 September 2025.
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.
We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week.However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
Latest comment:1 month ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello. Please help pick a name for the new Abstract Wikipedia wiki project. This project will be a wiki that will enable users to combine functions fromWikifunctions and data from Wikidata in order to generate natural language sentences in any supported languages. These sentences can then be used by any Wikipedia (or elsewhere).
There will be two rounds of voting, each followed by legal review of candidates, with votes beginning on 20 October and 17 November 2025. Our goal is to have a final project name selected on mid-December 2025. If you would like to participate, thenplease learn more and vote now at meta-wiki.Thank you!
Applications for the committees open on October 30, 2025. Applications for the Affiliations Committee, Ombuds commission and the Case Review Committee close on December 11, 2025. Learn how to apply byvisiting the appointment page on Meta-wiki. Post to the talk page or email cstwikimedia.org with any questions you may have.
Hello everyone! I am glad to inform you that as the next step in theParser Unification project, Parsoid will soon be turned on as the default article renderer on your wiki. We are gradually increasing the number of wikis using Parsoid, with the intention of making it the default wikitext parser for MediaWiki's next long-term support release. This will make our wikis more reliable and consistent for editors, readers, and tools to use, as well as making the development of future wikitext features easier.
If this disrupts your workflow, don’t worry! You can still opt out through a user preference or turn Parsoid off on the current page using the Tools submenu, as described in theExtension:ParserMigration documentation.
Latest comment:4 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello. Reminder: Please help to choose name for the new Abstract Wikipedia wiki project. The finalist vote starts today. The finalists for the name are:Abstract Wikipedia, Multilingual Wikipedia, Wikiabstracts, Wikigenerator, Proto-Wiki. If you would like to participate, thenplease learn more and vote now at meta-wiki.Thank you!
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