Dear Wikitech/Wikitech-Ambassadors,
Over the last few months, a small team at the Wikimedia Foundation has been
working on a project that has been discussed by many people in our movement
for many years: building ‘enterprise grade’ services for the high-volume
commercial reusers of Wikimedia content. I am pleased to say that in a
remarkably short amount of time (considering the complexity of the issues:
technical, strategic, legal, and financial) we now have something worthy of
showing to the community, and we are asking for your feedback. Allow me to
introduce you to the Wikimedia Enterprise API project – formerly codenamed
“okapi”.
While the general idea for Wikimedia Enterprise predates the current
movement strategy process, its recommendations [0] identify an enterprise
API as one possible solution to both “Increase the sustainability of our
movement” and “Improve User Experience.” That is, to simultaneously create
a new revenue stream to protect Wikimedia’s sustainability, and improve the
quality and quantity of Wikimedia content available to our many readers who
do not visit our websites directly (including more consistent attribution).
Moreover, it does so in a way that is true to our movement’s culture: with
open source software, financial transparency, non-exclusive contracts or
content, no restrictions on existing services, and free access for
Wikimedia volunteers who need it.
The team believes we are on target to achieve those goals and so we have
written a lot of documentation you get your feedback about our progress and
where it could be further improved before the actual product is ‘launched’
in the next few months. We have been helped in this process over the last
several months by the approximately 100 individual volunteers (from many
corners of the wikiverse) and representatives of affiliate organisations
who have reviewed our plans and provided invaluable direction. Pointing out
weaknesses and opportunities, or areas lacking clarity and documentation in
our drafts.
A essay describing the “why?” and the “how?” of this project is now on
Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay
Also now published on Meta are an extensive FAQ [1] and operating
principles [2]. Much of this documentation is already available in French,
German, Italian, and Spanish.
For technical specifics, the new documentation on MediaWiki.org describes
the product strategy and roadmap, work currently underway, design
documents, as well as infrastructure decisions and future plans:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise
The team is particularly interested in your feedback on how we have
designed the checks and balances to this project - to ensure it is as
successful as possible at achieving those two goals described above while
staying true to the movement’s values and culture. For example: Is
everything covered appropriately in the “Principles” list? Is the technical
documentation on MediaWiki.org clear? Are the explanations in the “FAQ”
about free-access for community, or project’s legal structure, or the
financial transparency (etc.) sufficiently detailed?
Meet the team and Ask Us Anything:
The central place to provide written feedback about the project in general
is on the talkpage of the documentation on Meta at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise
Equally, for technical comments or questions the talkpage on MediaWiki.org:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise>
On this Friday (March 19) we will be hosting two “Office hours”
conversations where anyone can come and give feedback or ask questions:
- 13:00 UTC via Zoom at https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/95580273732
- 22:00 UTC via Zoom at https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/92565175760 (note: this
is Saturday in Asia/Oceania)
Other “office hours” meetings can be arranged on-request on a technical
platform of your choosing; and we will organise more calls in the future.
We will also be attending the next SWAN meetings (on March 21)
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Wikimedia_Affiliates_Network, and
also the next of the Wikimedia Clinics
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Clinics
Moreover, we would be very happy to accept any invitation to attend an
existing group call that would like to discuss this topic (e.g. an
affiliate’s members’ meeting).
On behalf of the Wikimedia Enterprise team,
*Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]*
WikiCite <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite> Program Manager & Wikimedia
Enterprise <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Okapi> Community Liaison
Wikimedia Foundation
[0]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recomme…
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/FAQ
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Principles
// sorry for cross-posting
Hello everyone,
Here is another change from WMDE’s Technical Wishes team concerning syntax
highlighting:
Soon, line numbers will be shown in wikitext editors when you have the
syntax highlighting feature (CodeMirror
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CodeMirror> extension)
enabled.[1] The change will make it easier to detect line breaks and to
refer to a particular line in discussions. More information can be found on
this project page. [2]
We plan to deploy this with this week’s Mediawiki train, so it should be on
wikis from April 13-15. As a first step, it will be available on the
template namespace only. Deployment on other namespaces is planned for the
near future.
If you have any feedback, please let us know on the project’s talk page.
[3] We hope line numbering will be useful to you!
Johanna
for the Technical Wishes team
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CodeMirror
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Line_Numbering
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Talk_Technical_Wishes/Line_Numbering
--
Johanna Strodt
Projektmanagerin Kommunikation Communitys Technische Wunschliste
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de
Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissens der Menschheit
teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
https://spenden.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
// apologies for cross-posting
Hello!
A new type of preview will soon be part of the MediaWiki software:
Reference Previews.[1] This feature shows you a reference in a small pop-up
when you hover over the reference number in square brackets. This way, you
can look up a reference without jumping down to the bottom of the page.
What’s more is that Reference Previews can offer a quicker way to evaluate
the trustworthiness of the cited source by displaying the reference type
(book, web, news, journal, note) in the pop-up’s header. Thus, they can
help increase trust in the article itself. These types can be applied by
using citation templates, or by manually entering a class into the ref tag.
Reference Previews will be combined with Page Previews[2], a feature
showing previews for linked articles. Both perform essentially the same
function: previewing content before deciding to dig deeper, and easily
providing more information while reading. Because of their similarities in
design and behavior, both Page Previews and Reference Previews will be
controlled by a single user setting. This means, all users who currently
have Page Previews activated, will also get Reference Previews. Also, all
readers, anonymous contributors and new users will see Reference Previews
per default if they haven’t disabled Page Previews.
On several wikis, the Navigation-Popups gadget and the Reference Tooltips
gadget already offer previews for references. If you want to use them
instead, you can: If you have one of these gadgets enabled, you’ll see them
instead of Reference Previews. Although these gadgets exist, this feature
was built into a MediaWiki extension in order to make it available for all
Wikipedias, just as Page Previews is.
The original request for this came from the Technical Wishes survey on
German Wikipedia in 2017, where it was the number 1 wish. The Technical
Wishes team from Wikimedia Germany has been working on it in cooperation
with the WMF’s Reading Web team. Reference Previews have been a beta
feature for several months on all Wikipedias and some other wikis, with
more than 830,000 beta testers. During the beta phase, lots of feedback was
collected, and several changes were made as a result.[3] Now, we plan to
deploy it to a first group of wikis as a default feature on March 17. We’re
still looking for wikis who want to have the default feature early, so if
you’re interested, please let us know! [4] [5]
More information about this feature, including frequently asked questions,
can be found on its project page on Meta. [1] A big thanks to everyone who
contributed to this development, by voting, testing, giving feedback or
else. Comments and questions are welcome on this talk page. [4]
Best,
Johanna
[1] Reference Previews:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/ReferencePreviews
[2] Page Previews: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Page_Previews
[3] Changes during the beta phase:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/ReferencePreviews#Bet…
[4] talk page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:WMDE_Technical_Wishes/ReferencePreviews
[5] Phab: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T271206
--
Johanna Strodt
Project manager community communications Technical Wishes
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de
======
Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissen der Menschheit
teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
https://spenden.wikimedia.de
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us to achieve our vision!
https://spenden.wikimedia.de
======
Wikimedia Deutschland – Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
// sorry for cross-posting
Hi all,
another feature will soon make usage of templates easier:
Suggested values for parameters can be added to TemplateData and will be
shown as a drop-down list in VisualEditor. This allows VisualEditor users
to quickly select an appropriate value. Thus, it reduces potential errors
and 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
can be found on the TemplateData help page [1] and on the project page. [2]
The WMDE Technical Wishes team plans to deploy this on all wikis on April
29. If you have any feedback, please let us know on the project’s talk
page. [3]
Timur
for the Technical Wishes team
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:TemplateData#suggestedvalues
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Suggested_values_for_…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Suggested_values…
--
Timur Vorkul
Technische Wünsche
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23–24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de
Bleiben Sie auf dem neuesten Stand! Aktuelle Nachrichten und spannende
Geschichten rund um Wikimedia, Wikipedia und Freies Wissen im Newsletter: Zur
Anmeldung <https://www.wikimedia.de/newsletter/>.
Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissen der Menschheit
teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
https://spenden.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
Hello! Our team, Wikimedia Germany’s Technical Wishes project [1], is
developing a series of improvements to make working with templates easier.
Maybe you’ve already heard of some of the projects that have recently been
deployed: [2] [3] [4]. We plan to release more improvements to make working
with templates easier over the course of this year:
It will become easier to find templates and to insert them into a page. [5]
Removing a template from a page (with Visual Editor) will become easier. [6]
Several problems with the existing interface for editing templates in the
VisualEditor will be tackled. [7]
Template creators and maintainers will be offered more guidance when they
are managing TemplateData with the template documentation editor. [8]
Now we’re looking for a few wikis who want to be the first to benefit from
these changes. If your wiki community is interested in this, all the
improvements listed above would be deployed to your wiki in a series of
releases, likely between May and July 2021. Of course, each deployment
would be announced beforehand.
We’re hoping for wikis of different sizes, both Wikipedias and sister
projects, and wikis with different scripts and writing directions. The
wikis should use TemplateData and ideally have the VisualEditor as a
default feature.
Is your wiki community interested to have early access to these
improvements? Email me or let me know on my talk page.[9]
Best,
Johanna
[1] Technical Wishes project:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes
[2] Bracket matching:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Bracket_Matching
[3] Improved color scheme for syntax highlighting:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Improved_Color_Scheme…
[4] Line numbering:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Line_Numbering
[5] Finding and inserting templates:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Finding_and_inserting…
[6] Removing a template from a page using the VisualEditor:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Removing_a_template_f…
[7] VisualEditor template dialog improvements:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/VisualEditor_template…
[8] TemplateData editor improvements:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Template_data_editor_…
[9] talk page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Johanna_Strodt_(WMDE)
--
Johanna Strodt
Projektmanagerin Kommunikation Communitys Technische Wunschliste
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
https://wikimedia.de
Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissens der Menschheit
teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren können. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
https://spenden.wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.