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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Service credit letter request

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I was wondering if I could get a service credit letter for editing Wikipedia. (That is, for edits that I'll make in the near future on global health articles, not past edits.) Because, my school requires me to do 75 hours of community service before graduating. It isn't one of the schools participating in the Wikimedia Education program though. The letter would require a short description of the service work I performed, and the contact information and signature of the volunteer supervisor. —Enervation (talk) 02:29, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Enervation: I'm not familiar with what a service credit letter entails. Can you not just show the person in question your edit history? Koavf (talk) 13:17, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In general at my school, getting credit for volunteer hours requires a community service credit letter, though I suppose I could try to ask my school's community service office to make an exception in this case.
According to my school's guidelines, a service credit letter is supposed to include:
  • the organization’s letterhead
  • a description of the service work performed
  • the date or range of dates when I volunteered
  • the exact number of hours worked
  • contact information (phone or email) of the volunteer supervisor and signature (no scans) [I'll probably have to ask them to make an exception re: "no scans"]
And here's a sample letter
Enervation (talk) 22:17, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Enervation: For official letterhead, you may need to contact someone at the Foundation. Koavf (talk) 13:22, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Flow as Beta Feature

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Hello, I suggest to add Flow to beta features at the user talk namespace. That mean that every user can decide to have his talk page under Flow or normal page system.

Short explanation – what is Flow?
  • Flow is a project for building a modern discussion and collaboration system for Wikimedia projects.
  • It provides features that are present on most modern websites, but which are not possible to implement in wikitext. For example, Flow automatically signs users' posts on talk pages, threads replies, and permits per-topic notifications.
  • The main goals for the Flow project are:
  1. to make the wiki discussion system more accessible for new users
  2. to make the wiki discussion system more efficient for experienced users
  3. to encourage meaningful conversations that support collaboration
The main interest is that Flow improve notifications system, and it's really important on this Wiki with mostly occasional users.
Archi38 (talk) 15:10, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support

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  1.  Support as proposant, much better Archi38 (talk) 15:10, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  2.  Support I have been using it since a while on fr.Wikipedia. I find it rather intuitive, and useful as a transparent tool for driving discussed exchanges. I guess new users will be less reluctant entering discussions than having to step up with the wiki-code interface ; wiki-code-native power users will probably forget it for a while, since the pleasure of building a house brick by brick is so enjoyable… Whatever it's long ago since castles and palaces were done like this… :-) However, since it's a "gadget" tool, it's each one's choice to get and try it, then adopt or discard it. I profoundly support giving the opportunity to everyone to test it. Last word : since it's a new tool, it's probably still perfectible. As far as I have practiced them, remarks, criticisms and suggestions have always been responded and eventually taken into account very quickly. Thanks to the team behind the curtain.--Eric.LEWIN (talk) 22:46, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Enabled now

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I've just enabled this. You can turn switch your user talk page to Flow by going here and enabling "Flow on user talk". The result will look like this. --Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 23:24, 18 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

JavaScript

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Hi. I can see that this project has old JavaScript that needs to be updated. I would happily make the required updates myself, but I would have to – at least temporarily – become an admin here to do that (because the relevant pages are in the MediaWiki namespace). I have already made these updates on a number of other projects, so it would be very easy for me to do this. If no one does anything, some JavaScript-related tools will break later this year. If you want me to make these updates, you can grant me admin rights and I will make the updates as soon as I can. Nirmos (talk) 22:41, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Nirmos: Done. Thanks for offering. Koavf (talk) 23:37, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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Please see here I have alerted everyone of this discussion on Commons about Outreach. Please respond there. Koavf (talk) 04:18, 2 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Recommend blocking User:PCruiser

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Recommend blocking User:PCruiser. See contribs here. Do other users agree that this user is problematic? Do other admins agree that this user should be blocked? Thanks, Msannakoval (talk) 04:08, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Msannakoval: Agreed that the user's edits are at the very least bizarre... I have made an attempt at reaching out in the hopes that we can hash out something here. If not, then I agree that blocking will at least stop some of the bizarre edits. Koavf (talk) 04:15, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Koavf: I noticed more edits by this user in recent changes, so I did some investigating, and I'm confused. This user was blocked indefinitely because of sockpuppetry on en.wiki, yet the user managed to post to his/her user talk page on en.wiki yesterday. How is that possible? The user continues to edit here yet said edits are, as you say, "inscrutable" and are not contributing meaningfully to GLAM, education, library or other outreach work here on this project. Plus the user has not replied to a direct talk page inquiry about his/her purpose here. Recommending again to block this user. Msannakoval (talk) 01:40, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Msannakoval: Blocking in MediaWiki allows the person performing the action several options for how to block including duration and whether or not he can send email through the web interface. One of those options is to allow someone to edit his talk page (e.g. to explain himself or appeal for an unblock). I am blocking him here as he is not valuable to this project. Are you willing to look through his edits to roll back as well or should I? Koavf (talk) 02:31, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Koavf: Thanks for explaining that talk page editing is allowable even after a block. That makes sense. I wish I could help with the rollbacking. I'm under a deadline to finish copyediting the education newsletter today. So thank you for offering to do so. I will review your process in the recent changes. I've honestly never done it before as part of a block, so I'm eager to learn. Again, thanks for being another pair of eyes and hands on this. I was relieved when you responded to this post. It's very helpful having you here on Outreach wiki, and I'm grateful to you, Koavf. All the best, Msannakoval (talk) 04:27, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Msannakoval: No problem. Happy to help Koavf (talk) 04:35, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How do I become a translation admin on this wiki?

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Recently I started translating our (Wikimedia Polska) educational materials to English. I would love to use the MediaWiki mw:Extension:Translate for that. Take a look at Education/Ideal workshop/pl and it's almost-ready translation at Education/Ideal workshop. Instead of translating the two from scratch, I would like to use Special:PageMigration, but it seems only TranslationAdmins can use that tool. So, how do I become one? Halibutt (talk) 09:32, 5 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Halibutt: I did it. Sorry for the drive-by edit but I was busy. Koavf (talk) 21:54, 5 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Koavf: I noticed, I already made my first mistakes in the new role :) Thanks a lot! Halibutt (talk) 22:00, 5 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hindi Version of Wikipedia (Bookshelf)

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Namaste! I have finished translation of Wikipedia (Bookshelf) in Hindi. Now I want some guidance to publish that. Please guide me to do so. Thank you. NehalDaveND (talk) 03:43, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have done three brochures' translation in two languages Sanskrit and Hindi. I want to publish those brochures for Education programs. I want guidance from you.
  • Hindi

https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Wikipedia_(Bookshelf)/2013_edition/text/hi

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Welcome_to_Commons_brochure/text/hi

https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Evaluating_Wikipedia_article_quality_(Bookshelf)/2013_edition/hi

  • Sanskrit

https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Wikipedia_(Bookshelf)/2013_edition/text/sa

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Welcome_to_Commons_brochure/text/sa

https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Evaluating_Wikipedia_article_quality_(Bookshelf)/2013_edition/sa

@Koavf: Yes. Please guide me. NehalDaveND (talk) 04:55, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@NehalDaveND: Do you want to publish them in print or online? Koavf (talk) 05:41, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Koavf: I want to print. Because I want to go for Education program to several Universities. Many other wikipedians also waiting for this print too. NehalDaveND (talk) 06:17, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@NehalDaveND: You can use the "Create a book" link to the left to use our PDF maker. Koavf (talk) 15:03, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Koavf: I didn't understand you point. I want to print this as booklet or guide book for Students and Teachers. I want to print and distribute it among them. I don't know how to make printable file Corale, Photoshop and other printing related work. I need guidance too about grant for printing cost. NehalDaveND (talk) 19:01, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@NehalDaveND: On the left hand side of every page are "Print/Export" options, including rendering pages as PDFs. The Book tool allows you to choose several pages that you want to print together as well--you can start and stop a book that is made up of all the pages you want to print. Koavf (talk) 21:15, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Problem concerning Flow activation on user talk pages

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At the moment it is not possible to activate and deactivate Flow on a user talk page. Activate or deactivate Flow will lead to an empty page, with an error message.

Developers are fixing it. I'll post news when some updates will be available.

Please share that information with other users. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 14:25, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Update : activation of Flow as a Beta feature will be available again on Monday December 5 at 19:00 UTC. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 10:37, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Trizek (WMF): Thanks. Do you need persons to test it or do you think it's fine? This wiki doesn't have a lot of custom content. Koavf (talk) 16:53, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your proposal! That's a global deployment, so it will work on all wikis. I'll do some individual checkings too, on various wikis. If you want to try it, be bold; I'll be very happy to have your feedback! :) Trizek (WMF) (talk) 18:13, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have some ideas/suggestions for helping WMF project contributors:

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  • We should set up a WikiProject on User Forgiveness to help sanctioned users who believe that those sanctions are unjust. Some sanctioned Wikimediholics who want to contribute again may be considering suicide or revenge if they aren't able to contribute to the WMF projects soon. We should help them, especially those too impatient for the Standard Offer or those who have extreme rage whenever they get a surprise block or who believe that what they are doing or planning on doing is compliant to WMF project rules.
  • I think we should get rid of anti-proxy rules because those rules have prevented many people from countries such as Iran and China from editing Wikipedia or other projects. But Iran matters just as much as China. Blocking Wikimedians for using open proxies just because some proxy users abuse their editing privileges is the same as throwing Americans in jail for following Islam just because some Muslims are terrorists. I saw a denied unblock request on English Wikipedia that said that some people have to use proxies because of strict laws in Iran.
  • We should revise the WMF projects' rules so that they are easier to understand, more agreeable, less confusing, more clearly defined, more efficient to learn about, and easier to obey. Such revisions could save many puzzled Wikimedians from getting sanctioned due to violating some specific rules that they didn't know so well about. Of course we should keep some important rules such as neutral point of view, citation, no original research, the copyright and civility policies.

These are ideas that I think could help the WMF projects become more free and open than it is. PS. I think that the Wikipedia people came up with the notability guidelines because they were worried about their servers not being able to hold that much stuff.

67.162.203.107 12:58, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • @67.162.203.107: The Ombudsman may be competent to handle user forgiveness issues. For what it's worth, if you are caught in a hard range IP block, it is fairly easy to get out of it by requesting exemption--I have it myself. If you have any suggestions on the language for WMF rules, we could probably look at them here or on Meta. I'm not sure of the exact process for revising those, since they sometimes have legal implications. Koavf (talk) 23:18, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think a Wiki user forgiveness project would be convenient for those too impatient for the standard offer, or who do not use or read email. I think the idea may be favored by some utilitarians, parents of young Wikipedians, blocked users saying their blocks are unjust, and former vandals who keep getting rejected. Repealing the anti-proxy rules would be very convenient for people in Iran, China, and other countries with strict laws.
We shouldn't mess with the rules that have anything to do with legal things. I'm just talking about the general editorial and behaviorial policies and guidelines of Wikipedia.
When I was Turkeybutt JC, my main focus was to make Wikipedia more neutral, but I was being disruptive by disputing the neutrality of articles and taking the Manual of Style's Words to Watch page too seriously and taking other peoples' criticism about my editing for granted. I got indef blocked and so I kept making new accounts, with each one teaching me a lesson.
When I was AI RPer and UnforgivablyPotatoes, I focused on vandal-fighting instead, since I thought everyone agreed that vandalism was bad. But still, Floquenbeam caught me whenever I was trying to come back in new accounts, and vandal fighting didn't seem to cut it to him. He kept telling me that when I created new accounts to 'continue my disruption' that I get indef blocked. But I wasn't trying to continue my disruption.
But I think it's nearly settled, and I think I'm close to breaking the "you cannot edit Wikipedia" curse for sure, I just hope the curse doesn't come back to me in the form of Floquenbeam's blocking abilities. -- 67.162.203.107 22:02, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@67.162.203.107: What would you like to do on Wikipedia? Koavf (talk) 00:16, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm already doing what I've been wanting to do; copy edit, neutralize the tone of articles, fight vandalism, and treat problem users with civility rather than aggression. So far it's going fine. -- 67.162.203.107 12:00, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Koavf: Floquenbeam has blocked me from editing Wikipedia for six months for block evasion. (I hope to still be able to edit my talk page)

The block forgiveness program I proposed could really be a handy way to break what I think is the curse that seems to have been quietly placed on me to keep me from contributing to Wikipedia effectively. -- 67.162.203.107 00:48, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • @67.162.203.107: What I recommend is waiting it out--contribute to other WMF projects, including simple.wp, and maybe even other online communities--Project Gutenburg/LibriVox/Distributed Proofreaders, DMOZ, OpenStreetMap, etc. Take some time to ride it out and it will be fine. I'm glad that you're eager to edit again and I think you could be a valued contributor in a few months. Koavf (talk) 03:57, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I can't contribute to simple.wp anymore as I am blocked from there until November 25 because of 'block evasion'. I don't think there's any other WMF project that gets vandalized as much as Wikipedia. (I'm saying it because I like to fight vandalism)
I can still edit my talk page. Floquenbeam told me "If you start editing with this IP in 6 months, without having your account unblocked, I'll reblock for another 6 months." I think he assumed that I was taking the Standard Offer to get Turkeybutt JC unblocked. I'm not sure if he meant 'within six months' or 'six months hence'. So I asked him to clarify.
I wonder why does Wikipedia tell us that their rules are not clear, simple or firm? What about the copyright policy? The copyright policy has to be firm. I wonder why Jimbo and the WMF intended to have confusing and complicated and possibly contradictory rules? On Wikipedia, freedom should not be sacrificed to improve security. -- 67.162.203.107 11:45, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@67.162.203.107: November 25 is a week from now. You can just hold out until then and it will be okay. I'm surprised that you think that Wikipedia's rules are not clear--can you give me an example? Koavf (talk) 06:01, 16 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For example, Ignore all rules. That's a policy. But we get blocked if we break the rules. But IAR is a rule. But if we ignore the copyright policy, we'd be in trouble. Some Wikipedia rules have to be firm.
And now they're making me not edit Wikipedia for six months. (I can still edit my talk page) And they told me that I'm still not permitted to edit after six months. (I'm not supposed to edit Wikipedia until Turkeybutt JC is unblocked) I got the first thing ticked off the checklist; convince them that I have learned my lesson. Now I have to start the edit hiatus for six months. I'll still be here at Wikimedia Outreach. -- 67.162.203.107 11:51, 16 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm... you seem to have not responded to me in a while. I'll just ping you, @Koavf: PS. I read that the standard offer means 'no socks or evading blocks for six months', but the page didn't tell me I had to stop editing Wikipedia altogether.
@67.162.203.107: All I can really tell you is to sit tight through your block. Koavf (talk) 05:18, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a forgiving Wikipedian who is able to lift global locks and CheckUser blocks may be able to boldly ignore the "make sure to ask the blocking administrator before unblocking" rule so that they can unblock my Turkeybutt JC account. But then there would be lots of arguing and chaos and wheel warring and stuff about the blocking policy and the Ignore All Rules policy. And then I would be contributing constructively and redirect my user page to my contributions list and I could make enough vandal-fighting contributions that anyone going to my userpage would see that I was reformed and would be on my side. I believe that Wikipedia is run on mob rule, communitarianism, oligarchy, and ostracization. Or Anonymous can hack our blocks away... -- 67.162.203.107 (talk) 20:18, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note to administrators: 2-factor authentication is now available for your Wikimedia accounts

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Administrators: 2-factor authentication is now available on your Special:Preferences page. I highly recommend enabling it. Note that if you lose access to the device that you use for 2-factor authentication and you lose your recovery codes, then your account may be unrecoverable. --Pine✉ 20:54, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikimedia Foundation's wikicommunity is the most disruptive community I have ever met and they are incompetent to even have those Wikis in the first place.

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For starters, I think that the ideal wiki-encyclopedia;

  • Has simple, non-contradictory, concise rules.
  • Has verification, source-citing and neutrality rules very similar to Wikipedia's.
  • Allows vandalism and trolling, despite possibly being discouraged or frowned upon.
  • Does not rely on consensus for many things, so mob rule won't mess up the wiki.
  • Does not block or ban anyone from the site, as all disruptivity can be reversed.

The WMF may be anti-utilitarian. They don't care for people that the ruling mob doesn't like.

There are many wiki-problems;

  • If a consensus agrees on a POV bias, then that would justify POV bias in articles, ignoring the NPOV rule so they can "improve" Wikipedia by making the articles reflect that biased consensus.
(The Founding Fathers didn't believe that relying on majority opinion was a good idea, as that would lead to mob rule and lots of fighting and the 80% taking away the other 20% rights if they wanted)
  • Indef blocks and bans have given people an incentive to become suicidal, or terroristic for revenge's sake, or urged to take legal action, or a hacktivist so as to hack their editing privileges back.
(This proves that the Wikicommunity is extremely lazy since us humans have been getting dumber over time, the blocking system was an idea made up by lazy people who didn't like to battle vandalism)
  • Out of Wiki-concern, the Wikicommunity has been setting up an oligarchic pyramid scheme where a minority OF Wikimedians are more powerful than the majority, which has failed to help Wikipedia.
(Every regime that used fear to promise to make things better has been exploited and abused by a lucky minority so as to tyrannize the regime and make people associate the ideology with evil)
  • No Wikimedian "gives a f**k" about ostracized users, and unfortunately, editing privileges weren't hacked back to blocked Wikimedians by Anonymous or other hacktivists yet. I don't know why not.
(I know that Wikipedia is not a democracy or an anarchy, which is a good thing that Wikipedia is neither, but I'd like it if the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects were much more utilitarian)
  • The WMF advertises that it's okay to be disobedient, yet they let sysops block disobedient users from editing and advertise that blocking is not punishment, when only disobedient users get blocked.
(It's a bad idea for a ruler to tell their people that it's okay to break some laws and then have the law enforcement punish people who break those laws and deny that such people are being punished)
  • The community advertises that the Wikis are the best place for autistic people or people with ADHD. I have Autism and I hate the WMFs websites because they have the stupidest philosophies ever.
(Wikipedia good for autistic people? Only for five years or so. Yo Gabba Gabba's lights and colors bad for autistic people? I don't think so. I have autism and I liked to watch that fun TV show)
  • The no open proxies rule is stupid. People from Iran, China and other places that restrict access to Wikipedia need those proxies. Pets shouldn't be banned just because some people are allergic.
(Of course America has been terrorized by some Muslims, but that doesn't mean that there should be a law to put nearly all Muslims in prison just for their religion at any time without warning)

I'm glad I can rant on my sorrow here. If this doesn't get heard, then the WMF's outreach program is a failure and the WMF is lying about how good they are at making the internet "not suck".

-- 67.162.203.107 13:11, 30 November 2016 (UTC) (darn it I forgot to sign again!)[reply]
@67.162.203.107: It seems like you have a different set of priorities and values than the ones which make it possible to have these projects. If you decide to change your mind or abide by our guidelines while you edit, we would be happy to have you. Koavf (talk) 16:58, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Koavf: That makes sense. I remember being told by someone else on Wikipedia that if many people are saying that I was disruptive or incompetent, that such attacks "are not personal attacks" and that I should change, yet I have stopped disputing articles' neutralities since Turkeybutt JC was globally locked.
I agree with the neutrality and verifiablility guidelines, and I respect the copyright guidelines. But I don't agree with that which conflicts with my never give up or the there is no need to fit in philosophy.
They believe in the essay Competence is required but dismiss the essay Wikipuffery, which is confusing to me, as essays document personal thoughts which may be shared among some Wikipedians, so in my opinion, enforcing an essay such as WP:CIR is just the same thing as a group of antitheists telling me to stop believing in God just because I don't go to church.
I don't believe in Ignore all rules or Wikipedia's fifth pillar "Wikipedia has no firm rules" because Wikimedia has to and does have firm rules, such as rules against copyright violations, personal attacks, vandalism, disruptive editing, and the undoing of the actions of checkusers, stewards, arbitrators, the WMF staff and Jimbo.
Such rules telling us to take the rules for granted give editors in power the excuse to shove their own interpretations of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines down the throats of regular editors, since it is unclear when and where we can obey or disobey certain rules, and thus it can be confusing for us, even contradictory, as we can be forced to change our opinions to match the opinions of the majority or the opinions of the editors in power. I do not tolerate peer pressure or the forcing of others to submit to the will of the consensus or the administrators, unless the purported "disruptive" editor is found to be randomly adding nonsense or removing important content from many articles frequently.
Wikipedia doesn't just have to adapt to a communitarian majority, it also needs to be adaptable to the likings of people who believe in individual liberty (but not anarchy) or nonconformity (against peer pressure) or people who think that rules are a necessity in everyday life or those who believe in amnesty for nonviolent misdemeanors or people who make frequent major mistakes on Wikipedia. -- 67.162.203.107 13:46, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New template to replace magic words

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Template:ISBN I have ported over w:Template:ISBN and w:Module:Check isxn from en.wp. Magic words as links are being phased out and although we don't have to replace all instances of them now, they will all be removed from MediaWiki in 2017. See mw:Requests_for_comment/Future_of_magic_links. We have about no entries in Category:Pages using ISBN magic links at the moment. Koavf (talk) 02:49, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki for Coop

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Hello everyone,

I come to you to invite to re-read the submission of a new partnership project between the Wikimedia movement and the Belgian NGOs. The project is titled Wiki 4 Coop and I invite you to discover its submission page on Meta-Wiki. Do not hesitate to endorse the project if you like it and even correct my English if you have a little time. A beautiful end of day for all of you, Lionel Scheepmans (talk) 09:47, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Editing outage on 19 April and 3 May 2017

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The Wikimedia Foundation will be performing some maintenance and testing on the servers. One test will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster.

They will switch all traffic from the main data center to the secondary data center on Wednesday, 19 April 2017. On Wednesday, 3 May 2017, they will switch back to the primary data center. The time has not been finalized; however, the test will probably begin at 14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 07:00 PDT).

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop during those two switches. You will be able to read, but not edit, all pages at all wikis for approximately 20 to 30 minutes on Wednesday, 19 April and Wednesday, 3 May 2017. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

There will also be a code freeze for the weeks of 17 April 2017 and 1 May 2017. No non-essential code deployments will take place.

This project may be postponed if necessary. 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.

If you have scheduled any workshops or edit-a-thons around this time, please leave a message for me on my talk page at the English Wikipedia as soon as possible. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:57, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The time has been confirmed: 14:00 UTC on both days. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:45, 29 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Undoing my changes

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I've did some temporary fixes, which I would like to undo now. But as my account is not autoconfirmed my actions get throttled. May you please help me and undo all my changes to the Open Access reports?--Tostman (talk) 15:33, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Tostman: YesY Done --Samuele2002 (talk) 19:15, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strategy 2017

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See m:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017. Should this be promoted on the Main Page? Koavf (talk) 05:55, 10 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Where to request File mover rights on Outreach wiki

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Where can I request for File mover rights on Outreach wiki? As publication leader for the Education Newsletter I move drafts articles to their permanent names after copy-edit. The redirects left behind serve no purpose and I might have to tag them for deletion at some point. —M@sssly✉ 15:03, 27 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Masssly: There is no such the file mover permission here. —Alvaro Molina (✉ - ✔) 15:44, 27 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Masssly, AlvaroMolina: Hi as mentioned AlvaroMolina at this time it is not possible to assign this right because it does not exist on outreach. However, if you are in favor, I can apply for Phabricator to create the user group. What do you think? --Samuele2002 (talk) 06:45, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I am in favour. —M@sssly✉ 06:51, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How can I help here?

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I'm a former anon from 2004-2005, but now want to help again as a user. What can I do to help that's useful? --Walkden861 (talk) 17:26, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Walkden861: You may want to check out the strategy talk on Meta: m:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017/Cycle 2. Koavf (talk) 18:03, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Add Wikidata support here or not?

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Since all monolingual projects (i.e. above Other Wikimedia projects of Special:SiteMatrix) plus Commons, MediaWiki.org, Meta-Wiki, Wikispecies and Wikidata itself are now combined interwiki links to that project (supports for Incubator, Multilingual Wikisource and Beta Wikiversity are chakushu-ing on phab:T54971), I would like to find next project that makes sense to iw-link. And perhaps to provide combined, structured, and on-going updated (if that isn't vandalism) datas. Any comments are welcome under this section. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 00:57, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Liuxinyu970226: This is a good question--it's not covered by Wikidata's discussion of sister projects. Nor are Wikitech and the Wikimanias (if you're still looking for a next logical project to add). Of course, this project will have some pages like this or Main Page which will be interwiki links with others but a vast majority are Outreach-only. What would be the value of Wikidata integration to you? Koavf (talk) 01:39, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
i see wikidata has an item "This Month in GLAM" d:Q15868218. without a link to outreach. Slowking4 (talk) 01:10, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well I guess we want this because of Structured Commons? From Outreach we link all over the place, and it would be e.g. beneficial to be able to have GLAM pages on Outreach that are linked from the GLAM's item on Wikidata, since that is the hub for all things wiki to do with that GLAM. Jane023 (talk) 06:16, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If there's no opposition comments before July 20, then I will file a task on Phabricator. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 14:50, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any harm in taking this action, and perhaps it will be beneficial, so I support proceeding in the absence of objections prior to July 20, per Liuxinyu970226. --Pine✉ 07:09, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Koavf, Slowking4, Jane023, Pine: Requested at phab:T171140. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 03:32, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The occasion is smart with few animations

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<--Yes of cause the inventer of the wikifoundation has never thought his administrators would be sluggish and call noble editors names disgraced above the universe.Most think their jurisdiction is to block,revert and condemn editorials at their own discression forming giberish and nonsensial poor judgements.to support their iliteracy and boosy influencess that are either cultural/political,religiuos for goodness sake.the choice is so poor and tantamount to imperialism and bad manner -->[Djs](41.138.78.55 12:53, 12 July 2017 (UTC))[reply]

Sorry, what? Koavf (talk) 15:54, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I would guess a poor google translation of a specific problem. The 64 cent question is which language wiki did he/she come from and what wiki did he/she think this village pump is for? Jane023 (talk) 16:42, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
by global [1] you might speculate an editor from Botswana . there is an unfortunate tendency to logout from the SUL. did he mean bossy or boosy ? Slowking4 (talk) 07:32, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Archival note

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I have boldly moved several older Village Pump discussions to Wikimedia:Village pump/Archive 5. If someone wants to resume a discussion that I archived, please feel free to cut and paste it from Archive 5 back to this page. --Pine✉ 07:00, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

+1 --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 07:41, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requirements for new administrators for the Outreach wiki

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This discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. You may start a new discussion on the same topic if you wish. There was a time when this wiki didn't have many administrators, especially active administrators. Spam and vandalism currently seem to be well under control, so I think that we aren't desperate for new administrators and can set some formal expectations for people who wish to offer their services as administrators on Outreach. (Addition to original proposal: I suggest that the length of time for this discussion should be 10 days so that there is a reasonable length of time for people to comment.)

I propose the following requirements for new administrators (these requirements wouldn't be retroactive):

  • 10,000 global edits under all registered accounts
  • At least 1 year as a registered user under the account which the requester proposes to use for admin activity on Outreach
  • No more than 1 active block across all Wikimedia projects on all of the user's accounts
  • The account which the user proposes for administrator activity on Outreach already has administrator permissions on at least one other Wikimedia wiki, with
  • at least 3,000 edits on that wiki
  • at least 1 year as an administrator on that wiki
  • at least 300 logged admin actions on that wiki
  • no blocks (other than self-requested blocks) within the past 5 years on that wiki. (The account doesn't need to be 5 years old.)

What do others think? Pinging User:Koavf in particular, as the bureaucrat who has been recently active on Outreach's request for permissions page.

--Pine✉ 18:25, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Support I do not see any problem with these requirements. —Alvaro Molina (✉ - ✔) 19:21, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional  Support. I think this is very sensible but I would leave a caveat for someone who may be associated with some outside organization who is editing here and may need to (e.g.) delete a page. As long as there is a reasonable process for bureaucrats to use their discretion and as long as it's made clear that those admin rights would be exceptional but are acceptable, then that would be good for me. Koavf (talk) 20:24, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Koavf, in the case of someone from an outside organization who would like to delete a page, that person can make a deletion request here at the Village pump. That is a much less risky method than assigning admin rights to that person. --Pine✉ 20:32, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Pine: I'm sensitive to reducing overhead. Whatever would be easiest is what I'll support. Either way, I don't oppose your initial language, so if that's what others think is best, then I am on board. Koavf (talk) 20:38, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • By the way, I suggest that we give this proposal 10 days for people to comment. Having a broad consensus would be nice. I will add this comment to my proposal above --Pine✉ 20:46, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As there has been no further discussion, I am closing this. I will add the information to the Requests for Permissions page. --Pine✉ 22:15, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, this turned Outreach wiki policy orthogonally. This used to be a wiki where it is the easiest to obtain admin rights. Even after the times when every non-vandal account here was given admin rights it still was easy. Now with such criteria especially of being an admin elsewhere for a year it is very difficult. --Base (talk) 19:37, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Base: I agree that it represents a pretty big shift in the way things are done around here. This is also one of the very few WMF wikis where a bureaucrat can make someone else a bureaucrat or take away that user right. I don't know that it's an improvement or a detriment but it's clear that this is what the community wants or at least tacitly accepts. If you feel like it's a problem, then I'm open to hearing your concerns. Do you think this is a bad thing? Does it help the wiki to mature? Koavf (talk) 19:45, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, the way this wiki was it was one of the few examples of actually following the "adminship is not a bit deal" principle. Now it is, you have to meet very strict criteria. I do not believe creating strict policies equals wiki maturing. Oh I do like policies, I love them, but they make things more complicated. And unfriendly. --Base (talk) 19:59, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(editconflict) No blocks for 5 years is also a crazy requirement. I would not meet this criterium for even now, but I cannot remember this creating any problems on this wiki in 4 years I am an admin here. Blocks often stem of particular community problems and are absolutely irrelevant in different community. Furthermore I believe there is no such requirement even for running for Steward rights, it seems most unreasonable to request it for adminship in this quiet wiki.
  • 10k edits globally is not a good criterion as well. GLAM and Education focused people often do a lot of stuff offline and are not that active onwiki to have such numbers of edits. It is not a reference I like, but Jimbo Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia has only 14,194 edits globally.
  • 3k edits on a wiki is a lot too. I cannot say that doing admin actions on this wiki is too much different from my experience on Ukrainian Wikinews and Ukrainian Wikiquote where I am an admin as well (and just as with this wiki my adminship there had seen better days activity wise). I do not have 3k edits in those wikis though. There is just no way to get them not being a very active content contributor, and contributing content actively is not what administrators are required to do (though they are encouraged to do that for sure).
  • 1 active block is fair, but I would like it to be applied not blindly.
I suggest to reconsider the new policy. It is unreasonably too strict. --Base (talk) 19:54, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you to bring the idea out, @Base:. In my humble opinion, I don't like the rule to be this strict, either. I once was introduced to this wiki two years ago by the Wikipedia Education Program staff. I tried to become an translation admin but I can't understand the documentation of translation administration and its example, so I just stopped there and not applying the translation administration right. Just last few days I got a chance to see what @Trizek (WMF): has created for the explanation of translation extension and then understand what most of the documentation implies. I think my case just shows how other people might have. If the rule to become an admin is so difficult then I am afraid this wiki will not be an environment welcome enough for people who do outreach, it will be less friendly for the user and make the time longer to make this wiki be matured. --Liang_(WMTW) (talk) 21:57, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps making a policy exception for WMF employees working on Outreach-related topics may be a solution. Thoughts? —Alvaro Molina (✉ - ✔) 15:13, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WMF Employee&Contractor always can get advanced permission without community scrutiny - via their advanced permission rules. -revi (talk) 07:39, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Improved search in deleted pages archive

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During Wikimedia Hackathon 2016, the Discovery team worked on one of the items on the 2015 community wishlist, namely enabling searching the archive of deleted pages. This feature is now ready for production deployment, and will be enabled on all wikis, except Wikidata.

Right now, the feature is behind a feature flag - to use it on your wiki, please go to the Special:Undelete page, and add &fuzzy=1 to the URL, like this: https://test.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AUndelete&fuzzy=1. Then search for the pages you're interested in. There should be more results than before, due to using ElasticSearch indexing (via the CirrusSearch extension).

We plan to enable this improved search by default on all wikis soon (around August 1, 2017). If you have any objections to this - please raise them with the Discovery team via email or on this announcement's discussion page. Like most Mediawiki configuration parameters, the functionality can be configured per wiki. Once the improved search becomes the default, you can still access the old mode using &fuzzy=0 in the URL, like this: https://test.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AUndelete&fuzzy=0

Please note that since Special:Undelete is an admin-only feature, this search capability is also only accessible to wiki admins.

Thank you! CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 18:36, 25 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requirements for existing admins and bureaucrats

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For those having advanced rights (admin, bureaucrat, check user, oversight), do we want to have a policy on usage of the rights? At the moment, we have (e.g.) a bureaucrat who only edited less than a dozen times a several years ago. Following from the above discussion, do users here have any strong feelings on minimum usage requirements for advanced rights? (Please note that we have no local check users or oversighters but they are advanced local user rights which could in theory be applied to a policy like this.) Koavf (talk) 22:26, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This wiki, except for the deletion of pages of spam or out of project scope, does not demand much activity in regards to administrative actions. Outreach Wiki is mostly edited by members of Wikimedia chapters (several of them are not administrators here). I believe that applying some policy of local inactivity to existing administrators or bureaucrats is unnecessary since this wiki (in terms of active community) is not very high and most of those who edit have no closeness to the goal itself of Outreach Wiki. I believe that the global inactivity policy is sufficient.
As far as a policy for granting advanced permissions is concerned, I think the current requirements for administrators (it could have been somewhat more flexible), but here anyway, almost no one in the last time has requested to be an administrator here. I believe that a policy could also be implemented to grant the bureaucrat permission (requirements could be the same requirements for being an administrator and at least 6 months as an administrator).
It would be appreciated to read the opinions of other users about it. —Alvaro Molina (✉ - ✔) 04:22, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Update on users with advanced rights

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I recently removed the user rights of 57 admins and bureaucrats per the inactivity policy and conversations on the talk page of everyone who had advanced user rights as of one month ago. Our current list of 54 admins:

And our seven bureaucrats:

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to post them here. And if I made a mistake, it's easy to fix, so let me know. Koavf (talk) 18:05, 16 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Advanced advanced user rights

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I'd like to survey the community here about having local Check Users or Oversighters. I suggest that these two advanced user rights may be useful on this wiki:

  • Oversight is necessary on wikis with Flow enabled in order to complete delete topics. Threads which should be completely deleted such as Topic:Tycmw0e6a2dxs9yd are only actually removed from a user's talk page if you use the "delete" function. Cf. phab:T163061#3210902. Since this wiki is intended to be very outward-facing, it may also be necessary to remove revisions that have personal information.
  • Check User could be helpful for investigating sock puppetry or harassment on this wiki. Again, since the goal of this is to be a very gentle landing pad for persons outside the Wikimedia movement, it's important to be able to investigate these abuses.

One argument against the latter user right is that these investigations may be handled faster if we appeal to the relevant pages on Meta and ask a Steward to come here to address them.

Thoughts? Koavf (talk) 05:03, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The thing about Flow mentioned which though being just one more reason to hate flow and support motion towards its removal from wikis, is not so bad - without admin flag the pages are indeed deleted, only unlike normal revision delete you don't need to make extra clicks to see them when you are a sysop. Outward world would not be able to see the personal information. As to the flags, well, I think we need some CU help if it can help stop those vandals coming here creating spam pages on regular basis, but it is indeed better to leave it to stewards who can also lock the accounts and global block open proxies. I see no need in local OS. If the issue with Flow still looks bad I support deinstalling Flow from here more than having a local OS. --Base (talk) 22:32, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely better not to have a local checkuser or oversighter. If there was a consensus that Flow makes such a overhead needed, then I agree we should just have Flow uninstalled from the wiki. Nemo 06:35, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No need for oversighters or checkusers on this wiki. Flow is outdated and not working well, beter uninstalled on this wiki.
There are plans to move the contents of this wiki to Meta and to close (and redirect) this wiki. Romaine (talk) 15:06, 24 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Romaine: I've seen that discussed but not a plan. Can you please point me to a citation for this claim? Koavf (talk) 15:30, 24 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Likely you and I have a different perspective on what plan means. If you ask if the plan has been set to action, then I can say that I have not seen the incentive to it. Romaine (talk) 15:39, 24 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Romaine: I sincerely don't understand what you're talking about. Can you please point me to a citation? Where are you getting your information please? Koavf (talk) 15:43, 24 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Romaine: ? Koavf (talk) 02:02, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Koavf: My apologies, but in my previous message I explained it in the most simple way, and if that is not understood or read, I can't explain it simpler. Second I think this section is about advanced user rights, and the subject now is not about that. In general I consider it impolite to hijack a discussion to discuss a different topic, and while my previous message was intended to politely close the "closure" topic, it now goes to my opinion too long about something else if I would continue. This section is about advanced user rights. Romaine (talk) 02:15, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bugged template

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Hi all, anyone could help, please? The Template:Welcome is a bit broken, it was half in English half in French, I turned back to an older version, but now the user name doesn't appear. I'm sorry, actually I'm unable to fix it :( --Wikinade (talk) 10:02, 24 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Wikinade: I tried a couple of things that didn't work and just reverted it back. It's all in one language for me. Koavf (talk) 08:35, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I tested it on my own talk page, look at it, the result is quite weird… ^^' The issue probably comes from an incomplete translation of the template in French, but inclusions of templates in the main template are discouraging. Anyway, thanks for having tried :) --Wikinade (talk) 09:30, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing this wiki

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@Romaine: Please provide some citation or source for this--I'm keen to find out if this wiki is closing. Koavf (talk) 04:04, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Koavf: As far i know this has been discussed a while ago, but there was no consensus. Which means, it is unlikely that this wiki will be closed as for now. --Steinsplitter (talk) 19:06, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Steinsplitter: Agreed. I was specifically creating this thread for User:Romaine who dropped some cryptic reference above and then refused to discuss it as it was off-topic. So I simply asked for some kind of citation, which he failed to provide and leads me to think that he was just making up stuff. Koavf (talk) 19:09, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Steinsplitter: I do not think consensus has been sought, at least not so far I know. Multiple people just have proposed a plan and further they did not do anything with it so far I have seen. Romaine (talk) 19:22, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Koavf: Because of your behavior, including pushing + "making up stuff", I see no reason to reply to you. Stop pinging me or change your behavior. I have tried to be as clear as possible. Apparently that is still too difficult for you and I have no plan to continue on this. Thank you. Romaine (talk) 19:22, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Usage of ANEFO images (Dutch National Archives) in Wiki tops #90,000

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Dutch National Archives (Nationaal Archief) have made well over 320,000 images from the photograph press agency Anefo available under a CC-0 license –from 2012 onwards. These images form a set of photographs from the Netherlands (and abroad!) covering the period 1945-1989. Dutch National Archives announced this gesture (and performed the action) in 2012, made images available in high resolution in 2015 and changed the license to CC-zero in 2017. All these photographs are available from the website of the Nationaal Archief.
More than 17,000 images have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons so far (Nov. 2017), and usage is stunning. Not all images have been categorized properly, but a first search with a wmflabs tool shows 17,036 distinct images present in Commons (d.d. 17 Nov.2017), of which 11,282 (66.22% of all images in this category) are now being used in dozens of language versions of Wikipedia –with high usage in Wikidata too. Total image usages in Wiki have just surpassed 90,000.

ANEFO logo (1954)
Photograph of Joseph Brodsky (1988), one of the heavily used photos from the ANeFo collection
Site Images used
en.wikipedia 27261
nl.wikipedia 10470
wikidata.wikipedia 6430
de.wikipedia 5221
es.wikipedia. 5074
fr.wikipedia 4329
it.wikipedia 2952
ru.wikipedia 2195
pl.wikipedia 2049
no.wikipedia 1383
pt.wikipedia 1340
ca.wikipedia 1150
hu.wikpedia 1027
& others xxxxx
Total image usages 90009
Distinct images used 11282 (66.22%)
Thanks for the note. The Dutch are always ahead. :) --Nemo 08:57, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Jan Arkesteijn (talk) 12:26, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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