User talk:EdSaperia

Welcome!

Welcome to Wikipedia, EdSaperia! Thank you for your contributions. I am Marek69 and have been editing Wikipedia for quite some time, so if you have any questions feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. You can also check out Wikipedia:Questions or type {{helpme}} at the bottom of this page. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes (~~~~); that will automatically produce your username and the date. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Marek.69 ^talk 15:34, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A kitten for you!

Thank you for the lack of Pommy butt crack. :) And for being a well dressed Brit. The braces and waistcoat did an excellent job at hiding your probably attractive butt crack.

LauraHale (talk) 17:44, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cloud seeding vandalism

Please refrain from editing articles with the "cloud-to-butt" browser extension installed. Even though the vandalism was inadvertent, it still required cleanup. Kolbasz (talk) 18:37, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So it turns out that my delightful coworkers installed that extension onto my computer a few months ago and I hadn't noticed until this happened... EdSaperia (talk) 19:17, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Real Life Barnstar

This may not be much compared to UK Wikimedian of the Year 2014, but you certainly deserve it:

		The Real-Life Barnstar
		EdSaperia, you have without a doubt earned this Real Life Barnstar as director of the largest Wikimania held so far, in London 2014. The whole Wikimedia community is in your debt for making this showcase event a great success. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much MartinPoulter! My first ever barnstar too :) EdSaperia (talk) 15:17, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 13 August 2014

Special report: Twitter bots catalogue government edits to Wikipedia

Traffic report: Disease, decimation and distraction

Wikimedia in education: Global Education: WMF's Perspective

Wikimania: Promised the moon, settled for the stars

News and notes: Media Viewer controversy spreads to German Wikipedia

Op-ed: Red links, blue links, and erythrophobia

In the media: Monkey selfie, net neutrality, and hoaxes

Featured content: Cambridge got a lot of attention this week

Wikimania user

Ed, if you're interested, I've created fairly basic userboxes for all of the Wikimania, like this one:

This user attended Wikimania 2014 in London, United Kingdom.

Cheers! bd2412 T 16:06, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Want to update it to use the 2014 logo? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimania_2014_London_Shard_Logo_Large.png EdSaperia (talk) 10:59, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 20 August 2014

Interview: Improving the visibility of digital archival assets using Wikipedia

Traffic report: Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero

WikiProject report: Bats and gloves

Op-ed: A new metric for Wikimedia

Featured content: English Wikipedia departs for Japan

The Signpost: 27 August 2014

In the media: Plagiarism and vandalism dominate Wikipedia news

News and notes: Media Viewer—Wikimedia's emotional roller-coaster

Traffic report: Viral

Featured content: Cheats at Featured Pictures!

The Signpost: 03 September 2014

Arbitration report: Media viewer case is suspended

Featured content: 1882 × 5 in gold, and thruppence more

Op-ed: Automated copy-and-paste detection under trial

Traffic report: Holding Pattern

WikiProject report: Gray's Anatomy (v. 2)

Recent research: A Wikipedia-based Pantheon; new Wikipedia analysis tool suite; how AfC hamstrings newbies

The Signpost: 10 September 2014

Op-ed: Media Viewer software is not ready

Traffic report: Refuge in celebrity

Featured content: The louse and the fish's tongue

WikiProject report: Checking that everything's all right

The Signpost: 17 September 2014

In the media: Turkish Twitter outrage, medical translation, audience metrics

WikiProject report: A trip up north to Scotland

News and notes: Wikipedia's traffic statistics are off by nearly one-third

Traffic report: Tolstoy leads a varied pack

Featured content: Which is not like the others?

The Signpost: 24 September 2014

Featured content: Oil paintings galore

In the media: Indian political editing, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Congressional chelonii

Recent research: 99.25% of Wikipedia birthdates accurate; focused Wikipedians live longer; merging WordNet, Wikipedia and Wiktionary

Traffic report: Wikipedia watches the referendum in Scotland

WikiProject report: GAN reviewers take note: competition time

Arbitration report: Banning Policy, Gender Gap, and Waldorf education

WikiProject leaflets from Wikimania

Hi Ed! I don't know if you are the best person to ask about this but I'm interested in getting the WikiProject leaflets printed for Wikimania reprinted, as our project is doing some upcoming events that I think they would be useful at. RE: our project leaflet. Were these pamphlets originally printed using Wikimania funds and/or who has the design/printing information and is/was in command of this project? Thanks, OR drohowa (talk) 17:10, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi OR drohowa! Indeed these were printed using Wikimania funds, so you'll have to find some resources to get them done. You can find the file here: https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_art_and_Feminism_Leaflet_front_copy.png EdSaperia (talk) 18:42, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 01 October 2014

From the editor: The Signpost needs your help

Dispatches: Let's get serious about plagiarism

News and notes: Wikipedia article published in peer-reviewed journal; Wikipedia in education

WikiProject report: Animals, farms, forests, USDA? It must be WikiProject Agriculture

Traffic report: Shanah Tovah

Featured content: Brothers at War

VisualEditor newsletter—September and October 2014

Did you know?

TemplateData is a separate program that organizes information about the parameters that can be used in a template. VisualEditor reads that data, and uses it to populate its simplified template dialogs.

With the new TemplateData editor, it is easier to add information about parameters, because the ones you need to use are pre-loaded.

See the help page for TemplateData for more information about adding TemplateData. The user guide has information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing team has reduced technical debt, simplified some workflows for template and citation editing, made major progress on Internet Explorer support, and fixed over 125 bugs and requests. Several performance improvements were made, especially to the system around re-using references and reference lists. Weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org.

There were three issues that required urgent fixes: a deployment error that meant that many buttons didn't work correctly (bugs 69856 and 69864), a problem with edit conflicts that left the editor with nowhere to go (bug 69150), and a problem in Internet Explorer 11 that caused replaced some categories with a link to the system message, MediaWiki:Badtitletext (bug 70894) when you saved. The developers apologize for the disruption, and thank the people who reported these problems quickly.

Increased support for devices and browsers

Internet Explorer 10 and 11 users now have access to VisualEditor. This means that about 5% of Wikimedia's users will now get an "Edit" tab alongside the existing "Edit source" tab. Support for Internet Explorer 9 is planned for the future.

Tablet users browsing the site's mobile mode now have the option of using a mobile-specific form of VisualEditor. More editing tools, and availability of VisualEditor on smartphones, is planned for the future. The mobile version of VisualEditor was tweaked to show the context menu for citations instead of basic references (bug 68897). A bug that broke the editor in iOS was corrected and released early (bug 68949). For mobile tablet users, three bugs related to scrolling were fixed (bug 66697, bug 68828, bug 69630). You can use VisualEditor on the mobile version of Wikipedia from your tablet by clicking on the cog in the top-right when editing a page and choosing which editor to use.

TemplateData editor

A tool for editing TemplateData will be deployed to more Wikipedias soon. Other Wikipedias and some other projects may receive access next month. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation. When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "Edit template data" button at the top. Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.

Other changes

Several interface messages and labels were changed to be simpler, clearer, or shorter, based on feedback from translators and editors. The formatting of dialogs was changed, and more changes to the appearance will be coming soon, when VisualEditor implements the new MediaWiki theme from Design. (A preview of the theme is available on Labs for developers.) The team also made some improvements for users of the Monobook skin that improved the size of text in toolbars and fixed selections that overlapped menus.

VisualEditor-MediaWiki now supplies the mw-redirect or mw-disambig class on links to redirects and disambiguation pages, so that user gadgets that colour in these in types of links can be created.

Templates' fields can be marked as 'required' in TemplateData. If a parameter is marked as required, then you cannot delete that field when you add a new template or edit an existing one (bug 60358).

Language support improved by making annotations use bi-directional isolation (so they display correctly with cursoring behaviour as expected) and by fixing a bug that crashed VisualEditor when trying to edit a page with a dir attribute but no lang set (bug 69955).

Looking ahead

The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon, perhaps in late October.

The team is also working on support for adding rows and columns to tables, and early work for this may appear within the month. Please comment on the design at Mediawiki.org.

In the future, real-time collaborative editing may be possible in VisualEditor. Some early preparatory work for this was recently done.

Supporting your wiki

At Wikimania, several developers gave presentations about VisualEditor. A translation sprint focused on improving access to VisualEditor was supported by many people. Deryck Chan was the top translator. Special honors also go to संजीव कुमार (Sanjeev Kumar), Robby, Takot, Bachounda, Bjankuloski06 and Ата. A summary of the work achieved by the translation community has been posted here. Thank you all for your work.

VisualEditor can be made available to most non-Wikipedia projects. If your community would like to test VisualEditor, please contact product manager James Forrester or file an enhancement request in Bugzilla.

Please join the office hours on Saturday, 18 October 2014 at 18:00 UTC (daytime for the Americas; evening for Africa and Europe) and on Wednesday, 19 November at 16:00 UTC on IRC.

Give feedback on VisualEditor at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta. To help with translations, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact Elitre at Meta. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 8 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 08 October 2014

In the media: Opposition research firm blocked; Australian bushfires

Featured content: From a wordless novel to a coat of arms via New York City

Traffic report: Panic and denial

Technology report: HHVM is the greatest thing since sliced bread

The Signpost: 15 October 2014

Op-ed: Ships—sexist or sexy?

In the media: College player falsely linked to sports scandal by Wikipedia; the Nobel Prizes

Arbitration report: One case closed and two opened

Featured content: Bells ring out at the Temple of the Dragon at Peace

Technology report: Attempting to parse wikitext

Traffic report: Now introducing ... mobile data

WikiProject report: Signpost reaches the Midwest

The Signpost: 22 October 2014

Featured content: Admiral on deck: a modern Ada Lovelace

Op-ed: Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution—a wiki-protest

In the media: The story of Wikipedia; Wikipedia reanimated and republished; New UK government social media rules; death of Italian Wikipedia administrator

Traffic report: Death, War, Pestilence... Movies and TV

WikiProject report: De-orphanning articles—a huge task but with a huge team of volunteers to help

The Signpost: 29 October 2014

Featured content: Go West, young man

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

Maps tagathon: Find 10,000 digitised maps this weekend

Traffic report: Ebola, Ultron, and Creepy Articles

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

VisualEditor newsletter—November 2014

Did you know?

VisualEditor is also available on the mobile version of Wikipedia. Login and click the pencil icon to open the page you want to edit. Click on the gear-shaped settings in the upper-right corner, to pick which editor to use. Choose "Edit" to use VisualEditor, or "Edit source" to use the wikitext editor.

It will remember whether you used wikitext or VisualEditor, and use the same editor the next time you edit an article.

The user guide has information about how to use VisualEditor. Not all features are available in Mobile Web.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and requests, and worked on support for editing tables and for using non-Latin languages. Their weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org. Informal notes from the recent quarterly review were posted on Meta.

Recent improvements

The French Wikipedia should see better search results for links, templates, and media because the new search engine was turned on for everyone there. This change is expected at the Chinese and German Wikipedias next week, and eventually at the English Wikipedia.

The "pawn" system has been mostly replaced. Bugs in this system sometimes added a chess pawn character to wikitext. The replacement provides better support for non-Latin languages, with full support hopefully coming soon.

VisualEditor is now provided to editors who use Internet Explorer 10 or 11 on desktop and mobile devices. Internet Explorer 9 is not supported yet.

The keyboard shortcuts for items in the toolbar's menus are now shown in the menus. VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme from the User Experience / Design group. The appearance of dialogs has already changed in one Mobile version. The appearance on desktops will change soon. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" design and the new "MediaWiki" theme which will replace it.)

Several bugs were fixed for internal and external links. Improvements to MediaWiki's search solved an annoying problem: If you searched for the full name of the page or file that you wanted to link, sometimes the search program could not find the page. A link inside a template, to a local page that does not exist, will now show red, exactly as it does when reading the page. Due to a error, for about two weeks this also affected all external links inside templates. Opening an auto-numbered link node like [1] with the keyboard used to open the wrong link tool. These problems have all been fixed.

TemplateData

The tool for quickly editing TemplateData will be deployed to all Wikimedia Foundation wikis on Thursday, 6 November. This tool is already available on the biggest 40 Wikipedias, and now all wikis will have access to it. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation. When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "Edit template data" button at the top. Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.

You can use the new autovalue setting to pre-load a value into a template. This can be used to substitute dates, as in this example, or to add the most common response for that parameter. The autovalue can be easily overridden by the editor, by typing something else in the field.

In TemplateData, you may define a parameter as "required". The template dialog in VisualEditor will warn editors if they leave a "required" parameter empty, and they will not be able to delete that parameter. If the template can function without this parameter, then please mark it as "suggested" or "optional" in TemplateData instead.

Looking ahead

Basic support for inserting tables and changing the number of rows and columns in tables will appear next Wednesday. Advanced features, like dragging columns to different places, will be possible later. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon. To help editors find the most important items more quickly, some items in the toolbar menus will be hidden behind a "More" item, such as "underlining" in the styling menu. The appearance of the media search dialog will improve, to make picking between possible images easier and more visual. The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap.

The user guide will be updated soon to add information about editing tables. The translations for most languages except Spanish, French, and Dutch are significantly out of date. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language. Talk to us if you need help exporting the translated guide to your wiki.

You can influence VisualEditor's design. Tell the VisualEditor team what you want changed during the office hours via IRC. The next sessions are on Wednesday, 19 November at 16:00 UTC and on Wednesday 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC. You can also share your ideas at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.

Also, user experience researcher Abbey Ripstra is looking for editors to show her how they edit Wikipedia. Please sign up for the research program if you would like to hear about opportunities.

If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:41, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 05 November 2014

In the media: Predicting the flu, MH17 conspiracy theories

Traffic report: Sweet dreams on Halloween

The Signpost: 12 November 2014

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

Traffic report: Holidays, anyone?

Featured content: Wikipedia goes to church in Lithuania

WikiProject report: Talking hospitals

The Signpost: 26 November 2014

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

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

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

WikiProject report: Back with the military historians

Traffic report: Big in Japan

The Signpost: 03 December 2014

Op-ed: Who edits health-related content on Wikipedia and why?

In the media: Embroidery and cheese

Featured content: ABCD: Any Body Can Dance!

Traffic report: Turkey and a movie

WikiProject report: Today on the island

The Signpost: 10 December 2014

Op-ed: It's GLAM up North!

In the media: Wikipedia is "a rancorous, sexist, elitist, stupidly bureaucratic mess"

Traffic report: Dead Black Men and Science Fiction

Featured content: Honour him, love and obey? Good idea with military leaders.

The Signpost: 17 December 2014

Arbitration report: Arbitration Committee election results

Featured content: Tripping hither, tripping thither, Nobody knows why or whither; We must dance and we must sing, Round about our fairy ring!

In the media: Wikipedia's year in review video; Checking in with Wikipedia's founders

Traffic report: A December Lull

VisualEditor newsletter—December 2014

Did you know?

Basic table editing is now available in VisualEditor. You can add and remove rows and columns from existing tables at the click of a button.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on table editing and performance. Their weekly status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

VisualEditor was deployed to several hundred remaining wikis as an opt-in beta feature at the end of November, except for most Wiktionaries (which depend heavily upon templates) and all Wikisources (which await integration with ProofreadPage).

Recent improvements

Basic support for editing tables is available. You can insert new tables, add and remove rows and columns, set or remove a caption for a table, and merge cells together. To change the contents of a cell, double-click inside it. More features will be added in the coming months. In addition, VisualEditor now ignores broken, invalid rowspan and colspan elements, instead of trying to repair them.

You can now use find and replace in VisualEditor, reachable through the tool menu or by pressing ⌃ Ctrl+F or ⌘ Cmd+F.

You can now create and edit simple <blockquote> paragraphs for quoting and indenting content. This changes a "Paragraph" into a "Block quote".

Some new keyboard sequences can be used to format content. At the start of the line, typing "* " will make the line a bullet list; "1. " or "# " will make it a numbered list; "==" will make it a section heading; ": " will make it a blockquote. If you didn't mean to use these tools, you can press undo to undo the formatting change. There are also two other keyboard sequences: "[[" for opening the link tool, and "{{" for opening the template tool, to help experienced editors. The existing standard keyboard shortcuts, like ⌃ Ctrl+K to open the link editor, still work.

If you add a category that has been redirected, then VisualEditor now adds its target. Categories without description pages show up as red.

You can again create and edit galleries as wikitext code.

Looking ahead

VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme designed by the User Experience group. The new theme will be visible for desktop systems at MediaWiki.org in late December and at other sites early January. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" theme and the new "MediaWiki" one which will replace it.)

The Editing team plans to add auto-fill features for citations in January. Planned changes to the media search dialog will make choosing between possible images easier.

Help

Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
Translations of the user guide for most languages are oudated. Ukrainian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Dutch translators are nearly current. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language.
Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Wednesday, 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC.
File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.
The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.

If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta.

Thank you! WhatamIdoing (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 December 2014

From the editor: Looking for new editors-in-chief

In the media: Wales on GamerGate

Featured content: Still quoting Iolanthe, apparently.

WikiProject report: Microsoft does The Signpost

Traffic report: North Korea is not pleased

The Signpost: 31 December 2014

News and notes: The next big step for Wikidata—forming a hub for researchers

In the media: Study tour controversy; class tackles the gender gap

Traffic report: Surfin' the Yuletide

Op-ed: My issues with the Wiki Education Foundation

Featured content: A bit fruity

Recent research: Wikipedia in higher education; gender-driven talk page conflicts; disease forecasting

The Signpost: 07 January 2015

In the media: ISIL propaganda video; AirAsia complaints

Interview: Interview with Jakob, one of Wikipedia's more prolific waterway contributors

Featured content: Kock up

Traffic report: Auld Lang Syne

The Signpost: 14 January 2015

Op-ed: Articles for creation needs you

WikiProject report: Articles for creation: the inside story

News and notes: Erasmus Prize recognizes the global Wikipedia community

In the media: Wikipedia's birthday brings tributes, app, award; Castro death rumors

Featured content: Citations are needed

Traffic report: Wikipédia sommes Charlie

The Signpost: 21 January 2015

From the editor: Introducing your new editors-in-chief

Anniversary: A decade of the Signpost

Interview: WWII veteran honors shipmates through Wikipedia editing

News and notes: Annual report released; Wikimania; steward elections

Op-ed: Let's make WikiProjects better

In the media: Johann Hari; bandishes and delicate flowers

Featured content: Yachts, marmots, boat races, and a rocket engineer who attempted to birth a goddess

Arbitration report: As one door closes, a (Gamer)Gate opens

The Signpost: 28 January 2015

From the editor: An editorial board that includes you

In focus: Thirteen editors sanctioned in mammoth GamerGate arbitration case

In the media: A murderous week for Wikipedia

Forum: Evaluating the Arbitration Committee's handling of GamerGate

Traffic report: A sea of faces

Recent research: Bot writes about theatre plays; "Renaissance editors" create better content

Special report: Traffic in the fog—most-viewed articles of 2014 include death, Facebook, and Ebola

Featured content: Like Jack Kerouac's On The Road, this week's issue was written on amphetamines

VisualEditor News 2015—#1

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's appearance, the coming Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

The Wikimedia Foundation has named its top priorities for this quarter (January to March). The first priority is making VisualEditor ready for deployment by default to all new users and logged-out users at the remaining large Wikipedias. You can help identify these requirements. There will be weekly triage meetings which will be open to volunteers beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Tell Vice President of Engineering Damon Sicore, Product Manager James Forrester and other team members which bugs and features are most important to you. The decisions made at these meetings will determine what work is necessary for this quarter's goal of making VisualEditor ready for deployment to new users. The presence of volunteers who enjoy contributing MediaWiki code is particularly appreciated. Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins.

Due to some breaking changes in MobileFrontend and VisualEditor, VisualEditor was not working correctly on the mobile site for a couple of days in early January. The teams apologize for the problem.

Recent improvements

The new design for VisualEditor aligns with MediaWiki's Front-End Standards as led by the Design team. Several new versions of the OOjs UI library have also been released, and these also affect the appearance of VisualEditor and other MediaWiki software extensions. Most changes were minor, like changing the text size and the amount of white space in some windows. Buttons are consistently color-coded to indicate whether the action:

starts a new task, like opening the ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-savedialog⧽ dialog: blue ,
takes a constructive action, like inserting a citation: green ,
might remove or lose your work, like removing a link: red , or
is neutral, like opening a link in a new browser window: gray.

The TemplateData editor has been completely re-written to use a different design (T67815) based on the same OOjs UI system as VisualEditor (T73746). This change fixed a couple of existing bugs (T73077 and T73078) and improved usability.

Search and replace in long documents is now faster. It does not highlight every occurrence if there are more than 100 on-screen at once (T78234).

Editors at the Hebrew and Russian Wikipedias requested the ability to use VisualEditor in the "Article Incubator" or drafts namespace (T86688, T87027). If your community would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace on your wiki, then you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.

Looking ahead

The Editing team will soon add auto-fill features for citations. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to contribute to the Citoid service's definitions for each website, to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections.

We will need editors to help test the new design of the special character inserter, especially if you speak Welsh, Breton, or another language that uses diacritics or special characters extensively. The new version should be available for testing next week. Please contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF) if you would like to be notified when the new version is available. After the special character tool is completed, VisualEditor will be deployed to all users at Phase 5 Wikipedias. This will affect about 50 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh. The date for this change has not been determined.

Let's work together

Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
Please help complete translations of the user guide for users who speak your language.
Join the weekly bug triage meetings beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins. Contact James F. for more information.
Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 19:00 UTC.

Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Translations are available through Meta. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 04 February 2015

News and notes: No men beyond this point: the proposal to create a no-men space on Wikipedia

Op-ed: Is Wikipedia for sale?

In the media: Gamergate and Muhammad controversies continue

Traffic report: The American Heartland

Featured content: It's raining men!

Arbitration report: Slamming shut the GamerGate

WikiProject report: Dicing with death – on Wikipedia?

Technology report: Security issue fixed; VisualEditor changes

Gallery: Langston Hughes

The Signpost: 11 February 2015

From the editors: We want to know what you think!

News and notes: One editor faces likely ban for work on Wikipedia; Jimmy Wales awarded $1 million

In the media: Is Wikipedia eating itself?

Featured content: A grizzly bear, Operation Mascot, Freedom Planet & Liberty Island, cosmic dust clouds, a cricket five-wicket list, more fine art, & a terrible, terrible opera...

Traffic report: Bowled over

WikiProject report: Brand new WikiProjects profiled

Gallery: Feel the love

The Signpost: 18 February 2015

Editorial: Recent retirements typify problem of admin attrition

In the media: Students' use and perception of Wikipedia

Special report: Revision scoring as a service

Gallery: Darwin Day

Traffic report: February is for lovers

Featured content: A load of bull-sized breakfast behind the restaurant, Koi feeding, a moray eel, Spaghetti Nebula and other fishy, fishy fish

Arbitration report: We've built the nuclear reactor; now what colour should we paint the bikeshed?

The Signpost: 25 February 2015

News and notes: Questions raised over WMF partnership with research firm

Op-ed: Text from Wikipedia good enough for Oxford University Press to claim as own

In the media: WikiGnomes and Bigfoot

Featured content: The Moon, Mars, Venus, and Saturn, in no particular order. Also, Kaiser Kong.

Gallery: Far from home

Traffic report: Fifty Shades of... self-denial?

Recent research: Gender bias, SOPA blackout, and a student assignment that backfired

WikiProject report: Be prepared... Scouts in the spotlight

Blog: Join the Wikimedia strategy consultation

The Signpost: 25 February 2015

News and notes: Questions raised over WMF partnership with research firm

Op-ed: Text from Wikipedia good enough for Oxford University Press to claim as own

In the media: WikiGnomes and Bigfoot

Featured content: The Moon, Mars, Venus, and Saturn, in no particular order. Also, Kaiser Kong.

Gallery: Far from home

Traffic report: Fifty Shades of... self-denial?

Recent research: Gender bias, SOPA blackout, and a student assignment that backfired

WikiProject report: Be prepared... Scouts in the spotlight

Blog: Join the Wikimedia strategy consultation

The Signpost: 04 March 2015

From the editor: A sign of the times: the Signpost revamps its internal structure to make contributing easier

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation and OTRS team both publish reports, indicate operating changes

Editorial: Conspiracy theories distract from real questions about grantmaking report

Traffic report: Attack of the movies

Arbitration report: Bradspeaks—impact, regrets, and advice; current cases hinge on sex, religion, and ... infoboxes

Interview: Meet a paid editor

In the media: Kanye West rebranded; Wikipedia in court; editors for hire

Featured content: Ploughing fields and trading horses with Rosa Bonheur

Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Blog: Black History Month edit-a-thons tackle Wikipedia’s multicultural gaps

The Signpost: 11 March 2015

Special report: An advance look at the WMF's fundraising survey

News and notes: WikiWomen's History Month—meetups, blog posts, and "Inspire" grant-making campaign

In the media: Gamergate; a Wiki hoax; Kanye West

In focus: WMF to NSA: "stop spying on Wikipedia users"

Traffic report: Wikipedia: handing knowledge to the world, one prank at a time

Featured content: Here they come, the couple plighted –

Op-ed: Why the Core Contest matters

The Signpost: 18 March 2015

From the editor: A salute to Pine

News and notes: SUL finalization imminent; executive office shake-ups at the Foundation

In the media: NYPD editing articles regarding allegations of police brutality and misconduct

Op-ed: Does the Wikimedia fundraising survey address community concerns?

Featured content: A woman who loved kings

Traffic report: It's not cricket

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:34, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

.

The Signpost – Volume 11, Issue 12 – 25 March 2015

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation adopts open-access research policy

Op-ed: How my father's railroad image collection now benefits the world: the value of digitization

Featured content: A carnival of animals, a river of dung, a wasteland of uncles, and some people with attitude

Special report: Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2014

Traffic report: Oddly familiar

Recent research: Most important people; respiratory reliability; academic attitudes

Blog: The Wikipedia Library Team reflects on its new Visiting Scholars program

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:24, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost, 1 April 2015

In focus: WMF's latest strategy document shows successes, vagueness, and the need for better data

In the media: Wiki-PR duo bulldoze a piñata store; Wifione arbitration case; French parliamentary plagiarism

Featured content: Stop Press. Marie Celeste Mystery Solved. Crew Found Hiding In Wardrobe.

Traffic report: All over the place

News and notes: New edits-by-mail option will "revolutionize" Wikipedia and its editor base

Special report: Pictures of the Year 2015

The Signpost: 01 April 2015

In focus: WMF's latest strategy document shows successes, vagueness, and the need for better data

In the media: Wiki-PR duo bulldoze a piñata store; Wifione arbitration case; French parliamentary plagiarism

Featured content: Stop Press. Marie Celeste Mystery Solved. Crew Found Hiding In Wardrobe.

Traffic report: All over the place

News and notes: New edits-by-mail option will "revolutionize" Wikipedia and its editor base

Special report: Pictures of the Year 2015

VisualEditor News #2—2015

Did you know?

With Citoid in VisualEditor, you click the 'book with bookmark' icon and paste in the URL for a reliable source:

Citoid looks up the source for you and returns the citation results. Click the green "Insert" button to accept its results and add them to the article:

After inserting the citation, you can change it. Select the reference, and click the "Edit" button in the context menu to make changes.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's performance, the Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 11:00 (noon) PDT (18:00 UTC). You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.

Recent improvements

VisualEditor is now substantially faster. In many cases, opening the page in VisualEditor is now faster than opening it in the wikitext editor. The new system has improved the code speed by 37% and network speed by almost 40%.

The Editing team is slowly adding auto-fill features for citations. This is currently available only at the French, Italian, and English Wikipedias. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections by contributing to the Citoid service's definitions for each website.

Citoid requires good TemplateData for your citation templates. If you would like to request this feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

The special character inserter has been improved, based upon feedback from active users. After this, VisualEditor was made available to all users of Wikipedias on the Phase 5 list on 30 March. This affected 53 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh.

Work continues to support languages with complex requirements, such as Korean and Japanese. These languages use input method editors ("IMEs”). Recent improvements to cursoring, backspace, and delete behavior will simplify typing in VisualEditor for these users.

The design for the image selection process is now using a "masonry fit" model. Images in the search results are displayed at the same height but at variable widths, similar to bricks of different sizes in a masonry wall, or the "packed" mode in image galleries. This style helps you find the right image by making it easier to see more details in images.

You can now drag and drop categories to re-arrange their order of appearance on the page.

The pop-up window that appears when you click on a reference, image, link, or other element, is called the "context menu". It now displays additional useful information, such as the destination of the link or the image's filename. The team has also added an explicit "Edit" button in the context menu, which helps new editors open the tool to change the item.

Invisible templates are marked by a puzzle piece icon so they can be interacted with. Users also will be able to see and edit HTML anchors now in section headings.

Users of the TemplateData GUI editor can now set a string as an optional text for the 'deprecated' property in addition to boolean value, which lets you tell users of the template what they should do instead (T90734).

Looking ahead

The special character inserter in VisualEditor will soon use the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki will also have the option of creating a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Instructions for customizing the list will be posted at mediawiki.org.

The team is discussing a test of VisualEditor with new users, to see whether they have met their goals of making VisualEditor suitable for those editors. The timing is unknown, but might be relatively soon.

Let's work together

Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
Can you translate from English into any other language? Please check this list to see whether more interface translations are needed for your language. Contact us to get an account if you want to help!
The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

-Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 17:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 08 April 2015

Op-ed: We are drowning in promotional artspam

News and notes: Advancement department to be created at the Foundation, milestone fixes

In the media: Wikipedia on 60 Minutes, Kickstarter, and in the classroom

Traffic report: Resurrection week

Featured content: Partisan arrangements, dodgy dollars, a mysterious union of strings, and a hole that became a monument

WikiProject report: WikiProject Christianity

Arbitration report: New Functionary appointments

Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

The Signpost: 08 April 2015

Op-ed: We are drowning in promotional artspam

News and notes: Advancement department to be created at the Foundation, milestone fixes

In the media: Wikipedia on 60 Minutes, Kickstarter, and in the classroom

Traffic report: Resurrection week

Featured content: Partisan arrangements, dodgy dollars, a mysterious union of strings, and a hole that became a monument

WikiProject report: WikiProject Christianity

Arbitration report: New Functionary appointments

Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

The Signpost: 15 April 2015

News and notes: Erik Möller leaving Foundation; annual plan grants under community review

In the media: Saving Wikipedia; Internet regulation; Thoreau quote hoax

Blog: Single-User Login provides access to all wikis

Traffic report: Furious domination

Featured content: Au-delà de les Alpes, le chien lit de Sainte Bernard. Sous les pavés, les trimes d'argent! Mes enfants, suivez-moi!

The Signpost: 22 April 2015

Special report: Sony emails reveal corporate practices and undisclosed advocacy editing

In the media: UK political editing; hoaxes; net neutrality

News and notes: Call for candidates as the movement approaches the Wikimedia Board elections

In focus: 2015 Wikimedia Foundation election preparations underway

Featured content: Vanguard on guard

Traffic report: A harvest of couch potatoes

Gallery: The bitter end

The Signpost: 29 April 2015

Wikimania: Choice of small village for Wikimania 2016 ruffles feathers

News and notes: Wiki Loves Monuments evaluation sees diminishing returns and increasing cost

In the media: Scottish MEP blocked for edit warring; ranking articles by importance

Featured content: Another day, another dollar

Traffic report: Bruce, Nessie, and genocide

Recent research: Military history, cricket, and Australia targeted in Wikipedia articles' popularity vs. quality; how copyright damages economy

Technology report: VisualEditor and MediaWiki updates

The Signpost: 06 May 2015

News and notes: "Inspire" grant-making campaign concludes, grantees announced

Featured content: The amorous android and the horsebreeder; WikiCup round two concludes

In the media: Guggenheim image donation; Wiki campaign gets advertising award

Special report: FDC candidates respond to key issues

Traffic report: The grim ship reality

The Signpost: 13 May 2015

Foundation elections: Board candidates share their views with the Signpost

News and notes: Swedish Wikimedia chapter organizes simultaneous Wikidata contests

Traffic report: Round Two

In the media: Grant Shapps story continues

Op-ed: What made Wikipedia lose its reputation?

Featured content: Four first-time featured article writers lead the way

The Signpost: 20 May 2015

From the editor: Your voice is needed: strategic voting in the WMF election

In focus: The awful truth about Wikimedia's article counts

Traffic report: Inner Core

News and notes: A dark side of comedy: the Wikipedia volunteers cleaning up behind John Oliver's fowl jokes

Featured content: Puppets, fungi, and waterfalls

In the media: Jimmy Wales accepts Dan David Prize

WikiProject report: Cell-ebrating Molecular Biology

Arbitration report: Editor conduct the subject of multiple cases

VisualEditor News #3—2015

Did you know?

When you click on a link to an article, you now see more information:

The link tool has been re-designed:

There are separate tabs for linking to internal and external pages.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has created new interfaces for the link and citation tools, as well as fixing many bugs and changing some elements of the design. Some of these bugs affected users of VisualEditor on mobile devices. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

A test of VisualEditor's effect on new editors at the English Wikipedia has just completed the first phase. During this test, half of newly registered editors had VisualEditor automatically enabled, and half did not. The main goal of the study is to learn which group was more likely to save an edit and to make productive, unreverted edits. Initial results will be posted at Meta later this month.

Recent improvements

Auto-fill features for citations are available at a few Wikipedias through the citoid service. Citoid takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. If Citoid is enabled on your wiki, then the design of the citation workflow changed during May. All citations are now created inside a single tool. Inside that tool, choose the tab you want (⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-auto⧽, ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-manual⧽, or ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-reuse⧽). The cite button is now labeled with the word "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽" rather than a book icon, and the autofill citation dialog now has a more meaningful label, "⧼Citoid-citeFromIDDialog-lookup-button⧽", for the submit button.

The link tool has been redesigned based on feedback from Wikipedia editors and user testing. It now has two separate sections: one for links to articles and one for external links. When you select a link, its pop-up context menu shows the name of the linked page, a thumbnail image from the linked page, Wikidata's description, and/or appropriate icons for disambiguation pages, redirect pages and empty pages. Search results have been reduced to the first five pages. Several bugs were fixed, including a dark highlight that appeared over the first match in the link inspector (T98085).

The special character inserter in VisualEditor now uses the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki can also create a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Please read the instructions for customizing the list at mediawiki.org. Also, there is now a tooltip to describing each character in the special character inserter (T70425).

Several improvements have been made to templates. When you search for a template to insert, the list of results now contains descriptions of the templates. The parameter list inside the template dialog now remains open after inserting a parameter from the list, so that users don’t need to click on "⧼visualeditor-dialog-transclusion-add-param⧽" each time they want to add another parameter (T95696). The team added a new property for TemplateData, "Example", for template parameters. This optional, translatable property will show up when there is text describing how to use that parameter (T53049).

The design of the main toolbar and several other elements have changed slightly, to be consistent with the MediaWiki theme. In the Vector skin, individual items in the menu are separated visually by pale gray bars. Buttons and menus on the toolbar can now contain both an icon and a text label, rather than just one or the other. This new design feature is being used for the cite button on wikis where the Citoid service is enabled.

The team has released a long-desired improvement to the handling of non-existent images. If a non-existent image is linked in an article, then it is now visible in VisualEditor and can be selected, edited, replaced, or removed.

Let's work together

Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug.
If your Wikivoyage, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, or other community wants to have VisualEditor made available by default to contributors, then please contact James Forrester.
If you would like to request the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 03 June 2015

News and notes: Three new community-elected trustees announced, incumbents out

Blog: How Wikipedia covered Caitlyn Jenner’s transition

Discussion report: The deprecation of Persondata; RfA – A broken process; Complaints from users on Swedish Wikipedia

Featured content: It's not over till the fat man sings

Technology report: Things are getting SPDYier

Special report: Towards "Health Information for All": Medical content on Wikipedia received 6.5 billion page views in 2013

In the media: Anonymous Australian editing targets football player, shooting victim

Traffic report: A rather ordinary week

The Signpost: 10 June 2015

News and notes: Chapter financial trends analyzed, news in brief

Traffic report: Two households, both alike in dignity

In the media: Arbitration case attracts media coverage; Wikipedia in Israel

Featured content: Just the bear facts, ma'am

Technology report: Wikimedia sites are going HTTPS only

Blog: Making Wikipedia’s medical articles accessible in Chinese

The Signpost: 17 June 2015

In the media: Wikipedia wins Asturias Prize; printing out Wikipedia; HTTPS switch

Arbitration report: An election has consequences

In focus: Three weeks to save freedom of panorama in Europe

Op-ed: Making a difference in Wikipedia, one GA at a time

Technology report: HTTPS-only rollout completed; proposal to enable VisualEditor for new accounts

Interview: A veteran’s Wikipedia edits help him understand the brutality behind Yugoslavia’s wars

News and notes: Labs outage kills tools, self; news in brief

Featured content: Great Dane hits 150

Discussion report: A quick way of becoming an admin

WikiProject report: Western Australia speaks – we are back

The Signpost: 24 June 2015

From the editor: The Signpost tagging initiative

Op-ed: Content Translation beta is coming to the English Wikipedia

Special report: Small impact of the large Google Translation Project on Telugu Wikipedia

Featured content: One eye when begun, two when it's done

Recent research: How Wikipedia built governance capability; readability of plastic surgery articles

Technology report: 2015 MediaWiki architecture focus and Multimedia roadmap announced

News and notes: Board of Trustees propose bylaw amendments

In the media: Turkish Wikipedia censorship; "Can Wikipedia survive?"; PR editing

Blog: 7,473 volumes at 700 pages each: meet Print Wikipedia

Arbitration report: Politics by other means: The American politics 2 arbitration

The Signpost: 01 July 2015

News and notes: Training the Trainers; VP of Engineering leaves WMF

In the media: EU freedom of panorama; Nehru outrage; BBC apology

WikiProject report: Able to make a stand

Featured content: Viva V.E.R.D.I.

Traffic report: We're Baaaaack

Technology report: Technical updates and improvements

Blog: These Texans are on a quest to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of their state’s revolution

The Signpost: 08 July 2015

Editorial: So you want to get your message out. Where do you turn?

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation annual plan released, news in brief

In the media: Wikimania warning; Wikipedia "mystery" easily solved

Traffic report: The Empire lobs back

Featured content: Pyrénées, Playmates, parliament and a prison...

Technology report: Tech news in brief

The Signpost: 15 July 2015

Op-ed: On paid editing and advocacy: when the Bright Line fails to shine, and what we can do about it

Traffic report: Belles of the ball

WikiProject report: What happens when a country is no longer a country?

In the media: Shapps requests WMUK data; professor's plagiarism demotion

Blog: Wikimedia Foundation releases third transparency report

News and notes: The Wikimedia Conference and Wikimania

Featured content: When angels and daemons interrupt the vicious and intemperate

Technology report: Tech news in brief

The Signpost: 22 July 2015

From the editor: Change the world

News and notes: Wikimanía 2016; Lightbreather ArbCom case

Wikimanía report: Wikimanía 2015 report, part 1, the plenaries

In the media: Novelists annotate Wikipedia; Wales promotes TPO; Working for free

Traffic report: The Nerds, They Are A-Changin'

WikiProject report: Some more politics

Featured content: The sleep of reason produces monsters

Gallery: "One small step..."

Technology report: Tech news in brief

The Signpost: 29 July 2015

News and notes: BARC de-adminship proposal; Wikimania recordings debate

Op-ed: My life as an autistic Wikipedian

Recent research: Wikipedia and collective intelligence; how Wikipedia is tweeted

In the media: Is Wikipedia a battleground in the culture wars?

Featured content: Even mammoths get the Blues

Traffic report: Namaste again, Reddit

The Signpost: 05 August 2015

Editorial: Wikipedia better equipped to deal with systemic bias than traditional publishers

Op-ed: Je ne suis pas Google

News and notes: VisualEditor, endowment, science, and news in brief

WikiProject report: Meet the boilerplate makers

In the media: Probe into Nehru edits launched; dangers of the right to be forgotten

Traffic report: Mrityorma amritam gamaya...

Featured content: Maya, Michigan, Medici, Médée, and Moul n'ga

Blog: Get help editing Wikipedia with the new “Co-op” mentorship program

VisualEditor News #4—2015

Read this in another language • Local subscription list • Subscribe to the multilingual edition

Did you know?

You can add quotations marks before and after a title or phrase with a single click.

Select the relevant text. Find the correct quotations marks in the special character inserter tool (marked as Ω in the toolbar).

Click the button. VisualEditor will add the quotation marks on either side of the text you selected.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team have been working on mobile phone support. They have fixed many bugs and improved language support. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving language support and functionality on mobile devices.

Wikimania

The team attended Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City. There they participated in the Hackathon and met with individuals and groups of users. They also made several presentations about VisualEditor and the future of editing.

Following Wikimania, we announced winners for the VisualEditor 2015 Translathon. Our thanks and congratulations to users Halan-tul, Renessaince, जनक राज भट्ट (Janak Bhatta), Vahe Gharakhanyan, Warrakkk, and Eduardogobi.

For interface messages (translated at translatewiki.net), we saw the initiative affecting 42 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 56.5% before the translathon, and 78.2% after (+21.7%). In particular, Sakha improved from 12.2% to 94.2%; Brazilian Portuguese went from 50.6% to 100%; Taraškievica went from 44.9% to 85.3%; Doteli went from 1.3% to 41.2%. Also, while 1.7% of the messages were outdated across all languages before the translathon, the percentage dropped to 0.8% afterwards (-0.9%).

For documentation messages (on mediawiki.org), we saw the initiative affecting 24 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 26.6% before translathon, and 46.9% after (+20.3%). There were particularly notable achievements for three languages. Armenian improved from 1% to 99%; Swedish, from 21% to 99%, and Brazilian Portuguese, from 34% to 83%. Outdated translations across all languages were reduced from 8.4% before translathon to 4.8% afterwards (-3.6%).

We published some graphs showing the effect of the event on the Translathon page. Thank you to the translators for participating and the translatewiki.net staff for facilitating this initiative.

Recent improvements

Auto-fill features for citations can be enabled on each Wikipedia. The tool uses the citoid service to convert a URL or DOI into a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. You can see an animated GIF of the quick, simple process at mediawiki.org. So far, about a dozen Wikipedias have enabled the auto-citation tool. To enable it for your wiki, follow the instructions at mediawiki.org.

Your wiki can customize the first section of the special character inserter in VisualEditor. Please follow the instructions at mediawiki.org to put the characters you want at the top.

In other changes, if you need to fill in a CAPTCHA and get it wrong, then you can click to get a new one to complete. VisualEditor can now display and edit Vega-based graphs. If you use the Monobook skin, VisualEditor's appearance is now more consistent with other software.

Future changes

The team will be changing the appearance of selected links inside VisualEditor. The purpose is to make it easy to see whether your cursor is inside or outside the link. When you select a link, the link label (the words shown on the page) will be enclosed in a faint box. If you place your cursor inside the box, then your changes to the link label will be part of the link. If you place your cursor outside the box, then it will not. This will make it easy to know when new characters will be added to the link and when they will not.

On the English Wikipedia, 10% of newly created accounts are now offered both the visual and the wikitext editors. A recent controlled trial showed no significant difference in survival or productivity for new users in the short term. New users with access to VisualEditor were very slightly less likely to produce results that needed reverting. You can learn more about this by watching a video of the July 2015 Wikimedia Research Showcase. The proportion of new accounts with access to both editing environments will be gradually increased over time. Eventually all new users have the choice between the two editing environments.

Let's work together

Share your ideas and ask questions at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback.
Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David 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 at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help.
If your wiki would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace, you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.
Please file requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the styling menu in Phabricator.
The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, usually on Tuesdays at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q1 blocker, though. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the main VisualEditor project with the bug.

If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact Elitre directly, so that she can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:01, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 12 August 2015

News and notes: Superprotect, one year later; a contentious RfA

In the media: Paid editing; traffic drop; Nicki Minaj

Forum: Community voices on paid editing

Wikimanía report: Wikimanía 2015, part 2, a community event

Traffic report: Fighting from top to bottom

Featured content: Fused lizards, giant mice, and Scottish demons

Technology report: Tech news in brief

Blog: The Hunt for Tirpitz

The Signpost: 19 August 2015

Op-ed: WP:THREATENING2MEN: The English Wikipedia's misogynist infopolitics and the hegemony of the asshole consensus

In the media: Politically controversial science; "Wikipedia hates women"

Featured content: Dead parrots, live frogs, a symbolic kiss and what do we get? Enrique Iglesias!

Travelogue: Seeing is believing

Traffic report: Straight Outta Connecticut

Technology report: Tech news in brief

Blog: How Wikipedia responds to breaking news

The Signpost: 26 August 2015

In focus: An increase in active Wikipedia editors

In the media: Russia temporarily blocks Wikipedia

Op-ed: Wikimania—can volunteers organize conferences?

News and notes: Re-imagining grants

Featured content: Out to stud, please call later

Arbitration report: Reinforcing Arbitration

Recent research: OpenSym 2015 report

The Signpost: 02 September 2015

Special report: Massive paid editing network unearthed on the English Wikipedia

News and notes: Flow placed on ice

Discussion report: WMF's sudden reversal on Wiki Loves Monuments

Featured content: Brawny

In the media: Orangemoody sockpuppet case sparks widespread coverage

Traffic report: You didn't miss much

Technology report: Tech news in brief

The Signpost: 09 September 2015

Gallery: Being Welsh

Featured content: Killed by flying debris

Op-ed: DYK, or proudly displaying incorrect information on the Main Page with alarming regularity

News and notes: The Swedish Wikipedia's controversial two-millionth article

Traffic report: Mass media production traffic

Technology report: Tech news in brief

In the media: Calling all scientists!; More Wikipedia editors in the Netherlands than all of Africa combined

The Signpost: 16 September 2015

Editorial: No access is no answer to closed access

News and notes: Byrd and notifications leave, but page views stay; was a terror suspect editing Wikipedia?

In the media: Is there life on Mars?

Featured content: Why did the emu cross the road?

Traffic report: Another week

Technology report: Tech news in brief

The Signpost: 23 September 2015

In the media: PETA makes "monkey selfie" a three-way copyright battle; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Op-ed: Can we please stop bashing Wikipedia?

Featured content: Inside Duke Humfrey's Library

WikiProject report: Dancing to the beat of a... wikiproject?

Traffic report: ¡Viva la Revolución! Kinda.

Technology report: Tech news in brief

The Signpost: 30 September 2015

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation fundraising report, Montreal to host 2017 Wikimania

In the media: Irish legislative editing; coffee quarrel; more sports vandalism

Op-ed: Wikipedia needs more administrators

Recent research: Wiktionary special; newbies, conflict and tolerance; Is Wikipedia's search function inferior?

Tech news: Tech news in brief

VisualEditor update

This note is only delivered to English Wikipedia subscribers of the visual editor's newsletter.

The location of the visual editor's preference has been changed from the "Beta" tab to the "Editing" section of your preferences on this wiki. The setting now says Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta. This aligns en.wiki with almost all the other WMF wikis; it doesn’t mean the visual editor is complete, or that it is no longer “in beta phase” though.

This action has not changed anything else for editors: it still honours editors’ previous choices about having it on or off; logged-out users continue to only have access to wikitext; the “Edit” tab is still after the “Edit source” one. You can learn more at the visual editor’s talk page.

We don’t expect this to cause any glitches, but in case your account no longer has the settings that you want, please accept our apologies and correct it in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences. Thank you for your attention, Elitre (WMF) -16:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 07 October 2015

Op-ed: Walled gardens of corruption

Traffic report: Reality is for losers

Featured content: This Week's Featured Content

Gallery: Winners of Wiki Loves Monuments 2015 in Pakistan

Arbitration report: Warning: Contains GMOs

Technology report: Tech news in brief

In the media: Jailed Saudi blogger wins award; PR editing and Wiki-embarassment; Pakistan's third-richest person?

The Signpost: 14 October 2015

Op-ed: WikiConference USA 2015: built on good faith

WikiConference report: US gathering sees speeches from Andrew Lih, AfroCrowd, and the Archivist of the United States

Editorial: Why the news media needs a Wikipedian in residence

News and notes: 2015–2016 Q1 fundraising update sparks mailing list debate

Traffic report: Screens, Sport, Reddit, and Death

Featured content: A fistful of dollars

Technology report: Tech news in brief

Blog: Third Wikimedia Spain conference takes place in Madrid

The Signpost: 21 October 2015

Editorial: Women and Wikipedia: the world is watching

News and notes: Wikimedia lawsuit against NSA dismissed; Affiliates mailing list launched

In the media: "Wikipedia's hostility to women"

Special report: One year of GamerGate, or how I learned to stop worrying and love bare rule-level consensus

Featured content: A more balanced week

Op-ed: Wikipedia is significantly amplifying the impact of Open Access publications

Arbitration report: Four ArbCom cases ongoing

Traffic report: Hiding under the covers of the Internet

Technology report: Tech news in brief

VisualEditor News #5—2015

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Did you know?

You can use the visual editor on smartphones and tablets.

Click the pencil icon to open the editor for a page. Inside that, use the gear menu in the upper right corner to "Switch to visual editing".

The editing button will remember which editing environment you used last time, and give you the same one next time. The desktop site will be switching to a system similar to this one in the coming months.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs, added new features, and made some small design changes. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for languages like Japanese and Arabic, making it easier to edit on mobile devices, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.

Recent improvements

Educational features: The first time you use the visual editor, it now draws your attention to the Link and ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽ tools. When you click on the tools, it explains why you should use them. (T108620) Alongside this, the welcome message for new users has been simplified to make editing more welcoming. (T112354) More in-software educational features are planned.

Links: It is now easier to understand when you are adding text to a link and when you are typing plain text next to it. (T74108, T91285) The editor now fully supports ISBN, PMID or RFC numbers. (T109498, T110347, T63558) These "magic links" use a custom link editing tool.

Uploads: Registered editors can now upload images and other media to Commons while editing. Click the new tab in the "Insert Images and media" tool. You will be guided through the process without having to leave your edit. At the end, the image will be inserted. This tool is limited to one file at a time, owned by the user, and licensed under Commons's standard license. For more complex situations, the tool links to more advanced upload tools. You can also drag the image into the editor. This will be available in the wikitext editor later.

Mobile: Previously, the visual editor was available on the mobile Wikipedia site only on tablets. Now, editors can use the visual editor on any size of device. (T85630) Edit conflicts were previously broken on the mobile website. Edit conflicts can now be resolved in both wikitext and visual editors. (T111894) Sometimes templates and similar items could not be deleted on the mobile website. Selecting them caused the on-screen keyboard to hide with some browsers. Now there is a new "Delete" button, so that these things can be removed if the keyboard hides. (T62110) You can also edit table cells in mobile now.

Rich editing tools: You can now add and edit sheet music in the visual editor. (T112925) There are separate tabs for advanced options, such as MIDI and Ogg audio files. (T114227 and T113354) When editing formulæ and other blocks, errors are shown as you edit. It is also possible to edit some types of graphs; adding new ones, and support for new types, will be coming.

On the English Wikipedia, the visual editor is now automatically available to anyone who creates an account. The preference switch was moved to the normal location, under Special:Preferences.

Future changes

You will soon be able to switch from the wikitext to the visual editor after you start editing. (T49779) Previously, you could only switch from the visual editor to the wikitext editor. Bi-directional switching will make possible a single edit tab. (T102398) This project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab, similar to the system already used on the mobile website. The "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time.

Let's work together

Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. This feedback page uses Flow for discussions.
Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David 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 at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help, and report it on Phabricator (Korean - Japanese) or on Wikipedia (Korean - Japanese).
Local admins can set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki. If you need help, then please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.
The weekly task triage meetings are open to volunteers. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration, though. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the main VisualEditor project with the bug.

If you can't read this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) 04:16, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 October 2015

From the editor: The Signpost's reorganization plan—we need your help

News and notes: English Wikipedia reaches five million articles

In the media: The world's Wikipedia gaps; Google and Wikipedia accused of tying Ben Carson to NAMBLA

Op-ed: It’s time to stop the bullying

Arbitration report: A second attempt at Arbitration enforcement

Traffic report: Canada, the most popular nation on Earth

Recent research: Student attitudes towards Wikipedia; Jesus, Napoleon and Obama top "Wikipedia social network"; featured article editing patterns in 12 languages

Featured content: Birds, turtles, and other things

Technology report: Tech news in brief

Community letter: Five million articles

The Signpost: 04 November 2015

Op-ed: You are invited to participate in the Community Wishlist Survey

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation finances; Superprotect is gone

In the media: Ahmadiyya Jabrayilov: propaganda myth or history?

Traffic report: Death, the Dead, and Spectres are abroad

Featured content: Christianity, music, and cricket

Gallery: Princess of Asturias Awards 2015 ceremony

Technology report: Tech news in brief

The Signpost: 11 November 2015

Op-ed: As one thousand of us requested, Superprotect has been removed

Arbitration report: Elections, redirections, and a resignation from the Committee

Discussion report: Compromise of two administrator accounts prompts security review

Featured content: Texas, film, and cycling

In the media: Sanger on Wikipedia; Silver on Vox; lawyers on monkeys

Traffic report: Doodles of popularity

Gallery: Paris

The Signpost: 18 November 2015

Special report: ArbCom election—candidates’ opinions analysed

In the media: Icelandic milestone; apolitical editing

Discussion report: BASC disbanded; other developments in the discussion world

Arbitration report: Ban Appeals Subcommittee goes up in smoke; 21 candidates running

Featured content: Fantasia on a Theme by Jimbo Wales

Traffic report: Darkness and light

The Signpost: 25 November 2015

Op-ed: Wikidata: the new Rosetta Stone

News and notes: Fundraising update; FDC recommendations

In the media: Erasmus Prize awarded to Wikipedia; trouble on the Russian Wikipedia

Recent research: Do Wikipedia citations mirror scholarly impact?; co-star networks in silent films

Featured content: Caves and stuff

Traffic report: J'en ai ras le bol

Arbitration report: Third Palestine-Israel case closes; Voting begins

Technology report: Tech news in brief

Blog: Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Deutschland urge Reiss Engelhorn Museum to reconsider suit over public domain works of art

The Signpost: 02 December 2015

Op-ed: Whither Wikidata?

News and notes: Online harassment consultation; High voter turnout at ArbCom elections

In the media: Is Wikidata as transparent as it seems?; Wikimedia Fund-raising drive launches

Traffic report: Jonesing for episodes

Featured content: This Week's Featured Content

Technology report: Tech news in brief

The Signpost: 09 December 2015

News and notes: ArbCom election results announced

Op-ed: Wikidata: Knowledge from different points of view

In the media: Political editing in the context of the US presidential primaries

Gallery: Wiki Loves Monuments 2015 winners

Traffic report: So do you laugh, or does it cry?

Featured content: Sports, ships, arts... and some other things

Technology report: Tech news in brief

The Signpost: 16 December 2015

In focus: Drone photography: New possibilities and new challenges

In the media: Wales in China; #Edit2015

Arbitration report: GMO case decided

Featured content: An unusually slow week

WikiProject report: Women in Red—using teamwork and partnerships to elevate online and offline collaborations

Traffic report: A feast of Spam

Gallery: WikiConference USA 2015: images, slide decks, and videos

VisualEditor News #6—2015

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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 to Special: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 translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs and expanded the mathematics formula tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for languages such as Japanese and Arabic, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.

Recent improvements

You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing.

The LaTeX 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.

Future changes

The single edit tab project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab, like the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "Edit" 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 the Editing tab of Special:Preferences in the drop-down menu about "Editing mode:".

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the following Wikipedias in early 2016: Amharic, Buginese, Min Dong, Cree, Manx, Hakka, Armenian, Georgian, Pontic, Serbo-Croatian, Tigrinya, Mingrelian, Zhuang, and Min Nan. (T116523) Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. The developers would like to know how well it works. Please tell them what kind of computer, web browser, and keyboard you are using.

In 2016, the feedback pages for the visual editor on many Wikipedias will be redirected to mediawiki.org. (T92661)

Testing opportunities

Please try the new system for the single edit tab on test2.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 at the feedback topic on mediawiki.org or sign 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 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 engineer David 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 at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What 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 the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

Whatamidoing (WMF), 00:54, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 December 2015

News and notes: WMF Board dismisses community-elected trustee

Arbitration report: Second Arbitration Enforcement case concludes as another case is suspended

Featured content: The post-Christmas edition

Traffic report: The Force we expected

Year in review: The top ten Wikipedia stories of 2015

In the media: Wikipedia plagued by a "Basket of Deception"

Gallery: It's that time of year again

The Signpost: 06 January 2016

News and notes: The WMF's age of discontent

In the media: Impenetrable science; Jimmy Wales back in the UAE

Arbitration report: Catflap08 and Hijiri88 case been decided

Featured content: Featured menagerie

Recent research: Teaching Wikipedia, Does advertising the gender gap help or hurt Wikipedia?

WikiProject report: Try-ing to become informed - WikiProject Rugby League

Technology report: Tech news in brief

The Signpost: 13 January 2016

In the media: War and peace; WMF board changes; Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedias

Community view: Battle for the soul of the WMF

Editorial: We need a culture of verification

In focus: The Crisis at New Montgomery Street

Op-ed: Transparency

Traffic report: Pattern recognition: Third annual Traffic Report

Special report: Wikipedia community celebrates Public Domain Day 2016

News and notes: Community objections to new Board trustee

Blog: Inside the game of sports vandalism on Wikipedia

Featured content: This Week's Featured Content

Arbitration report: Interview: outgoing and incumbent arbitrators 2016

Technology report: Tech news in brief

The Signpost: 20 January 2016

News and notes: Vote of no confidence; WMF trustee speaks out

Op-ed: Not a pretty picture: Thoughts on the "monkey selfie" debacle

In the media: 15th anniversary news round-up

Traffic report: Danse Macabre

Featured content: This week's featured content

Blog: Fifteen years ago, Wikipedia was a very different place

The Signpost: 27 January 2016

Op-ed: Lila Tretikov: the WMF needs your input in developing our strategy

News and notes: Geshuri steps down from the Board

In the media: Media coverage of the Arnnon Geshuri no-confidence vote

Recent research: Bursty edits; how politics beat religion but then lost to sports; notability as a glass ceiling

Traffic report: Death and taxes

Featured content: This week's featured content

The Signpost: 03 February 2016

From the editors: Help wanted

Special report: Board chair and new trustee speak with the Signpost

In focus: The Knight Foundation grant: a timeline and an email to the board

Op-ed: So, what’s a knowledge engine anyway?

News and notes: Harassment survey 2015; Luis Villa to leave WMF; knowledge engine background

Arbitration report: Catching up on arbitration

Traffic report: Bowled

Featured content: This week's featured content

The Signpost: 10 February 2016

Special report: New internal documents raise questions about the origins of the Knowledge Engine

In focus: An in-depth look at the special report's newly revealed documents

News and notes: Another WMF departure

In the media: Jeb Bush swings at Wikipedia and connects

Featured content: This week's featured content

Traffic report: A river of revilement

Blog: Wikimedia Foundation removes The Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law requirements

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:29, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 17 February 2016

Special report: Search and destroy: the Knowledge Engine and the undoing of Lila Tretikov

Op-ed: Shit I cannot believe we had to fucking write this month

Featured content: This week's featured content

Traffic report: Super Bowling

Technology report: Tech news in brief

Blog: Antonin Scalia and the editor tracking his legacy

The Signpost: 24 February 2016

Special report: WMF in limbo as decision on Tretikov nears

Op-ed: Backward the Foundation

Traffic report: Of Dead Pools and Dead Judges

Blog: Wiki Loves Africa brings the continent’s fashion to the world

Arbitration report: Arbitration motion regarding CheckUser & Oversight inactivity

Featured content: This week's featured content

Technology report: Tech news in brief

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:05, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

VisualEditor News #1—2016

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Did you know?

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 translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Indic, and Han scripts, and improving the single edit tab interface.

Recent changes

You can switch 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.

Many local feedback pages for the visual editor have been redirected to mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.

You can now re-arrange columns and rows in tables, as well as copying a row, column or any other selection of cells and pasting it in a new location.

The formula 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.

Future changes

The single edit tab project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab. This is similar to the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "Edit" 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 the Editing tab of Special: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 as Special: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.

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at most "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers would like to know how well the visual editor works in your language. They particularly 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 at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect the following languages: Japanese, Korean, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Thai, Aramaic and others.

Let's work together

Please try out the newest version of the single edit tab on test2.wikipedia.org. You may need to restore the default preferences (at the bottom of test2wiki: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 see the large preferences dialog box when you started editing an article there?
Can you read and type in Korean, Arabic, Japanese, Indic, or Han scripts? Language engineer David Chan needs help from people who often type in these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help. Report your results on wiki (Korean – Japanese – all languages).
Learn how to improve the "automagical" citoid referencing system in the visual editor, by creating Zotero translators for popular sources in your language! Join the Tech Talk about "Automated citations in Wikipedia: Citoid and the technology behind it" with Sebastian Karcher on 29 February 2016.

If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thanks!

– Whatamidoing (WMF) 17:46, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 02 March 2016

News and notes: Tretikov resigns, WMF in transition

Featured content: This week's featured content

Traffic report: Brawling

Recent research: Wikipedia and paid labour; Swedish gender gap; how verifiable is "verifiable"?

Blog: Wikimedia Foundation details requests to alter or remove content in new transparency report

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:01, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 09 March 2016

News and notes: Katherine Maher named interim head of WMF; Wales email re-sparks Heilman controversy; draft WMF strategy posted

In the media: Wikipedian is break-out star of International Women's Day; dinosaur art; Wikipedia's new iOS app and its fight for market share

Op-ed: A modest proposal for Wikimedia’s future

Featured content: Five articles, four lists, a topic, and five images were promoted this week.

Technology report: Wikimedia wikis will temporarily go into read-only mode on several occasions in the coming weeks

WikiCup report: First round of the WikiCup finishes

Blog: The new alchemy: turning online harassment into Wikipedia articles on women scientists

Systemic bias: Revenge of "I can’t believe we didn’t have an article on ..."

Traffic report: All business like show business

The Signpost: 16 March 2016

News and notes: Wikipedia Zero: Orange mobile partnership in Africa ends; the evolution of privacy loss in Wikipedia

In the media: Wales at SXSW; lawsuit over Wikipedia PR editing

Op-ed: Hard work needed to address Wikimedia’s leadership challenges

Discussion report: Is an interim WMF executive director inherently notable?

Featured content: This week's featured content

Technology report: Watchlists, watchlists, watchlists!

Traffic report: Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States

Wikipedia Weekly: Podcast #119: The Foundation and the departure of Lila Tretikov

Blog: It “revolutionized the way German-speaking people inform themselves about the world”: Fifteen years of the German Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:13, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 23 March 2016

Interview: Exclusive: interview with interim ED Katherine Maher

News and notes: Lila Tretikov a Young Global Leader; Wikipediocracy blog post sparks indefinite blocks

In the media: Angolan file sharers cause trouble for Wikipedia Zero; the 3D printer edit war; a culture based on change and turmoil

Traffic report: Be weary on the Ides of March

Editorial: "God damn it, you've got to be kind."

Featured content: Watch out! A slave trader, a live mascot and a crested serpent awaits!

Arbitration report: Palestine-Israel article 3 case amended

Wikipedia Weekly: Podcast #120: Status of Wikimania 2016

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:25, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 April 2016

News and notes: Trump/Wales 2016

In the media: Saskatoon police delete Wikipedia content about police brutality

WikiProject report: Why should the Devil have all the good music? An interview with WikiProject Christian music

Traffic report: Donald v Daredevil

Featured content: A slow, slow week

Technology report: Browse Wikipedia in safety? Use Telnet!

Recent research: "Employing Wikipedia for good not evil" in education; using eyetracking to find out how readers read articles

Wikipedia Weekly: Podcast #121: How April Fools went down

Blog: Growing hashtags: Expanding outreach on Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:12, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do you want one Edit tab, or two? It's your choice

How to switch between editing environments

Click the [[ ]] to switch to the wikitext editor.

Click the pencil icon to switch to the visual editor.

The editing interface will be changed soon. When that happens, editors who currently see two editing tabs – "Edit" and "Edit source" – will start seeing one edit tab instead. The single edit tab has been popular at other Wikipedias. When this is deployed here, you may be offered the opportunity to choose your preferred appearance and behavior the next time you click the Edit button. You will also be able to change your settings in the Editing section of Special:Preferences.

You can choose one or two edit tabs. If you chose one edit tab, then you can switch between the two editing environments by clicking the buttons in the toolbar (shown in the screenshots). See Help:VisualEditor/User guide#Switching between the visual and wikitext editors for more information and screenshots.

There is more information about this interface change at mw:VisualEditor/Single edit tab. If you have questions, suggestions, or problems to report, then please leave a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback.

Whatamidoing (WMF) 19:22, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 14 April 2016

Op-ed: Should prison inmates be permitted to edit Wikipedia?

News and notes: Denny Vrandečić resigns from Wikimedia Foundation board

In the media: Wikimedia Sweden loses copyright case; Tex Watson; AI assistants; David Jolly biography

Featured content: This week's featured content

Traffic report: A welcome return to pop culture and death

Arbitration report: The first case of 2016—Wikicology

Gallery: A history lesson

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:46, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 April 2016

News and notes: Lunar project; steering group formed to search for next executive director

Op-ed: Knowledge Engine and the Wales–Heilman emails

Special report: Update on EranBot, our new copyright violation detection bot

Traffic report: Two for the price of one

Featured content: The double-sized edition

Arbitration report: Amendments made to the Race and intelligence case

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:42, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 2 May 2016

News and notes: Wikimedia Switzerland's board and paid-editing firm; passing of Ed Dravecky

In the media: Wikipedia Zero piracy in Bangladesh; bureaucracy; chilling effects; too few cooks; translation gaps

Traffic report: Purple

Featured content: The best ... from the past two weeks

Arbitration report: Two editors unbanned; Wikicology case enters workshop phase; Gamaliel restricted from Gamergate at his own request

Recent research: The eight roles of Wikipedians; do edit histories expose social relations among editors?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:09, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 17 May 2016

News and notes: Affiliates' nomination of WMF trustees announced; FDC's straight talking to WMF

Op-ed: Swiss chapter in turmoil

In the media: Wikimedia's Dario Taraborelli quoted on Google's Knowledge Graph in The Washington Post

Featured content: Two weeks for the prize of one

Traffic report: Oh behave, Beyhive / Underdogs

Arbitration report: "Wikicology" ends in site ban; evidence and workshop phases concluded for "Gamaliel and others"

Wikicup: That's it for WikiCup Round 2!

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:33, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 May 2016

News and notes: Upcoming Wikimedia conferences in the US and India; May Metrics and Activities Meeting

Special report: Compensation paid to Sue Gardner increased by almost 50 percent after she stepped down as executive director

In the media: The perils of Wikipedia's monopoly; Wikipedians' fragility; Street Sharks hoax

Featured content: Eight articles, three lists and five pictures

Op-ed: Journey of a Wikipedian

Arbitration report: Gamaliel resigns from the arbitration committee

Recent research: English as Wikipedia's Lingua Franca; deletion rationales; schizophrenia controversies

Traffic report: Splitting (musical) airs / Slow Ride

Blog: Freely licensed magic at Eurovision

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:13, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 05 June 2016

News and notes: WMF cuts budget for 2016-17 as scope tightens

In the media: Jimmy Wales on net neutrality—"It's complicated"—and his $100m fundraising challenge

Featured content: Overwhelmed ... by pictures

Traffic report: Pop goes the culture, again.

Arbitration report: ArbCom case "Gamaliel and others" concludes

WikiProject report: WikiProject Video Games

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:13, 5 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 15 June 2016

News and notes: Clarifications on status and compensation of outgoing executive directors Sue Gardner and Lila Tretikov

Special report: Wikiversity Journal—A new user group

Featured content: From the crème de la crème

In the media: Biography disputes; Craig Newmark donation; PR editing

Op-ed: Commons Picture of the Year; Wikidata licensing

Traffic report: Another one with sports; Knockout, brief candle

Blog: Why I proofread poetry at Wikisource

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:58, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #2—2016

Editing News #2—2016 Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Did you know?

It's quick and easy to insert a references list.

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 the References list. This list will change as you add more footnotes to the page.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Arabic and Indic scripts, and adapting the visual editor to the needs of the Wikivoyages and Wikisources.

Recent changes

The visual editor is now available to all users at most Wikivoyages. It was also enabled for all contributors at the French Wikinews.

The single edit tab feature combines the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" 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 of Special:Preferences. The team is now reviewing the feedback and considering ways to improve the design before rolling it out to more people.

Future changes

The "Save page" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information is available on Meta.

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. 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 at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including: Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Urdu, Persian, Bengali, Assamese, Aramaic and others.

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 a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.

Let's work together

Do you teach new editors how to use the visual editor? Did you help set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki? Have you written or imported TemplateData for your most important citation templates? Would you be willing to help new editors and small communities with the visual editor? Please sign up for the new VisualEditor Community Taskforce.
Learn how to improve the "automagical" citoid referencing system in the visual editor, by creating Zotero translators for popular sources in your language! Watch the Tech 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 the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 21:09, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 04 July 2016

News and notes: Board unanimously appoints Katherine Maher as new WMF executive director; Wikimedia lawsuits in France and Germany

Op-ed: Two policies in conflict?

In the media: Terrorism database cites Wikipedia as a source

Featured content: Triple fun of featured content

Traffic report: Goalposts; Oy vexit

Blog: Jimmy Wales names Emily Temple-Wood and Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight as Wikipedians of the Year

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:47, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 21 July 2016

News and notes: Board faces diversity and skill-base issues in new FDC appointments

Discussion report: Busy month for discussions

In the media: Women in science editathon gets national press; Wikipedia "shockingly biased"

Featured content: A wide variety from the best

Traffic report: Sports and esports

Arbitration report: Script writers appointed for clerks

Recent research: Using deep learning to predict article quality

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:19, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 04 August 2016

Editorial: Wikipedia policy suppresses sharing of information

News and notes: Foundation presents results of harassment research, plans for automated identification; Wikiconference submissions open

In the media: Paid editing service announced; Commercial exploitation of free images; Wikipedia as a crystal ball; Librarians to counter systemic bias

Obituary: Kevin Gorman, who took on Wikipedia's gender gap and undisclosed paid advocacy, dies at 24

Traffic report: Summer of Pokémon, Trump, and Hillary

Featured content: Women and Hawaii

Recent research: Easier navigation via better wikilinks

Blog: All-new notifications page helps Wikimedians focus on what matters most

Technology report: User script report (January to July 2016, part 1)

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:33, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 18 August 2016

News and notes: Focus on India—WikiConference produces new apps; state government adopts free licenses

Special report: Engaging diverse communities to profile women of Antarctica

In the media: The ugly, the bad, the playful, and the promising

Featured content: Simply the best ... from the last two weeks

Traffic report: Olympic views

Technology report: User script report (January–July 2016, part 2)

Arbitration report: The Michael Hardy case

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:40, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 06 September 2016

News and notes: AffCom still grappling with WMF Board's criteria for new chapters

Special report: Olympics readership depended on language

In the media: Librarians, Wikipedians, and a library of Wikipedia coverage

WikiProject report: Watching Wikipedia

Featured content: Entertainment, sport, and something else in-between

Traffic report: From Phelps to Bolt to Reddit

Technology report: Wikimedia mobile sites now don't load images if the user doesn't see them

Recent research: Ethics of machine-created articles and fighting vandalism

Blog: Upload of free photos from Swiss library underway

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:44, 6 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 September 2016

News and notes: Wikipedia Education Program case study published; and a longtime Wikimedian has made his final edit

In the media: Wikipedia in the news

Featured content: Three weeks in the land of featured content

Arbitration report: Arbcom looking for new checkusers and oversight appointees while another case opens

Traffic report: From Gene Wilder to JonBenét

Technology report: Category sorting and template parameters

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:21, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #3—2016

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter • Subscribe or unsubscribe on the English Wikipedia

Did you know?

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 translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor 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 available in Phabricator. You can find links to the list of work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, releasing the 2017 wikitext editor as a beta feature, and improving language support.

Recent changes

You can now set text as small or big.[2]
Invisible templates have been shown as a puzzle icon. Now, the name of the invisible template is displayed next to the puzzle icon.[3] A similar feature will display the first part of hidden HTML comments.[4]
Categories are displayed at the bottom of each page. If you click on the categories, the dialog for editing categories will open.[5]
At many wikis, you can now add maps to pages. Go to the Insert menu and choose the "Maps" item. The Discovery department are adding more features to this area, like geoshapes. You can read more on MediaWiki.org.[6]
The "Save" button now says "Save page" when you create a page, and "Save changes" when you change an existing page.[7] In the future, the "Save page" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information 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.[8]

Future changes

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 at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including Thai, Burmese and Aramaic.

The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. The 2017 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 a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.

Let's work together

Do you teach new editors how to use the visual editor? Did you help set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki? Have you written or imported TemplateData for your most important citation templates? Would you be willing to help new editors and small communities with the visual editor? Please sign up for the new VisualEditor Community Taskforce.

If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:18, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 14 October 2016

News and notes: Fundraising, flora and fauna

Discussion report: Cultivating leadership: Wikimedia Foundation seeks input

In the media: A news columnist on the frustrations of tweaking his Wikipedia bio

Technology report: Upcoming tech projects for 2017

Featured content: Variety is the spice of life

Traffic report: Debates and escapes

Recent research: A 2011 study resurfaces in a media report

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:29, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 4 November 2016

News and notes: Finally, a new CTO; trustee joins Quora; copyright upgrade impending

In the media: Washington Post continues in-depth Wikipedia coverage

Wikicup: WikiCup winners

Discussion report: What's on your tech wishlist for the coming year?

Technology report: New guideline for technical collaboration; citation templates now flag open access content

Featured content: Cream of the crop

Traffic report: Un-presidential politics

Arbitration report: Recapping October's activities

Recent research: Why women edit less, and where they are overrepresented; article importance and quality; predicting elections from Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:51, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 4 November 2016

News and notes: Arbitration Committee elections commence

In the media: Roundup of news related to U.S. presidential election and more

Blog: The top fifteen winning photos from Wiki Loves Earth

Gallery: Around the world with Wiki Loves Monuments 2016

Featured content: Featured mix

Special report: Taking stock of the Good Article backlog

Op-ed: Fundraising data should be more transparent

Traffic report: President-elect Trump

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:06, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 22 December 2016

Year in review: Looking back on 2016

News and notes: Strategic planning update; English ArbCom election results

Special report: German ArbCom implodes

In focus: Active user page filter prevents vandalism and harassment

Op-ed: Operation successful, patient dead: Outreach workshops in Namibia

In the media: In brief: Coverage of gender gap initiatives, banner fundraising, and more

Featured content: The Christmas edition

Technology report: Labs improvements impact 2016 Tool Labs survey results

Traffic report: Post-election traffic blues

Blog: Wiki Loves Monuments contest winners announced

Recent research: One study and several abstracts

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:04, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 17 January 2017

From the editor: Next steps for the Signpost

News and notes: Surge in RFA promotions—a sign of lasting change?

Interview: What is it like to edit Wikipedia when you're blind?

In the media: Year-end roundups, Wikipedia's 16th birthday, and more

Featured content: One year ends, and another begins

Arbitration report: Concluding 2016 and covering 2017's first two cases

Traffic report: Out with the old, in with the new

Technology report: Tech present, past, and future

Recent research: Female Wikipedians aren't more likely to edit women biographies; Black Lives Matter in Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:39, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 6 February 2017

Arbitration report: WMF Legal and ArbCom weigh in on tension between disclosure requirements and user privacy

Special report: Wolves nip at Wikipedia's heels: A perspective on the cost of paid editing

News and notes: Official WMF rebuke to Trump policy; WMF secures restricted funds

In focus: WMF strategy consultant brings background in crisis reputation management; Team behind popular WMF software put "on pause"

WikiProject report: For the birds!

Op-ed: How to make editing workshops useful, even if participants don't stick around

In the media: Presidential politics, periodic table, and our periodic roundup of updates

Technology report: Better PDFs, backup plans, and birthday wishes

Traffic report: Cool It Now

Featured content: Three weeks dominated by articles

Forum: Productive collaboration around coordinated protest marches; Media and political personalities comment on Wikipedia at its 16th birthday celebration

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:46, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 February 2017

From the editors: Results from our poll on subscription and delivery, and a new RSS feed

Recent research: Special issue: Wikipedia in education

Technology report: Responsive content on desktop; Offline content in Android app

In the media: The Daily Mail does not run Wikipedia

Gallery: A Met montage

Special report: Peer review – a history and call for reviewers

Op-ed: Wikipedia has cancer

Featured content: The dominance of articles continues

Traffic report: Love, football, and politics

Blog: WikiIndaba 2017: A continent gathers to chart a path forward

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:20, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #1—2017

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Did you know?

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 translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has spent most of their time supporting the 2017 wikitext editor mode which is available inside the visual editor as a Beta Feature, and adding the new visual diff tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, supporting the 2017 wikitext editor as a beta feature, and improving the visual diff tool.

Recent changes

A new wikitext editing mode is available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices. The 2017 wikitext editor has the same toolbar as the visual editor and can use the citoid service and other modern tools. Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures to enable the ⧼Visualeditor-preference-newwikitexteditor-label⧽.

A new visual 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. [9]

The team have added multi-column support for lists of footnotes. The <references /> block can automatically display long lists of references in columns on wide screens. This makes footnotes easier to read. You can request multi-column support for your wiki. [10]

Other changes:

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. [11]
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. [12]
The Categories item has been moved to the top of the Page options menu (from clicking on the icon) for quicker access. [13] There is also now a "Templates used on this page" feature there. [14]
You can now create <chem> tags (sometimes used as <ce>) for chemical formulas inside the visual editor. [15]
Tables can be set as collapsed or un-collapsed. [16]
The Special character menu now includes characters for Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics and angle quotation marks (‹› and ⟨⟩) . The team thanks the volunteer developer, Tpt. [17]
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. [18]
There is a new keyboard shortcut for citations: Control+Shift+K on a PC, or Command+Shift+K on a Mac. It is based on the keyboard shortcut for making links, which is Control+K on a PC or Command+K on a Mac. [19]

Future changes

The VisualEditor team is working with the Community Tech team 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. [20]
The kind of button used to Show preview, Show changes, and finish an edit will change in all WMF-supported wikitext editors. The new buttons will use OOjs 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. [21]
The outdated 2006 wikitext editor will be removed later this year. It is used by approximately 0.03% of active editors. See a list of editing tools on mediawiki.org if you are uncertain which one you use. [22]

If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:18, 9 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 9 June 2017

From the editors: Signpost status: On reserve power, help wanted!

News and notes: Global Elections

Arbitration report: Cases closed in the Pacific and with Magioladitis

Op-ed: Wikipedia's lead sentence problem

Featured content: Three months in the land of the featured

In the media: Did Wikipedia just assume Garfield's gender?

Recent research: Wikipedia bot wars capture the imagination of the popular press

Technology report: Tech news catch-up

Traffic report: Film on Top: Sampling the weekly top 10

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:18, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 23 June 2017

News and notes: Departments reorganized at Wikimedia Foundation, and a month without new RfAs (so far)

In the media: Kalanick's nipples; Episode #138 of Drama on the Hill

Op-ed: Facto Post: a fresh take

Featured content: Will there ever be a break? The slew of featured content continues

Traffic report: Wonder Woman beats Batman, The Mummy, Darth Vader and the Earth

Recent research: Utopian bubbles: Can Wikipedians create value outside of the capitalist system?

Technology report: Improved search, and WMF data scientist tells all

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:32, 23 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 15 July 2017

News and notes: French chapter woes, new affiliates and more WMF team changes

Featured content: Spectacular animals, Pine Trees screens, and more

In the media: Concern about access and fairness, Foundation expenditures, and relationship to real-world politics and commerce

Recent research: The chilling effect of surveillance on Wikipedia readers

Op-ed: Why Task Forces are Dying in 2017

Gallery: A mix of patterns

Humour: The Infobox Game

Traffic report: Film, television and Internet phenomena reign with some room left over for America's birthday

Technology report: New features in development; more breaking changes for scripts

Wikicup: 2017 WikiCup round 3 wrap-up

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:49, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 5 August 2017

News and notes: Non-English special edition! 99% no news about English-based wiki communities!

Recent research: Wikipedia can increase local tourism by +9%; predicting article quality with deep learning; recent behavior predicts quality

WikiProject report: Comic relief

In the media: Wikipedia used to judge death penalty, arms smuggling, Indonesian governance, and HOTTEST celebrity

Traffic report: Swedish countess tops the list

Blog: Canadian Supreme Court rules against Google in favor of worldwide court orders

Special report: Sharing Wikipedia offline medical information in the Dominican Republic

Featured content: Everywhere in the lead

Technology report: Introducing TechCom

Humour: WWASOHs and ETCSSs

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:22, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 6 September 2017

From the editors: What happened at Wikimania?

News and notes: Basselpedia; WMF Board of Trustees appointments

Featured content: Warfighters and their tools or trees and butterflies

Traffic report: A fortnight of conflicts

Special report: Biomedical content, and some thoughts on its future

Recent research: Discussion summarization; Twitter bots tracking government edits; extracting trivia from Wikipedia

In the media: Google's Ideological Echo Chamber; What makes someone successful?

WikiProject report: WikiProject YouTube

Technology report: Latest tech news

Wikicup: 2017 WikiCup round 4 wrap-up

Humour: Bots

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:45, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 25 September 2017

News and notes: Chapter updates; ACTRIAL

In the media: Monkey settlement; Wikipedia used to give AI context clues

Humour: Chickenz

Recent research: Wikipedia articles vs. concepts; Wikipedia usage in Europe

Technology report: Flow restarted; Wikidata connection notifications

Gallery: Chicken mania

Special report: Two steps forward, one step backward: The Sustainability Initiative

Traffic report: Fights and frights

Featured content: Flying high

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:20, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 23 October 2017

News and notes: Money! WMF fundraising, Wikimedia strategy, WMF new office!

Featured content: Don, Marcel, Emily, Jessica and other notables

Humour: Guys named Ralph

In focus: Offline Wikipedia developed at OFF.NETWORK Content Hackathon

Blog: The future of offline access to Wikipedia: The Kiwix example

In the media: Facebook and poetry

Special report: Working with GLAMs in the UK

Traffic report: Death, disaster, and entertainment

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 23 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 November 2017

News and notes: Cons, cons, cons

Arbitration report: Administrator desysoped; How to deal with crosswiki issues; Mister Wiki case likely

Technology report: Searching and surveying

Interview: A featured article centurion

WikiProject report: Recommendations for WikiProjects

In the media: Open knowledge platform as a media institution

Traffic report: Strange and inappropriate

Featured content: We will remember them

Recent research: Who wrote this? New dataset on the provenance of Wikipedia text

Humour: Good faith (but still incomprehensible)

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:40, 24 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 18 December 2017

Special report: Women in Red World Contest wrap-up

Blog: Close encounters of the Wikipedia kind

Featured content: Featured content to finish 2017

In the media: Stolen seagulls, public domain primates and more

Arbitration report: Last case of 2017: Mister Wiki editors

Gallery: Wiki loving

Interview: Interview with Charlesjsharp, regular contributor of Wikipedia's Featured Pictures

Recent research: French medical articles have "high rate of veracity"

Technology report: Your wish lists and more Wikimedia tech

Traffic report: Notable heroes and bad guys

Humour: On their way to the WMF Incubator

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:28, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 16 January 2018

News and notes: Communication is key

In the media: The Paris Review, British Crown and British Media

Featured content: History, gaming and multifarious topics

Interview: Interview with Ser Amantio di Nicolao, the top contributor to English Wikipedia by edit count

Technology report: Dedicated Wikidata database servers

Humour: Why don't we have an article about _________?

Arbitration report: Mister Wiki is first arbitration committee decision of 2018

Traffic report: The best and worst of 2017

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:28, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 5 February 2018

Op-ed: Do editors have the right to be forgotten?

Featured content: Wars, sieges, disasters and everything black possible

Recent research: Automated Q&A from Wikipedia articles; Who succeeds in talk page discussions?

Blog: New monthly dataset shows where people fall into Wikipedia rabbit holes

Interview: Interview with The Rambling Man, Wikipedia's top contributor of Featured Lists

Traffic report: TV, death, sports, and doodles

Special report: Cochrane–Wikipedia Initiative

Arbitration report: New cases requested for inter-editor hostility and other collaboration issues

In the media: Solving crime; editing out violence allegations

Humour: You really are in Wonderland

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:13, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 20 February 2018

News and notes: The future is Swedish with a lack of administrators

Recent research: Politically diverse editors write better articles; Reddit and Stack Overflow benefit from Wikipedia but don't give back

Arbitration report: Arbitration committee prepares to examine two new cases

Traffic report: Addicted to sports and pain

Featured content: Entertainment, sports and history

Technology report: Paragraph-based edit conflict screen; broken thanks

Humour: Impossible and unexplained traffic report

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:12, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #1—2018

Read this in another language • Subscription list for the English Wikipedia • Subscription list for the multilingual edition

Did you know?

Did you know that you can now use the visual 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 you enable 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. An arrow indicates that the paragraph changed location.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has spent most of their time supporting the 2017 wikitext editor mode, which is available inside the visual editor as a Beta Feature, and improving the visual diff tool. Their work board is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, supporting the 2017 wikitext editor, and improving the visual diff tool.

Recent changes

The 2017 wikitext editor is available 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 at mw:Contributors/Projects/Editing performance.
The visual 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 also enable 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 and Special:RecentChanges. [23]
Wikitext syntax highlighting is available as a Beta Feature for both the 2017 wikitext editor and the 2010 wikitext editor. [24]
The citoid service automatically translates URLs, DOIs, ISBNs, and PubMed id numbers into wikitext citation templates. This tool has been used at the English Wikipedia for a long time. It is very popular and useful to editors, although it can be tricky for admins to set up. Other wikis can have this service, too. Please read the instructions. You can ask the team to help you enable citoid at your wiki.

Let's work together

The team is planning a presentation about editing tools for an upcoming Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting.
Wikibooks, Wikiversity, and other communities may have the visual editor made available by default to contributors. If your community wants this, then please contact Dan Garry.
The <references /> block can automatically display long lists of references in columns on wide screens. This makes footnotes easier to read. This has already been enabled at the English Wikipedia. If you want columns for a long list of footnotes on this wiki, you can use either <references /> or the plain (no parameters) {{reflist}} template. If you edit a different wiki, you can request multi-column support for your wiki. [25]
If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly. We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation. Thank you!

—User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:14, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Signpost issue 4 – 29 March 2018

Op-ed: Death knell for The Signpost?

News and notes: Wiki Conference roundup and new appointments.

Arbitration report: Ironing out issues in infoboxes; not sure yet about New Jersey; and an administrator who probably wasn't uncivil to a sockpuppet.

In the media: The media on Wikipedia's workings: the good and not-so-good

Traffic report: Real sports, real women and an imaginary country: what's on top for Wikipedia readers

Featured content: Animals, Ships, and Songs

Technology report: Timeless skin review by Force Radical.

Special report: ACTRIAL wrap-up.

Humour: WikiWorld Reruns

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:49, 29 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 26 April 2018

From the editors: The Signpost's presses roll again

Signpost: Future directions for The Signpost

News and notes: Photo of Kim Jong-un. Stephen Hawking death tops hits on many Wikipedias.

In the media: The rise of Wikipedia as a disinformation mop

In focus: Admin reports board under criticism

Special report: ACTRIAL results adopted by landslide

Opinion: Guideline for Organization Notability revised

Op-ed: World War II Myth-making and Wikipedia

Community view: It's time we look past Women in Red to counter systemic bias

Discussion report: The future of portals

Arbitration report: No new cases, and one motion on administrative misconduct

WikiProject report: WikiProject Military History

Blog: Why the world reads Wikipedia

Humour: Our Favorite Places to Whine About Stuff

Traffic report: A quiet place to wrestle with the articles of March

Technology report: Coming soon: Books-to-PDF, interactive maps, rollback confirmation

Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

Gallery: A look at some famous and not as well-known border tripoints

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:51, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 May 2018

From the editor: Another issue meets the deadline

Op-ed: Has the wind gone out of the AdminShip's sails?

Opinion: Integrating my many lives on Wikipedia

WikiProject report: WikiProject Portals

Discussion report: User rights, infoboxes, and more discussion on portals

Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

Arbitration report: Managing difficult topics

News and notes: Lots of Wikimedia

In the media: Wikipedia in Turkish politics; COI politics in Wikipedia; most cited work

Traffic report: We love our superheroes

Technology report: A trove of contributor and developer goodies

Blog: Why I write about women on Wikipedia

Recent research: Why people don't contribute to Wikipedia; using Wikipedia to teach statistics, technical writing, and controversial issues

Humour: Play with your food

Gallery: Wine not?

From the archives: The Signpost scoops The Signpost

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:25, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 May 2018

From the editor: Another issue meets the deadline

Op-ed: Has the wind gone out of the AdminShip's sails?

Opinion: Integrating my many lives on Wikipedia

WikiProject report: WikiProject Portals

Discussion report: User rights, infoboxes, and more discussion on portals

Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

Arbitration report: Managing difficult topics

News and notes: Lots of Wikimedia

In the media: Wikipedia in Turkish politics; COI politics in Wikipedia; most cited work

Traffic report: We love our superheroes

Technology report: A trove of contributor and developer goodies

Blog: Why I write about women on Wikipedia

Recent research: Why people don't contribute to Wikipedia; using Wikipedia to teach statistics, technical writing, and controversial issues

Humour: Play with your food

Gallery: Wine not?

From the archives: The Signpost scoops The Signpost

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:19, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 June 2018

From the editor: The Admin Ship is still barely afloat, while a Foundation project risks sinking

Special report: NPR and AfC – The Marshall Plan: an engagement and a marriage?

Op-ed: What do admins do?

Opinion: Google isn't responsible for Wikipedia's mistakes

News and notes: Money, milestones, and Wikimania

In the media: Much wikilove from the Mayor of London, less from Paekākāriki or a certain candidate for U.S. Congress

Discussion report: Deletion, page moves, and an update to the main page

Featured content: New promotions

Arbitration report: WWII, UK politics, and a user deCrat'ed

Traffic report: Endgame

Technology report: Improvements piled on more improvements

Gallery: Wiki Loves Africa

Blog: Wikipedia should be open for editors in Turkey

Recent research: How censorship can backfire and conversations can go awry

Humour: Television plot lines

Wikipedia essays: This month's pick by The Signpost editors

From the archives: Wolves nip at Wikipedia's heels: A perspective on the cost of paid editing

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:29, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 July 2018

From the editor: If only if

Op-ed: The last leg of the Admin Ship's current cruise

Opinion: Wrestling with Wikipedia reality

News and notes: Another newspaper for Wikipedia; Wikimania 2018 ends; changes at NPR

In the media: Blackouts in Europe; Wikipedia and capitalists; WMF Jet Set

Discussion report: Wikipedias take action against EU copyright proposal, plus new user right proposals

Featured content: Wikipedia's best content in images and prose

Arbitration report: Status quo processes retained in two disputes

Traffic report: Soccer, football, call it what you like – that and summer movies leave room for little else

Technology report: New bots, new prefs

Gallery: Independence days, national holidays, and football – all in July

Blog: Motivation of two editors

Recent research: Different Wikipedias use different images; editing contests more successful than edit-a-thons

Humour: It's all the same

Essay: Wikipedia does not need you

From the archives: The pending changes fiasco: how an attempt to answer one question turned into a quagmire

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:51, 31 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 August 2018

From the editor: Today's young adults don't know a world without Wikipedia

Interview: 2018 Wikimedian of the Year, Farkhad Fatkullin

News and notes: Flying high; low practice from Wikipedia 'cleansing' agency; where do our donations go? RfA sees a new trend

In the media: Quicksilver AI writes articles

Discussion report: Drafting an interface administrator policy

Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

Special report: Wikimania 2018

Traffic report: Aretha dies – getting just 2,000 short of 5 million hits

Technology report: Technical enhancements and a request to prioritize upcoming work

Gallery: Leapfrog, historic Thai cave, and a rhythmic beat

Recent research: Wehrmacht on Wikipedia, neural networks writing biographies

Humour: Signpost editor censors herself

Essay: Principle of Some Astonishment

From the archives: Playing with Wikipedia words

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:03, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 October 2018

From the editor: Is this the new normal?

News and notes: European copyright law moves forward

In the media: Knowledge under fire

Discussion report: Interface Admin policy proposal, part 2

Arbitration report: A quiet month for Arbcom

Traffic report: John McCain's death generates over 7 million hits, followed by historical low

Technology report: Paying attention to your mobile

Gallery: A pat on the back

Blog: After a catastrophic fire at the National Museum of Brazil, a drive to preserve what knowledge remains

Recent research: How talk page use has changed since 2005; censorship shocks lead to centralization; is vandalism caused by workplace boredom?

Humour: Signpost Crossword Puzzle

Essay: Expressing thanks

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:44, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 October 2018

From the editors: The Signpost is still afloat, just barely

Op-ed: Wikipedia's Strickland affair

News and notes: WMF gets a million bucks

In the media: Bans, celebs, and bias

Discussion report: Mediation Committee and proposed deletion reform

Traffic report: Unsurprisingly, sport leads the field – or the ring

Technology report: Bots galore!

Special report: NPP needs you

Special report 2: Now Wikidata is six

In focus: Alexa

Gallery: Out of this world!

Recent research: Wikimedia Commons worth $28.9 billion

Humour: Talk page humour

Opinion: Strickland incident

From the archives: The Gardner Interview

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:09, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #2—2018

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter • Subscription list on the English Wikipedia

Did you know?

Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?

Tap on the pencil icon to start editing. The page will probably open in the wikitext editor.

You will see another pencil icon in the toolbar. Tap on that pencil icon to the switch between visual editing and wikitext editing.

Remember to publish your changes when you're done.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has wrapped up most of their work on the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual diff tool. The team has begun investigating the needs of editors who use mobile devices. Their work board is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are fixing bugs and improving mobile editing.

Recent changes

The Editing team has published an initial report about mobile editing.
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 can read the report.
The Reading team is working on a separate mobile-based contributions project.
The 2006 wikitext editor is no longer supported. If you used that toolbar, then you will no longer see any toolbar. You may choose another editing tool in your editing preferences, local gadgets, or beta features.
The Editing team described the history and status of VisualEditor in this recorded public presentation (starting at 29 minutes, 30 seconds).
The Language team released a new version of Content Translation (CX2) last month, on International Translation Day. It integrates the visual editor to support templates, tables, and images. It also produces better wikitext when the translated article is published. [26]

Let's work together

The Editing team wants to improve visual editing on the mobile website. Please read their ideas and tell the team what you think would help editors who use the mobile site.
The Community Wishlist Survey begins next week.
If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly. We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:11, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 December 2018

From the editor: Time for a truce

Op-ed: Looking back, looking forward: A beginner's experience on Wikipedia

Special report: The Christmas wishlist

Opinion: The blogosphere migrates to Galaxy WMF

News and notes: Reviewer of the year, WikiCup winner, and the 2019 Wikimedia Summit

Reflections: Wikipedia, history, and the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day

In the media: Court-ordered article redaction, paid editing, and rock stars

Discussion report: Farewell, Mediation Committee

Arbitration report: A long break ends

Traffic report: Queen reigns for four weeks straight

Gallery: Intersections

Recent research: Why do the most active Wikipedians burn out?; only 4% of students vandalize

Essay: No one cares about your garage band

Humour: The dark side of our favorite root vegetable

From the archives: Ars longa, vita brevis

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:47, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 December 2018

From the editors: Where to draw the line in reporting?

Op-ed: Wikipedia not trumped by Trump appointee

Special report: The Signpost got 380,000+ views in 2018, sounds reasonable enough, right?

News and notes: Some wishes do come true

In the media: Political hijinks

Discussion report: A new record low for RfA

WikiProject report: Articlegenesis

Arbitration report: Year ends with one active case

Traffic report: Queen dethroned by U.S. presidents

Gallery: Sun and Moon, water and stone

Blog: News from the WMF

Humour: I believe in Bigfoot

Essay: Requests for medication

From the archives: Compromised admin accounts – again

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:35, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 January 2019

Op-Ed: Random Rewards Rejected

In focus: The Collective Consciousness of Admin Userpages

News and notes: WMF staff turntable continues to spin; Endowment gets more cash; RfA continues to be a pit of steely knives

In the media: The Signpost's investigative story recognized, Wikipedia turns 18 and gets a birthday gift from Google, and more editors are recognized

Discussion report: The future of the reference desk

Featured content: Don't miss your great opportunity

Arbitration report: An admin under the microscope

Traffic report: Death, royals and superheroes: Avengers, Black Panther

Technology report: When broken is easily fixed

Gallery: Let us build a memorial fit for such pain and suffering

News from the WMF: News from WMF

Recent research: Ad revenue from reused Wikipedia articles; are Wikipedia researchers asking the right questions?

Essay: How

Humour: Village pump

From the archives: An editorial board that includes you

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:50, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 February 2019

From the editors: Help wanted (still)

News and notes: Front-page issues for the community

In focus: Wikimedia affiliate organizations seek community participation in 2019 board election

Discussion report: Talking about talk pages

Featured content: Conquest, War, Famine, Death, and more!

Arbitration report: A quiet month for Arbitration Committee

Traffic report: Binge-watching

Technology report: Tool labs casters-up

Gallery: Signed with pride

Recent research: Research finds signs of cultural diversity and recreational habits of readers

Essay: Optimist's guide to Wikipedia

From the archives: New group aims to promote Wiki-Love

Humour: Pesky Pronouns

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:15, 28 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 March 2019

From the editors: Getting serious about humor

News and notes: Blackouts fail to stop EU Copyright Directive

In the media: Women's history month

Discussion report: Portal debates continue, Prespa agreement aftermath, WMF seeks a rebranding

Featured content: Out of this world

Arbitration report: The Tides of March at ARBCOM

Traffic report: Exultations and tribulations

Technology report: New section suggestions and sitewide styles

News from the WMF: The WMF's take on the new EU Copyright Directive

Recent research: Barnstar-like awards increase new editor retention

From the archives: Esperanza organization disbanded after deletion discussion

Humour: The Epistolary of Arthur 37

Op-Ed: Pro and Con: Has gun violence been improperly excluded from gun articles?

In focus: The Wikipedia SourceWatch

Special report: Wiki Loves (50 Years of) Pride

Community view: Wikipedia's response to the New Zealand mosque shootings

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:02, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 April 2019

News and notes: An Action Packed April

In the media: Is Wikipedia just another social media site?

Discussion report: English Wikipedia community's conclusions on talk pages

Featured content: Anguish, accolades, animals, and art

Arbitration report: An Active Arbitration Committee

Traffic report: Mötley Crüe, Notre-Dame, a black hole, and Bonnie and Clyde

Technology report: A new special page, and other news

Gallery: Notre-Dame de Paris burns

News from the WMF: Can machine learning uncover Wikipedia’s missing “citation needed” tags?

Recent research: Female scholars underrepresented; whitepaper on Wikidata and libraries; undo patterns reveal editor hierarchy

From the archives: Portals revisited

Humour: Jimbo and Larry walk into a bar ...

Opinion: The gaps in our knowledge of our gaps

Interview: Katherine Maher marks 3 years as executive director

Community view: 2019 Wikimedia Summit gathers movement affiliate representatives to discuss movement strategy

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:36, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 May 2019

From the editors: Picture that

News and notes: Wikimania and trustee elections

In the media: Politics, lawsuits and baseball

Discussion report: Admin abuse leads to mass-desysop proposal on Azerbaijani Wikipedia

Arbitration report: ArbCom forges ahead

Traffic report: Dark marvels, thrones, a vile serial killer biopic, that's entertainment!

Technology report: Lots of Bots

News from the WMF: Wikimedia Foundation petitions the European Court of Human Rights to lift the block of Wikipedia in Turkey

Recent research: Wikipedia more useful than academic journals, but is it stealing the news?

Essay: Paid editing

From the archives: FORUM:Should Wikimedia modify its terms of use to require disclosure?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:11, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The June 2019 Signpost is out!

Discussion report: A constitutional crisis hits English Wikipedia

News and notes: Mysterious ban, admin resignations, Wikimedia Thailand rising

In the media: The disinformation age

On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

Traffic report: Juneteenth, Beauty Revealed, and more nuclear disasters

Technology report: Actors and Bots

Gallery: Unlike the North Face, Wiki Loves Earth

Special report: Did Fram harass other editors?

Recent research: What do editors do after being blocked?; the top mathematicians, universities and cancers according to Wikipedia

From the archives: Women and Wikipedia: the world is watching

Opinion: Why the Terms of Use change didn't curtail undisclosed paid editing—and what might

In focus: WikiJournals: A sister project proposal

Community view: A CEO biography, paid for with taxes

Op-Ed: 2019 Wikimedia Affiliate Selected Board Seats Election Results

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:52, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #1—July 2019

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Did you know?

Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?

Every article has a pencil icon at the top. Tap on the pencil icon to start editing.

Edit Cards

This is what the new Edit Cards for editing links in the mobile visual editor look like. You can try the prototype here: 📲 Try Edit Cards.

Welcome back to the Editing newsletter.

Since the last newsletter, the team has released two new features for the mobile visual editor and has started developing three more. All of this work is part of the team's goal to make editing on mobile web simpler.

Before talking about the team's recent releases, we have a question for you:

Are you willing to try a new way to add and change links?

If you are interested, we would value your input! You can try this new link tool in the mobile visual editor on a separate wiki.

Follow these instructions and share your experience:

📲 Try Edit Cards.

Recent releases

The mobile visual editor is a simpler editing tool, for smartphones and tablets using the mobile site. The Editing team has recently launched two new features to improve the mobile visual editor:

Section editing
- 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 were 1% more likely to publish the edits they started than people with only full-page editing.
Loading overlay
- The purpose is to smooth the transition between reading and editing.

Section editing and the new loading overlay are now available to everyone using the mobile visual editor.

New and active projects

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 with 20 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.

Looking ahead

Wikimania: Several members of the Editing Team will be attending Wikimania in August 2019. They will lead a session about mobile editing in the Community Growth space. Talk to them about how editing can be improved.
Talk Pages: In the coming months, the Editing Team will begin improving talk pages and communication on the wikis.

Learning more

The VisualEditor 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 at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.

PPelberg (WMF) (talk) and Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 July 2019

News and notes: Wikimedia grants less accessible for travel, equipment, meetups, and India

In the media: Politics starts getting rough

Discussion report: New proposals in aftermath of Fram ban

Arbitration report: A month of reintegration

Gallery: Classic panoramas from Heinrich Berann

On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

Community view: Video based summaries of Wikipedia articles. How and why?

News from the WMF: Designing ethically with AI: How Wikimedia can harness machine learning in a responsible and human-centered way

Recent research: Most influential medical journals; detecting pages to protect

Special report: Administrator cadre continues to contract

Traffic report: World cups, presidential candidates, and stranger things

In focus: The French Wikipedia is overtaking the German

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:17, 31 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 August 2019

News and notes: Documenting Wikimania and our beginnings

In focus: Ryan Merkley joins WMF as Chief of Staff

In the media: Many layers of fake news: Fake fiction and fake news vandalism

Discussion report: Meta proposals on partial bans and IP users

Traffic report: Once upon a time in Greenland with Boris and cornflakes

Op-Ed: We couldn't have told you this, but Wikipedia was censored

Opinion: The Curious Case of Croatian Wikipedia

Community view: Chinese Wikipedia and the battle against extradition from Hong Kong

News from the WMF: Meet Emna Mizouni, the newly minted 2019 Wikimedian of the Year

Recent research: Special issue on gender gap and gender bias research

On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:41, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 September 2019

From the editors: Where do we go from here?

Special report: Post-Framgate wrapup

In the media: A net loss: Wikipedia attacked, closing off Russia? welcoming back Turkey?

Traffic report: Varied and intriguing entries, less Luck, and some retreads

News from the WMF: How the Wikimedia Foundation is making efforts to go green

Recent research: Wikipedia's role in assessing credibility of news sources; using wikis against procrastination; OpenSym 2019 report

Gallery: Finding freely licensed photo collections

On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

In focus: Wikidata & Wikibase for national libraries: the inaugural meeting

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:06, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #2 – Mobile editing and talk pages – October 2019

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Inside this newsletter, the Editing team talks about their work on the mobile visual editor, on the new talk pages project, and at Wikimania 2019.

Help

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 the talk page for this project. The team would value your examples. These examples will help everyone develop a shared understanding of what this project should support and encourage.

Talk Pages

The Talk 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. The Phase 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.

Mobile visual editor

The Editing team is trying to make it simpler to edit on mobile devices. The team is changing the visual editor on mobile. If you have something to say about editing on a mobile device, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.

Edit Cards

On 3 September, the Editing team released version 3 of Edit Cards. Anyone could use the new version in the mobile visual editor.
There is an updated design on the Edit Card for adding and modifying links. There is also a new, combined workflow for editing a link's display text and target.
Feedback: You can try the new Edit Cards by opening the mobile visual editor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on the Edit cards talk page.

The editing toolbar is changing in the mobile visual editor. The old system had two different toolbars. Now, all the buttons are together. Tell the team what you think about the new toolbar.

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: an improved 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 the Toolbar feedback talk page.

Wikimania

The Editing Team attended Wikimania 2019 in Sweden. They led a session on the mobile visual editor and a session on the new talk pages project. They tested two new features in the mobile visual editor with contributors. You can read more about what the team did and learned in the team's report on Wikimania 2019.

Looking ahead

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: The Editing team hopes to share results in November. This study asks whether the project helped editors add links and citations. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: Edit Cards project page.

– PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 October 2019

In the media: How to use or abuse Wikipedia for fun or profit

Special report: “Catch and Kill” on Wikipedia: Paid editing and the suppression of material on alleged sexual abuse

In focus: The BBC looks at Chinese government editing

Interview: Carl Miller on Wikipedia Wars

Community view: Observations from the mainland

Arbitration report: October actions

Traffic report: Wrestling with a couple of teenagers, a Nobelist, and a lot of jokers

Gallery: Wiki Loves Broadcast

Recent research: Research at Wikimania 2019: More communication doesn't make editors more productive; Tor users doing good work; harmful content rare on English Wikipedia

Essay: Wikipedia is in the real world

News from the WMF: Welcome to Wikipedia! Here's what we're doing to help you stick around

On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:11, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 November 2019

From the editor: Put on your birthday best

News and notes: How soon for the next million articles?

In the media: You say you want a revolution

On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

Arbitration report: Two requests for arbitration cases

Traffic report: The queen and the princess meet the king and the joker

Technology report: Reference things, sister things, stranger things

Gallery: Winter and holidays

Recent research: Bot census; discussions differ on Spanish and English Wikipedia; how nature's seasons affect pageviews

Essay: Adminitis

From the archives: WikiProject Spam, revisited

In focus: An update on the Wikimedia Movement 2030 Strategy

Special report: How many people edit in your favorite language? Where are they from?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:23, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 December 2019

From the editors: Caught with their hands in the cookie jar, again

News and notes: What's up (and down) with administrators, articles and languages

Special report: Are reputation management operatives scrubbing Wikipedia articles?

In the media: "The fulfillment of the dream of humanity" or a nightmare of PR whitewashing on behalf of one-percenters?

Discussion report: December discussions around the wiki

Arbitration report: Announcement of 2020 Arbitration Committee

Traffic report: Queens and aliens, exactly alike, once upon a December

Technology report: User scripts and more

Gallery: Holiday wishes

Recent research: Acoustics and Wikipedia; Wiki Workshop 2019 summary

From the archives: The 2002 Spanish fork and ads revisited (re-revisited?)

On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

Op-Ed: Why we need to keep talking about Wikipedia's gender gap

WikiProject report: Wikiproject Tree of Life: A Wikiproject report

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:37, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 January 2020

From the editor: Reaching six million articles is great, but we need a moratorium

News and notes: Six million articles on the English language Wikipedia

Special report: The limits of volunteerism and the gatekeepers of Team Encarta

In the media: Turkey's back up, but what's happening with Dot-org and a new visual identity?

Arbitration report: Three cases at ArbCom

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2019

Gallery: Wiki Loves Monuments 2019, we're all winners

News from the WMF: Capacity Building: Top 5 Themes from Community Conversations

Community view: Our most important new article since November 1, 2015

In focus: Cryptos and bitcoins and blockchains, oh no!

Recent research: How useful is Wikipedia for novice programmers trying to learn computing concepts?

From the archives: A decade of The Signpost, 2005-2015

On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

WikiProject report: WikiProject Japan: a wikiProject Report

Humour: Predicting the 6,000,000th article

Obituary: Remembering Wikipedia contributor Brian Boulton

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:09, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 March 2020

From the editor: The ball is in your court

News and notes: Alexa ranking down to 13th worldwide

Special report: More participation, more conversation, more pageviews

In the media: Mapping IP editors, Smithsonian open-access, and coronavirus disinformation

Discussion report: Do you prefer M or P?

Arbitration report: Two prominent administrators removed

By the numbers: How many actions by administrators does it take to clean up spam?

Community view: The Incredible Invisible Woman

In focus: History of The Signpost, 2015–2019

Recent research: Wikipedia generates $50 billion/year consumer surplus in the US alone

From the archives: Is Wikipedia for sale?

Traffic report: February articles, floating in the dark

Gallery: Feel the love

On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

Op-Ed: What I learned as Wikimedia UK Communications Coordinator

Opinion: Wikipedia is another country

Humour: The Wilhelm scream

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:22, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 March 2020

From the editors: The bad and the good

News and notes: 2018 Wikipedian of the year blocked

WikiProject report: WikiProject COVID-19: A WikiProject Report

Special report: Wikipedia on COVID-19: what we publish and why it matters

In the media: Blocked in Iran but still covering the big story

Discussion report: Rethinking draft space

Arbitration report: Unfinished business

In focus: "I have been asked by Jeffrey Epstein …"

Community view: Wikimedia community responds to COVID-19

Recent research: Disease outbreak uncertainties, AfD forecasting, auto-updating Wikipedia

From the archives: Text from Wikipedia good enough for Oxford University Press to claim as own

Traffic report: The only thing that matters in the world

Gallery: Visible Women on Wikipedia

News from the WMF: Amid COVID-19, Wikimedia Foundation offers full pay for reduced hours, mobilizes all staff to work remote, and waives sick time

On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:42, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2020 #1 – Discussion tools

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Screenshot showing what the Reply tool looks like — This early version of the Reply tool automatically signs and indents comments.

The Editing team has been working on the talk pages project. The goal of the talk pages project is to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily. This project is the result of the Talk pages consultation 2019.

Reply tool improved with edit tool buttons — In a future update, the team plans to test a tool for easily linking to another user's name, a rich-text editing option, and other tools.

The team is building a new tool for replying to comments now. This early version can sign and indent comments automatically. Please test the new Reply tool.

On 31 March 2020, the new reply tool was offered as a Beta Feature editors at four Wikipedias: Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian. If your community also wants early access to the new tool, contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF).
The team is planning some upcoming changes. Please review 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.

To hear more about Editing Team updates, please add your name to the "Get involved" section of the project page. You can also watch these pages: the main project page, Updates, Replying, and User testing.

– PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:45, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mailing list change

You don't seem to have edited any of the wikis for more than two years, so I have removed your name from the mailing list for this newsletter. You can sign up again whenever you want by re-adding your name to that page. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:12, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I am in fact very active but I work on evangelism rather than editing, so it's important for me to know how the tools are changing. EdSaperia (talk) 08:02, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 26 April 2020

News and notes: Unbiased information from Ukraine's government?

In the media: Coronavirus, again and again

Discussion report: Redesigning Wikipedia, bit by bit

Featured content: Featured content returns

Arbitration report: Two difficult cases

Traffic report: Disease the Rhythm of the Night

Gallery: Roy is doing fine and sending more photos

Recent research: Trending topics across languages; auto-detecting bias

Essay: Wikipedia:An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing

By the numbers: Open data and COVID-19: Wikipedia as an informational resource during the pandemic

Opinion: Trusting Everybody to Work Together

On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?

Interview: Health and RfA's: An interview with Guy Macon

In focus: Multilingual Wikipedia

WikiProject report: The Guild of Copy Editors

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:17, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 May 2020

From the editor: Meltdown May?

News and notes: 2019 Picture of the Year, 200 French paid editing accounts blocked, 10 years of Guild Copyediting

In the media: CBS on COVID-19, Sanger on bias, false noses, and five prolific editors

Discussion report: WMF's Universal Code of Conduct

Special report: The sum of human knowledge? Not in one Wikipedia language edition

Featured content: Weathering the storm

Arbitration report: Board member likely to receive editing restriction

Traffic report: Come on and slam, and welcome to the jam

Op-Ed: Where Is Political Bias Taking Us?

Gallery: Wildlife photos by the book

News from the WMF: WMF Board announces Community Culture Statement

Recent research: Automatic detection of covert paid editing; Wiki Workshop 2020

Community view: Transit routes and mapping during stay-at-home order downtime

On video: COVID-19 spurs innovations in Wikimedia video and virtual programming

WikiProject report: Revitalizing good articles

On the bright side: 500,000 articles in the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia

Obituaries: Dmitrismirnov, Kattenkruid, Muidlatif, Ronhjones, Tsirel

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:05, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2020 #2 – Quick updates

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Mockup of the new reply feature, showing new editing tools — The new features include a toolbar. What do you think should be in the toolbar?

This edition of the Editing newsletter includes information the Wikipedia:Talk pages project, an effort to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily. The central project page is on MediaWiki.org.

Reply tool: This is available as a Beta Feature at the four partner wikis (Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian Wikipedias). The Beta Feature will get new features soon. The new features include writing comments in a new visual editing mode and pinging other users by typing @. You can test the new features on the Beta Cluster. 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 in Special:Preferences. This will reduce signature spoofing, prevent page corruption, and make new talk page tools more reliable. Most editors will not be affected.
New discussion tool: The Editing team is beginning work on a simpler process for starting new discussions. You can see the initial design on the project page.
Research on the use of talk pages: The Editing team worked with the Wikimedia 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.

– Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 June 2020

News and notes: Progress at Wikipedia Library and Wikijournal of Medicine

Community view: Community open letter on renaming

Gallery: After the killing of George Floyd

In the media: Part collaboration and part combat

Discussion report: Community reacts to WMF rebranding proposals

Featured content: Sports are returning, with a rainbow

Arbitration report: Anti-harassment RfC and a checkuser revocation

Traffic report: The pandemic, alleged murder, a massacre, and other deaths

News from the WMF: We stand for racial justice

Recent research: Wikipedia and COVID-19; automated Wikipedia-based fact-checking

Interview: What is wrong with rebranding to "Wikipedia Foundation"?

Humour: Cherchez une femme

Opinion: Trying to find COI or paid editors? Just read the news

On the bright side: For what are you grateful this month?

In focus: Edit Loud, Edit Proud: LGBTIQ+ Wikimedians and Global Information Activism

WikiProject report: WikiProject Black Lives Matter

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:53, 28 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2020 #3

Seven years ago this week, the Editing team made the visual editor available by default to all logged-in editors using the desktop site at the English Wikipedia. Here's what happened since its introduction:

The 50 millionth edit using the visual editor on desktop was made this year. More than 10 million edits have been made here at the English Wikipedia.
More than 2 million new articles have been created in the visual editor. More than 600,000 of these new articles were created during 2019.
Almost 5 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 the mobile visual editor in 2018.
The proportion of all edits made using the visual editor has been increasing every year.
Editors have made more than 7 million edits in the 2017 wikitext editor, including starting 600,000 new articles in it. The 2017 wikitext editor is VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode. You can enable it in your preferences.
On 17 November 2019, the first edit from outer space was made in the mobile visual editor.
In 2019, 35% of the edits by newcomers, and half of their first edits, were made using the visual editor. This percentage has been increasing every year since the tool became available.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:05, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 2 August 2020

Special report: Wikipedia and the End of Open Collaboration?

COI and paid editing: Some strange people edit Wikipedia for money

News and notes: Abstract Wikipedia, a hoax, sex symbols, and a new admin

In the media: Dog days gone bad

Discussion report: Fox News, a flight of RfAs, and banning policy

Featured content: Remembering Art, Valor, and Freedom

Traffic report: Now for something completely different

Gallery: Photos of threatened species from iNaturalist

News from the WMF: New Chinese national security law in Hong Kong could limit the privacy of Wikipedia users

Recent research: Receiving thanks increases retention, but not the time contributed to Wikipedia

Essay: Not compatible with a collaborative project

Obituaries: Hasteur and Brian McNeil

In focus: WikiLoop DoubleCheck, reviewing edits made easy

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:25, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 August 2020

News and notes: The high road and the low road

In the media: Storytelling large and small

Featured content: Going for the goal

Special report: Wikipedia's not so little sister is finding its own way

Op-Ed: The longest-running hoax

Traffic report: Heart, soul, umbrellas, and politics

News from the WMF: Fourteen things we’ve learned by moving Polish Wikimedia conference online

Recent research: Detecting spam, and pages to protect; non-anonymous editors signal their intelligence with high-quality articles

Arbitration report: A slow couple of months

From the archives: Wikipedia for promotional purposes?

Obituaries: Marcus Sherman, Jerome West, and Pauline van Till

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:32, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2020 #4

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Reply tool

The Reply tool has been available as a Beta Feature at the Arabic, Dutch, French and Hungarian Wikipedias since 31 March 2020. The first analysis showed positive results.

More than 300 editors used the Reply tool at these four Wikipedias. They posted more than 7,400 replies during the study period.
Of the people who posted a comment with the Reply tool, about 70% of them used the tool multiple times. About 60% of them used it on multiple days.
Comments from Wikipedia editors are positive. One said, أعتقد أن الأداة تقدم فائدة ملحوظة؛ فهي تختصر الوقت لتقديم رد بدلًا من التنقل بالفأرة إلى وصلة تعديل القسم أو الصفحة، التي تكون بعيدة عن التعليق الأخير في الغالب، ويصل المساهم لصندوق التعديل بسرعة باستخدام الأداة. ("I think the tool has a significant impact; it saves time to reply while the classic way is to move with a mouse to the Edit link to edit the section or the page which is generally far away from the comment. And the user reaches to the edit box so quickly to use the Reply tool.")[27]

The Editing team released the Reply tool as a Beta Feature at eight other Wikipedias in early August. Those Wikipedias are in the Chinese, Czech, Georgian, Serbian, Sorani Kurdish, Swedish, Catalan, and Korean languages. If you would like to use the Reply tool at your wiki, please tell User talk:Whatamidoing (WMF).

The Reply tool is still in active development. Per request from the Dutch Wikipedia and other editors, you will be able to customize the edit summary. (The default edit summary is "Reply".) A "ping" feature is available in the Reply tool's visual editing mode. This feature searches for usernames. Per request from the Arabic Wikipedia, each wiki will be able to set its own preferred symbol for pinging editors. Per request from editors at the Japanese and Hungarian Wikipedias, each wiki can define a preferred signature prefix in the page MediaWiki:Discussiontools-signature-prefix. For example, some languages omit spaces before signatures. Other communities want to add a dash or a non-breaking space.

New requirements for user signatures

The new requirements for custom user signatures began on 6 July 2020. If you try to create a custom signature that does not meet the requirements, you will get an error message.
Existing custom signatures that do not meet the new requirements will be unaffected temporarily. Eventually, all custom signatures will need to meet the new requirements. You can check your signature and see lists of active editors whose custom signatures need to be corrected. Volunteers have been contacting editors who need to change their custom signatures. If you need to change your custom signature, then please read the help page.

Next: New discussion tool

Next, the team will be working on a tool for quickly and easily starting a new discussion section to a talk page. To follow the development of this new tool, please put the New Discussion Tool project page on your watchlist.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:47, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 September 2020

Special report: Paid editing with political connections

News and notes: More large-scale errors at a "small" wiki

In the media: WIPO, Seigenthaler incident 15 years later

Featured content: Life finds a Way

Arbitration report: Clarifications and requests

Traffic report: Is there no justice?

Recent research: Wikipedia's flood biases

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:47, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 September 2020

Special report: Paid editing with political connections

News and notes: More large-scale errors at a "small" wiki

In the media: WIPO, Seigenthaler incident 15 years later

Featured content: Life finds a Way

Arbitration report: Clarifications and requests

Traffic report: Is there no justice?

Recent research: Wikipedia's flood biases

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:53, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 November 2020

News and notes: Ban on IPs on ptwiki, paid editing for Tatarstan, IP masking

In the media: Murder, politics, religion, health and books

Book review: Review of Wikipedia @ 20

Op-Ed: Anti-vandalism with masked IPs: the steps forward

Discussion report: Proposal to change board composition, In The News dumps Trump story

Featured content: The "Green Terror" is neither green nor sufficiently terrifying. Worst Hallowe'en ever.

Traffic report: Jump back, what's that sound?

Interview: Joseph Reagle and Jackie Koerner

News from the WMF: Meet the 2020 Wikimedian of the Year

Recent research: OpenSym 2020: Deletions and gender, masses vs. elites, edit filters

In focus: The many (reported) deaths of Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:50, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 November 2020

News and notes: Jimmy Wales "shouldn't be kicked out before he's ready"

Op-Ed: Re-righting Wikipedia

Opinion: How billionaires re-write Wikipedia

In the media: Relying on Wikipedia: voters, scientists, and a Canadian border guard

Featured content: Frontonia sp. is thankful for delicious cyanobacteria

Traffic report: 007 with Borat, the Queen, and an election

News from Wiki Education: An assignment that changed a life: Kasey Baker

GLAM plus: West Coast New Zealand's Wikipedian at Large

Wikicup report: Lee Vilenski wins the 2020 WikiCup

Recent research: Wikipedia's Shoah coverage succeeds where libraries fail

Essay: Writing about women

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:45, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 December 2020

News and notes: Year-end legal surprises cause concern, but Public Domain Day is imminent

In the media: Concealment, data journalism, a non-pig farmer, and some Bluetick Hounds

Arbitration report: 2020 election results

Opinion: How to make your factory's safety and labor issues disappear

Featured content: Very nearly ringing in the New Year with "Blank Space" – but we got there in time.

Traffic report: 2020 wraps up

News from the WMF: What Wikipedia saw during election week in the U.S., and what we’re doing next

Recent research: Predicting the next move in Wikipedia discussions

Essay: Subjective importance

Op-Ed: An unforgettable year we might wish to forget

Gallery: Angels in the architecture

Humour: 'Twas the Night Before Wikimas

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:25, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2021 #1

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Reply tool

The Reply tool is available at most other Wikipedias.

The Reply tool has been deployed as an opt-out preference to all editors at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.
It is also available as a Beta Feature at almost all Wikipedias except for the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias. If it is not available at your wiki, you can request it by following these simple instructions.

Research notes:

As of January 2021, more than 3,500 editors have used the Reply tool to post about 70,000 comments.
There is preliminary data from the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedia on the Reply tool. Junior Contributors who use the Reply tool are more likely to publish the comments that they start writing than those who use full-page wikitext editing.[28]
The Editing and Parsing teams have significantly reduced the number of edits that affect other parts of the page. About 0.3% of edits did this during the last month.[29] Some of the remaining changes are automatic corrections for Special:LintErrors.
A large A/B test will start soon.[30] This is part of the process to offer the Reply tool to everyone. During this test, half of all editors at 24 Wikipedias (not including the English Wikipedia) will have the Reply tool automatically enabled, and half will not. Editors at those Wikipeedias can still turn it on or off for their own accounts in Special:Preferences.

New discussion tool

The new tool for starting new discussions (new sections) will join the Discussion tools in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures at the end of January. You can try the tool for yourself.[31] You can leave feedback in this thread or on the talk page.

Next: Notifications

During Talk pages consultation 2019, editors said that it should be easier to know about new activity in conversations they are interested in. The Notifications project is just beginning. What would help you become aware of new comments? What's working with the current system? Which pages at your wiki should the team look at? Please post your advice at mw:Talk:Talk pages project/Notifications.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:02, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 January 2021

News and notes: 1,000,000,000 edits, board elections, virtual Wikimania 2021

Special report: Wiki reporting on the United States insurrection

In focus: From Anarchy to Wikiality, Glaring Bias to Good Cop: Press Coverage of Wikipedia's First Two Decades

Opinion: Wikipedia's war against scientific disinformation

In the media: The world's press says "Happy Birthday!" with a few twists

Technology report: The people who built Wikipedia, technically

Videos and podcasts: Celebrating 20 years

News from the WMF: Wikipedia celebrates 20 years of free, trusted information for the world

Recent research: Students still have a better opinion of Wikipedia than teachers

Humour: Dr. Seuss's Guide to Wikipedia

Featured content: New Year, same Featured Content report!

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2020

Obituary: Flyer22 Frozen

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:10, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 February 2021

News and notes: Maher stepping down

Disinformation report: A "billionaire battle" on Wikipedia: Sex, lies, and video

Opinion: The call for feedback on community seats is a distraction

In the media: Corporate influence at OSM, Fox watching the hen house

News from the WMF: Who tells your story on Wikipedia

Recent research: Take an AI-generated flashcard quiz about Wikipedia; Wikipedia's anti-feudalism

Featured content: A Love of Knowledge, for Valentine's Day

Traffic report: Does it almost feel like you've been here before?

Gallery: What is Black history and culture?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:28, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 March 2021

News and notes: A future with a for-profit subsidiary?

Gallery: Wiki Loves Monuments

In the media: Wikimedia LLC and disinformation in Japan

News from the WMF: Project Rewrite: Tell the missing stories of women on Wikipedia and beyond

Recent research: 10%-30% of Wikipedia’s contributors have subject-matter expertise

From the archives: Google isn't responsible for Wikipedia's mistakes

Essay: Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia

Obituary: Yoninah

From the editor: What else can we say?

Arbitration report: Open letter to the Board of Trustees

Traffic report: Wanda, Meghan, Liz, Phil and Zack

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:43, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 25 April 2021

From the editor: A change is gonna come

Disinformation report: Paid editing by a former head of state's business enterprise

In the media: Fernando, governance, and rugby

Opinion: The (Universal) Code of Conduct

Op-Ed: A Little Fun Goes A Long Way

Changing the world: The reach of protest images on Wikipedia

Recent research: Quality of aquatic and anatomical articles

Traffic report: The verdict is guilty, guilty, guilty

News from Wiki Education: Encouraging professional physicists to engage in outreach on Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:31, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 25 April 2021

From the editor: A change is gonna come

Disinformation report: Paid editing by a former head of state's business enterprise

In the media: Fernando, governance, and rugby

Opinion: The (Universal) Code of Conduct

Op-Ed: A Little Fun Goes A Long Way

Changing the world: The reach of protest images on Wikipedia

Recent research: Quality of aquatic and anatomical articles

Traffic report: The verdict is guilty, guilty, guilty

News from Wiki Education: Encouraging professional physicists to engage in outreach on Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:29, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2021 #2

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Earlier this year, the Editing team ran a large study of the Reply Tool. The main goal was to find out whether the Reply Tool helped newer 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 were more likely to post a comment on a talk page.
The comments that newer editors made with the Reply Tool were also less 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.

The next step is to resolve a technical challenge. Then, they will deploy the Reply tool first to the Wikipedias that participated in the study. After that, they will deploy it, in stages, to the other Wikipedias and all WMF-hosted wikis.

You can turn on "Discussion Tools" in Beta Features now. After you get the Reply tool, you can change your preferences at any time in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

00:27, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 June 2021

News and notes: Elections, Wikimania, masking and more

In the media: Boris and Joe, reliability, love, and money

Disinformation report: Croatian Wikipedia: capture and release

Recent research: Feminist critique of Wikipedia's epistemology, Black Americans vastly underrepresented among editors, Wiki Workshop report

Traffic report: So no one told you life was gonna be this way

News from the WMF: Searching for Wikipedia

Humour: Wikipedia's best articles on the world's strangest things

WikiProject report: WikiProject on open proxies interview

Forum: Is WMF fundraising abusive?

Discussion report: Reliability of WikiLeaks discussed

Obituary: SarahSV

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:14, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 25 July 2021

News and notes: Wikimania and a million other news stories

Special report: Hardball in Hong Kong

In the media: Larry is at it again

Board of Trustees candidates: See the candidates

Recent research: Gender bias and statistical fallacies, disinformation and mutual intelligibility

Traffic report: Football, tennis and marveling at Loki

News from the WMF: Uncapping our growth potential – interview with James Baldwin, Finance and Administration Department

Humour: A little verse

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:10, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 August 2021

News and notes: Enough time left to vote! IP ban

In the media: Vive la différence!

Wikimedians of the year: Seven Wikimedians of the year

Gallery: Our community in 20 graphs

News from Wiki Education: Changing the face of Wikipedia

Recent research: IP editors, inclusiveness and empathy, cyclones, and world heritage

WikiProject report: WikiProject Days of the Year Interview

Traffic report: Olympics, movies, and Afghanistan

Community view: Making Olympic history on Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:42, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 26 September 2021

News and notes: New CEO, new board members, China bans

In the media: The future of Wikipedia

Opinion: Wikimedians of Mainland China were warned

Op-Ed: I've been desysopped

Disinformation report: Paid promotional paragraphs in German parliamentary pages

Discussion report: Editors discuss Wikipedia's vetting process for administrators

Recent research: Wikipedia images for machine learning; Experiment justifies Wikipedia's high search rankings

Community view: Is writing Wikipedia like making a quilt?

Traffic report: Kanye, Emma Raducanu and 9/11

News from Diff: Welcome to the first grantees of the Knowledge Equity Fund

WikiProject report: The Random and the Beautiful

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:54, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 October 2021

From the editor: Different stories, same place

News and notes: The sockpuppet who ran for adminship and almost succeeded

In the media: China bans, and is there intelligent life on this planet?

Opinion: A photo on Wikipedia can ruin your life

Discussion report: Editors brainstorm and propose changes to the Requests for adminship process

Recent research: Welcome messages fail to improve newbie retention

Community view: Reflections on the Chinese Wikipedia

Traffic report: James Bond and the Giant Squid Game

Technology report: Wikimedia Toolhub, winners of the Coolest Tool Award, and more

Serendipity: How Wikipedia helped create a Serbian stamp

Book review: Wikipedia and the Representation of Reality

WikiProject report: Redirection

Humour: A very Wiki crossword

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:13, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 November 2021

In the media: Denial: climate change, mass killings and pornography

WikiCup report: The WikiCup 2021

Deletion report: What we lost, what we gained

From a Wikipedia reader: What's Matt Amodio?

Arbitration report: ArbCom in 2021

Discussion report: On the brink of change – RFA reforms appear imminent

Technology report: What does it take to upload a file?

WikiProject report: Interview with contributors to WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers

Serendipity: "Did You Know ..." featured a photo of the wrong female WWII pilot

News from Diff: Content translation tool helps create one million Wikipedia articles

Traffic report: Reporting ticket sales on the edge of the Wiki, if Eternals should fail

Recent research: Vandalizing Wikipedia as rational behavior

Humour: A very new very Wiki crossword

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:46, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 December 2021

From the editor: Here is the news

News and notes: Jimbo's NFT, new arbs, fixing RfA, and financial statements

Serendipity: Born three months before her brother?

In the media: The past is not even past

Recent research: STEM articles judged unsuitable for undergraduates below the first paragraph

Arbitration report: A new crew for '22

By the numbers: Four billion words and a few numbers

Deletion report: We laughed, we cried, we closed as "no consensus"

Gallery: Wikicommons presents: 2021

Traffic report: Spider-Man, football and the departed

Crossword: Another Wiki crossword for one and all

Humour: Buying Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:07, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 January 2022

Special report: WikiEd course leads to Twitter harassment

News and notes: Feedback for Board of Trustees election

Interview: CEO Maryana Iskander "four weeks in"

Black History Month: What are you doing for Black History Month?

Deletion report: Ringing in the new year: Subject notability guideline under discussion

WikiProject report: The Forgotten Featured

Arbitration report: New arbitrators look at new case and antediluvian sanctions

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2021

Gallery: No Spanish municipality without a photograph

Obituary: Twofingered Typist

Op-Ed: Identifying and rooting out climate change denial

Essay: The prime directive

Opinion: Should the Wikimedia Foundation continue to accept cryptocurrency donations?

In the media: Fuzzy-headed government editing

Recent research: Articles with higher quality ratings have fewer "knowledge gaps"

Serendipity: Pooh entered the Public Domain – but Tigger has to wait two more years

Crossword: Cross swords with a crossword

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:20, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 February 2022

From the team: Selection of a new Signpost Editor-in-Chief

News and notes: Impacts of Russian invasion of Ukraine

Opinion: Why student editors are good for Wikipedia

Special report: A presidential candidate's team takes on Wikipedia

In the media: Wiki-drama in the UK House of Commons

Serendipity: War photographers: from Crimea (1850s) to the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022)

Technology report: Community Wishlist Survey results

WikiProject report: 10 years of tea

Featured content: Featured Content returns

Deletion report: The 10 most SHOCKING deletion discussions of February

Recent research: How editors and readers may be emotionally affected by disasters and terrorist attacks

Arbitration report: Parties remonstrate, arbs contemplate, skeptics coordinate

By the numbers: Does birthplace affect the frequency of Wikipedia biography articles?

Gallery: The vintage exhibit

Traffic report: Euphoria, Pamela Anderson, lies and Netflix

News from Diff: The Wikimania 2022 Core Organizing Team

Crossword: A Crossword, featuring Featured Articles

Humour: Notability of mailboxes

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:19, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 March 2022

From the Signpost team: How The Signpost is documenting the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

News and notes: Of safety and anonymity

Eyewitness Wikimedian, Kharkiv, Ukraine: Countering Russian aggression with a camera

Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary

Eyewitness Wikimedian, Western Ukraine: Working with Wikipedia helps

Disinformation report: The oligarchs' socks

In the media: Ukraine, Russia, and even some other stuff

Recent research: Top scholarly citers, lack of open access references, predicting editor departures

Wikimedian perspective: My heroes from Russia, Ukraine & beyond

Discussion report: Athletes are less notable now

Technology report: 2022 Wikimedia Hackathon

Arbitration report: Skeptics given heavenly judgement, whirlwind of Discord drama begins to spin for tropical cyclone editors

Traffic report: War, what is it good for?

Deletion report: Ukraine, werewolves, Ukraine, YouTube pundits, and Ukraine

Gallery: "All we are saying is, give peace a chance..."

From the archives: Burn, baby burn

Essay: Yes, the sky is blue

Tips and tricks: Become a keyboard ninja

On the bright side: The bright side of news

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:49, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 April 2022

News and notes: Double trouble

In the media: The battlegrounds outside and inside Wikipedia

Special report: Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war

Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary (Part 2)

Technology report: 8-year-old attribution issues in Media Viewer

Featured content: Wikipedia's best content from March

In focus: Editing difficulties on Russian Wikipedia

Gallery: A voyage around the world with WLM winners

Interview: On a war and a map

Serendipity: Wikipedia loves photographs, but hates photographers

Traffic report: Justice Jackson, the Smiths, and an invasion

Recent research: Student edits as "civic engagement"; how Wikipedia readers interact with images

News from the WMF: How Smart is the SMART Copyright Act?

Essay: The problem with elegant variation

Humour: Really huge message boxes

From the archives: Wales resigned WMF board chair in 2006 reorganization

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:39, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 May 2022

From the team: A changing of the guard

News and notes: 2022 Wikimedia Board elections

Community view: Have your say in the 2022 Wikimedia Foundation Board elections

Opinion: The Wikimedia Endowment – a lack of transparency

In the media: Putin, Jimbo, Musk and more

Special report: Three stories of Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war

In focus: Measuring gender diversity in Wikipedia articles

Discussion report: Portals, April Fools, admin activity requirements and more

WikiProject report: WikiProject COVID-19 revisited

Technology report: A new video player for Wikimedia wikis

Featured content: Featured content of April

Interview: Wikipedia's pride

Serendipity: Those thieving image farms

Recent research: 35 million Twitter links analysed

Tips and tricks: The reference desks of Wikipedia

Traffic report: Strange highs and strange lows

News from Diff: Winners of the Human rights and Environment special nomination by Wiki Loves Earth announced

News from the WMF: The EU Digital Services Act: What’s the Deal with the Deal?

Video: How the entire country of Qatar was blocked from editing

Gallery: Diving under the sea for World Oceans Day

From the archives: The Onion and Wikipedia

Essay: How not to write a Wikipedia article

Humour: A new crossword

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:45, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Editing newsletter 2022 – #1

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The New topic tool helps editors create new ==Sections== on discussion pages. New editors are more successful with this new tool. You can read the report. Soon, the Editing team will offer this to all editors at most WMF-hosted wikis. You can join the discussion about this tool for the English Wikipedia is at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Enabling the New Topic Tool by default. You will be able to turn it off in the tool or at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.

The Editing team plans to change the appearance of talk pages. These are separate from the changes made by the mw:Desktop improvements project and will appear in both Vector 2010 and Vector 2022. The goal is to add some information and make discussions look visibly different from encyclopedia articles. You can see some ideas at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project#Prototype Ready for Feedback.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

23:14, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 June 2022

News and notes: WMF inks new rules on government-ordered takedowns, blasts Russian feds' censor demands, spends big bucks

In the media: Editor given three-year sentence, big RfA makes news, Guy Standing takes it sitting down

Special report: "Wikipedia's independence" or "Wikimedia's pile of dosh"?

Discussion report: MoS rules on CCP name mulled, XRV axe plea nulled, BLPPROD drafting bid pulled

Opinion: Picture of the Day – how Adam plans to ru(i)n it

Featured content: Articles on Scots' clash, Yank's tux, Austrian's action flick deemed brilliant prose

Essay: RfA trend line haruspicy: fact or fancy?

Recent research: Wikipedia versus academia (again), tables' "immortality" probed

Serendipity: Was she really a Swiss lesbian automobile racer?

News from the WMF: Wikimedia Enterprise signs first deals

Traffic report: Top view counts for shows, movies, and celeb lawsuit that keeps on giving

Gallery: Celebration of summer, winter

Humour: Shortcuts, screwballers, Simon & Garfunkel

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:30, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 August 2022

From the editors: Rise of the machines, or something

News and notes: Information considered harmful

In the media: Censorship, medieval hoaxes, "pathetic supervillains", FB-WMF AI TL bid, dirty duchess deeds done dirt cheap

Op-Ed: The "recession" affair

Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary (part 3)

Election guide: The chosen six: 2022 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees elections

Community view: Youth culture and notability

Opinion: Criminals among us

Arbitration report: Winds of change blow for cyclone editors, deletion dustup draws toward denouement

Deletion report: This is Gonzo Country

Discussion report: Notability for train stations, notices for mobile editors, noticeboards for the rest of us

Traffic report: US TV, JP ex-PM, outer space, and politics of IN, US, UK top charts for July

Featured content: A little list with surprisingly few lists

Tips and tricks: Cleaning up awful citations with Citation bot

In focus: Wikidata insights from a handy little tool

On the bright side: Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war — three (more) stories

Essay: How to research an image

Recent research: A century of rulemaking on Wikipedia analyzed

Serendipity: Don't cite Wikipedia

Gallery: A backstage pass

From the archives: 2012 Russian Wikipedia shutdown as it happened

Humour: Why did the chicken cross the road?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:38, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2022 #2

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The new [subscribe] button notifies people when someone replies to their comments. It helps newcomers get answers to their questions. People reply sooner. You can read the report. The Editing team is turning this tool on for everyone. You will be able to turn it off in your preferences.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:35, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 August 2022

News and notes: Admins wanted on English Wikipedia, IP editors not wanted on Farsi Wiki, donations wanted everywhere

Special report: Wikimania 2022: no show, no show up?

In the media: Truth or consequences? A tough month for truth

Discussion report: Boarding the Trustees

News from Wiki Education: 18 years a Wikipedian: what it means to me

In focus: Thinking inside the box

Tips and tricks: The unexpected rabbit hole of typo fixing in citations...

Technology report: Vector (2022) deployment discussions happening now

Serendipity: Two photos of every library on earth

Featured content: Our man drills are safe for work, but our Labia is Fausta.

Recent research: The dollar value of "official" external links

Traffic report: What dreams (and heavily trafficked articles) may come

Essay: Delete the junk!

Gallery: A Fringe Affair (but not the show by Edward W. Feery that was on this year)

Humour: CommonsComix No. 1

From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 years ago

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:58, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 September 2022

News and notes: Board vote results, bot's big GET, crat chat gives new mop, WMF seeks "sound logo" and "organizer lab"

In focus: NPP: Still heaven or hell for new users – and for the reviewers

In the media: A few complaints and mild disagreements

Special report: Decentralized Fundraising, Centralized Distribution

Discussion report: Much ado about Fox News

Interview: ScottishFinnishRadish's Request for Adminship

Opinion: Are we ever going to reach consensus?

Serendipity: Removing watermarks, copyright signs and cigarettes from photos

Recent research: How readers assess Wikipedia's trustworthiness, and how they could in the future

Traffic report: Kings and queens and VIPs

Featured content: Farm-fresh content

Gallery: A Festival Descends on the City: The Edinburgh Fringe, Pt. 2

CommonsComix: CommonsComix 2: Paulus Moreelse

From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 Years ago: September 2022

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:00, 1 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 October 2022

From the team: A new goose on the roost

News and notes: Wikipedians question Wikimedia fundraising ethics after "somewhat-viral" tweet

News from the WMF: Governance updates from, and for, the Wikimedia Endowment

In the media: Scribing, searching, soliciting, spying, and systemic bias

Disinformation report: From Russia with WikiLove

Recent research: Disinformatsiya: Much research, but what will actually help Wikipedia editors?

Interview: Isabelle Belato on their Request for Adminship

Featured content: Topics, lists, submarines and Gurl.com

Serendipity: We all make mistakes – don’t we?

Traffic report: Mama, they're in love with a criminal

From the archives: Paid advocacy, a lawsuit over spelling mistakes, deleting Jimbo's article, and the death of Toolserver

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:42, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 28 November 2022

News and notes: English Wikipedia editors: "We don't need no stinking banners"

In the media: "The most beautiful story on the Internet"

Interview: Lisa Seitz-Gruwell on WMF fundraising in the wake of big banner ad RfC

Opinion: Privacy on Wikipedia in the cyberpunk future

Disinformation report: Missed and Dissed

Op-Ed: Diminishing returns for article quality

Book review: Writing the Revolution

Technology report: Galactic dreams, encyclopedic reality

Essay: The Six Million FP Man

Tips and tricks: (Wiki)break stuff

Recent research: Study deems COVID-19 editors smart and cool, questions of clarity and utility for WMF's proposed "Knowledge Integrity Risk Observatory"

Featured content: A great month for featured articles

Obituary: A tribute to Michael Gäbler

Concept: The relevance of legal certainty to the English Wikipedia

Traffic report: Musical deaths, murders, Princess Di's nominative determinism, and sports

From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

CommonsComix: Joker's trick

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:40, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 January 2023

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation ousts, bans quarter of Arabic Wikipedia admins

In the media: Odd bedfellows, Elon and Jimbo, reliable sources for divorces, and more

Interview: ComplexRational's RfA debrief

Technology report: Wikimedia Foundation's Abstract Wikipedia project "at substantial risk of failure"

Essay: Mobile editing

Arbitration report: Arbitration Committee Election 2022

Recent research: Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement in talk page disputes

Serendipity: Wikipedia about FIFA World Cup 2022: quick, factual and critical

Featured content: Would you like to swing on a star?

Traffic report: Football, football, football! Wikipedia Football Club!

CommonsComix: #4: The Course of WikiEmpire

From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:44, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 16 January 2023

From the team: We heard zoomers liked fortnights: the biweekly Signpost rides again

Special report: Coverage of 2022 bans reveals editors serving long sentences in Saudi Arabia since 2020

News and notes: Revised Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines up for vote, WMF counsel departs, generative models under discussion

In the media: Court orders user data in libel case, Saudi Wikipedia in the crosshairs, Larry Sanger at it again

Technology report: View it! A new tool for image discovery

In focus: Busting into Grand Central

Serendipity: How I bought part of Wikipedia – for less than $100

Gallery: What is our responsibility when it comes to images?

Humour: New geologically speedy deletion criteria introduced

Opinion: Good old days, in which fifth-symbol-lacking lipograms roam'd our librarious litany

Featured content: Flip your lid

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2022

From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:13, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 4 February 2023

From the editor: New for the Signpost: Author pages, tag pages, and a decent article search function

News and notes: Foundation update on fundraising, new page patrol, Tides, and Wikipedia blocked in Pakistan

Section 230: Twenty-six words that created the internet, and the future of an encyclopedia

Disinformation report: Wikipedia on Santos

Special report: Legal status of Wikimedia projects "unclear" under potential European legislation

In the media: Furor over new Wikipedia skin, followup on Saudi bans, and legislative debate

Op-Ed: Estonian businessman and political donor brings lawsuit against head of national Wikimedia chapter

Opinion: Study examines cultural leanings of Wikimedia projects' visual art coverage

Recent research: Wikipedia's "moderate yet systematic" liberal citation bias

WikiProject report: WikiProject Organized Labour

Tips and tricks: XTools: Data analytics for your list of created articles

Featured content: 20,000 Featureds under the Sea

Traffic report: Films, deaths and ChatGPT

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:43, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 20 February 2023

News and notes: Terms of Use update, Steward elections, and Wikipedia back in Pakistan

In the media: Arbitrators open case after article alleges Wikipedia "intentionally distorts" Holocaust coverage

Disinformation report: The "largest con in corporate history"?

Essay: Machine-written articles: a new challenge for Wikipedia

Tips and tricks: All about writing at DYK

Featured content: Eden, lost.

Gallery: Love is in the air

Traffic report: Superbowl? Pfft. Give me some Bollywood! Yours sincerely, the world

From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 years ago: Let's (not) delete the Main Page!

Cobwebs: Editorial: The loss of the moral high ground

Humour: The RfA Candidate's Song

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:01, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Editing news 2023 #1

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This newsletter includes two key updates about the Editing team's work:

The Editing team will finish adding new features to the Talk pages project and deploy it.
They are beginning a new project, Edit check.

Talk pages project

The Editing team is nearly finished with this first phase of the Talk pages project. Nearly all new features are available now in the Beta Feature for Discussion tools.

It will show information about how active a discussion is, such as the date of the most recent comment. There will soon be a new "Add topic" button. You will be able to turn them off at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion. Please tell them what you think.

An A/B test for Discussion tools on the mobile site has finished. Editors were more successful with Discussion tools. The Editing team is enabling these features for all editors on the mobile site.

New Project: Edit Check

The Editing team is beginning a 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. Please watch that page for more information. You can join a conference call on 3 March 2023 to learn more.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]