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Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2012-05

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Convenience features for people who are on many WM projects?

Hi, I am occasionally editing or simply reading or watching WP pages in >15 languages and wiktionary and other projects in addition to that. There is a number of things that would make life easier for people like me:

  1. carry over default settings to every new project I login. Adjusting watchlist and diff settings for every single project anew is maddening
  2. unified watchlists, notifications when something changed in one of the less busy projects
  3. create default user with a link to specified multi-project user & talk pages.
  4. default user/talk page linking to an multi-project "home"

-- Richiez (talk) 10:51, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems that it is now possible to get an e-mail notification if a page on your watchlist is changed on any project. Previously, this was restricted to Meta, Commons and a few other projects. However, if someone makes a minor edit to a watched page, you won't get any notice at all for that page until after you've visited it again. --Stefan2 (talk) 11:43, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Global watchlists, and global userpages are very longstanding requests from the community. An alternative work around would be to merge some wikis, a lot of things would be easier and simpler if we had a single wiki for each language with Wiktionary, Wikisource etc as namespaces in one wiki. WereSpielChequers (talk) 17:34, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposal - complete unified login for all eligible accounts

Tracked in Phabricator:
Bug 35707See also [Wikitech-l] grouping users - an idea for a new SUL improvement

Unified login is a relatively new feature to the WMF wikis, allowing each user to have a single combined account in every project. Users that only have an account on one wiki would extend that to all wikis, and users that already have accounts on multiple wikis would have them combined. It was initially an opt-in for existing users, but it is now done by default for all new users. This leaves us with three groups of users: those with UL, those that cannot complete UL because of a naming conflict on another wiki, and those with no conflict that have simply not completed the process. I am proposing that account unification be completed for all eligible accounts without requiring the user to take any additional steps. This would make UL the rule rather than the exception that it currently is, and bring us closer to the goals of universal watchlists, recent changes, interwiki page moves, etc. This would be especially helpful on Commons, which has so many images that were originally uploaded at another WMF wiki, enabling better attribution without interwiki links. I propose that it be carried out as a one-time process rather than a continuous automatic software process, allowing users to still adjust ULs as they see fit. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 00:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I apologize that I was unclear; what I mean by "eligible accounts" was all accounts without existing conflicts, as these can be taken care of by an automated process. Accounts that have conflicts would be unaffected by this specific proposal. Conflicts could not be solved by any automated process, as each case would be different. Hopefully once this proposed process has completed we can look at other improvements that we can make. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 10:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  Oppose Lots of people do not want a unified account. Guido den Broeder (talk) 03:39, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  Support Unifying accounts now will help pre-emptively prevent naming conflicts and the resulting confusion later, and make it easy for users who aren't savvy enough to complete UL to still benefit from it. To satisfy people who (for reasons I don't clearly understand) don't want a UL, have an opt-out list and notify everyone who is affected so they can add themselves if needed. Dcoetzee (talk) 04:17, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Agreed, and anytime a user wishes their account to be un-merged, this has always been possible using Special:CentralAuth. The users who do not wish to have UL are only the barest fraction. The majority of non-unified accounts are users that have become inactive/less active since UL became possible, and possibly users that don't understand enough about the process to feel comfortable completing it. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 05:49, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
NO — this notifying-business is a horrible idea. You're gonna spam this cross-wiki unto all sorts of userpages (and pages that don't even exist yet). Nope. Total mess. Seb az86556 (talk) 11:24, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I didn't think that part through; I think site-wide notices would be acceptable, if less noticeable (as many of these accounts are inactive). But again, any users that miss the notice can request to be unmerged by a bureaucrat steward. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 11:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Isn't that currently reserved to stewards? --Stefan2 (talk) 11:41, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
You're right, I misread the text at Help:Unified login#Conflict resolution. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 11:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  Support automatic unification for accounts which haven't requested any unification at all. Currently, it is possible to create new SUL conflicts for those user names, which is bad. If some users don't want SUL at all, they could maybe be allowed to request exemption somewhere.
  Comment It seems that you also propose automatic usurpation of accounts regardless of the number of edits. This would be very practical for me since I have an SUL conflict on Commons where I also happen to have around 20,000 edits (around 2/3 of my total edits – my user name is held by someone who made 13 edits in 2006 and never returned), but it may risk making some people angry. This would be very practical for many projects not wishing to have local uploads since they could easily forward people to Commons without risking that people can't use their accounts there (see concerns on Danish Wikipedia) and also for other multilingual projects such as Meta. Full SUL would also prevent miscrediting when importing edits from one Wikimedia project to some other project (see concerns on Meta). --Stefan2 (talk) 10:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
A single unified database for all user accounts is the eventual goal, but the specific proposal was intended to apply only to accounts with no conflicts, as they can be done by an automated process. Usurping accounts would have to be done on a case-by-case, wiki-by-wiki basis, and that will be much more controversial. I think that should be addressed once this proposed process is finished. This proposal will make any future conflict-resolutions easier, by taking the majority of WMF accounts out of the equation. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 10:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I see. It was not clear what you meant with an "eligible account". It would be very good if SUL accounts were created whenever possible so that people can't create new SUL conflicts. I think that one of the current problems might be that inactive or semi-active users are unaware of SUL and so they don't know that it is possible to unify accounts. --Stefan2 (talk) 11:28, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  Support I come across spammers who are not unified and so cannot be locked... --Herby talk thyme 10:53, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  Comment This would be a serious breach of privacy. If this happens, I want my accounts, all my contributions and all mention of my accounts and my name deleted from all the WMF databases. Guido den Broeder (talk) 11:02, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
In what way is this a breach of privacy? Your edits are currently under a free license and can be modified however anyone sees fit. The edits you've made will still be stored on servers in Florida USA, same as before. The only thing that will change is that you would be able to edit other WMF projects without creating a new account. You won't even have new user pages on those wikis. You won't even log in there until you visit the site while logged in. What would be different? Also, there is no way that anyone's edits will ever be erased, unless that person has access to a titanic electromagnet and can sneak onto WMF property. Even then, your name and edits are in countless database dumps, and on countless Wikimedia knockoff sites across the internet. There is a decent chance that someone is selling a book on eBay or Amazon with words that you wrote in it, with your name in plain text. So how is this, in any conceivable way, going to infringe on your privacy any more than you already have yourself, by making edits under a free license under your real name? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 11:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
You can not create accounts unless you known the password and e-mail of the user. However providing this information to any script (and to its operator) would be a serious breach of privacy. In addition how are you going to decide which accounts are related or not related? By e-mails? Passwords? Both? Is not it an incredibly silly proposal? Ruslik (talk) 11:59, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Technically, you only need to compare hash values of the password and e-mail address. Anyway, all of the accounts are currently on servers at the same location, so I don't see any privacy problem. --Stefan2 (talk) 12:02, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
To create an account you need actual values, not hashes. Ruslik (talk) 12:08, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I cannot speak to the exact server-side process as I am not a dev. I've left a note at User talk:Brion VIBBER, as he has handled a lot of the SUL process. As it is a WMF-wide proposal, the merging would have to be done by a dev, so there would be no increased access to information; these people already have all of that info, and have already run tests combining everyone's accounts successfully. As I said above, the proposal is not about usurping accounts, but simply extending accounts where no conflicts exist. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 12:17, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  •   Support - makes sense as a step to finishing the unfinished SUL project. As an aside on collisions - is there a fundamental reason that automatically renaming accounts can't be used to help? Renaming old accounts with a handful of edits on one wiki a long time ago to "get out of the way" of an SUL merger ought to be feasible, no? That would leave a relatively small number of collisions between relatively active users to solve (where again renaming might work, but would need negotiation). Rd232 (talk) 12:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
    • There is no fundamental reason, but it is my feeling that accounts should be examined before renaming, and that can't be done automatically. This proposal is relatively low-impact, but any proposal that increases account usurpation or automates user renaming would be fairly contentious. So I'm hoping we can pass the easy proposal, and discuss other actions/policies/procedures once/if this one is successful. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 13:24, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
      • For example, users may be unaware of SUL and use different e-mail addresses and passwords. Many people get lots of different e-mail addresses from different places and might not enter the same one for all accounts. In some cases, the e-mail addresses might also be obsolete. And people are advised not to use the same password at more than one place, and although many people ignore that advice, some people probably follow it. If two accounts belong to the same user, they should probably be merged instead. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This is not compatible with the privacy policy. In addition it will lead to the creation of a huge number of unnecessary accounts including old vandalism-only, spam-only accounts and accounts with inappropriate usernames. It may also cause accounts that were oversighted to be resurrected. If implemented it will lead to a tide of spam when user talk pages are automatically created and e-mail notifications are sent. So, it proposal solves no problems but will create significant new ones. It is basically a solution in search of a problem. Ruslik (talk) 14:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
    • I don't understand most of this oppose. Do you realize that all new accounts are automatically unified accounts? --MZMcBride (talk) 16:16, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
      • Could you tell where you find the incompatibility in the privacy policy?
      • It only creates new accounts if you visit a different project whilst logged in. As for spam accounts, automatic SUL would improve things since the newly created global accounts could get an automatic global block. Oversighted accounts should maybe remain local unless there is a global oversight which could be automatically applied. As it is now, these users can create new accounts under the same name at any other project and then vandalise under the same name on that other project.
      • User talk pages are only created if there is an account and accounts are only created if you visit the project which you don't have to. Besides, not all projects have welcoming bots and you don't seem to get a mail for the first talk page edit either. --Stefan2 (talk) 16:27, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
        • The proposal is to create local accounts on all projects except where conflicting accounts exist. You should have read this proposal before supporting it. Ruslik (talk) 16:58, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
          • Hm? It sounds as if it would just do the same thing as going to Special:MergeAccount, which does not create any new accounts unless you visit other projects. --Stefan2 (talk) 17:04, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
          • Sorry, I'm not seeing that ("the proposal is to create local accounts on all projects") in letter or in spirit in the opening post. Can you elaborate?

            I agree that creating local accounts for every global user would be a poor idea (particularly as global renames still don't exist). This isn't done for global accounts currently and I don't believe there's any intention to do that here, though perhaps I'm missing something. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:00, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

            • "This would be especially helpful on Commons, which has so many images that were originally uploaded at another WMF wiki, enabling better attribution without interwiki links." You can attribute without interwiki links only if a local account is created on commons. Ruslik (talk) 06:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
              • What I meant was the ability to create user pages for prolific image uploaders on WP that had become inactive and whose images had been moved to Commons; even things as simple as a link to the WP user page. There is a particular uploader who has not been around in years, but when he was he uploaded dozens of very valuable hard-to-obtain images. When they were moved to Commons, I realized that any readers searching for his username would find a message "User account is not registered." I cannot even create a redirect to the WP page there, because conceivably someone else could create an account there. It may not seem like a big deal, but it irritates me that someone could register an account and take credit for images or edits they did not create.
              • As far as I know, SUL registers that name and links it to the global account, but the password is only handled by the global login. The individual wikis are only added to that login when the user goes to that wiki while logged in. SUL bypasses the conventional registration/login of the individual wiki. There is only one account under SUL and one password entry, it just has different accesses on different wikis (not separate accounts). ▫ JohnnyMrNinja (talk / en) 06:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
  •   Support: Though I think this is a silly venue. Half-informed or completely uninformed opinions are the best you're going to get here. Unified login for all accounts is the eventual goal. This is why new accounts were switched at some point to automatically be global upon registration, if there were no conflicts. This is really better handled via a Bugzilla ticket. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:16, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Highlights from April 2012

Highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia engineering report for April 2012, with a selection of other important events from the Wikimedia movement
 
About · Subscribe/unsubscribe · Distributed via Global message delivery, 15:02, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Requests for comment/Disable uploads on smaller wikis

The title is not perfect but gives the idea. Nemo 14:30, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Please see my proposal there :-) SPQRobin (talk) 22:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Creative Commons 4.0 draft--please help answer questions about attribution!

CC is working on version 4.0 of their licenses--in case you haven't seen it, the public draft is up in several different formats at their Drafts page.

Right now their focus is on attribution, and they are asking several specific questions about things to change in the new version. (A few of the open questions: Is there too much flexibility in "reasonable manner"? Or not enough? Is there any information people should be required to provide that they aren't providing? Should you be able to use a shortcut by just providing a link, and if so, what should you have to include?)

The questions and space for comment is on the CC wiki here.

(Ultimately, we hope to be able to use the 4.0 license version as the default license version for Wikimedia projects--either BY-SA or BY, depending on which project you are using. Several Wikimedians are already participating in these discussions, as well as the legal staff and myself, but your input on things that have and haven't worked well in 3.0 would really help the process, especially if you have good examples.)

I will be posting this message around to some of the wikis as well, but please pass this message around where it is relevant, especially if you are active on non-English projects! Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 22:01, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

How can I add a new entry to an article to add a translation?

I would like to add a Persian translation to one of the articles. Can anybody please tell me how I can do this? My email is gbozorgmehr@yahoo.com

Many thanks in advance

Wiki Quizzes embedded in Wikipedia pages - or on an external site

Like many grateful humans who have used and contributed to Wikipedia over the years, I find that I sometimes search for information to satisfy curiosity or a bet, but other times I read articles to learn.

As memory & cognition research shows, people need repetitive, spaced, and varied engagement with new information so that it can be encoded in long-term memory. What if Wikipedia articles--not all of them, of course, but ones where various metrics would indicate greatest usefulness--carried a button that gave users a few brief quiz questions after reading the article, then sent them those & perhaps a few other questions through email/social media after days / weeks / months?

This feature would greatly enhance the educative potential of Wikipedia articles, and I'm happy to contribute, either through Wikipedia itself or through a website hosted on the domain name wikiquizzes.org, which I've just bought.

Please let me know how this idea sounds (I'm sure it's been considered before), and how I can help!

Kevin kevinmklein yahoo.com

changing the contents in wiki

TO the wikipedia i am really sorry that i have changed the data in the article called " Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century" it was a mistake done by me in that article and i have deleted some information in that article and it was done by mistake and i dont know how to get back the info so pls tell me wat to do — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rohitkunchapu (talk) 2012-05-03T19:59:29 (UTC)

Planet Wikimedia page

The Planet Wikimedia page doesn't seem to be watched by anyone who can work on the requests there - I can see that last week someone already asked User:IAlex (who handled some in February) to have a look, but he has not responded. There is at least one request that should be handled ASAP - one of the blogs (http://moulinwiki.org/) has apparently been taken over by spammers, and must be removed from the Planet. --Tokikake (talk) 10:11, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Deletions by とある白い猫

I considered starting an RFC or requesting a global block, but I wouldn't like it either if someone did it to me for a similar reason/conflict. I really don't like the way とある白い猫 (aka ToAruShiroiNeko) is deleting files on various small wikis. He coordinates using the pages Global sysops/Wiki cleanup (he isn't even a global sysop?) and Local uploads policy/taking stock, apparently together with Seb az86556 (with whom I've had a disagreement as well).

So, today, とある白い猫 requested temporary adminship on frpwikipedia to Barras without formal request or anything. I understand that, in case of boring maintenance tasks you don't need bureaucracy. However, とある白い猫 went ahead and deleted a lot of files on frpwiki with the reason "Unlicensed file that is a copyright violation". I had an IRC discussion with him, and his reasoning was astonishing to me. Summary:

  1. He did so without any notice to the admins or community portal or anywhere else. The deletions were his first actions on the wiki. (The admins are inactive, but they may get an e-mail notification when their talk page is edited.) It's very nice if the few contributors on the wiki see that someone suddenly deletes a number of files.
  2. If a file is unlicensed, that doesn't mean it is automatically a copyvio.
  3. A lot of files did actually mention the source and/or license. Often they referred to frwikipedia, where the license was clearly explained. He said he couldn't understand the information in French, so he assumed it was a copyvio.
  4. If the file is unused, that isn't a reason for deletion. Otherwise Commons would only contain a few thousand files.

Now, I looked at a random action on another wiki he acted on: He tagged chr:File:Andy-Payne-hi-image.jpg for deletion. Tagging is much better, because users with legitimate rights (stewards or global sysops) delete them. However, that file said "pd-old", which is perfectly possible and doesn't look to me as "Orphaned, unlicensed, and/or dubiously licensed copyright content".

More generally, I wonder what the advantage is of deleting files like that. Lawsuits? Is there an example of a lawsuit on incorrectly licensed files on small wikis? Can't we just delete them when either they're clearly copyvio or someone notifies us that it's a copyvio?

It's just sad to see that 1) small wikis get unannounced "clean up rounds" of unauthorized users, and 2) you can be lucky and nobody questions your actions, while for other trivial proposals it requires lots of discussion and bureaucracy. SPQRobin (talk) 18:37, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't know exactly what's going on here, but if there is some text on the file information page, I think it would be better if deletions are carried out by someone who speaks the language. For example, s:sv:Fil:Exempel.jpg has no licence template, but the Swedish text on the page tells that it was taken by the uploader and is licensed as GFDL, so if you can read the text, you will know that it is properly licensed. If a file is uploaded to English Wikipedia or to Commons with insufficient information, the uploader would normally get a week to add the missing information before the file is deleted. Shouldn't the same apply to users of frpwiki? --Stefan2 (talk) 19:00, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
If the local wiki has an active community this would be correct. Wiki has no license templates to begin with. -- とある白い猫 chi? 19:14, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
My deletions were in line with wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy. Unlicensed files can be deleted without warning if there is no active community. Orphaned and unlicensed files can be deleted faster.
frp.wikipedia had 87 files total of which only 9 files were with templates/licenses on them. The wiki currently has only one license template which is for "Copyright by Wikipedia" which is used on only one file frp:Fichiér:Wiki.png. Some of my deletions were already local copies of files already on commons, sometimes even with the identical file name.
The mentioned local admins in question are
I did NOT say that I did not understand the licensing information on fr.wikipedia. This is a blatant misrepresentation of my IRC remark. What I did say was that I was unable to read the license of one file in question (fr:Fichier:Football-Croix-de-Savoie-74.png) which I assumed and still assume says "fully copyrighted". I could google translate it but I feel it is obvious enough. Since the file was orphaned (unused) I deleted the frp copy without giving it too much thought. SPQRobin restored the orphaned copyrighted frp copy of the file which is the only contribution of SPQRobin on this wiki aside from creating his userpage. I seriously question this users judgement on the restoration of an orphaned fully copyrighted file.
This complaint by SPQRobin is over an otherwise routine clean-up task that is regularly carried out - unfortunately not regular enough.
-- とある白い猫 chi? 19:12, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

That file doesn't look "fully copyrighted" at all. According to the license template, it's a trademarked logo that comes under fair use laws of both the U.S. and the country of origin. So it can't really be transferred to Commons on those grounds, but it definitely can't be deleted as being "fully copyrighted". Although of course since you point out it's orphaned, an orphaned fair-use file can be deleted.

I agree with Stefan2 that you really should know what you're looking at (i.e., speak the language and be familiar with copyright laws) before you start going around deleting things. Anything that isn't a clear violation of policies you really should just tag it for deletion to get a second set of eyes on it (someone who speaks the language).

Another thing (and this relates to the other user): threatening local administrators to get something deleted, accusing them of ignoring laws and then subsequently edit-warring with them over those allegations isn't a good way to approach things either. There appears to be some rather obvious mistakes with some of these cases. For example in this case - the work was attributed to another Wikipedia in the upload summary, and is quite clearly a derivitive work, therefore comes under the same license as the original file. For all the time that was taken to edit-war over that non-issue, it would have saved everyone a whole lot of time and grief by just retrieving the license from the original file page. Osiris (talk) 21:32, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I provide my opinion as requested to do so by とある白い猫. On fr.wp, there is multiple category of copyrighted files. The orphaned files of copyrighted logos should be deleted but most of the time they are not. Multiple reasons, main one is lazyness. Zil (talk) 21:40, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Fully copyrighted was used in the context that the file is copyrighted and is not available with a free license. In fact the file has no license whatsoever. -- とある白い猫 chi? 23:16, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

fr:Fichier:Football-Croix-de-Savoie-74.png has fr:Modèle:Marque déposée which is a non-free template used for copyrighted logos. If the template has been applied correctly, it means that the logo only can be used under fair use conditions. Per wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy, only projects which have an EDP are allowed to host fair use material. Maybe this is why To Aru Shiroi Neko decided to delete the file. I don't know whether frpwiki has an EDP or not. The project is not listed at Non-free content, but I don't know if all projects with an EDP are listed there or not. That said, the image doesn't look like a logo but like a coat of arms. The EDP of French Wikipedia no longer covers coats of arms (see fr:Wikipédia:Prise de décision/Remise en cause des exceptions au droit d'auteur sur les blasons, timbres et monnaies), so maybe the image should be removed from French Wikipedia. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:02, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Wiki does not even have license templates let alone EDP. The file is no longer orphaned since Osiris used it in an article. File is still not tagged. You do bring an interesting point, I will discuss it with fr.wikipedia community. -- とある白い猫 chi? 22:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
A project is not required to use licence templates in order to host images; the project just needs a way to indicate the licence status of an image. In this case, frpwiki referred to the French Wikipedia licence template instead, which I suppose is just as fine. The link was broken due to a syntax error, but I corrected this. I can't tell if you are correct that there is no EDP. I can't find any page in the Wikipedia namespace which specifically refers to this, but I suppose that it would be perfectly fine to have a one-line statement in some policy that the EDP of any other project also applies to this project. Thus, I have no idea where to look for any EDP statements. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:53, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Each wiki should independently establish copyright. Sourcing alone isn't adequate. What happens if French Wikipedia deletes the file for whatever the reason (could simply be a superior version like an svg)? You would have a chain reaction of deletes. That is just an unstable environment.
That is kind of the point. The wiki should have a template that links to the EDP and wiki should also enforce it. EDP should be readily and easily available. If frp wiki wants to enforce French wikipedias EDP, they should enforce it just like Fr.wikipedia. However, frp.wikipedia does not have a community to support this since there is only one user you could consider active. This user has a few May edits which are his only edits since June 2011. I am currently the most active user on frp.wikipedia aside from bots.
-- とある白い猫 chi? 23:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


New project process and sister projects committee

Hello,

A Sister projects committee is being organized to review proposals to create, merge, or close sister projects, and to help existing sister projects communicate get the support they need. A draft charter has been developed for the group, which already has participants who are active on some language edition of every current sister project.

The related work channels (irc, mailing list, wiki-space) are open to all. Comments on its scope and structure, and on the new project process, are most welcome.

We've updated the new projects process and are working on reviewing the most recent project proposals. Help is needed to work through the backlog of project proposals - and to transfer the best project proposals from the strategy wiki into the format used here on Meta.

–SJ talk  17:15, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Global custom css

Can I customise my css globally on some special page, or I should create same common(vector/monobook).css at every wiki where I need it? I interested same about javascript settings too. Sorry for my low level of English and if I wrote wrong place. --Base (talk) 18:17, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately there are no global css/js files directly. But there is an indirect way to do so: You can create a Special:Mypage/global.js/css here on Meta, and get in included on all local wikis, see User:Pathoschild/Scripts/Synchbot. --MF-W 19:02, 20 May 2012 (UTC)


Autopatrolled

Does anyone know where to request enabling admin/crat in a project to grant autopatrolled permission? My user rights management page in Wikispecies does not have this option even though en.wp interface has it. OhanaUnitedTalk page 20:16, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Sure, the right place to request configuration changes is Bugzilla, namely product = Wikimedia; component = Site requests. However if you take a look at species:Special:Listgrouprights, you'll notice that the autopatroller doesn't exist at all in Wikispecies. So you'll have to request the establishment of that group too. --MF-W 20:48, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Yep, but before you request that you will need to show some consensus amongst the local community to make the config changes (add the groups etc). The Helpful One 20:50, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
On second thought, is there a way to get rid of autopatrolled (after getting consensus)? There are 2 main reasons for removing it. 1) We never have to worry about someone creating MySpace band pages. The chance of something slipped through the cracks are minimal and damage will not be severe (since the page stands out against the rest). 2) We do not have a lot of active people patrolling and marking pages as patrolled. OhanaUnitedTalk page 00:38, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, this is possible too. [Though you won't need to link to that page in your Bugzilla request, as devs will know which settings to change ;) ] --MF-W 00:43, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


Wikimedia Foundation endorsing Access2Research

Hi all,

the Wikimedia Foundation has decided to endorse Access2Research and its petition to make research funded by the US government publicly accessible. This will be done by way of a blog post on Friday morning PST; as it will be indicated there, we are not trying to speak on behalf of the community, but just the Foundation itself. You can read more in the FAQ posted on enwiki, and leave any comments or questions you might have on its talkpage.

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 20:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting to say the least. OTRS used to get lots of "please help us in supporting x cause" type emails. I bet that'll increase with public awareness that the WMF leverages its influence in these types of political affairs (the SOPA blackout and now this). Killiondude (talk) 04:54, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
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