Talk:Global message delivery/Targets/Tech ambassadors

Manual delivery option

If this is still being delivered by EdwardsBot, can we get manual delivery to n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/miscellaneous? The bot does not comply with policy because it has no stop button. :( --LauraHale (talk) 23:36, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean it has no stop button? There's a red thing on n:User:EdwardsBot (or just block with no autoblock??) PiRSquared17 (talk) 23:39, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

The bigger issue is this: We cannot get the messages intended for a global community. Given that the bot maintainer will not address the problems that resulted in it being unable to operate, we would still like to get access to messages being sent out to the global community. Perhaps, a section can be added for manual, human delivered messages where the bot is unable to work? --LauraHale (talk) 00:03, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

For the record, according to the latest figures, EdwardsBot has over 320,000 edits across Wikimedia wikis. It has edited over 666 wikis and it is only blocked on one wiki (en.wikinews.org). When LauraHale says "the bot maintainer will not address the problems," what I think she really means is that the English Wikinews has made its bed by choosing to indefinitely block the bot. Actions have consequences. If you indefinitely block the bot that's intended to deliver messages to your wiki, you won't receive those messages from that bot. Oh well! If someone sees fit to manually deliver the messages to the English Wikinews or write a new bot, that's his or her prerogative. I certainly won't be taking part in either activity. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:52, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

I don't think this will work, because n:User:EdwardsBot is blocked on enwikinews. PiRSquared17 (talk) 23:36, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

It is blocked because the bot does not comply with bot policy. :( No off switch. "God bless America" was the lastbot request. If we can be on the list, or there can be a special option for manual delivery for wikiprojects where the bot cannot deliver because of failure to comply with bot policy, that would be awesome. :( We are frequently left out of the loop because we cannot get messages everyone else gets. :( --LauraHale (talk) 23:49, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

There's an off switch on the user page, but I assume all admins know how to block (and even how to disable autoblock). If you want to have it deliver news, unblock it. Or just deliver stuff manually. PiRSquared17 (talk) 23:52, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that "God bless America" was appropriate (having read through that bot request), but it's the responsibility of the English Wikinews to find some other way to have the information broadcast, since they chose to block the bot themselves. --Rschen7754 23:55, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

If you would, Wikinews:Bots is policy. The bot is currently blocked because it does not comply with policy, its purpose is unknown and the bot operator has said he would do things to the bot that were not positive in relation to the project. Perhaps you would be willing to go to English Wikinews, suggest a policy that says that bots no longer require off switches and that local policy says the purpose of the bot does not need to be clearly documented? In the mean time, we need a workable solution so we can get messages.--LauraHale (talk) 00:03, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh and the "There is a stop button. It is called block." Yes, and the bot is blocked already. Admins have stopped its functioning. Thus, having used the stop bot button because of failure to comply with policy, we would like a delivery option. How hard is it for people to manually deliver global messages? --LauraHale (talk) 00:04, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

No, there actually is a red button on its userpage. If that's not enough, I don't know what is. The documentation is on w:User:EdwardsBot. No need to put it on every wiki the bot operates on. I don't see how it is against policy, but it's your choice. You can ask people to manually deliver messages, but it's probably not worth it. Or run a clone of EdwardsBot. Or unblock it. PiRSquared17 (talk) 00:10, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

The bot tries to edit each talk page twice. If it's blocked, that logic doesn't change/isn't affected. It'll try to edit the specified page on en.wikinews.org twice and then move on to the next wiki in its list. It definitely won't "work," as the bot is indefinitely blocked, but it's fine to leave the entry on this page, I think. Perhaps it should go in its own section (== Ignored wikis == or something), though. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:56, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate that en.wikinews would like to receive messages, but honestly we can't start posting messages manually because of a wiki's own choice. EdwardsBot is currently the best system available to deliver messages globally, and it's the system chosen for the tech newsletter. If en.wikinews chooses not to allow EdwardsBot to perform its deliveries, I agree it's up to en.wikinews to find a workaround that suits them. There are several alternatives; one is is for the Wikinews community to set up another bot. Another one (probably simpler) is for a Wikinews contributor to subscribe to the ambassadors mailing list, or to talk-page delivery on another wiki, and to post the message manually. guillom 15:57, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Alphabetization

Hi. Regarding this edit, perhaps a Scribunto module can be used to alphabetize the output? :-) I think it's a bit much to ask people who just want to sign up to sort their name. It's super tedious. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:45, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

That is a clueless response. Anybody can put their name in alphabetical order in a list. This type of interaction on your part is another reason, I, like many others, don't bother with Meta. These tiny wikis, like most of the other Wikimedia Projects, get their own little fiefdoms of regulars, big fish in little ponds. Whereas on English Wikipedia, or the Commons, the larger quantity of editors prevents this from happening.

For those who are interested, you can re-alphabetize the 2 lists with a freeware Unicode text editor such as Notepad++ with TextFX plugin. Encoding set to UTF-8. This only needs to be done when it is necessary.

It shouldn't be necessary often if my main hidden note, "Please keep alphabetized" is kept where it was. The note about Notepad++ can remain on this talk page. Alphabetized lists are good when people want to unsubscribe, or if people are curious about whether their friends are subscribed. Browser search works too, but it is interesting to scan such lists just to see who are subscribing. What projects, for example.

From my interactions with you I see why the WMF wiki wanted your admin rights taken away MZMcBride. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:14, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Err, let's try to avoid off-topic wanderings and personal attacks, please? The fact is that there is no need for alphabetization, therefore there is no need to add constraints when people add their name. Adding a name at the bottom of the list is trivial; searching for "the right place" takes effort, and that effort brings no value. Even if it was interesting to see what projects people are subscribing on, alphabetization of their username doesn't provide that kind of information. I'm in favor of keeping the list (and subscription process) as simple as possible. guillom 16:09, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Wow.

I thought for this particular list, which is aimed (at least partially) at people who don't speak English natively and who have limited technical proficiency, including a hidden comment that contained "freeware Unicode text editor", "TextFX plugin", and "encoding set to UTF-8" might be a bit inappropriate. This, in addition to the fact that collation of arbitrary Unicode strings is pretty difficult for computers, much less humans.

I removed those hidden comments with a clear edit summary and started a talk page discussion. Your response was to wildly lash out both at Meta-Wiki and me personally. I'm a little taken aback.

It blows my mind that you would attack Meta-Wiki as a hostile environment when this is the type of reply you feel is appropriate to post here. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:17, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Your initial replies to me on Signpost talk, and here, show a dismissive attitude, and lack of cooperation in the slightest way. This is another reason why Meta gets so few people involved. You are not the only person who does this here. See my talk page where I point out another person so treated. You also ignored my agreeing with you that the technical info does not need to be on the page, but that it is fine to put it on the talk page. And wtf does this have to do with anything I said?: "This, in addition to the fact that collation of arbitrary Unicode strings is pretty difficult for computers, much less humans." If you mean that alphabetization of Unicode text is difficult, well then that is why I said to do it with Notepad++ for those who are interested. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:38, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I've added an auto-sort feature for the users list (using {{sort}}). --MZMcBride (talk) 21:45, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Don't you think it would be more useful to sort the community pages by domain name (including subdomain)? PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:51, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd hacked up Template:Target to support sorting by page title, but perhaps getting rid of the two lists and simply sorting by wiki (in a single list) would be better. I'm not sure the distinction between user pages and community pages really matters and the bot edits in alphabetical order by domain name, as I recall. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:40, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

• I wouldn't see a need for alphabetizing this list at all, except maybe some sort of order should exist for the community pages (sorted after project&code or so, to make it easier to find out whether your project is already subscribed), but that's not super-important given that Ctrl-F exists. Someone can fix the order once in a while, if he wants; no need to complicate subscribing for people. Though I find the idea with a Lua module very interesting, could be useful for other pages as well, where alphabetic order "matters more". --MF-W 16:40, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, finally a cooperative reply. A simple solution would be to put a hidden note saying

Note: Please put in alphabetic order, or at the top of the list.

I have seen many other such signup lists where it requests that new entries be put in alphabetic order. You guys need to get out of Meta-Wiki some more. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:38, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

And you either need to change your attitude or go away from here. Thanks. odder (talk) 17:48, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Idiom

Hello. EdwardsBot delivered the Tech/News/2013/29 to wiki-PT in english even though there was a portuguese version of the page, which was incomplete (71%). That's to be expected? Cainamarques (talk) 08:06, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

This is a very good question. It was I who decided not to send out a Portuguese version, simply because it was incomplete, and there were no other reasons behind that decision. Of course, if wikis would prefer to get incomplete versions instead of ones in English, then we can add an guideline to our publication manual. Could, say, 65% be the minimum translation we'll send out? I'm rather opposed to sending out versions translated in half or a bit more, so this seems like a reasonable minimum to me. odder (talk) 11:09, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

I think we should include translations even if there's only one sentence that is translated. For example, the paragraph titles and the footer with all the links don't change from issue to issue, which means that they're really easy to translate using translation memory. And even if that's all that's translated, I feel it's still better than if it's in English. Why do you think we should set a minimum translation percentage? (candid question, not passive aggressive :) I'm really curious.) guillom 13:32, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Just a matter of personal taste and aesthetics — I wouldn't see any reason to post translations that aren't even half-finished and would prefer to get an English version instead. But I now recognize I might have made a huge mistake in not publishing the Portuguese version, so we can agree to start sending out everything from the next issue onwards. odder (talk) 20:12, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't call it "a huge mistake"; We're still figuring out the details of tech news :) guillom 07:10, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it either, I think that setting a minimum number isn't a optimal solution, reasonableness is always a better choice. I also agree with Guillom that incomplete translations are better than none. Cainamarques (talk) 18:28, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I have another question, could I translate tech news to pt-br? I mean, would it be delivered to pt.wiki as well? Thank you. Cainamarques (talk) 18:28, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I think it will only look for pt, not pt-br. However, people looking for the translation on Meta might look for pt-br. PiRSquared17 (talk) 18:56, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Tech/News/2013/34 was translated in both languages (PT and PT-BR) and even though PT was complete and PT-BR was only 4% translated, the latter was delivered. Is the selection process automatic or was it a human mistake? Cainamarques (talk) 07:28, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

The version that was delivered was the default one (in English), not the PT-BR one. This is because the translation to PT was done after the newsletter was delivered, so I couldn't include it in the global delivery. guillom 11:57, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Destination of the messages

Hello,

Is there a way to change the destination of the message from talk to another user sub page, example user:Cqui/TechNews, I would like to separate talks from news automaticaly. We could replace in the list the user name by the link to the page fr:utilisateur:Cqui/TechNews. -- Cqui (talk) 09:43, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Ok, found on my own, used the model {{target | page = utilisateur:Cqui/Newsletter | site = fr.wikipedia.org}} Cqui (talk) 09:51, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Cqui, did this work for you? I used the same model, but it was not posted to the page but to its talk page. Best, Andreas Möllenkamp (talk) 11:21, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Tech News can be transcluded

I transclude Tech News on my Wikipedia talk page. See w:User:Timeshifter/Newsletters and w:User talk:Timeshifter.

On English Wikipedia copy this:

• {{Template:Latest tech news}}

See: w:Template:Latest tech news --Timeshifter (talk) 03:19, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

No instructions for VE users?

This page is set up to tell source users what to do but not Visual Editori users . Kerry Raymond (talk) 02:35, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Angolano eu só

Huambo Angola Eduardo Tcilala Chivinda (talk) 09:44, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

What is Artix Kreiger doing?

Look at this edit. User:Artix Kreiger said remove himself but he remove/comment many other subscribers (at least, without my permission, he deleted mine) . It is vandalism! Wi24rd (talk) 09:15, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Looking carefully at the many changes in that diff, it is clear that Artix was not vandalising the list, so much as "fixing it" in several ways; some of the entries were malformed i.e. at least three usernames contained HTML entities, others were simply moved, and yes - some were removed. Without checking every affected account, I can't say if all the changes were desirable, but the effort seems unlikely to be malicious. I would suggest the simple readdition of your own entry, and not concern yourself further - unless you wish to trace every change to work out which are desirable. Admittedly, the edit summary is misleading, but at least they left one, which is better than many editors ever manage! ;) As for the removal of your own entry it's possible it was simply an accident.  fredgandt 11:43, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Wrong English interlanguage links caused by Tech News: 2018-40

Many of the community pages on this delivery list (this version) have a wrong "English" link in the languages list on the page's sidebar. This was caused by Tech News: 2018-40 being posted with an inline link code which should have been [[:en:w:translatewiki.net|translatewiki.net]] but was missing the first colon: [[en:.... This should be fixed by adding the missing colon (which also fixes broken text in the newsletter).
In some cases the 2018-40 post has been moved to an archive subpage which now has the wrong interlanguage link.

The entries in the Users section of the delivery list shouldn't be affected by this, since the newsletter is posted on users' talk pages, where the leading colon isn't needed.

I have fixed only the pages which are linked from d:Q15726229. (ping) --Pipetricker (talk) 16:21, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 17:38, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Trouble unsubscribing

Every time I try to edit this page to remove my community from your techno spam, some idiot reverts my edits, like this guy User:ZI_Jony who tells me not to edit this "community page" regardless of the huge message at the top telling us to edit the page to unsubscribe. And then this guy flags me as a vandal. I love the way you treat productive members of the community, this just makes me want to drop everything and leave. Darseno (talk) 02:39, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Overwrite newsletter

Hello, it would be possible to overwrite the weekly newsletter. So, for example the week 43 Newsletter with Week 44 Newsletter ?? Please make a Ping to me.--Woelle ffm (talk) 07:26, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

משהו יכול להוסיף אותי?

--ישראל קלר (talk) 09:40, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Delivery twice

Why do I get the mailing on my talk page always TWICE ? (yes, I checked... only once subscribed...). Why two ? Thanks Anthere (talk) 13:21, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi Anthere! Which wiki/talkpage are you getting 2 copies at?

(Also, I assume you are asking about Tech News, but this "Tech ambassadors" delivery-list may be used by other MassMessage senders, so please correct me if you mean another newsletter.)

I've looked at the History on your Meta-wiki talkpage and it looks like only 1 copy was delivered there for the last few editions of Tech News.

There is a sporadic bug which causes 2 copies of a MassMessage to be delivered, but this always shows up as 2 separate edits by the bot, usually a few hours apart, which your Meta-wiki talkpage doesn't have. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:20, 28 March 2023 (UTC)