Talk:Wikimedia Blog/Archive 1

Old discussion

Once posted, is it possible to edit a post? I'd like to add an "error reports" section to allow people to submit errors, typos, etc. Korg 00:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it is possible, but we'd rather not do that because that sends out another entry in the RSS feed (which is near the same thing as posting twice). Cbrown1023 talk 01:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

That's understandable for major changes, but I think that minor corrections (typos, etc.) should be fixed anyway. Is there any possibility to update a post without sending another entry in the feed? Korg 19:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, we're wondering if this would actually occur. Would you mind listing (on this page) the minor corrections you have found? Cbrown1023 talk 23:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

In the post "Wikipedia in (German) Book Form", the word "Apelsaft" should be spelled "Apfelsaft"; also, this post is in the category "Uncategorized". These are just the two minor errors I noticed after reading it (no, I haven't carefully proofread the other posts :). I don't care if they're not corrected. Incidentally, I recently found these somewhat related posts: [1], [2]. Korg 23:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Isn't there a typo in the first sentence of the last post? "the software the powers Wikipedia" seems incorrect to me. Korg 00:33, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I've found the answer to my question: it is not possible yet; however, the idea has been proposed: "Idea: Allow minor updates to a blog post without updating a feed". Thanks for your replies. Korg 00:33, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Wordpress Theme

In the spirit of openness, could the WordPress theme used on the Wikimedia Blog be released, so others can visually integrate MediaWiki and WordPress so well? Michael A. White 15:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see where that would be an issue. Let me check with the PR, see if this is possible. Best, NonvocalScream 16:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't know how to release it, but absolutely! Cary Bass ^demandez 18:21, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

You would zip up the wp-content/themes/nameoftheme directory.Michael A. White 19:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Which is wp-content/themes/fundcore ;) --Az1568 19:18, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It should be available for download here, thx to Cary and Mark B. --Az1568 03:06, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

(changed download link in above comment) NonvocalScream 20:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Download link for wordpress files does not work anymore --80.225.150.168 22:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. (see Wikimedia Blog#Wordpress Theme) --Az1568 (talk) 02:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

As Wikimedia Blog has changed its theme to vector style, can you release the new WordPress theme? Thank you. --Onecountry 21:24, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I second that would like to run wp-vector on blog to match my wiki

WordPress Spam-Free tool is blocking comments

I am getting the "you must have cookies enabled; you must have Java script installed" message when I try to post a comment to the Wikimedia blog. Yet, both are enabled on my browser. Here's what I wanted to say:

Jay says: "The censoring has dramatically affected the way UK traffic is handled by Wikipedia, and in short, about 95% of the UK is barred from editing Wikipedia."

That's not how I saw it play out over the weekend. The reason why Wikipedia "affected" the way traffic is handled is because blocking IP addresses is the only way Wikipedia admins know how to persuade people who disagree with their POV to leave the site. So, when they blocked away, as per usual, they suddenly found they were barring huge swaths of "innocent" users, too. Last year, Jon Awbrey and I experimented with shared accounts on different IP addresses, and we marveled at how many "innocent" users would be adversely affected by the "dramatic" range blocking that many trigger-happy admins would exercise.

When Wikipedians finally grow up, they'll realize they're doing a lot of unnecessary grunt work, blocking and banning everyone who asks questions they don't want to hear, on their encyclopedia "anyone" can edit.

Gregory Kohs -- http://www.MyWikiBiz.com ~~

Comment moderation

I posted a comment several days ago on a blog post, and it has not been accepted. I don't like that it has to be moderated first, that's not very "wiki-like". I would like to propose to remove the required moderation of comments, so that instead you have to remove spam/vandalism afterwards (maybe with a "flag" option so others can notify moderators of inappropriate comments). I guess this talk page doesn't get much attention, but I can at least try... (or if someone could point me to a better place to propose this?). Regards, SPQRobin (talk) 18:51, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the problem with your comment - it had been mistakenly classified as spam by the Akismet spam filter. I have just manually approved it. The general question you raise (pre- or post-moderation) may be worth discussing, but it wouldn't have made any difference in this case - unless one proposes to switch off the automatic spam filtering altogether, which doesn't seem to be feasible at all, it really catches a lot of spam. Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 19:07, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying and approving the comment; it is strange though that my comment was marked as spam. Indeed, in other cases comments are approved quite quickly so I am fine with the current setup but maybe a less strict spam filter could be considered. Regards, SPQRobin (talk) 18:00, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

blog sections!

Hello! Here are some random comments on the blog sections, as linked from the lefthand sidebar under 'navigation'.

1. Is there an easy way to see 'all posts' rather than just highlights?
2. didn't there used to be a 'community' section? Am I confused? Is there a good way now to find guest posts, or posts from E3?
3. The fundraising link on the sidebar leads to [3] (old!), not to [4] <- this is a bug rather than a comment
4. Can we maybe highlight the many research posts with a sidebar link of their own?
5. ... and maybe features too? (of interest to current admins/editors keeping up with WMF activities).

just some thoughts... -- phoebe | talk 19:32, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikimania panel and blog survey results

Two quick notifications:

• For those who happen to be at Wikimania right now, there is a panel today ("Wikimedia storytelling: how we show the movement to the world") which will touch upon the blog among other communications efforts. People who are interested the blog as readers or (potential) contributors are welcome to joint the discussion there.
• A while ago we did a small survey among readers of the blog. I just uploaded report about the results to Commons.

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 05:04, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you consider the answers on what's important valid? Do they match the pageviews? For example it's obvious that the respondents don't appreciate the contributors' profiles, but in theory those are designed to be appealing to a larger audience. Also interesting that the second most important topic are sister projects, which are almost not dealt with at all in the blog, The distribution of respondents across countries is curious too. --Nemo 21:08, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Upcoming outsourcing

Discussion at http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/68188

Translation of this draft

Can we change links to this style: [[$1|Board of Trustees]]. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 13:08, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Comment moderation 2

@Philippe (WMF): I made a comment on a blog post but it was not approved. Does this mean it has not been manually accepted or that Akismet considered my comment spam? PiRSquared17 (talk) 20:10, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Found your comment (next time please state the URL of the post) and approved it. It was indeed a false positive by ("2 hours ago - Akismet caught this comment as spam"). Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 20:28, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Jargon translation matrix

We have Writing clearly and the administrators pay constant attention to readability, but my constant worry is jargon rather than sentence structure. Insider language is a strong tool for exclusion and discrimination (even if involuntary), while of course the blog aims at the maximum inclusion possible. Could we make a list of "forbidden words" for the blog, to help those among us that forgot what words are relatively uncommmon for a newbie? I'm thinking for instance of "rollout" and "deployment", which can be replaced simply with "enabling" (or sometimes "expansion", "activation"). --Nemo 07:01, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Logo

What happens to Wikimedia Pakistan logo [5]? --175.110.232.105 13:42, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Blog managers after Automattic switch

In the migration to Wordpress.com, were the users who previously had access to the blog (authors, managers, moderators, whatever the name) preserved? For instance by emailing them to ask their wordpress.com ID? I ask because I regularly report spam and typos and I need to know who I can contact. :-) (Usually Guillaume on IRC is more than I could ever need; but sometimes even Guillaume sleeps!) --Nemo 16:57, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I was one of the people that @Nemo used to contact to fight spam and fix some small typos, and I can confirm that I can no longer access the blog; I can only assume that my access was somehow revoked during the switch. odder (talk) 16:59, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Tilman

Re [Wikimedia Announcements] Fwd: Tilman Bayer joins Product & Strategy Department, I saw Tilman archived some drafts: thanks for cleaning up! Is Tilman still one of the persons one can contact about blog scheduling and drafting? If not, were all the persons with pending proposals informed? --Nemo 21:55, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

New draft

Hello, I put up a new draft for a blog publication to announce WLAf contest results. I sent yesterday an email about it per the procedure. But ... for some reasons my email got moderated and I have not heard back from anyone. So posting here to raise attention ;) Thanks Anthere (talk) 09:03, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi Florence, looking forward to seeing your post published! As noted at Wikimedia Blog#Drafting a post, it's best to send an email to the Communications team (communications@...) or specific blog team members. The mailing list is more meant for general (particularly technical) discussions about the blog, and rarely used currently - yours is the first post there in two months. We probably need to update the list description, or retire it entirely. As for your question, I myself have moved to a different department and while I'm still supporting the blog on technical matters at the moment, the current Comms team is handling the editorial process, in particular Fabrice.

I saw your note here yesterday, approved your email and pinged Fabrice and other from the Comms team about it some 20 hours ago; I assume that they will get back to you soon.

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 15:44, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

yes. All good ! Thanks Anthere (talk)

Suggested correction

All languages are as important as Hindi and Sanskrit. Can your team avail Hindi and Sanskrit please 112.79.36.218 10:00, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Logos

Sorry if this is a repeat of effort, I vectorized the (GIF?) blog logo and then made a box-version for use in the Signpost. The files are:

• 
  Exhibit A
• 
  Exhibit B

@Tbayer (WMF): the template in question is en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/WMF Blog. Resident Mario (talk) 23:50, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

@Resident Mario: Uh, you re-vectorized an SVG logo (if you can't find it in the blog's HTML, phab:T78374 has a link to the SVG version), and used a different font. Also, it's consciously not called the WMF blog (see last year's relaunch announcement for context), so version B shouldn't be used at all to represent the blog. CC HWalls

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 02:59, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

@Tbayer (WMF): Can you give me the SVG link, then (ah, I see it's posted)? Trying to take the logo directly off the blog page gave me a GIF that I had to reverse-engineer in SVG. The "g" is a different font because it's not the standard font that is used in the rest of the WMF identities, but looking at it again I see that the whole word "blog" is a font besides the standard one. Ok, I'll redo it tomorrow, then. Should the first one be kept? As for the second one: we need a "what's-it" that can be boxed into Signpost copies. I'm not sure what the WMF's name for the blog is but is the rebrand a big enough deal that you're seriously uncomfortable with shortening it to "WMF blog"? The full definitely would not fit into an 80x80, I don't think. Ok, thanks for the response. Resident Mario (talk) 04:43, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

(for reference the reason I don't want to use Wikimedia break blog is because whilst Wikimedia and Foundation are about the same word length, blog is far shorter a word, and so the result is visually imbalanced). Resident Mario (talk) 04:52, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I would advise using the "Foundation Blog Logo.svg&wpForReUpload=1 Upload a new version of this file" link to overwrite A with the correct version and then rename the file. I guess you could also use the general Wikimedia logo alone with suitable wording; Heather might have more input. But in any case, one shouldn't use an entirely new logo/word mark to represent the blog.

Yes, that 1x1 GIF overlay is confusing; I understand it is a trick that Automattic uses to ensure compatibility with browsers that don't support SVG. If you right-click on the image in Chrome or Firefox and select "Inspect element", you should be able to see the original SVG file's URL (but as mentioned, it is also linked in the Phabricator ticket above).

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 05:23, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Done @Tbayer (WMF): Ok now? Resident Mario (talk) 18:47, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Bugzilla

I am afraid that the link to Bugzilla that we get when translating the last section is outdated. It needs to be replaced. --Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 10:23, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Aude updated it and I've marked it for translation. --Glaisher (talk) 15:33, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Translation

Hi. How do I track drafts so that I find ones that are already finished but not yet published. In simpler words where do I wedge with translating posts? While browsing some drafts I see either those which are not yet ready to be translated or those that were already published so I understand translating them is useless since it wouldn't be added to the blog. It's somewhat frustrating. --Base (talk) 01:11, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Base, you raise an interesting point. We're talking about how to best make this clear. In the meantime, I can tell you that Wikinobel, Bangladeshi school programs, What I Learned, and News on Wikipedia are all finished and can be translated. The latter two will be published today, but I'd be happy to add a translation after the fact. Thank you very much! Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. Translated the former two for the time being. Though I hope that Ата gets to proofread them before publication. As to the latter two I'm hoping to get to them today nearer to UTC evening if it will still make sense by then. Or maybe, someone else'll translate them, who knows :)--Base (talk) 00:56, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

The former two are now proofread so could be attached to the posts on publication. --Base (talk) 20:23, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Ed Erhart (WMF), the What I Learned post is now translated and proofread. Could you add the translation to the blog, please? --Base (talk) 10:05, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Wordpress like button

Hello. How about including a Wordpress "like" button to the blog? This way, everyone with a Wordpress account can like posts of the blog. It make easier to the blog admins to understand the popularity of each post, and help the readers find what they liked in the blog later.--MisterSanderson (talk) 03:09, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Typo in article

process took years to complete

Should be:

process that took years to complete

Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 23:38, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

He wrote the article on the Carolina Panthers

Hi. I just read "He wrote the article on the Carolina Panthers: tales from Wikipedia’s NFL editors", from February 7. I note that the need for a appealing title and a personal story should not get in the way of the truth. Toa Nidhiki05 did not wrote the article, he is not THE author of the article, more than 1000 different editors did it. Nothing against Toa Nidhiki05, it is the blog post writing that came out poor. And even that, it happens; but please do not misrepresent WP - Nabla (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

How to find blog posts published with translation in a given language

Hello!

Is there is a way to find all the blog posts that have a particular language translation? I recall in the old skin there was a sort of label or tag that would bring back all the posts in a given language but that seems to be lost now and I find it rather difficult to find posts in a given language without opening every one of them.

Thanks, Lsanabria (talk) 13:58, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Lsanabria, I apologize for missing your post at the time you made it. The closest equivalent that I'm aware of is the multilingual post tag, which is still there, just without an easy link. Best, Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 23:56, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipetia Atikamekw Nehiromowin

Hello,

Wikimedia Canada is about to make a blog post about a Wikipedia Canadian Aboriginal language, Atikamekw, a project funded by the Wikimedia Foundation. We would like this post also translated into that language. However, I wondered if the ISO language code ATJ is available in the Wikimedia blog.

If not, is it possible to add before publishing the blog post? Best regards, Benoit Rochon (talk) 04:58, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

policy.wm.o/stopsurveillance/

cc @APalmer (WMF):

https://policy.wikimedia.org/stopsurveillance/

1. quote at top from w:Sonia Sotomayor needs to state what case it's from, a year is insufficient. (and/or ideally link to the source)
   • the text there apparently came from supreme court opinion (found via w:United States v. Jones (2012)#op)
2. the latest post in wmfblog:c/corporate/legal/wikimedia-v-nsa/ (October 17) doesn't appear under "Our work so far"
3. the 3 column layout (plaintiffs and defendants) seems ok fullscreen (OS says I have 1366 px wide; Chrome/53 (stable release)) but not ok at some widths
   • fullscreen: jQuery('body').width() == 1351
   • approximate typical width: jQuery('body').width() == 945
   • you can easily replicate the layout from a typical width even when fullscreen by running jQuery('body').width(945) (in dev console). see screenshot

--Jeremyb (talk) 07:51, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

WordPress is the wrong platform for this data. this is not a blog entry nor related to a blog (besides that it happens to have a list of blog entries within it). maybe this would be OK to live in WordPress at some orgs but in this case Wikipedians should be able to click edit and submit changes and discuss on a talk page. (and maybe those edits then are accepted or reverted by a lawyer before actually publishing them) also would be OK if this went through some kind of git repository. but apparently there's no way to collaborate on this content currently. (the footer mentions WordPress VIP and there's a <meta name="generator" content="WordPress 4.6.1" /> in <head> so I assume it's not editable; also I see no edit link.) --Jeremyb (talk) 07:51, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Hello Jeremyb, thanks for your comments! Regarding the quote, we're adding a link to Wikiquote, which contains a fuller citation. We've also updated the page to reflect the most recent blog post. Choosing a platform is an important conversation that we engage in whenever we develop a new page. When possible, we do prefer to utilize a MediaWiki setup. For this landing page, however, we considered a number of factors before deciding to use Wordpress: their support for more traditional websites, consistent formatting with the public policy portal, cost control (given that we already have the Wordpress), and the technical capacity of staff for regular maintenance. Thanks again! Jbuatti (WMF) (talk) 22:43, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Comment moderation 3 (2 comments not appearing)

About 2 weeks ago I posted 2 comments to the blog which to date still haven't appeared. Why is that? And could they please get approved?

Don't you use a filter-system that allows comment moderators to see which comments get caught in it? If so I would suggest shortly skimming over it every week or so and approving non-spam comments.

The comments were made to these 2 posts:

• https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/02/06/amicus-brief-immigration-travel-restrictions/
• https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/30/knowledge-knows-no-boundaries/

and are mainly about (the content of) the new page "Propagate the model, not issues".

--Fixuture (talk) 12:01, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

They still haven't appeared. What is this?! @Tbayer (WMF): --Fixuture (talk) 20:04, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Fixuture. I apologize for not seeing this post when you posted it. I looked today and can't find your comments, which implies that they were caught in our spam filter and subsequently automatically deleted. We don't regularly check those because it's rare for this to happen, as far as I'm aware, and at that time we were receiving dozens of spam comments every day. Best, Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Incorrect statement in a blog

The blog post “We keep the servers going … and much more”: Recent highlights from our Technology department" has an incorrect statement. It states,

The alpha for the UI and new APIs was launched on December 2019

which is a time in the future. I don't think you could launch into the future ;-)

BTW, why are comments in some blog posts, such as the one referenced above, closed?

- - Kaartic ^{correct me, if i'm wrong} 13:12, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Hey, Kaartic! Thanks for letting us know about this. I'm pinging the team involved to make sure I have the right date before correcting the post. On your second point, comments are automatically closed two weeks after a post is published. Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 20:35, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick action! Regarding the closure of comments, I was asking about this as I actually remember seeing comments posted years after the blog was originally posted. Anyways, 2 weeks seems to be a pretty short duration for closing comments to me! Maybe it could extended a little. - - Kaartic ^{correct me, if i'm wrong} 09:37, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

@Kaartic: Looks like it was 2017! I've fixed it in the blog post. On comments, we started limiting them last year(?) because of the sheer amount of spam coming in vs. useful comments on old posts, which is to say that there were almost none of the latter. That ratio may have changed over the last few years. Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 19:07, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Closing comments automatically is a sensible countermeasure for comment spam, but I agree with Kaartic. Even if you set the threshold to 2 months you'd have comments closed on 98,8 % of the posts, so that should cover nearly all automated spambots (although possibly not some smarter ones which attacked recent or trending posts). I encourage you to experiment a bit with the threshold. --Nemo 07:40, 19 June 2018 (UTC)