Aron Manning
Editing News #2 – Mobile editing and talk pages
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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
editWhat 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 wants your examples. These examples will help everyone develop a shared understanding of what this project should support and encourage.
Talk pages project
editThe 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
editThe 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.
- 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.
- 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
editThe 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
edit- 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: This study asks whether the project helped editors add links and citations. The Editing team hopes to share results in November. 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)
11:11, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
Access to Steward requests/Username changes
editHello,
I have been approached as an indepedent Meta admin with a request to restrict your access to Steward requests/Username changes per your repeated request and wikilawyering that has been time consuming for all those involved, to a disruptive extent. There is consensus for this action at this point in time. I have approved this request and as such, have restricted your access to the page via a partial block. You can appeal this, at a later point in time, when you are in goodstanding. ~riley (talk) 06:54, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- @~riley: Thank you for the notification, Riley. I accept the restriction, I do not intend to post further on that page as I've made it clear in my last comment: "I won't be furthering this request". As such the request for the block was unnecessary. I note this without appealing the block, which wouldn't solve anything.
- Also note: I refute the accusation of "wikilawyering" to describe my justifications which cited the rename policy. When referring to this request and the block I'd like to ask you and those who proposed it to use non-demeaning words. Thank you in advance.
- I find the handling of the request raises numerous concerns – which is I assume what was also called wikilawyering. As those concerns were not addressed, the way this request was handled needs to be reviewed by an independent board. I do not intend to take that path at this time, however my complaint should be noted. Please direct me to an independent review board, where these concerns can be raised at an appropriate time in the future. Thank you. —Aron Man.🍂 edits🌾 07:17, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- I also not that there is no proof of the consensus regarding the decision. It would certainly help if that claim was authenticated by the signature of those who decided that consensus, also in the case of the block. Just a thought regarding the procedure. —Aron Man.🍂 edits🌾 07:26, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- Thank you for your polite and prompt response, as well as acknowledging and accepting the restriction I will note that I was approached before your last comment was made, and the block was placed without knowing of any additional comments as it was made just minutes prior.
- I recognize you refute the accusation of wikilawyering, and while there are no intentions to be demeaning, I understand there are less-demeaning alternatives.
- I have no knowledge of an indepedent review board that would be applicable to this situation as the Ombudsman's are limited to CU/OS actions and Meta has no ArbCom. A request for comment would likely be the most appropriate venue, however, I would not recommend this.
- In regards to concern of consensus, mailing lists are both an acceptable and common form of consensus gathering for advanced permission usergroups. Having the renamers and stewards involved in the discussion sign onwiki en masse would be counter productive. It is something to consider from a procedure perspective moving forward though.
- Once concerns of goodstanding have been addressed, an appeal can be made at renamers@wikimedia.org. All the best, ~riley (talk) 07:36, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
- @~riley: Thank you for your response, I also appreciate the polite notice and discussion.
- Thank you for the suggestions. An RfC would be imho an overshoot for this minor matter, the OC has a 7+ months long backlog (how do I know that...). I'm more interested in exploring how the need for an independent review board can be fulfilled.
- Regarding the consensus: I'm certain in this short time-frame only a handful of editors were available to form that consensus. Signing off would not be a trouble for those few people and it would give more authenticity to the outcome and address some of my concerns. As a form of good faith and accountability I ask those who formed the consensus to do so. Also for transparency, I'd like to ask who proposed and supported the block. Please communicate this to them, I do not wish to be called wikilawyer any more.
- I believe the appropriate word instead of "wikilawyering" is "policy citation", "request for justification", "concern" in this case and "complaint" in some other cases. The difference is significant and have damaging consequences. There should be a clear guideline to using the appropriate, good-faith expression and I believe enwiki's good-faith and civility guidelines imply this.
- I'd like that this distinction would be emphasized to those who used the bad-faith word, but I reckon this request will not be acted upon and I see no point in making this a request on one of the dramaboards. However, I'd like to ask you to dispatch to them this feedback. This should serve as a note for the future to prevent this happening again.
- Thank you for understanding my perspective. Have a nice day. —Aron Man.🍂 edits🌾 08:17, 29 January 2020 (UTC).
- It is to my understanding that a link to this thread has been sent to the mailing list, so consider your above requests and feedback dispatched to the global renamers/stewards. It is most definitely not my place to outline who proposed/supported your username change being denied or this block/restrictions being placed, so I unfortunately do not have anything to offer you. Best of luck, ~riley (talk) 09:09, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
Editing news 2020 #1 – Discussion tools
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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.
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)
19:05, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Editing news 2020 #2
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This issue of the Editing newsletter includes information the Talk pages project, an effort to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily.
- Reply tool: This is available as a Beta Feature at the four partner wikis (Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian Wikipedias). The Beta Feature is called "Discussion tools". 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 now. 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.
20:29, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
Editing news 2020 #3
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Seven years ago this month, the Editing team offered the visual editor to most Wikipedia editors. Since then, editors have achieved many milestones:
- More than 50 million edits have been made using the visual editor on desktop.
- 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.
- The visual editor is increasingly popular. The proportion of all edits made using the visual editor has increased every year since its introduction.
- In 2019, 35% of the edits by newcomers (logged-in editors with ≤99 edits) used the visual editor. This percentage has increased every year.
- 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.
- On 17 November 2019, the first edit from outer space was made in the mobile visual editor. 🚀 👩🚀
- 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.
12:48, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Editing news 2020 #4
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Reply tool
edit
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.")[1]
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
edit- 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
editNext, 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.
15:11, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
The 2021 Community Wishlist Survey is now open! This survey is the process where communities decide what the Community Tech team should work on over the next year. We encourage everyone to submit proposals until the deadline on 30 November, or comment on other proposals to help make them better. The communities will vote on the proposals between 8 December and 21 December.
The Community Tech team is focused on tools for experienced Wikimedia editors. You can write proposals in any language, and we will translate them for you. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing your proposals!
18:25, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
We invite all registered users to vote on the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey. You can vote from now until 21 December for as many different wishes as you want.
In the Survey, wishes for new and improved tools for experienced editors are collected. After the voting, we will do our best to grant your wishes. We will start with the most popular ones.
We, the Community Tech, are one of the Wikimedia Foundation teams. We create and improve editing and wiki moderation tools. What we work on is decided based on results of the Community Wishlist Survey. Once a year, you can submit wishes. After two weeks, you can vote on the ones that you're most interested in. Next, we choose wishes from the survey to work on. Some of the wishes may be granted by volunteer developers or other teams.
We are waiting for your votes. Thank you!
16:09, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
Editing news 2021 #1
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Reply tool
edit
The Reply tool is available at most 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.
- We have 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 they start writing than those who use full-page wikitext editing.[2]
- 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.[3] Some of the remaining changes are automatic corrections for Special:LintErrors.
A large A/B test will start soon.[4] This is part of the process to offer the Reply tool to everyone. During this test, half of all editors at 24 Wikipedias will have the Reply tool automatically enabled, and half will not. You can still turn it on or off for your own account in Special:Preferences.
New discussion tool
edit
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.[5] You can leave feedback in this thread or on the talk page.
Next: Notifications
edit
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 notifications-talk.
18:38, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
Global watchlist - Update 8
editUpdates associated with DannyS712's Global watchlist script and the Global watchlist extension:
As I noted in the last issue, I received a grant from the WMF to develop the global watchlist script into an extension. That extension has now been deployed on Meta. Visit m:Special:GlobalWatchlistSettings to get started.
I do not plan on any further developments being made to the user script. I have released version 9.1.0 to both the dev and stable versions, which includes a notification about the extension being available when you use the user script. You can dismiss the notification, and the script still works, but it will no longer be maintained.
Those interested in providing feedback for the extension should use the phabricator board, phabricator:tag/mediawiki-extensions-globalwatchlist. Any bug reports about the extension should be filed there.
This will likely be the last update sent to this list.
Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 19:42, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Global watchlist - Update 9
editUpdates associated with DannyS712's Global watchlist script and the Global watchlist extension:
Hi everyone. As I noted in the last issue, I received a grant last year from the WMF to develop the global watchlist script into an extension. That extension has now been deployed on Meta. Visit m:Special:GlobalWatchlistSettings to get started.
That grant has ended, and I have requested another grant to continue development of the extension, and figured subscribers of the newsletter about the user script might be interested. You can see and comment on the grant request at m:Grants:Project/DannyS712/Continued work on GlobalWatchlist extension - if you support this, I hope you'll consider endorsing the request.
Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 00:28, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
Notification about a grant request
editHi.
As someone who commented about my grant request (including the talk page) last year requesting funding to create the GlobalWatchlist extension, I thought you might want to know that I have requested another grant to continue development. You can see the new request at Grants:Project/DannyS712/Continued work on GlobalWatchlist extension - if you support this, I hope you'll consider endorsing the request.
My apologies if you were already aware of the new grant request (I sent a similar message to the subscribers of User:DannyS712/Global watchlist/Updates - sorry for any duplicates).
Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 00:43, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
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.
14:12, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
Spam bots on your Patch demo wiki b8b692ed0d
editIt looks like your Patch demo wiki b8b692ed0d (with patch 560576) has been infested by spam bots. (Not your fault, it has been created before I added the ConfirmEdit extension to prevent that from happening.) Please copy anything from there that you still need, as I'm planning to delete it a week or so from now. Matma Rex (talk) 15:32, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you for the notification Matma Rex, I've deleted the wiki. FYI the spam came from one IP only as one autoblock stopped it. —Aron Man.🍂 edits🌾 10:14, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Editing news 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 the 20 Wikipedias that participated in the test. You will be able to turn it off at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.
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.
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.