Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2017-11

Participate in Dispute Resolution Focus Group

The Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program is working with the Wikimedia Foundation to help communities develop tools to resolve disputes. You are invited to participate in a focus group aimed at identifying needs and developing possible solutions through collaborative design thinking.

If you are interested in participating, please add your name to the signup list on the Meta-Wiki page.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to learn from the Wikimedia community. We value your opinions and look forward to hearing from you. JosephNegotiation (talk) 21:56, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

typo in userbox content

Category:User hi the 'hi-N' userbox have right now 'सामान', which should be 'समान'. Please fix it! Thanks – 1997kB (talk) 05:55, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

@1997kB: the relevant template is Template:User language/hi. Probably better that a native speaker reviews and fixes it.  — billinghurst sDrewth 06:35, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: Thanks for reply, but the output of hi-N in Category:User hi is different than Template:User language/hi. How is that possible? – 1997kB (talk) 07:45, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

(facepalm) All the text for the language templates now comes from mw:Extension:Babel which stores the text at http://translatewiki.net It will need to be edited there, and that is outside my area of expertise. I suggest that you start that conversation at translatewiki:support, and mention Extension:Babel.  — billinghurst sDrewth 09:29, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

@Billinghurst:Ok, I will raise this issue on translatewiki:support. Thanks for help! – 1997kB (talk) 09:57, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

What's differences between "Wikimedia Hackathon" and "Wikimania Hackathon"?

--Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 12:40, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

They're two different events. The "Wikimedia Hackathon" is a standalone event held annually, usually somewhere in Europe. The "Wikimania Hackathon" is associated with Wikimania, in the same place, for people who want to show up a few days early and have a hackathon. Anomie (talk) 14:45, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

See also mw:Hackathons/FAQ#Explain_the_differences_between_the_Wikimedia_Hackathon_and_the_Wikimania_Hackathon? --Base (talk) 16:55, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Strategy banner on outreach

On outreach.wikimedia I had a banner asking me to discuss the movement strategy right now. That's too late now. Either somebody forgot to turn off the banner on outreach or the text should be changed from discussing to endorsement. --Gereon K. (talk) 16:09, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Might it be some ancient tab you had open for ages and only now got to view it? Or perhaps a direct link with &banner=whatever in it? I do not see any Strategy related campaigns, the Cycle 3 campaign has ended on 2017-09-15 23:59 and there are no new ones. --Base (talk) 16:52, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

On https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page I have a greybrown bar saying "Join us for discussing the future of the Wikimedia movement through 2030." which links to Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017, right under "Translate this page" at the top of the page - even after purging. --Gereon K. (talk) 16:56, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Oh, lol. Indeed. That is just a directly included into the Main page block: outreach:Special:Diff/120911/161058. I will remove it now. --Base (talk) 16:59, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Дякую --Gereon K. (talk) 17:12, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Changes to the global ban policy

Hello. Some changes to the community global ban policy have been proposed. Your comments are welcome at m:Requests for comment/Improvement of global ban policy. Please translate this message to your language, if needed. Cordially. Matiia (Matiia) 00:34, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Luchii astigarraga

Luchii [redactado] --Luchiiara (talk) 21:26, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

@Luchiiara: Si tienes solo [redactado], puedes ser un editor per es una idea buena ver ese guía primero: w:es:Wikipedia:Guía para los más pequeños. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:46, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

@Koavf: Justin, if you would be so kind, please further explain that at minimum she should not be sharing personal information about her friends (without their permission, but there is really no way to prove their permission here). StevenJ81 (talk) 22:03, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

@Luchiiara: Tambien es muchisimo importante no dar informacio'n personal de ti o tus amigos. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:58, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Everipedia violating wikipedia copyright?

According to w:User:Leprof_7272/Everipedia, Everipedia:

• require users to waive ownership on all content submitted to the site
• import more than 5 million articles from wikipedia.

That would mean Everipedia have been massively violating the "Share alike" clause in wikipedia's term of use?

• Note: On 2017 Jan, they updated their terms page, which claim they their content are available under cc-by-sa, however,
  • In the section for "License to User Content" in their term, it still say "Everipedia owns all right and title in and to the collective content of the Service,".
  • They also claims content on their site cannot be use for commercial user unless expressly authorized by them which is incompatible with cc-by-sa.

Additionally, in the reference link, although the bot being used to import page from wikipedia into everipedia have noted in its user description that it is an "Official Wikipedia Import Bot", however, when the bot is being used to import pages from wikipedia, it does not say it is imported from wikipedia on anywhere on the page itself, nor in the edit history. That would mean they have also violated the attribution requirment in wikipedia's term of use?

Can WMF do something about it?C933103 (talk) 19:25, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

@C933103: This definitely violates the Terms of Use. I recommend Contacting legal. (I have done this previously with a trademark infringement.) —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:44, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

MailedC933103 (talk) 19:58, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

@C933103: Thanks. If you think of it, let me know what they say--I'm curious. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:37, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Interaction Timeline alpha demo is ready for testing

Hello all,

The Interaction Timeline alpha version is ready for testing. The Anti-Harassment Tools team appreciates you spending a few minutes to try out the tool and let us know if there is value in displaying the interactions in a vertical timeline instead of the approach used with the existing interaction analysis tools.

Also we interested in learning about which additional functionality or information we should prioritize developing.

Comments can be left on the discussion page on meta. or you can share your ideas by email.

Thank you,

For the Anti-Harassment Tools Team, SPoore (WMF) (talk) , Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 20:39, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Newby question

I've been a contributing editor for only 2 months so there's still a whole lot I don't yet know about Wikimedia (meta) and the different projects. I have taken the time to get up to speed with the Strategic Direction 2017 which I fully support. The one advantage of only 2 months experience is that I still have the perspective of an 'outsider looking in'. I have very little history with Wikimedia or any of its projects.

I have two very basic questions: 1. The various Wikimedia projects supply information that people can use to expand their knowledge. My question is how the 'demand' (and the priorities, audiences, etc.) for information is determined across the Wikimedia projects. 2. The second question is related to the first one. There is great wealth of freely accessible and and trustworthy information available via the Internet. How does Wikimedia and its projects decide which gaps it should fill (with 'own content') and to which existing resources it should redirect? 16:31, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

All contents of the Wikimedia projects have been written by volunteers who write about subjects that they are interested in. So, we do not determine demand and we do not purposefully fill in any knowledge gaps. Ruslik (talk) 18:23, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Mostly, that's true. But there is List of articles every Wikipedia should have. That page suggests that there is a kernel of information we'd like to encourage people to create. But ultimately each project, and each volunteer, decides what to create. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:25, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

My thanks to @Ruslik0: and @StevenJ81: for your helpful replies!

question on wikinews license compatibility.

According to Wikinews/License, wikinews switched to cc-by 2.5 license to facilitate one-way compatibility with GFDL and maximize distribution. Does that mean nowadays wikinews content can be reused on wikipedia directly and not the other way round? Would it be possible to import wikipedia content into wikinews via for example saying explicitly it require sharealike? C933103 (talk) 18:27, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

There is no problem in importing content both ways. See en:License_compatibility#Creative_Commons_license_compatibility. Ruslik (talk) 20:02, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

That chart seems to be for combining, not for migration, is it not? On some Wikinews content under CC BY-SA is allowed given that it is explicitly marked by a template. Otherwise it is not allowed. --Base (talk) 19:48, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Correct - someone changed that chart from image-based to table-based, wrongly added "From" and "To" to it in the process (now removed). --Moonian (talk) 05:12, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Read more: https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-combine-material-under-different-creative-commons-licenses-in-my-work --Moonian (talk) 05:17, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

So, is it possible to mixing cc-by-sa content into wikinews using methods like declaring the license on the page being different from rest of the content? Or is there any motion to further change wikinews' license? As it seems like one of the reason why wikinews adopted cc-by 2.5 is because of compatbility with wikipedia.C933103 (talk) 05:38, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

@C933103 and Moonian: I am crying (with tears) to request you two: could you please do not do any Transwiki things from any CC BY-SA sites to Wikinews (at least until a legal team member says yes)? By such Transwiki services we can also transwiki them to MediaWiki Help namespace WHICH IS UNDER PUBLIC DOMAIN! --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 14:34, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

@Liuxinyu970226:...Where did you see I've done something like that? All I've done was correcting someone's edit in an en.wiki article... --Moonian (talk) 17:04, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

And, on the contrary, I was actually discouraging others to do such transwiki stuff... --Moonian (talk) 17:28, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

@Moonian: You restored both zh:Template:移动到维基新闻 and zh:Template:Vmn, which both are aim to transwiki contents to Wikinews. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 00:12, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@Liuxinyu970226: Again, where did you see that? I'm not a sysop there (as well as anywhere) and so I don't have the rights to restore those (or any other) pages. Also, I'm not the one who applied to restore those pages; on the contrary, I applied to revoke that decision. --Moonian (talk) 00:59, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Looks like the actual sysop that restored both templates is @Techyan:. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 04:39, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@Liuxinyu970226: Both of them were restored because of my request for undeletion, based on early respond in this discussion. C933103 (talk) 13:39, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@C933103: So please, please, and please cancel your past wrong decision. %>_<% --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 12:13, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

How can I "cancel" an undeletion? C933103 (talk) 21:20, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

You can re-submit deletions for both templates. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 12:43, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

@EHershenov (WMF): Since this discussion does affecting legal. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 14:35, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

The switch to CC-BY-2.5 happened when Wikipedia was still under GFDL. Since then Wikipedia switched to CC-BY-SA-3.0. So, the some arguments for the Wikinews switch to CC-BY-2.5 does not apply anymore. Ruslik (talk) 18:35, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible to ask Wikinews community about would they want to switch the license once again? Since cc-by content can be reused as cc-by-sa content, it would probably only need majority agreement instead of universal agreement? C933103 (talk) 03:00, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

For what it's worth, license discussion has come up in the past year and there was no consensus to change. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:54, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

@C933103: I Strong oppose using CC BY-SA for Wikinews, since the CC BY license can also allow the terminal users to publish to e.g. MIT, 2-clause or 3-clause BSD (not 4-clause or original BSD, since both are allowing some BY-NC-SA stuffs which can create orphan works), CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND or CC BY-NC-ND, which CC BY-SA can't. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 05:04, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

@Koavf: Could you link me some of these discussions? C933103 (talk) 05:08, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

@C933103: Here are a few discussions where the license was explicitly discussed (if not was the topic of the discussion as such): n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals/archives/2017/May, n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy/archives/2017/September, n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2017/January#OTRS, n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals/archives/2017/January, n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/assistance/archives/2017/January, n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2017/May#Wikitribune_is_launched, n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/technical/archives/2017/January. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:23, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

@Koavf: As far as I understand,

n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals/archives/2017/May and n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy/archives/2017/September talk about porting content to wikinews is problematic in term of license, and it is not efficient to reuse wikipedia content for wikinews due to the difference between "Encyclopedia" and "News".

n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2017/January#OTRS is about some templates that apparently doesn't make sense to remain on wikinews due to license different

n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals/archives/2017/January is about collaborating with third party content creator

n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/assistance/archives/2017/January - which section is supposed to be related?

n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2017/May#Wikitribune_is_launched is about a wikinews competitor site and subsequent question on the model of wikinews

n:en:Wikinews:Water_cooler/technical/archives/2017/January is about reusing wikinews content in wikinews.

As such, it doesn't seems like the question on what license should wikinews use have really been resurfaced recently at least among these discussions. There are concerns about if that is allowed then there might be a flood of non-news entries in wikinews among the first two linked discussions and that it might be easier to restart from starch, but that is not about the license itself. C933103 (talk) 11:17, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

I understand that there are a number reasons why BY licences are preferable over BY-SA licenses for Wikinews. However the version should be at least updated to 3.0 to harmonize licenses across Wikimedia projects. Ruslik (talk) 14:18, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

@C933103: Correct: changing the license was not proposed but I'm saying that the license was discussed without any proposal to modify it, so it was tacitly accepted. And the section "Using The Independent" discusses licensing. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:12, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

A small correction, Wikinews was originally published under Public Domain, which is not internationally compatible. Further, while the topic has come up on the English Wikinews, that is only one of many languages in the project; I do not believe the question has be raised project-wide. - Amgine/^{meta wikt wnews} 16:53, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 21:06, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

New print to pdf feature for mobile web readers

Just curious (talk) 17:18, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

New print to pdf feature for mobile web readers

The Readers web team will be deploying a new feature this week to make it easier to download PDF versions of articles on the mobile website.

Providing better offline functionality was one of the highlighted areas from the research done by the New Readers team in Mexico, Nigeria, and India. The teams created a prototype for mobile PDFs which was evaluated by user research and community feedback. The prototype evaluation received positive feedback and results, so development continued.

For the initial deployment, the feature will be available to Google Chrome browsers on Android. Support for other mobile browsers to come in the future. For Chrome, the feature will use the native Android print functionality. Users can choose to download a webpage as a PDF. Mobile print styles will be used for these PDFs to ensure optimal readability for smaller screens.

The feature is available starting Wednesday, Nov 15. For more information, see the project page on MediaWiki.org.

Thank you!

CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:07, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 21:05, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Activating Wikimedians on net neutrality in the U.S.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai just announced that he will gut net neutrality in a December 14th vote, with the draft order expected to be circulated on November 22nd. In terms of what to expect, people inside the FCC (speaking on condition of anonymity to reporters) have confirmed our worst fears: this is a full-throated repeal of the rules. The no blocking, no throttling, and no paid prioritization provisions are expected to be toast, as is as the general conduct standard. If the FCC is not stopped, every website and Internet user could be vulnerable to the new gatekeeper powers gifted to Internet service providers like Comcast and AT&T.

In response, Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, Free Press and others have announced a nationwide protest on December 7th, with in-person demonstrations at Verizon stores, and an online campaign to drive calls and emails to Congress through the BattleForTheNet.com campaign – which has seen a huge explosion of traffic today following Pai's announcement. The day of action will take place one week before the vote, with a simple message: Tell Congress to stop the FCC's plan to end net neutrality.

The question I find myself asking is: How can Wikimedians and the broader Wikimedia community get involved in the fight to save net neutrality? We know there's major energy for saving the open Internet, and we could really need your help to direct it as productively as possible. We have a clear goal: convince Congress to stop the FCC. But it's going to take everything we've got to stop this before the 14th of December.

Thanks, and I look forward to hearing what you think and, specifically, how the Wikimedia community can help stop the FCC from destroying net neutrality.

— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 159.89.143.64 (talk) 12:14, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

We are doing everything we can to make sure Wikipedia and her sister projects reach as many people as possible. This includes partnerships with ISPs to be included in all package levels. Additionally, we have incredible support from launching and running the zero rated Wikipedia Zero initiative from users. In many places where Wikipedia Zero operates Internet access is expensive, generally costing in PPP$ 50% of an equivalent US plan. (ITU 2015)

We are looking forward to bringing Wikipedia to more people in the coming years. Cheers, Dispenser (talk) 16:05, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 21:05, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Visual Editor on projectpages

Does someone know why the Visual Editor doesn't work on projectpages with prefixs, like this example. Livenws (talk) 17:25, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Because it is not enabled on Wikipedia namespace. Stryn (talk) 17:44, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

And is it possible to enable it? Livenws (talk) 18:26, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Technically yes, but it needs local community approval. We asked to enable it on the Finnish Wikipedia (see phab:T154678) but we discussed more about it and then decided not to enable it as project namespace has many pages meant for discussion (like village pumps), so VE is not working so well there. Stryn (talk) 18:45, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 21:05, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Why is Dutch considered a European language?

For some reason if you select languages and look for “Dutch” it's listed under “Europe 🌍”. In reality the only European country where Dutch is spoken is the Kingdom of Belgium, Dutch is also spoken in the Netherlands (transcontinental Europe, North America, and South America), Sint Maarten (North America), Aruba (disputed between North America and South America), Curaçao (disputed between North America and South America), and Suriname (South America), there also exists a minority of Dutch speakers (Belgophones?) in the country of France which is a part of every continent including Antarctica but excluding Asia. I have the same complaint about German which sure is mostly spoken in European countries (Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein) but is also spoken in Africa (Namibia). One could make an argument that the majority of the Dutch speakers live in Europe but over 60% of all French speakers (Francophones) live in Africa but we don't list French as “an African language”, so why isn't Dutch among the “International” languages? I am talking about when you select “Switch languages” in an article and it then presents you with a list of languages organised by region. --Donald Trung (Talk 🤳🏻) (My global lock 🔒) (My global unlock 🔓) 11:27, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Also note that Dutch is spoken in the sovereign micronation of Paraduin (more information on it here). --Donald Trung (Talk 🤳🏻) (My global lock 🔒) (My global unlock 🔓) 11:27, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I personally do not know to what merit was that categorisation made at all. For me when I try to find some language, and doing Translation and CN administration occasionally I experience selecting languages more than others, is much easier to follow an alphabetical list rather than guess where the heck is a language in question placed by someone. --Base (talk) 12:01, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

1. Dutch is listed under Europe AND America.
2. Afrikaans has it's own entry as it is a recognised separate language, there are also separate entries for Frysk, Limburgish and Low Saxon etc etc.
3. It's not as if you can't select a language if it is not within your current area (it's just a helping navigational hand).
4. Suggestions for adding languages in continent sections can be filed in phabricator.
5. The search entry knows about all languages and translations of language names.
6. Perfection is the enemy of good
7. Next to speakers, lets not forget about all the immigrants everywhere speaking every language in any and all country. But you have to draw a line somewhere.

—TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:44, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Note that for the particular language picker you are indicating, the results are filtered on there actually being a variant of the page in a the searched for language being available of course. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:52, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

The premise of this discussion is incorrect. Our code currently considers Dutch a language for both continents Europe and America.[1] If you have additional data to provide, e.g. about the distribution of speakers across countries, please see mw:ULS/FAQ#language-territory on how to contribute to CLDR. Nemo 16:27, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 21:05, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

What is the purpose of the Media Viewer thing?

I just found out how to do this and happily followed instruction. Why was the tool being introduced? In my opinion, I cannot see the tool being helpful because,

1. Originally, users would only need to click once and go through one page before they can view the image in their browser. Now they have to click two different buttons and go through two different pages
2. The Media Viewer is time consuming and resource intensive to load on slow computer with slow connection thus making it really painful to use
3. It seems to have some buttons on the side of it which are probably supposed to help users to complete different tasks quicker, but the shape of those icons does not really convey what those buttons supposed to do, and tips would only show up when you move the mouse over them so it is not helpful to those who would like to complete the task quickly, and as a result it would only increase the amount of time needed for users trying to complete their task.
4. While it has a button that would allow users to enlarge the picture, it does not allow users to freely zoom into and out of the picture which would still require so many clicks for users to click into after layers of pages before they can be able to access detailed information in a large embedded image?

If the tool was indeed made to help people instead of forcing people to spend more time waiting for wikimedia server response to their request, could the viewer be improved regarding the above aspects? And could the viewer be globally disabled before these improvements were made? It seems like there was a survey on user satisfaction on the Media Viewer thing and there are more people who don't favor the tool than those who are for the tool, so wouldn't it make sense to first disable the tool?C933103 (talk) 18:09, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

This issue has a long history. You can read more at Media_Viewer or mw:Reading/Multimedia/Media_Viewer or en:Wikipedia:Media_Viewer. Ruslik (talk) 18:26, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I see that consensuses have been made on numerous communities but seems like those consensuses did not result in changes in term of how the software would function. And apparently the reason being cited for this is that the media viewer would be an important part of the software that should not be disabled locally. But I thought the development of software for the use of wikis are supposed to cater users need rather than the other way around. C933103 (talk) 19:35, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 21:04, 21 December 2017 (UTC)