Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2022/June

2022 Board of Trustees Call for Candidates closed

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The 2022 Board of Trustees election Call for Candidates has now closed. This Call led 12 candidates from the community to submit their applications. Learn more about the 2022 Board of Trustees candidates.

The Analysis Committee will now consider the candidates’ applications with the skills and criteria provided by the Board. The trustees seek certain skills and competencies to improve the capacity of the Board. After the Analysis Committee completes their review, the ratings of each candidate will be published. These ratings are for informational purposes only.

For more information about the 2022 Board election, you may find the timeline, voting information and other ways to get involved on Meta-wiki.

Thank you for your support,

Movement Strategy and Governance on behalf of the Elections Committee and the Board of Trustees
--SOyeyele (WMF) (talk) 13:58, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

No category:stalking ?

there are many articles about stalking here, but I cannot find a category for stalking. Is it under a different name? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 20:22, 25 May 2022‎

@Ottawahitech: I don’t think there is one. Feel free to create one. [₂₄Cr][talk] 12:55, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

It would have been easier for me to create categories if I could use hotcat. But it seems that this ability is reserved only for users who are admins on Wikinews? Ottawahitech (talk) 13:59, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-23

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 June. It will be on all wikis from 9 June (calendar).
• A new str_replace_regexp() function can be used in abuse filters to replace parts of text using a regular expression. [1]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

02:46, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-24

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• All wikis can now use Kartographer maps. Kartographer maps now also work on pages with pending changes. [2][3]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 June. It will be on all wikis from 16 June (calendar).
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 14 June at 06:00 UTC (targeted wikis). [4]
• Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Abkhazian Wikipedia, Achinese Wikipedia, Adyghe Wikipedia, Afrikaans Wikipedia, Akan Wikipedia, Alemannisch Wikipedia, Amharic Wikipedia, Aragonese Wikipedia, Old English Wikipedia, Syriac Wikipedia, Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, Asturian Wikipedia, Atikamekw Wikipedia, Avaric Wikipedia, Aymara Wikipedia, Azerbaijani Wikipedia, South Azerbaijani Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [5]
• The New Topic Tool will be deployed for all editors at Commons, Wikidata, and some other wikis soon. You will be able to opt out from within the tool and in Preferences. [6][7]

Future meetings

• The next open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place today (13 June). The following meetings will take place on: 28 June, 12 July, 26 July.

Future changes

• By the end of July, the Vector 2022 skin should be ready to become the default across all wikis. Discussions on how to adjust it to the communities' needs will begin in the next weeks. It will always be possible to revert to the previous version on an individual basis. Learn more.

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16:58, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson wins confidence vote

I see that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson wins confidence vote has been moved to the disputed queue, but see no indication of what the dispute is all about. Can someone please help me understand? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 18:37, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Read the talk page. JJLiu112 (talk) 20:31, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Cascading protection on DaBaby Levitating remix losing US radio audiences after the rapper's comments on HIV/AIDS

Is there a reason DaBaby Levitating remix losing US radio audiences after the rapper's comments on HIV/AIDS has cascading protection enabled? Ixfd64 (talk) 00:10, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

@Ixfd64: No idea but I’ve removed it. [₂₄Cr][talk] 12:38, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Could you please remove the cascading protection from Taylor Swift's Evermore records biggest sales week of the year as it returns to No 1 on album chart as well?

I'd like to make some changes to Template:Infobox/lookup/Music, which is affected by the cascading protection. Thanks again! --Ixfd64 (talk) 16:24, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

@Ixfd64: Done. [₂₄Cr][talk] 17:48, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-25

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• The Wikipedia App for Android now has an option for editing the whole page at once, located in the overflow menu (three-dots menu ). [8]
• Some recent database changes may affect queries using the Quarry tool. Queries for site_stats at English Wikipedia, Commons, and Wikidata will need to be updated. Read more.
• A new user_global_editcount variable can be used in abuse filters to avoid affecting globally active users. [9]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 June. It will be on all wikis from 23 June (calendar).
• Users of non-responsive skins (e.g. MonoBook or Vector) on mobile devices may notice a slight change in the default zoom level. This is intended to optimize zooming and ensure all interface elements are present on the page (for example the table of contents on Vector 2022). In the unlikely event this causes any problems with how you use the site, we'd love to understand better, please ping Jon (WMF) to any on-wiki conversations. [10]

Future changes

• The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated throughout July. Discussions will look different. You can see some of the proposed changes.
• Parsoid's HTML output will soon stop annotating file links with different typeof attribute values, and instead use mw:File for all types. Tool authors should adjust any code that expects: mw:Image, mw:Audio, or mw:Video. [11]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:18, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Would invisible comments help expedite the review process?

It is my understanding that reviewing an article can take some time because the reviewer has to check all the sources. I imagine the process is complicated by the fact that we don't use inline citations like on Wikipedia. So this made me wonder: would it be useful to put sources in HTML comments?

Although the comments would be invisible to normal readers, reviewers would be able to use them to check the source of each statement. --Ixfd64 (talk) 22:16, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Interesting point. I also wonder if Wikinews has guidelines for reviewers, and if so can someone please provide a link, thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 18:32, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@Ixfd64: Apologies for the delayed response. Invisible comments help the reviewer immensely. If the comments just say exactly where in the source the information is from, it saves the reviewer having to look through each source for each piece of information. I know it shifts the onus to the article writers but it is a method I use professionally in my paid employment. I’m sure there are people who can zoom through a thousand words with photographic memories and light-speed scanning but I’m not one of those people. Even if have read a source, I’m still going to need to go back several times to check if I read something there. The shortest articles (150-200 words with two sources) are very easy to review (may be half an hour). However, if it is 1,000+ words with potentially a dozen sources and no hidden comments, a reviewer could be looking at 2-3 hours of checking. So, yes, please do add the hidden comments after every piece of information and help cut the reviewing time. [₂₄Cr][talk] 12:41, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. This is very good to know! --Ixfd64 (talk) 16:16, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

@Ottawahitech: I’m not sure if there are specific guidelines on hidden comments but we have WN:Reviewing articles as the main policy and some other out of date pages. Other policies and guidelines also play a part, such as WN:NPOV. The general expectation of potential new reviewers has been to "learn on the job", i.e. if you can regularly craft articles that pass review, then you’ve probably got a good grasp of the reviewing process. [₂₄Cr][talk] 12:53, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Desktop Improvements update

Making this the new default

Hello. I wanted to give you an update about the Desktop Improvements project, which the Wikimedia Foundation Web team has been working on for the past few years. Our work is almost finished! 🎉

We would love to see these improvements become the default for readers and editors across all wikis. In the coming weeks, we will begin conversations on more wikis, including yours. 🗓️ We will gladly read your suggestions!

The goals of the project are to make the interface more welcoming and comfortable for readers and useful for advanced users. The project consists of a series of feature improvements which make it easier to read and learn, navigate within the page, search, switch between languages, use article tabs and the user menu, and more. The improvements are already visible by default for readers and editors on more than 30 wikis, including Wikipedias in French, Portuguese, and Persian.

The changes apply to the Vector skin only, although it will always be possible to revert to the previous version on an individual basis. Monobook or Timeless users will not notice any changes.

The newest features

• Table of contents - our version is easier to reach, gain context of the page, and navigate throughout the page without needing to scroll. It is currently tested across our pilot wikis. It is also available for editors who have opted into the Vector 2022 skin.
• Page tools - now, there are two types of links in the sidebar. There are actions and tools for individual pages (like Related changes) and links of the wiki-wide nature (like Recent changes). We are going to separate these into two intuitive menus.

How to enable/disable the improvements

Global preferences

• It is possible to opt-in individually in the appearance tab within the preferences by selecting "Vector (2022)". Also, it is possible to opt-in on all wikis using the global preferences.
• On wikis where the changes are visible by default for all, logged-in users can always opt-out to the Legacy Vector. There is an easily accessible link in the sidebar of the new Vector.

Learn more and join our events

If you would like to follow the progress of our project, you can subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the pages of the project, check our FAQ, write on the project talk page, and join an online meeting with us.

Thank you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 16:59, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-26

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Wikimedia Enterprise API service now has self-service accounts with free on-demand requests and monthly snapshots (API documentation). Community access via database dumps & Wikimedia Cloud Services continues.
• All Wikimedia wikis can now use Wikidata Lexemes in Lua after creating local modules and templates. Discussions are welcome on the project talk page.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 June. It will be on all wikis from 30 June (calendar).
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 28 June at 06:00 UTC (targeted wikis). [12]
• Some global and cross-wiki services will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 30 June at 06:00 UTC. This will impact ContentTranslation, Echo, StructuredDiscussions, Growth experiments and a few more services. [13]
• Users will be able to sort columns within sortable tables in the mobile skin. [14]

Future meetings

• The next open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place tomorrow (28 June). The following meetings will take place on 12 July and 26 July.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:02, 27 June 2022 (UTC)