Japanese athletes: capital letters and non stipula
Perhaps some kind programmer would like to devise a program that would change [[Pediludium|Pedilusor]] [[Iaponia|Iaponiae]] to [[pediludium|pedilusor]] [[Iaponia|Iaponiensis]] (or something like that), saving the author some wasted time. ¶ Also, in view of today's Japanese athletes (but pertinent generally), could a program be devised to insert {{Non stipula}} at the top of articles whose texts (excluding nexus interni & externi, bibliographies, and so forth) have fewer than 200 letters each? That would save other vicipaedians some wasted time. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:53, 1 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
As to the number of letters, 200 isn't a magical concept, and maybe some other number in that vicinity (250? 216? 193? 176?) should be the criterion. Even better: perhaps a kind programmer would want to devise a program that would make a list of all the pages whose texts fall in certain ranges (say, from zero to 187, or from 175 to 225), with the limits being experimentally movable, so that the effects of setting the criterion at a given number can profitably be contemplated. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:53, 1 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Yes, that information would be very useful! Agreed, 200 means nothing, though some such target may help to identify pages whose creators aren't even able to say one notable thing about the subject.
A propos of that, I feel sure a bot could make some improvements to the new pages you mention, but it couldn't add useful and interesting text, which is what they really need ... :( Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:00, 1 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Impressionalistically, I'd say it's approaching the cusp of stipulability, but (like many of the commentaries on French hamlets) it may not be quite there. So 200 is probably an appropriate benchmark, but if a bot were to be able to do the NS marking as discussed above, we might want first to compare an array of examples to determine whether some other number, slightly higher or slightly lower, might not be better. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 21:49, 1 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
*This one* has about 127 letters. It's a fine definition, perhaps more than adequate for a geographical dictionary, but the text lacks that certain "aliquid maius" that would make it an ideal vicipaedian text. So 127 letters is probably too few to make a stipula. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 22:03, 1 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
UVbot could change [[Pediludium|Pedilusor]] [[Iaponia|Iaponiae]] to [[pediludium|pedilusor]] [[Iaponia|Iaponiensis]], if that is what we agree to do with this pages. As Andrew supposed, UVbot cannot, however, add content to these pages that is not already present there.
Using the dump of December 26, I have compiled a list of all pages not longer than 250 bytes: Project:Dump/Paginae breves. However, I feel that the decision (not) to mark a page {{non stipula}} should be made by a human examining the page rather than a bot looking at the page size. --UV (disputatio) 23:26, 1 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
That's probably a good idea. Is there a way of making certain that unknown user Japan Football knows of this invitation to impose the formula {{Non stipula}} on most of the—hundred or more?!—articles that he or she added yesterday? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:57, 2 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Well, yes, but can we force the user to read it? ("You can lead a horse to water, but can you drench him?") The immediate worry, which one hopes will be proved premature, was that the user, having barged in to impose (in the order of magnitude of) a hundred formulaic nonstubs without having tested the waters by trying the formula out beforehand, here in the taberna, was in effect (though, one hopes, not intent) being quasivandalistic. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 15:07, 2 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Usor:Japan Football created 239 new pages in the article namespace within a total time span of less than 6 hours. --UV (disputatio) 22:28, 2 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
There was no response on the talk page. If JapanFootball doesn't come back within a generous week and assuming no one else wants to improve them, I propose deleting those pages. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:53, 3 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Yes, certainly those that aren't stubs! A single page on Japanese football might be more useful to most potential readers. A curious discovery about the wikifying process is the popularity of contributing many little things instead of one big thing. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:49, 3 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
I will not object to deletion of these pages (magistratus can do that very easily via Specialis:Nuke, inserting "Japan Football" as username of the user whose page creations should be deleted). --UV (disputatio) 13:59, 3 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
I wonder whether "Japan Football" is going to come back here soon, since he has a history of being blocked on several wikipedias, including for not responding to comments on his talk page (sv.wikipedia): Special:CentralAuth/Japan Football. We might also want to block him (but leave his own talk page open so that he can, if he wishes, explain). --UV (disputatio) 19:33, 3 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
I didn't think to check cross-wiki activity. Good idea, I'll block him (allowing use of talk page). If he says "I want to improve those same pages", that might be fine and he could be unblocked, but that, sadly, seems the least likely result. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:04, 3 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
In fact that is what happened ... He is now working on those pages. I will leave to others to judge whether he is making them into acceptable stubs. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:55, 4 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Furthermore, we currently have a backlog of more than a thousand pages at Categoria:Non stipula. What do we intend to do with that mass of pages - are we going to delete them automatically after 6 months (which is not what I would be ready to do), or is someone going to propose them individually for deletion after 6 months? Before that is sorted out, I am not sure whether it is a good idea to tag much more pages as non stipula. Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 23:26, 1 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
A highly useful list! Thanks! We note right away that (at least) two kinds of articles might want to be exempted from the wordcount rule: articles about years, and articles about forenames. More thinking is advised. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:46, 2 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
We discussed above whether certain groups of very short articles (essentially dictionary definitions, but important to the encyclopedia) should be guaranteed safe. A suggestion was that some of these groups could be linked with a navbox that indicates their special status. See now Decimetrum. Actually the year pages are linked by navboxes already, and we can surely agree that it is pointless to mark these year pages "Non stipula". We need them.
The forename pages (for non-classical-Latin forenames) are different in that no one defines them and their spelling and meaning and etymology are often uncertain or variable. An encyclopedia that has such articles should treat them as full scale articles, to be properly documented, I think. But it isn't easy to do. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:45, 2 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
And then at the other end of the scale, we have big articles that someone has marked as stubs. I just encountered one that was 17,219 octeti in size, and have removed the non-stipula formula. A lot of articles on Italian hamlets fall into this class, especially in the range of 3000 to 6000 octeti. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 15:15, 2 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
That's a very useful list. It would be easy to go through it, looking for pages that can be grouped in series. Useful series can be linked with a navbox (cf. Decimetrum and Aulus) or else converted into redirects to a page that deals with the whole series. Of pages that don't belong to any evident series, the very shortest (minimal text, no sign of notability, no external link or source) could be deleted or tagged "Delenda". Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:53, 3 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Alessandro Santos (三都主 アレサンドロ Santos Alessandro?, natus in Maringa die 20 Iulii 1977) est pedilusor Iaponiensis, sed etiam Turmae Pediludicae Nationalis Iaponiae (2002 - 2006) lusor est. Alessandro Santos inter alia cum turma Shimizu S-Pulse et Urawa Reds lusit.
Things to consider: (1) The name is wrong (Italian, not Latin). (2) Why the question mark? (3) Why not the locative? (4) The sequence of tenses is faulty. (5) Use of the pagename formula results in clumsy prose (for the second one, qui might read better). (6) Why isn't it turmis? As I've suggested earlier, continuing to impose articles that are entirely formulaic without first checking with the community is inadvisable. For a lesson in how to do it right, see the history of the formula by which several thousand articles on asteroids were created (it's archived somewhere). IacobusAmor (disputatio) 15:22, 7 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
I can't remember where it is, but you're right, some very careful discussion took place.
Bear in mind that the articles on asteroids are several times as long as the recent articles on football players—and informative enough to qualify on all counts as genuine stubs. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:33, 7 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
These sorts of articles have never seemed to have much use to me (and I've created precious few of them, e.g. Neiafu), but the counterargument is that everything deserves an article; certainly our founder has been quoted as having said that every human deserves an article ("notability" be damned). Every new article that has less than 200 (or maybe even 500 or 1000) letters lowers the mean length of Vicipaedia's texts, and by that measure of "Vicipaedian quality" lowers the value of the entire enterprise. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:33, 7 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
I think the proper way for us to go is gradually to increase our standards. On en:wiki, for example, the minimum requirement for a page is far higher than it was ten years ago. That, I guess, is what we're engaged in this year, and at some stage -- perhaps quite soon -- pages like these will fall off the edge. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:47, 7 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
No, that's not a law or even a policy -- it was just me, replacing 7 days with 6 months because we were adding a large number of "Non stipula" tags all at once! I believe, at some stage, I chose the number 200 as well. Anyone else could alter the template again. You're our censor: if anyone has the gravitas to do it, you have. I wonder if anyone else will comment ... Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:09, 7 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Another option that just occurs to me is to have an alternative "Non stipula" formula specifically for pages created after 1 January 2016. We have, after all, agreed and broadcast a new policy -- avoid creating very short pages -- to be applied from that date. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:15, 8 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
That would seem a good way to me. On the one hand, we need to be careful not do discourage via sudden deletions of good-faith page creations newbies/tirones that are able, at least after a number of weeks/months, to contribute useful content to Vicipaedia. But on the other hand, very short pages with contents that do not add much to what Vicidata already knows, are not too useful. A new "non stipula" formula that allows newcomers who are eager to learn and to find their way around Vicipaedia six months to improve their page creations, while very short pages created on or after January 1, 2016 without remarkable content that are not improved after six months may be deleted, seems to strike the balance well. --UV (disputatio) 19:37, 8 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
I'll draft something, then. As you are maybe hinting, Japan Football is working harder than other wikis' experience led us to expect; there is meaningful communication; he is prepared to see the least promising pages deleted. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:39, 9 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
And all that tinkering, mirabile dictu, improves Vicipaedia's reputation—because a higher number of edits per article is alleged to be a sign of higher quality. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:16, 9 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Gratias ago tibi, Andrea, maximas, qui hanc formulam instituisti. Quam libenter Theodisce vertam. Praeterea minora aliquot iuxta rem ipsam disputabo. Tres menses quod adtinet, is terminus mihi quidem satis largus videtur. An mentem tuam recte concepi, qui hanc formulam non nisi in paginis abhinc creatis puto applicandam? Laurentianus (disputatio) 17:02, 9 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Collaboratione tua gaudeo, Laurentiane. Ita, versionem Theodiscam adde! Possumus (ut mihi videtur) hanc formulam in paginis brevioribus post diem 1 Ianuarii 2016 creatas imponere; fortasse et in veterioribus. Quid dicunt alii? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 17:25, 9 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Qui Italici/Italiani sint profecto erunt historici Italici (vel historici Italiani). Eximia locutio classica est civis Romanus sum, non civis Romae sum. Ergo, ut videtur, qui historias Italiae scribant historicos Italiae appellare debemus. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 17:00, 1 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Neque omnes Italici neque omnes de Italia scribentes. Casu genetivo in titulis categoriarum de incolis civitatum utimur: ita "Incolae Italiae" sunt qui in Italia habitaverint; tali modo "Artifices Italiae" sunt artifices qui in Italia habitaverint; tali modo "Historici Italiae" sunt historici qui in Italia habitaverint. Si, sicut hoc casu, sensus ambiguus sit, explicationem addere possumus, quam nunc ibi addo. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 19:33, 1 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Feel free to translate this message in your language!
On January 1 we celebrate Public Domain Day as many works of authors who died 70+ years ago now enter the public domain and can be used freely.
Let us be aware: copyright is temporary. It only lasts during the authors lifetime and 70 years afterwards (in most countries). During those years it is limiting Wikipedia and her sister projects in showing works of art, literature, public art and buildings in countries without freedom of panorama, and more in the articles. But now a new batch is freed from copyrights!
An overview of images and texts that are restored or added to the Wikimedia Commons, are collected on: this page.
Many of these files still need a place in articles. You can help!
You can also help by uploading new files of subjects that are freed of copyrights.
You can also help by tagging all requests for deletion pages with the category when the file can be restored, which will be/was deleted.
As I follow the log of restored files this week, more images and texts will follow. If still files or texts are missing in the list, let me know or add them yourselves.
Memini oportet editoribus qui paginas recensent (dico ego) iam plus quam 30% lectorum non computatris magnis sed tabulis telephonisque mobilibus ad Vicipaedias accedere (qui numerus certe crescit et crescet). Quando igitur faciem et structuram paginae constituimus, necesse est de aspectu "mobili" consulere. Si duas imagines, aut capsam et imaginem, aut capsam permagnam, aut imaginem latam iuxta praefationem ponimus, ipso facto omnem textum ad pedem paginae demittimus. (Textus autem, re graphicá omnino carente, oculos lectorum hodiernorum fatigat.) Ergo quando satis verborum habemus, melius erit rem graphicam primam neque valde magnam ad caput paginae, rem graphicam secundam (tertium etc.) non iuxta praefationem sed post rubricas imponere. De hac re quid dicunt alii?
When revising pages it is, I think, important to keep in mind that already over 30% of Wikipedia readers are reading it on a hand-held device, and this proportion will surely grow rapidly. (This was new information to me: discount the enthusiasm of a convert.) So, when considering the layout, number and placement of images, etc., we should look at the mobile view (use link at foot of any page) before deciding.
It appears to me that having more than one image, or an infobox plus an image, or just one wide image, or a very big infobox, in the initial section is likely to push the whole text a long way down. (But having no graphic at all makes the introduction boring.) So, as soon there is enough text to matter, it is better to put second and additional graphics below the first and later section headings. I wonder if others (especially any who read Vicipaedia on hand-held devices) agree or disagree? Maybe other guidelines spring to mind? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:11, 3 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Gratiae tibi sint, mi Andrea, qui meos, fortasse etiam aliorum oculos ad hanc facultatem mobilem vertisti, cuius plane immemor fui. Profecto duriorem praebet et exsanguem fere aspectum. Omnino optimum factu est modum quendam servare in paginis exornandis. Ad quod assequendem sine dubio valde utile erit aspectum mobilem conferre. Laurentianus (disputatio) 13:56, 4 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
De categoriis aspectu mobili invisibilibus
Computatro meo "aspectus mobilis" Vicipaediae monstrat imagines, capsas informationis, capsas navigationis, sed non categorias. (Aliis linguis nonnullis, inter quas Anglicá, capsas etiam navigationis invisibiles sunt.) Nisi mutatio quis proponatur, mihi videtur categorias editoribus assiduis utiles sed lectoribus plurimis mox ignotas fore. Alii quid de hac re censent?
On my screen the mobile view shows our images, infoboxes and navigation boxes but it does not show categories. (In many other languages even the navigation boxes do not appear.) Unless some change is intended, this suggests to me that categories will in the future only be useful to active editors; soon the majority of users won't even be aware of them. Any other comments on this? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:41, 4 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Wikimania 2016 Scholarships - Deadline soon!
Please help translate to your language
A reminder - applications for scholarships for Wikimania 2016 in Esino Lario, Italy, are closing soon! Please get your applications in by January 9th. To apply, visit the page below:
A year and a half ago, we talked about links that point to Commons – more specifically, links that point to categories on Commons (via {{CommuniaCat}}) and links that point to galleries on Commons (via {{Communia}}).
Over the years, among the more than 75.000 links to Commons, we had accumulated about 6.000 broken links to Commons as well (= links pointing to a redlink on commons).
Of these, about 1.000 broken links pointed to Commons galleries. I have by now dealt with these (most were easy to deal with, because in most cases I found a commons category that was able to replace the broken link to the gallery).
Then, there were several thousand broken links to Commons categorieswhere Wikidata knew a good replacement (a statement with d:Property:P373 on the corresponding Wikidata item). I have corrected these by replacing our broken link with the link from Wikidata.
So by now, only ~688 articles and ~143 category pages remain where the link to the commons category is broken and Wikidata knows no replacement. These articles and category pages can be seen at Categoria:Paginae cum nexu ad Communia rupto. What shall we do with these? If we agree, UVbot could remove the {{CommuniaCat}} template altogether from these articles and category pages.
Using Wikidata also allows us to compare the link we use to the link Wikidata knows of. The two categories Categoria:Error formulae CommuniaCat (~324 cat, ~1.865 pp.) and Categoria:Error formulae Communia (~256 pp.) list articles and category pages that point to a valid ("bluelink") category, gallery or redirect on Commons where nevertheless Wikidata (via a statement with d:Property:P373 or d:Property:P935 on the corresponding Wikidata item) proposes a different link target. I have changed {{CommuniaCat}} and {{Communia}} so that in these cases they show both link targets. If you come across such an article or category page, it might be a good idea to check whether the link target should be changed (either here on Vicipaedia or on Vicidata).
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 no longer uses visitor statistics from comScore. [1]
Internet Explorer 8 will no longer have JavaScript support. You will still be able to browse and edit Wikipedia if you use Internet Explorer 8, but will not be able to use some features. This can be solved by upgrading to a newer version or switching to a different browser. [6][7]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 12 January at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
URLs in the recent changes IRC feed will no longer be rewritten to unencrypted HTTP. This could be a breaking change for bots dependent on the IRC feed. [8]
The edit tabs for the wikitext editor and the visual editor will be combined to one single edit tab. You will be able to choose which one you prefer. If you are not logged in, your choice will be saved as a cookie in your browser. You can test the single edit tab. [9][10]
There is a beta feature that adds links to the subject on other Wikimedia projects. This works much like the links to for example Wikipedia articles in other languages. It will go out of beta testing and be enabled for everyone in January. Wikis that don't want this can decide to have it disabled. [11][12]
The difference between "alerts" and "messages" notifications is unclear to some. The developers want feedback at the Phabricator task or on MediaWiki.org so they can make this better. You can give feedback in your language if you can't write in English.
You have an oldster's definition of "newfangled": it was added to the page by Golradir six years ago (less two weeks), and it seems to have been Ssolbergj who designed the current version of the portal boxes in 2013. OK, OK, that's pretty new :) I don't know whether their effect on the layout could be tweaked, but they aren't compulsory and I find it is better simply not to put them on short pages that also have images.
So, you could delete it; or you could do what I've done right now, which is to put it first on the page, before the text and any images. The simple question is, is it important enough to take that privileged position? If not, delete it. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:17, 12 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
I think I fixed the problem, by adding a "clear:right" property to the mother template (Formula:Capsa seriei), though we should check if it messes up any other pages. That should allow us to choose the ideal order of the images and boxes, whatever that may be. Lesgles (disputatio) 15:32, 12 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Cum quasdam nostrae vicipaediae paginas observo, verba vere trivialia litteris caeruleatis saepius scribi mihi videntur. Cum nostra, ut spero, a studiosis linguae latinae attente legantur, tamen ego quidem ea non adaeque etiam a pueris vix prima rudimenta discentibus perquiri puto. Quae cum ita sint, cur homines iam diu ultra primas litteras latinas aliquantum progressos litteris caeruleis ad vocabula maxime cotidiana, quae a primis annis iam noverunt, dirigendos esse putemus? Secundum meam opinionem, ut talibus adiumentis lectores opis indigos opportet adiuvare, ita tamen dictam nimiam paginarum - sit venia verbo - caeruleitatem exaggerare non iuvat, eo modo, ut ad omnia fere verba, de quibus paginas habemus, commendationes faciamus. An aliud censetis? Habemusne, o sodales, omnino aliquid of feedback (voces resilientes?) lectorum nostrorum non scribentium? --Bavarese (disputatio) 20:58, 12 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
The comment printed above invokes a long-standing but only temporarily unresolvable discussion, one that will almost certainly be resolved by technology within another couple of decades. If you don't like the color blue, by all means use the long-ago-requested gadget (in "meae praeferentiae") to enable you to turn colors off. (Hovering the cursor should still reveal the linking.) As technology marches on, all words will surely have links, made automatically, perhaps not involving coding in what we think of as the text : after a thoroughly analytic electronic dictionary has been built up outside the visible part of Vicipaedia, the machinery will know to link, for example, mentibus to mens—except when some alternate link is desired, and then a human may have to add some coding to make a technically unexpected connection (until that, too, is made automatic!), as, for example, in the first paragraph of en:England, where the word part—perhaps one of those trivial, schoolboy words you don't want to see blue!—is linked to the article Countries of the United Kingdom. Additionally, the color of links is editorially useful: I myself, by now, after eight or nine years, may well have added 1000 articles so as to turn red links blue; indeed, a proportion perhaps approaching half the articles I contributed in 2015 served that purpose. Additionally, a not entirely negligible point is that links apparently gain Vicipaedia points according to the lists of the 1000 and 10,000 most important pages—and they thereby improve the "wikipedian quality" of the enterprise, as defined in Meta and therefore as perceived by readers. But as noted, this has all been discussed before. ¶ Out to lunch; no Latin. ;) IacobusAmor (disputatio) 17:57, 14 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
De hac re iam in Taberna disputavimus. Qui nexus ad res communes et triviales addiderunt, contra utilitatem lectorum egerunt. Remove igitur audacter nexus minime utiles, mi Bavarese. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 17:15, 14 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
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
You will be able to find or mark bugs and suggestions in Phabricator that are specific for your language or wiki. [13]
Notifications have been upgraded with more detailed and easier-to-access information. See the documentation. Cross-wiki notifications will be available soon on the two test wikis. [14]
Changes this week
The visual editor uses the TemplateData extension to make editing templates easier. You will now get a warning when you edit a TemplateData form and leave it without saving. [15]
MediaWiki will get a new authentication and authorization system called AuthManager. This is planned to happen in a month or two. Some bots will need to change how they log in. Two new and more stable authentication methods will be available now: Owner-only OAuth credentials and bot passwords. You can read more about the change. [16]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 January. It will be on all Wikipedias from 21 January (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 19 January at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is governance model. The meeting will be on 20 January at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has launched a consultation to help create and prioritize WMF strategy beginning July 2016 and for the 12 to 24 months thereafter. This consultation will be open, on Meta, from 18 January to 26 February, after which the Foundation will also use these ideas to help inform its Annual Plan. (More on our timeline can be found on that Meta page.)
Apologies for English, where this is posted on a non-English project. We thought it was more important to get the consultation translated as much as possible, and good headway has been made there in some languages. There is still much to do, however! We created m:2016 Strategy/Translations to try to help coordinate what needs translation and what progress is being made. :)
If you have questions, please reach out to me on my talk page or on the strategy consultation's talk page or by email to mdennis@wikimedia.org.
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
You can now follow when pages are added or removed from a category on German Wikipedia. The plan is to add it to Wikimedia Commons and other Wikipedias this week. [17][18]
Administrators can hide individual entries of a page with RevisionDelete. There is now a button to choose "all", "none" or "inverse" in Special:Log. The article history will get the same buttons soon. Wikis that have done this locally with JavaScript will be able to remove that code. [19]
Changes this week
You will be able to see the references when you preview a section you are editing. This will happen even if there is no <references /> tag in that section. [20]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 January. It will be on all wikis from 28 January (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 26 January at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
There is now an extension called ArticlePlaceholder. It can automatically generate content on Wikipedia with data from Wikidata if there is no Wikipedia article. It will have a tag to remind the reader it is not an article and ask the reader to create one. The developer is now looking for smaller Wikipedias that want to try the extension. [21]
The OTRS system will be upgraded. The plan is to do this on 3 February at 08:00 (UTC). It will probably take 6 to 8 hours. OTRS will be down during the upgrade. [22]
Users will soon be automatically congratulated when they reach some edit count milestones. [23]
I feel doubtful. From a user's point of view, a service we should hope to perform is to supply an acceptable Latin name for something, if we do little else. The problem with such placeholders is that they won't even have a verified Latin pagename.
Novus fons apud Logeion qui nobis utilis esse posset: "Update January 2016: We are delighted to announce the advent of the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources in Logeion." Vide e.g. sub "DMLBS" carrus, Lundonia, vicus...
Facite quaeso ne nimis kritikón me putetis! Sed in paginis discretivis legens e. g. Gallicanum seu Gallicanus potest ..., me ipsum rogo, quid hoc verbum 'posse' possit. Utique sententia A potest B sensu carere mi videtur, nequaquam idem est ac A potest esse/significare B. (Num vocabulum latinum cum italiano valere confunditur?) --Bavarese (disputatio) 18:07, 31 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
"X potest" (sine pluribus) sunt verba Nuadae, qui multas paginas discretivas suo modo facit. Nobis oportet formulam fixam paginarum discretivarum statuere, si consensum invenire possumus! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 21:58, 31 Ianuarii 2016 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
Sites with a wikimedia.org address were by mistake redirected to the Wikimedia Foundation wiki on 26 January. This included Meta and Wikimedia Commons. The mistake was fixed after an hour. [24]
Some users had problems logging in and out around 22 January. Bots also had problems and edit previews did not work properly. This was because of problems related to the new component SessionManager. It was undone on 23 January. [25][26]
Because of new problems with SessionManager the latest version of MediaWiki was removed from the Wikimedia wikis again on 31 January. The new version this week will be without SessionManager. [27]
Changes this week
The page history will get a help link. This will go to Help:Page history on Meta. Wikis can exchange it for a link to their local pages. [28]
Notifications will only show part of a page name if it is very long. You will also have another way to mark notifications as read. [29][30]
The Universal Language Selector input methods are now available with the visual editor. This means many who write in non-Latin scripts can now use the visual editor. [31]
The visual editor will now give you more tools to edit tables. You can move rows and columns in a table and copy parts of tables to make new ones. You can also copy and paste more than one cell at the same time. [32][33][34]
The visual editor has a new warning message when you leave a page you are editing without saving. Non-English wikis might need to translate it. [35][36]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 February. It will be on all wikis from 4 February (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 2 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
The rest.wikimedia.org domain will be shut down. This is planned to happen in March. You should use /api/rest_v1/ at each individual project domain instead. [37]
A small matter, but perhaps easily fixable: on the search page, e.g. [38], the whole page appears in bold, including the top and side bars. Is there an extra ''' somewhere in the code? Lesgles (disputatio) 03:32, 2 Februarii 2016 (UTC)
In ima pagina hanc sententiam lexi. "Novissima mutatio die 10:16 hora 8 Februarii 2016 facta". Formula ergo corrigenda est. Quomodo fiat, nescio. Quis adiuvabit? Bis-Taurinus (disputatio) 09:23, 8 Februarii 2016 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
When you get a notification that an edit has been reverted, the notification now quotes part of the edit summary. [40]
RESTBase is now using scrub_wikitext instead of scrubWikitext. [41]
Changes this week
Wikidata will have a new data type called "math". It will be used for formulas. [42][43]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 February. It will be on all wikis from 11 February (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 9 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Other sites will be able to tell when visitors come from links on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites. They used to be able to do this until we started using forced HTTPS in June 2015. This is planned to happen on 15 February. [44][45]
Wikidata will have a new data type called "external-id". It will be used for references to external resources. It will be enabled on February 16. Some properties will be changed to the new data type. [46][47][48]
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
You can now edit pages on the mobile site version without JavaScript. [49]
A few editors might have been logged in as someone else because of a bug. For security reasons everyone was logged out on 9 February. If you have seen this bug, you can report it. [51][52]
Changes this week
There is a beta feature that adds links to the subject on other Wikimedia projects. The plan was to have it leave beta testing and be enabled for everyone in January. It will happen on 16 February instead. Wikis that don't want this can decide to have it disabled. [53][54]
Cross-wiki notifications will be available as a beta feature on Wikidata, MediaWiki, Commons, and all Hebrew and French wikis on 19 February. [55]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 February. It will be on all wikis from 18 February (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 16 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The search function on Wikimedia wikis will get a completion suggester that tries to find the right pages as the user is typing. It will also recognize some typos. This will probably happen in March. It is currently in beta. [56]
Mirabiles res hodie factae: "(Index nominum impositorum) . . [Zww makriaa; Sibi libi nini; Première louche; Moufte pas; Le loup sans confession]" IacobusAmor (disputatio) 14:44, 20 Februarii 2016 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
There was no new MediaWiki version last week. Changes that were planned to happen last week will happen this week instead. This is because of a bug that made saving pages take longer time. [59][60]
Changes this week
After February 23, you can use Wikidata for inter-language links on Wikiversity. [61]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 23 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Among experienced editors, the visual editor's table editing is one of the most popular features.
If you select the top of a column or the end of a row, you can quickly insert and remove columns and rows.
Now, you can also rearrange columns and rows. Click "Move before" or "Move after" to swap the column or row with its neighbor.
You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.
Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Indic, and Han scripts, and improving the single edit tab interface.
Recent changes
You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing. This function is available to nearly all editors at most wikis except the Wiktionaries and Wikisources.
Many local feedback pages for the visual editor have been redirected to mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
You can now re-arrange columns and rows in tables, as well as copying a row, column or any other selection of cells and pasting it in a new location.
The formula editor has two options: you can choose "Quick edit" to see and change only the LaTeX code, or "Edit" to use the full tool. The full tool offers immediate preview and an extensive list of symbols.
Future changes
The single edit tab project will combine the "Recensere" and "Fontem recensere" tabs into a single "Recensere" tab.
This is similar to the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "Recensere" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as an account preference for logged-in editors, and as a cookie for logged-out users. Logged-in editors will have these options in the Recensere tab of Special:Preferences:
Remember my last editor,
Always give me the visual editor if possible,
Always give me the source editor, and
Show me both editor tabs. (This is the state for people using the visual editor now.)
The visual editor uses the same search engine as Special:Search to find links and files. This search will get better at detecting typos and spelling mistakes soon. These improvements to search will appear in the visual editor as well.
Please try out the newest version of the single edit tab on test2.wikipedia.org. You may need to restore the default preferences (at the bottom of test2wiki:Special:Preferences) to see the initial prompt for options. Were you able to find a preference setting that will work for your own editing? Did you see the large preferences dialog box when you started editing an article there?
Can you read and type in Korean, Arabic, Japanese, Indic, or Han scripts? Does typing in these languages feels natural in the visual editor? Language engineer David Chan needs to know. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org.
If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!
Wikimania 2016: call for posters, discussions and trainings
Hi people,
the calls for posters, discussions and trainings for Wikimania 2016 are officially opened, you can find all the relevant links on the conference wiki:
Posters will be reviewed just to make sure that there aren't things which are too much out of scope. Since we have a whole village we will surely find places to attach them, even if we they will be a lot!
Discussions will be managed by a guiding committee who will work on the wiki to meld all the proposals and suggestions.
Trainings will be reviewed by the programme committee. Please note that we request that each training has at least 3-5 interested attendees in order to be put in the programme.
By the beginning of April we will have a first list of all the accepted proposals.
If you have questions we suggest you to ask them on the discussion pages on wiki, so that everyone will be able to see them (and their answers, of course).
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The Capiunto extension is installed on test wiki. Capiunto provides flexible infobox functionality for Scribunto and generates HTML for infobox features such as headers and rows. It is designed for clean and modern infoboxes that are driven by data from Wikidata, easily usable across different language versions, and easily extensible.
The visual editor now follows the TemplateData format setting announced in November. When you edit or add a use of a template, the wikitext will be laid out in one of the two ways. [62][63]
The order of parameters and format defined in a template's TemplateData will be now respected. [64][65]
Changes this week
On wikis where the visual editor is available in single edit tab mode, red links may open the visual editor instead of the wikitext editor, depending on user preferences. [66]
Anonymous editor warning is now displayed as a warningbox for consistency in both the visual editor and the wikitext editor. [67]
Parsoid has been updated to fit some HTML 5 specifications. [68]
Meetings
Resigning executive director Lila Tretikov is taking questions at Knowledge Engine FAQ regarding the much talked about project. [69]
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 1 March at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Salvete huius tabernae hospites! Aliquot menses est, cum disputavimus de abolenda illa usoris voce minus Latina, pro qua decetero collator vel potius conlator diceretur. Quodsi vox illa maxime ad paginas speciales pertinet, velut “disputationes usorum” vel eorum ipsorum paginas, necesse est talem et tantam mutationem a superioribus, qui Vicipaedias scribunt, rogare, priusquam “minores” dictiones denuo et melius verti possint. Quae sunt apud metawiki 350 fere phrases.
Ad eam mutationem quam felicissime rogandam utile erit, ut quam plurimi sententiam de ea re ferant. Itaque hic et nunc duo proposita velim, quorum unum iam constitutum esse videtur, id est, ut pro “usore” in posterum “conlator” dicatur. (Quia formae non assimilatae apud nos plurimum vigent, velut “conlationes”, “adscripta quaedam”, ita ut morem nostrum sequi videamur.)
Alterum, de quo sententias vestras rogo, pertinet ad eorundem conlatorum genus vel potius sexum. Forma enim feminina („conlatrix“) facillime dicitur. Quamquam aliquando (vel alio loco) suffragia contra sexus distinguendos lata sunt, in quo constituendo, ni fallor, imprimis Andreae Dalby gravitas atque auctoritas plurimum valuit. Facillimum est eam ipsam sententiam tenere. Quodsi ita fieri volemus, in praeferentiis eligendis illa optio “sexus profitendi” deleri oportebit, quoniam in tota Vicipaedia Latina sexus ipse nullatenus respicitur. An ita fieri placet? Laurentianus (disputatio) 23:33, 1 Martii 2016 (UTC)
Gaudeo consensu tuo, mi Andrea. Disputatio illa nescio qua ratione me effugerat. Verum maximam partem harum distinctionum non ad sermonem nostrum spectare existimo. Mihi quidem usus maiorum satis esset, qui, dum res ad personas pertinent, cuique genus suum tribuere solebant, nisi idem minoris momenti esset velut in agendo cum populo aliave turba mixta. Itaque vellem, et conlatores et conlatrices haberemus. Magis autem faveo simplicitati et abolitioni vocum, quae nequaquam Latinae sunt. Ergo et ipse censeo unam conlatoris vocem inducendam. Laurentianus (disputatio) 15:28, 3 Martii 2016 (UTC)
Secundum UV, hanc quaestionem e pagina introductiva delere, etiamsi inutilem, impossibile est.
It looks like you used Google Translate from English to Latin, which at the present stage produces gibberish. If you let us know what you wanted to say, we may be able to help, but the entire article will need to be rewritten. Lesgles (disputatio) 14:55, 14 Martii 2016 (UTC)
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
Files on Wikimedia Commons can now be 2 GB big. The old limit was 1 GB. [70]
Welcome notifications now have a different symbol. English Wikipedia already had this one. [71]
The Wikimedia memory cache servers in the Eqiad cluster have now been upgraded to Debian 8 (Jessie). Some users might have had to log in again because of this. [72]
It is now easier to categorize images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons in the Commons Android app. [73]
Bare attributes in tags now parse according to the HTML5 specifications. <pages from= to= section=1> will parse as <pages from="to=" section="1"> instead of <pages from="" to="" section="1"> as it used to. Please use <pages from="" to="" section=1> or <pages section=1> instead. This is mostly likely to affect pages on Wikisource projects. [74]
Problems
Phabricator has been a bit unstable lately. This should be fixed now. [75]
The PageView API shows wrong data between 23 February and 29 February for pages with special characters in their title. [76]
The parsing change mentioned above caused a large number of pages to break, especially on Wikisource. [77]
You may see falsely formatted edit links on both mobile and desktop devices. Mobile devices can also show incorrect formatted table of contents. This should be fixed soon. [78]
Templates using TemplateData that were edited with the visual editor might have some problems in wikitext mode. This can be fixed by editing and saving the page by using the visual editor without making any changes. [79]
Changes this week
Cross-wiki notifications will be enabled as a beta feature on all wikis on 10 March. You will be able to get notifications when something happens on another Wikimedia wiki. [80]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 March. It will be on all wikis from 10 March (calendar).
Wikivoyages will get the Kartographer extension. Kartographer will allow <mapframe> and <maplink> tags in an article to insert an interactive map and overlay it with different markers. You can add ideas and suggestions to the Maps talk page. If you find any bugs, you can report them in Phabricator. [81]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 8 March at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The buttons in interfaces will be simplified. Instead of white, red, green and blue buttons, in future there will only be white, red and blue ones. [82]
The Wikimedia technical operations team plans to do some server work on 22 March. This could cause some problems, for example make it possible to read but not edit the Wikimedia wikis for a short period of time. The date for this might change. [83]
Updates to wiki search auto completion are arriving 10 March
Hello!
Please help translate to your language. Thank you!
The completion suggester beta feature will become the default at the first group of wikis on Thursday, 10 March. This initial rollout will start with some of the smaller wikis to ensure the change happens in an organized way. The remaining wikis will receive the update on Wednesday, 16 March. This update brings three major improvements to search. Improved search result ordering, a tolerance for a small number of spelling errors, and suggests fewer typos.
Since December 2015, 19,000 editors have already opted into the completion suggester beta feature. Contributors are encouraged to try out the feature ahead of the release. Please share any comments on the Completion Suggester discussion page in any language.
To learn more about the work of the Discovery department and other improvements to search, please check out the Wikimedia blog. Read about CirrusSearch, the MediaWiki extension that makes wiki search possible.
Machine translation support enabled today for Content Translation
Hello, machine translation support for Content Translation (beta feature) has now been extended and enabled for users of Latin Wikipedia using Yandex. It can be used when translating Wikipedia articles into Latin with Content Translation. To start using this service, please choose ‘’Yandex.Translate’’ from the ‘’Automatic Translation’’ dropdown menu that you see on the sidebar after you start translating an article. Please note, machine translation is available from all the languages that are supported by Yandex.Translate, but Content Translation can still be used in the usual manner for translating from all languages, with or without machine translation support.
Wikimedia Foundation’s Legal team and Yandex had collaborated earlier to work out an agreement that allows the use of Yandex.Translate without compromising Wikipedia’s policy of attribution of rights, privacy of our users and brand representation. Since November 2015, Yandex machine translation has been used for articles translated for Wikipedias in 7 languages. Details about Yandex translation services, including a summary of the contract are available on this page. More information about the machine translation services in Content Translation is available on this page. We request you to kindly take a look at these pages.
We have tested the service for use on the Latin Wikipedia, but there could be unknown problems that we are not aware of yet. Please do let us know on our Project Talk page or phabricator if you face any problems using Content Translation. Our message is written in English only and we will be very grateful if the message could be translated into Latin for other users of this wiki. Thank you. On behalf of WMF Language team: --Runa Bhattacharjee (WMF) (disputatio) 12:17, 11 Martii 2016 (UTC)
Oh dear. "Nuntius noster est scriptum in latine tantum, et nos valde gratum, si nuntius posset transtulit in latinum pro aliis users in hoc habuit." IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:54, 11 Martii 2016 (UTC)
"Unknown problems that we are not aware of yet" are, I think, "unknown unknowns" in the famously concise formulation of a certain US politician. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:40, 11 Martii 2016 (UTC)
Hello. Well, I assumed that some editors may prefer reading the message in Latin, hence the request. I hope I did not end up making a faux pas there. :) But on a serious note and also to address Andrew Dalby's comment, we would really like to hear if there is any feedback about content quality, ease of use, technical complications or any other matter so that we can keep track of it in our development planning and schedules. As of now, we don't see many articles that have been created in the past week and we will keep monitoring the statistics page to check. But please feel free to let us know your feedback at any time. Thank you.--Runa Bhattacharjee (WMF) (disputatio) 07:22, 17 Martii 2016 (UTC)
No problem: some of us here do not speak English, and the only reason no one translated, I guess, is that writing encyclopedia pages is an even more urgent task!
So, thanks for your message. I have noted some content translations here. The quality is as yet poor, one unnecessary problem being that the machine thinks we use Roman numerals. But I'm sure its intelligence will improve rapidly. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:48, 17 Martii 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing it out. That is indeed a good point to note. I will take it back to team and also we will let the machine translation system developers know about this, in case they can train their system to better handle the numerals. Thank you.--Runa Bhattacharjee (WMF) (disputatio) 10:55, 17 Martii 2016 (UTC)
Ancient Greek incubator project / Ἡ Βικιπαιδεία ἑλληνιστί
Dear Vicipaedia members, there is currently an ongoing proposal to have an ancient greek wikipedia created, so if interested you are welcomed to participate and share your thoughts, as well as participate in the actual incubator wiki. Best regards. Gts-tg (talk) 12:46, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
The current (third) name was finally agreed on in 2009: here's the discussion. From this discussion it seems the first name was the one you suggest, Οὐκιπαιδεία :)
I followed the link and added my support for the proposal. For about ten years now the language committee has been very sticky (not to say stuck) against languages that are neither native nor artificial. So they may be difficult to persuade, but I wish the Ancient Greek Wikipedians the best of luck. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:33, 14 Martii 2016 (UTC)
Well, BIKIΠAIΔEIA is going to confuse Cicero redivivus. Hawaiian wiki = English [wiki] = Classical Latin [wiki] = Ancient Greek [wiki], and the way Cicero's dear friend Atticus is going to write that is as OUIKI. An Attic word written BIKI is going seem to Cicero like [biki], or, if he dresses up in a modern toga, [viki] (if he can manage to enunciate that at all). To further confuse the matter: precontact Hawaiian /w/ did approach a bilabial /v/ = [β]; however, the wiki in Wikipedia is mediated through the English pronunciation, where /w/ = [w]. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 15:01, 14 Martii 2016 (UTC)
There were several discussions with candidates being Οὑικι-, Fικι-, Βικι- or Ἰκι. However given that el.wikisource.org which holds a lot of ancient greek texts is Βικι, the Βικι version is followed. The incubator project does offer a variety to choose from in it's landing page however. Gts-tg (disputatio) 15:17, 14 Martii 2016 (UTC)
Yes, that's it. The name was fixed years ago, so that issue is probably academic! As I said above, I think they'll have difficulty, but do follow the link and support them if you want to. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:38, 17 Martii 2016 (UTC)
Ne obliviscamur: Sunt, qui linguam Graecam anticam modo Graeci moderni pronuntient: Ioannes Reuchlin, christifideles orthodoxi, egometipse et multi alii. Illis omnibus scribendi modus ΒΙΚΙΠΑΙΔΕΙΑ valde placet. Giorno2
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 mobile web interface no longer suggests HiDPI thumbnails. This is to take up less bandwidth on slow or expensive connections. [84]
Wikimedia has a new backup data center in Dallas. Because of planned work on this, you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for a short period of time on both 22 March and 24 March. This could be postponed to April 18. You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. Because of a test, there will also be a couple of minutes where you can't edit the wikis on 15 March starting 07:00 UTC. You can read more about the server work. There will be more notifications and updates about this.
Administrators and other users with advanced permissions will need to have an 8-byte long passwords. This change takes place on 15 March. Users with too short passwords will be asked to change password the next time they log in. This was decided in a discussion on Meta and is because they can use tools that can hurt the wikis. [86]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 March. It will be on all wikis from 17 March (calendar).
The buttons in interfaces will be simplified. Instead of white, red, green and blue buttons, in future there will only be white, red and blue ones. [87]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 15 March at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (March 2016)
Apologies for writing in English. Please help translate to your language
Hello Wikimedians!
The TWL OWL says sign up today!
The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for access to research materials from:
Cambridge University Press - a major publisher of academic journals and e-books in a variety of subject areas. Access includes both Cambridge Journals Online and Cambridge Books. 25 accounts.
Alexander Street Academic Video Online - a large academic video collection good for a wide range of subjects, including news programs (such as PBS and BBC), music and theatre, lectures and demonstrations, and documentaries. 25 accounts.
Baylor University Press - a publisher of academic e-books primarily in religious studies and the humanities. 50 accounts.
Future Science Group - a publisher of medical, biotechnological and scientific research. 30 accounts.
Annual Reviews - a publisher of review articles in the biomedical sciences. 100 accounts.
Miramar Ship Index - an index to ships and their histories since the early 19th century. 30 accounts.
Non-English
Noormags - Farsi-language aggregator of academic and professional journals and magazines. 30 accounts.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
Wikimedia has a new backup data center in Dallas. The Wikimedia Technology department planned to test it this week. This will take place the week of April 18 instead. You can read more about the server work. There will be more notifications and updates about this.
In Firefox, the visual editor would sometimes just jump down to the bottom of the page when you double-clicked on a table cell. This has now been fixed. [88]
Changes this week
It will now be easier to list IP addresses that don't have to solve CAPTCHAs. [89]
You will now be able to mark Echo notifications as unread. [90]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 March. It will be on all wikis from 23 March (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 22 March at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
URLs in the recent changes IRC feed will no longer be rewritten to unencrypted HTTP. This could be a breaking change for bots dependent on the IRC feed. This will happen on May 2. [91]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Adding references with Citoid was broken for approximately 6 hours on 24 March. This was fixed. [94]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 March. It will be on all wikis from 31 March (calendar).
You will be able to remove the header and footer style from User language (babel) boxes. This will make it easier to use them with other userboxes. [95]
Commons will soon have improved access to Wikidata's data. It will then be possible to access data about any concept on any page on Commons. Assistance with testing this on the beta cluster is appreciated. [96]
Wikibits.js will not be loaded by default anymore starting April 2016. Gadget and script authors should have already updated their code since the previous announcements, but there is another migration path available if needed. See wikitech-l for details.
Corrections
Last week Tech News said the new MediaWiki version would come to wikis from 21 March to 23 March. The right dates were 22 March to 24 March.
Greetings! The Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) program is accepting proposals until April 12th to fund new tools, research, outreach efforts, and other experiments that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers.
Whether you need a small or large amount of funds (up to $30,000 USD), IEGs can support you and your team’s project development time in addition to project expenses such as materials, travel, and rental space.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Wikimedia wikis have a new way of counting visitors. [98]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from April 5. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from April 6. It will be on all wikis from April 7 (calendar).
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 visual editor can generate wikicode with image options in your language. Examples of image options are "thumb" or "left". You can ask to change to options in your language in Phabricator. [99][100]
Wiktionaries and Wikisources can now use the visual editor. It is an opt-in beta feature. It still needs development to work better with these projects. [101][102]
ORES is using new models. Tools that use ORES' predictions can behave strangely. ORES also has a new API. [103]
The visual editor now supports classical Greek characters. [104]
Problems
There was a bug when you used keyboard arrows in templates in the visual editor. This has now been fixed. [105]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 April. It will be on all wikis from 14 April (calendar).
The wikipedia.org portal will get many small bug fixes and improvements. Most will be for the search box and suggested results that were added in March. [106]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 12 April at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Wikimedia has a new backup data center in Dallas. Because of planned work on this, you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for a short period of time on both 19 April and 21 April. This will start at 14:00 UTC and last for 15 to 30 minutes. [107]
Nomina cum et sine medicamento haud multum differunt: medicamentum antipsychoticum est forma plena, antipsychoticum forma brevis. De vocabulo antidepressant/antidépresseur/Antidepressivum, fontem nondum habemus. Equidem vocabulo quod est (medicamentum) antidepressivum faveo, quia hoc iam in forma (pseudo-)Latina in sermone Theodisco reperitur. Sed fortasse aliquis fontem externum invenire potest. Lesgles (disputatio) 18:46, 13 Aprilis 2016 (UTC)
But the first spelling is apparently to be avoided, in preference to the second, which will serve for all senses: the triumph of lumping over splitting? Hooray for polysemy, ambiguity, and confusion? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 19:32, 16 Aprilis 2016 (UTC)
I see your point. In print, I'm a stickler for exactly this kind of detail. This environment is different, I think. On the one hand, we have contributors who have written with many different styles, and we are using a language that has been printed in many different styles. To include all of us we have to accept some variation of style. On the other hand we have what isn't available in print: the possibility to eliminate such ambiguity by judicious linking.
we should admit, too, that the classic form of our language was written without capitalization and practically without punctuation. Good Latin somehow made itself clear without any of that .... And without the hotlinks too, I don't see any hotlinks on Pompeiian graffiti ... Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 08:28, 19 Aprilis 2016 (UTC)
Server switch 2016
The Wikimedia Foundation will be testing its newest data center in Dallas.
This will make sure Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster.
To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to conduct a planned test. This test will show whether they can reliably switch from one data center to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.
They will switch all traffic to the new data center on Tuesday, 19 April.
On Thursday, 21 April, they will switch back to the primary data center.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop during those two switches.
We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.
You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.
You will not be able to edit for approximately 15 to 30 minutes on Tuesday, 19 April and Thursday, 21 April, starting at 14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 07:00 PDT).
If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message.
We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it.
If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal.
Then you should be able to save your edit.
But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.
Other effects:
Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped.
Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal.
If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual.
Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
There will be a code freeze for the week of 18 April.
No non-essential code deployments will take place.
Novus sum in Vicipaedia. Volebam incipere a pagina oppidi ubi nunc habito, sed ante rogare volo quam aliquid mutem.
Primum: Nomen Romanum Terrrassae Egara est, nonne melius esset nomen paginae mutare?
Alterum: Ego dixerim municipium pro communi.--Usor:Xaverius Germanicus
Salve Xavierio, grati te accipimus hic. Melius ponas formulam {{Movenda|novam lemma tuam}}. Verificanda est nempe ex fontibus. Etiam pone si tibi placeat haec signa---~~~~ vel quaternam bullam/botonem preme supra quadrum ex medio post nuntium tuum. ---Jondel (disputatio) 18:40, 18 Aprilis 2016 (UTC)
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
You can filter Special:Log in more detail. You can filter different imports and new users. [108][109]
MediaWiki wikis can handle bigger file uploads. The new limit is 4 GB. [111]
Changes this week
Wikimedia has a new backup data center in Dallas. Because of planned work on this, you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for a short period of time on both 19 April and 21 April. This will start at 14:00 UTC and last for 15 to 30 minutes. [112]
There is no new Mediawiki version this week. This is because of the data center test.
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on April 19 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Hello! Sorry that this is in English only, but we are using village pump messaging in order to reach as many language communities as possible. Wrong page? Please fix it here.
This is an invitation to all Wikipedians: Wikimedia Deutschland has been given data space to include Wikipedia content in an upcoming mission to the Moon. (No joke!) We have launched a community discussion about how to do that, because we feel that this is for the global community of editors. Please, join the discussion on Meta-Wiki (and translate this invitation to your language community)! Best, Moon team at Wikimedia Deutschland 15:35, 21 Aprilis 2016 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
Wikimedia tested a new data center last week. This meant that the wikis could be read but not edited for 45 minutes on April 19 and for 20 minutes on April 21. [113]
When the data center was tested, new edits were not shown in the recent changes log for 20 minutes. They are in the logs now. You can read more about how to find the edits.
Unread notifications were sometimes counted incorrectly. This has now been fixed. [114]
Changes this week
Wikimedia Commons will have better access to Wikidata. They can use data from any page on Wikidata on any page on Commons. This will happen on April 26. [115]
It will be easier to choose if you want to watch files you have uploaded with the upload wizard. [116]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from April 26. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from April 27. It will be on all wikis from April 28 (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on April 26 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The "Hanc redactionem servare" button when you edit will be called "Publish" instead. This is to help new editors understand what it does. It already works like this on some wikis. [117]
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 visual editor now works when you use Internet Explorer 9. [118]
Problems
There was a security problem with the MobileFrontend extension. It showed information that had been oversighted. This has now been fixed. [119]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from May 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from May 4. It will be on all wikis from May 5 (calendar).
Pages could be added to new users' watchlists by default when they edit them. New users could also by default get email notifications when pages they watch are edited. This is discussed on Meta. [121]
Salve: I spent some time this morning updating Vicipaedia:Linguis aliis. Updating the categories (and moving wikis between categories) wasn't all that difficult. But I also spent some time adding Latin names, and adding links to articles on lawiki where appropriate. Since my Latin skills are not really so good, I'm presenting the diff here so that people who are better at this than I am can make sure it got done correctly. Just a couple of notes on this:
The order in the first two sections is by decreasing number of pages.
The order in the remaining sections is alphabetically ascending by language code.
I sometimes added a Latin name without a link if that seemed most appropriate
Filling these things in by educated guesswork got a lot harder as I got deeper into the list.
Please excuse the English; I speak not Latin.
Why are Latin ligatures (æ/œ) not used in this Wikipedia? Surely contributors care to essay linguistic fidelity, and the main page's initial incarnation them featured.
I am but curious; I criticise not.
Thank you. 164.68.24.10802:05, 8 Maii 2016 (UTC)
If you wish to see ligatures, go to your homepage in Vicipaedia, click "Modi," click "Gadgets," check "Ligaturas monstrare (æ, œ)," and save this change. On your screen, all combinations of a + e and o + e will then become ligatures. ¶ Ligatures are a kind of typographical decoration and have nothing to do with "linguistic fidelity," whatever that might be. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 03:13, 8 Maii 2016 (UTC)
Other reasons apart, it is easier for contributors to contribute using the basic standard of 26 letters of the alphabet. If we all do this, then fortunately, as Iacobus explains, those who wish to see ligatures can choose to see them. Everyone can be happy!
Just in case contributing to Vicipaedia would make you happy, there are many things a contributor who does not speak Latin can do: adding useful references and external links, making necessary internal links, finding better images, verifying facts, making useful templates ... Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 08:37, 8 Maii 2016 (UTC)
Here's a question, though: is there a way (template?) for someone generally wanting to see them (as I do) to inhibit them in particular spots where there is a true hiatus? For example, I've generally written "Israel" here with a diaeresis (as "Israël"), but that's really more of a modern approach than a classic approach, I think. I don't mind using the diacritic, but I'm wondering if someone may have created a template along these lines. StevenJ81 (disputatio) 21:02, 9 Maii 2016 (UTC)
It's a good question. Personally I prefer the fewest possible templates-for-formatting in text, for exactly the same reason I just gave -- it is easier for people to edit (and also to read the edit screen) without them. The French wiki has a lot of templates-for-formatting, making it, in my experience, more difficult to edit. But others may not see this as a problem.
No one now writes Latin the way the Romans did [in terms of font, case, punctuation, etc]. Casual questioners don't always realise this, but all orthographic options that anyone now chooses are chosen from among the styles that have been in fashion recently, I mean, in the last 500 years :-). Fortunately, Latin has seen rather little change in printed style (compared with most other languages) since about 1500. But it's true that the relatively frequent or infrequent use of diaereses and accents has varied over that time. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:00, 10 Maii 2016 (UTC)
The ligature gadget doesn't affect words that have diaereses; I imagine it would be possible to change it to remove the diaereses entirely, since with ligatures they are no longer necessary (but this might also create false positives with German umlauts, etc.). Or maybe it could draw on a list of the most common words with hiatus, since there aren't too many. Of course I don't know how to do this technically. Lesgles (disputatio) 19:30, 10 Maii 2016 (UTC)
OK, you can design a way round that. You can mark up all foreign text with a template defining its language. Some wikis attempt to do that. But we quote far more foreign words and book titles than most other wikis -- we rather assume that Latinists are multilingual -- so we'd need an awful lot of those templates. I still say formatting templates are a nuisance for ordinary editors, and the fact that we can do a thing doesn't mean we should. When people read a Latin text in some other medium (e.g. print, or another Latin website) they get used to varying orthographical styles within seconds -- the variation is really very slight. It makes more sense to be happy that there is a rapidly improving Latin encyclopaedia than to insist its editors spend their time on formatting tricks. That's what I think :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 08:57, 11 Maii 2016 (UTC)
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
Wikiversities now have better access to Wikidata. They can use data from any page on Wikidata on any page on Wikiversity. This happened on May 3. [122]
Users are invited to try Cross-wiki Notifications on all wikis. This is the last test session before the release by default, scheduled for May 12th at 23:00 UTC. [124][125]
You can use keyboard shortcuts to open the visual editor (meta+V) or the wikitext editor (meta+E) (on certain wikis, even if you have chosen a favorite editor). [126]
Uploading files bigger than 100 megabytes on Wikimedia Commons required to opt-in in your preferences. This is not necessary anymore. [127]
The UploadsLink extension is now available on Wikimedia Commons. [128]
Deleting a translation unit page didn't remove the corresponding content from the translation page. This is now solved. [129]
Translation suggestions based on Apertium are now available on Mediawiki.org. [130]
Problems
MediaWiki 1.27.0-wmf.23 has been rolled back from Wikimedia wikis, due to a performance issue. [131]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from May 10. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from May 11. It will be on all wikis from May 12 (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on May 10 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Today, in categories, a page titled "11" comes before "2". We plan to reorder that: "2" will come before "11". Please tell the developers if the change will cause problems. [132]
E.g. Stadium Nationale Pecinense. We have articles on almost all of them, linked by a navbox, but almost all are short, uninformative, lacking a source. It appears an external source could easily be added (e.g. this) but no one has yet shown enthusiasm for expanding the articles. So, should we
delete all those that are non stipulae
convert them into a list
accept them as a defined series of short articles (adding to each, at least, an external source, the one I suggest or a better one)
I think the argument for choosing (3) is that they are likely to go on being linked to, as the places where athletes broke records, were disqualified, etc. What do others think? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 08:13, 13 Maii 2016 (UTC)
I'd vote for (2), redirecting them all to one list (at least the ones that are still non stipulae). Then if any stadiam enthusiasts come along in the future, they could expand on whatever they're interested in. Lesgles (disputatio) 23:39, 13 Maii 2016 (UTC)
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
Some image thumbnails now load faster on mobile. They also take up less bandwidth. [133]
Problems
Last week's MediaWiki version was late on some wikis. [134]
Changes this week
Special:Notifications will have "mark as read" buttons for each day. The non-JavaScript version will get it this week. A JavaScript version will come later. [135]
Wikis can now locally decide what wikitext they want the signature button to produce. [136]
A one-time welcome message for users will now be shown in the wikitext editor. This will include existing users. [137]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from May 17. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from May 18. It will be on all wikis from May 19 (calendar).
Using self-closing tags like <div/> and <span/> to mean <div></div> and <span></span> will not work in the future. Templates and pages that use these tags should be fixed. When Phabricator ticket T134423 is fixed these tags will parse as <div> and <span> instead. This is normal in HTML5. [138]
Sub imaginibus et urbium et regionum saepius legitur despectus in urbe ect. Quod emendandum puto esse, sed non emendo. Fortasse enim alicui vestrum testimonia huius usus casus ablativi nota sunt. Ego quidem solum despectus in aliquid (e.g. apud Caesarem et Lucretium) novi. Quid vos censetis? --Bavarese (disputatio) 12:16, 18 Maii 2016 (UTC)
Recte dicis, Bavarese! Despectus in accusativo construitur, et quidem poscit, ut locus in imagine monstratus videnti paululum inferior appareat. Ipse raptim sciscitatus tria documenta constructionis "despectus in ruri" repperi, ac tria "despectus in rure", quae omnia corrigenda sunt. Neander (disputatio) 19:47, 18 Maii 2016 (UTC)
Ita, Lewis et Short dicunt sub "despectu": "a view or prospect from an elevated place"; hic saepe vidi photographemata "despectuum" qui non a loco elevato capta videntur. Praeterea, ut Iacobus alibi dixit, saepe possumus descriptionem subtiliorem invenire et, exempli gratia, mutare "despectus in urbem" ad "Ecclesiae Sanctae Mariae," "Platea Rerum Novarum," etc. Lesgles (disputatio) 20:23, 18 Maii 2016 (UTC)
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
You now see a warning message on pages that try to use {{DISPLAYTITLE}} but it doesn't work because it doesn't match the page's actual title. [139]
Problems
Commons had problems with server lag. This meant that it took longer time for files to turn up in categories. [140]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 May. It will be on all wikis from 26 May (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on May 24 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
All HTTP access to Wikimedia sites and APIs will stop working. Some bots still use HTTP. They will need to use HTTPS instead. This will happen on June 12. [141]
Num oportet omnes subscriptiones puncto concludere?
In finibus subscriptionum imaginum saepentissime punctum invenio, etiamsi sententiae non sunt. Ego illuc punctum solum pono, si subscriptio sententia est, nec alias. Nonnumquam autem subscriptiones meae puncto carentes ab aliis Vicipaedianis puncto suppletae sunt. Qualis est regula valida? Bis-Taurinus (disputatio) 23:23, 25 Maii 2016 (UTC)
Regulae, quas sequor ego, eaedem sunt, quas tu! Ergo puncta sententiis verbo indicativo munitis addo, non aliis. Iacobus solus (nisi fallor) puncta aliis locis addit. Quas regulas sequitur? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 19:35, 26 Maii 2016 (UTC)
Hello everyone, I want to make the point that this two administrators, BiT and Mycēs, are no longer active on the la Wiktionary. So therefore I want to recive administrator rights to keep this project alive. I currently contribute for the Dutch and German wiktionary's, but I want to learn the latin and don't see a better place then the dictionary it's self. -- DenisWasRight (disputatio) 14:41, 30 Maii 2016 (UTC)
That is an interesting point. We are friendly with Wiktionary but the projects are independent. However, the user named Usor:Alex1011 is active on both projects, I think. Have you discussed the administrator question with him? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:52, 30 Maii 2016 (UTC)
Ow, is he also an administrator? Cause he is not on the list. Btw he is inactive since 9 sept. 2011. I and Usoris:YaganZ are for now the only users there and want to keep this project alive. I don't know if both of us can be given the rights. -- DenisWasRight (disputatio) 15:24, 30 Maii 2016 (UTC)
We're discussing some topics on Victionarium:Taberna, but for some of them we shall need MediaWiki:Common.css and .js just like the other dictionaries. Those pages are protected. As of today we are working on a nice and clean project. But that means a lot needs to change. Do we have to make those requests? -- DenisWasRight (disputatio) 18:24, 30 Maii 2016 (UTC)
Andrew, neither you nor I have made a large number of contributions to Victionarium, so I don't know how the stewards will react to our votes. And Dennis, in particular, hasn't been around Victionarium very long. What I suggested there in both cases was a 3–6 month trial to see how things were working out, with further status to follow. That's almost certainly what the stewards would do anyway. Denis and Yagan, don't take that as a lack of confidence in you at all, only as the ordinary precaution that we usually take around here in cases like this. If your temporary term works out, you're likely to get a one-year temporary term after that, and if you're still active either ongoing one-year terms or permanent status, depending on how active you can make the community. StevenJ81 (disputatio) 20:21, 31 Maii 2016 (UTC)
Steven, I know nothing of such elections except right here on Vicipaedia (where they are quite informal) and I don't really want to :) My observation, though, is that Victionarium needs willing hands and hasn't got any. So far as I know, the last attempted human communication with Myces/Muke on Victionarium was my message to him, about some vandalism that needed stopping, in 2011. There was no reply, and no one else to contact. I see no other way to improve the situation than this. Let the stewards react as they will! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:34, 31 Maii 2016 (UTC)
Oh, I absolutely agree. I just note what the likely outcomes from the stewards will be. I'm sure, on the other hand, that they will hear any pleas we make as the most active Latin project. (Though, at that, maybe we should go over to Vicifons and encourage their support, too?) StevenJ81 (disputatio) 11:30, 1 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
I went today to buy an Latin-Dutch dictionary but couldn't find anything useful. I guess I need to by it from the net. Once I learn the language I can contribute also here. But for now I'm working only for the dictionary. -- DenisWasRight (disputatio) 12:35, 1 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
I agree. I think it's not desirable that basic templates, which are included in hundreds of pages, be changed without consensus and without taking into consideration the side-effects of such a modification. I asked DenisWasRight to stop this activities before a severe damage would occur. --YaganZ (disputatio) 18:54, 4 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
Lol, I was testing things to see how things will look after we write an Bot to change the old model. Haven't I discussed even the small detail with you on the Taberna? You didn't even wait to finish the test and disrespected me while I was the one who offerd you my help, cause I saw you creating useless things (mostly templates etc.). You may carry on with adding empty templates in hunderd of pages or sections that wouldn't make any sens. -- DenisWasRight (disputatio) 19:12, 4 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
I refuse further discussions on that level. Victionarium is a community driven project, where no contributor would waist his or her time making useless edits. If you don't understand what's going on, please educate yourself — punctum. --YaganZ (disputatio) 10:56, 6 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
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
There is now a standard way to get the target of a redirect page from a Lua module. [142]
Problems
A new way to handle rollback was introduced. It broke some tools and scripts and was reverted. This will be re-planned after review. [143][144]
CentralNotice didn't work in some older browsers. This has now been fixed. [145]
Changes this week
When you edit a file or category page with the visual editor the rest of the page will be shown in its normal place. [146]
A change to the <charinsert> feature could break some user scripts. Contact Bawolff if the "click to insert special characters" links in the edit window break on your wiki. [148][149]
Elasticsearch will be upgraded on Wikimedia wikis this week. This should not affect you, but if you have problems with the search function this is probably the reason. [150]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 June. It will be on all wikis from 2 June (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 31 May at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
I plan to add a Latin translation to the Meta userpage template. I am planning to base that on the userpage template we have here, so I just need some help making sure the two phrases I need to change are translated correctly. So:
Haec est pagina usoris Vicipaediae Latinae[a Wikimedia global user page].
Si extra Vicipaediam [a Wikimedia project] repperisti, situm reflectivum paginamque exanimatam vides cuius auctor nihil cum situ isto habeat. Paginam veram recentissimamque hic perlegere potes: [link to an address on meta, rather than lawiki].
That should be "pagina usoris globalis Vicimediorum" (genitive plural of medium) and "extra inceptum Vicimediorum" (extra takes the accusative). Lesgles (disputatio) 19:18, 5 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
Curiously, that exact change can be seen in certain Latin words in later Romance languages: speakers reinterpreted a final -a, neuter plural, as feminine singular. But, like most other recent Latinists, we're aiming to write a normalizing Latin that looks back to the classical standard, so let's not go that way :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:17, 6 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
Mons Sancti Gothardi Cuniculus basalis (.. non aptus, opinor)
Mons Sancti Gothardi Cuniculus Secundus ? (quia vetus cuniculus habet)
M.S.G. inframontanus ?
...?
Valde gratias ago
The whole phrase in English has a recent feel, so not enough time may have elapsed for a reliable Latin rendering of it to have developed. Note that this tunnel is an example of a base tunnel, so you need to translate that phrase first, and then you can add at the end something for Gotthard to round it out. If base is referring to the foot of the mountain, then that's the mountain's radix, and cuniculus radicalis is conceivable (though radicalis is postclassical). Classical Latin basis designated the groundwork of a column and had tropes relating to foundation-wall of a villa, the base of a triangle, the chord of an arc, the track of cattle, and apparently nothing else (see L&S), and basalis & basicus are apparently nonclassical too. From fundamentum, an adjective fundamentalis no doubt eventually came into being, though (apud L&S) it's nonclassical. Altogether, maybe the syntax of Cuniculus radicalis Gothardianus and Cuniculus fundamentalis Gothardianus will give you ideas. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:41, 5 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
I've done some travelling in this region but I've never heard of a "base tunnel". But clearly you have it right, Iacobe, and I agree that "radix" is the word that comes to mind, already used by Cato "sub radice montis", Caesar and Cicero for the foot or base of a mountain. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:52, 5 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
Someone you know crossed the Gotthard Pass in 1967 but also never heard of a "base tunnel"—in part, presumably, because none had been built there yet; but still. . . . As indicated, the term "has a recent feel." IacobusAmor (disputatio) 10:14, 6 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
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
MathML/SVG is now the default <math> rendering mode on Wikimedia projects. [151][152]
Changes this week
The history page can tell you if a page on your watchlist was updated since you last visited it. This now works the same way in Vector as in other skins. The change broke local designs on some wikis. This will be fixed this week. [153]
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).
Bonjour,
J'ai cherché un Bistro des non-latinophones et, ne l'ayant pas trouvé, je m'excuse d'écrire ici ma remarque en français (je ne suis pas capable d'écrire en latin ; ceci dit je suis étonné de constater que la plupart des discussions paraissent ne pas être menées en latin... :-( Les discussions sur la Wikipédia en latin devraient être menées en latin, non ?).
Il me semble que des morceaux de l'interface n'ont pas encore été traduits en latin : je viens d'être accueilli par un : Welcome to Vicipaedia Anyone can edit, and every improvement helps. Thank you for helping the world discover more!, et en bas de cette page : https://la.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Specialis:Nuper_mutata&from=20160607002059&days=30&limit=500 on trouve un : No changes during the given period matching these criteria.
Je vous signale donc ces oublis afin que vous les corrigiez si vous le souhaitez 78.250.230.6300:37, 7 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
Bonjour, anonyme, et soyez le bienvenu. Nous disputons entre nous en plusieures langues, non seulement le Latin. Quant aux traductions, merci de nous les signaler. On corrige au TranslateWiki, et quelqu'un le fera éventuellement. A. Mahoney (disputatio) 07:40, 7 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
Salve Anonymo, quamquam hic scribam, non confido scribere in disputatione. Etiam, forte, ille qui latinam studeat, alias linguas amet. (id est, hic multas linguas videre potes tu)Te exhortor in studendo latinam. --Jondel (disputatio) 13:51, 12 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia to the Moon: voting has begun
Hello, after six weeks of community discussion about Wikipedia to the Moon, there are now 10 different proposals for content for the mission. Starting today, you can vote for them on Meta-Wiki, and decide what we will work on: a Wikipedia canon, different lists, the Moon in 300 languages, an astronomy editathon, featured articles, articles about technology, endangered things, or DNA-related topics. You can even vote against community involvement. Voting is open until 24 June. Sorry that this message is again in English only, but we are using village pumps to reach as many communities as possible, so that everyone knows they can vote. Best, Moon team at Wikimedia Deutschland 15:31, 10 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
Quaestio casus grammatici
Hello, I want to create categories at Victionarium, that list pages with pronunciation examples. I thought of something like
Categoria:Exempla appellationis Latinae (genitivus qualitatis) or
Categoria:Exempla appellatione Latina (ablativus qualitatis).
I'm not sure which case is appropriate, genitive or ablative, or something else? I'm looking forward to some advice from users with better Latin knowledge than me. Gratias ago, --YaganZ (disputatio) 18:38, 11 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
The word that we sometimes use is "pronuntiatus -us" (4th declension masculine), but it's hardly a classical word. I'd go for the genitive, so I tentatively suggest "Exempla pronuntiatus Latini". Wait and see whether someone else has a better idea. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 08:15, 12 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
I'd go for the genitive too, but I don't see why Exempla appellationis Latinae wouldn't do. Even Cicero uses this noun for 'pronunciation'. Am I missing something? Neander (disputatio) 10:24, 12 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
No, it's fine. I felt that because "appellatio" has other meanings too, the reader might not understand that "pronunciation" is intended. But no doubt I needn't have worried. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:35, 12 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for your advice. I'll take the genitive then.
I noticed that Vicipaedia is using "pronuntiatus" (u-declension) preferably. My dictionaries only show "pronuntiatus, -a, -um" as participle perfect passive of "pronuntio", but I found the term "pronuntiatus restitutus" on the Web.
At Victionarium the section that provides pronunciation information is called "Appellatio", so the category should have a similar name. I'm aware that "appellatio" has more than one meaning (but which Latin word does not have). Using the full term "appellatio litterarum" would be clearer, but I want to keep it simple. --YaganZ (disputatio) 11:03, 13 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
Shouldn't pages still being worked on by their original authors (and not yet released for public editing) at least be mostly in Latin? Cases in point: Cultura Romae antiquae and Oeconomia Romae antiquae. The non-Latin text could be temporarily hidden (while the work is going on), or it could be kept in a user's sandbox or other private space, online or off. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 11:27, 13 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
I hadn't looked at these pages. I think the good solution is to make them into user subpages (or to use one's sandbox, as I think Maria Martelli does) until they become acceptable Latin encyclopedia pages. (Hidden text on encyclopedia pages has to be kept to a minimum because it gets in the way of editors who want to improve the page, especially if they don't know the language concerned.) Since these two pages are so large and so English/French, I'll move them into Katxis's workspace now and explain to Katxis. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:45, 13 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
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 wikis now use AuthManager. If you have new problems related to logging in or being logged in, report them. [154]
Visiting Special:Notifications doesn't automatically mark notifications as read anymore. You can go between read, unread or all notifications on Special:Notifications. Notifications on Special:Notifications are grouped by day. You can mark every daily group as read individually. Notifications are displayed by groups of 50 on Special:Notifications and you can find former notifications by using navigation arrows. [155][156][157][158]
Changes this week
You can filter user contributions to hide minor edits. [159]
It will be easier to edit galleries with the visual editor. [160]
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).
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
Notifications were not always marked as read when you followed a link from an email notification. This will now happen. [161]
Changes this week
The list of other languages an article is available in will be shorter on small Wikipedias and non-Wikipedia projects. This is to make it easier to find the most relevant languages for each user. You will still be able to see the other languages. [162][163]
Alerts (the red badge) will not be automatically marked as read when you open the Notifications popup. [164]
When you get several thanks you can see them as one notification. This is instead of one notification for each thanks. [165]
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).
Hello everybody,
How are we supposed to decline the name of astronomical objects (and, at the same time, of the entity from which they are named) when they don't come from Greco-Latin mythology? I am supposing that most of the time there is not much literature in Latin to help us. Should we use "what seems to be logic"? E.g., Quaoar, Quaoaris ? Sedna, ae ? Haumea, ae ? what about Makemake ? etc. At least, each time that one declination is "officially" attested, it should be indicated in the corresponding page. The same should be done concerning the gender, by the way. E.g. we have "Pluto (-onis, m.)", but for example we don't have it for Charon ("Charon (-ontis, m.)") and many others.
Thank you all in advance for your help. SenseiAC (disputatio) 11:48, 22 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
I think this is an important question for us. It can apply to place-names as well as astronomical names. (But, as you know, many astronomical names really are Latin, from "Mare Imbrium" to "Sirius", and we obviously treat them as Latin.)
I'm sure that others will add their views too! Speaking just about my own editing, I make a distinction between the first sentence of an article and the article text.
In the first sentence I think it very important for us to give the exact facts about Latin names, based on Latin sources. If a name is not known to be Latin (like Makemake and Sedna) I would remove any indication of declension and gender. Foreign names can be treated as foreign and indeclinable in Latin -- there's plenty of support for that practice in reliable Latin sources, and it is the most helpful thing for readers.
In the text, if a previous editor has treated a word as Latin (e.g. writing "Sednae" for a genitive) I do not see the need to change it. That's OK in Latin too, and even the inconsistency is OK! But if I am rewriting the whole text anyway, I would not do it that way myself: I would write [e.g.] "planetulae Sedna" for the genitive. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:10, 22 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
Num astrorum nomina barbara declinentur, iam dudum definitum est. Nam maxima pars stellarum nomina ab Arabis accepta ad hunc diem tenet. Quae indeclinabilia habentur, ut patet plurimis ex exemplis, si "per Aldebaran" vel "cum Aldebaran" quaeri iubeas. E.g. vide huc, ubi "Azimech" loco diversorum casuum habes! Laurentianus (disputatio) 08:40, 27 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
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 ORES service has now moved to a new location. This should make it easier to use ORES. The ORES review service is now available as a beta feature on Wikidata and Persian Wikipedia. ORES is an artificial intelligence system for Wikimedia wikis to help editors. [166]
The order of wikis in collapsed cross-wiki notifications was different than when the list was expanded. This is now fixed. [167]
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).
The way to mark notifications as read or unread will be changed to be more clear. [171]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 28 June at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The Collaboration team at the Wikimedia Foundation will look at developing better tools for edit review. This is because research suggests we scare away newcomers who want to help. [172]
An e-mail from the Editing Department explains the technical work that is planned and being researched for the future. Items include better wikitext and visual editing, prompts for edits, language improvements, annotations, and meta-data separation. [173]
The sorting of Notifications into the two fly-out menus is going to change on July 5 to 7. Bundled notifications should be easier to explore and mark as read individually. [174][175][176]
From 29 June git.wikimedia.org (running Gitblit) will redirect all requests to Phabricator. The vast majority of requests should be correctly redirected. [177]
Catalan and Polish Wikipedias will have Wikidata descriptions added to articles in the mobile view by default. This is currently a beta option for the mobile versions. This might come to other wikis later. [178]
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You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 12 January at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
URLs in the recent changes IRC feed will no longer be rewritten to unencrypted HTTP. This could be a breaking change for bots dependent on the IRC feed. [8]
nuntia? 12:34, 13 Februarii 2016 (UTC)
StevenJ81 (disputatio) 20:57, 5 Iunii 2016 (UTC)
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