::: Oh! how quickly! thank you very much. [[User:Munifi3nt|Munifi3nt]] ([[User talk:Munifi3nt|talk]]) 19:48, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
::: Oh! how quickly! thank you very much. [[User:Munifi3nt|Munifi3nt]] ([[User talk:Munifi3nt|talk]]) 19:48, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
== Wiktionary hits 4 mill ==
Hi, as a follow-up to Wiktionary's 4 millionth, would it be worth mentioning that the article's creator is apparently a sockpuppet of [[User:Wonderfool]]? --[[User:Type56op9|Type56op9]] ([[User talk:Type56op9|talk]]) 12:17, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
I have a present for you. :) The code {{#invoke:Signpost|tag|contests}} now produces the following:
{{#invoke:Signpost|tag|contests}}
Don't start using that anywhere just yet, as the module is likely to change a lot as I add more features to it. For now, it would be best to make sure that Module:Signpost/index has all the proper tags. I've tried to fill in the tags as best I can automatically, but there are still tags missing, and tags that are erroneous. Probably the best strategy now would be to look through it to see if there are any tags that are obviously missing and that could be filled in by text matching the title fields, and if there any tags that consistently produce false positives. I can then fix them in the Python script that I generated the data from, and fix those as best I can automatically. After that, we can go through and put the finishing touches to the data manually. I've posted the Python dictionary I used to generate the tags at Module:Signpost/index/doc, so you can make fixes to it there if you want. Best — Mr. Stradivarius♪ talk ♪15:34, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, is that...a thing we've done? Haha. So current task: come up with a comprehensive draft of the meta-tags we'll be using? ResMar15:48, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would say seven articles on porn constitutes a "thing", yes. ;) And about the meta-tags, yes, that's right. Tweaking the list of tags at Module:Signpost/index/doc will be a lot easier than tweaking the tags in the index manually, so we should get that right first. — Mr. Stradivarius♪ talk ♪16:23, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr. Stradivarius: It sounds like this may be a process that we should open the floor to the community on, as manually coming up with a good list of all of the important things that have happened in 10 years is borderline impossible. After consultation we can prune the list as needed, remove the inevitable doubled entries, etc. etc.
By the way, am I being too enthusiastic with these ping templates? I can't imagine how I ever kept track of conversations before without them! ResMar16:31, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We could do that, I suppose, but all it really needs is for a few people to look through the list and check that there are no glaring errors or omissions. The omissions should be pretty easy to spot from the article titles - it's just that there's about 4000 of them... The rest of the tags can be added manually later, perhaps using some kind of JavaScript tool that can be activated on article pages. — Mr. Stradivarius♪ talk ♪16:43, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This is with regards to the subheadings; the bolding of the news in brief is more recent implementation and only goes back to around August 2010. Tagging the earlier ones is going to have to be manual. ResMar16:58, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr. Stradivarius: I've begun the process of manually adding tags to the taglist via sweeping the article titles. I've also thought some about how this tagging effort would be implemented. I think one way to do it would be have a bot come in and automatically wrap stories and headers in a {{story}} template of some sort, autofilling script-generated tags and leaving a flag on to indicate that it's only been bot-generated and not manually combed yet. Tags will be added individually: tag1, tag2, and so on. There needs to be some capacity for telling a user that they are adding a tag which does not exist in the taglist if they are doing so, either through the template (via Lua) or elsewhere (via user script); and then some capacity for allowing them to easily add that tag to the list if they chose to do so.
Or maybe we can dodge having to add anything to the old articles at all by editing entry pages instead? What are your thoughts? ResMar06:03, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr. Stradivarius: I've made progress in the manual title-sweep tagging and am more than half-way to 2005. I realized that all this thinking about how the tags will be implemented is too much too soon because we need to figure out how they'll be generated, indexed, and recorded first. I'm a big fan of the way this is done on Stack Exchange: [1]. What do you think? ResMar22:29, 7 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Stack Exchange's way of doing it is pretty nice, yes. However, that would require us to write the code in JavaScript and add it as a default gadget or as a Mediawiki extension, which is a little bit farther than I would be willing to go in my spare time, I think. Part of that is that to do it properly it would need to be implemented as a MediaWiki extension with a database, rather than storing the data in a Lua module, and that would take me quite a bit of time as I don't really have much prior PHP, JS or extension-coding experience. Plus Mediawiki extensions have to be rigorously reviewed before they can be deployed on Wikimedia sites. With Lua it would be easy enough to generate a list of all tags, but it wouldn't be dynamic, as the content has to be fixed at the time the page is rendered. Having said that, making a user script to edit tags directly from article pages probably wouldn't be all that hard. — Mr. Stradivarius♪ talk ♪01:33, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr. Stradivarius: Wouldn't it be possible to store tag information in a Lua documentation file, and then extract that for visualizing information for a tag? For instance:
{
tag = u"CorenSearchBot",
aliases = [u"core search bot]"
searchstring = [u"corensearchbot"],
description = "Coren Search Bot is an automated bot on the English Wikipedia
which runs checks on and flags possible plagiarism."
more = "User:CorenSearchBot"
related tags = {"plagarism", "bots"},
},
@Mr. Stradivarius: I have another Lua request. Can you write a Lua module that, given a timestamp and a page title, returns a revision timestamped to that date? This is re the second part of what I described to you earlier: with a single Find-Replace operation I was able to introduce a nice experimental "Historical view" into an old Signpost article. See here, try clicking on "Historical view". The diff is just a funny diff I saw on the Main Page. ResMar04:20, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, that's not possible to do inside Lua, as Lua doesn't have access to page histories. There is no function available in Scribunto to perform the most important step, finding the revision ID from the page and the timestamp. — Mr. Stradivarius♪ talk ♪04:44, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr. Stradivarius: ---Shoot. But this is something a bot would be able to do, right?
This conversation is getting a little unwieldy, would you like to move it to email? I can link you up to the Signpost's internal mailing list so that Ed and the head editors can also participate in this.
Res, per your suggestion, I moved the MfD/organizational discussion we were having to Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost from the Suggestions page. I've never used the WP IRC channels so I'm unsure about communicating on this platform but you can leave a message for me on my talk page or email me. LizRead!Talk!16:09, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Your account has been granted the template editor user right, allowing you to edit templates and modules that have been protected with template protection. It also allows you to bypass the title blacklist, giving you the ability to create and edit edit notices.
You can use this user right to perform maintenance, answer edit requests, and make any other simple and generally uncontroversial edits to templates, modules, and edit notices. You can also use it to enact more complex or controversial edits, after those edits are first made to a test sandbox, and their technical reliability as well as their consensus among other informed editors has been established.
Before you use this user right, please read Wikipedia:Template editor and make sure you understand its contents. In particular, you should read the section on wise template editing and the criteria for revocation. This user right gives you access to some of Wikipedia's most important templates and modules; it is critical that you edit them wisely and that you only make edits that are backed up by consensus. It is also very important that no one else be allowed to access your account, so you should consider taking a few moments to secure your password.
If you do not want this user right, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time.
Please note, this is currently a trial per Special:Diff/649394446, limited to editnotices related to the Signpost. I'll follow back up with you as things progress, if you want to push for "unrestricted" please ping me first before going to WP:PERM, WP:AN, etc...good luck with improving the project! — xaosfluxTalk16:36, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what will happen with the editnotice proposal I put forth, but I've had you on my "desk" to follow up with. I am removing the "trial" conditions of this group for you (will notate in the rights log); please be sure to edit protected templates with great care and only create article edit notices with consensus; the warnings in the above paragraph apply (and you may never want to edit outside of your original requested scope and that is fine too). This flag may be removed for cause or inactivity in the future. Happy editing, — xaosfluxTalk17:28, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Botswana Wikipedia Project
Hi Resident Mario, I just posted something on the Signpost suggestions page and it has already been taken down, can you explain why? Should my suggestion be in a different format or was it already vetoed as a suggestion? Thanks! Abchave1 (talk) 17:56, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Abchave1: It was "taken down", but in the sense that it was taken downpage—the Suggestions page is ordered chronologically and you (somewhat mysteriously, I must say) posted your request at the top of the page. Indeed, if I had not seen the change in the Signpost IRC stream it's quite likely we would not have noticed the message at all (you've also done that again here).
The actual suggestion still stands. No comment yet on whether or not it will be run, we'll look into it for the next issue—current focus is on getting the issue due end-of-today out the door. Thanks for your suggestion, ResMar18:05, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Resident Mario: Haha thanks for the help. This is my first time really using the talk pages and I didn't really know where to put it or where to find your comments, but now I know. Will look forward to hearing back about the possibility of it being featured! If I don't respond it may be because I am unable to find it since I am still learning this. afton.chavez@gmail.com. Thanks Abchave1 (talk) 19:14, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I was hoping our class breaks align, but...they don't, at all. Mine isn't until end-of-month. In the meantime my volunteer time'll be occupied by the Signpost, it's really not ideal.
@Ceranthor: if we went for Volcano afterwards we could pick up a WP:MILLION. I don't even think it'd be that hard... :) But that's hopeful thinking. First I need to finish Mauna Loa. Top priority! The fun parts, geology and eruptive history, are done; what is left is ecology and tourism, which are a drag to research and write. ResMar05:55, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Have you gathered sources to flesh out those sections? I'm willing to help write those sorts of sections; as a biologist I love ecology (to an extent) and tourism isn't always awful! ceranthor18:12, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I know. I don't know what wrong with it—I spent several hours checking all the usecases last weekend—screw parser functions, man. I've hidden it for now. ResMar02:00, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Casliber: Ok, looks good so far. You need to fill it out more lengthwise though. Some suggestions: what the winning submissions were like in the early iterations, more on what Danny's impetus was for moving the contest theme to featured content the third round (and maybe more on the early rationale if you can find it), what Moreschi's inspiration was, who the winners were, what their submissions were, what Danny had to say about the winners, maybe a little more on the Veropedia project if you think it's appropriate.
With that established I'd really want to see your rationale for reviving the contest: I strongly agree with your statement as to FA esoterica (I wrote an essay in the Signpost with reference to this issue a long time ago). You're one of en-wiki's weightiest content contributors so seeing your opinion on this topic would be very, very interesting to our readers.
From that standpoint you can present why you think that the core contest is a good way of addressing this issue and convince the readers that they, too, should sign up for the effort.
With some editing and some moving around this could be included as a blurb in News and notes, but I think we'd much rather see you expand it somewhat and make a full essay out of it, which would have much more of an impact. However, there is a bit of time sensitivity, as your contest is already underway!
As I've been putting together the tags index for the Signpost articles, of necessity I've been thinking of the different ways that this could be achieved. One of the first things that I thought of was, could we do this with categories? Using categories is the usual way to tag articles on-wiki, of course, but I rejected that idea because we have WP:CFD and category policies that mean we can't just add Signpost articles to things like Category:Finance. But just now it's hit me - and I don't know why I didn't think of it before - how about moving the Signpost to a new wiki? If we do everything on a new wiki we can use HotCat as our tagging userscript and categories as our "tags", all within a very well-tested and well-understood framework. And if we are separate from the English Wikipedia it will be a lot easier to get the WMF to enable extensions that it won't do here because it would cause too high a server load. In particular I'm thinking of DynamicPageList, which can generate arbitrary lists of pages based on things like category membership. That would take care of making the lists of articles that Module:Signpost has been aiming to do, particularly if we can get the version enabled that interfaces with Lua. We could also do other cool stuff, like have a "Newsdesk" namespace, and be able to track changes to all Signpost articles through Special:RecentChanges. And if you think about it, it doesn't really make sense for the Signpost to be on enwiki - it has covered other WMF activity from near its inception, and I suspect it has only remained on enwiki through inertia. What do you think - is this a good idea? — Mr. Stradivarius♪ talk ♪08:08, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
One problem: seeing as you can't yet transclude templates across wikis, you wouldn't be able list Signpost articles directly in an enwiki discussion using a template. You would have to link to a Signpost-wiki page that did that. I hear that cross-wiki transclusion is a planned MediaWiki feature, but no-one seems to be in a hurry to get round to implementing it. (Maybe it's time I learned PHP as well...) — Mr. Stradivarius♪ talk ♪09:21, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr. Stradivarius: This is too much! I don't think there's enough Signpost to the Signpost to justify hosting it on an entire other wiki—it's true that if the project were remade in its current form today we'd host it at Meta, but moving to another wiki is an enormous technical challenge without much to gain from it! Besides, we're part of the en-wiki historical lore at this point. I don't think we need categories at all: isn't it as simple as including <!-- MANUAL TAGS: Incubator, Google --> in the page, then having the scraper dump these into the Lua module periodically? ResMar18:16, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you scroll down this far on my talk page I demand you sign below
I was looking through my talk page archives and saw that this worked well when I last did it in 2011. Come into the light ye visitors! ResMar17:17, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I'll try to spruce it up a little bit later when I have the time, so as to provide links to metadata about who I actually am as an editor. ResMar04:14, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Re: Accessibility concern
Hello, if you add alt text to the historical links such as "(historically relevant story)", then they will be perfectly accessible. Graham8707:08, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Gamaliel: I fixed the draft lacking a footer, this is something I've been meaning to do, we also need to have more than two spaces in the preload template for irregular features. ResMar18:09, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I tried deleting it and starting a new one to test it and the results were not what I expected. Apparently I am cursed when it comes to templates. :( Gamaliel (talk) 18:48, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Gamaliel: Haha Gamaliel I adjusted which newsroom slots are assigned to what section; you can't substitute it directly back in and expect to work! Here is my test. To test it yourself try using the substitution but rolling the date forward 7 days, to next week. ResMar18:55, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I discovered Wikiversity less than 2 years ago accidentally while looking for material to copy and distribute to students in a college level physics course I was teaching. Now I am approaching the point where an acceptable amount of course materials open source and to the point where Wikipedia/Wikiversity does most of the teaching.
The key I believe is testing: You can learn almost anything from the internet already. The trick is to get open source testbanks developed to the point where people can use them to demonstrate proficiency.
At the moment, testbanks are generally kept as secrets-- it is considered unethical for professors to post testbanks that they purchased or obtained because the students purchased a textbook. But if we could make the testbank REALLY BIG, it could be open source and students would learn the material just by studying for the exams. If that sounds like a radical idea, it is how most states in the USA decide whether a person knows the rules of the road well enough to take a driving test.
I haven't counted the questions, but here are some of the testbanks I have assembled so far:
When fully developed, these test banks could offer self learners the opportunity to obtain college credit in some college courses at virtually zero cost to the taxpayer or student.
Please understand that we are not talking about the entire education of a college student. But those introductory "100"" level courses are to a large extent fact-based. Also suitable to this test-bank approach are the non-lab components of first and second year science and math courses. Above that level, the testbank approach would form smaller components of the course. "Automating" the distribution of information and verification of student proficiency frees instructors' time to focus on higher level teaching.
I am new to Skype but someone at work said I can use our campus email system to hook up. I will try tonight, and otherwise will contact you tomorrow (eastern standard US time). I think that means I am UTC-5? --Guy vandegrift (talk) 19:03, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I have been editing Wikipedia for over ten years, and I have been fairly heavily involved in cross-wiki editing for most of that time. I am an administrator at English Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and Wikiquote (and a bureaucrat at Wikiquote), and have a healthy dose of projects at English and French Wikisource. I see all of these projects as feeding into each other. For example, one of the major projects that I have undertaken at Wikiquote is incorporating public-domain books of quotations in Wikiquote page. In so doing, I have come across collections that quote from authors for whom Wikipedia articles are missing or under-served, and have created or expanded the Wikipedia articles in the course of developing the scope of the quote page. Furthermore, in order to feed these efforts, I have imported some substantial public-domain books of quotations into Wikisource. Similarly, I have imported a public-domain edition of Black's Law Dictionary into Wikisource, which also serves as a source of definitions for Wiktionary, and references for Wikipedia articles describing the state of the law at the time that the dictionary was published. The things that I have done and directions that I have gone in Wikipedia are now completely different, and perhaps richer and more fulfilling, than what I would have done had I never become involved in these other projects. bd2412T00:15, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@BD2412: It appears I screwed up the timing a little bit: the event I thought I was going to on Saturday is on Sunday. Huge apologies! Are you ok with moving it to the same or a similar time on Saturday? ResMar20:57, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That, I'm afraid, would interfere with certain spousal birthday plans. How about Friday evening, at 7:00 PM EST? bd2412T21:15, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Alright. What do you need to know? And what needs to be done to make this simple. I could break the FC template into header, FA start, FL start, FP start, FT start, FPO start, footer and so on so the script could grab each and paste in if needed, if that'd be simpler. Adam Cuerden(talk)16:11, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our inaugural evening "WikiWednesday" salon and knowledge-sharing workshop by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.
We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming editathons, and other outreach activities.
After the main meeting, pizza and refreshments and video games in the gallery!
7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles, 137 West 14th Street
Featuring a keynote talk this month on Lady Librarians & Feminist Epistemologies! We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 18:28, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)
Rewrite
Do you feel that a rewrite is needed for the weekly schedule section of newsroom? Though we still follow roughly the same thing, a better presentation will do good..eh? I mean some table or something like that..-The Heraldthe joy of the LORDmy strength16:33, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@The Herald: What's there right now seems fine. There's a lot of thinking that I've had to do in terms of organization—the SP has a lot of cruft. It's still not ideal, but workable. A more visually appealing schedule would bump into the problem of the sidebar being there, and can't be centered; it's also not something I'm too interested in working on at the moment. There may be a metics page later on. ResMar17:37, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
