Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Archive 9

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

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Archive 7

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The RSS version seems to be broken. Please, fix.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 10, 2015; 14:42 (UTC)

@Ezhiki: I sent Yuvipanda a message. ResMar 15:52, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks; appreciated. I wasn't sure if there was anyone who I could bug directly. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 10, 2015; 15:59 (UTC)

Might as well @YuviPanda (WMF) and Yuvipanda: too. ResMar 18:13, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Any news? The link now works, but continues to display an outdated issue.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 21, 2015; 19:22 (UTC)

Single page view link in mailing lists

Hi. In the last couple of issues, in the mailing list version, the link for the "Single page view" has been broken because of a missing underscore: https://i.imgur.com/CyXhLqP.png -- However, I can't figure out how that even got there, given that the automated output (Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Coordination#Mailing list output for this issue) just links to the redirect...?? (fwiw, I do appreciate having the exact-issue link, instead of the redirect, for when I occasionally get backlogged and want to read back-issues.) Hope that helps! Quiddity (talk) 16:57, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

@Quiddity: It's a known issue. Jarry wrote the automated tool back when and hasn't updated it to fix this issue. ResMar 21:16, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Disruption?

Did I spotted a disruption in the signpost at featured content portal? -The Herald ^{the joy of the LORD}_{my strength} 17:14, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Banner has been returned to the page, with noinclude this time to fix the erroneous transclusion. ResMar 17:34, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

And is it still our editor emeritus doing this? Is there, then, something wrong with bot's summary or is it ed himself initiating it? -The Herald ^{the joy of the LORD}_{my strength} 18:57, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

No, Gamaliel published this week. The bot is not maintained so the message has not been updated to reflect that. ResMar 20:21, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Missing issues

As you know, I'm categorizing the Signpost articles and archives and Issue #6 and #7 are missing from this list (Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Archives/2015). Can some intrepid staffer post the contents of those two issues? Thanks! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:30, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Oh, and issue #12 and issue #17 are also missing so I'd appreciate it if they could be added as well. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:53, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I've added all of them. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:12, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Ed! I've now caught up to April 2015. When I get more energy, I'll go back to the beginning or update the links to WikiProjects articles, Category:WikiProjects featured in The Signpost which Ottawahitech used to work on but she is taking a wikibreak right now. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:01, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Single page version is broken

The newly posted single page version is broken. Can someone who knows how to set it up please have a look: I see red links and a template loop error. Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Single is not much better.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 22:48, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

OK, both seem fixed now (though I had to purge Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Single for it to pick up whatever had been changed). Thanks to whoever saw to it.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 23:57, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

We frequently find we have to purge the cache for the same reason. Something to do with the publishing bot, I think. Gamaliel (talk) 23:58, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

@Gamaliel: Purge#Theory is a Wikimedia-wide problem... I don't think we can fairly blame the bot for this. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:12, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I love this thing!

This thing is the best! User page Contributions 14:06 5-13-15 (UTC)

Hi Writer freak. I assume you're talking about the Signpost as the thing you love, and we are so happy to hear that! If you ever want to take a crack at contributing, you can always check out the newsroom to dive in. Thanks! Go Phightins! 03:03, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Tweaked sidebar

I've tweaked your sidebar, creating a proposed change in a sandbox:

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Navigation/sandbox

Any preferences or comments? --Jules (Mrjulesd) 12:44, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't see how this one is any better than the one we have now. It makes a conscious effort to re-expose all of the items in the sidebar, whereas the point of the design is that it hides as much as possible, for compactness and obstructiveness, while still making it available on click-through. ResMar 14:18, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

OK I'll leave it as it is if that is the consensus from you folks. I guess it's a question of compactness versus obviousness, I'm not a great fan of hidden text without obvious "show" or "hide". --Jules (Mrjulesd) 14:42, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Hello

Hello, this is my first time to have been envolved with the Signpost (I've written four in-briefs in the "in the news"-section). I hope I haven't destroyed anything. It was pretty hard to understand ho I could help contribute, I got the the "/Newsroom"-page and was..."where do I click to help out" or something like that...:P But I wanted to say hi, and thank you all for your great work with the 'post! (t) Josve05a (c) 22:58, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

@Josve05a: You should have seen it back in the day! The current look is the result of work on my part to make things more readable for non-regulars. There is so much information to acquisse to that it's difficult to direct people to it neatly. If you want to contribute here is where you should go first. ResMar 19:00, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Linking editors' names

What, pray tell, is this about? Why would Gamaliel remove the link to Hafspajen's user page? I get that this most recent edition was a rush job, but that doesn't excuse removing a link where it already exists, especially when the remover and the removed have had disagreements in the past. Has Signpost really changed so much since I handled FC for a year +? — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:24, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

We're not going to link to a page that hosts attacks against Signpost contributors. Gamaliel (talk) 23:45, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

So you are being vindictive. If anyone actually apologized to the editor (Haf was right about Pilot's copyvios, after all), then I'd expect you'd find those "attacks" removed. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:50, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Vindictive? You obviously have no idea what that word means. Gamaliel (talk) 01:00, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Vindictive: "having or showing a strong or unreasoning desire for revenge." Haf said things you don't like, so you stir the pot and don't link their name, then revert someone who fixes the error. Don't see how that isn't vindictive. Especially when your reason, "We're not going to link to a page that hosts attacks against Signpost contributors.", is laughably false; Hafs user page hasn't even existed on the English Wikipedia since 27 April. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 05:36, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

If you want to you can pretend that a user page and a user talk page are just two random pages that have no relationship to one another, but don't come in here pretending it's the smoking gun Perry Mason just used to disprove the district attorney's case. Not using the Signpost to link to attacks on Signpost contributors, regardless of who those contributors are, is a simple principle, but one that, like the definition of vindictive, some people apparently are having a difficult time comprehending. I don't know what it is about FC that causes all of you to abandon AGF, sling around outrageous and transparently false accusations at the drop of a hat, and lose your collective minds to drama. Gamaliel (talk) 14:20, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

I've reinstated the link. Credit is due where credit is due. The matter of the "attacks" should be dealt with in another venue. (Also I believe the Signpost editors requested specifics on just these issues, so I do not personally regard them as attacks but rather as clarification, but as I say - that does not affect the issue that the Signpost should give credit.) Yngvadottir (talk) 23:58, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

A side note: the linked page (Hafspajen) doesn't even mention the Signpost. It says simply "Je Suis Hafspajen", a sign that the editor feels persecuted, but nothing explicitly linked to this publication or any of its editors. There is discourse on the user's talk page, but we're not linking that, and (as Yngvadottir said) it's mostly clarificatory in nature, though the ill will between both sides is fairly obvious. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:03, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Gamaliel, if you want this to go away, don't do it by blanking. A bit of common sense would work. The particular user/talk page is NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, an attack page. I'm seriously getting a bit tired of this stuff. Drmies (talk) 06:58, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

That's three distinct editors who have stated that they don't consider the comments to be attacks. Perhaps now would be time for an introspective? — Chris Woodrich (talk) 09:01, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Gamaliel appears to have accepted in hindsight that the revert was reasonable. Frankly, we'd all be pleased to move on from the messy series of incidents involving Haf and Pilot. Let's do so. Tony (talk) 16:55, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

That is my intent as well, and before this incident I had assumed that everyone was trying to do so. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 02:05, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Featured content

Could someone please set up the FC page? I don't mind doing the rest of the content, but the setup's beyond me at the moment. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 16:05, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

It looks like Juliancolton has set it up properly today. Gamaliel (talk) 16:07, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Technical notes on importing blog posts / web pages

ResMar asked in the Newsroom:

maybe you can help me. How difficult do you think it'd be to reverse the wikicode-to-html script you've made? Ae. writing something for the opposite process. At the moment it's a mass of doldrums find&replace operations that rather reduce our desire to republish WM Blog content at all.

Off the top of my head I would suggest two options for you to convert these blog posts with reasonable effort:

Copypaste the blog post from your browser into LibreOffice Writer and export it from there as wikitext using the "Wiki Publisher" extension (see here for some more detail, although you likely won't need step 4 and the Python script there). It will still need some manual fixes (e.g. for images), but should save a lot of time by preserving links and most formatting.
Or just try to find the original draft wiki page that the post was generated from, at m:Wikimedia Blog/Drafts#Archived drafts. The problem with that option is that while the blog team tries to do most editing on that kind of public draft page, there may occasionally still be differences to the finalized version published on the blog. You could either ask the blog admin who published that post (currently most likely Andrew) if there were such edits, or simply compare the text side-by-side.

There are various other possibilities; you can find some pointers here and here.

And by the way, in the big picture, this problem (going from wikitext to HTML and back) is exactly what Parsoid has been solving in the last few years, as a prerequisite for VisualEditor (i.e. for editing in HTML instead of wikitext). It's not that difficult in most situations, but there is a long tail of rare tricky special cases - especially for certain templates - and sometimes the roundtrip wikitext -> HTML -> wikitext conversion arrives back at a slightly different version of the original source. These are the "dirty diffs" which have caused some of the editor frustration when VE was first rolled out as beta in 2013. To keep grips on that, the developers are constantly running new versions of the Parsoid code against a huge test database of more than 100,000 articles. Anyway, I digress, but the point is that the cleanest solution for the problem you describe ("reverse the wikicode-to-html script") would likely involve first rewriting the script to use Parsoid HTML output, i.e. the kind of HTML that can be converted back 1:1, and then rely on Parsoid to obtain the wikitext back if someone wants to syndicate a blog post on-wiki. I've actually considered doing the former, and chatted a bit about it with some Parsoid engineers, but it's not quite on top of my list currently, as the current version works well enough for its present purpose.

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 06:00, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Having VisualEditor enabled in Wikipedia namespace might make option two quite a bit easier, but then that will probably open up a whole different set of unrelated issues. Gamaliel (talk) 15:16, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes (I think you mean option 1), VE is a great way to import HTML formatting too, and it's enabled in user space, so you can try importing blog posts right now by copypasting them into your sandbox. But unfortunately it doesn't import HTML links currently, which is why I didn't mention this option above. It might be a good alternative for posts with few or no links, though. Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 16:20, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

I didn't even think about the sandbox, thank you! I'll try that with my next blog import. Gamaliel (talk) 18:57, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Missing issue?

I never recived my issue of the signpost this week. Where did it go? Did my dog eat it while I was outor something? (t) Josve05a (c) 00:39, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

It wasn't delivered to my talk page either and I checked to see if I was on the mailing list and, yep!, I'm there. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 14:32, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

A spot-check on the subscriptions page shows that the bot seems to have only delivered the issue ~50% of the time. I know not why. ResMar 14:50, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Discussion report

Feel free to delete or scrap Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-05-27/Discussion report if it does not live up to standards, or if it just isn't wanted. (t) Josve05a (c) 08:17, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Looks good to me, for what that's worth. Where is the rest of this week's report? No, I don't feel worthy of contributing.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:26, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

And I see it's ready. I'll have time to read Monday.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:36, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Delivery Dilemma

Hello Signpost readers, I just wanted to drop a note to let you all know that we are aware of some inconsistency with the delivery bot, and that some of you have missed talk page delivery for at least one recent issue. We are aware that there is a problem, and are working to rectify it. Thank you for your patience. Go Phightins! 03:47, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

WA programmatic efforts

I'm very supportive of the efforts of Western Australian Wikimedians in designing and conducting a few creative activities. Tony (talk) 09:04, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Featured content

I'm on 'oliday next week- probably won't have internet access. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 14:37, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Do enjoy your 'liday, though. ResMar 15:36, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Help plan a new software feature for easy subscription to newsletters

We are developing a MediaWiki extension that will enable users to subscribe to community newsletters much more easily. We are very excited to hear your feedback on the features we have planned. Feel free to share your thoughts here. - Tinaj1234 (talk) 12:38, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Responded on Phab. ResMar 15:37, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Issue problems

I have noticed that the Signpost often does not come out until Sunday or Monday. Why don't you fix this problem?--Moran25004 (talk) 08:25, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

It's not published until Friday often, unfortunate but not a game breaker. The deliverance issues are not limited to us and have to do with a bug in the software: Special:MassMessage isn't quite working like it ought to. No word yet on a fix. ResMar 13:34, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Is there a Phabricator ticket for that bug? Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I believe so, but am not certain. ResMar 01:53, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Content Translation is now live

It might be worthwhile following up on the op-ed from the previous edition, the Content Translation tool is now indeed live on en.wp. People can access it by going to "beta" and selecting "content translation" - the system is then available as a dropdown in "contributions". You can follow the new articles that are created by filtering Recent Changes for the "Content Translation" tag: https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&tagfilter=contenttranslation

The first mainspace creations for En.wp with the tool were published simultaniously:

Nil volentibus arduum, by User:Omphaloscope, a Dutch intellectual society - translated from French Wikipedia, and
Piazza Santo Stefano, by myself, a public square in Bologna - translated from the Italian Wikipedia.

Machine translation exists for new English articles when the source language is: Catalan, Welsh, Spanish, Basque, Galician, or Serbo-Croatian (sh). New source-language Machine Translation options can potentially be added if people want to help develop the (open source) Apertium system https://www.apertium.org/.

For those interested in the ongoing development of the system, a prototype of now the next version of the CT "dashboard" might look is here - http://pauginer.github.io/prototypes/translation/translation-lists/index.html. Sincerely, Witty lama 12:26, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

This is mentioned in tech report, probably will be in N&N, in brief. ResMar 13:27, 9 July 2015 (UTC)