User talk:Alsee

Growth team updates #1

Welcome to the first newsletter for the new Growth team!  

The Growth Team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects. We will be starting with Wikipedias, but we hope these changes will benefit every community.

8 ideas we consider: tell us what you think about them!

We are considering new features to build, that could retain new editors in mid-size Wikipedias. We will be testing new ideas in Czech and Korean Wikipedias, and then we'll talk to more communities (yours!) about adopting the ideas that work well.

We have posted the 8 ideas we are considering. We would really appreciate your thoughts and the thoughts from your community. Please share the ideas, and tell us what do you and your community think of those ideas before September 9.

Share your experiences with newcomers

We want to hear about what is working and what is not working for new contributors in your wiki. We also want to hear any reactions, questions, or opinions on our work. Please post on the team’s talk page, in any language!

Learn more about us

You can visit our team page to find out why our team was formed and how we are thinking about new editors, and our project page for detailed updates on the first project we'll work on.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

Please comment on Talk:Decline in insect populations

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Decline in insect populations. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Growth team updates #7

Welcome to the seventh newsletter from the Growth team!

The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.

Newcomer homepage release this week

Screenshot of newcomer homepage in Test Wikipedia, in English.

The main feature that the team has been working on over the last month is the newcomer homepage. This feature gives newcomers a place on the wiki to get oriented, learn about editing, and see their impact (see the accompanying screenshot from Test Wikipedia). We intend to release this feature to Czech, Korean, and Vietnamese Wikipedias on May 2nd.

Like the other Growth team features, this will be deployed in a controlled experiment, in which half of newcomers will have access to their homepage and half will not. Users with the feature will be able to access it by clicking their username at the top of their browser, and it will only be available on desktop -- not mobile. Experienced users who want to see their homepage will be able to turn it on in their preferences.

Wikis receiving the newcomer homepage can expect these things:

• Additional questions will come to the help desk from the "help module" on the homepage.
• Mentors who have signed up for the "mentorship module" will start to receive questions on their user talk pages.
• More users may create and edit user pages through the "start module".

Mockups for potential designs of mobile homepage

Recent and future homepage development

The most important piece developed for the homepage over the last month is the "start module", which gives newcomers clear actions to take when they are new: add/confirm their email, go through a tutorial, start their user page. We learned about the need for this module from user tests last month. The next priorities for the newcomer homepage are:

• Mobile design: to work well in mobile browsers, the homepage needs a separate design and engineering. See the accompanying mockups for potential mobile designs.
• Features for discovery: only about 15% - 30% of newcomers will discover their homepage by clicking their username at the top of their browser. We are going to be designing additional ways for newcomers to find out about it.
• Additional modules: the initial version contains some of the simpler modules. Potential upcoming modules include task recommendations and a feed of activity on the wiki.

Other updates

• Help panel leading indicators: our team published data on the help panel's initial performance. The evaluation exposes some areas for improvement, but we think the help panel's behavior so far is healthy and that it is not having a negative impact on the wikis. We will be publishing additional data, making plans, and asking for community thoughts around the future of the help panel over the course of the next two weeks. If you are interested in trying out the help panel on your wiki, please let us know on our team's talk page.
• Long term plans: the team had a week of planning meetings, in which we talked about some longer-term ideas for Growth work. Some of the top ideas are: to extend the newcomer homepage to help user's build their identity through a user profile, and to revisit the "engagement emails" project that the team put on hold. Over the next month, we will be asking for community conversation around how the team can spend our time in the next fiscal year, that starts in July.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:18, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-18

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

Recent changes

• The Wikipedia app for Android now invites users to add Wikidata descriptions to Wikidata objects that have Wikipedia articles but no Wikidata descriptions. It will only invite users who have added a number of Wikidata descriptions in the app without being reverted. This is to avoid spam and bad edits. [1][2]

Problems

• Tech News was late last week because of a MassMessage bug. Other newsletters had the same problem. [3]

Changes later this week

• You will see when you last refreshed the recent changes page. This is so you can see how recent the changes are. [4]
• When you write a comment in Structured Discussions but have not posted it yet your web browser will save it in local storage instead of session storage. This means you do not lose them even if you close your web browser. Structured Discussions used to be called Flow. [5]
• You will be able to turn off milestone notifications. Milestone notifications congratulate you when you have made certain numbers of edits. [6]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 May. It will be on all wikis from 2 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 1 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikidata wb_terms table will be dropped. This will affect some Wikidata tools. They need to be updated. The table has become too big which is causing problems. This will happen on 29 May. You can read more. You can ask for help if you need it.
• Wikimedia wikis will soon use a token when you log out. This changes how the API works. Some tools might need to be updated. [7]

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

22:27, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Cannabidiol

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Cannabidiol. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). Legobot (talk) 04:28, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-19

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

• Special:Watchlist can show the wrong information. It does not always show which edits are read and which are unread. The developers are working on solving the problem. [8]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 May. It will be on all wikis from 9 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 8 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

16:27, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:List of the Mesozoic life of Wyoming

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:List of the Mesozoic life of Wyoming. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-20

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 May. It will be on all wikis from 16 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 15 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

00:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Template messages/User talk namespace

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Template messages/User talk namespace. Legobot (talk) 04:34, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Call for submissions for the Community Growth space at Wikimania 2019

Welcome to a special newsletter from the Growth team! This special newsletter is not about Wikimedia Foundation Growth team projects. Instead, it is a call for submissions for the Community Growth space at Wikimania 2019. We think that many people who receive this newsletter may have something valuable to contribute to this space at Wikimania. We haven't translated the newsletter, because Wikimania's language is English.

Please see below for the message from the organizers of the Community Growth space at Wikimania.

---

Wikimania 2019 is organized into 19 “spaces”, which are all accepting proposals for sessions. This message comes from the team organizing the Community Growth space.

Since you are interested b Growth team projects, and potentially involved in welcoming newcomers initiatives on your wiki, we would like to invite you to submit a proposal to the Community Growth space because of the actions you’ve done around newcomers on wikis. The deadline for submission is June 1. See below for Community Growth submission topics and session formats. Topics and sessions have to be in English.

In the Community Growth space, we will come together for discussions, presentations, and workshops that address these questions:

• What is and is not working around attracting and retaining newcomers?
• How should Wikimedia activities evolve to help communities grow and flourish?
• How should our technology and culture evolve to help new populations to come online, participate and become community members?

Recommended topics: please see this link for the list for the list of recommended topics. If you do not plan to submit a proposal, you can also suggest additional topics here. If your topic does not fit into our space, remember that there are 18 other spaces that could welcome you sharing your knowledge and perspective.

Types of session. We prefer sessions that are participatory, interactive, promote conversations, and give a voice to parts of our movement that are heard less often. Please see this link for the list of recommended session formats.

Poster submissions. Posters are also a good way to introduce a topic, or show some results of an action. Please consider submitting one!

More information about the Community Growth space, topics, and submission formats is available on the proposal page.

Please submit your proposal. The reviews will happen at the beginning of June.

If you have questions about Wikimania in general, please ask them on the Wikimania wiki.

On behalf of the Community Growth leadership team, Trizek (WMF), 11:44, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.18

Hello Alsee,

WMF at work on NPP Improvements

Niharika Kohli, a product manager for the growth team, announced that work is underway in implementing improvements to New Page Patrol as part of the 2019 Community Wishlist and suggests all who are interested watch the project page on meta. Two requested improvements have already been completed. These are:

• Allow filtering by no citations in page curation
• Not having CSD and PRODs automatically marked as reviewed, reflecting current consensus among reviewers and current Twinkle functionality.

Reliable Sources for NPP

Rosguill has been compiling a list of reliable sources across countries and industries that can be used by new page patrollers to help judge whether an article topic is notable or not. At this point further discussion is needed about if and how this list should be used. Please consider joining the discussion about how this potentially valuable resource should be developed and used.

Backlog drive coming soon

Look for information on the an upcoming backlog drive in our next newsletter. If you'd like to help plan this drive, join in the discussion on the New Page Patrol talk page.

News

• Following a request for comment, the subject-specific notability guideline for pornographic actors and models (WP:PORNBIO) was removed; in its place, editors should consult WP:ENT and WP:GNG.

Discussions of interest

• A request for bot approval for a bot to patrol two kinds of redirects
• There has been a lot discussion about Notability of Academics
• What, if anything, would a SNG for Softball look like

Six Month Queue Data: Today – 7242 Low – 2393 High – 7250

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Stay up to date with even more news – subscribe to The Signpost.
Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.
Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk) at 19:17, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Legobot (talk) 04:33, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-21

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 report for phase 1 of the talk pages consultation 2019 has been published. Communities are invited to start phase 2 of the consultation on their wikis.

Problems

• File descriptions for files from Commons were not shown properly on other Wikimedia wikis for a few days. For example the image descriptions and license information were missing. This has now been fixed. [9][10]
• Some diffs show an error message when you try to see them. The developers are working on fixing it. It could be because of some edit comments. [11][12]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 May. It will be on all wikis from 23 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 22 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The content translation tool on Wikipedia can use machine translations. There is a system to stop translations where the editors do not fix machine translation mistakes. This warns or stops them if they seem to just copy what the machine translation gives them. If this system is too strict or not strict enough you can tell the language team. [13]
• The Wikidata wbeditentity API endpoint will remove all aliases if the request includes an empty alias. This is how it supposed to work. It has not been working this way because of a bug. This will start on 12 June. [14]

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

13:03, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). Legobot (talk) 04:29, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-22

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

Changes later this week

• Big changes to the replica database will happen on 3 June. Some tools on Cloud Services will stop working if the maintainers do not update them to use the new schema. This probably affects tools that query for revisions or log entries made by a user. [15][16]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 May. It will be on all wikis from 30 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 29 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

15:33, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons

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Please comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-23

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

Recent changes

• You can now write all special letters in all African Wikipedia languages. This works in the desktop version. [17]
• There is now a field called depicts on Commons. This is a way to show what is in a picture with the help of Wikidata. It is still in development. [18]
• Some tools on Toolforge may break on or after 3 June because of database changes. Maintainers should update their tools to use the new schema. [19][20]

Problems

• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for 30 minutes on 19 June at 05:00 (UTC). This is to fix a hardware problem. [21]

Changes later this week

• Some wikis have one tab for the visual editor and one tab for a wikitext editor. Others wikis just have one tab. If your wiki has two tabs, clicking a link to create a new page has always opened a wikitext editor. It will now open the editor you used the last time you edited. [22]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 May. It will be on all wikis from 6 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 5 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

15:24, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Question

Just cos u're a wikipedia dinosaur: What's the best path to finding out if a user is an admin from the point of encounter- mostly signatures and edit histories? Thanks! Usedtobecool ^TALK 12:35, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Usedtobecool there's a deeply entrenched idea that an admin is "just another editor" when they're not acting in a formal capacity, so I think there's a general aversion to anything that would make admin-status stand out on a passing encounter. When I do want to check, the easiest method I've found is to go to their contribution history, go to the bottom of the page, and click User rights. Note: that link doesn't seem to exist on some of the foreign wikis. A possibly quicker method, which I haven't been using... would be to just try loading the page WP:Requests_for_adminship/USERNAME. I expect that would get an accurate answer in almost all cases. Alsee (talk) 13:36, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

AfD for Coach Meddy

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Coach Meddy is currently a red link at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2019 June 4. Do you plan to create this AfD page, or should I remove the red link from the log? – Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 23:15, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Lord Bolingbroke thanx, but I think I have it all cleaned up now. Twinkle was glitching on me, perhaps because my AFD text was long. Alsee (talk) 23:49, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Weird. If I understand what happened correctly, Twinkle added an AfD tag to the article and added the deletion discussion page (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Coach Meddy) to the log, but didn't actually create the discussion page? Thanks for tidying up at any rate. – Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 00:03, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Lord Bolingbroke correct. Twinkle was spitting out a bunch of error messages about an incorrect token when I tried to save the AFD form. At first I thought it was because I took so long between clicking Twinkle-AFD and eventually saving. (I had to re-write about half of it from scratch, ugh.) But it errored again even when I wrote it in notepad and saved the AFD form with only minor time spent editing. I'm guessing it didn't like the length, or maybe the {{cot}}/{{cob}}? Or maybe just some random internet glitch. Shrug. Alsee (talk) 00:12, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I've never encountered anything like that before. Oh well, sometimes it's good to slow down and do things by hand anyway. – Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 00:30, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Sorry to eavesdrop. Let the devs know, maybe? Usedtobecool ^TALK 07:19, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Greetings Usedtobecool. Coincidentally I have lots of experience engaging the Foundation and stuff like bug reports. If any further problems turn up I'd be happy to take care of this. However at the moment it's a brief glitch, for one person, of unclear nature, and I didn't properly take note of the error messages that popped up. There's a good chance that the issue is isolated to Twinkle - an AFD nomination involves three edits and the first two edits of the process did go through correctly. It's possible Twinkle was unhappy with my abnormally-long AFD nomination or something. Any report I filed right now would be abysmally vague. Alsee (talk) 14:48, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, sure, of course, duh :D Removing from watchlist now; no more barging in lol :) See you around! Usedtobecool ^TALK 16:03, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 6 June 2019 (UTC)