User talk:Bamyers99

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Tech News: 2024-31

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

Feature news

Editors using the Visual Editor in languages that use non-Latin characters for numbers, such as Hindi, Manipuri and Eastern Arabic, may notice some changes in the formatting of reference numbers. This is a side effect of preparing a new sub-referencing feature, and will also allow fixing some general numbering issues in Visual Editor. If you notice any related problems on your wiki, please share details at the project talkpage.

Bugs status

Some logged-in editors were briefly unable to edit or load pages last week. These errors were mainly due to the addition of new linter rules which led to caching problems. Fixes have been applied and investigations are continuing.
Editors can use the IP Information tool to get information about IP addresses. This tool is available as a Beta Feature in your preferences. The tool was not available for a few days last week, but is now working again. Thank you to Shizhao for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Project updates

There are new features and improvements to Phabricator from the Release Engineering and Collaboration Services teams, and some volunteers, including: the search systems, the new task creation system, the login systems, the translation setup which has resulted in support for more languages (thanks to Pppery), and fixes for many edge-case errors. You can read details about these and other improvements in this summary.
There is an update on the Charts project. The team has decided which visualization library to use, which chart types to start focusing on, and where to store chart definitions.
One new wiki has been created: a Wikivoyage in Czech (voy:cs:) [1]

Learn more

There is a new Wikimedia Foundation data center in São Paulo, Brazil which helps to reduce load times.
There is new user research on problems with the process of uploading images.
Commons Impact Metrics are now available via data dumps and API.
The latest quarterly Technical Community Newsletter is now available.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:08, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

TemplateParametersTool question

I have some (maybe many) questions about this amazing tool of which I only minutes ago became aware. To start, I would love to know how far back the data collection goes and if it's possible to access said data? Relatedly, is it possible to see the total number of articles with template parameters (of any kind) and to track that number over time? I would be happy to email these and other questions if that's preferable. NASAvegas (talk) 23:42, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@NASAvegas: There is no historical data. It does not track total articles with template parameters. It only looks at templates that have Wikipedia:TemplateData defined. --Bamyers99 (talk) 23:58, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Do you know if that general template data is available anywhere? I'm curious if there's been an increase in the number of articles that have been flagged as having content issues. NASAvegas (talk) 16:41, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@NASAvegas: The doc page of a template has the TemplateData embedded in it as a JSON object. Example: Template:Infobox_lighthouse/doc#TemplateData. Given your low number of edits [2], why the sudden interest in these topics? --Bamyers99 (talk) 18:46, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm interested in the data as a potential research topic. (And I'm generally more interested in researching Wikipedia than editing Wikipedia, although I would think 100+ edits is a relatively *high* number as most people make zero.)

I confess to not knowing what a JSON object is or how that helps me arrive at usage figures. I see that on some Template pages (e.g. https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Template:BLP_primary_sources) you can see a number ("This template is used on approximately 6,000 pages"), which is apparently produced via this Link Count tool. Again, I'm just wondering if there's a tool available that could tell me how many articles have template parameters of any kind and if that number has substantially changed over time. (Apologies if I'm using terminology incorrectly here.) NASAvegas (talk) 19:16, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@NASAvegas: Earlier you mentioned "articles having content issues". Are you asking about cleanup templates? I have another report (Cleanup Listings) that lists articles that need cleaning up. It is grouped by WikiProject (user group). It has historical data. Example: United States. Otherwise you can ask at the Wikipedia:Village pump. --Bamyers99 (talk) 23:26, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the information! Really appreciate it. NASAvegas (talk) 00:19, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-32

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

Feature news

Two new parser functions will be available this week: {{#dir}} and {{#bcp47}}. These will reduce the need for Template:Dir and Template:BCP47 on Commons and allow us to drop 100 million rows from the "what links here" database. Editors at any wiki that use these templates, can help by replacing the templates with these new functions. The templates at Commons will be updated during the Hackathon at Wikimania. [3][4]
Communities can request the activation of the visual editor on entire namespaces where discussions sometimes happen (for instance Wikipedia: or Wikisource: namespaces) if they understand the known limitations. For discussions, users can already use DiscussionTools in these namespaces.
The tracking category "Pages using Timeline" has been renamed to "Pages using the EasyTimeline extension" in TranslateWiki. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match.

Project updates

Editors who help to organize WikiProjects and similar on-wiki collaborations, are invited to share ideas and examples of successful collaborations with the Campaigns and Programs teams. You can fill out a brief survey or share your thoughts on the talkpage. The teams are particularly looking for details about successful collaborations on non-English wikis.
The new parser is being rolled out on Wikivoyage wikis over the next few months. The English Wikivoyage and Hebrew Wikivoyage were switched to Parsoid last week. For more information, see Parsoid/Parser Unification.

Learn more

There will be more than 200 sessions at Wikimania this week. Here is a summary of some of the key sessions related to the product and technology area.
The latest Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is available.
The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: New design previews for Translatable pages; Updates about MinT for Wiki Readers; the release of Translation dumps; and more.
The latest quarterly Growth newsletter is available.
The latest monthly MediaWiki Product Insights newsletter is available.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:40, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Expressways in the Netherlands

A tag has been placed on Category:Expressways in the Netherlands indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. ✗plicit 12:04, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-33

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

Feature news

AbuseFilter editors and maintainers can now make a CAPTCHA show if a filter matches an edit. This allows communities to quickly respond to spamming by automated bots. [5]
Stewards can now specify if global blocks should prevent account creation. Before this change by the Trust and Safety Product Team, all global blocks would prevent account creation. This will allow stewards to reduce the unintended side-effects of global blocks on IP addresses.

Project updates

Nominations are open on Wikitech for new members to refresh the Toolforge standards committee. The committee oversees the Toolforge Right to fork policy and Abandoned tool policy among other duties. Nominations will remain open until at least 2024-08-26.
One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in West Coast Bajau (w:bdr:) [6]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:19, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 14 August 2024

In the media: Portland pol profile paid for from public purse

Recent research: STORM: AI agents role-play as "Wikipedia editors" and "experts" to create Wikipedia-like articles, a more sophisticated effort than previous auto-generation systems

In focus: Twitter marks the spot

News and notes: Another Wikimania has concluded

Special report: Nano or just nothing: Will nano go nuclear?

Opinion: HouseBlaster's RfA debriefing

Traffic report: Ball games, movies, elections, but nothing really weird

Humour: I'm proud to be a template

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:47, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-34

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

Feature news

Editors who want to re-use references but with different details such as page numbers, will be able to do so by the end of 2024, using a new sub-referencing feature. You can read more about the project and how to test the prototype.
Editors using tracking categories to identify which pages use specific extensions may notice that six of the categories have been renamed to make them more easily understood and consistent. These categories are automatically added to pages that use specialized MediaWiki extensions. The affected names are for: DynamicPageList, Kartographer, Phonos, RSS, Score, WikiHiero. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match. Thanks to Pppery for these improvements. [7]
Technical volunteers who edit modules and want to get a list of the categories used on a page, can now do so using the categories property of mw.title objects. This enables wikis to configure workflows such as category-specific edit notices. Thanks to SD001 for these improvements. [8][9]

Bugs status

Your help is needed to check if any pages need to be moved or deleted. A maintenance script was run to clean up unreachable pages (due to Unicode issues or introduction of new namespaces/namespace aliases). The script tried to find appropriate names for the pages (e.g. by following the Unicode changes or by moving pages whose titles on Wikipedia start with Talk:WP: so that their titles start with Wikipedia talk:), but it may have failed for some pages, and moved them to Special:PrefixIndex/T195546/ instead. Your community should check if any pages are listed there, and move them to the correct titles, or delete them if they are no longer needed. A full log (including pages for which appropriate names could be found) is available in phab:P67388.
Editors who volunteer as mentors to newcomers on their wiki are once again able to access lists of potential mentees who they can connect with to offer help and guidance. This functionality was restored thanks to a bug fix. Thank you to Mbch331 for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 18 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Project updates

The application deadline for the Product & Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) has been extended to September 16. Members will help by providing advice to Foundation Product and Technology leadership on short and long term plans, on complex strategic problems, and help to get feedback from more contributors and technical communities. Selected members should expect to spend roughly 5 hours per month for the Council, during the one year pilot. Please consider applying, and spread the word to volunteers you think would make a positive contribution to the committee.

Learn more

The 2024 Coolest Tool Awards were awarded at Wikimania, in seven categories. For example, one award went to the ISA Tool, used for adding structured data to files on Commons, which was recently improved during the Wiki Mentor Africa Hackathon. You can see video demonstrations of each tool at the awards page. Congratulations to this year's recipients, and thank you to all tool creators and maintainers.
The latest Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is available, and includes some highlights from Wikimania, an upcoming Language community meeting, and other news from the movement.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:50, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Consultation

Hey @Bamyers99 I hope you are well, I am working on understanding more about WikiProjects (see this consultation on Meta) and am noticing that the kinds of services that you offer for WikiProjects are similar to what is being asked for by other language Wikipedias. I would love to learn more about how you came to maintain these services, and what kinds of opportunities. Could you email me, if you are interested in talking -- I would love to schedule some time to learn more, and understand what you have been doing, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 21:33, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Astinson (WMF): I assume you are asking about User:InceptionBot (new articles) and User:CleanupWorklistBot (articles needing cleanup). The story is the same for both, previous maintainer no longer wished to maintain them. I use both services and am a retired software engineer, so I offered to take over maintenance. I rewrote the programs in my preferred programming language PHP. InceptionBot runs on toolforge.org which is a Wikimedia server. See wikitech:Help:Toolforge. CleanupWorklistBot runs on my own personal server because of a past technical support issue on toolforge. The program code is available with a free use license on GitHub.

Other resources:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Council (active talk page), Guide
Wikipedia:WikiProject X (defunct WikiProject software improvement project) --Bamyers99 (talk) 19:53, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]