IRC office hours/Office hours 2012-07-18c

[00:00:08] <Lydia_WMDE> alright people of #wikimedia-wikidata
[00:00:13] <Lydia_WMDE> are you ready to party?
[00:00:16] <Lydia_WMDE> eh office hour?
[00:00:17] <Lydia_WMDE> :D
[00:00:52] <Lydia_WMDE> this one's going to be a bit more complicated than the previous ones because Denny_WMDE and I are on different continents this time and not sitting next to each other
[00:00:56] <Lydia_WMDE> but let's see how this goes
[00:00:58] <jorm> sup sup
[00:01:05] <Lydia_WMDE> so who's here for the office hour?
[00:01:11] <Denny_WMDE> here
[00:01:21] <Denny_WMDE> hi jorm
[00:01:22] <jorm> i shall likely lurk.
[00:01:31] <jorm> hey denny! great to see you last week.
[00:01:44] <Lydia_WMDE> hi jorm!
[00:02:00] <Denny_WMDE> the same! i enjoyed your talks! looking fwd to athena
[00:02:18] <jorm> Lydia!
[00:02:21] <jorm> thanks. i am, too.
[00:02:28] <jem-> I'm watching too :)
[00:02:33] <Lydia_WMDE> hi jem-!
[00:02:51] <Lydia_WMDE> ok - let's get started with some questions then
[00:02:51] <jem-> Hi :)
[00:02:55] <Lydia_WMDE> anyone got one?
[00:03:09] <Denny_WMDE> what's the time right now in germany?
[00:03:14] <Lydia_WMDE> midnight
[00:03:17] <TMg> 00:04
[00:03:17] <Lydia_WMDE> -.-
[00:03:28] <jorm> I don't have a question, but a comment: I'm very excited about this project, with everything I've seen so far.
[00:03:36] <Lydia_WMDE> \o/
[00:04:01] <Lydia_WMDE> jorm: will you hit us on the head if we do horrible things in the second phase?
[00:04:03] <Lydia_WMDE> ;-)
[00:04:06] <jorm> of course.
[00:04:08] <Lydia_WMDE> good good
[00:04:09] <jem-> jorm: You're not the only one :)
[00:04:16] <jorm> but right now, i'm one of your biggest cheerleaders.
[00:04:18] <Denny_WMDE> i am wary about the excitement, as we might have too many expectations we won't meet
[00:04:32] <Denny_WMDE> but for now i see so many ways we will improve things
[00:04:59] <Denny_WMDE> so, no one here for question? O.o
[00:05:12] <TMg> me.
[00:05:19] <Lydia_WMDE> yay
[00:05:22] <Lydia_WMDE> do ask away then
[00:05:38] <TMg> where to start...
[00:05:46] <Lydia_WMDE> the beginning!
[00:05:47] <lazowik> from the beggining :)
[00:05:51] <Lydia_WMDE> <- smartass
[00:05:52] <Lydia_WMDE> ;-)
[00:05:54] <jorm> i have questions about infoboxes, but they're on behalf of the design team.
[00:06:07] <jorm> i expect they're premature, however.
[00:06:18] <TMg> i create infoboxes. probably can answer.
[00:06:44] <jorm> it is *currently* my expectation that what we think of as "infoboxes" will go the way of the dodo. extinct.
[00:06:52] <jorm> and become wikidata hooks.
[00:07:07] <jorm> (currently, they're templates)
[00:07:07] <TMg> no. the oposite, if you ask me.
[00:07:16] <jorm> okay. how is that?
[00:07:52] <TMg> not much will change because of wikidata. the article still contains the same infobox template in the wikitext.
[00:08:04] <jorm> we'll still have templates, but the values will be injected by wikidata?
[00:08:11] <TMg> ... except for some parameters.
[00:08:19] <Denny_WMDE> yes, i think both of you agree
[00:08:21] <jorm> it seems to me that we should roll infobox into the core software, tbh.
[00:08:48] <TMg> e.g. the "|population = 1234" parameter will be gone. will be injected with an {{#tag}} in the template.
[00:08:51] <TMg> right?
[00:08:55] <Denny_WMDE> yes
[00:09:00] <jorm> i can see that working.
[00:09:19] <jorm> but i wonder if something like {{#infobox "Berlin"}} might be better.
[00:09:34] <TMg> please explain.
[00:09:38] <jorm> because then it would know how to auto-translate to whatever language it was displayed in.
[00:09:44] <jorm> okay.
[00:09:56] <jorm> say we have multiple infoboxes, right?
[00:10:00] <TMg> yes.
[00:10:03] <Denny_WMDE> i think i understand. that would require for wikidata actually to host the template / the infobox layout, right?
[00:10:20] <jorm> and "Berlin" has this metadata: type=city, name=Berlin, etc.
[00:10:29] <jorm> not the layout so much, but all the data.
[00:10:32] <TMg> a meta wiki for infoboxes. kollosos wants this for the map and coordinate stuff.
[00:10:41] <Denny_WMDE> ah
[00:10:42] <Denny_WMDE> wait
[00:10:47] <Denny_WMDE> *not* for the layout
[00:11:04] <Denny_WMDE> explain more, i need to listen. I had a preconceived notion in mind of what you were suggesting, sorry :)
[00:11:06] <jorm> and we'd just edit the wikidata infobox data, and then hosting wikis would just use it, and it would update automatically when edited from data.wm.org
[00:11:16] <jorm> s'okay. i can explain all day.
[00:11:27] <jem-> In my opinion... global templates (not only for infoboxes) could and should exist, but probably as a different project
[00:11:42] <jorm> anyways. so we put {{#infobox Berlin}} on enwiki, and it fills out in english. but on hiwiki, it does so in Hindi.
[00:12:19] <jorm> it's really not that much different than having parameter injection, only it's just much more global and consistent.
[00:12:38] <jorm> right now, if an infobox template exists on hiwiki, it might not have all the same parameters.
[00:12:44] <TMg> you write Template:Infobox city and the template will know it was called from the article "Berlin".
[00:12:44] <AsimovBot> [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_city
[00:12:48] <jorm> so the data wouldn't get updating.
[00:13:16] <jorm> say a wiki has a city infobox that (for some reason) doesn't have a population parameter.
[00:13:24] <jorm> so the population wouldn't disseminate.
[00:13:30] <jorm> (to that wiki)
[00:13:46] <jorm> but if the infobox was hosted centrally, then the population parameter would show up everywhere.
[00:13:52] <jorm> does that make sense?
[00:14:39] <Lydia_WMDE> it does but there are two problems with it - Denny_WMDE do you want to chime in on that or should i?
[00:14:52] <Merlissimo> jorm: it would make sense, but in pratice each wikipedia language community wants to have different parameters shown in their local infoboxes
[00:15:04] <TMg> we will delete more and more parameters from the existing templates. in the end the article Berlin will contain only Template:Infobox Berlin without any parameter. it will know it is in the article "Berlin". it will also know the language.
[00:15:04] <AsimovBot> [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_Berlin
[00:15:21] <Denny_WMDE> it does make sense, but i am unsure if it that it what is wanted. the main reason being that we have a lot of more data than what is displayed in the infoboxes
[00:15:40] <Denny_WMDE> also the infoboxes currenlty are hand-crafted and often done with a lot of love and detailed work
[00:15:54] <Denny_WMDE> assuming a simple autogenerated infobox could be ok for starters for many languages
[00:16:05] <Denny_WMDE> but replacing the current ones should probably be left for later, if ever
[00:16:23] <Denny_WMDE> one way or the other, i guess that this feature would require more design
[00:16:28] <jorm> TMg: excactly. but i'm catching up.
[00:16:41] <Denny_WMDE> and should be based on the experience with how phase 2 will be used
[00:16:47] <jorm> my concern is the workload for updating.
[00:17:06] <TMg> not sure if we think the same. what i mean: the template will still contain a list of parameters. but the article will not.
[00:17:32] <Denny_WMDE> i assume that the templates will be written in a similar way as today: if there is no population, nothing will be shown. if there is, it will.
[00:17:41] <TMg> yes.
[00:17:49] <jorm> okay. so i'm hearing that, until we determine otherwise, infoboxes will inject wikidata bits.
[00:17:58] <jorm> rather than be served.
[00:18:02] <jorm> which is fine.
[00:18:42] <Denny_WMDE> yes
[00:18:44] <TMg> this was my main concern (now solved): wikidata should not replace the templates.
[00:18:59] <Denny_WMDE> currently there are no plans for that
[00:19:15] <Denny_WMDE> it might happen in the future, but this would need a better understanding of how this would be accomplished
[00:19:22] <Denny_WMDE> and it would probably lead to a hybrid world anyway
[00:19:40] <Denny_WMDE> to replace templates in total would be impossible anyway, imho
[00:20:00] <TMg> first we should switch to Lua :)
[00:20:23] <jorm> hah! that was EXCACTLY my thought.
[00:20:30] <jorm> i was looking at performance enhancements.
[00:21:13] <Denny_WMDE> i heard some impressive numbers there
[00:22:08] <TMg> basic things like a simple && (and) are insanely expensive currently.
[00:23:05] <TMg> my question is similar to jorm's
[00:23:35] <TMg> lets say the city infobox contains the population via {{#data:population}} or so...
[00:23:57] <TMg> i want it to always show the population from a specific source and from a specific date.
[00:24:31] <TMg> people shouls be able to add more population numbers from other sources and times but the infoboxes should not change due to this.
[00:24:45] <Denny_WMDE> yes, will be possible
[00:24:58] <Denny_WMDE> this should already be listed in the inclusion draft
[00:25:03] <TMg> there is some priority/prefered stuff in your concept but i don't think this is enough
[00:25:08] <Denny_WMDE> you can either specify a source or a date
[00:25:25] <Denny_WMDE> no, the priority stuff will not apply if you specify a source
[00:25:27] <TMg> i missed the date in the draft.
[00:25:43] <Denny_WMDE> it is called "qualifiers" if i remember correctly
[00:26:01] <Denny_WMDE> date is just a qualifier, and if it is specified then priority is overridden
[00:26:14] <Denny_WMDE> priority is basically used when no source or qualifier is specified
[00:26:27] <Denny_WMDE> (priority is called "rank" in the draft)
[00:26:44] <Denny_WMDE> so if someone asks for population, we take the one with the top rank
[00:27:07] <Denny_WMDE> if someone asks for the population according to the UNO, we take that one, no matter what rank
[00:28:09] <TMg> sounds good. i miss the "qualifier" thing in the inclusion syntax draft.
[00:29:19] <TMg> there is an example containing "|source=..." but thats it.
[00:30:07] <Lydia_WMDE> more questions?
[00:30:08] <Denny_WMDE> we should expand the draft then
[00:30:13] <Denny_WMDE> our bad
[00:30:24] <Denny_WMDE> but definitively on our list
[00:30:48] <TMg> todo: how to ask for a value with multiple qualifiers.
[00:32:45] <jorm> how do you mean?
[00:32:45] <TMg> (i have more but please, ask your questions first...)
[00:32:52] <jorm> i asked my big one for now.
[00:33:17] <Denny_WMDE> TMg: actually multiple qualifiers will probably just be conjunctive queries. i.e. if there is nothing fitting, no results
[00:33:32] <TMg> sorry?
[00:33:44] <Denny_WMDE> everything else would be very confusing
[00:33:46] <jorm> my other stuff is about "how to make it easy to edit wikidata values with things like the visual editor and the like", but i expect i'll be involved in those conversations in some manner or not.
[00:34:02] <TMg> jorm: hey, this is my question too ;)
[00:34:05] <Denny_WMDE> jorm: i am pretty sure you will :)
[00:34:23] <Denny_WMDE> our current plan is to have that as widgets which can be easily deployed in different contexts
[00:34:32] <Denny_WMDE> and then make them "callable" from the wikipedias too
[00:34:34] <jorm> i've also got ideas about how wikidata integrates with global profile.
[00:34:51] <jorm> that makes sense.
[00:35:12] <Denny_WMDE> right now global profile is not on our list, but we are aware that it would be kinda useful in this field. e.g. a global babel, etc.
[00:36:11] <TMg> my question is how these widgets work together with the HTML/CSS/Wikitext mxture I use to create a template.
[00:36:45] <Denny_WMDE> TMg: they probably don'
[00:36:46] <Denny_WMDE> t
[00:36:58] <TMg> i think i need at least a little bit of css to style everything...
[00:37:07] <Denny_WMDE> here, i am afraid, editing and viewing would look ver differently
[00:37:19] <TMg> no inline editing?
[00:37:27] <Denny_WMDE> yes, kind of
[00:37:33] <Denny_WMDE> but no wysiwig
[00:37:50] <Denny_WMDE> i.e. you have the display of a date of birth on shakespeare
[00:38:00] <Denny_WMDE> you want to edit it
[00:38:10] <Denny_WMDE> you get a widget that allows you to edit a date of birth
[00:38:23] <Denny_WMDE> taking care of thinks like different calendar models
[00:38:32] <jorm> edit mode, curate mode, read mode.
[00:38:34] <Denny_WMDE> but not necessarily looking like the end result when display
[00:38:35] <Denny_WMDE> yes
[00:38:50] <TMg> with "widget" meaning a little floating box?
[00:39:05] <Denny_WMDE> in most cases, yes
[00:39:42] <TMg> ok, but i need a handle to call this widget. how does this look? i think this must be stylable.
[00:39:59] <Denny_WMDE> i dont know that yet
[00:40:08] <TMg> (something like the blue (i) in imagemaps, but this is ugly...)
[00:40:37] <Denny_WMDE> looking at the visual editor, they have a little arrow in a circle for editing contextes
[00:40:40] <TMg> not so important, just thinking.....
[00:40:41] <Denny_WMDE> or selections
[00:40:57] <Denny_WMDE> i think that could be used as inspiration for how to solve that problem
[00:41:05] <Denny_WMDE> but really, we need to think of how to solve that
[00:41:09] <jorm> so, we're working on a style guide for technology things like this.
[00:41:12] <Denny_WMDE> inspiration and suggestions are more than welcome
[00:41:26] <Denny_WMDE> yes, we are keeping a close eye on that style guide
[00:41:48] <Denny_WMDE> there are two right now, though. one i think more in your userspace, jorm, and one called the agora
[00:41:53] <jorm> i have everyone working on athena stuff this week, but next week we'll get back to finalizing color schemes and such.
[00:41:54] <Denny_WMDE> i guess the latter one is the current one?
[00:42:02] <jorm> agora is what you should be following, yes.
[00:42:16] <Denny_WMDE> ok
[00:42:24] <jorm> there is a "mediawiki style guide" and a "foundation style guide". agora is the second.
[00:42:25] <TMg> ... sometimes i need an edit "handle" for every single infobox row, sometimes a single for the whole infobox. this would be nice. more flexible.
[00:43:37] <Denny_WMDE> agree. that is unsolved, as said.
[00:44:05] <TMg> like this ugly XML based template editor. i dont like it.
[00:44:19] <TMg> it destroys the article formatting.
[00:44:28] <Denny_WMDE> hope to improve on that
[00:44:36] <TMg> but its a good starting point.
[00:45:17] <TMg> this one in case you dont know: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Helferlein/Vorlagen-Meister
[00:45:58] <Denny_WMDE> is this the one done by yaron koren?
[00:46:15] <Denny_WMDE> no, doesn't look like
[00:46:19] <Denny_WMDE> i think he did something similar
[00:46:41] <TMg> link?
[00:48:00] <Lydia_WMDE> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TemplateInfo maybe?
[00:48:07] <Denny_WMDE> not sure, i think it is this one : http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TemplateInfo
[00:48:11] <Denny_WMDE> yeah, maybe
[00:48:22] <Denny_WMDE> looks a lot like it
[00:49:06] <Lydia_WMDE> we have about 10 minutes left
[00:49:11] <Lydia_WMDE> anything else to discuss?
[00:49:49] <lazowik> I'd like to ask whether http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/Development/Setup is complete
[00:49:55] <TMg> "The main inspiration for this project is the Vorlagen-Meister". ;-)
[00:50:22] <Lydia_WMDE> lazowik: it should be - if not then it needs to be fixed
[00:50:31] <Lydia_WMDE> did you notice anything that's missing?
[00:50:32] <Denny_WMDE> lazowik: i try to test it once a week, but havent the last two due to wikimania
[00:50:40] <Denny_WMDE> two weeks ago it was
[00:51:04] <lazowik> Well, somewhere I found that wbgetsitelinks is deprecated
[00:51:24] <lazowik> but in my access.log I have /w/api.php?action=wbgetsitelinks&format=php&site=pl&title=Polska
[00:52:04] <lazowik> And as a result "Unrecognized value for parameter 'action': wbgetsitelinks"
[00:52:55] <Denny_WMDE> instead of wbgetsitelinks you can you wbgetitems
[00:52:56] <lazowik> I didn't have time to dig into it
[00:53:10] <Denny_WMDE> *...you can use…
[00:53:27] <lazowik> So it is a bug?
[00:53:41] <lazowik> My client wiki sends that requests
[00:53:55] <Denny_WMDE> in that case that is a bug in the client
[00:53:58] <Denny_WMDE> not updated yet
[00:54:21] <Denny_WMDE> sorry, i am not completely up to date on the current state due to wikimania
[00:54:22] <jorm> I'd like to ask what our expected beta deployment window is.
[00:54:33] <jorm> (sorry to put anyone on the spot with that, though)
[00:54:53] <Denny_WMDE> we have not yet reserved a window
[00:55:04] <jorm> probably a good plan.
[00:55:14] <lazowik> Ok, I just wanted to be sure that I didn't miss anything
[00:55:14] <Denny_WMDE> when i come back to germany next week it is pretty top on my todo list
[00:55:29] <jorm> don't kill yourself, mate.
[00:55:30] <Denny_WMDE> i have discussed with robla how to proceed for that
[00:55:34] <jorm> 's a big project.
[00:55:39] <lazowik> I'll dig into it later, goodnight!
[00:55:51] <Denny_WMDE> i wan't to see it deployed rather sooner than later :)
[00:55:57] <Lydia_WMDE> lazowik: good night - let me know if you still need help with it tomorrow
[00:55:59] <Denny_WMDE> the plan is for now, deploy the repository
[00:56:10] <Denny_WMDE> and then deploy for two clients (i.e. wikipedias)
[00:56:13] <Denny_WMDE> and then the rest
[00:56:16] <jorm> i as well. but better "tight and right" than "soon and loose"
[00:56:18] <lazowik> Lydia_WMDE: ok, thanks
[00:56:33] <jorm> dewiki and enwiki?
[00:56:44] <Lydia_WMDE> jorm: you're adventurous :D
[00:56:52] <Denny_WMDE> right now there huwiki has offered
[00:56:53] <jorm> i was gonna suggest some smaller ones.
[00:56:58] <jorm> nlwiki and sewiki, maybe.
[00:57:01] <Denny_WMDE> and the discussion there seems to be very positive
[00:57:03] <jorm> huwiki is good.
[00:57:20] <jorm> swedish is generally experimental, i've found.
[00:57:21] <Denny_WMDE> we are waiting for the huwiki community to decide
[00:57:47] <Denny_WMDE> if no other community approaches us, we might go for sewiki
[00:57:53] <Denny_WMDE> i mean, to approach them
[00:58:01] <Denny_WMDE> it really needs the community to agree to that
[00:58:01] <jorm> at the wmf, we've gotten lots of good response to our experiments from hi and he, too.
[00:58:15] <Denny_WMDE> he would be nice, due to the ltr
[00:58:21] <Denny_WMDE> rtl
[00:58:22] <jorm> (i love how we just use ISO characters)
[00:58:26] <Lydia_WMDE> h* has the magic...
[00:58:28] <jorm> yes, that's one of the reasons we like it.
[00:58:41] <jorm> also we have a developer with some pull at he.
[00:58:48] <Denny_WMDE> yep.
[00:59:00] <Denny_WMDE> but i don't want to presuppose any discussions there
[00:59:06] <jorm> hindi just likes to deploy EVERYTHING.
[00:59:29] <jorm> sure, sure.
[00:59:43] <Denny_WMDE> something i would have expected from ko
[00:59:50] <jorm> phrase it as "we would like you to have the honor of being one of the first wikis to deploy this..."
[00:59:50] <Denny_WMDE> but i guess their community is just too small
[00:59:59] <Denny_WMDE> absolutely :)
[01:00:05] <jorm> well, there's another thought, right?
[01:00:16] <Denny_WMDE> being?
[01:00:16] <jorm> small wikis - ones with 50 editors - they will have lots of stubs.
[01:00:29] <Denny_WMDE> that would be more relevant for phase 2
[01:00:29] <jorm> and they will want to have wikidata templates and the like to flush those articles out.
[01:00:37] <Denny_WMDE> in phase 1 it is really bout language links
[01:00:43] <jorm> point.
[01:01:06] <Denny_WMDE> we do not have to use the same deployment order for both phases
[01:01:20] <jorm> makes sense.
[01:01:34] <Denny_WMDE> in phase 2 actually a small wiki with a small number of active editors that know how to use bots would be perfect
[01:01:42] <Denny_WMDE> like uzwiki or sth
[01:01:50] <Denny_WMDE> or yoruba
[01:01:54] <jorm> so, i just want to re-iterate before we close off how excited i am about this, and enthusiastic.
[01:02:04] <Denny_WMDE> :) thank you (bow)
[01:02:07] <jorm> and if you need ANY help from me - anything at all - just drop me an email or such.
[01:02:20] <Denny_WMDE> ok. i will let especially henning know
[01:02:50] <jorm> of course.
[01:02:54] <jorm> and tobias, too.
[01:03:09] <Denny_WMDE> thank you everyone for being here
[01:03:15] <Lydia_WMDE> indeed
[01:03:18] <Lydia_WMDE> thanks for coming
[01:03:23] <jorm> (were they at wikimania? i didn't see them.)
[01:03:34] <Lydia_WMDE> if you have more questions feel free to ask here or on the mailing list
[01:03:41] <Lydia_WMDE> jorm: no unfortunately not