Meta:Babel/Archives/2007-09

Lang templates

Is it ok to create such templates:

• Template:Ref-ru-en
• Template:Ref-lang
• Template:Ref-info?--Vaya 12:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

A question from sweden

Hello, in the swedish version of wikipedia the administrators have begun using their administrative powers to ensure that the content of the articles are in their own personal liking. This expresses itself in the form that they may for example remove scientific sources which results they dislike and those who dare to protest get blocked if they dare to try to stop it. My question is simple, what can be done about it? All attempts so solve the problem within the swedish wikipedia itself has failed, so here I am. Drogheda 00:24, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Automatic archiving

I've recently ported an automatic archiving bot from German to English. It has been running successfully on German Wikipedia since October 2006. As of a few days, the bot is also available on German and English Wikiversity. The bot moves old sections to archives based on the age of the last contribution within a section and a pattern configured for the page. So, for example, a page can be archived by month, week, quarter or year. Is there any interest in such a bot on meta? Sebmol 20:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm interested. It would be a nice help to archiving some pages like this. Three months seem to me enough. --Aphaia 21:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

As am I, this seems like a good idea for pages like this that aren't "Requests" and don't get finished quickly. Cbrown1023 talk 21:58, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I've ported the template to meta as Template:auto archive. If you're interested in using it, you need to place it on pages that should be archived automatically. There are a few examples listed on how it works but I'm also happy to answer any questions you may have. Also, the bot will probably need a bot flag. Where can I go to request that? sebmol ^? 19:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I found Meta has not its own Bot policy. Requests for bot status may be the place, but if you prefer to know the community support beforehand, we can here have a straw poll I expect. --Aphaia 21:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Many wikis use User:werdnabot which I think works in a similar way, you place a template denoting the base name of the archive and how many days threads should have had no activity (by the timestamps of signatures) before the thread is moved. (see this howto on commons. Does this bot allow that sort of configuration? (days of age rather than calendar months/quarters) Also has it had any test runs? I'd support it having a bot flag if the test runs were successful and it seems we have consensus here via a discussion as Aphaia suggests. Do we have other bots here? Is an approval process needed? Or can we just do this informally? ++Lar: t/c 04:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Age of a thread is based on the days since the last message in it counted in days (or hours for very high frequency pages). It has been running since October 2006 on German Wikipedia and is used on over 600 pages there with more being added every day. I'd be happy to leave it running without bot flag for a while so you can familiarize yourself with how it works.

One thing, that's different from Werdna's bot (IIRC) is that it distributes archied threads based on a pattern of archive pages. If, for example, an archive is set up to be separated into "threads by month", the bot will move threads to pages like "archive/January 2007", "archive/February 2007", etc. The path is fully customizable however and so is the distribution pattern, allowing for archives by day, week, month, quarter, semester or year. sebmol ^? 05:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

So you're aware of werdnabot then? cool. I wasn't sure you knew about it. It sounds like the filing structure is a lot more flexible. As I said, I'm thinking this would be a good thing to have around. That it is not Werdnabot may throw a few people since the template format may differ slightly but that's not a big deal. Automatic archiving is a very nice thing to have. Thanks for sharing! (I fixed the howto link, I forgot to interwiki, oops!) ++Lar: t/c 12:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Before I created my own bot, I was actually working with Werdna to see if we could adapt his to work on German Wikipedia. Unfortunately, lack of time on his side made localization and adapting difficult, especially since, in general, numbered archives aren't common on German Wikipedia. The more flexible filing structure supported by ArchiveBot is a direct result of those requirements. On the other side, the bot doesn't currently support numbered archives, but if there's a need for that, I'd be happy to add such a feature. sebmol ^? 12:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Any progress? --Aphaia (now archiving old threads ...) 13:38, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikimedia site feedback/main

It is noticed the page is concerning on the Foundation wiki, some people submit other wiki (supposedly English Wikipedia, but I am not sure). I ask every regular editor to give a look to the page periodically, and if you find inquiries which should be related to your home wiki, bring it to the more appropriate places, like your VP, Help desk etc, specially if you think simple rollback as unfrinedly. --Aphaia 08:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Linking whole content-boxes onto Wikipedia entries from other more specialized Wiki sources' corresponding entries

If Wikispecies shows the most accurate, detailed, complete taxonomic hierarchies, then is there a way for Wikipedia and Tree-o-Life authors to code their entries to automatically display the corresponding Wikispecies taxonomic hierarchy? Otherwise it seems there's a lot of effort being duplicated.

I know the two projects are not entirely parallel with regard to purpose, but I don't see what harm a one-way means of linkage (from the data source of greatest integrity outward) could do. The same principle could be (and maybe already has been) applied to other specialty wikiprojects......

Strange bug

This is so strange that I prefer commenting it here. I have in a small wiki this sig:

—Nethac DIU, always would speak here—
17:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It has some parameters for changing the big and the small text, and other for language, though in that wiki it is not used.

And sometimes it fails. It seems that when I do a indented answer and put the sig right after the texts, it shows like this:

—Nethac DIU, always would speak here—

17:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Why?

(if there is something more involved, the sig is at http://www.flashwiki.net/wiki/User:Nethac_DIU/Sign). The wiki is that, as you can suppose :)--Nethac DIU 17:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

EDIT: Links fixed again.

Cross Wiki Vandalism

In part this derives from various conversations mostly with Larry here and elsewhere and it was suggested I post it in a more public place. It is a "Meta" issue in many senses.

While nothing like as dedicated as some I am a vandal fighter and have been active on a few wikis.

Examples of recent vandalism cross wiki over the past couple of weeks that I have seen.

1. I saw this one vandalise here [1] and then I switched to Books [2]. Not exciting but it does show cross wiki views are worthwhile (& I really don't see the point of warning them again on another wiki - they know what they are doing).
2. User:Nintendude & User:Nintendough. The first is here & Books (& other places I believe), the second is Books and not sure of other wikis. Ok I was alerted to this name by Az1568 (we work quite closely) and it happened while I was offline but both accounts were on same IP, what are the odds that that is the case here and elsewhere (I've blocked the IP for a while on Books).
3. Requests_for_CheckUser_information#Meta This is the tip of the iceberg for this one. <ramble>When I started on Books there was a spate of "On Wheels/Mumfum" vandalisim, it was the reason I self nom'd for admin - fed up with dealing with it with both hands tied, it is the reason I self nom'd for CU - one hand tied is still no fun!</ramble>. On Books we have used Cu a little more agressively that some & will block underlying IPs of repeat vandal accounts (bear in mind the limited duration of CU info). Probably doesn't stop it but it sure reduces it. In this last one the same IP was responsible for more than one attack on Books, it was the same IP here (unblocked) & I'm betting it was the same on on Species (they didn't seem interested). I'd be surprised if that was the limit of the vandalism.
4. Finally Wikibooks had a Nazi troll type account on Sunday which was blocked and I ran CU. Not interesting on Books. However I was the 6th CU user (on 6 wikis) to have checked for edits on that IP in a week and that strikes me as useful, and potentially important, information.

This to me states some of what I see as the problem. This does not really refer to Wikipedia - there are enough vandal fighters there to deal with it and the SWMT do a great job on dealing with the little ones but I do feel there is more room to be pro active. I'm sure the various informal channels work pretty well and all folk deal with vandalism when they see it. However I do not see that this means there are not opportunities to improve the situation. Hoping that folk don't mind this rather long intrusion and if you would like me to take it elsewhere feel free to say. Regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:43, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

If you observe cross-wiki vandalism and aren't getting a fast response, you can probably go to #wikimedia and get local sysops that congregate there to do something about it. Cbrown1023 talk 04:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

See also bugzilla:8707. guillom 09:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Closure of new Wikinews requests

I noticed that Wikinews/Start a new edition was closed recently. I am hoping to wonder if there is/was a consensus to supercede that process with Requests for new languages, because as far as I'm concerned, there are still some recent proposals that people might be interested in (I proposed for Tagalog, which has eight signatures as of this writing). If there is, do those votes count for any new proposals done on RFL? --Sky Harbor 15:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Meta-l

Some time ago Angela made the observation that Meta did not had it's own mailing list for Meta specific stuff. I do not think there is a lot of need for such a list but it can be useful to have even if it is very low traffic. I have made a request on Bugzilla for it, bugzilla:10098 , but it does not get created. I have created an "ad interim" list Meta-l . It is a list under private control of me and it is on the "lists.wikipedia.be" domain. If the list that is requested get made I can move them.

This is a public list for all meta affairs. In the first place I find that as many Meta sysops as possible should subscribe to this list. I suspect that it can be that blocked users come to the list to complain about there block.

To subscribe to the list; Meta-l

Have fun --Walter Do you have news? Report it to Wikizine 14:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, on eswiki, we have been talking about having a eswiki sysop mailing list, but so far I've been unsuccesful in contacting the right people to make it live. drini ^[es:] _[commons:] 14:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Make a bugzilla ticket for it, wait, wait some more, post a comment to the ticket to ask to make the list please and wait some more again. After at least one month of waiting ask me and I will provide you with a list. Greetings, --Walter Do you have news? Report it to Wikizine 22:12, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Or ask me. notafish }<';> 10:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you make a normal WMF list for Meta-l please Delphine? bugzilla:10098 --Walter Do you have news? Report it to Wikizine 22:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Policy dispute on Romanian Wikipedia

There's a policy dispute going on on the Romanian Wikipedia (has to do with allowing or disallowing spelling variations). This has gone beyond anything we were able to control -- the administrators are divided, and a poll revealed essentially equal support for both options (roughly 52%/48%). This is a sensitive issue with political implications for Romanians. We're now in a deadlock between two "factions", neither of which seems likely to give up. I was wondering what's the proper way to get out of this and go on with business.

For Romanians reading this, please note I'm not even explaining what the actual problem is and its implications, let alone supporting one particular side. I'm just asking for advice on where to go from here, I'm not lobbying for anything. --Gutza 19:10, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

The above statement is lobby in itself because my colleague above, together with another one, have been found to have abused of their position of admins and burocrats, to pass the above-menioned controversial rule without consent from the community. So if you look at the question of the spelling variations, the community seems to be divided indeed. But if you look at the origins of the deep division, you find out that 2 administrators have abused their power and by lobby have turned community into civil war to cover for their past mistakes, is quite a different thing. Anyone who knows a bit how things work on ro.wiki, knows that the place is literally a fiefdom of Gutza and AdiJapan. Nothing actually passes without their consent and the rest of the admins are made to be a joke. This has made the place an unbearable place to be. Is there anyone who can intervene to solve such a dispute which involves people at the very top?--Radufan 12:22, 2 July 2007 (UTC) (admin as well)

Blatant lies and faulty logic. Those imagined mistakes of the past have no bearing on the community being divided at present. Actually, the community only seems to be divided because of a poorly designed opinion poll. In fact, the solution is being negotiated as we speak, and it looks like more than 75% of the community will agree to a compromise that allows both spellings while giving priority to one of them. The civil war started exactly when Radufan tried to delete a 2-year old policy that has worked perfectly well. The real abuse took place when the same Radufan ignored all rules of reaching a consensus and considered that 52% is a sufficient supermajority, when the issue at hand is so sensitive. — AdiJapan ☎ 13:06, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Guys, you lost it...yet again. The only problem was to obtain some kind of advice on how to handle the situation, let's not turn it into another battleground. BTW, the results were 52% for disallowing spelling variations.--85.204.215.166 16:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Wiki Statistics

Hallo, II

I often look for statistical data on the web. And I do have problems concerning sources, presentations, ...

The statiscal data I am interested in are for example : habitants in country, energy consumption per country, habitants per town in a given country, passengers cars per country, ...

But any else could also be concerned : revenue per country, companies revenues per year, collaborateurs per company, agriculture surfaces per country/state/region, jobs/worker & unemployed per country, R&D spendings per country, ...

- Could there be an interest in a WikiStat, collecting statistical data?

- Did you have requests for that?

- Did anyone think about the tags (xml description?) of the data : annual, daily, monthly, continent, country, region, town, physical unit (m, inchs, kg, lbs) (this is the exhaustive list ;-)

- Did anyone think about a data structure to easily allow REUSE of the data. It is nice to have the wikidocument of the 55 biggest towns in france, but if you need 25 min to reformat numbers, columns, .. it's not that powerful. You start retyping it.

Interested in discussion this with interested persons... (and companies, because we use wiki also as a business source).

Best regards

CLegeland, july 2, 11H30 GMT+2

did you already check this and this? greetz, oscar 13:03, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

CL: It's not statistics on Wiki itself. --Christian.Legeland 09:44, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Wiki Europe

Hallo,

I wonder whether a Europe section could help to harmonize some pages.

- Ask more systematiclly to add the french - english - danish - ... pages on the german page handling europpeen subjects (for example the EU summit at brussels, EU parliament, ...

- what is the state of the art of the multilanguage possibilities in wiki? I saw the tests. Is that a possibility to speed up?

- Can you envision to add some software to use wiktionary to create "multilanguage index pages"

CLegeland 2 july 11H30 GMT +2

Translation request

I am trying to get the translation of "TWASEEN", but I am not understanding how this site works. Please help. — Note: dcljr moved this comment from Talk:Example; it was left there by Najmi mysore (talk) on 20 June 2007.

Meta:Administrators' discussion index

Thanks to user:Bryan and his trusty bot there is now a discussion index creation process on Meta. I've set one up for administrators, and could also create similar ones for stewards, and for general discussion... the levels and items for the Admin one could use tweaking, perhaps. Feel free, or comment and I'll take a cut at it... for more on the technology, see User:BryanBot/DiscussionIndex... ++Lar: t/c 23:16, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that's very interesting. /me goes and watchlists the page! :-P Cbrown1023 talk 03:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Tweaks, please? Levels right now? What other pages should be on it? Also, where else to inform folks about this?? Also, will a separate stewards one be useful? A separate general interest one? ++Lar: t/c 12:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I have separated out topics that are mostly of interest to Stewards, and created Meta:Stewards' discussion index ... I then added a few topics that local admins might be interested in (the interwiki map, the spam blacklist) to the original one. More tweaks by others very welcome! Is there general interest in a general interest one like Commons has? That could be set up too. ++Lar: t/c 21:33, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I saw it and I like it. Not sure what the general interst one would entail though. Cbrown1023 talk 21:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Me either. It could be huge... Commons:Discussion_index is manageable though... Note that the stewards one hasn't updated yet I don't think. I think just linking the template in is enough but if not, will have to wait for Bryan to come back from holiday. ++Lar: t/c 22:09, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I archived some old topics from Babel. Maybe we could add some still. Hope it helps to keep the index in a reasonable size ... --Aphaia 13:42, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

So should I go ahead and set one of these up for general discussion? Note that Bryan has extended the functionality of the bot to also watch categories, which is very useful on commons. The bot is now on wp:en so to see an example of watching categories see w:User:Lar/AdminCategoryWatch... those happen to be of interest to me so it's more of an example of what it can do than something that anyone necessarily would want to watch other than me. ++Lar: t/c 19:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Itemsoccur

Please check this blocked user for rules Please check up on conformity to rules blocking of this user --82.138.14.238 13:00, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, what are you asking? I looked at this users (deleted) contributions. They appear to all be subpages in user space, and all are in cyrillic. An admin I trust a great deal, MaxSem (talk • contribs • count • logs • page moves • block log • CA • email) deleted some of the pages as personal attacks and blocked the user indefinitely. Everything seems in order to me. ++Lar: t/c 14:05, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

No personal atack in this pages. Deletion and timeless block is personal attack to User:Itemsoccur by MaxSem. See also: [3]

[4] --82.138.14.238 06:55, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, user Itemsoccur tried to write an appeal to ArbCom of Russian Wikipedia using Meta, because he is banned in Russian Wikipedia, just like Smartass and others. --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 08:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Either the claim is based on fact or not, I think this topic as well as the following one are pointless here. It is not a meta affair for which this page is dedicated. --Aphaia 22:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Where a place for this purpose? --82.138.14.238 06:38, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you are better to bring it up into the Russian local community at first, like mailinglist. Meta is not a superior court for local admin deeds, and your argument is not a cross-project matter. --Aphaia 08:33, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

1. Unreal to do it : [5]. --82.138.14.238 11:10, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

2. Deletion and timeless block User:Itemsoccur is Meta problem. --82.138.14.238 11:10, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

ArbCom of Russian Wikipedia 'n' Ru:User:Solon

[6]

[7]

--82.138.14.238 09:46, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

One username and password for all wikipedias and other wikis

Can it be made able to access and contribute on all wikipedias and other wiki projects with a single account? For example, to be able to login in english and spanish wikipedia, wikibooks and wikiversity and to contribute there with a singe account?

This is currently being worked on, please see SUL. Cbrown1023 talk 18:29, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, as long as the solution does not interfere with the existing separate accounts and passwords, single users already have around the different wikipedia localizations! Michel 12:56, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Beta/Demo version currently enabled on http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MergeAccount (note that you need to create an account on that wiki with the same username as your other accounts to test it). Cbrown1023 talk 15:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, will do (my prefs are set up to receive mails when watched pages are changed, but somehow it's not working, and I've seen your reply only now) · Michel 20:03, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Translations

spam site removed -Hillgentleman

Bot flag for User:BryanBot

Does anybody mind if it will be flagged? MaxSem 13:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. Cbrown1023 talk 15:04, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I will if you won't... Majorly (talk) 15:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Done Majorly (talk) 16:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

There are some things I wish it wasn't flagged for, the category and discussion index stuff is good to show up on recent changes and on watchlists... :) ++Lar: t/c 16:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

It'll show up on your watchlist still :) Majorly (talk) 16:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes but it should show up on recent changes too, IMHO. These are things that need visibility. Perhaps we need two bots? ++Lar: t/c 19:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, shall I unflag it then? Majorly (talk) 19:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd love to have indeces not edited by a flagged bot. --Aphaia 05:00, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Unflagged then. Majorly (talk) 12:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

side bar

what do you think of the new side bar ? Better ? Worse ? Other options ? Anthere

Could you go through what you changed please? Majorly (talk) 23:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• Anthere,
  1. line 1 -should be "meet the wikiMedians.
  2. line 4 -is it going to stay there forever?
  3. line 5 - --> donate money
  4. Overall, it makes meta look like "a foundation wiki where everybody can edit".Hillgentleman02:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• Anthere, Change "organise an event" to "Events", and remove the verbs "organise", "join", "adopt" and "bid". They either confuse or advocate certain points of views.Hillgentleman

Hillgentleman, is that better? Majorly (talk) 12:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• Majorly, Yes. Thanks. Yet "Meet Wikimedians" is a little awkward; Wikimedian Meetup(s?) or simply Meetup(s) is more accurate.Hillgentleman 20:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I rather liked action words, but that's fine :-) Of course, links can change over time ! Depends on the interest at a given moment. Right now, Wikimania is an important topic, it will be again next year, but maybe not so much in december. Anthere

• Anthere, Je comprend. However, for example, I usually don't go organise events.Hillgentleman 20:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Multilingual pages

I'm somewhat concerned about multilingualism, specially on projects like Meta and Commons. I wanted to write my user page at Commons in different languages, so different users could find information in the language they wanted, but I'm having a really hard time.

I've seen that here in Meta there is a possibility to choose the language you want with the method described at Meta:Language select, but unfortunately I have some problems with it. Besides the fact that I don't like how it looks like, the process is implemented in the local CSS and JavaScript files, thus it doesn't work in Commons.

If you go to the Wikipedia in Catalan, you can see a rather nice table on the Main Page, showing different clickable tabs which could be used for different languages. Unfortunately, it's written in the Catalan Wikipedia's CSS and JavaScript files, so it doesn't work outside there, and it's not very customizable.

I was looking for a method of choosing the language, but right from the MediaWiki software, so it could be used in all wikis. There could be some method, but I'd like to know what problems could it have.

First, using the link "?uselang=xx" or "index.php?title=page_title&uselang=xx". This changes the user's language to xx, defined under wgUserLanguage on the source code. For example, following this link or this one changes the user's language at Commons' Main Page to French, and so changes the tabs' language and the value of wgUserLanguage to fr. Now, if there was a magic word to get the language code of wgUserLanguage, something in the form of {{USERLANGUAGE}}, it would be easy to render the content on the page in the desired language, using some Parser Function. For example, with the link above, one could use {{#switch:{{USERLANGUAGE}} | en =... | es =... | default =...}} to have the page in different languages, but all in one page. Unfortunately, there is no such magic word. Why is this? Could it be created? If yes, where should it be requested? If no, what would be the problems?

Another similar option is to use the magic word {{CONTENTLANGUAGE}}, which gets the value of wgContentLanguage. For example, using {{CONTENTLANGUAGE}} here gives "en". But I find no way to change this value following a link i.e. I can't do like with the example above. Is there any way to do this, just like "?uselang=xx" does with wgUserLanguage? As you can see, what one method has, the other lacks.

However, I had the hardest time figuring out where to write this ;) If you know a better place to discuss this, go ahead and move it. I'd like to know your opinions, whether if this would work or not, the problems, and so on. Thanks for your involvement! - Keta 18:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The actual problem is the caching of the pages. Since the parsed pages (i.e. the actual content to send) are cached, I don't think it's possible to introduce a {{USERLANGUAGE}} magic word. Another problem is the breakage of pages such as Special:Whatlinkshere when using such magic word.

{{CONTENTLANGUAGE}} is the language of the content of the wiki, which cannot be changed via URL, and is fixed for each wiki. – rotemliss – Talk 02:50, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer Rotemliss. I don't understand very well how caching and parsing work, but I guess the only solution for now is to use Javascript. - Keta 09:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how, but Betawiki uses {{UILANGCODE}} --Steinninn 01:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

If it doesn't work then Splarka has a js solution --Steinninn 01:19, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

CSS coordinates globe icon

Apparently someone added a globe icon to the CSS style used by en:Wikipedia geographic coordinate templates. Discussion immediately began in w:Template_talk:Coord but we haven't found where the meta:CSS discussion is for the relevant stylesheet. (SEWilco 17:23, 26 August 2007 (UTC))

I think the globe icon is emitted by Javascript associated with the WikiMiniAtlas. I'll direct discussion to Talk:WikiMiniAtlas. (SEWilco 17:38, 26 August 2007 (UTC))

Betawiki: better support for your language in MediaWiki

Dear community. I am writing to you to promote a special wiki called Betawiki. This wiki facilitates the localisation (l10n) and internationalisation (i18n) of the MediaWiki interface. You may have changed many messages here on Wikipedia to use your language for your language profile, but if you would log in to for example the English language Wiktionary, you would not be able to use the interface as well translated as here.

If you wish to contribute to better support of your language in MediaWiki, as well as for many MediaWiki extensions, please visit Betawiki, create an account and request translator priviledges. You can see the current status of localisation of your language on meta and do not forget to get in touch with others that may already be working on your language on Betawiki.

If you have any further questions, please let me know on my talk page on the Dutch Wikipedia. We will try and assist you as much as possible, for example by importing all messages from a local wiki for you to start with.

You can also find us on the Freenode IRC network in the channel #mediawiki-i18n where we would be happy to help you get started.

Obviously we need people from the smaller communities and I have posted this message at the village pumps that I know of, i.e. that are in a list here on meta. If you are a native writer of a smaller language, or know any, please do not hesitatie to refer people to Betawiki.

Thank you very much for your attention and I do hope to see some of you on Betawiki soon! Cheers! Siebrand 17:56, 26 August 2007 (UTC) (Betawiki user page)

user:HermesBot

Hello, I'm looking to run HermesBot on this wiki. HermesBot will deliver en.wikipedia's signpost to users who sign up at user:HermesBot/signpost. The bot is written in C#. Any thoughts? ~ Wikihermit 03:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd do it if I were you :) Sounds like a sane service. Siebrand 07:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, nothing wrong, isn't it? --Aphaia 07:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Uhm... You've followed a link to a page that doesn't exist yet'. Not sure what should be done. Michel 08:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I haven't created the page. I was looking for the place to go for approval first before I created the page. Is their some sort of BRFA on meta? ~ Wikihermit 23:45, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

No, as told to you on the "requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat" page, this is where you should bring it up. :-) Cbrown1023 talk 23:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Useful, but can't it just post a notice instead of the whole signpost? --.anaconda 01:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

If I'm going to delivery a notification, why don't I just deliver the actual signpost instead. ~ Wikihermit 03:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Because it makes special:whatlinkshere basically useless for any article linked from Sigpost when the links point to hundreds of user talk pages unnecessarily. It also fills up the search results with duplicate hits. Angela 08:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

And - although I do not feel strongly - this is Meta not Wikipedia? Folk can get the signpost on wp - I think I'm with Angela & .anaconda --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh you plans to post the whole Singpost? Please do not do it. It is redundant and make recenchanges useless. I love to have a notice, since I am not frequently visiting it (which is not my home project) and tend to forget to check it, so notice and links to the articles are welcome, but the whole copy, no, please. --Aphaia 09:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

To Angela, basically Signpost is concerned with English Wikipedia and only, and here is meta. So a link from meta user talk wouldn't be listed whatlinkshere of Signpost nor linked articles? Also now we can sort those links by namespace [btw, if we have an "Invert selection" buttom there too, as well as Recentchanges, it would be great]. So I can understand your concerns not fully. --Aphaia 09:14, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I could give the option for a notification & a option to have the full one delivered. If the bot was flagged Aphaia, recentchanges won't be clogged. I would link with the w:. Any community support for this, or no? I won't run it unless the meta community wants it. ~ Wikihermit 16:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Well whilst Signpost is primarily about enwp, it does have articles concerning other major wikimedia events, Majorly (talk) 16:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Now I'm wondering it more logical, less redundant and server-friendly, to post an index (="full sighpost"?) with w: links to Metapub, rather to get notifications on each user talks. Any community level notices are welcome at Metapub, so, from English Wikipedia also, even if it were only concerned with English Wikipedia alone (and even if it is mostly so, some articles are not). And most of active meta users are expected to be watching Metapub, or not? --Aphaia 23:00, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

How does this sound... The bot will deliver a link of a new signpost to users who sign up, and will deliver the full signpost to the end of this page. ~ Wikihermit 22:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

If it posts a notice, I'll probably use it. I think you can use both methods, User:HermesBot/signpost for full text and another page (e.g. User:HermesBot/signpost/notext) for others. --.anaconda 22:58, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

RfC: proposal to rearranging meta translations-related pages

I apologize for my poor english. Well, I have drafted a report of the pages related with translation, here on meta and I have thought to some modifications at them. Now most of them are confusing, contain old and deprecated stuff, and so on. You can find the report here.

A draft of proposal, substantially, would consist on this roadmap:

• Deleting or archiving the actual translation requests page and its i18n pages, in order to replacing it with the dynamic list now under translations page (we can effectively move it, to keep its history correctly). Next, we should include in that page a section for local requests (now located at this location, but I'd suggest to move it to another location, because the template and the rest of its subpages are obsolete).
• Archiving the old stuff now present in Babylon. Removing the Babylon chat room section (we already have Meta:Babel for discussions). The requests from communities, as I have said above, would be embedded in the new translation request page. Next I think that we can build a portal/noticeboard merging what remains of Babylon and the actual head of the translations page. I'd suggest to keeping Babylon as its name.
• Deleting the Template:Translation requests pages because they are obsolete.

Each step would be discussed and applied taking in account the incoming links of each page. I ask everyone to review and comment the proposal, to make his own remarks and eventually suggest his own ideas. Greetings. --Massimiliano 13:04, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Anyone who writes a list as neat as this one has probably got the right idea. ;-)

Seriously, though, the pages relating translation can be very confusing, especially for newbies, so a bit of spring (autumn!) cleaning is a good thing.

Arria Belli 14:42, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Basically looks nice to me. Let me summarize your proposals to see if I understand your ideas rightly

• We have one request page (Translations) and one notice board (Babylon).
• General discussions go to here, Meta:Babel.
• Others (TR/its i19n pages/subsidiary templates) obsolete and hence to be deleted.

One thought: TR could be archived (it is genuinely a portal page, so no confusion) or redirect to Translations page: or just once delete TR and move the current Translations to the place TR has occupied. --Aphaia 15:39, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, TR could be archived. My idea was to archiving TR and moving under that title (it would be more appropriate) the translations page. Then we should copy the part I've recently added to translations into the Babylon. So we won't have a page titled translations anymore. Maybe it could be redirected to the Babylon. But I just realized I misunderstood the use of Meta:Babel. I thought, erroneously, that it was dedicated to discussions about translations, but I realize now that it's dedicated to general metawiki-related discussions. So, now the question is: do we need a separated place to discuss about translations-related issues? My thought is "yes", but I think it should be separated from the portal/noticeboard. If we need a page for discussions and if we want to use Babylon as a portal/noticeboard we need to create a new page: well, where to put it? Or we don't need it? --Massimiliano^∞ 01:13, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah now I understand your idea about Babel/Babylon issue. I thought you would like to delete its chatting space, because it is inactive and could be merged to Babel. Perhaps we just could use Talk:Babylon for chatting? Many WikiProjects use their talk page for their discussions of various topics as well as how to manage the page design, or even more. --Aphaia 08:51, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me if what I wrote was not clear. I thought to delete the Babylon chatting space and merge it with Babel because I believed Babel was a translations-related discussion page, but I've just realized that it's a general discussion page. So, I asked where to put a space for discussions about translations. I agree with your idea to use the Babylon talk for this purpose. Well, I propose to coordinate all the proposed changes there: can I archive the actual Talk:Babylon and start there a new page? --Massimiliano∞ 09:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Or re-structuring of Meta:Babylon/archives, separate them into two: Portal archive and Chat archive. The curent talk is quite old, so safely archived in my opinion. --Aphaia 10:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Done - Let's continue there. --Massimiliano∞ 01:11, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

system message translations

-copied from Siebrand talkpage

Hi. I kind of picked you randomly for the list on Special projects subcommittees/Languages. I asked Nike on BetaWiki why his wiki isn't hosted by the WikiMediaFoundasion. He replied that it's because of the lack of activity from wmf side. First I thought these translations should be hosted on test.wikipedia, but Nike convinced me that's not a good idea. Couldn't BetaWiki's strength be merged with Incubator. Users would get translators rights, and Nike would get full developers rights (if he doesn't have it already). I tried looking for a Village Pump here on Meta to propose some changes, but didn't find it. Any thoughts.--Steinninn 14:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Meta:Babel comes close to a Village Pump. I support your proposal 100% :) Cheers! Siebrand 21:28, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

-end of copy

So, I'm bringing this up at Babel. Any more thoughts? --Steinninn 22:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds nice to me, while I am not sure on technical details. How do incubator people think about?--Aphaia 00:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm moving this discussion back and forth. I thought I'd put up a separate page. Meta:Betawiki beeing hosted by Wikimedia --Steinninn 00:42, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

As stated on that page, please try to bring this up on Foundation-l, you may get more response. Cbrown1023 talk 03:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

@Aphaia: I have brought this up at Incubator and asked them to comment at the above discussion page.

@Cbrown1023: It took me a while to get subscribed so that I could send it there. It's Done now. --Steinninn 04:03, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikimedia Conferentie 2007: Voorinschrijvingen open!

Beste allemaal,

op zaterdag 27 oktober organiseert Wikimedia Nederland de jaarlijkse Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland. Dit jaar met het thema "Wiki's en educatie". De conferentie gaat om 10 uur van start en duurt 17:30. Het programma bevat ondermeer lezingen door Eliane Metni, directeur van de International Education Association uit Libanon en voorzitter van iEARN-Libanon, Cormac Lawyer, promovendus gespecialiseerd in Wiki's en educatie, Hans de Zwart van Moodle en Florence Devouard, de voorzitter van de Wikimedia Foundation. Daarnaast bevat het programma een breed spectrum aan lezingen en discussies uit de gemeenschap en van daarbuiten. Het volledige programma is binnenkort te vinden op de website van de conferentie.

Leden van de Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland betalen 15 euro entree tijdens de voorinschrijvingen. Niet-leden betalen 35 euro, maar kunnen tijdens de voorinschrijving nog lid worden van de vereniging en betalen dan in totaal 30 euro. Dat is dus vijf euro goedkoper. Dit aanbood is alleen geldig tijdens de voorinschrijvingen, die sluiten op 12 oktober. Aan de deur zijn de kaartjes voor leden en niet-leden respectievelijk 25 en 45 euro. Lunch is inbegrepen. Schrijf je snel in op http://www.wikimediaconferentie.nl/registraties . Ik hoop van harte velen van jullie te mogen ontmoeten, en vooral dat we er een gezellige dag van maken.

Met vriendelijke groet, mede namens Siebrand en Husky,

Lodewijk Gelauff / Effeietsanders 15:43, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikimedia and cyberstalking

I'm writing a paper on cyberstalking, which I hope to hand to the Foundation with a view to educating them about it, and if possible improving their responses to it.

I'd like to include in it some examples of cyberstalking or offline stalking that have happened to users as a result of their participation in any of the Wikimedia projects, and particularly where the target was picked on because they were an administrator.

If you've been a target of this yourself, or if you know of anyone who has, I'd appreciate hearing from you at slimvirgin at gmail dot com. Your name would not have to be included in the final document for publication, and if you're worried about being exposed in any way, I can also change all identifying details. Nothing would be included in the final document without express permission.

What I'm most interested in hearing about is how the cyberstalking made you feel, and what happened when you tried to find support from other Wikipedians. I'd particularly like to hear from women who feel they were subjected to additional harassment because of their sex.

Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)