Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2017-08

Help with CentralNotice

Hi guys! I write a request for a CentraNotice banner at July 29, but it seems like no one is taking care of the requests. Can someone help me? The request is for call editors to a meeting. CentralNotice/Request/WikiEncuentro Cali 2017. --Sahaquiel9102 (talk) 04:23, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Base (talk) 03:47, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

How local account could be merged to global account?

Hi

Since 2007, I have contributed on different Wikimedia projects. First using my original user-name that had been renamed on a local wiki project (Oliver h), But I was misusing a different user-name with an upper-case H (Oliver H).

Well... at the end I got four different user-names, and I want to merge them all.

But it was not possible for the following reason:

Not done It is not possible to merge local accounts.

Please give me some hope in order to merge my local accounts to my global account. Why not?

References :

• https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_requests/Username_changes#Oliver.hessling
• https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_requests/Username_changes/2017-07#Oliver_h
• https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_requests/Username_changes/2017-07#.28WT-fr.29_Oliver_H

Cheers, Oliver H (talk) 07:54, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

On projects that you contributed to you have several local accounts. For instance, in French Wikipedia you have three accounts, on French Wikivoyage - two. It is not possible to merge them into one account. It is only possible to move local accounts between global accounts. If you want one global account, you can choose which local accounts (from existing ones) will be attached to it for project. Ruslik (talk) 08:25, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Sadly mw:Extension:UserMerge is still unstable so fully merging accounts is not something we can do. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 09:43, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Ruslik and MarcoAurelio for your answers. Therefore I continue to use only my global account Oliver H and hoping the mw:Extension:UserMerge will be available on Wikimedia.org in about ten years , I will ask again to merge all my accounts for history consistency . See you in 2027 --Oliver H (talk) 19:30, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Rmy Wikipedia

Apologies if this is not the right place to raise this but on en.wiki, we have a person raising concerns about spam and racist edits on rmy.wiki and asking en.wiki administrators to delete or hide pages and edits. See [1]. En.wiki administrators are of course not able to do this and I wondered if perhaps a steward or global sysop could take a look. Thanks. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 12:09, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

I am not sure whether these pages should be deleted at all. Ruslik (talk) 20:00, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Agreed, "Not a real Roma person, random article" is not a valid reason for deletion. Stryn (talk) 21:09, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

It would appear that someone thinks that it is an encyclopaedia of Romani people, rather than an encyclopaedia of the Romani language. AGF reverted the IP edits.  — billinghurst sDrewth 22:08, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Your feedback is welcome!

Hey everyone, TL;DR, see Technical Collaboration/Community collaboration in product development/Tech ambassadors and translators to provide feedback on the role of tech ambassadors and tech translators until August 22nd, or in person at Wikimania. All details on page. Any help spreading the word is certainly appreciated :) Ciao, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:05, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

A bug in individual Wikimedia projects blocking

I'd notify you a bug in Wikimedia projects blocking systems: when an IP is being blocked, it usually comes with an account creation blocking. However, this seldomly make any sence, since the account creation blocking doesn't work globally while the user registered would. As I've tested, the registration entries on other Wikipedia is open when it's blocked on one of the project. I haven't tested if I register an user on another project, whether it will be usable on English Wikipedia, but persumably it should work.

I propose an autoblocking of account creation globally when there's a block on an individual project. --146.96.252.3 22:15, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Nope, when you're blocked locally with account creation disabled, you can register a new account via another project but it won't create and automatically attach on the local project where a block exists with account creation disabled until that block expires. It's all in the relevant SUL documentation. Nick (talk) 22:38, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

My misunderstanding. Thanks. --146.96.252.3 23:02, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Project wikipedia in Portuguese simplified

The Portuguese language is currently with many rules, 90%, it can be simplified, I am interested in starting a wikipedia in simple Portuguese, in which as the name consists is to simplify that language, just like simplified English. PS: I am a native speaker of the language.--ProntComando (talk) 00:33, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Bassel Khartabil

Is it possible to have a star shining over Palmyra to be named after him Bassel? Thank you for your time. With sadness. Lotje (talk) 02:42, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

What star do you mean? Ruslik (talk) 13:11, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

One given by the International Astronomical Union. Lotje (talk) 15:07, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Scripted SVG Availability

I've made an interactive map of Turkey to replace the raster map on the Turkey page. I'm trying to learn how to include my SVG (which contains both CSS and ECMAscript) but the most common answer I find is that scripted SVG is simply forbidden on Wikipedia. I have seen talk of a Scripted SVG template but the page I found mention of it said it was not currently available. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Scripted_SVG

Is it possible to replace a raster image with a scripted SVG map in a Wikipedia article?

It is true that scripted SVGs are not supported by MediaWiki though dynamical CSS is supported. As to commons:Template:Scripted_SVG it only adds categories to the file page. Ruslik (talk) 08:49, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Problems with editing and downloading

During the last few days I have problems with editing and reading articles and pages of all Wikimedia Projects – Wikipedia on all languages, Wikimedia Commons and so on. I need to download pages twice, because they don't open after the first click. The same thing with editing, while using preview and saving my edits. I've cleaned cache several times, rebooted my computer – the problem is not solved yet. What should I do? Thanks. --U-leo (talk) 18:09, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Did you try other web browsers? Stryn (talk) 18:50, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

• I think the problem doesn't caused by a browser. Situation with the Wikipedia iOS app is the same – long downloading and other problems. By the way, Google and Yandex are asking me for a captcha when I search sometimes and telling me, that my ip-address has a suspicious activity. Maybe the core of these bugs is my new web provider? I changed it two months ago. --U-leo (talk) 19:22, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

For a first time, I thought that this problem appears only in my homewiki, Russian. But now I see it is the global thing. --U-leo (talk) 19:28, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like a networking problem, yes. Maybe something wrong between you and Amsterdam? You could use mtr or winmtr to see if there is high packet loss between you and Wikimedia domains; that would be a first indicator. --Nemo 19:45, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Hindi Wikisource

Requests for new languages/Wikisource Hindi has been in limbo since 2008, while many other Indic languages now have their own Wikisource... we need a Hindi Wikisource for the hundreds of texts in s:mul:Category:Hindi and s:mul:Category:हिन्दी. Aryamanarora (talk) 15:56, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Hello, Aryamanarora. You may want to propose the wiki at Talk:Language committee. Hopefully, the community would improve the Hindi Wikisource. --George Ho (talk) 22:43, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: Thanks for the help! I'll add a topic there right away. Aryamanarora (talk) 22:50, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Requests for comment/Improvement of global ban policy

I have created this RfC to revise the global ban policy.--GZWDer (talk) 08:09, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Please i am in need of help

i am ibrahimu098, i have been recently been block. please help me and unblock me. this article that i have create is my project research and i really need it, please.Ibrahimu098 (talk) 18:58, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

You should pay attention to your talk page and to en:Wikipedia:Appealing a block. Ruslik (talk) 20:19, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Help with translation templates

Hello! I'm currently helping to import all the dashboard modules here, so we can translate them to other languages. All the items are here, but don't know how I have to put them for translation, as it's my first time with this task. Can anyone help me/us/everyone with this subject? -Theklan (talk) 16:30, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Help/ Sugestions

I just sent my email to (OTRS) and subscribed through the users of Meta.Wikimedia.org taking a long time to respond. --177.207.73.219 18:03, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Wofür muss es Community-Konsens geben?

For which decisions is a community Consensus necessary?

(Kopie von hier)
Vermutlich ist das hier der bessere Platz für die Diskussion, der andere wurde zwar als Begründung für dieses Vorgehen genannt, scheint aber nicht so für Diskussionen benutzt zu werden.

Anlässlich des aktuell gerade sinnfreierweise durchgeführten Konsensfindungsprozesses wegen einer Marginalie wie dem Beta-Test eines neuen Skins wurde folgendes Szenario dargestellt (Link zur Disk):

• Für die Einführung als Test, also um überhaupt erst mal beurteilen zu können, ob das Feature was taugt, ist ein Konsens erforderlich
• Sobald es als Beta-Feature vorhanden ist, kann es ohne Konsens per ordre de Mufti von der WMF oktroyiert werden.

Das erinnert mich fatal an das Vorgehen beim MV, als auch ein Feature zum, Testen eingeführt wurde, und dann sogar gegen den ausdrücklichen Willen der Community mit Gewalt gegen diese eingeführt wurde. OK, SuperPutsch ist inzwischen offiziell Geschichte, eine tatsächliche Verhaltensänderung in solch eindeutigen Fällen ist allerdings nicht wirklich erkennbar, es gab noch nicht mal eine offizielle Entschuldigung seitens der WMF für dieses bösartige Vorgehen. Sollte dem tatsächlich so sein, dann wäre der einzige Schutz der Communities vor irgendwelchen kraftmeierischen Alleingängen der WMF ein komplett neophobes Verhalten, damit so etwas wie dem MV, oder gar dem idiotischen Flow in Zukunft, gar nicht erst die Tür zum Test geöffnet würde, weil damit schon vor der erforderlichen Evaluation jegliches Mitbestimmungsrecht abgetreten würde. Ist dem tatsächlich so? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 04:21, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Translation (Links are above):
As we discussed this in an quite senseless procedure to get a community consensus for some very minor decision, in this case to test a new skin as a beta-feature, the following scenario was sketched:

• A consensus is needed for the test, to get some information about the feature for the first time in the wild, and to be able to evaluate the feature at all
• Once it's in the project as a beta-feature, it can be forced on in the project without community consensus by a simple order from SF

This reminds me in a fatal way of the implementation of the MV. The MV was as well first introduced as a beta-feature, an then implemented as default even against the explicit and unambiguous wishes of the community with the use of force and might. OK, SuperPutsch is now officially history, but a actual change in behaviour is not really noticeable, not even an official apology about this mean behaviour was made up to now. Should this really be the case the only way for a community to shield itself from another unilateral show of force by the WMF would be a complete neophobic behaviour to let something like with the MV, or in the future with this Flow-junk, not even for testing inside the projects, because afterwards all community decisions are futile and can be disregarded. Is this really this way? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 04:21, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Just to clarify, Timeless is primarily a volunteer driven project, not coming from "SF". The main author is a volunteer working in her own time to write and deploy a new skin. At this time no one has expressed any intentions of making Timeless a default skin, and I would think there would be long discussions before doing so.

As for your main question, I think people are being especially cautious here. A new skin is a big deal, it requires updating of scripts, gadgets, templates, etc. to ensure compatibility. Obviously this doesn't scale for every wiki, but after a while (c.f. phab:T154371#3526314) it'll probably just get deployed everywhere as opt-in. I think that if it hadn't been announced like this and just showed up one day in preferences people would have been pretty upset about the new skin and we (we as in MediaWiki developers) would have been accused of trying to sneak in a new skin behind everyone's backs. Maybe I'm being a little too pessimistic, but I think greater transparency and confidence in the case of a new skin is worth the little extra bureaucracy. Legoktm (talk) 07:19, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

The problem is not really the imho a bit over-anxious consensus for this skin, i.e. my first bullet point. It's the second one, that's creating stomach ache, and the skin is just the (innocent) example. Is it really not necessary to get a community consensus for the change from Beta to Default? That's the far more important question. And this is how it's presented in the discussion over @deWP. Once you've got some unwanted junk like Flow as a beta feature, it can be made default without or even against explicit consensus. It must be clear, that that will never ever again be the case, that never ever again will the WMF act as bad and ruthless as in the MV case. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 09:44, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

That can also be done without it going trough beta. The distinction is not really significant from the point of view of a developer. Maybe for some management folk, but technically a beta feature is just a feature that excludes a group of people from using it. Has anyone ever attempted to write advisory guidelines for developers and or the WMF on this topic ? Like actionable ones, not vague statements ? That would be interesting. Not saying they would accept them, but at least it's more usable input that talking about SuperPutsch —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:26, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

The devs and the WMF in general are the servants of the highest entity here around: the communities. They all just live from the money generated by the knowledge written in the wikiverse by the communities. They are just there, because the enterprise was too big for anarchistic self-rule any longer and needed some professional support. By they are just support, not bosses. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 18:49, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

BitCoin donations to Wikipedia?

Can anyone direct me to information on how to donate bitcoin to Wikipedia? Do they accept bitcoins? I would like to contribute a few Satoshis because Wikipedia is doing a lot for my culture. Thank you, regards--MickeyDangerez (talk) 10:51, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

@MickeyDangerez: See wmf:Ways to Give#bitcoin.--GZWDer (talk) 11:06, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you @GZWDer!--MickeyDangerez (talk) 15:51, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Different rendering of the same PNG image

Hello and excuse me if this is not the most suitable place to ask the following question: Did you notice that grayscale PNG images appear to be lighter/duller than the RGB or monochrome ones, after scaling/processing on the Wiki*edia servers? Watch here. I hope it's not a feature, grayscale images are not meant to be gray-ish! —Mykhal (talk) 20:53, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Just for case a little preview, seamless side-by-side comparison of Wiki*edia-servers-downscaled RGB/Grayscale/Monochrome variants of the same, originally Monochrome image, as seen in recent *inux/Firefox50&Chromium60.

I may understand why nobody has replied yet – the anomaly is not well reproducible, is browser dependent (not present in non-old MSIE under tested Win platforms, and at least some Safari versions on MACOS as well). However, I have found that the problem is caused by the (anomalous) change of PNG gamma value in grayscale images (only), by the Wiki*edia servers processing. —Mykhal (talk) 15:20, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Why can not I remove a discussion page at the user's request?

I ask you to show the rule point, I am not going to continue to edit Wikipedia and maybe I have the right to remove my user page and discussion page. I leave Wikipedia because of a conflict with the project administrators on ukrviki because of neglect !!! the rules. --Jphwra (talk) 11:12, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

There is no global rule regarding removing discussions from talk pages. It's up to each wiki to set their own rules. -- Tegel _(Talk) 11:20, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Why do ukrviki indicate to me the impossibility of removal by violating my rights to extract information from the pages of Wikipedia? I do not speak the language about the articles that I created, I am speaking purely about user pages and discussions. --Jphwra (talk) 11:37, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Because that talk page doesn't belong to you, it's a place for other editors to communicate with you, and its history contains their contributions which might still be useful for them for some reason. Ultimately, even if that page was removed, any active user would still have a right to create it once again. So generally removing it is even pointless.--Piramidion 12:17, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

It's senseless to write here your comment to one of the engaging admins in ukrviki --Jphwra (talk) 13:16, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Tegel, MarcoAurelio I ask for your assistance in removing the discussion page, because the bullying that made me in ukrviki passes all boundaries. --Jphwra (talk) 13:18, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Except for edit warring in this article, you've been blocked for this comment, after which I deleted your user page on your request, but refused to do so with your talk page, and you already know my reasons. Do you call THAT bullying? Please stop slandering ukwiki administrators. Yes, we sometimes make mistakes, but I see no reasons to consider this situation one of them. If you want to leave Wikipedia, just leave. We have no obligations to delete any of your contributions, provided that they don't breake any Wiki(p/m)edia rules. "By saving changes, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license."--Piramidion 13:43, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

We can't do anything here. It's up to local community what they allow to do there. Stryn (talk) 13:32, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

We don't have any rules regarding this either, but there are certain practices. Nevertheless, I've started a discussion in ukwiki to gather some opinions and after gaining consensus to close this topic once and for all, one way or another.--Piramidion 14:01, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

On many wiki's it's allowed to empty your user talk page. But for example on the Finnish Wikipedia even emptying is not allowed. Everything will be archived to sub pages. And if users continuously empty their user talk pages after warnings they will be blocked. Stryn (talk) 17:40, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

We're not talking about emptying the user talk page, we'd be OK with that. We're talking about removing it completely on user's request. If you have any opinions regarding this, please express them either here, or in the discussion on ukwiki (here).--Piramidion 18:15, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Stryn, Tegel, MarcoAurelio, Piramidion Let me clarify things a bit. The problem rised due to language dialects usage on WP with following reverts war, account block and personal offence of this user to some admins. Jphwra just wants to be forgotten with his userpage and talkpage being removed. I think this is common practice on similar projects to delete personal account messages. There is nothing compromising nor valuable on that usertalk page, as it was claimed it is personal wish not to return to WP. Local admins have rejected this query, relying on basic rules of CC license, which is, as far as I know does not cover talkpages. Unfortunalelly, we don't have local rule covering this particular practice & disscussion grew into non constructive flame. Please, answer the question is: Is deletion of personal Userpage and Talkpage complies with Terms of Use? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Alex Khimich (talk)

Stryn, Tegel, MarcoAurelio I honestly do not see attempts at solving this issue diplomatically, even when discussing in my side, allow incorrect expressions. Panov stewards why can not I just remove my discussion page? And do not cause me even greater psychological suffering. --Jphwra (talk) 19:18, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Why I am being mentioned here? —MarcoAurelio (talk) 19:21, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Maybe you can stop this insignificant conflict that has arisen in ukrvi? --Jphwra (talk) 19:26, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Standalone rollbacker permission?

Does Meta offer standalone rollbacker permissions, or does one have to be an admin to have rollback? I encountered some vandalism and missed the rollback tool to handle it. :-/ Asaf (WMF) (talk) 04:34, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

@Asaf (WMF): You have to be an admin or be a member of a global group that has rollback permissions to use the feature in here. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 09:49, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

I would support Asaf having global rollbacker rights. I would also support WMF staff having rollbacker rights at meta by default. Which way should we progress, for the individual or for the group? I think that group would be useful as many WMF staff contribute here.  — billinghurst sDrewth 13:25, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Asaf (WMF) is neither on local or global groups restricted to WMF staff; and I would personally won't support creating yet another user group for such a limited scope. Asaf (WMF) is certainly okay to request global rollback permissions, but if he does not meet the criteria he won't be approved by the community. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 16:08, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

I personally trust Asaf with rollbacker/admin rights. However, there is no grounds for creating an user group specific for that purpose. Should a WMF staff (not included in the aforementioned restricted groups) be in need of these userrights, he/she should follow the procedures as described here as any other regular community member would have to. RadiX∞ 16:44, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I'm certainly not looking for any shortcut. I'll gladly apply for global rollbacker permission if someone can confirm I meet the criteria. Global rollback says "demonstrably active in cross-wiki countervandalism or anti-spam activities (for example, as active members of the Small Wiki Monitoring Team) and make heavy use of revert on many wikis", which I do not seem to meet. I do visit many different wikis in the course of my work, and have many different pages on my watchlists on those wikis, so occasionally I encounter and revert vandalism. But patrolling is not a big part of my work. When I do encounter vandalism, having the rollback tool can save time, and I'd say I can be trusted not to abuse the tool. But I'm not looking for an exception, so if this occasional use doesn't justify giving the permission, I won't apply, and will continue to revert manually when I need to. Asaf (WMF) (talk) 00:07, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

@Asaf (WMF):, I am in a situation pretty similar to yours, and I had no difficulties getting the global rollback flag (I collected some diffs showing vandalism reverts on smaller wikis).--Ymblanter (talk) 17:49, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

@Ymblanter:, thanks. I have now requested the tool. Asaf (WMF) (talk) 15:02, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind having a local rollback group here. Not sure how widely it would be used, but there's very little cost. – Ajraddatz (talk) 00:08, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

see here for last discussion about local rollbackers.--GZWDer (talk) 01:08, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

---

As this tends to be discussed at different places, I have created an RfC concerning creating such a flag here: Meta:Requests for comment/Adding a local rollbacker flag or alternatives --Base (talk) 22:33, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

The RfC was successfully closed, we are to finalise the policy yet, but nothing substantial is to change. Asaf (WMF), you might be interested in requesting the brand new Patroller flag for your volunteer account via WM:RFH, or via internal WMF channels for you staff account — I guess JSutherland (WMF) or Jalexander-WMF may help you with that). The same applies to other experienced editors reading this who wish to help patrolling edits and reverting vandalism on Meta and understand how the tools work. --Base (talk) 01:33, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 07:32, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Blocking of IP addresses

@Tegel, Vituzzu, MarcoAurelio, and Trizek (WMF): I've received the following complaint from Sindhi Wikipedians over the social media regarding IP block. The users have sent the screenshots as follows: 1 & 2. I request you to please look into these and find a solution at the earliest. --Muzammil (talk) 18:13, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't have the skills to help you on this case. I let Stewards having a look at it. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 16:09, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

The global block that I placed is missing the IP-address, so that makes it difficult to investigare. -- Tegel _(Talk) 18:32, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

@Hindustanilanguage: if the user cannot edit here at meta (global blocks do not affect meta), then the process is to email stewards via stewardswikimedia.org, or login to their account and use the mail feature Special:EmailUser/Stewards  — billinghurst sDrewth 03:20, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Special:EmailUser/Wikimedia Stewards or Special:Contact/stewards that is :) —MarcoAurelio (talk) 21:34, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

I've passed on the message to the users concerned over the social media. --Muzammil (talk) 14:33, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 07:32, 6 October 2017 (UTC)