User talk:JamesR/TalkArchive/2014/June
 | This is an archive of past discussions with User:JamesR. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
The Signpost: 28 May 2014
- News and notes: The English Wikipedia's second featured-article centurion; wiki inventor interviewed on video
With the promotion to featured article of Grus (constellation) on 17 May, Casliber became Wikipedia's second featured-article centurion, following Wehwalt's groundbreaking achievement last December. Cas's first FA, Banksia integrifolia, a group effort, was promoted on 16 November 2006. His first solo project, Diplodocus, followed in January 2007; he has rarely been off the FAC since. In a second story, Ward Cunningham, an American computer programmer who invented the wiki, was interviewed by the WMF.
- Featured content: Zombie fight in the saloon
Wikipedia editor Sven Manguard's work is quite underappreciated a lot of the time, most likely because people haven't heard of it yet: He's developed good relationships with game companies, and is thus able to get full-resolution screenshots released under a Creative Commons license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere. This week's trove of new featured items on the English Wikipedia comprises seven articles, three lists, and four pictures.
- Traffic report: Get fitted for flipflops and floppy hats
In the US, Memorial Day marks the unofficial beginning of summer, and summer is definitely on people's minds this week, with summer films Godzilla and X-Men: Days of Future Past, the apparently designated summer song "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea, and summer TV show, Game of Thrones.
- Recent research: Predicting which article you will edit next
Wikipedia in the eyes of its beholders; "Chinese-language time zones" favor Asian pop and IT topics on Wikipedia; and bipartite editing prediction in Wikipedia.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent software changes
- The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf7) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 29. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 3, and to all Wikipedias on June 5 (calendar).
- CirrusSearch was enabled as the primary search method on all Wikipedias with less than 100,000 pages on May 30. [1]
VisualEditor news
- Templates that redirect to other templates now get the TemplateData of their target. [2]
- The toolbar of the PageTriage extension will no longer be visible after you save an edit with VisualEditor. [3] [4]
- VisualEditor now checks if your browser supports SVG files to avoid displaying broken icons. [5]
- There is now a new type for TemplateData parameters:
datefor dates and times in the ISO 8601 format. [6]
Future software changes
- MediaViewer will be enabled on the German (de) and English (en) Wikipedias on June 3. Feedback is welcome.
- You will soon see a warning if you visit a contributions page for a user that does not exist. [7] [8]
- The search tab will soon be removed from user preferences. You will be able to set your search preferences on Special:Search. [9] [10]
- You will soon see a label next to the little triangle arrow for the Actions menu in the Vector skin (screenshot). [11] [12]
Problems
- For about 20 minutes on May 29, all wikis were broken due to a configuration error. [13]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
08:07, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
The Signpost: 04 June 2014
Individual engagement grants (IEGs) are announced twice yearly by a volunteer WMF committee, the most recent of which we covered last December. The scheme, launched at the start of last year, awards funds to individuals or teams of up to four to produce high-impact outcomes for the WMF's online projects. It favours innovative approaches to solving critical issues in the movement.
- News and notes: Two new affiliate-selected trustees
New trustee Frieda Briosch from Italy: we face "a couple of headaches", she says: "how to boost editors, which includes the development of the next strategic plan, and how to keep our project always 'glamorous'."
I never feel quite adequate trying to paraphrase Sumana's words: she is so articulate. I highly encourage every person who reads this article to directly watch her keynote—it directly speaks to a lot of Wikimedia's most significant issues, made with great eloquence. We have a serious issue with retaining editors, and parts of her speech could serve as a pretty good partial blueprint towards how we could begin to fix that problem.
- Featured content: Ye stately homes of England
David Iliff, or Diliff, as he is known on here outside of the file pages for his many, many, excellent photographs, is one of Wikipedia's longest-standing professional-standard photographers. This week, the Signpost salutes him.
- In the media: Reliable or not, doctors use Wikipedia
The month of May saw significant coverage concerning the reliability of Wikipedia's medical articles.
- Traffic report: Autumn in summer
The northern summer is a time when one is meant to celebrate the exuberance of life; instead, commemoration of the dead was a significant theme this week.