April 2021 - Wikitech-ambassadors - lists.wikimedia.org

Wikitech-ambassadors April 2021

wikitech-ambassadors@lists.wikimedia.org

3 participants
6 discussions

by Liam Wyatt

Dear Wikitech/Wikitech-Ambassadors, Over the last few months, a small team at the Wikimedia Foundation has been working on a project that has been discussed by many people in our movement for many years: building ‘enterprise grade’ services for the high-volume commercial reusers of Wikimedia content. I am pleased to say that in a remarkably short amount of time (considering the complexity of the issues: technical, strategic, legal, and financial) we now have something worthy of showing to the community, and we are asking for your feedback. Allow me to introduce you to the Wikimedia Enterprise API project ? formerly codenamed “okapi”. While the general idea for Wikimedia Enterprise predates the current movement strategy process, its recommendations [0] identify an enterprise API as one possible solution to both “Increase the sustainability of our movement” and “Improve User Experience.” That is, to simultaneously create a new revenue stream to protect Wikimedia’s sustainability, and improve the quality and quantity of Wikimedia content available to our many readers who do not visit our websites directly (including more consistent attribution). Moreover, it does so in a way that is true to our movement’s culture: with open source software, financial transparency, non-exclusive contracts or content, no restrictions on existing services, and free access for Wikimedia volunteers who need it. The team believes we are on target to achieve those goals and so we have written a lot of documentation you get your feedback about our progress and where it could be further improved before the actual product is ‘launched’ in the next few months. We have been helped in this process over the last several months by the approximately 100 individual volunteers (from many corners of the wikiverse) and representatives of affiliate organisations who have reviewed our plans and provided invaluable direction. Pointing out weaknesses and opportunities, or areas lacking clarity and documentation in our drafts. A essay describing the “why?” and the “how?” of this project is now on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay Also now published on Meta are an extensive FAQ [1] and operating principles [2]. Much of this documentation is already available in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. For technical specifics, the new documentation on MediaWiki.org describes the product strategy and roadmap, work currently underway, design documents, as well as infrastructure decisions and future plans: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise The team is particularly interested in your feedback on how we have designed the checks and balances to this project - to ensure it is as successful as possible at achieving those two goals described above while staying true to the movement’s values and culture. For example: Is everything covered appropriately in the “Principles” list? Is the technical documentation on MediaWiki.org clear? Are the explanations in the “FAQ” about free-access for community, or project’s legal structure, or the financial transparency (etc.) sufficiently detailed? Meet the team and Ask Us Anything: The central place to provide written feedback about the project in general is on the talkpage of the documentation on Meta at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise Equally, for technical comments or questions the talkpage on MediaWiki.org : https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise > On this Friday (March 19) we will be hosting two “Office hours” conversations where anyone can come and give feedback or ask questions: - 13:00 UTC via Zoom at https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/95580273732 - 22:00 UTC via Zoom at https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/92565175760 (note: this is Saturday in Asia/Oceania) Other “office hours” meetings can be arranged on-request on a technical platform of your choosing; and we will organise more calls in the future. We will also be attending the next SWAN meetings (on March 21) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Wikimedia_Affiliates_Network , and also the next of the Wikimedia Clinics https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Clinics Moreover, we would be very happy to accept any invitation to attend an existing group call that would like to discuss this topic (e.g. an affiliate’s members’ meeting). On behalf of the Wikimedia Enterprise team, *Liam Wyatt [Wittylama]* WikiCite < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite > Program Manager & Wikimedia Enterprise < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Okapi > Community Liaison Wikimedia Foundation [0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recomme… [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/FAQ [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Principles

2?years, 8?months

Line numbering coming soon for syntax highlighting

by Johanna Strodt

// sorry for cross-posting Hello everyone, Here is another change from WMDE’s Technical Wishes team concerning syntax highlighting: Soon, line numbers will be shown in wikitext editors when you have the syntax highlighting feature (CodeMirror < https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CodeMirror > extension) enabled.[1] The change will make it easier to detect line breaks and to refer to a particular line in discussions. More information can be found on this project page. [2] We plan to deploy this with this week’s Mediawiki train, so it should be on wikis from April 13-15. As a first step, it will be available on the template namespace only. Deployment on other namespaces is planned for the near future. If you have any feedback, please let us know on the project’s talk page. [3] We hope line numbering will be useful to you! Johanna for the Technical Wishes team [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CodeMirror [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Line_Numbering [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Talk_Technical_Wishes/Line_Numbering -- Johanna Strodt Projektmanagerin Kommunikation Communitys Technische Wunschliste Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0 https://wikimedia.de Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissens der Menschheit teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren konnen. Helfen Sie uns dabei! https://spenden.wikimedia.de Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Forderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnutzig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt fur Korperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.

2?years, 8?months

Reference Previews will become a default feature on a first group of wikis soon

by Johanna Strodt

// apologies for cross-posting Hello! A new type of preview will soon be part of the MediaWiki software: Reference Previews.[1] This feature shows you a reference in a small pop-up when you hover over the reference number in square brackets. This way, you can look up a reference without jumping down to the bottom of the page. What’s more is that Reference Previews can offer a quicker way to evaluate the trustworthiness of the cited source by displaying the reference type (book, web, news, journal, note) in the pop-up’s header. Thus, they can help increase trust in the article itself. These types can be applied by using citation templates, or by manually entering a class into the ref tag. Reference Previews will be combined with Page Previews[2], a feature showing previews for linked articles. Both perform essentially the same function: previewing content before deciding to dig deeper, and easily providing more information while reading. Because of their similarities in design and behavior, both Page Previews and Reference Previews will be controlled by a single user setting. This means, all users who currently have Page Previews activated, will also get Reference Previews. Also, all readers, anonymous contributors and new users will see Reference Previews per default if they haven’t disabled Page Previews. On several wikis, the Navigation-Popups gadget and the Reference Tooltips gadget already offer previews for references. If you want to use them instead, you can: If you have one of these gadgets enabled, you’ll see them instead of Reference Previews. Although these gadgets exist, this feature was built into a MediaWiki extension in order to make it available for all Wikipedias, just as Page Previews is. The original request for this came from the Technical Wishes survey on German Wikipedia in 2017, where it was the number 1 wish. The Technical Wishes team from Wikimedia Germany has been working on it in cooperation with the WMF’s Reading Web team. Reference Previews have been a beta feature for several months on all Wikipedias and some other wikis, with more than 830,000 beta testers. During the beta phase, lots of feedback was collected, and several changes were made as a result.[3] Now, we plan to deploy it to a first group of wikis as a default feature on March 17. We’re still looking for wikis who want to have the default feature early, so if you’re interested, please let us know! [4] [5] More information about this feature, including frequently asked questions, can be found on its project page on Meta. [1] A big thanks to everyone who contributed to this development, by voting, testing, giving feedback or else. Comments and questions are welcome on this talk page. [4] Best, Johanna [1] Reference Previews: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/ReferencePreviews [2] Page Previews: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Page_Previews [3] Changes during the beta phase: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/ReferencePreviews#Bet… [4] talk page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:WMDE_Technical_Wishes/ReferencePreviews [5] Phab: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T271206 -- Johanna Strodt Project manager community communications Technical Wishes Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0 https://wikimedia.de ====== Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissen der Menschheit teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren konnen. Helfen Sie uns dabei! https://spenden.wikimedia.de Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us to achieve our vision! https://spenden.wikimedia.de ====== Wikimedia Deutschland ? Gesellschaft zur Forderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnutzig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt fur Korperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.

3?years, 1?month

Tech News (2021, week 17)

by Johan Jonsson

3?years, 1?month

Suggested values feature coming soon

by Timur Vorkul

// sorry for cross-posting Hi all, another feature will soon make usage of templates easier: Suggested values for parameters can be added to TemplateData and will be shown as a drop-down list in VisualEditor. This allows VisualEditor users to quickly select an appropriate value. Thus, it reduces potential errors and the effort needed to fill the template with values. It will still be possible to fill in values other than the suggested ones. More information can be found on the TemplateData help page [1] and on the project page. [2] The WMDE Technical Wishes team plans to deploy this on all wikis on April 29. If you have any feedback, please let us know on the project’s talk page. [3] Timur for the Technical Wishes team [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:TemplateData#suggestedvalues [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Suggested_values_for_… [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Suggested_values… -- Timur Vorkul Technische Wunsche Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23?24 | 10963 Berlin Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0 https://wikimedia.de Bleiben Sie auf dem neuesten Stand! Aktuelle Nachrichten und spannende Geschichten rund um Wikimedia, Wikipedia und Freies Wissen im Newsletter: Zur Anmeldung < https://www.wikimedia.de/newsletter/ >. Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissen der Menschheit teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren konnen. Helfen Sie uns dabei! https://spenden.wikimedia.de Wikimedia Deutschland ? Gesellschaft zur Forderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnutzig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt fur Korperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.

3?years, 1?month

Working with templates: Looking for wikis who want early access to several improvements

by Johanna Strodt

Hello! Our team, Wikimedia Germany’s Technical Wishes project [1], is developing a series of improvements to make working with templates easier. Maybe you’ve already heard of some of the projects that have recently been deployed: [2] [3] [4]. We plan to release more improvements to make working with templates easier over the course of this year: It will become easier to find templates and to insert them into a page. [5] Removing a template from a page (with Visual Editor) will become easier. [6] Several problems with the existing interface for editing templates in the VisualEditor will be tackled. [7] Template creators and maintainers will be offered more guidance when they are managing TemplateData with the template documentation editor. [8] Now we’re looking for a few wikis who want to be the first to benefit from these changes. If your wiki community is interested in this, all the improvements listed above would be deployed to your wiki in a series of releases, likely between May and July 2021. Of course, each deployment would be announced beforehand. We’re hoping for wikis of different sizes, both Wikipedias and sister projects, and wikis with different scripts and writing directions. The wikis should use TemplateData and ideally have the VisualEditor as a default feature. Is your wiki community interested to have early access to these improvements? Email me or let me know on my talk page.[9] Best, Johanna [1] Technical Wishes project: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes [2] Bracket matching: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Bracket_Matching [3] Improved color scheme for syntax highlighting: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Improved_Color_Scheme… [4] Line numbering: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Line_Numbering [5] Finding and inserting templates: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Finding_and_inserting… [6] Removing a template from a page using the VisualEditor: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Removing_a_template_f… [7] VisualEditor template dialog improvements: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/VisualEditor_template… [8] TemplateData editor improvements: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Template_data_editor_… [9] talk page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Johanna_Strodt_(WMDE) -- Johanna Strodt Projektmanagerin Kommunikation Communitys Technische Wunschliste Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0 https://wikimedia.de Unsere Vision ist eine Welt, in der alle Menschen am Wissens der Menschheit teilhaben, es nutzen und mehren konnen. Helfen Sie uns dabei! https://spenden.wikimedia.de Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Forderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnutzig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt fur Korperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.

3?years, 1?month

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Wikitech-ambassadors April 2021