Wikipedia:Noticeboard/Archive/2012

This is an archive of Wikipedia:Noticeboard. It consists of messages placed there in the year 2012. To place new messages, go to Wikipedia:Noticeboard.

Archive list

Archive	No. of Topics	Page size
Before 2010	7	9404
2010	5	3928
2011	4	5228
2012	13	25930
2013	26	48315
2014	18	27698
2015	38	69998
2016	25	49152
2017	23	61420
2018	14	30940
2019	13	31570
2020	21	42722
2021	24	52654
2022	73	213510
Current	145	484462
All	449	1156931

Announcing Wikipedia 1.19 beta

Wikimedia Foundation is getting ready to push out 1.19 to all the WMF-hosted wikis. As we finish wrapping up our code review, you can test the new version right now on beta.wmflabs.org. For more information, please read the release notes or the start of the final announcement.

The following are the areas that you will probably be most interested in:

• Faster loading of javascript files makes dependency tracking more important.
• New common*.css files usable by skins instead of having to copy piles of generic styles from MonoBook or Vector's css.
• The default user signature now contains a talk link in addition to the user link.
• Searching blocked usernames in block log is now clearer.
• Better timezone recognition in user preferences.
• Improved diff readability for colorblind people.
• The interwiki links table can now be accessed also when the interwiki cache is used (used in the API and the Interwiki extension).
• More gender support (for instance in logs and user lists).
• Language converter improved, e.g. it now works depending on the page content language.
• Time and number-formatting magic words also now depend on the page content language.
• Bidirectional support further improved after 1.18.

Report any problems on the labs beta wiki and we'll work to address them before they software is released to the production wikis.

Note that this cluster does have SUL but it is not integrated with SUL in production, so you'll need to create another account. You should avoid using the same password as you use here. — Global message delivery १६:२८, १५ ज्यानुवरी २०१२ (UTC)

Language support group for Pali

The Wikimedia Foundation has brought together a new team of developers who are dedicated to language support. This team is to support all the languages and consequently it is not realistic to expect that the team members can provide proper support for your language. It is for this reason that we are looking for volunteers who will make up a language support team.

This language support team will be asked to provide us with information about their language. Such information may need to be provided either to us or on a website that we will indicate to you. Another activity will be to test software that will likely have an effect on the running of the MediaWiki software. We are looking for people who clearly identify their ability. Formal knowledge is definitely appreciated।

As much of the activity will be concentrated on translatewiki.net, it will be a plus when team members know how to localise at translatewiki.net.
Thanks, Gmeijssen (वार्ता) १९:२१, १ फ़रवरी २०१२ (UTC)

The Babel extension

When people want to indicate their proficiency in a language, they can use the Babel extension. Sadly this extension has not yet been localised in the Pali language. Could someone please help us and localise the Babel extension for us? Thanks, Gmeijssen (वार्ता) १९:२१, १ फ़रवरी २०१२ (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.19

(Apologies if this message isn't in your language.) The Wikimedia Foundation is planning to upgrade MediaWiki (the software powering this wiki) to its latest version this month. You can help to test it before it is enabled, to avoid disruption and breakage. More information is available in the full announcement. Thank you for your understanding.

Guillaume Paumier, via the Global message delivery system (wrong page? You can fix it.). १५:१४, १२ फ़रवरी २०१२ (UTC)

Updates from India Program Team

This is the first post from the India Program team regarding the team. I have been posting updates on the various mailing lists - but am acutely aware that the majority of our community is on village pumps or project pages and hence this post. Do excuse me for posting something which is not solely focused on this project, but the work we are doing has learnings that you might find useful for your project. Here are 5 important links that you might find useful

• There is an India Program page on meta - which has links to a number of important workstreams (on the right of the page)
• Here is your India Program team. Feel free to reach out for any help or to provide any suggestion - or just to say hello!
• I submitted the following mid-year report to the community on January 15th 2011 - outlining the activities for 2011 and the priorities for 2012. Strictly speaking, this wasn't a mid-year report because it covered all of 2011, but going forward, I intend to make it a half-yearly affair. Please add your comments or suggestions here, or below this post.
• I have recently started monthly updates. The monthly update for February is available here. Please add your comments or suggestion here. The areas of emphasis for March are here. Please add your comments or here. This is really useful for us to ensure that we are doing what you need most.
• I have also started a new tab on the India Program page for Learnings, called Gyan. I think it is going to be a pretty cool place for us to put together a whole host of learnings, lessons, heartbreaks, Eureka moments and inspirations - gathered from all over the community. Stay tuned for more!
• One of the essential things that India Program needs to constantly work out is keeping our community informed of the work that we are doing - so that this work is clearer but also to help cross-pollinate ideas amongst a wider set of community members who might not have been engaged on specific village pump / talk page discussion or involved in particular activities (e.g. outreach events) or wikiprojects. I propose to have a fortnightly IRC for the community with India Program. (For those who are not familiar with IRC, it is an Internet messaging system similar to a regular chat room. It's very simple to use and you can join in by clicking on the following link. This would be done on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month at 9pm IST (which is GMT + 0530) - THOUGH NOT THIS MONTH - BECAUSE I HAVE MISSED THE TIMELINE. Just for March, we will do it on March 15th and March 29th (both at 9pm IST which is GMT + 0530). I suggest that these chats are focused on specific work streams. As with many community meet-ups - folks will give time to attend a meet-up or participate in an IRC only if there is a topic of relevance to them. Therefore, we will do one IRC on Indic languages and one on Outreach & Communications. The March 15th one will be focused on Indic Languages and the one on March 29th will be on Outreach & Communications. (All IRCs will start with a re-cap of India Programs activities.) There is quite a bit of overlap on these topics - so feel free to join both. Please do also invite anyone who is interested to know more about India Program or - even more importantly - interact with fellow Wikimedians. As always, the logs will be put up on meta for the benefit of those who can't attend and for the record.

Please feel free to translate this post for the benefit of the larger audience. In fact, I'd be really grateful if you did!

Hisham (वार्ता) ०३:५४, १२ मार्च २०१२ (UTC)

Update on IPv6

(Apologies if this message isn't in your language. Please consider translating it, as well as the full version of this announcement on Meta)

The Wikimedia Foundation is planning to do limited testing of IPv6 on June 2-3. If there are not too many problems, we may fully enable IPv6 on World IPv6 day (June 6), and keep it enabled.

What this means for your project:

• At least on June 2-3, 2012, you may see a small number of edits from IPv6 addresses, which are in the form "2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334". See e.g. w:en:IPv6 address. These addresses should behave like any other IP address: You can leave messages on their talk pages; you can track their contributions; you can block them. (See the full version of this announcement for notes on range blocks.)

• In the mid term, some user scripts and tools will need to be adapted for IPv6.

• We suspect that IPv6 usage is going to be very low initially, meaning that abuse should be manageable, and we will assist in the monitoring of the situation.

Read the full version of this announcement on how to test the behavior of IPv6 with various tools and how to leave bug reports, and to find a fuller analysis of the implications of the IPv6 migration.

--Erik Möller, VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ०१:१७, २ जून २०१२ (UTC)

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2011 Picture of the Year competition

македонски • norsk • polski

Dear Wikimedians,

Wikimedia Commons is happy to announce that the 2011 Picture of the Year competition is now open. We are interested in your opinion as to which images qualify to be the Picture of the Year 2011. Any user registered at Commons or a Wikimedia wiki SUL-related to Commons with more than 75 edits before 1 April 2012 (UTC) is welcome to vote and, of course everyone is welcome to view!

Detailed information about the contest can be found at the introductory page.

About 600 of the best of Wikimedia Common's photos, animations, movies and graphics were chosen –by the international Wikimedia Commons community– out of 12 million files during 2011 and are now called Featured Pictures.

From professional animal and plant shots to breathtaking panoramas and skylines, restorations of historically relevant images, images portraying the world's best architecture, maps, emblems, diagrams created with the most modern technology, and impressive human portraits, Commons Features Pictures of all flavors.

For your convenience, we have sorted the images into topic categories.

We regret that you receive this message in English; we intended to use banners to notify you in your native language but there was both, human and technical resistance.

See you on Commons! --Picture of the Year 2011 Committee १८:३४, ५ जून २०१२ (UTC)

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Presenting Chatasabha

Hi All,

This message is in English, sincere apologies for that.

New editors across Indic Wikipedias often face problems while editing for which need they help. However, most don't know where they can ask questions or get clarifications as they are usually unfamiliar with village pumps or mailing lists or even talk pages on basic editing. Many existing editors want to help new editors and could appreciate a central place where they can meet and help new editors. India Program has started a pilot to support the Odia community's help desk, Chatasabha. (Incidentally, "Chata" means student and "Sabha" means community, in Odia.) This pilot will build on the community's existing efforts - and seeks to provide a structured way of designing and running a Help Desk. It takes learnings from English Wikipedia's Tea House as well as other experiences on Help Desk and similar services.

The Help Desk that is being piloted is user friendly, has guidelines to provide simple answers to new editors and tries to manage the work load of existing community members by providing ready answers to frequently asked questions. The user friendliness of the Help Desk is in the form of being able to ask questions without getting stuck on Wiki markups as well as illustrated answers to some questions.

I have put a page on meta which has the pilot design. Eventually, we would like to help other Indic languages build similar Help Desks. Please do provide your feedback on the talk page.

-- Subha WMF (वार्ता) ०४:५८, २६ जून २०१२ (UTC) (subhaपटिरूप:@wikimedia.org)

Help decide about more than $10 million of Wikimedia donations in the coming year

(Apologies if this message isn't in your language. Please consider translating it)

Hi,

As many of you are aware, the Wikimedia Board of Trustees recently initiated important changes in the way that money is being distributed within the Wikimedia movement. As part of this, a new community-led "Funds Dissemination Committee" (FDC) is currently being set up. Already in 2012-13, its recommendations will guide the decisions about the distribution of over 10 million US dollars among the Foundation, chapters and other eligible entities.

Now, seven capable, knowledgeable and trustworthy community members are sought to volunteer on the initial Funds Dissemination Committee. It is expected to take up its work in September. In addition, a community member is sought to be the Ombudsperson for the FDC process. If you are interested in joining the committee, read the call for volunteers. Nominations are planned to close on August 15.

--Anasuya Sengupta, Director of Global Learning and Grantmaking, Wikimedia Foundation २०:२०, १९ जुलाई २०१२ (UTC)

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More opportunities for you to access free research databases

The quest to get editors free access to the sources they need is gaining momentum.

• Credo Reference provides full-text online versions of nearly 1200 published reference works from more than 70 publishers in every major subject, including general and subject dictionaries and encyclopedias. There are 125 full Credo 350 accounts available, with access even to 100 more references works than in Credo's original donation. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.
• HighBeam Research has access to over 80 million articles from 6,500 publications including newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines and encyclopedias. Thousands of new articles are added daily, and archives date back over 25 years covering a wide range of subjects and industries. There are 250 full access 1-year accounts available. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.
• Questia is an online research library for books and journal articles focusing on the humanities and social sciences. Questia has curated titles from over 300 trusted publishers including 77,000 full-text books and 4 million journal, magazine, and newspaper articles, as well as encyclopedia entries. There will soon be 1000 full access 1-year accounts available. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.

You might also be interested in the idea to create a central Wikipedia Library where approved editors would have access to all participating resource donors. Add your feedback to the Community Fellowship proposal. Apologies for the English message (translate here). Go sign up :) --Ocaasi (talk) ०२:२२, १६ अगस्त २०१२ (UTC)

Request for Comment: Legal Fees Assistance Program

I apologize for addressing you in English. I would be grateful if you could translate this message into your language.

The Wikimedia Foundation is conducting a request for comment on a proposed program that could provide legal assistance to users in specific support roles who are named in a legal complaint as a defendant because of those roles. We wanted to be sure that your community was aware of this discussion and would have a chance to participate in that discussion.

If this page is not the best place to publicize this request for comment, please help spread the word to those who may be interested in participating. (If you'd like to help translating the "request for comment", program policy or other pages into your language and don't know how the translation system works, please come by my user talk page at m:User talk:Mdennis (WMF). I'll be happy to assist or to connect you with a volunteer who can assist.)

Thank you! --Mdennis (WMF)०२:०८, ६ सेप्टेम्बर २०१२ (UTC)

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Wikidata is getting close to a first roll-out

(Apologies if this message isn't in your language.)

As some of you might already have heard Wikimedia Deutschland is working on a new Wikimedia project. It is called m:Wikidata. The goal of Wikidata is to become a central data repository for the Wikipedias, its sister projects and the world. In the future it will hold data like the number of inhabitants of a country, the date of birth of a famous person or the length of a river. These can then be used in all Wikimedia projects and outside of them.

The project is divided into three phases and "we are getting close to roll-out the first phase". The phases are:

1. language links in the Wikipedias (making it possible to store the links between the language editions of an article just once in Wikidata instead of in each linked article)
2. infoboxes (making it possible to store the data that is currently in infoboxes in one central place and share the data)
3. lists (making it possible to create lists and similar things based on queries to Wikidata so they update automatically when new data is added or modified)

It'd be great if you could join us, test the demo version, provide feedback and take part in the development of Wikidata. You can find all the relevant information including an FAQ and sign-up links for our on-wiki newsletter on the Wikidata page on Meta.

For further discussions please use this talk page (if you are uncomfortable writing in English you can also write in your native language there) or point me to the place where your discussion is happening so I can answer there.

--Lydia Pintscher १३:३३, १० सेप्टेम्बर २०१२ (UTC)

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Upcoming software changes - please report any problems

(Apologies if this message isn't in your language. Please consider translating it)

All Wikimedia wikis - including this one - will soon be upgraded with new and possibly disruptive code. This process starts today and finishes on October 24 (see the upgrade schedule & code details).

Please watch for problems with:

• revision diffs
• templates
• CSS and JavaScript pages (like user scripts)
• bots
• PDF export
• images, video, and sound, especially scaling sizes
• the CologneBlue skin

If you notice any problems, please report problems at our defect tracker site. You can test for possible problems at test2.wikipedia.org and mediawiki.org, which have already been updated.

Thanks! With your help we can find problems fast and get them fixed faster.

Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) ०३:०८, १६ ओक्टोबर २०१२ (UTC)

P.S.: For the regular, smaller MediaWiki updates every two weeks, please watch this schedule.

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Fundraising localization: volunteers from outside the USA needed

Please translate for your local community

Hello All,

The Wikimedia Foundation's Fundraising team have begun our 'User Experience' project, with the goal of understanding the donation experience in different countries outside the USA and enhancing the localization of our donation pages. I am searching for volunteers to spend 30 minutes on a Skype chat with me, reviewing their own country's donation pages. It will be done on a 'usability' format (I will ask you to read the text and go through the donation flow) and will be asking your feedback in the meanwhile.

The only pre-requisite is for the volunteer to actually live in the country and to have access to at least one donation method that we offer for that country (mainly credit/debit card, but also real-time banking like IDEAL, E-wallets, etc...) so we can do a live test and see if the donation goes through. All volunteers will be reimbursed of the donations that eventually succeed (and they will be low amounts, like 1-2 dollars)

By helping us you are actually helping thousands of people to support our mission of free knowledge across the world. Please sing up and help us with our 'User Experience' project! :) If you are interested (or know of anyone who could be) please email ppena@wikimedia.org. All countries needed (excepting USA)!

Thanks!
Pats Pena
Global Fundraising Operations Manager, Wikimedia Foundation

Sent using Global message delivery, १७:१४, १७ ओक्टोबर २०१२ (UTC)