Wikisource:Scriptorium/Wikimedia news

MediaWiki_1.21/wmf5 imminent
Relevant changes for wikisource include (but are not necessarily limited to): See MediaWiki_1.21/wmf5 for a complete list of included changes. wmf5 will be deployed on http://test.wikipedia.org, http://test2.wikipedia.org and http://mediawiki.org later today, and here on wednesday. Valhallasw (talk) 18:09, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * LabeledSectionTransclusion:
 * Now allows multiple inclusions on a single page
 * Now allows tags to be used from a template and/or parser tag (e.g.
 * Will show a clearer error message when a template loop is detected.
 * ProofreadPage:
 * New OAI-PMH API (see 38498)
 * wmf5 is now live. If you see any problems with LST, please report them at bugzilla or here. Please also leave a message on my talk page if you report a bug here. Thanks! Valhallasw (talk) 20:49, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Reported 42527 which reports that where we have section transclusions we are also transcluding the &lt;noinclude>'d header/footer files. It may be ProofreadPage rather than LST, however, I will let them work out which is the issue.  I estimate that this would impact up to 100k pages, I rated it critical, and that if there is no ability for a quick fix that the upgrade is rolled back.
 * Fyi - a patch for this has been developed and deployed already. Everything on this front seems to back to normal. Thank you all.A reminder: We still need to document the new LST features/changes -- George Orwell III (talk) 22:51, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Noting above about "section transclusions"... Did this bug, etc. have anything to do with my and issue (sorry if you have to wade through my mess)? The problem seems to have gone away. If so, good deal :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:06, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * At this point, who can say for sure? It is possible that this bug affected formatting and/or rendering to some degree but something like mis-matched thumbnail images between edit & view modes sounds more like the typical caching issue that we all seem to expierence in some form or another around here. I've had what you described happen to me many times - it always seem to resolve itself in a day or two. I guess just report it if it happens again (i.e. nothing more we can do about except compare notes). -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:33, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * All's well that ends well. The images-in-view/edit-mode issue is, I believe, a separate issue from the sectioning issue,—and one that I won't lose sleep over if no one else will either.  Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:45, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Because of performance reasons, the LST changes mentioned above will be rolled back - it caused the itwikisource main page to time out in rendering. I'll let you know if and when an improved version will be deployed. The problem that appeared is now part of the tests that are run, so that won't happen again. Valhallasw (talk) 18:05, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Special:TemplateSandbox
"TemplateSandbox" lets you preview a page with a change in a template it uses.

At the bottom of the edit form in the Template and Module namespaces, a new box will appear that allows you to preview other pages as they would appear if you saved the template/module you are currently editing. Example: try editing the sample "thank-you" template https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Thankyou. On the edit form, under the Save button, you'll see "Preview page with this template" -- try User_talk:Example_user

... and give it the "sandbox prefix" User:Sharihareswara (WMF)/sandbox and tell it to "render page" User_talk:Example_user. You'll see the ugly changes I made to the template in my sandbox.

More information at w:Wikipedia:VPT One that we will need to do is to look to see how we can best work with the change and how we adapt our template sandboxes, and the testcases that we often use.— billinghurst  sDrewth  03:40, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Coordination of technology deployments across languages/projects
Summary: I'm trying to get comments and ideas on how to improve communication between developers and Wikimedia editors, and I'd like to ask the help of people on this list to ask your local communities what they think, and post the results of their discussions. Greetings,

Summary: I'm trying to get comments and ideas on how to improve communication between developers and Wikimedia editors, and I'd like to ask the help of people on this list to ask your local communities what they think, and post the results of their discussions.

Longer version:

Communication between Wikimedia contributors and "tech people" (primarily MediaWiki developers, but also designers and other engineers) hasn't always been ideal. In recent years, Wikimedia employees have made efforts to become more transparent, but what I'd like to discuss today is how we can better engage in true collaboration and 2-way discussion, not just reports and announcements. It's easy to post a link to a new feature that's already been implemented, and tell users "Please provide feedback!". It's much more difficult to truly collaborate every step of the way, from the early planning to deployment.

Some "big" tech projects sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation are lucky enough to have a Community Liaison who can spend a lot of time discussing with editors, basically incarnating this 2-way communication channel between users and engineering staff. But one person can only do so much: they have to focus on a handful of features, and primarily discusses with the English Wikipedia community. We want to be able to do this for dozens of engineering projects with hundreds of wikis, in many languages, and truly collaborate to build new features together. Hiring hundreds of Community Liaisons isn't really a viable option.

There are probably things in the way we do tech stuff (e.g. new software features and deployments) that drive editors insane. You probably have lots of ideas about what the ideal situation should be, and how to get there: What can the developer community (staff and volunteers) do to get there? (in the short term, medium term, long term?) What can users do to get there?

Instead of just postulating that "The problem is X" and "The solution is obviously Y", I've started an extensive consultation process to learn from users, to hear you, to listen to your complaints and your ideas on how to fix the issues. I'm hoping that this open and collaborative thinking process will yield better results than a one-sided analysis.

An preliminary consultation took place last month with projects in English and French. I've summarized the initial findings and proposals: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_communications/Fall_2012_consultation#Phase_2:_Summary_and_wider_outreach

I'm hoping that we can now expand this consultation to more projects and more languages, with your help. It isn't feasible for me to launch a discussion on each wiki in each language, but I'm hoping that you can help me spread this message and start those discussions with your local communities.

I realize this will take some of your time, but I think it's worth spending a little time to discuss this now in order to make big improvements later on how we communicate with each other.

I'm available to answer comments, concerns and questions.

Many thanks for your help!