moved from travellers' pub by (WT-en) Evan

I could not find any links on the main page, in the footer, in the FAQ, or the Help pages about what code you use to run this wiki. Is it something you wrote yourself, or are you using the MediaWiki project, or something else?

You probably haven't tried looking for MediaWiki with the "Find" thingy? :) If you had you knew it was MediaWiki. (WT-en) Guaka 09:51, 28 Jan 2004 (EST)

It's in the FAQ. Actually, our version is slightly modified in some ways -- mostly stylesheet changes. I've added an RFE to MediaWiki to add a "powered by" logo, but it's not in the current version. But you're right -- we should probably have that info on the Project:About page, too. --(WT-en) Evan 12:45, 28 Jan 2004 (EST)

The FAQ does mention MediaWiki, though it doesn't note what version you're running, BTW. -- (WT-en) Beland 03:05, 25 Jul 2004 (EDT)

min·us·cule ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mn-skyl, m-nskyl) also min·is·cule (mn-skyl)-- www.dictionary.com

I'm guessing that the version of WikiMedia that Wikivoyage is using is older than the one Wikipedia is using. The latter seems to have an easier-to-read layout and I find its editing interfaces a little spluftier. Are there plans in the works to upgrade, if that's the case? -- (WT-en) Beland 02:56, 25 Jul 2004 (EDT)

i'm just wondering what plans there are for long term stability of the site, e.g.:

• Is there any formal relation to the Wikimedia Foundation?
• Most probably there are many informal links with wikimedia techies/projects. Can someone say roughly what these are, so we have some idea of how independent and/or crosslinked the projects are?
• i guess there should be details in but so far there's nothing... :(

The point is that many of us already have some trust that wikimedia projects are properly backed up and sql dumps are available etc, and we wouldn't like to contribute to a web site which might get lost and so lose all our work... Canaca.com presumably would not want to lose its reputation by allowing things to get lost, but in any case, maximum transparency etc etc would be a good idea.

There is no formal relationship of any kind, although there's a lot of cooperation as many users are shared. (WT-en) Jpatokal 12:14, 9 Aug 2005 (EDT)

No formal relationship, but we're friendly. Many if not most users are Wikimedia editors, too. I'm a MediaWiki developer and I fix bugs and add features to the MediaWiki codebase -- both stuff that helps Wikivoyage and stuff that helps Wikimedia sites. I've been a Wikipedian since 2002.

I understand that some people who haven't got a lot of experience with wikis think Wikimedia is the be-all and end-all of the wiki world. It is not; there are tens of thousands of wikis in the world, and that number is growing by leaps and bounds.

 :) i'm not trying to suggest that wikimedia is the be-all and end-all of the wiki world, i don't like centralisation and hierarchy :). (WT-en) Boud 08:21, 10 Aug 2005 (EDT)

As for long-term stability: we've been around for 2 years, and we don't intend to go off the air any time soon. --(WT-en) Evan 15:47, 9 Aug 2005 (EDT)

Good :) (WT-en) Boud 08:21, 10 Aug 2005 (EDT)

The following was moved from Evan's talk page, and seems like valuable info to include under Project:Technical details. The only reason I didn't include it there is that (WT-en) Evan is (at present) the only person who can keep it up-to-date, and I'm not sure it's something he wants to deal with:

 ErrorDocument 404 /wiki/en/index.php  ExpiresActive on  ExpiresDefault M0   RewriteEngine On  RewriteBase /en/   RewriteRule ^(Special:.*) /wiki/en/index.php?title=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]   RewriteRule \.html$ - [L]  RewriteRule ^$ Main_Page.html [L]   RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html [L] 

 $LP = "$WEBROOT/$wgLanguageCode";    # ...    $wgCachePages = false;   require_once("extensions/Cache404.php");   $wgCacheDirectory = "$LP";  $wgCachePath = "/$wgLanguageCode";  $wgCache404MaxCount = 800;  $wgCache404MaxSize = 25600000; 

 $wgArticlePath    = "$wgScriptPath/$1";

When we were hosted on XLInternet, we had a link to their site (they gave us a discount, as the owner is a personal friend). Canaca isn't giving us a discount or really anything more than a reasonably-priced hosting service. I don't think it's particularly cogent that Canaca.com is the hosting service, and I think the link might be misleading -- that it's appropriate for Wikivoyagers to contact Canaca directly (it's not -- please don't do that). So, unless there's a good reason, I'm removing the link. --(WT-en) Evan 15:40, 9 Aug 2005 (EDT)

A new .travel domain has been tentatively accepted by ICANN . No word on which proposal has been accepted, but eg. for this one the eligibility requirements look pretty strict:

Applicants for a .travel domain name must be verifiable participants in the travel industry and each name applied for be a name to which there is a right that has been established through rights registration or use. Each applicant will be required to declare which category of right it relies on for the registration. In all applications, eligibility and name selection rights will be authenticated by a third party specialist as detailed in Part B (C).

Time to create a shoebox company or association for Wikivoyage and join ACTA? They charge a fairly steep $175/year for the privilege though. (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:01, 16 Dec 2004 (EST)

I think there's some work underway on starting a non-profit or a foundation or something like that. If there's enough money left over after paying for bandwidth this might be useful, but it seems like it could be a lot to pay for very little in return. -- (WT-en) Mark 04:40, 16 Dec 2004 (EST)

Let me add that it is a neat idea, I just don't know about the cost. -- (WT-en) Mark 06:12, 16 Dec 2004 (EST)

Swept in from the Project:Travelers' pub:

Hi there, I have seen in the wikipedia that they are busy with a software upgrade from 1.4 to 1.5. Will this have any effect on wikivoyage? (WV-en) Felix 27/06/2005, 16:31 (GMT)

Barring any problems we'll probably move up to 1.5 sometime after it's released. Or are you asking whether the 1.5 upgrade at Wikipedia is going to affect us? I'm not sure about that, but I doubt it. --(WT-en) Evan 12:00, 27 Jun 2005 (EDT)

I actually meant, if we are also going to upgrade! Felix

Swept in from the Project:Travelers' pub:

Could we add "Show changes" button to the edit page, like wikipedia has? I find it helpful if I make several changes in one edit and don't remember them all, to make sure I haven't made typos and such before I commit them and check the "show changes" equivalent in history (Compare selected versions). (WT-en) TransUtopian 03:09, 2 Sep 2005 (EDT)

That's a feature of the MediaWiki 1.5 software, which is currently in beta (see http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download#Testing). When a stable version is released Wikivoyage will most likely update, and the show changes button will then be available. -- (WT-en) Wrh2 03:19, 2 Sep 2005 (EDT)

Thanks, Wrh2! And nice job on the sweeping. -- (WT-en) TransUtopian 09:07, 2 Sep 2005 (EDT)

First of all let me say "Great Site!" Now that's out of the way.

Could you share with us what it takes to get the style of bread crumbs that appear at the top of each of your pages? I've been asking at mediawiki.org and mwusers.com and there is no definitive answer. Thanks in advance.

-Jeff

It's our IsIn template, which can be found here. Which wiki are you using this on, because some changes may be required? -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 10:50, 5 September 2006 (EDT)

Where can the latest version of the RDF extension be downloaded? The one in MediaWiki SVN is 0.4, but I've seen Evan refer to 0.5, but couldn't download it from there []. Also I imagine there is some change needed to the skin to actually print the trail. Where can that be found?

--Alex

Most articles say "Based on the work by ...." at the bottom of the page. I've just added a page (Hsipaw). Why doesn't it say "Based on the work by Wandering?" --(WT-en) Wandering 12:54, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Because it says "This page was last modified 16:17, 16 May 2007 by Wandering." Once the next person edits it, your name gets moved into the "Based on..." list. (WT-en) Jpatokal 13:06, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Thanks! All is now clear :-). --(WT-en) Wandering 13:14, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Swept in from the pub:

What's the deal with google-analytics? I assume this is something that's connected with the Wikivoyage site rather than just my browser, right? It seems like with a page of any length, it usually hangs while trying forever to finish loading something from there. The page appears complete, except sometimes some of the images don't load, and you can't (at least in Firefox) use the Print Preview function. (WT-en) Sailsetter 10:57, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

I believe it's something that IB installed to track page hits, etc... and I think it also may have contributed greatly to the site slowdown. Things are getting back up to speed, and I believe they're planning some new magic in the near future as well that'll fix even more issues... but you may care to comment on that link on shared – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 22:50, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

Swept in from the pub:

Looking at Special:Version there's an extension "setupTravelGuideTitle". Is this the extension that allows a page like Kingston (Ontario) to show up in the title bar of the browser as "Kingston travel guide - Wikivoyage"? (I.e. the "(Ontario)" is stopped from displaying.)

Could we find out more about this extension? Much appreciated. --(WT-en) Chriswaterguy 22:55, 18 August 2008 (EDT)

Swept in from the pub:

Hello all,

I was wondering if there was a list of wikivoyage articles available in a format which is easy to import into a text doucumant such as notepad. I have found Special:Allpages, however it is not easy to extract this list to a usable format. Any suggestions to where i could locate such a list?

Many thanks,

--(WT-en) Sirtrebuchet 17:57, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

I'm not sure if there is a way to list all of the articles on one page or not, but I don't imagine it would be too difficult to write a Word macro (or equivalent) to organize the data in a way that would be helpful to you. If you would like help doing this please contact me. --(WT-en) Matt ^Talk 22:14, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

You can also use the api if you have some programming experience. The following link will return the first 50 article names in XML: http://en.wikivoyage.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=allpages&aplimit=50. Info on the API is available at http://en.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php. If you decide to use it, be careful not to abuse the WT servers. Keep total number of articles requested at a time small (less than 500) and implement delays between requests. --(WT-en) Nick 08:07, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

Thanks for all of the ideas. You guys are a great help. I am currently working with the second idea suggested, as it seems to be what i am looking for and i think i will be able to get it to do what i want. Thanks for the quick and helpful replies. --(WT-en) Sirtrebuchet 22:04, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

Swept in from the pub

There is now a version of WT with the Mediawiki upgrade, live at this URL:

http://staging.en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Main_Page

No credentials or password are needed to access this server. Just click through, poke around, and report any issues you find under BETA here:

http://shared.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Tech:Upgrade_to_MediaWiki_1.17

Testing this is critical to ensuring that the transition to the full new site is smooth. This will be happening very soon (weeks or sooner) and we're anxious to hear feedback. So please, go look.

KNOWN ISSUES:

1. This is NOT the "real" Wikivoyage site -- your updates won't carry over to the real site. This is just a testing environment for debugging; it will mimic the look & feel of the new site however.

2. The article data you will see on this staging server are several months old. New edits will not appear. Don't panic -- all the data will of course appear when the real site is switched over.

3. Speed will be okay; not as fast as the full site, but not nearly as slow as the previous testing environment.

Thank you,--(WT-en) IBobi 14:43, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

FYI the staging server is now closed. The next step will be adding the booking tool and internally testing the site, then opening it up again on staging for the community to test before it goes live. This should happen in the next week.--(WT-en) IBobi 14:57, 20 April 2012 (EDT)

Just a reminder—MediaWiki is the name of the software. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 17:53, 20 April 2012 (EDT)

Thanks Peter -- think I reversed my MW and WM a couple times there.--(WT-en) IBobi 19:06, 20 April 2012 (EDT)

Swept in from the pub

Site will be READ-ONLY for up to TWO DAYS while the upgrade is occurring.

If there are edits you'd like to make, please do so over the weekend and on Monday.

When the new site comes online, it will be on new hardware as well. Bug reporting is available here:

http://shared.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Tech:Upgrade_to_MediaWiki_1.17#1.17_UPGRADE_BUG_REPORTS

If for any reason you need to contact me, I can be reached on my Talk page or my email address paul.obrien at internetbrands.com.

Thank you for hanging in there with us; once this major upgrade is complete we expect to be able to update the site software in a much more timely manner (1.11 to 1.17 is a big jump), and we have development resources to address any technical issues still lingering after the upgrade, as well as to address the next set of feature requests from the community. We're looking forward to the next stage of the project and hope you are too!--(WT-en) IBobi 17:47, 4 May 2012 (EDT)

I've updated MediaWiki:Sitenotice to note the scheduled outage. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 18:36, 4 May 2012 (EDT)

Thank you Ryan.--(WT-en) IBobi 18:59, 4 May 2012 (EDT)

Might be helpful to list the time in UTC (for the non-US users) in the message that displayed at the top. So: A MediaWiki upgrade is scheduled for Tuesday 8-May at 10AM PST (17:00 UTC). The site will be READ-ONLY for up to two days during the upgrade. (WT-en) AHeneen 23:38, 4 May 2012 (EDT)

Done (WT-en) –sumone10154 10:58, 5 May 2012 (EDT)

THIS HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED FOR 5/15/2012 due to network issues today. As we get closer to the day, I'll post a time -- it is likely to be around 5am PST (12:00 UTC).--(WT-en) IBobi 14:22, 7 May 2012 (EDT)

THIS HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED FOR 5/14/2012. It is still likely to be around 5am PST (12:00 UTC).--(WT-en) IBobi 16:28, 11 May 2012 (EDT)

Since the site isn't read-only as of 8AM (Pacific) on 14-May, is there any update on when the upgrade is going to happen? -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 10:56, 14 May 2012 (EDT)

I'm told 2 minutes from now.--(WT-en) IBobi 12:58, 14 May 2012 (EDT)

I'm following GW Bush's counsel . --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 13:33, 14 May 2012 (EDT)

I will update shortly on the upgrade status.--(WT-en) IBobi 16:55, 17 May 2012 (EDT)

Mission Accomplished!? --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 20:18, 17 May 2012 (EDT)

Swept in from the pub

The planned MW upgrade has been postponed.

During the last 2 days, as you may have noticed, Wikivoyage has been in read-only mode for a planned upgrade. Due to unforeseen technical circumstances, we had to re-schedule.

We have been working to transfer the entire site to new hardware while simultaneously migrating it to MW version 1.17 from 1.11.

As you can see, the existing version of the site running on 1.11 is back online for read-write access. Our technical department has built testing tools specific to the customized version of MW that runs Wikivoyage, and we'll be using them to troubleshoot and log potential causes of the upgrade failure.

As soon as we have it, I will post a new timetable for the switchover to the new site.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns,--(WT-en) IBobi 20:37, 17 May 2012 (EDT)

Hi, this is (WV-ja) Shoestring, an admin of ja:.

It will be very much helpful if you could kindly leave a brief message about the concrete schedule of the next system maintenance on the MediaWiki:Sitenotice of shared and en:, at least prior to a week.

Usually ja: users don't check the pubs on en: and shared so frequently, and we have totally no idea what on earth was happening on the site for the last couple of days.--(WT-en) Shoestring 07:22, 18 May 2012 (EDT)

Out of interest, what are the changes? Is it just performance improvements, or will this bring in new ads? Are we getting upgraded to the Vector skin, because the Monobook is starting to look quite old. I've seen non-Wikimedia sites do it; we should too. (WT-en) JamesA ^>talk 21:40, 19 May 2012 (EDT)

Any chance of providing a database dump for download at the same time? Please? (WT-en) Anjocu 23:05, 21 May 2012 (EST)

Swept in from the pub

Is there a way to use something like the parser functions on Wikipedia? Member (talk) 08:21, 15 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

The same software (MediaWiki) is being used, so I don't see why not... --Rschen7754 08:23, 15 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

The parser functions are an extension, not MediaWiki core code. Predictably, most of the extensions from Wikipedia are here (as both are WMF-hosted projects); the Special:Version page has a list of which ones are installed. There are also a few Wikivoyage-specific extras, such as mw:extension:GeoCrumbs, special:mapsources and the mw:extension:RelatedSites and mw:extension:RelatedArticles. K7L (talk) 00:00, 16 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Hi,

Today we removed the "usermerge" right from all bureaucrats on Wikivoyage. The UserMerge extension was used during the transition period when some users had two accounts and this let them reclaim their contributions. However, it has not been used for some time, and was blocking the eventual m:SUL finalisation, in addition to possibly causing database inconsistencies. If a user must be merged, you can contact m:User:Hoo man for assistance. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns on my meta talk page.

Thanks, Legoktm (talk) 14:58, 7 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

This really should have been raised here *before* breaking things, instead of merely presenting this after the fact as a fait accompli. K7L (talk) 15:04, 7 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

This has still been used occasionally, including quite recently. This is a bad move, and should be reversed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:12, 7 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

While it has been used somewhat recently, it's pretty rare. If it was blocking SUL finalization, then it has to go. The chances of someone with an editing history (significant enough to make merging worthwhile) finally coming by after nearly two years are pretty slim, and if it does happen, we can talk to User:Hoo man. Powers ^(talk) 21:33, 7 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

If people would like to know what's going on, they should subscribe to m:Tech/News. There are more than a dozen developer teams (involving both volunteers and paid staff) supporting 800+ wikis in about 300 languages. Realistically speaking, they cannot separately raise all issues "here" for every change. However, they do make general announcements for many things, and they often contact directly affected groups (in the case of SUL, the global stewards, who are getting stuck with all the extra work). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 8 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

The usermerge issue affects Wikivoyage specifically in a way that it doesn't affect all "800+ wikis in about 300 languages" because of a quirk in this project's history. We have a mess of imported edits from (WT-en) and (WV-en) users that no other Wikimedia project (outside WV) has, so we have a greater need to merge users. The same would be true if a change were to specifically affect a Wikivoyage-specific extension (RelatedSites, RelatedPages, Insider, MapSources) that no other WMF project uses. WV, and not just the global stewards, is a directly-affected group. K7L (talk) 17:20, 8 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Even so, there's 16 Wikivoyages, most of which used that extension... --Rschen7754 03:21, 10 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

...a far cry from 800 wikis. How much of Wikivoyage:User account migration and Wikivoyage:Changing username is incorrect now? K7L (talk) 03:43, 10 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

...and this is far from that team's only task. As I said, if you want to know what tech issues will affect this community, you need to be looking out for changes, not assuming that the devs will bring everything to you in advance.

Also, as a practical matter, if your bureaucrats aren't worried about a change to a tool whose use was "somewhat rare", then you probably shouldn't worry about it either. The work can still be done, just not in the old way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:03, 11 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

That's a fairly condescending attitude that I, for one, don't appreciate. Regardless of whether the bureaucrats are concerned or not, I think the points raised by the rest of the community are quite valid. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:20, 11 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I'll just chime in to say that, having worked on various software projects, I understand & fully support WhatamIdoing's comments above. There is no need at all for a tempest in this particular teapot, and anyone who cares about other changes should be reading m:Tech/News. Pashley (talk) 16:59, 11 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

This is a very small issue, compared to recent events happening elsewhere on Wikimedia... --Rschen7754 03:50, 12 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

• It seems that there will soon be a tool to merge global accounts (see mw:SUL finalisation/Global account merge), so I assume that users simply will have to wait until that tool is available and then request a global merge. --Stefan2 (talk) 10:39, 7 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Part or all of this message may be in English. Please help translate if possible.

-- User:Keegan (WMF) (talk) 9 September 2014 16.22 (UTC)

Swept in from the pub

This information has been sent out for weeks, if not months, but I'm not sure if it's reached the right people at Wikivoyage. This message is for you if you could be described (even a little bit) by one of these categories:

• Volunteers developing gadgets (such as Twinkle, HotCat, etc.).
• Users that maintain their wiki's MediaWiki:Common.js scripts.
• Users that have their own personal scripts.
• Users who get questions when other people's scripts break.

Several deprecated methods in MediaWiki's JavaScript modules will be removed soon (early October). Please check your code to ensure it won't break with these changes, and update it if needed. Please also check and fix any gadgets or scripts you or your wikis rely upon, to prevent breakage.

Swept in from the pub

Something seems to be wrong with mw:Extension:CreditsSource, it's not displaying MediaWiki:Creditssource-credits properly in the page footer but instead displaying a hard-coded default which contains two clickable links to a rival travel wiki and one redlink labelled as "history". The link should go to the history page here, not red-link or off-site. I don't see anything in Bugzilla and no one has edited any relevant MediaWiki: messages lately, has someone or something broken the underlying extension code? K7L (talk) 13:58, 27 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

The links above the edit box when creating a new page are also missing; there used to be a one-click option to drop {{smallcity skeleton}} or a few of the others onto a blank page. K7L (talk) 16:12, 27 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Everything looks fine to me at the moment. Powers ^(talk) 20:06, 27 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Weird. I'm seeing this only if I'm logged in to Wikivoyage; the same pages look fine if I log out or go to another computer which is not logged in. K7L (talk) 13:17, 6 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

I see the problem now. Any messages which have been customised in MediaWiki: space for 'en' are likely to go back to default text if I have 'en-gb' or anything else selected as my language in my profile. That would explain why no one else noticed this, as well as why it only appears when logged in. K7L (talk) 17:00, 11 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

I read at the English Wikipedia that someone was going to add a warning to Special:Preferences to alert people to this unexpected behavior. (Most people thinks it's a problem, but some say it's a feature that allows them to ignore a lot of unwanted detail and messages.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:16, 13 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Since the tool Derivative FX for uploading the derivative images from Commons doesn't work, I'm not able (in an easy/quick way) to perform that activity. There's an alternative tool that I can use? Any suggestion would be highly appreciated. Thank you. Massimo Telò (talk) 16:57, 30 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

I have the very same problem, very frustrating. So I usually just upload as new files and mention in the description. Cheers! Nicolas1981 (talk) 10:57, 1 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Supposedly it's been moved to Labs, but I get an error message about it not being enabled. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

I feel like it's something the Wikimedia Foundation might want to take into their hands, as it affects copyright attributions. Has a bug been opened about this? Nicolas1981 (talk) 05:38, 9 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

A report was filed a couple of months ago at bugzilla:67283. I believe that all of the attribution work could be done by hand, so this is probably not a serious copyright problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 13 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Most of the small icons to add listings to the site do not show up properly with Internet Explorer (see screenshot). Anyone know how to fix this bug? Globe-trotter (talk) 14:42, 1 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

With what version of Internet Explorer? Nicolas1981 (talk) 06:26, 2 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

I see exactly the same thing with IE 11 under Windows 8.1 (64 bit). I never use IE for Wikivoyage, but this may be a CSS issue. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 08:15, 2 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Yes that's also my version. Globe-trotter (talk) 09:33, 8 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Is there nobody who can solve this problem? I have no experience with CSS and I am also not authorized (I think) to make changes. --FredTC (talk) 12:38, 23 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

It appears to be an issue with IE's scaling of SVG images - see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9777143/svg-in-img-element-proportions-not-respected-in-ie9. The code that adds the buttons to the edit toolbar is in MediaWiki:Common.js, but it's using functionality that appears to be part of MediaWiki (and not custom Wikivoyage code), so I'm hesitant to overwrite anything in the CSS or JS. One possible workaround might be to try recreating the toolbar icons as 22x22 PNG icons (instead of SVGs), in which case no scaling would be necessary. -- Ryan • (talk) • 13:43, 23 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, I think our admin Globetrotter can use your suggestions to solve the problem. --FredTC (talk) 07:54, 24 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Quick question: Are there statistics available per article (e.g. number of article impressions)? Thanks! User4353 (talk) 09:12, 24 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Click the history tab for any article. Near the top there's an external link that says "Page view statistics". Powers ^(talk) 14:04, 24 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thank you very much! User4353 (talk) 14:10, 24 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Need the help of the tech experts on this one. I am interested in having a display of the Hebvoy star articles on the main page of Hebvoy, which would be done with the same Carousel feature used on the envoy main page. I noticed the newly launched Persian Wikivoyage uses the same feature on their main page as well. Unfortunately, so far I haven't been capable of getting this feature to work on Hebvoy by simply importing the page as is. I assume I have to install some special extension for it to work. How exactly would I be able to get it to work? (I am, by the way, an admin on the Hebvoy) ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 15:27, 30 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Have a look at MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css - copy everything from those two files from the "BEGIN Main Page carousel code" section until the "END Main Page carousel code" section to the corresponding files on Hebrew Wikivoyage. You'll also need Template:Banner. Beyond that, make sure your carousel is set up the same way that English one is done on the Main Page:

<div class="jcarousel-wrapper">   <div class="jcarousel">     <div class="jcarousel-list">         <div class="jcarousel-item"> {{banner|direction=left|title=Karachi|section=Destination of the Month|section-link=Previous Destinations of the month|image=KarachiBanner1.jpg|quote=Pakistan's largest metropolis blends glass-and-steel modernity with colonial British architecture of yesteryear.}}         </div>         <!-- more carousel items go here -->     </div>   </div>   <span class="jcarousel-control-prev">[[#|‹]]</span>   <span class="jcarousel-control-next">[[#|›]]</span>   <p class="jcarousel-pagination"></p> </div> 

-- Ryan • (talk) • 03:31, 31 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the help Ryan. Yesterday we added the carousel feature to the hebvoy main page. This feature is used to display all of the hebvoy starred articles of 2014 on the main page. I think this would greatly help to expose the hebvoy readers to some of the best articles our little community created so far, thus encouraging more people to create expanded quality articles which would also be linked to from the main page. ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 14:07, 2 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Are the numbers accurate when you look at the pageviews of an article? I noticed that for example Tsuyama says it has been viewed 48 times in the past month and ranks as the 8964th in traffic while Takahashi has been viewed only 44 times but ranks higher in traffic at 7942. Do I simply not understand what the traffic rank is? Shouldn't the one that is visited more rank higher? ChubbyWimbus (talk) 17:19, 11 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

The rankings haven't updated since March, although I don't know how accurate they were even when they were fresh. Looking through the user talk archives of the editor responsible for those graphs, there were complaints about inaccurate rankings even back when they were updated more often.
Thatotherperson^talkcontribs 23:57, 11 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Is there no other analytic service that can help? A lot of our discussions around increasing readership would be helped greatly by numbers that we had confidence in. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:57, 12 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Are the visits accurate? It would definitely be helpful to have this feature working. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 15:46, 12 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Just to clarify, it's the ranking numbers that I believe are inaccurate. I can't personally vouch for the total views being accurate, but I have no reason to doubt them. I don't know of any way to update the rankings or any alternative service we could switch to.
Thatotherperson^talkcontribs 22:33, 14 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

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Hello. Please excuse the English. I would be grateful if you translated this message!

VisualEditor, a rich-text editor for MediaWiki, will soon be available on this wiki as a Beta Feature. The estimated date of activation is Wednesday, 26 November.

To access it, you will need to visit the Beta features page after the deployment and tick the box next to "⧼Visualeditor-preference-core-label⧽". (If you have enabled the "Automatically enable most beta features" option, VisualEditor will be automatically available for you.) There will also be a "⧼Visualeditor-preference-language-label⧽" that you can enable if you need it.

Then, you just have to click on "Edit" to start VisualEditor, or on "Edit source" to edit using wikitext markup. You can even begin to edit pages with VisualEditor and then switch to the wikitext editor simply by clicking on its tab at any point, and you can keep your changes when doing so.

A guide was just published at mediawiki.org so that you can learn how to support your community with this transition: please read and translate it if you can! You will find all the information about the next steps there. Please report any suggestions or issues at the main feedback page. You will also receive the next issues of the multilingual monthly newsletter here on this page: if you want it delivered elsewhere, for example at your personal talk page, please add the relevant page here.

Thanks for your attention and happy editing, Elitre (WMF) 18:12, 21 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Swept in from the pub

Recently the renaming process was changed so that only stewards and m:global renamers can rename users, so that the process is global. Perhaps requests should be made at Meta (m:SRUC), and this process should be closed? --Rschen7754 16:30, 25 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Strong support. It seems like common sense that if we can't rename users here then we should redirect Wikivoyage:Changing username to m:Steward requests/Username changes and either archive or delete the various sub-pages (Special:PrefixIndex/Wikivoyage:Changing username). As a side note, as a bureaucrat I'm very glad that figuring out what to do about global username conflicts is no longer something that needs to be dealt with. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:46, 25 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

@LtPowers: and @DerFussi: as others who may be interested in this. --Rschen7754 17:22, 25 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

I certainly have no objection, but I wasn't clear enough on the change to say if that's the correct course of action or not. Powers ^(talk) 20:12, 25 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

This sounds like a no-brainer. Let's redirect. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:05, 26 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps an explanatory page is better, with a link to meta and some comment on Wikivoyage:User account migration. The meta page seems not to yet reflect that all changes are "global" - and being redirected to another site (Wikimedia instead of Wikivoyage) is obviously confusing at least for some. --LPfi (talk) 07:21, 27 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

I've closed the process; feel free to add to the page. --Rschen7754 04:56, 26 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

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Hi, I am trying to get functioning mainpage carousel similar to wikivoyages at a different wiki. I ran into a stack exchange question by local editor. He obviously solved the carousel issue and I would like to ask him, how did he do it :-) Can any1 kindly point me to the person, which used "Nicholasjf21" nick at stackexchange? Big thanks to you! --Wesalius (talk) 10:08, 15 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Not me... Nicolas1981 (talk) 08:41, 20 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Special:EmailUser/Nicholasjf21? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 14:15, 20 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thank you very much AndreCarrotflower. --Wesalius (talk) 06:59, 27 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

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The mobile web team that powers your mobile site are interested in page banners across all projects, not just Wikivoyage. I was curious, if I was to write an extension that used the Wikidata property https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P948 would you be willing to install it and remove usage of your existing pagebanner template? Currently the banners are drastically broken on mobile, an image as big as 1mb could block the loading of the rest of the page. Using an extension would allow us to adapt the image based on the size of the browser and would bring performance gains to the desktop site too. Jdlrobson (talk) 19:12, 5 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

I don't know a lot about Wikidata, so how would this work in cases where a Wikidata property isn't set, or if envoy wanted to use something different than what was set up in Wikidata? Also, I'm not super-familiar with Wikimedia extensions, so how would the page banner code be invoked once converted to an extension? Is it still called through Template:Pagebanner, thus leaving some room for local customizations?

On a side note, if there is a good way to return more appropriately sized images using an extension that would be a huge win - right now we're pulling in some very large images in cases where they might not be needed, which is far from ideal on slower connections. -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:24, 5 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

I like the idea of an extension in principle, but I want to know more about how it would work. Continuing to allow local customization would be key. Different language versions of Wikivoyage don't always have the same banner (and I'm not convinced we need to). If the banner is used by other projects, I could foresee a travel-focused banner that works for Wikivoyage may not be the best banner for a different project, and vice-versa. We also add icons to the banner like previously featured destination and disambiguation, which can vary from Wikivoyage project to Wikivoyage project.

All that said, I think it's a great idea to explore. Something that has potential performance gains is worth considering. -Shaundd (talk) 04:57, 8 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

As someone who contributes to several Wikivoyage sites, I personally would not mind loosing the ability to override Wikidata's banner. I always use the same in all languages anyway. Apparently Shaundd (and probably others) want to keep this ability so it would be great to have though. By the way, in how many articles does the English Wikivoyage override the Wikidata banner? If none, the experiment could start with the English Wikivoyage alone. Or start with the Wikivoyages who have a policy of not overriding Wikidata banners. Cheers! Nicolas1981 (talk) 05:13, 8 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hi Jdlrobson! Sounds wonderful! Banners are an easy way to make articles very attractive, and even though some projects (like Wikipedia or Wiktionary) might not like it, other sites like Wikiquote (they really really like images over there), Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, etc would love it. Best of luck with the project, and don't hesitate to use us for testing (I don't speak for the whole community but I think most people here will love the idea). Nicolas1981 (talk) 05:01, 8 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the feedback User:Nicolas1981 :-) Shaundd essentially the template would no longer needed but you would be able to style it using MediaWiki:Common.css - but I'd be looking at porting over your existing styles as a starting point so you would notice no difference. It would be an extension so projects would be able to turn it on only if they felt it useful but the community as a whole would benefit from such a feature. It would be great to use Wikidata as the basis for the data as this means we wouldn't have to resort to magic words in wikitext and keep the wikitext clean and friendly to new editors! I've setup https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T77925 so we have a central place to talk about this topic. Jdlrobson (talk) 22:04, 8 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

I'm all for making things simple and user-friendly, where possible. A dumb question though -- how do I add myself as a subscriber to the Phabricator discussion? I didn't see anything, but it also wouldn't let me log in with my WM username. -Shaundd (talk) 06:42, 9 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Shaundd: Push the round on/off button in the upper-right, click the Wikimedia button, and accept the OAuth authentication. Nicolas1981 (talk) 08:25, 9 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Did you know?

Basic table editing is now available in VisualEditor. You can add and remove rows and columns from tables at the click of a button.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on table editing and performance. Their weekly status reports are posted on mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

VisualEditor was deployed to several hundred remaining wikis as an opt-in beta feature at the end of November, except for most Wiktionaries (which depend heavily upon templates) and all Wikisources (which await integration with ProofreadPage).

Recent improvements

[edit]

Basic support for editing tables is now available. You can add and delete tables, add and remove rows and columns, set or remove a caption for a table, and merge cells together. To change the contents of a cell, double-click inside it. More features will be added in the coming months. In addition, VisualEditor now ignores broken, invalid rowspan and colspan elements, instead of trying to repair them.

You can now use find and replace in VisualEditor, reachable through the tool menu or by pressing ^ Ctrl+F or ⌘ Cmd+F.

You can now create and edit simple <blockquote> paragraphs for quoting and indenting content. This changes a "Paragraph" into a "Block quote".

Some new keyboard sequences can be used to format content. At the start of the line, typing "* " will make the line a bullet list; "1." or "#" will make it a numbered list; "==" will make it a section heading; ": " will make it a blockquote. If you didn't mean to use these tools, you can press undo to undo the formatting change.

There are also two other keyboard sequences: "[[" for opening the link tool, and "{{" for opening the template tool, to help experienced editors. The existing standard keyboard shortcuts, like ^ Ctrl+K to open the link editor, still work.

If you add a category that has been redirected, then VisualEditor now adds its target. Categories without description pages show up as red.

You can again create and edit galleries as wikitext code.

Looking ahead

[edit]

The current VisualEditor design will be replaced with a new theme designed by the User Experience group. The new theme will be visible for desktop systems at mediawiki.org in late December and on other sites in early January. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" theme and the new "MediaWiki" one which will replace it.)

The Editing team plans to add auto-fill features for citations in January.

Planned changes to the media search dialog will make choosing between possible images easier.

Let's work together

[edit]

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• Translations of the user guide for most languages are outdated. Only Ukrainian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Dutch translations are nearly current. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language.
• Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Wednesday, 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC.
• File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.
• The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
• If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta. Thank you!

— Elitre (WMF)

19:00, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

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My script has found a few hundreds syntax errors, your help is needed to fix them: User:Nicolas1981/Syntax_checks

Easy and helpful :-)
Please remove each line you fix.

Also, I generated a new CSV file containing all listings: http://datahub.io/dataset/listings

Thanks a lot! Nicolas1981 (talk) 06:42, 6 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

I noticed recently that the mobile view of the Hebvoy main page doesn't display most of that page's content (the mobile readers see many {{{section}}} wiki codes instead). Does anyone know why this happens and how to fix it? ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 16:47, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Any section on the main page with class="nomobile" is hidden in mobile. See User talk:Jdlrobson#Mobile Main Page question for a recent discussion about similar issues on English Wikivoyage. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

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Comparing the Wikivoyage mobile layout with the one of Wikipedia, I've noticed that the "edit" & "watch" icons are in the wrong position, causing a bad layout (ovelapping the pagebanner). Most likely is because of the customization of the pagebanner because it doesn't happens on de:voy.

As a nice to have, would be possible have the horizontal menu on the mobile view as in the desktop one? --Andyrom75 (talk) 17:54, 20 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Curiosity: none is able to do it or at least interested? --Andyrom75 (talk) 07:52, 28 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Few people here have familiarity with how the mobile version is constructed. Definitely log a bug on Phabricator. Powers ^(talk) 01:56, 29 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

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You guys should know that for the last week or so, it's been nearly impossible to contribute due to crawling servers. Annoyingly, the inferior Wikitravel hasn't shown the same problems. --112.198.90.214 05:12, 30 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Very strange, it is very fast in Japan... thanks for letting us know! Could you please install Firebug in Firefox then press "Network" in Firebug, then load a Wikivoyage article, then take a screenshot and post it here? Example: https://i.imgur.com/lCc5InE.png That would help us identify what is going wrong. Thanks for your feedback! Nicolas1981 (talk) 05:28, 30 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Under what circumstances can this happen? Personally I experienced issues accessing WV in Mainland China in 2013, including very slow response times (Wikipedia as a whole was being blocked intermittently at the time) . I don't see ISP's in the Philippines doing anything like this... --Andrewssi2 (talk) 06:01, 30 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Ph ISPs don't censor but I could believe they'd try to save some pesos. Well, it seems to have repaired itself to a degree or two now, but both WP & WV were unusable for more than a week with the same message about waiting for mediawiki.bits or some such. I wrote down the actual message at the time, but couldnt posdt it after waiting 2h for this page to load. Do you have a bug report email address? I can't see one posted prominently...--112.198.90.214 09:38, 30 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

If it affects WP as well, and if it's waiting for bits.wikimedia.org, then it sounds like a Wikimedia routing/network issue that affects access from the Philippines. Because of the bigger pool of users at WP, you would be best to report it at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical). If you have no luck there, try Wikipedia:Bug reports and feature requests, which explains how to report problems at Phabricator, Wikimedia's newish bug reporting system (which hopefully deals with tech problems other than just bugs). I sympathise, because I have experienced similar problems in the past, and it is difficult to report slow access using a site that itself is subject to the problem. Nurg (talk) 20:32, 30 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

That's the one: bits.wikimedia.org !

What do you think of having an email address featured to report these kinds of problems? --49.151.114.202 13:41, 31 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

I see no real need to encourage communication per email. Of course such bugs are very unpleasant and it's good that people report issues. However, this is a wiki. There's Phabricator or - for those who find that too unfamiliar or complicated - simply the travellers' pub. Chances of getting an answer or (better yet) a solution are much better on-wiki, where any report gets far more eyes on it than an email would. JuliasTravels (talk) 22:08, 31 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Tbose are all valid points, Julia, but lose sight of the main point that I've had to wait 3 days again for bits.wikimedia.org to settle down again b4 I could write this. You're not going to get better Ohiljlppines artkcles with these obstacles. Also, when i use my Globe mobile I keep getting weird messages about Andrew Carrot blocking and send him an email but, again, no email address! --222.127.250.223 05:46, 3 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for posting this information, 222.127. I'm sorry that you're dealing with these problems. I'll tell the Ops team about this. Problems with bits.wikimedia.org don't usually last so long. In the meantime, it might be helpful to have information about whether it affects only Wikivoyage, or if it affects sites like Wikipedia: or Wiktionary:, too, and whether there are times of day that are better or worse. (For example, a while ago we had a problem with the English Wikipedia being slow in the eastern United States, but only in the evening and only on one large ISP—just when everyone got home from work.) Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 07:05, 3 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Also: if you can't reach anyone on wiki or find a better way to report a problem, you can e-mail me. I can't really fix technical problems, but I can forward e-mail messages.  ;-) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 07:10, 3 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

And just 16 minutes after sending that message, Faidon the Awesome has set up a temporary patch and started the process of getting permanent corrections made to the upstream providers. This problem was probably affecting most or all of the Philippines plus some other users in the region, so the Operations team sends grateful thanks for your persistence in reporting it. If it comes back, then please let me (or them) know. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 07:35, 3 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

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New extracted Wikivoyage listings data is available: .CSV to check/hack listings, .OBF to display listings in OsmAnd, .OSM to integrate with OpenStreetMap data. Enjoy! Nicolas1981 (talk) 13:50, 30 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for new .csv file... I have found it very useful in the past for some checks etc.; however, there is an issue in that not all articles are using the listings templates and unfortunately that information would not be represented in the .csv file... To correct this would probably be a very large undertaking indeed... Matroc (talk) 03:40, 31 January 2015 (UTC)Reply

Transforming all POIs to listings templates is indeed a large undertaking, but like banners we will make it, little by little (banners are currently at 32%). It should actually be faster than banners, because it is fast to do for small destinations, whereas banners are more difficult for small destinations. Personally I transform into templates every time I see a not-yet-template POI. If you want to help with this, that would be great! Cheers! Nicolas1981 (talk) 04:04, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's appearance, the coming Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

The Wikimedia Foundation has named its top priorities for this quarter (January to March). The first priority is making VisualEditor ready for deployment by default to all new users and logged-out users at the remaining large Wikipedias. You can help identify these requirements. There will be weekly triage meetings which will be open to volunteers beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Tell Vice President of Engineering Damon Sicore, Product Manager James Forrester and other team members which bugs and features are most important to you. The decisions made at these meetings will determine what work is necessary for this quarter's goal of making VisualEditor ready for deployment to new users. The presence of volunteers who enjoy contributing MediaWiki code is particularly appreciated. Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins.

Due to some breaking changes in MobileFrontend and VisualEditor, VisualEditor was not working correctly on the mobile site for a couple of days in early January. The teams apologize for the problem.

Recent improvements

[edit]

The new design for VisualEditor aligns with MediaWiki's Front-End Standards as led by the Design team. Several new versions of the OOjs UI library have also been released, and these also affect the appearance of VisualEditor and other MediaWiki software extensions. Most changes were minor, like changing the text size and the amount of white space in some windows. Buttons are consistently color-coded to indicate whether the action:

• starts a new task, like opening the ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-savedialog⧽ dialog: blue ,
• takes a constructive action, like inserting a citation: green ,
• might remove or lose your work, like removing a link: red , or
• is neutral, like opening a link in a new browser window: gray .

The TemplateData editor has been completely re-written to use a different design based on the same OOjs UI system as VisualEditor. (T67815, T73746.) This change fixed a couple of existing bugs and improved usability. (T73077, T73078.)

Search and replace in long documents is now faster. It does not highlight every occurrence if there are more than 100 on-screen at once.(T78234.)

Editors at the Hebrew and Russian Wikipedia requested the ability to use VisualEditor in the "Article Incubator" or drafts namespace. (T86688, T87027.) If your community would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace on your wiki, then you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.

Looking ahead

[edit]

The Editing team will soon add auto-fill features for citations. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to contribute to the Citoid service's definitions for each website, to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections.

We will need editors to help test the new design of the special character inserter, especially if you speak Welsh, Breton, or another language that uses diacritics or special characters extensively. The new version should be available for testing next week. Please contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF) if you would like to be notified when the new version is available. After the special character tool is completed, VisualEditor will be deployed to all users at Phase 5 Wikipedias. This will affect about 50 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh. The date for this change has not been determined.

Let's work together

[edit]

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• Please help complete translations of the user guide for users who speak your language.
• Join the weekly bug triage meetings beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC); information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins, and you can also contact James F. to learn more about this initiative.
• Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 19:00 UTC.
• Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta. If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

— Elitre (WMF)

18:30, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Swept in from the pub

Since about a week, whenever I edit a listing and move the mouse to the Description field, the dialog's size changes, and the field moves a bit, making it impossible to actually click inside the field. I have to click a field before and then use Tab to reach it. Anyone having the same problem? Could it be due to the recent font size change? Firefox 35.0.1 on Ubuntu Linux. Nicolas1981 (talk) 09:05, 12 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

The timing matches the font size changes. I'll take some time after work to see if I can reproduce and find a fix. Are there any other problems? -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:25, 12 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I just tried editing a few listings in the Culver City article using Firefox 35.0.1 on Ubuntu, but didn't encounter any issues. Is there a specific listing you're trying to edit that is causing this behavior? If you're seeing it everywhere, can you upload a screenshot, or something else that might help to narrow down the problem? -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:20, 12 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

It happens for every article. I will try to take a video, probably not before e few days though. Nicolas1981 (talk) 10:42, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

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Per m:Tech/News/2015/08, it looks like starting tomorrow, if you have a user page at meta:, that user page will be displayed on all Mediawiki wikis unless you have created a local user page - read more at mw:Help:Extension:GlobalUserPage. The concept seems to be similar to how images work now - [[File:SomeImage.jpg]] will load the version from commons unless a local file with the same name exists. The new global user page functionality should be a useful feature for everyone whose home wiki isn't envoy, although I expect we should be ready for a lot of deletion requests for local user pages once this feature goes live. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:28, 16 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

It's possible that Pathoschild may be running his bot to delete pages on user request, since otherwise people would have to request deletion across 800+ wikis. --Rschen7754 04:46, 17 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for pointing this out, Ryan. I had completely forgot I had a meta user page. It gave me a chance to fix some outdated links. -Shaundd (talk) 04:47, 17 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

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Since more than 24 hours, bulleted points on WV articles look weird in the Safari browser. The point has shrunk and moved to the left and down. Another odd thing is that they look normal when using Firefox. Anyone else (Mac or iOS users, obviously) seeing this? ϒpsilon (talk) 18:26, 26 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I don't see any problem using Chrome, but the issue you're seeing may be a CSS bug in the latest Mediawiki release (mw:ediaWiki_1.25/wmf18), which was pushed yesterday per meta:Tech/News/2015/09. Someone else may know where to go to check and see if there is an existing bug report. -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:02, 26 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Just to confirm, yes I see the same thing with Safari on Yosemite. (I also just use Chrome as my default browser) --Andrewssi2 (talk) 20:33, 26 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Me, too Safari. Having same issue since yesterday afternoon. --Saqib (talk) 12:51, 27 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Data dumps used to get generated every 2 weeks, but since July 2014 the frequency has started to fall down dramatically. Currently, the last dump is from 42 days ago. I am a bit sad as I have improved/added a lot of content recently while preparing my trip, and I won't be able to benefit from it using Kiwix/OxygenGuide/OsmAnd offline tools. Data dumps are one of the reasons why we forked from WT.

Any idea why? Is it inevitable, and if not where I should ask for the frequency to be restored to about a dump every 2 weeks? Cheers! Nicolas1981 (talk) 03:49, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I guess someone on Wikimedia would be better placed to answer your question, since we at WV don't (I believe) have any control over this process.

That said, monthly data dumps seem like an OK frequency to me, although I wonder where January 2015 went to. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:34, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I know that, currently (within the past month) we've had some issues with the dumps servers which may be why but I will poke ops to see what the issues are with the wikivoyage dumps in general as well. Jalexander-WMF (talk) 20:48, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

A new dump has just appeared, right in time before my trip tomorrow :-D Nicolas1981 (talk) 04:59, 20 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hi, as a side information, I just wanted to inform you that new ZIM files of Wikivoyage are now released one time a month - and this is independent of the XML data dumps. Regards Kelson (talk) 13:37, 5 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

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Dear all,

I just wrote a script to extract embassies/consulates data from Wikivoyage. Download the CSV file here, 4480 entries, 800 KB. I did this because a student asked me for this database for a thesis, but we can also use it ourselves, in particular to complete our data, as many consulates are missing from Wikivoyage. People interested in making this data more complete are invited to check this project, and complete either manually (many countries list their list of embassies) or by script (from other open data sources).

By the way, I also updated the extracted listings database and OxygenGuide. Cheers! Nicolas1981 (talk) 03:59, 3 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

This is a great thing to ad to WV! I would however caution that since this is not an official source, all listings should be verified (i.e. visit the embassy's website/foreign ministry website) before entry into WV. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 20:22, 5 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Useful stuff. The wider we can make the content we cover the better. It is always a pain figuring out were the consulates are. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:01, 7 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

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I can't see section titles here (travellers' pub) anymore... is it just me? Nicolas1981 (talk) 01:59, 4 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

And now I can see them... even though I refreshed to check before posting this... strange. Nicolas1981 (talk) 02:00, 4 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

There is definitely something strange with section titles... now the § symbol (which is usually present at the left of each section when hovering, to facilitate deep linking, see "HeadAnchor" preference) is superimposed over the first character of the section title, instead of showing up at its left. Nicolas1981 (talk) 06:11, 4 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Maybe it is your OS or your browser doing strange things? Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:16, 4 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Could be! I am using Ubuntu, it happens on Firefox but not on Chromium. Nicolas1981 (talk) 02:29, 5 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Firefox looks normal here (pir8 copy of Ubuntu 14), haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary. K7L (talk) 04:00, 5 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Section titles disappeared again, this time in article space: Screenshot. I haven't changed anything in my Firefox (35.0.1 on Ubuntu 2014.04) recently, and this started happening yesterday. Nicolas1981 (talk) 04:06, 5 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

I use Lubuntu (Ubuntu with a lightweight window manager) and Firefox. Both are updated fairly often. Section titles almost always look fine. Once in a blue moon I get something like your screenshot, usually when the system is heavily loaded. Reloading the page fixes it. Pashley (talk) 03:04, 6 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Exact same problem with Chromium. Section titles never show on any article. When I log out, they show up. So something is wrong with my Wikivoyage account. Nicolas1981 (talk) 04:39, 26 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Disabling HeadAnchor in Preferences>Gadgets fixed the problem. Nicolas1981 (talk) 04:42, 26 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

I get this error several times per week, and each time it means I loose 1 to 10 minutes of work. It happens when working on an article whose page was already open in the browser. I try to think to refresh the browser before doing any edition, but despite this I sometimes forget. I imagine many new users get frustrated about this too, especially if they don't understand the HTTP technicalities.

We need to fix this. If the request fails, we should acquire a new token and try again. At all we should not make the editor's precious content disappear. Thanks! Nicolas1981 (talk) 01:45, 9 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

I have no idea if it will fix the problem, but it shouldn't make it worse - this change is completely untested but should hopefully at least give you the option to get your changes back in the case of a failure. If you encounter the problem again please provide any feedback as to whether this change actually restores the listing editor (with your changes in it), whether resubmitting works, etc. -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:32, 9 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Has anyone else been having this kind of problem? Nicolas1981, is there anything unusual about your computer/browser/account/preferences/internet connection that you think might cause this? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:39, 9 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Nothing unusual. I sometimes change from a WiFi to another, but I wouldn't consider this unusual. It happens very often: just let an article open for a day or two, go back to it, click "edit" to get the listing editor, and it will happen. Nicolas1981 (talk) 07:05, 10 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

That is completely expected behavior given that tokens should expire in about an hour. Legoktm (talk) 22:51, 10 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hi, you should use mw.Api#postWithToken which automatically handles these kinds of issues. Legoktm (talk) 18:49, 9 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

By "you", I'm pretty sure the Lego means "whatever gadgets you're using". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 13 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Hi all, I'm a mediawiki contriutor and there's a discussion on a project for developing the functionality provided by the pagebanner template into an extension here, with a purpose to make the banners render well on mobile in addition to desktop, as well as solve any size issues arising in any browser. It would be great to get feedback as well as if someone could help along, in providing valuable suggestions as to the look and feel of the banners in the new extension as the project progresses. Comments on the phabricator task are welcome. Looking forward to your help and support. Thank you! --Sumit.iitp (talk) 05:40, 15 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

I suggested this in the phabricator ticket already, but I think the place to start on this task is creating a set of requirements - I'm in favor of cleaning up the banner code, but it's still not clear to me what advantages the extension is going to offer, what the trade-offs might be, etc. -- Ryan • (talk) • 06:13, 15 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

The banners have been a huge improvement, but the change also caused some problems; we did not reach consensus on a solution. My preferred fix might only be possible with help from Mediawiki developers. Please have a look at these issues while planning any extension. Pashley (talk) 09:18, 15 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

I noticed that the Dhivehi text for Maldives does not render on my MacBook. I tried with native Safari, Chrome and Firefox browsers and none of them work. Windows on the other hand has no problem.

Where is the best place to raise this issue? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:49, 8 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

. The instructions there seem to be for Lion or something, System Preferences doesn't seem to have any input sources box in Yosemite. Nevertheless, download the package from the link, open and install it. I just did and it works well in Safari and Firefox. ϒpsilon (talk) 12:04, 8 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Did you know?

With Citoid in VisualEditor, you click the 'book with bookmark' icon and paste in the URL for a reliable source:

Citoid looks up the source for you and returns the citation results. Click the green "Insert" button to accept its results and add them to the article:

After inserting the citation, you can change it. Select the reference, and click the "Edit" button in the context menu to make changes.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's performance, the Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 11:00 (noon) PDT (18:00 UTC). You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.

Recent improvements

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VisualEditor is now substantially faster. In many cases, opening the page in VisualEditor is now faster than opening it in the wikitext editor. The new system has improved the code speed by 37% and network speed by almost 40%.

The Editing team is slowly adding auto-fill features for citations. This is currently available only at the French, Italian, and English Wikipedias. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections by contributing to the Citoid service's definitions for each website.

Citoid requires good TemplateData for your citation templates. If you would like to request this feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

The special character inserter has been improved, based upon feedback from active users. After this, VisualEditor was made available to all users of Wikipedias on the Phase 5 list on 30 March. This affected 53 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh.

Work continues to support languages with complex requirements, such as Korean and Japanese. These languages use input method editors ("IMEs”). Recent improvements to cursoring, backspace, and delete behavior will simplify typing in VisualEditor for these users.

The design for the image selection process is now using a "masonry fit" model. Images in the search results are displayed at the same height but at variable widths, similar to bricks of different sizes in a masonry wall, or the "packed" mode in image galleries. This style helps you find the right image by making it easier to see more details in images.

You can now drag and drop categories to re-arrange their order of appearance ​on the page.

The pop-up window that appears when you click on a reference, image, link, or other element, is called the "context menu". It now displays additional useful information, such as the destination of the link or the image's filename. The team has also added an explicit "Edit" button in the context menu, which helps new editors open the tool to change the item.

Invisible templates are marked by a puzzle piece icon so they can be interacted with. Users also will be able to see and edit HTML anchors now in section headings.

Users of the TemplateData GUI editor can now set a string as an optional text for the 'deprecated' property in addition to boolean value, which lets you tell users of the template what they should do instead. (T90734)

Looking ahead

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The special character inserter in VisualEditor will soon use the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki will also have the option of creating a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Instructions for customizing the list will be posted at mediawiki.org.

The team is discussing a test of VisualEditor with new users at the English Wikipedia, to see whether they have met their goals of making VisualEditor suitable for those editors. The timing is unknown, but might be relatively soon. (T90666)

Let's work together

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• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• Can you translate from English into any other language? Please check this list to see whether more interface translations are needed for your language. Contact us to get an account if you want to help!
• The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
• File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

— Elitre (WMF)

19:48, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Swept in from the pub

My team has been working on a feature which we think would be highly useful on Wikivoyage and we'd really like to install it on your project as we think you are a community who can really help us grow it into what we think will be an amazing feature for all Wikimedia projects. It's called "Gather" and it allows users to collect personal lists of pages. We hope this will lead to increased engagement in our project, drawing attention to articles and then hopefully leading to more readers/editors.

In future we want this to do so much more, for example to support collaborative list editing, provide different views on lists e.g. watch edits on lists (a la Watchlist)... (feel free to check out our backlog.

As a travel addict, I can see lots of uses for your projects - here are some travel themed lists I have written for example:

• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Gather/by/Jdlrobson/23
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Gather/by/Jdlrobson/657

If installed it could be available on mobile and via desktop via a beta feature. Thoughts? Questions? Jon (WMF) (talk) 19:56, 16 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

cc. User:Melamrawy (WMF) User:Diablanco User:jdlrobson

There's no downside to installing this extension, right? It's just another bit of functionality for users who might want to use it, and is invisible to everyone else? If so I'd say go ahead and install it so that those who want this type of functionality have it available, although personally I'm not sure that it would be something I would be likely to use. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:35, 16 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

I'll second that. I might not use it personally but it couldn't hurt as a beta feature, so I'd also say go ahead. Texugo (talk) 20:43, 16 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Fine by me. It'd be nice to be able to tie it into the books extension, to make it easy to print books using a Gathered list of articles. Powers ^(talk) 19:18, 17 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Sounds very useful, when preparing a trip I usually have a collection of relevant articles open in browser tabs. Any tool would be more convenient, especially if the same list is accessible on mobile. Cheers! Syced (talk) 08:22, 21 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Ryan, it's not entirely invisible to everyone else. Jon just gave you links that let you see his lists, so someone could share a list on Facebook or something. But it doesn't change anything in the articles or anything like that. It's just a list of links and has no effect on the mainspace (except possibly increase page views). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:22, 25 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Ryan, Texugo, Powers, Syced, I wanted to give you guys a heads-up on this. The downside is that these are publicly viewable, it is directly targeted for use and public sharing by non-editors, it has a text field and people can and do create abusive Collections (such as attacking people they hate), they need to be patrolled for legal violations or abuses. It has no real use-case for editors because it's simpler and more flexible to just link article titles in wikitext. It has been heatedly rejected at Wikipedia Wikipedia Administrators'_noticeboard#Moderation_of_Collections and other scattered discussions. WMF staff don't even respond to requests for WMF-Community discussion on whether it should be turned off. I have no edits on Voyage, so I'll leave it to you guys here. I just wanted you guys to know that this isn't "invisible". Alsee (talk) 11:54, 12 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

At https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikivoyage/w/artmap.php?lang=en there seems to be a new search box, which is a wonderful idea :-)

It does not seem to work either with the Enter key nor by pushing the button, though... is it being developed right now, or is it a bug with Firefox/Linux? Syced (talk) 08:52, 21 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

The reason is again the WMFLabs server. The response times are too long. Mixed active content (http: / https:) is blocked on WMFLabs server. Please wait for the next update in a few days. On the German WVeV server (http:) http://maps.wikivoyage-ev.org/w/artmap.php?lang=en everything is in order. -- Joachim Mey2008 (talk) 13:20, 21 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Update is done. Search function now also works with the https: protocol. -- Joachim Mey2008 (talk) 12:03, 23 April 2015 (UTC)Reply