User talk:Atcovi/Archive 5

Community Review
You asked about Community Review. I'm responding here rather than there because I wanted to ask some questions first regarding Community Review to help both of us think through the possibilities.
 * 1) Who should request a community review?  Based on the language I read at Community Review, the person who has a problem is the person who should ask for the review.
 * 2) What would be the goal of a community review?  Again, based on language on the page, it would appear to be to reduce tension, after other attempts have already been made.
 * 3) How would a community review reduce tension?  By resolving the issues that led to the problem.
 * 4) Have you read any of the past community reviews to see if they were helpful in resolving the issues that led to the problem?  Most of the community reviews I've read appear to have increased tension rather than reducing it.
 * 5) Have you thought about the question itself?  If I ask, 'Should we move this to Community Review?', that's an unbiased question.  If I ask, "Should we move this to Community Review about Dave?', I've already indicated, perhaps unintentionally, that I think the problem is Dave.  People shouldn't be a problem.  People's actions may represent a problem.
 * 6) Upon further reflection, do you think a community review would be helpful in this situation?  I'm not so sure, which is why I'm still asking questions.

Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 20:29, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) Well, seeing that Glimmergaurd is pretty concerned about Abd picking on him and Sidelight12 too. I geuss Glimmergaurd should.
 * 2) The goal would be that the person who is under community review (example: Abd) change his/her behavior. This is just an example on this issue
 * 3) Well, tension, to be honest, the tension would accumulate, causing personal attacks and other disruptive actions. Overall, it does not reduce tension.
 * No, I haven't, I 'll look threw them right now.
 * 1) Yes, I have. The problem is Abd, with Sidelight12 and Glimmergaurd going against Abd, Glimmergaurd should request community review of Abd. But I think it is unnecessary.
 * 2) Yes, I think so. The problem will be resolved with a solution.

Thanks for spending this time with me about this. --Goldenburg111 21:46, 2 January 2014 (UTC)


 * You're welcome, and thanks for responding. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:59, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Many Community Reviews of users resolve nothing. They become occasions for users to come up with every complaint, participation is not uncommonly canvassed, and they readily become train wrecks. It is not clear what Glimmerguard wants. His expressed intention in creating those resources was not the development of Wikiversity, so if anyone were to complain, it could be me or, alternatively, it could be someone interested in stopping the expression of "unconventional" science on Wikiversity. But that would be done through RfD and only if Glimmerguard attempted to disrupt the proceedings, and was not stopped by custodial action, could there be a need for CR.


 * Likewise, if I'm the problem here, a small scale consensus could easily stop me from doing whatever. One custodian giving me a clear warning could be enough. "You are irritating user X, so hands off," while accompanied with an explicit permission to do what I've actually been doing, is far from a clear warning! Again, I could complain about a certain probationary custodian, but all I've done is, first, to discuss the matter with him, and when that wasn't producing some sense of agreement, I asked his mentor to advise him. CR has been used to remove custodial privileges, and I'm certainly not ready to go there. It can be a highly disruptive process, only to be used if clearly necessary. —Abd (discuss • contribs) 02:16, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Comments on User Pages
I appreciate your assistance, however, comments for users should be placed on talk pages rather than user pages. Regarding custodian actions, it is best to allow the custodians to comment on their own activity. In this case there is more going on than a typical vandalism block. The user involved is well educated in wiki ways and will understand the information already provided. Thanks! -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 18:37, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

One other thing. Be sure to review No shrines for vandals. While I appreciate the desire to document things like this so you can learn from them, it is policy not to keep a record except in the appropriate logs. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:11, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * General agreement. As to user pages, please don't create a user page, other than for yourself, and it's probably best to avoid editing a user page that already exists. It's done, sometimes, particularly with formally banned users, but a block template goes on the Talk page, not on the user page, and Dave may be correct, it may be best to leave this up to blocking custodians. However, you may comment informatively on the talk page of a blocked user. It is probably best to avoid anything that would anger the user, unless it is necessary.


 * As to "no shrines," that is not a policy, it is proposed only. It is something to avoid. It is fairly common practice to keep records, often in user space, of certain kinds of problematic editing, it's done by the antispam warriors all the time. The "no shrines" proposed policy suggests thinking about the effect of the records. Will it encourage more vandalism? Standard advice on Wikipedia is w:WP:RBI, "Revert, Block, Ignore." However, if a pattern appears, documenting it may be useful. Do this with caution. —Abd (discuss • contribs) 19:18, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Ok. About the "no shrines". In this case, is it useful to document behaviors of RadioKirk and Moulton? If not, I'll request deletion, or we can just keep it for them, I spent a lot of time on these two documents. --Goldenburg111 19:21, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * My recommendation would be to link to existing information where you find it useful. Making your own copy isn't an advantage, particularly if the original information changes.


 * Separately, and just an observation: Wouldn't it be more fulfilling to find something on Wikiversity that needs cleaning up and make it better, instead of tracking bad things that have happened in the past?  It's important to learn from history, but beyond that, I'd much rather spend time making the future brighter.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:36, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Ok, I'll get started. But last question, why does Meta allow these sort of things? --Goldenburg111 19:38, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * That I can't answer. Abd may be more familiar with what happens at Meta.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:41, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict with above) RadioKirk, no. This is very old, and knowing the prior history is not likely to be useful. There is really nothing on your user page that isn't found in contributions. However, the identification as the other two users is not established. Outside of proper process, claims like that should not be presented as fact. Dave may have special knowledge, but that identification is not obvious from anything on Wikiversity, and I'm not researching it elsewhere. "Socking" is not necessarily a block reason on Wikiversity, unless the socking is formally established. If the first blocked account was, say, RadioKirk, then normal procedure would be that it would be RadioKirk who would need to request unblock.


 * I have a disclosed sock account here. When I was blocked, I did not use it, because that is generally considered block evasion, even though that account was not blocked. Avoiding a block by using another account is a form of "socking" that is generally prohibited, though I've seen it be allowed under some circumstances; likewise editing by IP. I've done that, when an overzealous administrator shut down my Talk page access. It's been accepted, on occasion.


 * Notice that User:Mokalyyngds does not have talk page access prohibited. So requesting unblock without logging in, not legitimate. Likewise with RadioKirk, that user could request unblock directly, logged in. If not, and if a user wants to actually contribute, the user can simply create a new account. RadioKirk appears to have been vandalism only, Mokalynngds shows no contributions (on any WMF wiki), but was blocked by Mathonius for "spam." That would involve page creation, doubtless, and the pages have been deleted. There is nothing to connect a new account with the old, unless there has been recent editing and a checkuser checks. Checkuser information is only kept for a few months.


 * I see what Dave did. The same IP edited both Talk pages. Dave, that's far from conclusive, there is no evidence that the IP is either of these users. Those edits requesting unblock should have been reverted, my opinion, and the user talk pages deleted, except if they had prior edits, such as with warnings. I'm guessing that whoever the IP is, looking to create some wasted time for an administrator, found some old blocked accounts and put up the notice.


 * Meanwhile, we have a MediaWiki page created by the IP. It should be deleted. And looking around, I find all kinds of junk that should be cleaned up. Those long IPs create very complicated history, poorly connected. So much junk, so little time.

Moulton, very complicated story. Tragic, in my opinion. I know him personally, i.e., we have met, in person. —Abd (discuss • contribs) 20:07, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Wow, I see, I understand. I'll edit my report on him for upcoming information. Another thing, Abd, I would like to see a picture of Moulton, do you have one that I can see? --Goldenburg111 20:10, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * While he has been quite free about his real name, I don't recommend mentioning it, or I could give you a search term, you can find photos. His name is somewhere here on Wikiversity, if you look enough. Meanwhile, under Moulton, there is this page which does have a photo. Now, I recommend requesting deletion of your Moulton user page. Same with the RadioKirk one. But, for your information, Moulton has other accounts on Wikiversity, plus many IP edits. I did keep a record of them, for a particular period (recent at the time) it could be dug up; that record was done because he was considered banned at the time, but was making some edits that were, at least, harmless. I was working on "self reversion," a technique for a banned user to still make collaborative edits, efficiently. It didn't work with Moulton. It did work with Thekohser, another previously banned editor. It didn't work with Moulton because, in fact, he was completely uninterested in cooperation. Anyway, see also User:Caprice. That's him. I haven't seen a Moulton edit in a very long time.
 * Generally, extensive documentation of behavior on other wikis can be touching a live wire. Make sure you understand the hazards and wear gloves! It can attract disruption, big time. —Abd (discuss • contribs) 20:37, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Tagging Templates for Deletion
If you tag a template for deletion, first check 'What links here' to ensure that the template is no longer in use. Otherwise, anything that includes the template gets tagged for deletion along with the template. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 00:40, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 January 2014
News, reports and features from the English Wikipedia's weekly journal about Wikipedia and Wikimedia Read this Signpost in full &middot; Single-page &middot; Unsubscribe &middot; Global message delivery 04:23, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * News and notes: The year in review
 * In the media: Does Wikipedia need a medical disclaimer?
 * Book review: Życie Wirtualnych Dzikich
 * Discussion report: Article incubator, dates and fractions, medical disclaimer
 * Traffic report: A year stuck in traffic
 * WikiProject report: Where Are They Now? Fifth Edition
 * Featured content: 2013—the trends
 * Technology report: 2013: Year in review

Wikidata weekly summary #91
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week. Read the full report &middot; Unsubscribe &middot; John F. Lewis 21:50, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Discussions
 * Discussion about the RfD process
 * Discussion about Notability of Wikisource on Wikidata
 * Open RfAs: Lymantria, Lavallen
 * Other Noteworthy Stuff
 * Wikidata reached 100000000 edits
 * d:User:Dexbot is the first bot to reach 10000000 edits
 * Wikisource is due to receive Wikidata Phase 1 on January the 14th
 * Did you know?
 * Newest properties: none
 * Newest task forces: MediaWiki task force
 * Showcase items: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Q309988)
 * Fun Fact: According to Wikidata, this is the year of 2004 (Q2014)
 * Development Word from John
 * To give this section some life, since the development team had their holidays last week meaning nothing really got done (let them have one week off at least), I'll say a few words. 2014 is a new year and thus a new start, over the last year Wikidata celebrated its first birthday which brought reflection over what Wikidata had accomplish. Therefore I want to use the start of 2014 to reflect what Wikidata can do. For my personal over view see this page. For the summary, while it is meant to be a weekly simple update, I feel this can be used a lot more effective to put across not only what happened on Wikidata but things about Wikidata on other wikis, I am hoping to start a section over this within the next few weeks. If you have any suggestions for the summary, feel free to drop me a message at meta or Wikidata. Thanks.
 * Monthly Tasks
 * Fix a format or content violation for the Public holiday (P832) propery
 * Hack on one of these.
 * Help develop the next summary here!
 * Contribute to a Showcase item

Speedy Delete
Always check 'What links here' before adding a Speedy Delete. I didn't delete "Rural development Agrologist and Aquaculturist occupational profile" because the resource was moved without cleanup first (or afterwards). I left a notice for the editor who created the issue to address it first. Thanks! -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 03:34, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * How is What Links here useful? --Goldenburg111 13:47, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * If a page is used somewhere, i.e., there is a link to it, deleting it creates confusion. Ordinary users cannot see what the content was. If you are going to request a page that is linked be deleted, Dave is right. Always check what links there first. I've failed to do that on occasion. Part of deleting a page is to clean up links. Same with moving a page, by the way. If the page adds no value for users, then the links should be removed. First. How to do that is another question, a bit more complex. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:16, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * In this case, the problem was due to an unfixed double redir, I have fixed with . The user did not finish the job, he eliminated a later double redir, but not the original one. I'll ping him, because he should know to check and complete this task. I'm retagging for deletion. Thanks, Goldenberg, for finding these things, and thanks, Dave, for being on the ball. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:29, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It's a bit worse than that. The custodian is apparently not checking redirects back to origin. I just fixed another one. And there are other issues as to page names created. U.S. states/Virginia/21st century was not at all descriptive. Dave, your notice wasn't adequate to convey the problem. He's already, ah, sensitive to advice from me. I'm just going to look around and fix things, as I have time.
 * If the incoming link to a redirect is a redirect, as was the case here, there is a double redir already, and these should be fixed on sight.
 * Goldenburg, my suggestion. Please be more careful and more thorough. If you are going to move pages, do check all incoming links, and the same for redirects. In some cases, there are off-wiki links to be considered. If the redirect is a likely target for that, googling the page name can be useful. Most of these, I'm not checking for that, but I probably should. I've gotten a little lazy about double redirects lately, because a bot looks for them and fixes them, but maybe that's not best practice. I'm becoming aware that the bots aren't all that thorough.
 * I consider it my responsibility to do the custodian's work before requesting deletion of a page, and to explain that in the deletion reason, such as "no incoming links." So I'll fix a double redir, by redirecting the original link to the ultimate target, and then speedy deletion tag any intermediate links. The page moves modify watchlists (I think) and contributions so that they refer to the new target. So users can find their pages. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:09, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What he said. :-)  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 16:25, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Westrand, Gauteng
. Now, this user was blocked on Wikipedia as a spammer. When you see an inappropriate page, and if you want to be long-term useful here (as I believe you do), research the user. (look at global contributions, check block logs, etc.) On Wikipedia, they treated the account as spam-only. Similar information (the same? I forget) was posted on Wikisource, where it was totally out of scope, I just speedy tagged the page there. However, you know what it is like if you are trying to do something you think is fine, and your stuff gets reverted and deleted and you get blocked. If you tag a page as inappropriate, and it was created or edited by a registered user, and there might be some educational content the user could contribute, welcome the user, and explain any problems with the page. Notifying the user of a proposed deletion is also a courtesy. I'm not going to invest more time in that page unless the user returns, because it's not any thing that one could discover in less than a minute with google. The motive was probably spam. But maybe not! Maybe the person lives there and really wants to write about it. So ... we can educate the user, which might pay off, long term. Once in a while, anyway! --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:42, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Notice how researching a possible problem here led to discovering a problem on Wikisource. I find problems on Wikipedia all the time, too bad I'm blocked there! (But it also saves me a lot of time!) If something is really serious, I know how to get the information to those who can handle it. I do have email still active there.) --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:42, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

9th Grade
I found 9th Grade as a redirect to User:70.243.161.139/9th Grade. In this case, I didn't see any advantage to having the resource buried under a six-year-old IP address. So I checked the article and then did an Internet search for chfbs. I came up with only one likely source as Castle Hills First Baptist School. So I created Castle Hills First Baptist School, copied a little content from Wikipedia to use as an anchor page for their learning project, and then moved 9th Grade to Castle Hills First Baptist School/9th Grade. This is a bit more work, but it provides context to the resource and provides a container for any future resources they create. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:00, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Long-term, I don't think we want a mainspace article on every school. Think about how it would be if every school had a mainspace resource. How many schools are there on the planet? Further, 9th grade is not a fixed entity. It's different students every year, and teachers may also shift. The year would probably be adequate identification. So.... we do have various articles on schools, and we have resources that have been created with regard to particular school classes. How do we want to classify these resources? It might be in the School namespace. We may also want to think about continuing educational value. That school page Dave moved, wasn't actually used by any more than a single IP as an exercise in page creation, and that purpose long ago was completed. I'd see this page as eventually being deleted, because the ongoing value is minimal. But a page like this could turn out to be valuable. I'm not suggesting immediate deletion. It is useful to raise the general organizational issue.
 * Further, if the page exists here, eventually someone from CHFBS will notice it in a search, and we might start to see some additional participation. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:26, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * It comes down to whether or not we want the resource to be easily searchable and manageable. The school namespace is not searched by default.  I see putting school projects in the school namespace to be problematic, as users (students) will never create new pages in the proper location.  Most schools are now using their own content management system, but for those who want to use Wikiversity, I don't currently see a problem with allowing them to organize based on school name, assuming the content isn't relevant to an otherwise existing learning project.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:56, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Avoid corrections to user space pages, unless they are clearly welcome
moves a user page to a new name, with an inserted space, which is "grammatically" correct, but which creates more mess that might need to be later cleaned up. This page is a user's exercise as part of a class, and it is linked under the old name. So the move itself doesn't cause damage. However, it makes the activity trail more complicated to follow.

There is no requirement that page names in user space be "grammatical." It is generally better to leave them alone. If this user later wants the page deleted, the user will tag it. Will it be noticed that it is a redirected page? Maybe. Maybe not.

Generally, we are suspicious whenever we see one user editing a page in another user's user space. It's done, to be sure, but there should be more basis than "grammar," unless the page is clearly a collaborative project, not simply an individual's attributed contribution to a project. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 19:45, 10 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Sure, I leave users thinking this user does not know English very well, Meh, guess this user has problems now! --Goldenburg111 20:32, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Schin Message
Sorry, I realized why Aida cannon not see my advise, me and Aida are partners and we must critique each other. Following is a Email which Aida send me about our teacher's message: and he should also provide you the feedback till 10th Jan. Rusted Faith: then Rene or Me will also provide feedback in next week, you should correct seminar as suggested by your partner and by Rene till 24th of Jan Rusted Faith: The deadline to submit second version is 24th of Jan

I should describe the reason to our teachers of why Aida cannot see my advise ... --Schin (discuss)


 * Goldenburg, this edit was inappropriate. Please apologize to the user for what you wrote. Watch out for that temper.


 * Schin, all edits can be seen, ordinarily. However, Aida is using a User Page to contain the text for you to critique, and that's confusing to Goldenburg, and, really, to the rest of us. User pages are not intended for content, but for information about the user. You may create subpages of your user pages, as some in your project have, and those have attached talk pages, which are ideal for comment. However, I also see that you commented using italics. That works, but it would have been better to sign comments as well. (Sign a comment with four tildes, which will be substituted when saved with your user name and a timestamp, assuming you are logged in.)


 * You might also explain to Aida that all the edits to any page on the watchlist would show up if the watchlist has been set to automatically add such pages when created or edited. If Aida had simply undone Goldenburg's reverts, with an edit summary of "this is okay," Goldenburg would have known to stop reverting your edits. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:20, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #92
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week. Read the full report &middot; Unsubscribe &middot; John F. Lewis 09:34, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Discussions
 * Discussion over Wikisource's notability within Wikidata
 * Make Symmetric & Inverse Property addition automatic and bidirectional
 * Closed RfAs: Lymantria (Successful), Lavallen (Successful)
 * Events/Press/Blogs
 * Presentation about Wikidata at Aldil, Lyon, France
 * Other Noteworthy Stuff
 * Wikisource is deployed to testwikidata
 * A group of students is working on suggestions to make it easier to add missing information. They published a status report and a rough first demo.
 * Did you know?
 * Newest properties: track gauge, pathogen transmission process, CVR, ERA Journal ID
 * Newest task forces: Manga and Anime task force
 * Showcase items: Douglas Adams
 * Fun Fact: Does not exist (Q404)
 * Wikidata's presence: The Dutch Wikipedia have a category for coordinating coordinates on Wikidata (Categorie:Wikipedia:Coördinaten niet op Wikidata)
 * Development
 * Adrian Lang joins the team
 * Cirrus Search is now the default search on Wikidata and should improve d:Special:Search's handlich of special characters for example
 * Made the “in other languages” box also show up for people who have not configured a babel box (49079)
 * No longer showing a table of content when it has less than 3 items in it to prevent it from showing up on property pages (58422)
 * More performance improvement work
 * Finishing touches on quantities datatype user interface
 * Display qualifiers in non-Java Script user interface
 * Prevented import of wikitext into the main namespace (47070)
 * Split the DataValues component into more clearly defined libraries and switched Wikibase over to use these
 * Switched Wikibase to use Wikibase DataModel 0.6
 * Changed development and installation workflows to make use of the dependency manager Composer (more details)
 * Made tests run with less warnings (especially in Firefox)
 * Started replacing wikibase.fetchedEntities with a proper entity store
 * Monthly Tasks
 * Fix a format or content violation for the Public holiday (P832) propery
 * Hack on one of these.
 * Help develop the next summary here!

Cookies

 * Thanks! --Goldenburg111 03:28, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #93
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week. Read the full report &middot; Unsubscribe &middot; Lydia Pintscher using MediaWiki message delivery (discuss • contribs) 12:22, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Events
 * upcoming: FOSDEM
 * Other Noteworthy Stuff
 * Wikisource now gets its language links via Wikidata
 * Reasonator gets extended functionality
 * Did you know?
 * Newest properties: PlantList-ID, Danemark Job Code (DISCO-08), Instruction Set, Thailand central administrative unit code, student of, archive URL
 * Showcase items: ethanol
 * Fun Fact: A Space Odyssey (Q2001)
 * Development
 * Enabled language links for Wikisource
 * Move more part of an item page from JS to HTML to improve performance and non-JS interface
 * Database performance improvements
 * Work on forward compatibility for new entity types
 * Introducing the EntityStore service to improve modularity
 * Monthly Tasks
 * Fix a format or content violation for the belongs to jurisdiction (P1001) property
 * Contribute to a Showcase item
 * Hack on one of these.
 * Help develop the next summary here!

The Signpost: 15 January 2014
News, reports and features from the English Wikipedia's weekly journal about Wikipedia and Wikimedia Read this Signpost in full &middot; Single-page &middot; Unsubscribe &middot; Global message delivery 23:28, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Op-ed: Licensed for reuse? Citing open-access sources in Wikipedia articles
 * News and notes: Wikimedia Germany asks for "reworking" of Funds Dissemination Committee; should MP4 be allowed on Wikimedia sites?
 * In the media: Is Google hurting Wikipedia traffic?; "Wikipedia-Mania" in the New York Times
 * WikiProject report: WikiProject Sociology
 * Traffic report: The Hours are Ours
 * Technology report: Architecture Summit schedule published

Tech News: 2014-04
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 16. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 28, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 30 (calendar).
 * You can now see relatively recent results on special pages like Special:DoubleRedirects, Special:UncategorizedPages or Special:WantedCategories. They were disabled before because they were very slow. The results are now updated once a month. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15434]
 * As of January 16, you can make and use guided tours on the Asturian, Farsi and Russian Wikipedias. If you want this tool on your wiki, you need to [//translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:Translate&group=ext-guidedtour&filter=&language=&action=translate translate it] and ask in [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org Bugzilla]. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/105997/]
 * You can give comments on an idea to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages.
 * You can watch a video to learn how to report problems in Bugzilla. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54606]

VisualEditor news
 * In the toolbar, the menu to edit the styles (like bold, italic, etc.) now has a down arrow (VisualEditor - Icon - Text style.svgVisualEditor - Icon - Down.svg). The order of the Insert menu has also changed a little.
 * You can now edit  tags with a very basic tool. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/107537/]
 * You can now see a help page about keyboard shortcuts in the page menu. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52844]
 * When you change categories, you will now see them when you save the page. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48560]
 * When you edit templates, you will now see the parameters in the right order. The ones that you must add have a star (*). [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51930] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53611]
 * The page will now be saved faster, thanks to a new way of coding the text that sends 40% less text to the servers. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59660]
 * Your wiki can ask to test a new tool to edit TemplateData. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51734]

Problems
 * There was a problem with search on the English and German Wikipedias between January 6 and January 14. You could not see new pages and changes in search results. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59979]
 * There were "pool timeouts" errors on several wikis on January 13; it was caused by a code change that was made to fix another problem. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59993]
 * On January 17, Bugzilla and Wikimedia Labs were broken for about 20 minutes due to network problems. IRC channels with recent changes (irc.wikimedia.org) were broken for about two hours.

Future software changes
 * If you have removed JavaScript in your web browser, you will soon be able to see the orange bar saying that you have new messages. If you have changed how the bar looks with a gadget, you may need to change the gadget again. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56974] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/95102/]
 * You will soon be able to add a given Flickr user to a blacklist so that their files can't be uploaded using UploadWizard on Wikimedia Commons and other wikis. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/42770]
 * You will see a warning when you try to delete a page included in at least one other page. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/108188/]
 * You will so longer see disambiguation pages in Special:LonelyPages. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3483]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  10:21, 20 January 2014 (UTC)