Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2015/June

Rename of the title of the book
Could you please change the letter in the word "peculiarities" from small to capital in the title Pragmalinguistic Peculiarities of English Slogan in Fashion Domain. I mistyped it in the page title and now it is written with a small letter, however it should be written with the capital one.
 * All done, thanks - QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 10:41, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Is this good wikitext?
Am I correct in assuming that the following is not valid wikitext? Figure 9.3: Variation of Pressure with Depth \begin{figure} \begin{center} \leavevmode \epsfxsize=3 cm \epsfbox{fig9-2a.eps}\end{center}\end{figure} I ask because I once reverted an edit on a physics Wikipedia page only to discover that my browser was not configured properly. If the aforementioned text is valid, let me know and I will undo my revert.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 12:27, 11 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I found it at Fundamentals_of_Physics/Fluid_Mechanics and will hold off the revert till I hear from you reverted the edit.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 12:30, 11 June 2015 (UTC)--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 18:19, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It's LaTeX markup rather than wiki markup, and in this case it seems to be a symptom of the text being copied from somewhere else. I easily found it on the web by googling the first sentence of the section in question.  Afaics it's copyvio.
 * (Looks like in reverting the edit you also undid a couple of typo fixes.) --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 18:32, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I reinserted the typo fixes, which should end this conversation, I think. Thanks, $$\pi_0$$--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 12:57, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Pywikibot compat will no longer be supported - Please migrate to pywikibot core
Sorry for English, I hope someone translates this.

Pywikibot (then "Pywikipediabot") was started back in 2002. In 2007 a new branch (formerly known as "rewrite", now called "core") was started from scratch using the MediaWiki API. The developers of Pywikibot have decided to stop supporting the compat version of Pywikibot due to bad performance and architectural errors that make it hard to update, compared to core. If you are using pywikibot compat it is likely your code will break due to upcoming MediaWiki API changes (e.g. T101524). It is highly recommended you migrate to the core framework. There is a migration guide, and please contact us if you have any problem.

There is an upcoming MediaWiki API breaking change that compat will not be updated for. If your bot's name is in this list, your bot will most likely break.

Thank you,

The Pywikibot development team, 19:30, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #3—2015


Did you know? When you click on a link to an article, you now see more information: The link tool has been re-designed: There are separate tabs for linking to internal and external pages. The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has created new interfaces for the link and citation tools and fixed many bugs and changed some elements of the design. Some of these bugs affected users of VisualEditor on mobile devices. Status reports are posted on mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

A test of VisualEditor's effect on new editors at the English Wikipedia has just completed the first phase. During this test, half of newly registered editors had VisualEditor automatically enabled, and half did not. The main goal of the study is to learn which group was more likely to save an edit and to make productive, unreverted edits. Initial results will be posted at Meta later this month.

Recent improvements
Auto-fill features for citations are available at a few Wikipedias through the citoid service. Citoid takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. If Citoid is enabled on your wiki, then the design of the citation workflow changed during May. All citations are now created inside a single tool. Inside that tool, choose the tab you want (,, or ). The cite button is now labeled with the word "" rather than a book icon, and the autofill citation dialog now has a more meaningful label, "", for the submit button.

The link tool has been redesigned based on feedback from Wikipedia editors and user testing. It now has two separate sections: one for links to articles and one for external links. When you select a link, its pop-up context menu shows the name of the linked page, a thumbnail image from the linked page, Wikidata's description, and appropriate icons for disambiguation pages, redirect pages and empty pages (where applicable). Search results have been reduced to the first five pages. Several bugs were fixed, including a dark highlight that appeared over the first match in the link inspector. (T98085)

The special character inserter in VisualEditor now uses the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki can also create a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Please read the instructions for customizing the list at mediawiki.org. Also, there is now a tooltip to describing each character in the special character inserter. (T70425)

Several improvements have been made to templates. When you search for a template to insert, the list of results now contains descriptions of the templates. The parameter list inside the template dialog now remains open after inserting a parameter from the list, so that users don’t need to click on "" each time they want to add another parameter. (T95696) The team added a new property for TemplateData, "", for template parameters. This optional, translatable property will show up when there is text describing how to use that parameter. (T53049)

The design of the main toolbar and several other elements have changed slightly, to be consistent with the MediaWiki theme. In the Vector skin, individual items in the menu are separated visually by pale gray bars. Buttons and menus on the toolbar can now contain both an icon and a text label, rather than just one or the other. This new design feature is being used for the cite button on wikis where the Citoid service is enabled.

The team has released a long-desired improvement to the handling of non-existent images. If a non-existent image is linked in an article, then it is now visible in VisualEditor and can be selected, edited, replaced, or removed.

Let's work together

 * Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
 * The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, usually on Wednesday at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings.  You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker, though.  Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the VisualEditor Q4 blocker project with the bug.
 * If your Wikivoyage, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, or other community wants to have VisualEditor made available by default to contributors, then please contact James Forrester.
 * If you would like to request the Citoid automatic reference 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 team is planning the second VisualEditor-related "translathon" for July. Please follow this task on Phabricator for details and updates! Announcements will follow in due course.

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)

10:44, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #3—2015


Did you know? When you click on a link to an article, you now see more information: The link tool has been re-designed: There are separate tabs for linking to internal and external pages. The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has created new interfaces for the link and citation tools and fixed many bugs and changed some elements of the design. Some of these bugs affected users of VisualEditor on mobile devices. Status reports are posted on mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

A test of VisualEditor's effect on new editors at the English Wikipedia has just completed the first phase. During this test, half of newly registered editors had VisualEditor automatically enabled, and half did not. The main goal of the study is to learn which group was more likely to save an edit and to make productive, unreverted edits. Initial results will be posted at Meta later this month.

Recent improvements
Auto-fill features for citations are available at a few Wikipedias through the citoid service. Citoid takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. If Citoid is enabled on your wiki, then the design of the citation workflow changed during May. All citations are now created inside a single tool. Inside that tool, choose the tab you want (,, or ). The cite button is now labeled with the word "" rather than a book icon, and the autofill citation dialog now has a more meaningful label, "", for the submit button.

The link tool has been redesigned based on feedback from Wikipedia editors and user testing. It now has two separate sections: one for links to articles and one for external links. When you select a link, its pop-up context menu shows the name of the linked page, a thumbnail image from the linked page, Wikidata's description, and appropriate icons for disambiguation pages, redirect pages and empty pages (where applicable). Search results have been reduced to the first five pages. Several bugs were fixed, including a dark highlight that appeared over the first match in the link inspector. (T98085)

The special character inserter in VisualEditor now uses the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki can also create a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Please read the instructions for customizing the list at mediawiki.org. Also, there is now a tooltip to describing each character in the special character inserter. (T70425)

Several improvements have been made to templates. When you search for a template to insert, the list of results now contains descriptions of the templates. The parameter list inside the template dialog now remains open after inserting a parameter from the list, so that users don’t need to click on "" each time they want to add another parameter. (T95696) The team added a new property for TemplateData, "", for template parameters. This optional, translatable property will show up when there is text describing how to use that parameter. (T53049)

The design of the main toolbar and several other elements have changed slightly, to be consistent with the MediaWiki theme. In the Vector skin, individual items in the menu are separated visually by pale gray bars. Buttons and menus on the toolbar can now contain both an icon and a text label, rather than just one or the other. This new design feature is being used for the cite button on wikis where the Citoid service is enabled.

The team has released a long-desired improvement to the handling of non-existent images. If a non-existent image is linked in an article, then it is now visible in VisualEditor and can be selected, edited, replaced, or removed.

Let's work together

 * Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
 * The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, usually on Wednesday at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings.  You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker, though.  Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the VisualEditor Q4 blocker project with the bug.
 * If your Wikivoyage, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, or other community wants to have VisualEditor made available by default to contributors, then please contact James Forrester.
 * If you would like to request the Citoid automatic reference 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 team is planning the second VisualEditor-related "translathon" for July. Please follow this task on Phabricator for details and updates! Announcements will follow in due course.

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)

13:04, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Annotated Jurassic World Wikibook. Good idea?
I'm sure you're all aware that the summer blockbuster Jurassic World has just been released. Wikibooks's annotated texts policy states that works annotating movies can be created, and the featured status of the Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter suggests that these sorts of companion pieces to copyrighted works are acceptable here, so I was wondering if a book-length scene by scene breakdown of the screenwriting, cinematography, effects, scientific accuracy (especially), etc of Jurassic World, like a movie version of Cliffs or Spark Notes, would be a viable project here. Abyssal (discuss • contribs) 01:47, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * It all depends on the "educational" content, in general blockbuster movies are not worth speaking much about in regards to creative writing or even the cinematography. This one in particular, Jurassic World, is a very poor example of movie art, its full of cliches and the logic of the script goes out of the window about 30m in. In general it would be better to go about it like we go about biographies, avoid covering contemporaneous subjects since they bring about a lot of emotional baggage... --Panic (discuss • contribs) 09:50, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't pointing out cliches have merit of its own? Abyssal (discuss • contribs) 14:29, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, despite starting the list with "movie stuff" like the screenwriting and cinematography, I'm personally more interested in scientific criticism. If contemporaneous topics aren't allowed, then why is the Harry Potter book featured? Abyssal (discuss • contribs) 17:07, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I would very much appreciate a book about writing/script writing clinches in general not particular to a specific movie, that would be educational.
 * Now regarding contemporaneous material I did not say we prohibit it but common sense dictates that it tends to be problematic and in general should be avoided. It rarely has any merit as contemporaneous topics are too "recent" to be of historic remark and importance (value, especially educational), lacking the time to contrast with what have and will happen. As an example, many movies had a very different status at the time they got to market (and a bit after) especially those that have very specific niches and did not get the blockbuster marketing expenses. For example Re-animator or the cycle Hellraiser did not had any special notability. Time is was defines what is culturally relevant.
 * In any case Jurassic World is bad-science fiction (very few connections to science facts or even scientific speculation) script wise, there is not much that is scientific about it, besides the points that it got from the first movie there isn't much positive to say in that regard. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 00:32, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * "Jurassic World is bad-science fiction (very few connections to science facts or even scientific speculation) script wise, there is not much that is scientific about it,"


 * Well, yeah, that's kind of the point. Abyssal (discuss • contribs) 19:22, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * As Panic writes, it is clearly allowed (i.e., fits within our content policies). In general, and this is a generalisation, book and other media annotations have tended to be for media that is either considered "classic" or appear as a set text for an educational course. But that doesn't exclude other work. Certainly detailed discussion of how such films are produced, using a particular film as an example, would be valuable. Personally I'd recommend starting the book and seeing how it evolves. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 11:01, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

HTTPS
Hi everyone.

Over the last few years, the Wikimedia Foundation has been working towards enabling HTTPS by default for all users, including unregistered ones, for better privacy and security for both readers and editors. This has taken a long time, as there were different aspects to take into account. Our servers haven't been ready to handle it. The Wikimedia Foundation has had to balance sometimes conflicting goals.

Forced HTTPS has just been implemented on all Wikimedia projects. Some of you might already be aware of this, as a few Wikipedia language versions were converted to HTTPS last week and the then affected communities were notified.

Most of Wikimedia editors shouldn't be affected at all. If you edit as registered user, you've probably already had to log in through HTTPS. We'll keep an eye on this to make sure everything is working as it should. Do get in touch with us if you have any problems after this change or contact me if you have any other questions.

/Johan (WMF) 22:00, 19 June 2015 (UTC)