Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2021/September

New book on Abacus Traditional Methods
Hello all,

This summer I have been working on a project (Abacus Traditional Methods) in my Sandbox and it is slowly approaching completion. I plan to move it to the main namespace soon as I think that in its current state it may already be useful. But first I must decide on the final title, perhaps something like "Traditional Abacus and Bead Arithmetic".

Since I am new here, before proceeding with such step, I would like to consult a few things with you:
 * First, I would greatly appreciate if an expert could take a look at the project to make sure it conforms to WikiBooks policies and guidelines.
 * About the bookshelves,
 * the book deals with a well known chapter in the history of mathematics in East Asia, so it fits "Shelf:Mathematics history" without trouble, I think.
 * it also deals with arithmetic, but not so elementary as to include it in "Shelf:Elementary arithmetic" if it deals with cube roots, so I am reluctant to such inclusion.
 * Unfortunately I do not see any other shelf like: "Shelf:Computation history" or "Shelf:Computing instruments" or so. I guess I'm not the one who has to create shelves.
 * Do you have any suggestions on this?


 * Also, as you can see, I am not a native speaker, so the book should be completely revised to ensure its linguistic accuracy. Once I move the project to the main namespace, I plan to ask for the collaboration of fellow members of the Soroban and Abacus Group, a group that has been discussing the abacus for some 20 years. Many of its members have a lot to say about the subject of this book and some of them are native speakers. But unsure about the degree of assistance I can get from them, how can I additionally request the collaboration of other wikibookians?

Any comments will be welcome.

Thank you very much!,

Jccsvq (discuss • contribs) 04:56, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and made Shelf:History of Computation if that helps. --Mbrickn (discuss • contribs) 16:55, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I just skimmed it and know almost nothing about the abacus (Until I take a more closer read of course!), but overall formatting looks good to me. As far as the note about content from your website goes, I'm unsure if that needs to be cleared through some process similar to the Volunteer Response Team or anything like that. --Mbrickn (discuss • contribs) 17:10, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! I'm certainly going to use the new shelf.
 * Regarding your second comment, I am not sure I understand it as I am seeing "Volunteer Response Team" for the first time. If the concern is about copyright, all the content of my website is under a Creative Commons 0 or Public Domain license, as it is expressly indicated in each page and document of the web, and anyone (including me!) is granted the right to reuse it in any way without restriction, for example, to adapt it as a textbook and create a new work for WikiBooks. I see no problem in this. Jccsvq (discuss • contribs) 04:49, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh there's no problem with using CC0 content. All that the VRT does is confirm that the content was available under that license at the time of import, but I'm not sure if Wikibooks has a similar mechanism. I'm out of my depth in this knowledge, and it's probably not required if I can't find documentation on it. Someone more experienced like would know more. --Mbrickn (discuss • contribs) 22:02, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes we typically request an email to the VRT with appropriate evidence of ownership. However, if the material is published under a compatible license we don't ask for evidence that any source that preceded that publication was licensed correctly. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 07:55, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you both very much. It seems like there is no problem. Anyway, I plan to add a link to the book on my website as soon as I move it to the main namespace. This will at least prove that the owner of the material (me, anyway) knows about its use on WikiBooks and recommends visiting it. Jccsvq (discuss • contribs) 04:12, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey will happen in January
Hello everyone,

We hope all of you are as well and safe as possible during these trying times! We wanted to share some news about a change to the Community Wishlist Survey 2022. We would like to hear your opinions as well.

Summary:

We will be running the Community Wishlist Survey 2022 in January 2022. We need more time to work on the 2021 wishes. We also need time to prepare some changes to the Wishlist 2022. In the meantime, you can use a dedicated sandbox to leave early ideas for the 2022 wishes.

Proposing and wish-fulfillment will happen during the same year
In the past, the Community Tech team has run the Community Wishlist Survey for the following year in November of the prior year. For example, we ran the Wishlist for 2021 in November 2020. That worked well a few years ago. At that time, we used to start working on the Wishlist soon after the results of the voting were published.

However, in 2021, there was a delay between the voting and the time when we could start working on the new wishes. Until July 2021, we were working on wishes from the Wishlist for 2020.

We hope having the Wishlist 2022 in January 2022 will be more intuitive. This will also give us time to fulfill more wishes from the 2021 Wishlist.

Encouraging wider participation from historically excluded communities
We are thinking how to make the Wishlist easier to participate in. We want to support more translations, and encourage under-resourced communities to be more active. We would like to have some time to make these changes.

A new space to talk to us about priorities and wishes not granted yet
We will have gone 365 days without a Wishlist. We encourage you to approach us. We hope to hear from you in the talk page, but we also hope to see you at our bi-monthly Talk to Us meetings! These will be hosted at two different times friendly to time zones around the globe.

We will begin our first meeting September 15th at 23:00 UTC. More details about the agenda and format coming soon!

Brainstorm and draft proposals before the proposal phase
If you have early ideas for wishes, you can use the new Community Wishlist Survey sandbox. This way, you will not forget about these before January 2022. You will be able to come back and refine your ideas. Remember, edits in the sandbox don't count as wishes!

Feedback

 * What should we do to improve the Wishlist pages?
 * How would you like to use our new sandbox?
 * What, if any, risks do you foresee in our decision to change the date of the Wishlist 2022?
 * What will help more people participate in the Wishlist 2022?

Answer on the talk page (in any language you prefer) or at our Talk to Us meetings.

SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Results for the 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election

 * Read in other languages



Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2021 Board election. The Elections Committee has reviewed the votes of the 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election, organized to select four new trustees. A record 6,873 people from across 214 projects cast their valid votes. The following four candidates received the most support:


 * 1) Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight
 * 2) Victoria Doronina
 * 3) Dariusz Jemielniak
 * 4) Lorenzo Losa

While these candidates have been ranked through the community vote, they are not yet appointed to the Board of Trustees. They still need to pass a successful background check and meet the qualifications outlined in the Bylaws. The Board has set a tentative date to appoint new trustees at the end of this month.

Read the full announcement here. Xeno (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 01:56, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Call for Candidates for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee ending 14 September 2021
Movement Strategy announces the Call for Candidates for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee. The Call opens August 2, 2021 and closes September 14, 2021.

The Committee is expected to represent diversity in the Movement. Diversity includes gender, language, geography, and experience. This comprises participation in projects, affiliates, and the Wikimedia Foundation.

English fluency is not required to become a member. If needed, translation and interpretation support is provided. Members will receive an allowance to offset participation costs. It is US$100 every two months.

We are looking for people who have some of the following skills:


 * Know how to write collaboratively. (demonstrated experience is a plus)
 * Are ready to find compromises.
 * Focus on inclusion and diversity.
 * Have knowledge of community consultations.
 * Have intercultural communication experience.
 * Have governance or organization experience in non-profits or communities.
 * Have experience negotiating with different parties.

The Committee is expected to start with 15 people. If there are 20 or more candidates, a mixed election and selection process will happen. If there are 19 or fewer candidates, then the process of selection without election takes place.

Will you help move Wikimedia forward in this important role? Submit your candidacy here. Please contact strategy2030wikimedia.org with questions.

This message may have been sent previously - please note that the deadline for candidate submissions was extended and candidacies are still being accepted until 14 September 2021. Xeno (WMF) 17:16, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Server switch
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The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic back to the primary data center on Tuesday, 14 September 2021.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.


 * You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, 14 September 2021. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (07:00 PDT, 10:00 EDT, 15:00 WEST/BST, 16:00 CEST, 19:30 IST, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday, 15 September).
 * If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:


 * Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
 * We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community. SGrabarczuk (WMF)  00:45, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Talk to the Community Tech


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Hello!

As we have recently announced, we, the team working on the Community Wishlist Survey, would like to invite you to an online meeting with us. It will take place on September 15th, 23:00 UTC on Zoom, and will last an hour. Click here to join.

Agenda


 * How we prioritize the wishes to be granted
 * Why we decided to change the date from November 2021 to January 2022
 * Update on the disambiguation and the real-time preview wishes
 * Questions and answers

Format

The meeting will not be recorded or streamed. Notes without attribution will be taken and published on Meta-Wiki. The presentation (first three points in the agenda) will be given in English.

We can answer questions asked in English, French, Polish, and Spanish. If you would like to ask questions in advance, add them on the Community Wishlist Survey talk page or send to sgrabarczuk@wikimedia.org.

Natalia Rodriguez (the Community Tech manager) will be hosting this meeting.

Invitation link


 * Join online
 * Meeting ID: 898 2861 5390
 * One tap mobile
 * +16465588656,,89828615390# US (New York)
 * +16699006833,,89828615390# US (San Jose)
 * Dial by your location

See you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) 03:03, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Links and tables
Hi, Documents for links indicate that text with an alt parameter will be displayed when a File is not available from Commons. In Oberon/ETH_Oberon/Tutorial/Mouse under heading "Select - Mouse Right key - MR" "File:OberonMouse4.png" is not available. Shouldn't the alt text be displayed?

At the bottom of the same page are two tables; aqua and yellow. How can the yellow table be located beside the aqua rather than below? Thx, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 20:04, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Explanations received in Wikipedia Teahouse. Regards, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 16:57, 25 September 2021 (UTC)