User talk:King of Hearts/Archive/2018/08

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2018).

Administrator changes

Sro23

KaisaL • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

After a discussion at Meta, a new user group called "interface administrators" (formerly "technical administrator") has been created. Come the end of August, interface admins will be the only users able to edit site-wide JavaScript and CSS pages like MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css, or edit other user's personal JavaScript and CSS. The intention is to improve security and privacy by reducing the number of accounts which could be used to compromise the site or another user's account through malicious code. The new user group can be assigned and revoked by bureaucrats. Discussion is ongoing to establish details for implementing the group on the English Wikipedia.
Following a request for comment, the WP:SISTER style guideline now states that in the mainspace, interwiki links to Wikinews should only be made as per the external links guideline. This generally means that within the body of an article, you should not link to Wikinews about a particular event that is only a part of the larger topic. Wikinews links in "external links" sections can be used where helpful, but not automatically if an equivalent article from a reliable news outlet could be linked in the same manner.

Technical news

The WMF Anti-Harassment Tools team is seeking input on the second set of wireframes for the Special:Block redesign that will introduce partial blocks. The new functionality will allow you to block a user from editing a specific set of pages, pages in a category, a namespace, and for specific actions such as moving pages and uploading files.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:31, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2018-32

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Special:NewPages now has the OOUI look. [1]

Problems

The MediaWiki version that was released two weeks ago was late to some Wikimedia wikis. This was because of bugs. It was on all wikis 30 July. [2][3]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 August. It will be on all wikis from 9 August.

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 7 August at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 8 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:39, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

WP Engine Wikipedia Page Reinclusion

Hey King of Hearts,

I wanted to reach out to you regarding the deletion of our page (WP Engine) - Talk page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/WP_Engine_(2nd_nomination). You did mention on your talk page that deleted articles from over a year past could be re-submitted with a notification, however I wanted to talk to you prior to re-submitting our Wikipedia page.

Full disclosure (we want to comply with community guidelines), I'm the Sr. Online Marketing Manager at WP Engine and I'd like to be a point of contact here at our company to make sure that our company information is both accurate and impartial on Wikipedia. And, hopefully, that you agree we should be included in the Wikipedia Directory.

I took a look at our page and it was deleted as corporate spam/self promotion. I can say that Wikipedia is not a revenue driving model, nor a backlink source for us.

So why are we asking to be reincluded?

Firstly, we love Wikipedia, its mission and what you stand for. Wikipedia is the go to place for people to search for accurate and verified information - as exemplified by its prominence on Google (and how Google uses Wikipedia data). We want to support that cause and if your decision stands we do respect the choice of the moderators and would only resubmit (as is the case now) if we feel we have made significant strides towards notability.

Secondly, We want our listing to be informational and in keeping with Wikipedia's policies. We believe we have achieved notability, and want to make sure that when people search for us, they find accurate and verified information.

Why are we notable?

Here's a few things I think might answer that question.

We just raised $250 million in funding from the largest technology investment firm in the world, Silver Lake: (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-04/silver-lake-takes-250-million-stake-in-austin-startup-wp-engine). (I also noticed that the Silver Lake Wikipedia page hasn’t been updated with this, I attached some wiki markup below that you can use as you like if it would be helpful.)

We recently purchased StudioPress including Genesis (https://www.crunchbase.com/acquisition/wp-engine-acquires-studiopress--50a636e7) who created and operate the Genesis framework which powers 1.33% of the top 1,000,000 websites. (https://trends.builtwith.com/framework)

We have won multiple national and international awards: Stevie International Business Awards 2017 (Computer Services - Large) - http://stevieawards.com/iba/wp-engine-company-year (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevie_Awards) Fortune 100 Best Places to Work for Millenials 2017 - 79 - http://fortune.com/best-workplaces-millennials/wp-engine-79/ Fortune Best Small & Medium Businesses 2017 - 45- http://fortune.com/best-medium-workplaces/wp-engine-45/ Fortune Best Places to Work in Technology 2018 - 09 - http://fortune.com/2018/01/17/best-workplaces-tech-2018/ Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 (Central Texas Region) - Founder Jason Cohen and CEO Heather Brunner - http://www.ey.com/us/en/about-us/entrepreneurship/entrepreneur-of-the-year/ct_article_winners

We were recently named the No. 1 most well funded startup in Texas - https://www.cbinsights.com/research/well-funded-startups-us-map/

And lastly, we also strongly live by our Giveback core values where we support charities both local and international (I know this isn’t necessarily noteable, but our company beliefs extend beyond the dollar). Two of our core charities here in Austin are Movember (https://us.movember.com/team/2233337) and the Central Texas Food Bank (https://www.centraltexasfoodbank.org/news/5-ways-you-fed-it-forward-all-september-long), each of our local offices also participates in local and International charitable work.

If you are willing to consider relisting our company Wikipedia page I would be happy to create an outline for our company, inclusive of notable national media etcetera that you can use as a baseline free of any promotional language, and coded up in Wikipedia’s syntax.

Thank you for your time,

Oliver Whitham oliver.whitham@wpengine.com

Here’s the code for the Silver Lake Partners page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Lake_Partners), feel free to use it however you would like!

|- |'''[[WP Engine]]''' |2018</td> |On 4 January 2018 Silver Lake announced a $250 million dollar investment in privately held Austin based technology company [[WP Engine]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.silverlake.com/Images/Uploads/docs/Silverlake04011808373522278.pdf/|title=WP Engine secures strategic growth investment from Silver Lake|date=4 January 2018}}</ref>. This investment will give Silverlake a majority stake in WP Engine<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-04/silver-lake-takes-250-million-stake-in-austin-startup-wp-engine/|title=Silver Lake Takes $250 Million Stake in Startup WP Engine|date=4 January 2018}}</ref>. The deal marks the second largest Austin technology investment in the last decade<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.512tech.com/technology/huge-investment-deal-austin-engine-raises-250m/jVZ8ImhfgaBQUwkPno8KlI/|title=Austin’s WP Engine raises $250M|date=4 January 2018}}</ref> |

Tech News: 2018-33

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

CSS in templates can now be stored in a separate page on all wikis. This is called TemplateStyles. This is to make it easier to edit how templates look. [4]

Changes later this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 14 August at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 15 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The developers are planning more ways to block users. This could be blocking someone from just a page or a namespace. You can read more. You can leave feedback on the talk page. [5]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:53, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-34

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 August. It will be on all wikis from 23 August (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 22 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The 2018 Community Wishlist Survey begins on 29 October. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 29 October to 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.
Legacy JavaScript global variables have been deprecated for seven years. They will soon be removed from all wikis. Gadgets and scripts that use them will stop working. You can test your community's gadgets on "group0" wikis. For example Test Wikipedia or mediawiki.org. The legacy JavaScript global variables are already disabled there. You can read the migration guide to fix old scripts. [6]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:46, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Broken scripts

Just a note that your /closecfd.js and /closerfd.js scripts still rely on the long deprecated global addOnloadHook and addPortalLink functions, and the scripts are actively in use by others, for instance User:Smuckola/vector.js. As these functions will soon start throwing errors, you might want to deal with that before they do. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:24, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2018-35

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

You can now see moved paragraphs in diffs in the mobile view. It also works on all languages in the desktop view. [7]
Bureaucrats on all Wikimedia wikis can now remove the interface admin user right. [8]

Problems

Some diffs show lines in the wrong order. The developers are working on fixing it. [9]

Changes later this week

The message you see when you thank a user will change. This is to make it easier to understand. [10]
AWB will stop adding using AWB in the edit summary. Instead it will add a tag that says AWB. [11]
Some abuse filter variables have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title. [12]
Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age. [13]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 August. It will be on all wikis from 30 August (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 28 August at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 29 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:16, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

August 29: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

Wednesday August 29, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. Is there a project you'd like to share? A question you'd like answered? A Wiki* skill you'd like to learn? Let us know by adding it to the agenda.

We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities.

Wednesday August 29 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com).

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street

(note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location)

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 23:52, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)