Wikimedia:Village pump/Archive 2

Babel templates vs Extension:Babel

Hi. I propose to delete all these 100s of templates and move all babel-stuff to extension babel - it will prevent creating new senseless templates for all languages (up to 6 per language) and will allow to clean up wiki from existing ones. anyway, IMO, at least unused templates should be deleted (as {{User pt-5}}). Before moving to extension fully (if community will really decide it) or even if not bug as bugzilla:46489 (but obviously for this wiki) should be filed (it will allow the extension to categorize the same as templates do). What is a bit bad in this proposal - if community decides to do a full move then user-pages should be edited (manually or if someone will code - via bot). --Base (talk) 20:09, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

No need to delete templates, I've created MediaWiki:Babel-template in a way that makes them unused for those using babel; for thee others, I doubt we care, there's no need to find someone by language in categories and so on here unlike Meta or Commons. --Nemo 01:12, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

So even unused babel-templates, in your opinion, should be kept? Well, I think to have opportunity to find ones that speak a language is good even in such wikis as this one (for example to ask for translation of something or reviewing existing translation) and templates have this functionality - that's why I want extension to be not worse than templates are. --Base (talk) 15:24, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

If they aren't being used, I see no reason to keep them, especially if there is redundancy. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:01, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Sidebar/fr

If you all (especially fr-N ones) don't mind I will move translations to individual pages and delete this one. It is outdated now and seems it will be all the time since nobody cares to update it. --Base (talk) 15:10, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Sidebar/vi the same. --Base (talk) 09:42, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I went ahead and deleted them, since it has been many days and you seem to have finished them all. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:47, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

user:Outreachwiki

I've banned this user although i havent found valid blocking reason for it within default reasons. Sorry if it's a mediawiki sofware or somestrange wmf actions. Anyway it should explain what it is. --Base (talk) 17:55, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd say that was a good block. --Rschen7754 01:31, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I am fine with it. Good transparency. Romaine (talk) 07:20, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Can we protect the "Translate" extension?

Following the clusterfuck of issues that I had with 115.67.4.93 (talk · contribs)'s edits, is there any way that we can set it up so that IP's cannot access this extension, because I spent a good half an hour trying to figure out how to clean up their edits on the extension (I also realized at the last minute that I could nuke the page, so that helped). Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:48, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps, some sort of editfilters… But there are also anons that do useful stuff via the Extension so I'm not sure it should be done. --Base (talk) 11:59, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

They could register, although it isn't a huge problem that needs action any time soon, but it is a huge and complicated pain to fix. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:37, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, vandals have no problems with registration too. This huge set of spambots in here is a good example. --Base (talk) 22:21, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I talked with another user before about whether it would be worth it to prevent registration here unless you're elsewhere, and it would knock down our spam problem a lot if it could be done successfully. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 23:06, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Translation#This_page

Take a look, please. --Base (talk) 11:57, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Template:Activities

Template:Activities, it's talk and translations: delete or historical interests? --Base (talk) 12:03, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Historical works, since it would allow for the history to be preserved if someone decides to restart it again. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:40, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Sprekers gevraagd voor Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland, Wikipediadag 2013

Voor zaterdag 2 november aanstaande hebben we onze jaarlijkse Wikimedia Conferentie gepland, onder de naam Wikipediadag. De Wikipediadag is een eendaags evenement voor iedereen die geïnteresseerd is in wiki’s en Wikimedia-projecten, zoals de online encyclopedie Wikipedia. De conferentie vindt plaats in Utrecht. We hopen net als voorgaande jaren boeiende sprekers te krijgen op tal van Wikipedia-gebieden. Voorgestelde thema's zijn: vrouwen & Wikipedia, samenwerken aan Wikipedia (lezers, bewerkers en moderatoren), vakgebieden: experts over hun vakgebied & Wikipedia, De achterkant van Wikipedia: techniek en portals, en Vrije licenties & ontwikkelingen in het auteursrecht. Het programma biedt mogelijkheden voor uiteenlopende initiatieven en ook voor korte bliksemsessies.

Wij nodigen iedereen met een interessant idee voor een presentatie, discussie, workshop, poster voor de postersessie of iets anders van harte uit om een voorstel in te sturen. De voertaal tijdens de conferentie is Nederlands, maar ook presentaties in het Engels zijn welkom.

Lees verder op http://www.wikimediaconferentie.nl/oproep-voor-sprekers/ Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 19:43, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Where to ask for translation permissions

Hi, I wanna to have permissions to mark wikiArS new pages for translations with the Translate extension. But I don't know where to ask for it. --Dvdgmz (talk) 11:48, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah I'm sure you need this rights and if I were a crat you will have it. That's the right place to ask - just wait for nonlazy crat. --Base (talk) 12:06, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and granted you the permission. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:55, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for giving me the permissions. --Dvdgmz (talk) 15:24, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedian in Residence

Hi,
The new version of the page Wikipedian in Residence/fr isn't really good. The new translation didn't take in account our previous work and replace it by a « machine translation style » text.
Do someone know how to replace the actual version with this one ? Thank you. Simon Villeneuve (talk) 17:01, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid that only manually. But it should be not very difficult if text is similar to English one. --Base (talk) 18:53, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Global Abusefilters

Hi. A trial deployment of the global abusefilter function is active since one month now on Meta, mediawiki.org, and the test-wikis m:testwiki: and m:test2wiki:.
We stewards would like to propose that this wiki gets added to the testing as well, in order to have a wider range of test cases, so that the development of the function can proceed to allow better fighting of crosswiki vandalism and spam.
To be clear, the filters which are currently enabled for the testing of the "global" function do nothing except logging the caught edits on Meta. If at anytime the testing should be extended to further abusefilter functions, like disallowing edits, - or if the global abusefilter function should finally be deployed truly globally - we will ask the affected communities again whether they want to opt-in or opt-out. Best regards, --MF-Warburg (talk) 15:14, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm for it, as I have modified the filters to the point where they are now catching most of the offending material. Would there still be a way to use them locally, in addition to the global filter usage? Kevin Rutherford (talk) 15:27, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, local filters will still apply alongside the global ones (in the same way that currently an edit might be matching two local filters at the same time). --MF-Warburg (talk) 16:22, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Go for it, and let me know if you need any help! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 16:30, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

FYI, it was enabled on 11 Sept (see bugzilla:53537). --MF-Warburg (talk) 21:12, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Concept jaarplan en begroting 2014 Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland

Dit Nederlandstalige bericht is geplaatst in De Kroeg of soortgelijke pagina op de projecten Wikipedia, WikiWoordenboek, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, Wikinews, Commons, Wikidata, Outreach in de bestaande taalversies Nederlands, Fries, Limburgs, Nedersaksisch en Zeeuws van deze projecten.
Dit bericht is in de eerste plaats bedoeld voor mensen die in Nederland wonen.
Voel je vrij om dit Nederlandstalige bericht te vertalen in het Fries, Limburgs, Nedersaksisch of Zeeuws.
De Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland ondersteunt onder andere het werk van de vrijwilligers die op Wikipedia of een van de zusterprojecten daarvan actief zijn.

Een jaar geleden is een subsidie aangevraagd bij de Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) van de Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) middels een proposal form. De board van de WMF heeft de aanvraag gedeeltelijk toegekend in overeenstemming met de aanbeveling van de FDC.
Voor 1 oktober 2013, dient WMNL een proposal form bij de FDC in te dienen voor het jaar 2014. Net als vorig jaar wil WMNL dat doen op basis van een door de leden tijdens een ALV vastgesteld jaarplan en begroting. Tijdens de ALV van 23 maart 2013 is de volgende motie vastgesteld: "Het begrotingsproces dient zoveel mogelijk open en transparant te verlopen. Leden worden, zowel aan aan het begin van als gedurende het proces om tot een ontwerpbegroting te komen, om hun input gevraagd en actief betrokken," zie daarvoor ook de concept-notulen van de ALV 23 maart 2013.
De pagina jaarplan 2014 op de wiki van de vereniging staat open voor ieders bijdragen met ideeën over wat WMNL wel of niet zou moeten doen in het jaar 2014. Wat wil jij bijdragen aan het bereiken van de missie van de Wikimedia beweging? Hoe kan de Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland jou daar bij ondersteunen? Laat daar van je horen.

Prioriteiten

In het concept jaarplan zijn de volgende prioriteiten voor het jaar 2014 door de directeur benoemd. Het bestuur heeft op basis van een onderlinge peiling de volgorde van de prioriteiten bepaald.

1. Meer vrijwilligers en meer bewerkers mobiliseren. Inzet van kantoorcapaciteit vooral op de activiteiten die hieraan maximaal bijdragen.
2. Verbeteren van de interactie met de Wikipedia-gemeenschap.
3. Inhoudelijk focus op één of twee (nieuwe) thema’s buiten het traditionele GLAM-bereik met groot potentieel om nieuwe bewerkers en vrijwilligers te werven
4. Bestendigen en verder uitbouwen van huidige relaties met grote GLAM instellingen; selectief/kritisch zijn bij het honoreren van nieuwe verzoeken tot samenwerking.
5. Verschillende doelstellingen op het gebied van communicatie met het grote publiek, leden- en donateurswerving aan elkaar koppelen door middel van één grote publiekscampagne.
6. Verkennen van de mogelijkheden om op het terrein van educatie actief te worden, leidend tot een beslissing over het al dan niet ontwikkelen van een programma op dit terrein.

Er zijn diverse manieren om te reageren op concept jaarplan en begroting 2014. Uiteraard per mail, maar ook op:

• Wikizaterdag 31 augustus is er de mogelijkheid om over concept te praten met enkele bestuursleden
• 5 september 2013 bestuursvergadering, vaststellen concept dat naar de ALV gaat en het formulier voor de FDC-aanvraag
• 15 september 2013 uiterste inzenddatum laatste amendementen voor behandeling tijdens ALV
• 21 september 2013 de ALV stelt jaarplan en begroting 2014 vast

Gelet op het doel de interactie met de Wikipedia gemeenschap te verbeteren, vragen we ook aan de leden van de Wikipedia gemeenschap om hun vragen en opmerkingen bij het concept jaarplan 2014. Het gaat ook jou aan. Laat van je horen. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 10:34, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Translation admin flag

Hi,

May I request to have the translation admin flag here? I work quite a lot with translations and am interested in making the Outreach wiki more multilingual. I am already a sysop here (but who is not? ;-þ) and a translation admin on both Meta and Wikimedia Commons, so I am quite experienced with the Translate extension workflow.

Thanks for considering my request.

Cheers, Jean-Frédéric (talk) 12:40, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi. If you are experienced with tool, know what you are doing and know the documentation to it - i have no objections. Let's wait for nonlazy 'crat. --Base (talk) 15:41, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Non-lazy crats? They exist? Done. ;-) Thehelpfulone 15:46, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Now let’s get some work done ;-þ Jean-Frédéric (talk) 21:25, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Allow bureaucrats to de-translationadmin on outreachwiki

Hi! I've filed bugzilla:54207 - since bureaucrats can already de-sysop and de-crat, it makes sense that they should be able to remove the translationadmin flag without steward intervention. --Rschen7754 19:07, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Have no objections but do we realy need it? --Base (talk) 20:00, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, because it is a pain seeking outside help for something that we can easily do ourselves. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:41, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Het voorlopig programma van de Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland is bekend!

Dit Nederlandstalige bericht is geplaatst in De Kroeg of soortgelijke pagina op de projecten Wikipedia, WikiWoordenboek, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, Wikinews, Commons, Wikidata, Outreach in de bestaande taalversies Nederlands, Fries, Limburgs, Nedersaksisch en Zeeuws van deze projecten.
Dit bericht is in de eerste plaats bedoeld voor mensen die in Nederland wonen.
Voel je vrij om dit Nederlandstalige bericht te vertalen in het Fries, Limburgs, Nedersaksisch of Zeeuws.

De Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland ondersteunt onder andere het werk van de vrijwilligers die op Wikipedia of een van de zusterprojecten daarvan actief zijn.

Het voorlopig programma van de Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland is bekend! De conferentie is een mengeling van plenaire sessies en workshops waaruit iedereen zijn eigen programma ‘op maat’ kan samenstellen. Voor vaste bezoekers van deze website is deze dag een unieke gelegenheid om verhalen te horen over wat er om gebeurd rond Wikipedia en om andere vrijwilligers te ontmoeten. Kom zaterdag 2 november 2013 naar de conferentie en schrijf je vandaag nog in. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 06:42, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikimania 2014 London

Hi all,

I am chief co-ordinator for Wikimania 2014 London, and one of my main goals for the conference is to try and consolidate a technical wikimedia community in London by reaching out to existing technical and professional communities here and showing them projects we are doing that relate specifically to their interest.

There are five communities that I am targeting specifically:

• Education (encompassing both education reform and educational technology, i.e. "what we teach and how we teach it")
• Free Culture (encompassing both contemporary content creation and appraisal of historical licenses (GLAM))
• Open Data (encompassing both the challenge of dealing with large data sets and the public release of data sets)
• Open Access Research (encompassing open access and open research)
• Digital Collaboration (encompassing everything from UX to direct democracy)

I hope the relevance of each of these to wikimedia is obvious; the significance is that each is a popular buzzword in London right now, and will help attract relevant audiences and partners.

I could really use some help putting this together. So far we've done research on each community to see what the major projects in that space are, and also on wikimedia to see what projects we ourselves are doing that are relevant. This work is ongoing. We are also producing a landing page for each which will provide a gentle introduction to Wikimedia and its relevance to each community.

Here is a good entrypoint into what we've been doing so far: https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Themes

I'd be very grateful for any time you could offer to help work on this. If you're not clear what this is about, feel free to contact me; email probably quickest: edsaperia@gmail.com

Thank you so much! EdSaperia (talk) 17:59, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Prijsuitreiking Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 tijdens de Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland op za 2 november

Dit Nederlandstalige bericht is geplaatst in De Kroeg of soortgelijke pagina op de projecten Wikipedia, WikiWoordenboek, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, Wikinews, Commons, Wikidata, Outreach in de bestaande taalversies Nederlands, Fries, Limburgs, Nedersaksisch en Zeeuws van deze projecten.
Dit bericht is in de eerste plaats bedoeld voor mensen die in Nederland wonen.
Voel je vrij om dit Nederlandstalige bericht te vertalen in het Fries, Limburgs, Nedersaksisch of Zeeuws.

De Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland ondersteunt onder andere het werk van de vrijwilligers die op Wikipedia of een van de zusterprojecten daarvan actief zijn.

In 2011 en 2012 is een Guinness World Record gevestigd met de fotowedstrijd Wiki Loves Monuments. Zou er in 2013 een nieuw record gevestigd zijn? Aanstaande zaterdag 2 november vindt de prijsuitreiking plaats van de fotowedstrijd Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 tijdens de Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland. Voor vaste bezoekers van deze website is deze dag een unieke gelegenheid om verhalen te horen over wat er om gebeurd rond Wikipedia en om andere vrijwilligers te ontmoeten. Tijdens de conferentie is er Wikipediales voor beginners. Onder leiding van Sandra Rientjes, een ervaren mediator, zal er een gesprek gevoerd worden over de sfeer op Wikipedia. Er zijn in totaal 20 lezingen in drie tracks. Een track Wikipedia achter de schermen, een track over Wikipedianen aan het werk en track met vakdeskundigen over Wikipedia. Kom zaterdag 2 november 2013 naar de conferentie. Het aantal inschrijvingen loopt hard. Zorg dat je erbij bent en schrijf je vandaag nog in. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 21:22, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Little problem

In the Main Page when I clic in " Ambassador Program" >> "more" does not send me to the page in my language because there is a redirect. Someone can fix the redirect? --Kizar (talk) 23:08, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Y Done --Base (talk) 18:51, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Request for translation permission

Hi. I would love to help with translation & want to mark the pages for translation. I read Wikimedia:Translation administrators/Preparing a page for translation & Help:Extension:Translate/Page translation administration also. Thanks :)--NahidSultan (talk) 22:24, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Done! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 18:46, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Cheers! --NahidSultan (talk) 19:35, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Main Page translation documentation

Hi, can a sysop help clarify a little problem I have? While I was attempting to translate the main page, I came across some documentation here and here that contained some Chinese characters. As I cannot read them, could someone explain to me what the documentation says I'm supposed to do, or whether it should be there at all? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 09:17, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

TeleComNasSprVen: In the translation interface, users sometimes accidentally add translations to the documentation instead of the language they are intending to translate. That is probably what happened here. In general, the documentation messages are to help clarify the meaning and intent of individual messages, but they often aren't necessary. If you wish to translate the main page, you can simply add your translations. (And thanks!)--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 15:32, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply! Can I be granted the sysop tools on this wiki, in the case that as the others do I need to clean up any unnecessary or mistakes made in translations? I think that I'll mostly be doing that and some general maintenance tasks on this wiki, like fixing up Special:DoubleRedirects as of late. There's a couple of things there that I also wanted to address, like why not redirect to File:Instructor Basics How to Use Wikipedia as a Teaching Tool.pdf as that shows the image and links to commons while the other type of redirect might need a few more button presses. But I think Ldavis might be able to give us the answer. In regards to that translation documentation page, should we delete that to prevent some confusion and formally welcome the user to try and translate other parts of the site as well? That seems the best course of action for now, but I'd like to know what you think. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 23:11, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll go ahead and give you the admin bit. What you suggest sounds fine.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 17:28, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I actually would like to suggest that we also prevent IP's from working in this realm, as there was on IP in June that mucked things up a bit. Really, no anonymous person should even be editing these things, since there is the possibility of so much going wrong quickly. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 05:34, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Fully agree with Ktr101. The mainpage is already locked, as are many others, and June is only six months ago. OutreachWiki is not about making things easier, more friendly, and... uh... wait. Can the folks here please tell me what OutreachWiki *is* about? Surveys seem to show it is mostly Bookshelf (usually resulting in non-editable PDFs and Youtube... although the Bookshelf page itself is editable so there is hope) plus a large amount of GLAM/Rez/HigherEd/ArS/etc (reaching out to official institutions via official channels). There is also a defunct project to try and make more people register for uids. What is the goal here, nowadays? 74.192.84.101 14:44, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

The goal of outreach wiki is to organize any sort of outreach activity people wish. At this point, that primarily consists of GLAM projects and education projects, but it's available for any projects aimed at reaching outside the existing Wikimedia community to improve the projects. (Some of the same things can be done -- and are done -- on meta, but was intentionally set up as a smaller, more focused wiki where people could try things out a little more freely.) I don't see a good reason to lock things down any further; problems from IPs are infrequent enough that it's not been too hard to keep up with.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:38, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, sounds good. I'm working on some new material which fits into the Bookshelf, aimed at recruiting (and then actually RETAINING) a large number of new editors. It is tentatively titled the Wikipedia Jungle Survival Manual, and if anyone's interested, please leave me a note on me enWiki talkpage. Danke. 74.192.84.101 12:25, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

What are the current or upcoming events we should list, besides GLAM? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 20:12, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

It might be good to link to the various meetups that will be upcoming, especially in light of the upcoming Wikipedia Day. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 06:00, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

When is Wikipedia Day and why? PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:55, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Day ... 2001-01-15 was the first day the wikipedia wiki was edited, it seems. That day each year. So you and I are a bit behind.  :-)   74.192.84.101 12:25, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Cherokee

Hey all, just cross-posting here from Meta:Babel (see the thread) because I wanted to ask what to do best with the page on Meta-Wiki right now at Broken/outreach:Cherokee. Some background information: originally the outreach: namespace was split into this wiki and so the script that tried to resolve conflicts between the interwiki prefix to here and the namespace prefix for the page title on Meta-Wiki ran into some problems and so created the page you see in the link. So I'm asking if that page might have any contents that are worth importing over here and integrating into an article page on Outreach-Wiki, given that it was originally located in the outreach: namespace. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 12:42, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why we couldn't have it here, but we would also have to make an outreach effort to that wiki so that they know we are doing this and see if they want to work on this site. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 05:49, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia/Reports/Small Wiki Monitoring Team

A user, PiRSquared17 (talk · contribs), expressed on the talkpage that this page might not have anything to do with or related to outreach events. Does anyone else also agrees with him, that this might be out of outreach's scope? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 16:12, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

It does, as we are a small wiki, and that is to let people know that they exist. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:34, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

It does not belong in the article namespace, does it? PiRSquared17 (talk) 23:19, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually, now that I look at it a bit, some parts of it seems to have been taken from Meta Wiki's complement page without proper attribution to the original authors, either by wikilink or enumeration of the author names. So it's possible this is also a copyright violation of their CC-BY-SA guidelines. Though I do hope the well-meaning members of the SWMT doesn't care if we pilfer their information page for a bit. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 10:28, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

its states that it is copied from meta at the bottom... --Goldenburg111 (talk) 20:58, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

You have not given a satisfactory answer as to why we should host a forked version of non-outreach-related content from Meta here. It has nothing do with outreach, unless now outreach people are trying to get more anti-vandal people. PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:09, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I see no sense in copying Meta's pages to this wiki when it's not outreach related. Yeah this wiki is small, but shall we create such a page in other about 600 small wikis? --Base (talk) 16:48, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I've turned the page into a soft redirect to the meta page. Now, let's all hold hands and sing, as this is a bit silly to be arguing about. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:01, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Requests for comment/Wikimedia Commons interwiki prefix

Hello again. I'd like to draw the outreach team to the current discussion over at Meta regarding the existence of the C-colon prefixes. We have one right now at C:SD which needs to be deleted in order for that proposal to continue. I would not delete it myself as I have an obvious conflict of interest regarding this matter (that is, I'd already participated in the discussion on Meta Wiki) but I'd like to know if there are any objections to removing it. This is like a "deletion discussion" of sorts, due to the ad hoc nature of our small community, but I'd accept other outcomes for this redirect as well. Thanks, TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 10:43, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I have a COI for the same reason, but I would like to point out that there are no links to the redirect. PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:55, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Deleted, but feel free to IAR things like this in the future. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:53, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Requests for translation adminship/WikiBronze

Translation student and experienced translator. Translator in TranslateWiki (joined recently), patroller in Turkish Wikipedia, translation administrator (granted recently) in Commons and Meta-Wiki. Requesting translation adminship to mark the pages in Outreach that need translation and also administer the translation requests relating to Wikimedia Turkey. I am also planning to launch an expedition with the translators of Turkish Wikipedia Community to deal with over 25.000 messages (as in translation message groups) in various wiki projects that is waiting either to be translated or updated, and one of these projects is Outreach. Therefore, being a translation administrator would make my life considerably easier. I have thoroughly read and understood^[*] the following list of documents concerning the translation, translation extension and translation administratorship. I have used the extension before and I know how it functions. --WikiBronze ^[T] 21:58, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Read & Understood:

• Commons: Translation administrators

• RATA

• Media-Wiki | Translation best practices
• Meta: Translation administrators
• Meta: Translate extension

• Unstructured element translation
• Manual:Interface/Sidebar

• Message group states [*](apart from the "Setting up" part)
• Quality assurance
• Page translation example
• Translation example
• Page translation administration
• Preparing a page for translation

Granted. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:17, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Kevin! --WikiBronze ^[T] 21:18, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Requests for translation adminship/Ата

May I please be granted TA flag here? I am TA on mw:, m:, d: already. I am not going to be an active translation admin on this wiki, but it's so sad sometimes to see a trifle to be fixed (e.g. mark a page for translation after a small change) and can't do this. I promise to be courteous -- Ата ^(talk) 14:23, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Granted. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:17, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you -- Ата ^(talk) 20:31, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Join us in a 10-hour editing party!

Dear fellow wikimedians,
We are glad to invite you to join us in an international GLAMwiki event, organised by Amical Wikimedia and Barcelona’s Fundació Miró. This event, called “Joan Miró Global Challenge”, will take place next 10th May, and it will consist of a 10-hour Wikipedia editing party, where wikipedians from all around the world will be welcome to edit together to reach the goal of making 10 key articles about Joan Miró and his artworks available in at least 10 languages. More information about the whole project can be found in this post at the Wikimedia Foundation blog.

We would appreciate it if you could spread the word and invite the members of your community to participate. Also, we are sounding out the possibility to organise some real-life events where people can meet and edit together, as we have contacted some newcomer editors (especially in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Chile, and the United States) that would have a better editing experience if they were accompanied by some experienced wikipedians. Do you think it’s feasible to provide this kind of support? Do you know someone who might be interested that we should contact directly?

The project is getting more exciting as time goes by and we would like to share it as much as we can. We thank you for your help in advance, and will be happy to help if any clarification is needed. Best regards! --ESM (talk) 19:18, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

@ESM: This is probably the wrong wiki to outreach on, as we really aren't that kind of wiki. That being said, I would recommend submitting it to the GLAM newsroom, as their notice will go out a few days before this event. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:42, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

@Ktr101: Thank you very much for the pointers :) Will submit it there ASAP! --ESM (talk) 08:12, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Key component

One of the key components to being able to reach out to groups to become more involved is to be able to able to say that the editing environment is pleasant. While I do not subscribe to the more negative views of the community, it is very hard to ethically encourage someone to participate when there is a significant chance that they will have a bad experience through no fault of their own. Rich Farmbrough (talk) 14:21, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

@Rich Farmbrough: Is this in regards to anything here, as I am having trouble figuring out how this relates to the project. Thanks! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 05:08, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to add "autoconfirmed" to page creation

Lately, we have been having random IP's come by and create one page and leave, which has contributed to most of our spam. Because we don't allow for registration to occur before they can create pages, we are stuck with drive-by accounts that are doing a majority of the spamming, which aren't being caught by our abuse filters because they don't fit what would normally pop up in the configuration. Would people be alright with the idea of making page creation an "autoconfirmed" right like it is on the English Wikipedia, as it would cut down on the spam that occurs from both IPs and new accounts. For those who have a concern that we would suddenly lock out a lot of new editors who are here for good work, we could grant them autoconfirmed status if they demonstrate a need to want to improve the site or are linked to another project site. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 15:53, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Mathonius, PiRSquared17, TeleComNasSprVen, Kevin Gorman, Wikinade, and Rschen7754: What do you all think of this idea, as I would like to be able to help keep the majority of our workload to the basics, instead of having to clean up on the creative spam we often get. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:04, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not convinced we often get spam here. But maybe I'm not here often enough… --Wikinade (talk) 22:12, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like there is, but the deletion log has about one hundred deletions this year, which equates to an average of one a day. At the same time, we have had a very large amount of spam lately, which is more than our average. Additionally, these users make one edit and leave, so blocking them doesn't solve a thing since they'll never return to edit here again under the same account. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:29, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

My only concern is "user groups table bloat" which is a minor issue, but creating the new group only requires a small configuration change. I'm thinking though, should we perhaps explore other ways to prevent spam, such as restricting edits entirely to logged in accounts as suggested previously, or more strict AbuseFilter rules? In any case, I have no strong opinion either way to introducing a new userright to this wiki. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 08:02, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I also thought of the edit filter route early on, but they aren't doing anything that is common across the board except creating new pages on their first edit. Even the IP ranges aren't constant, except for two ones that I found around Shanghai and tried to rangeblock (60.0.0.0/7), except the software won't allow it. Maybe we could restrict it to five edits until you are allowed to create a page, as the prevention of this to logged-in accounts would just encourage people to create an account and give us no idea who the IP addresses are. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 16:41, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Enabling an opt-in preference for VisualEditor on Outreach wiki

I have been updating this wiki a lot lately, and I have been using VE elsewhere and find it really useful, and I would like to have it here too. SJ asked about this on Meta and James Forrester has since enabled it there (see discussion). VE tabs would not be visible to editors unless they opt in by turning on this beta feature. Is there any reason not to make VE available as an opt-in beta preference on Outreach? If installed here, will VE break pages? Thanks! :) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 13:41, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I doubt it will break anything. I have been using it on Meta, and while it has bugs, I think it's ok to use as an opt-in preference. --Pine^✉ 08:24, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

@AKoval (WMF), Pine: This is now scheduled for 16:00 SF time this afternoon. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 15:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, James Forrester. That's really good news. :) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 15:25, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

@AKoval (WMF): Now Y Done. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 02:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Jdforrester (WMF): Yay! Thank you, James. I *so* wanted to make this edit using VisualEditor. Why doesn't it work here on the Village Pump? It's also not on talk pages. Where can we expect to find it, and where will we not? Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 03:57, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Not on talk pages, or in namespaces that get used for a lot of discussions. VisualEditor doesn't know how to sign and date posts, so it doesn't work very well for discussion pages. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 05:24, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

That makes sense, and that's good to know. Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF). :) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 05:29, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Outreach team

A suggestion has been made to delete the page Outreach team. I'm not sure that it's serving any good purpose. What do others think? --Pine^✉ 08:30, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Pine. Good question! :) I honestly hadn't noticed that page until you mentioned it. I do think it could be a very helpful page, if updated. I checked the contribs of everyone signed up there, and all but 4 people have been inactive here on Outreach wiki since 2013, 2012, and even 2011. For some of those users, the addition of their name to the Outreach team page was their only contribution to Outreach wiki ever. So, rather than deleting the page, instead could we archive the inactive volunteers and post only those with recent contribs, say from this year? Also: Is it possible to promote the Outreach team page in the navigation to be the first link under Resources? I think that help is the most important resource we have. If others agree, it might be worth considering consolidating the Outreach team page with the Chat rooms page and the Users by skillset page, into a more general help page, and adding to those resources other potential sources of assistance: like the Teahouse on English Wikipedia or the Wikipedia Adventure, for example. I'm not wedded to any of these ideas, just thinking out loud. Thanks for looking around and wondering. --Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 18:53, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I suggest deleting this page, per commoents on the relevant talkpage. --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:36, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

On reflection, I agree with Steinsplitter. Deletion is probably the best approach here. With all of the inactive users listed there, this is no longer a helpful page. And it would seem that we have consensus (or at least, lack of opposition) to do this at this point. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 16:34, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

There's a way to remove it from the sidebar, so I will do that and mark it as historical, since there is no harm in having it kept but depreciated. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:08, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

And, it's done. Just to add more clarification to that, I don't think deletion will be all that effective, since it has such a long history, and deleting it wouldn't bring any benefit to the site itself. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:19, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@Frank Schulenburg: deleted it long ago, and I objected. I now regret doing that :) I think the page should be deleted, because there was never an effort to figure out what it meant, or do anything with it; it just became a place where people put their names and forgot about it. (It was originally created when we had an "outreach team" of staff at the WMF, and wanted to expand the concept to include volunteers. But the WMF team doesn't even exist under that name anymore, and we never clarified what it was supposed to be about. Things like the Ambassador Program came closer to what we had in mind, but came along later.) There's also this issue, though I don't think it's really a big deal here: meta:Banned user membership on lists of Wikimedians -Pete (talk) 01:54, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Deleted. No oppose. --Steinsplitter (talk) 19:36, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Translation administrator

Hello,

I'd like to be a translation administrator in order to help Outreach community, and make it in many languages. Best regards, Benoit Rochon (talk) 11:10, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Done. --Steinsplitter (talk) 11:52, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Benoit Rochon (talk) 12:12, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Translation Administrator

Hi there.

I'd like to be added as a translation administrator here on Outreach. I have translated over 200 things on Meta and use the translation extension almost every time I edit. I have also translated a few texts here on Wikimedia Outreach. I have read the documentation and promise to fulfill my duties and use these rights carefully. Thanks. Akifumii (talk) 02:24, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

If you'd follow mw:Help:Extension:Translate/Page_translation example then I support it. Pinging Steinsplitter. --Base (talk) 13:45, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

@Base: Thank you for your support. --Akifumii^Talk 15:55, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Done. --Steinsplitter (talk) 17:47, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks --Akifumii^Talk 17:54, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Sidebar localization

Dear collegues! Sidebar (left navigation pane) is prepared for localization. Requests to localizations is welcomed! See template. --Kaganer (talk) 17:08, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Cleaning up user rights

Hey all. I have previously discussed with Kevin Gorman and AKoval (WMF) about purging the admin and possibly the bureaucrat lists, and I want to see if anyone would object to this. In order to be considered, the user must not have performed an action with their tools in the last year and has not made more than five edits in that time as well. If anyone objects to this proposed action, please let me know, as I would like to do this in the next few weeks. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:59, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Also, I plan on leaving a note on anyone's talk page who is affected by this move, and can re-grant the rights upon request. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:05, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good If someone wants the user rights back, it would be easy to reinstate them anyway. Koavf (talk) 04:28, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:32, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I have gone ahead and dropped the number of bureaucrats from 28 to 20, and the number of administrators from 285 to 277. The administrator list will take a bit more time to go through, but I just want to leave a note just in case anyone comes here wondering what is up. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 23:04, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I was wondering what was going on and found this. Thought this wiki had been closed, but it doesn't seems so. If possible, I'd like my rights to be restored, I ocassionally lurk on wikis like this for counter-vandalism issues. But if that's not possible, it'll be fine anyway. Diego Grez (talk) 00:46, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Diego Grez Done! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:50, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

We're also down to 113 administrators, which includes anyone who did not edit in the last year. This is the first sweep of course, and I will likely do another one in the next week or so, which will focus on removing users who have not used their rights in that time, or ever for that matter. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:13, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

"I plan on leaving a note on anyone's talk page who is affected by this move" — Ktr101, you failed to leave a note on the talk page for anyone you de-adminned today. —Tom Morris (talk) 09:37, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to do a mass message later today, as I have been a bit busy as of late. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 14:59, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@Ktr101: Kevin I also would like to note that you waited less than 24 hours before you started with all the clean up. Usually the objection to this would be that if the rights aren't being misused then there is little need to remove their user rights. Users will be getting a notification as soon as their user rights have been removed, so if they come here and see 3 users in total have commented, calling that "consensus" is somewhat questionable! Thehelpfulone 15:30, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Thehelpfulone, this was too fast. --Steinsplitter (talk) 15:59, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I should have added that I was talking about this with the two persons mentioned above a week ago. Again, if anyone wants their rights back, please feel free to comment here or leave a message at my talk page. Also, the double posting was due to an error that I thought had occurred in the bot's delivery system, so my apologies for that. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 15:36, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

And this was so urgent that you waited less than 24 hours for others, who were perhaps not as fortunate to be included in your off-wiki discussion, to weigh in? I'm not sure in what universe off-wiki discussion and less than a day of on-wiki "discussion" counts as consensus, but I don't think it's this one. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:43, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello! Same per above, had thought that this wiki had been closed... I'd like to have it restored so that I'll be able to also deal more easily with counter-vandalism issues at times if noticed ;) --Arseny1992 (talk) 15:54, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Done. --Steinsplitter (talk) 16:00, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi, I didn't know that I had rights here and I'm fine with having them removed. And I appreciate your attempt to be efficient in accomplishing your task. :-) But I agree with the comments above that the decision to remove rights was done really quickly and without giving people a chance to comment if they had an alternative opinion. I would have suggested leaving everyone a talk page notice that the rights would be removed in 30 days unless a request was made to keep them. In the future consider using this approach because it is still lightweight and a bit friendlier. FloNight (talk) 16:34, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, as that was my mistake and I will certainly not do this route in the future. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:00, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

• FWIW: I had a very brief discussion about this with KTR off-wiki about userrights on outreach. Pretty much the only things covered were the fact that a lot of people had admin rights, and that Frank's original intention in setting up the wiki was for anyone who needed admin rights to have them. I've run in to health issues that have mostly kept me away from wiki work for the last week, but we did not discuss the idea of mass removal of rights, and I certainly didn't endorse it. I don't have a strong opinion on the idea of whether rights should stay or go, but wanted to clarify that I was not involved in making the decision to take away rights. Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:53, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I have amended the posting as such, as I was mistaken as to whom I talked to. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:00, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Hehe it is what always thought - many admins even didn't know they have the flag in here. All that 200+ list of admins with 0 actions was nonsense but actually it would be good to develop some criteria for adminship and 'cratship in here. Previous nonwritten criterion that if you're not a spambot then you're to be granted with sysop flag in here is nice and friendly but not very good for keeping some order. --Base (talk) 19:57, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty much with FloNight and others on this: I didn't realize I was an admin, and won't miss having the tools. On the other hand, this was a pretty high-handed and abrupt way of going about things, with (very) minimal consultation and zero warning. Not good. --Jbmurray (talk) 21:22, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Honestly This is a tempest in a teapot. Removing userrights from users who didn't know they had them or never used them is a non-issue. This is a small wiki with very few active users, so it's okay for someone to take some initiative. Again, as long as (re)instatement is easily granted, it's no big deal. Koavf (talk) 22:06, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

An approach similar to m:AAR (the global admin activity review process) would probably have been better, as removing people's userrights tends to be a touchy issue that upsets people. But, what's done is done. I agree it was suboptimal, but I don't know that continuing to talk about that will be more productive.

With that being said, m:Stewards and m:global sysops could still use the permissions - for the former, it makes clear that they can use their tools to deal with spam on the wiki, and as we are not opted into the global sysop wikiset, it would allow global sysops to patrol this wiki as well. Or, we could opt ourselves into the set. As far as everyone else... if they've left Wikimedia entirely or haven't come here in years, it may be appropriate to desysop after proper notification. Desysopping more would be a significant policy shift and would require a more extensive discussion. (And if people want their rights back, that's fine too, they should get them back). --Rschen7754 22:32, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I think that reminds of a fact that we don't even have the wiki specific irc channel atm. Off-wiki consultations elsewhere are not very good and for some tasks VP isn't comfortable enough. --Base (talk) 16:51, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi everybody, nice to see an active discussion over on this wiki for a change ;) -Pete (talk) 02:03, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

MW UI progressive buttons

Any idea why the "mw-ui-button mw-ui-progressive" buttons are suddenly bigger than they were a couple of days ago? Compare the size here with the size of the "mw-ui-button mw-ui-destructive" button here. Something's off. Thanks for your help. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 17:36, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Maye a change in Mw:MediaWiki 1.24/wmf14? --Steinsplitter (talk) 22:22, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

FYI, I've been removing the button-styling from the links in the Education subpages, because they were not semantically buttons. The mw-ui styles should not be used for simple links. Thanks! Quiddity (talk) 18:51, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

My dear Quiddity,

First of all, THANK YOU for all your help with formatting. I'm grateful to you. <3

Second of all, you are absolutely right! :) What you said is completely correct. These are not, technically, buttons, progressive or otherwise. I admit it. ;)

However, on certain pages, in certain instances, a single, unclustered, not progressive, not destructive, i.e. neutrally-styled button, such as what was used on the Countries page here, is advantageous.

This is particularly true on the Education portal here on Outreach wiki, where the intended audience is not necessarily a native Wikimedian, but possibly a teacher or a student with an interest in joining us in this endeavor.

I hope you agree, or can, at least, live with the compromise, because I really like the button look when it's just one button, not a cluster of them. Hopefully, using just one button with "Neutral button styling", that's not red or blue when it shouldn't be, will work for now.

Unless, of course, there is some technical reason why we cannot as well as a social reason why we should not.

Fondly yours, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:30, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

@Anna: The problem isn't the colors or shape - we can even replace the colors! - it's the semantic nature of mw.ui style, which should only ever be used for actual buttons.

Re: colors, it is generally good to keep text-links as the standard blue. I won't quibble with the navigation-bar, but for other links that you want to highlight, we could add red/green/blue/etc bars underneath the words, or some other kind of visual styling.

I've hacked together a replacement div, styled similarly to the button. I can put that in template form, if you want to use it elsewhere. Or I can mockup some simple variants, of the "colored bottom border" idea. Let me know :) Quiddity (talk) 22:08, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

For the record, Quiddity and I just talked about this on IRC and, with his permission, I'm posting this summary.

@Quiddity, it's really great having your eyes here with their impressive attention to detail. Thank you. That said, I'm not sure that mw.ui style can't be used in this case. It says in the mediawiki.ui style guide that buttons are the default for a "Call to Action" -- which an invitation like "Start a program" clearly seems to be. Agree to disagree? Or am I about to begin my first edit war with a friend? ;) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 22:42, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Just kidding, Quiddity. I'm not interested in an edit war. :) And I do want to do the right thing. Feel free to ping someone who knows more about these things than I do. But please keep in mind that the education portal on Outreach wiki isn't the only place where these buttons are being used in this way (case in point), so we're keeping good company. :) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 17:16, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Chat rooms

In the spirit of the wiki clean up which began with the Outreach team page, I'm wondering about the Chat rooms page linked under Resources in the sidebar navigation. Chat rooms may very well be what's there, but that word seems outdated, and it might even seem scary to newbies who've been warned of "stranger danger". Would we be open to a more descriptive, more friendly word/phrase to describe what that page is for? Some ideas are: "Help," "Live help," "Need help?" and "Get help". Other websites call this feature "Live chat" -- but "chat," to me, seems less purposeful. Which begs the question, what *is* the purpose of that page? The lead explains how to connect, but not why doing so would be of interest or of value. If we're directing users there to provide them technical support (and possibly also moral support, like our own Teahouse), it'd be great to get more names listed there as channel contacts. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 12:41, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Good points @AKoval (WMF):. And I'm surprised how many people are looking at this page -- 300/month! I'd suggest a better description here, along the lines of what you describe; but instead of maintaining a list of channels here, it should point to the centralized list on Meta: IRC/Channels. -Pete (talk) 18:31, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Indeed good points. And maybe we should re-open the #wikimedia-outreach channel? --Steinsplitter (talk) 20:24, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't suggest re-opening the chatroom, as I don't think anyone will be in there for the most part. In terms of sending them to a place, -help would be the best place to send them. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:07, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

-help is only useful for en.wikipedia editors... --Rschen7754 04:34, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, Rschen. My concern about the en-help channel is that they explicitly say they "can ONLY answer questions about editing the English Wikipedia" and any non-English WP questions are sent to the ENWP ref desk. That wouldn't be helpful for non-English speakers. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Even if we don't create or reopen an Outreach wiki specific IRC channel, which Base mentioned above, we still might want to update the Chatrooms page, since we do link to it in the sidebar nav, and it is getting looked at a lot, as Pete pointed out. We could call it something like "Contact us" instead and list all relevant contact methods, in addition to IRC: general email addresses for GLAM (glamwikimedia.org) and Education (educationwikimedia.org), the GLAM mailing lists, the education mailing list, and the village pump, since there is no help desk page here on Outreach wiki. It might also be wise to indicate that IRC channels are open to anyone and may or may not have helpful, friendly people in them. And an IRC guide like what GLAM has here may be useful, too. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 01:17, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Good points Although this is a small wiki, it's presumably a good gateway for others getting involved with WMF so having bad contact info is probably a bad idea. Koavf (talk) 02:47, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Koavf. :) I'm thinking now that it might be helpful to have both a "Live help" link and a "Contact us" link in the sidebar navigation. Consolidating the GLAM and the Education contact info one one page would eliminate two clicks per user. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I suggest forwarding #wikipedia-en-classroom to the much higher volume and better patrolled en-help. While #wikipedia-en-help can have drama, the standards for behavior there are higher than in #wikipedia, #wikimedia and #wikipedia-en and the vast majority of the time the discussion in -help is civil. --Pine^✉ 01:48, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

This is a good question, Pine, and I'm glad you're asking about it. Hope you don't mind, I'm separating your last post and replying inline since there are 3 different topics. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree: realtime help channels are only helpful if there are people willing and able to staff them. I do staff #wikipedia-en-classroom, but not 24/7. As I understand it, -en-help is generally staffed at all times by many volunteers, a handful of whom are WMF staff. I'm willing to hang out there, too, if we agree that's where we should direct our traffic to. Would like to hear from Wiki Ed about their use of the channel -- past, present, and planned; pinging LiAnna, Jami, and Sage. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

We haven't used those channels for students in three years, so I am fine with forwarding them on to #wikipedia-en-help. We have no plans to use IRC as a help mechanism in the future. LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 12:47, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, LiAnna. That's helpful to hear. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 06:25, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Whether or not we decide to forward it, that channel documentation definitely needs updating! The description of #wikipedia-en-classroom on Meta ("Wikipedia online ambassadors help for campus ambassadors, students, etc.") links to a page for a project that is now defunct. If we do keep it where it is, I propose revising the description to: "Wikipedia Education Program help for ambassadors, educators, and students." Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Another matter is #wikipedia-en-ambassadors. That channel is used regularly, but it's mainly used for technical discussion. So, the description of this channel on Meta ("Wikipedia ambassadors program discussion and coordination") doesn't describe what it's actually used for, and it links to that same now-defunct project page. I propose revising the description to: "Wikipedia Education Program discussion and coordination." I also propose forwarding it to a more general name like #wikimedia-education -- but I have no idea how that is done. Helpful tips and links would be appreciated! :) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

The term used on English Wikipedia is usually "live help", not "chatroom". #wikipedia-en is more like a chatroom. --Pine^✉ 01:48, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good It's specific and consistent. Thanks for pointing that out Pine. But, unless I'm missing something, this does not appear to be linked in the en.wp sidebar as we do on Outreach; it's an inline link at en:Help:Contents which points to en:Wikipedia:Help/clickthrough. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

For non- English speakers, they can start in #wikipedia or #wikipedia--[language code]. --Pine^✉ 01:48, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Based on your comments about it above, I'm not sure that #wikipedia is the best place for non-English speakers to begin. There should be a safe space where educators and students can come with questions and frustrations. We, the education community, would be their first point of contact, and if necessary, we escalate their call to the next tier of technical support: -help-[language code]. There's comprehensive listing of all Wikimedia IRC channels at m:IRC/Channels, including project-specific and language-specific channels. If we can't transclude some of that information (all contained in long wikitables) on our chatrooms page, we should at least link to it, since our page is translated. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk)

Shall we vote on it?

So, how does this work here on Outreach wiki? What's our process for moving conversation into action? Does someone make a motion to proceed and we ask for ayes and nays in favor or opposed, parliamentary procedure-style? :) Here's a summary of what's been proposed in this thread so far:

• Rename the "Chat rooms" page "Live help"
• Rename the "Chat rooms" page "Contact us" and list all relevant contact methods: email addresses, mailing lists, and IRC
• Have both a "Live help" link and a "Contact us" link in the sidebar navigation
• Reopen an Outreach wiki specific IRC channel
• Forward #wikipedia-en-classroom to #wikipedia-en-help
• Update the description of the #wikipedia-en-classroom channel on Meta
• Update the description of the #wikipedia-en-ambassadors channel on Meta
• Forward #wikipedia-en-ambassadors to a more general name like #wikimedia-education
• Add information about chat channels in other languages (available at m:IRC/Channels) to our chatrooms page

--Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

• !Vote I will say that "contact us" and making it more expansive is probably wise and pretty universal. Koavf (talk) 04:56, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
• For IRC, you will need to talk to the group contacts, i.e. User:Snowolf or User:Barras. --Rschen7754 05:34, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
• "Contact us" sounds better than "Live help", so I am going to move that now, because the other name implies we're actually on IRC all the time. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 16:23, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Bookshelf

Hi Everyone,

I'm just sort of generally wondering what's going on with the Bookshelf and the Bookshelf Project.

First, how are these pages different?

• Bookshelf (linked in the nav bar; last edited July 2014)
• Bookshelf Project (last edited January 2012)
• Bookshelf/Wikipedia (last edited June 2012)

Bookshelf/Wikipedia was linked in a Forbes article that was mentioned on the Gender Gap mailing list recently. I'd never seen that page until now.

Second, there are two headers. {{Bookshelf/Tab header}} and {{Bookshelf/Tab header2}}. More pages link to Tab header 2. Is there a reason for having two different headers?

The headers link to still more pages:

• Bookshelf (last edited May 2014)
• Education (last edited May 2014)
• Media (last non-vandalism-related edit June 2011)
• Companies (last non-vandalism-related edit June 2011)
• Wikipedians (last non-vandalism-related edit April 2011)
• Other Wikimedia Projects (last edited September 2013)

Do we still need all of these subpages? It just seems like they may be more work for our patrollers than help to our readers.

Some relevant stats:

• Bookshelf has been viewed 4931 times in the last 90 days. This article ranked 11 in traffic on outreach.wikimedia.org.
• Bookshelf/Wikipedia has been viewed 268 times in the last 90 days. This article ranked 367 in traffic on outreach.wikimedia.org.
• Education/Materials for Teaching has been viewed 743 times in the last 90 days. This article ranked 61 in traffic on outreach.wikimedia.org.
• Media has been viewed 223 times in the last 90 days. This article ranked 329 in traffic on outreach.wikimedia.org.
• Companies has been viewed 228 times in the last 90 days. This article ranked 306 in traffic on outreach.wikimedia.org.
• Wikipedians has been viewed 201 times in the last 90 days. This article ranked 467 in traffic on outreach.wikimedia.org.
• Other Wikimedia Projects has been viewed 192 times in the last 90 days. This article ranked 356 in traffic on outreach.wikimedia.org.

Pinging:

• Tegel and Kevin Rutherford, about the vandalism, and thank you for reverting it and for safeguarding these pages.
• Hannibal, Rock drum, Nemo bis, LauraHale, and Sage Ross, about the content; thank you for building these resources.
• The Interior and Ocassi, about WP:TWL. What TWL does is different, but there may be a connection here worth considering.

Thanks for thinking with me about this. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 14:58, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to Translation to my user page

Hello sir, Please translation to my user page in English to Telugu Language. Naresh Krishna Raja (talk) 13:55, 5 Aug 2014 (IST)

Hi there Naresh Krishna Raja. I don't think we have any active Telugu users who come across this wiki that could maybe help translate your user page. What is your native language? Why do you need your user page to be translated? A² 21:35, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I really don't see the benefit of translating the page, as there is such little text there that it wouldn't do much good since most of the prose exists in userboxes. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 06:19, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Add libraries to projects in the sidebar nav

Could we please add Libraries to the listing of projects that work here on Outreach wiki in the sidebar navigation under projects? I was just at a Wikimania meetup about The Wikipedia Library, and Board Member Phoebe Ayers plugged that page. Would be nice to include our librarian friends a bit more prominently, I think. :) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 13:37, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Done. --Steinsplitter (talk) 13:47, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Akifumii

Per a discussion at on the English Wikipedia, I have removed Xermano's user rights for now, as there is currently a cloud of suspicion on whether they are a sock or are even knowledgeable in the languages that they claim to know. If the discussion clears them and everyone is agreeable to allowing them to continue to edit, then I will restore their rights. Right now though, I am going to play cautious and remove their two rights for now. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 05:03, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

For me, Akifumii/Xermano has lost my trust in them to participate and assist with the Canadian Education Program. Previously, Akifumii claims to be Canadian studying in California and use it as a pretext to join the Canadian program in the capacity of an online ambassador but it turns out that Akifumii is a native Hungarian. Our program doesn't want to work with someone who lacks integrity and is a shadowy figure. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:39, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

That should say "native Hungarian", as no one has seen actual proof that he speaks Hungarian, other than a one-word answer in Hungarian to a long question by a native speaker. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 15:27, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and blocked them, as it is clear from this thread that they are willfully engaging in deceptive practices and are not here to contribute further to the project without the potential for causing harm. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:48, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I only skimmed the discussion, but I think the desysop was appropriate. --Rschen7754 02:53, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Blocking users

What is our policy for blocking users on Outreach wiki? Over the weekend, User:Homeontherange made several bad faith edits and vandalized a number of important pages here on Outreach wiki, including our Village Pump. Thankfully, Quiddity reverted all of the edits and Ktr101 blocked the user. But my question is, at what point do we all agree that a user should be blocked? Is it after a certain number of edits made or bytes added/deleted? Is it after vandalism to particular pages? I'd appreciate knowing what are our criteria for blocking users, especially vandals, in case I ever need to do so myself. This topic was discussed tangentially here, but the question was not conclusively answered. Links to any on-wiki documentation would be helpful. That said, if there is no official policy, I'm not suggesting that there be one. In fact, I'm told that in cases where there is no stated policy, the policy of English Wikipedia frequently applies. For this, that's WP:BLOCK. It'd just be good to know, for the record, if we shoot from the hip around here. ;) Thanks! Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 19:58, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I actually unblocked them, but we generally follow the blocking policy, which basically states that common sense is required to edit here. Generally, many of the editors who vandalize never come back, so I have found blocks pointless for them, as I can only recall one user coming back and vandalizing the site, which I resolved by rangeblocking them for a week. Otherwise, I don't really see the need to unless they are former staff members or people who fit the criteria on the page listed above. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:35, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Special:CentralAuth/Homeontherange the user is blocked on other 4 wikis for vandalism. (@your global locks unblocks: No need to unblock global locked account, it is a wasting of time) --Steinsplitter (talk) 07:22, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Policy This project is unlike (e.g.) Wikipedia where almost anyone can give some kind of feedback, so legitimate differences of opinion or misunderstandings can happen frequently. On a project like that, you need a more nuanced and articulate policy since it's attempting to attract the general public. This project is a more constrained administrative one that is really not for public consumption since most folks won't be care about it. It is not a locked or private wiki, of course—simply one that isn't of interest to most. If someone comes here and is clearly making an unconstructive edit, it's okay to just block him immediately, since this project is so small and its scope so narrow. Koavf (talk) 16:51, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

To add to Steinsplitter's comment, in this case unblocking the account cancels the autoblock, so that probably was not a good idea. Also, the policy of the English Wikipedia is quite frequently different from what is practiced globally; remember, this is an outreach wiki for Wikimedia. That being said, there aren't many formal policies here, so a lot of common sense should be followed (Meta in some ways, and MediaWiki.org are similar, and all sorts of small-language Wikimedia sites). --Rschen7754 04:35, 20 August 2014 (UTC)