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"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution." — Albert Einstein (discuss)


A proposal is underway to improve almost any stub in namespaceEdit

Please visit Wikiversity:Rootsub Essay and let me know what you think. Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 02:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Essays on personal religious and philosophical beliefsEdit

There are a nontrivial number of pages on this wiki which describe personal, and often rather idiosyncratic, viewpoints about religious and philosophical topics. Some examples of pages of this sort are:

I am concerned that these pages generally have very little educational value, as they tend to describe the author's personal beliefs rather than a larger body of shared religious belief. This also makes them essentially impossible for other users to verify, edit, or improve, as other editors may not share the author's beliefs.

(I'm not concerned about resources which cover religious topics as an academic field, like Biblical Studies (NT) or Portal:Islamic Studies. Those are fine.)

Does the project have any established policy or past discussions on this matter? Do we need to? Or should these sorts of pages be handled on an ad-hoc basis?

Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 04:46, 4 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Since original research is allowed here but there are no standards imposed on that research outside of WikiJournal, it is almost inevitable that very niche and unsubstantiated personal essays like these will be published. As you can see there, there are some basic requirements and this is not a free hosting site for just anything. Looking at resources such as Buddha oracle, this at least has a pretense of being an educational resource and The Near Death Experience as Possible Evidence for an Afterlife does address an issue that has been discussed in serious literature and starts out with some reasonable citations, but it also seems to poison the well a little bit by having an explicit perspective and a single assumed author. Did you have one in particular that you think is egregious and a clear candidate for deletion? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:56, 4 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'd point to Category:The Dynamic Book (an original religious text) as the most egregious case, with Psychiatric Liberation/Shamanism and Psychosis (which claims to teach the reader how to "shapeshift") as a close runner-up. I agree that some of the other pages are more borderline; I'm presenting them here as examples for consideration, not necessarily because I believe they should be deleted.
(I'll add that Buddha oracle is an unusual situation. Close reading reveals that it is not an accurate description of Buddhism - it's actually describing the author's personal syncretic religion which combines elements from multiple schools of Buddhism, as well as some elements of Hinduism and Christianity.)
As far as original research goes, Wikiversity:Research process defines "research" and "research ethics" in ways which make it fairly clear that research is expected to be generally scientific in nature. In particular, it sets the expectations that research be "verifiable" and "objective", and make use of "sources" - all qualities which are difficult to apply to religious topics, particularly when it comes to personal beliefs.
Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 09:07, 4 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
For what it's worth, I agree that the Sanctuary of Humanity content, such as The Dynamic Book has no place here and is basically just wild theorizing and proselytizing. I would support deletion of all of that material as just personal hosting. (As another aside, I agree that the Buddha oracle is some fanciful syncretism, but at least has a pretense for being educational.) —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:28, 4 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I would be happy to see Sanctuary of Humanity deleted, moved into subspace or into draftspace. At the very least it needs to be "no-indexed" by making it a subpage. There is a problem with deleting all such projects. The problem is not whether we should delete, but whether we can, in a reasonable amount of time.Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 21:10, 4 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Subpages are indexed. User space is not. Personal essays not part of a larger learning project can be moved to user space. Controvertial (pseudoscience or other fringe content) may/should be deleted. Content which is not controverial but has no educational value can be deleted or moved to user space if it is no longer under development. We have long agreed that the development of content provides a learning experience for the writer, even when it appears to serve no educational purpose for others. — Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:31, 8 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I moved Sanctuary of Humanity (and subpages) to the most recent active editor's userspace (with no redirect.) I think we can all agree that it has no educational value. My position is the document does no harm, its writing might have been an educational experience for the authors. I entered the top page into Category:Pages moved from mainspace so it could be located at any future date: You can learn something about your own writing skills by re-reading something you wrote a long time ago.
  1. Is this OK with everybody? If this or something like this is acceptable to all, we should find a place to formalize a policy. One place to discuss this is at the talkpage to Wikiversity:Deletions
  2. We should discuss Buddha oracle at Talk:Buddha oracle--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 21:20, 8 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I moved Divine healing to Christianity/Divine healing for reasons discussed at Talk:Christianity/Divine healing.Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 16:38, 9 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
IMO, these could fall under ethnographic research, or at least data for ethnographic research. imo. limitless peace. Michael Ten (discuss • contribs) 18:16, 29 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Fair use image cleanupEdit

Because I am obviously some kind of sucker for punishment, I've started looking through Category:Fair use files with an eye to cleaning it up. What I am seeing so far is not good.

As a refresher, per Wikiversity's EDP, fair-use content must have no free equivalent, must contribute directly and irreplaceably to the educational goal of the resource it's embedded in, must be attributed to its source, and must have a fair use rationale provided in the file description. (Wikiversity's EDP is broadly similar to Wikipedia's, and the examples and explanations given at w:Wikipedia:Non-free content usually apply here as well.) Some important consequences of these conditions are that:

  • Artwork is almost never valid justifiable as fair use unless the learning resource is on the topic of artwork. Using artwork which simply has a similar theme to the topic of the learning resource is not sufficient; using copyrighted material in that context is effectively decorative.
  • Figures and diagrams are almost never justifiable as fair use, as they can usually be replaced by recreating them. The fact that no one has created a freely licensed replacement yet is not a valid justification.
  • Photographs of people should only be used where the specific photograph is the subject of commentary, or where the subject of the photograph is deceased and no freely licensed photographs are available. Photographs of "living notable individuals" are specifically called out in the WMF licensing policy resolution as an example of unacceptable fair use.
  • Images sourced directly or indirectly from photo agencies or stock photo providers (like Reuters or Getty Images) are never justifiable as fair use, as reproducing them directly impacts the market value of those works.

I've also noticed that a substantial number of files with fair use license tags have a source of "own work" or something substantially similar. This doesn't make sense. If the uploader actually created the image themselves, they must have intended to provide permission for Wikiversity to use it. I'm very hesitant to retag these under GFDL/CC licenses, but leaving them tagged as fair use doesn't seem right either.

Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 06:53, 13 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I randomly checked three of the images you tagged, and two fell under a perpetually unresolved RFD called Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion#Pervasive copyright violations by User:Marshallsumter. The only issue I see is whether they are components of an essential Wikiversity resource (such as an ongoing college or high school course.) Essential resources are rare on WV. What do you think of using either a {{prod}} (with subst:) or {{tl:delete}} on each image? In most cases I will look at the history, delete the image, and either delete the hosting resource page, or move it into user space. If I have any doubts, I will "prod" both resource and image and let other administrators deal with it. @Dave Braunschweig: please advise.--
I state this log to give y'all an idea of the policy I am using. I am somewhat flexible on that policy. --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 10:01, 13 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm requesting deletion for these images over copyright issues affecting the images themselves, not because there's necessarily any issue with the resources they're being used in. Copyright issues are grounds for speedy deletion; converting these to proposed deletion isn't appropriate here. If you think I'm mistaken about images lacking an appropriate fair use rationale and source, or if you can correct the copyright tags, feel free to remove the deletion tag and/or correct the tags. Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 17:42, 13 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Images tagged as Fair Use and own work are from a cleanup effort several years ago. The content had no licensing at all but was for homework assignments, usually in one of the engineering classes using Wikiversity at the time. The creators were long gone. Tagging the images as Fair Use allowed the effort to remain while preventing others from reusing the content without a license that wasn't granted.
I don't know that there is still value in retaining these contributions. None of the schools are using Wikiversity for engineering assignments anymore. The biggest efforts with students are Motivation and Emotion and the Federal Writer's Project and related learning projects.
If the community wants them removed, we could make it happen. I just need very clear parameters on what to remove so it can be automated.
Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:12, 14 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Voting now open on the revised Enforcement Guidelines for the Universal Code of ConductEdit

Hello all,

The voting period for the revised Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines is now open! Voting will be open for two weeks and will close at 23:59 UTC on January 31, 2023. Please visit the voter information page on Meta-wiki for voter eligibility information and details on how to vote.

For more details on the Enforcement Guidelines and the voting process, see our previous message.

On behalf of the UCoC Project Team,

JPBeland-WMF (discuss • contribs) 00:19, 18 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Moving Universal Bibliography into draftspace?Edit

Universal Bibliography looks interesting but I believe it belongs in draftspace. Please share your thoughts. It has over 30 subpages: See special:PrefixIndex/Draft:Universal Bibliography/. When this project is completed it will be larger than today's Wikipedia. --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 23:17, 20 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

For what it's worth, this is already moved. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:29, 20 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yeah, I decided to move it after posting my request for "permission" Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 00:46, 22 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Oppose. I must oppose this move.

The bibliography is the only genuinely useful content on Wikiversity (apart from a few Wikipedia articles that were moved to Wikiversity (and which ought to be moved back) and some pages that look like encyclopedia articles, and things like that) that I am aware of.

The bibliography is absolutely necessary to support Wikipedia, which has a massive problem with editors being unable to find sources. (Wikipedia also has a smaller problem with editors being unable to identify notable books that should have articles). If the bibliography is removed, Wikipedia is finished. That would be the end. That would be the final blow. I personally would find it virtually impossible to create, improve or maintain Wikipedia articles without being able to refer to the bibliography, which I read constantly, and which is absolutely necessary for that purpose.

The page move is disruptive. The page move is out of process. There is no policy or guideline authorising such a move. (A proposal is neither a policy nor a guideline). The page move appears to be against consensus. Over the last ten years, there has been only support for, and no opposition to, the bibliography. The page move causes me to feel harassed.

There is no chance of this bibliography becoming larger than Wikipedia. Even if you listed every book ever published, which is not likely to happen and which will not be done by me, you would get a number of pages that is no more than about 2% of the number of articles on the English Wikipedia, by my reckoning. (The total number of Wikipedia pages, in all languages, is more than 249 million, which is much larger than the total number of books in the World). In its present form, however, the bibliography is actually very small.

In any event, size is irrelevant. See, for an explanation of why size is irrelevant to wikimedia projects, meta:Wikipedia is not paper. (This page presently refers to Wikipedia, but the argument it makes is true of all wikimedia projects).

The draftspace is a toxic editing environment, is a massive unwarranted content fork, and is impossible to navigate. It also breaks links. There is no satisfactory procedure for moving pages out of draftspace. Forced draftification alienates, insults, annoys and harasses contributors. It would be better to delete pages altogether than to draftify them. It should certainly not be possible for anyone to forcibly draftify anything without consensus formed during a deletion discussion equivalent to an AfD. Such behaviour is not permitted on the English Wikipedia, and it should not be allowed here or anywhere else.

Nor should editors engage in w:WP:DRIVEBY draftification of pages they do not intend to immediately and continuously improve and then move back to the mainspace ASAP. Right now, the draftifcation makes it impossible for me, or anyone other than Guy Vandegrift, to do anything to improve the draftified pages. And I see no evidence that Guy has any intention of improving those pages himself. James500 (discuss • contribs) 02:26, 22 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

People can either discuss it here, or comment/vote at at Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion#Undeletion requests. @James500: I entered your vote by proxy and placed a link to this page. I will move it back to mainspace unless there is a clear consensus to keep it in draft or userspace.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 06:39, 22 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

can chatgpt generate content be released under creative commons?Edit

can ChatGPT generated content be released under creative commons on this wiki? https://beta.openai.com/docs/usage-policies

Does anyone know? is there any guidance about this on wikipedia? thanks and inner and outer peace to you. Michael Ten (discuss • contribs) 03:01, 29 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If you mean using ChatGPT to generate resources for Wikiversity, strongest possible oppose. Text produced by language models like ChatGPT is frequently inaccurate, often in extremely sneaky ways (like making up historical events or even fabricating references). I can't think of any way this could be used to produce useful, accurate learning resources.
There's an active discussion about unauthorized use of ChatGPT on Wikipedia at w:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Artificial-Info22 using AI to produce articles. (Update: there's some more in-depth analysis at w:Wikipedia:Large language models.) Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 07:20, 29 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
No, ChatGPT content may not be released under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license on this wiki. The generated content isn't open, isn't referenced, and wasn't written by the user. You can't release under a CC license something you didn't create and don't own the rights to. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:54, 29 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Somebody needs to code an open source version of ChatGPT ... I'm too busy.   --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 17:40, 29 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
OK. I hear ya all. Here is a suggested ChatGPT prompt: "What are some open source ChatGPT alternatives?" (withquotes). ChatGPT just listed 6 of such open source alternatives. I wrote that prompt myself! Limitless peace. Michael Ten (discuss • contribs) 18:14, 29 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm not sure you appreciate the underlying issue. It's not a question of whether the tool is open source. It's a question of whether the generated content is open source and whether all sources used to generate that content are properly referenced.
It's certainly possible to do, and perhaps WMF should invest resources in creating such a tool. But unless there is an explicit limit of open source content with references, it can't be posted here. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:43, 30 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm not certain that's true. The analysis at w:WP:LLM suggests that the output of language models like ChatGPT is usually not subject to copyright, as it lacks a human author (outside of situations where it's parroting material from its input). However, it also raises a number of other issues with using that content which make it generally unsuitable for Wikipedia, and those reasons probably apply here as well. Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 03:08, 30 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Last call to vote on revised UCoC enforcement guidelines!Edit

Hi all,

A friendly and final reminder that the voting period for the revised Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines closes tomorrow, Tuesday, 31 January at 23:59:59 UTC.

The UCoC supports Wikimedia’s equity objectives and commitment to ensuring a welcoming, diverse movement, and it applies to all members of our communities. Voting is an opportunity for you to be a part of deciding how we uphold this commitment to our community and each other!

To vote, visit the voter information page on Meta-wiki, which outlines how to participate using SecurePoll.

Many thanks for your interest and participation in the UCoC!

On behalf of the UCoC Project Team,

JPBeland-WMF (discuss • contribs) 21:29, 30 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello all,
The vote on the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines is now closed. The results will now be counted and scrutinized to ensure that only eligible votes are included. Results will be published on Meta and other movement forums as soon as they become available, as well as information on future steps. Thank you to all who participated in the voting process, and who have contributed to the drafting of Guidelines.
On behalf of the UCoC Project Team,
JPBeland-WMF (discuss • contribs) 21:45, 1 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Global ban for PlanespotterA320/RespectCEEdit

Per the Global bans policy, I'm informing the project of this request for comment: m:Requests for comment/Global ban for PlanespotterA320 (2) about banning a member from your community. Thank you.--Lemonaka (talk) 21:40, 6 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Desktop vs mobile figure numbering CCSS/HTML questionEdit

I'd previously got automatic figure numbering working on images via Template:WikiJournal/figure/styles.css.

However recent changes have altered image captions from <div class="thumbcaption"> to <figcaption>. I've fixed the figure number incrementor working again (via changing div.thumbcaption:before to figure figcaption:before.

However it doesn't seem to work on a mobile view. Mobile view on a mobile device simply omits the ::before pseudoeleement and the mobile view on a desktop (see number on this page in desktop vs mobile).

Anyone have ideas on fixes? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 03:49, 13 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Universal Code of Conduct revised enforcement guidelines vote resultsEdit

The recent community-wide vote on the Universal Code of Conduct revised Enforcement Guidelines has been tallied and scrutinized. Thank you to everyone who participated.

After 3097 voters from 146 Wikimedia communities voted, the results are 76% in support of the Enforcement Guidelines, and 24% in opposition. Statistics for the vote are available. A more detailed summary of comments submitted during the vote will be published soon.

From here, the results and comments collected during this vote will be submitted to the Board of Trustees for their review. The current expectation is that the Board of Trustees review process will complete in March 2023. We will update you when their review process is completed.

On behalf of the UCoC Project Team, JPBeland-WMF (discuss • contribs) 19:27, 13 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Community feedback-cycle about updating the Wikimedia Terms of Use startsEdit

Hi everyone,

From February, 21 to April 2023, the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Department is hosting a feedback cycle about updating the Wikimedia Terms of Use (ToU). Detailed information has been published on Meta here.

The Terms of Use are the legal terms that govern the use of websites hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Feedback on the draft proposal will be gathered from February through April.

This update comes in response to several things:

  1. Implementing the Universal Code of Conduct
  2. Updating project text to the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license (CC 4.0)
  3. A proposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing
  4. Bringing the ToU in line with current and recently passed laws affecting the Wikimedia Foundation including the European Digital Services Act

Regarding the Universal Code of Conduct and its enforcement guidelines, we are instructed to ensure that the ToU include it in some form.

Regarding CC 4.0, the communities had determined as the result of a 2016 consultation that the projects should upgrade the main license for hosted text from the current CC BY-SA 3.0 to CC BY-SA 4.0. We’re excited to be able to put that into effect, which will open up the projects to receiving a great deal of already existing CC BY-SA 4.0 text and improve reuse and remixing of project content going forward.

Regarding the proposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing, the Wikimedia Foundation intends to strengthen its tools to support existing community policies against marketing companies engaged in systematic, undisclosed paid editing campaigns.

Finally, regarding new laws, the last ToU update was in 2015, and that update was a single item regarding paid editing. The last thorough revision was in 2012. While the law affecting hosting providers has held steady for some time, with the recent passage of the EU’s Digital Services Act, we are seeing more significant changes in the legal obligations for companies like the Wikimedia Foundation that host large websites. So with a decade behind us and the laws affecting website hosts soon changing, we think it’s a good time to revisit the ToU and update them to bring them up to current legal precedents and standards.

As part of the feedback cycle two office hours will be held, the first on March 2, the second on April 4.

See the page on Meta to get all the information.

For further information, please consult:

On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Team,

JPBeland-WMF (discuss • contribs) 15:34, 21 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Request for comment: GreySmith Institute pagesEdit

The GreySmith Institute portal is a huge group of pages created by User:Graeme E. Smith in mid-2009, describing the projects and activities of a research institution specializing in neuroscience and artificial intelligence.

However, the "institute" doesn't actually exist outside these pages. None of the pages in the portal that I've looked at so far go into any sort of real detail on the topics they describe; most of it is just a huge maze of notional "labs", "divisions", and "subdivisions" of the institute which were meant to carry out specific pieces of research, without any actual content to back them up. And Graeme stopped editing in 2010; the pages have been dormant ever since.

My concern with these pages is that they're effectively a trap for visitors. The complex structure of the portal means that it takes a significant amount of clicking around to realize that there isn't any content behind any of the links.

What do other editors feel the most appropriate way to handle these pages would be? The options I see are:

  1. Leave them in place. It seems unlikely that the content is going to improve; Graeme E. Smith hasn't edited since 2010, and it seems unlikely that anyone would be able to step into their shoes to continue the project. But they aren't causing any overt harm either, just disappointment.
  2. Move the remainder of the portal to User:GreySmith Institute. The portal contains a large number of internal links which will be broken if the portal is moved, but I don't see any practical way to avoid that. It's unlikely to get improved in userspace either, but at least it'll be out of the way.
  3. Consolidate the portal to a minimal number of pages. I actually have some scripts partially written to turn the portal pages into a structured outline. I'm not certain the results will be particularly useful, but at least they'll be a lot more compact than the portal is right now. I've created a sample of the results at User:Omphalographer/sandbox/greysmith.
  4. Delete the portal entirely.

What are your thoughts?

Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 06:03, 26 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I find the use, or more likely misrepresentation, of "GreySmith Institute" to be inappropriate. I would delete the Portal and move any remaining GreySmith content that exists in main space to User:Graeme E. Smith user space. I'm not opposed to moving the portal to the individual's user space instead of deleting it if that's what others would prefer, but I think a mischaracterization of an individual as an entire educational institution isn't appropriate here. Others who have tried something similar during the past 10 years or so were ultimately blocked and deleted. The only reason GreySmith Institute remained was because of its inactive legacy status, and no one else expressing similar concerns. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:30, 26 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
This is too big for me to move/delete, and sufficiently dormant to justify deletion. As a matter of policy I think prod is best, even though the delay is almost certainly unnecessary in this case. @Dave Braunschweig and Omphalographer: I have no objection to deleting whenever you wish.-Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 18:22, 26 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I have no remaining objection to deleting the portal pages. After a bit of digging around, I have found a couple of content pages under that hierarchy, but none of them seem to have any substantial educational value, and I don't think anything of value would be lost by deleting them along with the rest:
As far as I'm aware, every other page under that hierarchy is either a navigation page, a component of one of those navigation pages, or a wrapper page to display a single file (e.g. Portal:GreySmith Institute/IDE Architecture/IDE Architecture Diagram). With this in mind, I'm much less concerned than I initially was about any potential loss of valuable content. Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 21:14, 2 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Your wiki will be in read only soonEdit

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language

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.

All traffic will switch on 1 March. The test will start at 14:00 UTC.

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 Wednesday 1 March 2023.
  • 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.
  • GitLab will be unavailable for about 90 minutes.
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.

Trizek (WMF) (Discuss) 21:21, 27 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]


Reminder: Office hours about updating the Wikimedia Terms of UseEdit

Hello everyone,

This a reminder that the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Department is hosting office hours with community members about updating the Wikimedia Terms of Use.

The office hours will be held on March 2, at 17:00 UTC to 18:30 UTC. See for more details here on Meta.

Another office hours will be held on April 4.

We hereby kindly invite you to participate in the discussion. Please note that this meeting will be held in English language and led by the members of the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Team, who will take and answer your questions. Facilitators from the Movement Strategy and Governance Team will provide the necessary assistance and other meeting-related services.

On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Team,

~~~~ JPBeland-WMF (discuss • contribs) 16:08, 1 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Transcluding Filtered TablesEdit

Hello, everyone. Do you know of a way to get wiki tables to be partially transcluded based on content (just like they are filtered in Google Sheets or Excel)? That would be very useful for projects that cut across each other, e.g., cross-cultural ones. Let me give a simplified example with health resources between countries:

Mental Health Resources Between Countries
Condition Country Where to Get help Health authority information
Flu US Link to US primary health services websites Link to CDC page about Flu
Flu Brazil Link to Brazilian primary health services websites Link to Brazilian Health Ministry page about Flu
Broken leg US Link to US trauma services websites Link to CDC page about bone fractures
Broken leg Brazil Link to Brazilian traums services websites Link to Brazilian Health Ministry page about bone fractures

A unified table is very useful for coparisons and understanding differences between countries, while having it (entirely) used in specific countries' pages would be nonsense. Having it transcluded would solve this problem and would encourage people to update the general table as they update country specific information, and so everybody wins. That's not my exact purpose, but was the first simpler example I could think of.

Thank you for your attention to this!

User:ManaraKM 14:42 (UTC), March 02 2023

@ManaraKM: There should be a way to do this with Wikidata. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:28, 2 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm afraid that Wikidata is unlikely to be any help here. That project is more focused on cataloging structured data about entities, e.g. that New York City (wikidata:Q60) is a city, that it is located in New York, and that has an area of 1,213 km2. It isn't a general-purpose database.
In principle, Extension:Semantic_MediaWiki or Extension:Cargo might be closer to what ManaraKM is looking for, but neither of those extensions is available on WMF wikis (and that isn't likely to change). The best solution here may simply be to restructure the resource in such a way that data doesn't need to be duplicated across pages. Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 20:52, 2 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Omphalographer Have you seen things like Wikidata: Countries and Temperatures or the various pages under Research in programming Wikidata? -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:01, 3 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Sure, but that's pulling from items (countries) and properties (maximum temperatures) that already existed in Wikidata's data model, and which represent facts which are independent of any project. If you're trying to build a table which consists entirely of data which already exists in Wikidata (or which could easily be added by working with existing items and properties), that's no problem, but I don't think that's what ManaraKM is trying to do here. Reusing the same example from above, it's unlikely that Wikidata could be convinced to add subjective, project-specific properties like "where to get help". Omphalographer (discuss • contribs) 02:09, 3 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thank you so much @Dave Braunschweig and @Omphalographer. I'm not sure if Wikidata will solve my specific problem, but I'll give it a try. Your conversation has helped me to get a good sense of what the possible issues could be. All best for you! ManaraKM (discuss • contribs) 15:30, 11 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Relativity live video recordingEdit

I'm thinking of recording videos to accompany the Wikiversity course Special relativity and steps towards general relativity, with the first recording on 10 March 2023. These will not be official brick-and-mortar university lectures, but I'll generally record them on nearly the same day as the brick-and-mortar university lectures, so the content will be fairly similar, with the difference of having a possible online audience rather than a face-to-face audience. There's no point just watching/listening to the videos or live participation - you'll have to spend time doing the exercises if you really want to learn. Special relativity does make sense as long as you develop your intuition properly and have the minimal mathematical background, and take the time to rewire your thinking using both calculations and intuition together. Wikipedia content on the topic is extensive, and the aim is to optimise complementarity of our different WMF knowledge resources - not duplicate them.

Anyone interested in participating live is welcome to add a comment at Talk:Special relativity and steps towards general relativity#Feasibility of videos, including which time slot(s) would be suitable. I'll post the bbb URL there if there's at least one person (apart from me) likely to participate. Boud (discuss • contribs) 17:48, 5 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikimania 2023 Welcoming Program SubmissionsEdit

 

Do you want to host an in-person or virtual session at Wikimania 2023? Maybe a hands-on workshop, a lively discussion, a fun performance, a catchy poster, or a memorable lightning talk? Submissions are open until March 28. The event will have dedicated hybrid blocks, so virtual submissions and pre-recorded content are also welcome. If you have any questions, please join us at an upcoming conversation on March 12 or 19, or reach out by email at wikimania@wikimedia.org or on Telegram. More information on-wiki.

Board of Trustees have ratified the UCoC Enforcement GuidelinesEdit

Hello all, an important update on the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement Guidelines:

The vote on the Enforcement Guidelines in January 2023 showed a majority approval of the Enforcement Guidelines. There were 369 comments received and a detailed summary of the comments will be published shortly. Just over three-thousand (3097) voters voted and 76% approved of the Enforcement Guidelines. You can view the vote statistics on Meta-wiki.

As the support increased, this signifies to the Board that the current version has addressed some of the issues indicated during the last review in 2022. The Board of Trustees voted to ratify the Enforcement Guidelines. The resolution can be found on Foundation wiki and you can read more about the process behind the 2023 Enforcement Guidelines review on Diff.

There are some next steps to take with the important recommendations provided by the Enforcement Guidelines. More details will come soon about timelines. Thank you for your interest and participation.

On behalf of the UCoC Project Team,

JPBeland-WMF (discuss • contribs) 21:09, 24 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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