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Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/November 2020

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VisualEditor default for new users?

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What are out current settings on whether VisualEditor is the default? I've had a few new users tell me that they've often had source editor seem to come up as their default editor unless they specifically change it. Therefore:

  1. Is it possible to make VisualEditor the default interface for new users?
  2. Would people like to activate this?
  3. Are there other useful VE settings options to consider?

T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 11:50, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it depends on the users. People that edit/author learning resources with much workload to create mathematical formulas in LaTeX might prefer source editor in comparison to visual editor. I would recommend, that user answer a checkbox in the registration/login process if they prefer visual or source editor. The link includes a wikiversity link to help page, that shows/explains PROs and CONs of visual and source editor, so that new users can make sound decision about editor default settings.
But my opinion is not representative in the community --Bert Niehaus (discuss • contribs) 12:02, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Visual editing is still a beta feature (Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures). It is not on by default (mw:VisualEditor/Rollouts), and not widely adopted (1,500+ users at present). We have to request that it be enabled. The last time I tried, it only got one vote. People need to engage if we're going to improve the Wikiversity experience. And, if there's any support for this, I also recommend that we enable the mw: UploadWizard. Most file uploads to Wikiversity are deleted due to incomplete or improper licensing. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:09, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely also agree with activating mw: UploadWizard. Uploading files to wikiversity is still pretty clunky, and I've found often trips up users that are used to commons or wikipedia. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 23:17, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a couple of additional new editors struggle with source editing (especially tables, example). Several have expressed frustration at the multiple steps required to find out that visualeditor exists and how to activate it. Is the request process particularly long? Does it need to be done here or over at MW? All wikijournal contributors who weren't already experienced wikipedians that I've spoken to have expressed a preference for visualeditor (especially for pages with tables and references). T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 02:34, 14 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Evolution and evolvability: See the item below on the Discussion Reply Tool. We have to have a discussion and vote. Once there is consensus, we submit a Phabricator ticket. How long it takes for that to be processed depends on who accepts the task and what's involved. Some things can take a week or two. Others have stalled out after months of waiting. Sometimes, we can ping someone and get it picked up again. But for now, we need a discussion and vote before we can initiate the ticket. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:41, 14 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Dave Braunschweig and Bert Niehaus:: What would be the next steps to implement this? I think it's reasonable to say the consensus is to activate VE as the default, with the option for experienced editors to switch to editing source code if they prefer. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 12:24, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Evolution and evolvability: Create a Phabricator request and include a link to this discussion. Then wait. If it takes more than a month, ask them what additional information they need or how we can help the request move forward. Then wait some more. Sometimes it goes very quickly, sometimes not. They're all volunteers, too. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:18, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Dave Braunschweig: Done (link). All welcome to review and edit the request. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 01:51, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
phabricator request marked as implemented and ticket closed as resolved. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 10:20, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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We have a proposal to make the VisualEditor the default editor. We need to determine whether this is for all users or only for all logged-in users. Please discuss and vote. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:41, 14 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(From VE and Source Code Editing) The VE will be good for newbies. The source code editor will be necessary to move on to more specific modification of learning resources e.g. editing of quizzes, mathematical syntax and or specific interactive elements of learning resource in the future. If people are taught to use VE only, they might have difficulties to change to source code editing later, e.g. for mathematical expressions the authors might not be able to edit the syntax because they were never exposed mathematical expression or mathematical syntax in general, that is needed in computer science, chemistry, physics, ... . The VE will reduced possible obstacles for beginners and shift those obstacles to a later phase of advanced authoring, in which the source code editing might be without alternative. It would be of advantage to guide authors from the VE to source code editing or visualize changes within the VE simultaneously in a source code editing window or visualizes source code for cross-checking before saving, ....? --Bert Niehaus (discuss • contribs) 13:48, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Bert Niehaus: Regarding training, My understanding is that we've minimal training material currently. One possibility is specific training material on wikiversity on what can't be done in VE but can be done in source editor. Alternatively, is this information already already on another wiki's help pages that we can simply point to? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 00:52, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe just an additional button/checkbox "Show Wiki Source before publishing" next to "Publish Change" could be one option to increase visibility of source syntax, so that switching to source code editing runs smoothers. May also advanced users may change their workflow, e.g. writing the text and sections with VE and then finally before publishing the authors add the mathematical expressions source code for the learning resource.--Bert Niehaus (discuss • contribs) 10:39, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

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Discussion Reply Tool

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There is a new discussion reply tool. It automatically indents and signs replies. See Wikiversity:Newsletters/VisualEditor#Editing news 2020 #1 – Discussion tools for more information. If we want it enabled on Wikiversity, we need to request it. Please discuss and vote.

Discussion

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  • Technically, that will work, but could I encourage a little more patience, and a little more testing? Maybe try putting that into your own common.js files (or your global.js page at Meta; that's what I did) and seeing whether there are any problems. It's only been used here six times in the last month, and if it wrecks a page with odd formatting, then you really don't want a new contributor to be the one who discovers that. Whatamidoing (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 04:17, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

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Reply tool update

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The team has agreed to add the English Wikiversity to tomorrow's list. The Beta Feature should be available (but turned off for everyone) in ≤24 hours. Once it arrives, each person who wants to try it out will need to go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures and turn on "Discussion Tools".

A few requests:

  • Check out mw:Help:DiscussionTools/Why can't I reply to this comment?, so you'll have quick answers to some common questions.
  • You and Meta-Wiki are the only non-Wikipedia getting this Beta Feature now. Please ping me or leave notes at mw:Talk:Talk_pages_project/replying (which is a Flow board, not the Reply tool) about anything that seems bad/strange/whatever.
  • I don't know when the team will next enable this tool for all users. Maybe there will be an opportunity in a couple of weeks; maybe it will be a month or two. The big deal about enabling it for everyone is that new contributors are less likely to enable Beta Features, so that's the step that really helps your new recruits. If you want to be in that next group, then please try to use it at least 100 comments (all of you together, not just one person) and then talk about whether you want it. A show of community interest can go a long way towards convincing the team that your group is a good one for the next batch.

Happy editing, Whatamidoing (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 21:59, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Beta Feature is available now in Special:Preferences. Whatamidoing (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 16:13, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Whatamidoing (WMF): Excellent, thank you! T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 02:46, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@DannyS712, Hasley, Koavf, Atcovi, علاء, Guy vandegrift, Serial Number 54129, and Bert Niehaus: Pinging to notify, it'd be useful for people to turn it on in order to test and send any feedback in the devs' direction. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 02:51, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've been using mw.loader.load( 'ext.discussionTools.init' ); for a while now, so there isn't really much (anything?) that changes for me when I enable the preference DannyS712 (discuss • contribs) 02:53, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You might get it in additional namespaces. One of the two mw.loader approaches works on a smaller subset of pages than the Beta Feature. Whatamidoing (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 15:56, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Thanks! —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:55, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping... I'm seriously loving this so far! —Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 03:20, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So am I, @Atcovi. A volunteer put together a script that counts who uses it the most. I have used it more than a thousand times. It's just so quick and easy. Also, in the "visual" mode, there's a toolbar that lets you ping people or make links without having to remember how to spell their names (but unforunately, not to add templates, which requires some technical work that won't happen for at least another month). Whatamidoing (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 20:37, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks T.Shafee, already tested. Best --Alaa :)..! 04:08, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

create a page in Hindi ?

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we want to create a copy of https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Maritime_Health_Research_and_Education-NET in Hindi ? समुद्री स्वास्थ्य अनुसंधान और शिक्षा-नेट English page title = Maritime Health Research and Education-NET in Google translate = समुद्री स्वास्थ्य अनुसंधान और शिक्षा-नेट thank you very much

--Saltrabook (discuss • contribs) 19:58, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Saltrabook: This is the English Wikiversity. For Wikiversity in Hindi, please see हिन्दी. You may not create pages with Hindi titles here. The only option available is to use {{Translations}} and a /hi subpage as a direct translation of an English page. Please refer to Maritime Health Research and Education-NET and its various subpages for how to implement this. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 21:53, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki of functions naming contest - Round 2

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Hello. Reminder: Please help to choose the name for the new Wikimedia wiki project - the library of functions. The finalist vote starts today. The finalists for the name are: Wikicode, Wikicodex, Wikifunctions, Wikifusion, Wikilambda, Wikimedia Functions. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at Meta-wiki. Thank you! --Quiddity (WMF)

22:11, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Potential new resource for Wikiversity?

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I have been wikifying (and updating) a resource I created while working as a curriculum developer on international projects for a College system. The resource has been built in my sandbox & can be viewed at this link: Curriculum Planning for Unfamiliar People in Unfamiliar Places. Sooo... 2 questions: is this resource appropriate for Wikiversity? & if so, can you suggest which in category it should be assigned? Many thanks ... Redwidgeon (discuss • contribs) 20:01, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Redwidgeon: This looks good. I would put it in Category:Curriculum. But note that resources can have multiple categories if you think something else would also be appropriate. If you are ready to have this moved to main space, please let me know. Wikiversity curators and custodians can move the entire project at once rather than a page at a time. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 20:45, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Dave Braunschweig: Thanks so much for your quick & supportive feedback. Yes, I think I'm ready to have this moved into main space & would most appreciate having someone else save me the effort of moving page by page. Redwidgeon (discuss • contribs) 02:36, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Redwidgeon: All set. Note that I moved it based on Wikiversity:Naming conventions. Shorter names are preferred, and if you're using Title Case in the resource and subpages, we use Title Case for the main page. I also added categories and corrected the main page links to use subpages. See Curriculum Planning. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 03:20, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, thanks again @Dave Braunschweig:! It looks great. This was a very satisfying learning experience for me. ---- Redwidgeon (discuss • contribs) 04:42, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cite Q

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Template:Cite Q has been heavily re-written (and vastly improved) at en.Wikipedia - please reimport it from there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:41, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Y Done -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 16:59, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Certificate

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Please provide a course certificate to expand the wikiversity participation. --

The Wikimedia Foundation has explicitly stated that Wikiversity is not allowed to confer credentials. Instead, you should consider some type of third-party testing to validate your learning experience. In the US, options include CLEP tests for college credit and a wide variety of industry certifications to demonstrate content mastery. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:25, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Call for insights on ways to better communicate the work of the movement

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Hello. Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language. Please help translate to your language. A translatable version of this message is available on Meta. Thank you!

Call for insights on ways to better communicate the work of the movement

The Movement Strategy recommendations published this year made clear the importance of establishing stronger communications within our movement. To this end, the Foundation wants to gather insights from communities on ways we all might more consistently communicate about our collective work, and better highlight community contributions from across the movement. Over the coming months, we will be running focus groups and online discussions to collect these insights. Visit the page on Meta-Wiki to sign up for a focus group or participate in the discussion.

ELappen (WMF) (talk) 18:56, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Content width of new Vector skin interfering with text alignment?

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Has anyone tried out the newer Vector skin, part of MediaWiki's MediaWiki's Desktop Improvements project? Somehow, the change in content width may be interfering the text alignment, especially of templates. The "WikiJournal of Medicine/Working with Bipolar Disorder During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Both Crisis and Opportunity" has list of authors and abstract colliding each other vertically. I test it with both Chrome 87 (stable) and IE11. Does anyone else see the text mixing each other up? Is there an explanation for this? George Ho (discuss • contribs) 21:55, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Community Wishlist Survey 2021

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The 2021 Community Wishlist Survey is now open! This survey is the process where communities decide what the Community Tech team should work on over the next year. We encourage everyone to submit proposals until the deadline on 30 November, or comment on other proposals to help make them better. The communities will vote on the proposals between 8 December and 21 December.

The Community Tech team is focused on tools for experienced Wikimedia editors. You can write proposals in any language, and we will translate them for you. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing your proposals!

SGrabarczuk (WMF) 05:52, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@SGrabarczuk (WMF): I don't think there's a lot of appetite from our community in participating this year's wishlist. The current voting system is rigged towards largest projects who can mobilize the most people when proposals are accepted based on number of net votes. (yes, I would see last year's modified scheme a continuation of the systemic discrimination towards the smaller projects and highlight the existing problems of WMF's treatment towards some of its sister projects). OhanaUnitedTalk page 04:03, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Participation

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I am recently retired after 40 yrs in industry as a Metallurgist, process engineer, and Honeywell certified Six Sigma BlackBelt. Have been a user and supporter of Wikipedia for 20 yrs?, since I discovered you. I am interested in opportunities to help. Haupt.gary@yahoo.com --2600:1014:B100:F5F0:0:3:958:8201 (discuss) 16:54, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome Gary! Please start by creating a user account and/or logging in. Then look around and see what interests you. We have plenty of cleanup and maintenance opportunities, a lot of random content that could be updated, or you could share wisdom by creating a new learning project based on your expertise. Something else Wikiversity needs is a review of our Help:Guides from the perspective of a new user. You might also check Wikiversity:Statistics to see what interests other users and where your efforts would have the greatest impact. Let us know whenever you have any questions. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:36, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidata descriptions changes to be included more often in Recent Changes and Watchlist

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Sorry for sending this message in English. Translations are available on this page. Feel free to translate it in more languages!

As you may know, you can include changes coming from Wikidata in your Watchlist and Recent Changes (in your preferences). Until now, this feature didn’t always include changes made on Wikidata descriptions due to the way Wikidata tracks the data used in a given article.

Starting on December 3rd, the Watchlist and Recent Changes will include changes on the descriptions of Wikidata Items that are used in the pages that you watch. This will only include descriptions in the language of your wiki to make sure that you’re only seeing changes that are relevant to your wiki.

This improvement was requested by many users from different projects. We hope that it can help you monitor the changes on Wikidata descriptions that affect your wiki and participate in the effort of improving the data quality on Wikidata for all Wikimedia wikis and beyond.

Note: if you didn’t use the Wikidata watchlist integration feature for a long time, feel free to give it another chance! The feature has been improved since the beginning and the content it displays is more precise and useful than at the beginning of the feature in 2015.

If you encounter any issue or want to provide feedback, feel free to use this Phabricator ticket. Thanks!

Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:39, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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