Wikiversity:Colloquium/archives/September 2021

Desktop design and usability improvements

I just watched the Wikimania talk on the upcoming desktop design and usability improvements (youtube video; mediawiki page). The interface they're working on looks like a good (though slightly conservative) improvement. You can turn it on in tour appearances settings via unticking "Use Legacy Vector". They asked if any additional wikis would be interested in having it activated as the default. What do ppl think about volunteering this wiki for that? I'd be happy to have it as our default (especially for non-logged-in users). T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 06:07, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed this and tried it. Some aspects are certainly an improvement in layout and space utilization. Some other aspects will take a little getting used to. I'd really prefer to see search on the right rather than center-left. If this is definitely the future and our current setting is legacy, I'd be okay with turning this on as the default. Anyone who wants the legacy view can turn it back on. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 03:04, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Request for comment notification

Here is a link to a RFC on Meta concerning all Wikimedia projects. Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{(French native speaker)} 22:55, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wrestling moves?

Can I add some? Im confused about this wiki, sorry.

--64.39.87.169 (discuss) 23:04, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but, it needs to be something different than what can be found at Wikipedia:Wrestling. Start with Wrestling. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 23:57, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey will happen in January

Hello everyone,

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

Summary:

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

Proposing and wish-fulfillment will happen during the same year

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

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

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

Encouraging wider participation from historically excluded communities

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

A new space to talk to us about priorities and wishes not granted yet

We will have gone 365 days without a Wishlist. We encourage you to approach us. We hope to hear from you in the talk page, but we also hope to see you at our bi-monthly Talk to Us meetings! These will be hosted at two different times friendly to time zones around the globe.

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

Brainstorm and draft proposals before the proposal phase

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

Feedback

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

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

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

Disable IP Editing

The Portuguese Wikipedia community decided to turn off IP editing in October 2020. See meta:IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Impact report for Login Required Experiment on Portuguese Wikipedia for details and the results of this experiment.

Is this something the English Wikiversity would like to try? -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:46, 7 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Draft article - suitable for Wikiversity?

Hi - I've been working on a draft article on wikipedia, currently visible at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Libraries_and_sustainability, but have been advised on wikipedia's live chat that it is more suited for wikiversity. Is my draft suitable for wikiversity, and if so, how can it be transferred appropriately? --159.196.100.171 (discuss) 02:04, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome! Imported to Draft:Libraries and sustainability. Please consider creating a user account and logging in. It makes it easier to communicate with you going forward. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:49, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Is there a mechanism like Wikipedia's peer review here by which I can seek feedback on my work before moving it from 'Draft' to the plain Libraries and sustainability? --159.196.100.171 (discuss) 05:18, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What you have already is good enough for main space. If you want it officially published in a WikiJournal, they have a peer review process. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:02, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Results for the 2021 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election

Read in other languages

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

Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight
Victoria Doronina
Dariusz Jemielniak
Lorenzo Losa

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

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

Project idea: massively multilingual simple texts

This follows a discussion on Reddit about translating LingQ stopies into Latin. The object is to help language learners to learn reading with many short, simple texts, with core volcabulary, preferably with translations in their native language; that is, comprehensible input.

It struck me that it would be quite an achievable project for Wikiversity or Wikibooks, perhaps in collaboration with Tatoeba, as they are great with translating lots of content, and could reuse the sentences, if done in such a way as most or all of the sentences stood on their own, or as pairs. --JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 11:47, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@JimKillock: Yes, that would be a good learning project. See Template:Translations for how to add subpages with language translations for a given page. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:26, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Dave Braunschweig: Thanks very much for the template advice. Latin is missing from the template list, do just add it to the list on the Template page? Or is there more that needs to be done? --JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 09:14, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@JimKillock: I think you can just use /la for Latin and the template will work correctly. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:27, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I did edit the template, as la was not listed. I have a test page here: Easy Readers and I have reached out to Tatoeba. I guess someone will need to write some stories or dialogues next! --JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 15:49, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@JimKillock: You might consider starting with something like Wikisource:Portal:Nursery rhymes. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:07, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Dave Braunschweig: Good idea,but it will probably easier to write the dialongues from scratch so the setence pairs can stand alone – that is important for the Tatoeba project. They have done one already! --JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 11:01, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A new Colloquium?

Hi, I'm a new user, and I just want to ask, is it possible to create a new Colloquium? [[User:Twilight222|User:Twilight Sparkle 222]] (discuss • contribs) 13:23, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Twilight Sparkle 222: What is the basis of this question? What is it you want to change? -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:27, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Dave Braunschweig: I just want to make another place where users can ask questions. It will be called "Wikivershelp Center". Is it good enough, and is it possible? [[User:Twilight222|User:Twilight Sparkle 222]] (discuss • contribs) 15:23, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Twilight Sparkle 222: We already have Wikiversity:Help Desk and Wikiversity:Request custodian action for questions. If you'd like to create a redirect from Wikiversity: Help Center to Wikiversity:Help Desk, please feel free to do so. Otherwise, creating one more place for people to monitor questions adds more work for volunteers without adding apparent value. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 16:05, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Dave Braunschweig: I guess you're right. It will be a lot of work, and it's not really necessary. Thank you. And also, what is a redirect? [[User:Twilight222|User:Twilight Sparkle 222]] (discuss • contribs) 10:08, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Twilight Sparkle 222: See mw:Help:Redirects. Also, please correct your signature. It has extra [[ and ]] in it that shouldn't be there. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 13:23, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done! Thank you Dave! Twilight222 (discuss • contribs) 21:31, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Call for Candidates for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee ending 14 September 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will you help move Wikimedia forward in this important role? Submit your candidacy here. Please contact strategy2030 wikimedia.org with questions.

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

Server switch

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.

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

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

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

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

Other effects:

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

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community.

SGrabarczuk (WMF) (discuss) 00:46, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Talk to the Community Tech

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

Hello!

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

Agenda

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

Format

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

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

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

Invitation link

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

See you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (discuss) 03:04, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

French

Can you help me understand and speak French I love it language and one day dream of going to Paris France please help me.

--41.113.137.225 (discuss) 17:11, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See French. You might also check the French Wikiversity. I personally prefer something like Duolingo for language learning, which is also free (but not open). -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:10, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Movement Charter Drafting Committee - Community Elections to take place October 11 - 24

Hello all; I'm including the short version of this full announcement below. Please let me know if you have any questions. Xeno (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 03:05, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is a short message with an update from the Movement Charter process. The call for candidates for the Drafting Committee closed September 14, and we got a diverse range of candidates. The committee will consist of 15 members, and those will be (s)elected via a 3-step process:

Election process for project communities to elect 7 members of the committee.
Selection process for affiliates to select 6 members of the committee.
Wikimedia Foundation process to appoint 2 members of the committee.

The community elections will take place between October 11 and October 24. The other process will take place in parallel, so that all processes will be concluded by November 1.

For the full context of the Movement Charter, its role, as well the process for its creation, please have a look at Meta. You can also contact us at any time on Telegram or via email (wikimedia2030{{{1}}}wikimedia.org).

Submitting Wikipedia articles

I have submitted Edmund I to FAC and it has just passed. I am thinking of submitting it to the WikiJournal of Humanities and I have one question. On a couple of points tnere are comments I was unable to make in the Wikipedia article because I could not cite reliable sources. Is it possible to add personal opionions to Wikipedia articles before submission to the WikiJournal, and if so what is the procedure? Dudley Miles (discuss • contribs) 21:11, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Dudley Miles: That'll likely be fine. The sister journal WikiJSci has had similar submissions which contain original research/opinion sections. The details depend on whether you're thinking of re-integrating that content back into WP:

Some WikiJournal articles have conclusions/perspectives/opinions sections (example) or even large research sections (example) that are omitted from the WP versions: Current short guidelines
Alternatively, an article could have original research and opinion woven throughout. The text would likely not be directly copyable back into Wikipedia, however it should be possible to cite the journal article as a source within a WP page with the usual provisos on self-citation.

T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 02:42, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the advice Thomas. There are three points on which I would like to make comments. They would be integrated but form a very small part of the article. I would propose to manually import changes to the Wikipedia version as a result of reviewer comments back into the Wikipedia article. Dudley Miles (discuss • contribs) 09:39, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]