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Wikidata weekly summary #515
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Discussions
Open request for adminship:
Stang (RfP scheduled to end after 14 April 2022 12:18 UTC)
The next Wikidata+Wikibase office hours will take place on Wednesday, April 20th 2022 at 17:00 UTC (18:00 Berlin time) in the
Wikidata Telegram group. The Wikidata and Wikibase office hours are online events where the development team presents what they have been working on over the past quarter, and the community is welcome to ask questions and discuss important issues related to the development of Wikidata and Wikibase.
April 22nd - 24th, from
Wiki Mentor Africa, A three days workshop on Linking biodiversity data through wikidata using Webaps and jupyter notebooks to attend,
register here
May 5th:
Wikidata Bug Triage Hour, open discussion. Come with your favorite Phabricator task and we will improve its description together.
DigAMus goes Wikidata workshop: make digital projects in museums visible and findable. April 29, 3-5 p.m. TIB Open Science Lab.
Register here.
Live Coding - PyORCIDAtor, integrating ORCID with Wikidata -
YouTube
How to add location coordinates to Wikidata Items (in Dagbani) -
YouTube
Bundestag + Wikidata = Open Parliament TV (in German) -
YouTube
Tool of the week
Glitter another R package to write SPARQL queries and query Wikidata and other SPARQL endpoints. This package provides a domain specific language to write queries directly from R.
Conzept is a topic-exploration tool based on Wikidata and other information sources.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
The
Wikidata MOOC (online course) has been developed by Wikimedia France, involving several French-speaking Wikidata editors. The first version of the course will start on April 26 (in French only -
registration here)
Wikibase cloud update (April): the closed beta of Wikibase.cloud is planned to start in mid-April. If you want to apply for closed beta access, please register with
this form.
Lexicographical data: Continued work on the new Special:NewLexeme page. We worked on displaying error messages and inferring the spelling variant from the language. We also looked into the non-JavaScript version of the page.
REST API: Worked on conditional requests (do not return data the client already has) and authorization.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
There is a new public status page at www.wikimediastatus.net. This site shows five automated high-level metrics where you can see the overall health and performance of our wikis' technical environment. It also contains manually-written updates for widespread incidents, which are written as quickly as the engineers are able to do so while also fixing the actual problem. The site is separated from our production infrastructure and hosted by an external service, so that it can be accessed even if the wikis are briefly unavailable. You can
read more about this project.
On Wiktionary wikis, the software to play videos and audio files on pages has now changed. The old player has been removed. Some audio players will become wider after this change.
The new player has been a beta feature for over four years.
[1][2]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 April. It will be on all wikis from 14 April (
calendar).
India report: Wikimedian-in-Residence program initiated at the Research Institute of World's Ancient Traditions, Cultures and Heritage in Arunachal Pradesh
Italy report: The growth of sharing on Wikimedia projects
Netherlands report: Letters from Sierra Leone: the Sjoerd Hofstra photo collection in a new light
New Zealand report: Forming Wikimedia Aotearoa and the Aotearoa New Zealand Theses Project
Serbia report: News in Wikipedian in residence projects
Astrid Lindgren was a Swedish writer of fiction and screenplays who is best known for several series of children's books. Pictured is Lindgren around 1960.
The next Wikidata+Wikibase office hours will take place on Wednesday, April 20th 2022 at 17:00 UTC (18:00 Berlin time) in the
Wikidata Telegram group. The Wikidata and Wikibase office hours are online events where the development team presents what they have been working on over the past quarter, and the community is welcome to ask questions and discuss important issues related to the development of Wikidata and Wikibase.
LD4 Wikibase Working Hour: Learn about Wikibase system exploration, data model development, and the road ahead for Digital Scriptorium. When: Thurs. 21 April 2022, 3PM Eastern US (
time zone converter). Where:
Registration Link
WeDigBio Transcription workflow "...blogpost...showing how I go from finding the name of a collector when transcribing labels to adding them to Wikidata & then linking them to their collections via Bionomia."
Bird O'Clock! is a tool based on Wikidata and other data sources that shows pictures and numbers from actual people counting actual birds in the actual world!
Tiago's Coin Herbarium is a coin collection depicting different plant information displayed via Wikidata SPARQL queries.
Lexicographical data: Worked on inferring the spelling variant from the language's Item on the new Special:NewLexeme page and started building a little help box on the special page to explain what lex. data is.
REST API: Getting closer to having a first version of the REST API that returns Item data.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 April. It will be on all wikis from 21 April (
calendar).
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 19 April at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis) and on 21 April at 7:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
On
selected wikis, 50% of logged-in users will see the new
table of contents. When scrolling up and down the page, the table of contents will stay in the same place on the screen. This is part of the
Desktop Improvements project.
[3]
Message boxes produced by MediaWiki code will no longer have these CSS classes: successbox, errorbox, warningbox. The styles for those classes and messagebox will be removed from MediaWiki core. This only affects wikis that use these classes in wikitext, or change their appearance within site-wide CSS. Please review any local usage and definitions for these classes you may have. This was previously announced in the
28 February issue of Tech News.
The
next Wikibase live session is 15:00 UTC on Thursday 28th April 2022 (17:00 Berlin time). What are you working on around Wikibase? You're welcome to come and share your project with the community.
Cultural Venues Datathon: April 25 - May 2, 2022. The aim of this online editing event is to increase the quantity and quality of performing arts building/venue items.
Daily guided editing sessions will be facilitated
in English and
in French between April 25 and April 29.
Wikidata Coffee Breaks From April 25 - April 29, 2022 to fill in missing information on Swiss Performing Arts Institutions and venues.
From May 4 to 18 there will be the
International Museum Day - Wikidata competition. The aim is to improve data about museums in the countries and regions participating. Contributors from anywhere can take part.
The Wikimedia Hackathon will take place online on May 20–22, 2022. If you’re interested in presenting something around Wikidata and Wikibase during the hackathon, don’t wait too long to book a slot:
Wikimedia Hackathon 2022/Schedule#The Wikidata and Wikibase Room.
Lexicographical data: Worked on showing the name of language variants in the language variant selector and added the new information box to help people get a better understanding of lex. data.
REST API: Finished the initial implementation of the endpoint for getting data for a full Item and discussed feedback, testing and roll-out plans.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
On
many wikis (group 1), the software to play videos and audio files on pages has now changed. The old player has been removed. Some audio players will become wider after this change.
The new player has been a beta feature for over four years.
[8][9]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 April. It will be on all wikis from 28 April (
calendar).
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 26 April at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
Some very old browsers and operating systems are no longer supported. Some things on the wikis might look weird or not work in very old browsers like Internet Explorer 9 or 10, Android 4, or Firefox 38 or older.
[10]
A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dinner.
Wikidata Bug Triage Hour on May 5th at 16:00 UTC, online. Open discussion - you can bring a Phabricator ticket that you care about or that needs to be improved.
May 3rd. Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call: The call will include presentations on two projects using Wikidata to enhance discoverability of archival and museum collections. Sharon Garewal (JSTOR) will present “Adding Wikidata QIDs to JSTOR Images,” and Daniela Rovida and Jennifer Brcka (University of Notre Dame) will present “‘Archives At’: An opportunity to leverage MARC to create Linked Open Data.”
[11]
Workshop "Wikidata, Zotero and Cita": tools to understand the construction of knowledge (in Spanish) -
YouTube
Georeferencing cultural heritage on Wikidata -
YouTube
Theory of Machine Learning on Open Data: The Wikidata Case by Goran S. Milovanovic -
YouTube
Introduction to SPARQL (Wikidata Query Service (in Czech) -
YouTube
Wikidata: A Knowledge Graph for the Earth Sciences -
YouTube
Tool of the week
User:Nikki/LowercaseLabels.js - is a userscript that adds a button when editing labels to change the text to lowercase.
EqualStreetNames - is a tool that maps the inequality of name attributions.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
OpenRefine is running its
two-yearly user survey! Do you use OpenRefine? Then
fill in the survey to tell us how and why you use OpenRefine. Results and outcomes will inform future decisions about the tool.
The
April update for the Wikidata Query Service scaling project is now available.
Lexicographical data: We are finishing up the information box that should help new users understand quickly what lexicographical data is. We also added the help text to encourage people to check if the Lexeme already exists before creating one.
REST API: We started working on the REST routes to get all statements of an Item and retrieve a single statement from an Item.
The
New topic tool helps editors create new ==Sections== on discussion pages. New editors are more successful with this new tool. You can
read the report. Soon, the Editing team will offer this to all editors at the 20 Wikipedias that participated in the test. You will be able to turn it off at
Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
On
all remaining wikis (group 2), the software to play videos and audio files on pages has now changed. The old player has been removed. Some audio players will become wider after this change.
The new player has been a beta feature for over four years.
[12][13]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 May. It will be on all wikis from 5 May (
calendar).
Future changes
The developers are working on talk pages in the
Wikipedia app for iOS. You can
give feedback. You can take the survey in English, German, Hebrew or Chinese.
Several CSS IDs related to MediaWiki interface messages will be removed. Technical editors should please
review the list of IDs and links to their existing uses. These include #mw-anon-edit-warning, #mw-undelete-revision and 3 others.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Last week, there was a problem with Wikidata's search autocomplete. This has now been fixed.
[18]
Last week, all wikis had slow access or no access for 20 minutes, for logged-in users and non-cached pages. This was caused by a problem with a database change.
[19]
The
Vector (2022) skin will be set as the default on several more wikis, including Arabic and Catalan Wikipedias. Logged-in users will be able to switch back to the old Vector (2010). See the
latest update about Vector (2022).
Future meetings
The next
open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place on 17 May. The following meetings are currently planned for: 7 June, 21 June, 5 July, 19 July.
The Wikimedia Hackathon will take place online on May 20–22, 2022. If you’re interested in presenting something around Wikidata and Wikibase during the hackathon, don’t wait too long to book a slot:
Wikimedia Hackathon 2022/Schedule.
MapComplete is an OpenStreetMap viewer and editor that searches Wikidata for species - which means that it is super-easy to link the Wikidata item to a tree one sees!
REST API: We are continuing to implement the REST routes to get all statements of an Item and retrieve a single statement from an Item (
phab:T305988,
phab:T307087,
phab:T307088)
Lexicographical data: We are finishing the version of the page for browsers without JavaScript support (
phab:T298160). We started working on the feature to pre-fill the input fields by URL parameter (
phab:T298154). And we started working on better suggestions for lexical categories so commonly-used ones can more easily be added to avoid mistakes (
phab:T298150).
We fixed an issue with recently added new language codes not being usable for Lexemes and not being sorted correctly on Special:NewItem (
phab:T277836).
Following an
RfC, a change has been made to the
administrators inactivity policy. Under the new policy, if an administrator has not made at least 100 edits over a period of 5 years they may be desysopped for inactivity.
A public status system for WMF wikis has been created. It is located at
https://www.wikimediastatus.net/ and is hosted separately to WMF wikis so in the case of an outage it will remain viewable.
Arbitration
Remedy 2 of the St Christopher case has been rescinded following a
motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to place a ban on single-purpose accounts who were disruptively editing on the article
St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine or related pages from those pages.
Sweden report: Training at the National Archives of Sweden; Training at the Stockholm City Museum; Training at the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology; Improved images from Swedish Performing Arts Agency
The Wikimedia Hackathon will take place online on May 20–22, 2022. Are you interested in presenting something around Wikidata and Wikibase during the hackathon? Book a slot in the Wikidata+Wikibase room:
Wikimedia Hackathon 2022/Schedule.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call May 17, 2022: Anson Parker and Lucy Carr-Jones (University of Virigina Claude Moore Health Sciences Library) will be talking about their Open Data Dashboard for analyzing University of Virginia Health publications using EuropePMC publication data as well as work to group publications based on institutional departments in Wikidata and how much of their content is "open."
Agenda
LIVE Wikidata editing #80 -
YouTube,
Facebook, May 21 at 18:00 UTC
REST API: We continued implementing the REST routes to get all statements of an Item and retrieve a single statement from an Item (
phab:T305988,
phab:T307087,
phab:T307088)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
The
Wikimedia Hackathon 2022 will take place online on May 20–22. It will be in English. There are also local
hackathon meetups in Germany, Ghana, Greece, India, Nigeria and the United States. Technically interested Wikimedians can work on software projects and learn new skills. You can also host a session or post a project you want to work on.
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 May. It will be on all wikis from 19 May (
calendar).
Future changes
You can soon edit translatable pages in the visual editor. Translatable pages exist on for examples Meta and Commons.
[22]
At the time of the last newsletter (No.26, September 2021), the backlog was 'only' just over 6,000 articles. In the past six months, the backlog has reached nearly 16,000, a staggering level not seen in several years. A very small number of users had been doing the vast majority of the reviews. Due to "burn-out", we have recently lost most of this effort. Furthermore, several reviewers have been stripped of the user right for abuse of privilege and the articles they patrolled were put back in the queue.
Several discussions on the state of the process have taken place on the
talk page, but there has been no action to make any changes. The project also lacks coordination since the "position" is vacant.
In the last 30 days, only
100 reviewers have made more than 8 patrols and only 50 have averaged one review a day. There are currently
809 New Page Reviewers, but about a third have not had any activity in the past month. All 856 administrators have this permission, but only about a dozen significantly contribute to NPP.
This means we have an active pool of about 450 to address the backlog. We cannot rely on a few to do most of the work as that inevitably leads to burnout. A fairly experienced reviewer can usually do a review in a few minutes. If every active reviewer would patrol just one article per day, the backlog would very quickly disappear.
If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, do suggest they help the effort by placing {{subst:NPR invite}} on their talk page.
If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself
here. Sent 05:18, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Wikidata weekly summary #521
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
6 and 8 June:
Scholia hackathon with focus on software-related visualizations and curation workflows
29 July 2022: The submission deadline for
the Wikidata Workshop 2022 that will be co-located with the 21st International Conference on Semantic Web (ISWC 2022).
Interrogating linked open data and Wikidata with SPARQL Lorenzo Losa -
YouTube
Tool of the week
LOD4Culture is a web application for exploring world-wide cultural heritage.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
UNLOCK, a Wikimedia Deutschland program, is looking for your project ideas. These could be the development of tools building on top of Wikidata's data, of applications for social and public good or related to civic tech. Apply until May 29th, 2022!
Wikibase REST API: Initial implementation of a route providing all statements of an item (
phab:T305988), an a route to retrieve a single statement (
phab:T307087) completed.
First batch of
WBstack.com accounts successfully migrated to
Wikibase.cloud. You can keep track of our progress on this phabricator ticket
phab:T303852.
Lexicographical data: We updated the input placeholders on the new version of the NewLexeme special page (
T302877,
T307443). We finished the feature to prefill the inputs from URL parameters if present (
T298154) and to suggest common lexical category items (
T298150). We are working on some accessibility improvements (
T303806,
T290733,
T305359) and improving validation / error messages (
T305854).
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access Special:Block directly from user pages.
[23]
The Growth team maintains a mentorship program for newcomers. Previously, newcomers weren't able to opt out from the program. Starting May 19, 2022, newcomers are able to fully opt out from Growth mentorship, in case they do not wish to have any mentor at all.
[25]
Some editors cannot access the content translation tool if they load it by clicking from the contributions menu. This problem is being worked on. It should still work properly if accessed directly via Special:ContentTranslation.
[26]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 May. It will be on all wikis from 26 May (
calendar).
Future changes
Gadget and user scripts developers are invited to give feedback on a
proposed technical policy aiming to improve support from MediaWiki developers.
[27]
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call May 31, 2022: Felicia Smith, Nicole Coleman, and Akosua Kissi on the Know Systemic Racism Project
Agenda
Want to know more about Abstract Wikipedia & Wikifunctions? You can now
subscribe to the weekly newsletter and get a friendly reminder every time a new issue is published!
Radioactivity map: Mind map about radioactive radiation built by importing from Wikidata with InfoRapid KnowledgeBase Builder
Wikibase REST API: Expanding statement reading routes (a single statement specified by ID (
phab:T307087), all statements of an item (
phab:T305988), a single statement for a specific item (
phab:T307088))
Fetch revision metadata and entity data separately in all use cases (
phab:T307915,
decision)
Update installation instructions in WikibaseLexeme.git readme file (
phab:T306008)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
In the
AbuseFilter extension, an ip_in_ranges() function has been introduced to check if an IP is in any of the ranges. Wikis are advised to combine multiple ip_in_range() expressions joined by | into a single expression for better performance. You can use the search function on
Special:AbuseFilter to locate its usage.
[28]
The
IP Info feature which helps abuse fighters access information about IPs,
has been deployed to all wikis as a beta feature. This comes after weeks of beta testing on test.wikipedia.org.
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 June. It will be on all wikis from 2 June (
calendar).
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 31 May at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
The
New Topic Tool will be deployed for all editors at most wikis soon. You will be able to opt out from within the tool and in
Preferences.
[29][30]
The
list=usercontribs API will support fetching contributions from an
IP range soon. API users can set the uciprange parameter to get contributions from any IP range within
the limit.
[31]
A new parser function will be introduced: {{=}}. It will replace existing templates named "=". It will insert an
equal sign. This can be used to escape the equal sign in the parameter values of templates.
[32]
Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access
Special:Block directly from user pages. (
T307341)
The
IP Info feature has been
deployed to all wikis as a Beta Feature. Any autoconfirmed user may enable the feature using the "IP info" checkbox under Preferences →
Beta features. Autoconfirmed users will be able to access basic information about an IP address that includes the country and connection method. Those with advanced privileges (admin, bureaucrat, checkuser) will have access to extra information that includes the Internet Service Provider and more specific location.
Squash is a racket and ball sport played by two or four players in a four-walled court with a small, hollow rubber ball. The players alternate in striking the ball with their rackets onto the playable surfaces of the four walls of the court. The objective of the game is to hit the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 June. It will be on all wikis from 9 June (
calendar).
Lexicographical data: We finished work on input validation and displaying errors for faulty input (
phab:T305854) and are continuing work on accessibility improvements such as screen reader support and keyboard navigation (
phab:T290733,
phab:T30535).
REST API: We finished implementation of conditional statement requests (
phab:T307031,
phab:T307032) and published the
OpenAPI specification document (still subject to change as the API develops). We started working on the write part of the API with adding statements to an Item (
phab:T306667).
Kosovo report: Cooperation with the National Gallery of Kosova and Summer of Wikivoyage 2022
Malaysia report: WikiGap Malaysia 2022 @ Kuala Lumpur Library
New Zealand report: Pacific Arts Aotearoa Wikiproject, Auckland Museum's Exploratory Study and Report back on #1Lib1Ref
Poland report: Wikipedian in residence in the National Museum in Cracow; Training at the Wawel Royal Castle National Art Collection; How can we make GLAM’s digital resources more reusable in education?; The International Museum Day 2022 Wikidata Competition
Sweden report: Rembrandt and others – drawings from the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm; Stockholm Museum of Women’s History; The map book of Heinrich Thome; Sörmland Museum; Wikidata competition – International Museum Day 2022
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call June 14, 2022: Will Kent (Wikidata Program Manager at Wiki Education) and Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight (Wikimedia Foundation Trustee; Visiting Scholar at Northeastern University; co-founder of Wiki Women in Red) will present on Leveraging Wikidata for Wikipedia – running a multi-language wiki project and the role of Wikidata in improving Wikipedia's content gender gap.
Agenda
ExtraInterwiki. Some language links will never show up in your favorite Wikipedia, those who don’t have a corresponding article in this Wikipedia. This new tool aims to give them more visibility by searching topics closed to the one on an article with no article on your wiki.
Fixed a bug where Item IDs where shown instead of the label after selecting an Item in an Item selector (
phab:T306214)
Lexicographical data: finished accessibility improvement for the new Special:New Lexeme page (
phab:T290733), improving error messages for the new page (
phab:T310134) and worked on a new search profile to make selecting languages easier (
phab:T307869)
REST API: continued work on creating statements (
phab:T306667)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 June. It will be on all wikis from 16 June (
calendar).
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 14 June at 06:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
[36]
Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "
Add a link" (Abkhazian Wikipedia, Achinese Wikipedia, Adyghe Wikipedia, Afrikaans Wikipedia, Akan Wikipedia, Alemannisch Wikipedia, Amharic Wikipedia, Aragonese Wikipedia, Old English Wikipedia, Syriac Wikipedia, Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, Asturian Wikipedia, Atikamekw Wikipedia, Avaric Wikipedia, Aymara Wikipedia, Azerbaijani Wikipedia, South Azerbaijani Wikipedia). This is part of the
progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can
configure how this feature works locally.
[37]
The
New Topic Tool will be deployed for all editors at Commons, Wikidata, and some other wikis soon. You will be able to opt out from within the tool and in
Preferences.
[38][39]
Future meetings
The next
open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place today (13 June). The following meetings will take place on: 28 June, 12 July, 26 July.
Future changes
By the end of July, the
Vector 2022 skin should be ready to become the default across all wikis. Discussions on how to adjust it to the communities' needs will begin in the next weeks. It will always be possible to revert to the previous version on an individual basis.
Learn more.
Next installment of the LD4 Wikibase Working Hour: Featuring speaker Barbara Fischer, Liaison Counsel at the German National Library’s Agency for Standardization (DNB). On behalf of the DNB, Fischer initiated the WikiLibrary Manifesto. Fischer works to increase the quality of metadata through Authority Control to foster retrieval and linked data. Where: Zoom (
Registration link). When: 30 June 2022, 11AM-12PM Eastern US (
Time zone converter)
Wikidata:Wiki Mentor Africa 3rd edition - Creating tools on Wikimedia Toolforge using Python and Flask. Friday 24th June and Sunday 26th June 2022 - 16:00 - 17:00 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
The
Wikipedia App for Android now has an option for editing the whole page at once, located in the overflow menu (three-dots menu ).
[40]
Some recent database changes may affect queries using the
Quarry tool. Queries for site_stats at English Wikipedia, Commons, and Wikidata will need to be updated.
Read more.
A new user_global_editcount variable can be used in
abuse filters to avoid affecting globally active users.
[41]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 June. It will be on all wikis from 23 June (
calendar).
Users of non-responsive skins (e.g. MonoBook or Vector) on mobile devices may notice a slight change in the default zoom level. This is intended to optimize zooming and ensure all interface elements are present on the page (for example the table of contents on Vector 2022). In the unlikely event this causes any problems with how you use the site, we'd love to understand better, please ping Jon (WMF) to any on-wiki conversations.
[42]
Parsoid's HTML output will soon stop annotating file links with different typeof attribute values, and instead use mw:File for all types. Tool authors should adjust any code that expects: mw:Image, mw:Audio, or mw:Video.
[43]
At the time of the last newsletter (No.27, May 2022), the backlog was approaching 16,000, having shot up rapidly from 6,000 over the prior two months. The attention the newsletter brought to the backlog sparked a flurry of activity. There was new
discussion on process improvements, efforts to invite new editors to participate in NPP increased and more editors requested the NPP user right so they could help, and most importantly, the number of reviews picked up and the backlog decreased, dipping below 14,000[a] at the end of May.
Since then, the news has not been so good. The backlog is basically flat, hovering around 14,200. I wish I could report the number of reviews done and the number of new articles added to the queue. But the available statistics we have are woefully inadequate. The only real number we have is the net queue size.[b]
In the last 30 days,
the top 100 reviewers have all made more than 16 patrols (up from 8 last month), and about 70 have averaged one review a day (up from 50 last month).
While there are more people doing more reviews, many of the ~730 with the NPP right are doing little. Most of the reviews are being done by the top 50 or 100 reviewers. They need your help. We appreciate every review done, but please aim to do one a day (on average, or 30 a month).
Backlog drive
A backlog reduction drive, coordinated by
buidhe and
Zippybonzo, will be held from July 1 to July 31. Sign up
here. Barnstars will be awarded.
TIP – New school articles
Many new articles on schools are being created by new users in developing and/or non-English-speaking countries. The authors are probably not even aware of Wikipedia's projects and policy pages.
WP:WPSCH/AG has some excellent advice and resources specifically written for these users. Reviewers could consider providing such first-time article creators with a link to it while also mentioning that not all schools pass the GNG and that elementary schools are almost certainly not notable.
Misc
There is a new template available, {{
NPP backlog}}, to show the current backlog. You can place it on your user or talk page as a reminder:
Very high
unreviewed pages backlog: 11301 articles, as of 00:00, 20 June 2024 (UTC), according to
DatBot
There has been significant discussion at
WP:VPP recently on NPP-related matters (Draftification, Deletion, Notability, Verifiability, Burden). Proposals that would somewhat ease the burden on NPP aren't gaining much traction, although there are suggestions that the role of NPP be fundamentally changed to focus only on major CSD-type issues.
If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, suggest they help the effort by placing {{subst:NPR invite}} on their talk page.
If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself
here.
The
next Wikibase live session is 15:00 UTC on Thursday 30th June 2022 (17:00 Berlin time). What are you working on around Wikibase? You're welcome to come and share your project with the community.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call June 28, 2022: Andrew McAllister will introduce us to Scribe, an app that provides keyboards for second-language learners, and its use of Wikidata. This presentation should appeal to anyone who has worked on or is interested in learning more about the applications of lexicographical data in Wikidata as well as anyone who has an interest in language, open information, data and programming.
Agenda
IsisCB Explore - is a research tool for the history of science whose books and subjects use imagery from Wikidata.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
Template
Item documentation now includes a query to the corresponding lexemes. This is an attempt to make navigation between lexemes and items easier. For the record,
Item documentation is available in the header of the talk page for each item.
Lexicographical data: We are wrapping up the coding on the new Special:NewLexeme page. Testing and rolll-out will follow soon. We are still working on making it easier to find languages in the language selector on the Special:NewLexeme page. (
phab:T307869)
REST API: We are continuing to code on the ability to create statements on an Item (
phab:T306667)
Investigating an issue with labels not being shown after merges (
phab:T309445)
Preparation for upcoming work: We are planning the next work on the Mismatch Finder to address feedback we have received so far as well as EntitySchemas to make them more integrated with other areas of Wikidata.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 June. It will be on all wikis from 30 June (
calendar).
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 28 June at 06:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
[44]
Some global and cross-wiki services will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 30 June at 06:00 UTC. This will impact ContentTranslation, Echo, StructuredDiscussions, Growth experiments and a few more services.
[45]
Users will be able to sort columns within sortable tables in the mobile skin.
[46]
Future meetings
The next
open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place tomorrow (28 June). The following meetings will take place on 12 July and 26 July.
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Discussions
New requests for permissions/Bot:
ListedBuildingsUKBot. Task/s: Add wikidata site links to appropriate wiki commons category pages for listed buildings with matching ID numbers. I've identified about 1000 entities that can be updated. e.g.
[47] should have a wiki commons link to
[48] since they both refer to
[49].
Job openings in the software development team at Wikimedia Deutschland
Junior Product Manager Wikidata - "In this role you will be part of a cross-functional team, and be the product manager of product initiatives for Wikidata, the largest knowledge base of free and open data in the world."
Product Manager Wikibase Suite - In this role "you will be part of an interdisciplinary team and the product team, and work closely with a broad variety of stakeholders in the Wikibase Ecosystem."
We are continuing to work on the new search profile for languages to make setting the language of a new Lexeme easier (
phab:T307869)
REST API: We are putting finishing touches on the first version of the API route to add statements to an Item. It is still lacking support for automated edit summaries.
We are working on word-level diffs to make it easier to see what changed in an edit (
phab:T303317)
We are investigating the issue of labels not being shown after some merges (
phab:T309445)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 July. It will be on all wikis from 7 July (
calendar).
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 5 July at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis) and on 7 July at 7:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
This change only affects pages in the main namespace in Wikisource. The Javascript config variable proofreadpage_source_href will be removed from mw.config and be replaced with the variable prpSourceIndexPage.
[50]
The New Pages Patrol queue has around 10,000 articles to be reviewed. As all administrators have the patrol right, please consider helping out. The queue is
here. For further information on the state of the project, see the latest
NPP newsletter.
Italy report: Opening and closing projects in June
Kosovo report: Edit-a-thon with Kino Lumbardhi; DokuTech; CEE Spring 2022 in Albania and Kosovo
New Zealand report: West Coast Wikipedian at Large and Auckland Museum updates
Poland report: Wikipedian in residence in the National Museum in Cracow; The next online meeting within the cycle of monthly editing GLAM meetings; Steps to communicate GLAM partnerships better and involve the Wikimedian community
Sweden report: 100 000 memories from the Nordic Museum; Report from the Swedish National Archives
USA report: Fifty Women Sculptors; Juneteenth Edit-a-thon; Juneteenth Photobooths 2022; Wiknic June 2022; New York Botanical Garden June 2022; LGBT Pride Month
The next Wikidata+Wikibase office hours will take place on Wednesday, July 27th 2022 at 17:00 UTC (18:00 Berlin time) in the
Wikidata Telegram group. The Wikidata and Wikibase office hours are online events where the development team presents what they have been working on over the past quarter, and the community is welcome to ask questions and discuss important issues related to the development of Wikidata and Wikibase.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call July 12, 2022: Houcemeddine Turki will speak on "Enriching and Validating Wikidata from Large Bibliographic Databases." This call will be part of the 2022 LD4 Conference on Linked Data, “Linking Global Knowledge.” While you can attend the call directly via the links below without registering for the conference, we encourage everyone to check out the full conference program and all the excellent sessions on
Sched at
Agenda
Due to summer vacations and our current workloads the response times from the Wikidata communications team (Léa and Mohammed) to requests and queries may be delayed. We will resume full capacity by October.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
In the
Vector 2022 skin, the page title is now displayed above the tabs such as Discussion, Read, Edit, View history, or More.
Learn more.
[51]
The Anti-Harassment Tools team
recently deployed the IP Info Feature as a
Beta Feature at all wikis. This feature allows abuse fighters to access information about IP addresses. Please check our update on
how to find and use the tool. Please share your feedback using a link you will be given within the tool itself.
Changes later this week
There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 12 July at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
The Jazz Age was a period in the 1920s and 1930s in which
jazz music and dance styles rapidly gained nationwide popularity in the United States. Pictured above are four patrons and a
flapper in 1921 awaiting the opening of the
Krazy Kat Klub, a
speakeasy.
The next Wikidata+Wikibase office hours will take place on Wednesday, July 27th 2022 at 17:00 UTC (18:00 Berlin time) in the
Wikidata Telegram group. The Wikidata and Wikibase office hours are online events where the development team presents what they have been working on over the past quarter, and the community is welcome to ask questions and discuss important issues related to the development of Wikidata and Wikibase.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
Wikidata Working Hour July 18, 2022: Working with diverse children's book metadata. The second Wikidata Working Hour in the series will cover reconciliation in OpenRefine, so we can identify which authors from our spreadsheet of children's book metadata already exist and/or need to be created in Wikidata. You are, as always, welcome to bring your own data to work on.
Event page
Placing a scientific article on Wikidata (in Portuguese) -
YouTube
Teaching Wikidata Editing Practices (in Chinese) -
YouTube
Threads
OpenSexism has created the
Wednesday Index: each wednesday, it show gender diversity in Wikipedia articles. Gender diversity is computed using a SPARQL query.
Fixed an issue where the grammatical form of a Lexeme was rendered as `[object Object]` (
phab:T239208) This also solves similar issues in other places.
REST API: Continued working on the API route to replace or remove a statement of an Item
We are making Wikibase resolve redirects when showing Item labels and descriptions in a lot more places; notably, this includes the wbsearchentities API. (
phab:T312223)
Mismatch Finder: We are discussing options for how to improve its handling of dates, specifically calendar model and precision.
EntitySchemas: We are trying to figure out how to best technically go about implementing some of the most-needed features for version 2.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Problems
The feature on mobile web for
Nearby Pages was missing last week. It will be fixed this week.
[53]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 July. It will be on all wikis from 21 July (
calendar).
BboberBot. Task/s: The "robot" will browse the latest VIAF Dump, select the lines with a Idref (P269) and a Qitem, and add a P269 when it doesn't already exist in Wikidata.
ADSBot English Paper. Task/s: Importing scholarly articles from ADS database to Wikidata, by creating Wikidata Item of a scholarly article (optionally author items) and adding statements and statements-related properties to the item. Part of Outreachy Round 24.
ADSBot English Statement. Task/s: Adding missing statements and statement-related properties to existing scholarly articles on Wikidata from the ADS database. Part of Outreachy Round 24.
The next Wikidata+Wikibase office hours will take place on Wednesday, July 27th 2022 at 17:00 UTC (18:00 Berlin time) in the
Wikidata Telegram group. The Wikidata and Wikibase office hours are online events where the development team presents what they have been working on over the past quarter, and the community is welcome to ask questions and discuss important issues related to the development of Wikidata and Wikibase.
[Small wiki toolkits] [Upcoming bots & scripts workshop. "How to maintain bots" is coming up on
Friday, July 29th, 16:00 UTC
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call July 26, 2022: Clair Kronk, Crystal Clements, and Alex Jung will be providing an update to Wikidata/gender discussions from the February 8 call with a focus on pronouns. Clair will introduce us to LGBTdb, a Wikibase instance created for and by LGBTQIA+ people from which we draw insight in Wikidata-related discussions. We also hope to discuss current pain points and share action items for future collaboration. Input from community members who are familiar with lexicographical data would be greatly appreciated.
Agenda
Teaching Wikidata Editing Practices II (in Chinese) -
YouTube
Tool of the week
User:Magnus Manske/referee.js - is a userscript that automatically checks external IDs and URLs of a Wikidata item as potential references, and adds them with a single click.
Lexicographical data: We went over all the feedback we received for teh testing of the new Special:NewLexeme page and started addressing it and fixing the uncovered issues. One issue already fixed is a bug that prevented it from working on mobile view. (
phab:T313116)
Mismatch Finder: investigated how we can make it work for mismatches in qualifiers instead of the main statement (
phab:T313467)
REST API: Continued working on making it possible to replace and remove a statement of an Item
We enabled the profile parameter to the wbsearchentities API on Test Wikidata (
phab:T307869)
We continued making Wikibase resolve redirects when showing Item labels and descriptions in more places (
phab:T312223)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Last week, some wikis were in read-only mode for a few minutes because of an emergency switch of their main database (
targeted wikis).
[55]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 July. It will be on all wikis from 28 July (
calendar).
The external link icon will change slightly in the skins Vector legacy and Vector 2022. The new icon uses simpler shapes to be more recognizable on low-fidelity screens.
[56]
Administrators will now see buttons on user pages for "Change block" and "Unblock user" instead of just "Block user" if the user is already blocked.
[57]
Wikidata Birthday is taking place in October 2022, and together we are celebrating 10 amazing years of Wikidata with decentralized community events! Discover more
Wikidata:Tenth Birthday -- organize an event and
get funding
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 August. It will be on all wikis from 4 August (
calendar).
This week, three meetings about
Vector (2022) with live interpretation will take place. On Tuesday, interpretation in Russian will be provided. On Thursday, meetings for Arabic and Spanish speakers will take place.
See how to join.
An RfC has been closed with consensus to add javascript that will show edit notices for editors editing via a mobile device. This only works for users using a mobile browser, so iOS app editors will still not be able to see edit notices.
An RfC has been closed with the consensus that train stations are not inherently notable.
Administrators will now see links on user pages for "Change block" and "Unblock user" instead of just "Block user" if the user is already blocked. (
T308570)
Arbitration
The arbitration case request Geschichte has been automatically closed after a 3 month suspension of the case.
Miscellaneous
You can vote for candidates in the
2022 Board of Trustees elections from 16 August to 30 August. Two community elected seats are up for election.
Wikimania 2022 is taking place virtually from 11 August to 14 August. The schedule for wikimania is listed
here. There are also a number of
in-person events associated with Wikimania around the world.
Tech tip: When revision-deleting on desktop, hold ⇧ Shift between clicking two checkboxes to select every box in that range.
After the last newsletter (No.28, June 2022), the backlog declined another 1,000 to 13,000 in the last week of June. Then the July backlog drive began, during which 9,900 articles were reviewed and the backlog fell by 4,500 to just under 8,500 (these numbers illustrate how many new articles regularly flow into the queue). Thanks go to the coordinators
Buidhe and
Zippybonzo, as well as all the nearly 100 participants. Congratulations to
Dr vulpes who led with 880 points. See
this page for further details.
Unfortunately, most of the decline happened in the first half of the month, and the backlog has already risen to 9,600. Understandably, it seems many backlog drive participants are taking a break from reviewing and unfortunately, we are not even keeping up with the inflow let alone driving it lower. We need the other 600 reviewers to do more! Please try to do at least one a day.
Coordination
MB and
Novem Linguae have taken on some of the coordination tasks. Please let them know if you are interested in helping out.
MPGuy2824 will be handling recognition, and will be retroactively awarding the annual barnstars that have not been issued for a few years.
Open letter to the WMF
The Page Curation software needs urgent attention. There are dozens of bug fixes and enhancements that are stalled (listed at
Suggested improvements). We have written a letter to be sent to the WMF and we encourage as many patrollers as possible to sign it
here. We are also in negotiation with the Board of Trustees to press for assistance. Better software will make the active reviewers we have more productive.
TIP - Reviewing by subject
Reviewers who prefer to patrol new pages by their most familiar subjects can do so from the regularly updated
sorted topic list.
New reviewers
The
NPP School is being underused. The learning curve for NPP is quite steep, but a detailed and easy-to-read
tutorial exists, and the Curation Tool's many features are fully described and illustrated on the updated page
here.
If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, suggest they help the effort by placing {{subst:NPR invite}} on their talk page.
If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself
here.
Wikimania 2022, August 11 to 14, online event. The
Hackathon will take place August
12-14. On
this page you can find a summary of sessions and community gatherings related to Wikidata and Wikibase.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call August 9, 2022: Pieter Vander Vennet on MapComplete, a thematic OpenStreetMap viewer and editor which uses species, language, and image data from Wikidata.
Agenda.
The Wikimania Hackathon starts next Friday, August 16-22! There are still
lots of spots in the schedule to add your Wikidata related sessions or project ideas (anyone can present a session)
Toolhub is a catalog of 1500+ tools used every day in a wide variety of workflows across many Wiki projects. We are currently improving the search functionality and need your input – whether you are already familiar with Toolhub or not. Please take 5-10 minutes to leave
feedback.
First online meet-up fully organized by volunteers of the Indonesian Wikidata Community has been held on 30th July where we edited items on Indonesian ethnic groups.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 9 August at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis) and on 11 August at 7:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group Wikidata Working Hour August 15, 2022: Fourth session of our summer/fall project working with diverse children's book metadata. We'll be covering manually creating publisher items: showing how to create items, add statements to items, add references, and use gadgets. You are, as always, welcome to bring your own data to work on. All sessions in our project series will be recorded for those who cannot attend. Links will be added to the event page when available.
Event page
Ongoing:
Toolhub is a catalog of 1500+ tools used every day in a wide variety of workflows across many Wiki projects. We are currently improving the search functionality and need your input – whether you are already familiar with Toolhub or not. Please take 5-10 minutes to leave
feedback.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
The Persian (Farsi) Wikipedia community decided to block IP editing from October 2021 to April 2022. The Wikimedia Foundation's Product Analytics team tracked the impact of this change.
An impact report is now available.
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 August. It will be on all wikis from 18 August (
calendar).
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 16 August at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis) and on 18 August at 7:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
For those who may have missed it in our last newsletter, here's a quick reminder to see
the letter we have drafted, and if you support it, do please go ahead and sign it. If you already signed, thanks. Also, if you haven't noticed, the backlog has been trending up lately; all reviews are greatly appreciated.
To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself
here.
Kyushu, literally "Nine
Provinces", is the third-largest island of Japan's
five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding
Okinawa).
List of created Wikidata items - a tool which combines Xtools pages created API with Wikidata API to get the list of items created by a user with their label.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
Two problems with
Kartographer maps have been fixed. Maps are no longer shown as empty when a geoline was created via VisualEditor. Geolines consisting of points with QIDs (e.g., subway lines) are no longer shown with pushpins.
[62][63]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 August. It will be on all wikis from 25 August (
calendar).
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 25 August at 7:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
The colours of links and visited links will change. This is to make the difference between links and other text more clear.
[64]
The latest round of Outreachy internships wrapped up on 26 August. Two interns worked on improving author-name data; their bots have made over 340,000 edits. Their
project description, documentation, blog posts and code are available.
The
August 2022 summary for the Wikidata Query Service backend update is out!
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
In recent months, there have been inaccurate numbers shown for various
Special:Statistics at Commons, Wikidata, and English Wikipedia. This has now been fixed.
[66]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 August. It will be on all wikis from 1 September (
calendar).
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 30 August at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis) and on 1 September at 7:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
Future changes
The Wikimedia Foundation wants to improve how Wikimedia communities report harmful incidents by building the
Private Incident Reporting System (PIRS) to make it easy and safe for users to make reports. You can leave comments on the talk page, by answering the
questions provided. If you have ever faced a harmful situation that you wanted to report/reported, join a PIRS interview to share your experience. To sign up
please emailMadalina Ana.
The new [subscribe] button
notifies people when someone replies to their comments. It helps newcomers get answers to their questions. People reply sooner. You can
read the report. The Editing team is turning this tool on for everyone. You will be able to turn it off
in your preferences.
A discussion is open to define a process by which Vector 2022 can be made the default for all users.
An RfC is open to gain consensus on whether
Fox News is
reliable for science and politics.
Technical news
The impact report on the effects of disabling IP editing on the Persian (Farsi) Wikipedia has been released.
The WMF is looking into making a
Private Incident Reporting System (PIRS) system to improve the reporting of harmful incidents through easier and safer reporting. You can leave comments on the talk page by answering the
questions provided. Users who have faced harmful situations are also invited to join a PIRS interview to share the experience. To sign up
please emailMadalina Ana.
Arbitration
An arbitration case regarding
Conduct in deletion-related editing has been closed. The Arbitration Committee
passed a remedy as part of the final decision to create a request for comment (RfC) on how to handle mass nominations at Articles for Deletion (AfD).
The arbitration case request Jonathunder has been automatically closed after a 6 month suspension of the case.
Miscellaneous
The new pages patrol (NPP) team has prepared an appeal to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) for assistance with addressing Page Curation bugs and requested features. You are encouraged to read the
open letter before it is sent, and if you support it, consider signing it. It is not a discussion, just a signature will suffice.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call September 6, 2022: Dominic Byrd-McDevitt will talk about the Digital Public Library's Wikimedia program, an effort to provide national leadership around access and discoverability of digital collections by leveraging Wikipedia and its sister projects. 2 years ago, DPLA launched a digital asset pipeline to enable participating institutions in the DPLA network to share their collections with Wikimedia Commons. DPLA is continuing to innovate by taking advantage of Wikidata entities and Structured Data on Commons to continually synchronize data and improve discoverability. We'll discuss issues around large datasets, aggregation, reconciliation, and other challenges DPLA has faced.
Agenda
We are continuing to work on the PATCH endpoint to make it possible to edit existing statements (
phab:T306934)
We started the security review process for one of the libraries we are using. Until that is finished this part of the REST API can unfortunately not be tested on beta Wikidata. (
phab:T316523)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 September. It will be on all wikis from 8 September (
calendar).
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 6 September at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis) and on 8 September at 7:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
On Special pages that only have one tab, the tab-bar's row will be hidden in the Vector-2022 skin to save space. The row will still show if Gadgets use it. Gadgets that currently append directly to the CSS id of #p-namespaces should be updated to use the mw.util.addPortletLink function instead. Gadgets that style this id should consider also targeting #p-associated-pages, the new id for this row.
Examples are available.
[67][68]
Quercus geminata, commonly called sand live oak, is an evergreen oak tree native to the coastal regions of the subtropical
southeasternUnited States, along the
Atlantic Coast from southern Florida northward to southeastern Virginia and along the
Gulf Coast westward to southern Mississippi, on seacoast
dunes and on white sands in evergreen oak scrubs.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group Wikidata Working Hour September 12, 2022: Sixth session of our summer/fall project working with diverse children's book metadata. We'll be creating items for books (works and editions) in Wikidata. You are, as always, welcome to bring your own data to work on. All sessions in our project series will be recorded for those who cannot attend. Links will be added to the event page when available.
Wikidata Working Hour Event page
REST API: Continued work on the endpoint for changing a statement (
phab:T306934)
Lexicographical data: Made sure that the new Lexeme creation page also is shown in older browsers (
phab:T311157), which was one of the last remaining issues before we can switch out the existing page (
phab:T307866)
Continued work on enabling sitelinks for redirects under certain conditions (
phab:T278962)
Spend a few days with people from Wikimedia Indonesia to discuss
our partnership
Poland report: The summary of GLAM editing contest and the end of residency at the National Museum in Cracow; Cooperation with Wawel Royal Castle; Hack(art)hon for Zachęta
Serbia report: Contemporary Art Edit-a-thon and Wikipedian in residence at the Historical Archive of Negotin
Sweden report: 100 000 Bildminnen; Uniforms, images from New Sweden, colonial officers, the map book of Fryderyk Getkant, and more!; Swedish general election 2022
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
The search servers have been upgraded to a new major version. If you notice any issues with searching, please report them on
Phabricator.
[69]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 September. It will be on all wikis from 15 September (
calendar).
Dual script support for Punjabi Wikidata labels and descriptions in Gurmukhi (pa) and Shahmukhi (pnb), taking a conservative approach (only making "obvious" transliterations).
Addition of labels and descriptions entirely consistent of information which can be inferred from other language labels (again, only for "obvious" cases).
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call September 20, 2022: Michael Jones (National Library of Wales) on his work using machine learning, Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF), and Wikidata with historical newspaper collections.
Agenda
The Climate Knowledge Hunt Hackathon: IPCC reports → Wikidata event on September 24.
Registration
Finished the endpoint for editing statements (
phab:T306934)
Working on automated edit summaries (
phab:T312811)
Making small modifications to the response format for statements (
phab:T317866)
Lexicographical data:
Special:NewLexemeAlpha now uses the new search profile for languages, which makes it easier to select a language Item for the language of the new Lexeme (
phab:T312853)
Finished the work on making sure that the example Lexeme falls back to other locally defined examples for languages other than English instead of the pre-set example Lexeme (
phab:T313599)
Working on making sure that only *-x-Q123, not *-x-q123, can be used as a Lexeme language code (
phab:T317863)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
Two database fields in the templatelinks table are now being dropped: tl_namespace and tl_title. Any queries that rely on these fields need to be changed to use the new normalization field called tl_target_id. See T299417 for more information. This is part of
normalization of links tables.
[71][72]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 September. It will be on all wikis from 22 September (
calendar).
In
Kartographer maps, you can use icons on markers for common points of interest. On Tuesday, the
previous icon set will be updated to
version maki 7.2. That means, around 100 new icons will be available. Additionally, all existing icons were updated for clarity and to make them work better in international contexts.
[73][74]
Future changes
In a
group discussion at Wikimania, more than 30 people talked about how to make content partnership software in the Wikimedia movement more sustainable. What kind of support is acceptable for volunteer developers? Read the summary and
leave your feedback.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group Wikidata Working Hour September 30, 2022: the seventh Wikidata Working Hour in the series will be a review session of creating contributor and publisher items in Wikidata. The primary goal of this session is to generate as many contributor and publisher items as we can in advance of the two following sessions which have to do with batch editing -- we want enough to make a good batch! We will review how to add items, but then reserve the bulk of the session for open editing, kind of like a mini-editathon! Naturally, participants can ask questions and share thoughts at any point during the editing! You are, as always, welcome to bring your own data to work on. All sessions in the project series will be recorded. Links will be added when available.
Event page
User:Bovlb/notability.js is a userscript that adds a small notability indicator to the top right of an item showing how well the item satisfies the three notability criteria. Left to right, the three columns indicate sitelinks, identifiers and references, and structural need.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
Parsoid clients should be updated to allow for space-separated multi-values in the rel attribute of links. Further details are in
T315209.
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 September. It will be on all wikis from 29 September (
calendar).
Visual diffs will become available to all users, except at the Wiktionaries and Wikipedias.
[75]
Talk pages on the mobile site will change at the Arabic, Bangla, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Korean, and Vietnamese Wikipedias. They should be easier to use and provide more information.
[76][77]
In the
Module namespace, pages ending with .json will be treated as JSON, just like they already are in the User and MediaWiki namespaces.
[78]
Following an RfC, consensus has been found that, in the context of politics and science, the reliability of
FoxNews.com is unclear and that additional considerations apply to its use.
The
Articles for creation helper script now automatically recognises administrator accounts which means your name does not need to be listed at
WP:AFCP to help out. If you wish to help out at AFC, enable AFCH by navigating to Preferences →
Gadgets and checking the "Yet Another AfC Helper Script" box.
Arbitration
Remedy 8.1 of the Muhammad images case will be rescinded 1 November following a
motion.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
Kartographer maps can now show geopoints from Wikidata, via QID or SPARQL query. Previously, this was only possible for geoshapes and geolines.
[79][80]
The
Coolest Tool Award 2022 is looking for nominations. You can recommend tools until 12 October.
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 October. It will be on all wikis from 6 October (
calendar).
Talk pages on the mobile site will change at the Arabic, Bangla, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Korean, and Vietnamese Wikipedias. They should be easier to use and provide more information. (Last week's release was delayed)
[81][82]
The scribunto-console API module will require a
CSRF token. This module is documented as internal and use of it is not supported.
[5]
The Vector 2022 skin will become the default across the smallest Wikimedia projects.
Learn more.
October 4, 2022: Lana Soglasnova and Roman Tashlitskyy will talk about their preliminary work in creating and editing items for Slavic people and some of the complications involved in this work, especially around transliterating names in various languages.
Agenda
Wikibase Working Hour! 25 October 2022, 2pm Eastern (
Time zone converter) Amy Ruskin of Northeastern University Library, will speak on the topic of Wikidata vs. custom Wikibases: Community history case studies, Boston’s Chinatown. The Boston Research Center (BRC) is a digital community history and archives lab based in the Northeastern University Library. One of our current projects involves taking an inventory of historical materials related to Boston’s Chinatown, and we have been using Wikibase to store multilingual data about the linked collections, organizations, and people. In this presentation, we will discuss our experience of getting started with a custom Wikibase and give an overview of our progress so far on the Chinatown Collections project. Amy Ruskin is the Data Engineer in the Digital Scholarship Group in the Northeastern University Library. She has a Master's degree in Information Studies from McGill University and a background in computer science and statistics.
Registration link
Wikidata Office Hour GLAM-Hack − online meet-up about the "library world" with Wikidata. October 5th, 12.00 UTC (online via Zoom)
Ongoing
Wikimedia Österreich, in cooperation with Wikimedia Deutschland, started the
DACH Culture Contest as a Börthday present for Wikidata 10th anniversary! It features two categories: "libraries in Austria, Germany and Switzerland" and "Culture in Austria, Germany and Switzerland". So if you would like to improve data about libraries, books, music, art, video games, cinema etc as a börthday treat, join us and get the chance to win some nice prizes! The contest will last until October 16, 2022.
The
fourth edition of the Coolest Tool Award is looking for nominations. Please submit your favorite tools by October 12, 2022. The awarded projects will be announced and showcased in a virtual ceremony in December.
Australia report: Behind the scenes with Australia's Wiki Loves Earth 2022 winner
Austria report: A Börthday present for Wikidata - the DACH Culture Contest
Brazil report: Reopening of Museu Paulista and other news
France report: Meeting with Prime minister cultural adviser; Residence at the Brittany Museum
India report: Digitisation of O Bharat, a bilingual biweekly published in Goa from 1912 to 1949
Indonesia report: GLAM Socialization; Wikistories for GLAM Competition
Italy report: September month of results and planning
Netherlands report: Wiki Loves Monuments Suriname first edition: 554 photos
New Zealand report: New Zealand Thesis Project and Te Papa Forget-me-nots
Poland report: The results of GLAM editing contest; GLAM Coordinators Meeting
Serbia report: External projects, great results and high level of independence
Sweden report: Bookfair back on site; Cultural history in High Schools; More identifiers from National Historical Museums of Sweden on Wikidata; Swedish general election 2022
USA report: Advocacy and Invention; New Smithsonian WiR; Called to Create; DC Statehood and Home Rule; Annual meeting; Wikipedian in Residence Opportunity at the Pérez Art Museum Miami
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 October. It will be on all wikis from 13 October (
calendar).
On some wikis,
Kartographer maps in full size view will be able to display nearby articles. After a feedback period, more wikis will follow.
[83][84]
Wikidata Tenth Birthday Speaker Series Week 1 (n part one we learn how Wikidata is (or is not) integrated into Wikipedia, how it helps an enormous cultural institution like the Smithsonian achieve its goals)
The fourth edition of the
Coolest Tool Award is looking for nominations. Please submit your favorite tools by October 12, 2022. The awarded projects will be announced and showcased in a virtual ceremony in December.
MUL language code: fixed the order of languages shown in the termbox on desktop, especially when mul is used (
phab:T311617)
Lexicographical data:
Made Special:NewLexemeAlpha use the same font as the rest of the wiki (
phab:T313166) – this should be the last blocker for replacing the old special page
Disallowed *-x-qid with lowercase Q as Lexeme language codes in favor of *-x-Qid (
phab:T317863)
REST API: worked on handling conditional HTTP request headers
Changed the unexpectedUnconnectedPage page prop so that Special:UnconnectedPages can show the latest pages first, which should finally resolve this old security task in production (
phab:T300770)
Cleaned up the Wikibase and WikibaseLexeme ontology files (
phab:T314360)
Added a few more globes for geocoordinates (
phab:T314611) - Thanks, Mike!
Task/s: I'm using Openrefine to edit items related to
Wikidata:Wikiproject_Lieder, beginning by adding the new subclass
lyrico-musical work (Q114586269) to the actual lieder in WD. I hope to gain some experience before going with further edits.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call October 18th: session where community members can share their favorite Wikidata gadgets, user scripts, or SPARQL queries
Agenda
Learn Wikidata and celebrate #WikidataBirthday in Sydney! (An introduction to wikidata: how worlds of wikimedia link). Saturday 22 October from 11am to 2pm.
Sign up.
The Welsh Government's new mapping platform Data Map Wales (for publishing public geo data) now has an
optional base layer entirely in Welsh. This is largely based on OSM data with additional place names from Wikidata.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
A bug that caused problems in loading article thumbnails in Special:Search has been fixed. Further details are in
T320406.
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 October. It will be on all wikis from 20 October (
calendar).
The next
Wikidata+Wikibase office hours will take place on Wednesday, November 9th 2022 at 17:00 UTC (18:00 Berlin time) in the
Wikidata Telegram group. The Wikidata and Wikibase office hours are online events where the development team presents what they have been working on over the past quarter, and the community is welcome to ask questions and discuss important issues related to the development of Wikidata and Wikibase.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group Wikidata Working Hour October 24, 2022: ninth Wikidata Working Hour in the series will be batch loading data using QuickStatements to create items for works and editions in Wikidata. You are, as always, welcome to bring your own data to work on. All sessions in our project series will be recorded for those who cannot attend. Links will be added to the event page when available.
Event page
The Biodiversity Information Standards annual conference (
TDWG 2022) took place from 17-21 October in Sofia, Bulgaria, and online. It included a
session about the role of the Wikimedia ecosystem in linking biodiversity data, which featured
six talks, all of which with strong Wikidata components. Slides and/ or video recordings are already available for some (more to follow):
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
There have been some minor visual fixes in Special:Search, regarding audio player alignment and image placeholder height. Further details are in
T319230.
On Wikipedias, a new
preference has been added to hide article thumbnails in Special:Search. Full details are in
T320337.
Problems
Last week, three wikis (French Wikipedia, Japanese Wikipedia, Russian Wikipedia) had read-only access for 25 minutes. This was caused by a hardware problem.
[89]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 October. It will be on all wikis from 27 October (
calendar).
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 25 October at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis) and on 27 October at 7:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "
Add a link" (Assamese Wikipedia, Bashkir Wikipedia, Balinese Wikipedia, Bavarian Wikipedia, Samogitian Wikipedia, Bikol Central Wikipedia, Belarusian Wikipedia, Belarusian (Taraškievica) Wikipedia, Bulgarian Wikipedia, Bhojpuri Wikipedia, Bislama Wikipedia, Banjar Wikipedia, Bambara Wikipedia, Bishnupriya Wikipedia, Breton Wikipedia, Bosnian Wikipedia, Buginese Wikipedia, Buryat Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia). This is part of the
progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can
configure how this feature works locally.
[90]
Pages with titles that start with a lower-case letter according to Unicode 11 will be renamed or deleted. There is a list of affected pages at
m:Unicode 11 case map migration. More information can be found at
T292552.
The Vector 2022 skin will become the default across the smallest Wikipedias.
Learn more.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call November 1, 2022: Egon Willighagen (
d:User:Egonw) on SARS-CoV-2 queries, a a well-documented series of Wikidata queries around the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the pandemic. This work contributes to
d:Wikidata:Wikiproject COVID-19 and documentation is currently available in Japanese, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Agenda.
Some additional materials have been made available from the
Wikimedia session at the Biodiversity Information Standards annual conference (
TDWG 2022) that took place from 17-21 October in Sofia, Bulgaria, and online:
sparklis (
source) : query builder in natural language that allows people to explore and query SPARQL endpoints with all the power of SPARQL and without any knowledge of SPARQL, nor of the endpoint vocabulary.
✨ Other Noteworthy Stuff
Word Finder is a tool based on Wikidata Lexemes that solves anagrams and find missing letters in crosswords.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
When using keyboard navigation on a
Kartographer map, the focus will become more visible.
[95]
In Special:RecentChanges, you can now hide the log entries for new user creations with the filter for "⧼rcfilters-filter-newuserlogactions-label⧽".
[96]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 November. It will be on all wikis from 3 November (
calendar).
The
maps dialog in VisualEditor now has some help texts.
[97]
It is now possible to select the language of a
Kartographer map in VisualEditor via a dropdown menu.
[98]
It is now possible to add a caption to a
Kartographer map in VisualEditor.
[99]
It is now possible to hide the frame of a
Kartographer map in VisualEditor.
[100]
An
RfC is open to discuss having open
requests for adminship automatically placed on hold after the seven-day period has elapsed, pending closure or other action by a
bureaucrat.
Tech tip: Wikimarkup in a block summary is parsed in the notice that the blockee sees. You can use templates with custom options to specify situations like {{
rangeblock|create=yes}} or {{
uw-ublock|contains profanity}}.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group Wikidata Working Hour November 7, 2022: tenth and final Wikidata Working Hour in the series will be using SPARQL to query and visualize the data we’ve added to Wikidata during our series. You are, as always, welcome to bring your own data to work on. All sessions in our project series will be recorded for those who cannot attend. Links will be added to the event page when available.
Event page
Wikidata and Wikibase office hour, taking place online on November 9th at 17:00 UTC (
more details here)
Raising an Artist Profile with Wikidata: Thursday November 10, 2022 at 20:00 UTC (Session A) and 23:00 UTC (Session B). This free, step-by-step Wikidata workshop will focus mainly on Indigenous artists. Participants may choose to attend either Session A or Session B: both will cover the exact same material.
Wikidata editathon in Swedish with focus on climate politics and COP27, online and in Stockholm, 11 November 13.00-18.00 UTC
A Hands-On Introduction to Wikidata: Thursday December 1, 2022 at 17:00 UTC. By the end of this session, you will be able to edit Wikidata records about the cultural venues that matter most to you.
Lexicographical data: Replaced the old Special:NewLexeme page with the new one (
phab:T307866) - a few remaining issues will still be fixed
Vue 3: Almost finished the Vue 3 migration in Wikibase and WikibaseLexeme (
phab:T321595 and (
phab:T304534) - this is needed for finalizing the migration in MediaWiki overall
Mismatch Finder: Worked on improving the handling of dates (
phab:T288511)
Search: Working with the WMF on making the new Vue-based Vector search understand Wikidata (
phab:T316093)), especially regarding “load more” behavior
REST API:
Continued improving error reporting for PATCH routes (
phab:T320358)
Ensuring that the API correctly marks bot edits as bot edits and treats them as such in various other places
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
An updated version of the
Event Registration tool is now available for testing at
testwiki and
test2wiki. The tool provides features for event organizers and participants. Your feedback is welcome at our
project talkpage. More information about
the project is available.
[101]
Problems
Twice last week, for about 45 minutes, some files and thumbnails failed to load and uploads failed, mostly for logged-in users. The cause is being investigated and an incident report will be available soon.
Poland report: Wiki Loves Monuments 2022 selection process in progress; GLAM online meeting on evaluation of ten editions Wiki Loves Monuments in Poland
Serbia report: GLAMorous October; Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade; CEE Meeting
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call November 15, 2022: We will be discussing the first Wikidata Affinity Group Working Hour series, which ran from July to early November of this year. We will offer visualizations based on our data, listen to some of our volunteers talk about their experience helping to build the series, and discuss the results of our participant survey. We want to hear your questions and suggestions for future series!
Agenda
Enrichissement des données sur la danse: Wednesday 16 November at 6:30 pm UTC (Session A) and Thursday 17 November at 6:30 pm UTC (Session B). Join the Regroupement québécois de la danse (RQD) and the Linked Digital Future Initiative (LDFI) for two dynamic sessions focusing on dance data. Session A will focus on artists, while Session B will focus on organizations and dance companies. Note: These sessions are offered in French only.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
At Wikidata, an interwiki link can now point to a redirect page if certain conditions are met. This new feature is called
sitelinks to redirects. It is needed when one wiki uses one page to cover multiple concepts but another wiki uses more pages to cover the same concepts. Your
feedback on the talkpage of the new proposed guideline is welcome.
[102]
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 November. It will be on all wikis from 17 November (
calendar).
There will be a new link to directly "Edit template data" on Template pages.
[104]
Future changes
Wikis where mobile
DiscussionTools are enabled (
these ones) will soon use full CSS styling to display any templates that are placed at the top of talk pages. To adapt these “talk page boxes” for narrow mobile devices you can use media queries, such as in
this example.
[105]
Wiki <3 Data - How to use Wikidata for data visualization. Join us on Monday 28 Nov. from 13:15 - 17:00 at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland or online! - Hosted by Visual Communication Design programme at Aalto Arts, workshop by Yamen Bousrih.
Next
Wikidata Bug Triage Hour about Entity Schemas and other topics, on December 6th at 17:00 on Jitsi
Template:Quickquery can be used to quickly write and link SPARQL queries on the Wikidata wiki
Development
REST API: continuing work on adjusting JSON request and response format (
phab:T321459)
Lexicographical data:
Added separation between identifiers and other statements on Lexemes (
phab:T318310)
Fixed the case where language fallback indicators where shown on Special:NewLexeme when they should not be (
phab:T322687)
Adjusted the help link for the spelling variant input field (
phab:T315161)
Mismatch Finder:
Finished work on better handling of dates (
phab:T288511)
Finished work on allowing mismatches with empty Wikidata values to make it possible to use the Mismatch Finder also for suggesting missing data (
phab:T313468)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
The display of non-free media in the search bar and for article thumbnails in Special:Search has been deactivated. Further details are in
T320661.
Changes later this week
There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 22 November at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis) and on 24 November at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
Save the date! The next WikidataCon will take place on October 28-29, 2023, and will be organized by Wikimedia Taiwan and Wikimedia Germany. The hybrid event will be streamed from Taipei and accessible for everyone online. More information and updates on
d:Wikidata:WikidataCon_2023
Next
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call November 29, 2022: We will be discussing openly managed data gathering and management with Holly Little (Smithsonian), Sabine von Mering (Museum für Naturkunde), Erica Krimmel (Florida State University), and Debra Paul (University of Illinois)!
Agenda
A Hands-On Introduction to Wikidata: Thursday December 1, 2022 at 17:00 UTC. By the end of this session, you will be able to edit Wikidata records about the cultural venues that matter most to you.
Finished the adjusted statement data structure (
phab:T321459)
Simplifying the structure of sitelinks in Item data (
phab:T321483)
Simplifying the value format for entity ID, time and globecoordinate value types (
phab:T322734)
Investigating the way forward for rate limiting (
phab:T322746)
Ontology issues: Preparing a survey for re-users of Wikidata's data about the
different types of ontology issues and which ones are causing the most issues for application builders
Mismatch Finder:
Finishing the work on making it possible to provide mismatches with an empty Wikidata value so the tool can also be used to suggest new data (
phab:T313468)
Finishing the work on better handling of calendar models and precision for dates (
phab:T288511)
Lexicographical data: Fixing bugs:
Improved the markers that indicate the field is required input (
phab:T322683)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
A new preference, “Enable limited width mode”, has been added to the
Vector 2022 skin. The preference is also available as a toggle on every page if your monitor is 1600 pixels or wider. It allows for increasing the width of the page for logged-out and logged-in users.
[106]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 November. It will be on all wikis from 1 December (
calendar).
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 29 November at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis) and on 1 December at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
Mathematical formulas shown in SVG image format will no longer have PNG fall-backs for browsers that don't support them. This is part of work to modernise the generation system. Showing only PNG versions was the default option until in February 2018.
[107][108][109]
An RfC on the banners for the December 2022 fundraising campaign has been closed.
Technical news
A new preference named "Enable limited width mode" has been added to the
Vector 2022 skin. The preference is also shown as a toggle on every page if your monitor is 1600 pixels or wider. When disabled it removes the whitespace added by Vector 2022 on the left and right of the page content. Disabling this preference has the same effect as enabling the
wide-vector-2022 gadget. (
T319449)
Arbitration
Eligible users are invited to
vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 12, 2022 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen
here.
The arbitration case Stephen has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 1 December 2022.
A
motion has modified the procedures for contacting an admin facing
Level 2 desysop.
Miscellaneous
Tech tip: A single IPv6 connection usually has access to a "subnet" of 18 quintillion IPs. Add /64 to the end of an IP in
Special:Contributions to see all of a subnet's edits, and
consider blocking the whole subnet rather than an IP that may change within a minute.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group Working Hour on December 5. We will be working on Structured Data on Commons with a WINTER FUN theme, adding depicts statements to images and playing with some tools. You are, as always, welcome to bring your own data to work on. This will be our last scheduled Working Hour for 2022. Please join us for a relaxing and enjoyable session to wrap up a year of excellent work together.
Event page
Bug Triage Hour on December 6 at 17:00 UTC, on the topic of Entity Schemas (other topics also welcome). Come with your favorite Phabricator ticket so we can improve its description together!
Save the date! The next WikidataCon will take place on October 28-29, 2023, and will be organized by Wikimedia Taiwan and Wikimedia Germany. The hybrid event will be streamed from Taipei and accessible for everyone online. More information and updates on
the WikidataCon 2023 page.
How many edits does Wikidata get per second?
listen.hatnote.com/#wikidata is a tool that allows you to listen to the sound of Wikidata's recent changes feed.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
The Wikisources use a tool called ProofreadPage. ProofreadPage uses OpenSeadragon which is an open source tool. The OpenSeadragon JavaScript API has been significantly re-written to support dynamically loading images. The functionality provided by the older version of the API should still work but it is no longer supported. User scripts and gadgets should migrate over to the newer version of the API. The functionality provided by the newer version of the API is
documented on MediaWiki.
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Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 December. It will be on all wikis from 8 December (
calendar).
New Zealand report: Integrating with the BHL, loading natural science specimens and data
Poland report: How Wiki helps to explore and enjoy art & culture; Wiki workshop for the National Museum in Krakow; GLAM online meeting on ideas for 2023; Wiki Loves Monuments 2022
Serbia report: Wikipedian in residence at Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade and National Museum of Zrenjanin
Sweden report: Wikipedian in Residence at Musikverket; Women and architecture; Gymnasiearbete; New uploads from the Swedish National Archives; WLM winners; Images of Äpplet
The fourth edition of the
Coolest Tool Award will happen online on Friday 16 December 2022 at 17:00 UTC! The event will be live streamed on Youtube in the
MediaWiki channel.
Planning the final pieces that still need doing before the first release
Vektor 2022: Finished work on making Vector’s new Search work with Wikidata. The changes roll out for testing on test.wikidata.org next week (
phab:T275251)
Query Service:
Getting a link to the query is now possible in the same place as getting a link to the result of the query (
phab:T324218)
Removed the gif that showed on hover over the button that advertises the Query Builder to make it less annoying (
phab:T296135)
Added wikibase:identifiers to the autocomplete feature (
phab:T302057)
Adjusted the layout of the Query Builder header to be more in line with other application (
phab:T288939)
Constraint violations: When a language name is mentioned in the constraint it will now show the name of the language in the interface language instead of the language itself to make it easier to understand (
phab:T316936)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
The character = cannot be used in new usernames, to make usernames work better with templates. Existing usernames are not affected.
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Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 December. It will be on all wikis from 15 December (
calendar).
You can now register for the Wikimedia Hackathon 2023, taking place on May 19-21 in Athens, Greece. You can also apply for a scholarship until January 14th. More information:
Wikimedia Hackathon 2023/Participate
Call for Papers on Linked Open Data on Journal BiD: Deadline: Sun, 04/09/2023. Some of the ideas and issues to be included in this issue: Creation and exploitation of knowledge graphs, Information services based on linked open data and knowledge graphs, Artificial intelligence and linked open data, Textual corpora and linked open data, Textual corpora and knowledge graphs, Application of bots in linked open data, Application of bots in knowledge graphs, Linked open data and diversity of genres, Graphs of knowledge and diversity of genres, FAIR and linked open data, FAIR and knowledge graphs, Ontologies and linked open data, Ontologies and knowledge graphs, Application of ontologies in information services.
Wikidata Atlas is a system allows the user to search for different types of entities (with geo-coordinates) on Wikidata and visualize them on a world map. (Feedback is very welcome to help evaluate and improve the tool.)
The French Wikipedia now uses a Wikidata-based list for the pages on specific dates, without relying on ListeriaBot. Who was born on a December 19th and has an article in French? You now can have the answer thanks to a Wikidata query by going to the page
1er décembre on frwiki and clicking on the infobox link "Naissances du jour". This is a link to a Wikidata list provided by the query service. The query is generated by the template
fr:Modèle:Naissances un jour du mois. This follows another such template used to find all persons with a certain surname on frwiki, used on all surnames pages and on some disambiguation pages,
fr:Modèle:Liste des personnes ou_personnages par prénom. For the surname
Victor (Q539581) (view with
Reasonator,
SQID) this generates on the page
w:fr:Victor_(prénom) a query
such as this one.
Wikidata now has
more than 100,000,000 items! Exactly which item was the 100 millionth is unknown as of writing, but there are some clues for anyone who wants to dig into it.
Newest
properties: This section is currently empty due to technical issues with the bot responsible for filling it. If you are interested in keeping track of new properties on Wikidata, you can check the property proposal page for updates.
REST API: We are getting ready for a release in January and would really love more people to test the current state on beta. You can find details for testing at
Wikidata:REST API feedback round.
Vector 2022 search: We have worked on making the new search in the Vector 2022 skin work for Wikidata. You can now test it on
test.wikidata.org and soon on Wikidata.
Query Service:
Removed the SVG download options for result views where SVG downloads are not supported, such as Map (
phab:T311594)
Fixed the indentation of autocompletion suggestions (
phab:T291695)
Fixed downloading query results in the Query Builder (
phab:T323451)
Lexicographical data:
Working on showing the Lexeme lemmas when you look at a Lexeme’s history (
phab:T312660)
Fixing a keyboard navigation issue in the lookups on Special:NewLexeme (
phab:T324743)
mul language code:
Continuing to investigate how to implement language fallbacks on mobile termbox (
phab:T323098)
Investigating how to disallow `mul` descriptions (
phab:T313027)
Improving and harmonizing the footers in the Query Builder (
phab:T324356) and Mismatch Finder (
phab:T324366)
Preparing for showing constraint violations to visitors who aren’t logged in (
phab:T272132)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Tech News
Because of the
holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 9 January 2023.
Recent changes
On a user's contributions page, you can filter it for edits with a tag like 'reverted'. Now, you can also filter for all edits that are not tagged like that. This was part of a Community Wishlist 2022 request.
[117]
A new function has been used for gadget developers to add content underneath the title on article pages. This is considered a stable API that should work across all skins.
Documentation is available.
[118]
One of our test wikis is now being served from a new infrastructure powered by
Kubernetes (
read more). More Wikis will switch to this new infrastructure in early 2023. Please test and let us know of any issues.
[119]
Problems
Last week, all wikis had no edit access for 9 minutes. This was caused by a database problem.
[120]
Changes later this week
There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.
The word "Reply" is very short in some languages, such as Arabic ("ردّ"). This makes the Discussion tools button on talk pages difficult to use. An arrow icon will be added to those languages. This will only be visible to editors who have the
Beta Feature turned on.
[121][122]
Future changes
Edits can be automatically "tagged" by the system software or the Edit filter configuration system. Those tags link to a help page about the tags. Soon they will also link to Recent Changes to let you see other edits tagged this way. This was a Community Wishlist 2022 request.
[123]
The Trust & Safety tools team
have shared new plans for building the Private Incident Reporting System. The system will make it easier for editors to ask for help if they are harassed or abused.
Realtime Preview for Wikitext is coming out of beta as an enabled feature for every user of the 2010 Wikitext
editor in the week of January 9, 2023. It will be available to use via the toolbar in the 2010 Wikitext editor. The feature was the 4th most popular wish of the Community Wishlist Survey 2021.
The next
Wikidata+Wikibase office hours will take place on Wednesday, November 9th 2022 at 17:00 UTC (18:00 Berlin time) in the
Wikidata Telegram group. The Wikidata and Wikibase office hours are online events where the development team presents what they have been working on over the past quarter, and the community is welcome to ask questions and discuss important issues related to the development of Wikidata and Wikibase.
The next
Wikidata+Wikibase office hours will take place on Wednesday, 17:00 UTC on Wednesday, 18th January 2023 (18:00 Berlin time) in the
Wikidata Telegram group. The Wikidata and Wikibase office hours are online events where the development team presents what they have been working on over the past quarter, and the community is welcome to ask questions and discuss important issues related to the development of Wikidata and Wikibase.
Voting for the
Sound Logo has closed and the winner is expected to be announced February to April 2023.
Tech tip: You can view information about IP addresses in a centralised location using
bullseye which won the Newcomer award in the recent
Coolest Tool Awards.
Andriy.vBot (approved). Task/s: I need to connect a lot of pages (more than 10 thousand) about russian villages that were created with interwiki links in ukwiki.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call January 10, 2023: Egon Willighagen will be introducing us to SARS-CoV-2 queries, a well-documented series of Wikidata queries around the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the pandemic. This work contributes to Wikiproject COVID-19 and documentation is currently available in Japanese, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Agenda
The full version of
View it! Tool is out! The new user script uses structured data to display related media in any Wikimedia content pages—including Wikidata items—in an on-wiki image panel or gallery view. Please join the public launch and demo of the full version of this new tool on Thursday, January 12th, 5:00 UTC via Zoom (Meeting ID: 160 454 5329) to learn more and discuss forthcoming editing features.
The next
Wikidata+Wikibase office hours will take place on Wednesday, 17:00 UTC on Wednesday, 18th January 2023 (18:00 Berlin time) in the
Wikidata Telegram group. The Wikidata and Wikibase office hours are online events where the development team presents what they have been working on over the past quarter, and the community is welcome to ask questions and discuss important issues related to the development of Wikidata and Wikibase.
About 2 months left to register for the first digital@IANLS workshop: Learn the basics of Wikidata and how to use it in your Neo-Latin research. Event is online, free, and open to all.
More info on event and registration.
REST API: Preparing the first release to test.wikidata.org on January 17th and to Wikidata on January 24th
Entity Schemas: Continuing to investigate and prototype technical approaches for version 2
Mismatch Finder: Working on giving mismatch providers access to the reviews of the mismatches they uploaded (
phab:T304794)
Investigated how to best do language switching for the Query Builder and Mismatch Finder. So far they only support it by specifying the language via a URL parameter and not yet via the UI (
phab:T324653)
Query Service:
Lexeme IDs now have tooltips so you can see the Lemma in the SPARQL code, similar as for Items and Properties (
phab:T255245)
Fixed a bug where the y-axis label on a graph were misaligned and hard to read (
phab:T325808)
Lexicographical data:
Statements linking to a Sense now also show the language of the Lexeme to make it easier to see for example which language a translation statement refers to (
phab:T207392)
Fixed a bug in the language dropdown on Special:NewLexeme (
phab:T324743)
The Lemma of a Lexeme is now shown in the title of the revision history of the Lexeme as well (
phab:T312660)
Vector 2022 theme: worked on making the search on Wikidata work in this new theme. You can test it on test.wikidata.org now and next week on Wikidata. (
phab:T316093)
mul language code:
Continued investigation around how to handle language fallbacks on mobile, which is a blocker for adding this language code (
phab:T323098)
Preventing the addition of descriptions for mul (
phab:T313027)
Constraint violations: Working on also showing them to non-logged in users (
phab:T272132)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
You can use tags to filter edits in the recent changes feed or on your watchlist. You can now use tags to filter out edits you don't want to see. Previously you could only use tags to focus on the edits with those tags.
[124]
You can now use the
thanks function on your watchlist and the user contribution page.
[125]
A wiki page can be moved to give it a new name. You can now get a dropdown menu with common reasons when you move a page. This is so you don't have to write the explanation every time.
[126]
Matrix is a chat tool. You can now use matrix: to create Matrix links on wiki pages.
[127]
You can filter out translations when you look at the recent changes on multilingual wikis. This didn't hide translation pages. You can now also hide subpages which are translation pages.
[128]
Changes later this week
Realtime preview for wikitext is a tool which lets editors preview the page when they edit wikitext. It will be enabled for all users of the 2010 wikitext editor. You will find it in the editor toolbar.
Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 10 January at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis) and on 12 January at 07:00 UTC (
targeted wikis).
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 January. It will be on all wikis from 12 January (
calendar).
New Zealand report: The Great Macron War, Critter of the Week, and West Couast Wikisource
Nigeria report: WikiLovesLibraries Nigeria:An initiative beyond 1Lib1Ref for Librarians in Nigeria
Poland report: The first European GLAM Coordinators online meet-up; New articles on the collection of Wawel Royal Castle; Results of Wiki Loves Monuments 2022
Portugal report: Wikibase in social sciences and Public Domain Day celebrations
Spain report: Wikidata Birthday and ongoing projects
Sweden report: Musikverket; Media literacy graphics; Reports for project and to project partners
The next
Wikidata+Wikibase office hours will take place on Wednesday, 17:00 UTC on Wednesday, 18th January 2023 (18:00 Berlin time) in the
Wikidata Telegram group. The Wikidata and Wikibase office hours are online events where the development team presents what they have been working on over the past quarter, and the community is welcome to ask questions and discuss important issues related to the development of Wikidata and Wikibase.
General datatypes:
does not use: item or concept not used by the subject but that could have been expected,
member of Roman tribe: Roman tribe in which one was inscribed
Vector 2020 skin: the search that works properly with Wikidata has been deployed
Entity Schemas: Making progress on the proof of concept that will help us figure out the technical way forward
REST API: getting ready to deploy the first version to test.wikidata.org on February 17th
Lexicographical data: When linking to a Sense in a statement the language of the Lexeme for that Sense is now also shown. This makes it easier to understand translation statements for example (
phab:T207392)
Constraints: Constraint violations are now also shown to logged out users (
phab:T272132)
Fixing a regression where Wikipedia and co are no longer notified about a disconnected sitelink when the Item that contains the sitelink is deleted (
phab:T326082)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Problems
The URLs in "prev" links on page history now contain diff=prev&oldid=[revision ID] in place of diff=[revision ID]&oldid=[revision ID]. This is to fix a problem with links pointing to incorrect diffs when history was filtered by a tag. Some user scripts may break as a result of this change.
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Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 January. It will be on all wikis from 19 January (
calendar).
Some
changes to the appearance of talk pages have only been available on Talk: and User talk: namespaces. These will be extended to other talk namespaces, such as Wikipedia talk:. They will continue to be unavailable in non-talk namespaces, including Wikipedia: pages (e.g., at the Village Pump). You can
change your preferences (
beta feature).
[130]
On Wikisources, when an image is zoomed or panned in the Page: namespace, the same zoom and pan settings will be remembered for all Page: namespace pages that are linked to a particular Index: namespace page.
[131]
The Vector 2022 skin will become the default for the English Wikipedia desktop users. The change will take place on January 18 at 15:00 UTC.
Learn more.
Future changes
The 2023 edition of the
Community Wishlist Survey, which invites contributors to make technical proposals and vote for tools and improvements, starts next week on 23 January 2023 at 18:00 UTC. You can start drafting your proposals in
the CWS sandbox.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call January 24, 2023: We will be discussing plans for 2023, and requesting feedback and ideas for future programming. Based on a previous recommendation to host a discussion on advocacy for Wikidata within libraries, we will introduce and provide time to complete a short survey to foster conversation in a future Group Call. Please come ready to share your thoughts
Agenda
Introductions to Wikidata, online meetings organized by Wikimedia Australia on January 25, 26 and 31
General datatypes:
attracts (organisms attracted by this taxon),
salary level (level of someone's salary),
change of (property this process changes),
database contains records about (indicate the types of items that the database has records about)
Ontology issues: We finalized and published the survey to better understand which types of ontology issues are most problematic for reusers of our data.
Wikipedia and co: Fixing a regression where there is no entry in recent changes and watchlist when an Item is deleted that was connected to an article on that wiki (
phab:T326082)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Problems
Last week, for ~15 minutes, all wikis were unreachable for logged-in users and non-cached pages. This was caused by a timing issue.
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Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 January. It will be on all wikis from 26 January (
calendar).
If you have the Beta Feature for
DiscussionTools enabled, the appearance of talk pages will add more information about discussion activity.
[133][134]
The 2023 edition of the
Community Wishlist Survey (CWS), which invites contributors to make technical proposals and vote for tools and improvements, starts on Monday 23 January 2023 at
18:00 UTC.
A citation hunt program was organized for secondary school students at IIS School in Dubai as part of the 74th Republic Day celebration of India. 16 students participated, with different mother tongues and from different states of India living as expatriates in Dubai. The goal was to increase references for Wikidata statements based on research. The students were introduced to the importance of protecting India's history on the internet, and were taught how to edit Wikipedia and Wikidata. They were given a special event page on Wikidata with instructions and a list of Wikidata items to add citations to, and they searched for references in their textbooks and search engines to add to the Wikidata items.More details are given
here.
Next Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group Working Hour January 30, 2023: The #1Lib1Ref campaign is afoot, so we will be working on adding references to Wikidata statements. We'll have some data for you to work with, but you're welcome to bring your own. We'll be mainly working with adding webpages as sources, but if you want to get experience using books or articles as sources, we recommend bringing some to the session to use as references for Wikidata items you have identified. You are, as always, welcome to bring your own project to work on
Event page
theyrule.net is a website that helps to explore the boardroom connections of the largest US companies.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
AfLIA's online course Wikidata is open. Participation is free for all librarians, museums, archives and other information professionals in Africa. Call is open until 7th February 2023 (12 midnight GMT).
LetsQuiz is a new website generating quizzes using data from Wikidata.
Building cool apps and services on top of Wikidata's data but running into ontology issues? We'd love to hear from you in
this survey to make things better for you.
General datatypes:
place of resident registration at death (the place or administrative unit where the deceased person was registered as having his or her residence at the time of their death),
has instance (thing(s) which this subject describes or encompasses, inverse property of P31),
Norwegian media rating (In short, the Norwegian version of Denmark's Medierådet rating (P5970), an age rating system for motion pictures, video, internet and tv content),
iconically alludes to (item that is iconically represented in the execution of this lexeme),
credits URL (URL of an official webpage with a list of credits and roles attributed to various people, organizations or applications that contribute(d) to this item's existence),
alternate universe counterpart (this fictional character/entity is an alternate universe counterpart of the subject),
number of penalty kicks scored,
precedes/follows various things (this lexeme form appears only when preceding another lexeme form with this phonological feature)
Property Suggester: We updated the data for the Property Suggester so suggestions for new statements to add to an Item should be more in line with current Property usage on other similar Items again.
Fixed an issue with Item deletions not showing up on Wikipedia and co if they affect an article on that wiki (
phab:T326082)
Vector 2022: Made it possible to add a new sitelink on Wikipedia and co in the new Vector 2022 language selector (
phab:T310259)
Lua: Working on two new Lua functions, getDescriptionByLang (
phab:T230839) and getBadges (
phab:T305378)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Problems
Last week, for ~15 minutes, some users were unable to log in or edit pages. This was caused by a problem with session storage.
[135]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 February. It will be on all wikis from 2 February (
calendar).
Future changes
Wikis that use localized numbering schemes for references need to add new CSS. This will help to show citation numbers the same way in all reading and editing modes. If your wiki would prefer to do it yourselves, please see the
details and example CSS to copy from, and also add your wiki to the list. Otherwise, the developers will directly help out starting the week of February 5.
Voting in the
2023 Community Wishlist Survey will begin on 10 February 2023 and end on 24 February 2023. You can submit, discuss and revise proposals until 6 February 2023.
Tech tip:
Syntax highlighting is available in both the 2011 and 2017 Wikitext editors. It can help make editing paragraphs with many references or complicated templates easier.
Belgian waffles cooked in a Krampouz cast-iron waffle iron, in a Montreal restaurant during the gastronomy competition of the Montreal Highlights Festival
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
In the
Vector 2022 skin, logged-out users using the full-width toggle will be able to see the setting of their choice even after refreshing pages or opening new ones. This only applies to wikis where Vector 2022 is the default.
[136]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 February. It will be on all wikis from 9 February (
calendar).
Previously, we announced when some wikis would be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. These switches will not be announced any more, as the read-only time has become non-significant. Switches will continue to happen at 7AM UTC on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
[137]
Across all the wikis, in the Vector 2022 skin, logged-in users will see the page-related links such as "What links here" in a
new side menu. It will be displayed on the other side of the screen. This change had previously been made on Czech, English, and Vietnamese Wikipedias.
[138]
Gadgets and user scripts will be changing to load on desktop and mobile sites. Previously they would only load on the desktop site. It is recommended that wiki administrators audit the
gadget definitions prior to this change, and add skins=… for any gadgets which should not load on mobile.
More details are available.
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Discussions
New requests for permissions/Bot:
BiodiversityBot 3 Task/s:
TreatmentBank (Q54857867) is a CC0 resource that contains data on taxonomic treatments, treatment citations, figures, tables, material citations and bibliographic reference. It contains valuables links mapping scholarly articles, taxa and taxonomic treatments. This bot task involves linking research papers on taxa to taxa and related taxonomic treatments.
Closed request for permissions/Bot:
Bean49Bot 4 Task/s: Add Springer Nature person ID and Springer Nature article ID by moving from exact match property.
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call February 7, 2023: We thought we'd try something different next week, in honor of Valentine's Day month: What's Your Wikidata Passion? What is your central Wikidata interest right now? It can be a work or personal project or just what you like to edit when you have time. We'd love to have an open mic session, completely informal. Please add yourselves to the list on our agenda
here if you would like to talk for 5 minutes or so and share your screen, with no need for formal slides. Or just show up and talk on the spur of the moment. This will be a community session where we welcome all to participate!
Agenda
Let's Quiz is a game that generates random quizzes to test your knowledge & learn something new every day.
User:Nikki/AddTermboxLanguage.js - makes it easier to add/edit labels to an item in a language other than the ones shown by default.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
Building cool apps and services on top of Wikidata's data but running into ontology issues? We'd love to hear from you in
this survey to make things better for you.
General datatypes:
Happy Planet Index score (The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index of human well-being and environmental impact that was introduced by the New Economics Foundation in 2006),
credits URL (URL of an official webpage with a list of credits and roles attributed to various people, organizations or applications that contribute(d) to this item's existence),
digital equivalent of (the subject is the digital equivalent of what?)
General datatypes:
precedes/follows various things (this lexeme form appears only when preceding another lexeme form with this phonological feature),
footnote (for use in the references section of statements: to state which footnote of the source material supports the claim in question),
agent of action (thing that does the action),
natural enemy (One of the causes of death of this living creatures referred to in this item, which is eaten by that creature),
change of (property this process changes),
object of action (thing an action is done to),
variety of sense (dialect, variety or register of language that the sense applies to),
bust/waist/hip measurements (chest measurement; aliases: bust measurement),
usage label (list of sets of context label property (Q116547761) (language style (P6191), field of usage (P9488), has quality (P1552), variety of form (P7481), location of sense usage (P6084)). Other individual context label property (Q116547761) statement will be treated as and with this statement.),
thesaurus' properties (primary topic of the subject Wikimedia thesaurus)
REST API: adding a new GET /entities/items/{item_id}/descriptions endpoint (
phab:T327881)
Lua: added two Lua functions, getDescriptionByLang (
phab:T230839) and getBadges (
phab:T305378) that make it easier to get this data on Wikipedia and co
Action API: fixed a bug that prevented the wblistentityusage API module from being used as a generator (
phab:T254334)
Dates: working together with Matěj Suchánek to fix date parsing issues in Czech (
phab:T221097)
Constraints: working on showing constraint clarification messages to make it easier to understand why a constraint violation is happening and how to fix it (
phab:T219037)
Campaign for the Norwegian
Centre Party at
Nærbø: like its
Finnish and
Swedish counterparts, the party has a strong focus on decentralisation, rural and agrarian issues. Ideologically, the Centre Party is positioned in the centre on the political spectrum.