User talk:Okeyes (WMF)/Archive 7

Archive 1

←

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Archive 8

No need to apologize about VE

We are all here to help you test this exciting project. Finding errors is a part of the process. Thank you and the team for your great work!Capitalismojo (talk) 03:18, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

And thanks to you for the lovely message! I'm hoping things start going a little bit smoother than they have been :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:00, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I feel the same way as Capitalismojo and came here to say a similar thing. The VE is a major change and has to be done correctly ASAP, that's why the atmosphere is a bit.. intense. Thank you and the team for your work. Mohamed CJ (talk) 09:46, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

@Mohamed CJ: perfectly understandable, imo :). As an aside, we now have template editing and insertion on enwiki with the VisualEditor; give it a whirl and see if you can find any bugs :D. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:54, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Been a while since I've mentioned it

But has there been any headway on excluding areas from notification with Echo? WP:SPI was the original reason, since notification there is often suboptimal. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | © | WER 15:19, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

That's a question for Fabrice or Kaldari, I'm afraid - I've been shifted off Echo to take the lead on enwiki socialisation of the VisualEditor for the time being :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:20, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for help with VE, and ...

... I hope I didn't come off as flaky pulling out of the PC2 RfC. I really didn't (IMV) have a choice, for two reasons. On the big RfCs I've closed, I've made it a point to ask if anyone objected ... no one has (before, that I recall) ... and if I didn't pay attention this time when two people objected, people might wonder whether I was sincere all the previous times. Also, their point was completely valid; I'm involved up to my eyeballs. - Dank (push to talk) 20:33, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

That's fine, although I can't really comment on it in my official capacity :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:07, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor bugs

I was just wikilinking using the link icon at top of the visual editor. Sometimes I just put the cursor in the word, clicked the link icon and clicked the word out of the list that I wanted to use. Sometimes I highlighted the whole word and then clicked the link icon and selected the word. Nv8200p talk 12:10, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

• Possibly. I don't remember exactly as I was doing different things to get a feel for the visual editor. Nv8200p talk 12:42, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
  • I was using the visual editor and instead of using the link button I typed double brackets around Recorded Texas Historic Landmark and I got this [1]. This might be the desired behavior. I'm not sure if this is what I did earlier to generate the no wiki issue. Regards Nv8200p talk 17:32, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
    • Easier to see on the diff [2] -Nv8200p talk 17:35, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Fforde

I love Jasper too :-) Are WMF Goliath? Will VE end like the The Well of Lost Plots? Will there be a great leap backwards? Could Wikipedia end up sponsored by the Toast Marketing Board NtheP (talk) 18:47, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I think Google would be Goliath; we're more Jurisfiction, I guess ;p. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Odd behaviour to check?

Hi Okeyes. I don't know if you're the right person to turn to with this question, but you're the only (WMF) account i am aware of enough to think of without searching ~ i'm not sure we've interacted, but i've seen you and your alter ego around for several years in different circumstances ~ so i turn to you. If there is someone else, let me know. A few days ago i unexpectedly logged into an account using the wrong password, and was able to edit as that account. In fact, it was an alternate account of mine, but without question i ought not to have been able to log in as i did. For BEANSie reasons i don't want to explain the collection of circumstances which allowed it, but could i e-mail them to you, or someone else, to be sure that either this event is known and acceptable or a one-off or something which should be checked out? Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 07:54, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Hey; thanks for letting me know. I'd advise emailing csteippwikimedia.org - he's our lead security engineer, and an all-around Good Egg :). Hopefully he'll know what's going on! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:01, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

English Wikivoyage request

Hi! Just wanted to make sure you were aware of bugzilla:50064. --Rschen7754 08:06, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm not working on that extension right at the moment, but I've poked Fabrice at it :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:05, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Accurate?

Is this accurate? — This, that and the other (talk) 09:59, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Yep; thanks! Sorry, I should've got that *headslaps*. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:37, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi

You might want to put a heading on your message you're sending out. ;) -- [[ axg // ✉ ]] 21:41, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh my god I'm a moron *headdesks*. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:42, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

TemplateData

Hi,

I received your email about helping with TemplateData edits - and I'm happy to help out. Do you have an example of a revised template as an example. That would help a lot to ensure I'm on the right track. I'll put you on my watchlist so you can respond here. Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:13, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks!

Awesome, thanks! So, a good example would be Template:Tracked, which I implemented myself; you can see the little TemplateData box at the bottom of the /doc subpage. If you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Okeyes_%28WMF%29/sandbox in the VisualEditor and try to edit the little tracking template, as opposed to the "Okeyes (WMF)/sandbox" infobox, you can see how much of a difference it can make :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:18, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok, cool. Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:48, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Saw the message on another's talk page. That is one great idea. Kudos to whoever thought of it. Too bad it won't stop the weeping and gnashing of teeth of those damned in Hell editors in Wikipedia who will be saying nice things towards you. I hope they double your salary next month for hazard duty. Bgwhite (talk) 04:16, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

They won't, although I get a compensatory day off on Monday for working through the 4th of July - which is weird to me, because personally I planned on just standing to attention for 14 hours with a mourning band. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:07, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Okeyes (WMF). You have new messages at Arctic Kangaroo's talk page.
Message added 05:05, 29 June 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Arctic Kangaroo (✉ • ✎) 05:05, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Okeyes

Hi Okeyes, Thank you for your posting on my talk page. Unfortunatly, I have not seen any request from you on which I need to work or act. I would be certinaly interested working on VisualEditor as per ypour guidlines. Hope you would help in this.... Coolgama (talk) 05:42, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

TemplateData

I'm happy to help out, but couldn't a lot of this be automatically generated? Certainly the list of parameters could be generated; even having such a barebones listing pre-formatted with no other information about the parameters would substantially reduce the amount of manual work needed; and most templates have docs in a pretty standard format, so a lot of that could be extracted automatically too.

And a specific question; there are some templates, such as most of the Redirect classification group, that have no parameters. How are they to be documented? With a null TemplateData section, or without one at all, or some other method? Colonies Chris (talk) 09:07, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

And another question: in the new docs for {{dead link}}, the 'date' parameter is shown as 'required'. That depends what you mean by required. If 'required' means 'the template won't work without it', then date is not required; if you mean 'highly desirable and we'd like you to include it (and if you don't a bot will add it later)', then it's required. Colonies Chris (talk) 12:05, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

An excellent question, re automatic generation! I'll try to find out the answer. Without parameters, I've just been going for a description to make it slightly more human-usable; what I'd love to see is a way to declare "this has no parameters" that removes the "add a parameter" button, to avoid confusion. Required means "won't work without it", yep; I'll drop the user a note. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:50, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Template Data - again

Hi,

I think I was able to figure out some simple ones with one or two parameters - Template:Str find/doc, Template:Str left/doc, Template:Spaces/doc, and Template:Italic title/doc. If you have a chance, do you mind taking a look at them to see if I'm on the right track?

I've not figured out what to do for the ones that don't seem to have parameters, like Template:! - and I'm not ready yet for the ones that have lots of parameters quite yet.

Any help, pointers or comments on the ones I've done so far would be much appreciated!--CaroleHenson (talk) 06:05, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Looks great so far! With the parameter-free ones I guess we could theoretically just add names and descriptions, to make them slightly friendlier to call. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:17, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok, sounds good. Thanks for taking a look!--CaroleHenson (talk) 16:27, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I took a shot at entering the template data for a "parameter-free" template and added the description. The only way I could get it to save was to have the "params" value, which created a table with only headings. Is this what you had in mind, ex: Template:•?--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:26, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Hmn. I'm going to reach out to the TemplateData developer and ask :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:14, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Message from Krinkle (or part of it): "Currently TemplateData doesn't have a way to specifically declare that a template shouldn't have any parameters. But it is among the many things we've considered in the design and decided to hold off for the initial release in favour of simplicity and stability of the templatedata JSON format. As for writing vs. not writing a templatedata block for parameter-less templates, I'd recommend you do. A template is always better with than without a description. The "Add parameter" button will be there regardless." Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:23, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Template Data Request

I'm fine to use it though I'm not entirely certain I understand yet how it works. I'm not on the WP often but I'll try to figure it out over time. -Classicfilms (talk) 06:13, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

If I can step in, it would be helpful if Wikipedia:VisualEditor/TemplateData tutorial explained what I think needs done (but would be great to have confirmation):

• you first need to figure out what parameters are passed in the template. In some cases, it's values within < >, (e.g., in "{{Str left|<string>|<count>}}", it's string and count.) It could also be parameters passed with equal signs. For instance, the {{cite web... template is passed values to complete a citation, such as url, title, accessdate, etc. In some cases the template documentation summarizes that parameters that are/may be set for the template.
• Enter the templatedata information.
• For "description", use information at the top of the subpage or main page that explains what the template is used for
• For parms, figure out what is the parms value, in this example, "count".
• Then identify the label, description, type (number or string), and whether the parameter is required.:

               "count": {
                       "label": "Quantity",
                       "description": "Gives the <count> substring of characters from the start of the trimmed string",
                       "type": "number",
                       "required": true
               }

• Where there are more than one parameters passed to the template, add a comma after the close bracket, "}," between the parms values.

It took me awhile for me to figure that out.--CaroleHenson (talk) 14:04, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Excellent points (particularly the comma; that should be in the tutorial). I should say that the tutorial and documentation is something people should feel comfortable being very bold around :) Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:18, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

 Done I went ahead and updated the Wikipedia:VisualEditor/TemplateData tutorial, no one ever has to tell me to be bold twice (smile). I hope you like it and folks new to this topic find it helpful.--CaroleHenson (talk) 16:26, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

It looks great! Thanks for all your assistance thus far :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:35, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Template:Mileposts/doc

Hi! I've tried putting TemplateData in the above page and several hours later it hasn't come into VisualEditor. Am I doing anything wrong? --Rschen7754 09:13, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

No, it's a wee bit slow at the moment :/. As you can imagine, this is something we're treating with some concern. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:51, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Almost 48 hours later it still isn't there and I'm concerned that the rest of our templates won't be ready for the launch either - are other people having this problem? --Rschen7754 05:17, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I've been informed it shouldn't be happening, but it has been; oh dear. Chasing people down now - sorry about this :(. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:09, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Templates

I received your message about TemplateData. I read about the VisualEditor and the tutorial. I was about to start editing a template to add the TemplateData, only to discover that the templates are fully protected, preventing me from editing them. You should have restricted your message to admins. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:47, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

If I can help out: the main pages are protected (ex: Template:Str find), but the sub pages are not protected (ex; Template:Str find/doc). It's the sub pages that are supposed to receive the templatedata.--CaroleHenson (talk) 13:25, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Yep; as long as it's something transcluded into the template, it'll work. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:20, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Sure i'd like to help, but you say in your message "...you've made quite a few edits to the template namespace in the past couple of months". I'm at a bit of a loss as to what you're addressing, can you give me an example of such an edit please? Thanks --AL (talk) 19:01, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, all of these. Annoyingly the db query I ran to generate a list of names isn't capable of distinguishing "writes templates and enjoys fiddling with syntax" from "added a bluelink". Bleh. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:36, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Order of template data on page

Hi Okeyes,

I know that the original tutorial said that the template data should go anywhere on the page, but I'm wondering if there should be a guideline for where it is places so that the pages look and flow uniformly. For instance, Template:Citation needed has the template at the very top of the page... and I followed someone else's cue to put the template farther down on the page, like Template:Importance mask, which may be too low, I don't know.

I was thinking it might be best to ask the question before too many pages get updated, and require a lot more rework to get them in synch. What do you think?--CaroleHenson (talk) 01:07, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Personally I put mine right at the bottom. My reasoning is basically that if someone is looking at the template page, they're looking at the documentation of what it's used for and how it works - which means they're probably using the markup editor, and so TemplateData is useless to them. We should be presenting them with the more practical "it's got 3 parameters. Parameter 1 does..." to start with, and then the JSON setup. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 01:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, makes sense.--CaroleHenson (talk) 05:13, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

So maybe the placement requirements should be more firmed up? I could anticipate problems in the future :/ Theopolisme (talk) 14:51, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Sure; what would you suggest as a good mechanism for doing that? Frankly you probably know template policy/standards better than I do :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:59, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I think an RfC on VPT would be the easiest way to do it--I'm writing one now. Theopolisme (talk) 16:28, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Okie-dokes. In the meantime it sounds like just adding it into the "how to use templatedata" page would work pretty well. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:29, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Position_of_templatedata; if I missed anything please feel free to correct me. :) Theopolisme (talk) 16:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:VisualEditor/TemplateData_tutorial#TemplateData says "The TemplateData is placed after the descriptive information about the template and before the "See also" section." which is what I've been fixing the newest additions to match. –Quiddity (talk) 21:55, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Congrats, but also usability complaint

Hey there. Congrats on what appears thus far to be a pretty successful deployment of VE.

I did want to point out though that, as it stands now, working with files on the Visual Editor is incredibly cumbersome. I tried to move a file from the top of a section to the middle of that section (right aligned), but it kept doing one of two things: either it moved it to the top right corner of the next level two header section (significantly below where I wanted to move the image), or it took the image out of the thumb, disappeared the existing caption, and had the image floating in the middle of the page surrounded by a bunch of grey space (not white, it was a grey rectangle that was about an inch and a half high and as wide as my editing window). I have been unable to replicate the second one and didn't get a screenshot, but I've been able to replicate the first one several times.

Cheers, Sven Manguard Wha? 23:03, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Yep; we're working on it :). At the moment the priority is just trying to get the concept of the VE accepted, and trying to make sure there aren't irrevocable bugs - once we're done with that, usability is our next port of call! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:07, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Perry edit

Thanks, Okeyes! Yeah, I was pretty confused there. I went to the edit summary and clicked the edit link there which led me to a raw editing page to get rid of the 'nowiki' markups. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it sooner or later! Therequiembellishere (talk) 23:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Haha. I discovered the difference between the "edit" and the "edit source" links so I may be one of the old luddites using code on here until I figure things out. Therequiembellishere (talk) 23:39, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Visual editor removed infobox

Sorry, I didn't notice at which point the infobox disappeared. (I didn't realize it until I saw the size of the negative number for the change in file size.) RJFJR (talk) 23:39, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I clicked on the cleanup message box, pressed delete, the message box went away and then I did a save. I copied the old version of the article into a subpage of my user talk; is there a way to enable the visual editor for that page so I can try to reproduce the event? RJFJR (talk) 23:48, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

It didn't recur, but if I pressed delete twice the second delete removes the infobox so it may have been user (my) error. RJFJR (talk) 23:59, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Bottle thrown on your talk page

Well here goes, a practical question!

Over on Ynys Môn by-election, 2013, I've tried to create a candidates box (above) based on the template below. Aaaaand it's failed. There has to be something obvious I didn't do (transclusion?!), please help if you can!

Cheers - doktorb _words^deeds 10:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hmn; did you try to paste the wikimarkup into the VisualEditor? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That is how the template usually works, so yes, yes I did. You're going to tell me there's something really obvious that I should have done instead, aren't you? doktorb _words^deeds 10:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, if it's template based, there's a template editor in the VisualEditor; hit the toolbar button that looks like a jigsaw puzzle. I'm not sure if the template in question has full support yet, although it's being worked on (TL;DR; it needs a description so that all the parameters show up in a human-readable way). This is one of those areas which will get better the more people use it, but kind of...I believe the technical term is "blows chunks", at the moment :/. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Right, cool, I'll give that a go (we little elves in the UK parliament bit of Wikipedia use a HECK LOAD of templates like this, I don't want to scare you but next year we've got to update about a dozen of these.) I'll give that election box another go, see if I can fathom it all out. Cheers for your help :) doktorb _words^deeds 11:05, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I know; in my volunteer capacity I wrote the lists of Stewards of the Manor of Northstead, and the Chiltern Hundreds, along with a ton of underlying MP articles. I'm just glad the shape of the union has settled down a bit; it was a colossal pain having to go "he was in seatX in the British Parliament. Then seatX in the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Then seatY for...." :). The importance of these templates is most definitely not something I'll dispute! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

That's a relief, you know what I'm talking about! That's rare in some quarters around here. I wish that I could move what I'm doing to a sandbox, because I'm making a complete mess of it =/ doktorb _words^deeds 11:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Gave short feedback about UX with VisualEditor

Thanks for appreciating my edit, though it was only minor (adding a link D-A-CH). Great to get such instant feedback. The new Wikipedia WYSIWYG editor and notification system seems very promising. Just wrote this: Wikipedia_talk:VisualEditor#Usability_test_-_Small_report Ciao --PutzfetzenORG (talk) 11:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Yep; just saw it :). Thanks so much! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

TemplateData for Template:Multiple issues

{{Multiple issues}} is on the list of commonly used templates. It is also heavily used by Twinkle and AWB. What do you think; will it suffice to add TemplateData to each of the other cleanup templates called by {{Multiple issues}}? Or will the work on called templates have to be duplicated there? If the former, {{Multiple issues}} should probably come off the list of templates needing Templatedata. — ℜob C. alias ÀLAROB 17:11, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd handle called templates (because they can be called individually) and also the wrapper :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:26, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Reply

Hi Okeyes, I didn't want to bother you because I know you're all pretty crazy. There are issues with Safari & Lion - I spent about an hour on the phone with Apple last week and have some answers, which I posted somewhere (now archived). I decided it wasn't really relevant since I'm on a blacklisted browser but using a new machine (Macbook Pro, bought less than 18 months ago). Anyway, when you surface, I'd be happy to pass on the information, but I don't think with everything else that's on your plate this is the time. Thanks for stopping by my user page. Victoria (talk) 16:20, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thank you for your quick responses to users' feedback on the VisualEditor! I'm sure the community appreciates this. πr2 (t • c) 00:25, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks; this is much appreciated :). I've been at this for (I think) 16 hours now today. Hopefully tomorrow will be a wee bit quieter. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Congrats on the much-deserved barnstar! Would you be able to tweak the add-media part of the editor to allow the old fashioned text that used to link to a wikimedia file? When I copied and pasted the "[[file:...]]" text using Chrome 27, the editor added ..., which defeated my attempt to add a photo to a page. Also the add-media page didn't return any potential candidates and just sort of sat there quietly. Other than this the new editor is a great improvement!Visitor7 (talk) 03:02, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Probably not immediately :/. Media is something we're heavily working on, though :). The add-media page bug sounds interesting; any chance you can try to replicate and give me a screenshot? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:09, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

"Founder" of WYSIWYG has died

Douglas Engelbart passed away on July 2. In December 1968, he gave a demonstration that later was called the "The Mother of All Demos". In it, he showed off his invention, the mouse. He used WYSIWYG editing with embedded hyperlinks and graphics. He showed of video conferencing. He talked about how he would soon be able to give the demo to people everywhere with networked computers. In 1969, his lab was one of the first 4 nodes on the ARPANET. A video of his demo can be found here. Bgwhite (talk) 05:26, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the link :). Weird and apropos timing; I wonder what he thought of Wikipedia? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:08, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

New Visual Ed

I feel so good editing in the new visual editor. wonderful. --Drali1954 (talk) 05:50, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

@Drali1954: Thanks! Let me know if you find any bugs :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:07, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Help to check and finish the creation of a new template

I don't know if you will be able to help me or if you know someone who could do it, because nobody answered me on the hlep desk. I am still trying to create a new template for WikiProject Biology, the page is Template:Subtitle/Taxon. One user help me a lot but still have some problems when trying to edit the subtitles, it does not appear like in the exemple. It's small details for sure just a question of brace or something like that!! If an expert could have a look on it to finish this nice template, please. Thanks in advance for your contribution. This is the french template as a model of what I really want: Modèle:Sous-titre/Taxon You can see the result on this exemple: Fistularia commersonii Bastaco (talk) 10:31, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Not within my skillset, I'm afraid, but I can recommend some awesome users :). @Excirial: is fantastic at, well, it seems most things; he's been doing a lot of work on templates as part of the TemplateData rollout, and may be able to help. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:06, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Software request

whats the bleeping point anymore intoned the echo-bot, eir vocalization airstream reeking of lubricant and battery acid. i only process millions of helpful events per hour. and never make a mistake. i'm sorry they don't find my notifications... compelling.

Now can you create a software patch to address the crushing loneliness we feel when our 'new talk page messages' are robots informing us of failure? groupuscule (talk) 11:55, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, that made me laugh out loud; kudos :). You've found us out! Echo is actually a shortened form of "Echoes of our inevitably futile actions bouncing off the walls of an uncaring, unfeeling universe that, in time, will die". Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:44, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Aaand that made me laugh harder. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:02, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

VE

For some odd reason, I have VisualEditor on, yet no matter where I edit, it shows the source page, not the VisualEditor thing. I have experienced it before, it's just that now, it doesn't work. I use IE9. Can you help me? buffbills7701 15:42, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

@Buffbills7701: the VE isn't working on IE yet, I'm afraid, so it's blacklisted :/. IE9 and 10 are in the pipeline for full support, although 8 will almost certainly never get there (the engineers who built it need to be shot into the sun). I'd recommend waiting until we've got it done, or switching to something like Firefox or Chrome - suffice to say when we have got support for it, it'll be in the newsletter :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:45, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Just a quick note to say thanks for the site notice. I appreciate your ears must be ringing. Don't take it too hard. You're doing a good job. --RA (✍) 00:06, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Appreciated :). Mind dropping a similar note to User:Mdennis (WMF)? I feel bad that I get most of the assurances when Maggie is doing a big chunk of the work :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:05, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll leave you to pass it on.

Is there any plan to focus attention on updating Help:Editing (and other places)? Not to be a pain, but this is the kind of stuff that should be part of a release. --RA (✍) 15:53, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed; if you look at the VE portal you'll find it listed as a crucial volunteer task :). If you can do your bit to recruit people, while I do the same, I'd be in your debt. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:55, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Typically that kind of work is ready ahead of a release. It would be good in future releases if that was the case. --RA (✍) 19:12, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed; it was going to be but while I was trying to notify people of TemplateData, a user sucked in an hour of my time complaining about the mechanism I'd used to notify people. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:33, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

So the deployment is held back until all the ducks are in a row.

I'm willing to help but what is the Foundation's commitment to the roll out? The feedback page is mostly negative. If people are to be recruited to update pages then expectations need to be set properly. If folk invest time in the understanding that this is it, and the deployment is rolled back, they may be aggravated. But if the expectation is set from the start that it may be rolled back, and a roll back occurs, then at least the work can be archived for a future roll out. --RA (✍) 19:12, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Which roll-out? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

The one that began five days ago and is planned to finish on July 29th? What's the Foundations commitment to it? Is there a chance the Foundation may roll back on the roll out of the Visual Editor? --RA (✍) 19:59, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

In terms of moving bits around, elongating the rollout (maybe we'll deploy to third-stage wikis in august or something? I have no idea, but it's plausible), we're open to it. I should have news on the IP rollout later (which I suspect you may like) but the actual commitment to getting the VE out isn't optional. We can make it take longer, we can split things apart, but this thing is coming. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 20:17, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Right. Then, whilst it's a pity documentation wasn't prepared in advance of the deployment, it's an urgency that it gets updated now. I'll prepare a list of pages that need updating. When that's done, I'll revert to you and we can agree a plan to draw people into the effort. Right now, I'm thinking a centralised page will be needed to co-ordinate the effort. (I suggest a subpage of Wikipedia:User Advocacy, even if as an initial task to get that project off the ground.) I also think the effort warrants being metioned separately on the site notice. --RA (✍) 20:32, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, RA :). Sorry for the lack of responses; I was instructed to stay away for the weekend (doctor's orders). I've got a comp day today, so I'll be at best in-and-out, but I'm going to push my efforts into spreading the word about your work here come Tuesday. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:36, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Take care of your health. Balance your priorities, of which your physical/mental well-being is one. Even machines need care, maintenance, tending, and downtime. --RA (✍) 09:53, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@Rannpháirtí anaithnid: okay, back :). The VisualEditor page on updating help pages is where people seem to have launched off to on a hub; how goes progress on the update list? I'm happy to help with that in any way I can. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:35, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Those look like the major ones. There are many incidental pages, however, that make references to editing techniques or use (now outdated) screen shots e.g. tutorials on adding images, tables, etc.

However, a higher level decision is the question of how much do we change them: at the two opposite extremes we could (a) leave them mostly as they are and just point to a VE-specific page; or (b) do we fundamentally re-write the pages to document and teach use of the software from a VE perspective, only referring to "edit source" as a secondary (or "advanced") option.

Given a number of factors (uptake of VE, narrow namespace deployment, limitations of VE, etc.) there is a strong case for the (a). That would also make the job more do-able in an immediate timeframe (and documentation could be expanded over time). I think it would be worthwhile inviting comment on that decision. --RA (✍) 09:50, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense. So, my thinking would be we should recruit people to the help page under the default presumption of (a) and then discuss it with them? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:12, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the barnstar

It's just a pitty that I can't yet use VE to add it to my collection :) Thryduulf (talk) 13:25, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

No problem! And yeah, that's coming, by way of Flow :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:26, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll be mighty impressed if anything automated can handle the appalling code at User:Thryduulf/Barnstars - there's probably a dozen syntax errors on there with bodges built on top of them! Thryduulf (talk) 13:56, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeek! I just tried to edit my equivalent. It only looks...mostly. terrible ;p. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:58, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Notifications/Echo

When will Echo be deployed on other wikis? I couldn't find it quickly on MW.org or here, in the FAQ page. πr² (t • c) 18:24, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I think it's planned for August; Fabrice is probably a better person to poke than me, at this stage, since I'm mostly on the VisualEditor at the moment :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick response. I've asked him here. πr² (t • c) 18:47, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Please see

User_talk:Jorm#FLOW_and_Athena PumpkinSky talk 20:38, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

This has ended up on Maggie's WMF talk page. PumpkinSky talk 22:59, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Re: VisualEditor newsletter

Thank you for your help! Best regards, --►Safir yüzüklü Cekli^mesaj 11:57, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

@Cekli829: no problem! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:47, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor

Hi how to change back to the original mark-up editing format? I'm not exactly a fan of VisualEditor as I'm used to using html codes.

Cheers -Acsian88 (talk) 9 July 2013, 22:20 (UTC)

@Acsian88: you can just hit 'edit source' and it takes you to the markup editor. If you want to actively hide the VE link, there's a gadget in your preferences (preferences -> gadgets -> editing -> first one on the list) that does that. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! -Acsian88 (talk) 10 July, 8:45 (UTC)

Ping

Ping is being nominated for deletion. In all forms of decision making (consensus and parliamentary), comments are always directed to the group or the moderator and never to a participant. The reason for this is that it diverts attention from the topic to the individual. I would recommend avoiding using ping or any other form of using another editors name in a discussion unless it is a discussion about that editor, and they are the topic. Even then the topic is likely not them but something that they did, and so even then using their name is probably not appropriate. The only time that I can think of that using @Someone is appropriate is in Arbcom discussions, where discussion must be in your own section, or even on a separate talk page, and is done to indicate which portion of the discussion is referenced. In a threaded discussion they are never appropriate. It is known as personalizing the discussion, and is forbidden. See both WP:NPA and WP:FOC. Thanks. Apteva (talk) 16:26, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Can you point me to where this discussion is happening, as well as informing me that it is? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:33, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I can see a TfD template, but no actual discussion on the TfD page. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:35, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Give it time... Apteva (talk) 16:39, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Done. I was still on step one at the time. Apteva (talk) 16:56, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks; I've replied with my personal account, with an appropriate disclaimer about how I found out about the discussion. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:57, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

WMF employee usernames

Quick check — do all usernames have a (WMF) if they're used by WMF employees in their capacities as employees? I just deleted a userpage that claimed to be a WMF employee. The user just registered yesterday, so of course I understand that he's not one of your coworkers; I'd simply like to know if you guys are required to add (WMF) for your "official" accounts. Nyttend (talk) 12:19, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

We are these days; I'll investigate, thanks. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 03:04, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

So does Wikipedia have a few dozen to a hundred paid editors now? Or does no one edit articles from a WMF account, while they are "on the clock"? Apteva (talk) 17:00, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

"Or does no one edit articles from a WMF account, while they are "on the clock"?" As long as the WMF hasn't completely lost its mind, that's correct. The only reason I could see a staffer editing an article would be to, say, test a feature, reproduce a bug, or something like that. Unless Oliver's running some secret ring of paid editors... Theopolisme (talk) 17:04, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Theopolisme is correct; we've got precisely zero paid editors, and never will. While some of us to edit articles, we edit articles as volunteers - as Ironholds or Moonriddengirl or WhatamIdoing - not as staffers. We don't !vote or edit content for money. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:10, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Very good to hear. I think the rest of us would all quit otherwise. Or demand equal pay for equal work. Apteva (talk) 22:05, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Sure. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:10, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

An encouraging word

Hi Oliver. I just wanted to stop by and thank you for being the point person between the community and the foundation. In a few months, it will be two years that you've been helping the community interact with the foundation and its software group. That's an eternity on the net. I must say that you've certainly surpassed my expectations as a community liaison. The work you've been doing, gathering input from the community, has been invaluable and has helped make things much better than they otherwise would have been. You've been very visible and highly active, much more so that I thought was possible. I expect it's more than a full-time job, it's more like a 24-hr/day job. I'm very thankful the foundation chose an upstanding Wikipedian like you to fill this tremendously difficult role.

I know the rollout of the VE has been a difficult change for many people and very taxing on you and the rest of the WMF staff. I think you've been very helpful to users having problems and also been thoughtful and courteous even as the wagons are circling. I sincerely appreciate that.

I thought it might be a little helpful if I left you an encouraging word to help keep you going during these difficult times. You are doing outstanding work that we (foundation and community) so desperately need. We are making great progress together and we need to continue for the health of the project. Your efforts are important and very much appreciated. All the best. 64.40.54.109 (talk) 01:07, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

This is...a message I very much needed, and truly lovely to read :). Thank you so much! It's very much 24-hour; I think that in total, over the last 600 days, I've taken 12 or 13 completely off. I am very much looking forward to hitting the 2-year mark and shifting my focus ;). It's a fantastic job to do, in so many ways, but highly draining. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:38, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

"I am very much looking forward to hitting the 2-year mark and shifting my focus ;)." Huh? Is there something happening at the 2 year mark that I don't know about? Please don't tell me you shifting away from the community liaison position. 64.40.54.109 (talk) 06:48, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Still a lot of paperwork to go through, but the answer looks to be pointing to "yes". I should be clear that this is a deliberate decision on my part, and one I made...well, almost two years ago! My basic thinking was this; my job, at least in part, is to represent the community's needs. Not only by surfacing community complaints when they occur, but by trying to minimise the number of things people take issue with by acting as the proverbial canary in the coal mine. It's great to be able to convey to the product team "this thing we built, X, people won't like it", but it's inefficient. Far better is being able to go "this thing we're thinking of building, X, people won't like it". To do that I have to be able to speak as a power user. And I worked out before taking the job that working for the WMF would change my perspective, and my attitude - not least because in my experience someone doing this job doesn't have as much time for editing as they used to.

So I set a hard limit of 2 years; after 2 years, I shift to another role or leave. This is deliberately arbitrary, because worse than losing the community perspective is not realising you've done so, and that's a distinct possibility, so I didn't want to make shifting dependent on me realising my perspective had been substantively altered. That 2 years is almost up, and so I'm almost certainly moving to another role within Product. The good news is that the noticeable impact on the community is limited; I'll still be doing some community-facing work, and we're hiring some fantastic people to replace me (that's people plural! yay, resourcing). The bad news, from the perspective of the reviewers at GAN, is I'll now have more time to edit ;). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:09, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

the answer looks to be pointing to "yes". Well, completely disregarding your wants, needs and health—mental and physical—and instead, focusing soley and exclusively on what "I" want... "ARRGGHH, that s u c k s !" </rant> I understand fully, but wow, what a loss for us. You have been very, very interactive with the community and I'm not sure how any replacement will be able to reach that level. I'm not sure how you were able to do it. It must be an incredible work load. I recall somebody mentioning recently that the community was using you as a punching bag for their frustrations with the VE and I think that's a true statement. I would guess you've been seriously bruised from all of this. So I'm sure you will be looking forward to moving away from that. But I must admit I'm depressed to hear this news. However, I am happy and thankful that we've had your support for these many long months. You've done an excellent job bringing the communities concerns to the engineering team and I think you have represented the community well. You will be a tough act to follow. I am also thankful that the foundation has brought Pat, Keegan, WAID and Erica on board. That was certainly a great positive for the community, though it's only for a few months. Perhaps some/most of those will turn into something longer if those folks don't get burnt out from the experience. Where ever you move to, I hope you'll still be providing your insight to the foundation regarding the community/foundation relationship. Thanks. 64.40.54.164 (talk) 04:51, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks :). Yeah, no worries on that front; I don't think I could stop scratching that particular itch if I wanted to. I'm just hoping to do it for less than 90 hours a week ;). WAMID, Keegan, Erica, Patrick - I interviewed and handled the candidate triaging process for each of them, and my self-selected brief was "find someone better at this job than I am". I'm pretty confident they'll be good for the VE, and I'm really hoping that we get the opportunity to bring at least a couple of them on longer-term. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:41, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm really hoping that we get the opportunity to bring at least a couple of them on longer-term. Thanks. That's great news. They are a great bunch of folks and I think it would benefit the community and the foundation if they had the opportunity to continue their efforts. 64.40.54.103 (talk) 01:13, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, and agreed. Even if Patrick is a Canadian ;p. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:14, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

You're relying pretty heavily on our reputation for pacifism here, Mr. Keyes. PEarley (WMF) (talk) 15:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor additions

Hey there! I just wanted to know if the final version of VisualEditor will include buttons for super- and subscript. They're essential to lots of scientific fields and relatively easy to add (or so I think). On a side note, maybe two other buttons to get bigger or smaller font should also be added, but that's not much of a deal in my point of view. The other obvious addition would it be to include a table insertion tool, though it must be relatively harder to implement. Thanks for your time — Nuno Agostinho • ^{(Say It!)} 18:26, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure at this stage, I'm afraid :/. I can say that things like maths formula editing is on the to-do list, and I imagine the general domain of mathematical and scientific script standards will fall under that. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:26, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Can't resist...

...to answer this edit with: Then all at once the chaos ceased. A stillness fell, a sudden peace. The warriors felt your silent cry and stayed their struggle, mystified. The WMF was astonished, the community thought you're mad. But they read your story further and they wondered, and were sad. Looking down from Community Liaison on a world of doubt and fear, its surface splintered into sorry hemispheres. They sat a while in silence, then they turned at last to you: we will call you Cygnus, the God of balance you shall be. — HHHIPPO 21:15, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I would certainly love to be responsible for bringing truth and understanding, wit and wisdom fair, precious gifts beyond compare - but I don't think that's me :P. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:22, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

broken template data

Following the thread on WP:VE/F

<templatedata>{
"description": "An Infobox for World Heritage Sites",
"params": {
  "WHS": {
    "label": "Name",
    "description": "name as inscribed on the World Heritage List",
    "type": "string",
    "required": true
  },
  "Criteria": {
    "label": "Criteria",
    "description": "The designated criteria: i, ... ix or x.",
    "type": "string",
    "required": true
  },
  "CriteriaB": {
    "label": "CriteriaB",
    "description": "The designated criteria: i,	... ix or x.",
    "type": "string",
    "required": true
  }
}}</templatedata>

This is really odd. I cannot see any difference between Criteria and CriteriaB, parses OK if I remove CriteriaB but not it its there. You need to take it out of pre tags to test.--Salix (talk): 11:44, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

That's strange; I can't see a problem either. Paging @GermanJoe: GermanJoe to the reception desk ;). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:42, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

An Infobox for World Heritage Sites

Template parameters

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Name	WHS	name as inscribed on the World Heritage List	String	required
Criteria	Criteria	The designated criteria: i, ... ix or x.	String	required
CriteriaB	CriteriaB	The designated criteria: i, ... ix or x.	String	required

Test. Apteva (talk) 20:50, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Ooh. What was the trick? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 20:56, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

There are some funny characters between the , and ... ix in the second case that are not visible. Apteva (talk) 21:02, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, though it would be something like that. Cheers, hope the parser has better error messages soon.--Salix (talk): 21:48, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Ditto! There is a bugzilla entry for it. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:14, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

		The Barnstar of Diplomacy
		For your helpful, constructive, and informative assistance at WT:Flow. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:14, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Hopefully the rest of the discussion goes more smoothly :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:13, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I was asked about how to globally disable VE

I don't think there is really a built-in way, but I would appreciate a response there. I told the user to create a global JavaScript page and include the gadget from there. (Do you happen to know whether a bot adds Link GA to all wikis, BTW?) πr² (t • c) 12:45, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey PiRSquared :). There's not a built-in way, I'm afraid; your solution looks like the best one, although if the user is a sysop I'd advocate localising the gadget, too. No automated link GA thing, that I know of :(. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:59, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick response! πr² (t • c) 13:46, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

No problem! The wiki doesn't sleep ;). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:49, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Discussion on AfC at the Village Pump: AFC ruining Wikipedia

FYI: Discussion on AfC at the Village Pump: AFC ruining WikipediaFYI: A discussion is taking place at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#WikiProject Articles for creation Threatens to Ruin Wikipedia. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:37, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

A question about user expectations

You may have your hands full with VE issues, but I have a question which I think you are well=positioned to answer.

There a request for a case on infoboxes. Whether the case is accepted or not, the community will eventually need to reach some conclusions about several issues which appear to me to be unresolved. One issue that may arise is the extent to which individual Wikiprojects can set their own rules about content and format. I think Wikiprojects ought to have some such control, but I see limits. I think our readers have come to expect, even if implicitly, a canonical look to a Wikipedia article. Some things are well-established—the article title will be in the first sentence, in bold, and navboxes will be at the bottom. Other things may vary.

My question is whether the WMF has done an user surveys of issues such as this. I am particularly interested in user's expectations regarding infoboxes. They don't exist in all articles, so there is no way that user could expect one in all cases, but it seems plausible that users might expect one in articles exceeding some quality level. Or maybe my bias is creeping in. I'm not aware that any such survey has been done, but this is a big place, and I stumble across new things just about every day. I thought if such a user survey had been done, you would be likely to know about it.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:28, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Hi, SPhilbrick. :) I do not believe that the WMF has surveyed users about issues like this. You can review surveys at m:Category:Surveys. Oliver might know if an external group has done such a survey, but honestly I'd be surprised - that strikes me as something that external groups might not think to ask. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:22, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

To my knowledge, external groups haven't, I'm afraid. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:48, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Surveys on whether users ever use collapsible-sections (the [Show] buttons) would also be really handy, in general, and for this infobox case, where some editors are proposing collapsing segments, or even collapsing the entire thing, as one solution. (Which I'm strongly opposed to, based on anecdotal/personal evidence of friends consistently being surprised when I point out a hidden section.) –Quiddity (talk) 01:52, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. Regarding collapsible sections, I like the concept, yet generally oppose it for the same reasons as Quiddity (which means I am not fundamentally opposed, and might be supportive if it could be done in a way that was clear to the user.)--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:48, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

A general new feature "Return to Top"

On long articles and TALK discussion, I like to read the new information most often at the bottom. Other sites have a "Return to Top" or "Go to top" button; why not Wikipedia? I know this area of discussion is about the new editor, but this would be a great general enhancement to Wikipedia. — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 15:33, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

That's actually something we were planning to build as part of the Micro-Design Improvements team; never happened, unfortunately :/. It sounds like a good thing to throw at User:Vibhabamba, User:Jorm or another designer, for when they're thinking about changes to the interface, though. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:19, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

User script: User:Numbermaniac/goToTop - (if it works, I'd recommend this option. Untested by me.)

Past suggestions/requests: 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013.

Templates: Template:Top of page (26 uses in The Missing Manual, and 5 elsewhere) and Template:Go to top (Currently completely unused).

(That's just using searches for the exact phrases "go to top" and "return to top" - there are almost certainly more discussions to find.)

I don't know why I like to research these things, but I do!

(Warning: don't add the existing templates too boldly. It's not widely used because it's hard to get things to display consistently at the bottom of pages. Especially talkpages where the "new section" topic starter always interferes. That's why it doesn't exist at WP:Help desk anymore, afaik. Also, some editors oppose them being added en-masse, as "interface-cruft" - If any site-changes are made, a disableable-gadget would be best.) –Quiddity (talk) 01:47, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Just make it really sexy and useful and Web 2.0-y, that way you're guaranteed to have community opposition. </end snark> Theopolisme (talk) 03:15, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Spamming?

Hello Okeyes

Sorry to trouble you about this.

I came across an edit to the Samsung page earlier, when I looked back in the page history I noticed quite a few edits like this one to the page. I checked Geolocate and that IP is showing its services as forum spamming recently.

I think that you said at the Village that an IP had been spamming the API if I remember correctly? I thought it a bit coincidental that the Samsung article also got spammed today, I thought I should mention it in case its of any use to you guys at WMF :)--5 albert square (talk) 18:14, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

They have; I suspect that's not going to the responsible source, though :). For context, bits.wikipedia.org was registering 10GB/s earlier - whoever caused yesterday's hoo-hah is pretty high volume. If they were hitting articles we'd know about it, and not in a good way :(. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 05:10, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Graphs

What is the graphics engine that creates the graphs on your dashboard? Dragons flight (talk) 07:41, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

The http://ee-dashboard.wmflabs.org/dashboards/features/ labs dashboard]? That's limn, a Foundation tool. Myself, I normally produce graphs with ggplot2, in R, but that's only really good for static output. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:42, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Dragons flight (talk) 08:12, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Questions

Waiting for you here. Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:09, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor bug Bug 50615.

Hiyas there Ironholds,

Mind giving me a hand with T52615? That specific issue seems to be solved now, but since Maggie reported the bug for me i cannot change the status to resolved. One slight drawback though: Solving that bug seems to have caused a new one to surface:

Steps to reproduce:

• Navigate to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Baylor_University_Institute_for_Oral_History&diff=540967084&oldid=prev
• Press "Edit this Page"

Instead of editing the old page that was just displayed the visual editor seems to default to the most recent version of the page. Not sure if i should amend the old bug, or create a new one for this. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 13:18, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Not Ironholds! Ack! Crossing the streams :D.

I've RESOLVE FIXED it; good catch on the followup. Want to throw it in? I'd suggest a new bug, yep. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:19, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Argh, i forgot this is the official account. Sorry for that IronEyes! :P. As for the bug: One freshly baked T53364 has just entered the oven. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 13:37, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

"Bad faith" and "false"

Regarding your reversion here. I'm acting in good faith for the encyclopedia, maybe not for individual careers at the WMF, but definitely for other editors here. Your accusation of bad faith borders on a personal attack, if I didn't want to assume you just make the (pre-)judgement in total ignorance.

As for "false," show me where it's false. Flow is replacing Talk pages, and Flow will only use Visual Editor. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:16, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Certainly not. More accurately, you were assuming bad faith. So, in order; statements about the VE being "crammed up the ass" of editors are not assuming the good faith of the other participant here. Assuming, as you do here, that I object for sake of "individual careers" ditto. We don't have a single staffer who couldn't be earning far more at any other company - a company where they're not required to spend all day with users sending them aggrieved messages. If we only cared about our "individual careers" we'd be elsewhere. We're here because we're also acting in good faith for the encyclopedia. Yes, we disagree, undoubtedly - but tell me truly that you've never had a user disagree with you who was acting in what they believed to be the interests of the wiki?

In order, the incorrect bits:

• When you imply, in your edit summary, that we are simply going to force flow or the VE on the community without an opportunity to discuss it or amend it, you are incorrect. We are having that discussion now - on this talkpage. We are also having it on the Flow portal on enwiki, the Flow portal on metawiki, and the Flow portal on mediawiki.org - and that's before development has even started. We're having a very, very preliminary discussion.
• The rest of your statement is incorrect for the reasons I've already outlined in the discussions about the VE/Flow interaction; that what Flow looks like now may be totally different from how it looks like when it's built, which in turn may be very different from how it looks when it's deployed. This is a very preliminary discussion of a very preliminary featureset - look at Page Curation. The initial design of that was based around the idea that there would be, say, a dozen categories you could pass or fail an article on. Pick as many as you want; if you have some left over, the article will go back into the queue to be checked for the remaining items, and users will be able to filter by item type. If you've used Special:NewPagesFeed, you'll know that's not how it works in practise.
• To reiterate; preliminary discussion. Preliminary featureset. A discussion we are having about this featureset precisely so people can surface major issues with it, and so they can be discussed. I have no doubt that the need for wikimarkup is going to be brought into the conversation, and by that I mean "I'm in the office in 3 days, and I'll bring it up in person". I don't need an extra 300 editors battering down the gates to know it's a problem. The fact that it is a problem has been surfaced, and will be taken into account. There's not much more to do here.

Anyway. I've been having conversations with people for...15-16 hours now. I'm going to go to bed, and I'll re-engage in the morning. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:36, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Template Data

Hey Okeyes! First I want to say that I think VE is a very good idea (but obviusly needs some work) and I will fully support it until it is perfect. With that, I've added template data to Template:Infobox amusement park on Saturday and the parameters are still not coming up on VE. Does it take this long for VE to find the code or is it something that I did wrong?--Dom497 (talk) 22:45, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

It does, unfortunately, take some time for the system to notice there's TemplateData :(. You can short circuit this by making a null edit to the template. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:37, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

I made the null edit on the /doc page. Is that good enough or should the edit be done on the actual template page (but the template is locked so only admins can edit it).--Dom497 (talk) 20:43, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

The actual template page. And, darn :/. Ah well - it'll display soon enough. Just a bit of a wait. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 20:47, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Courtesy notification

I have made a proposal at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Fork the wiki in which I used a diff authored by you as an example. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:49, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Just Trying To Help Out

Hey again, I just wanted to let you know that I created an alternate VE logo with a slogan (its all about the marketing!). Just wiped it together quickly so if you wanna use it, you can take the rights (the image format is .png because .svg was giving me problems so you might have to convert it). Anyway, that's all!--Dom497 (talk) 23:59, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I like it :)--5 albert square (talk) 00:28, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Ditto! Very nice :D. I suspect at this stage it might be a bit too late on branding - we have t-shirts and everything! - but it's a lovely design :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:24, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Random anecdotes and vague impressions are valid statistical data because I say so

Morning OK-yes. Just a note that I'm seeing a lot of new editors looking like this. In other words, big edit summaries, constructive edits, and visual editor.

So I have randomly arrived at the conclusion that VE, even in its currently buggy form, is by some mechanism either attracting constructive thoughtful people who (on average) wouldn't have bothered editing before, or causing them to edit more thoughtfully or more edit-summarily when they do. Or both.

This is probably in rather the wrong place but I am too lazy to wade through pages to find out what the right place is.

Off to give them some welcome cookies now. Don't blame me if they turn out to be a spa{{mm,nn}}er. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:52, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Heh! I won't :). Even spammers and vandals can convert given time. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 20:08, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback#meta:Research:VisualEditor.27s_effect_on_newly_registered_editors.2FResults

Responded to you there. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 21:18, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you again

Wow, I wasn't expecting another barnstar! Thank you. Thryduulf (talk) 22:20, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

You earned it, many times over :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:38, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Curation

Is anyone from the Foundation still watching this page: Wikipedia talk:Page Curation. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:48, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey Kudpung. I'm still watching it when I can find the time, but obviously the VisualEditor is taking up a lot of our energies at the moment. I'd love if we could dedicate more resources to that page, but we don't have that many liaisons - those that we do have are trying to talk to users on ~200 projects. In the meantime, it's been lovely to see volunteers, such as the user who submitted bugzilla:50023, take over some of the work. I'll try to check in where I can but would encourage users to submit to bugzilla if they can find the time, just to make sure things go into the system even if staff are busy. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:23, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Filing Bugzilla reports is onerous, and they simply get ignored. Page Curation is/was a Foundation project, there was such a fuss about getting it developed and running that I feel it should be their responsibility to maintain it.

Can you point me to a bug report being actively ignored? I'm happy to surface it. I agree, we should maintain it - I haven't seen any evidence of regressions in functionality. For improvements and bugfixes, Page Curation is in the same position as MediaWiki or any other project: we will maintain it, but cannot make promises as to when bugs will be fixed. I'd love to have the resources to dedicate someone to things like Page Curation full-time, but we don't: we have to prioritise things under active development, although I accept (and have argued for) more support for existing extensions. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:09, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Here is one example and it has still not been addressed: Wikipedia talk:Page Curation#Repetition. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:52, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for highlighting it; bugzilla:47645. I've poked people afresh. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 01:03, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Server admins?

How does one contact the server admins? We appear to have a serious database problem: WP:ANI sections "Hazard-Bot false positives flood" and "'What links here' info incorrect, causing 'bot misbehavior." show that WhatLinksHere is suddenly badly malfunctioning in regards to images, showing them as orphaned when they're definitely not. This doesn't appear to be a software bug, so I didn't think a Bugzilla report would help. Nyttend (talk) 22:17, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh dear. I'm going to run down to 3rd and prod them in-person now, just to draw their attention to the threads :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:42, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Didn't know if you had face-to-face access to them or not, but I figured you'd know better than I how to attract their attention to the issue. Nyttend (talk) 00:23, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

A fluke, actually; I'm in office for a few weeks. But I can kick them on IRC when I'm not :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:40, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Has that problem been fixed? If and when it is, please update Wikipedia:Bot_owners'_noticeboard#Database_problem_-_all_.27bots_which_use_certain_information_should_be_suspended_temporarily to tell 'bot operators they can restart their engines. Thanks. John Nagle (talk) 05:27, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll ask :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:05, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

The guy handling it was ill Thursday and converting pywikipediabot on Friday; I'll let you know when there's an update. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:08, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Bug

I don't know all the steps to normally report a bug but you seem like a good person to tell, so here goes. Sometimes when I go to a new page on wikipedia, the "your notifications" grey box next to my username changes, with the grey box dissapearing, and just the number 0 appearing in its place. Not sure if its a bug or if its me. Chrome/win7. Thanks, ★★King∽~Retrolord★★ 10:29, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Strange! That happens to me occasionally. Do you know how to access the error console on Chrome? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:40, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Continued from WP:VEF ...

Because I think we're getting off topic there. Firstly let me thank you for bothering to respond to what was, I admit, a slightly snarky statement. Second I'd agree with your "reasonable points" statement but I also think just ignoring the outrage is also wrong. Outrage as large as occurred here shows strength of feeling and how large the problem may be. Yes a lot of those people may not be expressing it well and so not making a strong argument but that doesn't mean it should be ignored.

More generally do you agree that one of, if not, the biggest problem with the VE rollout (and indeed echo before that) was communication between developers / WMF on the one hand and the editors, especially senior editors, on the other. The response to removing the opt out was, in my mind, and I'm sure many other editors here, very predictable yet the WMF / developers were seemingly not aware of this or if they were did a very poor job of explaining why it was necessary before (and indeed after) it was implemented. If you do agree is the WMF looking at ways of improving this communication?

To draw an analogy, most experienced editors are acutely aware that we are not readers (our "users") and we desire to take their views into account despite the difficulty in getting their views. At the moment, in my mind, the WMF / developers not only don't seek editors (their "users") views but give the impression of not even caring what their views are. I think it's become abundantly clear that I'm not the only person to think that way. I hope that's not the case and it's just a communication issue. In my mind there has been a major break down in communication that needs fixing and, given the rollout of flow, fixing quick. At the moment I can only see a similar disaster when flow is rolled out. I hope someone at the WMF is aware of, and looking into, this. Dpmuk (talk) 17:40, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

This is going to be kinda long - apologies in advance. So, I agree on all of your points. I think we have a couple of issues to deal with here (which I'm not uncomfortable to talk about - I think they're pretty much known, inside and outside the Foundation).

Mostly: we didn't involve the Community Liaisons early enough in the process. By the time we came on board, the alpha/beta/whatever you want to call it was coming pretty close to deployment. This meant it was difficult for the pool of staffers hired specifically to have an insight into community needs, and to communicate to editors and get their needs in more detail, to actually influence decisions relating to the software (as opposed to decisions about where the software was deployed). It also meant that the Liaisons weren't in the conversations where hard/awkward decisions were made, which made communicating with the community and starting a dialogue about those issues difficult: we didn't necessarily know the reason. To be fair, I think the developers (and James) have done an excellent job communicating with us and with the community since (it's been wonderful to see a lot of developers, particularly Subbu and Gwicke, on the feedback page and talkpage), but it creates a really big bottleneck when it comes to having these conversations. We have staff who know the answers to Awkward Issue X, or at least what made it an awkward issue. But they don't scale to constantly talking to 9 liaisons on a ton of projects, let alone all the editors. We need to do a lot better at involving community-facing staff, and the community, in the development process as well as the deployment process.

I don't think the failures here were anything we could realistically have done better at; they were largely resourcing. At the beginning of the year we had two Liaisons - myself, in Engineering, and Maggie, in Legal. Maggie was working on, well, legal issues: I had Echo and other Editor Engagement projects. We simply didn't have the bandwidth to get working on the VE too, and so I don't assign blame to James, Erik or anyone else for this problem; it was simply how the dice rolled. I also think that we've done (and are doing) a lot to solve for it. Engineering now has five Liaisons, not one: we have a lot more bandwidth. And the issue of embedding Liaisons in development discussions is something that I think caused a lot of the Echo problems too, and something we're solving for; we actually discussed it in the Echo retrospective and agreed it was an issue we needed to target - we just weren't able to do so with the VE, because the software was pretty much done by that stage. But for Flow, I have no doubt my replacements will be embedded (and even if they're not, I will be.)

I agree that outrage is something to take note of, as is strength of feeling, but we run into problems, as a community, if we follow the principle of "he who shouts hardest, shouts loudest, wins". I often think this is a hidden cost of the environment we have; that we create an atmosphere that contains a lot of heat, and people who can't take it simply leave, and so we're left with those who operate around (or at least are comfortable with) "he who shouts hardest". I don't expect to be able to change it on my own substantially, but I'm just saying I think it creates problems when trying to evaluate whether what one user is saying "the community" needs is what the community actually needs - and it encourages us to either take it seriously (and change things, and justify shouting) or ignore it because it's offensive (even if it's legitimate). both are suboptimal, and so I'd like to discourage shouting. Generally I've seen staffers make a lot of tweaks to software and how it's deployed in response to community concerns - but these have largely been made in response to reasoned argument. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:16, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Again, thank you for taking the time to reply. I have been acutely aware when commenting about fragmentary discussions and how I may be making staff reply to the same question again but, as you rightly point out, at the moments the systems aren't properly in place for getting user feedback etc.

I take your point about the "ton of projects" but at the same time en.wiki has (according to this) more than 40% of active wikipedia editors and even if we take into account non-wikipedia projects I'm guessing en.wiki is at least a third of your active users. That's a very significant proportion of your user base right here. Communicating well with this group seems a good way to start!

I've not really been involved with VE feedback as I don't use it and have no intention of. However at the higher level I don't think there has been good communication - the debacle of the opt out being a case in point. Likewise carrying on with the rollout to anons despite users saying it's a bad idea due to it's bugginess. I've yet to see that decision explained (although I may not have looked in the right places, in which case it's just another sign of communication breakdown). Maybe at the coalface things are going well but at the higher more strategic level there are still significant issues and it's these that annoy the experienced editors. If just once WMF said "we're delay x while discuss it and won't implement to agreement is reached" that would reassure me but too often it's we're delay it for some temporary time and then implement it regardless of whether the issues are fixed. That doesn't seem like you're listening to us.

Trying to be practical I think what needs to happen now is WMF needs to appoint someone to look at the communication issues and how to involve editors more in development. This needs to be widely advertised so as to get the views of editors. If the WMF just tries to force what they, be it you or anyone else, thinks is the solution down our throats that's unlikely to go well. I'm reassured that the WMF is aware of these issues but I think what you need to do now is advertise that fact and what you're going to do to solve them. I feel that would go some way to restoring user confidence. Dpmuk (talk) 19:51, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd love to be able to advertise the solutions, but I don't necessarily know them; I'm just one (very junior) staffer. Enwiki has got the vast majority of our communication and attention - we have two Liaisons for the project, started the opt-in alpha here, and for the launches had eight to eleven staffers working a consistent 24-hour rolling shift to reply to feedback. We certainly need to do a lot better, but I'd argue that, actually? We are. Two years ago we wouldn't be having this conversation because there'd be nowhere to have it with. With AFT5, we had a liaison. It wasn't enough, so with Page Curation, we had a liaison and early deployments. It wasn't enough, so with VE, we had multiple liaisons, early deployments. This wasn't enough, so next time...and so on, and so forth. I don't know what form the response will take, but I know there will be one: that we will do better. What I strongly suspect is that this will involve, as said, embedding Liaisons more, as I was with Page Curation, so that issues can be surfaced as early as possible, before they're baked into plans or into the software - at which point, as with any organisation, it has momentum behind it. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:59, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not asking you to advertise the solution - I doubt anyone knows the answer yet. But it would be nice if WMF decided they wanted editor's feedback on the what the possible solution may be and made sure to solicit their views. While I agree with your comment with reference to two years ago in that communication has got better it's also got more important as the changes have got bigger. I think that although it's get further behind where it should be now we're introducing big changes. With reference to your "what I strongly suspect" statement is definitely one solution but what ever solution is arrived at it should be arrived at via discussion with the community and, ideally, with the community's buy in. Dpmuk (talk) 05:02, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:VisualEditor/Opt-out

Trying to get this just prominent enough that people can find it, but also let us cut down some of the giant "How to turn VE off" banners. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 19:40, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm confused. The giant "How to turn VE off" banners you're proposing, or different ones? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:42, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

The permanent ones, like at WP:VE. I think if it's in the sidebar, we can downplay it at the top a lot more. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 19:46, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

In all honesty, I'd really rather you or another VE team member wrote the sitenotice. You have a lot of other things you could talk about that could blunt the opt-out notice. It's far better to, for example, announce the new features, and encourage people to give them a try, and THEN have the optout than to just mention the opt-out. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 19:47, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, we're not going to because (as I've explained, and as other users have agreed) it's inefficient and kind of a nuclear option: it's going to hit users who have already made their call, one way or another. If there's a pool of community members who don't like the VE, they've either grown accustomed to it (in which case, why notify them?) switched on the gadget (which will persist for longer than the preference) or, allegedly, left (in which case they won't see the notice). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:55, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

VE Load time study

Hey mate, I thought you or the team might be interested in this. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:33, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Ooh, neat! Thanks for doing that work :). @Jdforrester (WMF): — Preceding unsigned comment added by Okeyes (WMF) (talk • contribs)

Oliver, this proves that even the public face of a project can forget how it works -- you have to sign your pings for them to work! :) @Jdforrester (WMF): Theopolisme (talk) 17:43, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

The shame, the shame! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 3 August 2013 (UTC)