Wikimedia:Village pump/Archive 1

First thoughts

Hello,

This seems to be the first message of the Village pump on the Outreach wiki. Welcome all, and please let us know what you think of the wiki, ask questions or get to know what is going on. A village pump, for those who don't know what that is, is the central discussion point to everything that has to do with that particular wiki. Most Wikimedia Foundation wikis have them, and they can be very active sometimes, so if there is anything you wish others to know about, this is a good place to "advertise".

Good luck in your outreach work.//Hannibal 10:10, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I-20 13:55, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Special:Import

Some of us want to enable Special:Import. Right now, the import source will be en:. Does anyone oppose or have suggestions? If no opposition rises, I will file on Bugzilla for this to be done. —I-20the highway 14:19, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Please enable it for other language versions as well. This is a multilingual wiki and we want people from other languages to have the same options as English speakers. --Frank Schulenburg 15:48, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

That's OK too. Which languages, though? —I-20the highway 16:13, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm thinking the top ten Wikipedias. —I-20the highway 16:16, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Please also add Meta, Commons and Foundation wiki – just to be sure :) --Church of emacs 12:11, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm Swedish, so top 11, if possible :-) /Hannibal 12:27, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

That's also great. 5 more days, and I'll file the bug. —I-20the highway 19:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Now as MediaZilla:25345. 24.178.137.65 20:03, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Great, thanks I-20! Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 19:21, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

JeLuF has enabled the import. --Nemo 20:36, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Fabulous! Thanks all! Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 16:18, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

rename

please rename me to User:Frozen Wind. Thanks, —I-20the highway 22:30, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Pageview statistics

Hi all, I just learned that the grok.se pageview statistics also works with this wiki, e.g. http://stats.grok.se/outreach.m/201010/Bookshelf. Does someone know how to include a link to the statistics under "View history"? (as it is done on the English Wikipedia) --Frank Schulenburg 16:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Add <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''·''' [http://stats.grok.se/outreach.m/latest/{{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Page views]</span> to MediaWiki:Histlegend Ainali 20:20, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Realized I was admin so I did this change. Ainali 20:26, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

As I was researching stats.grok.se, I found there are some different -- possibly better -- alternatives. I'll report back here in a bit -- actually, Outreach wiki seems like a great place to put together some resources on what exists in this realm. -Pete F 21:56, 20 October 2010 (UTC) (see w:en:User:Killiondude/stats#See also for some info, or I'll come back later with a more thorough overview.) -Pete F 21:56, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Local file uploads

How about turning off local uploads and directing all uploads to Wikimedia Commons instead? I'm assuming that all the developed resources are free content, so is there any reason not to?--Eloquence 23:06, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I support this. How can we turn off the local uploads? --Frank Schulenburg 19:25, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Soft way: change MediaWiki:Sidebar to link to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Upload Ainali 20:14, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I've put in a request for disabling them technically, and yes, we can put a link to Commons in the sidebar. :-) --Eloquence 20:32, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Done and done. Any volunteers for making sure the existing local resources are copied to Commons?--Eloquence 20:41, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I can try. --Arseny1992 03:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Most of the files are moved (see the deletion log of the local files and commons:Category:Files moved from outreach.wikimedia to Commons requiring review). To original uploaders: Please specify under which free license you wish to publish the media. Or else they will be removed from Commons. --Arseny1992 11:18, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your help! --Frank Schulenburg 14:49, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Very much seconded! Frank, can you or someone from the team add the licensing information to the files on Commons so they don't get nuked there? I'm assuming they're all CC-BY-SA, but we'll need to include authorship information as well. Thanks,--Eloquence 18:42, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks from me also. All my works you can place in public domain, if possible.//Hannibal 19:50, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

We need to be a bit careful about deleting files; many of those recently deleted were either linked from elsewhere on this wiki (rather than included inline), or from elsewhere on the net (our email newsletter and contact database). I restored all the recently deleted files after finding that many of them had resulted in redlinks or missing messages in widely-distributed emails. -Pete F 23:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Most of the files at Special:NewFiles are either unfree or not properly licensed. These files should be deleted per meta:Resolution:Licensing policy. Multichill (talk) 14:58, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Liquid Threads

Just wondering what people's thoughts were on Liquid Threads, and potentially having it here... Witty lama 09:08, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Might be helpful. Mono 03:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

anyone else out there? Witty lama 03:07, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, let's turn it on. It may be a good way to test this where many people go (I know some other Wikimedia projects have used it, but it never hurts to start using it in more places.)//Hannibal 11:13, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I used Liquid Threads on the Strategy Wiki and found it very confusing and not user-friendly at all. I strongly suggest turning it on on a page-by-page decision. --Frank Schulenburg 17:09, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I also found liquid threads very unhelpful and would suggest it is not applied.Leutha (talk) 03:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Page protection

Following the vandalism by 69.178.194.140, I was wondering whether we should protect some important pages and create and then protect some others (such as the privacy policy, 'about' page and the general disclaimer). I was also wondering whether the user should be blocked and if so, for how long. Has anyone got any thoughts on this? Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 11:00, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I blocked the user for a while. So far, we've had precious little vandalism, so we may not need a policy just yet, but let's start thinking of one anyway. I say we should be very inclusive, not have too many rules and try to talk to them. The reason I blocked the user without talking was that he or she inserted the same vandalism into so many pages, that it didn't seem any point in talking. But otherwise, just use your common sense ^(TM), perhaps.//Hannibal 11:18, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The reason I suggested those pages be written was that they were created by the vandal so have nothing sensible to be reverted to. Should I just delete them and protect them against creation by IPs? I was also going to block the user but I wasn't sure for how long, so thanks for doing that. :-) Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 16:00, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Should I protect the three links in the footer from creation by IPs due to them being highly visible to vandals and quite important? Thanks, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 16:10, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I have created MediaWiki:Privacypage which links to foundation:Privacy_policy as a placeholder until such time as there is a need to create a local version of the policy. This will prevent an anon from editing that link. If there are any objections I will undo this. --mikeu ^talk 17:18, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I also created MediaWiki:Disclaimerpage as a link to the foundation general disclaimer as a temporary measure. Two of the three links are now effectively protected from anon vandalism. The About page, of course, would need to be created locally. --mikeu ^talk 20:20, 22 December 2010 (UTC) 17:38, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Some of our high-visibility pages should probably be Pending Changes protected, just in case we have a troublemaker. Mono 03:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Should the Main Page be protected against IPs? They have no need to really be editing it anyway. Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 16:14, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The rate of vandalism on this Wiki has been extremely low. I would advocate for keeping all pages as freely editable as possible. --Frank Schulenburg 17:07, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Best practices series

I noticed that User:Nemo bis put up interwiki redirects on the best practices pages. It seems to me that those pages actually properly belong here, not on Meta. I know that's going to be a never-ending discussion, but if we assume that a dedicated public outreach wiki is a good idea, then IMO all relevant resources should be centralized and developed there. Thoughts? -Eloquence 21:22, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree. --Rock drum (talk · contribs) 19:09, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Strong support. --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 19:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Volunteer-run projects (and volunteers)

Hi all, I'm looking for some successful, volunteer-run programs so that the people who ran them can be added to the Outreach team page. This means that they can then be contacted by users who are less-experienced in outreach and need help. Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 19:05, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm assuming you want to ask people for permission before listing them? Lots of the folks who ran projects listed at w:Wikipedia:School and university projects (and the interlanguage links) would be candidates. Also, some of the chapter grants listed at Grants:Index were outreach-focused, and some of the relevant project coordinators would definitely be great to have here (e.g. Siska Doviana from Wikimedia Indonesia, who ran a huge student competition); there's contact information for all of them. You could easily spend an afternoon just with these two links, so let me know if that's the kind of thing you're looking for :-) --Eloquence 08:39, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Auto archive talkpages?

Is it possible to get talkpage threads to auto archive, or... to add LiquidThreads to this wiki please? Witty lama 05:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

LQT is in heavy transition mode right now, so not the best time to add it (lots of UI and development work happening). It'll get there eventually and will kick butt :-). But until then we'll probably need to use bots and such (sorry, can't help with that).--Eloquence 08:36, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Disable new page creation by IPs

We've been getting a lot of vandalism and off-topic pages. What does everyone think about turning this off? Mono (talk) 22:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Blind Support. This is my first edit on the WikiMedia site, so I don't know as much about the state of affairs on Wikimedia or how much of an issue disabling this would cause, but if you are having a lot of problems with page creation vandalism I'd say do it. The English Wikipedia has IP page creation disabled for just this reason, and it's easy to create a new account. Vgmddg (talk) 21:31, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Oppose There hasn't been that much, and as previously stated, we want to keep this wiki as open as possible. Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 17:15, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I strongly oppose this idea. In the past, there hasn't been much vandalism on this wiki. Also, this wiki is meant to be as open as possible. --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 19:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

• OK, so we've gotten a great deal recently, any changes in opinion? Mono (talk) 01:39, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Support (but only temporarily) Per the recent increase in vandalism I think that a temprary (~2 week) ban on page creation by IPs could solve our problem. Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 20:09, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Oppose the amount of edits is enough to manage without needing to do this. Let's keep things open. Aude (talk) 22:00, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps mw:Extension:AbuseFilter could be helpful? Mono (talk) 00:04, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Depends on what exactly you want to block. The problem with edit filters is that, unless you have a /really/ refined code (which ends up missing a lot, usually), you end up with quite a few false positives. That being said, a filter could be made to disallow the creation of small, one sentence articles in the mainspace (ns 0), or whatever other namespaces need it. Page creations with nonsense (sfhsdafjh) could also be blocked, to some extent. Ajraddatz (talk) 03:32, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Mailing list

During a discussion on IRC, User:Mono suggested that a general outreach mailing list might be a good idea. I would quite like to see what the community thinks before one is created so we welcome your feedback below, either in the form of a Support/Oppose vote or just through general comments. Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 19:58, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Mono (talk) 20:36, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
• I would support this idea (although I am not sure if my vote counts!) Hydriz (talk) 11:30, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

• Of course it does. Mono (talk) 19:04, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

• Support. I am currently subscribed to a number of email lists that relate to outreach. It would be great to have one that can tie those things together, and also to this wiki. -Pete (talk) 20:39, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose What would be discussed on this list? There is already a GLAM one, and a Wikipedia Ambassador one, if one is needed for the ACC improvement and bookshelf projects, just create individual ones. Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 12:27, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Outreach to retirees

I'm 62 and an editor for four years. To me the biggest potential recruitment area for in general is recently retired, educated, computer savvy people who have more time on their hands and lots to offer. We need outreach to all the various Seniors groups like AARP and American Seniors Association to get articles printed about editing Wikipedia and to advertise for editors in their publications. Their readers are very attentive to these publications. One big selling point: Wikipedia keeps the mind active and challenged for seniors. A good place to recruit more women editors as well. Carolmooredc (talk) 03:55, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi Carol, I did a little bit of outreach to retired professors in the early stages of the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative, and it certainly seemed like a promising direction. I'd be interested to explore this more; please keep me in mind if you develop more specific ideas. -Pete (talk) 20:38, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Unified login

Hi, I'm involved in Wikimedia France, and i'd like to get involved in outreach and it's subprojects (like bookshelf). I find myself pretty confused by all the login/password I would need to use on all the different wikis : Strategic planning, Wikimania, Wikimedia Outreach ... my unified wikipedia login does not work here (and I understand that there are technical reasons for this). But is it possible to have at least a unified login system for all the wikimedia projects wikis ? --81.66.208.43

Hi,

I’m also a member of Wikimédia France, involved in many projects, and I just logged in here for the first time few minutes ago. I didn't have problem to use my usual username and password. Did you activate you SUL ?

Pymouss (talk) 11:10, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok password *is* the same, so it's unified I guess, but I have to log manually on outreach.wikimedia.org even when I'm already logged on fr.wikipedia.org and other projects, but that is probably normal ? (et Coucou Pymouss!) --Ofol (talk) 22:18, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Unified login uses the same password across all WMF wikis, however, it does not automatically log you in to all WMF sites due to the way that global cookie sessions (ie. auto-login) are handled by the software. My understanding is that it works this way due to computer server performance issues. So for sites like incubator:, wikimania and I assume here also this is normal behaviour. For the nitty gritty details see bugzilla:14407 --mikeu ^talk 16:06, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Enable Special:Collection?

Hey, would anybody have an objection if Special:Collection were enabled over here? Basically, so that people (and more self-interestedly, a group I'm working with) can develop workshop materials here and convert them into nice pdfs for printing. I know this is the paperless age etc. etc., and yet... having paper handouts or surveys and so on at the workshops we do often makes a difference. Thanks for your thoughts, -- ArielGlenn (talk) 12:18, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Notes: Special:Collection would be the Extension:Collection, which is the joint venture between the Wikimedia Foundation and PediaPress. Hydriz (talk) 03:43, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Support I am not sure exactly what this extension enables, but in general I have found the tools enabled by PediaPress tremendously helpful. Unfortunately, the OpenOffice export is not production-ready, but having a broken export feature is vastly preferable to having none at all. -Pete (talk) 20:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Support - I've started working on a book but need Special:Collection/Special:Book enabled so I can see how it's rendering and eventually get it published. Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 17:49, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support: bug at bugzilla:28495. Mono (talk) 03:54, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

request for bot approval

I'd like to request approval for using a bot for routine maintenance such as fixing broken redirects and adding Special:UncategorizedPages to categories using User:Mu301Bot. --mikeu ^talk 19:55, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Too broad of a proposal. What tasks (exactly) would the bot do? What rules and commands would you use? Why do we need this? Mono (talk) 20:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Until such time as there is a local policy I would operate the bot per meta:Bot_policy. In the near term I don't see a pressing need here to run a bot on a regular schedule, but would instead like to give it tasks on occasion that would be tedious to do by hand. For the uncategorized pages task that I mentioned above I would ask the contributors to those pages what categorization scheme and naming convention is desired and then have the bot implement that. My request for the bot was in response to the message on Special:RecentChanges that states: "Help us keep this wiki organized – categorize and link to orphaned pages." Specifically, the bot could easily and quickly add these pages to Category:Account Creation Improvement Project. But there are also a number of other tasks that a bot is capable of that could be done by the request of the community. See meta:Pywikipediabot/Scripts for examples of the capabilities. --mikeu ^talk 20:32, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• The RecentChanges message that I quoted above was from MediaWiki:Recentchangestext, which has since been deleted. --mikeu ^talk 13:24, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

• The community should know what the bot will do, so there's a layer of accountability. Hypothetically, a spell checking bot could make a mess, but that falls under 'routine maintenance' in my book. Plus, humans always do a better job with uncategorized pages. These are standard questions that would be asked no matter what. Will the bot follow the edit throttling rules at meta? Can the actions be reversed? What exactly will you be doing? Mono (talk) 22:12, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, the bot is configured to use the edit throttle described at meta:Bot_policy#Edit_throttle_and_peak_hours and will also slow down or stop if the server is busy (as detected by Maxlag.) I have read the guidelines and suggestions from the wikimedia developers and used that information to configure the edit parameters of this bot. The bot software is not capable of making decisions about which category to place a page in on its own, so that is something I would need to explicitly tell it. I have noticed that there are a number of projects here on outreach where there are a large number of subpages that are not in any category. I would look at these lists of pages and then tell the bot to add them to a sensible category based on the category that the main page for the project is in. I would like to stress that the bot would not be running autonomously nor would it be making decisions about appropriate categories. This is simply a tool that allows me to type a single command to perform tasks that would require more clicks and typing if done one at a time by hand. The bot has the capability to automatically perform tasks on a schedule, but I will not be using that feature here on outreach for now. The way that I will be using the bot is more like AWB. Given that I will only be running edit tasks one at a time under my supervision the bot will not prevent anyone from undoing an edit, and per request I can tell the bot to undo any series of edits that the community disagrees with. I'll post a more detailed list of possible tasks on a subpage later. --mikeu ^talk 17:18, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• You continually fail to address my question, which leads me to strongly oppose your proposal. I want to know what you will do, not why or how. Exactly what tasks will the bot perform? I want all the details at here. Mono (talk) 18:21, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• I am working on a draft of a detailed list of tasks that the bot could work on, and as I stated above I'll create a page later with this info for the community to review. I am trying to answer your questions in detail and to do so in a timely manner. --mikeu ^talk 23:02, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
• Are you now suggesting that bots should follow the WP specific bot policy here, instead of the meta policy that we discussed above? The bot that I am running uses the Pywikipediabot framework which has been in use since about 2003, and I have run this same bot software on en-wikiversity since 2009 and have had no complaints after more than 3,000 edits.[1] --mikeu ^talk 13:38, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

• Running a bot on Wikimedia wikis requires consensus. Before I will support the bot, I would like to know what it will do. Thanks. Mono (talk) 00:24, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

• Provisional Full support. Keeping things tidy around here seems like a worthy goal, and Mu301 appears to have a solid record on Wikipedia, Wikiversity. Mono, could you spell out what the concerns are if a bot is wrongly approved? It seems significant to me that here, unlike Wikipedia, there isn't a danger of affecting millions of articles that are accessed by hundreds of thousands of people. -Pete (talk) 20:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Updated to indicate full support. Having read Mono's comments above, I still don't see a specific threat that concerns me. From a brief review, Mu301 has attained bureaucrat status on Wikiversity, which indicates a strong level of trust from an important part of our community; and more importantly, his approach to this matter has been measured and reasonable from the start. He has sought out input; I have full confidence that if he is planning to do something that carries a risk of doing lots of damage, etc., he will continue to be as transparent and collaborative as he already has. -Pete (talk) 17:49, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• Suppport Mike is trusted by the community, and the provisional tasks listed seem fine to me. Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 16:26, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support tasks listed currently on User:Mu301Bot/Tasks#Categorization. It doesn't need to run continually, though. Mono (talk) 17:56, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Is this consensus, then? I'll add the approved templates and give it the Bot flag if so. Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 18:02, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Reasons to not be a Wikipedian in Residence or Fighting on two fronts

The recent "Wikipedians in Residence" list says "Ultimately a residency lays the foundation for more lasting partnership between the Wikipedia community and a cultural institution." I agree. The British Museum is currently wotking with us on how to support us further. That is a past programme. Derby Museums are running a backstage pass in 10 days time .... not mentioned. If you read this months GLAM newslewtter you will read of their collaboration with us over the last six months .... not mentioned in this list. I have re-labelled this list as a draft. I am sure "Outreach" are not intending to tell those who volunteer to work with GLAMs - that their efforts may be ignored, but what impression do we give to the CEO of Derby Museum who sees that the event that he is funding in 10 days time is virtually invisible here and the Deputy Director of Wikimedia is circulating a list of projects that does not include his work? Obviously I'm a bit uppity on my own account but I'm annoyed that in our enthusiasm for the new that we are not showing loyalty to those who have answered the call. We must do much better.

Pleae note that you may get get an immediate reply here. Did I tell you I'm organising a GLAM WIKI backstage in ten days time? I don't need this. I need those who are interested in Outreach asking Derby Museums (and other organisations who are part of active programmes) how they can help. Victuallers (talk) 08:20, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

GLAM is the main portal for GLAM-related activities (http://glamwiki.org redirects to it); Wikipedians in Residence is just one activity model among many. I don't see the problem here, but if you can think of more useful ways to organize the pages or content, please be bold.--Eloquence (talk) 00:00, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

On another note, there was a large piece on Derby in last month's GLAM newsletter and there will hopefully be a recap of the event next month. I also do not see the Derby project as a residency, more as an ongoing collaboration. Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 17:00, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Help requested in page code

Hi, I would appreciate if someone could help me fix a page code problem. I want to align the small Outreach icons at the bottom part of this page to suite the RTL direction of the text below them. Haytham^Abulela 17:04, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Statistics for this wiki

Hi All,

This morning, I looked at the statistics for this wiki which are really stunning: in March, the number of contributors who made more than 5 edits rose by 29% and for the first time, we had 3 contributors who made more than 100 edits per month. In March, we had 67 active contributors (compared to 11 a year ago). I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank everybody who is active on this wiki – it is great to see its content grow that fast.

You are amazing! --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 17:41, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is amazing. And the number of people flooding in is impressive. I hope they start to edit as well.//Hannibal (talk) 13:25, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The new accounts pouring in since yesterday can be mostly attributed to a sitenotice for Campus Ambassador applicants in India (which links to information about the India Campus Program – Pune pilot). --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 13:59, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposed bot policy

This wiki has been increasing in size and activity for some time now (just look at the above statistics) and as a result of that, there has been some talk of bots and bot proposals. I think that we need a bot approval policy (however shaky it may be). My suggestion is that two or more 'crats need to agree that it is suitable before it is given the flag/marked as approved (although it doesn't need to be much of a big deal; this wiki is hardly massive). To that end, I would approve Mike's bot straight away and just need someone else to agree with me that User:ChzzBot II is worth approving. Thoughts? --Rock drum (talk · contribs) 16:20, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Bots are potentially disruptive editing processes. Neither of the two proposed bots were approved by the community. The tasks that the bots perform require consensus. How could you generate consensus for tasks if the operator doesn't even clearly state what they are? There needs to be accountability. Mono (talk) 17:24, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I asked Chzz to make the bot run here on outreachwiki and Mike's bot got 60% support from 3 people in ~1 month; if anyone else wanted to oppose it, they'd have done so. Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 17:32, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Urm, hello. We use consensus here, and two to one does not equal consensus. You don't make consensus. Wake up. Mono (talk) 23:57, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think we need a bot policy here. If trusted users like Mike or Chzz want to run bots that they think will be useful or someone else asked for, let's just let them. I'm not sure what kind of disruption you're imagining, but if things get disruptive, then we can deal with it. In the meantime, this wiki is too small to get bogged down by processes; we work by assuming good faith and competence, especially on the part of other editors whom we know and trust.--Sage Ross (talk) 01:43, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok, two things; thing 1 is that Chzz's bot's task is not disruptive; all it does is wipe the sandbox every 24 hours (or it will when Chzz does the coding ). The second thing is that, I wouldn't have really thought we'd need a bot policy either, it's just that we need to decide how to approve bots, because if we're looking for consensus, it seems we're not going to get it ie. no clear consensus has been gathered for Mike's bot, and the argument will continue. But besides, it's not a big wiki, if it does any harm, it won't take ages; we can just nuke it. Mono: How many people would you say are needed for consensus? Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 08:06, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Sage is right—we don't need a bot policy. If someone wants a bot to run, just add a proposal here, with a description of what it will do. Unless anyone objects in a reasonable time, then it will be allowed to run. Consensus isn't a number. Mono (talk) 17:53, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

"Unless anyone objects..." So do you want 100% support for a bot to be allowed to run? I'm confused... --Rock drum (talk · contribs) 18:07, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Chzz's bot

Approval to perform a task. Bot will erase the sandbox every 24 hours and replace header template if/when removed.

• Neutral, can be swayed: Not to ruin your party, but do we actually need this? Does it solve a problem that we have? Mono (talk) 17:53, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support as nominator. Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 18:00, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support I trust Chzzz, I trust Rock Drum. I also don't really see the benefit, but more importantly (to me, anyway) -- I don't see the harm. -Pete (talk) 17:28, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Response from Chzz

I'm not remotely interested in playing such games. If this wiki is subject to admin/crat arguments over bot flags ([2]) and wheel-warring over userspace protection ([3]) then I'm not prepared to participate in it.

If you sort your shit out, and want me to help do something, give me a shout; otherwise, I leave you to your games. Best, Chzz (talk) 00:40, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Yup. Mono (talk) 04:11, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Hang on, I made a request a while ago to have something that would auto-archive talkpages on this wiki in the same way as we can do on WP. See above at this section: Village_pump#Auto_archive_talkpages.3F. Would Chzz's bot have been able to do this? Can we have it please rather than arguing about who has what permission? Witty lama (talk) 05:55, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

By the way, not only we don't need a local bot policy, but we don't need en.wiki bureaucratic habits neither; for instance, on most wikis I know it's not needed to state all the bot tasks before approval, it's just a matter of trust. en.wiki is different because it's so much bigger and they need more bureaucracy to control things, but this is a very small wiki, we can manage that. Nemo 11:16, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Have translated and can translate more

I have translated this page into Norwegian and I can translate more.

Tried to upload the translation to Commons but did not work, so if anyone can give me an email (my userpage with email is here) to send it to and then upload it for me it would be nice, so others can use it as well.

I can also translate more, for example this guide, but I can not use Scribus and I do not have any that can do it, so I need to have someone that can do that. Ulflarsen (talk) 06:45, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

See your inbox Guerillero 15:27, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Good, thanks, but it is still not listed in this page, good if someone could make a link to it there too. And as I write above, I am also open for translating the larger introduction guide, if someone can do the page layout for me. Ulflarsen (talk) 16:15, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Done Guerillero 00:32, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Good, thanks! My offer of translating the larger introduction guide into Norwegian Bokmål is still valid, if someone can take the job of doing the layout, as I can not do that myself. Ulflarsen (talk) 11:51, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Very interesting, Ulf. Just start the translation on the wiki and we'll find a way.//Hannibal (talk) 14:42, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Abuse filter over sensitive?

I've been trying to create a user page or talk page here, very basic, and keep tripping the abuse filter for off-topic pages. Can the sensitivity be adjusted down a little? Thanks. Courcelles (talk) 10:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Support. Tried to make a user page and the filter disallows it. TBloemink (talk) 11:43, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Same, I tried this morning to have a redirect to my Meta userpage and was told it was off topic. I can't even see the filter to suggest an improvement, so I had to ask an admin to override filter to create the page, and a check of the Filter Logs shows that other users are having the same problem, but it appears an exeption needs to be made for the User namespace. Thanks, Jamietw (talk) 12:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Sysop tools can be useful to deal with this - TBloemink (talk) 15:37, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi guys. Please don't touch the abuse filter unless you are extremely experienced with it, as it is a difficult tool to actually understand. If you make one minor change you can damage the entire wiki (exaggeration, but still..). Therefore, make any proposals and suggestions, but wait for an experienced admin to fix it. Thanks, Thehelpfulone (talk) 16:03, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I think sysops can untrip the filter and allow the changes to happen Guerillero 17:29, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I do know what I'm doing with an edit filter. I can't see it, as I'm not an admin here, but I can't imagine filter 5 is well designed as it sits- given that we're talking about preventing off-topic pages and not, say, libel, the filter should default to stopping very little activity, as the cost of a false negative is negligible- two clicks, but the risk of driving people away due to false positives is very high. Courcelles (talk) 17:42, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Jamietw checked the filter and it says that it will block any edit including ''{{", "{|", "==", "<ref", "”"))'' if you have less than 10 edits (not autoconfirmed) - TBloemink (talk) 17:47, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Sysop access is given out fairly freely. All you need to to is ask User:Frank Schulenburg Guerillero 17:54, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll think about it :P TBloemink (talk) 18:02, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

That's another filter- the one that was making all the trouble was number 5, and prevented the creation of any page that included the user name of the creating user with under ten edits. Clearly, there are many circumstances where this is a good thing. I just disabled it, as it's history was all false-positive and no benefit- it hadn't stopped a single poor change from being saved. Courcelles (talk) 18:45, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

• I've enabled it after excluding namespaces 2 and 3. Mono (talk) 23:56, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Frankly, there's no point; I had disabled filter six earlier after encountering this same error. A wiki this small does not need active abusefilters that only prohibit new users from making pages. What if an active Wikipedian who is new to outreachwiki needs to start a new proposal here? Why should a filter block useful code like {{ or {| or == etc. just because a user is new? This wiki does not need silly restrictions like abusefilters (unless we actually start seeing a real problem with these off-topic pages, which there isn't as is obvious by few bad edits caught in the filter), so unless there are further concerns voiced, I'm going to disable both 5 and 6. Filter 2 seems much more effective. Fetchcomms (talk) 00:36, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
    • The abuse filters enabled here have stopped hundreds of off-topic page creations by automated editing processes. The filter blocks that code only because it matches the pattern of the off-topic pages; see the abuse log. Hundreds of off-topic pages coming in is a problem. Since then, the spambots have not submitted any pages that would be filtered by 5 and 6, but they'll come soon enough. Since the changes I made, no edits have produced a response, so we don't actually have any data. Mono (talk) 02:59, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
      • You realize that we can see every edit that was blocked, and only filter 2 has blocked unproductive edits? "Come soon enough" isn't an excuse for blocking potentially helpful edits. As neither of us have a working crystal ball, why compromise the openness of this wiki until there is demonstrable proof that there is a serious problem? Because I don't know how you can tell they'll come soon enough until you see them. Fetchcomms (talk) 03:58, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
        • They will come, because they already have. Filter 2 wasn't written perfectly and it should be more efficient now. Mono (talk) 04:04, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
          • Filter 2 is useful, filters 5 and 6 are utterly useless, and besides, this is a wiki full of admins. Trashing a few off-topic pages is not a big deal at all. Courcelles (talk) 09:55, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
            • I'll ask someone for sysop rights - TBloemink (talk) 10:18, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
          • Mono, as I said before, filter 2 is the only one that has been doing anything useful. Filters 5 and 6 have not caught anything and your examples simply prove my point. I don't understand why you feel that these potentially detrimental filters are solving any problems. Filter 2 can stay on, of course, but until you show me multiple bad pages blocked by 5 and 6 that can't be handled by 2, they need to be disabled. Fetchcomms (talk) 05:26, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

This wiki is intended to be as open as possible. Please disable everything that restrains newcomers from contributing (in particular from creating new pages). --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 14:01, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Frank, openness is a nice thing to have, but I hardly think we want any of these... Mono (talk) 23:55, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Since you're pointing solely to filter 2, I've set both 5 and 6 to "tag" so we can see if the amount of crap caught in those two filters is enough to warrant "disable". Fetchcomms (talk) 00:19, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Since we are all sysops, why does it matter the pages are created? We can all just delete it and block the Name/IP. That takes all of 20 seconds Guerillero 02:50, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I instituted a 173.234.120.0/16 range block after looking over the edit filter. It seems that, most the pages were created by a IP hopping user based in one companies servers. It will expire in a month. I hope that is OK Guerillero 03:12, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Filter 2 stopped a case study being created during GLAMcamp NYC, where there were a number of users creating new pages, having made no edits on this wiki before. Despite being solved, this was a problem that shouldn't have happened in the first place. If it gets to the point where it is stopping important and concstructive edits being made, then it needs changing. I have also noticed trusted and experienced users triggering the filter and not making any other edits since, possibly becuase they find having their edits disallowed, discouraging them from becoming active here. Which is a great shame. Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 18:04, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Any Hindi Speakers

Hey I was moving over babble templates from commons and I was wondering if a hindi speaker would help verify them. This is the template on my userpage Template:User hi-0. If the india program kicks off well this group of templates may be needed. cheers Guerillero 17:52, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Asked Hindi Speaking user who said it reads: This Member doesn't know hindi (or experiences problems understanding it). Hope this helps, Jamietw (talk) 15:18, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Thats exactly what I wanted to know Guerillero 19:02, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Blocking Policy

Hey all. I was wondering if we could write some sort of blocking policy. This comes from the recent thread on my talk page. I blocked two users that tried more then once to create off topic pages that got caught in out hyperactive abuse filter. I know that a discussion was held on irc, but we should probably have an onwiki one Guerillero 22:33, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I think using common sense is good--but if the off-topic pages are obviously created by spambots, block. We can't have bot accounts running around, edit filter or not. Fetchcomms (talk) 15:31, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

There's no point in bothering to delete pages created by automated editing processes. Filter 2 has had absolutely no false positives, so 'hyperactive' is completely irrational. Don't block them, don't pay attention to them, and they'll go away someday. Mono (talk) 05:39, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Hyperactive made perfect sense before I disabled filters five and six. But this section is not about deleting. It's about blocking. Fetchcomms (talk) 03:28, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I struck out hyperactive Guerillero 23:57, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

“

Filter 2 has had absolutely no false positives, so 'hyperactive' is completely irrational.

”

Ahem: Look at the current top 2 here. These were important edits, and should not have been disallowed. Rock drum (talk · contribs) 18:11, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Bot request

Hello,

I am seeking approval to operate a automated editing process on this wiki. The bot would run from account WillieBot (talk · contribs) and would be operated by Mono (talk · contribs). It would archive the Village pump, talk pages, and user talk pages upon request. The process will run daily from the Toolserver using the Pywikipediabot framework and maintain a reasonable editing speed depending on the job handling functions of the Toolserver. Upon approval by the community, this bot will need to be flagged by a local bureaucrat or a steward. If you have any questions or concerns, please reply below.

Thank you, Mono (talk) 17:23, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I can't see any issues with this Guerillero 19:01, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Nope, no issues here -- TBloemink (talk) 19:03, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

No issues. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 19:24, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, as do the other bot proposals on this page. Shall I go ahead and approve those? Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 19:27, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, go ahead. Mono (talk) 19:34, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I think this can be approved too Guerillero 00:19, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

New gadget

I have imported the wikEd gadget to Outreach, which is a "WYSIWYG" editor, or a graphical alternative to the default text-based editor.

Does anyone want any other gadgets imported from other wikis, such as the many that are offered on the English Wikipedia? Most are cross-compatible. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 17:12, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

SWMT

Maybe we should opt-in for thr SWMT, so that all recent changes appear in the #cvn-sw channel. I'm always in that channel when I'm online, and I think some other users are too. Tell me what you think - TBloemink (talk) 18:59, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

It's watched in ##bork, so you can join that channel. Mono (talk) 19:38, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I configured my autojoin :) TBloemink (talk) 19:54, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Outreach code

What is the code (i.e. "xxx:" before pagename to link to this wiki please?Leutha (talk) 22:28, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The interwiki prefix is outreach: (although outreachwiki: works, too). Regards, Rock drum (talk · contribs) 18:15, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

First Workshop in Mainland China is Planed

Hi, folks, we'd planed a Wikimedia workshop in Shanghai, the first such a workshop in Mainland China, and I need your help to get some T-shirt and stickers with Wikipedia logo, so who can I contact with?

The background of this event is that the Wikimedia community in Mainland China is revived gradually after the unblocking for three years. Last winter we hold a meetup with ~35 people, and ~25 people attended this summer meetup. Almost 80% attendees are newbies, so we think a workshop is good for us. And we plan hold similar seasoned events in Shanghai four times a year, and a small organizing work group had been setup. --Mountain (talk) 15:13, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I would poke User:Frank Schulenburg. about this. Come to think of it, I will post about this on his talk page Guerillero 17:12, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Mountain, please reach out to Jay Walsh, our Head of Communications. He might provide you with the items you need. --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 01:49, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Request for deletion

Please delete Editing workshops/Prague (Czech Republic), Spice Summer Academy, August 29, 2011: I put in the wrong date. Correct event and date is at Editing workshops/Prague (Czech Republic), Spice Summer Academy, August 28, 2011. Thanks and sorry for the trouble...Saintfevrier (talk) 21:24, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Done. Wikinade (talk) 05:51, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Advertising/Promotional

This page is in requirement of deletion. Thanking you kindly. I have told them to go to Wikipedia and help instead. Also it matches the requirements for deletion. Regards, --Onewhohelps (talk) 13:00, 7 October 2011 (UTC).

Rock drum (talk · contribs) seems to have taken care of it --Guerillero 05:36, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Dfsfadfdw‎

I blanked Dfsfadfdw‎ but it should probably be deleted. --LauraHale (talk) 06:56, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

You could have deleted it. --Onewhohelps (talk) 10:26, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Yikes, too many sysops

Currently, there are 268 administrators for 6,263 pages. That's 23.369402985075 pages for each sysop! Isn't it small. So while looking, I saw many administrators with less than 10 edits. I think that we should remove the sysop bit for users with less than 20 edits. That's not alot, but still. Ebe123 (talk) 22:37, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

We're granting adminship very informally here; since we're a small wiki, it's not of much concern—if we do have a rogue admin, he/she can be dealt with easily. —mc10 (t/c) 05:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

If you are an establish editor on any other project and you ask you can become a sysop. I like this arrangement personally because it allows for almost anyone to deal with an issue as it arises--Guerillero 01:39, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, thanks for explaining! Ebe123 (talk) 09:45, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Logo for Wikimedia Outreach

• http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/

Wikimedia outreach wiki currently has no logo associated with it aside from the Foundation logo. -- とある白い猫 ^chi? 16:50, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Concept should perhaps be "holding hands" as google images imply. -- とある白い猫 ^chi? 06:22, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Request for Bureaucrat Access

Currently, I am one of the more active admins here. In addition, as part of my on-wiki work I am a member of the Ambassador Steering Committee. I was wondering if there was any way for me to get crat access here. If I remember correctly, rock drum (talk · contribs) is the only active non-WMF crat here. cheers --Guerillero 15:23, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Is their any need for more bureaucrats? Ruslik0 (talk) 15:48, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I think there is. There is a fairly constant trickle of people who want to get the sysop flag here or have it removed. Having more people with the technical ability to do it would be helpful. We sysop almost anyone who is autoconfirmed here, is active on another wikimedia wiki, and appears to be working on a project here. Having another set of eyes looking out for people could be helpful. --Guerillero 16:04, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not exactly seeing a "constant trickle" here. 3 rights changes in August, 2 in September, 7 all at the beginning of October... It seems that Rock drum and Frank Schulenburg are handling the not-so-constant requests promptly, no? Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 16:08, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

True. I thought that another person may be helpful and it would be better to ask the whole community. I could be wrong --Guerillero 16:14, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

"Khayman" to "Simon Villeneuve"

Hi, I change username on many other wiki to help people IRL to contact me. I want "Simon Villeneuve" as new username. Thanks ! Khayman (talk) 23:21, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Open Wiki GLAM of Serbia

Hi, folks. I'm not so sure is this the right page for this information. Sorry if i did mistake. As you know, WMRS will organize Open Wiki GLAM of Serbia conference, for Serbian GLAM institution, which will take place on February 24, 2012 in Youth Center of Belgrade. Call for participation is still open and you can participate as a speaker and present your work. Or you can simple be in the audience :)) The next information that I want to share with you is that we have our website http://glam.wikimedia.rs (in EN) and and we translated ~30 articles from http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM. We are very new in this GLAM things, and I hope that you will help me in my future GLAM work. Thanks!--MikyM (talk) 01:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Translation tools workshop coming up

There will be an online training in the translation tools in use on Meta Wiki and some other wikis, in late January. For more information, please see meta:Translation tools workshop, 2012. -Pete (talk) 17:24, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Not sure if too much OT, but still

I just submitted an idea for a WMF fellowship here. I think it is closely related to outreach work, so I thought you might be interested in reading it and providing feedback about it. Thanks! --Elitre (talk) 16:55, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for posting here. I do not think this is off topic. here are the rest of the proposals, and most of them focus on outreach and all are worth checking out. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:03, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Merci --Guerillero 18:47, 29 January 2012 (UTC)