Wikimedia:Village pump

Village pump

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Welcome to the Outreach Wiki's village pump. This page has two functions:

• This is where general outreach-related discussions can be held. Click here to open up a new topic.
• You can also use this page to request administrator assistance with vandalism or other incidents needing action. Please be as specific as possible, including the name of the user or IP causing problems, the page name, and your signature.

Important:

• Requests for suppression of private information can be made to the stewards at this page on meta. Do not post in public to request suppression.
• Requests for permissions should be made on the respective page.

Please sign and date your post (by typing ~~~~ or clicking the signature icon: in the edit toolbar). Please add new topics to the bottom of this page.

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Service credit letter request

I was wondering if I could get a service credit letter for editing Wikipedia. (That is, for edits that I'll make in the near future on global health articles, not past edits.) Because, my school requires me to do 75 hours of community service before graduating. It isn't one of the schools participating in the Wikimedia Education program though. The letter would require a short description of the service work I performed, and the contact information and signature of the volunteer supervisor. —Enervation (talk) 02:29, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

@Enervation: I'm not familiar with what a service credit letter entails. Can you not just show the person in question your edit history? Koavf (talk) 13:17, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

In general at my school, getting credit for volunteer hours requires a community service credit letter, though I suppose I could try to ask my school's community service office to make an exception in this case.

According to my school's guidelines, a service credit letter is supposed to include:

• the organization’s letterhead
• a description of the service work performed
• the date or range of dates when I volunteered
• the exact number of hours worked
• contact information (phone or email) of the volunteer supervisor and signature (no scans) [I'll probably have to ask them to make an exception re: "no scans"]

And here's a sample letter

Enervation (talk) 22:17, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

@Enervation: For official letterhead, you may need to contact someone at the Foundation. Koavf (talk) 13:22, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Flow as Beta Feature

Hello, I suggest to add Flow to beta features at the user talk namespace. That mean that every user can decide to have his talk page under Flow or normal page system.

Short explanation – what is Flow?

• Flow is a project for building a modern discussion and collaboration system for Wikimedia projects.
• It provides features that are present on most modern websites, but which are not possible to implement in wikitext. For example, Flow automatically signs users' posts on talk pages, threads replies, and permits per-topic notifications.
• The main goals for the Flow project are:

1. to make the wiki discussion system more accessible for new users
2. to make the wiki discussion system more efficient for experienced users
3. to encourage meaningful conversations that support collaboration

The main interest is that Flow improve notifications system, and it's really important on this Wiki with mostly occasional users.

Archi38 (talk) 15:10, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Support

1.  Support as proposant, much better Archi38 (talk) 15:10, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
2.  Support I have been using it since a while on fr.Wikipedia. I find it rather intuitive, and useful as a transparent tool for driving discussed exchanges. I guess new users will be less reluctant entering discussions than having to step up with the wiki-code interface ; wiki-code-native power users will probably forget it for a while, since the pleasure of building a house brick by brick is so enjoyable… Whatever it's long ago since castles and palaces were done like this… :-) However, since it's a "gadget" tool, it's each one's choice to get and try it, then adopt or discard it. I profoundly support giving the opportunity to everyone to test it. Last word : since it's a new tool, it's probably still perfectible. As far as I have practiced them, remarks, criticisms and suggestions have always been responded and eventually taken into account very quickly. Thanks to the team behind the curtain.--Eric.LEWIN (talk) 22:46, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Enabled now

I've just enabled this. You can turn switch your user talk page to Flow by going here and enabling "Flow on user talk". The result will look like this. --Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 23:24, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

JavaScript

Hi. I can see that this project has old JavaScript that needs to be updated. I would happily make the required updates myself, but I would have to – at least temporarily – become an admin here to do that (because the relevant pages are in the MediaWiki namespace). I have already made these updates on a number of other projects, so it would be very easy for me to do this. If no one does anything, some JavaScript-related tools will break later this year. If you want me to make these updates, you can grant me admin rights and I will make the updates as soon as I can. Nirmos (talk) 22:41, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

@Nirmos: Done. Thanks for offering. Koavf (talk) 23:37, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Copyright violation discussion

Please see here I have alerted everyone of this discussion on Commons about Outreach. Please respond there. Koavf (talk) 04:18, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Recommend blocking User:PCruiser

Recommend blocking User:PCruiser. See contribs here. Do other users agree that this user is problematic? Do other admins agree that this user should be blocked? Thanks, Msannakoval (talk) 04:08, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@Msannakoval: Agreed that the user's edits are at the very least bizarre... I have made an attempt at reaching out in the hopes that we can hash out something here. If not, then I agree that blocking will at least stop some of the bizarre edits. Koavf (talk) 04:15, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@Koavf: I noticed more edits by this user in recent changes, so I did some investigating, and I'm confused. This user was blocked indefinitely because of sockpuppetry on en.wiki, yet the user managed to post to his/her user talk page on en.wiki yesterday. How is that possible? The user continues to edit here yet said edits are, as you say, "inscrutable" and are not contributing meaningfully to GLAM, education, library or other outreach work here on this project. Plus the user has not replied to a direct talk page inquiry about his/her purpose here. Recommending again to block this user. Msannakoval (talk) 01:40, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

@Msannakoval: Blocking in MediaWiki allows the person performing the action several options for how to block including duration and whether or not he can send email through the web interface. One of those options is to allow someone to edit his talk page (e.g. to explain himself or appeal for an unblock). I am blocking him here as he is not valuable to this project. Are you willing to look through his edits to roll back as well or should I? Koavf (talk) 02:31, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

@Koavf: Thanks for explaining that talk page editing is allowable even after a block. That makes sense. I wish I could help with the rollbacking. I'm under a deadline to finish copyediting the education newsletter today. So thank you for offering to do so. I will review your process in the recent changes. I've honestly never done it before as part of a block, so I'm eager to learn. Again, thanks for being another pair of eyes and hands on this. I was relieved when you responded to this post. It's very helpful having you here on Outreach wiki, and I'm grateful to you, Koavf. All the best, Msannakoval (talk) 04:27, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

@Msannakoval: No problem. Happy to help Koavf (talk) 04:35, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

How do I become a translation admin on this wiki?

Recently I started translating our (Wikimedia Polska) educational materials to English. I would love to use the MediaWiki mw:Extension:Translate for that. Take a look at Education/Ideal workshop/pl and it's almost-ready translation at Education/Ideal workshop. Instead of translating the two from scratch, I would like to use Special:PageMigration, but it seems only TranslationAdmins can use that tool. So, how do I become one? Halibutt (talk) 09:32, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

@Halibutt: I did it. Sorry for the drive-by edit but I was busy. Koavf (talk) 21:54, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

@Koavf: I noticed, I already made my first mistakes in the new role :) Thanks a lot! Halibutt (talk) 22:00, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Hindi Version of Wikipedia (Bookshelf)

Namaste! I have finished translation of Wikipedia (Bookshelf) in Hindi. Now I want some guidance to publish that. Please guide me to do so. Thank you. NehalDaveND (talk) 03:43, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Problem concerning Flow activation on user talk pages

At the moment it is not possible to activate and deactivate Flow on a user talk page. Activate or deactivate Flow will lead to an empty page, with an error message.

Developers are fixing it. I'll post news when some updates will be available.

Please share that information with other users. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 14:25, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

I have some ideas/suggestions for helping WMF project contributors:

• We should set up a WikiProject on User Forgiveness to help sanctioned users who believe that those sanctions are unjust. Some sanctioned Wikimediholics who want to contribute again may be considering suicide or revenge if they aren't able to contribute to the WMF projects soon. We should help them, especially those too impatient for the Standard Offer or those who have extreme rage whenever they get a surprise block or who believe that what they are doing or planning on doing is compliant to WMF project rules.

• I think we should get rid of anti-proxy rules because those rules have prevented many people from countries such as Iran and China from editing Wikipedia or other projects. But Iran matters just as much as China. Blocking Wikimedians for using open proxies just because some proxy users abuse their editing privileges is the same as throwing Americans in jail for following Islam just because some Muslims are terrorists. I saw a denied unblock request on English Wikipedia that said that some people have to use proxies because of strict laws in Iran.

• We should revise the WMF projects' rules so that they are easier to understand, more agreeable, less confusing, more clearly defined, more efficient to learn about, and easier to obey. Such revisions could save many puzzled Wikimedians from getting sanctioned due to violating some specific rules that they didn't know so well about. Of course we should keep some important rules such as neutral point of view, citation, no original research, the copyright and civility policies.

These are ideas that I think could help the WMF projects become more free and open than it is. PS. I think that the Wikipedia people came up with the notability guidelines because they were worried about their servers not being able to hold that much stuff.

67.162.203.107 12:58, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

• @67.162.203.107: The Ombudsman may be competent to handle user forgiveness issues. For what it's worth, if you are caught in a hard range IP block, it is fairly easy to get out of it by requesting exemption--I have it myself. If you have any suggestions on the language for WMF rules, we could probably look at them here or on Meta. I'm not sure of the exact process for revising those, since they sometimes have legal implications. Koavf (talk) 23:18, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

I think a Wiki user forgiveness project would be convenient for those too impatient for the standard offer, or who do not use or read email. I think the idea may be favored by some utilitarians, parents of young Wikipedians, blocked users saying their blocks are unjust, and former vandals who keep getting rejected. Repealing the anti-proxy rules would be very convenient for people in Iran, China, and other countries with strict laws.

We shouldn't mess with the rules that have anything to do with legal things. I'm just talking about the general editorial and behaviorial policies and guidelines of Wikipedia.

When I was Turkeybutt JC, my main focus was to make Wikipedia more neutral, but I was being disruptive by disputing the neutrality of articles and taking the Manual of Style's Words to Watch page too seriously and taking other peoples' criticism about my editing for granted. I got indef blocked and so I kept making new accounts, with each one teaching me a lesson.

When I was AI RPer and UnforgivablyPotatoes, I focused on vandal-fighting instead, since I thought everyone agreed that vandalism was bad. But still, Floquenbeam caught me whenever I was trying to come back in new accounts, and vandal fighting didn't seem to cut it to him. He kept telling me that when I created new accounts to 'continue my disruption' that I get indef blocked. But I wasn't trying to continue my disruption.

But I think it's nearly settled, and I think I'm close to breaking the "you cannot edit Wikipedia" curse for sure, I just hope the curse doesn't come back to me in the form of Floquenbeam's blocking abilities. -- 67.162.203.107 22:02, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

@67.162.203.107: What would you like to do on Wikipedia? Koavf (talk) 00:16, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Note to administrators: 2-factor authentication is now available for your Wikimedia accounts

Administrators: 2-factor authentication is now available on your Special:Preferences page. I highly recommend enabling it. Note that if you lose access to the device that you use for 2-factor authentication and you lose your recovery codes, then your account may be unrecoverable. --Pine^✉ 20:54, 12 November 2016 (UTC)