Talk:Education/Newsletter/Newsroom/archive

Archived as of 22:21, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Education blog

Please see discussion at Talk:Education Portal/Newsletter#Suggestion and share your opinion on starting an Education blog. --Pine^✉ 20:37, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Categories

Could somebody categorize the page, please. --Base (talk) 20:11, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Base. I've added some sections and a TOC. Does that help? Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 15:11, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for that and for the answer. But sections and TOC are not categories (things put with syntax like [[Category:Something]] are :) ) so my request is still to be done :) Would be nice if you'd add categories as well :) Thank you again :) --Base (talk) 19:50, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Categories! Yes, of course. :) That's a good idea. What categories do you suggest? [[Category:This Month in Education]] and [[Category:Education Portal]] are used on the News page. Should there be others? Thanks for your help with this, Base. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 00:12, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I rely on your choose now and satisfied with those you added :) Thank you! :) --Base (talk) 12:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Translatable template

As User:Kaganer advises, please add to each new issue the Translatable template: {{Template:TNT}}. See example here. Thanks for the pro tip, Kaganer. Best, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Instructions for creating the various versions of the newsletter

This section is to document how to create the various versions of the newsletter.

Starting with the June 2014 issue, we published three different versions of the newsletter: Headlines, Highlights, and a Single page edition. The Headlines edition includes a linked list of story titles. The Highlights edition includes Signpost-style snippets. And the Single page edition contains all of the content in the issue.

Headlines edition

The Headlines edition includes a bulleted list of story titles. The titles are linked to each article's wiki page. For example:

* [[outreach:Education/Newsletter/June 2014/Wikipedia Education Project in Uruguay|Wikipedia Education Project in Uruguay]]

That list goes inside the table, above the closing </div> tags.

Highlights edition

The Highlights edition includes Signpost-style snippets.

However, the Signpost snippet template is somewhat different from the Education snippet template.

In the Education snippet template, the parameters are as follows: 1 = month_year/article | 2 = country | 3 = article label | 4 = snippet or one-sentence description. For example:

{{Education/Newsletter/Snippet|June_2014/Wikipedia Primary School Project|Africa|Wikipedia Primary School Project|The Wikipedia Primary School project seeks to understand whether or not Wikipedia articles meet the needs of primary school education.}}

The snippets are currently displayed in three columns. The center column includes an image file that relates to the article listed immediately below it. The image file should be centered and not larger than 350px. For example:

[[File:Luego_de_recibir_los_diplomas.jpg|center|350px]]

Currently, the highlights edition is featured on the main News page of the Education portal here on Outreach wiki. See: How the current newsletter gets posted to the news page.

Single page edition

The Single page edition contains all of the content in the issue, including the full text of all articles and any accompanying graphics and multimedia.

It uses anchors. M:Help:Link#Anchors had a guide.

Instructions for distributing the newsletter to talk pages

This section is to document how to distribute the newsletter to talk pages.

• The education team will send out an email to everyone on the email subscription list and to the general education lists; you'll then know it's final and can be sent out to the talk page list.
• There are several methods to get the content of the Headlines, depending on the type of page and what you want to send:

Non-translatable page	Translatable page, but send English-only version	Translatable page, send multilingual version
Go to Education/News and click the link for the headlines edition.  Click edit and copy all of the code. Don't forget the second |} in the template. But don't include the category, which is the last line. It looks like this: <noinclude>[[Category:This Month in Education]]</noinclude>. Format as per the examples at Newsletter mass message template. Remove any and all translation tags and extra div tags and make sure the title isn't in there twice!	If you have a translatable page, it's full of translate tags, tvars, etc. so you can't just copy/paste the content. You need the clean version of the page, and that's very easy to get. Go to Education/News and click the link for the headlines edition. Once on the headlines page (called something like "Education/Newsletter/July 2014"), open the edit window. The URL in your browser will look like: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Education/Newsletter/July_2014&action=edit Change the URL in your browser to access the /en subpage by adding this bit: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Education/Newsletter/July_2014/en&action=edit There shouldn't be any translate tags in this version. Copy the content as you would do for a non-translatable page, leaving out the <languages /> at the top.	Go to Education/Newsletter/Newsroom/Multilingual message and open the edit window: You'll see something like: {{#invoke:Assemble multilingual message|assembleMessage|marker=education-newsletter|page=Education/Newsletter/June 2014|es|fr}}. This is the script that assembles all existing translations into one big text. Replace the page= parameter with the page you want to send, for example: page=Education/Newsletter/July 2014 After the page, insert the language codes of languages in which your page has been translated, for instance |es|fr|uk if your page has been translated to Spanish, French and Ukrainian. Do not add "en" for the English version: as the default language, it is automatically included. Your code should now be something like: {{#invoke:Assemble multilingual message|assembleMessage|marker=education-newsletter|page=Education/Newsletter/July 2014|es|fr|uk}}. Save your edit, and copy/paste the content you see.

1. To send the newsletter across wikis, you need the "MassMessage sender" user right (see the list of people who have it). You can request it at m:WM:RFH.
2. Once you have the MassMessage sender user right, to send the message, go to: m:Special:MassMessage
3. In the page containing list of pages to leave a message on, type: Global message delivery/Targets/This Month in Education
4. In the subject of the message (also used as the edit summary), type: This Month in Education: [Month Year]
5. In the body of the MassMessage, paste the code (i.e. what you have obtained above with one of the three methods).
6. Remember to sign the MassMessage with the delivery system's signature and timestamp, using 4 tildes: ~~~~.
7. Add the following copy at the bottom:

   <div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> If this message is not on your home wiki's talk page, [[m:Global message delivery/Targets/This Month in Education|update your subscription]]. </div>

8. Click "Preview" and then, if it looks good, send it! :)

    Note: Even you're sending a multilingual newsletter, you'll only see the English version when you preview, because Meta is in English.

--

Guillom, thank you again *so much* for this. It was just what we needed when we needed it! Another question for you: this time about *what* we're delivering, since, thanks to you, we're now clear as can be on *how* we're delivering! ;) I'm still fixing every single talk page where my first special:massmessage delivery was broken. And I'm seeing how much space on a talk page our messages use. Especially with the larger text size and additional spacing. An alternative is how The Signpost does it. There a many here on Ijon's talk page. Seeing these side by side with GLAM and Education newsletter mass messages, the smaller footprint and simpler style are strikingly apparent. I've started to sandbox this concept here. It's not quite right yet. Not sure what I'm doing differently? Please let me know if you think this is possible, and at all advantageous. Merci beaucoup! :) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 22:42, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Instructions for archiving, etc.

This section is to document how newsroom content becomes the current newsletter and how the past issue of the newsletter is archived. According to Leigh Thelmadatter, this process is based on the process used by the This Month In Glam Newsletter.

How newsroom content becomes the current newsletter

Each newsletter gets its own page. So, in the url, change April to May, for example, and create the new page. On the April page (the older page/previous issue), if you click edit, you'll see the code that's needed; copy that and paste it into the new May page and save it. Next, change the old links to make new pages for the new stories. they each have to be on their own page so they have a talk page, too.

How the current newsletter gets posted to the news page

The new way:

• Go to Education/News
• Below the __NOTOC__ update the month in the following line of code: {{:Education/Newsletter/June_2014/Highlights}}

The old way:

• Search for: :Education/Newsletter/Issue
• Update the month to be the current month in this line of code: {{:Education/Newsletter/May 2014}}

Either way: Go to the current month's issue, and edit the page. Make sure that the month is the current month twice in the 7th and 8th lines of code, which look like this: <div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times New Roman; text-align: center; ">[[outreach:Education/Newsletter/May 2014|<font color=darkslategray>This Month in Education – Volume 3, Issue 5, May 2014</font>]]</div>

How to edit the news feed on the main page

• The Latest news section on the homepage of the Education portal does not actually contain the headlines, but rather, it is transcluding them from {{Education Portal/Newsletter/Headlines}}
• Search for: Template:Education Portal/Newsletter/Headlines
• Then edit the Headlines page
• Replace the previous issue’s links with the current issue’s links
• Save the Headlines page
• The Latest news section on the homepage of the Education portal will automatically update. You may, however, have to purge the page/bypass the cache.

How old newsroom content gets cleared out for the next month's draft stories

You need to clear out the newsroom from the previous month's content so that there is a clean place, an empty sandbox, if you will, where new stories can be added. You want to leave behind one story as an example. Select one that is fully developed and includes an image. You also want to leave behind one article summary in the section at the end called "Articles of interest in other publications." Here's an example of how the cleaned out newsroom page should look after an issue is published.

How the past issue of the newsletter page is archived

Open the archives, edit the section for this year, and add a link to the most recent past edition. Make sure that you are not on the main newsletter page, but actually on the page for that specific issue; you're in the right place if there's a month and a year in the URL, like this: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Newsletter/April_2014.

Newsletter checklist

Newsletter checklist: On the day that the newsletter is delivered, all of the following tasks must be taken care of (see here for how):

1. Make the new newsletter (See: Instructions for creating the various versions of the newsletter)
2. Dump the newsroom (See: How old newsroom content gets cleared out for the next month's draft stories)
3. Update the news page (See: How the current newsletter gets posted to the news page)
4. Update the news feed on portal main page (See: How to edit the news feed on the main page)
5. Archive the old issue (See: How the past issue of the newsletter page is archived)
6. Send email from the thismonthineducation@gmail.com email account -- just a link to this month's issue -- to the email-only recipients
7. Send email from the thismonthineducation@gmail.com email account -- links to the headlines/highlights/single page editions for this month's issue and links to each of the titles listed alphabetically by country -- to the the appropriate lists: wikimedia-l and education-l and education-coop — with an apology for cross postings
8. Use Special:MassMessage to post to talk pages (See: Instructions for distributing the newsletter to talk pages)
9. Post a link to the WEP Facebook group. The highlights edition only.

Translations

Is it possible for you to make the newsletter translatable and then distributed in different languages? The good example of such is m:Tech news where every wiki gets the news in it's Village pump and users' talk pages in wiki's context language if there was a translation to the language. The Education newsletter is being sent once per month and there are people in the wiki who speak not just English, so some translations I assume to be expected. At least of headlines (which as I understand are the very thing which actually is being distributed to wikis) and highlights. Full texts could be too difficult task because of it's volume. I think it's good to have opportunity to read at least brief overview of some news in native language to choose what topics are most interesting to read fully then. I can irregularly provide some help with marking for translation but I'm not experienced with MassMessage and don't know all needed "infrastructure" for the multilingual distribution. --Base (talk) 13:01, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Base. :) Thanks for asking about this! Translating the newsletter, or making the newsletter translatable, the headlines and the highlights, at least, is a really great idea! Is it possible? To quote a colleague, "almost certainly." I will need to look into it, though. I'll ask around and let you know what I learn. The link to m:Tech news is very helpful and a nice place to start. @Thelmadatter: @Sage (Wiki Ed): isn't m:Tech news neat? :) Thanks for your help with this, Base. :) I think we're heading in a good direction. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk)

Hi! Regarding the tools for multilingual delivery, Tech News uses m:Module:Tech news, a Lua script that generates the text ready to be sent with MassMessage. I also made a generic version of the script that can be used for other newsletters, like yours. We wrote a detailed blog post a few months ago that explains the process; We also have a public manual that outlines the steps.

I'm happy to help you set up the tools and "infrastructure" for your newsletter. What page do you use to draft the text of your newsletter (i.e. the text you send with MassMessage)? Once it's set up for translation, we can test the script and see if it needs adjustments. guillom (talk) 13:56, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Guillom, this is wonderful! Thank you. I'm very grateful for your help. :)

The education newsletter is drafted in the newsroom. From there it gets converted into 3 editions: headlines, highlights, and single page. The headlines are what goes into the MassMessage. The most recent example is here. I've documented our process for preparing the MassMessage here.

It's awesome that you anticipated there'd be interest in this and that you've already made a Lua script for other newsletters to use!

Unfortunately, Lua scripts are a little over my head. Luckily, though, my colleague Tighe Flanagan (WMF) will be in SF later this month, and he and I will try to learn this together. The blog post and public manual should be very helpful; thanks for linking us to those. We may need more technical help when we're ready to start digging into this, and I hope we can call on you, if necessary. Til then, all the best, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 13:26, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Base and Anna: I've gone ahead and made Education/Newsletter/June 2014 translatable in order to test the Lua script in advance, before the July issue is ready. I partially translated it to French for testing, and I also made a few minor changes in formatting that are detailed in the history. Last, I imported the Lua script from meta.

Long story short, it works :) You can see the result for yourself at Education/Newsletter/Newsroom/Multilingual message; This one line of code generates the wikicode that you want to send via MassMessage :)

You'll need to document the process (i.e. basically, remember to update the page parameter, and list the languages of the existing translations) but otherwise this is pretty straightforward. I'm happy to help if you have any questions about how this works.

On a related note, I've started to rewrite m:Newsletters on meta, with the goal of making it a hub where people writing and distributing newsletters can collaborate. I'll document the Lua process there when I have a moment, but in the meantime you can test yours :) guillom (talk) 17:20, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Hah! Looks like I spoke too soon; There appears to be an issue (due to the table formatting) when I'm testing the generated text. I'll investigate and follow up here :) guillom (talk) 17:25, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Base and Anna: Good news! The script is now working. It was choking up on table formatting. The layout of Education/Newsletter/June 2014 could easily be achieved without tables, by replacing them by divs, so that's what I did. The appearance of the newsletter is the same; I've just changed the wikicode that renders it.

You can see the output of the script at Education/Newsletter/Newsroom/Multilingual message, and you can test it yourself on a few wikis. Copy the whole content of the multilingual message, go to the sandbox on the English, French and Spanish Wikipedia, paste the content, and preview: you'll see the newsletter posted in the appropriate language of the wiki where you're posting.

Everything now seems to be set up and working for the education newsletter, so I'm going to move on to the others and to write a generic setup guide. Let me know if you have any questions :) guillom (talk) 12:58, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Dear Guillom, This is wonderful news! I'd been wondering if you'd had time to tinker with this, but didn't want to pester you. I'm so glad you were able to get it going! It's fantastic to see translations available already. Thanks to you, we will have a multilingual education newsletter from now on! :) Very gratefully yours, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 15:43, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Guillom, two quick follow up questions for you:

1. Is it possible to use the script on the highlights edition of the newsletter, in addition to the headlines edition? Base mentioned that doing full text might be too difficult due to its volume, and I tend to agree. But if we could translate both the article titles and the article snippets, that's all the better! Especially since it's the highlights edition that we now feature at Education/News.

2. How do we tell everyone that the newsletter is now translatable/translated? Share a link to the the "Translate this page" page? But after they click that link, then what? Are instructions needed, and if so, where can they be found?

Merci beaucoup! Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 18:03, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Guillom, a follow up to my follow up:

If we're wanting to translate the highlights edition, won't we first need to remove the table formatting, as you did in the headlines edition? If so, would love to have your help with that! :) Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 21:50, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Anna: Answers in order:

1. You don't need the script for the highlights. You can make the highlights translatable, but translations will stay on outreachwiki (as far as I know, you only send the headlines) so you don't need the script for pages you don't send.
2. You need to send an email to the translators list and ask them to contribute translations. Before you do that, you should make sure that the page is properly tagged for translation; I'm happy to take a look to make sure to minimize the translators' work.
3. You don't need to remove the table formatting form the highlights, because (as in 1.) you don't send them. The tables are only an issue when you use the script and send the content via MassMessage. Tables aren't an issue when you "just" make the page translatable.

HTH :) guillom (talk) 06:39, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

This really really does help, Guillom! Thank you *so* much! <3 Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 20:25, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Just a quick note that I've finally finished writing the detailed how-to of how to assemble and send a multilingual newsletter: see m:Newsletters/Translation. You don't really need it now for the Education newsletter, since I've explained much of the process and added it above, but I wanted to give you the pointer nonetheless :) guillom (talk) 15:25, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Broken divs

The latest education newsletter has missing closing div end elements that breaks talkpages - see this diff for a fix.

It'd be quite a good idea to ensure that doesn't happen in future issues. —Tom Morris (talk) 16:12, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Tom for flagging this issue. I will be sure to add a note about this in the publishing process documentation. --Selsharbaty (WMF) (talk) 00:36, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia Visiting Scholars?

Hi there,

Would an announcement about open positions in the Wikipedia Visiting Scholars program (administered in the United States and Canada by the Wiki Education Foundation), be within the scope of this newsletter?

Thanks. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:24, 18 August 2016 (UTC)