Project:Village Pump

This page is only for discussing issues related to MediaWiki.org site.

To get help with MediaWiki software, ask on Project:Support desk.

Hi everyone! We are the Wikimedia Foundation Web team. We work on making it easier to read Wikimedia projects as part of the objective "Reading and media experience". To achieve this goal, we have introduced the "Accessibility for Reading" beta feature. It adds a menu which works on the Vector 2022 skin and allows logged-in users to choose different font sizes based on individual needs. This makes it easier to serve the accessibility needs for more people. For more information, check out our project page.

The menu introduces a new Standard font setting. It slightly increases the size and height of the font. It was selected by looking at the preferences of editors using the beta feature, general recommendations for accessibility (which font is quickest to read for the majority of people), as well as the suggestions and designs of more than 600 Wikimedians. You will find more information on this setting below. This menu has been available on Wikipedias since June 2024.

We are now ready to make the new Appearance menu available for logged-out and logged-in users on all wikis, including this one. At the same time, we will also make the Standard option the new default for logged-out users only. If no breaking technical issues are found, we plan on making this change in the week of September 9.

About the menu

The new menu will allow logged-in and logged-out users to set preferences for: Text size and line height (available now as the beta feature): Users will be able to choose between the Small (current default), Standard (recommended for better accessibility), and Large options. Selecting an option will change both the font size and line height of the text. Content width (previously available as a toggle button): We have moved the content width toggle from an icon at the bottom of the page to a labeled radio button in the new menu. It will work exactly the same as the toggle. The previous toggle button will no longer be available. Dark mode (coming soon!): Users will be able to choose to see the site in night mode on a permanent basis, or select an “automatic” setting which will set day or night mode based on the device or browser preferences. Dark mode is already available in the menu as a beta feature - check it out by opting into the “Accessibility fo Reading” This menu has been tested as a beta feature by logged-in users across wikis as well as in user testing with readers. The menu has also been the default on all Wikipedias since June 2024. Based on the findings of these tests, we changed the menu to improve the user experience, menu discoverability and ease of use, and to accommodate gadget compatibility across wikis. The menu will appear to the right of the page, immediately under the Tools menu. Similar to the Tools menu, the menu will appear as open by default, but can be pinned. Once pinned, the menu collapses under an icon at the top of the page.

About the new Standard font setting

The "Small" option is the current default. We will be changing this default to "Standard" for logged-out users, while keeping "Small" as the default for logged-in users. The "Standard" and "Large" options were built and tested based on the following: Academic studies and recommendations for the best average font size for the majority of readers. These recommendations stated that our current size is too small for the majority of people to read comfortably. This means that on average, people read more slowly, strain their eyes while reading, or have difficulty clearly seeing the text. Increasing the font size by default improves these issues for all users, including users who might not have sufficient time to spend adjusting a setting via the appearance menu or browser. We also highlighted that information density is important to the Wikipedia experience, making the goal of the typography changes to increase font size without sacrificing information density. This was done by altering not only font size, but also line height and paragraph spacing. Designs submitted by more than 630 Wikimedians from across 13 wikis of different languages, scripts, and sizes. The majority (~450) of test users opted for a font size that was larger than the default, with the most popular cluster being 15-20 pixels. "Standard" represents the average of the most popular cluster of community responses (15-20) pixels. "Large"represents the need for an even larger option, as represented by the cluster of sizes between 21-26 pixels. You can read more on how we included volunteers in the process and landed on these options. Beta feature usage showed that the majority of users who interact with the feature at least once opt for a font size that is larger than the current default.

Our works so far and next steps

Logged-in users will remain with the “small” setting for the time being as their default, but can change to any other setting at any time. In a few months, we will study how many logged-in users switch to standard and start a conversation on whether it makes sense for logged-in users to make the switch as well. From the early data from the beta feature, 55% of sessions who interacted with the feature chose to use a setting that was standard or larger.

If you'd like to help, we have a few simple requests for you:

1. Please, turn on the beta feature ("Accessibility for Reading (Vector 2022)")
2. Try out the new menu. Is anything confusing? Do you understand all the labels and how the menu works?
3. Try out the small, standard, and large sizes. Reach out to us if you notice any bugs, or have questions or concerns.
4. Try out the width toggle. Reach out to us if you notice any bugs, or have questions or concerns.

If you'd like to learn more about the project, see our FAQ. Comments and questions are most welcome. Thank you!

As a new admin to my wiki site, I am failing to figure out how to enable a proper approval process.

I see that a few extensions are available, and Extension:FlaggedRevs seems the best suitable. However, its page has a warning advising against its usage, but does not provide an alternative choice. I also see a few others:

• Extension:Approved_Revs (seems to be incompatible with some extensions, as it is stated on their page)
• Extension:ContentStabilization (it produces some errors in the wgDebugLogFile, and on their pages it says that they use FlaggedRevs)

The main site, Wikipedia, also has Extension:FlaggedRevs installed as shown on their page: Special:Version.

So, what MediaWiki is using on their site? I would like to install and use an appropriate extension that will be eventually in use everywhere. Could you advise?

Thank you so much!

--~~~~

This wiki does not use any of the aformentioned extensions. It just lets edits get published unapproved and relies on humans patrolling recent changes to revert those that shouldn't be made. You can see what extensions are installed on a given wiki at special:Version.

So, what would you recommend to use, the one which would likely be most popular in the future? Open source concept might be working fine for MediaWiki, because it is a special site, but I need some CMS.

Page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Flagged_Revisions#Enabling claims that FlaggedRevs are abandoned by the developers, but page https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/q/project:mediawiki/extensions/FlaggedRevs shows recent activity up to today.

Was FlaggedRevs abandoned, but now revived? What other wiki sites most commonly use? What would you recommend?

This is not really the right place to ask.

Both flaggedrevs and approvedrevs are popular. ApprovedRevs is a bit simpler which some people like. FlaggedRevs is not really being actively developed anymore, but ocassional fixes are still made when issues pop up. Ultimately its up to you. Both are reasonable choices.

Check out Extension:Moderation

Hi all,

The next language community meeting is scheduled in a few weeks—on August 30th at 15:00 UTC. If you're interested in joining, you can sign up on this wiki page.

This participant-driven meeting will focus on sharing language-specific updates related to various projects, discussing technical issues related to language wikis, and working together to find possible solutions. For example, in the last meeting, topics included the Language Converter, the state of language research, updates on the Incubator conversations, and technical challenges around external links not working with special characters on Bengali sites.

Do you have any ideas for topics to share technical updates or discuss challenges? Please add agenda items to the document here and reach out to ssethi(__AT__)wikimedia.org. We look forward to your participation!

Nevermind. Seems I picked the wrong location for this one. ... again. I give up.

The filter is working correctly.

I was trying to add back a talk page section on Writ Keeper's talk page (Re: IRC) that was reverted by XXBlackburnXx but it got stopped by the global abuse filter

I haven't been able to get into an agreement with P858snake (Topic:Y8gnvyzbtx9d9ugw), but I'm concerned with this change. I don't know of another wiki that takes such a punitive approach (i.e, allowing very few users to create a local userpage), and in my opinion, suitably established users (say those with 100 edits at least) should be able to create local pages here. Hence putting this here for discussion.

I support having the filter in its current state. My impression from watching the abuse log is that filter 95 blocks of attempts at creating user pages that are meaningful are rare, and blocks of attempts at creating user pages that specifically meaningful and relevant to this wiki in particular and wouldn't be better off in meta or elsewhere are pretty much non-existent. To back that up somewhat at least I looked at the filter 95 blocks currently showing in the first page of the abuse log:

• 31 were new users, less than a few days old
  • 16 spam
  • 9 nonsense/gibberish/test
  • 6 personal info (name/cv/email)
• 5 were from older accounts, at least a few weeks old (but only 1 had a large number of edits overall)
  • 1 blank
  • 2 off-topic article
  • 1 personal info (street address)
  • 1 spam

From that sample it does seem that a weaker filter would still mostly be effective, but it also does not support any particular need to weaken the filter either.

Hi all, I would need of someone with the proper rights to mark correctly this page for translation, as of now only the titles can be translated to other languages, thanks

Shirayuki has taken care of it

Hi, I'm here because I read

"If you believe you received this message in error, please file a request at Project:Village Pump, explaining what you were trying to do."

I've been on Translate - MediaWiki

It would be very helpful is you could support me to continue. ~~~~

This was due to the page being prepared for translation incorrectly, in a way that caused an abuse filter false positive when new editors tried to translate it.

I've fixed the translate syntax so this shouldn't happen again.

Hi! I'd like to add the (minified) code of https://www.chartjs.org as a hidden, disabled gadget here at MediaWiki.org, in order to be able to load it and use it for generating charts with other gadgets (first use case would be wikiprojects in the Spanish Wikipedia and then Wikiversity:Wikidebate).

I think there is a CDN on the toolforge repositories, avoiding that everybody touching the JS will submit fingerprint and IP address and context to an external website.

Basically there is no need to make an official MediaWiki.org gadget. You can establish a user script and load it wherever you want. Other people can load on their own risk your JS if they trust in you by .js preferences.

Ah yes, I found it, I didn't know about that! Just to clarify, I wasn't asking to load ChartJS from their CDN, but rather copy-pasting the ChartJS code into a new gadget. But anyway, loading from the toolforge CDN seems even better, so I think I'll go with that, thanks!

Note that hot-loading from the Toolforge CDN on a production Wikimedia site without user opt-in consent is a privacy policy violation, as the Toolforge privacy policy is different.

Hmm, then how about copy-pasting the ChartJS code to a MediaWiki.org gadget (hidden and disabled by default) so I can load it from there?

Couldn’t cdnjs.toolforge.org have an own privacy policy, which is as strong as the production wiki one? Since its very goal is to be a privacy-friendly CDN, it would be a straightforward decision, allowing gadgets to use it. Or does the Toolforge infrastructure itself (i.e. bits that are out of the cdnjs tool’s control) do things that aren’t allowed on production wikis?

I just found out about the plans to enable Extension:Chart which would use Apache eCharts. Thus, I modified my code to use the eCharts library rather than ChartJS. When the extension is enabled, I'll be able to use the eCharts resource bundled with it. But in the meantime, I'd still like to copy-paste the eCharts minified code to a hidden, disabled gadget here at MediaWiki.org. Any concerns or objections?

Regarding Tacsipacsi's suggestion, allowing to use resources from the Toolforge CDN would be a huge lvl up for gadget developers!

On gadget: You could provide such external library (if license would permit, which would be required for official MediaWiki.org gadget as well) as your own user page.

On privacy issues: The CDN at our toolforge is avoiding that any external sysop could track IP address and browser fingerprint on every usage (accessing, verifying and loading the code).

• Inside such libraries there might be callbacks to the external origin. In the huge amount of CDN libraries nobody at WMF can check this for all frequent updates.
• If someone is using deliberately a toolforge tool it is taken into account that cookies for external might be created, and externals are contacted.
• However, toolforge developers should make it obvious if they know that non-WMF communication might happen, and no tool should be offered by the way on any WMF site if external access is known.

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to your language

Dear all,

The voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is closing soon. It is open through 10 August 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility. If you are eligible to vote and have not voted in this special election, it is important that you vote now.

Why should you vote? The U4C is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community input into the committee membership is critical to the success of the UCoC.

Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.

In cooperation with the U4C,

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 15:29, 6 August 2024 (UTC)