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This week's article for improvement (week 37, 2014)

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Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Consumer electronics


Previous selections: Raven Tales • Solar activity


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:02, 8 September 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

ITN credit for Germanene

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NickGibson3900 Talk 10:09, 14 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

This week's article for improvement (week 38, 2014)

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Arches were used in Ancient Roman architecture to build aqueducts, such as the Aqueduct of Segovia
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Ancient Roman architecture


Previous selections: Consumer electronics • Raven Tales


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:03, 15 September 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

DYK for Solar activity

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Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:17, 21 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

This week's article for improvement (week 39, 2014)

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Arches were used in Ancient Roman architecture to build aqueducts, such as the Aqueduct of Segovia
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Ancient Roman architecture


Previous selections: Ancient Roman architecture • Consumer electronics


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:03, 22 September 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 40, 2014)

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Aerial photograph of George Bush Intercontinental Airport, an international airport in Houston, United States
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The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

International airport


Previous selections: Ancient Roman architecture • Ancient Roman architecture


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:03, 29 September 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 41, 2014)

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Seasoned and chargrilled lamb fillet steak
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The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Steak


Previous selections: International airport • Ancient Roman architecture


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:03, 6 October 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

VisualEditor newsletter—September and October 2014

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Did you know?

TemplateData is a separate program that organizes information about the parameters that can be used in a template. VisualEditor reads that data, and uses it to populate its simplified template dialogs.

With the new TemplateData editor, it is easier to add information about parameters, because the ones you need to use are pre-loaded.

See the help page for TemplateData for more information about adding TemplateData. The user guide has information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing team has reduced technical debt, simplified some workflows for template and citation editing, made major progress on Internet Explorer support, and fixed over 125 bugs and requests. Several performance improvements were made, especially to the system around re-using references and reference lists. Weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org.

There were three issues that required urgent fixes: a deployment error that meant that many buttons didn't work correctly (bugs 69856 and 69864), a problem with edit conflicts that left the editor with nowhere to go (bug 69150), and a problem in Internet Explorer 11 that caused replaced some categories with a link to the system message, MediaWiki:Badtitletext (bug 70894) when you saved. The developers apologize for the disruption, and thank the people who reported these problems quickly.

Increased support for devices and browsers

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Internet Explorer 10 and 11 users now have access to VisualEditor. This means that about 5% of Wikimedia's users will now get an "Edit" tab alongside the existing "Edit source" tab. Support for Internet Explorer 9 is planned for the future.

Tablet users browsing the site's mobile mode now have the option of using a mobile-specific form of VisualEditor. More editing tools, and availability of VisualEditor on smartphones, is planned for the future. The mobile version of VisualEditor was tweaked to show the context menu for citations instead of basic references (bug 68897). A bug that broke the editor in iOS was corrected and released early (bug 68949). For mobile tablet users, three bugs related to scrolling were fixed (bug 66697bug 68828bug 69630). You can use VisualEditor on the mobile version of Wikipedia from your tablet by clicking on the cog in the top-right when editing a page and choosing which editor to use.

TemplateData editor

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A tool for editing TemplateData will be deployed to more Wikipedias soon.  Other Wikipedias and some other projects may receive access next month. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation.  When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "Edit template data" button at the top.  Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.

Other changes

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Several interface messages and labels were changed to be simpler, clearer, or shorter, based on feedback from translators and editors. The formatting of dialogs was changed, and more changes to the appearance will be coming soon, when VisualEditor implements the new MediaWiki theme from Design. (A preview of the theme is available on Labs for developers.) The team also made some improvements for users of the Monobook skin that improved the size of text in toolbars and fixed selections that overlapped menus.

VisualEditor-MediaWiki now supplies the mw-redirect or mw-disambig class on links to redirects and disambiguation pages, so that user gadgets that colour in these in types of links can be created.

Templates' fields can be marked as 'required' in TemplateData. If a parameter is marked as required, then you cannot delete that field when you add a new template or edit an existing one (bug 60358). 

Language support improved by making annotations use bi-directional isolation (so they display correctly with cursoring behaviour as expected) and by fixing a bug that crashed VisualEditor when trying to edit a page with a dir attribute but no lang set (bug 69955).

Looking ahead

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The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon, perhaps in late October.

The team is also working on support for adding rows and columns to tables, and early work for this may appear within the month. Please comment on the design at Mediawiki.org.

In the future, real-time collaborative editing may be possible in VisualEditor. Some early preparatory work for this was recently done.

Supporting your wiki

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At Wikimania, several developers gave presentations about VisualEditor. A translation sprint focused on improving access to VisualEditor was supported by many people. Deryck Chan was the top translator. Special honors also go to संजीव कुमार (Sanjeev Kumar), Robby, Takot, Bachounda, Bjankuloski06 and Ата. A summary of the work achieved by the translation community has been posted here. Thank you all for your work.

VisualEditor can be made available to most non-Wikipedia projects. If your community would like to test VisualEditor, please contact product manager James Forrester or file an enhancement request in Bugzilla.

Please join the office hours on Saturday, 18 October 2014 at 18:00 UTC (daytime for the Americas; evening for Africa and Europe) and on Wednesday, 19 November at 16:00 UTC on IRC.

Give feedback on VisualEditor at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta. To help with translations, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact Elitre at Meta. Thank you!

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:11, 8 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

This week's article for improvement (week 42, 2014)

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Central America is the geographic region that connects North America and South America.
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The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Central America


Previous selections: Steak • International airport


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:04, 13 October 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 43, 2014)

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Inside an ice hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden
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Ice hotel


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 44, 2014)

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Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, the world's first national park
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The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

National park


Previous selections: Ice hotel • Central America


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:05, 27 October 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 45, 2014)

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A pizza is an oven-baked flat bread typically topped with tomato sauce, cheese and various toppings
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The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Pizza


Previous selections: National park • Ice hotel


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:23, 3 November 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

VisualEditor newsletter—November 2014

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Did you know?

VisualEditor is also available on the mobile version of Wikipedia. Login and click the pencil icon to open the page you want to edit. Click on the gear-shaped settings in the upper-right corner, to pick which editor to use. Choose "Edit" to use VisualEditor, or "Edit source" to use the wikitext editor.

It will remember whether you used wikitext or VisualEditor, and use the same editor the next time you edit an article.

The user guide has information about how to use VisualEditor. Not all features are available in Mobile Web.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and requests, and worked on support for editing tables and for using non-Latin languages. Their weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org. Informal notes from the recent quarterly review were posted on Meta.

Recent improvements

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The French Wikipedia should see better search results for links, templates, and media because the new search engine was turned on for everyone there. This change is expected at the Chinese and German Wikipedias next week, and eventually at the English Wikipedia.

The "pawn" system has been mostly replaced. Bugs in this system sometimes added a chess pawn character to wikitext. The replacement provides better support for non-Latin languages, with full support hopefully coming soon.

VisualEditor is now provided to editors who use Internet Explorer 10 or 11 on desktop and mobile devices. Internet Explorer 9 is not supported yet.

The keyboard shortcuts for items in the toolbar's menus are now shown in the menus. VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme from the User Experience / Design group. The appearance of dialogs has already changed in one Mobile version. The appearance on desktops will change soon. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" design and the new "MediaWiki" theme which will replace it.)

Several bugs were fixed for internal and external links. Improvements to MediaWiki's search solved an annoying problem: If you searched for the full name of the page or file that you wanted to link, sometimes the search program could not find the page. A link inside a template, to a local page that does not exist, will now show red, exactly as it does when reading the page. Due to a error, for about two weeks this also affected all external links inside templates. Opening an auto-numbered link node like [1] with the keyboard used to open the wrong link tool. These problems have all been fixed.

TemplateData

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The tool for quickly editing TemplateData will be deployed to all Wikimedia Foundation wikis on Thursday, 6 November.  This tool is already available on the biggest 40 Wikipedias, and now all wikis will have access to it. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation.  When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "Edit template data" button at the top.  Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.

You can use the new autovalue setting to pre-load a value into a template. This can be used to substitute dates, as in this example, or to add the most common response for that parameter. The autovalue can be easily overridden by the editor, by typing something else in the field.

In TemplateData, you may define a parameter as "required". The template dialog in VisualEditor will warn editors if they leave a "required" parameter empty, and they will not be able to delete that parameter. If the template can function without this parameter, then please mark it as "suggested" or "optional" in TemplateData instead.

Looking ahead

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Basic support for inserting tables and changing the number of rows and columns in tables will appear next Wednesday. Advanced features, like dragging columns to different places, will be possible later. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon. To help editors find the most important items more quickly, some items in the toolbar menus will be hidden behind a "More" item, such as "underlining" in the styling menu. The appearance of the media search dialog will improve, to make picking between possible images easier and more visual. The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap.

The user guide will be updated soon to add information about editing tables. The translations for most languages except Spanish, French, and Dutch are significantly out of date. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language. Talk to us if you need help exporting the translated guide to your wiki.

You can influence VisualEditor's design. Tell the VisualEditor team what you want changed during the office hours via IRC. The next sessions are on Wednesday, 19 November at 16:00 UTC and on Wednesday 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC. You can also share your ideas at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.

Also, user experience researcher Abbey Ripstra is looking for editors to show her how they edit Wikipedia. Please sign up for the research program if you would like to hear about opportunities.

If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Thank you!

Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:41, 6 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

This week's article for improvement (week 46, 2014)

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Sleeping is part of everyday life
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Everyday life


Previous selections: Pizza • National park


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:17, 10 November 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 47, 2014)

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Military aviation and missile guidance are examples of modern military technology.
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The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Military technology


Previous selections: Everyday life • Pizza


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:18, 17 November 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 48, 2014)

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A beach on the island of San Andrés, a tourist destination in the Caribbean
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The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Tourism in the Caribbean


Previous selections: Military technology • Everyday life


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:38, 24 November 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 49, 2014)

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The Mexico–United States border spans six Mexican states and four U.S. states, with a total length of 3,145 km (1,954 mi).
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Mexico–United States border


Previous selections: Tourism in the Caribbean • Military technology


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:36, 1 December 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 50, 2014)

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Game design is the art of creating rules and mechanics to facilitate interactions between players in a game.
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Game design


Previous selections: Mexico–United States border • Tourism in the Caribbean


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 51, 2014)

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A plate of spaghetti and meatballs.
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The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Spaghetti


Previous selections: Game design • Mexico–United States border


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:22, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

VisualEditor newsletter—December 2014

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Did you know?

Basic table editing is now available in VisualEditor. You can add and remove rows and columns from existing tables at the click of a button.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on table editing and performance. Their weekly status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

VisualEditor was deployed to several hundred remaining wikis as an opt-in beta feature at the end of November, except for most Wiktionaries (which depend heavily upon templates) and all Wikisources (which await integration with ProofreadPage).

Recent improvements

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Basic support for editing tables is available. You can insert new tables, add and remove rows and columns, set or remove a caption for a table, and merge cells together. To change the contents of a cell, double-click inside it. More features will be added in the coming months. In addition, VisualEditor now ignores broken, invalid rowspan and colspan elements, instead of trying to repair them.

You can now use find and replace in VisualEditor, reachable through the tool menu or by pressing ⌃ Ctrl+F or ⌘ Cmd+F.

You can now create and edit simple <blockquote> paragraphs for quoting and indenting content. This changes a "Paragraph" into a "Block quote".

Some new keyboard sequences can be used to format content. At the start of the line, typing "*  " will make the line a bullet list; "1.  " or "# " will make it a numbered list; "==" will make it a section heading; ": " will make it a blockquote. If you didn't mean to use these tools, you can press undo to undo the formatting change. There are also two other keyboard sequences: "[[" for opening the link tool, and "{{" for opening the template tool, to help experienced editors. The existing standard keyboard shortcuts, like ⌃ Ctrl+K to open the link editor, still work.

If you add a category that has been redirected, then VisualEditor now adds its target. Categories without description pages show up as red.

You can again create and edit galleries as wikitext code.

Looking ahead

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VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme designed by the User Experience group. The new theme will be visible for desktop systems at MediaWiki.org in late December and at other sites early January. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" theme and the new "MediaWiki" one which will replace it.)

The Editing team plans to add auto-fill features for citations in January. Planned changes to the media search dialog will make choosing between possible images easier.

Help

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If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta.

Thank you! WhatamIdoing (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 20 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

This week's article for improvement (week 52, 2014)

edit
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Natural phenomenon


Previous selections: Spaghetti • Game design


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:08, 22 December 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 1, 2015)

edit
Hello, Khamar.

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Skyline


Previous selections: Natural phenomenon • Spaghetti


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:18, 29 December 2014 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 2, 2015)

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Dishwashing liquid is a detergent used in dishwashing
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The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Dishwashing liquid


Previous selections: Skyline • Natural phenomenon


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:18, 5 January 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 3, 2015)

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The history of Mongolia includes the foundation, expansion, and fragmentation of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century
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History of Mongolia


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:09, 12 January 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 4, 2015)

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An example of prose, a type of writing that simulates the natural flow of language
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Prose


Previous selections: History of Mongolia • Dishwashing liquid


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:22, 19 January 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 5, 2015)

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The opening of the Beethoven Symphony No. 5, a famous symphony.
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Symphony


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This week's article for improvement (week 6, 2015)

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Freeze dried coffee, an example of the application of food science
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Food science


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:29, 2 February 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

VisualEditor News 2015—#1

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Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's appearance, the coming Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

The Wikimedia Foundation has named its top priorities for this quarter (January to March). The first priority is making VisualEditor ready for deployment by default to all new users and logged-out users at the remaining large Wikipedias. You can help identify these requirements. There will be weekly triage meetings which will be open to volunteers beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Tell Vice President of Engineering Damon Sicore, Product Manager James Forrester and other team members which bugs and features are most important to you. The decisions made at these meetings will determine what work is necessary for this quarter's goal of making VisualEditor ready for deployment to new users. The presence of volunteers who enjoy contributing MediaWiki code is particularly appreciated. Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins. 

Due to some breaking changes in MobileFrontend and VisualEditor, VisualEditor was not working correctly on the mobile site for a couple of days in early January. The teams apologize for the problem.

Recent improvements

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The new design for VisualEditor aligns with MediaWiki's Front-End Standards as led by the Design team. Several new versions of the OOjs UI library have also been released, and these also affect the appearance of VisualEditor and other MediaWiki software extensions. Most changes were minor, like changing the text size and the amount of white space in some windows. Buttons are consistently color-coded to indicate whether the action:

  • starts a new task, like opening the ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-savedialog⧽ dialog:  blue ,
  • takes a constructive action, like inserting a citation:  green ,
  • might remove or lose your work, like removing a link:  red , or
  • is neutral, like opening a link in a new browser window:  gray.

The TemplateData editor has been completely re-written to use a different design (T67815) based on the same OOjs UI system as VisualEditor (T73746). This change fixed a couple of existing bugs (T73077 and T73078) and improved usability.

Search and replace in long documents is now faster. It does not highlight every occurrence if there are more than 100 on-screen at once (T78234).

Editors at the Hebrew and Russian Wikipedias requested the ability to use VisualEditor in the "Article Incubator" or drafts namespace (T86688, T87027). If your community would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace on your wiki, then you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.

Looking ahead

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The Editing team will soon add auto-fill features for citations. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to contribute to the Citoid service's definitions for each website, to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections.

We will need editors to help test the new design of the special character inserter, especially if you speak Welsh, Breton, or another language that uses diacritics or special characters extensively. The new version should be available for testing next week. Please contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF) if you would like to be notified when the new version is available. After the special character tool is completed, VisualEditor will be deployed to all users at Phase 5 Wikipedias. This will affect about 50 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh. The date for this change has not been determined.

Let's work together

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Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Translations are available through Meta. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

This week's article for improvement (week 7, 2015)

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Empire Field, stadium made with temporary structures, cheaper than permanent.
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The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Stadium


Previous selections: Food science • Symphony


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:16, 9 February 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 8, 2015)

edit
 
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Ice cream parlour


Previous selections: Stadium • Food science


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:27, 16 February 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 9, 2015)

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Trailer Trash is a US derogatory term for poor people living in trailers or caravans. It appears that these trailer trash happen to live on a trailer park.
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Trailer Trash


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:55, 23 February 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 10, 2015)

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There are many backup dancers accompanying the dances of the main dancer.
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Backup dancer


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:58, 2 March 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, Portland Oregon (March 7, 2015)

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You are invited!

  • Saturday, March 7: Art+Feminism – noon to 5pm
    Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at the Portland Art Museum's Crumpacker Family Library (Mark Building, 2nd Floor; 1219 SW Park Avenue). Art+Feminism is a campaign to improve coverage of women and the arts on Wikipedia. No Wikipedia editing experience necessary; as needed throughout the event, tutoring will be provided for Wikipedia newcomers. Female editors are particularly encouraged to attend. Attendees should bring their own laptops and power cords.

Hope you can make it! If you have any questions or require any special accommodations, please let me know.


Thanks,

Another Believer

To unsubscribe from this newsletter, remove your name from this list. -MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:20, 3 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

This week's article for improvement (week 11, 2015)

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Turkish cuisine
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Cuisine


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Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:26, 9 March 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 12, 2015)

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Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Dinner


Previous selections: Cuisine • Backup dancer


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 03:27, 16 March 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 13, 2015)

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A antagonist is a character, group of characters, institution, or concept that stands in, or represents, opposition against which the protagonist(s) must contend.
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Antagonist


Previous selections: Dinner • Cuisine


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:06, 23 March 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

This week's article for improvement (week 14, 2015)

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A man garbage picking through a skip (dumpster)
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Garbage picking


Previous selections: Antagonist • Dinner


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:08, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

Today's articles for improvement

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  • Hello Khamar:
Please consider participating in this week's vote for TAFI's upcoming Week 17 collaboration. Last week's voting did not receive many participants. Thanks for your consideration. North America1000 16:14, 31 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

VisualEditor News #2—2015

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Did you know?

With Citoid in VisualEditor, you click the 'book with bookmark' icon and paste in the URL for a reliable source:


 


Citoid looks up the source for you and returns the citation results. Click the green "Insert" button to accept its results and add them to the article:


 


After inserting the citation, you can change it. Select the reference, and click the "Edit" button in the context menu to make changes.


The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's performance, the Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 11:00 (noon) PDT (18:00 UTC). You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.

Recent improvements

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VisualEditor is now substantially faster. In many cases, opening the page in VisualEditor is now faster than opening it in the wikitext editor. The new system has improved the code speed by 37% and network speed by almost 40%.

The Editing team is slowly adding auto-fill features for citations. This is currently available only at the French, Italian, and English Wikipedias. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections by contributing to the Citoid service's definitions for each website.

Citoid requires good TemplateData for your citation templates. If you would like to request this feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

The special character inserter has been improved, based upon feedback from active users. After this, VisualEditor was made available to all users of Wikipedias on the Phase 5 list on 30 March. This affected 53 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including AfrikaansAzerbaijaniBretonKyrgyzMacedonianMongolianTatar, and Welsh.

Work continues to support languages with complex requirements, such as Korean and Japanese. These languages use input method editors ("IMEs”). Recent improvements to cursoring, backspace, and delete behavior will simplify typing in VisualEditor for these users.

The design for the image selection process is now using a "masonry fit" model. Images in the search results are displayed at the same height but at variable widths, similar to bricks of different sizes in a masonry wall, or the "packed" mode in image galleries. This style helps you find the right image by making it easier to see more details in images.

You can now drag and drop categories to re-arrange their order of appearance ​on the page.

The pop-up window that appears when you click on a reference, image, link, or other element, is called the "context menu". It now displays additional useful information, such as the destination of the link or the image's filename. The team has also added an explicit "Edit" button in the context menu, which helps new editors open the tool to change the item.

Invisible templates are marked by a puzzle piece icon so they can be interacted with. Users also will be able to see and edit HTML anchors now in section headings.

Users of the TemplateData GUI editor can now set a string as an optional text for the 'deprecated' property in addition to boolean value, which lets you tell users of the template what they should do instead (T90734).

Looking ahead

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The special character inserter in VisualEditor will soon use the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki will also have the option of creating a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Instructions for customizing the list will be posted at mediawiki.org.

The team is discussing a test of VisualEditor with new users, to see whether they have met their goals of making VisualEditor suitable for those editors. The timing is unknown, but might be relatively soon.

Let's work together

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  • Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
  • Can you translate from English into any other language? Please check this list to see whether more interface translations are needed for your language. Contact us to get an account if you want to help!
  • The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
  • File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

-Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 17:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Today's articles for improvement

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  • Hello Khamar:
This week's voting for TAFI's upcoming weekly collaboration has begun at Week 18 of 2015. Thanks for participating!

This week's article for improvement (week 15, 2015)

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The wheel is one of the most famous and useful inventions in the history of technology
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

History of technology


Previous selections: Garbage picking • Antagonist


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:14, 6 April 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

Today's articles for improvement

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  • Hello Khamar:
This week's voting for TAFI's upcoming weekly collaboration has begun at Week 19 of 2015. Thanks for participating!

This week's article for improvement (week 16, 2015)

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A saxophone is an example of an aerophone.
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Aerophone


Previous selections: History of technology • Garbage picking


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 01:25, 13 April 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

TWL HighBeam check-in

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Hello Wikipedia Library Users,

You are receiving this message because the Wikipedia Library has record of you receiving a one-year subscription to HighBeam. This is a brief update to remind you about that access:

  • Make sure that you can still log in to your HighBeam account; if you are having trouble feel free to contact me for more information. When your access expires you can reapply at WP:HighBeam.
  • Remember, if you find this source useful for your Wikipedia work, make sure to include citations with links on Wikipedia: links to partner resources are one of the few ways we can demonstrate usage and demand for accounts to our partners. The greater the linkage, the greater the likelihood a useful partnership will be renewed. For more information about citing this source, see Wikipedia:HighBeam/Citations
  • Write unusual articles using this partner's sources? Did access to this source create new opportunities for you in the Wikipedia community? If you have a unique story to share about your contributions, let us know and we can set up an opportunity for you to write a blog post about your work with one of our partner's resources.

Finally, we would greatly appreciate if you filled out this short survey. The survey helps us not only better serve you with facilitating this particular partnership, but also helps us discover what other partnerships and services the Wikipedia Library can offer.

Thank you. Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 16:45, 13 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

This week's article for improvement (week 17, 2015)

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A satellite image demonstrating the Geography of Niger
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Geography of Niger


Previous selections: Aerophone • History of technology


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:08, 20 April 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

Today's articles for improvement

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  • Hello Khamar:
This week's voting for TAFI's upcoming weekly collaboration has begun at Week 20 of 2015. Thanks for participating!

Today's articles for improvement

edit
 
  • Hello Khamar:
This week's voting for TAFI's upcoming weekly collaboration has begun at Week 21 of 2015. Thanks for participating!

This week's article for improvement (week 18, 2015)

edit
 
Hydroelectric dams use hydropower to generate electricity
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Hydropower


Previous selections: Geography of Niger • Aerophone


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of EuroCarGT (talk) 00:08, 27 April 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

TWL Questia check-in

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Hello!

You are receiving this message because The Wikipedia Library has record of you receiving a one-year subscription to Questia. This is a brief update to remind you about that access:

  • Make sure that you can still log in to your Questia account; if you are having trouble feel free to get in touch.
  • When your account expires you can reapply for access at WP:Questia.
  • Remember, if you find this source useful for your Wikipedia work, make sure to include citations with links on Wikipedia: links to partner resources are one of the few ways we can demonstrate usage and demand for accounts to our partners. The greater the linkage, the greater the likelihood a useful partnership will be renewed.
  • Write unusual articles using this partner's sources? Did access to this source create new opportunities for you in the Wikipedia community? If you have a unique story to share about your contributions, email us and we can set up an opportunity for you to write a blog post about your work with one of our partner's resources.

Finally, we would greatly appreciate if you filled out this short survey. The survey helps us not only better serve you with facilitating this particular partnership, but also helps us discover what other partnerships and services The Wikipedia Library can offer.

Thanks!
Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:11, 28 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Today's articles for improvement

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  • Hello Khamar:
This week's voting for TAFI's upcoming weekly collaboration has begun at Week 22 of 2015. Thanks for participating!

This week's article for improvement (week 48, 2024)

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An example of home appliances is this washing machine and clothes dryer combination.
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Home appliance


Previous selections: Hydropower • Geography of Niger


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Sent by Northamerica1000 using mass messaging on 00:33, 4 May 2015 (UTC)Opt-out instructionsReply

Wikipedia Women's Health Information Edit-a-thon: Tuesday, May 12 at OHSU

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You are invited!

  • Tuesday, May 12, 2015: Wikipedia Women's Health Information Edit-a-thon – 1 to 4pm
  • Wikipedia Edit-a-thon hosted by OHSU's Center for Women's Health in honor of National Women's Health Week
  • Location: Biomedical Information Communications Center (3280 SW Sam Jackson Park Road, Portland, OR 97239)
  • This edit-a-thon is intended to address some of these important differences and to generally improve women’s health information in key articles and topics. Areas for improvement have been identified in cooperation with WikiProject Medicine. Prior Wikipedia editing is not required; assistance will be available the day of the event. Attendees should bring their own laptops and power cords.

Hope you can make it! If you have any questions or require any special accommodations, please post to the event page.


Thanks,

Another Believer

To unsubscribe from this newsletter, remove your name from this list.

M. Justin Herman

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Khamar. I would like to disambiguate Justin Herman from the other one on Wikipedia, and need help working out the problem that nobody will know there is an "M." in M. Justin Herman.

Also, can you tell me what happened to my user page? I've been working on wikipedia sice 2005 and had been keeping track of the pages I started, and now I can't find the user page where I was keeping this info.

Today's articles for improvement

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  • Hello Khamar:
This week's voting for TAFI's upcoming weekly collaboration has begun at Week 23 of 2015. Thanks for participating!

This week's article for improvement (week 20, 2015)

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The food industry is a complex, global collective of diverse businesses that supply much of the food and food energy consumed by the world population.
Hello, Khamar.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Food industry


Previous selections: Home appliance • Hydropower


Get involved with the TAFI project! You can...
Posted by: EuroCarGT (talk) 00:18, 11 May 2015 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructionsReply