SHB2000

This is the talk page of SHB2000 General If you need help with anything at all, please leave a message right here on this talk page. If there's something you need to discuss in private, email me in strictest confidence. Need to be autoconfirmed though, if not go and message me on a random WMF project that no one would ever be thinking of going to if you're not autoconfirmed (list of wikis here). Feeling bored and want to have a chat, I'm more than happy to do so. If you're having difficulty in accessing this talk page, go to b:User talk:SHB2000 or m:User talk:SHB2000. I check both talk pages frequently and get notifications on both. However, do not go to my English Wikipedia talk page. The English Wikipedia is not the centre of all WMF projects. This page is also protected often due to the result of x-wiki vandals and long-term abusers. If that's the case, then go to my Meta-Wiki talk page. The reply tool may not work on this page. Rollbacks used (for personal reference) I'm open to technical questions here, but at the same time, you may also get a better response at the travellers' pub. Inquiries about my global sysop actions should preferably go on my Meta-Wiki talk page. Archives Main archives (current archive) 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 Other archives (mostly defunct nowadays) Pub archive – all discussions swept from the pub Barncompass archive – all barncompasses here (although I do have another copy of this on my userpage) Docent If you're here to ask me a docent question, then this is the place. Expect a reply within 1–7 days, unless you see a box saying that I'm travelling. If this page is protected, then follow the same instructions for anons (or IP users) and go to my IP talk page or my Meta talk page. Click here to message me – I will reply as soon as I can. All replies will be made directly underneath your message on this page. Do be aware though, that I do not use talkback. I do on the other hand, use pings as I've more or less given up on watchlists, but may not always ping you (usually, if the message has gone unanswered for about more than 12-18 hours, then I'd usually give a ping). Threads on this page are archived every 14 days of inactivity, but mass mail messages may get archived earlier, while active threads might get archived later than 14 days of inactivity, but how this page is archived isn't consistent merely because a bot couldn't do its job. Table of contents

Exchange rates

Thank you for doing the heavy lifting on updating exchange rates this year. Updating them was one of the projects that I undertook on Wikivoyage because I felt that showing exchange rates from seven years ago (not exaggerating) told readers "Wikivoyage is out of date and not worth your time", which is true in some cases, but definitely not true in others. Updating them every year shows that Wikivoyage is an active, current community of editors, unlike some other travel site. Happy new year, mate! Ground Zero (talk) 20:59, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@Ground Zero: Hey, not a problem at all :-) – I felt the same way as you too, and figured I might as well also try update them in July going forward. Happy new year to you too! One thing, though, I did leave out some of the countries with very unstable currencies (like Lebanon, Myanmar or Zimbabwe), but I see you've updated those; thanks for going ahead and updating those (I wasn't sure what to do with them). --SHB (t | c | m) 21:51, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Those countries take a bit of extra digging through Google, but I find it interesting work. Some other editors are keen on adding in other currencies to the charts, like SGD, CNY, INR, but I don't think the the value added justifies the extra work involved for those who take on the task of updating, so I've taken those out in places. Ground Zero (talk) 22:06, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah I can see the value of adding certain popular currencies used in nearby areas (such as all Nordic countries having DKK, NOK and SEK), CAD in Caribbean countries, AUD + NZD in the Pacific and in some cases, CAD, AUD and JPY for Europe and the US due to the large number of visits from both countries but that's simply a use-case of WV:TTCF and where we get the most readers (plus they're in a template so minimal work is required to update those as well).

I'm not sure if the same can be said for CNY, THB or INR (and SGD outside Southeast Asia), especially all the more so when it adds a lot of clutter (e.g. Laos#Buy) and when we don't have nearly as much site traffic coming from those countries. --SHB (t | c | m) 22:18, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

A couple quick questions

Hello SHB2000! I had a couple questions on technical matters.

First, I noticed you are using a tool called "restorer" which seems like a useful tool to revert vandalism. I added what appeared to be the necessary changes to User:SelfieCity/common.js but I don't see any additional buttons. Is this because of user rights?

Second (not sure what talk page to raise this on as it's just a prompt) but at the top of the new article page, the text reads:

"To start, please click on one of the following links to pre-fill this article with the standard sections:

City/town • City district • Rural area • Region • National/regional park • Phrasebook • Huge airport • Dive site • Itinerary • Event • Disambiguation • Redirect"

I like this prompt, but it is missing the travel topic template. While that template is less rigid than our other templates, I think it would still be helpful to include it, as it adds several important templates to new articles, including PartofTopic, outlinetopic and pagebanner. Would it be possible to add travel topic to the above list, with a prefilled template based upon Wikivoyage:Travel topic article template? --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 17:46, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

@SelfieCity: For the first one, the reason why you're not seeing it in my commons.js is because I have it in my global.js (on Meta). I'd definitely recommend putting it in your global js purely due to the fact that it works globally (this is before I got global rollback + global sysop, but it still comes in handy on the occasional day that rollback also fails). Might want to copy what's in my global.js and see if that works.

I'll try and mend the second one – iirc there's a special page in the MediaWiki namespace.

--SHB (t | c | m) 21:48, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Done the second too – see Special:Diff/5002236. --SHB (t | c | m) 21:52, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Wow, that's really good! I hope it leads more people to create travel topic articles, as I think there is a lot of potential in that field. Thank you. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 04:00, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Glad to help. :) --SHB (t | c | m) 04:01, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

oh btw, your global js is supposed to be on Meta (at m:User:SelfieCity/global.js) – sorry for not mentioning this earlier. SHB (t | c | m) 04:02, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I've done that now. Thanks again! --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 14:16, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Currency tables

I understand not wanting to make the lists too long, but it's admittedly a tough call. Some countries will inevitably have longer lists than others because they are major financial hubs, or they receive a lot of visitors from some of their neighbours. The reason why I've put so many currencies for Singapore because it is a major financial and transit hub. Many people travelling from Australia or New Zealand to Europe change flights in Singapore, which is why I would consider Australian and New Zealand dollars important for Singapore. The dog2 (talk) 21:29, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

I suppose that's true, too. I'm still wondering if there's a way to just extract the values from Wikidata (which would save time updating), though I don't know how often WD updates their lists. --SHB (t | c | m) 22:20, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

People who work in the financial sector will not rely on Wikivoyage for exchange rates. Adding in extra currencies makes the task if updating exchange rates more onerous. It takes a lot of time. I am grateful for SHB taking on the lion's share of the work this year. I am not interested in spending time to update the Swiss franc-to-Icelandic kroner and the Swiss franc-to-Danish kroner rates in case we have a Swiss reader travelling to Iceland or the Faroe Islands. As a Canadian, I don't expect my currency to be a standard unit of exchange anywhere. It is nice to have in the Caribbean/Central America sun locations, but I do not expect to see it elsewhere. Ground Zero (talk) 22:37, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

I would say we should only ever be willing to add a long list (long would mean generally over 6) if we ever find a way to automatically update the exchange rates. Which relies on users at Wikidata to update the rates, which I wouldn't place my bets on. SHB (t | c | m) 22:42, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Or is there a way to write a script to pull the exchange rates directly from XE? That you be the best, if someone can do it. Speaking of Swiss francs, it's still a major currency and I think it's useful to have for destinations in Europe, given the ease of travel around Europe. I wouldn't put Swiss francs in table for Mongolia, for instance. The dog2 (talk) 02:00, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

I feel as though CHF would be something for dewikivoyage and frwikivoyage to handle, not us at en. --SHB (t | c | m) 09:40, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

CHF is a major currency in bond markets, but who would travel with CHF instead of EUR? About 8 million Swiss people. That's it. There are 37 million Poles who use the złoty. Ground Zero (talk) 10:55, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

And those 8 million Swiss people are much more likely to read the German and French Wikivoyages as opposed to the English Wikivoyages anyway. --SHB (t | c | m) 11:12, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

My reasoning is that it would also be useful for people travelling around Europe visit Switzerland as well. There's nothing stopping an American tourist from flying into Zurich then travelling overland into Germany, France or Italy. And Zurich is also one of Europe's major air hubs, so you can connect through Zurich to get to almost any major city in Europe except Moscow. I can bet that if you go to a bank in Iceland, they are more likely to exchange Swiss francs than Polish zloty. I can tell you for a fact that in Singapore (I know it's not in Europe, but this is just to make a point that population is not the only thing that determines if a currency is major or minor), any money changer will exchange Swiss francs, but finding one that will exchange Polish zloty, Czech koruna or Swedish krona will be a challenge. The dog2 (talk) 15:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Those scenarios are possible, but not likely. The question is whether Wikivoyage wants to be a travel guide for the general reader, or a compendium of the obscure. I am not interested in spending my time updating more rarely used currencies, but if you are, then please do so next January. I don't think it's a good use of time. Ground Zero (talk) 02:00, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

XE provides a free trial and packages starting at €799 (for using their API and some additional services). I cannot find any terms of service, but I assume that hacking your way to retrieve exchange rates automatically isn't exactly what they'd like you to do. They might of course allow our use out of goodwill, but I think we should have explicit permission before running a script automatically. Their €799 "lite" package offers daily updates, much more than monthly, which I think should be our target, so we would probably affect neither their server load nor their business. Coding the script should be easy, at least with access to their API. –LPfi (talk) 10:38, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Not sure who would be willing to pay that much money for what is essentially a volunteer commitment either tbh. SHB (t | c | m) 10:46, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Of course not, and that price is for internal use. WMF could pay if they feel like (no big money for them), but I quoted it because it tells something about their business. The expense for them allowing us to use their API is not about missed income, but about having a lawyer check the deal. –LPfi (talk) 12:39, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Definitely agreed there. SHB (t | c | m) 12:41, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: December 2024

This Month in GLAM – Volume XIV, Issue XII, December 2024 Headlines Albania report: The Patrolling Edit-a-thon in Albania and Kosovo, 2024 Argentina report: Last activities of 2024 Brazil report: Catrapilha in action: Uploading the Porto Alegre image feed India report: Living GLAM project on Santali culture continues in West Bengal Netherlands report: From SlideShare to Zenodo & How Dutch Wikipedia uses the Digital Library for Dutch Literature New Zealand report: Wikdata module, Auckland Museum student progress, and the Wikipedian at Large Nigeria report: Digitization of Heritage Archives in Nigeria North Macedonia report: Conference for GLAM employees in Skopje Poland report: What's up in GLAM-Wiki in Poland Portugal report: Wikimedia Portugal and Wiki Editoras Lx Collaborate on a Wiki GLAM, Culture, and Heritage Conference for 2025 Switzerland report: Swiss GLAM Programme UK report: 2024 in review USA report: December meetings Public Domain Day report: Public Domain Day 2025 Biodiversity Heritage Library report: BHL-Wiki Working Group December monthly highlights Memory of the World report: Ways forward Calendar: January's GLAM events Read this edition in full • Single-page To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

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Tech News: 2025-03

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Weekly highlight

• The Single User Login system is being updated over the next few months. This is the system which allows users to fill out the login form on one Wikimedia site and get logged in on all others at the same time. It needs to be updated because of the ways that browsers are increasingly restricting cross-domain cookies. To accommodate these restrictions, login and account creation pages will move to a central domain, but it will still appear to the user as if they are on the originating wiki. The updated code will be enabled this week for users on test wikis. This change is planned to roll out to all users during February and March. See the SUL3 project page for more details and a timeline.

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• One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Tigre (w:tig:) [2]
• View all 35 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, there was a bug with updating a user's edit-count after making a rollback edit, which is now fixed. [3]

Updates for technical contributors

• Wikimedia REST API users, such as bot operators and tool maintainers, may be affected by ongoing upgrades. Starting the week of January 13, we will begin rerouting some page content endpoints from RESTbase to the newer MediaWiki REST API endpoints for all wiki projects. This change was previously available on testwiki and should not affect existing functionality, but active users of the impacted endpoints may raise issues directly to the MediaWiki Interfaces Team in Phabricator if they arise.
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• For tool and library developers who use the OAuth system: The identity endpoint used for OAuth 1 and OAuth 2 returned a JSON object with an integer in its sub field, which was incorrect (the field must always be a string). This has been fixed; the fix will be deployed to Wikimedia wikis on the week of January 13. [4]
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Meetings and events

• The next meeting in the series of Wikimedia Foundation Community Conversations with the Wikimedia Commons community will take place on January 15 at 8:00 UTC and at 16:00 UTC. The topic of this call is defining the priorities in tool investment for Commons. Contributors from all wikis, especially users who are maintaining tools for Commons, are welcome to attend.

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