Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub/2024

Do you use Wikidata in Wikimedia sibling projects? Tell us about your experiences

Note: Apologies for cross-posting and sending in English.

Hello, the Wikidata for Wikimedia Projects team at Wikimedia Deutschland would like to hear about your experiences using Wikidata in the sibling projects. If you are interested in sharing your opinion and insights, please consider signing up for an interview with us in this Registration form.
Currently, we are only able to conduct interviews in English.

The front page of the form has more details about what the conversation will be like, including how we would compensate you for your time.

For more information, visit our project issue page where you can also share your experiences in written form, without an interview.
We look forward to speaking with you, Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 08:53, 5 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you are aware of the standard ways we use Wikidata here, in addition to creating the language and in other projects links:
  • POI listings include a wikidata parameter, which creates links to the en-wp article and the Wikidata item, and adds coordinates if they aren't explicitly given. It also allows linking the listing by its Q code, to lessen the link rot risk. I often use the WD link to find WP articles in other languages, and perhaps some info given in the WD item itself, such as municipality (to know which WV article the POI belongs to).
Wikipedia in Swedish, where I also edit, uses Wikidata extensively for infoboxes. Many issues have been discussed and some of them partly solved. I am not an expert, but unless people from there have been in contact, you surely want to have an interview with some of the people active at Wikidatafrågor, such as Larske.
LPfi (talk) 07:11, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reusing references: Can we look over your shoulder?

Apologies for writing in English.

The Technical Wishes team at Wikimedia Deutschland is planning to make reusing references easier. For our research, we are looking for wiki contributors willing to show us how they are interacting with references.

  • The format will be a 1-hour video call, where you would share your screen. More information here.
  • Interviews can be conducted in English, German or Dutch.
  • Compensation is available.
  • Sessions will be held in January and February.
  • Sign up here if you are interested.
  • Please note that we probably won’t be able to have sessions with everyone who is interested. Our UX researcher will try to create a good balance of wiki contributors, e.g. in terms of wiki experience, tech experience, editing preferences, gender, disability and more. If you’re a fit, she will reach out to you to schedule an appointment.

We’re looking forward to seeing you, Thereza Mengs (WMDE)

Thereza Mengs (WMDE), the English Wikivoyage does not use refs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:41, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Informing you about the Mental Health Resource Center and inviting any comments you may have

Hello all! I work in the Community Resilience and Sustainability team of the Wikimedia Foundation. The Mental Health Resource Center is a group of pages on Meta-wiki aimed at supporting the mental wellbeing of users in our community.

The Mental Health Resource Center launched in August 2023. The goal is to review the comments and suggestions to improve the Mental Health Resource Center each quarter. As there have not been many comments yet, I’d like to invite you to provide comments and resource suggestions as you are able to do so on the Mental Health Resource Center talk page. The hope is this resource expands over time to cover more languages and cultures. Thank you! Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 21:34, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Vote on the Charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee

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

Hello all,

I am reaching out to you today to announce that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) Charter is now open. Community members may cast their vote and provide comments about the charter via SecurePoll now through 2 February 2024. Those of you who voiced your opinions during the development of the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines will find this process familiar.

The current version of the U4C Charter is on Meta-wiki with translations available.

Read the charter, go vote and share this note with others in your community. I can confidently say the U4C Building Committee looks forward to your participation.

On behalf of the UCoC Project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 18:09, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: The Ideal Vacation Length for Peak Relaxation, According to Experts

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-ideal-vacation-length-for-peak-relaxation-according-to-expertsJustin (koavf)TCM 00:05, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Koavf This makes sense. I like short trips, I have a 5-day one planned this year actually. Alextejthompson (Ping me or leave a message on my talk page) 17:23, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm coming off of a month long vacation and I definitely agree that the novelty wears off after a while and it becomes pretty tedious and exhausting. I'd probably do more 9 or 10 day trips after going through that. I had fun nonetheless but at a less optimal rate I guess. Cyali (talk) 04:27, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Last days to vote on the Charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee

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

Hello all,

I am reaching out to you today to remind you that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) charter will close on 2 February 2024. Community members may cast their vote and provide comments about the charter via SecurePoll. Those of you who voiced your opinions during the development of the UCoC Enforcement Guidelines will find this process familiar.

The current version of the U4C charter is on Meta-wiki with translations available.

Read the charter, go vote and share this note with others in your community. I can confidently say the U4C Building Committee looks forward to your participation.

On behalf of the UCoC Project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 17:01, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you've made 300 edits (total, not just here) and meet a few other smaller requirements, you should be eligible to vote. You can check at https://meta.toolforge.org/accounteligibility/72 if you're not sure.
Please vote. Votes are secret; the optional comments are public. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Announcing the results of the UCoC Coordinating Committee Charter ratification vote

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

Dear all,

Thank you everyone for following the progress of the Universal Code of Conduct. I am writing to you today to announce the outcome of the ratification vote on the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee Charter. 1746 contributors voted in this ratification vote with 1249 voters supporting the Charter and 420 voters not. The ratification vote process allowed for voters to provide comments about the Charter.

A report of voting statistics and a summary of voter comments will be published on Meta-wiki in the coming weeks.

Please look forward to hearing about the next steps soon.

On behalf of the UCoC Project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 18:24, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: Vacation Ruined: Grandma Just Dissipated Into Trillions Of Atoms Inside The Airport’s Full Body Scan Machine

Weighing passengers

I see that Finnair is starting to weigh their passengers (and baggage). Does this seem invasive to you? Can "by the pound" fares be far behind?

See article from BBC. Mrkstvns (talk) 17:13, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They need the figures (and they are not the only ones doing this). Either estimates provided by authorities or their own. I suppose the figures differ between flights (and classes), so using real-world sample-based estimates is better than having to guess what carry-on luggage weights and whether the passengers differ from the population averages. The better the estimates, the less margins they need, which means more cargo or less fuel per flight, which probably is better for the climate.
If people get used to scales, then they could of course be used also for discrimination (whether you count by-pound fares as such or not), but I hope laws are strict enough to hinder that.
LPfi (talk) 18:08, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is not at all invasive. It is a voluntary anonymous survey of the weight of passengers with their carry on baggage. They need to do this to update the estimated weight of 100 passengers on a plane. Although there are other sources of people's weight, they don't include the clothes and bags that they take on the flight. This is not about people's weight, the average weight might have increased because more people are taking a full water bottle onto the plane.
There are a few flights in very small aircraft where all the passengers are routinely weighed, and this may to be used to decide seating positions. AlasdairW (talk) 19:19, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I encountered the small aircraft situation about 15 years ago on a small turboprop flying out of Bocas del Toro, Panama. Since the plane only seated about 10 passengers, presumably a couple chunky passengers sitting together could seriously affect the plane's balance. I wouldn't think that would matter with the large aircraft flown by an airline like Finnair. I have not heard of other large airlines weighing passengers... Mrkstvns (talk) 19:31, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here are reports of Air New Zealand doing this in 2023 and 2003. More controversially, Samoa Air was reported in 2013 to be introducing weight based fares. AlasdairW (talk) 20:47, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I had a really uncomfortable 2-hour flight recently where my neighbor's bulk pushed into my middle seat, and I was aching for a while afterwards (his family for some reason booked seats away from him). This is literally the first time I have experienced this, and it was a shortish flight on a small aircraft, but I feel weighing in passengers and providing larger seats for those who need it is the way to go Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:32, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That would make sense in an egalitarian society, but in the world of capitalism, the larger seats go to those willing to pay the most, not those whose girth requires it. Mrkstvns (talk) 21:46, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But not every country is capitalist. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 21:52, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't care about the commercials so much. Already some airlines allow you to book an empty seat next to you. I recently flew Asiana long haul, and they have extra space seats in economy that you can pay a couple hundred dollar extra and don't allow anyone else to take them if empty - great value for me. Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:02, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't find this invasive at all. In some cases, some plus-sized passengers might need larger seats given how tiny airplane economy seats can be (more than enough for me to put my feet up but not for most people). --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 21:52, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: Expedia to Eliminate 1,500 Jobs as Travel Growth Moderates

Report of the U4C Charter ratification and U4C Call for Candidates now available

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

Hello all,

I am writing to you today with two important pieces of information. First, the report of the comments from the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) Charter ratification is now available. Secondly, the call for candidates for the U4C is open now through April 1, 2024.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members are invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.

Per the charter, there are 16 seats on the U4C: eight community-at-large seats and eight regional seats to ensure the U4C represents the diversity of the movement.

Read more and submit your application on Meta-wiki.

On behalf of the UCoC project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 16:25, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Canada survey

Hi! Wikimedia Canada invites contributors living in Canada to take part in our 2024 Community Survey. The survey takes approximately five minutes to complete and closes on March 31, 2024. It is available in both French and English. To learn more, please visit the survey project page on Meta. Chelsea Chiovelli (WMCA) (talk) 00:21, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Global ban proposal for Slowking4

Hello. This is to notify the community that there is an ongoing global ban proposal for User:Slowking4 who has been active on this wiki. You are invited to participate at m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Slowking4 (2). Thank you. Seawolf35 (talk) 19:45, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They have made just one edit here, are indefinitely blocked on five projects and a hasty look shows they might have deserved it. –LPfi (talk) 20:47, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, this ban might be a negative for Wikisource but it is probably for the better for the wider WMF world. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 06:13, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees 2024 Selection

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.

Dear all,

This year, the term of 4 (four) Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees will come to an end [1]. The Board invites the whole movement to participate in this year’s selection process and vote to fill those seats.

The Elections Committee will oversee this process with support from Foundation staff [2]. The Board Governance Committee created a Board Selection Working Group from Trustees who cannot be candidates in the 2024 community- and affiliate-selected trustee selection process composed of Dariusz Jemielniak, Nataliia Tymkiv, Esra'a Al Shafei, Kathy Collins, and Shani Evenstein Sigalov [3]. The group is tasked with providing Board oversight for the 2024 trustee selection process, and for keeping the Board informed. More details on the roles of the Elections Committee, Board, and staff are here [4].

Here are the key planned dates:

  • May 2024: Call for candidates and call for questions
  • June 2024: Affiliates vote to shortlist 12 candidates (no shortlisting if 15 or less candidates apply) [5]
  • June-August 2024: Campaign period
  • End of August / beginning of September 2024: Two-week community voting period
  • October–November 2024: Background check of selected candidates
  • Board's Meeting in December 2024: New trustees seated

Learn more about the 2024 selection process - including the detailed timeline, the candidacy process, the campaign rules, and the voter eligibility criteria - on this Meta-wiki page, and make your plan.

Election Volunteers

Another way to be involved with the 2024 selection process is to be an Election Volunteer. Election Volunteers are a bridge between the Elections Committee and their respective community. They help ensure their community is represented and mobilize them to vote. Learn more about the program and how to join on this Meta-wiki page.

Best regards,

Dariusz Jemielniak (Governance Committee Chair, Board Selection Working Group)

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021/Results#Elected

[2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Committee:Elections_Committee_Charter

[3] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Minutes:2023-08-15#Governance_Committee

[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee/Roles

[5] Even though the ideal number is 12 candidates for 4 open seats, the shortlisting process will be triggered if there are more than 15 candidates because the 1-3 candidates that are removed might feel ostracized and it would be a lot of work for affiliates to carry out the shortlisting process to only eliminate 1-3 candidates from the candidate list.

MPossoupe_(WMF)19:57, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone is curious what I think would be helpful in Board members, I've put a list of questions at m: User:WhatamIdoing/Board candidates. It always amazes me that some editors believe that fixing thousands of typos on Wikipedia would make a person qualified to set a multi-million dollar budget and lead 600 employees. IMO we need volunteers who understand financial statements and have some general idea of employment law. If you've got some business-related experience and are willing to put in a few hundred unpaid hours for the next three years, please consider volunteering. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your wiki will be in read-only soon

Trizek (WMF), 00:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Trizek (WMF), is this hoped to be one minute or so? Or is this expected to be longer than the previous ones even if everything goes perfectly? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:47, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We can't know in advance. This time, some scripts took longer than expected to execute, and the read-only happen a donen of minutes after 14:00 UTC. It lasted 3 minutes though. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 16:31, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Early access to the night mode (mobile web, logged-in)

Hi everyone, as announced in November, the Web team at the Wikimedia Foundation is working on night mode. A very early version of this feature is now available on a small set of wikis. Because there are active technical editors in your community, we have decided to roll it out here. But don't worry, the new feature is not disruptive! (See the "known limitations" section below.) It's important for us to work together with you before we release this feature to a wider audience. Our goals for the early rollout are to:

  • Show what we've built very early. The earlier you are involved, the more your voices will be reflected in the final version
  • Get your help with flagging bugs, issues, and requests
  • Work with technical editors to adjust various templates and gadgets to the night mode

Go to the project page and the FAQ page to see more information about the basics of this project. Known limitations of the initial release

  • Currently, night mode is only available on mobile, for logged-in users who have opted into advanced mode, as an opt-in feature.
  • Gadgets may initially not work well with night mode and may have to be updated.
  • Our first goal is making night mode work on articles. Special pages, talk pages, and other namespaces have not been updated to work in night mode yet. We have temporarily disabled night mode on these pages.

What we would like you to do (the broad community) Consider linking to the Recommendations for night mode compatibility on Wikimedia wikis on pages explaining how to format templates and similar pages. Soon, this page will be marked for translation. We would like to emphasize that the recommendations may evolve. For this reason, we are not suggesting to create your local wiki copies of recommendations. At some point, the copy could become different from the original version. What we would like you to do (template editors, interface admins, technical editors) When most bugs are solved, we'll be able to make the night mode available for readers on both desktop and mobile. To make this happen, we need to work together with you on reporting and solving the problems.

  1. To turn it on, use the mobile website (for example, this is what the main page looks like on mobile) and go to the settings part of your menu and opt into advanced mode, if you haven't already. Then, set the color to night. (Later, we will be allowing the device preferences to set night mode automatically).
  2. Next, go to different articles and look for issues:

Thank you. We're looking forward to your opinions and comments! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:24, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@SGrabarczuk (WMF), I'm having a problem with https://night-mode-checker.wmcloud.org/enwikivoyage-mobile-light/ When I click one of the names to uncollapse the list of errors, it uncollapses it, and then opens the page on top of the list. Should that be opening the article in a new tab? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hey @WhatamIdoing! Are you asking if the page could be opened in a new tab instead of the same tab? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 11:33, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's one way to solve my problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:56, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see. Well, I was asking because I wasn't sure I understood what the problem was. Could you rephrase the question? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 23:46, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As a contributor who would like to resolve problems, I want to look at the list of errors on a page. However, when I go to https://night-mode-checker.wmcloud.org/enwikivoyage-mobile-light/, the list of errors is collapsed. When I click on (for example) "Main_Page - Total Errors: 12", the Cloud Services tool is immediately overwritten by the Main Page. I don't want to see the Main Page itself in this tab; I want to see the list of errors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:48, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
it's just a bad UI :). You can expand by clicking outside of the links or right click and open in new tab.
The list of errors is not too useful out of context to be honest. I would recommend using the browser extension on the pages with a high amount of errors.
Szymon - you can talk to Kim about improving the UI while I am out!
I think it would be useful to finish up my video too. Jdlrobson (talk) 10:32, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a way to turn on dark mode on desktop? Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering doesn't have anything for me. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 06:05, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @SHB2000, great question. It's too early to enable it on desktop. We'll roll it out on more wikis on mobile, and then on desktop, as a beta feature. You may read more about this in our FAQ. There's a table there with all the details. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 11:36, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's all good. I do like the look of it on mobile, though. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 11:40, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If people can opt in on mobile and let me know via my talk page if you see any articles that look broken I will be happy to get those fixed. The top 100 most read are looking good so hopefully this will be on desktop soon. Jdlrobson (talk) 16:03, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jdlrobson: I notice Template:Infobox is broken, not displaying content, e.g. see the one under United States of America#Holidays. Was it this edit? Brycehughes (talk) 15:40, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Seems it was. I rolled it back but now the HTML table styling is off. Brycehughes (talk) 15:55, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── At the German Wikivoyage, we are using the solution of the English Wikipedia for desktop computers. It is working well (now only for logged-in readers). --RolandUnger (talk) 16:51, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Vote now to select members of the first U4C

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

Dear all, I am writing to you to let you know the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open now through May 9, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility. The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter. Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well. On behalf of the UCoC project team, RamzyM (WMF) 20:20, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A great day for Wikimedia! --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 22:33, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikivoyage and WikiForHumanRights

Today, there was a presentation by the Wikimedia Foundation discussing the potential integration of Wikivoyage into this year's WikiForHumanRights campaign. While I may have some reservations about how Wikivoyage can be effectively integrated, there appears to be a strong interest from various individuals and groups in developing associated initiatives. Perhaps we could offer our ideas to help make the initiative more successful for the community, or we could simply monitor Wikivoyage to see if any campaign activities unfold. The presentation slides are also accessible here for further reference. Best, Galahad (sasageyo!)(esvoy) 17:32, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that new editors that come here because of the campaign will have difficulties adding any content in a way that truly integrates with how we do things. If there are seasons wikivoyagers who want to add that aspect to articles, I suppose they can do that in a way that doesn't cause problems, and they could educate newcomers that cooperate with them. However, people who are interesting in adding certain content rather than first learning about the site do cause problems.
The slide show tells about NPOV, citing sources and using quote marks for quotations. They suggest "weekend getaway" as a theme for an itinerary. They give advice on the "Get out" section. Did they at all check with some seasoned wikivoyager? (The presentation might be good otherwise, but such details make one wonder.)
Regarding the sustainability and Human Rights, the slide show gives tips on what issues could be described, but doesn't tell where at Wikivoyage it can be put. Sustainability certified businesses can of course be added to Eat, Do etc. (which they present), but for more complicated issues, good models are needed. If the project is to be launched, somebody should find or write articles (parts of) which can be linked as good examples.
LPfi (talk) 18:37, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
From that presentation I can't tell if WMF has too much money or not enough money. Brycehughes (talk) 19:03, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, none of the presentation was consulted with any seasoned wikivoyager, hence the “community consultation” here. Galahad (sasageyo!)(esvoy) 19:17, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the session wants to "empower organizers and participants on how they can contribute sustainability topics to Wikivoyage", then having wikivoyagers involved should be an obviously good idea. I hope they realise that, but they should have included that in the preparations and in the "Immediate Next Steps?" It seems there is even no recommendation on notifying us, just the campaign in a format where it isn't clear whether somebody intends to target us. If the individual projects start contributing without discussing their ideas with us first, it will probably be a frustrating experience for all parties (except, perhaps, those just adding relevant listings). –LPfi (talk) 19:58, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hey all: thanks for starting this conversation! This was a pilot training that we coorganized with some of the volunteer African community organizers, after they asked for a practical introduction to how WikiVoyage works. Local event organizers are responsible for coordinating and responding to the work happening on wiki. We will make sure that local organizers do, if they work on WikiVoyage. If you have specific feedback on the slide deck, this is the first time I have supported a WikiVoyage training, and we were focused on coordination for the volunteer communities and trainers. We still have time to disseminate more accurate or more specific "first activities" for local communities if that is helpful. I am looking forward to learning more about the specifics of feedback or critiques, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 20:37, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Phrasing issues:
  • NPOV: our policy is Be fair, which isn't the same.
  • Citing sources: we usually don't cite sources in mainspace. We don't require reliable sources, personal experience counts as just as good for most info. Where a statement risks being disputed, a source can be cited in the edit summary, on the talk page or as a HTML comment, or some discussion provided. On the other hand, we use external links for further reading, see Wikivoyage:External links.
  • We don't use multimedia, just images (and audio for pronunciation in certain contexts).
  • We use direct quotes very sparingly, I think only in travel topic articles and then using {{quote}}.
  • The style: I think the phrasing in the slide show did not very well convey Wikivoyage:Tone.
  • Get out: we use Go next, I think Get out is what was (is) used on WT.
I think any plans on contributing en masse need to be discussed with us. The Nigeria Expedition had a lot of issues, which probably will be repeated if people clump in adding content without understanding our expectations. Despite some mentoring, there were copyright issues, duplicated content (hard to maintain and apparently often misleading), articles created to get competition points rather than to share information, and so on.
The last part of the slide show presents "how to contribute climate change and sustainability topics". However, it says nothing about how these topics can be treated on Wikivoyage. I think most of that needs to be worked out together with us. We have Sustainable travel and Responsible travel, which could be developed further. For individual destinations and listings, these issues might easily get undue weight; a good sense of style is needed. Examples would help, but those need to be found or created, and pointed out to the project participants.
LPfi (talk) 21:35, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I don't understand why the "Go next" section would be particularly focused on. That section is about where to travel to next after the subject of the article (so, for example, where to travel to after you visit Lagos, Conakry or what have you), so it's weird for that to be the main focus of a project that seeks new editors for this site. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:55, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To add, re sections: "Events" is an optional subsection which falls under "Do". "Buy" isn't limited to souvenirs. Museums usually go under "See", not "Learn". Very rarely "Itineraries" is a subsection under "See", but it's not typical. "Cope" is mostly entirely wrong: Local customs generally go under "Respect"; safety considerations under "Stay safe"; and communication tips under "Talk". And the sections used vary depending on the article template. Brycehughes (talk) 22:10, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Articles on events are also very rare. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 21:41, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have similar concerns as LPfi. Although I have hope that this expedition will be much better than the ill-intentioned Africa Expedition (which just sucked in every way possible for every party involved), it would be nice if at least a seasoned editor explains what needs to happen and the like. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 12:44, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the Africa Expedition was very well-intentioned. They ran into some problems, but they intended only good things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:48, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, all that copyright violation and posting the same general information in dozens of articles with no specifics about the towns in question was "well-intentioned," if what you mean by that is that the intention of getting points for edits was a good goal to have. Sorry, but I think a lot of the users didn't have very constructive motivations. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:57, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Still, the expedition was well-intended. The problematic point system attracting people who gamed it, was a pure mistake, I believe. –LPfi (talk) 07:54, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think we're all in agreement here that the last expedition by them did not have ideal outcomes except for the wordings here, which is fine. At least that's how I am interpreting this thread. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 08:22, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I read the slides in detail and have these comments (I avoid comments that are already said above).
Good: Increasing our coverage of national parks, wildlife, phrasebooks, climate chart, listing reliable online sources to obtain info, adding prices, improving "buy" and "cope" (local etiquette) sections
Bad: Why is page 8 of the slide still using old Wikivoyage logo? It is missing the mentioning of the crucial "the traveller comes first" rule, which guides decision making on what content to include and exclude. And please do consultation with the community before you make a presentation, not doing it afterwards as a checkbox exercise.
Ugly(?): Itinerary is a touchy topic and new editors should avoid writing suggested itinerary on "budget travel, weekend getaway, family vacation". Likewise, what constitutes to be "sustainable" or "low impact" in one region/country may be deemed to be destructive in other places (e.g. seal hunting is sustainable, supports local economy and a constitutional right for Indigenous hunters in northern Canada, yet European Union places an import ban on seal products). Is this human rights debate suitable in Wikivoyage? Probably not. OhanaUnitedTalk page 17:49, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just a heads up, I didn't create the presentation, but I did participate in it. After noticing some key details that indicated there wasn't much experience with Wikivoyage, I took it upon myself to provide some feedback. I wanted the campaign organizers to understand the potential pros and cons of incorporating Wikivoyage, as decided by the community. Honestly, I couldn't see how Wikivoyage could fit into a human rights campaign. Galahad (sasageyo!)(esvoy) 01:05, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't have even thought of the idea that you could have somehow been at fault. I hope some of the organizers read the feedback we've given them, because this project is likely to create a big headache here and result in a lot of person hours devoted to reverting edits and posting remarks about Wikivoyage policies, guidelines and goals to user talk pages that I daresay will probably be ignored most of the time, resulting in blocks. I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:54, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if we could mitigate this by writing a special customized welcome message purely for this expedition? (in contrast to our standard {{welcome}} or {{wikipedian}}) --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 03:08, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If needed, create a letter from the community requesting more attention to non-Wikipedia communities. Ask for help from experienced volunteers before making any decisions. These things may seem like common sense, but they are often overlooked. Galahad (sasageyo!)(esvoy) 04:17, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's unfortunate that a lot of Wikipedia user groups don't care about anything other than Wikipedia. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 04:47, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For the campaign to be successful, it needs participation from Wikivoyagers, like in the Nigeria expedition. If we don't find people willing to put time in that, then the campaign should stay away. –LPfi (talk) 07:59, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
At the very least, it needs extensive consultation, similar to what the Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group have been doing for the past few years. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 08:23, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, WikiSP also had community consultations before rolling out Wikivoyage 10 and, even though it didn't happen, Wikivoyage 11. Galahad (sasageyo!)(esvoy) 17:06, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all for the discussions and insightful comments. I see a great opportunity to tap into the knowledge from experts from Wiki Voyage. I am the #Wikiforhumanrights regional coordinator for Anglophone Africa, and would love to have someone show us high quality direct edits about these topics on WikiVoyage. Wikimedians are hungry to do something new this year and WikiVoyage presented a great opportunity for other ways of contribution. We will be hosting office hours this month for the community and we will be glad to host any of the experts from Wiki Voyage. Please kindly reach out to me and we can schedule a time together. Your support is greatly appreciated. Ruby D-Brown (talk) 16:28, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Ruby D-Brown, thanks for your note, and thanks for starting Somanya earlier this week. It looks like you still have some work to do there, but I'm going to start by pinging @PPelberg (WMF) to say that you seem to have uncoverred a software bug in the visual editor. You ended up with an interwiki link in the second sentence ('''[[wikipedia:Somanya|Somanya]]''' is...), and I don't think that should be easy to do in the visual editor. It should have given you a proper link ('''[[:wikipedia:Somanya|Somanya]]''' is...) and also not screwed up the character formatting for the rest of the paragraph.
I'll have a go at cleaning up the article in a few minutes. That might give you some ideas about what we're looking for. (Please correct any errors I introduce; I've never been to Ghana before.)
Additionally, I wonder if other folks would be willing to show off a favorite edit or two. Ruby's uploaded hundreds of photos to Commons and made a couple thousand edits, so I think that if we all posted a few diffs that we're proud of, she'd get an idea of what we value. I'll start:
  • add a listing – This is a pretty simple task, but I'm proud of this edit because it's a little inn that bans smoking and pets and avoids scented cleaning products, so people with allergies might benefit from this. It's good for us to find and point out special circumstances like this.
  • removed a listing – This is a very simple task, if you know the business has closed. It's important to remove bad information.
  • added context – This is a travel topic article about a US holiday, and I added information that one group of travelers from outside the US would want to know (in this case, that business trips are probably a bad idea during that week).
Check back in about an hour to see what I've done with Somanya. I'll try to leave clear edit summaries in the article history so you can follow along with my thinking. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you so much @WhatamIdoing for the useful feedback. This is very much appreciated. As a new editor on Wiki Voyage this feedback is definitely what I need to get it going. I see the changes you made and truly appreciate you taking your time to help improve it. I get a better see of what is expected now. Would you mind joining us on online to offer us some practical training? Let me kindly know what you think.Ruby D-Brown (talk) 09:45, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like your office hours are all at 15:00 UTC, which is not a good match for my schedule. (If someone else is interested, 15:00 UTC is 5:00 p.m. in Paris, 11:00 a.m. in New York, and 8:00 a.m. in California.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:17, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We can adjust if we have to. What time durations usually works on a Friday. We are hoping to start the office hour next week. Alternatively we can host this session separately as part 2 of the first training we had. Let me kindly know if this sounds good and what your thoughts are.
thank you. Ruby D-Brown (talk) 17:33, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The next month is busy for me, so I can't commit to doing any of these. In general, though, starting an hour or two later on Fridays would probably work for me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:56, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@ WhatamIdoing (talk) . This is well noted and thank you for your reply once again. We will love for you to propose a date that will be convent for you and we can arrange for that time. Let me kindly know what you think.
Ruby D-Brown (talk) 16:14, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback invited on Procedure for Sibling Project Lifecycle

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

Dear community members,

The Community Affairs Committee (CAC) of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees invites you to give feedback on a draft Procedure for Sibling Project Lifecycle. This draft Procedure outlines proposed steps and requirements for opening and closing Wikimedia Sibling Projects, and aims to ensure any newly approved projects are set up for success. This is separate from the procedures for opening or closing language versions of projects, which is handled by the Language Committee or closing projects policy.

You can find the details on this page, as well as the ways to give your feedback from today until the end of the day on June 23, 2024, anywhere on Earth.

You can also share information about this with the interested project communities you work with or support, and you can also help us translate the procedure into more languages, so people can join the discussions in their own language.

On behalf of the CAC,

RamzyM (WMF) 02:26, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It would probably be helpful if some of the folks who were involved in bringing Wikivoyage to the WMF could look at the page and see whether this process makes sense. The process for opening a new project is meant to standardize the process for any future groups that want to be under the WMF's umbrella. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:52, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dark mode is available on desktop

In case you didn't see, dark mode is now available on desktop via beta features. If you are using Vector 2022, you can enable "Accessibility for Reading (Vector 2022)" and try it out via the sidebar menu or goggles icon.

Let me know on my user page or here if you discover any templates which are not looking great in dark mode and we will get those fixed ASAP! Jdlrobson (talk) 02:09, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jdlrobson: Is it available if you're using the 2010 vector? --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 04:31, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No. 2010 Vector is not actively developed on any more. Dark mode could theoretically be added at some future date but it would likely need significant work. Jdlrobson (talk) 18:09, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How is Meta able to add a dark mode on the 2010 vector, but not us? Surely there has to be some way to do it. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 10:12, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Aren't they just using a gadget like w:en:Wikipedia:Dark mode (gadget)? There have always been a few attempts at doing this by user script; they just don't always work out well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:25, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes; is there a way to make the gadget global or implement this on this wiki? --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 00:46, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Usually it's best to have a couple of people use the scripts locally before making them a gadget. ("Global gadgets" don't really exist.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:20, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
True; I'm just used to calling them "global gadgets" which to me is anything you can add to m:Special:MyPage/global.js. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 22:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, all user scripts are global gadgets.  ;-) You can put any script you want in there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:16, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
me who has German plain text on every wiki without SpBot :-( (I mostly just ignore it, but on the wikis that do have it, it's an amazing tool). --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 00:03, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

HFD

Happy Father's Day. @SHB2000, @Ikan Kekek :-) Lionel Cristiano (talk) 00:05, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've mistaken my age – I'm a uni student. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 00:30, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's great to be a father at a young age. Lionel Cristiano (talk) 06:21, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is, but I'm not a father (I'm ace and single, for the record) – but I do agree with your sentiment and happy Father's day to any father! --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 08:39, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not a father, but HFD to whomever is. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:03, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Over-touristed cities

Wolters World has a new video mentioning eight over-touristed places in Europe (spoiler: Venice, Amalfi Coast, Barcelona, Paris, Dublin, Dubrovnik, Athens and Amsterdam), and gives some advice how to avoid the worst crowds; visiting off-season, other times of the day, or staying in less crowded districts, or underrated neighbor cities. Does Wikivoyage give enough advice for how to visit these places? Responsible travel could address the issue with more detail. In some cities, a few streets and venues are overcrowded; the Stockholm history tour and other Stockholm walking tours avoid Västerlånggatan for this reason. /Yvwv (talk) 23:07, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Responsible travel + some advice in each of the city articles would be the best way to handle this. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 00:04, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's such a judgement call. Every time I go to Paris I just hang out in the outer arrondisements (I have no idea how to spell that) and I see no other tourists. Brycehughes (talk) 02:05, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. That's the advice to visit less touristed districts. But there are lots of tourists going there to (try to) see Mona Lisa, climb the Eiffel Tower and visit Notre Dame. Those should reconsider. Some might of course be art students who really want to see how Mona Lisa was painted, but then they should work out a way to have a look not as part of the crowd (and would spend at least a few days at the Louvre), or they might be the persons who just wants to have those off their checklist – in the latter case, I don't know what advice to give. –LPfi (talk) 08:24, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't think those tourists should reconsider, except inasmuch as if you're going to the Louvre '''only''' to see the Mona Lisa, you're stupid or at least grossly misguided. Some top-10 sights are rated that way for good reasons. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:58, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of articles say things like "Skip the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre" with advice on where to go instead, and while the suggested alternatives may be worth adding to an itinerary, I don't think they genuinely discourage people from visiting the places they really want to visit. I think it is more helpful to explain how overtourism has changed the situation at popular places. For example, if overtourism has led to 2 hour waiting lines at a museum when previously it was 20 minutes, that is much more useful than saying "There's overtourism at the museum, so just avoid it". A 2 hour wait is more likely to give travelers pause than just mentioning "overtourism". "Overtourism" has also become such a buzz word, I feel like it is sometimes used just to smear foreigners and tourists. I much prefer to know exactly how travel conditions have changed. That is what would make me reconsider visiting somewhere (or plan to visit during a time that seems less busy). ChubbyWimbus (talk) 11:51, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Many big cities have the infrastructure to handle myriads of tourists, parallel to their citizens. Small towns and wilderness can be more sensitive. I went to Paris in December, to Rome in January and to Barcelona (near Camp Nou) in March when there was not a game day; visiting off-season tends to make a popular city look deserted rather than overcrowded; at least outside the must-see venues such as the Louvre, Sagrada Familia or the Sistine Chapel. One issue with overtourism except crowds, wear and tear, is also the emergence of tourist traps; this concept is described in Budget travel as the cost is the main issue. /Yvwv (talk) 13:15, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, it means you have to reserve a time slot for the popular tourist attractions in advance. I heard that's the case for the Uffizi in Florence and The Louvre in Paris, and it's most certainly true for the Statue of Liberty in New York City if you want to go up to the crown. You also have something similar in China with the Forbidden City. China doesn't get that many foreign visitors, but it has a huge domestic tourism industry, so many of its main attractions are overcrowded with domestic tourists. —The preceding comment was added by The dog2 (talkcontribs) 20:49, June 3, 2024
Wolter dropped a list of 10 more overtouristed destinations: Lisbon, Florence, Mykonos, Hallstatt, Toledo (Spain), Mallorca, Reykjavik, Edinburgh, Munich and Prague. He gives more context; For many of these destinations, the overcrowding is seasonal, and there are more gratifying neighbor destinations. In the large cities, you can escape the crowds by going to another district; or in some cases a parallel street. Or simply don't go there for a bachelor party. /Yvwv (talk) 23:53, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are a lot of great places to visit in Italy, but only one of them has the attractions Florence has, though I was shocked by how crowded it was between April 8 and 12 this year, and I think it would be intolerable to visit in the summer now, which was fine to do in the 90s. Munich seems idiotic to me to be on a list of overtouristed destinations. Neither in April nor at the beginning of June was it remotely close to being too crowded (at least to this New Yorker). Maybe people should avoid Oktoberfest, but I don't think people would go to Munich then by accident, so if that's when they want to go, they know they'll be part of drunken crowds and that's what they want. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:32, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Guardian ran an article about over-tourism in Mallorca (and several other places where locals want tourists to stay home):
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/article/2024/jun/18/beware-of-locals-we-are-angry-the-mallorcans-battling-tourists-to-protect-their-beautiful-beach Mrkstvns (talk) 13:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Another article about over-tourism with some suggestions for respectful travel appeared in ''Outside'' magazine:
https://www.outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/advice/how-to-be-a-good-tourist/ Mrkstvns (talk) 17:07, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
With the ongoing political week in Visby, overtourism in Gotland is brought up. Water shortage is an issue, as well as property inflation, traffic and littering. There is however a dramatic irony that the county hosts Sweden's largest political event in the peak tourist season, while in the meantime trying to divert tourism to shoulder season. /Yvwv (talk) 13:58, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Announcing the first Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee

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

Hello, The scrutineers have finished reviewing the vote results. We are following up with the results of the first Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election. We are pleased to announce the following individuals as regional members of the U4C, who will fulfill a two-year term:

  • North America (USA and Canada)
  • Northern and Western Europe
  • Latin America and Caribbean
  • Central and East Europe (CEE)
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Middle East and North Africa
  • East, South East Asia and Pacific (ESEAP)
  • South Asia

The following individuals are elected to be community-at-large members of the U4C, fulfilling a one-year term:

Thank you again to everyone who participated in this process and much appreciation to the candidates for your leadership and dedication to the Wikimedia movement and community. Over the next few weeks, the U4C will begin meeting and planning the 2024-25 year in supporting the implementation and review of the UCoC and Enforcement Guidelines. Follow their work on Meta-wiki. On behalf of the UCoC project team, RamzyM (WMF) 08:15, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do still wonder why only 7 of the 16 slots were filled. SHB2000 (t | c | m) 08:18, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that you had to get a 60% net 'support' vote to be appointed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:57, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting, though I do understand the WMF's rationale behind this. (though I'm just glad that the swwiki admin (blocked a user for reporting another admin's anti-queer behavior) + Slyeece (rather aggressive on metawiki) had the highest number of oppose votes.) --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 21:30, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if it was the WMF's idea. The desire for a super-majority usually comes from the English Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:23, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's an enwiki thing? I thought some other large wikis like Commons adopted this too? (leading me to assume it's stock-standard on several large wikis) SHB2000 (t | c | m) 21:49, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Every wiki has its own system. Some wikis have different thresholds for different things. For example, the German-language Wikipedia runs on a simple majority. But usually, if someone's pushing the idea that "of course" it "must" be a super majority, they're from the English Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I get what you mean. I do agree that only enwiki has the audacity to pretend it's in its own world and the WMF doesn't exist. SHB2000 (t | c | m) 21:29, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting how they're holding another election at m:Universal Code of Conduct/Coordinating Committee/Election/2024 Special Election, when there were plenty of candidates who were perfectly able to elected (i.e. vote of > 50%), but didn't. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 22:28, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mobile editing issues

I need help eliminating vandalism from Denmark, because I am completely unable to rollback edits by 2 IPs (that is, more than one user) on my iPhone and cannot compare edits earlier than the current and immediately previous one and revert normally, either. Are Mediawiki developers aware that the mobile software is so useless? What are they doing about it? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:30, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it's worse than that: I can't even save or edit any old version of an article on my iPhone! Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:01, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikan Kekek: I have similar issues as you (both here and on meta). It doesn't help that I can't use the restore tool or TwinkleGlobal on mobile either, because both tools can be absolute lifesavers. (I'm using Safari on iOS 17.5, for the record) --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 08:53, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm using Safari, too. The mobile interface for editing Wikivoyage is completely absurd! It really makes this site a laughingstock! Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:10, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm jealous that Wikipedia has an iOS app! (Commons has a mobile app, but it's Android only :-(). SHB2000 (t | c | m) 09:25, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Again, absurd! Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:33, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you can't save or edit any old version of an article on your iPhone it sounds like you have a bad gadget enabled and the issue is on your side. Note many gadgets were built before the iPhone even existed and the maintainers were long gone and never adjusted their scripts to work with it. It's possible Wikivoyage is using old versions of scripts - many of the gadgets on Wikivoyage are in a terrible state from what I can see. If you follow the guidelines in Help:Locating_broken_scripts to tell me which ones are fault, I could likely help you address this.
Another thing you absolutely should do if you haven't done so already is enable the "Advanced mode" of the mobile site. Given you are a power user, and you are claiming you are unable to rollback edits, I think this may also be playing a part. To enable the advanced mode, Visit Special:MobileOptions when logged in on the mobile site and click "enable advanced mobile mode". Jdlrobson (talk) 00:34, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please understand: I can rollback edits of a single username or IP address on my cellphone, not more than one username or IP address. I'll see how I would enable an "advanced mode" next time I'm trying to edit on my cellphone, and I'll try the strategies mentioned on the help page you linked, but I believe I shouldn't have to use an unusual mode to make the kinds of edits on my cellphone that are routine to make on my computer. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:42, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While I do enable a whole swathe of different gadgets, Ikan Kekek doesn't have any enabled (which means that a broken gadget is likely not the cause) – User:Ikan Kekek/common.js and m:User:Ikan Kekek/global.js both happen to be red links. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 02:47, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When I say gadgets I am referring to the ones enabled in Special:Preferences not user scripts this is private information so you are unable to tell if Ikan Kekek is using gadgets or not.
I did reporthttps://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T367107 while testing the workflows here. I am not sure if that covers the steps you were trying to follow? Jdlrobson (talk) 01:19, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really know what a gadget is, so I don't think it's possible that I enabled one, unless it's possible to do so accidentally. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:45, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets, you can see which gadgets you've enabled. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 09:52, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I have only the default "General" gadgets enabled, namely:
Carousel: Adds support for creating JCarousel scrolling content displays. Used on the Main Page.
ListingEditor 2023: adds buttons to add and edit listings using a form, with better performance than older version.
MapFrame: Inserts an in-article map on chosen pages, see Wikivoyage:How to use dynamic maps for more information.
Open external links in a new tab/window.
Maptool: A tool for searching for POIs in Wikidata and OpenStreetMap, and general helper for dynamic maps preparation.
Plus:
confirmationRollback-mobile: request confirmation for rollback in mobile version
User: Jdlrobson, does that help? Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:46, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The final text of the Wikimedia Movement Charter is now on Meta

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

Hi everyone,

The final text of the Wikimedia Movement Charter is now up on Meta in more than 20 languages for your reading.

What is the Wikimedia Movement Charter?

The Wikimedia Movement Charter is a proposed document to define roles and responsibilities for all the members and entities of the Wikimedia movement, including the creation of a new body – the Global Council – for movement governance.

Join the Wikimedia Movement Charter “Launch Party”

Join the “Launch Party” on June 20, 2024 at 14.00-15.00 UTC (your local time). During this call, we will celebrate the release of the final Charter and present the content of the Charter. Join and learn about the Charter before casting your vote.

Movement Charter ratification vote

Voting will commence on SecurePoll on June 25, 2024 at 00:01 UTC and will conclude on July 9, 2024 at 23:59 UTC. You can read more about the voting process, eligibility criteria, and other details on Meta.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment on the Meta talk page or email the MCDC at mcdc@wikimedia.org.

On behalf of the MCDC,

RamzyM (WMF) 08:45, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Subsidized immigration

10 countries that will pay you to move there/ Is this accurate? Are there others? Should it be mentioned on WV? In which article? Pashley (talk) 19:14, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it should be mentioned, IMO. However, we have no Immigration or Living Abroad articles, though I'd support creating them, so I don't know where it should be mentioned. Would Working abroad be most relevant? Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:04, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think so, and the benefits should also be mentioned in the Work sections of country articles: most of the offers in the article are about moving for a job; some are based just on residency, but residence visas are often hard to get without a sponsoring employer. Unfortunately, the article mostly doesn't tell the criteria for getting the benefits. –06:28, 21 June 2024 (UTC) LPfi (talk) 06:28, 21 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

U4C Special Election - Call for Candidates

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

Hello all,

A special election has been called to fill additional vacancies on the U4C. The call for candidates phase is open from now through July 19, 2024.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members are invited to submit their applications in the special election for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.

In this special election, according to chapter 2 of the U4C charter, there are 9 seats available on the U4C: four community-at-large seats and five regional seats to ensure the U4C represents the diversity of the movement. No more than two members of the U4C can be elected from the same home wiki. Therefore, candidates must not have English Wikipedia, German Wikipedia, or Italian Wikipedia as their home wiki.

Read more and submit your application on Meta-wiki.

In cooperation with the U4C,

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 00:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do find it interesting how they've barred anyone from enwiki, dewiki or itwiki as their homewiki from running – interesting to see how this would turn out. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 00:04, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If they didn't have a rule like that, the committee would be 100% from the English Wikipedia.
I imagine that they'll have two from the French Wikipedia next, because of its size, and then Portuguese and Spanish Wikipedias, if Iberocoop decides to get involved.
@Keegan (WMF), you've unfortunately got two bad links in the "In this special election" paragraph. They're pointing to the local wiki instead of Meta-Wiki. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:31, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Welp, it looks like I've just made one of the two (as of typing this) candidates ineligible (blocked on Meta-Wiki), for the better or worse. I'm glad they had this rule for the reasons you mention, but I wouldn't be surprised if we had one from the English Wikibooks (Leaderboard). --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 23:12, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Foundation’s Accreditation to World Intellectual Property Organization Blocked for a Fourth Time by China (WMF news article)

I think some of you might be interested with this article. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 23:16, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

cswikivoyage

Looks like per phab:T370905, it might actually be happening – say hello to our 25th(?) Wikivoyage. SHB2000 (t | c | m) 02:51, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations to them! Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:55, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ano, vítejte. But behind this lurks a big question. The current model is of separate WVs for each language. But even WV-EN is an order of magnitude behind the number of contributions needed to keep it relevant, and even relatively well-supported sites like WV-DE and PL are of marginal help to real-world travelers. It's hard to see how Mandarin, Hindi, French or Arabic, let alone the less-spoken languages with interesting destinations at their core, can ever benefit from this model. Grahamsands (talk) 17:46, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's definitely not ideal, but that's not for us to discuss (proposals open at Meta, though). --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 21:41, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed it is a concern for smaller wikis. We have plenty of examples of "community capture" by a small group of editors, but that applies to most wiki projects, including Wikipedia. Ideally there should be a single source of information across all Wikivoyage languages so you don't need to update listing in every language. But we're nowhere close to that point. OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:49, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that you'd want 100% uniformity. You could imagine that, e.g., German speakers and English speakers would have different ideas about the best choice for a restaurant or hotel in the Grand Est, based on the language spoken by the staff.
However, a good deal of the information could be duplicated across all wikis. The m:Wikifunctions is hoping to build a set of "functions" so that content could be written once and then re-used (like a template) across different languages. The idea is that you could pick and choose the ones you wanted. Imagine, e.g., adding an automatically translated {{bus fare}} to ==Get around==, but deciding that you'd rather write your own ==Understand== section. Wikivoyages might be a good testing ground for this work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. Restaurants and bars are probably less likely to be shared across language wikis. Hotels might be ok since they are far fewer and less turnover than eateries (or sometimes the only accommodation in town). I definitely envision things like Getting in, bus fare, main attractions to be duplicated and updateable via a single source. However, it also brings the question of how editing across different languages can interlace together under one umbrella. I also edit Chinese Wikivoyage and while the written language is identical, there are different translations for place names due to cultural differences (Chinese Wikipedia currently has page tabs which displays names and terms differently in "Mainland simplified", "Hong Kong traditional", "Macao traditional", "Malaysia simplified", "Singapore simplified" and "Taiwan traditional" according to user preference). Imagine if one editor edits an entry on a page in Spain with English and another editor edits the same entry in French, how will they be merged together? OhanaUnitedTalk page 16:52, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That would be a good prototype – it sucks that most language Wikivoyages barring en, de and it suffer from severe out-of-date content, so anything like this would be an improvement. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 01:12, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A problem is that more structure often means harder to edit for mortals – cf the French listing templates. Sometimes it is also hard to tell when an edit is an actual update; sometimes edits may be tweaks of outdated info, which shouldn't be propagated to more up-to-date versions.
However, there should be tools to ease translation of listings. Perhaps there are?
LPfi (talk) 06:22, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The structured parts of listings could be generated from Wikidata, thus avoiding parallel work in different languages, but the running text is important for our guides and cannot be generated from data. Automatic processes, probably by help of AI, could be used, but I think it is better to have readers and editors use whatever translation tools there are available, as needed, than our providing machine created or machine translated content.
I don't think there is any way to get around the problem of too small an editing community. With a Wikivoyage in Czech, there is a chance to attract Czechs (and Slovaks?) who wouldn't use or edit Wikivoyage in English. I think they would use their resources best by concentrating on destinations well-visited by Czechs, perhaps primarily domestic or Central-European ones (and a few global top destinations). Wikivoyage in German can probably be used to quickly write some of the Central European articles, articles on famous destination can be translated from de/en/whatever.
LPfi (talk) 06:10, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think Wikifunctions is better described as an anti-AI project, because the idea is to have full human control. Consider the first sentence in Miami: "Miami is a major city in the southeastern United States and the second most populous city in Florida."
This could be coded as something like [NB: I am completely making up the syntax here]: "d:Q8652 {copula:simple present third-person singular} {indefinite pronoun} {intensifier:major} d:Q515 {locating preposition} {definite pronoun} d:Q1139046 {conjunction:and} {definite pronoun} {ordinal number:2} {superlative:most} {adjective:d:Q33829} d:Q515 {locating preposition} d:Q812 {terminal punctuation}"
And if that were placed in an English-language site, the code would look up all the terms and perhaps produce "Miami is a major city in the southeastern United States and the second most populous city in Florida." Or perhaps (especially if the sentence is not coded well) it would produce something dreadful like "Miami is a lot of City with the Southeastern United States and the 2nd very population City for Florida."
But even if that sentence turns out to be dreadful, the idea is that you could pick and choose the pieces you wanted, see what they were going to actually show, and make your own decision about whether each piece was helpful or broken, throughout the article.
Obviously, this will require years of work. For example, MediaWiki is already set up to handle gendered language, but if you want, e.g., to get the correct gender for all of the words, then someone needs to go to d:Q515 on Wikidata and make a note that "city" is a feminine word in these languages, masculine in those languages, etc. – times every language and every word. Perhaps for a given language only mathematical calculations would realistically be useful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:16, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the risk of dreadful expressions is too big for this to be realistic in the near future. It can be done for quite elaborate schematic text – cf Lsjbot's articles such as Glansbrosking – but the descriptions of LA, NY, Paris, Kolkata and Heidelberg should have very different articles. Should the scheme be built separately for each? How many authors are equipped to construct a scheme that works across languages and cultures? LPfi (talk) 06:08, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the idea is that each article would get its own functions. Of course, just like we copy from one article to another for convenience, I expect a lot of functions to get copied from one to another, swapping out the key words.
The question isn't just how many are equipped to construct it. The first question is how many are equipped to use a pre-constructed one. On the technical side, using a pre-constructed one could be as simple as typing a code like {{Glansbrosking bus fare}}, but you also have to look at it to make sure that it says what you want the article (e.g., good grammar). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One cannot have different functions for each article, as that would require one to learn the set for each article, recognising some of them, but having to do some hard work to grasp and translate the rest. I assume I misunderstand what you mean.
I think there would need to be a core set of functions that would generate sensible articles, the rest just adding flavour or less critical information, probably with importance levels or other groupings, so that translation into a new language could be done step by step.
LPfi (talk) 18:39, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think there will be building blocks. Think about how Template:Mbox works: you use it to build the message you want, but each message has to be customized.
AIUI the goal isn't "write one boilerplate, have 300 very similar articles about towns in Finland in the English Wikivoyage". The goal is closer to "write one paragraph about one specific town, and offer that one paragraph to all the other language editions of Wikivoyage". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:31, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But in that model, the paragraph has to be translated into all languages. That can be done with no new building blocks, but requires people who do the translations. With the boilerplate version, you translate it once and get those 300 articles in a hundred languages. The problem is that the boilerplate isn't very interesting.
The compromise would be to have some essential info through the building blocks. That is partly done in listings via Wikidata and could be expanded somewhat, e.g. to tell coordinates of the town, its population, the closest railway station etc.
A project at sv-wp expanded Lsjbot articles on islands in the Archipelago Sea, adding info on parish, closest ferry pier and cardinal directions and distances to a few locally important places (without Wikidata help), see e.g. Aiviskläppen. This was boilerplate text, but useful and readable. Human-generated location-specific text needs to be added to make the article interesting.
LPfi (talk) 18:46, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No. In that model, the paragraph has to be translated into code, and the code translates into all of the supported languages.
We already have auto-writing, auto-translated boilerplates. See https://reasonator.toolforge.org/?q=Q350&lang=en vs https://reasonator.toolforge.org/?q=Q350&lang=fi vs https://reasonator.toolforge.org/?q=Q350&lang=de for one such tool. Some of them are more list-like and some assemble paragraphs. This particular tool is coded to write paragraphs for people but not places (example).
The goal with Wikifunctions, and later with Abstract Wikipedia, is to be able to hand-code a specific paragraph for a specific subject, so that it can be interesting. It might not be possible for it to be Brilliant Prose™, but it should be able to have a human decide that Aiviskläppen needs a sentence about the nearest coffee shop while waiting for the boat, and provide that in all languages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:18, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Movement Charter ratification voting results

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

Hello everyone,

After carefully tallying both individual and affiliate votes, the Charter Electoral Commission is pleased to announce the final results of the Wikimedia Movement Charter voting.  

As communicated by the Charter Electoral Commission, we reached the quorum for both Affiliate and individual votes by the time the vote closed on July 9, 23:59 UTC. We thank all 2,451 individuals and 129 Affiliate representatives who voted in the ratification process. Your votes and comments are invaluable for the future steps in Movement Strategy.

The final results of the Wikimedia Movement Charter ratification voting held between 25 June and 9 July 2024 are as follows:

Individual vote:

Out of 2,451 individuals who voted as of July 9 23:59 (UTC), 2,446 have been accepted as valid votes. Among these, 1,710 voted “yes”; 623 voted “no”; and 113 selected “–” (neutral). Because the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast, 73.30% voted to approve the Charter (1710/2333), while 26.70% voted to reject the Charter (623/2333).

Affiliates vote:

Out of 129 Affiliates designated voters who voted as of July 9 23:59 (UTC), 129 votes are confirmed as valid votes. Among these, 93 voted “yes”; 18 voted “no”; and 18 selected “–” (neutral). Because the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast, 83.78% voted to approve the Charter (93/111), while 16.22% voted to reject the Charter (18/111).

Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation:

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees voted not to ratify the proposed Charter during their special Board meeting on July 8, 2024. The Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, Nataliia Tymkiv, shared the result of the vote, the resolution, meeting minutes and proposed next steps.  

With this, the Wikimedia Movement Charter in its current revision is not ratified.

We thank you for your participation in this important moment in our movement’s governance.

The Charter Electoral Commission,

Abhinav619, Borschts, Iwuala Lucy, Tochiprecious, Der-Wir-Ing

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:52, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's error time

Anybody else getting this error repeatedly for more or less any action on this website?

MediaWiki internal error.

Original exception: [93545f3b-e9b4-4b54-a4c5-4e3e72ec05d7] 2024-07-19 00:27:09: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBUnexpectedError"

Exception caught inside exception handler.

Set $wgShowExceptionDetails = true; at the bottom of LocalSettings.php to show detailed debugging information.

Brycehughes (talk) 00:30, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Servers I think were down just then – I believe that everything's back up now. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 01:03, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Crowdstrike?? Brycehughes (talk) 11:44, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think so – Crowdstrike happened much later in the day whereas this outage happened around midnight UTC. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 11:57, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. I went to bed on the above error and woke up to the Crowdstrike error, so was confused about the timelines :) Brycehughes (talk) 12:04, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, diff story for me where I was awake when both outages happened :/. SHB2000 (t | c | m) 13:09, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Usually, when you get that error, you want to wait five minutes and try again. Most (but not all) of these clear up within a couple of minutes on their own, as automated systems detect and route around the fault. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:54, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've gotten the error on the last 2 edits I made. Oddly enough, when I reloaded the page the change ''was'' made, but it doesn't show up on the Recent changes log. Weird.
I'll take your advice and wait 5 minutes before drying another edit. ~~~!~ Mrkstvns (talk) 01:31, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah it's happening a lot these days. Brycehughes (talk) 21:09, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Vote now to fill vacancies of the first U4C

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

Dear all,

I am writing to you to let you know the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open now through August 10, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.

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

In cooperation with the U4C,

RamzyM (WMF) 02:47, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When should Wikivoyage articles acknowledge sources, or be acknowledged as a source?

Wikivoyage does not have the elaborate reference system of Wikipedia. Itineraries such as walking tours tend to be based on travel literature, as well as guided tours. I started the Haunted Stockholm tour inspired by a book on the topic, with stories paraphrased from other sources, and added waypoints absent from the book to avoid suspicions of plagiarism; the article also acknowledges the book. I was recently on a tour hosted by the Jewish Museum, which added plenty of information for the Jewish Stockholm tour and bought a map useful to expand on the Stockholm labour tour; however I am not sure how to give the proper acknowledgements. Even if we don't violate copyright, we should consider how to be a complement for the hospitality industry, and not a rival. On the other hand, some commercial tours seem to be based on Wikivoyage. This tour guide might have read parts of the Stockholm history tour article; though the gallery shows off some locations absent from this article. Do we need a policy for giving and requesting acknowledgements? /Yvwv (talk) 21:08, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Roll out of Parsoid Read Views on English Wikivoyage this week

Hello everyone! I am glad to inform you that as part of our continued rollout of Parsoid Read Views, Parsoid is expected to be turned on this week as the default read views renderer on English and Hebrew Wikivoyage. Here's the rationale behind our confidence to roll-out this experimental feature and collect feedback.

This is an opportunity for continued experimentation as we increase the number of wikis using Parsoid for read views.

If this disrupts your workflow, don’t worry you can still opt out through a user preference or turn Parsoid off on the page you’re navigating in the Tools submenu, as described at the Extension:ParserMigration page.

To report bugs and issues, please look at our known issues documentation and if you found a new bug please create a phab ticket and tag the Content Transform Team in Phabricator.

There is more information about our roll-out strategy available.

Best regards, C. Scott Ananian for the Content Transform Team. CAnanian (WMF) (talk) 20:47, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Parsoid is cool. It underlies this dumb website (doesn't earn me any money, I haven't bothered marketing, don't freak out) and works really well. Brycehughes (talk) 03:00, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is it somehow more self-contained alternative to https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki/blob/master/includes/parser/Parser.php , or what? Interesting that it started as JS, but got converted to PHP back again... full circle :-) -- andree 15:38, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It began as an independent wikitext parser which generated HTML with additional information in it to support Visual Editor and users like @Brycehughes which want to extract information from the HTML. Maintaining two parsers in parallel is a waste of effort, though, so we're trying to (eventually) completely replace the old Parser.php with parsoid. Cscott (talk) 17:56, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem sensitive to sections. Click "Add listing" in any section and it *always* creates a generic listing entry whereas it previously knew to make listings "eat", "see" or whatever. So far, this parsoid looks to me like a step backwards. So what are its benefits? Mrkstvns (talk) 22:42, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
God I wish for once the WM tech team would test a Wikivoyage workflow before deploying. Brycehughes (talk) 22:55, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jdlrobson: I recall you fixed this bug (generic new listings instead of section-aware listings) a few weeks ago, but I can confirm it seems to be back now, in both the regular and beta listing editors. Do you have any insight? —Granger (talk · contribs) 03:03, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There should be a fix in the beta as of now. Jdlrobson (talk) 04:50, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They rarely do – we're always an afterthought. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 04:09, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
TBF, en.wv has 1000x less of everything (edits, views, editors) than en.wp... basically it's on par with minor language editions of WP, and there is 100 of them. I expect most of them too have similar strange details? Quite a nightmare to test, I imagine. -- andree 12:50, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No matter how big or small a wiki is, it's never a good idea to just roll it out site-wide without testing to see if it works. That's a bit like Apple saying they'll roll out iOS 17 automatically on all devices, but they won't test it on the SE Gen 3 because it's one of their least used models. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 12:56, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose there is no need to test (thoroughly) on each project: our issues are Wikivoyage-specific, Wikiversity may have their problems, right-to-left and composed-character languages have theirs. I'd assume that few small wikis have much of wiki-specific features; I assume that if you test on sv-wp, most would-be issues on da-wp and no-wp would be found, even those of e.g. fi-wp. The Wikivoyages having many features of their own should be well-known. –LPfi (talk) 13:49, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Iam not show what an alternative would look like? Rolling out to logged in users with an opt out seems like exactly the right way to do this.
The fact that these issues werent caught beforehand is on us the community. There were emails on wikitech-l about opting it to this previously that we didnt act on. We have had months to flag these issues already. What am I missing? Jdlrobson (talk) 19:02, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As I understand it, they did test it beforehand. That's how they knew there was only a .3% variation in text alignment between the two parsers. Powers (talk) 19:58, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Special:Version says we're still on last week's software. How certain are we that we're casting blame in the right direction? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:33, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hey can you check the beta version of the gadge (opt in via gadget preferences)? This bug should only impact the current stable version. I need more testing before promoting it to everyone. The listing editor icons will say add listing (beta) when you are using the beta.
Changes like this are welcome as they force editors to test things :) Jdlrobson (talk) 18:59, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jdlrobson: Looks like it's fixed in the beta version. Thank you! —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:14, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The full page map, from the icon at the top right of the page (next "Rendered with Parsoid"), is no longer working. The link seems to be missing the co-ordinates (set by the Geo template at the bottom of the article text), and so is showing a map of the sea at 0,0. I assume that this is a consequence of the change, but I don't know exactly when it stopped working as I only use it a few times per month. AlasdairW (talk) 17:41, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Whoops, indeed, that's not great, and most probably a consequence of this change. I'll have a look (although it may take a bit more time due to Wikimania this week!). Thanks for reporting! IHurbainPalatin (WMF) (talk) 08:38, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is the same issue as https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T348722, so we'll track it there. IHurbainPalatin (WMF) (talk) 12:44, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to have a bad "auto corrector" in the editor. It introduces far more errors than it fixes. Doesn't even know about common tags....wants to change "lastedit=" to "lasted it=", Does stupid things like capitalizing the word "budget" when used as the 2nd word in a sentence. Lots more bad "corrections" but I'm too lazy to type 'em all in. Is there a way to set a preference to always shut it off? Mrkstvns (talk) 19:41, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that this issue is related to this change. Could it be a local setting? I don't *think* we have auto-correction in the editor (but I may be missing something!) IHurbainPalatin (WMF) (talk) 08:41, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's no autocorrection in any MediaWiki editing environment. The Editing team has been declining those requests for over a decade. Any autocorrection you're seeing is happening in your web browser. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:56, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is a preference to turn it off: In the Editing tab of Preferences, it is at the bottom in Developer tools. AlasdairW (talk) 22:34, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-developertools is the direct link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:32, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Share examples of WikiProjects or collaborations that you have worked on

Hi Wikimedians!

The Campaigns Product and Programs Teams at the Wikimedia Foundation wants to learn more about WikiProjects and other on-wiki collaborations work. We would like to do more work that improves the quality of collaborations onwiki. We especially need examples of WikiProjects and other collaborations that have worked on different Wikimedia projects. Please help us by filling out a short survey on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns/WikiProjects

Never participated in a WikiProject or other collaborations, but have ideas on how we could make collaboration better? You can also share feedback on the talk page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Campaigns/WikiProjects

Please share the survey with anyone you think would help us have valuable insights, we are particularly looking for successful collaborations on non-English wikis. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 21:02, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Astinson (WMF) Wikivoyage Spanish could participate? they did not publish anything on our Posada... --Hispano76 (talk) 21:55, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes! We are looking for examples from any of the wikis, we are working with translators to share the call to action, but you will see the form is translate already, @Hispano76 Astinson (WMF) (talk) 00:38, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In just a few hours, I'll be filling out the form! I do want to share that I was a bit disappointed not to have been contacted after offering my expertise during the WikiForHumanRights conversation.
On a brighter note, to keep things organized on enwikivoyage, how about we compile a list of activities that have taken place between our communities, like Wikivoyage 5 and Wikivoyage 10? It would be great to see us bring together Wikivoyage 12 and make it a regular event! Galahad (sasageyo!)(esvoy) 06:40, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder! Vote closing soon to fill vacancies of the first U4C

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) 15:30, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: When the Best Possible Story is Right Outside Your Door

Coming soon: A new sub-referencing feature – try it!

Hello. For many years, community members have requested an easy way to re-use references with different details. Now, a MediaWiki solution is coming: The new sub-referencing feature will work for wikitext and Visual Editor and will enhance the existing reference system. You can continue to use different ways of referencing, but you will probably encounter sub-references in articles written by other users. More information on the project page.

We want your feedback to make sure this feature works well for you:

Wikimedia Deutschland’s Technical Wishes team is planning to bring this feature to Wikimedia wikis later this year. We will reach out to creators/maintainers of tools and templates related to references beforehand.

Please help us spread the message. --Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk) 10:36, 19 August 2024 (UTC) [reply]

This is irrelevant for this wiki, since we don't use refs, but if you also edit at Wikipedia or other wikis using footnotes, this might be useful to know about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for pointing this out! We are aware that most wikivoyage language versions don't use refs, but some do according to our research (e.g. ruwikivoyage) do and the feature can technically be used on all projects, that's why we decided to notify this community as well. Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk) 13:10, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sign up for the language community meeting on August 30th, 15:00 UTC

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!

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:20, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Announcing the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee

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

Hello all,

The scrutineers have finished reviewing the vote and the Elections Committee have certified the results for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) special election.

I am pleased to announce the following individual as regional members of the U4C, who will fulfill a term until 15 June 2026:

  • North America (USA and Canada)
    • Ajraddatz

The following seats were not filled during this special election:

  • Latin America and Caribbean
  • Central and East Europe (CEE)
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
  • South Asia
  • The four remaining Community-At-Large seats

Thank you again to everyone who participated in this process and much appreciation to the candidates for your leadership and dedication to the Wikimedia movement and community.

Over the next few weeks, the U4C will begin meeting and planning the 2024-25 year in supporting the implementation and review of the UCoC and Enforcement Guidelines. You can follow their work on Meta-Wiki.

On behalf of the U4C and the Elections Committee,

RamzyM (WMF) 14:07, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Have your say: Vote for the 2024 Board of Trustees!

Hello all,

The voting period for the 2024 Board of Trustees election is now open. There are twelve (12) candidates running for four (4) seats on the Board.

Learn more about the candidates by reading their statements and their answers to community questions.

When you are ready, go to the SecurePoll voting page to vote. The vote is open from September 3rd at 00:00 UTC to September 17th at 23:59 UTC.

To check your voter eligibility, please visit the voter eligibility page.

Best regards,

The Elections Committee and Board Selection Working Group

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:15, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

RamzyM (WMF), if you send these mass messages with a five tilde signature (~~~~~), then they won't be signed by the MassMessage bot. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi WhatamIdoing, thanks for the ping -- glad to see you here :) I am aware of the five-tilde option, and this signature was as intended. Best, RamzyM (WMF) (talk) 13:47, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: The Most Sought-After Travel Guide Is a Google Doc

Your wiki will be in read-only soon

Swept in from the pub

Trizek_(WMF), 09:37, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Return of travel blogs?

Reading How I Added Maps to my Travel Posts, I was reminded that one of the features of Wikitravel when it was first founded was travel blog-style posts by users was a feature of the site. It was phased out and eventually deleted there and never ported over here, but has there been a community discussion about this, including bringing it back or how it could be made useful here? —Justin (koavf)TCM 21:58, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Commons bot that should warn us about photos nominated for deletion is not working

It's important for you all to know about this! See c:Commons:Village pump/Technical#Bot no longer working to warn Wikivoyage about nominations for deletion? It would appear that the only solution at this point is for one of us to monitor c:Commons:Deletion requests at all times. It's a big job, and this is a big problem, because it's a return to the status quo ante, when we had a slew of thumbnails emptied without any notice. I became aware of the problem due to this deletion. I've resumed looking at deletion requests, starting with the earliest date that still has open deletion requests, and I've gotten up to c:Commons:Deletion requests/2024/07/14, but it's a huge job and not one I'll be able to do by myself. If there are other volunteers, maybe we should create an Expedition, so as to keep each other up to date on which days of deletion requests we have already looked through. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:18, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh gosh, not a repeat of 2021 again. A bot for this would be very nice; what exactly happened to it? --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 01:25, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is linked from the thread. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:29, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@MusikAnimal, is your team working on that Phab task? It's marked as high priority, but nobody's assigned to it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:51, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very sorry for the extremely long delay in reviving this bot! The engineer who wrote it left the Foundation years ago, so we were at a lost when it died last year. Anyway I think at this point there's only a few issues left. I will see what I can get done this week. Thanks for the ping. MusikAnimal talk 19:40, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Super! Thank you very much. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:19, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! That is very much appreciated, MusikAnimal :-). --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 22:32, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@MusikAnimal: By any chance, do you have any updates as to how this is going? TIA, --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 07:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why are our official inserted maps broken?

This has been reported to me by some students, and confirmed by me, see my sandbox User:Hanyangprofessor2/sandbox. The maps inserted from Insert->Map in visual editor do not display location pins. I.e. this is good code {{Mapframe|39.95|116.35|zoom=10|width=650|layer=M}} and this is bad code <mapframe latitude="39.95" longitude="116.35" zoom="10" width="650" height="418" /> What's wrong? The layer is missing in the bad code, which perhaps could be the answer, but there is no way I can see to enable that parameter. Right now, I am telling my students to copy a map from another article it works in and adjust GPS coordinates manually, but it is a bit annoying that our official, nice, user-friendly way of inserting maps is effectively broken. Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 05:51, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Someone with more technical knowledge about the Mapframe template and element can probably add some nuance here, but I'll attempt to explain this issue to the best of my ability.
The element (<mapframe/>) is one of the ingredients for rendering the template ({{Mapframe}}) and its functionality. Other ingredients include Module:map, which adds understanding of GeoJSON data. That processing of GeoJSON data is what makes markers (location pins) render on the map. It's not being called into action through the element - only through the template.
The layer not being defined doesn't play a role here.
On a sidenote, I can't seem to replicate the issue myself - that is, spawning the element instead of the template through the visual editor. As for fixes, you should be able to force the usage of {{Mapframe}} in the visual editor by using Insert → Template and selecting Template:Mapframe through there though.
I hope this helps. Wauteurz (talk) 11:54, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I assumed something like that, but in my reading of Mediawikiwiki:Help:Extension:Kartographer, the <mapframe> element indeed does render markers, if those are given as geoJSON – and Module:Marker seems to indeed produce geoJSON code. Does the element require the code to be included as content of the element itself? –LPfi (talk) 14:18, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, using the template would be the right solution. –LPfi (talk) 14:21, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@LPfi: That does seem to be the case, yes! If you have a look at #GeoJSON in the source editor, the mapframe element is started, raw GeoJSON data is inserted, and the mapframe is closed again. Using <mapframe/> as in the sandbox above, opens and closes the element without giving it opportunity to look for GeoJSON data to display. From what I can tell, the element also cannot work without being properly closed, and cannot look beyond its own extent for usable GeoJSON data (i.e., all markers have to be embedded within the mapframe element).
In summary: <mapframe/> shouldn't be used in articles, as {{Mapframe}} contains essential parts for gathering map markers that the element itself does not have.
Wauteurz (talk) 21:44, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wauteurz, if you use Insert > Map in the visual editor, then it inserts the <mapframe> element directly, rather than the template. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:01, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting. I tried both inserting a map and inserting a template through the Visual Editor. When I moved that edit into the source editor, that would convert to {{Mapframe}} in both cases. I didn't publish any edits for my testing though, so that might be a possible lead as to what's going wrong?
Regardless, this bug requires fixing. Having both the element and template used alongside each other in articles will likely just pose problems further down the road, even if it were to work correctly now. I'm not sure where bugs for the Visual Editor should be reported though? Wauteurz (talk) 21:23, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This would be a feature request, which you can file in phab: Add "VisualEditor" as a tag. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:35, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't the fix be as simple as having VE insert the template, and not the element? Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 06:35, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you'd actually have VE make it locally configurable, so that local admins could tell it whether to prefer a template and which template to prefer. But even simple feature requests are still feature requests. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:36, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

About districts (and students)

User:Hanyangprofessor2, I'm sorry I don't know the answer to this question, but while we're waiting for a more technically savvy person to come along and address it, could you please ask your students not to create new district articles for city districts without starting a discussion on the relevant talk (discussion) page and gaining a consensus that they are needed, not to edit pages like Wikivoyage:Small city article template and Template:Smallcity skeleton, and also explain that we don't give articles or redirects titles that are in non-Roman scripts? We all know there's a learning curve and appreciate your students' efforts, but knowing these things will help them avoid hassles. Thanks a lot!
Best,
Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:28, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikan Kekek Thanks, I will be revising the assignment now to include this. That said, I think we are way too strict on districts. I mean, I live next to Seoul, most of its districts are larger than your average town or city. A lot of my students are puzzled why we don't have articles on them and I can't really explain it to them. Ex. Hyehwa. Not that I am opposed to redirecting and merger, if there is little content. Oh, and as for foreign language redirects, I don't see why we don't like them, but they are just unavoidable accidents - a lot of students use automated translation in their browsers (at least one published article today in Chinese...). I am afraid there is not much I can do except moving the articles to correct names when such an error happens (it should not be too often). Btw, Jinshazhou (K) error was probably due to "Fat finger" and mobile interface (I do require students to bring a laptop, but some still bring tablets, sigh). Piotrus (talk) 08:47, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Seoul has 11 district articles. If that were to be changed, someone would have to change the map, create new maps for new and changed districts, and a whole lot of listings would need to be moved by someone who knows which of the current and new districts they are in. If we were to allow people to unilaterally change the district structure of articles, it would create a huge mess. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:37, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am not happy with what I think is semi-arbitrary grouping of some districts, but for now I think we can just work on expanding the existing articles and see if and when they get too big and need more splits. Piotrus (talk) 04:11, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do feel free to propose a specific new district structure for Seoul in Talk:Seoul. That's how these kinds of things get started in the first place and changed later. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:16, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For China in particular, districts are problematic. Chinese users often add articles for the official administrative districts, which in general do not work well as WV districts; see Talk:Fuzhou#Districts? for an example. Also, there's often an ambiguity between city & prefecture; do we need one article, one plus a redirect, or two? I'd say usually just one for the city, but some cases are more complicated; see Talk:Dengfeng for example. Pashley (talk) 12:45, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Pashley Yeah, it's confusing for me, I have students write about city, then add listings for some stuff that seems pretty far away. I guess they are confused about city & prefecture issue too, and I am not sure what to do here. Piotrus (talk) 04:12, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how to explain it to students, but normally you could check the region article for what articles there are, and check whether the city described in yours or one in an already existing other article would be a more convenient base for visiting an attraction. If some such city is a realistic base, then we include the sight there, regardless of whether it is "in" the city (whatever that's taken to mean).
Of course, sometimes you want to create new articles to accommodate your points of interest, and then the question arises, whether a place is worth an article and what area the new article should cover. That's often tricky if the official boundaries don't make sense for Wikivoyage.
LPfi (talk) 14:33, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicate IDs

Special:LintErrors/duplicate-ids shows many pages on enwikivoyage with duplicate `id` attributes. I think I've tracked this down to Template:Listing, which contains both an explicit invocation of {{anchor|{{{wikidata}}}}} but also includes Template:Marker, which has its own invocation of {{anchor|{{{wikidata}}}}}. I think one of those anchors should be removed, and/or Template:Marker should take a "noanchor" option to have it skip the redundant anchor. I don't have edit rights to those templates, though. Could an admin take a look at fixing those templates? CAnanian (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As {{marker}} is also used by itself, I suppose the id code cannot be removed from there without significant breakage. Thus it seems that just removing it from {{listing}} would be the cleanest solution (leave an HTML comment, in case things are changed at some point).
What about the "alt" parameter? I think it used to work as (create an) anchor, but that seems to have been broken at some point. As name and alt often are reversed (typically the native name moved to alt) or name changed (when a different translation is taken into use), having both as anchor is quite important.
LPfi (talk) 07:26, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seeking volunteers to join several of the movement’s committees

Each year, typically from October through December, several of the movement’s committees seek new volunteers.

Read more about the committees on their Meta-wiki pages:

Applications for the committees open on 16 October 2024. Applications for the Affiliations Committee close on 18 November 2024, and applications for the Ombuds commission and the Case Review Committee close on 2 December 2024. Learn how to apply by visiting the appointment page on Meta-wiki. Post to the talk page or email cst@wikimedia.org with any questions you may have.

For the Committee Support team,

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 23:08, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]