Project:Village Pump

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

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

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

About the menu

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

About the new Standard font setting

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

Our works so far and next steps

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

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

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

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

Is it somehow possible to disable this annoying feature? It is unproductive to offer users on each visit a selection of appearance preferences, forcefully narrowing visitors screen with this aggressive setting list. I can't believe that anyone ever asked this feature! Please, disable this menu for logged out users and unregistered users!

You can always hide the menu (convert the sidebar section to a button at the top of the page) using the hide button, and this hiding is sticky (as far as I remember, also for unregistered/logged-out users), i.e. once you’ve hidden it, future page loads will initially hide it (but, of course, you can also stickily unhide it, should you change your mind). Actually, the above screenshot shows it in the “hidden” state: in the state in which it’s a button at the top of the page, and it’s only temporarily open without being unhidden.

The Hide button hides the menu for that visit only. Next time the menu is back again.

Not for me. I hid the menu on English Wikipedia in a browser I’m not logged in, restarted the browser, and the menu was still hidden. Maybe you regularly delete cookies? The software can’t do anything if you destroy your preferences.

I never delete all cookies, only for particular sites, when there is an issue with the site. I did not delete Wikipedia cookies.

I experience the return of the menu when returning to the site after my computer has been switched off or hibernated. My computer assigns automatically different IP6 address from time to time, this may be somehow related.

Seems to have been fixed.

Im very very new to here so im sorry if its wrong place, someone made a typo while trasnlating decrips of watchlist filters to turkish language, it says Lzleme Listenizdeki instead of İzleme Listenizdeki.

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:

• Affiliations Committee (AffCom)
• Ombuds commission (OC)
• Case Review Committee (CRC)

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) 23:07, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello all,

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2024 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election. Close to 6000 community members from more than 180 wiki projects have voted.

The following four candidates were the most voted:

1. Christel Steigenberger
2. Maciej Artur Nadzikiewicz
3. Victoria Doronina
4. Lorenzo Losa

While these candidates have been ranked through the vote, they still need to be appointed to the Board of Trustees. They need to pass a successful background check and meet the qualifications outlined in the Bylaws. New trustees will be appointed at the next Board meeting in December 2024.

Learn more about the results on Meta-Wiki.

Best regards,

The Elections Committee and Board Selection Working Group

MPossoupe_(WMF) 08:24, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Moved discussion from Project:Support desk: Topic:Ycnzkboml8e897kr.

Where to put orphaned Manual:File page warnings in Manual:Contents?

Suggestion from @Shirayuki: "Since the only page passing both dev=y and admin=y in {{Hubs}} is Manual:Maintenance scripts, I personally think it would be good to place it near that."

Done

Post close note by RhinosF1: request was made by a globally banned user and is under review

We have created a new wikihoster, but I can't because abuse filter believes that my edit it's spam. Could you add "|- | SkyWiki | USA | farm | | style="background:#9F9;vertical-align:middle;text-align:center;" class="table-yes" | Yes | style="background:#9F9;vertical-align:middle;text-align:center;" class="table-yes" | Yes, or subdomain | free (no ads) | Discord server | | Extension install on request, after security review. No hard limits on server resource usage and runs latest MediaWiki version." on this page please?

can someone please add it to the list

Feel free.

@clump unfortunately can't due to abuse filter

Hmm...you have 74 edits here, so you should be able to...

Editing the main namespace is limited for new users. This site is for documenting the MediaWiki software. It is not the wiki that you set up for your class, workplace, or personal use, nor is it Wikipedia. If you want to create a Wikipedia article, please start here. Think this is an error? Ask at Project:Village pump.

Stop trying to write an unsourced, spammy article on your company. Wikimedia is not a venue for self-promotion.

Hi everyone,

I've been trying to add a link to a MediaWiki host that I've had personal experiences with, but I'm getting a message "It seems that you're trying to add an external link to a page. [...] If you believe that you received this message in error or have a legitimate need for the link, please file a request at Project:Village Pump", which is what I'm doing. Can someone please look into this?

Thank you

Users who have 1.) few edits and 2.) have not been registered here for long cannot post links. After you have made x edits and been here for y days, that restriction will go away. I don't know the exact numbers for this wiki, but something like 5 edits and 14 days is common on many Wikimedia Foundation wikis.

The criteria here are very low - you can't post links as your first or second edit, with a bunch of other exceptions. RaySS1987 should be able to post a link successfully now.

Hi everyone.

The wikimedia open rest api reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/has a reference to

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Specs/data-parsoid/2.1.0

However this page does not exist. This causes the client generator (a tool that generate source code from a rest api description) that im using to break. I could probably workaround, but to me the most constructive solution would be to create the data-parsoid spec page.

However i cannot, since my account is new. Does anyone agree or disagree?

Create it with what content? I believe it's upto the API owners to decide when they want to create it. You should probably continue using your workaround.

Note that Specs/data-parsoid/0.0.2 exists; you should probably file a Phabricator task about these references to unwritten(?) documentation, rather than on-wiki.

Greetings,

Translatable pages allow contents such as project documentation on Mediawiki.org to be multilingual. Currently a flat list with all languages in which the content is available is listed above the page contents. As the content is translated into more languages, this makes it hard for users to find the content in their language (they have to scan a long list or rely on the browser search), clutters the page, and pushes the content down.

Language list on top of multilingual page on MediaWiki.org

Wikipedia page connected to other language versions

To address this issue, the Language and Product Localization team is implementing a change to use the Language selector from ULS for language selection on Vector 2022. This aims to ensure consistency with the way languages are selected on other projects, such as Wikipedia.

Specifically, the configuration option ($wgPageTranslationLanguageList = 'sidebar-only';) that we are planning to use would display languages as interlanguage links only and ignore the tag even if present on the page. You can see this in action on translatewiki.net:

1. Vector 2022: https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Project:About?useskin=vector-2022
2. Timeless: https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Project:About?useskin=timeless
3. Vector legacy: https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Project:About?useskin=vector  

We’re planning to enable this on Test Wikipedia first, and then roll-out on all wikis where Translate extension is enabled based on community feedback. Feel free to leave your feedback here, or on the Phabricator task.

FAQ

Q: Why are we making this change?

A: Currently a flat list of all languages to which the page is translated is displayed at the top of page contents. As the content is translated into more languages, this makes it hard for users to find the content in their language (they have to scan a long list or rely on the browser search), clutters the page, and pushes the content down. Using the Language selector from ULS, makes the available language list searchable and clears up the top of the page to display the actual content. It also brings uniformity to how content language selection is done across our sites.

Q: Will I still be able to see the translation progress for each language?

A: Yes, translation statistics for each language will be displayed within circles in the same manner that it is displayed currently. The special page Special:MessageGroupStats can also be used to view per language translation statistics.

Q: Where can I see this in action?

A: This change is already active on translatewiki.net. You can see it in action there:

1. Vector 2022: https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Project:About?useskin=vector-2022
2. Timeless: https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Project:About?useskin=timeless
3. Vector legacy: https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Project:About?useskin=vector

Q: How will this change affect the ULS for other projects like Wikipedia? Currently, the ULS in Wikipedia shows and links to Wikipedias that have the translated version of the same article in other languages. How will this new workflow affect the Wikipedia User Interface?

A: This change will not have any impact on projects that do not use the Translate extension and as such Wikipedia and its sister sites will not be impacted.

Q: This new ULS menu design shows 20 languages before scrolling. Does it mean I have to scroll and skim through maybe 90 languages to access my language if it is the last on the list?

A: No, you won't have to scroll all the way. You can type the two or three letters of your language in the Universal Language Selector for the search to fetch your language translation.

In addition, the Universal Language Selector uses different techniques to determine which languages will be most relevant to you, and displays those at the top.

Q: What is the roll-out plan?

A: We’re planning to enable this on Test Wikipedia first, followed by MediaWiki.org and then roll-out on all wikis where the Translate extension is enabled.

This is awesome. I had to actually hide this languages list with CSS on Meta-wiki several years back because of how distracting it was to me. Good to see I no longer need to hide it for myself.