Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2018-11

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in November 2018, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.

Jonas Kress (WMDE)

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

In this edit, User:Jonas Kress (WMDE) asks "Please disable this account.". Perhaps a block, and protection of his user page (which I have just updated), would be best? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:30, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: It is either a local issue for Wikidata, or it is something for stewards at SRG, or it is a process for a community global ban. Such matters would not normally be dismembered here. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:20, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

The user page is hosted on meta. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:32, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Find global policy about enforcing laws when a person requests deletion of his non-public personal data from a Wikipedia article about them

Latest comment: 5 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

w:hu:Wikipédia:Kocsmafal_(források)#Forrásokból_töröltetett_adatok_kezelése has a current discussion about deleting the month and day part of the birthday of a half-famous theator actor from a Wikipedia article about that actor (it is clear that we can leave the year in). The actor has requested that these data are deleted. ticket:2018102010000178 may be the tickert about that request. At first, the hu.Wikipedia editors refused the request, because the birthday date was available from two public webpages linked from the article, one of them being a CV written by the actor herself. The actor then removed the CV and got the data deleted from the other external webpage, then requested again.

OTRS volunteer User:EniPort argued that we should delete it because the laws about protection of personal data allow the actor to request that we delete such non-public data. User:Misibacsi and local admin w:hu:Szerkesztő:Hungarikusz_Firkász then argued that we have to keep the data in the article, because it's still available from the automatic mirror on the Wayback Machine (archive.org) of the CV that the actor has removed from the web. I think that the latter argument is absurd, we can't wait for every other secondary source to process deletion requests before we process ours, and especially not in the case of archive.org.

w:hu:User:Misibacsi then argues that we don't have a policy about how we process requests to delete personal data from a bibliographical article. I can't find such a policy, and think it should be written if it doesn't exist yet, but it probably exists and I'm just bad at searching. The global policy Oversight_policy/hu #Használat talks about removal of personal data, and how Oversighters carry this out, but is only clear about cases when it's data of an editor, not clear about the case of data of the subject of a bibliography article when the subject of that article asks a requests. Right to vanish and w:hu:Wikipédia:Blokkolás #Személyes adatok nyilvánosságra hozatala also talk mostly about the case of an editor, not about the subject of an article. The former says “Personal information related to encyclopedia articles and persons mentioned therein are not covered by "Right to Vanish". Instead, please see the relevant editorial policy on biographical articles, which contains full details of editorial directives, and actions to take if dissatisfied”, but there is no link. Do you happen to know if we have a global policy that clearly says how to handle processing requests to delete personal data in such a case case? Please point me to it, because it would make this stupid argument shorter.

– b_jonas 01:05, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

No global policy, it is left with the wikis. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:51, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Luckily it turns out that hu.Wikipedia does have a local policy on this already, I just couldn't find it. – b_jonas 09:58, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 23:24, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Change coming to how certain templates will appear on the mobile web

Latest comment: 5 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Change coming to how certain templates will appear on the mobile web

Please help translate to your language

Hello,

In a few weeks the Readers web team will be changing how some templates look on the mobile web site. We will make these templates more noticeable when viewing the article. We ask for your help in updating any templates that don't look correct.

What kind of templates? Specifically templates that notify readers and contributors about issues with the content of an article – the text and information in the article. Examples like Template:Unreferenced or Template:More citations needed. Right now these notifications are hidden behind a link under the title of an article. We will format templates like these (mostly those that use Template:Ambox or message box templates in general) to show a short summary under the page title. You can tap on the "Learn more" link to get more information.

For template editors we have some recommendations on how to make templates that are mobile-friendly and also further documentation on our work so far.

If you have questions about formatting templates for mobile, please leave a note on the project talk page or file a task in Phabricator and we will help you.

Thank you!

CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 19:34, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 23:23, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

High Hosting Cost: Why Not Decentralized Storage?

Latest comment: 5 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

I saw the fundraising banner again today, and just thought I'd take the effort to ask about this somewhere.

Hosting Wikipedia from central servers must cost thousands if not millions of dollars a year nowadays. We have decentralized solutions now, such as ipfs, dat, swarm, sia, storj, zeronet, and filecoin when filecoin is released. Migrating to one of these solutions could nearly abolish the wikipedia hosting fees, sharing the content between viewers like bittorrent. This would also help readers in censored areas access the content.

Surely people must have proposed this already, but given the amount of money that could be saved, I wanted to mention it again.

Many of these projects have imperfections, but even a small amount of the money dedicated to Wikipedia's hosting could resolve them. Many of them already have browsers, plugins, or small local proxies for accessing content directly on the network from other peers, and additionally have public gateways to access content from conventional browsers.

I'm sure there are other decentralized hosting projects I have missed in the above list, too. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Xloem (talk)

w:User:HaeB/Timeline of distributed Wikipedia proposals and Category:Distributed infrastructure. There is no proof, or even the vaguest plan, showing that cost savings are possible. Machines are cheap, while software development for a technology never before used at scale is extremely expensive. Nemo 19:44, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Decentralizing the Wikimedia wikis would not be abolishing the hosting fees, it would just be redistributing them, as far as I can tell. I agree that the current 800-plus wikis hosted by Wikimedia Foundation Inc. are too much of a central point of failure. I'd be very interested in feasible, concrete proposals that could mitigate against this. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:55, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree that a scheme like this wouldn't necessarily save money but federation may actually be a good idea for other reasons. I think those interested should collaborate here: Federated Wikimedia. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:21, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 23:23, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

mw.toolbar back or global gadget as a replacement

Latest comment: 6 years ago117 comments36 people in discussion

The mw.toolbar was removed, Restore the toolbar task T30856 Itti (talk) 14:20, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Given the fact, that many Wikis have since put in place emergency fixes, it might no longer be the best course of action to simply revert the regrettable removal of mw.toolbar. However, those band-aid-solutions do not restore the full range of functionality that was lost. Therefore, after this wish was removed for non-compliance with the guidelines, I'd like to amend it to suggest, that a global widget with the same functionalities be developped in close consultation with the interested parties, very much like @MusikAnimal (WMF): suggested in his contribution from 18:41, 6 November 2018. --Eloquenzministerium (talk) 15:21, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

Users who endorse this proposal (you can add your name here, but please, don't use separate bullet points because this looks like voting, which doesn't happen until November 16): Itti (talk) 14:20, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Ghilt (talk) 14:43, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Mautpreller (talk) 14:47, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Atamari (talk) 14:50, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Silewe (talk) 15:03, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Bertramz (talk) 15:09, 6 November 2018 (UTC), DaB. (talk) 15:12, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Alinea (talk) 15:12, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Magiers (talk) 15:13, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Orci (talk) 15:15, 6 November 2018 (UTC), voyager (talk) 15:17, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Schlesinger (talk) 15:23, 6 November 2018 (UTC), «« Man77 »» ^[de] 15:25, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Herzi Pinki (talk) 15:25, 6 November 2018 (UTC), XenonX3 (talk) 15:48, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Herbert Ortner (talk) 15:56, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Doc Taxon (talk) 15:57, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Maimaid (talk) 16:06, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Neitram (talk) 16:09, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Bubo 容 16:10, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Freimut Bahlo (talk) 16:17, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Saluk (talk) 16:07, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Zinnmann (talk) 16:23, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Hildeoc (talk) 16:25, 6 November 2018 (UTC), JuTa (talk) 16:33, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Wahrerwattwurm (talk) 16:44, 6 November 2018 (UTC), 87.174.3.116 16:47, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Rote4132 (talk) 16:48, 6 November 2018 (UTC), -jkb- 16:53, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Kpisimon (talk) 16:58, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Benowar (talk) 16:59, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Asio otus (talk) 17:00, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Rhadamante (talk) 18:26, 6 November 2018 (UTC), -- User: Perhelion 18:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC), --Si! SWamP (talk) 19:13, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Ankry (talk) 19:16, 6 November 2018 (UTC), -- Ra'ike (talk) 22:01, 6 November 2018 (UTC), Alraunenstern۞ 22:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC), --Jocian (talk) 22:34, 6 November 2018 (UTC), --Gestumblindi (talk) 22:37, 6 November 2018 (UTC), ----Alfred Kiefer (talk) 04:35, 7 November 2018 (UTC), --Phzh (talk) 08:15, 7 November 2018 (UTC) Peterdexheimer (talk) 08:31, 7 November 2018 (UTC), --Eingangskontrolle (talk) 09:23, 7 November 2018 (UTC),--Ket (talk) 09:57, 7 November 2018 (UTC), --Nk (talk) 12:58, 7 November 2018 (UTC) --J. Patrick Fischer (talk) 13:28, 7 November 2018 (UTC) --PowerBUL (talk) 15:09, 7 November 2018 (UTC) --Den man tau (talk) 15:34, 7 November 2018 (UTC), Joschi71 (talk) 15:47, 7 November 2018 (UTC) --Lutheraner (talk) 16:37, 7 November 2018 (UTC) --Doc.Heintz (talk) 17:12, 7 November 2018 (UTC), Jossi2 (talk) 19:32, 7 November 2018 (UTC), --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 20:45, 7 November 2018 (UTC) --Fano (talk) 01:04, 8 November 2018 (UTC) --Eloquenzministerium (talk) 04:49, 8 November 2018 (UTC),--Jmv (talk) 09:36, 8 November 2018 (UTC)--Anatoliy (talk) 22:16, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Die Toolbar wird von vielen aktiven Autoren benötigt, übergreifend in vielen Sprachen, zumal durch die Toolbar Sonderzeichen einfach und unkompliziert eingesetzt werden können. Diese Änderung ist nicht hilfreich und sollte rückgängig gemacht werden.

The toolbar is needed by many active authors, globally in many languages, also because special characters are accessible in an easy, uncomplicated way. This modification is not helpful and should be reverted.
— Itti, 6 November 2018

--Itti (talk) 14:20, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Ich unterstütze das massiv. Die Behauptung, nur eine ganz kleine Anzahl aktiver User nutze Toolbar und Sonderzeichen, ist ganz offensichtlich falsch, wie sich an einer ganzen Reihe Threads in der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia erkennen lässt. Im Gegenteil sind durchweg aktive User mit vielen Edits mit diesem Ärger konfrontiert und haben sich in starken Worten dagegen ausgesprochen. Insbesondere für die übersichtliche Sonderzeichenliste gibt es in den Einstellungen keinen vernünftigen Ersatz. Die Toolbar sollte umgehend wieder unterstützt werden.Mautpreller (talk) 14:47, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

wo ist sie hin? --Atamari (talk) 14:50, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Mal wieder eine tolle Leistung der WMF. --DaB. (talk) 15:12, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

How are we ever going to gain new authors if you anger the existing ones? --voyager (talk) 15:17, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

[1] «« Man77 »» ^[de] 15:25, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I used that toolbar whilst writing every new article, and I want it back. There is no understandable reason for removing it. Please undo that annoying action as soon as possible. Thank you very much in advance. --Maimaid (talk) 16:06, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The other toolbar ("Erweiterte Bearbeiten-Werkzeugleiste") is overly big, requires more clicks and is not a good replacement. --Neitram (talk) 16:09, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Just for context, these people are mostly coming from de:Wikipedia:Fragen_zur_Wikipedia#haben_Hamster_die_Bearbeitungssymbole_verschluckt?. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:37, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

And de:Wikipedia Diskussion:Kurier#Nutzer des 2006er Wikitext-Editors müssen auf eine neuere Version umsteigen. There are at least two more threads in German Wikipedia about this subject. About 95 per cent writing there don't like the toolbar removal at all.Mautpreller (talk) 15:50, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

That is not unsurprising. People who are not affected have no reason to contribute in such discussions ;) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:03, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Meaning that there are a lot of high-volume accounts who were gravely affected. Not a "tiny fraction of editors" or "very few active editors" as is untruthfully claimed here. There is a growing feeling that long-time and productive editors are literally contempted by WMF tech experts.Mautpreller (talk) 16:14, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Die mit der Änderung hinweggefegten de:Wikipedia:Helferlein/Extra-Editbuttons mit der Möglichkeit zur Individualisierung sind für meine Arbeit obligatorisch. So lange es keinen adäquaten Ersatz gibt, ist die Deaktivierung derselben für mich völlig unverständlich. Ich halte es für ein Muss (!), dass jeder von der Änderung betroffene User entsprechend vorab informiert und folgend einen einfachen Lösungsweg an die Hand gegeben wird. Es dürfte kein einziger (!) Autor so vor den Kopf gestoßen werden, wie es heute auf de.wp augenscheinlich einer ganzen Reihe von produktiven Accounts ging. Anders gesagt: Die Änderung ist umgehend rückgängig zu machen. --JD {æ} 16:03, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

per Neitram. This affects the work of a good part of the most active authors in on de.wp. --Zinnmann (talk) 16:23, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

These people do also come from here, here, here and here. And that's just from de:WP. Most of them are very experienced users profoundly discouraged by the abrupt disappearance of their tools. They'd like this editing help, for which there is no functionally or ergonomically equivalent alternative in "modern" toolbars, just to be back. Whatever technical issues there might be, frustrating the few remaining, higly active editors by depriving them of their preferred tools is not the way to go. --Eloquenzministerium (talk) 16:29, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

For the records, the voting phase starts on November 16th. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@User:AKlapper (WMF): I don't care. This problem is urgent and can't wait ten days. Chaddy (talk) 17:39, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Chaddy, wishlist items usually take, on average, a full year to be implemented. If this "can't wait ten days", then it can't wait until July 2019, which is the very earliest that the wishlist team would do anything about it.

On the other hand, anyone on this list, including User:Itti, could install the replacement today. Why wait for the wishlist? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I've removed all the +1's as it may mislead others into thinking we're in the voting phase. Comments are most welcome but please save the mass endorsement for the voting phase which starts November 16. Thanks! MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 17:07, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't agree. The massive support for this community wish should remain visible, no matter whether the voting phase is opened or not.Mautpreller (talk) 17:10, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Is that the next move in your great strategy to get rid of highly productive authors? --voyager (talk) 17:17, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I entirely agree. @MusikAnimal (WMF): I would kindly ask you to immediately restore those signatures.--Hildeoc (talk) 17:22, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Sorry about that. It is problematic because it makes it appear like a voting-style survey (which it will be on November 16), and others may start to do the same in other proposals. This should be reserved for "discussion", hence the heading. I did not remove anything but the +1's. Comments were retained. Thanks for your cooperation and understanding! MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 17:25, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I reverted your manipulation. That is inapprehensible! Chaddy (talk) 17:47, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I promise I'm not trying to obscure the support for restoring the toolbar. I am merely managing the survey, and if we see all those +1's, it's going to spread to other proposals and cause havoc. When we get to the voting phase, I'll personally restore all +1's (and make them {{support}}). Okay? :) MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 17:48, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

No, not in 10 days. This has to be visible NOW! Chaddy (talk) 17:51, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm afraid that is not how it works :( We have an established schedule and process. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated :) Managing the survey is a huge effort, and letting early voting in makes it incredibly tedious to control. Rest assured I'm not trying to hide the vast disappointment that the toolbar was removed (which Communtiy Tech had nothing to do with). MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 17:53, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I did not delete half of this page here, so I don't think I have to be told to cooperate...

But ok, then could you please just restore the deleted signatures without the "+1" in front of it and maybe add a short annotation, so that nobody can mix them up with votings? I think this would be a fair compromise. Chaddy (talk) 18:03, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Sure, allow me to put something together. I'm not going to present it as individual bullet points, but we can list the usernames of those who endorse it. I'm going to do that now! Give me 10 minutes or so :) MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! Chaddy (talk) 18:17, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Removing of the small edit tool bar below the edit window is a great damage. Please undo this immediately! Chaddy (talk) 17:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Moin, ich habe eine Pingliste angelegt. Alle +1 supports finden sich dort und bekommen am 16. November eine Erinnerung. Wer noch eine Erinnerung möchte, einfach eintragen. Danke für euren Support! --Itti (talk) 17:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The removal is a severe pain to contributers from not German speaking countries even if they are native or fluent speakers of German, since the tool bar provided Umlaute and Eszett, among others. Since I am an expat, knowledge transfer from the English speaking world to the German WP became the core of what I am doing in WP, and since I obviously don't have a German keyboard, I rely heavily on that little toolbar. --Stilfehler (talk) 17:49, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, what is this unqualified edit? Is this next level of zensus? I am very disappointed with this edit. --2001:16B8:1180:A600:FDDE:4EBD:E6F6:29BB 17:56, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I've explained it above. Do not worry! The popularity of this proposal is abundantly clear. I'm going to add back all the votes once the voting phase starts :) MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Which will be in ten days. But the problem is urgent and can't wait that long. Chaddy (talk) 18:04, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The premature votes won't make this wish happen any sooner, on our end. Community Tech strictly goes by our schedule. For a more urgent response, you could try creating a Phabricator ticket to reach out to the responsible parties, or commenting at phab:T30856. I don't know what else to tell you :( MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 18:09, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I am deeply disturbed by the removal of a significant portion of contributions by @MusikAnimal (WMF):. Those +1 entries showed clearly, that there is a widespread dissatisfaction with the removal decision and sweeping it under the rug is grossly manipulative. Would it have been beneficial to the readability of the debate if every one of them had basically said the same in his own words? Yes, we are not in the voting phase, but neither are we in a phase where it is appropriate to remove the opinions of a significant number of authors opposing this misguided WMF-decision.

Not just a bit infuriated --Eloquenzministerium (talk) 18:05, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

This section is called "Discussion". I don't see how writing "+1" discusses the proposal. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 18:08, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Really? Since when do you use the internet? Chaddy (talk) 18:17, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

My point was that I don't see a "discussion" when people repeatedly only write "+1". Your question seems to be unrelated to the topic. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 18:31, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

But it is. Using "+1" is a normal behavior in internet slang to express approval. You can interpret it as an abbreviation for "I agree" or "Yes, this is also my opinion" or else. Thus it is often more than just a voting. Chaddy (talk) 00:45, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

The foundation is trying to make another big mistake like the image filter. Get back the tool bars back immediatly. Just undo the latest change. Dont wait. You have not asked us before, you have not warned the users, you just behave like Donald. --Eingangskontrolle (talk) 18:09, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

As I previously explained, the +1 contributions are contributions, not votes, avoiding to clutter the discussion needlessly with basically the same text over and over. Should you not add them back, do you really believe that a mass message to those, whose voices have just been cut out, explaining what happened here and inviting them to further elaborate on their point of view would be a desirable course of action? --Eloquenzministerium (talk) 18:19, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I feel like you all might be mislead into thinking the +1's will make this happen sooner. Going by our schedule, Community Tech can't do anything until the survey is over. We were not involved with removing the toolbar, and we are not trying to censor your frustration. A request for a more urgent response should be made on Phabricator, or perhaps just comment at phab:T30856. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 18:24, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Where can you provide ‘−1’? It would be extremely unfortunate to force Community Tech team to work on supporting an extremely old and unnecessary editing interface just to appease some German contributors. This is, frankly, not a matter for Community Wishlist Survey. stjn^[ru] 18:36, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Our team still needs to discuss, so I can't say for sure, but if we do get to this, it'd likely be creating a gadget or something similar to accomplish the same functionality (with full community consultation to make sure it meets their needs). But again we can't do it until the survey is over. Everyone here seems to want this back now, so in that sense maybe the Survey isn't the right place. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 18:41, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Are we talking about the same thing?
mw.toolbar	CharInsert

What people are asking to have installed (top of the editing window)	What people seem to want (usually underneath the editing window)

I think we need to be clear about what we're talking about. If dewiki has a bug that's hiding CharInsert, then bringing back mw.toolbar is not going to do what you want.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:37, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Moin, yes, both. I made a fix, a few minutes ago, so the bottom list is more or less back, but that is not realy good. A lot of editors need this help and it would be great, if you coult improve this. Thanks! --Itti (talk) 18:46, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the CharInsert bug for dewiki. If you want the blue-gray toolbar, too, why don't you just install it as a gadget? That's something that you can do. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:59, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I simply don't understand you, Whatamidoing. It is mainly the visible list of special characters directly below the editing window, very clearly disposed, visible without any click, with the possibility to choose typical characters for example for Spanish or Scandinavian or Romanian languages.Mautpreller (talk) 18:52, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

That's what I thought the problem was. Those special characters are not mw.toolbar. Mw.toolbar is only the blue-gray buttons. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:57, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't know the explicit list of characters that you want, but what you describe sounds like CharInsert. This is enabled as a gadget on the English Wikipedia, so it should be fairly straightforward for interface admins on your wiki to add it, now. The extension itself is enabled on dewiki, as evidenced by de:Spezial:Version. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 18:58, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to see this. But what I want is what this tool does, as Default.Mautpreller (talk) 19:16, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

If you have JS code already, you can just create a gadget for it and make it on by default. I don't have rights to do this for you, but check the history of de:MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition. These editors should know how to set it up. Hope this helps, MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 19:32, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

To be clear, for me, no, I want the toolbar described on the left, that allow me to customize buttons, for instance to add templates I decide are useful for me (or bits of text I use on a regular basis). Not the piece of shit of vector toolbar (or so-called "Enhanced editing toolbar") which is 98% useless and not accessible (I don't want to make n clicks to get what I need). Rhadamante (talk) 19:26, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Exactly. Its nice, that the charinsert-problem, that occured at the same time mw.toolbar was removed, is kind of fixed now thanks to Itti. However, the default 11-button-toolbar was highly customisable via the popular monobook.js from PDD and that's what we want to work again without any fiddling around. --Eloquenzministerium (talk) 19:34, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Now I tried CharInsert on English Wikipedia. It is much worse than the old special characters list because it neither considers the conventions of punctuation and typography in European languages nor permits to choose "Scandinavian" or "Romanian" or "French" special characters. You always have to resort to "Latin", that does not help in the least. Moreover, I'd still like to have the accustomed buttons for signature, link, and so on. My problem is not so much the design but the usability. The "enhanced editing toolbar" is very disturbing since you cannot simply see what you are doing in the wikitext (esp. setting of links). But this is less important than the special characters list. This is virtually unusable in the "enhanced editing toolbar" and with CharInsert it is still much worse than before.Mautpreller (talk) 19:36, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Charinsert (as I understand it) has nothing to do with the old toolbar. From mw:Contributors/Projects/Removal of the 2006 wikitext editor#Alternatives it would seem you can bring back the toolbar right now. You just need an interface admin to do it for you. French Wikipedia apparently has done this. Try turning on the "ForceMonobookToolbar" preference in fr:Spécial:Préférences. Does that accomplish what you want? MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 19:42, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Also the Charinsert config is community-defined at en:MediaWiki:Gadget-charinsert-core.js. So you should be able to configure it however your wiki desires. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 19:46, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal (WMF): It offers the possibility to rewrite entirely my edit bar, since the old code does not work, event with the ForceMonobookToolbar. It's very annoying, but it's something. But I don't see this possibility on Commons, where I did most of my contributions these last few months... Rhadamante (talk) 22:08, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Normal editing interface also allows customisation, see mw:Extension:WikiEditor/Toolbar customization. Last open panel for you is remembered, so there’s no basis to say that you have to ‘make n clicks to get what you need’. stjn^[ru] 19:43, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Wiki loves strategies to scare off users... --DaizY (talk) 19:49, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

MusikAnimal, I don't think you understand me. So I try to put it as straightforward as possible. With the accustomed preferences (I did not even know that it was an "editor") I got two things: the "toolbar" with the 11 grey buttons above and the list of special characters below. This was very comfortable. Suddenly I saw that none of both features appeared any more. A bug? No, obviously a feature. It was suddenly impossible to do an edit with, say, Scandinavian letters or German quotation marks. It was also impossible to sign an edit as accustomed. This happened at the same time and I understand that the reason why the special character list disappeared is that the toolbar was disabled. I am still convinced that that is the reason.

I am not interested in information technology, software development or things like that. These things are simply tools for me, services that help me to write articles as a volunteer. I am not interested in inserting any lines in a js.page, customizing any tool or anything like that. I need a simple way to use characters and symbols in different languages, no more but also no less. This is made extremely difficult by this change.

When I had finally understood what happened, I tried to change my preferences to "enhanced editing toolbar". However, this is bad, it makes my editing more difficult, which is mainly due to the badly disposed special characters list. Then I saw that de:User:PerfektesChaos offered a solution for the special characters list. I inserted this in my js.page and now this worked again and very fine (much, much better than CharInsert on the English Wikipedia). But it is not the right way to force any user to insert lines he doesn't understand in a page that he doesn't understand. That should be a simple standard preference!

What I ask myself: Why is it necessary to annoy volunteers with such changes that make a lot of things worse for editing? Why do I have to look for people who program things that do nothing else than bringing back usability that in the first place had been destroyed by MediaWiki Developers?Mautpreller (talk) 20:09, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@Mautpreller: I apologize that I don't know all the answers to your questions. I believe the old toolbar was removed due to maintenance burden and the fact the code was very outdated. The impending removal evidently has been announced since at least May 2017, and also repeatedly in Tech News since then (though apparently it was set back quite a bit). I agree the fact you can't insert special characters is bad. I'm going to guess that part has been resolved, based on Itti's comments (but let me know otherwise). Anyway, I'd love to help you bring your toolbar back, since it seems this is something we can do right now. Did you try the gadget on French Wikipedia? Is that what you all are looking for? Again I do not have rights to set it up, but perhaps Itti can do the editing and I can help guide them. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 20:56, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Please let me know, when I can help, if rights are lacking, but I am not a computer scientist and unable to write programs. Regards --Itti (talk) 21:06, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Ok thanks. I'm going to continue discussion on your talk page, Itti. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 21:08, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: No, this part has been resolved thanks to this tool. But this should be a standard preference, not something you have to insert in a js-page. Itti's edit did bring back a special characters toolbar, but it is much worse than the old one. Only the PerfektesChaos tool restored the full functionality. A gadget by another user brought also back the toolbar so now the damages caused by the change are repaired by means of individual troubleshooting (for which I am grateful to these users). For me. But not for a lot of other users who will have to do the same procedure as I. I can't believe that this is the purpose of software development.Mautpreller (talk) 21:15, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes it looks like DaB. is in the middle of deploying the old toolbar. This can be made the default, so that it will come back for everyone. I'm going to let DaB. do their thing before checking back and seeing if there's anything I can do to help. I am sorry for all the trouble. I can't speak for the responsible parties regarding the loss of the 2006 toolbar, etc., because I was not involved, but I do know they meant no harm :) I'm glad to hear we're getting it sorted out without having to wait through the whole survey (initially I was under the impression we'd have to write a gadget from scratch). So hang tight, and I'll help ensure this is resolved ASAP. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 21:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

(BK)

Mautprellers point is very well taken. I've customized my toolbar days befor it vanished to further fine-tune it to my needs. That also is far from uncommon in de:WP as we have an excellent and well maintained all-in-one-framework by PDD to do so. Taking that away by surprise, as it was only discussed in places where non-nerds just don't hang out, was a Bad Move™. You should keep in mind; Wikipedia continues not to collapse mostly thanks to a surprisingly small group of highly experienced users. Hampering their ability to work with the tools that have been available to them for years (the only ones back then) and painstakingly fine-tuned to their specific needs, is not exactly the way to stop the decline in participation.

Let's deal: We'll forget all the Bad and the Ugly about the VE and you keep the UI the way it was and still is very much appreciated by no less than 45 users on this list[2], who either contributed here, at least tried until evicted or added their name to be informed of the beginning of the voting process within eight hours of the start of this request.

Applying the typical ratio of 1 to 10 between users complaining vs. those equally annoyed, but not bothering to voice their opinion in this galaxy far away from their primary goal of writing articles in peace, that's quite a lot.

Lets end with a little poem, offering one more solution:

Die Lösung (frei nach Brecht)

Die Arbyterschaft
Hat sich das Vertrauen der WMF verscherzt
Und kann es nur durch verdoppelte Arbyte
Mit komplett untauglichen Werkzeugen zurückerobern.
Wäre es da nicht einfacher,
Die WMF löste diese Gemeinschaft auf und
Wählte sich eine andere?

The solution (inspired by Brecht)

The community
Has failed its duty to trust the WMF
And may only by doubling its efforts
With completely inadequate tools get it back.
Wouldn't it be easier,
If the WMF dismissed this community and
Elected a new one?

--Eloquenzministerium (talk) 21:33, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Once again: We are not talking about a new wish, be are talking about something the WMF has done without anyone whishing. And we experiance staff members misusing their possiblities to censor again and again. --Eingangskontrolle (talk) 09:22, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, Whatamidoing (WMF), we had better be clear. What I am missing is not mw.toolbar, it is the Edittools toolbar that looked like:

Standard Ä ä Ö ö ß Ü ü • „“ ’ ‚‘ “” ‘’ «» ‹› »« ›‹ – • + − · × ÷ ≈ ≠ ± ≤ ≥ ² ³ ½ * † ⚭ # * ‰ § € ¢ £ ¥ $ ¿ ¡ ∞ • … → ↔ ← • [] [[]] | {{}} ~~~~ • ° ′ ″

and I used it all the time, especially to insert the „“ apostrophes and the – dash, which are not on the keyboard. It was configured here. --Neitram (talk) 09:52, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

A similar issue is also ongoing in French Wiktionary. After I read this thread, I made some tests and the panel with phonetic signs is broken, visible but the javascript used to include on click, and nothing happen now. So I tried Wikicode editor 2017 but plenty signs are missing, including the curved apostrophe used in French Wiktionary ’ and the IPA sign ʁ, used in French language transcription. So, now, it's more complicated to add pronounciation or to write a decent page in French Wiktionary. -- Noé (talk) 10:29, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I am missing both, toolbar and Edittools. This change is maybe hiting only a few users, but it hits the power users of Wikipedia. --J. Patrick Fischer (talk) 13:28, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Few users is a big underestimation. At bgwiki 2/3 of the active editors were completely blocked for a day, the rest were busy to find javascript workarounds. We had an editor with 100k+ edits and 12 years of experience who was unable to sign in discussions. --Nk (talk) 16:25, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Few users are affected by the removal of the 2006 wikitext editor (=the blue-gray toolbar). Some whole communities are affected by old gadgets that make the EditTools character inserter. So, for example, the French Wiktionary needs to fix their gadget, but the French Wikipedia's gadget had no difficulty; the German Wikipedia's CharInsert/EditTools gadget was broken, but the German Wikivoyage's is still working. Other than wishing for global gadgets – which is much too big of a project for the Community Wishlist, unfortunately – I don't see any good solution to the ongoing problem of communities installing local gadgets that they can't support and maintain. I am, unfortunately, expecting this problem to become more and more significant during the next couple of years.

Noé, the 2017WTE and the visual editor share a special characters line, and you should add whatever's commonly used to it. This is separate from the need to fix the broken gadget, but it should still be done. See mw:VisualEditor/Special characters for instructions on how to do that. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:58, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't think we have the full information about all the related problems. In our case (bgwiki) it was exactly about "the blue-gray toolbar", as its removal blocked even most basic operations (adding links, etc.) for dozens of regular users. It took us about a day to restore it within a gadget (compared to "only" few hours to fix EditTools). I can only imagine the impact on the really small wikis without own local technical support. --Nk (talk) 18:32, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Is the (native) Bulgarian keyboard one of the layouts without square brackets? I know a few keyboards don't include tildes (~), which makes it difficult for some editors to sign their comments.

Congratulations on getting the gadget installed. If you're not already subscribed to m:Tech/News, then I recommend reading it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:43, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

First of all thanks to whoever added the previously censored names of endorsers back to this thread. It might be a good ideas to add the names of those, who escaped the censorship attempt by writing more than +1 to underline the massive support for this proposition.

Bienvenue aux amis du Wiktionary français and welcome to our bulgarian colleagues, who had to work in emergency-mode, very much like the de:WP, to come up with a duct-tape and baling-wire-solution in order to fix this irreponsible move. Over time, more projects will probably find their way here to voice a justified opposition to this inappropriate course of action.

In order to avoid this kind of mishap in the future, I would like to amend the proposal as follows (Deutsche Fassung im Problemhamster-Abschnitt bei FzW): There needs to be a binding rule in the appropriate place to enforce a public discussion of UI-modifications, in particular removals of functions. It has to be an explanation in the local language comprehensible by the average user, that details all the practical consequences of the planned change. By default, this post has to be made at the Villagepump, in case of de:WP, that's de:WP:FZW, with an additional mention in de:WP:Kurier right column. Each language version should be free to redirect such requests for comment to locally fitting places. Should there be no consensus, there must be enough time and ressources to solve the issue at hand appropriately before committing the change. --Eloquenzministerium (talk) 04:49, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi all, the purpose of the Community Wishlist Survey is to generate and vote on proposals for technical projects that the Community Tech team can work on next year. This page has turned into a vehicle for protest of an unrelated product change, which is not appropriate for the Community Wishlist Survey. I've moved this proposal to the Archive. All of you are welcome to post new proposals that ask for a technical feature or fix that the Community Tech team can work on. Please let me know if you have questions about how to participate in the Wishlist Survey. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 05:53, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Another employee is trying to bend the truth and to censor. You (WMF) have changed something without a wish from the community. You just have to undo this. --Bahnmoeller (talk) 08:05, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm a little fed up with this. It has been explained time and time again, that this (community wishlist) is NOT the place for your grievances. As people seem to be unable to determine where to go and to insist on doing this at meta.wp.org, I have moved it to a location that seems more appropriate to me. [edited to clarify what 'this' was referring to]. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:29, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Oh, you are "a little fed up"? What do you think the authors are? At the moment, it doesn't seem that any of the developers are actively doing something to solve the problem. I might be wrong, of course, but that's exactly the impression we are getting here. What are your next steps and when can we expect a solution? --voyager (talk) 10:21, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm a bit fed up with the rude reactions of the devs and meta-locals about this issue. Yes, it was the wrong place for an emergency message, as the survey was not for emergencies, but the right reaction should have been to show those, that are not so familiar with meta, where the right place for this issue is. Instead of brushing it away in a quite rude manner, and obviously expect from content editors to know prcisely how to deal with this foreign territory here, the valid complaints should have been taken serious and dealt with like with a serious emergency problem should be dealt with by the service agency of the communities. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 10:22, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

It's fine to discuss this on Meta. The Wikimedia Forum is a suitable space, although there could be others. Nemo 10:28, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Es war kein Wunsch nach einer Notfallmaßnahme. Es ist der Wunsch nach einer tragfähigen, dauerhaften und stabilen Lösung. Problem ist doch, wird solches in den Sprachversionen über "private" Skripte geregelt, dann kommen irgendwann Änderungen, die Skripte laufen nicht mehr und die Antwort darauf ist: es handelt sich um private Skripte, regelt das selbst. Wenn nun aber niemand da ist, der das regeln kann, dann verschwinden gute und hilfreiche Funktionen und Möglichkeiten. Genau das ist in der Vergangenheit sehr oft passiert und das passiert auch hier. Die Bereitstellung von nutzbaren Sonderzeichen ist essenziell für die Arbeit an einer Enzyklopädie und das gehört zu den rudimentären Funktionen, damit das, was hinten rauskommt, nutzbar für den Leser ist. Das ist hier eben nicht falsch sonden goldrichtig! Sorry for German, but I don´t think I can write this propperly in english. --Itti (talk) 11:29, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

@TheDJ: For the case you did not recognise yet: You, the devs, are not autocrats, but just service providers for the community. We, the community are the souvereign. So you are not in the position to be "fed up" if you ignore how a collaborative project works. Chaddy (talk) 20:18, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Oppressive, overly-demanding sovereigns tend to get overthrown in a revolution. Just sayin'. Gamaliel (talk) 20:57, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah you're able to participate. Thank you for your support. --DaizY (talk) 21:26, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't think this is a smart reaction... Chaddy (talk) 20:46, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Just like Itti said.

@Whatamidoing (WMF), AKlapper (WMF), MusikAnimal (WMF), DannyH (WMF), and TheDJ: Archiving the request is wrong. It fits the description of the wishlist:

Our team still needs to discuss, so I can't say for sure, but if we do get to this, it'd likely be creating a gadget or something similar to accomplish the same functionality (with full community consultation to make sure it meets their needs). But again we can't do it until the survey is over. ...
— MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 18:41, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

and there is overwhelming support for it. And not just from the germans, the french wiktionary and the bulgarian Wikipedia also voiced their concern and there are most probably a lot more, who don't know about this page.

Of course, all affected Wikis had to whip up some kind of emergency fix. However, those are not functionally equivalent and therefore this proposal is to explore which ist the best way to bring these features back.

So please, do put this proposal back where it clearly belongs. Best regards --Eloquenzministerium (talk) 11:51, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

@Eloquenzministerium: The purpose of the Community Wishlist Survey is to generate and vote on proposals for technical projects that the Community Tech team can work on next year. This is not one of them. Nihlus 11:57, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I would agree that it is not ideally community wishlist. That said to dismiss out of hand from the wishlist is problematic, and having it raised here is better than anywhere else. Trying to work at this at phabricator didn't work and was dismissed by developers as the complaining of dinosaur editors. To me it has been a high-handed approach of a perfectly functional tool that was in core, and for some a better tool that the later developments. Forcing the little communities, especially those not competent in its replacement, to do the work to replace was an ugly way to handle this. Disrespectful is how I see it. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:21, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: I don't disagree on those points. This is something that should be looked at expeditiously by those who have decided to force the change through, whether that's a full reversion or something else. Clearly the community is unhappy. Nihlus 12:26, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

@Nihlus:, this is why I quoted MusikAnimal (WMF), who very much saw a possibility to find a solution within the scope of the wishlist-project. At this point in time, it has to be pondered, whether a revert of the toolbar-removal is still the best course of action or if it makes more sense to take the time to follow MusikAnimals idea to turn that into a global gadget with appropriate community-participation to make it perhaps even better than the removed functionality used to be. If such a strongly supported proposal has no place on the wishlist in your opinion, I don't know what else would. --Eloquenzministerium (talk) 12:21, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Eloquenzministerium: Yes, a request to build a gadget with the functionality you need would definitely be appropriate for a wishlist proposal. It's good that this larger discussion is happening on the Forum; if somebody wants to create a separate proposal for the gadget, that would be fine. Thanks. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 14:49, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you DannyH (WMF) for agreeing, that there is indeed a place for this wish on the wishlist. I have amended the wish the way you suggested and would be grateful if it now could return to its rightful place in order to avoid losing the context that led to the modified proposal. It would be nice of you or one of the other (WMF)-accounts to take care of the re-introduction of this wish into the list.

Concerning the we-need-to-talk amendment I suggested at 04:49, 8 November 2018, would it be an acceptable extension here and if not, where would be the appropriate place to further that idea productively?

Best Regards --Eloquenzministerium (talk) 15:21, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Eloquenzministerium: It needs to be submitted as a new proposal. This conversation will be very confusing for people who are voting on the survey, because it goes in a number of directions. You can include a link to this discussion in the new proposal. It's important that you (or another volunteer) do that, rather than me or another WMF staffer, because the person who submits the proposal needs to respond to further questions and discussion. I know that this seems like a pointless hassle for you, but the proper functioning of the Community Wishlist Survey is important to our team, and it's important to all of the other contributors who submit proposals and vote on them. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 22:00, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Okay, Sänger posted a new proposal: Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Editing/Keep the lightweight text editor. That's exactly what we needed; now people can vote on the proposal. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the communication plan for that removal to be able to say anything about what happened; I'm sorry about that. Having the new proposal will help you to get the technical change that you want. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 22:36, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Number of users and impact

The removal of the classic toolbar clearly surprised many, even without considering the impact on "separate" but related components like the charinsert: the toolbar just vanished completely with no replacement appearing. Was an attempt made to at least consider the impact on the users who disabled the preference for a "enhanced editing toolbar"? How many are they? There are usually reasons for their choices. What does the preference even do now?

The most important button of the toolbar for active users is arguably the signature button, which is referenced on countless help pages and welcome templates; the new toolbar probably makes it much less recognisable because it now looks pretty much the same as all the other buttons. By contacting affected users, it would have been possible to identify problems and solutions before just making everything disappear suddenly. --Nemo 10:45, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

This is documented in the ticket:

21 active users on English Wikisource out of 557
1576 out of 218154 english wikipedia users
259 users on frwiki out of 23284

With active meaning "made at least 1 edit in last 30 days". These were not run for every wiki, as these were very expensive queries (in the order of half an hour for frwiki for instance).

The general consensus was "about 1% of users" and that it was likely these were mostly old hands. It was also predicted that a significant set of the long tail of those users likely didn't actually even use the toolbar, only had it enabled out of pure habit. I personally predicted that we could expect a lot of kickback on this: " a lot of editors to turn up here on the day in question, who as always likely missed all the announcements, because they just don't follow fora like these". But then again, this change took 2 years and I count 5 or 6 rounds of informing communities ??? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

"the new toolbar probably makes it much less recognisable because it now looks pretty much the same as all the other buttons. " yet 99% of the people apparently make perfect due with this. This is that 'bubble' of highly active and vocal users we talk about so often. They aren't as representative as they consider themselves to be. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:22, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

@TheDJ: Which would be some of our oldest and most ardent contributors. Personally I am most displeased with the change, the pushing of this back to the communities to fix for something that was core to me is highly problematic, and the lack of true listening by Forrester and his team. I haven't edited at English Wikisource due to the change, and has me contemplating to packing up shop and walking away. Straw -> camel's back. :-( — billinghurst sDrewth 12:10, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Probably 99% of Wikipedia user accounts aren't very active or not active at all. Yes, there is a small, "core" community of longtime, very active users, the very backbone of the projects. The most active and dedicated ones. Often, these are using an older or non-default setup that fits their needs well and creates an environment in which they feel comfortable to contribute productively to Wikipedia. It is a mistake to dismiss them as "not representative". Without their continued dedication, Wikipedia would collapse. It is known that much of Wikipedia's content, and especially the better, more in-depth articles, is created by a relatively small group of people. In a way, Wikipedia is not as much a product of "swarm intelligence" as is often thought. That should be kept in mind. Gestumblindi (talk) 12:24, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

The DJ, if You want to look in the special situation in de-wp, You can read it in de:Wikipedia_Diskussion:Kurier#Was ist passiert?, written down by an user without great technical knowledge, because the people with technical knowledge could not provide this analysis to the community. But don't just belittle the many affected users as a sort of "vocal" disturbance. The voices, that raised, are a big part of the "old-hand" core community of de-wp, that keep this project alive every day. By the way, the analysis, that I linked to, ends with the conclusion, that the problem here was surely not bad intentions, but communication. The archiving of the Technical Wish was just another missed opportunity to get into this communication with the communities, where and when it is needed. --Magiers (talk) 13:07, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

There is also another possibility, see here: User talk:TheDJ#Wishlist: Toolbar. There are two ways: discussion about the disappearing of the toolbar, trying to get it back ASAP. And: Technical wish to provide a text editor that is at least as simple and clear as the old toolbar because it is needed. As you see if you follow my link, a great difference is the time frame. A technical wish, if it is selected in the survey, will be dealt with during 2019 and results are not to be expected before the end of 2019. This would mean that we want that the developers program a (new) stable solution for permanent use. Personally, I like that idea. But this should not be confused with the wish to revert this decision to stop supporting the toolbar. These two ways don't exclude each other, but they imply different places and time frames. Mautpreller (talk) 17:13, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I am writing in Russian, because I speak English only with the help of an autotranslator: "The Community Wishlist Survey" приглашало сообщать о пожеланиях сообщества, "над чем нужно работать в следующем году команде технической помощи сообществам «Фонда Викимедиа».

Команда технической помощи сообществам сосредоточена на инструментах для опытных редакторов проектов Викимедиа." Но примерно в то же самое время отключают один из самых необходимых инструментов, с которым эти опытные редакторы могли работать. Вместо него подсовывая две абракадабры, уверяя что раз они новее, то они "лучше". Ха-ха, на это. И после этого заворачивается/сдается в архив самое популярное и самое нужное предложение по техническому улучшению (да всё остальное это просто ерунда) Ну и зачем тогда проводить этот квази-опрос, раз без него всем всё и так ясно? Или всё таки есть шанс на то, что википедии будет нормальная классическая [3] панель редактирования? (The translation = "The Community Wishlist Survey" invited us to report on the wishes of the community, "over what next year the Wikimedia Foundation technical assistance team needs to work on. The community technical support team focuses on tools for experienced Wikimedia project editors. "But at about the same time one of the most essential tools with which these experienced editors could work was disconnected. Instead, slipping two abracadabras, asserting that since they are newer, they “better.” Haha, for this. And after that the most popular and most needed proposal for technical improvement is wrapped / submitted to the archive (yes, everything else is just "ерунда") Well, then why do this quasi-survey, without Is everything clear to everyone? Or is there still a chance that the Wikipedia will be a normal classical editing panel?)Авгур (talk) 18:49, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Авгур: Yes, please write a separate proposal for the wishlist. I archived the proposal because it turned into an argument about how the Foundation should communicate. That kind of discussion should be here, in the Forum. You can submit the technical improvement that you need as a new proposal on the wishlist. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 20:56, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

What we need... was often said. --DaizY (talk) 20:59, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi DaizY: It needs to be put into proposal form, and submitted as a wishlist survey proposal. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 21:52, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, but this was my wish! It is not a kind of protest, it is a wish. My which is to have a stabil oportunity for the future. We (the editors) need help with symbols, signatures and so on. This is not a kind of protest or what ever! Und ein anderer Wunsch ist, ich möchte in der Sprache reden dürfen, die ich sprechen kann! ---Itti (talk) 22:30, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Itti: Sänger posted a new proposal: Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Editing/Keep the lightweight text editor. That's exactly what we needed; now people can vote on the proposal. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the communication plan for that removal to be able to say anything about what happened; I'm sorry about that. Having the new proposal will help you to get the technical change that you want. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 22:35, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Wunderbar. Ich fühle mich nun völlig verarscht. Ich habe mich immer eingesetzt, ernstgenommen werde ich anscheinend nicht. Danke dafür. --Itti (talk) 22:38, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

TheDJ, thousands of active users is a significant number. Were they contacted to learn about their reasons? It's not a smart idea to limit such analysis to two language communities: it's prone to biased results and groupthink, while checking statistics across all wikis is a cheap way to find any outliers, possibly even entire projects where the feature has particular relevance. --Nemo 08:20, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey vote

The Community Wishlist Survey. Please help translate to your language.

Hey everyone,

The Community Wishlist Survey is the process when the Wikimedia communities decide what the Wikimedia Foundation Community Tech should work on over the next year.

The Community Tech team is focused on tools for experienced Wikimedia editors. The communities have now posted a long list of technical proposals. You can vote on the proposals from now until 30 November. You can read more on the wishlist survey page.

/User:Johan (WMF)

18:13, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Open letter on Community Health

Latest comment: 5 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

please consider signing an open letter to the Foundation about Community Health, Open letter on Community Health. Slowking4 (talk) 13:47, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I foresaw the current state of affairs 10 years ago. Wikipedia is inherently flawed, and no action plan will remedy that. Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:44, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

we work with the wiki as it is, not as we would wish it to be. Slowking4 (talk) 05:18, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

So I noticed. That's why I didn't sign. Guido den Broeder (talk) 00:08, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

We are in desperate need of this.. Alexis Jazz (talk) 09:31, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Advanced Search

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Advanced Search will become a default feature on your wiki on November 28. This new interface allows you to perform specialized searches on the search page, even if you don’t know any search syntax. Advanced Search originates from the German Community’s Technical Wishes project. It's already a default feature on German, Arabic, Farsi and Hungarian Wikipedia. Besides, more than 40.000 users across all wikis have tested the beta version. Feedback is welcome on the central feedback page.

Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 10:57, 26 November 2018 (UTC)