Wikibooks:Reading room/Technical Assistance

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Welcome to the Technical Assistance reading room. Get assistance on questions related to the MediaWiki markup, CSS, Javascript and such as they relate to Wikibooks. This is not a general-purpose technical support room.

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[edit] New RC patrolling concept

Hello, is there any needs to add the site in https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21517? JackPotte (talk) 15:36, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

No, we use flaggedrevs.  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 18:21, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
I'd prefer this system to flagged revisions, simply because we can see a ! directly into the RC list. Moreover, it's already used in fr.w, and it.wikt. JackPotte (talk) 19:35, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, you fail to understand that we cannot use patrolling.  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 19:36, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikibooks does not need patrolling to see ! in RC. FlaggedRevs shows it for revisions in RC that have not yet been reviewed by editors. --darklama 21:20, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
To be exact the flaggedrevs is "still" under evaluation, that was what we agreed on, there have been several Wikibookians that have already spoken against the final adoption of flaggedrevs and highlighted some of it's problems (specially regarding Wikibooks), including me. To my knowledge more persons have raised issues with the final adoption of flaggedrevs that those that have praised the "innovation", even if I'm sure we all like some of the attributes of the new arrangement...
Since the evaluation has gone beyond what should be expected as useful, I propose, if anyone wishes to second my proposal, to get a final validation (or not) on the adoption of the flaggedrevs system. IIRC this is the second or third time that flaggedrevs have been indicated as having the community approval, this is not the case, we agreed only on a test period... --Panic (talk) 03:31, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
You regularly make that assertion about flaggedrevs, that it hasn't really been adopted. This is a living project, nothing is set in stone, we're always assessing everything dynamically as we move forward, and there is no such thing as "final adoption" of anything; so I've been regularly puzzled by this claim of some sort of special tentativeness for flaggedrevs. I can't figure out where it's coming from. We reexamine flaggedrevs from time to time, reassessing how it's going and to what extent it is and isn't meeting our expectations and serving the needs of the project. From the initial consensus discussion I'm familiar with, here, that's what people thought we should do — rather obvious, really, for such a significant measure, but reminding each other of the obvious is a perfectly valid part of the normal operation of the collective consciousness of Wikibooks. Are you drawing for the claim on some other discussion somewhere? --Pi zero (talk) 15:23, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
The proposal put forward for the community was for clearly for a test period. The process for reversal of a passed as approved decission is very distinct to one for implementing a new change, if consensus fails the new change will not pass. It is specially important to make that distinction regarding what we have agreed previously.
I also agree that most non formalized actions on the project are as you describe above (but they aren't community decisions), they fall in what we came to define as BeBold. --Panic (talk) 20:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
You say "clearly", but this is exactly why I'm asking whether you're drawing on another source besides the consensus discussion that I linked above: Each time I read that discussion, I see it not saying what you say is clear. So I'm trying to understand whether you're looking at different data, or perceiving the same data differently.
Also, I'm really not following the distinction you've just made, to the point where I'm not even sure whether or not it actually came out the way you intended it to. The process for reversing a decision is very distinct from the process for implementing a new change? Neither of those sounds much like a "test period". Could you give an example of another past community decision process that involved a "test period"? --Pi zero (talk) 02:03, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Sorry being late, hadn't noticed your post. To my knowledge there hasn't been any other proposal that depended on a test period, to my recollection of the discussion that lead to the adoption of the flaggedrevs, there were 2 threads IIRC it was imitated my WhiteKnight that if I also recall correctly has also stated that he would support the end of the flaggedrevs on Wikibooks.
The secondary thread is what was voted and was later moved to the talkpage were the configuration of flaggedrevs now resides. The only mention of a evaluation period is only on one of the vote/comments. But that was my understanding and the base for my support.
The "vote" of the proposal was done after some previous discussions, it would be very had to have passed it otherwise since the flaggedrevs would and has involved a deep restructuring on how we did things, and none of us were aware of all the implications and what benefits it would bring.
It has become prominently clear that the benefits are few, even as a dissuasion for vandalism (another Wikibookians has quoted some statistics as way of proving that point), and the limitation is has on our project are vast (we could start a thread on how it could be improved to fit our project but that would be an exercise on wishful thinking since it would requires someone willing to implement those changes on the code and I'm not sure all are feasible and consensual, there was a thread somewhere that addressed these issues in more depth were Darklama even proposed some possible solutions).
As for the distinction I make. It is clear that any future discussion should seek a consensus for keeping the tested features and in case of failing the project should be restored to how it operated before it was approved. This is distinct to asking the community to reach as consensus for the removal of the flaggedrevs. --Panic (talk) 03:29, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

If I take Meta's definition of a sighted page as being vandalism-free and a reviewed page as having good content and attempt to sight all the vandalism-free pages, I'll have a lot of work cut out for me. Looking at Special:ValidationStatistics, only 14% or so of the pages in the main namespace have been sighted as free of vandalism. It states there are 45,000 pages (while the main page shows 38,000), so it'd take 450 sightings per day to inch that up by 1% a day and 86 days to sight every page in the wiki even at that high rate. So whatever your opinion on FlaggedRevisions, we're not fully utilizing it and from the backlogs I've seen before I've cleared them out, people aren't taking an active role in sighting changes that appear in recent changes. If all the pages in the wiki were to get sighted according to Meta's definition (which I do adhere to), we need to pull together to make sure we're reviewing changes by anonymous/new users to pages that have been previously vetted. One good thing is that if there are pages in your watchlist that need review, you get a big notice at the top letting you know. Hence unreviewed and outdated reviewed pages that aren't watched have a red background tint to them. -- Adrignola talk contribs 15:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I still think we should stop using flaggedrevs. We don't have the manpower to make it work. In fact, the (perhaps perceived) barrier to editing makes the manpower shortage worse by discouraging new editors.  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 16:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
IMO Wikijunior needs Flaggedrevs; in all honesty, before Flaggedrevs I never quite found Wikijunior a credible concept. Flaggedrevs also ought to be available for use on other specific books, specific parts of books, and specific administrative pages. (Unfortunately, the current configuration doesn't encompass the Wikibooks namespace.) There are lots of places it shouldn't be used, and I think we're still learning what those are. --Pi zero (talk) 20:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree. --Swift (talk) 22:04, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Help on understanding the Wikibooks review process

I get this message at the top of my watched pages screen:

There are currently pending edits to reviewed pages on your watchlist. Your attention is needed!

This relates to a page A-level_Applied_Science/Finding_out_about_substances/Colorimetry which I edited to remove vandalism, but I am not sure what I am supposed to do next as the page seems to be marked as "under review" already. Does removing obvious vandalism create an obligation to review the page I have changed?

Can anyone give me some hints or is there a page that describes the review process on Wikibooks? Recent Runes (talk) 14:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Pages about page review: Help:Revision review, Using Wikibooks/Reviewing Pages.
That page is "under review" in the sense that there exists a sighted version but the most recent version isn't sighted (it's a "draft"). By default, unregistered users see the most recent sighted version of such a page, rather than the most recent draft. So unregistered users won't have seen the vandalized version of the page.
In theory, if a sighted page is edited by a non-editor (that is, someone without the editor bit), and then an editor undoes that edit, the restored version is automatically sighted. In practice, I've noticed that's only what happens if, after clicking the undo button, the next button you click is "save page"; if instead you click on "show preview" or "show changes", then when you finally save, the undone version won't be automatically sighted.
Since it wasn't automatically sighted, you can manually sight it, making that message go away. Go to the page. At the top of the page there's a needs-review box; click where it says "2 changes need review" in that box, which takes you to a diff page with a review box at the top. Assuming that you do approve the change shown by the diff, click the "submit" button in the review box. --Pi zero (talk) 18:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I do know that if a non-editor makes a change to a page and you roll it back to a previously sighted version, you won't have to sight the page again. -- Adrignola talk contribs 20:33, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice. I guess I must have used "show preview" on the page. Adrignola has sighted this page now, so I'll try your suggestions next time. Recent Runes (talk) 20:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I am guilty of sometimes removing a page from my watchlist to make the notice go away. If I have cleaned off some obvious vandalism from a page that was sighted, it gets re-sighted automatically. If someone adds content to the page that I am not qualified to review (i.e, add some Mandarin to a book about learning Mandarin), I will not sight it, because I just don't know if the edit was good or not. But those notices are bothersome, so I simply unwatch at that point. --Jomegat (talk) 21:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki talk:Gadget-Personalper.js

I've left a comment at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-Personalper.js. Helder (talk) 16:54, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] i can help in arabic articles

my name is mohammed,and im astructural civil engineer,and i have anote,wikibida doesnt have an arabian good subjects that can take place in the arabian world....so what if i can help and translate the articles deals with my field and make it more wide for arabian eyes to see wikibida. bt i want to know also what i can gain? thnx for wikibida —The preceding unsigned comment was added by A1rnold (talk • contribs) 01:21, 4 January 2010.

Hello Alrnold, and welcome! First note that this project is English Wikibooks. It is a sister project of Wikipedia but has a different scope. It furthermore means that articles are written for an English speaking audience. There does, unfortunately, not seem to be an Arabic Wikibooks. See http://www.wikibooks.org for a list of Wikibooks projects. --Swift (talk) 03:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Templates for playing speech recordings

At least 3 of the language books use a similar table template to play speech recordings, when you click on "audio" (French, Spanish & German). This takes you to a new screen with a sound-to-light show.

French Grammar • Technical Assistance • Gnome-speakernotes.pngaudio (info •78 kb • help)
Flag of France.svg The Definite Article Flag of La Francophonie.svg L'article défini
singular feminine la la fille the daughter
masculine le le fils[1] the son
singular, starting with a vowel sound l’ l’enfant the child
plural les les filles the daughters
les fils the sons
les enfants the children

I think it would be more useful to be able to stay on the original screen and read the text at the same time as listening to the recording.

Gnome-speakernotes.svg
info
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

The Listen template does something like this, but the icons and text layout are rather larger and do not fit into the tables so neatly. Would it be possible to combine the two templates so that the layout of the books is not significantly altered, but the audio can be played at the same time as reading the text? It's a bit too technical for me, so that's why I am asking here! Recent Runes (talk) 17:55, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] PDF Version template

Is there a problem with information on PDF versions stored on Commons instead of locally? The French book has a PDF version, and uses the PDF version template on French/Cover but that just seems to produce a message about "vaporware". The front page of the French book does not show the small PDF icon, and the Featured books page does not show any PDF for French. Recent Runes (talk) 19:43, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikibooks relies on files existing locally for categorization and for some templates. I suggest a work around for that would be to goto the page locally and add a category so that PDF files based on our books are categorized locally. That should also take care of the problem with templates. --darklama 19:50, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes, adding the French category to File:French.pdf seems to have done the trick! Thanks Recent Runes (talk) 22:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
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