Wikibooks:Reading room/General

Welcome to the General reading room. On this page, Wikibookians are free to talk about the Wikibooks project in general. For proposals for improving Wikibooks, see the Proposals reading room.

Subscribe to the This Month in Education newsletter - learn from others and share your stories

Dear community members,

Greetings from the EWOC Newsletter team and the education team at Wikimedia Foundation. We are very excited to share that we on tenth years of Education Newsletter (This Month in Education) invite you to join us by subscribing to the newsletter on your talk page or by sharing your activities in the upcoming newsletters. The Wikimedia Education newsletter is a monthly newsletter that collects articles written by community members using Wikimedia projects in education around the world, and it is published by the EWOC Newsletter team in collaboration with the Education team. These stories can bring you new ideas to try, valuable insights about the success and challenges of our community members in running education programs in their context.

If your affiliate/language project is developing its own education initiatives, please remember to take advantage of this newsletter to publish your stories with the wider movement that shares your passion for education. You can submit newsletter articles in your own language or submit bilingual articles for the education newsletter. For the month of January the deadline to submit articles is on the 20th January. We look forward to reading your stories.

Older versions of this newsletter can be found in the complete archive.

More information about the newsletter can be found at Education/Newsletter/About.

For more information, please contact spatnaikwikimedia.org.

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About This Month in Education · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · For the team: ZI Jony ^(Talk), Thursday 7:42, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Invitation to Hubs event: Global Conversation on 2022-03-12 at 13:00 UTC

Hello!

The Movement Strategy and Governance team of the Wikimedia Foundation would like to invite you to the next event about "Regional and Thematic Hubs". The Wikimedia Movement is in the process of understanding what Regional and Thematic Hubs should be. Our workshop in November was a good start (read the report), but we're not finished yet.

Over the last weeks we conducted about 16 interviews with groups working on establishing a Hub in their context (see Hubs Dialogue). These interviews informed a report that will serve as a foundation for discussion on March 12. The report is planned to be published on March 9.

The event will take place on March 12, 13:00 to 16:00 UTC on Zoom. Interpretation will be provided in French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, and Portuguese. Registration is open, and will close on March 10. Anyone interested in the topic is invited to join us. More information on the event on Meta-wiki.

Best regards,

Kaarel Vaidla
Movement Strategy

Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines ratification voting open from 7 to 21 March 2022

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Hello everyone,

The ratification voting process for the revised enforcement guidelines of the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) is now open! Voting commenced on SecurePoll on 7 March 2022 and will conclude on 21 March 2022. Please read more on the voter information and eligibility details.

The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) provides a baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire movement. The revised enforcement guidelines were published 24 January 2022 as a proposed way to apply the policy across the movement. You can read more about the UCoC project.

You can also comment on Meta-wiki talk pages in any language. You may also contact the team by email: ucocprojectwikimedia.org

Sincerely,

Movement Strategy and Governance

Wikimedia Foundation

MediaWiki message delivery (discuss • contribs) 10:22, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Update on Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines ratification vote (as of 17 March)

Hi all,

With a little under 4 days left in the poll, I can share that there are 1518 voters as of 17 March 21:00 UTC, and there was no voters with a home wiki registration of en.wikibooks.

While I'm keeping in mind that homewiki isn't always indicative of where an editor is active, I want to remind everyone that local opinions are sought in this global decision. Even if your homewiki is not enWikibooks, commenting on the guidelines from the perspective of this project will be beneficial.

Here are some of the other votership numbers:

Votership numbers by homewiki as of 17 March 2022 21:00 UTC
( 564 : enwiki ) ( 168 : dewiki ) ( 90 : frwiki ) ( 69 : eswiki ) ( 71 : ruwiki ) ( 65 : plwiki ) ( 50 : metawiki ) ( 46 : zhwiki ) ( 44 : jawiki ) ( 45 : itwiki ) ( 29 : commonswiki ) ( 20 : arwiki ) ( 19 : cswiki ) ( 18 : ptwiki ) ( 17 : nlwiki ) ( 17 : kowiki ) ( 15 : trwiki ) ( 11 : cawiki ) ( 10 : idwiki ) ( 144 : 78 other projects )

The poll can be accessed locally here: Special:SecurePoll/vote/378.

Let me know if you have any questions. --Mervat (WMF) (talk) 15:36, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Hubs Dialogue Findings Summary

Hello; After conducting conversations with many Wikimedians from around the world, who are planning or working on possible future hubs, we are happy to share the findings summary from the series of the Hubs Dialogue, which you can find here.
The results focus on the aspect of the existing problems in the Wikimedia movement that the hubs may be needed to solve, including both: 1. globally shared needs among all Wikimedia communities, and 2. needs specific to the context of a particular community or a group of communities.

Movement Strategy and Governance Team Wikimedia Foundation --Mervat (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 11:58, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Visitor numbers

Hello. Since February 2022 visitor numbers increase on many Wikibooks projects. Fox example, this chart is about en, it, es, de, fr. Have you any idea why visitor numbers increase during these weeks? --Hippias (discuss • contribs) 14:20, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure really why. But sometimes changes occur when modes of collecting data changes. All numbers are estimated and based on different analysis metrics, if these change at all they can sometimes lead to perceived changes in site views. This might be the case here, but I don't really know if this is the reason. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 00:42, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Does Wikibooks accept cuisine books with just lists of plain ingredients?

I was wondering if Wikibooks accepts books with a plain list of ingredients. The reason I'm asking is because I'm wondering whether voy:American cuisine#Ingredients could be moved here as that list is out of the scope for a travel guide and I was thinking about moving it here if it is in the scope of Wikibooks. It's useful information, but on the wrong wiki. If it's not in the scope of Wikibooks, then that is not a problem. --SHB2000 (discuss • contribs) 22:00, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Well we do have Cookbook:Basic Foodstuffs and its various subpages; we also have regional recipes at Cookbook:Cuisines, such as Cookbook:Cuisine of the United States. Maybe these could be expanded with wikivoyage material. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 10:52, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

@Mrjulesd Apologies for the late response, but thanks for the clarification. I'll fork off the content in the next few days. SHB2000 (discuss • contribs) 08:50, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Folklore 2022 ends tomorrow

International photographic contest Wiki Loves Folklore 2022 ends on 15th March 2022 23:59:59 UTC. This is the last chance of the year to upload images about local folk culture, festival, cuisine, costume, folklore etc on Wikimedia Commons. Watch out our social media handles for regular updates and declaration of Winners.

(Facebook , Twitter , Instagram)

The writing competition Feminism and Folklore will run till 31st of March 2022 23:59:59 UTC. Write about your local folk tradition, women, folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, folk activities, folk games, folk cuisine, folk wear, folklore, and tradition, including ballads, folktales, fairy tales, legends, traditional song and dance, folk plays, games, seasonal events, calendar customs, folk arts, folk religion, mythology etc. on your local Wikipedia. Check if your local Wikipedia is participating

A special competition called Wiki Loves Falles is organised in Spain and the world during 15th March 2022 till 15th April 2022 to document local folk culture and Falles in Valencia, Spain. Learn more about it on Catalan Wikipedia project page.

We look forward for your immense co-operation.

Thanks Wiki Loves Folklore international Team MediaWiki message delivery (discuss • contribs) 14:40, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Leadership Development Working Group: Apply to join! (14 March to 10 April 2022)

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Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone who participated in the feedback period for the Leadership Development Working Group initiative. A summary of the feedback can be found on Meta-wiki. This feedback will be shared with the working group to inform their work. The application period to join the Working Group is now open and will close on April 10, 2022. Please review the information about the working group, share with community members who might be interested, and apply if you are interested.

Thank you,

From the Community Development team

Mervat (WMF) 09:21, 17 March 2022‎ (UTC)

Join the Community Resilience and Sustainability Conversation Hour with Maggie Dennis

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The Community Resilience and Sustainability team at the Wikimedia Foundation is hosting a conversation hour led by its Vice President Maggie Dennis.

Topics within scope for this call include Movement Strategy, Board Governance, Trust and Safety, the Universal Code of Conduct, Community Development, and Human Rights. Come with your questions and feedback, and let's talk! You can also send us your questions in advance.

The meeting will be on 24 March 2022 at 15:00 UTC (check your local time).

You can read details on Meta-wiki. --Mervat (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 19:11, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Leadership Development Working Group: Reminder to apply by 10 April 2022

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Hello everyone,

The Community Development team at the Wikimedia Foundation is supporting the creation of a global, community-driven Leadership Development Working Group. The purpose of the working group is to advise leadership development work. Feedback was collected in February 2022 and a summary of the feedback is on Meta-wiki. The application period to join the Working Group is now open and is closing soon on April 10, 2022. Please review the information about the working group, share with community members who might be interested, and apply if you are interested.

Thank you,

From the Community Development team
--Mervat (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 12:40, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

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Results from the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines ratification vote published

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The Trust and Safety Policy team published the results of the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines ratification vote. The vote ended 21 March 2022. See the results and read more on Meta-wiki.
--Mervat (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 22:03, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

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Movement Strategy and Governance News – Issue 6

Movement Strategy and Governance News
Issue 6, April 2022Read the full newsletter

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Welcome to the sixth issue of Movement Strategy and Governance News! This revamped newsletter distributes relevant news and events about the Movement Charter, Universal Code of Conduct, Movement Strategy Implementation grants, Board of trustees elections and other relevant MSG topics.

This Newsletter will be distributed quarterly, while the more frequent Updates will also be delivered weekly. Please remember to subscribe here if you would like to receive future issues of this newsletter.

• Leadership Development - A Working Group is Forming! - The application to join the Leadership Development Working Group closed on April 10th, 2022, and up to 12 community members will be selected to participate in the working group. (continue reading)
• Universal Code of Conduct Ratification Results are out! - The global decision process on the enforcement of the UCoC via SecurePoll was held from 7 to 21 March. Over 2,300 eligible voters from at least 128 different home projects submitted their opinions and comments. (continue reading)
• Movement Discussions on Hubs - The Global Conversation event on Regional and Thematic Hubs was held on Saturday, March 12, and was attended by 84 diverse Wikimedians from across the movement. (continue reading)
• Movement Strategy Grants Remain Open! - Since the start of the year, six proposals with a total value of about $80,000 USD have been approved. Do you have a movement strategy project idea? Reachout to us! (continue reading)
• The Movement Charter Drafting Committee is All Set! - The Committee of fifteen members which was elected in October 2021, has agreed on the essential values and methods for its work, and has started to create the outline of the Movement Charter draft. (continue reading)
• Introducing Movement Strategy Weekly - Contribute and Subscribe! - The MSG team have just launched the updates portal, which is connected to the various Movement Strategy pages on Meta-wiki. Subscriber to get up-to-date news about the various ongoing projects. (continue reading)
• Diff Blogs - Check out the most recent publications about the UCoC on Wikimedia Diff. (continue reading)

--Mervat (discuss • contribs) 21:15, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Join the Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan conversations with Maryana Iskander

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Hello,

The Movement Communications and Movement Strategy and Governance teams invite you to discuss the 2022-23 Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan, a plan of record for the Wikimedia Foundation's work.

These conversations continue Maryana Iskander's Wikimedia Foundation Chief Executive Officer listening tour.

The conversations are about these questions:

• The 2030 Wikimedia Movement Strategy sets a direction toward "knowledge as a service" and "knowledge equity". The Wikimedia Foundation wants to plan according to these two goals. How do you think the Wikimedia Foundation should apply them to our work?
• The Wikimedia Foundation continues to explore better ways of working at a regional level. We have increased our regional focus in areas like grants, new features, and community conversations. What is working well? How can we improve?
• Anyone can contribute to the Movement Strategy process. Let's collect your activities, ideas, requests, and lessons learned. How can the Wikimedia Foundation better support the volunteers and affiliates working in Movement Strategy activities?

You can find the schedule of calls on Meta-wiki.

The information will be available in multiple languages. Each call will be open to anyone to attend. Live interpretation will be available in some calls.

Best regards,

--Mervat (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 12:01, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

2022 Board of Trustees Call for Candidates

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The Board of Trustees seeks candidates for the 2022 Board of Trustees election. Read more on Meta-wiki.

The 2022 Board of Trustees election is here! Please consider submitting your candidacy to serve on the Board of Trustees.

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation's operations. Community-and-affiliate selected trustees and Board-appointed trustees make up the Board of Trustees. Each trustee serves a three-year term. The Wikimedia community has the opportunity to vote for community-and-affiliate selected trustees.

The Wikimedia community will vote to fill two seats on the Board in 2022. This is an opportunity to improve the representation, diversity, and expertise of the Board as a team.

Who are potential candidates? Are you a potential candidate? Find out more on the Apply to be a Candidate page.

Thank you for your support,

Movement Strategy and Governance on behalf of the Elections Committee and the Board of Trustees

--Mervat (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 21:23, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Let's talk about the Desktop Improvements

Hello!

Have you noticed that some wikis have a different desktop interface? Are you curious about the next steps? Maybe you have questions or ideas regarding the design or technical matters?

Join an online meeting with the team working on the Desktop Improvements! It will take place on 29 April 2022 at 13:00 UTC and 18:00 UTC on Zoom. Click here to join. Meeting ID: 88045453898. Dial by your location.

Agenda

• Update on the recent developments
• Questions and answers, discussion

Format

The meeting will not be recorded or streamed. Notes will be taken in a Google Docs file. Olga Vasileva (the Product Manager) will be hosting this meeting. The presentation part will be given in English.

We can answer questions asked in English, French, Italian, and Polish. If you would like to ask questions in advance, add them on the talk page or send them to sgrabarczuk@wikimedia.org.

At this meeting, both Friendly space policy and the Code of Conduct for Wikimedia technical spaces apply. Zoom is not subject to the WMF Privacy Policy.

We hope to see you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:35, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Coming soon: Improvements for templates

Fundamental changes in the template dialog.

Hello, more changes around templates are coming to your wiki soon:

The template dialog in VisualEditor and in the 2017 Wikitext Editor (beta) will be improved fundamentally: This should help users understand better what the template expects, how to navigate the template, and how to add parameters.

• project page, talk page

In syntax highlighting (CodeMirror extension), you can activate a colorblind-friendly color scheme with a user setting.

• project page, talk page

Deployment is planned for May 10. This is the last set of improvements from WMDE Technical Wishes' focus area “Templates”.

We would love to hear your feedback on our talk pages!

-- Johanna Strodt (WMDE) 11:13, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Questionable embellishment

Hi, within the last year several embellishments & complications have appeared. These are some.

(1) At the top of every page there's a notice about video game strategy guides. Video gaming has no particular relevance to the pages I read and edit. I wonder why the notice is given precedence above most other information on every Wikibook page. Wouldn't a notice on the home page suffice?

(2) Previously (originally?) the left margin contained a list of links "Main Page, Help, Browse, Cookbook" & etc. Now a second possibility is to have the page contents there. But contents at the top of a page suffices. The expanding contents in mobile view also works. Is the contents in the left margin really beneficial?

(3) The page title is now at the top of the display, regardless of the location of the display in the page. An unfortunate consequence: when a link is used to position the display in the page, the title can obscure content. The front page of the Oberon book provides examples. The page URL is always displayed by the browser. Why should the title persist as a page is scrolled?

(4) JavaScript can be used when implementing new features. But JavaScript requires processing and processing requires time. Therefore new features can bring noticeable latencies in rendering.

The justification for new features is questionable. My general impression is that new features are beginning to interfere with content and rendering. Is there discussion or a vote before a new feature is implemented? Who implements a new feature? Salaried staff? Volunteers?

Sorry for ranting but this is an emerging concern. Regards, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 18:09, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi Peter

(1) Yes perhaps that's a bit unnecessary. It was brought in because we suddenly started accepting video game guides. Its been there a while now. But as an alternative, you could press the dismiss button to the right of the message get rid of it from your system.

(2) I think having the sidebar is valuable as it gives quick links on every page on the Wikibooks site, and I don't think it takes up a huge amount of space.

(3) on Oberon you are using {{DISPLAYTITLE}} to overwrite the default title. Is that what you mean? When I scroll the page the page title does disappear on my system.

(4) we do get some lags at times here. But I don't think that is due to Javascript, but rather due to bandwidth problems fom the servers (most likely).

Usually when new features are proposed and implemented here there is a discussion at Wikibooks:Reading room/Proposals. But sometimes changes are brought in by the WMF that can't be questioned much. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 20:01, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

(2) The sidebar is tolerable for links "Main Page, Help, Browse & etc." In 2022 Vector skin, page contents is also in the sidebar rather than at the top of the page.

(3) Yes, DISPLAYTITLE provides a title more meaningful than just "Oberon". To illustrate my observation, I go to footnote 43 at the bottom of the page. Click on "c". The display is relocated intending to show the text where footnote 43 is invoked. In my case, the title obscures the link "43". A screenshot is at http://easthope.ca/OberonWikibookScreenshot.png. The phenomenon is not specific to this footnote. The page has many instances.

The DISPLAYTITLE title follows down the page when I'm logged in and have 2022 Vector skin. When logged in with legacy Vector skin or not logged in, DISPLAYTITLE has effect only at the top of the page. (?) Strictly speaking, obscuration of a footnote citation is a bug, avoidable by staying with the Vector legacy skin. Then I question the benefit of multiple skins. Testing various skins and finding bugs wastes time. Why not simplify to one skin which works well? Appears that a volunteer or salaried employee wanted to do some programming.

According to Web principles, content is provided by the server. Style of presentation is the responsibility of the client. MediaWiki has become far too involved in presentation. An acceptable way to help readers with presentation is to provide style sheets. An ever-growing lists of user preferences is not good practice.

Thx, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 14:40, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Editing news 2022 #1

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New editors were more successful with this new tool.

The New topic tool helps editors create new ==Sections== on discussion pages. New editors are more successful with this new tool. You can read the report. Soon, the Editing team will offer this to all editors at the 20 Wikipedias that participated in the test. You will be able to turn it off at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.

Whatamidoing (WMF) 18:55, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

New competition on English Wikipedia and related SiteNotice request

A popular article writing competition CEE Spring (about Central and Eastern Europe; now with special subcategory about Esperanto) is happening on the English Wikipedia until the 31st May 2022. I warmly invite you to participate, write some article and win a valuable prize! If you have question, I will happily answer it on the competition page talk.

Also, for more wide outreach, I have just asked for a CentralNotice, which should appear also in this project. If you have a comment on the request, you are welcome to write it on the request page. --KuboF Hromoslav (discuss • contribs) 18:29, 3 May 2022 (UTC)