Meta:Babel

As part of the very gradual rollout of the mw:Flow extension – a new discussion and collaboration system, that is being developed with continual feedback from the communities – the page Talk:Flow/Developer test page has now been flow-enabled on this wiki. Next week, at the request of the project's maintainers, the page Programs talk:Evaluation portal/Learning modules will also become flow-enabled, to provide further testing of Flow in a real work-scenario.

As always, the Flow team encourages your suggestions and feedback; preferably at mw:Talk:Flow (which is flow-enabled) or en:Wikipedia Talk:Flow, to avoid too many fragmented discussions. Random sandbox testing can best be done at mw:Talk:Sandbox, or the developer test page on this project.

Please keep in mind that the software is still in very early stages; there are a lot of features to be added and changes to be made based on community feedback. Flow will best grow into a worthy replacement for talkpages if we continue to tell the team what we want out of an improved communication and collaboration system, as well as what we think others will want.

[Sorry for the day-late notice. There was a problem with parsoid yesterday, and I didn't want to send multiple people to a testing page with critical bugs. It's fixed now.] Thanks. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:29, 19 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

Hi Quiddity (WMF). I've deleted the topics from that page and protected it. I have no idea why you or anyone on the Flow team felt it was appropriate to enable Flow here. Perhaps there was a community discussion I missed? If not, this seems completely out-of-line. I've filed bugzilla:61729 to properly disable Flow here until there's demonstrable community consensus for the Flow extension to be enabled here. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

I'm not sure we really need a full discussion to enable Flow on one test page, since this isn't at all affecting anyone who doesn't go to that test page. I agree that we need to develop a consensus here before enabling Flow on any non-test pages. -- Ypnypn (talk) 01:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

Why would Meta-Wiki (a production wiki) be considered a testing ground? We have many test wikis, including an entire wiki devoted to only testing Flow. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

Hi, all. We've talked with a number of people about these issues, and in the future will strive to give earlier notice to the wikitech:Deployments calendar, so that they can enter the usual communication streams (including TechNews). We're sorry that these plans weren't communicated earlier, as they should've been.

The requested flow-enabling of the Programs page will be delayed while some bugs are fixed and deployed (related to the History pages and Contribs/Watchlist/RC elements, specifically bugzilla:60559 and bugzilla:57860) - this will better enable folks such as RC patrollers who want to ignore Flow at the moment to do so with ease, whilst still allowing those who want to help trial and give feedback on Flow, in a real working environment, to do that too; much like the volunteering WikiProjects at English Wikipedia are currently doing.

We're trying to avoid some of the problems that new features releases have run into in the past, by releasing Flow only to a handful of pages over the next few months, per user request to trial the software, and getting feedback from actual usage that can help inform us what features/functionality to build next. Thanks, and sorry again for the late communication. On behalf of the Flow team, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 18:46, 26 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

• I have no objections to having Flow here, but please notify wikis when things like this are enabled. PiRSquared17 (talk) 22:51, 26 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

• Quiddity: Where is this fabled "user request" to enable Flow on Meta-Wiki? I don't see it here: Programs talk:Evaluation portal/Learning modules. Can you please provide a citation to support your claim? Thanks. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:45, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

I also object to Flow being enabled here. It is an incomplete project, work in progress, and there are other means of testing it than here. Gryllida 04:57, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

Me too. I also object this behaviour from "the Flow team" to simply want to impose it on us; making not a proposal to the community but just "notices". As MZMcBride says, there is only an alleged request from some staffers to enable Flow on that one talk page nobody uses. It is totally not acceptable to enable extensions without discussion just because a small group of people wants to use it one page. --MF-W 11:46, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

Hi all,

Re: the user requests: The organizers of Programs Evaluation had sent a request to Maryana by email. There's also a months older request from a few of the folks at WPMED. We've asked both of those groups to chime in here, if they are still interested in potentially helping to trial and improve Flow via usage and feedback.

Re: potential deployment: I (as a volunteer, in my personal capacity) generally understand the hesitations, from all angles. E.g. Whilst extensions are generally enabled wherever needed once they've passed security review and been requested, Flow is fairly unique because it interacts with things like RecentChanges, in a way that extensions like Extension:GuidedTour or Extension:BetaFeatures do not.

I also understand the strong reservations some of you have regarding Flow in general, and its usage anywhere, ever. Whether that arises from the too-rapid deployment of VE in some places last year, or the imperfect results of LQTs deployment years ago, or from various other potential reasons.

Flow is complicated - As Brion wrote in The Signpost a few months ago, VE[+Parsoid] is a "moonshot" project.[1] I.e. It's immensely complicated, and with incredible potential. - Flow is another moonshot project, and it requires smart participants with deep project-knowledge, such as many of the people here, to help guide it throughout its development, in order for it to grow into a product that we powerusers actively want in the future.

VE had problems, partially because it didn't get enough testing and feedback in its early stages. Flow is trying to avoid that issue, by seeking out pages and participants where it can be trialled in a real working environment. [Because: Not my wiki is a problem we all want to solve.] It's spreading out incredibly slowly; but having a diversity of small trialling groups, each with different needs, will help immensely.

The team wants to make it easy to ignore, for those editors who don't want to pay any attention to it yet, whilst still enabling the editors who do want to help steer Flow's early direction, to do so. I hope you'll support that. And again, my apologies for inadequate communication earlier. Much thanks. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:56, 1 March 2014 (UTC) Reply

I am happy to see flow enable here on a single page. A lot of work has gone into developing flow and it would be good to at least test it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:24, 1 March 2014 (UTC) Reply

Quiddity: Thank you for this post. I appreciate it.

After reading your post, I think there's pretty wide common ground and a clear(er) path forward. As I see it:

• for now, we'll keep Flow disabled here;
• once the feature requests you mention (bugzilla:60559 and bugzilla:57860) are implemented:
  • we can re-discuss enabling Flow on a test page (though there's some general opposition to using a production wiki such as Meta-Wiki as a test site); and
  • if there are renewed and active on-wiki requests for enabling Flow, we can re-discuss enabling Flow on those pages.

I think this is a fairly reasonable path forward, though everyone should recognize that later discussions may result in Flow still being considered too alpha and unsuitable for use anywhere here. I believe that this determination is the Meta-Wiki community's prerogative.

Ultimately Flow will have to win people over and earn respect and trust, which will take some time, particularly given the history here; Flow can't simply impose itself, even—and perhaps especially—on an experimental or trial basis. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:03, 1 March 2014 (UTC) Reply

Hi MZMcBride (talk), Just confirming that I did request Flow for the learning modules talk page since it will host many trainings and I believe Flow would help to field questions as well as help other readers browse questions. Thank you for looking out! --EGalvez (WMF) (talk) 09:12, 1 March 2014 (UTC) Reply

I was asked to chime in, as I was one of the WP:MED people who expressed interest in testing Flow. I've learned that I can test Flow at mediawiki.org, which is nice. I also see that some people here don't like the idea of one test page being activated. I'm not certain why that is, but I can't say I have a strong opinion either way. Biosthmors (talk) 18:46, 2 March 2014 (UTC) Reply

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heather walls (talk) 23:47, 19 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

Why OTRS tickets are hidden for non logged users? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rezonansowy (talk) 22 February 2014, 11:40 (UTC)

They can contain private information. PiRSquared17 (talk) 12:03, 22 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

Good question. IMHO, it is needed so that people can contact Wikimedia privately and securely for things related to privacy issues (e.g. when reporting online harassment, or when reportingproblems with some admins or when someone wants to defend his position privately or appeal a decision; or when someone asks for the cration of a secret sockpuppet kept separate from another public account for editing some public contents, or when someone has had his privacy breached abusely about his current online account and wants a new account and have his old account deleted or blocked...). The OTRS team may then decide to unhide the ticket if it does not break a privacy rule and if the contacting person asks for publication of his ticket and his identity. The OTRS team may also choose to create an account (with a pseudonym) for that person asking for online privacy. If this possibilty is maintained in the OTRS system, it should be documented and the conditions to keep these tickets private should be governed by the privacy policy or the OTRS team policy. verdy_p (talk) 12:22, 22 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

Also IMHO, I think that all tickets for issues submitted to the OTRS team should be initially private by default, including tickets from logged in users (for exampel they may need to send private proofs of identity to the Foundation, while being logged on to assert that he is effectively controling the public account for which he wants to associate this proven identity. For exampel a loggen on user may need to assert that he is effectively the owne of a copyrighted work that he submitted, or may need to prove to the Foundation (by being logged on security to his account) that his account is effectively the one asking for some admin privileges: within the ticket, that person may reveal privately his real name, email address, and other data covered by the privacy policy, without revealing it publicly to the world (most Wikimedia users and even most admins, including most developers or members of the Board of Trustees) should not have the right to inspect this private data, except possibly Checkusers, and authorized users of the OTRS team who will collectively decide if the secret can be safely thrown on the ticket, or that could edit the content of the secret ticket to publish only a part of it. verdy_p (talk) 12:42, 22 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

On the other hand, if a copyright holder sues a person for using his copyrighted material, then it is up to the accused violator to prove that he has permission to use the material in the way he used it. If he can't do this (for example because the evidence is confidential), then he would probably lose in court, effectively meaning that the material is unfree. --Stefan2 (talk) 14:24, 26 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

Hello. I guess it is a place to discuss all wikipedia projects. I have a question to you.

when you visit wikipedia.org, main page, not wikipedia of any language, all available languages are listed there which wikipedia is available in.

now, I am a native speaker of Turkmen language, I write on tk.wikipedia.org or on Turkmen wikipedia, I looked at main page, our language is not written in our Turkmen alphabet, can you change it? or who can change it? where I need to refer?

now, Turkmen is written: ركمن / Туркмен

but, in our native language, in Turkmen, it needs to be written like this: Türkmençe

please, correct it or tell me where I need to refer to.

btw, ركمن / Туркмен is even not our alphabet, the first part is in persian alphabet and the second one is in russian alphabet.

please, write it in Turkmen alphabet: Türkmençe

Isn't Turkmen still written in Arabic script or Cyrillic sometimes? Should it just be Latin, or be Latin and Arabic? (Also, please request on Talk:Www.wikipedia.org template with {{editprotected}}.) PiRSquared17 (talk) 04:20, 24 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

no, Turkmen is written in our Alphabet. please, if you have permit to change it, correct it.

it can be in latin, cyrillic or arabic, but the primary one should not be its original language? here, we are talking about the title of wikipedia, Turkmen Wikipedia but the name is not in Turkmen alphabet. I talked to the link you gave, if you can correct it, please correct. I can speak 6 languages, I checked, all of them are written in their own language, in their own alphabet. for example: Oʻzbekcha they also were under control of russians but their Title is not in russian, just as we, they also used to use persion but their title is not in persian. I am not asking to write their title to be written in persian/russian like ours, I am asking ours to be corrected. if you have permit, please, correct it. the correct title needs to be: TÜRKMENÇE

Done PiRSquared17 (talk) 04:11, 25 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

Hello, can you please let the primary reason to the delation of latest page I had created titled, "Jean Shafiroff?" Thank you user, Natalie Anise — The preceding unsigned comment was added by NatalieAnise (talk)

The page you created was Jean Shafiroff. The deletion reason is visible there: the page was out of scope for Meta; you may have wanted to put it on Wikipedia. --MF-W 21:40, 25 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

It seems clear that opening the possibility to translate banner texts for everyone is not a good idea. I suggest the obvious. --Pxos (talk) 18:55, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

• You mean, disable the banner for anonymous users? Or don't link Special:Translate from a banner seen by hundreds millions users? :) Sounds obvious to me too, any sysop can make the adjustment to the banner by cloning the current one to a second without link and using the latter for unregistered users. --Nemo 19:36, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply
• (edit conflict) Anyone can add a translation, but only admins can approve ("publish"). You're supposed to proofread and set to "ready" when done. Don't see a problem with this system. PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:38, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply
  • Well I hope that they checks carefully those translations before approving. I found that many CNBanners had been vandalised. --Stryn (talk) 19:58, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply
    • What I said: Meta_talk:Babylon#Fix_the_Greek_banner_ASAP. --Stryn (talk) 20:15, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply
      • Jamesofur/Jalexander needs to be more careful then. PiRSquared17 (talk) 20:22, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

It won't help. Greek is still Greek to him. The rewiewing cycle does not work properly. The FuzzyBot is an idiot: the status "ready" will be changed automatically to "proofreading" when there is just one message that is not reviewed. --Pxos (talk) 20:27, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

Greek may be Greek to him, but it was clearly written "stfu" in Latin script, and the other word was also pretty obviously out of place. Surely that was not marked "ready" before it was published. You can file a bug for that, but I think it is by design. Is the design flawed? Perhaps. PiRSquared17 (talk) 20:32, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

Bugs are tedious and I don't want to file them. The Finnish translation got published as well while it was marked "proofreading". The reason: the status "ready" is not a stable status, the bot changes it whenever the translations get better or worse. As there are so few versions that are ready, the Jalex-man will publish translations that are 100% completed regardless of their status – otherwise almost nothing would get published and English would rule the seas. The idea of reviewers and publishers being different persons to the original translator is commendable but it just does not work as intended. --Pxos (talk) 20:46, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

• Thank you guys for the catch and the fix on the greek banner. There is no doubt we need to be careful (and that the system is not great, though I haven't seen a perfect one yet). Pxos is right, I tend to lean towards getting 'something' out unless it looks obviously wrong and while I have stopped (and not published) a quite a lot of vandalized messages for the banner I obviously screwed up on the greek one. I'm open for suggestion to make it better, I want to make it as readable as possible (which usually means 'not english if at all possible') while still getting the word out to everyone (which we are required to do since it's a ToU discussion). Jalexander--WMF 20:49, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply
  • As hopefully a partial fix (or at least making it better) I've removed the translation link from logged out users. Jalexander--WMF 23:06, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Reply

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