Wikitech-ambassadors July 2016

9 participants
12 discussions

Your ideas about Collaboration team's products changes communication
by Benoît Evellin (Trizek) 04 Aug '16

04 Aug '16

Dear Wiki Tech Ambassadors, The Collaboration team[1] is working on various products: Notifications[2], Flow[3] and the new Edit Review improvements project[4]. We have a lot of news concerning these products that may interest people, but that are not fitting Tech News inclusion criteria.[5] We want people to be aware of that's new about our products and I'm questioning various people about the best option we should consider to have. As tech ambassadors, you have an interesting experience. That's why I'm collecting your feedback. *Is a newsletter format relevant?* By newsletter, I mean a message distributed on wiki, like Tech News or the visual editor newsletter[6]. Do you have ideas of a different formats? We may consider to try other things. *What would be the best message design?* Is short sentences like in Tech News good? Or would you prefer to have longer messages with more details? (Longer messages may be more complicated to translate.) *How often would you like to receive news?* Tech News has a weekly distribution, VE's newsletter a quarterly one. As one of the main writers of that news publication, I would prefer to have a monthly distribution, but your feedback may be different. Note that we now have a(n experimental) page with most important changes with products we maintain.[7] Feel free to answer me privately, or by commenting the dedicated Phabricator task.[8] I'm gathering all answers until next Friday (August 5th). Thanks *a lot*! Benoît [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Collaboration [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Notifications [3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow [4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Edit_Review_Improvements [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/For_contributors [6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Newsletter/Archive [7] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Collaboration/Deployment_planning [8] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T123538#2505381 -- Benoît Evellin (Trizek) Community Liaison Wikimedia Foundation

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Wikipedia seeks to speak your language
by Deborah Tankersley 27 Jul '16

27 Jul '16

Using language detection to search the right Wikipedia Wikipedia readers speak many languages, so it’s not a surprise that sometimes they search for phrases not in the language of the wiki that they’re currently reading. This, unfortunately, can lead to poor search results. A recent survey we completed on English Wikipedia identified searches done in 40 different languages <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:TJones_(WMF)/Notes/TextCat_Re-optimizat…> [1]! The Wikimedia Discovery department <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Discovery> [2] wants to help people easily find what they are looking for. In order to do this, the Discovery Search team is rolling out new language identification software to the Wikipedia search engine. This new software will detect when a search is unsuccessful, but appears to be in a different language. When this happens, the search results page will include results from the Wikipedia of the automatically detected language. These new cross-wiki results will be displayed along with the local-wiki results, if there are any. We’ve recently enabled the language identification and search results for the English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish-language Wikipedias. The next group of Wikipedias to have language detection enabled will includeIndonesian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Russian <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:TJones_(WMF)/Notes/TextCat_Optimization_…> [3]. We are investigating ways to bring language detection to more Wikipedias and to other Wikimedia projects. The Search team has other language detection ideas and plans in the works. We’re thinking about ways to improve language detection with smarter measures of confidence <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:TJones_(WMF)/Notes/TextCat_and_Confiden…> [4]. We are also exploring detection of search in one character set while using a keyboard from another character set. Early experiments with English and Russian <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:TJones_(WMF)/Notes/Typing_on_the_Wrong_…> [5] are promising! You can find technical details about our new language detection module (TextCat) onMediaWiki.org <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/TextCat> [6]. PHP <https://github.com/wikimedia/wikimedia-textcat> [7] and updated Perl <https://github.com/Trey314159/TextCat> [8] libraries are also available and the libraries include language models for dozens of languages. You can also test the language detection using our online demo <https://tools.wmflabs.org/textcatdemo/> [9]. The demo lets you try all the different language models on your own text. It also includes tutorials and lots of additional information about TextCat’s internal workings. Let’s get searching - now with language detection and better results! You can read theblog post <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/07/27/wikipedia-language-search/> [10] and more detailed information is here <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_Seeks_to_Speak_Your_Langu…> [11]. *Here's some nice screenshots of what it looked like before we added in the language detection...[12]* *and after we added in the language detection for a Russian query on English Wikipedia [13]:* *Thanks for reading - from the Discovery Search Team Gnomes!* [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:TJones_(WMF)/Notes/TextCat_Re-optimizat… [2] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Discovery [3] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:TJones_(WMF)/Notes/TextCat_Optimization_… [4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:TJones_(WMF)/Notes/TextCat_and_Confiden… [5] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:TJones_(WMF)/Notes/Typing_on_the_Wrong_… [6] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/TextCat [7] https://github.com/wikimedia/wikimedia-textcat [8] https://github.com/Trey314159/TextCat [9] https://tools.wmflabs.org/textcatdemo/ [10] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/07/27/wikipedia-language-search/ [11] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_Seeks_to_Speak_Your_Langu… [12] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AExisting-search_no-textcat.png [13] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANew-search_with-textcat.png -- Deb Tankersley Product Manager, Discovery IRC: debt Wikimedia Foundation

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Tech News (2016, week 30)
by Johan Jönsson 25 Jul '16

25 Jul '16

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RevisionSlider: First round of deployment as a beta feature
by Birgit Müller 22 Jul '16

22 Jul '16

(sorry for cross posting) Hi all, on July 21 23:00-00:00 (UTC) RevisionSlider got deployed as a beta feature on German Wikipedia, Arabic Wikipedia and Hebrew Wikipedia. The RevisionSlider extension adds a slider interface to the diff view, so that you can easily move between revisions. It helps users to view edit summaries and other meta data of all revisions while hovering over the slider interface. At the current state, the last 500 revisions can be loaded. [1] The RevisionSlider extension was developed by Wikimedia Deutschland's TCB team and fulfills a wish from the German-speaking community's Technical Wishlist. [2] It is based on a rough prototype by the Community Tech Team who we love collaborating with. [3] The feature already was presented at WMF's last metrics meeting, so if you are interested to hear more about it, you can also have a look into the video record. [4] Why German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia in the first round? As a first step, we want to see if RevisionSlider works well on both, LTR and RTL Wikipedias. The decision for German Wikipedia is probably obvious, as the RevisionSlider addresses a wish from the German-speaking community. But the team spent also some work in optimizing the feature for RTL languages, and we were talking to people from Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia at Wikimania. Both communities created a site request ticket to deploy RevisionSlider as a Beta feature on their projects. [5] [6] So far everything went well and we also got our first really nicely written bug report from Hebrew Wikipedia - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T141071 ;). We are really happy about the constructive and appreciative collaboration style around RevisionSlider, it's so much fun working like this! Thanks a lot to everyone who was/is involved in the work around the feature! This includes people from German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia and people from the WMF, who did the security review and helped with other important stuff. A special thanks goes to Moriel Schottlaender, who gave us valuable advice on how to RTLize the feature and who even contributed code! Next steps: We want to see how RevisionSlider works on dewiki, hewiki and arwiki and then we can think about providing the feature also for other language communities. It would be great if you find time to test the feature and give us feedback! If you're usually not a user of German, Arabic or Hebrew Wikipedia, you can also go to Beta Labs and try RevisionSlider with an English-speaking article set. [7] Thanks, Birgit [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:RevisionSlider [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Tech/RevisionSlider [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Metrics_and_Activities_Meeting_-_J… [5] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T140551 [6] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T140545 [7] http://simple.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefse… -- Birgit Müller Community Communications Manager Software Development and Engineering Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0 http://wikimedia.de Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei! http://spenden.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.

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Fwd: Language detection for Special:Search queries
by Federico Leva (Nemo) 20 Jul '16

20 Jul '16

-------- Messaggio inoltrato -------- Oggetto: [discovery] Better search results on wiki via TextCat Data: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 19:42:27 -0600 Mittente: Deborah Tankersley A: A public mailing list about Wikimedia Search and Discovery projects <discovery(a)lists.wikimedia.org> We're happy to announce that after numerous tests and analyses[1] and a fully operational demo[2], the Discovery Team is ready to release TextCat[3] into production on wiki. What is TextCat? It detects the language that the search query was written in which allows us to look for results on a different wiki. TextCat is a language detection library based on n-grams[4]. During a search, TextCat will only kick in when the following three things occur: 1. fewer than 3 results are returned from the query on the current wiki 2. language detection is successful (meaning that TextCat is reasonably certain what language the query is in, and that it is different from the language of the current wiki) 3. the other wiki (in the detected language) has results Our analysis of the A/B test[5] (for English, French, Spanish, Italian and German Wikipedia's) showed that: "...The test groups not only had a substantially lower zero results rate (57% in control group vs 46% in the two test groups), but they had a higher clickthrough rate (44% in the control group vs 49-50% in the two test groups), indicating that we may be providing users with relevant results that they would not have gotten otherwise." This update will be scheduled for production release during the week of July 25, 2016 on the following Wikipedia's: * English [6] * German [7] * Spanish [8] * Italian [9] * French [10] TextCat will then be added to this next group of Wikipedia's at a later date: * Portugese[11] * Russian[12] * Japanese[13] This is a huge step forward in creating a search mechanism that is able to detect - with a high level of accuracy - the language that was used and produce results in that language. Another forward-looking aspect of TextCat is investigating a confidence measuring algorithm[14], to ensure that the language detection results are the best they can be. We will also be doing more[15] A/B tests using TextCat on non Wikipedia sites, such as Wikibooks and Wikivoyage. These new tests will give us insight into whether applying the same language detection configuration across projects would be helpful. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns, on the TextCat discussion page[16]. Also, for screenshots of what this update will look like, please see this one[17] showing an existing search typed in on enwiki in Russian "первым экспериментом" and this one[18] for showing what it will look like once TextCat is in production on enwiki. Thanks! [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T118278 [2] https://tools.wmflabs.org/textcatdemo/ [3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/TextCat [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-gram [5] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Report_on_Cirrus_Search_TextCat_AB_… [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/ [7] https://de.wikipedia.org/ [8] https://es.wikipedia.org/ [9] https://it.wikipedia.org/ [10] https://fr.wikipedia.org/ [11] https://pt.wikipedia.org/ [12] https://ru.wikipedia.org/ [13] https://ja.wikipedia.org/ [14] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T140289 [15] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T140292 [16] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:TextCat [17] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Existing-search_no-textcat.png [18] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New-search_with-textcat.png -- Deb Tankersley Product Manager, Discovery IRC: debt Wikimedia Foundation

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Tech News - week 29 (Monday 18 July 2016)
by Benoît Evellin (Trizek) 18 Jul '16

18 Jul '16

1 0

(no subject)
by Mohammadkaisar Hamid 16 Jul '16

16 Jul '16

I have already a wikitech subscription....

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Re: [Wikitech-ambassadors] Wikitech-ambassadors DigezsssZxst, Vol 57, Issue ac3 a NV as used
by Chase Wells 13 Jul '16

13 Jul '16

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git.wikimedia.org (Gitblit) going away on June 29th, redirected to Phabricator
by Greg Grossmeier 12 Jul '16

12 Jul '16

== tl;dr == On June 29th git.wikimedia.org (running Gitblit) will redirect all requests to Phabricator. The vast majority of requests will be correctly redirected. == What is happening? == In an effort to reduce the maintenance burden of redudant services we will be removing git.wikimedia.org. The software that has been serving git.wikimedia.org, Gitblit, has given our Operations team many headaches over the years[0] and now that we have all repositories hosted in Phabricator[1] there is no reason to keep Gitblit around. Phabricator's Diffusion (the name of the code browser) provides the needed functionality that Gitblit served (mostly viewing/browsing repositories, something which Gerrit does not do). == When will it happen? == June 29th https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deployments#deploycal-item-20160629T1600 == How could this affect me? == Potentially, you use an unpopular (in the sense of not used often) feature of Gitblit that is not supported in Diffusion. This should be unlikely. Potentially, a link you follow that pointed to somewhere on git.wikimedia.org will not redirect correctly. This is also unlikely as we (mostly @Danny_B and @Paladox) took great care to update many mediawiki.org templates along with providing very robust redirect rules[2]. If you find one that isn't working, please let us know (along with the original url and, if possible, the desired target in Diffusion). One known issue to call out: Diffusion does not list commits by person. However Differential (the code-review tool) does this (not just for new commits). There is no easy/maintainable way to redirect those, unfortunately. Something else broken? Please file a task in Phabricator in the #Diffusion project[3]. Thanks, Greg, on behalf of WMF Release Engineering (and all the volunteers who helped along the way (and Ops!)) [0] eg: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T73974 [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/ [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T137224 [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/53/ -- | Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E | | identi.ca: @greg A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D |

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Tech News - week 28 (Monday 11 July 2016)
by Benoît Evellin (Trizek) 11 Jul '16

11 Jul '16

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Wikitech-ambassadors July 2016