User talk:MZMcBride

Main page
Hi MZMcBride - I have reverted some of your main page edits, because they are not, imho, improvements. Resizing the images makes the page dull, and your modifications to the version list don't make any sense - they make it harder to read and introduce unnecessary bulletting. If you disagree with these changes then we should discuss it further - please don't undo them until a consensus is reached. --HappyDog 19:22, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The Users, System administrators, Developers, and News boxes all use bullets. I see no reason to not use bullets on the Current versions box, it's the only box that doesn't use them, which looks awkward. The icons in the three boxes are far too large and serve no purpose other than decoration. They also expand the screen size unnecessarily while providing little to no benefit to the reader. Having them in the dark grey bar keeps them consistent with the icons for the News and Current versions boxes. But I'm glad someone finally noticed my changes. : - ) Thoughts on what I've said? --MZMcBride 02:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I've been away for a while, so sorry about the slow reaction... :-\0
 * "The icons [...] serve no purpose other than decoration" - From an informational point of view, perhaps. But from a UI point of view, I completely disagree.  The icons have a very important dual purpose - Firstly they make the main page more colourful and welcoming, and stop it being a set of textual box-outs that are very hard to get any kind of handle on, and Secondly, they help identify the 3 different types of person this site is aimed at, at a glance.  They draw the eye to the appropriate text area, they delineate the fact that different levels of user have different needs and the same icons are re-used in other sections of the site which provides an important level of cohesion, and based on this, the front-page emphasis is actually pretty important.
 * Re: the bullets. This is not a big deal, but I don't think they're really needed here.  I don't think that there is any confusion caused by not having the bullets, therefore adding them is not necessary - it's just extra screen clutter that adds nothing from the user's point of view.  Personally, I think they should also be removed from the news section, though they have some pertinence to the other parts of the page.
 * --HappyDog 03:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand the purpose of the icons, I just don't understand why they must be so large. Surely they can be the same size as the ones in News and Current versions boxes, which still serving their function as tools for identification. --MZMcBride 19:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Not really, for the reasons mentioned above. In what way is their current size causing problems? --HappyDog 04:14, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!
Thanks for the explanation.... it just looked a bit odd. Anyway, feel free to join my wiki, and you can have sysop and bureaucrat status!! Thanks, AP aka --Sunstar NW XP 22:15, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Meta imports
Hi MZMcBride, could you please always use Template:TalkFromMeta and Template:EndTalkFromMeta when importing from Meta? Thanks for your help. -- :bdk: 23:41, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'll try to remember. :-) Perhaps the instructions at Meta should be updated? --MZMcBride 01:17, 4 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, feel free to add something about it there :-) Adding these templates is kind of "common" for most of us here, so I guess nobody stated it explicitly somewhere on Meta yet.
 * And, another issue: could you please only use Special:Import for further imports? This will leave an automated "origin link" to the Meta page in question in the page history (which isn't done through "file upload" importing), see also the differences in the log ("x revisions from meta:yz" vs. "x revisions" only). -- :bdk: 01:25, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to use transwiki importing, but it doesn't work. ;-) It's broken, gives an error about no import sources being found or something. So I've had to do manual exports from Meta and manual imports here. If you can find someone to fix the problem, I'll happily use transwiki. But I think it's going to be broken for a long while. --MZMcBride 01:43, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * tss, thanks for the additional notes on IRC ;-) -- :bdk: 01:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Tranwiki importing with revisions was actually disabled five days ago because imports with a large number of revisions were causing problems. I got Brion to re-enable imports up to 1000 revisions; I still got the "could not read import file," but after pressing Import a few times it worked.  Did you try button-mashing? :D —Emufarmers(T 20:28, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki/it
Thanks, very very thanks. --Ivocamp96 15:33, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Template:InstallationNav
I have reverted your recent changes to this template. Please see this comment for details. --HappyDog 03:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Ping
Test. - Rjd0060 21:40, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Me too, hello, 2, 3, 4. -- Tim Starling 01:55, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

To-do (hopefully tomorrow)
--MZMcBride 04:19, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Centralize this: Test framework deployment
 * Inform RobLa

Pokeswap (talk)
i am still working on the coding. since it is removed does that mean it is less likleyto get help from developers i just keep adding to it slowly.

what is a sandbox

Userinfo template
FYI this appears on all the WMF wikis including the ones I can't edit    Thorncrag    00:19, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Fixed: . Thanks! --MZMcBride (talk) 21:29, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Broken template
Template:Vve, which you created and which is being used at Current versions, seems to be broken. Note how the "view" and "edit" links at the latter page don't actually point to the right places. Also, should the latter page maybe be moved to a different namespace, since it clearly relates to templates used on this wiki, not to the MediaWiki software in general? Finally, are either of these pages even necessary, since they're both only used on one other page? Thought I'd let you decide what to do about this... - dcljr (talk) 09:13, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Fixed, diff. Krinkle (talk) 23:10, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Suggestions for User:Wrecked 'im? Damn near killed 'im!
Hi, I thank you very much for your work with Gerrit reports. I left some feedback at Talk:Gerrit/Reports/Oldest open changesets. Sending here a reminder just in case.--Qgil (talk) 15:30, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi. No problem, though it'd be great if you or someone else were willing to take over the maintenance of these reports. :-) Thanks for dropping a note here, I've finally updated the reports to support the requested functionalities. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:21, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Categories in mediawiki sidebar in Vector skin
How to show categories and subcategories in sidebar of Mediawiki 1.20.3 in

Vector skin. Please help me please.I have used CategoryTree extension but

dont know syntax is rightly used in LocalSettings.php  I got one website using

this http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/fr/Accueil

Please tell me how to dislplay categories in vector skin? --Ksanjeet (talk) 20:23, 11 March 2013 (UTC)Ksanjeet

Productization vs. Integration
Hey. I know the word is jargon and it is ugly. But integration is too vague and glosses over a lot of detail of what making a thing permanent means. It doesn't make sense even among the people who would otherwise understand all that "productization" implies. Before we start moving all our docs, I'd prefer to try and agree on a term that is clearer as well as less stupid than productization. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   18:56, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think integration loses much (if any) meaning. Do you have suggestions for a better term? --MZMcBride (talk) 22:33, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * At least in the context of E3 and what we typically mean by productization, perhaps "rollout" is okay. Or something similar... permanent launch, permanent release? Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   23:17, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't really think any of your suggestions are better than "integration," but I don't really care among them. I was going for "not productization," so any of those are fine with me. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:11, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems we've gone with "launch." I've updated a few pages accordingly. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 18:36, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Works for me. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   20:24, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Admin rights
Cheers, MZ! PEarley (WMF) (talk) 19:29, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * No problem. :-) Let me know if you ever want/need admin rights on your volunteer account. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:30, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

! --Glaisher (talk) 12:56, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Weird. :-) I got a local e-mail that a "NeedToken" error had been raised for this script/report. I actually re-ran the script not realizing it had successfully saved an edit. (My re-run just null edited the page, presumably.) Thank you for the note. Hopefully this was a one-time glitch. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:41, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Pending changes problem
You recently changed the visibility of a revision. MediaWiki alerts me, "There are currently pending changes to reviewed pages on your watchlist. Your attention is needed!" When I go to https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Manual:Redirects&diff=cur&oldid=579487 and try to accept the revision, it says "Unable to review this revision. The target revision does not exist." Is this a known issue? Leucosticte (talk) 00:26, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Leucosticte. I'm not sure if it's a known issue. It's sound like bad interaction between revision deletion and FlaggedRevs. If you feel inclined, please search Bugzilla for a relevant bug and file a bug if one doesn't already exist. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 01:35, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks. Leucosticte (talk) 03:34, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Automated script conversion
Hi MZMcBride, The Kazakh Wikipedia enables articles to be automatically converted from Cyrillic to Latin or from Cyrillic to Arabic. Chinese Wikipedia enables conversion from Traditional to simplified characters. Hakka Wikipedia needs an automated script conversion from Chinese characters to Romanized Hakka. I am able to assist in the transliteration for the first 3000 most commonly used chinese characters (this will cover 97.5% of all mainstream media articles) into the Romanized Hakka alphabet. Are you able to help us develop such a transliteration tool?

We can do the translation of the vocabulary, your technical support would be appreciated. --Hak-ngìn (talk) 07:13, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Hak-ngìn.
 * Do you have links to more information about the tools used on the Chinese and Kazakh Wikipedias?
 * Here is the info on Automatic conversion between simplified and traditional Chinese but I am no programming expert so I do not understand those details. --Hak-ngìn (talk) 07:06, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I've never heard of Romanized Hakka, but I may be able to help a bit. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 23:45, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * cc: Nemo, Liangent


 * I had a look at Thèu-ya̍p and one big issue is the use of hyphens and spaces which don't exist in Hakka written in Han characters. This means we have to manage to add some information somehow that doesn't exist in transliteration source at all. Liangent (talk) 04:07, 16 October 2013 (UTC)


 * The words are still readable without the hyphens. For example: "Merry Christmas" in Chinese characters is 聖誕節快樂 and the Hakka transliteration without the hyphens would be "sṳn tan chiet khoai lo̍k" and this is perfectly comprehendable.


 * In other words, we should first develop a transliteration tool without the hyphens. Once this is accomplished, the hyphens can be added later on to certain words and vocabulary. Chinese pinyin is readable without the hyphens, the Romanized Hakka is the same likewise. --Hak-ngìn (talk) 06:57, 16 October 2013 (UTC)


 * We are just aiming to create a one-way automatic transliteration from Chinese characters to Romanized Hakka, not the other way round. This is because certain Romanized Hakka pronunciations can have several possible Chinese character types. The Chinese characters to be transliterated will include both Traditional and Simplified Chinese character types. --Hak-ngìn (talk) 07:06, 16 October 2013 (UTC)


 * The 3000 characters will be based on this list. 3000 is the absolute minimum in order for a transliteration tool to be considered effective and the final number of transliterated Chinese would most likely 4000-5000 due to the existence of Traditional and Simplified characters. I will begin the transliteration now and place it on your talk page. Then can you help add the words into a conversion tool? please. --Hak-ngìn (talk) 07:14, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

CONTENT HAS BEEN MOVED TO User:Hak-ngìn/Sandbox. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:15, 18 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Apologies if I have caused inconvenience to you. I was unaware that your useraccount was linked to your email.
 * A dictionary we already have. What we wish is an online automatic transliteration tool similar to this website (if you click on the "Phien am" tab and insert an entire Chinese character article into the box, then click on the "Phien am" (transliterate) button, the whole article would be converted to Romanized Vietnamese. This is what we are aiming to achieve.

Are you able to help develop such a tool? Or do you know anyone who would be willing to assist in the development? --Hak-ngìn (talk) 07:18, 18 October 2013 (UTC)


 * The 3,700 most commonly used Chinese characters have now been transliterated into Hakka and this is a very comprehensive list already.
 * Now I sincerely need the help of you folks in order for the online transliteration tool to be accomplished. --Hak-ngìn (talk) 12:48, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi, MZMcBride. After he asked me on Meta about this, I filed 55876. πr2 (t • c) 13:57, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:17, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Since nobody else seems to be interested, I did it. 116691. πr2 (t • c) 02:09, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

RfC
You should probably include talk namespace in. --Nemo 13:52, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I think I did? The "ns" column differentiates between 0 and 1. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:17, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Requests for comment/Configuration database
Hi, Requests for comment/Configuration database is being considered as one of the RFCs to be discussed at the RFC review on 2013-11-06 via IRC. You are receiving this notification because you edited or discussed this RFC. We hope to see you there.--Qgil (talk) 00:32, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Requests for comment/Password requirements
Hi, Requests for comment/Password requirements is being considered as one of the RFCs to be discussed at the RFC review on 2013-11-06 via IRC. You are receiving this notification because you edited or discussed this RFC. We hope to see you there.--Qgil (talk) 01:30, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

"Retired"
My comments about your "retirement" meme description are here. I posted it as an essay so that I can revise it if I come up with more theories or hypotheses about why people leave wikis they were addicted to, or that were otherwise very important to them, despite the opportunities (licit or illicit) they have to go back. Leucosticte (talk) 18:57, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

log_action
Hey MZM, Is it possible to do another  on enwiki in order to update the list at ? Or is there another way to get that data? Thanks. Leucosticte (talk) 14:11, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi Leucosticte. Sure, done. If you have a Wikimedia Labs account, you can likely execute SQL queries such as these yourself. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:52, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

An important message about renaming users
Dear MZMcBride,

I am cross-posting this message to many places to make sure everyone who is a Wikimedia Foundation project bureaucrat receives a copy. If you are a bureaucrat on more than one wiki, you will receive this message on each wiki where you are a bureaucrat.

As you may have seen, work to perform the Wikimedia cluster-wide single-user login finalisation (SUL finalisation) is taking place. This may potentially effect your work as a local bureaucrat, so please read this message carefully.

Why is this happening? As currently stated at the global rename policy, a global account is a name linked to a single user across all Wikimedia wikis, with local accounts unified into a global collection. Previously, the only way to rename a unified user was to individually rename every local account. This was an extremely difficult and time-consuming task, both for stewards and for the users who had to initiate discussions with local bureaucrats (who perform local renames to date) on every wiki with available bureaucrats. The process took a very long time, since it's difficult to coordinate crosswiki renames among the projects and bureaucrats involved in individual projects.

The SUL finalisation will be taking place in stages, and one of the first stages will be to turn off Special:RenameUser locally. This needs to be done as soon as possible, on advice and input from Stewards and engineers for the project, so that no more accounts that are unified globally are broken by a local rename to usurp the global account name. Once this is done, the process of global name unification can begin. The date that has been chosen to turn off local renaming and shift over to entirely global renaming is 15 September 2014, or three weeks time from now. In place of local renames is a new tool, hosted on Meta, that allows for global renames on all wikis where the name is not registered will be deployed.

Your help is greatly needed during this process and going forward in the future if, as a bureaucrat, renaming users is something that you do or have an interest in participating in. The Wikimedia Stewards have set up, and are in charge of, a new community usergroup on Meta in order to share knowledge and work together on renaming accounts globally, called Global renamers. Stewards are in the process of creating documentation to help global renamers to get used to and learn more about global accounts and tools and Meta in general as well as the application format. As transparency is a valuable thing in our movement, the Stewards would like to have at least a brief public application period. If you are an experienced renamer as a local bureaucrat, the process of becoming a part of this group could take as little as 24 hours to complete. You, as a bureaucrat, should be able to apply for the global renamer right on Meta by the requests for global permissions page on 1 September, a week from now.

In the meantime please update your local page where users request renames to reflect this move to global renaming, and if there is a rename request and the user has edited more than one wiki with the name, please send them to the request page for a global rename.

Stewards greatly appreciate the trust local communities have in you and want to make this transition as easy as possible so that the two groups can start working together to ensure everyone has a unique login identity across Wikimedia projects. Completing this project will allow for long-desired universal tools like a global watchlist, global notifications and many, many more features to make work easier.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about the SUL finalisation, read over the Help:Unified login page on Meta and leave a note on the talk page there, or on the talk page for global renamers. You can also contact me on my talk page on meta if you would like. I'm working as a bridge between Wikimedia Foundation Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Stewards, and you to assure that SUL finalisation goes as smoothly as possible; this is a community-driven process and I encourage you to work with the Stewards for our communities.

Thank you for your time. -- Keegan (WMF) talk 18:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

--This message was sent using MassMessage. Was there an error? Report it!

RftA
Hello! dear MZMcBride, Can you please handle this Jasper Deng is busy in real life and deferring this to other bureaucrats. You are one of the bureaucrats some that I have confidence and I will like to know if you can take care of it.Best Regards --Grind24 (talk) 10:50, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Analytics animals
Do you remember where was the comment where Milimetric explained the meaning of {lama}, {bear}, {lion}, {mule} and so on? The Phabricator search makes it impossible to find and it was after the bugzilla holocaust, so I can't use proper searches either. --Nemo 10:00, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you're referencing T101194. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:05, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I added to Analytics/Development_Process. --Nemo 08:07, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks!
Thanks for the user rights change :)--Melamrawy (WMF) (talk) 15:54, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Please provide feedback on suggested improvements to the Code of Conduct
Thanks to everyone who’s helped work on the Code of Conduct so far.

People have brought up issues they feel were missed when working on "Unacceptable behavior" and "Report a problem". Consultants have also suggested changes in these same sections.

These are important sections, so please take a look at the proposed changes. I apologize that this feedback arrived later than planned, but I think this will create a better document.

If you prefer to give your opinion privately, feedback via e-mail is welcome at conduct-discussion@undefinedwikimedia.org.

Thanks. Mattflaschen-WMF via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:18, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

MobileFrontend world
FYI someone still claims to have veto power on any JavaScript code on the mobile sites: T102922. Nemo 13:00, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Now trying to collect some explanatory links at . Nemo 10:48, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Please participate again in improving the "Conflict of interest" section
The "Conflict of interest" section was not approved earlier.

There has been further discussion on it, aiming to solve those issues. Please participate in the sub-sections of Talk:Code of Conduct/Draft and make sure your concerns are being addressed.

Thanks.

User:Mattflaschen-WMF 03:55, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Weigh in on whether to finalize the new version of the "Conflict of interest" section
You participated earlier in discussion about the "Conflict of interest" section of the draft Code of Conduct for technical spaces. There was not consensus to approve an earlier version of this section. I'm contacting you to let you know the draft has been updated, and we are now discussing whether to finalize the new version.

Please participate here.

Thank you,

User:Mattflaschen-WMF via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:32, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Project:Requests/User rights/Zoranzoki21
Hi, I seen to you are bureaucrat. Can you give me autochecked and translation administrator rights which I requested? Thanks. Zoranzoki21 (talk) 10:42, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi Zoranzoki21. Sure, done. Thanks for the ping. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:45, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you. :) Zoranzoki21 (talk) 05:04, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I requested rollbacker and patroller right. Can you give me it? Thanks! Zoranzoki21 (talk) 17:23, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Alec
An empty "what links here" page seems to return status 404 - yet appear "all good" - this normal?
 * Yes, seems so: <https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki/commit/8b356fda>. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:56, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Timeless Newsletter • Issue 2
Newsletter • August 2018

The second issue of the Timeless newsletter is out.

The news: Themes are coming to Timeless! Your infobox and navbox templates in particular are probably going to look absolutely horrible in the new built-in night mode.

For more information, background, plans and progress updates, please see the full issue on Meta, complete with a ridiculous list of phabricator task links, gratuitous mention of other skins, and me complaining about the current state of MediaWiki skinning in general.

-— Isarra ༆ 01:48, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Timeless Newsletter • Issue 3
Newsletter • December 2018

Welcome to the third issue of the Timeless newsletter, complete with a somewhat dubious explanation of where I've been all this time.

Somewhat dubious explanation of where I've been all this time:

I suffered a rather bad concussion in October, which knocked me pretty much completely out of commission through November, and I'm still recovering even now. One person = bus factor of one, even though it wasn't actually a bus but a very short flight of stairs.

Updates:


 * Random bugs have been fixed. More bugs have been found. For a full list of horrors, see the workboard.
 * Implementing themes (T131991: the dark/night mode and winter variants of the skin) has proven far more complicated than initially thought, lacking either the extension, or preferably, some core support for this functionality. Thus:
 * I have submitted a Request for Comment proposing to merge Extension:Theme into core - this will enable skins to specify style variants as distinct options for users to select in their preferences by letting the skin specify the styles separately for each, a much neater way of implementing this than some of the existing hacks.
 * Jack Phoenix has already submitted a patch to do this. We simply need the buy-in and consensus to merge it, and to resolve whatever issues may arise from this wider review.

Comments on the RfC (MediaWiki wiki RfC page, task) or bugs, or further reports, are always appreciated.

Until next time, hopefully with no further injuries,

-— Isarra ༆ 22:35, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Timeless Newsletter • Issue 4
Newsletter • April 2019

Welcome to the fourth issue of the Timeless newsletter, with a cat! Or maybe not.

Un chat qui miaule???

It's true! The angry cat, a fundamental part of Timeless, has resulted in confusion and bug reports all across the projects and phabricator. And now it shall be immortalised forever in the new, shiny Timeless logo.

Updates:

After putting off the project for three months because I got hit in the head with a flight of stairs, and then putting off the project for another two months while working out what the status of the grant was, I have now put off the project even more in order to focus on my other project for a bit. So progress lately has been a bit whims-based as a result:
 * The project now has a logo. For some reason.
 * The angry cat in the background is now customisable! Behold: not a cat. What would you like to replace it with on your project?
 * I broke, unbroke, and then sort of sideways broke all the form styles. Help.

Radar:
 * The French Wiktionary voted to set Timeless as their default skin, with results possibly as you might expect: I ran away and hid, and the WMF said no. A bit of discussion later and we largely agreed that all else aside, this is a bit of a branding issue, but we love the enthusiasm! Also the bug reports that inevitably come out of such a discussion. I'm still working on properly going through those.
 * Theme support is still stuck in limbo, but now we have another skinning RfC. tl;dr, we wanna replace the entire skinning system, and Skizzerz'll write a prototype later.

I will be fully resuming work on Timeless next week, or maybe the week after, depending on what madness (or illness) comes out of the Hackathon in Prague. Please come talk to me there to discuss strategy!

-— Isarra ༆ 16:51, 14 May 2019 (UTC)