User talk:Jdforrester (WMF)

Welcome
 Dear, Welcome to MediaWiki.org !

Yes, welcome! This site is dedicated to documenting the MediaWiki software, the software behind many wikis, including that of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation projects.

Please, take a look at the following pages. They might prove useful to you as a newcomer here:
 * Project:About
 * How does MediaWiki work?
 * Help:Editing pages
 * Help:Navigation
 * Manual:FAQ

If you have any questions, please ask me on my talk page. Once again, welcome, and I hope you quickly feel comfortable here, and find this site useful documentation of the MediaWiki software. Thanks, and regards,  Aude (talk) 15:52, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

You need no welcome, but welcome! ;) Aude (talk) 15:52, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. ;-)
 * Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:42, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry
I thought that page was for a simple description. Sorry for being wrong.Jasper Deng (talk) 22:09, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * No worries. :-)
 * Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:10, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Monthly statuses in Template:Wikimedia project status line/blue link
Hey James. I noticed you edited that template to add a link to add a monthly status update. The gadget makes this very easy with the "include in the monthly report" checkbox when you add a new status update. I wonder, is the gadget not working for you? If so, we should probably fix the gadget rather than adding an extra link to all the activity pages that transclude the template. Also, the link you added seems to do nothing for people with the gadget enabled, so it might be confusing. guillom 16:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh, I'm sorry, there's a gadget? It might help if someone had told me. :-) Will look now. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:40, 24 July 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, having now found the gadget it does indeed cause the template to break (it's over-riding both functionality but only replacing one of them with the pop-up); however, for non-gadget users (who we have to assume are the majority of users of the site, if you're not going to enable it by default for all users) this is confusing. How about I set the gadget as default and revert my template changes? Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:43, 24 July 2012 (UTC)


 * The gadget is linked from the top of Wikimedia engineering report/2012/July, but apparently not prominently enough :) I don't see an issue with enabling the gadget as default. guillom 16:48, 24 July 2012 (UTC)


 * ... and now done. :-) Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:05, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Query on VisualEditor module
Hello, is the "VisualEditor Module" project still in its construction phase?I would liketo undertake this with your guidance --Rahul21 (talk) 04:40, 10 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, the VisualEditor is still undergoing significant development and I wouldn't recommend deploying it to a production wiki unless you are prepared to potentially break things for your users. There is more information about how to experiment with it at Extension:VisualEditor. Hope this is helpful! Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 04:39, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thank you, TortoiseWrath, though my involvement in Echo was very slight! Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 15:17, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

GSoC / OPW IRC AllHands this week
Hi, you are invited to the GSoC / OPW IRC AllHands meeting on Wednesday, June 26, 2013 at 15:00 UTC (8:30pm IST, 8am PDT) at #wikimedia-office. We have done our best finding a time that works decently in as many timezones as possibles. Please confirm at qgil@undefinedwikimedia.org so I can add you to the calendar invitation and I have your preferred email for other occasions. If you can't make it's fine, but let me know as well. We have left a notice to all students, but your help is welcome making sure yours is aware about it. Thank you!--Qgil (talk) 20:35, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Style guide
About this: Where's your style guide? International English Usage does not list that as an acceptable use of hyphens. The European Commission's English Style Guide (which does "EU English") specifically rejects it at 2.52, "In adverb-adjective modifiers, there is no hyphen when the adverb ends in -ly:" It is of course wrong in American, Australian, British, Canadian, Indian, and Irish English, so it seems unlikely to me that any "international English" standard would set itself directly against all of the major varieties of English. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Browser support
Hi James, thanks a lot for updating the browser matrix. Nemo_bis asked me whether FF ESR 17 would work with VE. I don't think I can test this for him, but even so there's a comment by Liangent that makes me think it wouldn't, so I thought I'd ask. Thanks. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:33, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for clarifying further. The instructions should now be clear enough even for our partners' technicians. --Nemo 18:51, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * You're welcome; sorry it was unclear before. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 18:57, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

LQT new thread went to section header
Why does this happen, and what can I do to avoid it? Deryck C.Meta 16:25, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * 


 * It's caused by bug 41276 - LQT never implemented the catch on the API. :-( Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * But I clicked "Start a new discussion"! (The only difference I could think of is that I hit enter in the title textbox, rather than mouse-clicking the "save" button. Was that what was causing the problem? Deryck C.Meta 13:55, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Oh. :-( In that case, probably a (different) odd bug with LQT? Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 20:18, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Tried lots of stuff on the LQT test page. Can't replicate the bug. I have a feeling that it has something to do with middle-button-clicking the "start a new thread" button, which does cause weird behaviour, but I couldn't make the textbox post to the header rather than the thread list. Oh well :) Deryck C.Meta 22:43, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for trying to reproduce, at least! Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 23:31, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Also, if this was you (I couldn't tell because there's a known bug though the log suggests it was you), thank you for being the first person ever to thank me using the "thank them for this edit" button! [Nobody] thanked you for your edit on VisualEditor/Feedback. 1 day ago | View edit Deryck C.Meta 16:52, 11 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Ha. Whoops, didn't know about that bug; yes, 'twas I. :-) Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 19:10, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

VE and WYSIWYG
I stumbled upon Extension:WYSIWYG, and it appears to me that it was working well enough on most browsers, even several years before the first VisualEditor beta, and various sites were – and some still are (including Wikia, AFAIK) – using it. While I do thank you all for the awesome work done on VE, I was just wondering why the Wikimedia Foundation has focused the development on a visual editor so lately. Were there any issues with CKEditor that prevented it from being installed or used on WMF servers? Or has the Foundation recently changed its mind on the matter, and thought it was worth starting a new project from scratch? I don't know whether this question has already been asked somewhere else, in case you can simply link a detailed answer ;-) -- Ricordi  samoa  09:40, 2 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Hey. Thank you for the comments. Yes, there were a number of issues with existing HTML editors (including CKEditor) which meant that we felt that our only option was to write our own. Most notably, proper rich generated content support is lacking from all HTML editors we evaluated, including CKEditor as used at Wikia (and in other extensions and CMSes) – having puzzle pieces, or "sorry, we can't edit this page with this editor" messages was considered not good enough. A principle design objective for VisualEditor is that a user could edit all our content and do anything they could do in wikitext, with exceptions only where we actively stop them from doing silly things (like adding both  and   to the same page). There's also significant issues with language support – in general, MediaWiki supports not just more languages than other software, but a super-set. I agree that it would have been much easier if we could have just simply extended an existing editor, but it didn't turn out to be possible from our research. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 02:38, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * But what if a good WYSIWYG extension had been available, say, in 2009, would the WMF had adopted it? Or do you believe that the interest in visual editing is only a recent trend? -- Ricordi  samoa  03:16, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * We've been talking off-and-on about a visual editor for MediaWiki for about a decade, but we only seriously started work in 2010. Had there been a great extension that met our needs (or mostly so) then we'd probably never have thought to build our own. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 19:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for your time. Regards, -- Ricordi  samoa  19:47, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Careful with FlaggedRevs
Please check better the diffs you review, here you approved an almost vandalic, ridiculously wrong edit by an unregistered user:. It mistated dependencies and installation steps and very funnily stated that Translate is part of the Semantic Bundle; a user got very confused. Also, please don't use the "quality" setting unless you "maintain" a page or there is consensus about it, because it effectively protects the page for anyone but the highest levels in user groups. --Nemo 19:24, 23 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Eurgh. Why can't we switch the stupid extension off? It's actively unhelpful to demand in big bold letters at the top of every users' watchlist that they should review changes, and then not actually show the changes that are intended. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:37, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I sometimes find it useful for some changes I can let someone double check without pressure but yes, I rarely enable it myself on a page. I've never felt bored enough to question its broader usage and the review stats don't look too bad, though. --Nemo 17:14, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The review stats don't look bad because we've an active editor base who get screamed at by the interface if they let unreviewed edits sit around. It doesn't mean it's adding value… Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:16, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Sure, I'm just saying that we lack the easiest argument one can win a "let's disable the extension" battle with. --Nemo 17:22, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Project management tools/Review/Options
Hi, and thank you for all your edits on Project management tools/Review/Options :) guillom 09:27, 25 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Happy to help. :-) Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:42, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Restoring VisualEditor:Test
Hello, I see you keep restoring VisualEditor:Test. I was once asked (in it's early stages) to let my bot do this, though due to regular editing being disabled to admins (for VE pages) at the time, this was not possible. Since it now allows this, would you like me to reset that page as well?  Hazard-SJ  ±   02:28, 2 March 2014 (UTC)


 * That'd be great, yes! Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:37, 3 March 2014 (UTC)


 * ✅, my bot will reset it by substituting VisualEditor:Test/Text, so if you feel the need to change the text, just update that. Also, you should probably at least semi-protect it.  Hazard-SJ  ±   04:03, 4 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Brilliant, thank you. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 18:08, 4 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Sure, no problem.  Hazard-SJ  ±   16:47, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor
Hi, Jdforrester. I am Gabriel Lee from Hong Kong, I would like to contribute to Visual Editor, I am experienced with using Visual Editor and I am currently admin on wy/zh and beta. Hope you would let me help. Thanks! :) --Gabrielchihonglee (talk) 05:41, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi
You had reverted one of my edits. I thought it's related to the betafeatures extension, as the thoughts I've linked to are thoughts about additional functionality for the betafeatures extension. How do I best tell that to the betafeatures extension developers and testers community, if not on its talk page? Gryllida 04:23, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

How to get rid of Visual Editor on Wikipedia?
It's extremely annoying. There doesn't seem to be a way to opt out under Preferences. Please help! Parabolooidal (talk) 21:59, 6 June 2014 (UTC)


 * On which wiki? If you're on a wiki with VisualEditor as a "Beta Feature", you go to the Beta Features section; if not, to the Editing section. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:43, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, I see now that other languages have a "Beta Feature" so that I don't have to understand the language to turn it off. At first I was confused when I clicked an image and suddenly ended up in the VisualEditor. Thanks, Parabolooidal (talk) 00:12, 26 August 2014 (UTC)


 * No problem! Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 00:24, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Please turn on Visual Editor as default for all user on nl.wikipedia.org
Hi James. Please turn on Visual Editor as default for all user on nl.wikipedia.org. Some people will leave. Bye. Others will enter, how nice. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 16:59, 21 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the suggestion. However, I think a proper discussion on the Dutch Wikipedia would be appropriate to start with before just turning it on. Would you be willing to start that? Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:04, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The discussion opened at the Dutch Village pump yesterday and continues here. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 09:09, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * In 2013 the Dutch community had a voting about this subject and they said, based on a too long list of bugs they have to deal with, that the VE is not ready to be set on for everyone. This list of bugs is not solved yet, including some breaking problems. Based on the still existing problems and the voting based on these problems, the visual editor is not ready to be implemented. Romaine (talk) 12:06, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * It appears that Romaine blanked the discussion after a couple of days. The edit summary says it will be moved to the parent page, but Special:Contributions for Romaine does not show it being moved anywhere.  Perhaps it was an oversight or there was some sort of problem?  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:18, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * @ The discussion is copied and pasted to talk page of the VE feedback page. The feedback page was silent since May. Since a week there is a traffic boom. From this I filed 67850, which is probably going to be discussed at Wikimania. "Slugs" is a concept which isn't understood at the Dutch Wikipedia, or is completely unknown. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 17:37, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, it looks like someone reverted the blanking four hours after I posted this note. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:09, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Engaging with the mathematics community
Hello. In this comment you wrote I note that the talk page is blank, so I'm confused as to how much input you've provided, if any. I doubt that you can really  be confused as to the desire of the mathematics editor community to provide input, especially since it is now some weeks since you wrote I assumed denizens of WikiProject Mathematics, if no-where else, would be aware of the nature of engineering support in place for the mathematical functions in MediaWiki and had made a decision that they weren't going to help out those few volunteer developers working on it, in a discussion which had I think made it abundantly clear that there was a very clear appetite for more engagement between mathematics editors and WMF. If it was so important to you to see engagement at that particular page on MediaWiki, then you could and should have pointed the discussion to it in May when you wrote that comment at WP:WPM. To fail to do so, and then affect surprise six weeks later that nobody at WP:WPM has contributed, seems to me to cut across your remit to "make sure the VisualEditor team understands what the community wants and needs". Frankly I am disappointed in this: I would hope for something better from someone in your position.

I am asking you, personally, to please consider how you may more proactively and constructively engage with the mathematics content contributors to get our input and cooperation. We want to engage, we want to contribute and we want to be heard. For some reason it is not working at the moment, and that is damaging to the project. Please reach out to us, either directly, or using the WMF network of community advocates. Deltahedron (talk) 17:11, 21 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Follow-up on Extension talk:Math/Roadmap as you seem to have missed the point. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:04, 23 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Please try to be more thoughtful in some of your replies: "well done for copy-pasting", "you seem to have missed the point", "I'm confused as to how much input you've provided, if any" are not particularly helpful and could have been better phrased. However, you did not address my request: will you please consider how you may more proactively and constructively engage with the mathematics content contributors to get our input and cooperation?  A simple "yes" or "no" would suffice.  Deltahedron (talk) 18:04, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Your tone
I am finding the tone of your replies to my comments increasingly unhelpful. I have already mentioned this in the section above, in a comment which you have not yet had the courtesy to reply to. Your comment "you are clearly of the opinion that a minute's reading comprehension is beneath you" is unfounded, unhelpful and offensive. If you are not able to interact with me in a courteous and constructive way, I suggest that a colleague do so on your behalf. Perhaps your supervisor at the WMF would be able to assist. Deltahedron (talk) 06:18, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I am sad that you feel that way. Perhaps if you said fewer wrong things that need a response it would be easier for both of us? I would start a conversation about your tone, but I feel that it would be even less productive than the other conversations in which I have tried to help you. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:46, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * This continued pettiness and obstruction is not what I expect to see from a WMF staff member in your position. Please (1) do not continue to insult me in this way (2) give a plain answer to the plain questions I have asked you (3) apologise for your obstructive conduct.  Deltahedron (talk) 19:55, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Follow-up
In this edit, you explain that you have been consistently and deliberately offensive to me, and to refuse to give information to the community at large, because you felt that a question I asked was insufficiently respectful. This is not acceptable behaviour from a member of WMF staff. I call on you to consider whether your actions were appropriate and to apologise to me and to the rest of the community which you have slighted. Alternatively, perhaps you would care to post or email me with the name of your supervisor at the WMF. Deltahedron (talk) 17:18, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I note that you have nor responded even though I can see that you have had the opportunity to do so. You may wish to read this.  Deltahedron (talk) 21:07, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Usurpation Request (SUL)
Hello Jdforrester, I wanted to bring you attention to my request here which is pending since 7 June. I had sent a talk page message to User:Jasper Deng for this issue but hasn't attended to it, which is why I am requesting you to see into it. I humbly understand this is not very urgent. Thank you. D abhi (talk) 14:47, 21 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Hey! Unfortunately I'm not involved in that side of the wiki administration much, but I'll look at checking about doing it myself or finding someone like Jasper to do it instead. Sorry if it takes a while. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 19:29, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * —Thanks for replying. I'll wait till then. D abhi (talk) 15:08, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


 * As a note, Hoo has now done this. Yay. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:53, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Re:Translating Extension:VisualEditor
So, is it possible to translate it in the old style? - Fabsouza1 (talk) 15:29, 28 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Sadly, no. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 16:11, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok... - Fabsouza1 (talk) 03:43, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Heading vs sub-heading
What's the difference between "heading" and "sub-heading" in the VE interface, e.g. Deryck C.Meta 19:21, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki:visualeditor-formatdropdown-format-heading2, vs
 * MediaWiki:visualeditor-formatdropdown-format-mw-heading2?


 * The second is currently used in the Paragraph menu to create ==Headings==. I don't know where the other one is (was?) used.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:40, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * The first is used in stand-alone, not in MediaWiki; the second is used in MediaWiki, as Whatamidoing said. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 09:27, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor with Parsoid on Windows
Hi, in principle I would agree with you that we do not need to have all the details here, but ...

It cost me the better part of a working day tracing down these things (and nobody cared to write them down in an quickly digestable form), because I needed to get VisualEditor running on Windows - WHICH IT STILL DOES NOT - and it would really really really be good to have pointer here giving a very rough overview of what you need. For example downloading (several hundred freaking Megabytes), installing and getting VC++ 2010 to run took me more than an hour, and it would be really good to have a very short info on that.

Besides, VisualEditor is still not running on my Windows system, and I have no clue if I am an the only poor soul with this problem, or if this is a general problem. Having the pointer: "VisualEditor on Windows? Here be dragons!" Would be really really good.

Having wasting so much time on this, I hate the whole thing wholeheartly by now... Tony Mach (talk) 08:37, 21 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Hello, sorry you've been having so many issues. I'm afraid I don't have a Windows box to hand and so I've never personally tried to get even MediaWiki running on a Windows box, much less VisualEditor and Parsoid. That said, I've heard reports from people before that they got VE and Parsoid working properly on Windows, even on IIS. I don't know off-hand who could give you some advice on getting it working, however. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 19:22, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

An important message about renaming users
Dear Jdforrester (WMF),

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!