Joe Slovo Park (Cape Town, South Africa) as seen from the entrance to Sinenjongo High School.

Joe Slovo Park is a slum.

Mass unemployment. Drunkenness and drug addiction. Gangs. Teenage pregnancy. Tuberculosis. HIV/AIDS. Single room shacks that house five people. Illegal power connections. Lots of children without shoes. It’s a shantytown made up of whatever materials people can scrape together. It’s overcrowded and dirty. You have to know people to be safe.

In the middle of this place there is a high school made of used shipping containers and prefab buildings where students from the area come to study and learn. A class of students at the school has a simple request: they want free access to Wikipedia from their mobile phones so that they can do their homework. They started a campaign on Facebook for “Free Access to Wikipedia from Cellphones” and wrote an open letter to all the telecoms in the country:

Kul Wadhwa speaking at 0:55:05 about a news article about the class at Sinenjongo High School.

The Grade 11A Class who penned the open letter for free access to Wikipedia on their cellphones, (photographed in February 2013 as the 12A class).

A cellphone repair shop built from a shipping container in Joe Slovo Park. The store is across the street from the school.

Children in Joe Slovo Park, photographed next to computer and cellphone repair stores.

A small internet services store in Joe Slovo Park.

Pam Robertson, Grade 12A maths and science teacher at Sinenjongo High School.

Here I am on a photo walk through Joe Slovo Park with the 12A class.

I had given out Wikipedia stickers to the learners earlier in the week and when I came to Ntsika’s house, I saw that he had put the sticker on his refrigerator. I asked him why he did that.

Myself, Charlene Music and Oarabile Mudongo setting up cameras in one of the two computer labs at Sinenjongo High School.

Charlene Music explaining to Sinako (one of the learners) how to shoot a documentary.

A sample from a Cape Town radio interview between Kieno Kammies and Pam Robertson, Maths and Science teacher at Sinenjongo High School about her class and their campaign for free access to Wikipedia on their cellphones.

Open letter to Cell C, MTN, Vodacom and 8ta

We are learners in a Grade 11 class at Sinenjongo High School, Joe Slovo Park, Milnerton, Cape Town. We recently heard that in some other African countries like Kenya and Uganda certain cell phone providers are offering their customers free access to Wikipedia.

We think this is a wonderful idea and would really like to encourage you also to make the same offer here in South Africa. It would be totally amazing to be able to access information on our cell phones which would be affordable to us.

Our school does not have a library at all so when we need to do research we have to walk a long way to the local library. When we get there we have to wait in a queue to use the one or two computers which have the internet. At school we do have 25 computers but we struggle to get to use them because they are mainly for the learners who do CAT (Computer Application Technology) as a subject. Going to an internet cafe is also not an easy option because you have to pay per half hour.

90% of us have cell phones but it is expensive for us to buy airtime so if we could get free access to Wikipedia it would make a huge difference to us.

Normally when we do research Wikipedia is one of the best sites for us to use and so we go straight to it. The information there is clear, updated and there is information on just about every topic.

Our education system needs help and having access to Wikipedia would make a very positive difference. Just think of the boost that it will give us as students and to the whole education system of South Africa.

— From Sinombongo, Sinako, Busisiwe, Ntswaki, Bomkazi, Lindokuhle, Ntsika, Patrick, Ndumiso, Sinazo, Bathandwa, Nokuthembela, Lutho, Mandlilakhe, Zingisile, Aviwe, Nezisa, Ncumisa, Nokubonga, Pheliwe, Zama, Unathi, Malixole and Ntombozuko.

The letter made headlines in the South African press, and my colleague Kul Wadhwa, who manages the Wikipedia Zero program at the Wikimedia Foundation, shared the news with me. I’m always looking for stories to tell about Wikipedia and this was the first grassroots effort (that I know of) that anyone made to get this kind of access to Wikipedia.

Three months ago, I didn’t know anything about this school and had never been to Africa. Being a Wikipedian at heart, I started a page for the school thinking that maybe the page might grow and help me with my research. I then got ahold of Pam Robertson (one of the teachers) at the school via the Facebook campaign page. I asked if I could ask her pupils a few questions (I later learned that the ‘learners,’ as they call themselves, were excited that someone in America even read their letter). I asked her pupils three things: Who are you? Where are you from? What does Wikipedia mean to you?

Here are a few quotes from emails they sent me:

…I attend school at Sinenjongo high school one of the public school in Cape Town. If I can draw you a picture of school, it can look as follows; my school is made of prefabs, it is surrounded by many shacks, there rubbish dump in front of our school, About 15 classes,1 science lab, 2 computer labs, very tiny garden, no playing fields. Nonetheless our school is one the schools that is obtaining good matric results, this shows that we have potentials. After school I want to have a job that i will earn good money so that I can provide for family and live my life to the fullest-not forgetting about giving back to my community. I want to be a role model. Wikipedia means the world. Wikipedia is up dated, it has valid information and it can link you to other websites. We also use it for our projects. If we can get wikipedia free our lives can be easy.

— Nezisa Mdludlu

I am a 17 year old boy staying with a single mother, sister and a brother not forgetting my cousin and her child. We stay in a small shack having no one working surviving with only R1100 supporting grant in each and every month…When I pass my grade 12 I want to do Bsc Degree in Geology and work here at South Africa. Wikipedia can be very useful to me in such a way that when I am doing my assignments and projects I just go to wikipedia and it provide every information I need. Every term my marks are improving because of the information that I get on Wikipedia.

— Lutho

…I would love studying something like Actuarial Science, Astronomy or Medicine. Big complicated numbers and the amazing theories of the birth and the current state of universe fascinate me a lot.

— Sinombongo

…my brother was shot in 2005… Wikipedia is one of the most sites I use to search for information for my career it help of use for project because the isn’t facilities at school and the local library is to far that’s why it’s much easier to use our phones for the internet. But it costs us a lot because we have to stay on the internet for hours and most of the airtime is used and sometimes we save our pocket money to buy airtime. So by having free internet on our phones is easy and saves time.

— Ndumiso

…In my community we don’t have places where we can express our careers…

— Patrick

…As much as we do not have adequate facilities at my school we are determined, proud pupils in the way we perform. The current matric results were rating 94% and we are one of the most improving schools in the Western Cape…

— Sinazo

…I live with my mother and my three brothers; we stay in a one roomed house…

— Lindokuhle

…Learning conditions are poor because we lack sources for over time studies like research, internet for finding new things that are being established now. I would like to be a surgeon, study medicine at university and help my family, provide the love for my mother that she is giving me right now…

— Unathi

…The minute i heard about Wikipedia zero by Mr Piet Strieker I became very interested and would be very happy to access it from my cellphone. Without Wikipedia my schoolwork and my assignments are worth no marks.

— Zamatshatshu

After about the second paragraph, I had tears running down my face. I read pages and pages of quotes like these, describing similar circumstances, each from a different point of view.

I did some more research and found that the principal of the school had made a TED presentation about how she had turned Sinenjongo High School around from a joke of a school that was going to be closed and made it one that gets a 98 percent graduation rate. She did this in 2 years. In the video she talked about how she made the school work:

True transparency and trust…I was open in every decision, every advice from anyone…it was easy for me to gain their trust… People believe in transparency and also people believe in honesty and openness….Everyone is going to be owning this school, it belongs to all of us, not only me.

— Malinga Nopote

After I saw the TED talk, I was inspired to make a documentary film about the class and their efforts. I sent a letter to the students, their teacher and the administration of the school, explaining what I hoped to do. Happily, they agreed to let me come to film.

I got in touch with Wikimedia South Africa about organizing a Q&A sesson about Wikipedia for the learners and found another filmmaker named Charlene Music (yes, her last name is Music) to help me to make the film. Oarabile Mudongo (an editor from Botswana who I had interviewed at Wikimania 2012 in Washington D.C.) heard of my effort and thought his story was similar to the students I was going to film and he asked if he could help. I enthusiastically agreed. We booked flights and bus trips to go to Cape Town and Johannesburg to shoot for two weeks. My basic plan was to let Sinenjongo High School and Joe Slovo Park tell us what they wanted to tell us. I wanted to see who the learners were, where they come from and what Wikipedia means to them. My greatest fear was that I wouldn’t be trusted and that no one would feel comfortable opening up to me on camera.

My fears were ungrounded.

The class was great. We talked to the learners, teachers, volunteer teachers, administrators, staff, parents, siblings and locals around Sinenjongo High and Joe Slovo Park. We also spoke with a few corporate heads and some graduates from the school, some of whom had gone on to university. The class showed us their township, their school and their homes. We also lent the class some cameras so that they could capture their own images and narrate their own story, without our interference.

We followed a few of the students over the weekend as they went to a university to study in special university-level classes designed for poor high schoolers who want to study and earn a bursary for a university-level education. One of the things you realize by walking around Joe Slovo Park is that cellphone stores and repair shops are everywhere. It’s obvious why the learners want to study using their phones — they all have one!

Wikimedia South Africa, Oarabile Mudongo and I taught the learners how to write Wikipedia articles (during their 1 hour of time per week at the computer lab at their school) and one of the learners corrected the article about Nelson Mandela on the (very small) IsiXhosa Wikipedia. (I forgot to mention that English is a second or third language for these learners – at home and in class they speak IsiXhosa.)

Charlene Music and I will be editing the documentary for the next few weeks and plan to release it into the Creative Commons with as much attention as we can.

Outside of this being used for fundraising at the Wikimedia Foundation, my purpose in making this movie is that if you are under 30 years old today, you probably know what Wikipedia means for education. But if you are over 30, you might not realize how important it is, because Wikipedia wasn’t around when you were in school. Wikipedia is a great place to start any research that you set out to do, whether you are in school or not.

The campaign from the class has received a bit of attention in South Africa, and I think it would be awesome if other schools in other parts of the world read this and decide to start their own campaign. I can’t think of a better example of what the Wikimedia Movement stands for than to share knowledge with determined people like class 12A at Sinenjongo High School.

Before the film comes out, if you want to help this class in their effort, there are a few things you can do:

• You can get in touch with them on their Facebook campaign page: https://www.facebook.com/FreeAccessToWikipedia
• If you work in telecommunications in South Africa or elsewhere in the world, let your colleages know about this campaign and if you are a decision maker at your telecom, please consider waiving data charges for for access to Wikipedia. The Wikipedia Zero team at the Wikimedia Foundation is available to help you roll out this program. Please contact Kul Wadhwa, Amit Kapoor or Dan Foy here.
• If you are a Wikipedian, you can help wikify the pages about Sinenjongo High School and Joe Slovo Park, and translate them to other language Wikipedias. I’m sure there are alot of other things you can do too that I’m not thinking about. Feel free to message me on my volunteer talk page about it.
• You can help spread the word about their campaign by translating this blog post into your language or sharing this post with others. Feel free to add the translation to the Wikimedia blog page on Meta wiki here.
• If you are a teacher, student, or school administrator, you can write your own letter of support for Sinenjongo High School, or if you think your school or community could use free access to Wikipedia on your cellphone, you could start a campaign of your own. I’d be happy to talk to you about it (you can reach me by email: vgrigas@wikimedia.org). Who knows — you might even make it into the movie.

Victor Grigas, Storyteller, Wikimedia Foundation

Tech News is a weekly tech newsletter delivered on your talk page and translated into many languages.

If you’ve ever wanted to be kept informed of technical changes likely to impact your Wikimedia experience, you’ll want to subscribe to Tech News, a weekly newsletter than can be delivered directly to your talk page.

The amount of technical activity happening across the Wikimedia movement as well as the number of different discussion venues make it increasingly more difficult and time–consuming to monitor changes relevant to one’s involvement in Wikimedia projects. Understanding technical issues and discussions is especially hard since they contain a lot of jargon terms and are mostly conducted only in English.

Tech News is intended to make it easier to keep track of such noteworthy changes and understand them better. By using jargon–free language, we aim to reach regular Wikimedia contributors who are most likely to be affected by upcoming software and configuration changes.

The newsletter is assembled by Tech ambassadors, a group of technically-minded volunteers who help other Wikimedians with technical issues, and act as bridges between developers and local wikis. They’re the ones who monitor technical changes across numerous (and scattered) channels and put together the high-level, plain English summary.

Volunteer translators are the other unsung heroes of Tech News. They’ve been doing an amazing job, which we are very thankful for: not only have they translated every issue so far into around 10 languages on Meta-Wiki (making the newsletter available for users speaking languages other than English), but their responsiveness has even allowed us to distribute translated versions of the newsletter to subscribers on their wikis.

Four issues of the newsletter have been published so far, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Heartwarming comments have for instance described the newsletter as “clear, concise and useful info all in one.” Readers have generally welcomed the initiative, and have provided feedback that helped us further improve the format of the newsletter.

The Wikipedia Signpost has already started making use of Tech News, and we’re hoping that, along with their counterparts in other languages, the Signpost writers will join forces with us to monitor technical changes.

There are a few ways in which you can contribute to Tech News: by translating the latest issue into your language, adding relevant information or links to the next issue, or just by sharing the news with your community.

If you’d like to subscribe to Tech News, add your username to our global delivery list or sign up for the wikitech-ambassadors mailing list to get more frequent updates. If there is local consensus, it’s also possible to receive the newsletter directly on your local community discussion page.

Tomasz W. Kozlowski and Guillaume Paumier

• An invitation from the Language engineering team to collaborate on language-related projects;
• A new Notifications system enabled on the English Wikipedia;
• Recent developments in language engineering, and the upcoming deployment of the Universal language selector on all wikis;
• The start of a discussion around Flow, a proposed discussion system for Wikimedia sites;
• A call for proposals to manage the MediaWiki release cycle;
• An experience-sharing exercise by the Mobile engineering team about distributed collaboration;
• “Nearby“, a feature showing Wikipedia articles about nearby places on location-aware devices;
• Tool Labs, which is now operational and ready to host tools migrated from the Toolserver;
• A test wiki to try out new features in right-to-left languages
• Tech news, a weekly tech newsletter to help users stay informed of technical changes going to impact them.

Note: We’re also providing a shorter, simpler and translatable version of this report that does not assume specialized technical knowledge.

In the first phase, ULS will replace the Narayam and WebFonts extensions on 84 wikis. User preferences from the replaced extensions will not be preserved. Affected communities will be notified by the Wikimedia Language Engineering team of the upcoming change.

In the 5 weeks that follow, ULS will be deployed on Wikipedias in size 11-20 (phase 2), all projects without language versions (phase 3), English language Wikipedia (phase 4) and all other wikis (phase 5).

The Universal Language Selector can be visible in two ways: In the sidebar for wikis with language versions, like Wikipedia, or in the personal toolbar at the top of wiki pages for wikis without language versions, like Wikimedia Commons and Meta-Wiki. Based on the geographic location of users, the initial set of language preferences is presented. Users can set the input methods and fonts to that they want to use. Logged-in users can also change the language for the MediaWiki menu items.

Universal Language Selector is already available on several Wikimedia wikis like Wikimedia Commons and Meta-Wiki. The appearance on wikis like Wikipedia is available in the beta installation of the English language Wikipedia on Wikimedia Labs. A cog icon is present in the “Languages” section of the sidebar menu. Clicking the icon opens the Language settings panel that can be used to set the display and input settings.

Please have a look at the Universal Language Selector feature description or the Frequently Asked Questions for more detailed information.

Runa Bhattacharjee, Outreach and QA coordinator, Language Engineering

 
After several years of development and testing, VisualEditor, the new visual interface to edit Wikipedia pages, will soon be available in “beta” form for all users. This lets Wikipedia editors create and modify articles visually, using a new system where the articles they edit will look the same as they show for reading, and their changes show up as they enter them — like writing a document in a word processor.

VisualEditor removes the need to learn complex wiki markup, and so simplifies editing for both new and experienced editors. We hope that this will open up editing to more people, and along with other efforts will encourage more editors to start and continue to contribute.

We plan to enable it for all logged-in users of the English Wikipedia in early July, later that month extending it to logged-out users, and then the other Wikipedias. Ahead of rolling out VisualEditor in July, we will be carrying out a test of VisualEditor for some randomly-selected new accounts on the English Wikipedia beginning on 17 June. During this testing period, we will be monitoring the impact on users, listening to feedback, and solving problems.

The “alpha” prototype was previously available only to users with a registered account who opted in to test out VisualEditor. First made available on the English Wikipedia in December 2012, it was extended to 16 more language editions in April, and will be made available on all remaining Wikipedias later this week. A lot of valuable feedback has been provided by the early testers of this alpha, and we would like to thank them for their help.

Visual HTML editors are now common on the Web, but building one for Wikipedia (and its sister sites) has been a challenge in itself, due to our specialized requirements and the need to integrate with our existing software, MediaWiki. Behind the scenes, VisualEditor heavily relies on Parsoid, a new complex software component for MediaWiki that translates between wiki markup and annotated HTML+RDFa.

We need your help!

What you can do to help: over the past few months, we have asked you to try out the alpha version of the VisualEditor, and many of you did. Since then, it has changed significantly, and so we’re asking that you try it again. It’s very important that we fix as many critical issues as possible prior to the deploying for everyone in a few weeks’ time — of course, we’d love to fix them all, but that may not be possible. So please, enable the VisualEditor (it’s in your preferences, under the editing tab — check the box labeled “Enable VisualEditor”) and submit any bugs that you find. Your early testing means that we can ensure a better VisualEditor and a smoother deployment for everyone.

Philippe Beaudette, Director, Community Advocacy
James Forrester, Product Manager, VisualEditor and Parsoid

সকল উইকিপিডিয়ার জন্য ভিজুয়াল এডিটর বাস্তবায়নের প্রস্তুতি

Translation contributed by User:Wikitanvir

গত কয়েক বছর যাবত পর্যায়ক্রমে বিভিন্ন উন্নয়ন ও পরীক্ষা-নিরীক্ষার পর ভিজুয়ালএডিটর খুব শীঘ্রই প্রাথমিকভাবে সকল উইকিপিডিয়া ব্যবহারকারীর জন্য উন্মুক্ত করে দেওয়া হবে। ভিজুয়ালএডিটর হচ্ছে উইকিপিডিয়ায় সম্পাদনা করার জন্য একটি নতুন সম্পাদনা ইন্টারফেস যেখানে উইকিপিডিয়ায় সম্পাদনা করার জন্য সম্পাদকগণ ঠিক তেমন ভাবেই লেখাগুলো দেখবেন যেভাবে তাঁরা মূল নিবন্ধে লেখাগুলো দেখে থাকেন। সম্পূর্ণ নতুন প্রক্রিয়া ব্যবহার করে তৈরি এই সম্পাদনা ইন্টারফেসে সম্পাদনার সময় লেখার পরিবর্তনগুলো তাঁরা যেভাবে করবেন সঙ্গে সঙ্গেই সেভাবেই দেখা যাবে, যা অনেকটা ওপেনঅফিস রাইটার বা মাইক্রোসফট ওয়ার্ডের মতো ওয়ার্ড প্রসেসরে কাজ করার মতো।

ভিজুয়ালএডিটর জটিল উইকিমার্কআপ সম্পর্কে জানার প্রয়োজনীয়তা থাকে না, সুতরাং এর ফলে নতুন ও অভিজ্ঞ উভয়প্রকার ব্যবহারকারীর জন্যই উইকিপিডিয়ায় সম্পাদনা করাটি খুব সহজ হয়ে যায়। আমরা আশা করছি এর ফলে আরও অনেক নতুন ব্যবহারকারীর জন্য সম্পাদনার কাজটি উন্মুক্ত হবে এবং এই প্রচেষ্টা আরও অনেক ব্যবহারকারীকে নতুন করে শুরু করতে এবং তাঁদের সম্পাদনা চালিয়ে যেতে উৎসাহিত করবে।

জুলাই মাসের শুরুর দিকে আমরা ইংরেজি উইকিপিডিয়ার নিবন্ধিত ব্যবহারকারীদের জন্য এটি উন্মুক্ত করি, পরে ঐ মাসেই আমরা এটি অনিবন্ধিত ব্যবহারকারীদের জন্যও উন্মুক্ত করে দিই, এবং কালক্রমে আরও কিছু উইকিপিডিয়ার জন্যও এটি উন্মুক্ত করা হয়। জুলাইয়ে ভিজুয়ালএডিটর উন্মুক্ত করার পর, আমরা ইংরেজি উইকিপিডিয়ার কিছু স্বয়ংক্রিয়ভাবে বাছাই করা করা নতুন ব্যবহারকারীর ওপর ভিজুয়ালএডিটরের ওপর একটি পরীক্ষা পরিচালনা করবো। পরীক্ষাটি শুরু হবে ১৭ জুন এবং এই পরীক্ষাকালীন সময়ে আমরা এই নতুন এডিটরটির ওপর ব্যবহারকারীদের প্রভাব পর্যবেক্ষণ করবো, তাঁদের মতামত শুনবো, এবং সমস্যাগুলো সমাধান করবো।

পূর্বে ‘আলফা’ প্রোটোটাইপ শুধু তাঁরাই ব্যবহার করতে পারতেন যাঁরা নিবন্ধিত ছিলেন এবং ভিজুয়ালএডিটর সুবিধাটি ব্যবহারের অপশনটি চালু করেছিলেন। ২০১২ সালের ডিসেম্বর মাসে এটি প্রথম চালু হয়। তার পর থেকে এ বছরের এপ্রিল মাসের মধ্যে আরও ১৬ ভাষার উইকিপিডিয়ায় এই পরীক্ষা কার্যক্রম বিস্তৃত হয়। আমরা আশা করছি এই সপ্তাহের শেষভাগ নাগাদ এটি বাকি উইকিপিডিয়াগুলোতেও চালু করে দেওয়া সম্ভব হবে। আলফা সংস্করণের সময় আমরা এই এডিটরটি সম্পর্কে অনেক মতামত পেয়েছি এবং আমরা তাঁদের সাহায্যের জন্য তাঁদেরকে আন্তরিক ধন্যবাদ জানাই।

ইন্টারনেটে ভিজুয়াল এইচটিএমএল এডিটর আজকাল খুবই সহজলভ্য একটি বিষয় হলেও উইকিপিডিয়া ও এর সহযোগী প্রকল্পগুলোর জন্য এধরনের একটি সুবিধা চালু করার কতোগুলো চ্যালেঞ্জ ছিলো, কারণ আমাদের কিছু বিশেষ চাহিদা ছিলো যেগুলো মেটাতে হয়েছিলো এবং সেই সাথে সুবিধাটি আমাদের বর্তমান সফটওয়্যার মিডিয়াউইকির সাথে সামঞ্জস্যপূর্ণ হওয়া বাঞ্ছনীয় ছিলো। পেছনের কাজ হিসেবে চিন্তা করলে ভিজুয়ালএডিটর বিশেষভাবে নির্ভর করে প্যারসয়েড-এর ওপর, যা মিডিয়াউইকির একটি জটিল সহযোগী সফটওয়্যার যার কাজ মূলত উইকিমার্কআপ ও এইচটিএমএল+আরডিএফএর মধ্যে একটি থেকে অন্যটায় অনুবাদ করা।

আপনার সাহায্য আমাদের প্রয়োজন!

সাহায্য করার জন্য আপনি যা করতে পারেন: গত কয়েক মাসে আমরা আপনাকে ভিজুয়ালএডিটরের আলফা সংস্করণ পরীক্ষা করার আহবান জানিয়েছিলাম, এবং অনেকেই সেটা করেছেন। তারপর থেকে এটি তাৎপর্যপূর্ণভাবে পরিবর্তিত হয়েছে এবং সেজন্য আমরা আপনাকে এটি আবার পরীক্ষা করে দেখার অনুরোধ করছি। এটি খুবই জরুরী যে সামনে আর কয়েক সপ্তাহ সময়ের মধ্যে সবার জন্য এটি উন্মুক্ত করে দেওয়ার আগে আমরা যতোটা সম্ভব সমস্যা সমাধান করতে পারি ততো ভালো হয়। এটা ঠিক যে আমরা চেষ্টা করলেও হয়তো সব সমস্যা আগামী কয়েক সপ্তাহের মধ্যে সমাধান করা সম্ভব হবে না। তাই অনুগ্রহ করে ভিজুয়ালএডিটর চালু করুন (এটি আপনার পছন্দেই আছে, সম্পাদনা ট্যাবের মধ্যে। সেখানে গিয়ে ‘ভিজুয়ালএডিটর চালু করুন’ অপশনে ক্লিক করলেই হবে) এবং আপনার খুঁজে পাওয়া যে-কোনো প্রকার বাগ জমা দিন। আপনার আগে আগে পরীক্ষা করার অর্থ হচ্ছে আমরা আপনার জন্য আরও কার্যকর একটি ভিজুয়ালএডিটর এবং বাকি সবার জন্য একটি সুন্দর ও সাবলীল ডিপ্লয়মেন্ট নিশ্চিত করতে পারবো।

ফিলিপ ব্যুডেট, ডিরেক্টর, কমিউনিটি অ্যাডভোকেসি
জেমস ফরেস্টার, প্রোডাক্ট ম্যানেজার, ভিজ্যুয়ালএডটর ও প্যারসয়েড

Vorbereitungen für die Einführung des VisualEditors für alle Wikipedias

Nach jahrelanger Entwicklungsarbeit und Tests wird der VisualEditor, das neue Interface zur Bearbeitung von Wikipediaseiten, demnächst als “Beta” allen Benutzern zur Verfügung gestellt. Die erlaubt Wikipediaautoren Artikeln visuell zu schreiben und zu bearbeiten. Dabei wird der Bearbeitungsmodus dem Lesemodus gleichen und die Veränderungen direkt anzeigen – ähnlich dem Schreiben in einem Textverarbeitungsprogramm.

Der VisualEditor vereinfacht die Mitarbeit für neue und regelmäßige Autoren, denn das Erlernen komplexer Wiki-Syntax entfällt. Wir hoffen, dass dies mehr Leuten die Möglichkeit zur Mitarbeit eröffnet und zusammen mit anderen Maßnahmen zu hörerer und langfristiger Beteiligung an den Projekten führt.

Gegenwärtig planen wir das Interface für alle eingeloggten Benutzer der englischsprachigen Wikipedia Anfang Juli freizuschalten, dies später im selben Monat auch allen anderen Benutzern des Projekts zu ermöglichen und dann auf die anderen Wikipediaversionen zu übertragen. Bereits vorab werden wir vom 17. Juni an auf der englischsprachigen Wikipedia einen Test mit zufällig ausgewählten neuen Benutzern, denen der VisualEditor zur Verfügung gestellt wird, durchführen. Dieses frühe Feedback soll uns ermöglichen den Einfluss des Interface auf neue Autoren besser zu verstehen und Probleme zu beheben.

Der “Alpha”-Prototyp, der auf der englischsprachigen Wikipedia im Dezember 2012 und im April 2013 für 16 weitere Sprachversionen freigegeben wurde, stand nur eingeloggten Benutzern zur Verfügung und wird Ende dieser Woche auf allen Wikipedien verfügbar sein. Die bisheringen Tester der Alphaversion haben uns zahlreiche wertvolle Hinweise und Verbesserungsvorschläge geliefert und dafür sind wir sehr dankbar.

Visuelle HTML-Textverarbeitungsprogramme sind mittlerweile der Standard im Internet, aber ein solches Programm für Wikipedia (und die Schwesterprojekte) zu schreiben ist dank der speziellen Ansprüche unserer Projekte und der Notwendigkeit, das Interface in Mediawiki zu integrieren, eine besondere Herausforderung. Der VisualEditor hängt hierbei von Parsoid ab, einem neuen und komplexen Stück Software für Mediaiwki, das zwischen Wikisyntax und HTML+RDFa übersetzt.

Wir brauchen deine Hilfe!

Wie du mithelfen kannst: In den letzten Monaten haben wir darum gebeten die Alphaversion des VisualEditors auszuprobieren und viele sind dieser Bitte gefolgt. Seitdem hat sich die Software deutlich verändert und deshalb bitten wir darum diese Tests fortzuführen. Es ist sehr wichtig, dass wir möglichst viele kritische Probleme am besten noch vor der Freischaltung für alle Interessierten beheben. Natürlich würden wir gern alle Probleme vorher lösen aber das ist vermutlich nicht machbar. Daher die Bitte, den VisualEditor auszuprobieren (er kann in den Einstellungen aktiviert werden) und Probleme auf der Feedbackseite zu melden. Eure frühzeitige Mithilfe ermöglicht es uns einen besseren VisualEditor für alle Benutzer zu entwickeln und freizugeben.

Philippe Beaudette, Director, Community Advocacy
James Forrester, Product Manager, VisualEditor und Parsoid

Preparativos para la implementación de VisualEditor en todas las Wikipedias

Translation contributed by User:Jduranboger

Luego de varios años de desarrollo y pruebas, VisualEditor, la nueva interfaz visual para editar las páginas de Wikipedia, pronto estará disponible en su versión “beta” para todos los usuarios.

Esto permitirá a los editores de Wikipedia crear y modificar artículos visualmente, utilizando un nuevo sistema en el que los artículos que editan se verán igual que los artículos que se muestran para su lectura y los cambios aparecen al mismo tiempo que se los va realizando -como escribir un documento en un procesador de textos.

El editor visual elimina la necesidad de aprender la compleja sintaxis wiki, simplificando la edición tanto para editores nuevos y experimentados. Esperamos que esto abrirá la edición de artículos a más personas y junto a otros esfuerzos animará a más editores a empezar y continuar contribuyendo.

Planeamos habilitar VisualEditor para todos los usuarios registrados de Wikipedia en Inglés a principios de julio, para después extenderlo también a usuarios no registrados, así como a Wikipedias en otros idiomas. Antes del lanzamiento de VisualEditor en julio, a partir del 17 de junio, se realizarán pruebas en cuentas nuevas en Wikipedia en inglés seleccionadas aleatoriamente. Durante este periodo de pruebas, estaremos monitoreando el impacto en los usuarios, a través de retroalimentación y solucionado algunos problemas.

El prototipo “alfa” estuvo previamente disponible sólo para usuarios registrados que optaron por probar VisualEditor. Primero en Wikipedia en inglés en diciembre de 2012, extendiéndose a 16 lenguajes en abril de 2013, y estará disponible en todas las demás Wikipedias al final de ésta semana. Muchos comentarios valiosos fueron proporcionados por los usuarios que probaron la versión alfa, a quienes agradecemos por su ayuda.

Los editores visuales HTML son comunes actualmente en la Web, pero desarrollar uno para Wikipedia (y sus proyectos hermanos) ha sido todo un desafío en sí mismo, debido a nuestros requerimientos especializados y a la necesidad de integrarlo con nuestro software existente, MediaWiki. Detrás de escenas, VisualEditor depende en gran medida de Parsoid, un nuevo componente de software complejo para MediaWiki que realiza traducciones entre el formato wiki y HTML+RDFa.

Necesitamos ayuda!

Qué puedes hacer para ayudar: En los últimos meses, les hemos pedido probar la versión alfa de VisualEditor, y muchos lo hicieron. Desde entonces, se han realizado cambios importantes, por lo que les pedimos que lo prueben nuevamente. Es muy importante que corrijamos tantos aspectos críticos como sea posible antes de su implementación que estará disponible para todo el mundo en unas pocas semanas — desde luego nos gustaría poder solucionarlos todos, pero tal vez no sea posible. Por favor, habilita la opción VisualEditor (se encuentra en la página de preferencias, en la sección edición — selecciona la casilla “Activar el editor visual”) y reporta cualquier falla que encuentres. Las pruebas tempranas que se realicen nos permitirán asegurar un mejor VisualEditor y una implementación más suave para todos.

Philippe Beaudette, Director, Defensa de la Comunidad
James Forrester, Productor en Jefe, VisualEditor y Parsoid

Préparatifs pour l’arrivée d’ÉditeurVisuel sur toutes les Wikipédias

Après plusieurs années de développement et de test, ÉditeurVisuel (en anglais, VisualEditor), la nouvelle interface visuelle de modification des pages de Wikipedia, sera bientôt disponible en version “bêta” pour tous les utilisateurs. Cette interface permet aux contributeurs de créer et modifier les articles visuellement ; grâce à ce nouveau système, l’article a la même apparence lorsqu’il est en cours de modification que lorsqu’un lecteur le consulte. Les changements sont visibles immédiatement, comme si l’on écrivait un document dans un logiciel de traitement de texte.

Avec ÉditeurVisuel, il n’est plus nécessaire d’apprendre le code wiki, ce qui rend la modification de pages plus facile autant pour les nouveaux contributeurs que pour les plus expérimentés. Nous espérons que cela permettra à davantage de lecteurs de contribuer.

Nous prévoyons d’activer ÉditeurVisuel pour tous les utilisateurs enregistrés sur Wikipédia en anglais début juillet, et peu de temps après sur les autres Wikipédia. Wikipédia en français sera parmi les premiers wikis à bénéficier d’ÉditeurVisuel, vers la mi-juillet.

Le prototype (version “alpha”) est déjà disponible pour les utilisateurs enregistrés ayant choisi de tester ÉditeurVisuel (dans leurs préférences). Ce prototype est disponible depuis décembre 2012 sur Wikipédia en anglais, sur 16 autres Wikipédia (y compris Wikipédia en français) depuis avril 2013, et sur le reste d’entre elles depuis début juin. Les utilisateurs ayant testé le prototype ont fourni de nombreux retours qui nous ont permis de corriger les bugs et problèmes qu’ils ont découverts.

Il est désormais courant de rencontrer des éditeurs HTML visuels sur le Web, mais en construire un pour Wikipédia (et ses projets frères) a été un vrai défi, en raison de nos besoins spécifiques, tels que l’intégration au logiciel MediaWiki. En arrière-plan, ÉditeurVisuel repose en grande partie sur “Parsoid”, un nouveau logiciel complexe (faisant partie de MediaWiki) qui sert de traducteur entre le code wiki et le HTML annoté avec des métadonnées RDFa.

Nous avons besoin de votre aide

Vous pouvez encore nous aider à améliorer ÉditeurVisuel. Au cours des dernières semaines, nous vous avons demandé de nous aider à tester la version alpha d’ÉditeurVisuel, et vous avez été nombreux à répondre à notre appel. Nous avons effectué de nombreuses modifications entre temps, et nous avons besoin que vous le testiez à nouveau. Il est très important que nous puissions corriger un maximum de problèmes avant l’activation d’ÉditeurVisuel pour tous les utilisateurs dans quelques semaines.

Si vous voulez nous aider, activez ÉditeurVisuel dans vos préférences, sous « Fonctionnalités bêta » : « Activer VisualEditor », et indiquez-nous tous les problèmes que vous rencontrez sur la page Wikipédia:ÉditeurVisuel/Avis. Si vous voyez que des messages sont laissés sur le Bistro (ou d’autres pages) à propos d’ÉditeurVisuel, encouragez les contributeurs à déplacer la discussion vers la page Wikipédia:ÉditeurVisuel/Avis, ou ajoutez-y un lien vers la discussion du bistro, afin que nous ne passions pas à côté.

Philippe Beaudette et James Forrester

This article was edited on June 17 to include translations into Bengali, German, Spanish, and French.

Developers work near sticky-notes representing topics and ideas at the Amsterdam hackathon in May 2013.

Technologists taught and attended sessions on how to write and run a bot, use the new Lua templating language, how to move from Toolserver to the new Wikimedia Labs, design, Wikidata, security, and the basics of Git and Gerrit. Check out the workshops page for slides, tutorials, and other reference material; videorecordings of sessions are due for uploading to Wikimedia Commons soon.

Wikimedia Netherlands, Wikimedia Germany, and the Wikimedia Foundation subsidized travel and accommodation for dozens of participants, enabling the highest participation in this event’s history. As one subsidized participant wrote, “One of the wonderful things about the Wikipedia world is the support given to the volunteers from the different chapters and the parent Wikimedia Foundation to promote community growth and building awesome stuff that the whole world can use….It’s such surprises that makes one love contributing to open source.” Organizers also put together a social events program that included a boat cruise of Amsterdam’s canals.

Participants are still listing what they accomplished or learned during the event, but here’s a sample:

• The Wikimaps project aims to present historical maps on Wikimedia sites, and to work together with OpenStreetMap Historic “to find a common way to model historical geodata” (more details). Maps aficionados discussed the project and made plans in Amsterdam. One volunteer, Arun Ganesh, wrote a prototype wiki atlas: an interactive SVG file that comes with automatic labelling (details).
• Moritz Schubotz, a volunteer, worked on improving search and math functionality in MediaWiki.
• The Foundation testing and quality assurance team improved test coverage and the test environment, and taught other participants how to do QA for Wikimedia.
• Pau Giner, a designer at the Foundation, wrote code to use an SVG for the collapsible section arrow in MediaWiki’s Vector skin. This will make the image less fuzzy-looking.
• 

  A WMF staffer holds a microphone to amplify a volunteer’s voice during the closing demo session at the Amsterdam hackathon.

  User:Ruud Koot wrote a Wikivoyage listing editor that will make it easier to improve the specific parts of a travel suggestion without having to load the whole page.

• Several volunteers worked on the account creation tool and process for English Wikipedia, to help the ACC team deal with prospective editors who have not been able to create an account via the web interface. The improved tool (code) streamlines the workflow, helping volunteers do their work faster.
• A group of staffers and volunteers interested in statistical data improved the User Metrics API‘s reliability and security. Another wrote a proof-of-concept MediaWiki extension enabling editors to embed Limn graphs in wiki pages via wikitext.

So far, 90 participants have submitted the post-event survey and results are largely positive, with (of course) several suggestions for improvements in the future. For instance, next year, organizers should help trainers prepare more, and help participants with common interests find and work with each other more easily.  We don’t yet know where or when next year’s developer meeting will be, but it’ll happen; subscribe to the low-traffic wikitech-announce mailing list to hear when it’s settled.

You may also wish to read the Wikipedia Signpost report on the event.

Thanks are due to staffers at the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Netherlands, and Wikimedia Germany who made the event possible, and to volunteers who ran the event, especially lead Maarten Dammers.  And thanks to all the participants who gave up their weekend to make our sites better.

Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager, Wikimedia Foundation

MediaWiki Language Extension Bundle and Updates to ULS

As the date for the first phase of deployment of Universal Language Selector (ULS) draws close, the team has been fixing critical bugs and testing the fixes. These included bugs related to the behavior of the ULS activation ‘cog’ icon. Significant design changes were also made on the input settings panel. Additionally, ULS has been hidden for users who do not use JavaScript on their browsers.

These updates are also part of the latest version of MediaWiki Language Extension Bundle (MLEB). Besides ULS, miscellaneous maintenance bugs were fixed for the Translate extension editor. This further improves the stability of the Translation Editor – TUX. CLDR has been updated to version 23.1.

Amsterdam and Tel-Aviv Hackathons and Community Programs

Members of the Language Engineering team participated and also helped in organizing hackathons at Amsterdam and Tel Aviv. At the hackathon in Amsterdam, organized by Wikimedia Nederland, team members interacted with their peers. Besides attending the workshops, they also submitted and merged patches for various internationalization extensions. A session for automated browser testing with the Wikimedia QA team was particularly well-received in view of the upcoming ULS deployment.

At the hackathon organized by Wikimedia Israel, Amir Aharoni led the event and brought together more than thirty local participants to explore various aspects of contributing to MediaWiki projects. The full report of the accomplishments from the event has been documented by him.

Alolita Sharma presented a talk about Internationalization in Wikimedia projects at IMUG. The entire video of the talk and presentation slides are available online.

Google Summer of Code

The Language Engineering team also welcomed the 4 students who will be participating in Wikimedia’s Internationalization projects for this year’s Google Summer of Code (GSoC). They will be contributing to the jQuery.ime project, Language Coverage dashboard, mobile app for Translate and right-to-left support on VisualEditor.

Coming up

Preparations for deployment of ULS and extending support to the GSoC candidates during the community bonding period are important focus areas during the next 2 weeks.

For information about the Language Engineering team and our projects, please write me at runa at wikimedia dot org or find team members on our IRC channel #mediawiki-i18n on Freenode.

Runa Bhattacharjee, Outreach and QA coordinator, Language Engineering

What is working?

First of all: Tool maintainers do not have to care about virtual instances or other background stuff. You will develop on servers similar to the Toolserver, e.g. with the infrastructure for web services. The servers are running Ubuntu Precise. At the moment, there are replicas of six (out of seven) database clusters. The last one (with CentralAuth) is due in June. You can already work with all the big and many small Wikipedias, with Commons and Wikidata. You have access to all the data that is visible to registered users without special privileges in a wiki. You can create your own user databases. According to the first experiences, Tool Labs is fast.

In addition to home directories, you also have shared project storage. Tool Labs wants to make it as easy as possible to develop software together, which is why you can add others to your projects via the web interface. There is also a time travel feature! You can reset your files to the state of the last three hours, the last three days and the last two Sundays. The job system that is used in Tool Labs is OpenGridEngine. You can find an intro on the Tool Labs help page. Bugs can be reported in Wikimedia’s Bugzilla: Please use the product “Wikimedia Labs” and one of the components “Tools” or “Bots”. If you miss software in Tool Labs that could be of interest for others, too, please file a bug!

What about “Tools” versus “Bots”?

These are the names of the two projects Tool Labs consists of. The larger environment (Wikimedia Labs) is organized in projects, two of which form Tool Labs. They are an environment inside Labs that is customized for Toolserver users. The naming might be a bit misleading: The difference between “Tools” and “Bots” is not what you run in which project, but that you can run your tools in two different environments. The “Tools” project is a stable environment maintained by four admins (one of them a volunteer). There are no experiments with software versions here. In contrast to this, the “Bots” project is a more flexible environment in which you can play with changes in the environment itself, too. Here, it will be easier to get root access. (If you are interested, ask on the mailing list.)

Open tasks?

Apart from the open tasks on the roadmap, the documentation needs improvement. The pioneers among you can help others a lot by documenting experiences. Magnus Manske and Russell Blau have started to lead by example by adding a lot of documentation, and you can help as well! We are thinking about how to redirect deprecated links to migrated tools in the easiest way possible. The Tool Labs user interface also needs some love; feel free to come to us if you want to help here!

If you run into problems or have questions when migrating tools, be bold and ask! The best places are the labs-l mailing list or the IRC channel #wikimedia-labs ^connect. The admins’ nicks are Coren and petan. There is also a list of Frequently Asked Questions that you can expand. And finally: If you find that your tool needs more adaptation than you think you can manage on your own, talk to Johannes Kroll or myself at Wikimedia Deutschland for support!

Silke Meyer
Projektmanagerin für den Toolserver, Wikimedia Deutschland

Sadly, it is difficult to test these features in your language before they are enabled on Wikipedia. Even if you’re an experienced MediaWiki developer, and you can install a wiki on your own server and add these features to test them, reporting bugs is hard because a locally-hosted wiki isn’t accessible to the rest of the world.

This is why we’ve set up a public test wiki dedicated to RTL languages. Wikimedians can come and test upcoming features, and see which interface messages are translated incorrectly. They can report bugs easily, communicate with other Wikimedians who are working in RTL languages, and work with them on features. Maybe you want to be sure a feature works properly in your language, or maybe you’re just curious and you want to know what Wikipedia will look like in the future. In both cases, the RTL test wiki can help you.

You can visit the RTL test wiki at http://tools.wmflabs.org/wikitest-rtl/w/ ; we have already installed some upcoming features, but if you think something is missing, feel free to contact me or Amir Aharoni and ask us to add it. This wiki uses the Universal language selector, which means that when you open it, the language of the interface is automatically set to the one your browser requests, and you can easily change it.

We hope to see you soon on the RTL test wiki.

This post is available in 2 languages:

Español  • English

English

The Nearby feature in Vatican City

We are quick to use mobile applications to find places that fulfil our needs, whether it’s a place to grab a coffee that your friend recommends, where the nearest bus stop is, or where to go for a perfect first date.

But how hard have you thought about the history of your neighborhood, or the events that have shaped the place where you live? There is a wealth of information all around you as you read this blog post. There are historic sites, parks, museums, theatres, cafes and religious buildings. Thanks to the terrific work of our editor community, Wikipedia has accumulated a massive amount of location data associated with its millions of articles; until now we have not fully taken advantage of this information.

We are happy to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation mobile team has been working on a Nearby page to surface this information. Along with the goal of bringing awareness of the surrounding areas to our existing readers, we hope that this simple tool can attract new editors to these articles, whether it is to update the information on the exhibits in a local museum, or simply to add a photo of a nearby park that is in severe need of a properly licensed lead image.

Look out for the camera icon to show those articles that need your photos

As a first pass, the mobile team has focused on using the Nearby page to surfaces articles in close proximity that lack images, inviting users to add one. Upon visiting those pages, the user will be prompted to illustrate the article, which they can do quickly and easily if they’re on a mobile device that supports taking and uploading photos.

The Nearby feature, although designed with the Wikipedia mobile experience in mind, also works on the desktop version of Wikipedia. In the future, we envision this as a useful step in the editing onboarding process, helping new users learn about editing by encouraging them to improve an article on a topic nearby.

Help make Wikipedia more beautiful, vibrant and educational for all our readers! Explore your local area and find the pages near you that need a photo or updated information. Stay tuned to the Wikimedia blog for more opportunities to contribute via the mobile web, coming soon.

Jon Robson
Software Engineer, Mobile
Wikimedia Foundation

Español

Busqueda del tesoro con Wikipedia Nearby[1]

La aplicación Nearby en la ciudad del Vaticano

Somos rápidos para utilizar aplicaciones móviles para encontrar lugares que cumplan nuestras necesidades, ya sea un lugar para tomar un café que tus amigos te recomendaron, dónde está la parada de autobús más cercana, o dónde ir para una primera cita perfecta.

Pero ¿alguna vez haz pensado en la historia de tu barrio, o los acontecimientos que han marcado el lugar donde vives? Hay una gran cantidad de información a tu alrededor mientrás lees este blog. Hay sitios históricos, parques, museos, teatros, cafés y edificios religiosos. Gracias al excelente trabajo de nuestra comunidad de editores, Wikipedia ha acumulado una enorme cantidad de datos de localización asociados con los millones de artículos que contiene, hasta ahora no hemos aprovechado esta información.

Estamos felices de anunciar que el equipo móvil de la Fundación Wikimedia ha estado trabajando en la página Nearby para traer a la superficie esta información. Además del objetivo de acercar el conocimiento de las áreas que rodean a nuestros lectores actuales, esperamos que esta sencilla herramienta pueda atraer a nuevos editores para estos artículos, ya sea para actualizar la información sobre las exposiciones en un museo local, o simplemente para añadir la foto de un parque cercano que necesita con urgencia una imagen principal con la licencia apropiada.

Como primer paso, el equipo móvil se ha centrado en el uso de la página Nearby para mostrar artículos de lugares cercanos a los que les faltan imágenes, invitando a los usuarios a agregar una. Al visitar esas páginas, se le pedirá al usuario ilustrar el artículo, que puede hacerse fácil y rápidamente si utiliza un dispositivo móvil que sea capaz de tomar y subir fotos.

La característica Nearby, a pesar de estar diseñada teniendo en mente la experiencia de Wikipedia móvil, funciona también en la versión de escritorio de Wikipedia. En el futuro, prevemos que será un paso útil en el proceso de incorporación de edición, ayudar a los nuevos usuarios a aprender acerca de editar, animándoles a mejorar un artículo sobre un tema relacionado a un lugar cercano.

Ayudanos a hacer Wikipedia más hermosa, vibrante y educativa para todos nuestros lectores! Explora tu área local y encuentra los artículos cercanos a tí que necesitan una foto o información actualizada. Manténgase atentos al blog de Wikimedia sobre más oportunidades de contribuir a través de la web móvil, próximamente.

Jon Robson, Wikimedia Foundation equipo de desarrollo móvil
Traducción por Justin Duranboger

Notas

1. ↑ Nearby, o vecindario en español, es el nombre de una apliación para Wikipedia Móvil