Hello everyone,
We are now recruiting projects to promote in Google Summer of Code 2019 and
Outreachy Round 18!
Both these programs have a similar timeline for the summer round. Accepted
candidates will work with mentors from May to August 2019.
Through both these programs, we bring new contributors to Wikimedia
technical projects. Browse through Outreach programs
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreach_programs> to learn more.
Earlier we promote the projects, better it works out for everyone. Students
get enough time to prepare their application, organization administrators
to do ample outreach and mentors to find a strong candidate for their
project.
If you are interested in mentoring a project, create a task on Phabricator
and tag it with #outreach-programs-projects
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/outreach-programs-projects/> and
#Google-Summer-of-Code (2019) or #Outreachy (Round 18). You can also choose
to mentor for projects already on outreach-program-projects
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/outreach-programs-projects/>
workboard. Remember, every project must have two mentors. Learn more about
the roles and responsibilities of a mentor
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/Mentors>.
To get some idea of the nature of projects, see the completed Google Summer
of Code and Outreachy projects from last year
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/2018/08/27/google-summer-of-code-outreachy-…>.
Help us spread the word about Wikimedia's participation in these programs
and looking forward to your participation! :)
---
*Cheers,*
*Derick, Pratyush and Srishti (Wikimedia org admins)*
Dear all,
We are happy to announce that the upcoming DBpedia meetup will be held
in Prague, Czech Republic. During the XML conference Prague, Feb 7-9,
the DBpedia Community will get together on February 7, 2019.
Tell us what cool things you do with DBpedia. If you would like to give
a talk at the DBpedia meetup, please get in contact with the DBpedia
Association via dbpedia(a)infai.org.
Highlights
- Intro: DBpedia: Global and Unified Access to Knowledge (Graphs)
- DBpedia Databus presentation
- DBpedia Showcase Session
Quick Facts
- Web URL: https://wiki.dbpedia.org/meetings/Prague2019
- When: February 7th, 2019
- Where: University of Economics, nam. W. Churchilla 4, 130 67 Prague 3,
Czech Republic
Schedule
- Please check the schedule for the upcoming DBpedia meetup here:
https://wiki.dbpedia.org/meetings/Prague2019
Tickets
- Attending the DBpedia Community meetup costs €40. DBpedia members get
free admission, please contact your nearest DBpedia chapter or the
DBpedia Association for a promotion code.
- You need to buy a ticket. Please check all details here:
http://www.xmlprague.cz/conference-registration/
Sponsors and Acknowledgments
- XML conference Prague (http://www.xmlprague.cz/)
- Institute for Applied Informatics (http://infai.org/en/AboutInfAI)
- OpenLink Software (http://www.openlinksw.com/)
Organisation
- Milan Dojčinovski, AKSW/KILT
- Tomáš Kliegr, KIZI/University of Economics, Prague
- Julia Holze, DBpedia Association
- Sebastian Hellmann, AKSW/KILT, DBpedia Association
We are looking forward to meeting you in Prague!
The Search Platform Team
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Search_Platform> usually holds
office hours the first Wednesday of each month—but since this month that
would have been Jan 2nd, we’ve delayed for a week. Come ask us anything
about Wikimedia search!
We’re particularly interested in:
* Opportunities for collaboration—internally or externally to the Wikimedia
Foundation
* Challenges you have with on-wiki search, in any of the languages we
support
But we're happy to talk about anything search-related. Feel free to add
your items to the Etherpad Agenda for the next meeting.
Details for our next meeting:
Date: Wednesday, December 9th, 2018
Time: 16:00-17:00 GMT / 08:00-9:00 PST / 11:00-12:00 EST / 17:00-18:00 CET
Etherpad: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Search_Platform_Office_Hours
Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/vyc-jvgq-dww
*N.B.:* Google Meet System Requirements
<https://support.google.com/meet/answer/7317473>
—Trey
Trey Jones
Sr. Software Engineer, Search Platform
Wikimedia Foundation
Hello,
Due to an issue in stylelint library, all patches now fail on npm tests.
The reason is one of dependencies of stylelint is broken so there is not
much we can do until the new release gets picked up by npm registry.
Sorry for any inconvenience, and for more information see
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T213249
Best
--
Amir Sarabadani
Software Engineer
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0
http://wikimedia.de
Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
http://spenden.wikimedia.de/
Wikimedia Deutschland – Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
Hello Everyone,
I'm starting today's "Thank you Tuesday" thread with a big Merry Christmas to all Wikimedia Developers. Wikimedia Developers are just awesome and they have a way of doing with things (Computers + MediaWiki = Wikipedia).
I want to thank all developers in the movement that have helped me become better at my contributions to MediaWiki and other related Wikimedia projects. A short list below;
Legoktm, Reedy, Pmiazga, Jdlrobson, Thiemo_WMDE, Bawolff, Jdforrester, Krinkle, Matmarex, Volker_E, Sklaporte, Hoo, Lydia_WMDE, Nikerabbit, Aklapper, Xqt, Framawiki, QuimGil, Apergos, Amire80, BryanDavis and MaxSem + the *entire* Wikimedia developer community.
See, the list is so long as over time, I've worked with developers that have in one way or another shaped my way of doing things in the Wikimedia movement. The list above is just a short list and I want to take today to thank all of them for their awesomeness and for helping people get better at writing code in Wikimedia. You are all awesome and I love you all!
Enjoy your Christmas / Holidays <3. Who do you want to thank on this special day?
*--*
*Derick*
Greetings,
Have you written code that deals with or depends on user blocks? Read on.
= TL;DR: =
The new “Partial Blocks” feature has fundamentally changed the way MediaWiki
considers what “block” means; any code that handles blocks should consider
whether the questions it is asking are still valid or should adjust its
expectations. Please read for more details.
= Preamble =
A couple of months ago, as part of the Anti Harassment Tools team’s
continued work on improving the general experience of our users and
providing more robust tools to administrators, an RFC to enable “Partial
Blocks[1]” has passed and has been implemented in MediaWiki, affecting the
way blocking users operates.
While the actual feature, enabling the blocking of users for specific pages
and namespaces, will be slowly rolled out as part of our rollout and
testing plans, the change has resulted in a complete change of paradigm for
what “block” means throughout our code.
= Change of paradigm =
Until recently, Block was fairly straight forward; whether a block was done
on an IP range or a specific user, the question the code would ask is “is
the user blocked from this action” and the answer will be a boolean yes or
no, depending on whether the user was blocked from the wiki and whether the
action was a blockable action.
With the new Partial Blocks feature, that question is now more elaborate.
We are giving admins and wikis in general much more robust options when
deciding to block IPs or users. “Sitewide” block is no longer the only
option. Now, a user can be blocked from editing a specific page, and soon
from a specific namespace. There are also blocks that prevent a specific
action, such as uploading files or creating new pages.
This means that the question “is the user blocked” is no longer accurate.
In most cases, the question should be “is the user blocked from the action
on this page”, because users may receive a block that is not sitewide, but
from a specific page or set of pages.
= What we worked on =
The Anti Harassment Tools team has been working diligently on making sure
that the new blocking behavior does not produce obvious regressions in
production, and does not add to any still existing inconsistencies. In
cases where we identified a clear mismatch, we’ve tried to either fix it
outright or alert the code owners to adjust.
If we have missed any iteration or use-case, please open a Phabricator
ticket and add the ‘anti-harassment’[2] tag to it. If the use-case is
sensitive or identifies a current loop-hole in the way blocks work, please
make it a security ticket and alert us and the relevant team immediately.
= General steps forward =
While the team is following up on making the code clear and robust and
fixing what we’ve identified as paradigm-changes to deal with, there are
still many instances where the changes required to the code are not
straight-forward or clear. Some extensions ask whether a user is blocked
and may need to change the way that the product’s “business logic” behaves.
These are cases where we cannot make the decision for the codebase. We
encourage you to look at your product and consider adjusting if necessary.
= General guidance =
We’ve identified some areas that may help code owners adjust their products
to properly take advantage of the new feature and adjust to the new
paradigm change. This list is not exhaustive, but may help you spot areas
in your code that can easily be changed:
* User::isBlocked() has changed its meaning, and its use cases should be
re-examined depending on what your code intends to check.
For the most part, if there’s a Title object available,
User::isBlockedFrom() is a good option. Otherwise, consider using
User::getBlock() and Block::isSitewide()
* Block::prevents( ‘edit’ ) is an operation that doesn’t make sense
anymore, because a block on the ‘edit’ action now depends on context (the
title).
* Determining whether a block prevents a user from editing their own user
talk page has changed.
For a sitewide block, if the $wgBlockAllowsUTEdit config is false, then the
block prevents the user editing their user talk page, but if it is true,
then whether they can edit their user talk page depends on the
ipb_allow_usertalk flag on the block. For a partial block to a page or
pages, these flags are not taken into account: if the user’s talk page is
specified as a blocked page, then they cannot edit their user talk page; if
it is not, then they can edit it. Block::prevents( ‘editownuserpage’ )
should therefore not be checked for a partial page block[3]. We plan to
deprecate that parameter officially, please consider if this affects your
code.
* Please check that any classes that extend Action or FormSpecialPage
return the correct value for requiresUnblock().
To summarize, in general, the meaning of asking whether a block exists has
changed, and any code piece that needs this information should adjust
itself to account for partial blocks, depending on its goals.
Thank you,
Moriel, on behalf of the Anti Harassment Tools Team
References:
[1] Partial blocks:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_health_initiative/Per-user_page,_…
[2] Anti Harassment tools board:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/view/2660/
[3] For a discussion of this, see: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T210475
--
Moriel Schottlender (she/her)
Senior Software Engineer, Tech Lead
Community Tech and Anti Harassment Tools
@mooeypoo (IRC / Phabricator)
On behalf of Wikimedia Czech Republic and the Wikimedia Foundation
Community Relations team we are please to announce that registration for
the Wikimedia Hackathon 2019
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2019/Register_and_Attend>
is now open for both scholarships and regular attendees!
The hackathon will be held at the Czech National Library of Technology
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_National_Library_of_Technology> in
Prague, CZ between 17-19 May 2019.
We have identified three focus areas
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2019/Program> for the
event which we will continue to refine and clarify over the next months. We
welcome your suggestions and collaboration on additional focus areas or
larger projects and as usual welcome participants who plan to work on or
learn about any project that they like related to any area of Wikimedia
Technology.
If you have any questions or comments please contact: *hackathon(a)wikimedia.cz
<hackathon(a)wikimedia.cz>*
Otherwise, please continue to follow our program and organizational
developments on Wikimedia Hackathon 2019 on Mediawiki
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2019>.
Please help us by forwarding this email to relevant lists!
--
Rachel Farrand
Events Program Manager
Technical Collaboration Team
Wikimedia Foundation
I do not see what community this is being controlled by;
1. there is no notice boards, or request for administrators, etc..
2. there is no arbitration commity to go to, etc..
3. there are no rules on who may be blocked.
4. there is no unblocking feature, and yet there is a review page.
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Category:Requests_for_unblock
5. there is nothing in place to punish administrators that abuse there
blocking powers etc..
6. there is no active user talk page to request an
unblock.