Commons:Village pump/Technical/Archive/2019/10

error on svg

In the top of file "Wappen von Holzheim (Donau-Ries).svg" there is a blue line that should dont exist. Please fix it. Thanks! --2001:B07:6442:8903:C590:5450:7D6C:DEEC 14:56, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done Ahmad^talk 15:24, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Ahmad^talk 16:44, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Upload comment (Mediawiki coder needed)

"User created page with UploadWizard" upload comments are unhelpful, make them more informative.

There is easy support for this, but we need a patch that compiles (unlike this one) so it can be shipped. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 14:10, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-41

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• The abuse filter function now has a faster parser. This is to shorten the waiting time when you save an edit. [1]

Problems

• There is a problem in the visual editor when you copy or delete text with footnotes. It will be fixed soon. [2]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 October. It will be on all wikis from 10 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 9 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Community Wishlist Survey has a new format. It will focus on wikis that typically get less support. It will probably go back to the normal format next year. It is not decided exactly how it will work this year. You can leave feedback.
• The URL of the Wikimedia wiki main pages could be changed. This is because the current URLs cause several problems. For example https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page would be https://www.wikidata.org/ instead. You can tell the developers if this would cause problems for your wiki.
• There is a new technical community newsletter. You can read more about the work of Wikimedia's technical community. Subscribe to get the information in the future.
• Outreachy is an internship program for groups who are underrepresented in free and open-source software. There are seven Wikimedia projects about coding, documentation and quality assurance in the next round. Persons who fit the criteria can apply. The last day to apply is 5 November.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:34, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-42

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can now use more advanced editing tools on the mobile web. You can turn them on and off in your preferences in the mobile version. [3]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 October. It will be on all wikis from 17 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 16 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are no longer supported. This means the browsers might start looking a bit weird. They will not get security support. You can't read Wikimedia wikis in Internet Explorer on Windows XP or Windows versions that are older than Windows XP. This is because almost no one uses the browsers anymore. Supporting them made the wikis less secure for everyone else. [4]
• In the future section headings might have a share link. This is to make it easier to link to the section. You can read more and discuss.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

23:04, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Problems on transcoding after moving a video file

Hi. I first uploaded a video file to Commons, but later I found a typo in its name. Normally a file will have several transcoded versions with lower resolutions, but it seems like all the transcoded versions are lost after moving the file to a new title, and there is no way to force MediaWiki to transcode it from the beginning. Now, if a viewer needs to stream the video, they will have to stream the original uncompressed versions. Is there any way to get around with it?

I have run into this problem several times before. Here's a recent example: File:Beijing Telegraph Building (Dianbao Dalou) strike 5 o'clock with The East Is Red (Dongfang Hong) melody.webm. As you can see, the "transcode status" says "no transcoding required," and the player itself has no options for other resolutions like 720p.

--Techyan（Talk） 19:06, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-43

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• The API sandbox and help pages now show more clearly when API modules are marked as internal. API modules marked as internal were probably internal before. It was easier to miss. You should look for non-internal alternatives. [5]

Problems

• There is a translation tool we use on wikis with more than one language. For a few days it did not create pages for new languages when someone translated a page. The languages did not show in the language bar. This has been fixed. [6]
• The history and diffs can show wrong content. This is because of a cache problem. It will soon be fixed. [7]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 October. It will be on all wikis from 24 October (calendar).
• Reference Previews will be a beta feature on all Wikipedias and some Wikivoyages. It shows you a preview of the footnote when you hover over or click on the number. It has been a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia since April.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 October. See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

14:18, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Files presenting an outdated version

File:Coropuna ice profile.png and File:Ice loss Coropuna.png appear to be displaying an older lower resolution file version as the most recent with a wrong size indication, despite purging and edits to the file page. Is there a way to make the newer larger versions to appear? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:37, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

The same issue exists at File:Hells Bells-A.png as well. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:55, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

There is an old method of right clicking the image on the page where the thumbnail is, clicking see image, changing the px number in the adress bar by one and fetching that. That will force an new thumbnail for both sizes. This is an hackish method, tho, and I will probably get some flak (critizism) for saying it.--Snaevar (talk) 18:36, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Gadget error in GallerySlideshow

Please check MediaWiki talk:GallerySlideshow.js#Breaks keyboard input if you know a bit of JavaScript. --Nenntmichruhigip (talk) 18:43, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Annoying message

Hello.This annoying message appears in Windows 7 during Contribution and covers everything and make me forced to restart the computer.Why is it showing and how do I get rid of it?Thanks ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 16:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

@ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2: You should probably take it to forums designed specifically to solve such problems, but I think this can be the result of a virus. I suggest installing an antivirus (or updating your antivirus, if it isn't already up-to-date) and running a complete scan on your computer. Ahmad^talk 16:45, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Or this can be the result of a malicious browser extension. Check if you can forcefully close your browser when this happens (using Alt+F4, Ctrl+Alt+Delete etc) and continue working with your computer. Ahmad^talk 18:07, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 You are using a self-proclaimed anti-virus software http://advancedpccare.com/ , they are in fact considered malware/adware by Norton AntiVirus and Kaspersky Anti-Virus. Just open the control-panel and throw it out. If it's not listed on the control panel, download Revo Uninstaller or any-other trusted uninstaller. Revo should hunt down any traces of the software mentioned. :) -- Eatcha (talk) 03:48, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-44

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can post proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals until 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 20 November to 2 December. This year the wishlist will focus on Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. You can read more about the format for this year.
• Mobile users now have a specific design for their Watchlist. [8][9]
• You can share feedback and ideas on the Desktop Improvements project. The goal is to make the interface easier to use for readers and editors without removing any functionality. The Foundation's Readers Web team will work on this over the next two years.
• OOUI now allows using px (pixels) instead of em (em) for some specific cases. [10][11]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 October. It will be on all wikis from 31 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 30 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• There will be no software changes from 19 December to 2 January. The first MediaWiki version next year will come the week of 6 January. [12]
• Gadgets and user scripts can access variables about the current page in JavaScript. In 2015, this information was moved from global variables named wg* to mw.config. The old global variables will be removed later this year. You can know more about it and tell the developers if you want to try this out on your wiki first.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:09, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Are there instructions for copying shape files from OpenStreetMap to Commons?

Hi all

Since we can now upload various CC licensed shape files to Commons (not the png, the actual map data), this now allows us to copy OpenStreetMap shapes. However I can't find any instructions on it, do they exist?

I'm working on some instructions for general uploading of map data into Commons and use here, but I don't understand how to get usable file from OSM.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 11:12, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Here's a page on creating shapefiles from OSM data. Note that most people in the OSM community are amateurs, so we just talk about "areas" or similar. Also note that in most cases you don't really want to "copy shapefiles" from OSM, but rather play around with Kartographer. --Hjart (talk) 13:01, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

There simply is no straight-forward way of importing OSM data to Commons. One reason is that the answer to the question of how to get the data really, really depends on what data you want. There are some places where you can get some data as shapefiles or similar (see link in answer by Hjart). That's for commonly used things like coastlines or state borders. If you're looking for other things like e.g. Tennis courts, it's getting much less straight-forward very rapidly. openstreetmap:Overpass_turbo Overpass turbo is very useful and it can export to GeoJSON, but in my experience it works best on local scales. Finding all tennis courts in a city would work, but trying the same query on a US State may already not work. If you want all the data but only for a small region, something as simple as JOSM may be your tool of choice. Of course you can always download the whole 82 GB of data here and use command line tools like openstreetmap: osmconvert, openstreetmap:Osmfilter osmfilter or openstreetmap:Osmosis osmosis (unmaintained) to make extractions from that. Some more info at openstreetmap:Downloading_data, some more spatial and thematic extracts at openstreetmap:Planet.osm#Country_and_area_extracts.

Second reason is that after you've got your data, you'll likely have to do quite a bit of cleanup work. I love OSM, but it has the messiest spatial data I've ever worked with. Sometimes your tennis court will be a polygon, sometimes it will be a point and sometimes there will be both a point and a polygon representing the same tennis court. Sometimes the club house will be tagged as a tennis court. The river you were looking for will consist of hundreds of line fragments that need to be puzzled together.

So in addition to Hjart's comment on Kartographer I'd like to point out that there are many other sources of free geo data that are much more convenient to process. Before I'd try to upload anything from OSM, I'd always check NaturalEarthData, the US Government pages and other local OpenData geodata portals first. --El Grafo (talk) 14:42, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I would say OSM shapes(I think you mean as PNG) should only be uploaded to commons if they are really needed and used in any Wikimedia Project as static map. Because the images get outdated very fast. --GPSLeo (talk) 15:02, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

"Shapes" are vectors, while PNG is raster. They are very different technologies. I agree that it's better to use Kartographer than upload OSM based raster images, but I can imagine good reasons for uploading shapefiles for some purposes.

Rather than do cleanup work after downloading, I'd recommend doing it before, because that will help you the next time you want the same type of data and the next datauser too. OSM is contributed to by a lot of complete newbies with no or very limited ideas of what the project really is about or how to do things, so of course much of the data will be quite messy. Some areas though have experienced maintainers watching them, so in those areas you can generally expect better consistency and quality. --Hjart (talk) 09:37, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

I can't see any structured data

For about a week or two (2) weeks I have not been able to see any Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons (SDC) content, please see these screenshots:

• 
  This is a screenshot on how it influences my "Desktop" view.
• 
  This is a screenshot on how it influences my "Desktop" view.
• 
  This is a screenshot on how it influences my "Mobile" view.
• 
  This is a screenshot on how it influences my "Mobile" view.

As y'all can see I can't see either file captions or depicts. This issue has been affecting me for quite some time, but I can still add Structured Data using the MediaWiki Upload Wizard but after the file is uploaded I can't. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 05:20, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

•  Addendum, for context I use Microsoft Edge as my browser and my device is a Microsoft Lumia 950 XL phablet with Microsoft's Windows 10 Mobile operating system. I haven't checked this issue on my Google's Android device yet. I have deleted cookies several times and this also seems to affect me in incognito mode. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 05:24, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I can reproduce this on a Microsoft Phone Microsoft recently has discontinued support for but not on Edge Desktop. -- Rillke^(q?) 00:43, 3 November 2019 (UTC)