FlightGear wiki:Village pump/Archive 2019

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Replacement filing cabinet.png This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.


Welcoming template

I have had a shelved draft of a welcoming template laying in a subpage for quite a while that I have dusted off and rewritten.

It has a welcoming message and some links I hope will be useful to new users (and perhaps not so new ones as well). The idea is that when some of us sees that there is a new user we will add that template to the top of the new users discussion page. I am not sure about whether we should wait till the user have made some edits (to see if it is a bot) or if we should add it at once.

I would like to have some more eyes on it to see for example if I should have some more or some less links, or if there is something I did not think of. I tried to use as few links as possible, while also keeping ones a new user might hope is there, but do not know where to look for.

When I feel content with it I will move it to the template namespace and add a site notice linking to it for a while, as I am not sure if you all look here or on Special:RecentChanges.

Anyway here is my current draft (do not hesitate to add suggestions on its discussion page): User:Johan G/Template:Welcome to the wiki

—Johan G (Talk | contribs) 13:02, 15 April 2019 (EDT)

The template is now moved to {{Welcome to the wiki}}
—Johan G (Talk | contribs) 18:19, 17 April 2019 (EDT)
Hi Johan,
The template looks good to me!
Gijs (talk) 06:48, 16 April 2019 (EDT)
It looks good to me too. What about using Extension:Create User Page to fully automate the process?
Bugman (talk) 09:57, 16 April 2019 (EDT)
If you mean as in automatically creating a user discussion page and adding the welcome template? Though it would probably be a good idea, as likely no one will be left without a welcome, it kind of feels better if it is done by a being of flesh and blood than if it was done by a bot. Consider me undecided. ;-)
—Johan G (Talk | contribs) 18:13, 17 April 2019 (EDT)
It is a worry that the automation will not seem personal. However I just counted the new user registrations from 17/04/2018 to 17/04/2019. There are 113 registrations! Maybe 5% are not bots, but identifying these is hard. I think it will be too overwhelming for any individual to manually do this.
Bugman (talk) 01:43, 18 April 2019 (EDT)
One registration every second day. Automation might not be such a bad idea after all.
I noticed though that Extension:Create User Page does not create the user discussion page, which is where such messageboxes typically are placed. Maybe not a big problem.
—Johan G (Talk | contribs) 12:46, 19 April 2019 (EDT)
A site notice is now up with the text "Hi fellow wiki users!
To help new users get more familiar with the wiki (and maybe older users too) there is now a {{Welcome to the wiki}} template. Have a look at it and feel free to add it to new users discussion pages (and perhaps your own).
I have tried to keep the template short, but meaningful. /Johan G"
—Johan G (Talk | contribs) 06:13, 26 April 2019 (EDT)

I just noticed Extension:NewUserMessage which seems perfectly suited to be used the way Bugman mentioned Extension:Create User Page above on 16 April. This extension automatically creates a discussion page with a message for new users. —Johan G (Talk | contribs) 10:44, 22 June 2019 (EDT)

I think we should really use such an extension. There are just too many new user subscriptions to do this manually (and my experience from my own wiki is that 99% of subscriptions are failed bots). I say install it asap. It would really benefit real new users who might be lost under the load of failed bot registrations. Can you install it yourself Johan?
Bugman (talk) 03:50, 2 July 2019 (EDT)
No, I can not install wiki extensions (I am a wiki admin just like you). Simon, the maintainer, can for sure do it and I think that maybe Gijs could do do it.
—Johan G (Talk | contribs) 10:21, 4 July 2019 (EDT)
Sent a mail to Gijs and Simon, with a copy to you.
—Johan G (Talk | contribs) 12:24, 4 July 2019 (EDT)

Adding it to all user discussion pages?

I have started to wonder if we maybe should add the template to all of the user discussion pages (but not archived ones of course).

What would be the advantages and disadvantages of that. Personally I see more advantages than disadvantages with that.

This would be a bot job of course.

—Johan G (Talk | contribs) 08:50, 21 June 2019 (EDT)

The lead section, or first section, as I have called it

Most of the time when I have been writing help pages I have tried to use the terminology used on Wikipedia and its sister projects, but somehow I have called the lead section (or lead or introduction) first section and done that consistently. I have gone through the help pages and changed that.

—Johan G (Talk | contribs) 08:56, 23 May 2019 (EDT)


Automated translation for the wikipedia template

Just for the record, I attempted to modify {{wikipedia}} to automatically determine the page language and point to the non-english Wikipedia page without the lang parameter. I have recently added the wikipedia parameter to {{infobox aircraft}} and was hoping to use the language auto-detection to have the wikipedia infobox link point to the correct translation at Wikipedia. I could not use {{PAGELANGUAGE}} as this required MediaWiki >= 1.29 (see [1]). So I unsuccessfully attempted to use the same logic as the {{LangSwitch}} parameter. I reverted all changes as there appears to be no way to correctly detect the page language (other than wait for the next MediaWiki upgrade to expose {{PAGELANGUAGE}}).

Bugman (talk) 05:51, 24 May 2019 (EDT)

Note that this means that the aircraft infobox wikipedia link can only point to the English page until an upgrade occurs (this is not urgent though).
Bugman (talk) 06:01, 24 May 2019 (EDT)
{{lc: {{#titleparts: {{PAGENAME}} | 1}} }} should return the language code needed for the lang= parameter.
Note that you will only be able to pull this of where the article title is exactly the same in another language. If a model for example have have another name in one country (like cars sometimes have) the link will fail. If the title is transcribed the link will fail. Etc.
—Johan G (Talk | contribs) 07:16, 24 May 2019 (EDT)

Expansion of the upload licence list and uploading errors

I've always been concerned that we do not present enough licence choices for the graphics uploaded to the wiki. In testing this, I've noticed that I can no longer upload graphics to the wiki! I see a red exclamation mark and the text Unknown error: "unknown", None of the uploads were successful., the button Retry failed uploads, and 0 of 1 file uploaded. Has any one else seen this?

Also, is there a reason we don't update MediaWiki:Licenses? I think I'll add the CC v4.0 licenses so those can be selected. I'll probably also add the GPL.

Bugman (talk) 04:22, 27 May 2019 (EDT)

While I have not tested uploading, according the upload log files were uploaded as recent as the 26th.
Regarding the licenses it might be a good idea to add any missing license templates.
—Johan G (Talk | contribs) 08:39, 28 May 2019 (EDT)

Conversion of direct forum links and URLs to templates

I'll continue the discussions of Template talk:Forum link#Usable as replacement for cite web used for forum links? here. After much editing of {{project infrastructure}}, {{project infrastructure option}}, {{forum url}}, and {{forum link}}, I have now gone through the wiki [2] [3] and converted almost all direct links and URLs to the forum to use these new templates. I used macros in vim to simplify and semi-automate the process. There should now be almost no direct references to forum.flightgear.org left. If I have missed anything obvious please point it out to me.

Bugman (talk) 09:49, 6 June 2019 (EDT)

I've found more direct forum links and converted those. However I've also noticed that Special:Search does not reveal all instances of forum.flightgear.org or flightgear.org/forums!? Does anyone know how to hunt down every last direct link? Cheers!
Bugman (talk) 06:17, 7 June 2019 (EDT)
That was huge amount of work. Side note: In disbelief I looked at some of the edits where using the template decreased the article size by several kilobytes.
There is a special page for looking for external links, Special:LinkSearch, that might be useful. Unfortunately it only looks for the domain, so you will have to sift though the results for the relevant hits. (External link search for "*.flightgear.org".)
—Johan G (Talk | contribs) 10:19, 7 June 2019 (EDT)
Those articles with big diffs were usually the poor-quality articles pumped full of {{cite web}} text. I used vim macros to quickly convert them, but had to manually check every change to be sure as there were some issues.
I'd completely forgotten about Special:LinkSearch. I had used that previously to convert all repository links to convert the entire wiki to use the Category:Repository link templates template family. I now see that the forum link conversion is a much, much, much bigger job! I currently see:
Unfortunately in converting all the direct links I found via the normal search, I know that we won't be able to automate/script this. There are far too many different ways these forum links are presented. For example a link ending with the anchor #p1234 or simply having p=1234 in the URL can have all other elements (t, f, sid, etc.) removed and drop to simply {{forum link|p=1234}}, with either the text or title parameters specified as needed. Some forum links are unnecessarily long. A link to a post only needs p, a link to a topic only t and a link to a subforum only f. The exception being hilit. However hilit is often present in the URL without any keywords. Then there is also a mix of using = and {{=}} in the URLs. And it is not always completely obvious if {{forum url}} or {{forum link}} should be used. The only regularity is in the {{cite web}} usage, but that also appears to have 3 or 4 forms that have evolved over time.
Bugman (talk) 11:28, 7 June 2019 (EDT)

Update

I've eliminated all flightgear.org/forums hard links on the wiki to use {{forum url}} and {{forum link}}. The numbers are now:

For reference, here are my vim macros. These are placed into the ~/.vimrc file: 

" --- FlightGear forum conversions ---
" Link: Convert [http://www.flightgear.org/forums forums] to {{forum link|text=forums}}.
let @f='/[http.*forum^Mv/ ^Mc{{forum link|text=^[/]^Mvc}}^[/forum^MN'
" Link: Convert [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=13 section of our forum] to {{forum link|f=13|text=section of our forum}}.
let @g='/[http.*forum^Mv/f=^Mhc{{forum link|^[/ ^Mvc|text=^[/]^Mvc}}^[/forum^MN'
" Link: Convert [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7485#p102005] to {{forum link|p=102005}}.
let @p='/[http.*forum^Mv/#^Mc{{forum link|^[la=^[/]^Mvc}}^[/forum^MN'
" Link: Convert [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14254 thread] to {{forum link|t=14254|text=thread}}.
let @t='/[http.*forum^Mv/t=^Mhc{{forum link|^[/ ^Mvc|text=^[/]^Mvc}}^[/forum^MN'
" Link: Convert [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=15267#p149971 this short essay] to {{forum link|p=149971|text=this short essay}}.
let @s='/[http.*forum^Mv/#^Mc{{forum link|^[la=^[/ ^Mvc|text=^[/]^Mvc}}^[/forum^MN'
" Link: Convert [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1697&p=12549 ARINC] to {{forum link|p=12549|text=ARINC}}.
let @r='/[http.*forum^Mv/p=^Mhc{{forum link|^[/ ^Mvc|text=^[/]^Mvc}}^[/forum^MN'
" Link: Convert [http://forum.flightgear.org/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=22840] to {{forum link|t=22840}}.
let @l='/[http.*forum^Mv/t=^Mhc{{forum link|^[/]^Mvc}}^[/forum^MN'
" Link: Convert [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=10488&p=144233&hilit=snapshot#p144233 at the forum] to {{forum link|hilit=snapshot|p=144233|text=at the forum}}.
let @i='/[http.*forum^Mv/hilit^Mhc{{forum link|^[/#^Mxi|^[la=^[/ ^[vc|text=^[/]^Mvc}}^[/forum^MN'
" Link: Convert [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=20214&p=186020&hilit=xml+french#p185963] to {{forum link|hilit=xml+french|p=185963}}.
let @j='/[http.*forum^Mv/hilit^Mhc{{forum link|^[/#^Mxi|^[la=^[/]^Mvc}}^[/forum^MN'

" URL: Convert http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14758 to {{forum url|t=14758}}.
let @w='/http.*forum^Mv/t=^Mhc{{forum url|^[llea}}^[/forum^MN'
" URL: Convert http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2766&p=26459&hilit=generic+protocol#p26459 to {{forum url|hilit=generic+protocol|p=26459}}.
let @h='/http.*forum^Mv/hilit^Mhc{{forum url|^[/#^Mxi|^[la=^[ea}}^[/forum^MN'
" URL: Convert http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3430&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=oscillations+x to {{forum url|t=3430|hilit=oscillations+x}}
let @b='/http.*forum^Mv/t=^Mhc{{forum url|^[llelv/hilit^Mhxi|^[/.[\n ]^[a}}^[/forum^MN'
" URL: Convert http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6890 to {{forum url|t=6890}}.
let @v='/http.*forum^Mi{{forum url|^[lv/t=^Mhxllea}}^[/forum^MN'
" URL: Convert http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3085&p=28982#p28982 to {{forum url|p=28982}}.
let @x='/http.*forum^Mv/#^Mc{{forum url|^[la=^[ea}}^[/forum^MN'
" URL: Convert http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5814&p=44566 to {{forum url|p=44566}}.
let @y='/http.*forum^Mv/p=^Mhc{{forum url|^[llea}}^[/forum^MN'

" Member: Convert [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=510 Gijs] to {{forum list|type=member|u=510|text=Gijs}}.
let @m='/[http.*forum^Mv/member^Mhc{{forum link|type=^[/list^[v/u=^Mhc|^[/ ^[xi|text=^[/]^Mvc}}^[/forum^MN'

" Search: Convert [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keywords=head+tracking head tracking] to {{forum list|type=search|keywords=head+tracking|text=head tracking}}.
let @a='/[http.*forum^Mv/search^Mhc{{forum link|type=^[/.php^[v/keywords=^Mhc|^[/ ^[xi|text=^[/]^Mvc}}^[/forum^MN'

The ^[ and ^M characters have to be converted into the escape and enter escape sequences for this to work (using e.g. i, ctrl+v, esc, esc and i, ctrl+v, ↵ Enter, esc). These handle the forum.flightgear.org hard links as well, but only cover maybe 90% of all hard links. One link that often needs manual intervention is when start=X is in the URL. This requires following the link, finding the post number, and then supplying the p parameter, which is absent from the original URL, to the templates.

Roadmap: Once all the http links are converted, all links will be present in the https search. Then the {{project infrastructure}} template can be modified to produce http forum URLs rather than https. This will cause only the unconverted https links in be present in the https search.

Bugman (talk) 04:19, 11 June 2019 (EDT)

Here is a test of the http to https switch. Before the switch:
And after the switch:
  • http://forum.flightgear.org: 4,127 hits.
  • https://forum.flightgear.org: 835 hits.
  • http://flightgear.org/forums: 0 hits
  • https://flightgear.org/forums: 0 hits
So there are 1914 http:// and 835 https:// forum hard links still to convert!
Bugman (talk) 09:42, 2 July 2019 (EDT)

Language flags on the main page

While activating "Português do Brasil" as a new language on the wiki (via Special:Interwiki), I decided to use a generic white flag for the language on the main page. As an experiment I have added this generic flag for all translations. It is not pretty, but it does better advertise the languages where a flag makes zero sense. Please have a look and see what you think!

Bugman (talk) 04:35, 7 June 2019 (EDT)

I would also like to point out that it is still impossible to edit the wiki in certain languages. See FlightGear wiki:Village pump/Archive 2016#UTF-8 language pages cannot be edited. We really need to fix this database error issue.
Bugman (talk) 05:34, 7 June 2019 (EDT)
Don't worry about the white flag, I've now uploaded public domain icons, taken from Wiki Commons SVG files, for all language flags. For Persian, I've used the Iranian flag. And for Arabic I've used the neutral Arab League flag. So now we have flag icons for all current translations.
Bugman (talk) 05:59, 7 June 2019 (EDT)

.

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