User talk:Prototime

Semi-retired: After taking an extended semi-wikibreak, it appears unlikely that I will return to my prior level of editing any time soon (perhaps I will one day). For now, I hope to channel my research energy into more academic and professional pursuits. But I'm certainly not leaving Wikipedia entirely, and you can always reach me by leaving a message here or by pinging me.

---

In the Voting Rights Act article, you made the following change: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965&action=historysubmit&diff=561604715&oldid=561593510 Unfortunately, this adds uncited material that contradicts statements under the "Bail in" section. I'm particularly concerned that you added your sentence before a citation that did not support it. If you want to restore it, please put it after that citation and add a citation or a "citation-needed" tag. Such a citation should explain explicitly why the Section 3 jurisdictions are no longer covered. Note: I agree with your changes to the previous sentence -- keep up the good work. Mdfst13 (talk) 15:19, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for pointing this out. The lack of a direct source for that particular sentence was a mistake in this instance, because elsewhere the same point has been sourced by SCOTUSblog. I have restored the sentence and added the source. (As an aside, note that the language of Section 5 references only Section 4; "bail in" under Section 3 imposes its own preclearance requirement, so the statement that "no jurisdiction is currently required to have any of their voting changes precleared under Section 5" is indeed correct, if a bit counter-intuitive.) –Prototime (talk · contribs) 04:57, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Section 3(c) vs. Section 5[edit]

I put it on the VRA Talk page but also wanted to say here how ashamed I am of not having recognized that you were correct and that I was wrong. Wikipedia et al. are fortunate to have you editing.Czrisher (talk) 14:14, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, no worries. It makes total sense to think that bail in would trigger Section 5, when I first learned about it that's what I assumed too. Nothing to be ashamed of! Thanks. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 15:33, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed from your user page that you're interested in democracy and related articles. It'll be at least a few months before I could get to it, but Democracy is an article I'd like to get to GA some day. I'm working on a lot of the most-viewed articles for WP Human rights, and that's often in the top 20. Would you have any interest in collaborating on that? -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:36, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for reaching out, I'd be interested in collaborating on that. I've actually put a fair amount of work into that article in the past, and I've been wanting to return to for a while because it still has a ways to go to get to GA status, particularly in its lack of sources. Like you, it'll be a few months before I could get to it though—my main focus currently is to bring the Voting Rights Act of 1965 up to GA status, and that'll probably take me well into August because I'm utterly swamped until the end of this month with other things. But do drop me a message when you want to start working on the article. In the meantime, our paths will definitely be crossing more on the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States article—which I wish I had even more time to contribute to, but at the rate things are going over there it will obtain GA status in no time. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 06:05, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Great, I will. And I appreciate the help at the 15A article--before this year, I mostly wrote biographies or book articles, so these law articles have been presenting me unusual challenges for research, terminology, and defining scope/assigning weight.

As for the VRA of 1965, feel free to ping me if there's ever a way I can help, especially with GA criteria questions. Good luck on it! -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Definitely will do. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 19:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Freedom of Speech for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Hope you have a great day. -buffbills7701

Hey! Look, I know I'm being pedantic about this, and I don't want to appear to be edit warring, so I wanted to talk to you about it. So we've got the two versions:

• The ACA aims to increase the quality, affordability, and rate of health insurance coverage for Americans, and reduce the costs of health care for individuals and the government.
• The ACA aims to increase the quality and affordability of health insurance and to raise the number of insured Americans. It also aims to reduce health care costs for individuals and governments.

The reason I prefer the former is that rate is more accurate in a technical sense (by which I mean how it's referred to in policy) - if you check the Health insurance coverage in the United States page 'rate' is used frequently in relation to coverage, just as we refer to the 'unemployment rate' rather than the 'number of unemployed' - and to remove any ambiguity I had included the 'rate of coverage' in the hyperlink. I'd prefer to use the former because of that.

Also, as a side-note, I'm working on the 'Change in insurance standards' section and I hope to have something adequate finished shortly (which isn't to say it wouldn't require improvement), but once we've sorted this, the lead, and a bit I want to elaborate on the impact of Scott Brown's election (as it is a bit disconnected atm), I was thinking of nominating it for a good article - I was wondering about your thoughts on that? Thanks! =) Sb101 (talk) 04:49, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please forgive my presumptuousness, but having finished the remaining edits I wanted to get done, I've changed the lead back to my version, on the assumption you are satisfied by my justification for it. If not, forgive me, and let's discuss the matter to sort it out. Otherwise, unless you have anything you still want to improve, I was hoping to nominate it for GA status now, as I'm satisfied with where it's at? (I am trying to sort out a couple of images and a video for the page, but they’re more bonuses than necessities). I intend to hold off nominating the article until I hear your thoughts.

Also, as an aside, I enjoyed your 'Tools of debate' section, and it reminded me of a post you might like: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/david-brooks-and-the-role-of-opinion-journalism.html Sb101 (talk) 14:33, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You most certainly are not being pedantic (or if you are, it certainly isn't a problem; accuracy and clarity are important!). I agree that strictly speaking, you are correct: the term "rate of health insurance coverage" can refer to the number of persons insured. However, I do think that saying "rate of health insurance coverage" implies to lay readers "insurance rates", commonly meaning "premiums", and that this would be a source of confusion. While the wikilink can help to clarify, I don't think that readers should have to click it to understand what is meant. That said, I'm not especially attached to the language I added, and perhaps I am overestimating the potential confusion. So, how about this: let's keep your language for now. By all means, go ahead and nominate the article for GA status. I just ask that during the GA review, we see if the reviewing editor(s) bring it up on their own, and if they don't, then we ask them their opinion(s) as to whether they think it's confusing. If others think it's confusing, we'll change it (maybe, but not necessarily, to the way I had it); otherwise, we'll keep it. Sound fair? –Prototime (talk · contribs) 21:26, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do understand where you're coming from, but suspect that you are overestimating the likelihood of confusion (not only due to the hyperlink and technical use, but also 'rate' in the singular suggests, I think, that it's not to do with premium rates, plural). However, I'm more than happy to get the opinion of a reviewer. If you do want a third opinion in the meantime, we could consult the talk page? Sb101 (talk) 03:54, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a good idea. I just didn't want to delay your efforts for a GA review, and (despite my premature placement of the banner on my user page) I will be on a total wikibreak for the next week (starting in a few hours), so I won't be able to participate in the conversation until after then. I see two options though. You can bring it up on the talk page now if you'd like and mention my concern with the current language, and then I'll join the conversation when I get back (unless consensus is overwhelmingly one way or another by then). Or, we can keep things as is until next week and I'll post on the talk page then. It's up to you, I'm fine either way. If you choose the latter, and a GA review happens in the mean time (which it probably won't, but it certainly can), I'd just ask that you bring up the concern then. Thanks! –Prototime (talk · contribs) 04:08, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll post something in the talk page shortly - that way we can be soliciting input while your away. And I'll be sure to bring it up, if we get reviewed in the meantime. Enjoy your wikibreak! Sb101 (talk|contribs) 06:25, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, sorry it took me so long to reply. Just notifying you that I've updated the PPACA talk page with my justification for the current language. Look forward to hearing what you think. =) Sb101 (talk|contribs) 17:33, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! –Prototime (talk · contribs) 00:29, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I do think the article is a serious GA contender, especially given the number of reliable sources you have added over the past week. It could still use a bit of copy-editing, but its substance and sources are right on. Great work! –Prototime (talk · contribs) 21:26, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! =) Sb101 (talk) 03:54, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And thanks for the article you linked. I'd love it if opinion journalists actually followed that advice! –Prototime (talk · contribs) 02:28, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Uninsured rate"[edit]

Prototime, you're invited to provide feedback to a potential compromise on this issue. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:44, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! –Prototime (talk · contribs) 00:29, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey! Wasn't sure if I needed to say anything or not, but just in case, I expect you're also happy with me not bringing up the aforementioned issue with the reviewer now that we've settled it? (NB: full disclosure: I did just swap 'reduce' and 'lower' around but otherwise). =) Sb101 (talk|contribs) 05:11, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, the issue is resolved as far as I'm concerned! Thanks! –Prototime (talk · contribs) 05:14, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lead#Challenges[edit]

Hey, me again. Just wanted to raise a couple of concerns about that sentence. I don't think it's completely accurate to say that " Implementation of the ACA continues to face challenges..." as it implies only the implementation is the problem, when in fact the challenges (e.g. in the courts, and Congressional repeal efforts) are broader than that. I was thinking of changing it to "Since the ruling, the ACA has continued to face challenges..."? I was also wanting to re-add '... from state governments' because I *think* that makes sense grammatically (e.g. challenges in Congress, challenges in federal courts, challenges from state governments - since 'in' doesn't work for the last)? I thought I'd quickly check your thoughts about them? =) Sb101 (talk|contribs) 03:18, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think "implementation of" is correct even when describing wholesale repeal efforts, and I figured it was slightly more descriptive, but if you are passionate about dropping it, go ahead. Concerning "in/from" -- grammatically, the first "in" before the first comma should modify every word after each comma in the series unless there's an explicit modifier before those words, so grammatically if you want to vary in/from it should read "in Congress, in federal courts, and from state governments." But I figured "in state governments" worked anyway and was more inclusive than "from", given that some states governments that are internally divided on the issue (e.g., Florida's legislature opposes the Medicaid expansion, while its executive branch supports it, so I'm not sure it'd be correct to say that the entire state government opposes it as the word "from" would suggest, but rather the legislature "in" the state government has challenged it). –Prototime (talk · contribs) 05:00, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just before I reply to the points, I feel I should check that you don't my questions? Wouldn't want to become a bore.

Whilst implementation itself does face challenges (like the employer mandate; sections 5.2-5.4), opponents wouldn't be satisfied with implementing it 'right'; their objections run deeper (5.1, 5.5). I think that the sentence implies narrower grounds for opposition than is the case. Especially in context, it could read that the ruling ended opposition to the law itself. To make it more descriptive, I've tried: "Since the ruling, the law and its implementation have continued to face challenges in Congress, in federal courts, and from some state governments."

(Thank you for the grammatical correction). The reason I prefer from > in, is that the ACA faces a challenge from a state when that state [doesn't implement an exchange/Medicaid, is noncooperative, has an Attorney General with a lawsuit, etc.] regardless of which official(s) in it are responsible for that challenge or how unified (or not) they are. I mean, we usually refer to the course taken by a state as a whole even if parts of state government and electorate aren't in agreement with that approach, so it feels consistent. And since the effect is not confined to a state, but affects the federal government, that too seems to advise against 'in state govts.' Besides, since we do only say 'some' state governments, even if 'from' did imply agreement among a state government, it'd still be correct since some state governments are - and we disambiguate which in the article with references. Don't you love Constructive ambiguity? =P Sb101 (talk|contribs) 07:54, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"From" should work too, not too big of a concern just so long as all the modifiers are there since they're being varied (as they are now). Thanks. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 03:50, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Despite the potential for editorial disagreements to become nasty, I wanted to thank you

		The Civility Barnstar
		For your consistently polite and constructive conduct Sb101 (talk|contribs) 20:03, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Sb101: I just realized I never properly thanked you for awarding me this Barnstar and for your own civility. I do wish to return the appreciation, though now I am a bit belated myself! It's always a pleasure to work with a fellow editor who is dedicated and constructive when collaborating with others to improve Wikipedia. Thank you! –Prototime (talk · contribs) 14:07, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I still mean to reply to you about electoral systems; atm however I wanted to mention this: Innab's recent contributions. Now I've gone through and checked them and fixed ones I disagree (in a non-revert way), whilst I don't have a problem with many of them. But just a heads-up. Sb101 (talk|contribs) 17:19, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, though nothing looks too out of place. I'm just glad the edit warring seems to have ended. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 17:56, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings. Because you participated in the August 2013 move request regarding this subject, you may be interested in participating in the current discussion. This notice is provided pursuant to Wikipedia:Canvassing#Appropriate notification. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:41, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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		The Million Award
		For your contributions to bring Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (estimated annual readership: 2,160,000) to Good Article status, I hereby present you the Million Award. Congratulations on this rare accomplishment, and thanks for all you do for Wikipedia's readers. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:51, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Million Award is a new initiative to recognize the editors of Wikipedia's most-read content; you can read more about the award and its possible tiers (Quarter Million Award, Half Million Award, and Million Award) at Wikipedia:Million Award. You're also welcome to display this userbox:

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Thank you very much, Khazar2! I am honored to be one of the editors who helped bring this article up to GA status! –Prototime (talk · contribs) 02:01, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's good practice for if we do make a run at democracy someday! Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:03, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Voting Rights Act of 1965, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page John Mitchell (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Thank you for the welcome. ProudGamecock (talk) 04:02, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You're quite welcome! Let me know if you'd like help with anything. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 04:08, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

no worries. it feels great to have some faith restored in the wikipedia way despite some petty squabbling sometimes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.65.213.231 (talk) 16:27, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I know what you mean! –Prototime (talk · contribs) 01:55, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey! Apologies for my continued absence. I do intend to be back within the month. Truth be told, I was a bit burnt out. But I also have been swamped by work (I've been working off a deadline from when I last edited that will have my workload for this year ease after November 16th). I just felt I should mention, not only because I still intend to edit and maintain further (I'm sure there's several touch ups, and in particular I've been pondering the public opinion section and wonder whether/how much I should insist on the Kaiser video); but I didn't want you to think I'd done a 'dine and dash' and left you cleaning the dishes (well, you know what I mean... I think/hope =P ). So I thought I'd drop-by to thank you and DrFleischman for continuing to maintain it since we got it up to a good article (/high five!). =) Sb101 (talk|contribs) 13:42, 29 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, Sb101; I'd get burnt out too after a two-month GAR! Thanks for the note, and I'm glad to hear you'll be returning soon. We can hold things down on PPACA in the mean time. What are your plans for when you return? –Prototime (talk · contribs) 03:18, 30 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Thanks for showing me where the "debate" was over the use of the word "myths". I didn't see it in the GA index. I, however, disagree, and intend to contest its usage. Yours, Quis separabit? 20:51, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, I understand people will have different views about the use of that term, and I welcome further discussion. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 20:54, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TBSchemer (talk • contribs) 21:23, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The change to the section (which you describe as "rolling back major changes" is only in its title, which is clearly a violation of Wikipedia's basic policy of the use of NPOV language. Another editor argued that the, the terminology could be described as a "myth" due to WP:Fringe. However, the language is clearly used in mainstream sources. In on citation, it is used by a professor of constitutional law, whose last three books were published in Cambridge University Press, Harvard University Press, and Yale University Press. Therefore we can't invoke WP:Fringe, and we are required therefore to used NPOV language for this section. Other than that, your removal of sourced and balanced content is simple vandalism. Avaya1 (talk) 16:38, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Avaya1, please discuss this on the talk page for the article (not just my user talk), where other editors can see and respond to your comments. There is an active discussion already occurring there you are welcome to participate in. Please stop reverting before actually achieving consensus for your edits per WP:BRD. My reverts don't just concern the title, they also concern rewordings and an entire new paragraph added to the section supporting the view that "death panels" are a reality. Just because you found one professor willing to support a view doesn't make it mainstream. You calling my reverts "vandalism", when they are in fact in line with WP:BRD, is nothing more than bad faith. Keep this up and I will report you for edit warring and ask that the article be fully protected. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 16:45, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I know you're going to hate me for this, but I'm going to take a break from significant work at PPACA. I'm frying other fish at the moment and feeling more productive. Plus I need a break from dealing with the kooks, who seem to come in waves. If I see debates that need input then I'm happy to add my two cents. I'd say you should ping me but I wouldn't want you to run afoul of the canvassing rules. I've really enjoyed working with you and learning from you in recent months. Cheers. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:04, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@DrFleischman: I've enjoyed working with and learning from you as welel, and your presence at PPACA will be missed. But I can't say I blame you for taking a break, and the thought has crossed my own mind more than once (and things have been so busy for me that I took an unexpected break from Wikipedia entirely over the past few days, which is why I was slow to respond). It seems like much of what we've been doing at PPACA has been defending the article against socks, POV-pushers, and people who dislike the consensus-building process--and I, too, am getting pretty worn down constantly battling people, especially because it takes my attention away from other projects. We'll see how much more patience for it all I have. I do hope you'll continue to contribute to the discussions concerning "Common misconceptions"/"Myths"; I don't know if we'll ever come to a consensus on that section, but it'd be sure nice to move past that ongoing point of contention... at least until someone finds something else to fight about. Best of luck in your other projects during your break, perhaps our paths will cross on some other articles sometime. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 21:37, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh no, it's tiresome protecting this abomination? So sad to read! The good thing is there are armies of fine folks waiting to jump into that breach and reach maximum spin consensus. One just has to temporarily suspend disbelief and WOW this wiki page on the ACA is an encyclopedic look at the new health care law. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.225.252.201 (talk) 04:59, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response. I followed up on your suggestion and revised that bit about the songs and the effects. I restored my section, but did it piecemeal, so the other editor doesn't feel he has to revert the entire thing. Just in case he does tho, should I go back to the third opinion page and ask for another? Dan56 (talk) 08:33, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Dan56: Doing so piecemeal was a wise decision. I would say that if reverts continue, try to keep communication open with the other editor to see if you can reasonably address any remaining issues he may have. If agreement isn't possible, you shouldn't return to the third opinion page since you've already exhausted that process. Instead, you may explore other parts of the dispute resolution process, such as asking for other editors to get involved through posting on the dispute resolution noticeboard or starting a request for comment. Good luck. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 18:01, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Voting Rights Act of 1965 you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of RJaguar3 -- RJaguar3 (talk) 16:00, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

RJaguar3 | u | t 19:28, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

RJaguar3 | u | t 14:02, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The article Voting Rights Act of 1965 you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:Voting Rights Act of 1965 for things which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of RJaguar3 -- RJaguar3 (talk) 03:40, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, you are working on the page for a good label, congrats. I did a couple of edits yesterday, adding in more data about James Bevel and his role in the Selma Movement (which was pretty much his movement) and the Selma to Montgomery march, which he initiated. While reading that history section I noticed that someone had posted that after Dr. King was arrested in Selma that hundreds of children were arrested in the next couple of days. I think the article may have that confused with the Birmingham Children's Crusade (another Bevel action). As I recall, the major arrests in Selma, outside of the regular standing in line waiting for the voter registration office to open arrests - which was the main action before the Selma to Montgomery march, along with C.T. Vivian's night march in which Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed (which caused Bevel to call the Selma-Montgomery March to ask Gov. Wallace if he had ordered the streetlights to be turned off, but really to give the people, many of whom had armed themselves, a way to nonviolently direct their anger and sorrow) - were maybe during the Teacher's March on the registration office organized by Frederick Reese, although I don't recall ever reading about arrests occurring during that. I just don't remember reading or hearing about any children being arrested in Selma, but may be wrong. So that one point may - or may not - need some polishing. Thanks, and good to meet you, and good luck with your project - nice work. Randy Kryn 18:06 18 February, 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your contributions to the article and your words of encouragement, Randy Kryn. The information about Selma's arrests of schoolchildren comes from the book Eyes on the Prize by Juan Williams. The relevant passage is from page 261:

Spurred by news of King's arrest, 500 of Selma's schoolchildren marched to the courthouse, violating the court order, and were arrested. The city's jails were getting crowded. The next day, leading newspapers including the New York Times displayed page-one photos of King praying just before his arrest. Wednesday brought the arrest of more than a hundred additional marchers, followed by the arrests of 300 more schoolchildren. Each evening, the television news covered the mass arrests and showed children being led off to jail.

As an aside, I'm hesitant to describe James Bevel as the "director" of the Selma Movement. He clearly played a pivotal role, especially in the Selma to Montgomery marches, and that information should certainly be included. But I'm not sure it's best to so definitively characterize any particular person as the movement's "director" given the tensions between SCLC and SNCC and the fact that SNCC's Selma organizing predated the SCLC's. I'd appreciate any further thoughts you may have on this point. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 04:13, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Again, nice work. Maybe we should move this section over to the talk page. I don't recall hearing about children marching to the jail to protest King's arrest getting arrested by the hundreds, but could have just overlooked that in my research (added, here is photo of young students in Selma about to get arrested, 10th one down from the top: http://crmvet.org/images/pkouns.htm ). I do know that Bevel was the Director of the Selma Movement, at least on SCLC's end (and recognized by his friend, Bernard Lafayette, who had run the Selma Movement for SNCC until he moved to Chicago). The one tweek that I made, and you reverted, may be a point to discuss. The line in question: "In January 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders organized or participated in several voting-rights marches in Selma that led to violent clashes with police." I had added James Bevel's name in front of King's on this one, because Bevel organized the marches (as SCLC's Director of Direct Action and the founder of its Alabama Project - really Bevel's and Nash's and Orange's Alabama Project), King did not. King didn't organize any marches in Selma, it wasn't his role in the movement, it was Bevel's role. Are you sure you're not solely putting King's name in that sentence because of his public prominence? I would say adding Bevel's name, and as the first name, is the historically accurate way to go.

"I'd say 98% of the plans and activities in Selma were Bevel's. The Selma Movement was Bevel's baby." - James Orange

"We would have never gone to Selma, and there would not have been a Voting Rights Bill today if James Bevel had not conceived of the idea" "Jim was the originator of the idea of the march from Selma to Montgomery. Jim Bevel is the author of that." "Dr. King could not have done the things he did unless he had a James Bevel." - Ralph David Abernathy

I know this is only a part of the overall article, but, as you know, an essential part of the history of the historic Voting Rights Bill (an aside - Bevel, for many of the last years of his life, organized a yearly honoring of Lyndon Johnson for his contribution to Voting Rights). Randy Kryn 16:48 20 February 2014 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: I'm sorry, I realized that I neglected to explain why I removed "James Bevel" from the opening sentence in that paragraph. I'm not entirely opposed to his name appearing there, I just wanted to make sure it's appropriately sourced; that sentence is currently cited to an Eyes on the Prize passage that does mention King but doesn't mention Bevel (although a different passage in the book does mention Bevel in connection with the Selma to Montgomery marches, and I added that cite to the sources you added further down). Perhaps you know of a source we can use that says that Bevel came to Selma in January? (Admittingly, I haven't thoroughly read the other sources you've cited, and don't have access to your book, so perhaps it's in one of them.) That said, I suspect that it may still be necessary to highlight King's work a little more than Bevel's, even though Bevel had a more direct organizing role, simply because King's work, fairly or unfairly, has received more weight among published sources. But we should certainly be accurate; perhaps we could highlight Bevel by saying, immediately after the opening sentence that mentions King, something along the lines of "James Bevel oversaw SCLC's organizing efforts in Selma"? –Prototime (talk · contribs) 17:43, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The article Voting Rights Act of 1965 you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Voting Rights Act of 1965 for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of RJaguar3 -- RJaguar3 (talk) 00:11, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Prototime,

I wanted to let you know that there's a discussion about whether Gerrymandering in the United States should be deleted. Your comments are welcome at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gerrymandering in the United States .

If you're new to the process, articles for deletion is a group discussion (not a vote!) that usually lasts seven days. If you need it, there is a guide on how to contribute. Last but not least, you are highly encouraged to continue improving the article; just be sure not to remove the tag about the deletion nomination from the top.

Thanks, Imaginatorium (talk) 13:39, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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		The Half Million Award
		For your contributions to bring Voting Rights Act of 1965 (estimated annual readership: 568168) to Good Article status, I hereby present you the Half Million Award. Congratulations, and thanks for all you do for Wikipedia's readers! -- Bobnorwal (talk) 22:52, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, great job! And sorry it took so long... Bobnorwal (talk) 22:52, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Bobnorwal! I appreciate it! :) –Prototime (talk · contribs) 02:34, 28 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

On 28 March 2014, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Voting Rights Act of 1965, which you recently created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 allows federal courts to order certain state and local governments to have changes to their election laws preapproved by the United States federal government? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Voting Rights Act of 1965. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, live views, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:32, 28 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Saw your work on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (from today's DYK).

Wondering if you would have any interest in helping improve Wikipedia's content in the area of consumer rights and, in particular, on the subject of consumer arbitration in the US? These are topics of potentially immense importance to the public but largely neglected by Wikipedia editors, particularly editors with expertise in the law. The article on consumer arbitration, for instance, has been edited almost exclusively by a single editor. Even the article on AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion has received very little attention from editors. Could you help take that article to GA status, for example? Dezastru (talk) 16:18, 28 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Dezastru, thanks for your appreciation of my work on Voting Rights Act of 1965. I'm not very familiar with consumer arbitration issues, though I do empathize with the situation; lately, I've been devoting much of my time to improving articles about voting rights in the US, which is another area of potentially immense importance to the public that has been mostly ignored by Wikipedia editors. That area will probably continue to be my primary focus for the near future, but I will take a look at some of the consumer arbitration articles and lend a hand where I can. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 03:29, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Prototime, We are collecting feedback for a new beta feature called 'Hovercards' - https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Beta_Features/Hovercards. Beta features can be turned on using the tab in the top right. It would be great if you could turn the feature on and give us your feedback on the discussion page. Thanks Vibhabamba (talk) 10:09, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Realistically, I doubt it's going to pass this time, considering the two oppose votes and the difficulty of reaching their posters, but I appreciate your comments very much anyway, and I hope you'll come back (with an updated opinion, if necessary) if it fails and I re-nominate it.

I'll check out the Voting Rights Act FAC tomorrow. I knew you'd gotten it to GA, but for some reason I didn't even notice it was at FAC. And I like to think I can contribute my fair share to non-gaming-related FACs, e.g. to those of Miley Cyrus, Thomas F. Bayard, and American football, so I expect I'll be qualified. Tezero (talk) 05:10, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't even know if I want to stay; just when I thought I'd gotten the hang of what constituted notability, which was all I'd had to hold on to, I triggered massive outcry. It could happen again with some other abstruse sentiment, formal or otherwise. With that said, I'm also not dead-set on departing; I don't want to decide anything too rashly, which is why I'm taking a leave of absence from Wikipedia as soon as all of this murk is done with to mull over what my work here is really worth and how, if at all, I ought to continue. I'm not looking optimistic on much of anything being preserved in merges, as most of it will probably be thrown out as cruft. Thanks for stopping over, though. And what's this about other users leaving? Tezero (talk) 14:31, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick note to congratulate you on the promotion of Voting Rights Act of 1965 to FA status recently. If you would like to see this (or any other FA) appear as "Today's featured article" soon (either on a particular date or on any available date), please nominate it at the requests page. If you'd like to see an FA appear on a particular date in the next year or so, please add it to the "pending" list. In the absence of a request, the article may end up being picked at any time (although with about 1,307 articles waiting their turn at present, there's no telling how long – or short! – the wait might be). If you'd got any TFA-related questions or problems, please let me know. Bencherlite^Talk 18:08, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to stop and say that it's really nice to see somebody who hasn't previously been involved (that i know of) in copyright work on Wikipedia taking an interest, and your efforts to improve the description of those policies and processes are very much welcome and appreciated! If you should at any point feel like pitching in on the cleanup work itself, there's plenty to be done. :D Probably the easiest forum to get started in is Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations, which would be horrifically backlogged at this moment if the copyright bot didn't keep breaking, but the biggest area of backlog is at WP:CCI, which is frequently more complex. Anyway, should you ever want to pitch in, I hope you will! And if you ever want to talk about it with somebody who pokes in all areas of text copyright, I'm happy to discuss practices, processes and philosophies.

Either way, again, thanks for working on the policy pages and guidelines. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:23, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Moonriddengirl! I've been a bit concerned about the effect of policy creep on new editors and I thought it may be good to highlight certain key aspects of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, such as the copyright- and plagiarism-related policies that many newcomers aren't all that familiar with. I have found these topics pretty interesting to delve into, so I may check out Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations or WP:CCI soon--thanks for pointing them out to me! And thank you again for your kind words! :) –Prototime (talk · contribs) 21:32, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, do you still want to collaborate on animal rights-related articles? If so, got any in mind? Tezero (talk) 01:40, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Tezero: Quite possibly, but for the time being, I have reduced my editing for various reasons and am reevaluating my on- and off-Wiki-priorities. I'll drop you a message sometime soon should I decide to venture into areas of Wikipedia I haven't edited much previously, which I am considering doing--and if so, animal rights articles would probably be high on my list. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 03:46, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Don't be afraid to take a few days or longer off from Wikipedia entirely and mull over your priorities here in your spare time IRL, especially if real-life concerns are weighty. I did recently, and I found myself drawn to work on an article far from my comfort area of video games: Czech language. One of the best decisions I've ever made here. Tezero (talk) 03:57, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Congrats on Today's Featured Article! Tezero (talk) 01:17, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Tezero! Unfortunately it turns out to be right in middle of an unexpected mess IRL, but I'm ecstatic that the article is on the main page on the anniversary of its signing! :) Hope all is going well for you. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 05:12, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much, Gerda Arendt! I greatly appreciate the recognition and feel honored to receive the Precious award! :) –Prototime (talk · contribs) 14:31, 6 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A year ago, you were the 938th recipient of my PumpkinSky Prize, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:00, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Five years ago, you were recipient no. 938 of Precious, a prize of QAI! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:46, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Prototime. I saw that you posted a request for assistance in tagging election/referendum articles with the WikiProject tag in June. I have now made a request for a bot to do this (having compiled a list of around 7,500 categories with relevant articles), but am being stopped from doing so because there is no apparent consensus for this to happen. Could you possibly comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums#Bot to tag articles for the WikiProject so I can demonstrate that there is one (if there is). Cheers, Number 57 12:50, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like you're editing again, so I thought I'd remind you of my willingness to collaborate with you on a topic you're interested in. Apart from the appropriate measures to transform my existing GAs to FAs, I think I'm going to spend my Wiki-time during October primarily on subjects outside my normal comfort zone of video games and Sonic. This project has odd origins: I got on board with the idea when hearing about the GA Cup during this month, and when I learned that's not what it is, I didn't see any reason to cancel my plans - in fact, the more articles I take to GA during this period, the more opportunities reviewers will have. Anyway, write me back if you're interested; animal rights seem like a topic you would be most but perhaps there's something else. Tezero (talk) 22:22, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Tezero, and sorry for taking so long to reply. I am editing again, but only intermittently for the next few weeks due to various RL issues. Come mid-November, I hope to return to more consistent editing and work on taking on an article or two up to GA status. It would fantastic if the two of us could collaborate on something then, animal rights or otherwise. I'll ping you in a few weeks to see if you're still up for a joint project then. Thanks! And happy editing in the meanwhile--I see you have quite a full plate. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 15:50, 10 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello prototime, just after logging in, i noticed a deletions warning on my talk page. I swear, i haven't logged in for over a year. Someone must have hijacked my account.Joey13952 (talk) 15:12, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

	The Half Million Award
	For your impressive Quality improvement work to bring Voting Rights Act of 1965 to WP:FA quality, I hereby present you with The Half Million Award. Congratulations, and thanks for all you do for Wikipedia's readers! — Cirt (talk) 23:14, 26 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick note to say that I'm not blowing off your comment. I'm just headed out the door right now. I'll look it over and probably expand on it a bit more tonight. Thanks for creating the summary section, by the way. We were definitely spinning out wheels for several days. This is much more productive in my view even if I'm arguing a minority position. -Thibbs (talk) 19:42, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No problems, Thibbs, I appreciate it. I'm just glad we've gotten the discussion back on track! Hopefully we can reach some resolution, one way or another. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 19:55, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thibbs, thanks again for your persistence and civility in our conversation over at WP:CITE even though our views have differed. Just an unsolicited suggestion, feel free to take it or leave it (I hope you don't take offense to it)--but I think you may want to disengage from your conversations with JJ. They're going nowhere fast, no one else agrees with his perspectives, and whether he realizes it or not, he appears to be gaslighting and projecting his own incivility and sensitivities onto others. Regardless though, thanks again. Cheers. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 02:19, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. I actually just told JJ that I wouldn't be returning to his talk page to carry on the discussion just now. I will continue to dispute his extreme view on the policy we're discussing, but I'm determined to ignore his jabs. I am mystified by his behavior. Or rather I understand anger and insults relating to a disagreement, but the initial guns-ablazin' reaction to my view (the view that is in fact far closer to his than the majority position) has blind-sided me. Anyway thank you for being polite as well. -Thibbs (talk) 14:54, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

Undersigned had created article Legal awareness in may 2012. Since then I updated and improved the article many times in past one and half year.

I will be happy if you help me in reassessing tags in article namely {{Multiple issues|confusing|date=February 2013|reason=Laudable effort has been put into this article, but it seems rambling and incoherent.}}{{essay-like|date=February 2013}}

and also

may be article is due for udating class status futher from {{WikiProject Law|class=Start|importance=Mid}}.

I suppose a peer feedback will help me improve the article content still further. You are one of experinced and active WikiProject Law members, and I request your kind support in this respect.

Mahitgar (talk) 10:00, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on table editing and performance. Their weekly status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

VisualEditor was deployed to several hundred remaining wikis as an opt-in beta feature at the end of November, except for most Wiktionaries (which depend heavily upon templates) and all Wikisources (which await integration with ProofreadPage).

Recent improvements[edit]

Basic support for editing tables is available. You can insert new tables, add and remove rows and columns, set or remove a caption for a table, and merge cells together. To change the contents of a cell, double-click inside it. More features will be added in the coming months. In addition, VisualEditor now ignores broken, invalid rowspan and colspan elements, instead of trying to repair them.

You can now use find and replace in VisualEditor, reachable through the tool menu or by pressing ⌃ Ctrl+F or ⌘ Cmd+F.

You can now create and edit simple <blockquote> paragraphs for quoting and indenting content. This changes a "Paragraph" into a "Block quote".

Some new keyboard sequences can be used to format content. At the start of the line, typing "*  " will make the line a bullet list; "1.  " or "# " will make it a numbered list; "==" will make it a section heading; ": " will make it a blockquote. If you didn't mean to use these tools, you can press undo to undo the formatting change. There are also two other keyboard sequences: "[[" for opening the link tool, and "{{" for opening the template tool, to help experienced editors. The existing standard keyboard shortcuts, like ⌃ Ctrl+K to open the link editor, still work.

If you add a category that has been redirected, then VisualEditor now adds its target. Categories without description pages show up as red.

You can again create and edit galleries as wikitext code.

Looking ahead[edit]

VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme designed by the User Experience group. The new theme will be visible for desktop systems at MediaWiki.org in late December and at other sites early January. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" theme and the new "MediaWiki" one which will replace it.)

The Editing team plans to add auto-fill features for citations in January. Planned changes to the media search dialog will make choosing between possible images easier.

Help[edit]

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• Translations of the user guide for most languages are oudated. Ukrainian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Dutch translators are nearly current. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language.
• Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Wednesday, 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC.
• File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.
• The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.

If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta.

Thank you! WhatamIdoing (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think we'd have a shot at achieving sufficient consensus to move PPACA to ACA if the proposal is framed correctly? Clearly we're not moving to Obamacare. I personally like ACA and only switched to Obamacare because I mistakenly thought the Google News results would win the day. Either ACA or Obamacare is better than the overly formalistic PPACA. I really don't like WP being the outlier in a Google web search. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:54, 16 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@DrFleischman: Sorry for my delayed response. Yes, I do suspect that there could be support for moving PPACA to ACA if framed correctly, particularly if "Obamacare" is off the table as another alternative--since that suggestion is receiving as much backlash as it is--and the choice is presently as only between PPACA and ACA. The combined showing of ACA beating PPACA as far as search results in all of Google News, Google Scholar, Google Books, and plain old Google Search should be persuasive, particularly if it's strongly emphasized WP:COMMONNAME explicitly endorses the search-engine approach to determining common names, despite some editors objections to that idea. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 06:09, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Though it seems there are at least a few vocal editors who will ignore WP:COMMONNAME and stick with PPACA no matter what. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:32, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm taking PPACA off my watchlist. Would you mind pinging me if you see a new move request? Cheers. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:01, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps, if I notice it myself. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 00:37, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's appearance, the coming Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

The Wikimedia Foundation has named its top priorities for this quarter (January to March). The first priority is making VisualEditor ready for deployment by default to all new users and logged-out users at the remaining large Wikipedias. You can help identify these requirements. There will be weekly triage meetings which will be open to volunteers beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Tell Vice President of Engineering Damon Sicore, Product Manager James Forrester and other team members which bugs and features are most important to you. The decisions made at these meetings will determine what work is necessary for this quarter's goal of making VisualEditor ready for deployment to new users. The presence of volunteers who enjoy contributing MediaWiki code is particularly appreciated. Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins. 

Due to some breaking changes in MobileFrontend and VisualEditor, VisualEditor was not working correctly on the mobile site for a couple of days in early January. The teams apologize for the problem.

Recent improvements[edit]

The new design for VisualEditor aligns with MediaWiki's Front-End Standards as led by the Design team. Several new versions of the OOjs UI library have also been released, and these also affect the appearance of VisualEditor and other MediaWiki software extensions. Most changes were minor, like changing the text size and the amount of white space in some windows. Buttons are consistently color-coded to indicate whether the action:

• starts a new task, like opening the ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-savedialog⧽ dialog:  blue ,
• takes a constructive action, like inserting a citation:  green ,
• might remove or lose your work, like removing a link:  red , or
• is neutral, like opening a link in a new browser window:  gray.

The TemplateData editor has been completely re-written to use a different design (T67815) based on the same OOjs UI system as VisualEditor (T73746). This change fixed a couple of existing bugs (T73077 and T73078) and improved usability.

Search and replace in long documents is now faster. It does not highlight every occurrence if there are more than 100 on-screen at once (T78234).

Editors at the Hebrew and Russian Wikipedias requested the ability to use VisualEditor in the "Article Incubator" or drafts namespace (T86688, T87027). If your community would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace on your wiki, then you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.

Looking ahead[edit]

The Editing team will soon add auto-fill features for citations. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to contribute to the Citoid service's definitions for each website, to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections.

We will need editors to help test the new design of the special character inserter, especially if you speak Welsh, Breton, or another language that uses diacritics or special characters extensively. The new version should be available for testing next week. Please contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF) if you would like to be notified when the new version is available. After the special character tool is completed, VisualEditor will be deployed to all users at Phase 5 Wikipedias. This will affect about 50 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh. The date for this change has not been determined.

Let's work together[edit]

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• Please help complete translations of the user guide for users who speak your language.
• Join the weekly bug triage meetings beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins. Contact James F. for more information.
• Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 19:00 UTC.

Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Translations are available through Meta. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

		The Instructor's Barnstar
		This Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who have performed stellar work in the area of instruction & help for other editors. For being helpful and thoughtful in discussions relating to citation policy. NickCT (talk) 18:01, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, NickCT! It's been quite an engaging discussion that you started, and I'm glad I can contribute. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 19:17, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your cogent explication at WT:CS. Please don't retire. Hugh (talk) 16:53, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's performance, the Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 11:00 (noon) PDT (18:00 UTC). You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.

Recent improvements[edit]

VisualEditor is now substantially faster. In many cases, opening the page in VisualEditor is now faster than opening it in the wikitext editor. The new system has improved the code speed by 37% and network speed by almost 40%.

The Editing team is slowly adding auto-fill features for citations. This is currently available only at the French, Italian, and English Wikipedias. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections by contributing to the Citoid service's definitions for each website.

Citoid requires good TemplateData for your citation templates. If you would like to request this feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

The special character inserter has been improved, based upon feedback from active users. After this, VisualEditor was made available to all users of Wikipedias on the Phase 5 list on 30 March. This affected 53 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh.

Work continues to support languages with complex requirements, such as Korean and Japanese. These languages use input method editors ("IMEs”). Recent improvements to cursoring, backspace, and delete behavior will simplify typing in VisualEditor for these users.

The design for the image selection process is now using a "masonry fit" model. Images in the search results are displayed at the same height but at variable widths, similar to bricks of different sizes in a masonry wall, or the "packed" mode in image galleries. This style helps you find the right image by making it easier to see more details in images.

You can now drag and drop categories to re-arrange their order of appearance ​on the page.

The pop-up window that appears when you click on a reference, image, link, or other element, is called the "context menu". It now displays additional useful information, such as the destination of the link or the image's filename. The team has also added an explicit "Edit" button in the context menu, which helps new editors open the tool to change the item.

Invisible templates are marked by a puzzle piece icon so they can be interacted with. Users also will be able to see and edit HTML anchors now in section headings.

Users of the TemplateData GUI editor can now set a string as an optional text for the 'deprecated' property in addition to boolean value, which lets you tell users of the template what they should do instead (T90734).

Looking ahead[edit]

The special character inserter in VisualEditor will soon use the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki will also have the option of creating a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Instructions for customizing the list will be posted at mediawiki.org.

The team is discussing a test of VisualEditor with new users, to see whether they have met their goals of making VisualEditor suitable for those editors. The timing is unknown, but might be relatively soon.

Let's work together[edit]

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• Can you translate from English into any other language? Please check this list to see whether more interface translations are needed for your language. Contact us to get an account if you want to help!
• The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
• File requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

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We have lots of work to do! CookieMonster755 (talk) 00:51, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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You are receiving this message because The Wikipedia Library has record of you receiving a one-year subscription to Questia. This is a brief update to remind you about that access:

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• Write unusual articles using this partner's sources? Did access to this source create new opportunities for you in the Wikipedia community? If you have a unique story to share about your contributions, email us and we can set up an opportunity for you to write a blog post about your work with one of our partner's resources.

Finally, we would greatly appreciate if you filled out this short survey. The survey helps us not only better serve you with facilitating this particular partnership, but also helps us discover what other partnerships and services The Wikipedia Library can offer.

Thanks! Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk), on behalf of National Names 2000 10:35, 12 May 2015 (UTC) [reply]

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has created new interfaces for the link and citation tools, as well as fixing many bugs and changing some elements of the design. Some of these bugs affected users of VisualEditor on mobile devices. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

A test of VisualEditor's effect on new editors at the English Wikipedia has just completed the first phase. During this test, half of newly registered editors had VisualEditor automatically enabled, and half did not. The main goal of the study is to learn which group was more likely to save an edit and to make productive, unreverted edits. Initial results will be posted at Meta later this month.

Recent improvements[edit]

Auto-fill features for citations are available at a few Wikipedias through the citoid service. Citoid takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. If Citoid is enabled on your wiki, then the design of the citation workflow changed during May. All citations are now created inside a single tool. Inside that tool, choose the tab you want (⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-auto⧽, ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-manual⧽, or ⧼citoid-citeFromIDDialog-mode-reuse⧽). The cite button is now labeled with the word "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽" rather than a book icon, and the autofill citation dialog now has a more meaningful label, "⧼Citoid-citeFromIDDialog-lookup-button⧽", for the submit button.

The link tool has been redesigned based on feedback from Wikipedia editors and user testing. It now has two separate sections: one for links to articles and one for external links. When you select a link, its pop-up context menu shows the name of the linked page, a thumbnail image from the linked page, Wikidata's description, and/or appropriate icons for disambiguation pages, redirect pages and empty pages. Search results have been reduced to the first five pages. Several bugs were fixed, including a dark highlight that appeared over the first match in the link inspector (T98085).  

The special character inserter in VisualEditor now uses the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki can also create a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Please read the instructions for customizing the list at mediawiki.org. Also, there is now a tooltip to describing each character in the special character inserter (T70425).

Several improvements have been made to templates. When you search for a template to insert, the list of results now contains descriptions of the templates. The parameter list inside the template dialog now remains open after inserting a parameter from the list, so that users don’t need to click on "⧼visualeditor-dialog-transclusion-add-param⧽" each time they want to add another parameter (T95696). The team added a new property for TemplateData, "Example", for template parameters. This optional, translatable property will show up when there is text describing how to use that parameter (T53049).

The design of the main toolbar and several other elements have changed slightly, to be consistent with the MediaWiki theme. In the Vector skin, individual items in the menu are separated visually by pale gray bars. Buttons and menus on the toolbar can now contain both an icon and a text label, rather than just one or the other. This new design feature is being used for the cite button on wikis where the Citoid service is enabled.

The team has released a long-desired improvement to the handling of non-existent images. If a non-existent image is linked in an article, then it is now visible in VisualEditor and can be selected, edited, replaced, or removed.

Let's work together[edit]

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug.
• If your Wikivoyage, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, or other community wants to have VisualEditor made available by default to contributors, then please contact James Forrester.
• If you would like to request the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team have been working on mobile phone support. They have fixed many bugs and improved language support. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving language support and functionality on mobile devices.

Wikimania[edit]

The team attended Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City. There they participated in the Hackathon and met with individuals and groups of users. They also made several presentations about VisualEditor and the future of editing.

Following Wikimania, we announced winners for the VisualEditor 2015 Translathon. Our thanks and congratulations to users Halan-tul, Renessaince, जनक राज भट्ट (Janak Bhatta), Vahe Gharakhanyan, Warrakkk, and Eduardogobi.

For interface messages (translated at translatewiki.net), we saw the initiative affecting 42 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 56.5% before the translathon, and 78.2% after (+21.7%). In particular, Sakha improved from 12.2% to 94.2%; Brazilian Portuguese went from 50.6% to 100%; Taraškievica went from 44.9% to 85.3%; Doteli went from 1.3% to 41.2%. Also, while 1.7% of the messages were outdated across all languages before the translathon, the percentage dropped to 0.8% afterwards (-0.9%).

For documentation messages (on mediawiki.org), we saw the initiative affecting 24 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 26.6% before translathon, and 46.9% after (+20.3%).  There were particularly notable achievements for three languages. Armenian improved from 1% to 99%; Swedish, from 21% to 99%, and Brazilian Portuguese, from 34% to 83%. Outdated translations across all languages were reduced from 8.4% before translathon to 4.8% afterwards (-3.6%).

We published some graphs showing the effect of the event on the Translathon page. Thank you to the translators for participating and the translatewiki.net staff for facilitating this initiative.

Recent improvements[edit]

Auto-fill features for citations can be enabled on each Wikipedia. The tool uses the citoid service to convert a URL or DOI into a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. You can see an animated GIF of the quick, simple process at mediawiki.org. So far, about a dozen Wikipedias have enabled the auto-citation tool. To enable it for your wiki, follow the instructions at mediawiki.org.

Your wiki can customize the first section of the special character inserter in VisualEditor. Please follow the instructions at mediawiki.org to put the characters you want at the top. 

In other changes, if you need to fill in a CAPTCHA and get it wrong, then you can click to get a new one to complete. VisualEditor can now display and edit Vega-based graphs. If you use the Monobook skin, VisualEditor's appearance is now more consistent with other software.  

Future changes[edit]

The team will be changing the appearance of selected links inside VisualEditor. The purpose is to make it easy to see whether your cursor is inside or outside the link. When you select a link, the link label (the words shown on the page) will be enclosed in a faint box. If you place your cursor inside the box, then your changes to the link label will be part of the link. If you place your cursor outside the box, then it will not. This will make it easy to know when new characters will be added to the link and when they will not.

On the English Wikipedia, 10% of newly created accounts are now offered both the visual and the wikitext editors. A recent controlled trial showed no significant difference in survival or productivity for new users in the short term. New users with access to VisualEditor were very slightly less likely to produce results that needed reverting. You can learn more about this by watching a video of the July 2015 Wikimedia Research Showcase. The proportion of new accounts with access to both editing environments will be gradually increased over time. Eventually all new users have the choice between the two editing environments.

Let's work together[edit]

• Share your ideas and ask questions at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback.
• Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help.
• If your wiki would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace, you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.
• Please file requests for language-appropriate "Bold" and "Italic" icons for the styling menu in Phabricator.
• The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
• The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, usually on Tuesdays at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q1 blocker, though. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the main VisualEditor project with the bug.

If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact Elitre directly, so that she can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:01, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This note is only delivered to English Wikipedia subscribers of the visual editor's newsletter.

The location of the visual editor's preference has been changed from the "Beta" tab to the "Editing" section of your preferences on this wiki. The setting now says Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta. This aligns en.wiki with almost all the other WMF wikis; it doesn’t mean the visual editor is complete, or that it is no longer “in beta phase” though.

This action has not changed anything else for editors: it still honours editors’ previous choices about having it on or off; logged-out users continue to only have access to wikitext; the “Edit” tab is still after the “Edit source” one. You can learn more at the visual editor’s talk page.

We don’t expect this to cause any glitches, but in case your account no longer has the settings that you want, please accept our apologies and correct it in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences. Thank you for your attention, Elitre (WMF) -16:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs, added new features, and made some small design changes. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for languages like Japanese and Arabic, making it easier to edit on mobile devices, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.

Recent improvements[edit]

Educational features: The first time you use the visual editor, it now draws your attention to the Link and ⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽ tools. When you click on the tools, it explains why you should use them. (T108620) Alongside this, the welcome message for new users has been simplified to make editing more welcoming. (T112354) More in-software educational features are planned.

Links:  It is now easier to understand when you are adding text to a link and when you are typing plain text next to it. (T74108, T91285) The editor now fully supports ISBN, PMID or RFC numbers. (T109498, T110347, T63558)  These "magic links" use a custom link editing tool.

Uploads:  Registered editors can now upload images and other media to Commons while editing. Click the new tab in the "Insert Images and media" tool. You will be guided through the process without having to leave your edit. At the end, the image will be inserted. This tool is limited to one file at a time, owned by the user, and licensed under Commons's standard license. For more complex situations, the tool links to more advanced upload tools. You can also drag the image into the editor. This will be available in the wikitext editor later.

Mobile:  Previously, the visual editor was available on the mobile Wikipedia site only on tablets. Now, editors can use the visual editor on any size of device. (T85630)  Edit conflicts were previously broken on the mobile website. Edit conflicts can now be resolved in both wikitext and visual editors. (T111894) Sometimes templates and similar items could not be deleted on the mobile website. Selecting them caused the on-screen keyboard to hide with some browsers. Now there is a new "Delete" button, so that these things can be removed if the keyboard hides. (T62110) You can also edit table cells in mobile now.

Rich editing tools:  You can now add and edit sheet music in the visual editor. (T112925)  There are separate tabs for advanced options, such as MIDI and Ogg audio files. (T114227 and T113354)  When editing formulæ and other blocks, errors are shown as you edit. It is also possible to edit some types of graphs; adding new ones, and support for new types, will be coming.

On the English Wikipedia, the visual editor is now automatically available to anyone who creates an account. The preference switch was moved to the normal location, under Special:Preferences.

Future changes[edit]

You will soon be able to switch from the wikitext to the visual editor after you start editing. (T49779) Previously, you could only switch from the visual editor to the wikitext editor. Bi-directional switching will make possible a single edit tab. (T102398) This project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab, similar to the system already used on the mobile website. The "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time.

Let's work together[edit]

• Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. This feedback page uses Flow for discussions.
• Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help, and report it on Phabricator (Korean - Japanese) or on Wikipedia (Korean - Japanese).
• Local admins can set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki. If you need help, then please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.
• The weekly task triage meetings are open to volunteers. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration, though. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the main VisualEditor project with the bug.

If you can't read this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) 04:16, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Read this in another language • Subscription list

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs and expanded the mathematics formula tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for languages such as Japanese and Arabic, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.

Recent improvements[edit]

You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing.

The LaTeX mathematics formula editor has been significantly expanded. (T118616) You can see the formula as you change the LaTeX code. You can click buttons to insert the correct LaTeX code for many symbols.

Future changes[edit]

The single edit tab project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab, like the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as a cookie for logged-out users and as an account preference for logged-in editors. Logged-in editors will be able to set a default editor in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences in the drop-down menu about "Editing mode:".

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the following Wikipedias in early 2016: Amharic, Buginese, Min Dong, Cree, Manx, Hakka, Armenian, Georgian, Pontic, Serbo-Croatian, Tigrinya, Mingrelian, Zhuang, and Min Nan. (T116523) Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. The developers would like to know how well it works. Please tell them what kind of computer, web browser, and keyboard you are using.

In 2016, the feedback pages for the visual editor on many Wikipedias will be redirected to mediawiki.org. (T92661)

Testing opportunities[edit]

• Please try the new system for the single edit tab on test2.wikipedia.org. You can edit while logged out to see how it works for logged-out editors, or you can create a separate account to be able to set your account's preferences. Please share your thoughts about the single edit tab system at the feedback topic on mediawiki.org or sign up for formal user research (type "single edit tab" in the question about other areas you're interested in). The new system has not been finalized, and your feedback can affect the outcome. The team particularly wants your thoughts about the options in Special:Preferences. The current choices in Special:Preferences are:
  • Remember my last editor,
  • Always give me the visual editor if possible, 
  • Always give me the source editor, and 
  • Show me both editor tabs.  (This is the current state for people using the visual editor. None of these options will be visible if you have disabled the visual editor in your preferences at that wiki.)
• Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help, and report it on Phabricator (Korean - Japanese) or on Wikipedia (Korean - Japanese).

If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

Whatamidoing (WMF), 00:54, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Indic, and Han scripts, and improving the single edit tab interface.

Recent changes[edit]

You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing. This function is available to nearly all editors at most wikis except the Wiktionaries and Wikisources.

Many local feedback pages for the visual editor have been redirected to mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.

You can now re-arrange columns and rows in tables, as well as copying a row, column or any other selection of cells and pasting it in a new location.

The formula editor has two options: you can choose "Quick edit" to see and change only the LaTeX code, or "Edit" to use the full tool. The full tool offers immediate preview and an extensive list of symbols.

Future changes[edit]

The single edit tab project will combine the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab. This is similar to the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "Edit" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as an account preference for logged-in editors, and as a cookie for logged-out users. Logged-in editors will have these options in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences:

• Remember my last editor,
• Always give me the visual editor if possible,
• Always give me the source editor, and
• Show me both editor tabs.  (This is the state for people using the visual editor now.)

The visual editor uses the same search engine as Special:Search to find links and files. This search will get better at detecting typos and spelling mistakes soon. These improvements to search will appear in the visual editor as well.

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at most "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers would like to know how well the visual editor works in your language. They particularly want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect the following languages: Japanese, Korean, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Thai, Aramaic and others.

Let's work together[edit]

• Please try out the newest version of the single edit tab on test2.wikipedia.org. You may need to restore the default preferences (at the bottom of test2wiki:Special:Preferences) to see the initial prompt for options. Were you able to find a preference setting that will work for your own editing? Did you see the large preferences dialog box when you started editing an article there?
• Can you read and type in Korean, Arabic, Japanese, Indic, or Han scripts? Language engineer David Chan needs help from people who often type in these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing#What to test if you can help. Report your results on wiki (Korean – Japanese – all languages).
• Learn how to improve the "automagical" citoid referencing system in the visual editor, by creating Zotero translators for popular sources in your language! Join the Tech Talk about "Automated citations in Wikipedia: Citoid and the technology behind it" with Sebastian Karcher on 29 February 2016.

If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thanks!

– Whatamidoing (WMF) 17:47, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The editing interface will be changed soon. When that happens, editors who currently see two editing tabs – "Edit" and "Edit source" – will start seeing one edit tab instead. The single edit tab has been popular at other Wikipedias. When this is deployed here, you may be offered the opportunity to choose your preferred appearance and behavior the next time you click the Edit button. You will also be able to change your settings in the Editing section of Special:Preferences.

You can choose one or two edit tabs. If you chose one edit tab, then you can switch between the two editing environments by clicking the buttons in the toolbar (shown in the screenshots). See Help:VisualEditor/User guide#Switching between the visual and wikitext editors for more information and screenshots.

There is more information about this interface change at mw:VisualEditor/Single edit tab. If you have questions, suggestions, or problems to report, then please leave a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback.

Whatamidoing (WMF) 19:22, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #2—2016 Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Arabic and Indic scripts, and adapting the visual editor to the needs of the Wikivoyages and Wikisources.

Recent changes[edit]

The visual editor is now available to all users at most Wikivoyages. It was also enabled for all contributors at the French Wikinews.

The single edit tab feature combines the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab. It has been deployed to several Wikipedias, including Hungarian, Polish, English and Japanese Wikipedias, as well as to all Wikivoyages. At these wikis, you can change your settings for this feature in the "Editing" tab of Special:Preferences. The team is now reviewing the feedback and considering ways to improve the design before rolling it out to more people.

Future changes[edit]

The "Save page" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information is available on Meta.

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including: Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Urdu, Persian, Bengali, Assamese, Aramaic and others.

The team is working with the volunteer developers who power Wikisource to provide the visual editor there, for opt-in testing right now and eventually for all users. (T138966)

The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. It will look like the visual editor, and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices around September 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.

Let's work together[edit]

• Do you teach new editors how to use the visual editor? Did you help set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki? Have you written or imported TemplateData for your most important citation templates? Would you be willing to help new editors and small communities with the visual editor? Please sign up for the new VisualEditor Community Taskforce.
• Learn how to improve the "automagical" citoid referencing system in the visual editor, by creating Zotero translators for popular sources in your language! Watch the Tech Talk by Sebastian Karcher for more information.

If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 21:09, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter • Subscribe or unsubscribe on the English Wikipedia

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has mainly worked on a new wikitext editor. They have also released some small features and the new map editing tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the list of work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, releasing the 2017 wikitext editor as a beta feature, and improving language support.