Talk:Releases/Default Switch

Four-step status

Hi, Cbrown. I think your initial approach of four different status (1.Needs attention, 2.In progress, 3. Ready to be published, 4. Published) is better than the three step approach without the step 3 in the four step process. As we publish the translation which are ready while others may be still in progress, separating these two status will be important. Will you reflect the change as we progress the work? Thanks! --Shuhari 16:57, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Sure. The current statuses are listed on Template:Status, are those what you had in mind? We have missing/progress (same status for both of those), proofreading, ready, and done/published right now. Cbrown1023 talk 21:32, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Yup. The Template:Status should work well, and hep us differentiate the readiness of the translated text and published status. --Shuhari 21:38, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

User Experience Ambassadors are wanted!

Please help the user experience team to communicate the upcoming changes and synthesize the language specific feedback and comments.--Shuhari 21:35, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Somehow relevant question: currently all talk pages which feedback comes in are in English. I noticed it on a link on jawiki to such a page, it says "give your feedback to this page (English)". It's somehow double-binding I'm afraid: people asks for giving a feedback but not in their own language. Supposedly it wasn't intended? Then what do you think to re-organize such talk pages into many languages like Commons VPs? Thoughts? --Aphaia 13:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

The point of the ambassadors and the local feedback pages ("Feedback Page" in the status table) is so that people can give feedback in their native languages on these pages. The ambassadors would then read this feedback and respond or escalate it back to the Usability team if necessary. Cbrown1023 talk 19:30, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

So basically this means that we suppose to create bugzilla reports? In other words what is the communication channel between "ambassadors" and the Usability Team? --Nux 21:06, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

You can really communicate anyway you can think of... IRC (#wikipedia_usability), e-mail (individual e-mail addresses), poke on IM, Bugzilla, etc. The ambassadors actually do more than just deal with feedback, I just focused on that part because I was responding to Aphaia's question about how we dealt with feedback. Ambassadors are responsible for: making sure that the community knows about the changes, making sure all the relevant pages are translated (they don't have to translate it all themselves though), and dealing with feedback. In dealing with feedback, they make sure that the easy questions are answered (Where'd the watchlist button go? it's still there, just looks different; How do I get back? Click here; etc.) and that the tough questions or bug reports are sent to the Usability Team. Nothing's really set in stone yet, because this is all a new process. Cbrown1023 talk 23:19, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

The IRC channel is an invite only channel so we can't log in... Kropotkine 113 11:01, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure you joined the right channel? It's an underscore (_), not a hyphen (-). Cbrown1023 talk 19:09, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Ohhh ! You're right. I'm confused. Kropotkine 113 20:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Feedback from pl.wiki

Some IPs comments basically sa "I don't like it!", "I hate it!" and the search bar comes up of course (some say it's worse then loosing 6:0 to Spain ;-)). As seems thoose IPs are frequent readers of Wikipedia. There are some positive comments, but they are less frequent. One of the users thought that links to the other languages are missing.

As for registered users:

• Some say they simply dislike it or that it's uncomfortable to use it.
• Some users also say it's too curly and colourful and such (e.g. suggest that the star is childish).
• One of the users couldn't find the move link.
• Some dislike the dropdown menu with actions (as it seems worthless to hide just few options).

Might be worth a thought to make more things easily adjustable for ones needs - e.g currently there is an option to disable hiding section of the sidebar menu; similar options might be added for the search box and dropdown for actions. I think a good idea would be to add such functionality for unregistered users - you could serialize options in a single cookie (e.g. "{search:'left-top', dropmenu:'disabled', sidemenu:{disabled:false, hide:['p-interaction', 'p-coll-print_export']}}"). You could use JSON.stringify for that. You could also use localStorage which is a bit better as it works for all tabs. --Nux 17:01, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Another day, more complaining. It's just a one big rant. Kinda annoying I must say. People are complaining but are unable to show one example of a big website that allows users to switch back to a completely different, old layout...

But besides ranting here are some new concerns and issues:

• People are complaining that Vector takes up more space on top. Pictures: [1] [2]. Not sure if this should be reported as a bug.
• One of the users said that the link creator is uncomfortable for small devices without a mouse (I'm guessing buttons are small, but I don't have got a smartphone).
• The same users complains that on smartphones with Symbian the searchbar becomes unreadable. But I've seen something about smartphones on wikitech, so you are probably already working on it.
• Some users suggested that some global options would be nice, as they are not fond of changing skin back for every language. Not sure if this is something WUI team should do...

It would be great if you could enable "useskin" from COOKIE rather then GET only. It would then be easy to make a script to change the skin dynamically. Just a thought. --Nux 21:46, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

There were actually some positive opinions yesterday and today about the layout, logo and even the search bar :-).

Besides that we have a vote on brining back the old logo. There seem to be quite a lot of people that dislike it... I've prepared a small script that would allow people to have the old log back for themselves here (feel free to spread this around if needed). --Nux 19:10, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Just to let you know - we will probably allow even anonymous users to switch over to the old layout in parts which seem to be the most annoying. This includes:

• Old searchbar position.
• Old logo.
• Actions dropdown menu fully expanded.
• A bit less free space on top (smaller header).

The script is quite simple - JS, CSS. If anyone would like to test this - it's the first Gadget on the list. I plan to make a link which will set a cookie and run changes for the first time. --Nux 23:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Feedback from de.wiki

Feedback from the German Wikipedia is here.

In addition to the feedback page see also the Request for Comments. --91.64.58.117 16:45, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Phase IV

What exactly does "Feel free to add your local Wikipedia project to this list." mean? Does this mean that if individual wikis gather consensus they should add themselves to the list and they will be switched over during phase IV? Or that any individual user can add a wiki to the list? What about the sister projects, when are those getting switched over? --99.238.31.18 05:24, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

All projects will eventually be switched over, so I think an individual user can feel free to add the wiki to the list. However, when you add a wiki to the list, you have to make sure all the pages are created and translated. :-) About sister projects, it's the Wikipedia Usability Initiative (it was financed by a restricted grant), so the Wikipedias are getting switched over first. However, I'm sure that the sister projects won't be that far behind. Cbrown1023 talk 16:23, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

When they're switched over, please don't add a central notice referring to Wikipedia. Anyway, it would make more sense to switch over all projects in the same language at the same time, or sister projects won't be perceived as "sisters" any more by readers of that language because of the different skin. --Nemo 17:21, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

update of comment from zh.wiki @ 13.06.2010 [PR]

Today I'm going to report the comment from zh.wiki . First, a user said that in the new Vector skin, the search is too slow (zh:維基百科:用戶體驗反饋#版型). Second, a user said that the font size will be change if the skin is using Vector.

This is the end of this report, thanks.-Waihorace 05:59, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Feedback from ruwiki

Some ideas about what the feedback was (I will most probably make detailed translation later):

1. Many users said they hated the new logo.
2. Complains about new search bar being hard to find, about removal of the "Search" button.
3. Complains about slowness.
4. Complains about color, some people claimed that it's now difficult to tell at sight external links from internal.
5. Unlocalized "bold" and "italic" buttons.
6. Lack of "formula" button in the toolbar.
7. Cmd-Enter method for opening articles in a new tab (AFAIK it's used by Opera and Safari) does not work with new search bar.
8. You should consider introduction of a variant adapted for widescreen monitors (with most control elements moved to left and right sides).
9. Lack of "switch back" for logged-out users.

VasilievVV 12:48, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

VasilievVV if you need to add some buttons to the new toolbar here are some instructions: Toolbar_customization. Use the part with comment "To add a button to an existing toolbar group", change section to "advanced" and group to e.g. "format". --Nux 19:19, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi Vasiliev VV and Nux. Thanks so much for the feedback. IN addition to the toolbar customization process, we have made a detailed "How To" guide to create the graphics in your language. Please see here. --Parul Vora 20:19, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Feedback from itwp

Marco 27 is collecting feedback at User:Marco 27/Feedback. Cbrown1023 talk 13:09, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Feedback from frwp

• Lack of intuitive icons
• Open a new search in a new tab (cmd + enter on a Mac)
• Star not so intuitive for the "add to watchlist"
• Disable the links "Take me back" & "New features"
• Not enough button on the new bar

Feedback from kawiki

The request is to add Georgian and Armenian alphabets to special characters toolbar.--Gaeser 09:51, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I haven't tried this, but I believe you'll find an example of JavaScript customization for this under Toolbar customization, in the JavaScript example "To add a special characters page".--Eloquence 02:09, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Feedback from nl-wiki

A lot of experienced users do not like the new look, on nl-wiki they are conservative, just as it went in May 2004 when the then new monobook skin was made standard, but in the mean while most people then adopted monobook as standard. A summary of the reactions users gave, split in experienced (exp.) and (relative) new users:

• A part of the users do like the new look much, another part doesn't like the new look at all.
• Too much white (exp.)
• The searchbox is relocated and is still to small. (exp.)
• Not being able to click on another language, noted that this can be set in the preferences (exp. + new), but users who work on many projects it is a hell of a job to set each project right. (Global preferences with SUL wanted!)
• The line-height is too much (exp.) (set in their own vector.css)
• The colours of the links between internal and external links is too less (exp.) (set in their own vector.css)
• The different namespaces had in monobook a different background, not nice to do in vector (with the tabs) (exp.)
• The tabs for sysops are in the expand section of the tab-bar, new users aren't sysop so they do not see those, so no reason to hide. (sysop) (set in their own vector.css next to each other)
• Experienced users think that there is (too?) much attention for new users, while there is little attention to the needs of experienced users.
• Text in searchbox is lined a bit too low.
• Vector is slow. (new + exp.)

The users who switched to vector often like to adjust some parts of the look. A suggestion would be that there would come a page where a lot of examples of adjustments are described so that users easily can adjust their personal vector.js and -.css pages.

A lot of experienced users work on a lot of different projects to set interwiki's and so, and want to use the same adjustments in their preferences, but have to set this on each project again and again. A solution to this would be global preferences. Romaine 12:33, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Dear Romaine,

thanks for your detailed report. As of the beginning of last week, the default for inter-language links in the sidebar is to show them. If users see a collapsed version, this is either a) due to an old cookie, b) a software bug. Can you communicate this to folks, and ask them to report if the language links are collapsed, even after clearing their cookies?

Regarding performance issues, we really need detailed browser/system reports to better understand them - and even stopwatch before/after measurements would be helpful. Asking folks to compare with/without JavaScript enabled also is useful information.

Regarding the search box, please share this link where appropriate.

Thanks again for all your help!--Eloquence 02:03, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello Eloquence, If now after some days people will report about a collapsed version, I will ask them, the current collapsed comments are some days old.

About the performance, I will ask for browser and system. The differences are measured in "feeling" so far as difference between monobook and vector. As my personal experience, I got the impression that vector was in the first days a bit slow, but currently fine.

The link with the reason why the searchbos ix moved to the right I already have shared, I got the link by email from Casey. Romaine 23:25, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Feedback from jawp

A lot of users reported their comments/ideas at Feedback page on jawp, and they were summed up at summary page in Japanese. Translating into English,

• The icon for signature isn't easy to understand what it is.
• They cannot read texts when they use a device whose default font color is white.

  Because on CSS, there's only "background-color:white" at "div#content".

• New UI lacks considering Internet Explorer 6 and earlier version.
  • There are many bugs of looks when editing.
  • Seriously slow.
• Font color(tone) of internal/external/visited links must be considering again.　They're more similar than old one.
• Looks of sections of h2 and h3 must be improved.
  • h3/h4/h5... is bold, but h2 is not.
• It's hard to read when they use Nintendo DSi; font size is too small etc.

As you know, this is not feedbacks from all ja wikipedians.

In my openion and feeling/hearing jawp's users, some users dislike new features because of above problems. But most of users like/accept it, they are just surprised by this change a little.--aokomoriuta (jawp) 19:23, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi aokomoriuta! I am replying here rather than on IRC so that everyone can see this and refer back to it in the future. I have a couple questions for you regarding the IE 6 issues you are describing.

First, is there any one activity that is slower than others, or is the entire experience slow? For example, is the saving slow, or the opening of menus, or simply typing in the text box? Or is it the entire experience?

Can you provide me with some examples as to the types of computers we are talking about? I'm asking for RAM amounts, CPU speeds, network speeds, etc. Any information you can get me about this would be helpful.

Regarding the display bugs, is it possible for you to provide us screenshots?

Any additional information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! --Jorm (WMF) 05:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

How to apply for Phase IV?

How should I add Belarusian (Taraškievica) Wikipedia) to the Phase IV? I can't find any details what additional pages, feedback pages to create. We have 100% messages translated and are preparing to check the translation for mistakes until the switch-over comes. Or what our wiki should have to do to switch to Vector on June 30? Wizardist 14:22, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it isn't clear to me either. Must the pages be created or will they be created when the project will be enabled end of June? I ask because e.g the text for the New features page has been already translated on translatewiki.net. Must I create the page on Wikipedia nevertheless (for hsb and dsb)? --Michawiki 15:24, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

It looks like be-x-old, hsb, and dsb are all translated, as are the Central notices. The only thing left is that the Central Notices need to be linked to translated versions of the New Features page (see English Wikipedia version). Howief 22:09, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Romanian translations

Hello. I just want to translate Phase IV messages into Romanian, but there I can not find anywhere how to do it. Am I doing something wrong, or there is a problem I have not observed yet. Thanks.--Minisarm 21:55, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Please contact me here. Thanks--Minisarm 21:56, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

new central notices

On what page and on what wiki do we translate the central notices for the default switch? Can we have a link to the translation page from the central notice? Lloffiwr 23:11, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

You can translate them here Releases/Default Switch#Phase IV Deployment. I don't think it's possible to change that at the moment - we do have a link to this page on our landing page already. --Az1568 23:22, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

The centralnotice is shown (untranslated) also on sisterprojects of already switched over Wikipedias, like q:it:, s:it: etc. Does this make sense? They're in the Phase V, aren't they? --Nemo 06:06, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I am almost in tears over this. I haven't the time to work out how to translate these messages and there is no link to any step by step explanation of how to translate. I have already wasted far too much time clicking away on the links on the page Releases/Default Switch#Phase IV Deployment without getting to anything that I am allowed to save. Lloffiwr 08:34, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Which (sister-) projects are in Phase IV?

I am confused. The Phase IV Deployment section refers to "Wikipedias" and the Phase V Deployment section refers to "All other Wikimedia projects." Yet the Phase IV pre-release central notice showed up at un-encyclopedic wikis such as en.Wikiquote and Meta, and then subsequently disappeared. More confusingly, en is listed in phase IV (en.Wikipedia having been in Phase II!) with the {{SITENAME}} magic word (as are some other languages as well) suggesting that the table entry is intended to cover multiple sister-projects, but the project list at Releases/Default Switch/Phase IV projects is singularly uninformative.

Enquiring minds want to know: Which projects are included in Phase IV? If that is still not fully determined at this point, I would personally like to know at least whether en.Wikiquote in particular will be in the Phase IV rollout. Thanks! ~ Ningauble 16:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

See User_talk:Az1568#Centralnotice_on_Italian_sisterprojects: centralnotices are intended to gather feedback, but sisterprojects are still in phase V. --Nemo 23:39, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I have not had a chance to prune the Phase IV Projects page. For Phase IV, there will only be Wikipedia projects that meet the translation criteria. I copied the list directly from the translation stats page and have not had a chance to remove projects that have already gone default (e.g., en, de). I will so shortly. Howief 16:59, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. ~ Ningauble 19:11, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Separate page for interface feedback?

It will be good if the feedback from different wikis is placed in a separate page; may be as a sub page of this page or as a separate page --Shijualex 16:40, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

no.wiki

"Learn more" should be translated to "Les mer" for no/nb. Alas "Learn more" is not written "Learn more" in Norwegian. 88.88.46.153 20:49, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

PO Centralnotice for hsb and dsb

Hi. Az1568 published 21 June 2010 the PO Centralnotice for Upper Sorbian (hsb) and Lower Sorbian (dsb). I translated the text as it is. e.g. without using the SITENAME variable. While publishing he evidently used the SITENAME variable, therefore the text of this variable became grammatically incorrect because the SITENAME must be in accusative: that's Wikipediju for both hsb and dsb, not Wikipedija. If you don't want to use the phrase without the SITENAME variable, the GRAMMAR template must be used:

hsb: Sy změny spytnył? Smy {{GRAMMAR:akuzatiw|{{SITENAME}}}} polěpšili.
dsb: Sy změny zawupytnuł? Smy {{GRAMMAR:akuzatiw|{{SITENAME}}}} pólěpšyli.

Please change it. Thank you. Regards, --Michawiki 20:27, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I changed it on the page. Please commit the PO Centralnotice for Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian again. Thank you. --Michawiki 20:58, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Translators - for your information

As said in previous section PO Centralnotice for hsb and dsb, the SITENAME template was inserted into the English source code of this message. That means for all translators of languages that use grammatical forms to change the message inserting the SITENAME template and additionally the GRAMMAR template, see e.g. dsb, hsb or fi. Please check your translation and change it. Otherwise the message could be grammatically incorrect. --Michawiki 21:09, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Suddenly, the Swedish Wikipedia has a big site banner IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE saying "Notice something different? We've made a few improvements to Wikipedia. Learn more." We pride ourselves of translating everything into Swedish, we have volunteers who do this via the Betawiki. Why did you, the so-called USABILITY initiative fail to follow this simple routine? This change of skin is not making the user community happy. It's a big failure. --LA2 11:23, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I did nothing. I don't know why this text is in English in Swedish Wikipedia. I only informed that the SITENAME template was later inserted (by user Az1568, not by me!), and with languages that use special grammatical forms (cases) the equivalent of the word Wikipedia could become grammatically incorrect. This information is still a service by me. Please ask Az 1568 if he can help you with your problem in Swedish Wikipedia. --Michawiki 15:15, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Assumed Translations

I recently found a translated message "വിക്കിനിഘണ്ടുയ്ക്ക് പുതിയ മുഖം" (which is possibly derived from "വിക്കിപീഡിയയ്ക്ക് പുതിയ മുഖം - Wikipedia's getting a new look") in http://ml.wiktionary.org/. Newly derived Malayalam sentence is wrong and if possible change it to "വിക്കിനിഘണ്ടുവിന് പുതിയ മുഖം". If someone want to use a generic translation please use "$ സംരംഭത്തിന് പുതിയമുഖം", $ can be changed by any project name. Thankyou.--Praveenp 11:54, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I've updated it in our system. Thanks. :-) --Az1568 19:56, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Highly annoying problem

Please purge all caches on Phase IV Deployment projects. Old interface keeps showing up. It's highly annoying! --Issue 21:24, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Feedback from Malayalam Wikipedia

Figure 1 - Check box to control the transliteration script in monobook skin

This question is directly related to the new UI (vector). This question is relevant only to languages that use non-Latin scripts. In most of the non-latin language wikis, there is a transliteration script (a javacript) that we use for typing text in the respective language/script. For Monobook, many wikis have placed a control box near the search box to switch on/off the transliteration script. See Figure 1) to get an idea where it is placed.

When we over switched to Vector, this control box/check box is disappeared. Transliteration is still working. See Figure 2 to see the existing interface.

Figure 2 - Check box to control the transliteration script is missing from Vector skin

We want to add this control box/check box near the search box as shown in Figure 3, and control the transliteration script as we were doing before. Can some one please guide us in this regard? We are looking for the piece of code that needs to placed inside common.js so that this check box will be visible at the location marked in Figure 3.

Figure 3 - Possible location in which check box can be placed.

Many Indian languages wikimedians have asked me this question, since we (malayalam wikipedians) switched over to new skin on 2010 June 30. All the other language wikipedias are getting ready for the change. All languages that use transliteration scheme has this issue. So a solution will benefit all the languages that use transliteration script.--Shijualex 01:55, 21 August 2010 (UTC)