Hey all, here comes the link to the promised write-up of the work we did around wikidiff2:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Wikidiff2/How_we_improved_Wikidiff2 Thoughts & questions are very welcome on the talk page there! Also thanks a lot for the encouraging feedback here and elsewhere :-) Birgit 2018-05-30 15:34 GMT+02:00 Birgit Müller <birgit.muel...@wikimedia.de>: > Hi all, > > > over the past 1,5 years WMDE’s Technical Wishes team was working on a > major improvement of wikidiff2 [1] - the engine behind the wikitext diff > view. The major outcome of our improvements got deployed to most wikis > just now: It is now easier to find moved paragraphs and text changes inside > them. [2] > > > Why we worked on this: > > The idea for the project arose from the wishlist of the German-speaking > communities: Show text changes in moved paragraphs. Before we worked on > this, moved paragraphs were shown in the diff as a deleted paragraph and > then as an added paragraph. This meant that you had to parse visually > through the paragraphs to find any potential changes - a fact that vandals > liked to make use of. [3] > > > Desktop version, mobile version > > The desktop version of the feature already got deployed to Mediawiki.org > and deWP in December 2017. After further improvements of the diff > algorithm, the change could now get deployed to most wikis. The languages > unified Han, Thai and Japanese that don’t use spaces as delimiters will > follow soon. > The mobile version is in the making and will follow in the next weeks. The > backend work has been done by the WMDE team, the WMF’s mobile team is > taking care of the design work for the user interface of the mobile version. > > Improving the algorithm of wikidiff2: More than a new feature > > The work that has been done goes further than the original wish: First of > all, we not only highlighted text changes within a moved paragraph, but > also made it easier to find moved paragraphs in the first place: Clickable > arrows allow to follow the move of the paragraph. > Second, we generally improved the diff algorithm: For example, we could > find an old bug in the diff engine: Sometimes two paragraphs which are not > related at all were considered a changed paragraph. The bug fix was > already deployed in October 2017. [4] > > If you are interested in learning more about the work that has been done, > we're going to publish the lessons learned by the dev team within the > next days (so stay tuned :-) !. > > > Thank you! > > We would like to thank everyone who supported us in the work around > wikidiff2: People from different wikis looked into diffs and gave us > valuable feedback. Moritz Mühlenhoff supported us by updating the library, > and deploying it. Tim Starling and Max Semenik supported us with code > review and consultation during the Vienna Hackathon. The Desktop and Mobile > Web team is going to add a user friendly design to the mobile version. Your > advice, feedback and support is much appreciated :-) > > > Further feedback is very welcome! > > Birgit (for the technical wishes team) > > > [1] Extension manual: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Wikidiff2 > > [2] Deployment ticket: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T195375 > > [3] Main project page on meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Show_text_changes_when_moving_text_chunks > > [4] Patch on gerrit for the bug fix: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/ > r/#/c/356582/ > > > -- > Birgit Müller > Community Communications Manager > Software Development and Engineering > > > > > Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin > Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0 > http://wikimedia.de > > Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen > Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei! > http://spenden.wikimedia.de/ > > Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. > Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter > der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für > Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985. > -- Birgit Müller Community Communications Manager Software Development and Engineering Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0 http://wikimedia.de Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei! http://spenden.wikimedia.de/ Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985. _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
