Hello hello hello, my lovely people! Lots has happened in this longer than normal February on Fandom, so let me share an overview:
February's Community Culture (read blog)
Fandom's first ever Community Culture blog -- a monthly post highlighting diverse people, programming, and entertainment aiming to introduce you to new people, communities, and their topics.
Since it's February, which is Black History Month in the United States, BHM and its 2024 theme, Art for Change, is a natural focus for this first Community Culture.
Read the blog for:
Celebrating Art for Change: wiki user and Fandom staff testimonies about some of the Black artists, musicians, authors, and creatives that most inspire them
Black History Month playlist: a new Spotify playlist with 180 songs showcasing some incredible Black artists who’ve been instrumental in shaping the music industry into what it is today
Shows to Watch: you can never have enough binge recommendations
Wiki BHM celebrations: discover how some Fandom wiki communities honored BHM
Technical Updates: February 9 (read blog) and February 23 (read blog)
Go check out the latest news in regards to bug fixes, known issues that are being worked on, and experiments that are and/or will be conducted!
An important one to note is the update to the CodeMirror extension for the 2010 editor (responsible for syntax highlighting). The first update was reverted after community feedback, and we're currently fixing the noted issues. Once we're done, the next upgrade will happen in smaller batches as to have a more controlled release in case unforeseen issues arise.
Reorganizing the VisualEditor (read blog)
A minor design update to the VisualEditor, both the Visual Mode and the Source Mode (aka 2017 editor), was released on February 8th with the goal to make your editing experience more accessible and intuitive. Check out the blog to find out the what, why, and how behind this change.
Some Quick Answers on QuickAnswers (read blog)
We continue to improve on the Quick Answers feature and its Special:QuickAnswers dashboard. A quick recap of some of the latest developments:
There will be a vetting period for QAs, meaning that mod teams will have a select period the time to edit new Quick Answers before they go live on the wiki.
We're working on fine-tuning the vetting period even more by creating a "faucet" system: allowing local moderators to -- for now -- ask staff to deviate from the default release schedule to one that accommodates the needs and capabilities of the community better.
The QA Dashboard filters have a counter that will auto-update as the QAs get processed to give the moderators a better overview.
In case you have any concerns about this feature, hit me up for a conversation!
As always, if you have any questions or remark about this, please let us know by reacting to this message or otherwise reach me, I'd love to hear your thoughts!