User talk:Normchou/Archive 2
This is an archive of past discussions with User:Normchou. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
The Signpost: 26 September 2021
- News and notes: New CEO, new board members, China bans
- In the media: The future of Wikipedia
- Op-Ed: I've been desysopped
- Disinformation report: Paid promotional paragraphs in German parliamentary pages
- Discussion report: Editors discuss Wikipedia's vetting process for administrators
- Recent research: Wikipedia images for machine learning; Experiment justifies Wikipedia's high search rankings
- Community view: Is writing Wikipedia like making a quilt?
- Traffic report: Kanye, Emma Raducanu and 9/11
- News from Diff: Welcome to the first grantees of the Knowledge Equity Fund
- WikiProject report: The Random and the Beautiful
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- iOS 15 has a new function called Private Relay (Apple website). This can hide the user's IP when they use Safari browser. This is like using a VPN in that we see another IP address instead. It is opt-in and only for those who pay extra for iCloud. It will come to Safari users on OSX later. There is a technical discussion about what this means for the Wikimedia wikis.
Problems
- Some gadgets and user-scripts add items to the portlets (article tools) part of the skin. A recent change to the HTML may have made those links a different font-size. This can be fixed by adding the CSS class
.vector-menu-dropdown-noicon
. [1]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 September. It will be on all wikis from 30 September (calendar).
- The GettingStarted extension was built in 2013, and provides an onboarding process for new account holders in a few versions of Wikipedia. However, the recently developed Growth features provide a better onboarding experience. Since the vast majority of Wikipedias now have access to the Growth features, GettingStarted will be deactivated starting on 4 October. [2]
- A small number of users will not be able to connect to the Wikimedia wikis after 30 September. This is because an old root certificate will no longer work. They will also have problems with many other websites. Users who have updated their software in the last five years are unlikely to have problems. Users in Europe, Africa and Asia are less likely to have immediate problems even if their software is too old. You can read more.
- You can receive notifications when someone leaves a comment on user talk page or mentions you in a talk page comment. Clicking the notification link will now bring you to the comment and highlight it. Previously, doing so brought you to the top of the section that contained the comment. You can find more information in T282029.
Future changes
- The Reply tool will be deployed to the remaining wikis in the coming weeks. It is currently part of "Discussion tools" in Beta features at most wikis. You will be able to turn it off in Editing Preferences. See the list of wikis. [3]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- A more efficient way of sending changes from Wikidata to Wikimedia wikis that show them has been enabled for the following 10 wikis: mediawiki.org, the Italian, Catalan, Hebrew and Vietnamese Wikipedias, French Wikisource, and English Wikivoygage, Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikinews. If you notice anything strange about how changes from Wikidata appear in recent changes or your watchlist on those wikis you can let the developers know.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 October. It will be on all wikis from 7 October (calendar).
- Some gadgets and bots that use the API to read the AbuseFilter log might break. The
hidden
property will no longer say an entry isimplicit
for unsuppressed log entries about suppressed edits. If your bot needs to know this, do a separate revision query. Additionally, the property will have the valuefalse
for visible entries; previously, it wasn't included in the response. [4] - A more efficient way of sending changes from Wikidata to Wikimedia wikis that show them will be enabled for all production wikis. If you notice anything strange about how changes from Wikidata appear in recent changes or your watchlist you can let the developers know.
Future changes
- You can soon get cross-wiki notifications in the iOS Wikipedia app. You can also get notifications as push notifications. More notification updates will follow in later versions. [5]
- The JavaScript variables
wgExtraSignatureNamespaces
,wgLegalTitleChars
, andwgIllegalFileChars
will soon be removed frommw.config
. These are not part of the "stable" variables available for use in wiki JavaScript. [6] - The JavaScript variables
wgCookiePrefix
,wgCookieDomain
,wgCookiePath
, andwgCookieExpiration
will soon be removed from mw.config. Scripts should instead usemw.cookie
from the "mediawiki.cookie" module. [7]
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16:28, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 October. It will be on all wikis from 14 October (calendar).
- The "auto-number headings" preference is being removed. You can read phab:T284921 for the reasons and discussion. This change was previously announced. A JavaScript snippet is available which can be used to create a Gadget on wikis that still want to support auto-numbering.
Meetings
- You can join a meeting about the Desktop Improvements. A demonstration version of the newest feature will be shown. The event will take place on Tuesday, 12 October at 16:00 UTC. See how to join.
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15:29, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Toolhub is a catalogue to make it easier to find software tools that can be used for working on the Wikimedia projects. You can read more.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 October. It will be on all wikis from 21 October (calendar).
Future changes
- The developers of the Wikipedia Android app are working on communication in the app. You can now answer questions in survey to help the development.
- 3–5% of editors may be blocked in the next few months. This is because of a new service in Safari, which is similar to a proxy or a VPN. It is called iCloud Private Relay. There is a discussion about this on Meta. The goal is to learn what iCloud Private Relay could mean for the communities.
- Wikimedia Enterprise is a new API for those who use a lot of information from the Wikimedia projects on other sites. It is a way to get big commercial users to pay for the data. There will soon be a copy of the Wikimedia Enterprise dataset. You can read more. You can also ask the team questions on Zoom on 22 October 15:00 UTC.
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20:52, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- The Coolest Tool Award 2021 is looking for nominations. You can recommend tools until 27 October.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 October. It will be on all wikis from 28 October (calendar).
Future changes
- Diff pages will have an improved copy and pasting experience. The changes will allow the text in the diff for before and after to be treated as separate columns and will remove any unwanted syntax. [8]
- The version of the Liberation fonts used in SVG files will be upgraded. Only new thumbnails will be affected. Liberation Sans Narrow will not change. [9]
Meetings
- You can join a meeting about the Community Wishlist Survey. News about the disambiguation and the real-time preview wishes will be shown. The event will take place on Wednesday, 27 October at 14:30 UTC. See how to join.
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20:07, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
The Signpost: 31 October 2021
- From the editor: Different stories, same place
- News and notes: The sockpuppet who ran for adminship and almost succeeded
- Discussion report: Editors brainstorm and propose changes to the Requests for adminship process
- Recent research: Welcome messages fail to improve newbie retention
- Community view: Reflections on the Chinese Wikipedia
- Traffic report: James Bond and the Giant Squid Game
- Technology report: Wikimedia Toolhub, winners of the Coolest Tool Award, and more
- Serendipity: How Wikipedia helped create a Serbian stamp
- Book review: Wikipedia and the Representation of Reality
- WikiProject report: Redirection
- Humour: A very Wiki crossword
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- There is a limit on the amount of emails a user can send each day. This limit is now global instead of per-wiki. This change is to prevent abuse. [10]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 November. It will be on all wikis from 4 November (calendar).
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20:27, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Mobile IP editors are now able to receive warning notices indicating they have a talk page message on the mobile website (similar to the orange banners available on desktop). These notices will be displayed on every page outside of the main namespace and every time the user attempts to edit. The notice on desktop now has a slightly different colour. [11][12]
Changes later this week
- Wikidata will be read-only for a few minutes on 11 November. This will happen around 06:00 UTC. This is for database maintenance. [13]
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
- In the future, unregistered editors will be given an identity that is not their IP address. This is for legal reasons. A new user right will let editors who need to know the IPs of unregistered accounts to fight vandalism, spam, and harassment, see the IP. You can read the suggestions for how that identity could work and discuss on the talk page.
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20:35, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Most large file uploads errors that had messages like "
stashfailed
" or "DBQueryError
" have now been fixed. An incident report is available.
Problems
- Sometimes, edits made on iOS using the visual editor save groups of numbers as telephone number links, because of a feature in the operating system. This problem is under investigation. [14]
- There was a problem with search last week. Many search requests did not work for 2 hours because of a configuration error. [15]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 November. It will be on all wikis from 18 November (calendar).
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22:05, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
Reverting changes
Hi,
Why have you reverted the changes I made to the Intellectual Dark Web page when I was removing unsubstantiated, uncited, not to mention patently false, assertions, and was citing my sources, which were academic journals? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.20.35.45 (talk)
- See my last revisions. Also, a substantial chunk of the content you added is not what the source says (e.g., accusing IDW of being a far-right group). Normchou 💬 00:57, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
- You changed "far-right" to "alt-right". What does the first line of Wikipedia's own article on the alt-right say? "The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a loosely connected far-right, white nationalist movement." Alt-right is a term meant to avoid far-right connotations and sound more reasonable to a mainstream audience. The very thing the person(s) who edited this article was trying to acheive by suggesting that the IDW essentially had no ideology, it was both left and right. It is widely understood as a far/alt-right grouping and to imply otherwise is disingenuous, esepcially when providing no citations. May I ask, are you disinterested in this topic?
- "Weiss and others applied the term to a broad range of figures from various parts of the political spectrum, including conservatives such as Douglas Murray, anti-extremist activists such as Maajid Nawaz, scientists such as Sam Harris, and feminists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali." - Are "science" and "anti-extremism" part of the political spectrum? This is an incredibly forced attempt to give the impression that this is a politically diverse group when in actual fact it is comprised almost wholly of far-right individuals and far-right ideology. I have academic sources to back that up. Where are yours for claiming otherwise? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.20.35.45 (talk)
- Hey, you listed the source and I merely improved the article according to the source. The only relevant sentence in the source is
Consequently, inductive, data-driven, studies of the political right online often identify ‘communities’ rather than ideologies, giving them names which have emerged from within this political subculture: the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’, the ‘Alt-lite’ and the ‘Alt-right’ (e.g. Ribeiro et al., 2019)
. Whether this loose "association" is WP:DUE for the lead is itself debatable, but I gave you the benefit of doubt anyway. ReMay I ask, are you disinterested in this topic?
, I am only "interested" in editing this topic in the sense that I try to improve it in line with WP:5P. ReWhere are yours for claiming otherwise?
, these are exactly taken from the cited NYT article. Please familiarize yourself with WP:V and WP:NPOV, and please remember to WP:SIGN. Normchou 💬 01:25, 21 November 2021 (UTC) - If you have any other concerns, please initiate a conversation on Talk:Intellectual dark web. Normchou 💬 01:29, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
- Hey, you listed the source and I merely improved the article according to the source. The only relevant sentence in the source is
- If that really is the case, that you have no personal political investment in the topic, then you are missing the wood for the trees. You allow whole paragraphs of unsubstantiated, uncited, editorialised assertions to stand, some even tagged with "citation needed", and even revert back to those, but nitpick and delete my academically-cited edits because you do not understand the topic well enough to understand the terms used. You're either incredibly inconsistent or someone with an interest in rehabilitating the public image of a far-right grouping. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.20.35.45 (talk)
- Please WP:AGF and stick to WP:NPA. Please refrain from casting WP:ASPERSIONS and try to improve the article using its talk page. Normchou 💬 01:38, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
- If that really is the case, that you have no personal political investment in the topic, then you are missing the wood for the trees. You allow whole paragraphs of unsubstantiated, uncited, editorialised assertions to stand, some even tagged with "citation needed", and even revert back to those, but nitpick and delete my academically-cited edits because you do not understand the topic well enough to understand the terms used. You're either incredibly inconsistent or someone with an interest in rehabilitating the public image of a far-right grouping. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.20.35.45 (talk)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
- The template dialog in VisualEditor and in the new wikitext mode Beta feature will be heavily improved on a few wikis. Your feedback is welcome.
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20:01, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
ArbCom 2021 Elections voter message
Disambiguation link notification for November 26
An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Royce White, you added links pointing to the disambiguation pages Welsh, Norwegian and Mexican.
(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:02, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
The Signpost: 29 November 2021
- In the media: Denial: climate change, mass killings and pornography
- WikiCup report: The WikiCup 2021
- Deletion report: What we lost, what we gained
- From a Wikipedia reader: What's Matt Amodio?
- Arbitration report: ArbCom in 2021
- Discussion report: On the brink of change – RFA reforms appear imminent
- Technology report: What does it take to upload a file?
- WikiProject report: Interview with contributors to WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers
- Recent research: Vandalizing Wikipedia as rational behavior
- Humour: A very new very Wiki crossword
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 December. It will be on all wikis from 2 December (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:13, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- MediaWiki 1.38-wmf.11 was scheduled to be deployed on some wikis last week. The deployment was delayed because of unexpected problems.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 December. It will be on all wikis from 9 December (calendar).
- At all Wikipedias, a Mentor Dashboard is now available at
Special:MentorDashboard
. It allows registered mentors, who take care of newcomers' first steps, to monitor their assigned newcomers' activity. It is part of the Growth features. You can learn more about activating the mentor list on your wiki and about the mentor dashboard project. - The predecessor to the current MediaWiki Action API (which was created in 2008),
action=ajax
, will be removed this week. Any scripts or bots using it will need to switch to the corresponding API module. [16] - An old ResourceLoader module,
jquery.jStorage
, which was deprecated in 2016, will be removed this week. Any scripts or bots using it will need to switch tomediawiki.storage
instead. [17]
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21:58, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
Hyphens/en dashes and combining forms
Hello, Normchou. I've noticed that you replaced hyphens by en dashes in the article "Indo-Pacific" (diff1, diff2). Take a note that Indo-, Franco-, Anglo-, etc. are combining forms. Please, use hyphens instead of en dashes in such cases. Thanks in advance!
For further information, see MOS:DUALNATIONALITIES:
- Wrong: Franco–British rivalry; Franco- is a combining form, not an independent word, so use a hyphen: Franco-British rivalry
--Russian Rocky (talk) 17:59, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
- Hey Russian Rocky, thanks for reaching out. I think your point is worth some discussion, as I was trying to connect the word "Indo" to the phrases "West Pacific" and "Pacific Asia" if you look at the diffs carefully. It appears to me that under these circumstances, en dashes are better than hyphens. Normchou 💬 01:04, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
- If you want some discussion about combining forms, you need to consult with other people at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Combining forms such as Indo-, Franco-, Anglo-, Sino-, etc. have always been used with hyphens. If you think otherwise, you have to explain your rationale to others there because this rule is part of the current MOS.
- In my view, the main problem is your edits to the lead could potentially encourage someone to rename the above-mentioned article "Indo-Pacific" to "Indo–Pacific". Please, keep this in mind.--Russian Rocky (talk) 13:28, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- There are now default short aliases for the "Project:" namespace on most wikis. E.g. On Wikibooks wikis,
[[WB:]]
will go to the local language default for the[[Project:]]
namespace. This change is intended to help the smaller communities have easy access to this feature. Additional local aliases can still be requested via the usual process. [18]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 December. It will be on all wikis from 16 December (calendar).
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22:26, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Tech News
- Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 10 January 2022.
Recent changes
- Queries made by the DynamicPageList extension (
<DynamicPageList>
) are now only allowed to run for 10 seconds and error if they take longer. This is in response to multiple outages where long-running queries caused an outage on all wikis. [19]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.
Future changes
- The developers of the Wikipedia iOS app are looking for testers who edit in multiple languages. You can read more and let them know if you are interested.
- The Wikimedia Cloud VPS hosts technical projects for the Wikimedia movement. Developers need to claim projects they use. This is because old and unused projects are removed once a year. Unclaimed projects can be shut down from February. [20]
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22:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
There was no "Borderline BLP violation"
please don't cast aspersions upon me again. soibangla (talk) 19:24, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
- For the record, this was your edit, in addition to your
BS
comment when reverting my notificaiton. And the following edits were mine: [21][22][23][24][25]. I can only hope that you refrain from doing this again. Normchou 💬 19:29, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
- do not cast aspersions upon me soibangla (talk) 19:50, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
- No "aspersions" were cast by anyone. You did what you did. I simply present it and remind you of your mistake. As an experienced editor, you are the one responsible to face it and learn from it. Normchou 💬 20:06, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
- You removed longstanding content. I restored it with an explanation. You falsely characterized my restore of longstanding content as a borderline BLP vio in your edit summary and brought the same false characterization to my Talk page. That is a serious and false accusation, so I removed it because it was BS. Then you come to my Talk page and tell me to be civil, after you falsely accused me of a borderline BLP vio. Unbelievable. soibangla (talk) 20:29, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
Longstanding content
is not a valid cause for your wrongful edit (actually, a reckless revert against two of my improvements), which, upon furthur scrutiny, did border on BLP vio (BLPRS, OR/SYNTH, UNDUE). Nor isBS
a valid defense to your wrongdoing. All relevant diffs have been listed and other editors are free to examine them. As an experienced editor, you should be better than what you've shown above. Normchou 💬 20:47, 28 December 2021 (UTC)you should be better than what you've shown
Right back atcha. soibangla (talk) 20:52, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
- You removed longstanding content. I restored it with an explanation. You falsely characterized my restore of longstanding content as a borderline BLP vio in your edit summary and brought the same false characterization to my Talk page. That is a serious and false accusation, so I removed it because it was BS. Then you come to my Talk page and tell me to be civil, after you falsely accused me of a borderline BLP vio. Unbelievable. soibangla (talk) 20:29, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
- No "aspersions" were cast by anyone. You did what you did. I simply present it and remind you of your mistake. As an experienced editor, you are the one responsible to face it and learn from it. Normchou 💬 20:06, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
- do not cast aspersions upon me soibangla (talk) 19:50, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
The Signpost: 28 December 2021
- From the editor: Here is the news
- News and notes: Jimbo's NFT, new arbs, fixing RfA, and financial statements
- Serendipity: Born three months before her brother?
- In the media: The past is not even past
- Arbitration report: A new crew for '22
- By the numbers: Four billion words and a few numbers
- Deletion report: We laughed, we cried, we closed as "no consensus"
- Gallery: Wikicommons presents: 2021
- Traffic report: Spider-Man, football and the departed
- Crossword: Another Wiki crossword for one and all
- Humour: Buying Wikipedia
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- A
oauth_consumer
variable has been added to the AbuseFilter to enable identifying changes made by specific tools. [26] - Gadgets are now able to directly include JSON pages. This means some gadgets can now be configured by administrators without needing the interface administrator permission, such as with the Geonotice gadget. [27]
- Gadgets can now specify page actions on which they are available. For example,
|actions=edit,history
will load a gadget only while editing and on history pages. [28] - Gadgets can now be loaded on demand with the
withgadget
URL parameter. This can be used to replace an earlier snippet that typically looks likewithJS
orwithCSS
. [29] - At wikis where the Mentorship system is configured, you can now use the Action API to get a list of a mentor's mentees. [30]
- The heading on the main page can now be configured using MediaWiki:Mainpage-title-loggedin for logged-in users and MediaWiki:Mainpage-title for logged-out users. Any CSS that was previously used to hide the heading should be removed. [31] [32]
- Four special pages (and their API counterparts) now have a maximum database query execution time of 30 seconds. These special pages are: RecentChanges, Watchlist, Contributions, and Log. This change will help with site performance and stability. You can read more details about this change including some possible solutions if this affects your workflows. [33]
- The sticky header has been deployed for 50% of logged-in users on more than 10 wikis. This is part of the Desktop Improvements. See how to take part in the project.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 January. It will be on all wikis from 13 January (calendar).
Events
- Community Wishlist Survey 2022 begins. All contributors to the Wikimedia projects can propose for tools and platform improvements. The proposal phase takes place from 10 January 18:00 UTC to 23 January 18:00 UTC. Learn more.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
01:22, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- When using WikiEditor (also known as the 2010 wikitext editor), people will now see a warning if they link to disambiguation pages. If you click "Review link" in the warning, it will ask you to correct the link to a more specific term. You can read more information about this completed 2021 Community Wishlist item.
- You can automatically subscribe to all of the talk page discussions that you start or comment in using DiscussionTools. You will receive notifications when another editor replies. This is available at most wikis. Go to your Preferences and turn on "Automatically subscribe to topics". [34]
- When asked to create a new page or talk page section, input fields can be "preloaded" with some text. This feature is now limited to wikitext pages. This is so users can't be tricked into making malicious edits. There is a discussion about if this feature should be re-enabled for some content types.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 January. It will be on all wikis from 20 January (calendar).
Events
- Community Wishlist Survey 2022 continues. All contributors to the Wikimedia projects can propose for tools and platform improvements. The proposal phase takes place from 10 January 18:00 UTC to 23 January 18:00 UTC. Learn more.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 January. It will be on all wikis from 27 January (calendar).
- The following languages can now be used with syntax highlighting: BDD, Elpi, LilyPond, Maxima, Rita, Savi, Sed, Sophia, Spice, .SRCINFO.
- You can now access your watchlist from outside of the user menu in the new Vector skin. The watchlist link appears next to the notification icons if you are at the top of the page. [35]
Events
- You can see the results of the Coolest Tool Award 2021 and learn more about 14 tools which were selected this year.
- You can translate, promote, or comment on the proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey. Voting will begin on 28 January.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:37, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 30 January 2022
- Special report: WikiEd course leads to Twitter harassment
- News and notes: Feedback for Board of Trustees election
- Interview: CEO Maryana Iskander "four weeks in"
- Black History Month: What are you doing for Black History Month?
- WikiProject report: The Forgotten Featured
- Arbitration report: New arbitrators look at new case and antediluvian sanctions
- Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2021
- Obituary: Twofingered Typist
- Essay: The prime directive
- In the media: Fuzzy-headed government editing
- Recent research: Articles with higher quality ratings have fewer "knowledge gaps"
- Crossword: Cross swords with a crossword
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- If a gadget should support the new
?withgadget
URL parameter that was announced 3 weeks ago, then it must now also specifysupportsUrlLoad
in the gadget definition (documentation). [36]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 February. It will be on all wikis from 3 February (calendar).
Future changes
- A change that was announced last year was delayed. It is now ready to move ahead:
- The user group
oversight
will be renamedsuppress
. This is for technical reasons. This is the technical name. It doesn't affect what you call the editors with this user right on your wiki. This is planned to happen in three weeks. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections. As usual, these labels can be translated on translatewiki (direct links are available) or by administrators on your wiki.
- The user group
Events
- You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey between 28 January and 11 February. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on.
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17:41, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- English Wikipedia recently set up a gadget for dark mode. You can enable it there, or request help from an interface administrator to set it up on your wiki (instructions and screenshot).
- Category counts are sometimes wrong. They will now be completely recounted at the beginning of every month. [37]
Problems
- A code-change last week to fix a bug with Live Preview may have caused problems with some local gadgets and user-scripts. Any code with skin-specific behaviour for
vector
should be updated to also check forvector-2022
. A code-snippet, global search, and example are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 February. It will be on all wikis from 10 February (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:14, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Purging a category page with fewer than 5,000 members will now recount it completely. This will allow editors to fix incorrect counts when it is wrong. [38]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 February. It will be on all wikis from 17 February (calendar).
- In the AbuseFilter extension, the
rmspecials()
function has been updated so that it does not remove the "space" character. Wikis are advised to wrap all the uses ofrmspecials()
withrmwhitespace()
wherever necessary to keep filters' behavior unchanged. You can use the search function on Special:AbuseFilter to locate its usage. [39]
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19:17, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Special:Nuke will now provide the standard deletion reasons (editable at MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown) to use when mass-deleting pages. This was a request in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey. [40]
- At Wikipedias, all new accounts now get the Growth features by default when creating an account. Communities are encouraged to update their help resources. Previously, only 80% of new accounts would get the Growth features. A few Wikipedias remain unaffected by this change. [41]
- You can now prevent specific images that are used in a page from appearing in other locations, such as within PagePreviews or Search results. This is done with the markup
class=notpageimage
. For example,[[File:Example.png|class=notpageimage]]
. [42] - There has been a change to the HTML of Special:Contributions, Special:MergeHistory, and History pages, to support the grouping of changes by date in the mobile skin. While unlikely, this may affect gadgets and user scripts. A list of all the HTML changes is on Phabricator.
Events
- Community Wishlist Survey results have been published. The ranking of prioritized proposals is also available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 February. It will be on all wikis from 24 February (calendar).
Future changes
- The software to play videos and audio files on pages will change soon on all wikis. The old player will be removed. Some audio players will become wider after this change. The new player has been a beta feature for over four years. [43][44]
- Toolforge's underlying operating system is being updated. If you maintain any tools there, there are two options for migrating your tools into the new system. There are details, deadlines, and instructions on Wikitech. [45]
- Administrators will soon have the option to delete/undelete the associated "talk" page when they are deleting a given page. An API endpoint with this option will also be available. This was a request from the 2021 Wishlist Survey.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:10, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 27 February 2022
- From the team: Selection of a new Signpost Editor-in-Chief
- News and notes: Impacts of Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Special report: A presidential candidate's team takes on Wikipedia
- In the media: Wiki-drama in the UK House of Commons
- Technology report: Community Wishlist Survey results
- WikiProject report: 10 years of tea
- Featured content: Featured Content returns
- Deletion report: The 10 most SHOCKING deletion discussions of February
- Recent research: How editors and readers may be emotionally affected by disasters and terrorist attacks
- Arbitration report: Parties remonstrate, arbs contemplate, skeptics coordinate
- Gallery: The vintage exhibit
- Traffic report: Euphoria, Pamela Anderson, lies and Netflix
- News from Diff: The Wikimania 2022 Core Organizing Team
- Crossword: A Crossword, featuring Featured Articles
- Humour: Notability of mailboxes
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- When searching for edits by change tags, e.g. in page history or user contributions, there is now a dropdown list of possible tags. This was a request in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey. [46]
- Mentors using the Growth Mentor dashboard will now see newcomers assigned to them who have made at least one edit, up to 200 edits. Previously, all newcomers assigned to the mentor were visible on the dashboard, even ones without any edit or ones who made hundred of edits. Mentors can still change these values using the filters on their dashboard. Also, the last choice of filters will now be saved. [47][48]
- The user group
oversight
was renamedsuppress
. This is for technical reasons. You may need to update any local references to the old name, e.g. gadgets, links to Special:Listusers, or uses of NUMBERINGROUP.
Problems
- The recent change to the HTML of tracking changes pages caused some problems for screenreaders. This is being fixed. [49]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 March. It will be on all wikis from 3 March (calendar).
Future changes
- Working with templates will become easier. Several improvements are planned for March 9 on most wikis and on March 16 on English Wikipedia. The improvements include: Bracket matching, syntax highlighting colors, finding and inserting templates, and related visual editor features.
- If you are a template developer or an interface administrator, and you are intentionally overriding or using the default CSS styles of user feedback boxes (the classes:
successbox, messagebox, errorbox, warningbox
), please note that these classes and associated CSS will soon be removed from MediaWiki core. This is to prevent problems when the same class-names are also used on a wiki. Please let us know by commenting at phab:T300314 if you think you might be affected.
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22:58, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- There was a problem with some interface labels last week. It will be fixed this week. This change was part of ongoing work to simplify the support for skins which do not have active maintainers. [50]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 March. It will be on all wikis from 10 March (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:15, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- In the Wikipedia Android app it is now possible to change the toolbar at the bottom so the tools you use more often are easier to click on. The app now also has a focused reading mode. [51][52]
Problems
- There was a problem with the collection of some page-view data from June 2021 to January 2022 on all wikis. This means the statistics are incomplete. To help calculate which projects and regions were most affected, relevant datasets are being retained for 30 extra days. You can read more on Meta-wiki.
- There was a problem with the databases on March 10. All wikis were unreachable for logged-in users for 12 minutes. Logged-out users could read pages but could not edit or access uncached content then. [53]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 March. It will be on all wikis from 17 March (calendar).
- When using
uselang=qqx
to find localisation messages, it will now show all possible message keys for navigation tabs such as "View history". [54] - Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have
deletelogentry
anddeletedhistory
rights through their group memberships. Before, only those with thedeleterevision
right could access this special page. [55] - On the Special:Undelete pages for diffs and revisions, there will be a link back to the main Undelete page with the list of revisions. [56]
Future changes
- The Wikimedia Foundation has announced the IP Masking implementation strategy and next steps. The announcement can be read here.
- The Wikipedia Android app developers are working on new functions for user talk pages and article talk pages. [57]
Events
- The Wikimedia Hackathon 2022 will take place as a hybrid event on 20-22 May 2022. The Hackathon will be held online and there are grants available to support local in-person meetups around the world. Grants can be requested until 20 March.
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22:06, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
New code release schedule for this week
- There will be four MediaWiki releases this week, instead of just one. This is an experiment which should lead to fewer problems and to faster feature updates. The releases will be on all wikis, at different times, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. You can read more about this project.
Recent changes
- You can now set how many search results to show by default in your Preferences. This was the 12th most popular wish in the Community Wishlist Survey 2022. [58]
- The Jupyter notebooks tool PAWS has been updated to a new interface. [59]
Future changes
- Interactive maps via Kartographer will soon work on wikis using the FlaggedRevisions extension. Please tell us which improvements you want to see in Kartographer. You can take this survey in simple English. [60]
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15:59, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 27 March 2022
- From the Signpost team: How The Signpost is documenting the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
- News and notes: Of safety and anonymity
- Eyewitness Wikimedian, Kharkiv, Ukraine: Countering Russian aggression with a camera
- Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary
- Eyewitness Wikimedian, Western Ukraine: Working with Wikipedia helps
- Disinformation report: The oligarchs' socks
- In the media: Ukraine, Russia, and even some other stuff
- Wikimedian perspective: My heroes from Russia, Ukraine & beyond
- Discussion report: Athletes are less notable now
- Technology report: 2022 Wikimedia Hackathon
- Arbitration report: Skeptics given heavenly judgement, whirlwind of Discord drama begins to spin for tropical cyclone editors
- Traffic report: War, what is it good for?
- Deletion report: Ukraine, werewolves, Ukraine, YouTube pundits, and Ukraine
- From the archives: Burn, baby burn
- Essay: Yes, the sky is blue
- Tips and tricks: Become a keyboard ninja
- On the bright side: The bright side of news
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- There is a simple new Wikimedia Commons upload tool available for macOS users, Sunflower.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 March. It will be on all wikis from 31 March (calendar).
- Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of regular database maintenance. It will be performed on 29 March at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 31 March at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis). [61][62]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:53, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- For a few days last week, edits that were suggested to newcomers were not tagged in the Special:RecentChanges feed. This bug has been fixed. [63]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 April. It will be on all wikis from 7 April (calendar).
- Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 7 April at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
Future changes
- Starting next week, Tech News' title will be translatable. When the newsletter is distributed, its title may not be
Tech News: 2022-14
anymore. It may affect some filters that have been set up by some communities. [64] - Over the next few months, the "Add a link" Growth feature will become available to more Wikipedias. Each week, a few wikis will get the feature. You can test this tool at a few wikis where "Link recommendation" is already available.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:00, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-15
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- There is a new public status page at www.wikimediastatus.net. This site shows five automated high-level metrics where you can see the overall health and performance of our wikis' technical environment. It also contains manually-written updates for widespread incidents, which are written as quickly as the engineers are able to do so while also fixing the actual problem. The site is separated from our production infrastructure and hosted by an external service, so that it can be accessed even if the wikis are briefly unavailable. You can read more about this project.
- On Wiktionary wikis, the software to play videos and audio files on pages has now changed. The old player has been removed. Some audio players will become wider after this change. The new player has been a beta feature for over four years. [65][66]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 April. It will be on all wikis from 14 April (calendar).
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19:43, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-16
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 April. It will be on all wikis from 21 April (calendar).
- Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 19 April at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 21 April at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
- Administrators will now have the option to delete/undelete the associated "Talk" page when they are deleting a given page. An API endpoint with this option is also available. This concludes the 11th wish of the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey.
- On selected wikis, 50% of logged-in users will see the new table of contents. When scrolling up and down the page, the table of contents will stay in the same place on the screen. This is part of the Desktop Improvements project. [67]
- Message boxes produced by MediaWiki code will no longer have these CSS classes:
successbox
,errorbox
,warningbox
. The styles for those classes andmessagebox
will be removed from MediaWiki core. This only affects wikis that use these classes in wikitext, or change their appearance within site-wide CSS. Please review any local usage and definitions for these classes you may have. This was previously announced in the 28 February issue of Tech News.
Future changes
- Kartographer will become compatible with FlaggedRevisions page stabilization. Kartographer maps will also work on pages with pending changes. [68] The Kartographer documentation has been thoroughly updated. [69] [70] [71]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
23:10, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 24 April 2022
- News and notes: Double trouble
- In the media: The battlegrounds outside and inside Wikipedia
- Special report: Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war
- Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary (Part 2)
- Technology report: 8-year-old attribution issues in Media Viewer
- Featured content: Wikipedia's best content from March
- Interview: On a war and a map
- Serendipity: Wikipedia loves photographs, but hates photographers
- Traffic report: Justice Jackson, the Smiths, and an invasion
- News from the WMF: How Smart is the SMART Copyright Act?
- Humour: Really huge message boxes
- From the archives: Wales resigned WMF board chair in 2006 reorganization
Tech News: 2022-17
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- On many wikis (group 1), the software to play videos and audio files on pages has now changed. The old player has been removed. Some audio players will become wider after this change. The new player has been a beta feature for over four years. [72][73]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 April. It will be on all wikis from 28 April (calendar).
- Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 26 April at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
- Some very old browsers and operating systems are no longer supported. Some things on the wikis might look weird or not work in very old browsers like Internet Explorer 9 or 10, Android 4, or Firefox 38 or older. [74]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:54, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-18
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- On all remaining wikis (group 2), the software to play videos and audio files on pages has now changed. The old player has been removed. Some audio players will become wider after this change. The new player has been a beta feature for over four years. [75][76]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 May. It will be on all wikis from 5 May (calendar).
Future changes
- The developers are working on talk pages in the Wikipedia app for iOS. You can give feedback. You can take the survey in English, German, Hebrew or Chinese.
- Most wikis will receive an improved template dialog in VisualEditor and New Wikitext mode. [77] [78]
- If you use syntax highlighting while editing wikitext, you can soon activate a colorblind-friendly color scheme. [79]
- Several CSS IDs related to MediaWiki interface messages will be removed. Technical editors should please review the list of IDs and links to their existing uses. These include
#mw-anon-edit-warning
,#mw-undelete-revision
and 3 others.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:32, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-19
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- You can now see categories in the Wikipedia app for Android. [80]
Problems
- Last week, there was a problem with Wikidata's search autocomplete. This has now been fixed. [81]
- Last week, all wikis had slow access or no access for 20 minutes, for logged-in users and non-cached pages. This was caused by a problem with a database change. [82]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week. [83]
- Incompatibility issues with Kartographer and the FlaggedRevs extension will be fixed: Deployment is planned for May 10 on all wikis. Kartographer will then be enabled on the five wikis which have not yet enabled the extension on May 24.
- The Vector (2022) skin will be set as the default on several more wikis, including Arabic and Catalan Wikipedias. Logged-in users will be able to switch back to the old Vector (2010). See the latest update about Vector (2022).
Future meetings
- The next open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place on 17 May. The following meetings are currently planned for: 7 June, 21 June, 5 July, 19 July.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:21, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-20
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- Some wikis can soon use the add a link feature. This will start on Wednesday. The wikis are Catalan Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia, Hindi Wikipedia, Korean Wikipedia, Norwegian Bokmål Wikipedia, Portuguese Wikipedia, Simple English Wikipedia, Swedish Wikipedia, Ukrainian Wikipedia. This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [84]
- The Wikimedia Hackathon 2022 will take place online on May 20–22. It will be in English. There are also local hackathon meetups in Germany, Ghana, Greece, India, Nigeria and the United States. Technically interested Wikimedians can work on software projects and learn new skills. You can also host a session or post a project you want to work on.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 May. It will be on all wikis from 19 May (calendar).
Future changes
- You can soon edit translatable pages in the visual editor. Translatable pages exist on for examples Meta and Commons. [85]
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18:57, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-21
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access Special:Block directly from user pages. [86]
- The www.wiktionary.org portal page now uses an automated update system. Other project portals will be updated over the next few months. [87]
Problems
- The Growth team maintains a mentorship program for newcomers. Previously, newcomers weren't able to opt out from the program. Starting May 19, 2022, newcomers are able to fully opt out from Growth mentorship, in case they do not wish to have any mentor at all. [88]
- Some editors cannot access the content translation tool if they load it by clicking from the contributions menu. This problem is being worked on. It should still work properly if accessed directly via Special:ContentTranslation. [89]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 May. It will be on all wikis from 26 May (calendar).
Future changes
- Gadget and user scripts developers are invited to give feedback on a proposed technical policy aiming to improve support from MediaWiki developers. [90]
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00:19, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 29 May 2022
- From the team: A changing of the guard
- News and notes: 2022 Wikimedia Board elections
- Community view: Have your say in the 2022 Wikimedia Foundation Board elections
- In the media: Putin, Jimbo, Musk and more
- Special report: Three stories of Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war
- Discussion report: Portals, April Fools, admin activity requirements and more
- WikiProject report: WikiProject COVID-19 revisited
- Technology report: A new video player for Wikimedia wikis
- Featured content: Featured content of April
- Interview: Wikipedia's pride
- Serendipity: Those thieving image farms
- Recent research: 35 million Twitter links analysed
- Tips and tricks: The reference desks of Wikipedia
- Traffic report: Strange highs and strange lows
- News from Diff: Winners of the Human rights and Environment special nomination by Wiki Loves Earth announced
- News from the WMF: The EU Digital Services Act: What’s the Deal with the Deal?
- From the archives: The Onion and Wikipedia
- Humour: A new crossword
Tech News: 2022-22
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- In the AbuseFilter extension, an
ip_in_ranges()
function has been introduced to check if an IP is in any of the ranges. Wikis are advised to combine multipleip_in_range()
expressions joined by|
into a single expression for better performance. You can use the search function on Special:AbuseFilter to locate its usage. [91] - The IP Info feature which helps abuse fighters access information about IPs, has been deployed to all wikis as a beta feature. This comes after weeks of beta testing on test.wikipedia.org.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 June. It will be on all wikis from 2 June (calendar).
- Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 31 May at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
- The New Topic Tool will be deployed for all editors at most wikis soon. You will be able to opt out from within the tool and in Preferences. [92][93]
- The list=usercontribs API will support fetching contributions from an IP range soon. API users can set the
uciprange
parameter to get contributions from any IP range within the limit. [94] - A new parser function will be introduced:
{{=}}
. It will replace existing templates named "=". It will insert an equal sign. This can be used to escape the equal sign in the parameter values of templates. [95]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:27, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-23
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 June. It will be on all wikis from 9 June (calendar).
- A new
str_replace_regexp()
function can be used in abuse filters to replace parts of text using a regular expression. [96]
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02:45, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-24
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- All wikis can now use Kartographer maps. Kartographer maps now also work on pages with pending changes. [97][98]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 June. It will be on all wikis from 16 June (calendar).
- Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 14 June at 06:00 UTC (targeted wikis). [99]
- Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Abkhazian Wikipedia, Achinese Wikipedia, Adyghe Wikipedia, Afrikaans Wikipedia, Akan Wikipedia, Alemannisch Wikipedia, Amharic Wikipedia, Aragonese Wikipedia, Old English Wikipedia, Syriac Wikipedia, Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, Asturian Wikipedia, Atikamekw Wikipedia, Avaric Wikipedia, Aymara Wikipedia, Azerbaijani Wikipedia, South Azerbaijani Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [100]
- The New Topic Tool will be deployed for all editors at Commons, Wikidata, and some other wikis soon. You will be able to opt out from within the tool and in Preferences. [101][102]
Future meetings
- The next open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place today (13 June). The following meetings will take place on: 28 June, 12 July, 26 July.
Future changes
- By the end of July, the Vector 2022 skin should be ready to become the default across all wikis. Discussions on how to adjust it to the communities' needs will begin in the next weeks. It will always be possible to revert to the previous version on an individual basis. Learn more.
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16:57, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-25
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- The Wikipedia App for Android now has an option for editing the whole page at once, located in the overflow menu (three-dots menu ). [103]
- Some recent database changes may affect queries using the Quarry tool. Queries for
site_stats
at English Wikipedia, Commons, and Wikidata will need to be updated. Read more. - A new
user_global_editcount
variable can be used in abuse filters to avoid affecting globally active users. [104]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 June. It will be on all wikis from 23 June (calendar).
- Users of non-responsive skins (e.g. MonoBook or Vector) on mobile devices may notice a slight change in the default zoom level. This is intended to optimize zooming and ensure all interface elements are present on the page (for example the table of contents on Vector 2022). In the unlikely event this causes any problems with how you use the site, we'd love to understand better, please ping Jon (WMF) to any on-wiki conversations. [105]
Future changes
- The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated throughout July. Discussions will look different. You can see some of the proposed changes.
- Parsoid's HTML output will soon stop annotating file links with different
typeof
attribute values, and instead usemw:File
for all types. Tool authors should adjust any code that expects:mw:Image
,mw:Audio
, ormw:Video
. [106]
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20:17, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 26 June 2022
- News and notes: WMF inks new rules on government-ordered takedowns, blasts Russian feds' censor demands, spends big bucks
- In the media: Editor given three-year sentence, big RfA makes news, Guy Standing takes it sitting down
- Special report: "Wikipedia's independence" or "Wikimedia's pile of dosh"?
- Featured content: Articles on Scots' clash, Yank's tux, Austrian's action flick deemed brilliant prose
- Recent research: Wikipedia versus academia (again), tables' "immortality" probed
- Serendipity: Was she really a Swiss lesbian automobile racer?
- News from the WMF: Wikimedia Enterprise signs first deals
- Gallery: Celebration of summer, winter
Tech News: 2022-26
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Wikimedia Enterprise API service now has self-service accounts with free on-demand requests and monthly snapshots (API documentation). Community access via database dumps & Wikimedia Cloud Services continues.
- All Wikimedia wikis can now use Wikidata Lexemes in Lua after creating local modules and templates. Discussions are welcome on the project talk page.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 June. It will be on all wikis from 30 June (calendar).
- Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 28 June at 06:00 UTC (targeted wikis). [107]
- Some global and cross-wiki services will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 30 June at 06:00 UTC. This will impact ContentTranslation, Echo, StructuredDiscussions, Growth experiments and a few more services. [108]
- Users will be able to sort columns within sortable tables in the mobile skin. [109]
Future meetings
- The next open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place tomorrow (28 June). The following meetings will take place on 12 July and 26 July.
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20:01, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-27
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 July. It will be on all wikis from 7 July (calendar).
- Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 5 July at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 7 July at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
- The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated throughout July. Discussions will look different. You can see some of the proposed changes.
- This change only affects pages in the main namespace in Wikisource. The Javascript config variable
proofreadpage_source_href
will be removed frommw.config
and be replaced with the variableprpSourceIndexPage
. [110]
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19:30, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-28
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- In the Vector 2022 skin, the page title is now displayed above the tabs such as Discussion, Read, Edit, View history, or More. Learn more. [111]
- It is now possible to easily view most of the configuration settings that apply to just one wiki, and to compare settings between two wikis if those settings are different. For example: Japanese Wiktionary settings, or settings that are different between the Spanish and Esperanto Wikipedias. Local communities may want to discuss and propose changes to their local settings. Details about each of the named settings can be found by searching MediaWiki.org. [112]
- The Anti-Harassment Tools team recently deployed the IP Info Feature as a Beta Feature at all wikis. This feature allows abuse fighters to access information about IP addresses. Please check our update on how to find and use the tool. Please share your feedback using a link you will be given within the tool itself.
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
- Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 12 July at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
Future changes
- The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated throughout July. Discussions will look different. You can see some of the proposed changes.
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19:23, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-29
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- The feature on mobile web for Nearby Pages was missing last week. It will be fixed this week. [113]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 July. It will be on all wikis from 21 July (calendar).
Future changes
- The Technical Decision Forum is seeking community representatives. You can apply on wiki or by emailing TDFSupport@wikimedia.org before 12 August.
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22:58, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-30
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- The www.wikibooks.org and www.wikiquote.org portal pages now use an automated update system. Other project portals will be updated over the next few months. [114]
Problems
- Last week, some wikis were in read-only mode for a few minutes because of an emergency switch of their main database (targeted wikis). [115]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 July. It will be on all wikis from 28 July (calendar).
- The external link icon will change slightly in the skins Vector legacy and Vector 2022. The new icon uses simpler shapes to be more recognizable on low-fidelity screens. [116]
- Administrators will now see buttons on user pages for "Change block" and "Unblock user" instead of just "Block user" if the user is already blocked. [117]
Future meetings
- The next open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place tomorrow (26 July).
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19:26, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 1 August 2022
- From the editors: Rise of the machines, or something
- News and notes: Information considered harmful
- In the media: Censorship, medieval hoaxes, "pathetic supervillains", FB-WMF AI TL bid, dirty duchess deeds done dirt cheap
- Op-Ed: The "recession" affair
- Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary (part 3)
- Community view: Youth culture and notability
- Opinion: Criminals among us
- Arbitration report: Winds of change blow for cyclone editors, deletion dustup draws toward denouement
- Deletion report: This is Gonzo Country
- Discussion report: Notability for train stations, notices for mobile editors, noticeboards for the rest of us
- Featured content: A little list with surprisingly few lists
- Tips and tricks: Cleaning up awful citations with Citation bot
- On the bright side: Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war — three (more) stories
- Essay: How to research an image
- Recent research: A century of rulemaking on Wikipedia analyzed
- Serendipity: Don't cite Wikipedia
- Gallery: A backstage pass
- From the archives: 2012 Russian Wikipedia shutdown as it happened
Tech News: 2022-31
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Improved LaTeX capabilities for math rendering are now available in the wikis thanks to supporting
Phantom
tags. This completes part of the #59 wish of the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 August. It will be on all wikis from 4 August (calendar).
- The Realtime Preview will be available as a Beta Feature on wikis in Group 0. This feature was built in order to fulfill one of the Community Wishlist Survey proposals.
Future changes
- The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated throughout August. Discussions will look different. You can see some of the proposed changes.
Future meetings
- This week, three meetings about Vector (2022) with live interpretation will take place. On Tuesday, interpretation in Russian will be provided. On Thursday, meetings for Arabic and Spanish speakers will take place. See how to join.
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21:20, 1 August 2022 (UTC)