User talk:KnightMiner/Subscriptions/Archive 3
Latest comment: 9 years ago by MediaWiki message delivery in topic The Signpost: 6 February 2017
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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
- Wikimedia tested a new data center last week. This meant that the wikis could be read but not edited for 45 minutes on April 19 and for 20 minutes on April 21.
- When the data center was tested, new edits were not shown in the recent changes log for 20 minutes. They are in the logs now. You can read more about how to find the edits.
- Unread notifications were sometimes counted incorrectly. This has now been fixed.
Changes this week
- Wikimedia Commons will have better access to Wikidata. They can use data from any page on Wikidata on any page on Commons. This will happen on April 26.
- It will be easier to choose if you want to watch files you have uploaded with the upload wizard.
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from April 26. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from April 27. It will be on all wikis from April 28 (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on April 26 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The "Save page" button when you edit will be called "Publish" instead. This is to help new editors understand what it does. It already works like this on some wikis.
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21:02, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 2 May 2016
- News and notes: Wikimedia Switzerland's board and paid-editing firm; passing of Ed Dravecky
Wikimedia Switzerland board members involved in paid-editing firm
- In the media: Wikipedia Zero piracy in Bangladesh; bureaucracy; chilling effects; too few cooks; translation gaps
More reports surface of pirates' new favorite database: Wikimedia Commons
- Traffic report: Purple
Prince's death breaks traffic report records
- Featured content: The best ... from the past two weeks
Seven articles, six lists, and four pictures were promoted these weeks
- Arbitration report: Two editors unbanned; Wikicology case enters workshop phase; Gamaliel restricted from Gamergate at his own request
Arbitration news
- Recent research: The eight roles of Wikipedians; do edit histories expose social relations among editors?
Making sense of Wikipedia's social network
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
Problems
- There was a security problem with the MobileFrontend extension. It showed information that had been oversighted. This has now been fixed.
Changes this week
- You can now see which notifications are available on a wiki on Special:DisplayNotificationsConfiguration.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from May 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from May 4. It will be on all wikis from May 5 (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is "PSR-6 Cache interface in Mediawiki core". The meeting will be on May 4 at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Pages could be added to new users' watchlists by default when they edit them. New users could also by default get email notifications when pages they watch are edited. This is discussed on Meta.
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20:09, 2 May 2016 (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
- Wikiversities now have better access to Wikidata. They can use data from any page on Wikidata on any page on Wikiversity. This happened on May 3.
- You can use Wikipedia GapFinder to find missing articles between languages.
- Users are invited to try Cross-wiki Notifications on all wikis. This is the last test session before the release by default, scheduled for May 12th at 23:00 UTC.
- You can use keyboard shortcuts to open the visual editor (meta+V) or the wikitext editor (meta+E) (on certain wikis, even if you have chosen a favorite editor).
- Uploading files bigger than 100 megabytes on Wikimedia Commons required to opt-in in your preferences. This is not necessary anymore.
- The UploadsLink extension is now available on Wikimedia Commons.
- Deleting a translation unit page didn't remove the corresponding content from the translation page. This is now solved.
- Translation suggestions based on Apertium are now available on Mediawiki.org.
Problems
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from May 10. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from May 11. It will be on all wikis from May 12 (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on May 10 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topics this week are Overhaul Interwiki map, unify with Sites and WikiMap. The meeting will be on May 11 at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- 2017 European hackathon will happen on May 19 - 21, in Vienna (Austria).
Future changes
- Today, in categories, a page titled "11" comes before "2". We plan to reorder that: "2" will come before "11". Please tell the developers if the change will cause problems.
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23:22, 9 May 2016 (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
Problems
Changes this week
- Special:Notifications will have "mark as read" buttons for each day. The non-JavaScript version will get it this week. A JavaScript version will come later.
- Wikis can now locally decide what wikitext they want the signature button to produce.
- A one-time welcome message for users will now be shown in the wikitext editor. This will include existing users.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from May 17. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from May 18. It will be on all wikis from May 19 (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topics this week are "Requirements for change propagation". The meeting will be on May 18 at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Using self-closing tags like
<div/>and<span/>to mean<div></div>and<span></span>will not work in the future. Templates and pages that use these tags should be fixed. When Phabricator ticket T134423 is fixed these tags will parse as<div>and<span>instead. This is normal in HTML5.
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16:01, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 17 May 2016
- News and notes: Affiliates' nomination of WMF trustees announced; FDC's straight talking to WMF
Christophe Henner and Nataliia Tymkiv respond to the Signpost's questions
- Op-ed: Swiss chapter in turmoil
Paid-editing controversy
- In the media: Wikimedia's Dario Taraborelli quoted on Google's Knowledge Graph in The Washington Post
Citations needed
- Featured content: Two weeks for the prize of one
Nine featured articles, eight featured lists, and six featured pictures
- Traffic report: Oh behave, Beyhive / Underdogs
Prince gives way to Captain America
- Arbitration report: "Wikicology" ends in site ban; evidence and workshop phases concluded for "Gamaliel and others"
News from two arbitration cases
- Wikicup: That's it for WikiCup Round 2!
35 competitors move on to round 3
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 now see a warning message on pages that try to use {{DISPLAYTITLE}} but it doesn't work because it doesn't match the page's actual title.
Problems
- Commons had problems with server lag. This meant that it took longer time for files to turn up in categories.
Changes 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).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on May 24 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- All HTTP access to Wikimedia sites and APIs will stop working. Some bots still use HTTP. They will need to use HTTPS instead. This will happen on June 12.
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18:40, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 28 May 2016
- News and notes: Upcoming Wikimedia conferences in the US and India; May Metrics and Activities Meeting
Dates and venues for WikiCon USA 2016, WikiCon India 2016, 2016 Glam Boot Camp and 2016 Wikimedia Diversity Conference
- Special report: Compensation paid to Sue Gardner increased by almost 50 percent after she stepped down as executive director
Sue Gardner appears to be earning more money as the WMF's special advisor than she did as its executive director
- In the media: The perils of Wikipedia's monopoly; Wikipedians' fragility; Street Sharks hoax
Not everything you read online is fact
- Featured content: Eight articles, three lists and five pictures
Another eight featured articles, three featured lists and five featured pictures
- Op-ed: Journey of a Wikipedian
Mental health carries a powerful stigma. The more we are open about it, the less that weighs all of us down
- Arbitration report: Gamaliel resigns from the arbitration committee
Gamaliel and others case nears its end, and there are new 30/500 rules
- Recent research: English as Wikipedia's Lingua Franca; deletion rationales; schizophrenia controversies
Round-up of recent Wikipedia research
- Traffic report: Splitting (musical) airs / Slow Ride
We've recently come into possession of a new tool.
- Blog: Freely licensed magic at Eurovision
Albin Olsson has been right there with them, capturing dramatic images of singers from around the world.
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
Problems
- A new way to handle rollback was introduced. It broke some tools and scripts and was reverted. This will be re-planned after review.
- CentralNotice didn't work in some older browsers. This has now been fixed.
Changes this week
- When you edit a file or category page with the visual editor the rest of the page will be shown in its normal place.
- The Translate extension will get an edit summary field.
- A change to the
<charinsert>feature could break some user scripts. Contact Bawolff if the "click to insert special characters" links in the edit window break on your wiki. - Elasticsearch will be upgraded on Wikimedia wikis this week. This should not affect you, but if you have problems with the search function this is probably the reason.
- 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).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 31 May at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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16:19, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 05 June 2016
- News and notes: WMF cuts budget for 2016-17 as scope tightens
The Signpost analyzes the WMF's revised annual plan
- In the media: Jimmy Wales on net neutrality—"It's complicated"—and his $100m fundraising challenge
Recent press interviews
- Featured content: Overwhelmed ... by pictures
One article, one list, and seven images were featured this week
- Traffic report: Pop goes the culture, again.
Film and television maintain a strong grasp on Wikipedia's readership
- Arbitration report: ArbCom case "Gamaliel and others" concludes
The final results of the heated case
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Video Games
We sat down with the writers of some of the most vistied Wikipedia articles
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
Changes this week
- The history page can tell you if a page on your watchlist was updated since you last visited it. This now works the same way in Vector as in other skins. The change broke local designs on some wikis. This will be fixed 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).
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20:51, 6 June 2016 (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
- Wikimedia wikis now use AuthManager. If you have new problems related to logging in or being logged in, report them.
- Visiting Special:Notifications doesn't automatically mark notifications as read anymore. You can go between read, unread or all notifications on Special:Notifications. Notifications on Special:Notifications are grouped by day. You can mark every daily group as read individually. Notifications are displayed by groups of 50 on Special:Notifications and you can find former notifications by using navigation arrows.
Changes this week
- You can filter user contributions to hide minor edits.
- It will be easier to edit galleries with the visual editor.
- 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).
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18:41, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 15 June 2016
- News and notes: Clarifications on status and compensation of outgoing executive directors Sue Gardner and Lila Tretikov
WMF board chair Patricio Lorente answers questions
- Special report: Wikiversity Journal—A new user group
Wikimedia enters academic publishing
- Featured content: From the crème de la crème
Eleven featured articles, nine featured lists and fourteen featured pictures
- In the media: Biography disputes; Craig Newmark donation; PR editing
Recent media coverage of Wikipedia and Wikimedia
- Op-ed: Commons Picture of the Year; Wikidata licensing
Two for the price of one—do the popular Commons image contest and Wikidata licensing serve the community as well as they should?
- Traffic report: Another one with sports; Knockout, brief candle
Wikipedia's most read articles in the last two weeks
- Blog: Why I proofread poetry at Wikisource
Poetry: “it is the stuff of the soul; it speaks to the body, the mind, and the spirit alike.” Sonja Bohm worked for years to get all of Florence Earle Coates’ poetry online, and now proofreads poetry on the English Wikisource, the free library. We asked why.
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
- Notifications were not always marked as read when you followed a link from an email notification. This will now happen.
Changes this week
- The list of other languages an article is available in will be shorter on small Wikipedias and non-Wikipedia projects. This is to make it easier to find the most relevant languages for each user. You will still be able to see the other languages.
- Alerts (the red badge) will not be automatically marked as read when you open the Notifications popup.
- When you get several thanks you can see them as one notification. This is instead of one notification for each thanks.
- 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).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is develop Markdown support strategy for MediaWiki. The meeting will be on 22 June at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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19:14, 20 June 2016 (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 ORES service has now moved to a new location. This should make it easier to use ORES. The ORES review service is now available as a beta feature on Wikidata and Persian Wikipedia. ORES is an artificial intelligence system for Wikimedia wikis to help editors.
- The order of wikis in collapsed cross-wiki notifications was different than when the list was expanded. This is now fixed.
- A new category for tracking pages with math errors was added: Category:Pages with math errors.
Problems
- The Wikimedia Etherpad crashed on June 23. Some edits done that day have been lost. They can be found at etherpad-restore.wikimedia.org for another few days.
Changes 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).
- The way to mark notifications as read or unread will be changed to be more clear.
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 28 June at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The Collaboration team at the Wikimedia Foundation will look at developing better tools for edit review. This is because research suggests we scare away newcomers who want to help.
- An e-mail from the Editing Department explains the technical work that is planned and being researched for the future. Items include better wikitext and visual editing, prompts for edits, language improvements, annotations, and meta-data separation.
- The sorting of Notifications into the two fly-out menus is going to change on July 5 to 7. Bundled notifications should be easier to explore and mark as read individually.
- From 29 June git.wikimedia.org (running Gitblit) will redirect all requests to Phabricator. The vast majority of requests should be correctly redirected.
- Catalan and Polish Wikipedias will have Wikidata descriptions added to articles in the mobile view by default. This is currently a beta option for the mobile versions. This might come to other wikis later.
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15:42, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 04 July 2016
- News and notes: Board unanimously appoints Katherine Maher as new WMF executive director; Wikimedia lawsuits in France and Germany
News from Wikimania and the courts
- Op-ed: Two policies in conflict?
Paid-contributions disclosure vs. outing
- In the media: Terrorism database cites Wikipedia as a source
Reliability worries
- Featured content: Triple fun of featured content
Six articles, nine lists, one topic and thirteen pictures promoted
- Traffic report: Goalposts; Oy vexit
European football and politics dominate the top-10
- Blog: Jimmy Wales names Emily Temple-Wood and Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight as Wikipedians of the Year
From the Wikimedia Foundation blog
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 daily email summary of notifications could be sent even when there were no notifications from the wiki. Now no email will be sent if there is no activity.
Changes this week
- The "⧼citoid-citefromidtool-title⧽" button in the visual editor's toolbar will move into the "Insert" menu except for Wikipedias, Wikibookses and Wikiversities. This is to make it less prominent on wikis that don't use it as much.
- 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).
Meetings
- You can take part in the next office hour for Wikidata on IRC on July 8 at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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19:45, 4 July 2016 (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 new image scaler fixed a number of bugs for showing SVG files. Some new problems turned up.
- Notifications are grouped by types. They are now counted by number of notifications and not by unread groups. That change may increase the number of notifications displayed. The earlier way of counting was often incorrect. Unread notifications will also be displayed first.
- Special:Notifications now has a maximum width for the notifications list on desktop computers. This allows long titles and descriptions to be cut properly. Notifications are now also better parsed.
Problems
- On 5 July Wikimedia Commons had problems and could not be edited for 20 minutes. For a short while after that the recent changes log and some gadgets were not working properly. It affected administrative actions on other projects too.
- Users who have multiple unread notifications can mark them as read by visiting Special:Notifications page on their wiki.
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 July. It will be on all wikis from 14 July (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 12 July at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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15:15, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
[m:Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2016/29|Tech News: 2016-29]]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Due to the rollback, new sorting of Notifications on the Fly-Out Menus has been deployed with a delay.
- Due to the rollback, the daily special patch deployment process has been changed.
- In notifications, "Messages" are now called "Notices".
Problems
- On July 12 all wikis were rolled back to MediaWiki 1.28.0-wmf.8 due to a problem in the log-in system.
Changes 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).
- Special:Log now has a help link.
- The RevisionSlider can be tested on the beta cluster. From 22 July, it will be available as a beta feature at: German Wikipedia, Arabic Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 19 July at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is "Devise plan for a cross-wiki watchlist back-end". The meeting will be on 20 July at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- User scripts and bots can no longer use http:// to edit wiki pages.
- Gerrit is going to be updated. Developers are invited to test it.
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12:01, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 21 July 2016
- News and notes: Board faces diversity and skill-base issues in new FDC appointments
Four seats to be filled in top WMF grantmaking body; General Counsel and Secretary Geoff Brigham leaves Wikimedia
- Discussion report: Busy month for discussions
New ArbCom restrictions; genetically modified food safety
- In the media: Women in science editathon gets national press; Wikipedia "shockingly biased"
Female scientists in India; Cracked.com probes Wikipedia's weaknesses
- Featured content: A wide variety from the best
Promotions in four featured-content forums
- Traffic report: Sports and esports
Northern summer makes sport the winner
- Arbitration report: Script writers appointed for clerks
Plus a clerk appointment and two motions
- Recent research: Using deep learning to predict article quality
Plus navigating the Chinese Wikipedia, and talkpage sentiment
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
- Interactive maps have been enabled for Meta wiki and the Catalan, Hebrew, and Macedonian Wikipedias. Learn how to add interactive maps to wiki pages.
- Last week's rollback is now documented.
Problems
Changes 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).
- It is now possible to mark all Notifications as read on Special:Notifications, by clicking on the cog icon.
- Wikipedia search will now detect the language of your search if 2 or fewer results are found. It will then show results from the matching language Wikipedia, if any relevant article exists. It will start to roll out in 5 languages.
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 26 July at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is "an extension that implements an authenticated key-value store". The meeting will be on 27 July at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The current icon for Notifications "Notices" (in English "Notices") will be changed from a bubble-speech icon to a tray icon for consistency.
- Special:Notifications page code will be changed to be more Mobile friendly.
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19:54, 25 July 2016 (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 prototype for structured data on Commons is available now.
- The RevisionSlider beta feature can now be tested on mediawiki.org, German Wikipedia, Arabic Wikipedia and Hebrew Wikipedia.
Problems
- Renamed users on some wikis were not connected to their account on other wikis between 20 July and 21 July. This has been fixed.
Changes 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).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 2 August at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- The next CREDIT showcase will be on 3 August at 18:00 (UTC). This is to present and comment on new gadgets, small projects and works in progress. See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is "notifications in core". The meeting will be on 3 August at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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21:48, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 04 August 2016
- Editorial: Wikipedia policy suppresses sharing of information
And the Signpost loses and gains a co-editor-in-chief
- News and notes: Foundation presents results of harassment research, plans for automated identification; Wikiconference submissions open
WMF and Alphabet are developing an algorithm designed to detect personal attacks
- In the media: Paid editing service announced; Commercial exploitation of free images; Wikipedia as a crystal ball; Librarians to counter systemic bias
Plus Android and Taylor Swift
- Obituary: Kevin Gorman, who took on Wikipedia's gender gap and undisclosed paid advocacy, dies at 24
Condolences are being left on his English Wikipedia talk page
- Traffic report: Summer of Pokémon, Trump, and Hillary
Pokémon Go led the chart for two weeks running
- Featured content: Women and Hawaii
Eight articles, two lists and fourteen pictures were promoted
- Recent research: Easier navigation via better wikilinks
Plus: new Wiki Studies journal, Wikipedia usage on Twitter and more
- Blog: All-new notifications page helps Wikimedians focus on what matters most
WMF announces enhancements to the notifications system
- Technology report: User script report (January to July 2016, part 1)
New user scripts and other tech 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
- In notifications, the icon for Notices has been changed from a speech-bubble icon (
) to a tray icon (
) for consistency. The Alerts icon has been redesigned too. The colors have been changed for accessibility.
Problems
- If you use the wikEd gadget, changes you made were not kept when you switched from the wikitext editor to the visual editor while you were editing. This has now been fixed.
Changes this week
- Wikimedia search will now ignore question marks at the end of the sentences or words you use when you search. Until now the question mark was just a wildcard.
- On Commons, UploadWizard will now be available on mobile, rather than just the old upload form. This should reduce the workload for the community in reviewing images.
- When you edit with the visual editor a puzzle symbol tells you there is an invisible template in the article. It will now mention the name of the template.
- The button to read something in another language will move for mobile users. This will happen on 9 August.
- When someone mentions you and links to your user page you get a notification. You will now get a notification when you mention yourself this way.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 August. It will be on all wikis from 11 August (calendar).
- A message on Notifications panel will invite users to try Special:Notifications page.
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on August 9 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:41, 8 August 2016 (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
- Last week Tech News announced you will get a notification when you mention yourself the same way as if someone else had mentioned you. This caused some problems and will happen later instead.
- Creating and editing links to sections on other pages on the wiki now works again in the visual editor.
- For some users, cross-wiki notifications haven't been working properly. The count has been wrong when only cross-wiki notifications were present. The cross-wiki bundle has been showing only the names of wikis and not the actual notifications. This will be fixed soon.
Changes this week
- The login session when you choose "Keep me logged in" will now last a year. Previously it was 30 days. This will happen on August 16.
- Some abuse filters will have to be updated during the week. This is because a bug will be fixed.
- In compact language links, two new kinds of languages will be shown in the shorter language list: Languages that are used in the article's text, and languages where the article has a badge like "featured article" or "good article".
- The visual editor will be available by default for logged-out editors on Wikipedias that use the Arabic script. It is already default for logged-in editors.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 16. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from August 17. It will be on all wikis from August 18 (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on August 16 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Starting the week of August 22 there will be three software deployment windows. They will be at 13:00, 18:00, and 23:00 UTC. This is to have more times when software of the wikis can be updated and make it easier for developers in different parts of the world.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:37, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 18 August 2016
- News and notes: Focus on India—WikiConference produces new apps; state government adopts free licenses
Conference draws highly diverse and productive participation, and several years' advocacy pays off in a new government policy
- Special report: Engaging diverse communities to profile women of Antarctica
Guest post recaps in-depth engagement of experts to address Wikipedia gender gap while improving coverage of their field
- In the media: The ugly, the bad, the playful, and the promising
Wikipedia coverage ranged from sobering to playful in this issue's roundup
- Featured content: Simply the best ... from the last two weeks
Eight articles, eleven lists, one topic and five pictures were promoted
- Traffic report: Olympic views
Politics gives way to sports, TV and film
- Technology report: User script report (January–July 2016, part 2)
A review of numerous useful Wikipedia customizations
- Arbitration report: The Michael Hardy case
New case opened, and a reminder to administrators not to impose blocks based on private information
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 ORES review tool is now available on Special:Contributions as a beta feature. It can make it easier to find contributions that are probably damaging the wikis. The ORES review tool is available on Wikidata and Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish and Russian Wikipedia.
- The
normandccnormfunctions have been updated to make it easier to write abuse filters. This also affects the TitleBlacklist extension. You don't have to transform "I" and "L" to "1", "O" to "0" and "S" to "5" anymore. - The old pageview data in the "pagecounts-raw" and "pagecounts-all-sites" files is no longer being updated. You can find the new pageview data here. This happened on August 5.
Problems
- Some big image files could not be thumbnailed. This has now been fixed.
- When you moved a page over a redirect it would delete the redirect without saving it in the logs. This has now been fixed.
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 August. It will be on all wikis from 25 August (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 23 August at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Sometimes when you mention another user they don't get a notification. You will be able to get a notification when you successfully sent out a mention to someone or be told if they did not get a notification. This will be opt-in. You can test this on the test wiki.
- How you add text after an edit conflict might work in a different way in the future. You can test the prototype.
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21:18, 22 August 2016 (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
- Wikimedia mobile sites now don't load images if the user doesn't see them. This is to save mobile data and make the pages load faster.
- When you edit a table with the visual editor, pressing
Tabin the last cell of a row will take you to the first cell in the next row. PressingShiftandTabin the first cell of a row will take you to the last cell in the previous row.
Changes this week
- The name of the "Save page" button will change. The button will say "Publish page" when you create a new page. It will say "Publish changes" when you change an existing page.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 August. It will be on all wikis from 1 September (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 30 August at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is "RfC: image and oldimage tables". The meeting will be on 31 August at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:02, 29 August 2016 (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
- Word-level diffs now work in longer paragraphs.
- Interactive maps now have a frame by default. This is to make them look like other multimedia objects. This affects all Wikivoyages, the Catalan, Hebrew, Macedonian Wikipedias and Meta.
- When you preview the MediaWiki:Captcha-ip-whitelist page it will show a validation output of the listed IP addresses instead of the list of addresses only. This can help you to identify if your whitelist rules will work or not.
Changes this week
- You will be able to use
<maplink>on all Wikipedias. It creates a link to a full screen map. - Sometimes when you mention another user they don't get a notification. You will be able to get a notification when you successfully send out a mention to someone or be told if they did not get a notification. This will be opt-in.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 September. It will be on all wikis from 8 September (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 September at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The CheckUser extension could work differently in the future. There is a Request for Comments to figure out how.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:12, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 06 September 2016
- News and notes: AffCom still grappling with WMF Board's criteria for new chapters
The Board’s two-year moratorium on new chapters and thematic organisations has expired; presentation of new criteria is reigniting smoldering controversies and introducing new ones
- Special report: Olympics readership depended on language
A comparison of the 15 most-read articles related to the Olympics, in seven language editions of Wikipedia
- In the media: Librarians, Wikipedians, and a library of Wikipedia coverage
Wikipedia gaining ground in credibility among librarians; and a healthy helping of media coverage
- WikiProject report: Watching Wikipedia
An interview with WikiProject TV member CAWylie
- Featured content: Entertainment, sport, and something else in-between
Twelve articles, eight lists and four pictures were promoted
- Traffic report: From Phelps to Bolt to Reddit
An update on two weeks of Wikipedia traffic, based on a new and improved tracking tool
- Technology report: Wikimedia mobile sites now don't load images if the user doesn't see them
New scripts and technical news
- Recent research: Ethics of machine-created articles and fighting vandalism
One study encounters critique of its ethics from Wikipedians; another critiques the ethics employed by Wikipedia
- Blog: Upload of free photos from Swiss library underway
Switzerland's largest public science library is uploading 134k photos
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 Wikimedia Commons app for Android can now show nearby places that need photos.
<maplink>and<mapframe>can now use geodata from Open Street Map if Open Street Map has defined a region and given it an ID in Wikidata. You can use this to draw on the map and add information.
Changes this week
- The RevisionSlider will be available as a beta feature on all wikis from 13 September. This will make it easier to navigate between diffs in the page history.
- A new user right will allow most users to change the content model of pages.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 September. It will be on all wikis from 15 September (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 13 September at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- When you search on the Wikimedia wikis in the future you could see results from sister projects in your language. You can read more and discuss how this could work.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:04, 12 September 2016 (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
- Last week's MediaWiki update was rolled back because of bugs. Creating new accounts did not work between 15 September 19:10 UTC and 16 September 12:50 UTC.
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will hopefully be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 September. It will be on all wikis from 22 September (calendar). This is the version that was meant to go out last week.
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 20 September at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is multi-content revisions. The meeting will be on 21 September at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Wikidata will start working on adding support for Wiktionary. The Wikidata development team is now taking one last look at the development plan.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:09, 19 September 2016 (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
- If your wiki wants numerical sorting in categories you can request it after a community decision. See how to request it.
- When you edit text and mention a new username they are notified if you add your signature. Before this only happened under certain conditions.
- Users are notified if they are mentioned in a section where you add your own signature even if you edit more than one section. Before, users were not notified if you edited more than one section in one edit.
Problems
- The MediaWiki version that was supposed to come to the wikis two weeks ago was put on hold again because of new problems. The MediaWiki version after it is now on all wikis.
Changes this week
Meetings
- You can join the next office hour with the Wikidata team. The meeting will be on September 27 at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Abandoned tools on Tool Labs could be taken over by other developers. There is a new discussion on Meta about this. It will be discussed until 12 October and then voted on.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:07, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 29 September 2016
- News and notes: Wikipedia Education Program case study published; and a longtime Wikimedian has made his final edit
Medical school class's Wikipedia contributions profiled as case study; and a remembrance of Ray Saintonge, Wikimedian since 2002
- In the media: Wikipedia in the news
This edition's roundup of media coverage
- Featured content: Three weeks in the land of featured content
Nineteen articles, eleven lists, one portal and twelve pictures were promoted
- Arbitration report: Arbcom looking for new checkusers and oversight appointees while another case opens
TRM, CUOS '16, R&I, RfC
- Traffic report: From Gene Wilder to JonBenét
Four weeks of Wikipedia's most popular articles examined
- Technology report: Category sorting and template parameters
Titles with numbers now sort numerically, and a new tool to check how template parameters are used
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 this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 October. It will be on all wikis from 6 October (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 4 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Tidy will be replaced. Instead the HTML 5 parsing algorithm will be used to clean up bad HTML in wikitext. This would cause problems on a number of wikis. They need to be fixed first.
<slippymap>will not work on Wikivoyage after 24 October. You should use<mapframe>instead. If you need help to fix this before 24 October you should ask for it as soon as possible.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:30, 3 October 2016 (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
- You can show Special:RecentChanges on a page by using
{{Special:RecentChanges}}. You can now use tag filters by using{{Special:RecentChanges/tagfilter=tagname}}. - The notification badge is coloured if you have notifications. When you check the notification the badge will now turn grey on all wikis instead of just the local one.
- Colours used in the Wikimedia wikis' main interface changed slightly. This is to make them easier to see for readers and editors with reduced eyesight.
Changes this week
- Hidden HTML comments will be more visible when you edit with the visual editor.
<!-- You write hidden HTML comments like this. --> - The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 October. It will be on all wikis from 13 October (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 11 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topics this week is CREDITS files. The meeting will be on 12 October at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Language converter syntax will soon no longer work inside external links. Wikitext like
http://-{zh-cn:foo.com; zh-hk:bar.com; zh-tw:baz.com}-must be replaced. You will have to write-{zh-cn: http://foo.com ; zh-hk: http://bar.com ; zh-tw:http://baz.com }-instead. This only affects languages with Language Converter enabled. Examples of such languages are Chinese and Serbian.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:30, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 14 October 2016
- News and notes: Fundraising, flora and fauna
Wikimedia Foundation reports on fundraising challenges and new initiatives; Indian botanists rally to build Wikimedia Commons' photo collection
- Discussion report: Cultivating leadership: Wikimedia Foundation seeks input
A new "peer academy" is proposed to find and support leadership in volunteer communities
- In the media: A news columnist on the frustrations of tweaking his Wikipedia bio
And this edition's roundup of media coverage
- Technology report: Upcoming tech projects for 2017
A new editor, a new parsing algorithm, and another server switch
- Featured content: Variety is the spice of life
Twelve articles, twelve lists and twenty-one pictures were promoted
- Traffic report: Debates and escapes
Donald Trump remains a view-magnet, others change their channel
- Recent research: A 2011 study resurfaces in a media report
We explore the study, which sought insights from Wikipedia metadata into global events
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 newsletter from the Collaboration team at the Wikimedia Foundation. It will have more details about for example Flow and notifications. You can read the first issue.
Problems
- Some users got a warning about Wikipedia's security certificate last week. This was because of a problem GlobalSign had. This has now been fixed. Only a small number of users got the warning.
- Editors couldn't edit semi-protected pages in the Wikipedia app for Android. This has now been fixed in the beta version.
Changes this week
Future changes
- The Editing Department are working on a new wikitext editor. It will have tools that are in the visual editor but not in the wikitext editor today. You can read more about this. This is an early plan and things can change. The old wikitext editor will still exist.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:43, 17 October 2016 (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
- The abuse filters had a problem and caught too many edits. This has now been fixed.
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from October 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from October 26. It will be on all wikis from October 27 (calendar).
- The "Search" text in the search box will show the name of the project. For example, on Wikipedia it will say "Search Wikipedia".
- About a dozen wikis now have numerical sorting in categories. If your wiki wants numerical sorting in categories you can ask for it.
- Some wikis that want numerical sorting in categories can also ask to use UCA to sort categories. The biggest difference is that characters with diacritics will be sorted together. For example, for most languages Ä will be sorted with A instead of at the end of the alphabet. This is not true for languages that have Ä as a character in their alphabet. Wikis that already use UCA are listed on Meta. Languages that can use UCA are listed on MediaWiki.org. You can test it.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:39, 24 October 2016 (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
- Now you can include Commons video films with subtitles in your wiki language. Before you could see translated videos on file page at Commons only.
- Search now has an updated preference tab to configure the search completion suggester.
- The visual editor is now available on all wikis using only one language script.
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 1st. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 2nd. It will be on all wikis from November 3rd (calendar).
- Now you can use autocomplete for page names in "Preview page with this template (what's this?)" field when editing templates.
- Special:NewPages can now be filtered by page size.
Future changes
Miscellaneous
- The Wikimedia Foundation's Technical Collaboration Guideline is available for community review. Any feedback welcome, in any language.
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16:18, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 4 November 2016
- News and notes: Finally, a new CTO; trustee joins Quora; copyright upgrade impending
Victoria Coleman to fill long-vacant CTO role; Trustee Kelly Battles joins Quora executive team; last week for community input on Creative Commons 4.0 license
- In the media: Washington Post continues in-depth Wikipedia coverage
Plus our roundup of recent media stories
- Wikicup: WikiCup winners
Winners of the tenth annual WikiCup competition announced and profiled
- Discussion report: What's on your tech wishlist for the coming year?
Progress on the 2015 Community Wishlist for tech features; and plans for a new Wishlist
- Technology report: New guideline for technical collaboration; citation templates now flag open access content
Proposed best practices for communication and community involvement, and an improvement to Wikipedia's citation infrastructure
- Featured content: Cream of the crop
Fourteen articles, six lists and fourteen pictures were promoted
- Traffic report: Un-presidential politics
Two weeks of insights into the mind of the mob
- Arbitration report: Recapping October's activities
Two cases closed, and an administrator loses editing rights
- Recent research: Why women edit less, and where they are overrepresented; article importance and quality; predicting elections from Wikipedia
A recap of recent research in our realm
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
- Victoria Coleman is the new Chief technology officer for the Wikimedia Foundation.
- First release candidate for MediaWiki 1.28 is now available.
-
.gitreviewfor MediaWiki branches and extensions switched from targeting a specific branch to usingtrack=1. - Section numbers in Table of Contents boxes will use grey to improve readability.
Changes this week
- The 2016 Community Wishlist Survey begins on 7 November.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 8th. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 9th. It will be on all wikis from November 10th (calendar).
- Special:ActiveUsers will allow users groups selection.
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 8 November 2016 at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topics this week are Image Thumbnail API and allow SVG files uploaded on MediaWiki to have XHTML namespaces. The meeting will be on 9 November at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- RevisionSlider will be enabled by default on all beta wikis, on testwiki, testwiki2, mediawikiwiki and de.wikipedia.org.
- Upcoming holidays will impact deployments. The schedule has been published.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
23:01, 7 November 2016 (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 you edit with the visual editor you can use
meta+shift+kto add a reference. The meta key is often the control key or command key.
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 15. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 16. It will be on all wikis from November 17 (calendar).
- In Special:Preferences you can choose which language menus and buttons will be in. If there is no translation for that language, MediaWiki has a list of fallback languages. A fallback language is a language many will understand better than English. MediaWiki will now use English when there is no Ukrainian translation.
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 15 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Magic links might not work in the future.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:18, 14 November 2016 (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
- Administrators, bureaucrats, oversighters and checkusers can now use two-factor authentication. This makes their Wikimedia accounts more secure. This can be turned on in Special:Preferences. There are discussions on how to best turn it on for everyone.
- You can now search for file properties. For example you can search for media type, how big a file is or what resolution it has.
- The latest Collaboration team products newsletter has been published. It has more details about their work than Tech News has.
Problems
- A hacker group is hacking Wikimedia accounts. They can probably do this because users have the same passwords on Wikimedia wikis as on other sites. Please have a password you use only on the Wikimedia wikis and nowhere else. This is especially important for administrators, bureaucrats, oversighters and checkusers. These users can also turn on two-factor authentication.
Changes this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
- RevisionSlider will be a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia. This will happen on 22 November. It will come to other wikis later.
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 22 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- It will be possible to do cross-wiki search. The developers who work on this are looking for communities that want to test this.
- Hovercards will leave the beta stage. The Wikimedia Foundation Reading Web team wants communities to set Hovercards as a default option for readers who are not logged in. Communities that are interested can say so on the Hovercards talk page.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:33, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 4 November 2016
- News and notes: Arbitration Committee elections commence
An overview of the English Wikipedia ArbCom election; brief notes as Asian and African initiatives wind down
- In the media: Roundup of news related to U.S. presidential election and more
Election prompts media to explore themes important to Wikipedians, including news literacy, privacy, and data security
- Blog: The top fifteen winning photos from Wiki Loves Earth
115,000 images were submitted as part of the annual competition.
- Gallery: Around the world with Wiki Loves Monuments 2016
A sampling of photo submissions to the annual photography campaign
- Featured content: Featured mix
Eight articles, two lists and nine pictures were promoted
- Special report: Taking stock of the Good Article backlog
A close examination of the efficacy of the GA Cup contest, a longstanding effort to reduce the backlog of articles awaiting review
- Op-ed: Fundraising data should be more transparent
Empowering volunteers and local chapters to engage with fundraising would yield varied benefits
- Traffic report: President-elect Trump
Someone is likely to dominate traffic for a long time
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 this week
- When someone tries to log in to a blocked account they will be blocked by a cookie. This means their browser will be blocked even if they change their IP address. This makes it more difficult for returning vandals.
- When you use Content Translation to adapt a template to a new translation it will work differently. You can adapt big templates such as infoboxes. Translators will have control over the template parameters. A first version of this is released this week. It is possible it will not work correctly with all templates. There will be more updates for this soon.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 November. It will be on all wikis from 1 December (calendar).
- Gadgets will have a new option called "hidden". This means you can register gadgets that can't be turned on or off from the preferences page. Hiding gadgets was already possible by using
[rights=hidden]. You should now use[hidden]instead.[rights=hidden]in old gadgets should be changed to[hidden].
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 29 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Tool Labs could get two new policies. One would be to be able to adopt tools without an active developer. The other would be a right to fork. There is a request for comment on Meta.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:17, 28 November 2016 (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
- You can choose to see users from specific user groups in Special:ActiveUsers.
- Everyone can now see Special:UserRights. Previously only those who could change user rights could. Other users got an error message.
- ORES can now show how likely an edit is to be damaging to the wiki with different colours. This only works for languages that have trained ORES to recognize damaging edits.
Changes this week
- You will now see categories with 0 pages in Special:Categories. Previously you did not see empty categories there.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 December. It will be on all wikis from 8 December (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 December at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The 2016 Community Wishlist Survey will decide what the Community Tech team will work on next year. You vote for wishes on the survey page until 12 December. You can see what has happened to last year's wishes on the 2015 results page.
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18:07, 5 December 2016 (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
- Users who have Yahoo email addresses could not use Special:EmailUser to send emails. This has now been fixed. Emails will now come from a @wikimedia.org address. Users who get an email from you will still reply to your email address and be able to see it.
- You can now see how many categories and pages there are in the categories in Special:TrackingCategories. This is to help you find pages that could need attention.
- Markup colours for reviewed and pending revisions in the page history and recent changes and logs now match Wikimedia standard colours. The "You have a new message on your talk page" notification will have a slightly different colour.
Problems
- Because of work on cross-wiki watchlists global renaming is not working. The plan is to turn it on again on 16 December. Global renaming was turned off for a while in late November and early December as well.
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 December. It will be on all wikis from 15 December (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on December 13 at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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19:30, 12 December 2016 (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 9 January 2017.
- The writers of the technical newsletter are asking for your opinion. Did you get the information you wanted this year? Did we miss important technical news in 2016? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us! You can write in your language. Thank you!
Recent changes
- Administrators and translation administrators can now use Special:PageLanguage on wikis with the Translate extension. This means you can say what language a page is in. The Translate extension will use that language as the source language when you translate. Previously this was always the wiki's default language. This was usually English.
- Wikis connected to Wikidata can now use the parser function
{{#statements: }}to get formatted data. You can also use{{#property: }}to get raw data. You can see the difference between the two statements. There are also similar new functions in Lua.
Problems
- Some abuse filters for uploaded files have not worked as they should. We don't know exactly which filters didn't work yet. This means some files that filters should have prevented from being uploaded were uploaded to the wikis. MediaWiki.org and Testwiki have been affected since 13 October. Commons and Meta have been affected since 17 October. Other wikis have been affected since 17 November.
Changes this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week. There will be no new MediaWiki version next week either.
Meetings
- The next meeting with the VisualEditor team will be on 3 January at 20:00 (UTC). During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. See how to join.
Future changes
- The 2016 Community Wishlist Survey is done. It decides what the Community Tech team will work on during 2017. You can see the results.
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20:33, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 22 December 2016
- Year in review: Looking back on 2016
Roundup of the year's news from the Wikimedia world, featuring Wikipedia's 15th anniversary and organizational disarray at the Wikimedia Foundation
- News and notes: Strategic planning update; English ArbCom election results
WMF reflects, to some degree, on its past approaches to strategic planning
- Special report: German ArbCom implodes
The German Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee loses more than half its members amid political feud
- In focus: Active user page filter prevents vandalism and harassment
A proposal from the Inspire Campaign to address harassment was recently implemented to prevent unconstructive and malicious editing on user pages
- Op-ed: Operation successful, patient dead: Outreach workshops in Namibia
Even a well executed outreach event can yield disappointing results
- In the media: In brief: Coverage of gender gap initiatives, banner fundraising, and more
Wikipedia women in the news, and media reacts to 2016 ad banner campaign
- Featured content: The Christmas edition
Twenty-three articles, ten lists and twenty-one pictures were promoted
- Technology report: Labs improvements impact 2016 Tool Labs survey results
And a roundup of recently-added tools
- Traffic report: Post-election traffic blues
Four weeks of popular article analysis
- Blog: Wiki Loves Monuments contest winners announced
Winning photos in world's largest photography contest reveal a world of monuments—and the volunteers who love them
- Recent research: One study and several abstracts
Privacy and Tor, and several other studies
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 use datasets on Commons. You can see an example that is using this source.
- There is a new opt-in beta feature of a wikitext mode for the visual editor. You can try it out.
- When you update a page with translations on wikis with the Translate extension the existing translations will be marked as outdated instead of removed.
- The new version of MediaWiki was released to all wikis last week (calendar).
- MoodBar has been removed from the Wikimedia wikis.
- The
liveoption for the Tipsy notice tool has been removed. Gadgets and user scripts which use it need to be updated.
Problems
- Editors who use Firefox 50 might get logged out or fail to save their edits. This is because of a browser bug. Until this is fixed you can enter
about:configin the address bar and setnetwork.cookie.maxPerHostto 5000. Firefox 50 is the current version of the Firefox.
Changes this week
- There is no new version of MediaWiki this week because of the Wikimedia Developer Summit.
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19:12, 9 January 2017 (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
- You can now upload WebP files to Commons.
Problems
- video2commons was down for two weeks. This was because of a problem with Commons video transcoders. It is now back up.
Changes this week
- There is a new magic word called
{{PAGELANGUAGE}}. It returns the language of the page you are at. This can be used on wikis with more than one language to make it easier for translators. - When an admin blocks a user or deletes or protects a page they give a reason why. They can now get suggestions when they write. The suggestions will be based on the messages in the dropdown menu.
- You will be able to use
<chem>to write chemical formulas. Before you could use<ce>.<ce>should be replaced by<chem>. - You now can add exceptions for categories which shouldn't be shown on Special:UncategorizedCategories. The list is at MediaWiki:Uncategorized-categories-exceptionlist.
- The "Columns" and "Rows" settings will be removed from the Editing tab in Preferences. If you wish to keep what the "Rows" setting did you can add this code to your personal CSS:
#wpTextbox1 { height: 50em; }You can change the number50to make it look like you want to. - Sometimes edits in MediaWiki by mistake are shown coming from private IP addresses such as 127.0.0.1. Edits and other contributions logged to these IP addresses will be blocked and shown the reason from MediaWiki:Softblockrangesreason. This should not affect most users. Bots and other tools running on Wikimedia Labs, including Tool Labs will receive a "blocked" error if they try to edit without being logged in.
- When you edit with the visual editor categories will be on the top of the page options menu.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 January. It will be on all wikis from 19 January (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on January 17 at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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23:24, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 17 January 2017
- From the editor: Next steps for the Signpost
Building toward better recruitment and retention
- News and notes: Surge in RFA promotions—a sign of lasting change?
A close look at the history of approving administrators on English Wikipedia, and a roundup of news
- Interview: What is it like to edit Wikipedia when you're blind?
The wiki environment can appear deceptively uniform, but it masks strikingly different editorial experiences
- In the media: Year-end roundups, Wikipedia's 16th birthday, and more
The latest media reports
- Featured content: One year ends, and another begins
Twelve articles, thirteen lists and twelve pictures were promoted
- Arbitration report: Concluding 2016 and covering 2017's first two cases
Various minor developments
- Traffic report: Out with the old, in with the new
If you're reading this, you escaped 2016 alive
- Technology report: Tech present, past, and future
Data sets now available on Commons, wishes to be worked on in 2017, and a recap of the Wikimedia Developer Summit
- Recent research: Female Wikipedians aren't more likely to edit women biographies; Black Lives Matter in Wikipedia
And several other research papers reviewed and summarized
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
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 January. It will be on all wikis from 26 January (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:15, 23 January 2017 (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 OAuth management interfaces now look slightly different.
Changes this week
- ElectronPdfService will be enabled by default on Meta and German Wikipedia. This is a new way to get articles as PDF files you can download. It will come to more wikis later.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 31. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from February 1. It will be on all wikis from February 2 (calendar).
Future changes
- The Community Tech team will develop more tools to handle harassment of Wikimedia editors. The goal is to give the communities better tools to find, report and evaluate harassment. They will also work on more effective blocking tools.
- The Wikimedia technical community is doing a Developer Wishlist survey. Developers can propose ideas before 31 January 23:59 UTC. This is soon.
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18:45, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 6 February 2017
- Arbitration report: WMF Legal and ArbCom weigh in on tension between disclosure requirements and user privacy
The two statements prompt extensive community discussion; plus, our updates on recent ArbCom decisions
- Special report: Wolves nip at Wikipedia's heels: A perspective on the cost of paid editing
Undisclosed paid editing by a financial broker mired in scandal spans years, impacting Wikipedia's editors and readers
- News and notes: Official WMF rebuke to Trump policy; WMF secures restricted funds
Foundation's latest foray into political waters, and grants funding structured data and anti-harassment measures, met with enthusiasm and concern
- In focus: WMF strategy consultant brings background in crisis reputation management; Team behind popular WMF software put "on pause"
Several developments in the $2.5 million strategic planning process explored, and a team within the software production department is sidelined
- WikiProject report: For the birds!
Our second interview with the productive WikiProject Birds crew
- Op-ed: How to make editing workshops useful, even if participants don't stick around
Veteran editing workshop leader responds to a previous Signpost op-ed
- In the media: Presidential politics, periodic table, and our periodic roundup of updates
Wikipedia's response to Trump inauguration and a fruitful, public "edit war" lead our media updates
- Technology report: Better PDFs, backup plans, and birthday wishes
Plus the latest scripts, bots, and tech news
- Traffic report: Cool It Now
Three weeks of the most popular Wikipedia articles
- Featured content: Three weeks dominated by articles
Twenty-eight articles, seven lists, two topics and four pictures were promoted
- Forum: Productive collaboration around coordinated protest marches; Media and political personalities comment on Wikipedia at its 16th birthday celebration
Women's marches on seven continents attracted strong Wikipedia engagement; Media luminaries and a presidential candidate joined WMF boss Katherine Maher at a New York gathering
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
Changes this week
- Wikimedia pages will now be better at showing pictures when you share them on social media. The descriptions will be different too. You can see an example of before and after.
- There are some changes to the OOjs UI. Some old functions will not work anymore or not work as they used to. This could be a breaking change.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 February. It will be on all wikis from 9 February (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 7 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Tidy will be replaced later this year. Instead, the HTML 5 parsing algorithm will be used to clean up bad HTML in wikitext. This will cause problems on a number of wikis. They need to be fixed first. You can see if your wiki still has something to fix here for one of the HTML problems. This list does not cover all problems. You can read about more problems.
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19:46, 6 February 2017 (UTC)