Viquipèdia:Tech News/Arxiu 11

Tech News: 2019-20

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

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 May. It will be on all wikis from 16 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 15 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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02:48, 14 maig 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-21

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

• The report for phase 1 of the talk pages consultation 2019 has been published. Communities are invited to start phase 2 of the consultation on their wikis.

Problems

• File descriptions for files from Commons were not shown properly on other Wikimedia wikis for a few days. For example the image descriptions and license information were missing. This has now been fixed. [1][2]
• Some diffs show an error message when you try to see them. The developers are working on fixing it. It could be because of some edit comments. [3][4]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 de maig. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 de maig. It will be on all wikis from 23 de maig (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 22 de maig at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The content translation tool on Wikipedia can use machine translations. There is a system to stop translations where the editors do not fix machine translation mistakes. This warns or stops them if they seem to just copy what the machine translation gives them. If this system is too strict or not strict enough you can tell the language team. [5]
• The Wikidata wbeditentity API endpoint will remove all aliases if the request includes an empty alias. This is how it supposed to work. It has not been working this way because of a bug. This will start on 12 June. [6]

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15:03, 20 maig 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-22

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

• Big changes to the replica database will happen on 3 June. Some tools on Cloud Services will stop working if the maintainers do not update them to use the new schema. This probably affects tools that query for revisions or log entries made by a user. [7][8]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 May. It will be on all wikis from 30 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 29 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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17:33, 27 maig 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-23

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can now write all special letters in all African Wikipedia languages. This works in the desktop version. [9]
• There is now a field called depicts on Commons. This is a way to show what is in a picture with the help of Wikidata. It is still in development. [10]
• Some tools on Toolforge may break on or after 3 June because of database changes. Maintainers should update their tools to use the new schema. [11][12]

Problems

• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for 30 minutes on 19 June at 05:00 (UTC). This is to fix a hardware problem. [13]

Changes later this week

• Some wikis have one tab for the visual editor and one tab for a wikitext editor. Others wikis just have one tab. If your wiki has two tabs, clicking a link to create a new page has always opened a wikitext editor. It will now open the editor you used the last time you edited. [14]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 May. It will be on all wikis from 6 May (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 5 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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17:24, 3 juny 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-24

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

• When you create a PDF from a page on the wiki this is now done by Proton. Before this we used Electron. It should look the same but work better. Both use Chromium. This is a different system from when you collect several articles into a book and make a PDF from them. [15][16]
• The Flagged Revisions extension now uses the standard OOUI icons. There will be additional minor fixes for positioning in the next deployment. [17]
• Bots and other scripts that do not set an identifiable User-Agent may find their requests strictly rate-limited until they identify themselves properly. [18]

Problems

• Please check if the Flagged Revisions configuration on your wiki is as you expect (or as it was a few weeks ago). If not, please report it. [19]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 12 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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19:06, 10 juny 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-25

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for 30 minutes on 19 June at 05:00 (UTC). This is to fix a hardware problem. [20]

Changes later this week

• MIDI files can soon be played without the Score extension. You can then add them with [[File:Filename.midi]]. Later override_midi and override_audio will stop working. Instead you will need to add the MIDI file below the music score. [21]
• A new video player will soon replace the old one. You will be able to enable it as a beta feature in your preferences. It will later be enabled for everyone if there are no big problems. [22]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 June. It will be on all wikis from 20 June (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 19 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Some gadgets and user scripts still use the old wgEnableAPI and wgEnableWriteAPI values. These values are always true. They will soon be removed. This might break the gadgets and scripts. You should fix your gadgets to not use these values. [23]

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22:37, 17 juny 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-26

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

• The new version of MediaWiki for last week was not fully released due to issues. It was removed from most wikis on Tuesday and from test wikis on Thursday. [24]
• Most wikis were slow and then briefly read-only last week due to one of the database servers having a problem. It is now replaced. [25]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 June. It will be on all wikis from 27 June (calendar).

Meetings

• You can watch or join the next Wikimedia Language showcase. It will be about the usage of Machine Translation in Wikimedia projects. The showcase will be on 26 June at 13:00 (UTC). A recording will be kept for later viewing
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 26 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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19:29, 24 juny 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-27

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• The development of Wikidata Bridge has started. The goal is to allow Wikidata edits from Wikipedia. [26]

Problems

• Sometimes pages load slowly for users routed to the Amsterdam data center. Investigation is in progress. [27]
• Wikidata query service was overloaded between 11:50 UTC until 13:15 UTC on June 24. It has been fixed. [28]

Changes later this week

• You will be able to read but not to edit all wikis for a short amount of time, on 3 July at 06:00 (UTC). This is to move a database. [29]
• There is no deployment of a new version of MediaWiki on the wikis this week (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 3 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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23:22, 1 jul 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-28

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

• For event organizers, if you request a temporary lift of the IP cap for mass account creation, this will now also raise the edit rate limit for those new accounts at the event, which will prevent another bottleneck. [30]
• Administrators at all Wiktionary, Wikivoyage, and Wikisource wikis are now able to use the new partial blocks feature. [31]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 July. It will be on all wikis from 11 July (calendar).
• The design of MediaWiki's software windows will change for desktop users. Layout will be simpler, buttons will be bolder and clearer, and close buttons will be just icons. This is like the mobile design. This will affect ContentTranslation, VisualEditor, TemplateWizard, and other tools. [32]

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 10 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Wikidata will be in read-only mode on 30 July from 05:00 to 05:30 UTC because of a server switch. [33]
• There will be a change in the name format of new Wikidata RDF dumps starting on 15 July. [34]

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22:12, 8 jul 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-29

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

• The mobile web will get more advanced editing tools. Seven more Wikipedias can use them now. This works for Arabic, Indonesian, Italian, Persian, Japanese, Spanish and Thai Wikipedia. You can try the tools on the mobile web and give feedback. [35]

Changes later this week

• The abuse filter system user will soon do maintenance edits on broken abuse filters. This user is called Filtre antiabusos and has administrator rights. This is meant to fix technical problems. It will not do any other changes. You can read more.
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 July. It will be on all wikis from 18 July (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikipedia app for Android will invite users to add image captions to images on Commons. It will only invite users who have added a number of edits in the app without being reverted. This is to avoid spam and bad edits. You can read more and leave feedback. [36]

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17:29, 15 jul 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-30

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

• Communities interested by easing newcomers' first steps can now benefit from the Growth team experiments on their wikis. Check the conditions and the request process.
• The Coolest Tool Award 2019 is looking for nominations. You can recommend tools by July 29. The awarded tools will be presented at Wikimania. [37]

Problems

• The release of the last version of MediaWiki (1.34.0-wmf.14) has been blocked for groups 1 and 2. [38]

Changes later this week

• Phabricator database will be moved to a different server. Writes will be blocked on Thursday 25 July, between 05:30 and 06:00 AM UTC. Reads will remain unaffected. [39]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 July. It will be on all wikis from 25 July (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 24 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Some items in the visual editor will change later this week. This will make it easier to edit links, citations, and templates on both desktop and mobile. [40][41]
• With advanced search turned on you will be able to choose the sorting order of the search results when you do a search. [42][43]
• Users who edit from IP addresses whitelisted on a request for temporary lift of the IP cap for mass account creation will bypass CAPTCHAs. This will happen in August. If you think this should not happen for some reason, please let us know.
• The variable user_wpzero will be removed from AbuseFilter. A list of filters needing a fix is provided.

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15:07, 22 jul 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-31

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

• Wikidata will be in read-only mode on 30 July from 05:00 to 05:30 UTC because of a server switch. [44]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 July. It will be on all wikis from 1 August (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 31 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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23:42, 29 jul 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-32

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 6 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 August. It will be on all wikis from 8 August (calendar).

Problems

• A change in RelatedArticles extension accidentally enabled it for everyone, not just for mobile users. This has been fixed. [45][46]

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Today everyone can see IP addresses if someone edits without an account. In the future this could be more hidden. This is to protect unregistered editors so fewer can see their IP address. This would only happen after we make sure the tools for vandal fighting can still be effective. You can read more and comment.

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15:24, 5 ago 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-33

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

• Editors using the mobile website on Wikipedia can opt-in to new advanced features via your settings page. This will give access to more interface links, special pages, and tools. Feedback on the discussion page is appreciated. [47]
• Due to the absence of volunteer maintenance of Cologne Blue skin, the link to activate it will be hidden. The skin will still work, but editors using it are encouraged to switch to another skin. [48]

Changes later this week

• Due to Wikimania, there is no deployment this week. [49]

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The "Wikidata item" link will be moved from "Tools" to "In other projects" section on all Wikimedia projects, starting on August 21. Full announcement, Phabricator task.

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20:19, 12 ago 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-34

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

• There will be no Tech News issue next week. The next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 2 September 2019.

Problems

• Some abuse filters stopped working because of a code change. Only variables for the current action will work. Variables defined inside a branch may not work outside of that branch. You can read more to see how to fix the filters.
• Only six accounts can be created from one IP address per day. Between 12 August and August 15 this was two accounts per day. This was because of a security issue. It is now six accounts per day again. [50]

Changes later this week

• Only a limited number of accounts can be created from one IP address. An IP address can be whitelisted so that it can create as many accounts as needed. This is useful at events where many new persons learn to edit. IP addresses that are whitelisted for this reason will also not show CAPTCHAs when you create accounts. This will happen on Wednesday. [51]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 August. It will be on all wikis from 22 August (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• There is an RFC about creating a new global user group with the right to edit abuse filters. This will be used to fix broken filters and make sure all filters will still work when software changes happen. You can read more and comment.
• Special:Contributions/newbies will no longer be working. This is because of performance reasons. It showed edits by new accounts. You can see this in the recent changes feed instead. [52]

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17:20, 19 ago 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-36

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 use the new termbox interface if you edit Wikidata on a mobile device. This is to edit labels, descriptions and aliases easier on the mobile pages. [53]
• The new version of MediaWiki has been deployed during the last week.
• The previously announced change of positions of the "Wikidata item" link on all wikis has been rollbacked due to unexpected cache issues. [54]
• The limit for rollbacks has been increased from 10 to 100 rollbacks per minute. [55]
• The advanced version of the edit review pages (Recent Changes, Watchlist, and Related Changes) now include two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces. However the "All discussions" filter does not include pseudo talk pages, like discussions that are in the Project: or Wikipedia: namespaces. But it will include changes happening on Project talk: or the Wikipedia talk:. [56]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 de setembre. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 de setembre. It will be on all wikis from 5 de setembre (calendar).
• When you log in, the software checks your password to see if it follows the Password policy. From this week, it will also complain if your password is one of the most common passwords in the world. If your password is not strong enough, please consider to change your password for a stronger password. [57]

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 4 de setembre at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikidata for up to 30 minutes on September 10 at 05:00 (UTC). [58]
• You will be able to read but not to edit some mid-sized wikis for up to 30 minutes September 17 at 05:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. [59]
• You will be able to read but not to edit some mid-sized wikis for up to 30 minutes September 24 at 05:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. [60]
• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for up to 30 minutes on September 26 at 05:00 (UTC). [61]

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11:07, 4 set 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-37

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

• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikidata for up to 30 minutes on 10 September at 05:00 (UTC). [62]
• When you log in, the software checks your password to see if it follows the Password policy. From this week, it will also complain if you are a "privileged user" and your password is too short. If your password is not strong enough, please consider to change your password for a stronger password. [63]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 September. It will be on all wikis from 12 September (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 11 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Soon, the AbuseFilter will recognize new syntax errors. Specifically, it will recognize errors about empty operands. You can see a list of examples in phab:T156096. Any active filter with such an error will stop working; hence, please take a look at the list of affected filters, and fix the ones that you can fix. Note that there is also an ongoing RFC on meta-wiki about the creation of a new abusefilter-manager global group.

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19:42, 9 set 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-38

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 Tech News had delivery problems. Some did not get the newsletter. Some got it more than one time. The developers are working on the problem. [64]
• There was a problem with the new MediaWiki version last week. The new version was paused. [65]

Changes later this week

• You will be able to read but not to edit some mid-sized wikis for up to 30 minutes on September 17 at 05:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. [66]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 September. It will be on all wikis from 19 September (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 18 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikipedia app for Android invites users to do small tasks. This is to get more readers to edit. If they get reverted too many times it will pause or block the tasks for that user. All normal editing will still work if the community doesn't block the user. The developers want to know if the plan looks OK. You can see what it could look like and give feedback.
• When you look at an old version of a page you get a warning that this is not the newest version. This uses the CSS class .mw-revision. It will use the CSS class .warningbox for styling instead. If your wiki uses templates to change how the warning looks they will have to be updated. This will happen later. If this would cause problems you should tell the developers in the next couple of weeks. [67]

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17:07, 16 set 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-38

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 Tech News had delivery problems. Some did not get the newsletter. Some got it more than one time. The developers are working on the problem. [68]
• There was a problem with the new MediaWiki version last week. The new version was paused. [69]

Changes later this week

• You will be able to read but not to edit some mid-sized wikis for up to 30 minutes on September 17 at 05:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. [70]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 September. It will be on all wikis from 19 September (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 18 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikipedia app for Android invites users to do small tasks. This is to get more readers to edit. If they get reverted too many times it will pause or block the tasks for that user. All normal editing will still work if the community doesn't block the user. The developers want to know if the plan looks OK. You can see what it could look like and give feedback.
• When you look at an old version of a page you get a warning that this is not the newest version. This uses the CSS class .mw-revision. It will use the CSS class .warningbox for styling instead. If your wiki uses templates to change how the warning looks they will have to be updated. This will happen later. If this would cause problems you should tell the developers in the next couple of weeks. [71]

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17:08, 16 set 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-38

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 Tech News had delivery problems. Some did not get the newsletter. Some got it more than one time. The developers are working on the problem. [72]
• There was a problem with the new MediaWiki version last week. The new version was paused. [73]

Changes later this week

• You will be able to read but not to edit some mid-sized wikis for up to 30 minutes on September 17 at 05:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. [74]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 September. It will be on all wikis from 19 September (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 18 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikipedia app for Android invites users to do small tasks. This is to get more readers to edit. If they get reverted too many times it will pause or block the tasks for that user. All normal editing will still work if the community doesn't block the user. The developers want to know if the plan looks OK. You can see what it could look like and give feedback.
• When you look at an old version of a page you get a warning that this is not the newest version. This uses the CSS class .mw-revision. It will use the CSS class .warningbox for styling instead. If your wiki uses templates to change how the warning looks they will have to be updated. This will happen later. If this would cause problems you should tell the developers in the next couple of weeks. [75]

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17:14, 16 set 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-39

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

• Some edits that used the visual editor were not working. This has now been fixed. [76]
• Last week's Tech News had delivery problems. Some did not get the newsletter. Some got it more than one time. The developers are working on the problem. [77]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 September. It will be on all wikis from 26 September (calendar).
• You will be able to read but not to edit an important number of mid-sized wikis for up to 30 minutes on 24 September at 05:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. [78]
• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for up to 30 minutes on 26 September at 05:00 (UTC). [79]

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 25 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Internet Explorer 6 and 7 might not be supported in the future. This means the browsers might start looking a bit weird. They would not get security support. This is because almost no one uses the browsers anymore. Supporting them makes the wikis less secure for everyone else. [80]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

22:20, 23 set 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-39

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

• Some edits that used the visual editor were not working. This has now been fixed. [81]
• Last week's Tech News had delivery problems. Some did not get the newsletter. Some got it more than one time. The developers are working on the problem. [82]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 September. It will be on all wikis from 26 September (calendar).
• You will be able to read but not to edit an important number of mid-sized wikis for up to 30 minutes on 24 September at 05:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. [83]
• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for up to 30 minutes on 26 September at 05:00 (UTC). [84]

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 25 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Internet Explorer 6 and 7 might not be supported in the future. This means the browsers might start looking a bit weird. They would not get security support. This is because almost no one uses the browsers anymore. Supporting them makes the wikis less secure for everyone else. [85]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

22:21, 23 set 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-39

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

• Some edits that used the visual editor were not working. This has now been fixed. [86]
• Last week's Tech News had delivery problems. Some did not get the newsletter. Some got it more than one time. The developers are working on the problem. [87]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 September. It will be on all wikis from 26 September (calendar).
• You will be able to read but not to edit an important number of mid-sized wikis for up to 30 minutes on 24 September at 05:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. [88]
• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for up to 30 minutes on 26 September at 05:00 (UTC). [89]

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 25 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Internet Explorer 6 and 7 might not be supported in the future. This means the browsers might start looking a bit weird. They would not get security support. This is because almost no one uses the browsers anymore. Supporting them makes the wikis less secure for everyone else. [90]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

22:27, 23 set 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-40

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 Tech News had delivery problems. Some did not get the newsletter. Some got it more than one time. The problem where some pages got it three times should now be fixed. [91]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 d'octubre. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 d'octubre. It will be on all wikis from 3 d'octubre (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 2 d'octubre at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Foundation Community Tech team is working on a watchlist expiry feature. This means you can put things on your watchlist for a period of time instead of forever. They are looking for feedback on the questions they have.
• Special:Contributions will get the standard OOUI look. This makes it easier to use on mobile and makes it look like other Special: pages. There is a script you can use to make the form smaller if you want to. [92]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:49, 30 set 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-41

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 abuse filter function now has a faster parser. This is to shorten the waiting time when you save an edit. [93]

Problems

• There is a problem in the visual editor when you copy or delete text with footnotes. It will be fixed soon. [94]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 October. It will be on all wikis from 10 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 9 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Community Wishlist Survey has a new format. It will focus on wikis that typically get less support. It will probably go back to the normal format next year. It is not decided exactly how it will work this year. You can leave feedback.
• The URL of the Wikimedia wiki main pages could be changed. This is because the current URLs cause several problems. For example https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page would be https://www.wikidata.org/ instead. You can tell the developers if this would cause problems for your wiki.
• There is a new technical community newsletter. You can read more about the work of Wikimedia's technical community. Subscribe to get the information in the future.
• Outreachy is an internship program for groups who are underrepresented in free and open-source software. There are seven Wikimedia projects about coding, documentation and quality assurance in the next round. Persons who fit the criteria can apply. The last day to apply is 5 November.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:34, 7 oct 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-42

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 more advanced editing tools on the mobile web. You can turn them on and off in your preferences in the mobile version. [95]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 October. It will be on all wikis from 17 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 16 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are no longer supported. This means the browsers might start looking a bit weird. They will not get security support. You can't read Wikimedia wikis in Internet Explorer on Windows XP or Windows versions that are older than Windows XP. This is because almost no one uses the browsers anymore. Supporting them made the wikis less secure for everyone else. [96]
• In the future section headings might have a share link. This is to make it easier to link to the section. You can read more and discuss.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

01:04, 15 oct 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-43

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 API sandbox and help pages now show more clearly when API modules are marked as internal. API modules marked as internal were probably internal before. It was easier to miss. You should look for non-internal alternatives. [97]

Problems

• There is a translation tool we use on wikis with more than one language. For a few days it did not create pages for new languages when someone translated a page. The languages did not show in the language bar. This has been fixed. [98]
• The history and diffs can show wrong content. This is because of a cache problem. It will soon be fixed. [99]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 October. It will be on all wikis from 24 October (calendar).
• Reference Previews will be a beta feature on all Wikipedias and some Wikivoyages. It shows you a preview of the footnote when you hover over or click on the number. It has been a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia since April.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 October. See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:18, 21 oct 2019 (CEST)

Tech News: 2019-44

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 post proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals until 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 20 November to 2 December. This year the wishlist will focus on Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. You can read more about the format for this year.
• Mobile users now have a specific design for their Watchlist. [100][101]
• You can share feedback and ideas on the Desktop Improvements project. The goal is to make the interface easier to use for readers and editors without removing any functionality. The Foundation's Readers Web team will work on this over the next two years.
• OOUI now allows using px (pixels) instead of em (em) for some specific cases. [102][103]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 d'octubre. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 d'octubre. It will be on all wikis from 31 d'octubre (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 30 d'octubre at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• There will be no software changes from 19 December to 2 January. The first MediaWiki version next year will come the week of 6 January. [104]
• Gadgets and user scripts can access variables about the current page in JavaScript. In 2015, this information was moved from global variables named wg* to mw.config. The old global variables will be removed later this year. You can know more about it and tell the developers if you want to try this out on your wiki first.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:09, 28 oct 2019 (CET)

Tech News: 2019-45

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

• At Special:Contributions you could see up to 5000 edits at the same time if you edited the URL. This has been lowered to 500. This is to stop requests which break the sites. [105]

Changes later this week

• MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry can set the default length to block a user for your wiki. You will be able to use MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip to set a different default block length for IP editors. [106]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 November. It will be on all wikis from 7 November (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 6 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:47, 4 nov 2019 (CET)

Tech News: 2019-46

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

• MediaWiki2LaTeX can put different pages from a Wikimedia wiki into a PDF. It can now make a PDF with around 5000 pages. Previously this was 800 pages.

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Wikimedia will take part in Google Code-in. This is for young students who want to help with open source software. You can read more. Experienced technical Wikimedians can mentor students.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

23:02, 11 nov 2019 (CET)