User talk:Aboluay - Wikipedia

Welcome!

Hello, Aboluay, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! -- JLaTondre 00:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Article about a village in Germany[edit]

Hey Aboluay, do you like to translate the article Twist, Germany into Arabic. That would great and would be greatful--95.88.99.149 (talk) 23:54, 6 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

history of the alphabet[edit]

Hi Aboluay,

Yes, you have made some valuable contributions, but unfortunately they contained factual errors as well, and I didn't have the time to figure out how best to correct them. You got the names of the Phoenician letters wrong (or at least their English transcriptions were wrong), and the Phoenician alphabet was the source of neither the word "alphabet", which is from Greek, nor "abjad", which is from Arabic. I believe that the information you added already exists in the article, though perhaps not in the best location, and it certainly already exists in the alphabet and abjad articles. —sabt (talk) 19:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

History of Arabic Numbers[edit]

Hello Aboluay, I am from Brazil and I hope you can read our theory about Arabic numbers. Thank you for you kind attention.Roberto Lyra (talk) 21:13, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MU ** Conti on time[edit]

Hey... LU.. complete the article when you can... can you contact me ... ** —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.141.161.199 (talk) 14:38, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Khalil Eljamal for deletion[edit]

A discussion has begun about whether the article Khalil Eljamal, which you created or to which you contributed, should be deleted. While contributions are welcome, an article may be deleted if it is inconsistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines for inclusion, explained in the deletion policy.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Khalil Eljamal until a consensus is reached, and you are welcome to contribute to the discussion.

You may edit the article during the discussion, including to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Anotherclown (talk) 07:20, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to you[edit]

For starting the article. I've learned a lot by looking up stuff on al-Jamal. Always enjoy it when that happens. Anyway, I'll try to do what I can tonight, but my wikitime is limited. Thanks again. Tiamut^talk 18:13, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lebanese nationality law[edit]

The article Lebanese nationality law needs more reliable and up-to-date information. If you are interested you can contribute to it. Thanks in advance.

Radartoothth (talk) 23:40, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lebanese passport[edit]

The article Lebanese passport needs more reliable and up-to-date information. If you are interested you can contribute to it. Thanks in advance.

Radartoothth (talk) 23:40, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-05[edit]

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

Recent software changes

Pages from Wikimedia sites now load faster in your browser thanks to "module storage", a way for your browser to save data like JavaScript and CSS on your computer to avoid downloading them again. See video. [1]
The code used to show videos has changed. You should be able to play the video on the page, with the play button on top of the video. If you see the play button on the right of the video, or if clicking on the video leads you to the original file, please file a bug or tell User:Bawolff. [2]
The Special:ActiveUsers page will be removed because it's too slow. [3]
The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 16. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 28, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 30 (calendar).

Problems

On January 21, Universal Language Selector was turned off on all Wikimedia sites because it makes pages load slowly. If you want to use web fonts, or write in scripts that aren't on your keyboard, you need to add it as an option in your preferences. It will be turned back on when the issues are resolved. [4]
For about 20 minutes on the same day, there were problems with CSS and JavaScript due to high server load.

Future software changes

You can give comments about the new version of "Winter", a proposal to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages. [5]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:46, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-06[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 30. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on February 4, and all Wikipedia wikis on February 6 (calendar).
Global AbuseFilter rules are now active on all small wikis. [6] [7]
The buttons used in pages like log-in, account creation and search are now using the same colors and styles. [8] [9]
You can now link to diffs using [[Special:Diff/12345]] and similar links. [10]
There is no longer an option to hide tables of contents on all pages. [11]
Searching in the File: namespace on Wikimedia Commons is now faster, after a bug was fixed on January 29. [12]
All Wikimedia wikis now have high-resolution favicons. [13]

VisualEditor news

You can now see a list of keyboard shortcuts by pressing Ctrl+/ inside VisualEditor. [14]

Future software changes

Edits and files hidden with the Oversight tool will be moved to the RevisionDelete system. The Oversight tool will then be removed from Wikimedia wikis. [15] [16] [17]
For languages where not all sister projects exist, you will be able to link to other language projects using double interwikis (:ko:v, :v:ko, etc.). [18]
It will soon be possible to use the GettingStarted tool on other wikis than the English Wikipedia. You can translate it on Translatewiki.net. [19]
You will soon be able to include the Special:Contributions page into other pages. [20]
You will be able to see where a file is used inside MultimediaViewer, the new tool for viewing media files. [21] [22]
It will soon be possible to send MassMessage messages using the API. [23]
You will soon see audio statistics on the Special:TimedMediaHandler page. [24]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:30, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-07[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf13) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on February 6. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on February 11, and all Wikipedia wikis on February 13 (calendar).
The Vector search box was changed to fix old display and accessibility issues; for example, you can now use full-text search even if you have disabled JavaScript. Please report any problems you see. The option to disable the "simplified search bar" on Vector will also be removed. [25] [26] [27] [28] [29]
You are now notified when someone adds a link to your user page on wikis where it didn't work before (wikis with dates in the year-month-day order, including Hungarian, Japanese, Korean and some variants of Chinese). [30]

VisualEditor news

You can now set media items' alt text and position, and directly set their size, in the media tool. [31] [32]
The gallery tool was improved and several issues were fixed. [33] [34] [35]

Problems

On February 3, all wikis were broken for about an hour due to a traffic balancing issue. [36]
On February 6, some wikis were broken for about half an hour in total due to a problem with the Math extension.

Future software changes

Some methods from Scribunto's mw.message library will be removed after February 18. If you use them in your templates or modules, please check to make sure that things will not break. [37] [38]
You will soon be able to use GettingStarted on 23 new Wikipedias. It helps new users by listing possible tasks and giving help. The new version was also added to the English Wikipedia on February 7th. [39]
You will soon see results from other wikis when you use the new search tool (CirrusSearch). [40] [41]
The WikiLove tool was redesigned and should also load faster. [42]
Edits made with WikiLove or after a GettingStarted suggestion will be tagged. [43] [44]
It will soon no longer be possible to hide section editing links in your preferences. [45]
You will soon be able to use the revision deletion feature via the API. [46]
You will soon be able to choose mobile view on non-mobile devices using a Beta Feature option. [47] [48]
If you have questions about Universal Language Selector, you can join an IRC meeting on February 12 at 17:00 UTC, in the #wikimedia-office channel on Freenode. [49]
Developers are preparing for Google Summer of Code 2014. You can propose ideas. [50]
bugzilla.wikimedia.org will be updated this week. You won't be able to access it from 22:00 UTC on February 12 until 01:00 UTC on February 13 at the latest. [51]
The <poem> tag will be renamed to <lines>. The old tag will still work. [52]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:30, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-08[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf14) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on February 13. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on February 18, and all Wikipedia wikis on February 20 (calendar).
You can now use the list of active users again. [53] [54]
The new search tool (CirrusSearch) now gives more importance to content namespaces if you search in several namespaces. [55]
You can now directly link to files viewed with MultimediaViewer, the new tool for viewing media files. [56]
You can read the summary of the Wikimedia technical report for January 2014. [57]

Problems

On February 9, Wikimedia Labs was broken for about 2 hours due to an XFS file system problem. [58]
On February 11, there were problems with VisualEditor for about 20 minutes due to a server logging issue. [59]
On the same day, for about 20 minutes there were issues with page loading due to database problems.
There were issues with page loading between 21:00 UTC on February 13 and 11:00 UTC on February 14 for users in Europe. It was due to a cache server problem.
On February 14, all sites were broken for about 15 minutes for users in Southeast Asia, Oceania and the western part of North America. It was due to problems with cache servers.

VisualEditor news

The link tool now tells you when you're linking to a disambiguation or redirect page. [60]
You can now change image display (like thumbnail, frame and frameless) with VisualEditor. [61]
Wikitext warnings will now hide when you remove wikitext from paragraphs you are editing. [62]
You will soon be able to create and edit redirect pages with VisualEditor. [63] [64] [65]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:38, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to WIKISOO[edit]

Hello and welcome to the Writing Wikipedia Articles course (#WIKISOO)! We look forward to meeting you in the first class on 25 February (Americas)/26 Feb (Asia/Australia). By now you should have received an introductory email with some details about the course. If you can't find it, there's an archived copy of the email at this link.

To attend the live session, please check our course home page for instructions and the link. We recommend logging into Blackboard Collaborate (the live class software we use) before the day of class, to be sure it's working. (More tips on the home page.)

If taking the course in self-paced mode, please come say hello on the course talk page so we know who you are! Thanks for signing up, and we'll see you Tuesday! - Pete (talk) 06:11, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-09[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf15) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on February 20. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on February 25, and all Wikipedia wikis on February 27 (calendar).
The new search tool (CirrusSearch) was added to the Italian Wikiquote and all Wikiversity projects. Users can now enable it in their Beta options. [66] [67]
The Universal Language Selector was enabled on all Wikimedia wikis again. You can enable web fonts in your ULS options (see how).

VisualEditor news

You will soon be able to add and edit __STATICREDIRECT__, __[NO]INDEX__ and __[NO]NEWEDITSECTION__ in the page settings menu. [68] [69] [70]
You will soon be able to use the Ctrl+Alt+S or ⌘+Opt+S shortcuts to open the save window in VisualEditor. [71] [72]
You will soon be able to preview your edit summary when checking your changes in the save window. [73] [74]

Future software changes

You will soon be able to use the <categorytree> tag again. [75]
You will soon be able to post messages with the MassMessage tool in all talk namespaces. [76] [77]
Notifications will soon work in all namespaces. [78][79][80]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

10:17, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-10[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf16) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on February 27. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on March 4, and all Wikipedia wikis on March 6 (calendar).
When users enable web fonts by default, Universal Language Selector will now log if they don't have fonts to display pages correctly. This information will be used by developers to improve font support in the future. Read more about missing fonts. [81]
You can now use Guided tours on the Czech and Japanese Wikipedia. If you want this tool on your wiki, you need to translate it and ask in Bugzilla. [82] [83]
You can now use information from Wikidata in all Wikisource wikis. [84]
The multimedia team is now posting weekly updates on their mailing list. [85]

VisualEditor news

You can now change image size to default for your wiki. If you add new images to pages, they will also be default size. [86] [87] [88]
If you switch from VisualEditor to wikitext editing, your edit will now be tagged. [89]
Template parameters now have a bigger, auto-sizing input box for easier editing. [90]
VisualEditor now has Arabic, Finnish and Kölsch icons for text styling. If you want icons for your language, ask in Bugzilla. [91] [92] [93]

Future software changes

The new tool for viewing media files will soon show a progress bar and a thumbnail while loading full images. [94] [95]
You will soon be able to make user contributions show only page creations. [96] [97]
Article Feedback Tool will be removed from the English and French Wikipedias on March 3. It will also no longer be possible to add this tool to any Wikimedia wiki. [98] [99]
Wikis using the new search tool will come back to the old tool for a few hours starting at 00:00 UTC on March 6. [100]

Problems

For about an hour on February 23, there were problems with page loading due to a MediaWiki bug. [101]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Second WIKISOO class starts soon![edit]

Hi! Just a quick reminder that the second WIKISOO class starts in about 3 hours. Even if you missed Week 1, please join us at this link for the live webinar - ideally about 15 minutes early to test your mic/speakers. If you haven’t finished up your Week 1 homework, there’s still time; post any questions on the class talk page! You can also watch a video of last week’s class on YouTube (earlier audio problems have been corrected). Feel free to contact me on my talk page with questions anytime! - WIKISOO co-instructor Sara FB (talk) 22:04, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi from a fellow classmate! —Litjade (talk) 01:26, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. You have a new message at Litjade's talk page.

Tech News: 2014-11[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf17) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 6. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on March 11, and all Wikipedia wikis on March 13 (calendar).
You can now use the new search tool (CirrusSearch) on all Wikiquote projects. You can now enable it in your Beta options. [102] [103]

VisualEditor news

It is now easier to edit templates. Complex tools are now in the "advanced" mode. [104] [105]
It is also easier to edit images. You now have more options and they are explained better. [106]
VisualEditor adds fake blank lines so you can put your cursor there. They are now smaller and animated to be different from actual blank lines. [107]
We have improved the tool to add special characters. The buttons are now larger. More changes are coming. [108]
You can now use new keyboard shortcuts to undo the last action, clear formatting, and show the shortcut help window. [109] [110] [111]

Future software changes

You will soon be able to use a Beta option to show a shorter list of language links. That way, Universal Language Selector will only show languages that are relevant to you. You will still be able to search for other languages. [112]
CirrusSearch will soon automatically index newly imported pages. [113] [114]
It will soon be possible to use CSS to style buttons in templates on all Wikimedia wikis, without needing JavaScript. [115]
An IRC discussion with the Wikimedia Foundation Language Engineering team will take place on March 12 at 17:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on Freenode (time conversion). [116]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:10, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

WIKISOO Week 3[edit]

Hi Aboluay, we look forward to seeing you in class in a few hours. We look forward to seeing you in class in a few hours. Here's the link to our Week 3 class page and to the live webinar.

PLEASE NOTE: If you're not in the USA, please double-check the class time. We have gone on Daylight Savings Time (also known as Summer Time) in the USA, so for some of you the class time will be an hour earlier. (If your country goes on Summer Time in the coming weeks, you will want to check again!)

This week we are going to start off with some basic review of all we've covered. So if you've been feeling behind or confused by all the details, we'll make sure we've got your questions answered before forging ahead! See you soon, -Pete (talk) 16:27, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-12[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf18) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 13. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on March 18, and all Wikipedia wikis on March 20 (calendar).
You can now view smaller versions of PNG images bigger than 20 megapixels. [117]
You can now use the new search tool (CirrusSearch) on all small wikis. You can now enable it in your Beta options. [118] [119]
You can read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for February 2014. [120]

VisualEditor news

Searching for template parameters in now case-insensitive. [121] [122]
Required template parameters now have an asterisk (*) next to their edit boxes. [123]
Several template dialogs are now smaller, and their insert buttons have changed wording. [124]

Future software changes

You will soon see an error message if you try to log-in or register with an invalid or taken username. [125]
You can now test first version of a tool that includes OpenStreetMap maps inside the UploadWizard. Comments are welcome. [126]
You will soon be able to use the Hovercards tool as a beta feature. [127]

Problems

VisualEditor was slow to load on March 13 because of an API issue. [128]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:14, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Week 4 of Writing Wikipedia Articles: Final Projects Ahoy![edit]

Hey Aboluay - hope all is going well with you as we segue into Week 4 of WIKISOO! Just a reminder, in case you need it, that depending on your time zone, class time may have shifted - check out this link to make sure you know when to join us. Looking forward to chatting more with you this week about the Final Project - if you already know which article you're working on, you'll find instructions there for sharing this information easily with your classmates. Post any questions to the class Talk page, please! See you in class tomorrow! Sara FB (talk) 01:42, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-13[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf19) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 20. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on March 25, and all Wikipedia wikis on March 27 (calendar).

VisualEditor news

You can now double-click or press the ↲ Enter key on an image or template to change its settings. [129] [130]
Pages that don't exist will now show as red links in the edit mode. [131]
You will no longer be able to try to use VisualEditor on pages translated using the Translate extension, and you will see a warning if you try to edit pages marked for translation. [132]
You will now see a full warning, including the most recent log entry, when you try to edit protected pages with VisualEditor. [133]

Future software changes

Typography Refresh will be enabled for test wiki and MediaWiki.org users who use the Vector skin on March 27. For users on non-Wikipedia wikis, it will be enabled on April 1, and for Wikipedia users on April 3. If you don't use Vector as your skin, you will not be affected.
You will be able to use the Hovercards tool as a beta feature on all wikis from March 26.
You will soon be able to include the Whatlinkshere special page in other pages. [134] [135]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:56, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

WIKISOO check-in[edit]

How's it going, Aboluay? Just touching base as we start the fifth (!) week of the WIKISOO course. We're excited to see students working on such a diverse range of articles! If you haven't already, log in, scroll down to the bottom of the main course page to list your chosen final project article next to your own name; brag a little about your work (or just ask questions!) on the course talk page; and join the live lecture tomorrow as we move towards completion of the course! This is when things get exciting. :) Looking forward to seeing you in class! - Sara FB (talk) 23:40, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-14[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf20) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 27. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on April 1, and all Wikipedia wikis on April 3 (calendar).
Typography Refresh was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 27. You'll only see it if you use the Vector skin. For users on non-Wikipedia wikis, it will be enabled on April 1, and for Wikipedia users on April 3.
CirrusSearch, the new search tool, was enabled as a beta feature on over 30 new wikis on March 27. [136] [137]

VisualEditor news

Blocked users now see the same messages in VisualEditor as in the wikitext editor. [138] [139]
The search box for re-using a reference in VisualEditor is now cleared after each use. [140]
New links on sub-pages no longer point to the wrong location in VisualEditor. [141]
VisualEditor's media dialog no longer breaks when opening some types of images. [142]

Future software changes

You will not be able to use the Wikitech wiki for a short period around 16:00 UTC on April 1 due to a server change. [143]
CirrusSearch will become the main search engine for all non-Wikipedia wikis except Commons, Meta and Incubator on April 2.
You will soon be able to use a new special page listing duplicate files. [144]
Deleting a version of a file or a version of its description page will soon be shown differently in the logs. [145]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:20, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Week 6 of WIKISOO[edit]

Hi Aboluay! Just checking in as we head into the final week of the Writing Wikipedia Articles class. You can look through last week's ether pad notes, check out your homework assignments from Week 5, and watch last week's lecture on YouTube - all right here. Check out my note from last week (above) if you're still diving into your Final Project... or head over to the course talk page to see if anyone else is having the same issues you are! Looking forward to seeing you in the last live webinar of the session tomorrow. Big WikiLove. -Sara FB (talk) 23:20, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-15[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf21) was scheduled to be deployed to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on April 3, however it was temporarily put on hold due to localization issues. (calendar).
Typography Refresh was enabled on non-Wikipedia wikis on April 1, and on all Wikipedias on April 3. You'll only see it if you use the Vector skin.
CirrusSearch was enabled as the primary search method on over 400 non-Wikipedia wikis on April 2. [146]

Future software changes

A new special page (Special:TrackingCategories) will soon list all the tracking categories on a wiki. [147] [148]
All Wikiquote projects will start using language links from Wikidata on April 8. [149]
The Hovercards feature will soon work with right-to-left languages. [150] [151]
You will soon be able to download files directly from MediaViewer, the new multimedia tool. [152]
MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on MediaWiki.org on April 10. Comments are welcome.
You can help check that users can read CAPTCHAs in your language. [153]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-16[edit]

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

We are looking for contributors to help write new issues every week. If you would like to help, please contact us.

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf22) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on April 10. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on April 15, and all Wikipedias on April 17 (calendar).
MediaViewer was enabled for all users on MediaWiki.org on April 10. It will be enabled for all users on the Catalan (ca), Hungarian (hu) and Korean (ko) Wikipedias and English Wikivoyage on April 17. Comments are welcome. [154] [155] [156]
Font issues caused by Typography refresh for Windows users were fixed on April 7. [157] [158]

VisualEditor news

You will now see only three options when you try to add a template parameter in VisualEditor; you will see other options after a click. [159]
The size changing controls in VisualEditor media editing dialog were simplified further.
The wikitext editor tab will now fold into a drop-down menu in the Vector skin if there is not enough space on your screen. [160] [161]

Future software changes

The font used for body text on Wikimedia wikis will change to your system default sans-serif font. This temporary change will be enabled on all non-Wikipedia wikis on April 15, and on all Wikipedias on April 17. [162] [163]
Files from Commons seen on another wiki will soon have a tab saying "View on Wikimedia Commons". The create tab will change to "Add local description" (see screenshot). [164]
You will soon be able to hide Notification and Hovercards pop-ups by pressing the Esc key. [165] [166] [167] [168]
Shorter lists of language links will soon work in right-to-left languages. Languages that you have used before will be shown in the list. [169]
You will soon be able to send messages with the MassMessage tool to all pages in a given category. [170] [171]
The date format user preference will soon be moved to the appearance tab. [172] [173]
An IRC discussion with the Wikimedia Foundation Multimedia team will take place on April 16 at 18:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on Freenode (time conversion). [174]

Problems

Wikimedia Foundation servers were updated after a security bug called Heartbleed was discovered last week. You should change your password as an extra precaution. [175]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-17[edit]

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

Tech News updates

You can now subscribe to an Atom or RSS feed to read Tech News in your news aggregator. The newsletter will now also show on the English Planet Wikimedia every Monday. [176]
We are looking for contributors to help write a new issue every week. If you would like to help, please contact us.

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf1) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on April 17. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on April 22, and all Wikipedias on April 24 (calendar).
CirrusSearch was enabled as a beta feature on 27 new wikis on April 18. [177] [178]
Problems with various fonts in SVG files were fixed last week. Files that use DejaVu Sans Condensed, DejaVu Serif Condensed, DejaVu Sans Light, Kochi Gothic and Kochi Mincho fonts now show correctly. [179] [180] [181] [182]
The page view statistics site developed by Henrik (stats.grok.se) should now work faster. [183]
You can read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for March 2014. [184]

VisualEditor news

If you try to add a category which redirects to another category, VisualEditor will now suggest adding the target category directly. [185] [186]
VisualEditor tabs will no longer appear on Education Program pages. [187] [188]
You can now use VisualEditor on Meta-Wiki and the French Wikinews by enabling it in your preferences. [189] [190] [191]

Future software changes

MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on the Czech (cs), Estonian (et), Finnish (fi), Hebrew (he), Polish (pl), Romanian (ro), Slovak (sk), Thai (th) and Vietnamese (vi) Wikipedias on April 24. Feedback is welcome. [192]
Edits by anonymous users will now be marked with a new CSS class (mw-anonuserlink). This way, you can easily make those edits use a different color, font or background. [193] [194]
The user preference to remember login will soon be removed from all wikis. The edit review preferences will be moved to the recent changes tab, and the preference for the WikiLove tool will be moved to the editing tab. [195] [196] [197] [198]
You will soon be able to give parameters to preloaded templates. [199] [200]
You will soon be able to use CodeEditor in read-only mode on pages that you cannot edit. [201] [202]
It is now proposed to replace Bugzilla, Gerrit and other tools by a single tool called Phabricator. You can test Phabricator and add your opinion on MediaWiki.org. [203]
An IRC discussion about Phabricator will take place on April 22 at 03:30 AM UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). [204]

Problems

For about 40 minutes on April 17, there were problems with page loading due to high server load.
There is a problem with the rendering of formulas with MathJax. If you enabled MathJax in your preferences, you might need to turn it off and on again. [205]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:34, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-18[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf2) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on April 24. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on April 29, and all Wikipedias on May 1 (calendar).
You can now use interwiki prefix c: to link to pages on Wikimedia Commons. [206]

VisualEditor news

You will soon be able to set content language and direction with VisualEditor. [207]
VisualEditor now works on all Wikipedias after broken MediaWiki:Common.js pages (and similar) were fixed last week. [208]
VisualEditor dialogs now use an animation of moving lines rather than animated GIF images.

Future software changes

CirrusSearch will be enabled as a beta feature on 41 new wikis, including Meta-Wiki and the Swedish (sv), Russian (ru), Polish (pl), Japanese (ja) and Chinese (zh) Wikipedias next week. This change means that CirrusSearch will now be enabled on all Wikimedia wikis.
MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on the French (fr) and Dutch (nl) Wikipedias on May 1. Feedback is welcome. [209]
The mobile version of Wikimedia wikis will soon include filters to limit the number of uploaded files that are copyright violations. [210]
CodeEditor will soon have a status bar about errors and warnings. [211] [212]
You can test a new version of Winter, a proposal to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages. Comments are welcome. [213]

Problems

For about 30 minutes on April 21, there were problems with image scaling due to a high server load. [214] [215]
On April 22, it was not possible to use the Collection extension for about 90 minutes due to a server move. [216] [217]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:22, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-19[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf3) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 1. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 6, and all Wikipedias on May 8 (calendar).
The Compact Personal Bar was added as a beta feature to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 1. It will be added as a beta feature to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 6, and to all Wikipedias on May 8. To test it, you can enable it now in your preferences on MediaWiki.org. [218]
It is now easier to disable the CodeEditor tool. [219]

VisualEditor news

External links in VisualEditor are now in the same light blue color as in MediaWiki. [220]
The template tool now tells you if a parameter is obsolete. [221]
You can now add "suggested" parameters in TemplateData; VisualEditor will add them like required ones. [222]
There is a new type for TemplateData parameters: wiki-file-name for file names. [223][224]
Editing formulae in VisualEditor will soon be enabled for all users. [225] [226]
You will soon be able to try a new beta feature to edit text in another language. [227] [228]

Future software changes

MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on the Japanese (ja), Portuguese (pt), Spanish (es), Swedish (sv) and Telugu (te) Wikipedias on May 8. Feedback is welcome. [229]
You can help translate about 100 new language names that have been added to our data source. They are used, for example, as hover text for interwiki links. Send an e-mail to Nemo if you want to help.
If you click on a redirect page in your watchlist, you will soon access the redirect itself. [230] [231]

Problems

For about 40 minutes around 00:20 UTC on April 29, there were problems with page loading due to high server load.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:29, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-20[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf4) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 8. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 13, and all Wikipedias on May 15 (calendar).

VisualEditor news

A new citation system in VisualEditor was enabled on the English Wikipedia. It will soon be enabled on more wikis. [232]
Templates that were previously broken in VisualEditor should now appear correctly. [233]

Future software changes

It will soon be possible to move category description pages. Pages in changed categories will still have to be moved independently. [234] [235]
You will soon be able to clear your watchlist with one click or through the API. [236] [237] [238] [239]
You will soon be able to link to Flow posts and workflows with Special:Flow. [240] [241]
The jQuery JavaScript library will soon be updated. Please check that your gadgets and scripts will still work. [242]
The Vector skin will work faster, as the sidebar will no longer collapse partly after being loaded. [243] [244] [245]
MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on Wikimedia Commons on May 15. Feedback is welcome.
An IRC discussion about Phabricator will take place on May 14 at 18:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). [246]
Toolserver tools will be stopped on June 30. Please make sure to change gadgets that link to the Toolserver to point to Tool Labs instead. [247]

Problems

There were problems with generating file thumbnails for all wikis between May 3 and May 6 due to a configuration error. [248] [249]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

06:00, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-21[edit]

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

Tech News updates

Tech News is one year old this week; thank you for being with us!

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf5) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 15. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 20, and all Wikipedias on May 22 (calendar).
The jQuery JavaScript library was updated on May 16. Please check that your gadgets and scripts still work. [250] [251] [252]
MediaViewer was enabled for all users on the Kannada (kn) and Telugu (te) Wikipedias on May 13. It will be enabled on the German (de), English (en), Italian (it) and Russian (ru) Wikipedias and on all Wikisource wikis on May 22. Feedback is welcome. [253] [254]
VisualEditor was added as a beta feature to Wikimedia Commons on May 15. You can enable it in your preferences. [255] [256]
You can read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for April 2014.

VisualEditor news

VisualEditor's buttons and icons can now be accessed using keyboard keys. [257] [258]
VisualEditor's new citation tool now matches templates like {{cite_web}} and not just {{Cite web}}. [259] [260]
VisualEditor's welcome message will no longer be shown to users who have already seen it. [261] [262]
VisualEditor now shows a clearer message when you cancel an edit. [263]
The toolbar of the PageTriage extension will no longer be visible inside VisualEditor. [264] [265]

Future software changes

User ID number will no longer be visible in preferences. [266] [267]

Problems

For several hours on May 16, there were problems with loading gadgets on some wikis due to a server problem. [268]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:18, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-22[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf6) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 22. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 27, and all Wikipedias on May 29 (calendar).
MediaViewer will be enabled on all Wikisource wikis on May 29, and on the German (de) and English (en) Wikipedias on June 3. Feedback is welcome.

VisualEditor news

VisualEditor's welcome message and wikitext warning now say that you can switch to source mode editing and keep your edits without saving them. [269] [270] [271] [272]
A bug that caused files not to appear after saving edits in the File: namespace was fixed last week. [273] [274]
VisualEditor tabs will no longer appear in namespaces where VisualEditor is disabled. [275] [276]
It is now possible to edit inline images with VisualEditor; many minor bugs related to images have also been fixed. [277]
VisualEditor will no longer convert spaces to underscores inside links to pages in namespaces that include spaces in their names. [278]

Future software changes

Wikimedia Labs will stop working for about 10 minutes around 18:00 UTC on May 30 due to a server upgrade. [279]
It will soon no longer be possible to upload different files under the same name at the same time using the UploadWizard tool. [280] [281]
Links to TIFF, DjVu or PDF files created with the syntax [[File:Name.ext|thumb|page 15 is my favourite]] will now show an image caption if there is any text after page number; previously they caused the given page to appear. [282] [283] [284]
You will soon see information about global blocks for IP addresses on their contributions page on your local wiki. [285] [286]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:29, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-23[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf7) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on May 29. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 3, and to all Wikipedias on June 5 (calendar).
CirrusSearch was enabled as the primary search method on all Wikipedias with less than 100,000 pages on May 30. [287]

VisualEditor news

Templates that redirect to other templates now get the TemplateData of their target. [288]
The toolbar of the PageTriage extension will no longer be visible after you save an edit with VisualEditor. [289] [290]
VisualEditor now checks if your browser supports SVG files to avoid displaying broken icons. [291]
There is now a new type for TemplateData parameters: date for dates and times in the ISO 8601 format. [292]

Future software changes

MediaViewer will be enabled on the German (de) and English (en) Wikipedias on June 3. Feedback is welcome.
You will soon see a warning if you visit a contributions page for a user that does not exist. [293] [294]
The search tab will soon be removed from user preferences. You will be able to set your search preferences on Special:Search. [295] [296]
You will soon see a label next to the little triangle arrow for the Actions menu in the Vector skin (screenshot). [297] [298]

Problems

For about 20 minutes on May 29, all wikis were broken due to a configuration error. [299]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:07, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-24[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf8) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 5. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 10, and to all Wikipedias on June 12 (calendar).
You can now use guided tours on the Arabic (ar), Bengali (bn) and Norwegian (no) Wikipedias. If you want this tool on your wiki, you need to translate it and ask in Bugzilla. [300] [301]

VisualEditor news

You should no longer be able to add empty references with VisualEditor. [302] [303]
The "use an existing reference" button in the reference tool is now shown as disabled, rather than hidden, when the reference has content. [304] [305] [306]
You will now see category contents again after saving an edit to a category page with VisualEditor. [307] [308]

Future software changes

MediaViewer will be enabled by default on all wikis on June 12. Feedback is welcome. [309]
You will be able to use information from Wikidata directly in Wikiquote pages starting on June 10. [310]
On wikis with the Translate extension enabled, translation administrators will soon be able to use the page migration tool to import existing translations to the new system. [311] [312]
You will soon see metadata on file description pages for Ogg files (example video, example audio). Some metadata with non-English characters may need to be purged or transcoded to UTF-8 before they show correctly. [313] [314]
Templates containing <ref> or <references> tags will no longer need dummy parameters to prevent caching. [315] [316] [317]
You will no longer be able to use Special:Thanks directly. The page will soon show an error message when you visit it. [318] [319]
Hovercards will no longer flicker. [320]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:39, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-25[edit]

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

Reminder

You can subscribe to the wikitech-ambassadors mailing list to get news more quickly and to send feedback or report problems.

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf9) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 12. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 17, and to all Wikipedias on June 19 (calendar).
You can now read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for May 2014.

VisualEditor news

You can now easily see the target of a link or other information using the context menu. [321]
When you edit a reference, you can now empty it and click the "use an existing reference" button to switch it to re-use another reference. [322] [323]
You can now add and edit {{DISPLAYTITLE}} and __DISAMBIG__ in the page settings menu. [324] [325] [326] [327]
The tool to insert special characters is now wider and simpler; the order of mathematical symbols is now correct. [328] [329] [330]

Future software changes

Media Viewer will be enabled by default on all wikis on June 19. Feedback is welcome. [331]
You will no longer be able to use navigation popups and Hovercards at the same time. [332]
You will no longer see image thumbnails on search results pages on Wikibooks and Wikisource wikis. [333] [334]
It will soon be possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. [335] [336]
Tablet users will be redirected to the mobile view of Wikimedia wikis starting on June 17. [337]
The special page that lists most linked-to templates will soon include pages from all namespaces; it will also be renamed to Special:MostTranscludedPages. [338]
An IRC discussion about Phabricator will take place on June 17 at 17:30 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). You can also read a blog post about the upcoming switch to Phabricator.
You can now comment on the draft 2014-15 goals of the Wikimedia Foundation engineering department. [339]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:13, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-26[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf10) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 19. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on June 24, and to all Wikipedias on June 26 (calendar).

VisualEditor news

You can now drag-and-drop selections of content, not just files and templates. [340] [341]
When dragging an item, you will now see a line that helps you to drop it. [342] [343]
You can now only move an image to the start of a paragraph, not to the middle of it, so you don't accidentally split it. [344] [345]
You will now be warned if you add wikitext to file captions and references. [346] [347]

Future software changes

You will no longer be able to upload files on wikis that do not have any copyright tags. [348] [349]
CirrusSearch will be enabled as the primary search method on additional 70 new wikis, including Meta-Wiki and Wikimedia Incubator, during the next week. [350]
CirrusSearch results will soon take into account categories, the first paragraph and the wikitext of a page. You will also be able to use regular expressions to search the wikitext. It will take a few days for the changes to be enabled on all wikis. [351]
You will soon be able to watch translations for e-mail notifications without receiving an e-mail when they are reviewed by another translator. [352] [353]
An IRC meeting to organize old high priority MediaWiki bug reports will take place on June 24 at 17:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). [354]

Problems

On June 19, all wikis were broken for about 15 minutes due to a high server load.
Between June 13 and June 15 there were problems with the scaling of video files due to a configuration error. [355]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:20, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-27[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 26. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 1, and to all Wikipedias on July 3 (calendar).

VisualEditor news

Context menus in VisualEditor will no longer flicker and disappear when you insert a new reference, formula, image, etc. [356] [357]
A bug that prevented relocating items due to cache was fixed last week. [358] [359]
VisualEditor will no longer scroll to the bottom of the page when you try to edit section 0. When you try to add a formula, VisualEditor will no longer scroll to the top of the page. [360] [361] [362] [363]
Links to category pages or file pages added with VisualEditor will now work correctly. [364] [365]

Future software changes

You will no longer be able to upload files on wikis that do not have any copyright tags. [366] [367]
Toolserver tools will be stopped on June 30. Please make sure to change gadgets that link to the Toolserver to point to Tool Labs instead.
CirrusSearch will be enabled on June 30 as the primary search method on 34 new wikis, including the Czech (cs), Danish (da), Finnish (fi) and Hebrew (he) Wikipedias. [368]
All Wikimedia wikis will be using a security method called perfect forward secrecy starting on July 1. If you see a problem, please report it. [369] [370]
Starting on July 1, it will be possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. [371]
You will soon see block information when you visit the contributions page or try to edit the user page or user talk page of a user who is affected by an IP range block. [372] [373]
You will soon be able to use {{!}} as a magic word to produce the pipe character, for instance for use in tables. [374]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

06:53, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-28[edit]

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

Tech News updates

We are looking for contributors to help write a new issue every week. If you would like to help, please contact us.

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 3. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 8, and to all Wikipedias on July 10 (calendar).
CirrusSearch was enabled on July 1 as the primary search method on 36 new wikis, including the Norwegian (no), Portuguese (pt) and Ukrainian (uk) Wikipedias. [375]
It is now possible to create Atom or RSS feeds for Word of the Day, Word of the Week and similar entries on Wiktionary wikis. [376] [377]
You can now use a graphical interface to edit TemplateData information on the English (en), French (fr) and Italian (it) Wikipedias. [378] [379]

VisualEditor news

Saving an edit with VisualEditor will now be much faster. [380] [381]
You can now add a caption when you add a file to a page with VisualEditor. You can also change the file to a different one and keep the existing caption. [382] [383] [384]
When you switch to the Edit source tab, you are now asked to keep your changes. You no longer need to find the option in the menus. [385] [386] [387]
The reference tool that adds empty <ref></ref> tags is now at the bottom of the Cite menu, below references that use templates like {{Cite web}}. [388]
Context menus will no longer be shown over items that you can edit directly, for example formulæ. [389] [390] [391]

Future software changes

Starting on July 9, it will be possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. The feature was first scheduled for July 1, but was delayed due to bugs.
A plan to enable CirrusSearch as the primary search method on the 11 largest Wikimedia wikis has now been prepared. [392]
If you use references on a page, you will soon always see them at the bottom of the page, even if you forget to add the <references /> tag (or a template). [393] [394]
Black-and-white XCF images will soon display correctly. [395] [396]
Description pages of SVG files will soon always show download links for multiple resolutions (example). The links were previously shown only for SVG files in large original resolutions. [397] [398]

Problems

Between July 2-3, there were problems with loading pages on multiple wikis due to a configuration issue. [399] [400]
For a few hours on July 1, there were problems with uploading new files on Wikimedia Commons due to a configuration error. [401] [402]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:07, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-29[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf13) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 10. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 15, and to all Wikipedias on July 17 (calendar).
It is now possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. Please go to the username changes page on Meta if you want to rename your account on all wikis. [403] [404]
You can now read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for June 2014.
You can now read the latest issue of the Wikidata newsletter and translate it into your language.

VisualEditor news

The tool to add templates and citations will now work for templates that include HTML comments or templates in their titles. [405] [406]
The button to make images full size should now work correctly. [407] [408] [409]
References will now be shown in the default font size again. [410]

Future software changes

CirrusSearch will be enabled as the primary search method on the Dutch (nl) and Japanese (ja) Wikipedias on July 14, and on the Polish (pl) and Russian (ru) Wikipedias on July 16. [411]
The Special:Version page will soon show the exact version of MediaWiki and all extensions installed on your wiki (example). [412] [413]
It will soon no longer be possible to order printed books of wiki articles via PediaPress. You will still be able to create PDF files. [414]
Pages that use {{DISPLAYTITLE:''title''}} more than once will soon show a warning. You can use {{DISPLAYTITLE:''title''|noerror}} to hide it. [415] [416]
Pages that have the list of references added automatically will soon be added to a tracking category. Administrators will be able to configure the name of the category on their wikis. [417] [418]
Administrators will soon be able to easily merge histories of two pages using Special:MergeHistory. [419] [420]
Administrators will soon see links to delete files on Special:ListFiles. [421]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:48, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-30[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf14) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 17. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 22, and to all Wikipedias on July 24 (calendar).
CirrusSearch was removed as the primary search method from Wikimedia Commons and the Spanish (es) Wikipedia due to a high server load. The plan to enable it on the Dutch (nl), Japanese (ja), Polish (pl) and Russian (ru) Wikipedias was also postponed to a later date. [422] [423] [424]
The tool that stores information about languages (CLDR) was updated to its latest version. You can still help translate language names into your own language so they can be used in the sidebar and other places. [425]
Translation memory for newly translatable pages should now offer more suggestions. [426] [427]
A tool to convert MediaWiki pages to LaTeX is now available on Tool Labs. [428]

VisualEditor news

Tablet users visiting the mobile version of Wikimedia wikis will be able to use a special version of VisualEditor starting on July 31. You can test the new tool by choosing the beta version of the mobile view in the Settings menu. Feedback is welcome. [429]
All windows in VisualEditor have now a new design. Main action buttons will always be located in the top bar and will use simple words rather than icons. [430]
You can now easily open links inside the link editor, for example to see their target. [431]
Several bugs related to the positioning of the cursor around some items (like images and references) were fixed last week. [432] [433] [434] [435] [436] [437]

Future software changes

It will soon be possible to watch individual discussions in the Topic namespace rather than whole pages for talk pages using Flow. [438]
You can give comments about the new version of Winter, a proposal to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages. [439]
An IRC meeting to organize Pywikibot bugs will take place from July 24 to July 27 on the channel #pywikibot on freenode. [440]
A request for comments on how to improve MediaWiki API was re-started on MediaWiki.org. Your feedback is welcome.

Problems

Mailing lists were broken for about 16 hours between July 14 and July 15 due to a server problem. [441]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:42, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-31[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf15) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 24. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 29, and to all Wikipedias on July 31 (calendar).
You can now download the latest version of the anti-vandalism tool Huggle.

VisualEditor news

You can now create, edit, and view HTML comments in VisualEditor. [442] [443]
The cancel button in VisualEditor toolbar has been removed. You can still use the Read tab and the Back button in your browser to cancel your edit. [444]
If you try to use a template which has no suggested or required parameters in TemplateData, you will now be asked to add the parameters. [445] [446]
You will no longer be able to edit a page if you can't create it, for example on pages protected against recreation. [447] [448]

Future software changes

You will soon be able to filter Meta-Wiki's user rights log by wiki and user. [449] [450]
Wikidata will soon be able to store data about article status, for example "good article" or "featured article". If your wiki has highlighted content, please make sure it is on Wikidata's list. [451]
It will soon be possible to directly create empty pages, for example in the user namespace. [452] [453]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:08, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-32[edit]

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

Tech News updates

Tech News will be presented at the Wikimania 2014 conference in London! If you will be attending the conference, please join us in Auditorium 2 at 14:30 local time on Sunday, August 10.

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf16) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 31. Due to the Wikimania 2014 conference, it will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on August 12, and to all Wikipedias on August 14 (calendar). [454]
You can now test a new tool to render wiki pages as PDF files. [455] [456] [457]
You can now download an update to the archive of Wikimedia Commons files (uploaded up to December 31, 2013). If you have free space on your computer, please help preserve the files. [458]
New users using the mobile Commons site now need to make 75 edits before they can upload a file. [459] [460]

VisualEditor news

You will no longer see an edit confirmation message after making a null edit with VisualEditor. [461] [462]
VisualEditor will no longer change underscores to spaces in category sort keys. [463]
Many bugs that resulted in inserting the pawn and snowman symbols were fixed last week. [464] [465] [466] [467]
Several bugs related to the use of references were also fixed. [468] [469] [470] [471]

Future software changes

You will soon have a user option to watch pages where you revert edits. [472] [473]
All Toolserver data will be deleted in September. If you want to back up your data, contact Toolserver administrators before August 31. [474]
Pages in the Translations: namespace on wikis using the Translate extension will no longer be indexed by search engines. [475]

Problems

Wikivoyage wikis were broken for about 45 minutes on July 29 due to a configuration problem. [476]
Some users were not able to log in on test wikis and MediaWiki.org between July 31 and August 1. The problem is now fixed. [477]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

August 2014[edit]

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Arabic Wikipedia may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s and 1 "<>"s likely mistaking one for another. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

phenomenal progress by which in December 2005, the total number of articles reached 8,285.<ref>[https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%A7:%D8%A5%D8%AD%
B9%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9 Wikipedia Statistics - Arabic Wikipedia. Accessed on 4 August 2014</ref>> By that time, there were fewer than 20 contributors and the recruitment of new users started.<ref

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 21:24, 4 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-33[edit]

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

Recent software changes

Due to the Wikimania 2014 conference, there were no MediaWiki changes this week. The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf16) will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on August 12, and to all Wikipedias on August 14 (calendar). [478]
Bureaucrats on all Wikivoyage wikis are no longer able to merge two accounts into one. [479]

VisualEditor news

Tablet users visiting the mobile version of non-Wikipedia wikis will be able to use VisualEditor starting on August 12. The feature will also be enabled on all Wikipedias on August 14. [480]

Future software changes

Internet Explorer 6 users will soon see a JavaScript-free version of Wikimedia wikis; JavaScript tools and scripts will no longer work on that browser. If you use Internet Explorer 6, make sure to update to a newer browser! [481] [482] [483]
If you visit a special page that requires you to be logged-in, you will soon be automatically redirected to the log-in page instead of seeing a warning. [484] [485]
You will now always see recent changes to the source language text when editing a translation with the Translate extension. [486] [487]
An IRC meeting to discuss VisualEditor will take place on August 14 at 09:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). [488]

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07:43, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Arabic Wikipedia and Rami Tarawneh[edit]

Hi! Thank you for making additions to Arabic Wikipedia. I took a look at this and I'm puzzled why Rami Tarawneh is omitted in the edit. Secondary sources and not primary sources are the bread and butter of Wikipedia and Wired states that Tarawneh is very influential in the Wikipedia's development.

WhisperToMe (talk) 17:31, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds like something that really needs to be discussed on the talk page. WP:V stated that "Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it." - Are there any secondary sources that mentioned any claims about other people taking credit or "So-and-so is not really to credit, so-and-so is?" If those sources don't exist, you have to follow what Wired says. That is unless/until a journalist interviews the other side and they get an article written about them. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:13, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"publicly published correspondence between Wikimedia and ArabEyes, the history of the Arabic Wikipedia discussions, the Wikipedia logs, the users talk pages and many other neutral secondary sources" - I believe all three would be primary sources because they are made by people directly involved in the Wikipedia community. Have you considered sending Wired a letter to the editor? WhisperToMe (talk) 03:42, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry, I'm not a lawyer! I'll take a look at your suggestions and refer to relevant passages from the Wired article. WhisperToMe (talk) 05:17, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The suggestions and responses:

1. "The phrase "Contributors encouraged him to start an Arabic Wikipedia" is incorrect. The Arabic Wikipedia was started by the Wikimedia German User group by mandate of the Foundation and was not initiated by any Arab individual."

Text of the Wired article: "Angry at this misrepresentation, Tarawneh contacted one of the English Wikipedia contributors, who told him that Wikipedia is a collaborative work. He hadn’t realized that. “If I find something wrong, I should fix it,” Tarawneh says. “Then the Wikimedia people told me, why not start your own language version?” Thus began Arabic Wikipedia, at first just a group of about five contributors, all Jordanians studying abroad in Germany."
So what I will do is modify it to say that this specific group began contributing in 2003. The Arabic Wikipedia itself was established before then, but the question is when did the mass development of articles start? Unless/until there is more literature on that I'll rewrite and state that the group of Jordanians in Germany began at that time.

"The phrase that starts with "By 2005, there were fewer than 20 contributors" till the end of the paragraph should be incorporated into the sentence that starts with "However, in 2005..." this will give more meaning to the flow of the history."

That's a good suggestion!

3. "In the sentence, "Therefore Tarawnah and other..." I suggest to replace it to say "The volunteers worked on recruiting new users". Choosing one name over others is not fair for the others."

The reason why I only gave Tarawneh's name is because the article did not mention the names of the other PhD students working with him. Unless/until someone finds the names of the other four...

WhisperToMe (talk) 05:31, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The July 2003 opening comes from this article (See page 94), which was written about the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia WhisperToMe (talk) 05:35, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the modifications you have suggested. Please go ahead and make them. Let me know if you need me to do anything.

I will be learning about the policies and contact Wired and discuss with you my findings and any alteration before I make any changes. Thank you for your open mindedness. Definitely, you are not a lawyer ;)... Aboluay^Talk2me 05:48, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks :) - For the sentence "Therefore Tarawnah and other..." I decided after re-reading the Wired article that it's best to just collectively say "The administrators and contributors" collectively with no person standing out WhisperToMe (talk) 05:50, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

works for me. Aboluay^Talk2me 05:59, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-34[edit]

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf17) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 14. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on August 19, and on all Wikipedias on August 21 (calendar).
There is a new protection level called superprotection. At the moment, only some Wikimedia Foundation employees have access to it. Administrators can't edit "superprotected" pages. [489] [490] [491]
You can now create empty pages directly. A message asks you to confirm that you want to create an empty page. [492] [493]
You can search for Wikimedia tools using a new list of tools. [494]
You can watch the first videos from Wikimania 2014. Some of them are about technical topics. More videos will come later.

Wikidata

After August 19, you can use Wikidata for inter language links on Wikinews. [495]
After August 19, you can use Wikidata for badges like "good" or "featured" articles. Next week, you will be able to show the badges in the article sidebar on Wikipedia, Wikisource and Wikiquote. [496]

Problems

There was an issue with ProofreadPage and WikiEditor on Wikisource wikis. It is now fixed. [497] [498]

Tech news written by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:16, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-35[edit]

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

VisualEditor news

There was a error when you put your cursor directly after a reference list. It is now fixed. [499]
You can now add colors to links in the editor using gadgets. You can do this to see links to redirects or disambiguation pages. [500]
If you use Internet Explorer, you will soon be able to use VisualEditor. [501] [502] [503]

Future software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf18) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 21. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on August 26, and on all Wikipedias on August 28 (calendar).
After August 26, you will have a central JavaScript and CSS page. They will be on Meta-Wiki and will work on all wikis. Read more on the help page. [504]

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

09:21, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-36[edit]

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

Recent software changes

You can now test a new Beta Feature to see links to other wikis in the sidebar. The links come from Wikidata. [505] [506]
You can now search pages that link to a page. Use the linksto: keyword in your search. [507] [508]
A redirect to a section now changes the URL in the address bar of your browser. If "Dog" redirects to "Animals#Dog", you now see "Animals#Dog" instead of "Dog#Dog". [509] [510]
If you are testing Flow, you now have a Flow tab in your Notifications. It is called "Messages". [511]

VisualEditor news

You can no longer delete required fields in templates. [512]
We fixed many Internet Explorer bugs. If you use Internet Explorer 11, you will get VisualEditor next week. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [513] [514] [515]
VisualEditor now looks better in Monobook. [516]
We fixed a bug where some of your typing could be undone when you used "cut" (Ctrl+X). [517]
You will no longer see empty or deleted categories among the suggestions when you add a category. [518]

Future software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf19) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 28. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 2, and on all Wikipedias on September 4 (calendar).
There is a proposal to build a database on Commons for file data. It will make it easier to see the author, license and topics. You can give feedback on this idea. You can also come to the IRC chat on September 3 at 18:00 (UTC) in #wikimedia-office at freenode. [519]
You can give feedback on Media Viewer until September 7. You can say what needs to be improved and ask other people to give feedback too. [520]
You can test a new version of the tool to show math. It uses MathML. Report bugs in bugzilla.
You will no longer be able to upload images from the mobile site. [521]

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

07:48, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-37[edit]

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

VisualEditor news

From Thursday, Internet Explorer 11 users will get VisualEditor. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [522] [523] [524]

Future software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf20) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 9, and on all Wikipedias on September 11 (calendar).
You will soon confirm a "Thanks" inline instead of in a dialog. [525]
You can read more about the plan to move to Phabricator, a tool that will help people develop the MediaWiki software and report bugs. [526]

Problems

There were problems with JavaScript and CSS on Friday, September 5 because of a code error.

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

09:33, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-38[edit]

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 software changes

You can now change the style of links to disambiguation pages. This is done with the mw-disambig CSS class. [527] [528]
There was a problem on right-to-left wikis with Wikidata log entries. The text was messy in watchlists and recent changes. The problem is now fixed. The same problem will be fixed soon for user names. [529] [530] [531]
New users are randomly chosen for a test on 12 Wikipedias. They get messages with ideas of articles to edit. The ideas come from what they have already edited. [532]

Problems

There was a problem with loading images on September 10. [533]

VisualEditor news

If you don't select text when you add a link, the link now shows a number. [534]
The citation tool no longer offers to reuse a citation if there are none on the page yet. [535] [536]
You can now use help buttons in the "Page settings" menu to see what the options are for. [537]

Future software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf21) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 16, and on all Wikipedias on September 18 (calendar).
These changes are coming with the new version:
- If you use Internet Explorer 7, JavaScript will no longer work. JavaScript tools and scripts will no longer work in that browser. You should update to a newer browser. [538] [539] [540]

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

08:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-39[edit]

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 software changes

You can test a new Beta Feature called HHVM. It should make editing faster. Please report bugs if you see them. [541]

Problems

There was a problem on the English Wikipedia on September 19. It was due to edits on a template used on many pages.
Sites were down for users in the Pacific area around 7:00 UTC on September 20. It was due to a problem in the San Francisco data center.
There were two bad bugs messing up articles in some browsers in VisualEditor. We fixed the bugs and updated the sites. [542] [543]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf22) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 23, and on all Wikipedias on September 25 (calendar).
If you have more than 2000 notifications, the oldest ones will be removed.[544] [545]
In the "Vector" skin, the icon used for users will show a neutral gender. [546] [547]
The VisualEditor template tool now tells you if a required field is missing. [548]
The "Cancel" button of the VisualEditor save window is now called "Resume editing". This shows that you can still edit and you won't lose your changes. [549]
There are new keyboard shortcuts in VisualEditor. Use Ctrl+Shift+6 for code and Ctrl+Shift+5 for ~~strikethrough~~. [550] [551]
In VisualEditor, you can now see that you are switching to the source editing mode. Before, it was not clear it was happening. [552]

Future site changes

You can see a plan for the move to Phabricator. It's the new tool to track bugs. A guided tour will be done via video on September 24. [553]

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

09:04, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-40[edit]

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 software changes

On Commons, you can now see what files are most used across all wikis. You can also see the same list for deleted or uncreated files. [554] [555]
There are now many more translations for language names. [556]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf1) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 30, and on all Wikipedias on October 2 (calendar).
Errors from Scribunto (Lua) are now shown on the page. Before, you had to click on "Script error" to see them. [557] [558]
You can add an "autovalue" for a field in TemplateData. When users add the template to a page, the value will be added automatically. An example is when a clean-up template shows the date it was added. [559]
If you change a user preference but don't save it, it now asks if you want to save it. [560] [561]
The PDF export tool has changed. The new one has better language support but it doesn't offer ZIM and EPUB formats. [562]

Future changes

You can watch a video showing Phabricator, the new tool to track bugs. You can also read more about the move from Bugzilla.
JavaScript authors: Many old methods will be removed soon. Please check your scripts and gadgets and replace the old methods by the new ones if needed. [563]

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

09:44, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-41[edit]

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 phab: and phabricator: interwikis to link to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org. [564] [565]
Some wikis have a template to track bugs in Bugzilla. You should update it to work with Phabricator. You can look at the one on mediawiki.org to see how. [566] [567]
You can look at Special:MediaStatistics to see what kind of files are on your wiki. [568]
A new tool can now create thumbnails of large TIFF images. This concerns files larger than 50 megapixels. These thumbnails are also sharpened. You can comment on Commons. [569]
The Media Viewer tool has a clearer link to the file page. It also has buttons to download, share and embed the file. You can enlarge images by clicking on them. [570]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf2) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since 2 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 7 October, and on all Wikipedias from 9 October (calendar).
If you make a code mistake when editing a Lua script, you won't be able to save your edit. [571] [572]
We fixed some more Internet Explorer bugs. If you use Internet Explorer 10, you will be able to use VisualEditor next week. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [573]
On Thursday, the tool to edit TemplateData will come to 30 more wikis. [574] [575]
You can help sort bugs in the Book and PDF export tool on October 8. [576]
1% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. [577]

Future changes

You can look at the plan of the Mobile team for their future work. [578]
More changes to Media Viewer are coming. It will be easier to disable it, and you will see the caption below the image. [579] [580]

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

06:10, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-42[edit]

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 software changes

You can now log into Phabricator, the new tool to track bugs. Create your account and add your Bugzilla email address. We are copying the bugs from Bugzilla. Bugzilla is still open. [581] [582]
You will now get the VisualEditor newsletter in your language if someone has translated it. You can add translations. You can know about the next translations by joining the translators list or asking Elitre (WMF).

Problems

10% of Tool Labs was down on October 7. [583]
Tool Labs was also broken on October 11. [584]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf3) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since 9 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 14 October, and on all Wikipedias from 16 October (calendar).
5% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. You can also test it as a Beta Feature. [585]

Meetings

You can join a meeting with Language developers on October 15, 2014 at 17:00 (UTC). [586]
There is a proposal to organize file pages better. It would use the same tools as Wikidata. You can join a meeting about it on October 16, 2014 at 18:00 (UTC). [587]
You can join a meeting about VisualEditor on October 18, 2014 at 18:00 (UTC). [588]

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

08:53, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-43[edit]

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. You can read translations.

Recent changes

You can test a new system to see math using MathML. Go to your display options and choose "⧼mw math mathml⧽".
You can add badges in Wikidata for quality articles and featured lists. [589] [590]

File information cleanup

You can join a wiki project to help tools read file information. It will help people reuse files.
See how to fix metadata. You can fix it by adding markers to templates and adding templates to files.
You can see a list of files missing machine-readable information on your wiki.
The files missing readable data are also in these categories: no license, no description, no author or no source. [591]

Problems

Developers fixed a security problem. If you use Internet Explorer 6, you won't be able to log in any more. You should use a newer browser. [592]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf4) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 16. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 21, and on all Wikipedias from October 23 (calendar).
10% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. You can also test it as a Beta Feature. [593]
If you add the same parameter twice in a template, it now puts the page in a tracking category. [594] [595]

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

13:47, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-44[edit]

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

Problems

There was an issue with files from Commons on October 21. You could only see those with names between 140 and 159 characters by visiting Commons itself. [596]
There was a problem with cut and paste in VisualEditor in Firefox. It was fixed quickly. [597]
There was a problem with editing math in VisualEditor. It was fixed quickly. [598]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will now come to Wikipedia sites every Wednesday, instead of every Thursday. [599]
The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf5) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 23. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 28, and on all Wikipedias from October 29 (calendar).
VisualEditor now uses autovalues for templates if they are in TemplateData. [600] [601] [602]
VisualEditor's menu items now show their shortcuts beside them. [603]
VisualEditor now opens faster when you click "edit". [604]
The rules for plurals in translations changed in some languages. Interface translations are currently not being updated from translatewiki.net; this process will start again on November 6. [605]

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

05:20, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-45[edit]

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 software changes

The "Special:Cite" page is now called "Special:CiteThisPage". That way, you know it's to cite the page, not to add a reference. [606]
You can no longer use the insource: keyword for text searches. It caused issues with the new search tool. It will come back later. [607] [608]

Problems

There was a bug in VisualEditor with Internet Explorer. It hid tools like the link editor when you opened them. The bug was fixed on Monday. [609]
Issues with the new search tool caused geo data code to show up on pages on Monday and Friday. The mobile "nearby" tool was also broken. The problem is now fixed. [610] [611] [612]
HHVM caused server issues on Thursday. They are now fixed.

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf5) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 29. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 4, and on all Wikipedias from November 5 (calendar).
Some wikis have icons at the top of a page to show if it is protected or featured. Icons show up using CSS. You can now use the <indicator> tag in these templates instead to add the icons. [613] [614]
VisualEditor now tells you if you're editing a re-used reference. This helps you avoid changing it if you just want to add a new one. [615]
The icons in VisualEditor's template editor tool for adding more fields are back, along with other fixes. [616] [617] [618] [619] [620]
After November 6, all wikis will have the tool to edit TemplateData. [621] [622] [623]

Future changes

The new search tool will come to the last wikis in the coming weeks. This includes Wikipedia in French, Chinese, German and English. [624]

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

17:28, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-46[edit]

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 software changes

You may see a new tool on the mobile site of the English Wikipedia. It asks simple questions to make the article better. In the future, your answers will go to Wikidata. [625] [626]
The MediaWiki API now shows information in a nice format. You can translate it in translatewiki.net. [627]

File information cleanup

Reminder: You can help fix file information on your wiki. It will help robots understand the information. After that, it will be easier for you to search files and re-use them.
You can join two IRC chats this week to learn more about the file cleanup project. One will be on Wednesday at 18:00 (UTC) and the other on Thursday at 04:00 (UTC). You can ask questions during the chat if you need help to fix files on your wiki.
You can see a list of files to fix on the Labs tool. You can report bugs and ask questions on the talk page.

Problems

Wikimedia Labs was broken for a few hours on Thursday. It was due to a hardware problem. [628]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf7) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since November 5. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 11, and on all Wikipedias from November 12 (calendar).
You can now use more editing tools for tables in VisualEditor. You can add rows and columns, merge cells, and edit table captions. [629] [630]
The style and insert menus in the toolbar of VisualEditor now show fewer tools. This helps you see the most common tasks. You can see all items by clicking "More". [631]
The way windows inside VisualEditor work has changed. VisualEditor should be faster and have fewer bugs. [632]

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

15:00, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-47[edit]

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

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf8) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since November 12. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 18, and on all Wikipedias from November 19 (calendar).
The new search tool ("CirrusSearch") will be on the English Wikipedia from November 19. [633]

Move from Bugzilla to Phabricator

The tool to track bugs will change on November 21.
You won't be able to add or edit bugs between November 21 and November 24.
You can make the change easier for you by creating your account.
Bugzilla will be frozen after the change. You will see, edit and report bugs in Phabricator.
You can join two IRC chats to learn more about the change. The chats will be on Tuesday, November 18 at 16:00 (UTC) and 23:00 UTC. [634]

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

18:28, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-48[edit]

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 move from Bugzilla to Phabricator is done. You can now report bugs in Phabricator. [635]

Problems

There was a problem when editing tables in VisualEditor. VisualEditor was trying to fix bad values for the colspan or rowspan option. VisualEditor now leaves the bad values to avoid making things worse. This was fixed on November 17. [636]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf9) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since November 19. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 25, and on all Wikipedias from November 26 (calendar).
You will be able to try VisualEditor on many new wikis for the first time. After November 26, VisualEditor will become available on Wikidata, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, and Wikinews wikis. You can find it in your Beta options. [637]
VisualEditor now tells you if your edit needs to be approved. [638]
You can now use VisualEditor's tools directly when you resume editing after closing the save window. [639]
VisualEditor's table editing tools now work better in right-to-left languages. [640] [641]

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

19:31, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-50[edit]

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 software changes

All users are now getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. [642]
You can join a video chat about Phabricator on December 11 at 18:00 (UTC). Phabricator is the new tool to report issues. [643]

Problems

There was a problem with Phabricator on November 29. It was due to a network issue. [644]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf11) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since December 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from December 9. It will be on all Wikipedias from December 10 (calendar). [645]
You can now exit VisualEditor by pressing the "Esc" key. [646]
It is now easier to use VisualEditor with IMEs. Typing in Malayalam now works better. [647] [648]
The new version of OOjs UI fixed many issues with the size and layout of buttons in dialogs. [649] [650] [651]
(Lua) You can no longer use mw.text.unstrip to get the HTML from special page transclusion. You can see a list of scripts to fix. [652] [653]

Future changes

Starting next week JavaScript tools won't work if they use jQuery Migrate. [654]

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

17:11, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-51[edit]

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 software changes

You may see a new tool tested on the mobile site of the English Wikipedia. It asks simple questions to make the article better. In the future, your answers will go to Wikidata. [655]
You can watch a video to learn how to use Phabricator to manage projects. [656]
You can test a new version of the Content Translation tool.

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf12) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since December 10. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from December 16. It will be on all Wikipedias from December 17 (calendar). [657]
You can now find and replace text in VisualEditor. You can open the tool via the menu, Ctrl+F or Cmd+F. [658]
VisualEditor now doesn't change the space at the end of a text that you make bold. [659]
The "Apply changes" button in the reference window of VisualEditor is now disabled until you make a change. [660]

Future changes

The star image of the watchlist may change soon. [661] [662]
You won't be able to use Phabricator on December 18, 2014. It will be down between 00:00 and 08:00 (UTC). [663] [664]

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

16:43, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-52[edit]

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 software changes

The Technical Operations team is now using Phabricator to track their tasks. The Operations team manages the Wikimedia servers. In the future you will be able to see the tasks that are not private. [665]

Software changes this week

There will be no software changes this week and next week. This is because of the end-of-year holidays. The next update of MediaWiki will be on January 6. [666]

Future changes

The system that displays citations will change in the future. The new system will not change the style of citations. [667]
A new design for VisualEditor will come in January. You can try it now on test wikis. [668]

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

16:52, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-01[edit]

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

Software changes

There are no technical changes this week.

Feedback about Tech News in 2014

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 2014? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us at m:Talk:Tech/News. You can write in your language. Thank you!

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

16:51, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-03[edit]

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 software changes

Rotated PDF files in landscape format used to show too small. They will now display correctly. You may need to purge older files. [669]
You can now use the {{!}} magic word instead of Template:!. Many wikis used the template to create a pipe (|) in tables and templates. You can delete the template. [670]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf14) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since January 7. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from January 13. It will be on all Wikipedias from January 14 (calendar).
A bug in VisualEditor sometimes added a ☀ (Sun) character. This is now fixed. [671]
The search and replace tool in VisualEditor is now much faster in long pages. [672]
The TemplateData editor now uses the same design as VisualEditor. [673] [674] [675]
The thumb option is now shown in your language in the help of the classic editor toolbar. [676]

Future changes

You can sign up to answer questions from designers. It will help them make editing easier. [677]

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

16:47, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-04[edit]

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 download the new version of the Wikipedia app for Android. The new version shows lead images, better galleries and content from Wikidata. It also has many other new features.[678] [679]
Programs and bots still can't read information about images on many wikis. You can see the list of wikis with the most files to fix. Wikipedia in Italian, Indonesian and Japanese language have the most files to fix. On the biggest wikis you should use bots. Bots can add information templates to groups of files. You can ask other tech users to help you.

Problems

All JavaScript on Commons was broken for a few minutes on Tuesday. It was because of old code in the HotCat tool. The same problem happened on some Wikipedias on Wednesday. It is now fixed. [680]

Software changes this week

There are no software changes this week and next week due to annual meetings. [681]

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

18:12, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-05[edit]

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 software changes

You can now translate articles with the new ContentTranslation tool on several wikis. [682]

This week

There are no software changes this week due to annual meetings. [683]

Future changes

You can join a project to improve WikiProjects. [684]
The Compact Personal Bar will be removed for now. It has a bug that breaks the tool to choose your language. It will come back when the bug is fixed. [685]

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

16:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-06[edit]

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

Problems

There was a security issue on Wikimedia Labs. Many Labs tools were down after the issue was fixed. [686]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since January 14. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 3. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 4 (calendar).
The "Save page" button in the VisualEditor toolbar is now blue rather than green. This is the same as on the mobile site. [687]
You can now edit pages on the draft namespace with VisualEditor on the Russian Wikipedia and Hebrew Wikipedia. You can ask to get VisualEditor for a namespace on your wiki. When your community agrees, ask in Phabricator. [688] [689]

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

16:31, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-07[edit]

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 software changes

You can now use {{#lsth: PageName | SectionName }} to transclude a section with its title. [690]

Problems

MediaWiki was reverted to the previous version on February 4. It was because of a performance issue. It was restored later. [691]
UploadWizard was broken on February 4 because of the revert of MediaWiki. [692]
All sites were broken for 30 minutes on February 5. It was due to a network problem. [693]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 5. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 10. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 11 (calendar).
You can have one user page for all wikis. Your Meta user page will show if you don't have a user page on a wiki. You can test this tool on test wikis. [694] [695] [696]
You can search for media files in VisualEditor more easily. Images are bigger and you see the size and license. [697] [698]
It is easier to review your changes when you save the page in VisualEditor. The window is wider. [699]
You can read the latest news about VisualEditor. You can now join weekly meetings with developers. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The first meeting is on February 11 at 20:00 (UTC).

Future changes

Administrators will soon be able to delete change tags used fewer than 5,000 times. [700]
In the future you will be able to have personal lists of articles on the mobile site. [701]

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

16:26, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-08[edit]

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

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 17. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 18 (calendar).
On Wednesday your Meta user page will be shown if you don't have a user page on a wiki. [702] [703] [704]
You can now change the order of categories in VisualEditor using drag-and-drop. [705]
In VisualEditor, you now need to make a change before you can "Apply Changes" to citations and templates. [706]
The way the cursor moves in VisualEditor is changing. Your browser now handles the cursor directly. Most of you will see no change. In right-to-left text, the cursor now moves in a 'visible' rather than 'logical' way. This is like other sites but you may be surprised at first. [707]

Meetings

The VisualEditor Team had their first public bug triage meeting on February 11. They will post the results on the meeting page. [708]
You can join the second weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on February 18 at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join. [709]
You can join a meeting with the developers of the Content Translation tool. It will be on February 18 at 13:00 (UTC). [710]

Future changes

You can comment on a proposal about abandoned Labs tools.

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

17:57, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-09[edit]

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 software changes

All new accounts are now global. [711]
Your Meta user page is now shown if you don't have a user page on a wiki. You can report problems if you see any. You can ask a bot to delete your old user pages. [712] [713] [714]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from February 25. It will be on all Wikipedias from February 26 (calendar).
It is now easier to see template fields in VisualEditor. The fields are bigger. [715]
It is now easier to see when a button is disabled in VisualEditor. [716]
Sometimes when you copy-pasted a template in VisualEditor, it was replaced by HTML. This problem is now fixed. [717]
Tools in Labs will stop working for a few hours on February 24. [718]

Meetings

You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on February 26 at 00:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

At the moment you need to log in to edit Wikimedia wikis on mobile devices. You can say if anyone should be allowed to edit on the mobile sites. The discussion ends on March 15.
Images in the interface will soon work better in Opera 12. [719]

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

16:28, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-10[edit]

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 software changes

A Lua function to use Wikidata has changed. You need to update the pages that use it. [720]
You can use the Content Translation tool on Wikipedia in Uzbek and Minangkabau. You need to enable it in your Beta options.
You can now hide banners if you don't have an account. [721] [722]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 3. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 4 (calendar).
You can use the Content Translation tool on Wikipedia in Punjabi and Kyrgyz. You can ask for the tool in other languages.
Editing the fake blank line in VisualEditor is now simpler. This change also fixed a few bugs. [723] [724] [725] [726]
The TemplateData editor now warns you if a related page already has TemplateData. [727]
The TemplateData table now tells you if a template doesn't take any parameters. [728]

Meetings

You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 4 at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join technical meetings in France and Mexico this year. You will be able to ask for help if you can't pay yourself. [729]

Future changes

You will be able to get a direct link for a section of a page. [730]

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

16:41, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-11[edit]

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 create books on almost all wikis. It doesn't work yet on wikis using the language converter. [731] [732]
VisualEditor had problems with categories in Safari. It sometimes moved or removed the categories. The issue is now fixed. [733] [734] [735]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 10. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 11 (calendar).
In VisualEditor the "Edit ^beta" button is now called "Edit" on the English Wikipedia. [736] [737]
The feedback tool in VisualEditor now looks like the other tools. It also asks for information about your browser to help fix bugs. [738] [739]
You now see the VisualEditor toolbar even if the rest of the page is still loading. [740] [741]
You now see more information when you edit a link, a reference or other items in VisualEditor. You also see a clearer edit button in those tools. [742] [743]
If you use the ContentTranslation tool you now see red links in the list of articles in other languages. The link is red if the article doesn't exist in the language of your options or of your browser. You can translate the article by clicking on the red link.

Meetings

You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 11 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join a technical meeting in France in May. You can ask for help if you can't pay yourself. [744]

Future changes

You can get help to become a developer. You can learn more on the Google Summer of Code and Outreachy pages. [745]
You will soon be able to read technical reports in Phabricator. [746]

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

15:18, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-12[edit]

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 servers that resize images are using new software. You should report new problems that you notice with images. [747]
You can now see lists of bugs about Commons, Wikisource and Wiktionary. [748]
It is now easier to add special characters in VisualEditor. You can edit the list of characters for your wiki. [749] [750]

Problems

Wikis were broken for a few minutes on Thursday due to a code error.

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 17. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 18 (calendar).
A puzzle piece icon () now shows hidden templates in VisualEditor. You can edit the template by clicking the icon. For example, you can now edit anchor templates. [751] [752]
You can now add examples, and details about old parameters, in TemplateData. [753] [754]

Meetings

You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 18 at 23:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The list of bad user names on your wiki will no longer work. The global list will replace it. You can ask to add rules for bad user names on Meta. [755] [756]
You can comment on how you want to see Wikidata edits in your watchlist on other wikis. [757]
The final steps of single user login (SUL) will happen in April. You can see the rules to rename accounts. [758]

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

15:14, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-13[edit]

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 has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 24. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 25 (calendar).
The text of a reference is now more visible when you click on it. It has a blue background. Many wikis already have the blue color. Those wikis can now remove it from their CSS page. [759]
VisualEditor is now much faster. For many users it is now at least as fast as the wikitext editor. [760] [761] [762]
When you add a list of references in VisualEditor, you now see it right away. You can still change its group by editing it. [763]

Meetings

You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 25 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Talk pages using "LiquidThreads" on mediawiki.org will soon use the new system. [764]

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

15:09, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-14[edit]

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 hide site banners even if you don't have an account. [765]
You can now add citations more easily with VisualEditor on the French and Italian Wikipedia. The tool adds the information when you add some types of links. In the future you will be able to add this tool to your wiki. [766] [767] [768]
All sites should now be faster if you have a recent browser. [769]
You could see a serious bug when editing some templates with VisualEditor. It was fixed quickly. [770]
VisualEditor could break when you edited an image. The issue was fixed quickly. [771]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 31. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 1 (calendar).
VisualEditor is now the main editing tool on 53 more Wikipedias. [772]
You can now edit the mobile site of all wikis without an account. [773]
You can test a new tool on the beta mobile site on the English Wikipedia. With the new tool, you can create lists of articles. [774]
You can now see that VisualEditor is opening even if you're not looking at the top of the page. [775]
VisualEditor doesn't leave empty titles with just nowiki tags any more. [776] [777] [778] [779]

Meetings

You can join a meeting with the Wikidata team. The meeting will be on IRC on March 31 at 16:00 (UTC). [780]
You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
You can join the next weekly meeting with the Editing team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on April 1 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

15:18, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-15[edit]

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 join a new email list for important news about Wikimedia Labs. [781]
You can read the last monthly report. In the future you can read team reports every three months. You can see current work on the roadmap. [782] [783]
The number of articles in Special:Statistics is now updated once a month. [784]
You can use a new version of the Wikipedia app for Android. Using the app, you can now share a fact with your friends. [785]

Problems

The import tool was broken for a few days. Imports didn't add log entries. You can delete and import pages again if necessary. [786]
Labs was broken several times this week. [787] [788] [789] [790]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since April 1. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from April 7. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 8 (calendar).
You can now add the same special characters with VisualEditor as with the wikitext editor. [791]
Many bugs around copy-paste in VisualEditor are now fixed. [792] [793]
You can now use basic tools of VisualEditor in the new talk tool. You can add links, bold and italics. You can also mention people. [794]

Meetings

You can join the next weekly meeting with the Editing team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on April 8 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

You can again comment on how you want to see Wikidata edits in your watchlist on other wikis. [795]

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

15:41, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-16[edit]

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 read the latest news about VisualEditor.
You can now use the new translation tool on 22 Wikipedias. You now see the tool the first time you create a new page. [796]
The list of bad user names on your wiki no longer works. The global list replaces it. You can ask to add rules for bad user names on Meta. [797] [798]

Problems

Some wikis had issues on Wednesday. [799] [800]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since April 8. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from April 14. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 15 (calendar).
Developers will start to rename 1.5 million accounts on Wednesday. After that all accounts will be unique and will work on all wikis. [801] [802]
All users can now test link previews ("Hovercards") on several Wikipedias. [803]

Meetings

You can join the next weekly meeting with the Editing team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on April 15 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

16:40, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-17[edit]

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 was sometimes a problem when saving a page in VisualEditor. It is now fixed on all wikis. [804]
VisualEditor sometimes showed empty warnings for wikis using Flagged Revisions. This is now fixed on all wikis. [805]
You can get the new version of the Wikipedia app for iOS. With it you can share facts with your friends. [806]
If you write JavaScript, you should stop using importScript and importStylesheet. [807]

Problems

There was a problem with Labs on Monday. [808]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since April 15. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from April 21. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 22 (calendar).
Developers are renaming 1.5 million accounts. After that all accounts will be unique and will work on all wikis. [809] [810] [811]
If your wiki has the auto-fill tool for citations, you can now use it when you edit a reference. [812]
You can now give examples for template options in TemplateData. [813]

Meetings

You can join the next weekly meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on April 22 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

You will soon be able to add and remove tags on edits. [814] [815]

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

15:29, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-18[edit]

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

Recent changes

All accounts are now unique and work on all wikis. [816] [817]
You can read a report from experts who tested the security of MediaWiki. [818]
There was a problem between VisualEditor and an antivirus software. It is now fixed. [819]
You can help test VisualEditor to see if it works in your language. [820]

Problems

Some Labs tools had problems due to a software bug. [821]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since April 22. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from April 28. It will be on all Wikipedias from April 29 (calendar).
It is now clearer that you can delete several rows and columns when you edit tables in VisualEditor. [822]
You now see more information when you search for a template in VisualEditor. [823]
You can now cancel when you add citations on desktop, or edit links on mobile, in VisualEditor. [824]
You can now see the list of other formats for videos only after they're ready. [825]

Meetings

You can join the next weekly meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on April 29 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

15:10, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Support request with team editing experiment project[edit]

Dear tech ambassadors, instead of spamming the Village Pump of each Wikipedia about my tiny project proposal for researching team editing (see here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Research_team_editing), I have decided to leave to your own discretion if the matter is relevant enough to inform a wider audience already. I would appreciate if you could appraise if the Wikipedia community you are more familiar with could have interest in testing group editing "on their own grounds" and with their own guidance. In a nutshell: it consists in editing pages as a group instead of as an individual. This social experiment might involve redefining some aspects of the workflow we are all used to, with the hope of creating a more friendly and collaborative environment since editing under a group umbrella creates less social exposure than traditional "individual editing". I send you this message also as a proof that the Inspire Campaign is already gearing up. As said I would appreciate of *you* just a comment on the talk page/endorsement of my project noting your general perception about the idea. Nothing else. Your contribution helps to shape the future! (which I hope it will be very bright, with colors, and Wikipedia everywhere) Regards from User:Micru on meta.

Tech News: 2015-19[edit]

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 chat with other users in Phabricator. [826]
There was a rare problem with VisualEditor. The text of another wiki could be added to your edit. The issue is now fixed. [827] [828]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since April 29. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from May 5. It will be on all Wikipedias from May 6 (calendar).
It is now easier to add a link in VisualEditor. You can see an image and a description about the page. [829]

Meetings

You can join a meeting with the Language team. The meeting will be on May 5 at 14:30 (UTC). [830]
You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on May 6 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join an event in France on May 22−25. You need to sign up before May 8. [831]

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

15:06, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-20[edit]

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 make charts and maps on your wiki with the new "graph" tool. If you have an old browser, you will see images instead. It uses a tool called Vega; you can learn how to use it and write help pages for your wiki. You can use the Vega edit tool to make charts and copy the code to your wiki. Charts and maps use complex code and you should put them into templates. In the future, you will be able to create charts with VisualEditor. [832] [833] [834]
You can apply for technical jobs to develop tools for the community. [835]
The logos of all wikis are now in a new place. It will make pages load faster. You can still ask to change the logo. You can also use local CSS for brief changes. [836] [837]

Problems

There was a problem that caused slow editing. [838]
Pages were sometimes removed from your watchlist in VisualEditor. This problem is now fixed. [839]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since May 6. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from May 12. It will be on all Wikipedias from May 13 (calendar).
You can now use data from Wikidata on more pages. The page doesn't need to be linked to the Wikidata item. It works on a few wikis and more wikis will be added soon. [840] [841]
You should get fewer errors when you add files to Commons. [842]
When you use an external link to link to a wiki page, VisualEditor now converts it to a wiki link. [843]
When you add a link in VisualEditor, you see pages that match what you type. It is now easier to see where they match. [844]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on May 13 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

15:34, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-21[edit]

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 watch a video about the new graph tool.

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since May 13. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from May 19. It will be on all Wikipedias from May 20 (calendar).
References are now always in the right order. Also, the reference list now only shows references used on the page. [845]
You can no longer create an account with a colon ':' in it. If you already have one, it still works. [846]
The toolbar in VisualEditor now looks different. It is easier to see the icons. [847]
You won't be able to use e-mail lists for a few hours on Tuesday. [848] [849]
UploadWizard now shows better matches when you add a category to your file. [850]
A test about VisualEditor will start on the English Wikipedia on Thursday. [851]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on May 21 at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join a technical meeting in France this week.

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

15:18, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-22[edit]

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

VisualEditor was broken for 30 minutes on Tuesday. The problem was due to a tool it uses. [852]
Some Labs tools had issues last week. [853] [854]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since May 20. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from May 26. It will be on all Wikipedias from May 27 (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on May 28 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

You can add your ideas of new tools to help active users like you. [855]

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

16:12, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-23[edit]

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

Many wikis were slow for a few hours on Wednesday due to a code error. Sometimes the pages did not load at all and showed an error. [856]
Some tools in Labs were broken on Wednesday and Thursday. [857]
Edit tags added by the software were broken on all wikis from May 23 to May 28. [858] [859]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since May 27. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from June 2. It will be on all Wikipedias from June 3 (calendar).
You won't be able to use e-mail lists for a few hours on Tuesday. [860]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 3 at 18:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

15:30, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-24[edit]

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 June 9. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from June 10. It will be on all Wikipedias from June 11 (calendar). [861] [862]
If you use the Monobook skin, the buttons and other controls now look more the same in VisualEditor and other tools. [863]
When you edit links and other items in VisualEditor, you now need to apply your change before closing the tool. [864]
The title of dialogs is now easier to see when it is near long buttons. [865]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 9 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join a meeting with the Language team. The meeting will be on June 10 at 14:30 (UTC). [866]

Future changes

If you have a bot, you may need to fix it. The default continuation mode of the API for action=query will change at the end of June. [867]

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

15:21, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-25[edit]

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 have created more than 5000 articles with the new translation tool. [868]
Editing a page is now faster. This is because some statistics about edit filters were removed. [869]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 17 June. It will be on all Wikipedias from 18 June (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 16 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join a meeting with the Wikidata team. It will be on June 19 at 16:00 (UTC). [870]

Future changes

Developers are working on a new tool to get and send newsletters. If you read or write a newsletter, share your ideas about it. [871]
If you use Pywikibot, soon you won't be able to use compat anymore. [872] [873] [874]

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

15:04, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-26[edit]

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

Some wikis can now be used only with HTTPS. This includes the English, Russian and Chinese Wikipedias, among others. Soon all wikis will use only HTTPS for all users. [875] [876]
You can't use HTTPS wikis with Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP. You need to use another browser. [877]

Problems

On June 15, search was broken on all wikis for several hours. [878] [879] [880]
On June 16, images were broken for several hours on wikis that use InstantCommons. [881] [882] [883]
Many Labs tools were broken for several days. Almost all of them are back now. They may be missing some data for the last 10 days. [884] [885] [886]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from June 23. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from June 24. It will be on all Wikipedias from June 25 (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 23 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.

15:23, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-27[edit]

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

Long lines in code blocks now look better. [887]
You can now see graphs in VisualEditor. [888]
When you read a page on the mobile site, you can now see a link to go to its talk page. [889]
The code coloring tool has changed. You can now use many more languages. It now also works on mobile. [890] [891] [892]
You can look at a new site to learn how to reuse data from Wikimedia sites. [893]

Problems

JavaScript was broken on some wikis due to a code error. VisualEditor and other tools that use JavaScript were broken. [894]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from June 30. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 1. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 2 (calendar).
You can now use a tool in VisualEditor to add and edit code in color. [895]
When you edit a sentence in the Translate tool, it can show you older translations. They help you save time if they look alike. The older translations should now work better. If you see problems, you should report them. [896]
If you are an admin or have other special rights, you now need a strong password. [897]
Bot and JavaScript coders: The old continuation mode of the API for action=query doesn't work any more. [898]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 30 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future

When you create a new account, it will also create one on Meta-Wiki and mediawiki.org. [899]

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

15:56, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-28[edit]

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

Recent changes

On the mobile site, you now see more information when you search for a page. It now shows the description from Wikidata. [900]

Problems

The code of long pages is not colored any more. You may see this problem on the pages of long gadgets. [901]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 7. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 8. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 9 (calendar).
The "Page information" tool shows how many users watch the page. You can now see how many are active. [902] [903]
You can now translate articles into English with the new translation tool. [904]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on July 7 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.

15:13, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-29[edit]

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

Recent changes

You can now see a list of pages with errors in code coloring. [905]

Problems

There was a problem with editing on Thursday. Some tools like bots and VisualEditor were broken on all wikis for 10 minutes. [906]
There was a problem with images on Thursday. They were broken on all wikis for 15 minutes. [907]

Changes this week

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

Meetings

You can join a technical meeting at Wikimania in Mexico City this week. [908]

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

15:06, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-30[edit]

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 July 21. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 22. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 23 (calendar).
You now see more warnings in the image viewer. They tell you to be careful when using the image, for example if it shows a person. [909]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on July 21 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Soon you won't be able to use MathJax to display math. [910]

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

03:05, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-31[edit]

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 redirects to link to JavaScript pages. [911]
You cannot use the compact user bar any more. [912]
You can change your options to see bigger images. [913]
You can watch short videos about how to use VisualEditor. [914]
You can now edit pages linked in "what links here" more easily. [915]

Problems

There was a problem with some Lua modules on July 22 and 23. Some pages using them did not list them in "what links here". You can fix those pages with a null edit: edit and save the page without making any change.
There was a problem with the abuse filter page on big wikis on July 23. It was due to a code error. [916]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 28. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 29. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 30 (calendar).
JavaScript authors: You cannot use wgNoticeUserData to get edit counts anymore. [917]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on July 28 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.

15:05, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-32[edit]

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 ContentTranslation extension has been updated:
- You can now type in list paragraphs on wikis with right-to-left scripts. [918]
- Some user interface updates changed how details in the ContentTranslation extension look. [919] [920] [921] [922]
The error page you see when the sites are not working is now simpler and easier to read. It also shows the Wikimedia logo. [923]
MediaWiki now supports redirects for CSS pages. [924]
Bots can't guess captchas unlimited times anymore. [925]

Problems

There was a problem with thumbnails on wikis with local images on July 24 and 25. It was due to a code error. [926]
We can't search by file type on Wikimedia wikis now. [927]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from August 5. It will be on all Wikipedias from August 6 (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on August 4 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.

15:51, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-33[edit]

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

MediaWiki can now hide the signature button when you edit a content page. [928]
The "Your preferences have been saved" message has changed. You can now see more easily what was saved when you change preferences several times. [929]
You can now play Ogg video files in some browsers that don't support this format. This solution uses JavaScript and works on desktop browsers only for now. It will work on mobile later. [930]
You can now use the same tools to edit style in VisualEditor on mobile as in desktop browsers. [931]
It is now easier to see if there is a JavaScript error in a user or site script. [932]
JavaScript authors:
- You can no longer use the Sajax library. You can see a list of pages to fix. [933] [934]
- You can no longer use document.write on Wikimedia wikis. You can see a list of pages to fix. [935] [936]
The content translation tool now works better. It is easier to use math, and useless tags are no longer added. [937]

Problems

More edits have been rejected due to loss of session data lately. This is now fixed. [938]
Importing a Lua module sometimes didn't work. This is now fixed. [939]
Text was sometimes lost in the content translation tool. One part of the problem is now fixed. [940]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from August 12. It will be on all Wikipedias from August 13 (calendar).
UploadWizard is getting a new look. The look of buttons and checkboxes has already changed. This week, UploadWizard gets a new date picker. The other text fields will change soon. [941]
You can now test VisualEditor on mobile devices of all sizes. [942]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on August 11 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Some things in the watchlist will get a new look. [943]

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

14:57, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-34[edit]

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

Many Wikipedias can now use information from any Wikidata item in any Wikipedia article. Before they could only use the Wikidata item that matched the subject of the article. [944] [945] [946]
Some auto-saving problems and other issues in the Content Translation tool are now fixed. Please report to the Content Translation feedback page if you still have problems. [947]

Problems

Older gadgets that are not using ResourceLoader are not loading anymore. They need to be updated. [948] [949]
On August 12 the machine translation servers and the Content Translation tool didn't work. This was fixed on the same day. [950]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from August 19. It will be on all Wikipedias from August 20 (calendar).
You can soon watch when something is added to or removed from a category. [951]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on August 18 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.

16:17, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-35[edit]

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

Disambiguation pages are now excluded from the random page function. [952]

Problems

There was a problem with CAPTCHAs in VisualEditor. This has now been fixed. [953]

Changes this week

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

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on August 25 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.

13:02, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-36[edit]

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

VisualEditor will now automatically create a link when you type in or paste an ISBN, PMID, or RFC. [954][955]
The link editor in VisualEditor is now a bit wider. It's now the same width as the automatic citation tool. [956]
VisualEditor gadget authors can no longer use the backwards-compatibility module ext.visualEditor.viewPageTarget.init. Use ext.visualEditor.desktopArticleTarget.init instead. [957]
Gadget writers can now use mediawiki.ForeignApi to communicate between different Wikimedia wikis. [958]

Changes this week

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

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on September 1 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The Wikidata API will be updated with breaking changes. This will probably happen on September 9. [959]

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

21:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-37[edit]

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 mention up to 50 users in a post and they will get a notification. Previously you could notify up to 20 users. [960]
A new version of the Wikidata Toolkit has been released. It now has Wikibase API support. [961]
You can now use Wikidata to find all good or featured articles in a Wikipedia version. [962]

Problems

There was a problem with Tool Labs due to kernel issues. This has been fixed. [963]
The Content Translation tool published some pages with the same reference repeated several times. This has been fixed. [964][965]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from September 8. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from September 9. It will be on all Wikipedias from September 10 (calendar).
The maximum character length when you search for something on the Wikimedia wikis is now 300 characters. [966]
The notifications list has been split into two lists. As a first step, notifications about messages on your user talk page will be placed in the second list. Feedback is requested at the Echo talk page. [967][968]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on September 8 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the Wikitech ambassadors mailing list. The list is for Wikimedians interested in spreading information about Wikimedia technology news. See how to join.

Future changes

The Wikimedia mailing lists will be moved to a new server and the software will be upgraded. This will happen on September 9 at 14:00 (UTC). The mailing lists will not be working during the move. It can take up to four hours. [969]
Wikidata will soon be able to store measurements, such as a mountain's height or the distance between two places. [970][971]

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

17:29, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-38[edit]

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 the Wikidata query service. [972]
Belarusian-Taraškievica Wikipedia was moved from be-x-old.wikipedia.org to be-tarask.wikipedia.org. This caused some issues, but most of them were resolved. [973]
Language preferences might not be changed immediately when you adjust them. Language selection might work slower. Please report any problems. [974][975]

Problems

There was a problem when editing International Standard Book Numbers in Visual Editor. This has now been fixed. [976]
The Wikimedia mailing lists should have been upgraded on September 9. It didn't work as planned and will now happen later. [977]

Changes this week

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

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on September 15 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

ContentTranslation will show more data on the Special:ContentTranslationStats page. For example, it will show translation trends and information about deleted translations. [978]
The first version of the translation suggestions feature will be deployed soon. [979]

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

16:17, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-39[edit]

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 now an experimental Wikimedia maps service. You can give feedback here. [980][981]
Last week a few issues with UploadWizard were fixed. Before this was done, UploadWizard would stop you from uploading your files if something went wrong. [982][983][984][985]
More Wikipedias can now use information from any Wikidata item in any Wikipedia article. Previously they could only use the Wikidata item that matched the subject of the article. [986]
The VisualEditor welcome dialogue has been changed. The intention is to make it more helpful for new users. [987]

Problems

Wikimedia Labs' HTTPS certificate expired for most of Tuesday 15 September. To reach Wikimedia Labs and Tool Labs securely you had to ignore your browser's security error message. There was no risk to data security during this time. [988]
Last week the notification system was split into two parts. This was temporarily undone because of a bug and performance concerns. It will return to two parts this week. [989][990]
UploadWizard couldn't upload files larger than 5 MB when using chunked uploads. This has now been fixed. [991]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from September 22. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from September 23. It will be on all Wikipedias from September 24 (calendar).
The page move tool has been switched over to the new standard look for forms. [992]
You can now choose whether to extend a link or not when editing one in VisualEditor. This means it is easier to choose how much of what you type before and after the link is part of it. [993]
Wikibooks can now use data from Wikidata. [994]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on 22 September at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join a meeting with the Wikidata team. It will be on September 23 at 17:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can register to the Wikimedia Developer Summit 2016 in San Francisco 4–6 January 2016. Gadget, template, bot, and tool developers are welcome as well. Call for participation and travel sponsorship requests are open until 2 October.

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

18:29, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-40[edit]

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 UploadWizard, the dialog to see an image preview has been removed. You already see the images in the thumbnails when you upload them. [995]
UploadWizard dialogs look a bit different now. They have been updated to the new OOUI look. [996]
You can now edit music scores in VisualEditor. You can add new sheet music scores and get live updates when you edit one. [997]
When you send an e-mail to another editor using Special:EmailUser, that user will now get a notification on the wiki as well. [998]
You can now see 500 images when you upload images from Flickr with UploadWizard. Before this change the limit was 50. [999]
The Wikimedia mailing lists have been upgraded. [1,000]
MediaWiki developers spent a day looking at proposed code changes in Gerrit. The goal was to clean up the backlog and give feedback to volunteer developers. [1,001]

Problems

Some visitors had problems reaching the Wikimedia sites for an hour on September 24. [1,002][1,003]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from September 29. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from September 30. It will be on all Wikipedias from October 1 (calendar).
There will be a new beta feature that allows editors to use Flow on their user talkpage if they want to. Each wiki can decide if they want to enable it. [1,004]
The Content Translation tool can give translation suggestions. This feature will now be available in more languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Turkish, Japanese, Italian, and Catalan. [1,005]

Meetings

You can join the strategy process of the Reading department of Wikimedia Engineering. [1,006]
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on 29 September at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The Wikimedia Foundation developers want the community to decide who can use OAuth in the future. You can discuss it on Meta.

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

15:15, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-41[edit]

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 link editor in the visual editor now shows results below the search box. This improves the usability on desktop and mobile. [1,007]
The description at Special:ChangeEmail now clearly explains that the page can also be used to remove your email. [1,008]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from October 6. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 7. It will be on all Wikipedias from October 8 (calendar).
UploadWizard will remind users to add a category. [1,009]
UploadWizard's category selectors will be easier to use. [1,010]
A new Cite error will be shown if a named reference is defined more than once in the same article. [1,011]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Wikidata requests your input on how to improve the editing of Wikidata's data in other locations, such as Wikipedias.

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

18:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-42[edit]

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 database size lists have been updated. These control special page update frequency and which wikis use global abuse filters. [1,012]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from October 13. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 14. It will be on all Wikipedias from October 15 (calendar).
You will be able to upload images to Wikimedia Commons using the visual editor. When the image is uploaded it will be added to the article you're editing. [1,013]
Pages that show citation error messages will automatically be placed in a hidden category. [1,014]

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 October 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.

16:28, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-43[edit]

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

Tech News is trying to make reading the newsletter easier. The icon means the item is in the newsletter every week, but with new dates. The icon means the item is mainly relevant for readers with technical knowledge. You can leave feedback on this change.
Timestamps in the protection log will now be in the user's timezone. Previously they would show Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). [1,015]

Problems

A problem with MediaWiki made some pages show no content on October 14. This has now been fixed. [1,016]
Some templates were misplaced in the Flow description bar. This could make it impossible to click on links. This will be fixed this week. [1,017]
The deployment of the new MediaWiki version was stopped on October 14. No new code was deployed for the rest of week. This meant planned changes did not happen. [1,018]

Changes this week

Changes that were planned to happen last week will happen this week. [1,019]
Wikispecies, Meta and MediaWiki.org will be able to use Wikidata for sitelinks. [1,020][1,021][1,022][1,023]

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 October 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.

16:02, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-44[edit]

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 October 27. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 28. It will be on all Wikipedias from October 29 (calendar).
The first time you use the visual editor, pop-ups will explain why and when you should use the citation and link tools. [1,024]
You will be able to upload images to Wikimedia Commons from inside the wikitext editor by clicking "Upload" in the "Insert file" dialog. You will also be able to drag and drop them into an article when using the visual editor. [1,025][1,026]
When you edit a code block in visual editor, you will have the syntax highlighted. [1,027][1,028]
Index and Page namespaces on Wikisource will be defined as content namespaces in $wgContentNamespaces. [1,029]

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

18:04, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-45[edit]

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

Recent changes

You can now see how many editors are using a gadget on a wiki on Special:GadgetUsage. [1,030]
If you are using the mobile version of Wikipedia, you can now see Wikidata descriptions under article titles in search results. [1,031]
Editing conflicts are now detected when you edit on a mobile device. Before, this did not work properly on mobile. [1,032]

Problems

On October 26 the Wikimedia sites went down for ten minutes. [1,033]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 4. It will be on all Wikipedias from November 5 (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 3 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join. You can also read the latest VisualEditor newsletter.

Future changes

A help link will be added to Special:Search. Administrators might have to update the MediaWiki:Search-summary message to avoid two help links. [1,034]
Empty list items could be allowed in the future. If so, this could affect some templates. [1,035]

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

16:43, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-46[edit]

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

Superprotect has been removed. [1,036]
You can now switch between the wikitext editor and the visual editor without saving. You will not lose the changes you have made. [1,037]
JSON dumps of the production search indexes are now available. They can be imported to Elasticsearch. [1,038]

Problems

Some translations for the Thanks and Echo extensions were missing. Translators have been asked to help and this should be solved soon. [1,039]

Changes this week

Thumbnails of 16-bit TIFF files will be displayed properly. Before, this didn't work. [1,040]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 10. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 11. It will be on all Wikipedias from November 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 10 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

A new tool to navigate through diff pages is being developed. You can test it out and give feedback. [1,041]
The options on Special:Watchlist will look slightly different. [1,042]

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

17:18, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-47[edit]

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

You can use TemplateData to indicate how you want a template to be displayed in wikitext. Tools like VisualEditor that edit templates will soon use this information. [1,043]
Echo notification icons in MonoBook will look more like other icons in the theme. [1,044]
The Community Tech team is doing a community wishlist survey to understand what they should be working on. They are now accepting proposals in all languages. You can create your proposal in the small box above the blue button and click it when you're done.
Wikis can make the welcome notification link to a specific page. [1,045]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 17. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 18. It will be on all Wikipedias from November 19 (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 17 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Internet Explorer 8 will no longer have JavaScript support. You will still be able to browse and edit Wikipedia, but will not be able to use some features. This can be solved by upgrading to a newer version or switching to a different browser. The change will happen in January 2016. [1,046][1,047]

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

19:39, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open![edit]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:30, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2015-48[edit]

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 Pageview API has been announced. Feedback is requested to help decide which data to add to it next.

Changes this week

There are no MediaWiki deployments this week (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Language Engineering team. The topic is: Content Translation updates and Questions & Answers. The meeting will be on 25 November at 13:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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 24 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is "RfC: Raise MediaWiki's PHP version requirement and update coding standards". The meeting will be on 25 November at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

From 1 December, the MediaWiki API will no longer support the dbg, txt, and yaml output formats. [1,048]

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

20:26, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-49[edit]

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

The symbol for advanced news items has been changed. This is because the symbols were too similar. If a news item is for more technical readers it now looks like this: . You can give feedback on this change.

Problems

On September 29 users' skin preferences were removed by mistake on small and medium-sized wikis. This changed preferences back to Vector. Restoring all data would cause even more problems. Affected users who want to have their preference changed back globally can ask for it as a comment on Phabricator task T119206 until December 21 2015. [1,049]
Some scheduled tasks were not working properly from September to recently. This meant some pages in the special pages namespace were not updated. It has now been fixed. [1,050]

Changes this week

Wikinews, Wikispecies, MediaWiki.org and Meta will be able to use information from Wikidata. [1,051][1,052]
There are no MediaWiki deployments this week (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 1 December at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is using the <figure> tag for media. The meeting will be on 2 December at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Category watchlists are now available on test wikis and MediaWiki.org. The plan is to enable it on most wikis in January. [1,053]
Cross-wiki notifications are being developed. When this is done you will not have to go to the wiki where something happened to be notified. [1,054]

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

16:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-50[edit]

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

Revision scoring will help to automatically identify bad-faith and good-faith edits. The point is to make it easier to block vandals and welcome newcomers. It currently supports Wikidata and 14 Wikipedias. [1,055]

Problems

Meta was not given access to information from Wikidata last week. This will happen later. [1,056]

Changes this week

You will be able to use wikilinks in Flow topic titles. [1,057]
IP users will have a toolbar with links to the user talk page and user contributions. Some Wikipedias already have this feature. [1,058]
You will be able to edit the graph size in the visual editor. You can either specify the size in the graph dialog or drag it to be the size you want it to be. [1,059]
It will be easier to write math in the visual editor if you don't know LaTeX. You can use symbol buttons instead. [1,060]
You will be able to use syntax highlighting when you write math with LaTeX in the visual editor. [1,061]
UploadWizard will look a bit different. [1,062]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 December. It will be on all Wikipedias from 10 December. (calendar).
New MediaWiki versions will now be on Catalan and Hebrew Wikipedia on Wednesdays. Other Wikipedias get the new MediaWiki version on Thursdays. [1,063]

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 December at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topics this week are "Graph/Graphoid/Kartographer – data storage architecture" and "Parametric JSON builder". The meeting will be on 9 December at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

A new beta feature will show users links to related articles at the bottom of an article. It will not be enabled by default. [1,064]

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

17:52, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-51[edit]

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

Meta will be able to use information from Wikidata. [1,065]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 December. It will be on all Wikipedias from 17 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 15 December at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is talking about the agenda for the Wikimedia Developer Summit. The meeting will be on 16 December at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join. [1,066]

Future changes

A new gadget manager will come next year. The new gadget system is called Gadgets 2.0. [1,067]

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

17:42, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-52[edit]

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 11 January 2016.
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 2015? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us! You can write in your language. Thank you!

Recent changes

CompletionSuggester is a new suggestions algorithm for Search. It is available as a Beta feature since 17 December. (more information)
The Multimedia team is running an A/B test for the cross-wiki upload tool. They are testing four different interfaces. The test is running from 16-23 December. (more information)

Changes this week

There is no deployment of MediaWiki scheduled until 12 January 2016 (calendar).

Meetings

Should administrators and other users with advanced tools need stronger passwords? You can discuss about it in a Request for Comments.
No meeting with the VisualEditor team on 22 and 29 December, and 5 January.

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

18:29, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-02[edit]

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 no longer uses visitor statistics from comScore. [1,068]
You can make interactive graphs with the Graph extension. There is now a tutorial for how to do this. [1,069]

Problems

Some pages do not turn in up in categories where they should be. This is because link tables are sometimes not populated. [1,070]

Changes this week

The Nuke extension will work with Flow. This will make it easier to handle spam in Flow. [1,071]
New file uploads will now be patrollable. [1,072]
Internet Explorer 8 will no longer have JavaScript support. You will still be able to browse and edit Wikipedia if you use Internet Explorer 8, but will not be able to use some features. This can be solved by upgrading to a newer version or switching to a different browser. [1,073][1,074]

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 January at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

URLs in the recent changes IRC feed will no longer be rewritten to unencrypted HTTP. This could be a breaking change for bots dependent on the IRC feed. [1,075]
The edit tabs for the wikitext editor and the visual editor will be combined to one single edit tab. You will be able to choose which one you prefer. If you are not logged in, your choice will be saved as a cookie in your browser. You can test the single edit tab. [1,076][1,077]
There is a beta feature that adds links to the subject on other Wikimedia projects. This works much like the links to for example Wikipedia articles in other languages. It will go out of beta testing and be enabled for everyone in January. Wikis that don't want this can decide to have it disabled. [1,078][1,079]
The difference between "alerts" and "messages" notifications is unclear to some. The developers want feedback at the Phabricator task or on MediaWiki.org so they can make this better. You can give feedback in your language if you can't write in English.

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

16:59, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-03[edit]

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 will be able to find or mark bugs and suggestions in Phabricator that are specific for your language or wiki. [1,080]
Notifications have been upgraded with more detailed and easier-to-access information. See the documentation. Cross-wiki notifications will be available soon on the two test wikis. [1,081]

Changes this week

The visual editor uses the TemplateData extension to make editing templates easier. You will now get a warning when you edit a TemplateData form and leave it without saving. [1,082]
MediaWiki will get a new authentication and authorization system called AuthManager. This is planned to happen in a month or two. Some bots will need to change how they log in. Two new and more stable authentication methods will be available now: Owner-only OAuth credentials and bot passwords. You can read more about the change. [1,083]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 January. It will be on all Wikipedias from 21 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 19 January at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is governance model. The meeting will be on 20 January at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

17:55, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-04[edit]

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 follow when pages are added or removed from a category on German Wikipedia. The plan is to add it to Wikimedia Commons and other Wikipedias this week. [1,084][1,085]
Administrators can hide individual entries of a page with RevisionDelete. There is now a button to choose "all", "none" or "inverse" in Special:Log. The article history will get the same buttons soon. Wikis that have done this locally with JavaScript will be able to remove that code. [1,086]

Changes this week

You will be able to see the references when you preview a section you are editing. This will happen even if there is no <references /> tag in that section. [1,087]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 January. It will be on all wikis from 28 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 26 January at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

There is now an extension called ArticlePlaceholder. It can automatically generate content on Wikipedia with data from Wikidata if there is no Wikipedia article. It will have a tag to remind the reader it is not an article and ask the reader to create one. The developer is now looking for smaller Wikipedias that want to try the extension. [1,088]
The OTRS system will be upgraded. The plan is to do this on 3 February at 08:00 (UTC). It will probably take 6 to 8 hours. OTRS will be down during the upgrade. [1,089]
Users will soon be automatically congratulated when they reach some edit count milestones. [1,090]

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

16:39, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-05[edit]

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

Sites with a wikimedia.org address were by mistake redirected to the Wikimedia Foundation wiki on 26 January. This included Meta and Wikimedia Commons. The mistake was fixed after an hour. [1,091]
Some users had problems logging in and out around 22 January. Bots also had problems and edit previews did not work properly. This was because of problems related to the new component SessionManager. It was undone on 23 January. [1,092][1,093]
Because of new problems with SessionManager the latest version of MediaWiki was removed from the Wikimedia wikis again on 31 January. The new version this week will be without SessionManager. [1,094]

Changes this week

The page history will get a help link. This will go to Help:Page history on Meta. Wikis can exchange it for a link to their local pages. [1,095]
Notifications will only show part of a page name if it is very long. You will also have another way to mark notifications as read. [1,096][1,097]
The Universal Language Selector input methods are now available with the visual editor. This means many who write in non-Latin scripts can now use the visual editor. [1,098]
The visual editor will now give you more tools to edit tables. You can move rows and columns in a table and copy parts of tables to make new ones. You can also copy and paste more than one cell at the same time. [1,099][1,100][1,101]
The visual editor has a new warning message when you leave a page you are editing without saving. Non-English wikis might need to translate it. [1,102][1,103]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 February. It will be on all wikis from 4 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 2 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is expiring watch list entries. The meeting will be on 3 February at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The rest.wikimedia.org domain will be shut down. This is planned to happen in March. You should use /api/rest_v1/ at each individual project domain instead. [1,104]

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

21:02, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-06[edit]

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

Syntax highlighting support is now available for 53 more computer languages. [1,105]
When you get a notification that an edit has been reverted, the notification now quotes part of the edit summary. [1,106]
RESTBase is now using scrub_wikitext instead of scrubWikitext. [1,107]

Changes this week

Wikidata will have a new data type called "math". It will be used for formulas. [1,108][1,109]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 February. It will be on all wikis from 11 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 9 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is per-language URLs for pages of multilingual wikis. The meeting will be on 10 February at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Other sites will be able to tell when visitors come from links on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites. They used to be able to do this until we started using forced HTTPS in June 2015. This is planned to happen on 15 February. [1,110][1,111]
Wikidata will have a new data type called "external-id". It will be used for references to external resources. It will be enabled on February 16. Some properties will be changed to the new data type. [1,112][1,113][1,114]

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

18:58, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-07[edit]

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 edit pages on the mobile site version without JavaScript. [1,115]
You can now use the Math extension to write chemistry formulas. [1,116]

Problems

A few editors might have been logged in as someone else because of a bug. For security reasons everyone was logged out on 9 February. If you have seen this bug, you can report it. [1,117][1,118]

Changes this week

There is a beta feature that adds links to the subject on other Wikimedia projects. The plan was to have it leave beta testing and be enabled for everyone in January. It will happen on 16 February instead. Wikis that don't want this can decide to have it disabled. [1,119][1,120]
Cross-wiki notifications will be available as a beta feature on Wikidata, MediaWiki, Commons, and all Hebrew and French wikis on 19 February. [1,121]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 February. It will be on all wikis from 18 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 16 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The search function on Wikimedia wikis will get a completion suggester that tries to find the right pages as the user is typing. It will also recognize some typos. This will probably happen in March. It is currently in beta. [1,122]

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16:16, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-08[edit]

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

Phabricator has been upgraded. [1,123][1,124]

Problems

There was no new MediaWiki version last week. Changes that were planned to happen last week will happen this week instead. This is because of a bug that made saving pages take longer time. [1,125][1,126]

Changes this week

After February 23, you can use Wikidata for inter-language links on Wikiversity. [1,127]

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 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is Assign RFCs to ArchCom shepherds. The meeting will be on 24 February at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

18:22, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-09[edit]

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

Thanks to the Graph extension and Pageview API, we now have {{Graph:PageViews}} templates that can show pageviews for any wiki page for any of the wikis. See the examples.
The Capiunto extension is installed on test wiki. Capiunto provides flexible infobox functionality for Scribunto and generates HTML for infobox features such as headers and rows. It is designed for clean and modern infoboxes that are driven by data from Wikidata, easily usable across different language versions, and easily extensible.
The visual editor now follows the TemplateData format setting announced in November. When you edit or add a use of a template, the wikitext will be laid out in one of the two ways. [1,128][1,129]
The order of parameters and format defined in a template's TemplateData will be now respected. [1,130][1,131]

Changes this week

On wikis where the visual editor is available in single edit tab mode, red links may open the visual editor instead of the wikitext editor, depending on user preferences. [1,132]
Anonymous editor warning is now displayed as a warningbox for consistency in both the visual editor and the wikitext editor. [1,133]
Parsoid has been updated to fit some HTML 5 specifications. [1,134]

Meetings

Resigning executive director Lila Tretikov is taking questions at Knowledge Engine FAQ regarding the much talked about project. [1,135]
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 1 March at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

20:12, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-10[edit]

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

Files on Wikimedia Commons can now be 2 GB big. The old limit was 1 GB. [1,136]
Welcome notifications now have a different symbol. English Wikipedia already had this one. [1,137]
The Wikimedia memory cache servers in the Eqiad cluster have now been upgraded to Debian 8 (Jessie). Some users might have had to log in again because of this. [1,138]
It is now easier to categorize images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons in the Commons Android app. [1,139]
Bare attributes in tags now parse according to the HTML5 specifications. <pages from= to= section=1> will parse as <pages from="to=" section="1"> instead of <pages from="" to="" section="1"> as it used to. Please use <pages from="" to="" section=1> or <pages section=1> instead. This is mostly likely to affect pages on Wikisource projects. [1,140]

Problems

Phabricator has been a bit unstable lately. This should be fixed now. [1,141]
The PageView API shows wrong data between 23 February and 29 February for pages with special characters in their title. [1,142]
The parsing change mentioned above caused a large number of pages to break, especially on Wikisource. [1,143]
You may see falsely formatted edit links on both mobile and desktop devices. Mobile devices can also show incorrect formatted table of contents. This should be fixed soon. [1,144]
Templates using TemplateData that were edited with the visual editor might have some problems in wikitext mode. This can be fixed by editing and saving the page by using the visual editor without making any changes. [1,145]

Changes this week

Cross-wiki notifications will be enabled as a beta feature on all wikis on 10 March. You will be able to get notifications when something happens on another Wikimedia wiki. [1,146]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 March. It will be on all wikis from 10 March (calendar).
Wikivoyages will get the Kartographer extension. Kartographer will allow <mapframe> and <maplink> tags in an article to insert an interactive map and overlay it with different markers. You can add ideas and suggestions to the Maps talk page. If you find any bugs, you can report them in Phabricator. [1,147]

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 March at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The buttons in interfaces will be simplified. Instead of white, red, green and blue buttons, in future there will only be white, red and blue ones. [1,148]
The Wikimedia technical operations team plans to do some server work on 22 March. This could cause some problems, for example make it possible to read but not edit the Wikimedia wikis for a short period of time. The date for this might change. [1,149]

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

20:24, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-11[edit]

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 interface no longer suggests HiDPI thumbnails. This is to take up less bandwidth on slow or expensive connections. [1,150]
The search engine on wikipedia.org has been updated. [1,151]

Changes this week

Wikimedia has a new backup data center in Dallas. Because of planned work on this, you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for a short period of time on both 22 March and 24 March. This could be postponed to April 18. You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. Because of a test, there will also be a couple of minutes where you can't edit the wikis on 15 March starting 07:00 UTC. You can read more about the server work. There will be more notifications and updates about this.
Administrators and other users with advanced permissions will need to have an 8-byte long passwords. This change takes place on 15 March. Users with too short passwords will be asked to change password the next time they log in. This was decided in a discussion on Meta and is because they can use tools that can hurt the wikis. [1,152]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 March. It will be on all wikis from 17 March (calendar).
The buttons in interfaces will be simplified. Instead of white, red, green and blue buttons, in future there will only be white, red and blue ones. [1,153]

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 March at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topics this week are backlog and thumb API. The meeting will be on 16 March 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.

18:37, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-12[edit]

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 has a new backup data center in Dallas. The Wikimedia Technology department planned to test it this week. This will take place the week of April 18 instead. You can read more about the server work. There will be more notifications and updates about this.
In Firefox, the visual editor would sometimes just jump down to the bottom of the page when you double-clicked on a table cell. This has now been fixed. [1,154]

Changes this week

It will now be easier to list IP addresses that don't have to solve CAPTCHAs. [1,155]
You will now be able to mark Echo notifications as unread. [1,156]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 March. It will be on all wikis from 23 March (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 22 March at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

URLs in the recent changes IRC feed will no longer be rewritten to unencrypted HTTP. This could be a breaking change for bots dependent on the IRC feed. This will happen on May 2. [1,157]

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

16:04, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-13[edit]

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

MediaWiki now supports the semantic web standards of Microdata and RDFa 1.0. On Wikimedia projects, a configuration change must be requested in order to enable RDFa 1.0. [1,158] [1,159]

Problems

Adding references with Citoid was broken for approximately 6 hours on 24 March. This was fixed. [1,160]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 March. It will be on all wikis from 31 March (calendar).
You will be able to remove the header and footer style from User language (babel) boxes. This will make it easier to use them with other userboxes. [1,161]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with part of the Architecture committee, which will discuss a few topics. The meeting will be on 30 March at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
The Architecture committee has sent a summary of new and ongoing RFC discussions.

Future changes

Commons will soon have improved access to Wikidata's data. It will then be possible to access data about any concept on any page on Commons. Assistance with testing this on the beta cluster is appreciated. [1,162]
Wikibits.js will not be loaded by default anymore starting April 2016. Gadget and script authors should have already updated their code since the previous announcements, but there is another migration path available if needed. See wikitech-l for details.

Corrections

Last week Tech News said the new MediaWiki version would come to wikis from 21 March to 23 March. The right dates were 22 March to 24 March.

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

19:43, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-14[edit]

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 filter Special:Log in more detail. [1,163]
Wikimedia wikis have a new way of counting visitors. [1,164]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from April 5. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from April 6. It will be on all wikis from April 7 (calendar).

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

22:13, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-15[edit]

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 visual editor can generate wikicode with image options in your language. Examples of image options are "thumb" or "left". You can ask to change to options in your language in Phabricator. [1,165][1,166]
Wiktionaries and Wikisources can now use the visual editor. It is an opt-in beta feature. It still needs development to work better with these projects. [1,167][1,168]
ORES is using new models. Tools that use ORES' predictions can behave strangely. ORES also has a new API. [1,169]
The visual editor now supports classical Greek characters. [1,170]

Problems

There was a bug when you used keyboard arrows in templates in the visual editor. This has now been fixed. [1,171]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 April. It will be on all wikis from 14 April (calendar).
The wikipedia.org portal will get many small bug fixes and improvements. Most will be for the search box and suggested results that were added in March. [1,172]

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 April at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topics this week are improving transclusion of templates for Parsoid and balanced templates. The meeting will be on 13 April at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Wikimedia has a new backup data center in Dallas. Because of planned work on this, you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for a short period of time on both 19 April and 21 April. This will start at 14:00 UTC and last for 15 to 30 minutes. [1,173]

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

20:44, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-16[edit]

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 filter Special:Log in more detail. You can filter different imports and new users. [1,174][1,175]
You can use Telnet to read Wikimedia wikis. [1,176]
MediaWiki wikis can handle bigger file uploads. The new limit is 4 GB. [1,177]

Changes this week

Wikimedia has a new backup data center in Dallas. Because of planned work on this, you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for a short period of time on both 19 April and 21 April. This will start at 14:00 UTC and last for 15 to 30 minutes. [1,178]
There is no new Mediawiki version this week. This is because of the data center test.

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 19 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is shadow namespaces. The meeting will be on 20 April at 21:30 (UTC). See how to join.

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

20:40, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-17[edit]

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. [1,179]
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. [1,180]

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. [1,181]
It will be easier to choose if you want to watch files you have uploaded with the upload wizard. [1,182]
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. [1,183]

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

21:02, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-18[edit]

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 visual editor now works when you use Internet Explorer 9. [1,184]

Problems

There was a security problem with the MobileFrontend extension. It showed information that had been oversighted. This has now been fixed. [1,185]

Changes this week

You can now see which notifications are available on a wiki on Special:DisplayNotificationsConfiguration. [1,186]
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. [1,187]

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

20:09, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Translation from English to Arabic[edit]

Hello User talk:Aboluay. I would like to request you if it is possible to create a page in arabic based on an english article. Here is the url:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabio_Mancini.

It is a very short article so will you be willing to do it? Irene000 (talk) 11:19, 9 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2016-19[edit]

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. [1,188]
You can use Wikipedia GapFinder to find missing articles between languages. [1,189]
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. [1,190][1,191]
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). [1,192]
Uploading files bigger than 100 megabytes on Wikimedia Commons required to opt-in in your preferences. This is not necessary anymore. [1,193]
The UploadsLink extension is now available on Wikimedia Commons. [1,194]
Deleting a translation unit page didn't remove the corresponding content from the translation page. This is now solved. [1,195]
Translation suggestions based on Apertium are now available on Mediawiki.org. [1,196]

Problems

MediaWiki 1.27.0-wmf.23 has been rolled back from Wikimedia wikis, due to a performance issue. [1,197]

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. [1,198]

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

23:22, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-20[edit]

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

Some image thumbnails now load faster on mobile. They also take up less bandwidth. [1,199]

Problems

Last week's MediaWiki version was late on some wikis. [1,200]

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. [1,201]
Wikis can now locally decide what wikitext they want the signature button to produce. [1,202]
A one-time welcome message for users will now be shown in the wikitext editor. This will include existing users. [1,203]
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. [1,204]

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

16:01, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-21[edit]

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. [1,205]

Problems

Commons had problems with server lag. This meant that it took longer time for files to turn up in categories. [1,206]

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. [1,207]

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

18:40, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-22[edit]

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 now a standard way to get the target of a redirect page from a Lua module. [1,208]

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. [1,209][1,210]
CentralNotice didn't work in some older browsers. This has now been fixed. [1,211]

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. [1,212]
The Translate extension will get an edit summary field. [1,213]
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. [1,214][1,215]
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. [1,216]
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.

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

16:19, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-23[edit]

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

MathML/SVG is now the default <math> rendering mode on Wikimedia projects. [1,217][1,218]

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. [1,219]
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).

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

20:51, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-24[edit]

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. [1,220]
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. [1,221][1,222][1,223][1,224]

Changes this week

You can filter user contributions to hide minor edits. [1,225]
It will be easier to edit galleries with the visual editor. [1,226]
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).

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

18:41, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-25[edit]

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. [1,227]

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. [1,228][1,229]
Alerts (the red badge) will not be automatically marked as read when you open the Notifications popup. [1,230]
When you get several thanks you can see them as one notification. This is instead of one notification for each thanks. [1,231]
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.

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

19:14, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-26[edit]

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. [1,232]
The order of wikis in collapsed cross-wiki notifications was different than when the list was expanded. This is now fixed. [1,233]
A new category for tracking pages with math errors was added: Category:Pages with math errors. [1,234]

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. [1,235][1,236]

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. [1,237]

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. [1,238]
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. [1,239]
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. [1,240][1,241][1,242]
From 29 June git.wikimedia.org (running Gitblit) will redirect all requests to Phabricator. The vast majority of requests should be correctly redirected. [1,243]
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. [1,244]

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

15:42, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-27[edit]

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. [1,245]

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. [1,246]
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.

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

19:45, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-28[edit]

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. [1,247][1,248][1,249]
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. [1,250][1,251][1,252]
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. [1,253][1,254][1,255]

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. [1,256]
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.

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

15:14, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-29[edit]

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. [1,257]
Due to the rollback, the daily special patch deployment process has been changed. [1,258]
In notifications, "Messages" are now called "Notices". [1,259]

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. [1,260][1,261]

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. [1,262]
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. [1,263]

Future changes

User scripts and bots can no longer use http:// to edit wiki pages. [1,264][1,265]
Gerrit is going to be updated. Developers are invited to test it. [1,266]

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

12:01, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-30[edit]

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. [1,267]

Problems

Sometimes, the visual editor required saving twice. That problem is now fixed. [1,268]

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. [1,269]
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. [1,270]

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. [1,271]

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. [1,272]
Special:Notifications page code will be changed to be more Mobile friendly. [1,273]

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

19:54, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-31[edit]

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. [1,274]
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. [1,275]

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.

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

21:48, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-32[edit]

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. [1,276]

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. [1,277]

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. [1,278]
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. [1,279]
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. [1,280]
The button to read something in another language will move for mobile users. This will happen on 9 August. [1,281]
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. [1,282]
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. [1,283]

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)

Tech News: 2016-33[edit]

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. [1,284]
Creating and editing links to sections on other pages on the wiki now works again in the visual editor. [1,285]
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. [1,286][1,287]

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. [1,288]
Some abuse filters will have to be updated during the week. This is because a bug will be fixed. [1,289]
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". [1,290][1,291]
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. [1,292]
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. [1,293]

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)

Tech News: 2016-34[edit]

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. [1,294]
The norm and ccnorm functions 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. [1,295]
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. [1,296]

Problems

Some big image files could not be thumbnailed. This has now been fixed. [1,297]
When you moved a page over a redirect it would delete the redirect without saving it in the logs. This has now been fixed. [1,298]

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. [1,299][1,300]
How you add text after an edit conflict might work in a different way in the future. You can test the prototype. [1,301]

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

21:18, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-35[edit]

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. [1,302]
When you edit a table with the visual editor, pressing Tab in the last cell of a row will take you to the first cell in the next row. Pressing Shift and Tab in the first cell of a row will take you to the last cell in the previous row. [1,303]

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. [1,304][1,305]
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.

16:01, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-36[edit]

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. [1,306]
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. [1,307]
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. [1,308]

Changes this week

You will be able to use <maplink> on all Wikipedias. It creates a link to a full screen map. [1,309][1,310]
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. [1,311][1,312]
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. [1,313]

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)

Tech News: 2016-37[edit]

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. [1,314]
<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. [1,315][1,316]

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. [1,317]
A new user right will allow most users to change the content model of pages. [1,318][1,319]
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)

Tech News: 2016-38[edit]

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. [1,320][1,321]

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. [1,322]

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

22:08, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-39[edit]

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. [1,323]
When you edit text and mention a new username they are notified if you add your signature. Before this only happened under certain conditions. [1,324]
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. [1,325]

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. [1,326][1,327]

Changes this week

There will be no new MediaWiki version this week. [1,328]

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. [1,329]

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)

Tech News: 2016-40[edit]

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. [1,330]

<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. [1,331]

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)

Tech News: 2016-41[edit]

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}}. [1,332]
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. [1,333]
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. [1,334]

Changes this week

Hidden HTML comments will be more visible when you edit with the visual editor.  [1,335]
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. [1,336]

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)

Tech News: 2016-42[edit]

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. [1,337]
Editors couldn't edit semi-protected pages in the Wikipedia app for Android. This has now been fixed in the beta version. [1,338]

Changes this week

There will be no new MediaWiki version this week. [1,339]

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.

16:42, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Asian 10,000 Challenge invite[edit]

Hi. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Asia/The 10,000 Challenge has recently started, based on the UK/Ireland Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge and Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The 10,000 Challenge. The idea is not to record every minor edit, but to create a momentum to motivate editors to produce good content improvements and creations and inspire people to work on more countries than they might otherwise work on. There's also the possibility of establishing smaller country or regional challenges for places like South East Asia, Japan/China or India etc, much like Wikipedia:The 1000 Challenge (Nordic). For this to really work we need diversity and exciting content and editors from a broad range of countries regularly contributing. At some stage we hope to run some contests to benefit Asian content, a destubathon perhaps, aimed at reducing the stub count would be a good place to start, based on the current Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon which has produced near 200 articles in just three days. If you would like to see this happening for Asia, and see potential in this attracting more interest and editors for the country/countries you work on please sign up and being contributing to the challenge! This is a way we can target every country of Asia, and steadily vastly improve the encyclopedia. We need numbers to make this work so consider signing up as a participant! Thank you. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 00:59, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2016-43[edit]

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. [1,340]

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". [1,341]
About a dozen wikis now have numerical sorting in categories. If your wiki wants numerical sorting in categories you can ask for it. [1,342]
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)

Tech News: 2016-44[edit]

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. [1,343]
Search now has an updated preference tab to configure the search completion suggester. [1,344]
The visual editor is now available on all wikis using only one language script. [1,345]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 1^st. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 2^nd. It will be on all wikis from November 3^rd (calendar).
Now you can use autocomplete for page names in "Preview page with this template (what's this?)" field when editing templates. [1,346]
Special:NewPages can now be filtered by page size. [1,347]

Future changes

New MediaWiki deployments will be now based on MediaWiki 1.29. [1,348]

Miscellaneous

The Wikimedia Foundation's Technical Collaboration Guideline is available for community review. Any feedback welcome, in any language.

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

16:18, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-45[edit]

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. [1,349]
First release candidate for MediaWiki 1.28 is now available. [1,350]
.gitreview for MediaWiki branches and extensions switched from targeting a specific branch to using track=1. [1,351]
Section numbers in Table of Contents boxes will use grey to improve readability. [1,352]

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. [1,353]

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. [1,354][1,355][1,356]
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)

Tech News: 2016-46[edit]

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 + k to add a reference. The meta key is often the control key or command key. [1,357]

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. [1,358]

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. [1,359]

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

19:17, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-47[edit]

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. [1,360]
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. [1,361]
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. [1,362]

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. [1,363][1,364][1,365]

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. [1,366]
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. [1,367]

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

15:32, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open![edit]

Hello, Aboluay. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2016-48[edit]

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. [1,368]
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. [1,369]
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]. [1,370][1,371]

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.

21:16, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

A bit of help reviewing two small changes to two Arabic pages ?[edit]

Hello Aboluay,

In addition to your offer to translate from Arabic to English, I see that you contribute a lot to the Arabic Wikipedia.

Just to get a feel for other languages and their Wikipedias, I occasionally make (trivial) edits in other languages, including Arabic.

A couple of months ago I fixed a typo here and here.

The changes are still pending, and are apparently awaiting review by someone else. Is there any chance you could do that?

Thanks either way, Lklundin (talk) 08:44, 30 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

- Done Aboluay^Talk2me 00:08, 16 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Lklundin (talk) 16:05, 16 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can you help verify translations of articles from Arabic[edit]

Hello,

Would you be able to help evaluate the accuracy of translations of Wikipedia articles from Arabic to English Wikipedia?

File:Language icon.svg

This would involve evaluating a translated article on English Wikipedia by comparing it to the original Arabic article, and marking it "Pass" or "Fail" based on whether the translation faithfully represents the original. Here's the reason for this request:

There are a number of articles on English Wikipedia that were created as machine translations from different languages including Arabic , using the Content Translation tool, sometimes by users with no knowledge of the source language. The config problem that allowed this to happen has since been fixed, but this has left us with a backlog of articles whose accuracy of translation is suspect or unknown, including some articles translated from Arabic. In many cases, other editors have come forward later to copyedit and fix any English grammar or style issues, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the translation is accurate, as factual errors from the original translation may remain. To put it another way: Good English is not the same as good translation.

If you can help out, that would be great. Here's a sample of the articles that need checking:

All you have to do, is compare the English article to the Arabic article, and mark it "Pass" or "Fail" (templates {{Pass}} and {{Fail}} may be useful). (Naturally, if you feel like fixing an inaccurate translation and then marking it "Pass", that's even better, but it isn't required.)

If you can help, please let me know. Thanks! Mathglot (talk) 09:41, 30 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2017 election voter message[edit]

Hello, Aboluay. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2018 election voter message[edit]

Hello, Aboluay. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 2 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2018 election voter message[edit]

Hello, Aboluay. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]