This is an archive of past discussions with User:Amorymeltzer. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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 no longer read Wikimedia wikis if your browser use very old TLS. This is because it is a security problem for everyone. It can lead to downgrade attacks. Since 9 December you just see a warning. Soon the browser will not connect to the wikis at all. Most are users on Android systems older than 4.4. You can read the browser recommendations. [1]
Wikis can protect pages so that only some users can edit them. The standard protection levels are Require autoconfirmed or confirmed access and Require administrator access. If your wiki use more protection levels the technical name might be renamed for standardisation. This doesn't affect what users see. [3]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 January. It will be on all wikis from 16 January (calendar).
Future changes
Deepcat and Catgraph will stop working. This will happen at the end of January. This is because you can now use the normal search function instead. [4]
You can use <ref follow="…"> to merge footnotes that follow each other. It is meant to be used for digitised books on Wikisource. If the order of the footnotes is wrong no error was shown but the bad <ref> was shown outside the <references /> list. This will change and you will see an error message instead. [5]
Everyone's user groups are public at places like Special:UserRights, in the log, and so on, so no, you can't hide people from knowing that you have certain user group. Is there something you don't want to have anymore? ~ Amory(u • t • c)11:47, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Ah okay, I understand now. I just added an option to allow you do do so: put window.userinfoHideSelf = true; in your common.js before the importScript('User:Amorymeltzer/userinfo.js'); and it should work on all pages except your own. ~ Amory(u • t • c)16:47, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 January. It will be on all wikis from 23 January (calendar).
Future changes
There is a new suggestion for what to show when someone edits without registering an account. This is to give unregistered editors better privacy and make some anti-vandalism work go faster. You can give feedback.
Pywikibot is a Python library to automate work on wikis. It will no longer support Python 2. Use the python2 tag if you need to continue running Python 2 scripts. The Pywikibot team strongly recommends to migrate to Python 3. You can get help to do so. [6]
The weekly MediaWiki branch cut will soon become automated. The timing for this cut may change. You can discuss in Phabricator if this affects you. [7]
You can read about coming technical events and mentoring interns.
I think that user sub pages should always suppress redirects when renaming - perhaps only leaving redirects on the base user and usertalk page. That would eliminate this at the least. It would also break imported pages from other users if they rename themselves - but I think caveat emptor should apply there anyway... — xaosfluxTalk03:16, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
Some mobile diffs have problems. A couple of buttons are not shown. Structured data diffs on Commons are confusing. The developers are working on fixing it. [8][9]
Administrators on wikis that use Structured Discussions can't move discussion pages. This is a bug. The developers are working on fixing it. [10]
Changes later this week
There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
There is JavaScript code on Special:Undelete for administrators that makes it possible to automatically select multiple checkboxes by holding the "Shift" key and clicking. This code is also loaded by accident on other special pages and on articles. This makes pages slower to load. This will be fixed. If you know of other special pages where this is useful please tell the developers at phab:T232688.
Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.
Technical news
Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [11]
Arbitration
Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 February. It will be on all wikis from 6 February (calendar).
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 version of the Wikimedia Commons app for Android. It should fix the failed uploads problem. [12]
Problems
There was a problem with the new MediaWiki version last week. It deleted some messages by accident. The new version was late because it was stopped to fix things. [13]
Changes later this week
The MediaWiki action API is used by various tools like bots and gadgets. Some error codes will change. Some parameter values that do not follow the standard will no longer work. [14]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 February. It will be on all wikis from 13 February (calendar).
The first NPP source guide discussion is now underway. It covers a wide range of sources in Ghana with the goal of providing more guidance to reviewers about sources they might see when reviewing pages. Hopefully, new page reviewers will join others interested in reliable sources and those with expertise in these sources to make the discussion a success.
Redirects
New to NPP? Looking to try something a little different? Consider patrolling some redirects. Redirects are relatively easy to review, can be found easily through the New Pages Feed. You can find more information about how to patrol redirects at WP:RPATROL.
Discussions and Resources
There is an ongoing discussion around changing notifications for new editors who attempt to write articles.
A resource page with links pertinent for reviewers was created this month.
A proposal to increase the scope of G5 was withdrawn.
Refresher
Geographic regions, areas and places generally do not need general notability guideline type sourcing. When evaluating whether an article meets this notability guideline please also consider whether it might actually be a form of WP:SPAM for a development project (e.g. PR for a large luxury residential development) and not actually covered by the guideline.
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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 February. It will be on all wikis from 20 February (calendar).
This user User:อัลเบิร์ is trying to make an edit war and I explain about the Wikipedia policy to him but I argue to block anyone who blames to edit in content that this user only thinks he is true. No one can edit on the page that the user was overseer. I need you to tell him to understand the rule and don't make another misunderstanding in Wikipedia rule, especially I need you to BLOCK him to resolve the problem that this user make.
Excuse me but are you, Ministerboy, the IP that is constantly making reverts on those pages? If you are, I believe that you are the one that are violating the rules and try to put your faults into the other's hand. The other user is asking for a discussion with you but you don't do it. Your version of edits cannot be accepted because it came later and the other user is not consenting with you. So you have to discuss first but you choose not to do it and instead, committed warring edit violation. อัลเบิร์ (talk) 05:11, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Dear User:อัลเบิร์ That another IP is my friend that sits behind me, I work for Wikipedia Thai football for 4 Year and I was work for Thai FA for 2 years until now. Why you delete the honor content of every Thai team and why you delete the history of every Thai team. All the information I find with my ability with my Wikipedia user friend for 4 year and you came here to delete and tell me to talk with you first. That was absurd and can't accept. STOP doing this action for the better way of finding the information from Wikipedia. Ministerboy (talk) 05:16, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
As info, I blocked all 3 users for 24 hours for edit warring. Didn't realize Ministerboy had left this same message to 6-7 others. -- ferret (talk) 14:00, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Just seeing this now; absolutely endorse your actions. Clear edit warring and disruption across a number of articles. Not surprised there's been sockpuppetry (noted on your talkpage), thanks for handling this. Agree with Bbb as well. ~ Amory(u • t • c)16:10, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 February. It will be on all wikis from 27 February (calendar).
Future changes
There will be a reply button after each post on a talk page if you want one. This will soon be a beta feature on the Arabic, French, Dutch and Hungarian Wikipedias. You will have to turn it on if you want to use it. It will come to more wikis later. You can test the reply button. It was briefly shown earlier than planned by mistake on the four first wikis last week.
Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops must not undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than should not.
A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.
Technical news
Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.
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
Readers who were not logged in briefly saw the interface in a language decided by their browser. It should normally be in the language of the wiki. This happened for a short period of time last week. This was because of a bug. [17]
Changes later this week
If you forget your password you can ask for a new one to be sent to your email address. You need to know your email address or your username. You will now be able to choose that you need to enter both your email address and your username. This will be a preference. This is to get fewer password reset emails someone else asked for. [18]
When you asked for a new password you could see if the username didn't exist on Special:PasswordReset. Now the page will show the username you entered and tell you an email has been sent if the username exists. This is for better security. [19]
On Special:WhatLinksHere you can see what other pages link to a page. You can see if the link is from a redirect. You can now see which section the redirect links to. [20]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 March. It will be on all wikis from 5 March (calendar).
There is a vote on the creation of a new user group called abuse filter manager. The vote runs from March 1 to March 31 on Meta.
wgMFSpecialCaseMainPage was used for the mobile site. It was deprecated in 2017. It will stop working in April. Wikis should see if they use it. If they do they should fix it. You can read more and ask for help. This affects 183 wikis. There is a list. [22]
Would it be possible to turn off the default highlighting. I want the text to change, but not the background. If I over-ride the default background in my css by setting the background to none, it removes the background set on pages such as closed RFAs which set their own backgrounds.
Maybe setting a crathighlighter_defaults=none in my js before calling the crathighlighter would do it without impacting on existing users?
Cabayi, you don't actually want none, you want to use inherit. If I understand you correctly, changing that in your css should do the trick. ~ Amory(u • t • c)01:42, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
That worked beautifully thanks. There are a couple of omissions which I need to dig into to understand before bugging you further. Cabayi (talk) 11:55, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
Arbitration case opened
You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Jytdog. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Jytdog/Evidence. Please add your evidence by March 23, 2020, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Jytdog/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration.
All content, links, and diffs from the original ARC and the latest ARC are being read into the evidence for this case.
The secondary mailing list is in use for this case: arbcom-en-b@wikimedia.org
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 search word called articletopic. You can use it to search for articles on a specific topic. It is available on the Arabic, Czech, English and Vietnamese Wikipedias. It will come to more Wikipedias soon. [23][24][25]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 March. It will be on all wikis from 12 March (calendar).
The Wikipedia Android app will do push notifications if users want them. This could help you see for example when someone wrote on your talk page or your edit was reverted. This will come later this year. [26]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
There is a new API module for changing the content model of existing pages. Use action=changecontentmodel to specify the new model. You can read the documentation on mediawiki.org. [27]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 March. It will be on all wikis from 19 March (calendar).
Future changes
If you edit a page at the same time as someone else you can get an edit conflict. There is a new two-column interface to make it easier to solve this. It will soon be active by default on the German, Arabic, and Farsi Wikipedias. It will be on by default on more wikis within the next months. You will be able to opt out of the new interface. [28][29]
You can see a proposed design for replying to comments in an easier way.
Hello and welcome to the March newsletter, a brief update of Guild activities since December 2019. All being well, we're planning to issue these quarterly in 2020, balancing the need to communicate widely with the avoidance of filling up talk pages. Don't forget you can unsubscribe at any time; see below.
Election results: There was little changeover in the roster of Guild Coordinators, with Miniapolis stepping down with distinction as a coordinator emeritus while Jonesey95 returned as lead coordinator. The next election is scheduled for June 2020 and all Wikipedians in good standing may participate.
January Drive: Thanks to everyone for the splendid work, completing 215 copy edits including 56 articles from the Requests page and 116 backlog articles from the target months of June to August 2019. At the conclusion of the drive there was a record low of 323 articles in the copy editing backlog. Of the 27 editors who signed up for the drive, 21 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.
February Blitz: Of the 15 editors who signed up for this one-week blitz, 13 completed at least one copy edit. A total of 32 articles were copy edited, evenly split between the twin goals of requests and the oldest articles from the copy-editing backlog. Full results are here.
March Drive: Currently underway, this event is targeting requests and backlog articles from September to November 2019. As of 18 March, the backlog stands at a record low of 253 articles and is expected to drop further as the drive progresses. Awards will be given to everyone who copyedits at least one article from the backlog. Help set a new record and sign up now!
Progress report: As of 18 March, GOCE copyeditors have completed 161 requests in 2020 and there was a net reduction of 385 articles from the copy-editing backlog – a 60% decrease from the beginning of the year. Well done and thank you everyone!
Election reminder: It may only be March but don't forget our mid-year Election of Coordinators opens for nominations on 1 June. Coordinators normally serve a six-month term and are elected on an approval basis. Self-nominations are welcome. If you've thought of helping out at the Guild, or know of another editor who would make a good coordinator, please consider standing for election or nominating them here.
I need emergency help to deal with user JIJJRG on Pat Day - he is trying to assassinate his character and blocks attempts to fix
The user JIJJRG has desecrated the Wikipedia page of Hall of Fame jockey Pat Day and is using it as his thiefdom to control everything that is said on the page, and has constantly deleted numerous attempts by myself, a historian and journalist, to accurately portray Day's accomplishments and balance the page against the malicious, hostile, misleading, false and denegrating words that JIJJRG has used to slander Day.
This must be stopped.
I have tried going through dispute resolution and was told this would be resolved but it has not.
This user has a serious act to grind against one of the sport's greatest jockeys in its histories and has no interest in accurately portraying his career or anything positive from it.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
Some development will be slower than planned. This is because of the current pandemic. You can see the new deployment guidelines. This is to avoid risks when some persons could be unavailable.
There was a problem when adding interwiki links. The tool you use to add interwiki links could suggest the wrong project to link to. This has now been fixed. [30][31]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 March. It will be on all wikis from 26 March (calendar).
Future changes
There is a project to make editing easier for newcomers. The developers are trying to understand what initiatives different Wikipedias have to welcome newcomers. They also want to know which templates are often used for maintenance activities. You can help this project by checking if your wiki's pages are listed on Wikidata.
Hi Amory. You closed that redirect deletion discussion as delete. I don't have a question about that, but I know you know what you're doing so I'd like to ask a related question. C. sinuosa is a disambig page. Have you ever heard someone make the argument that pages like C. sinuosa should be deleted, rather than being a redirect or disambiguation page (in this case, pointing to Colpomenia sinuosa)? I'm asking because an awful lot of pages in the format [initial of the genus] [species name] don't exist ... and I'm wondering if someone thinks they're not supposed to. (I suspect people just haven't gotten around to creating the redir or disambig page yet.) - Dank (push to talk) 23:56, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
I think it's more about the latter, but really limitations in human interest. There are plenty of redirects and dabs, but folks have to think they'd be useful. RfD discussions can be hard to search, but there are definitely instances where G. species pages were kept when appropriate. Probably the hardest part is when there's ambiguity and someone argues for a redirect rather than a 2dab. The community has pretty heartily spoken out against mass creation of such things a few times IIRC, so it's really only done slowly and methodically as folks desire. Still, there are plenty of gaps: R. norvegicus exists, but I'm surprised M. musculus doesn't.
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 new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 April. It will be on all wikis from 2 April (calendar).
Future changes
The video player will change to be simpler and more modern. The current beta feature will become the video player for everyone. The old player will be removed. [33]
There is a project to make templates easier to use. The next few weeks the developers will present ideas on the project page. You can watch that page if you are interested in giving feedback. [34]
Automatically detecting Good Article, Featured Article, and Featured List status, and limiting ORES predictions to B-class
An updated version of Twinkle was released. Features relating to the recently-enabled partial blocks include automatic lookup of pages and expanded options for block templates. See a full list of changes here
For users of Enterprisey's easy-brfa script, the bug with transcluding new BRFAs has been resolved
For any scripts that previously made use of the edit API to change a page's content model, a new API module is available: use action=changecontentmodel to specify the new content model of an existing page. Documentation is available: mw:API:ChangeContentModel.
The dispute resolution noticeboard wizard is no longer a gadget, but rather is loaded using withJS and withCSS. See the discussion at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-DRN-wizard.js
Pending requests
A script to help file movers process requests, including
renaming the file
updating file links
removing the {{Rename media}} template (when relevant)
Following the banning of an editor by the WMF last year, the Arbitration Committee resolved to hold a Arbcom RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. A draft RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC (Draft) and not open to comments from the community yet. Interested editors can comment on the RfC itself on its talk page.
Miscellaneous
The WMF has begun a pilot report of the pages most visited through various social media platforms to help with anti-vandalism and anti-disinformation efforts. The report is updated daily and will be available through the end of May.
Just seeing this now, but taking a quick look I generally agree that the semi protection added earlier today is doing the trick. El C seems to be on top of it! ~ Amory(u • t • c)02:08, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
There was a problem with user pages not being shown properly on desktop. This was because of a bug. It will soon be fixed. [35]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 April. It will be on all wikis from 9 April (calendar).
Future changes
MediaWiki will use a newer version of Unicode. Some characters that did not have an upper case equivalent before do now. Titles beginning with one of these characters will be moved. A list of these titles can be seen on Phabricator. The titles will be renamed by the user Maintenance script. This will start on 13 April 2020. You can rename them before this if you wish and the new title can be different from the one the script would rename it to. [36]
Invitation to collaborate: new NodeJS bot framework
Hi,
While I know that you are engaged with your kid(s?) (lucky you!) and that you're maybe not a bots guy, I thought you'd interested in knowing that I created a new bot framework for NodeJS called mwn. Mainly to beat the lockdown boredom, but also because existing NodeJS bot libraries suck - they have limited feature sets and use outdated methods and technologies. Your contributions would be very much appreciated! See issues for a list of open tasks. Lemme know if you want the colab bit too. SD0001 (talk) 19:53, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, looks neat! I'm definitely interest and will try to keep an eye on it, but, yeah, I'm certainly playing catch-up one or maybe two days a week. Might not contribute for a while, but hope to when things get a bit less hectic. ~ Amory(u • t • c)15:21, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
You can now use the articletopic search word on all Wikipedias. It searches articles by topic. [37]
There was a problem with the Wikidata database last week. Some wikis went down for twenty minutes. Wikidata and other projects showed error messages. Interwiki links were not shown, some tools did not work and other problems. Some of this was fixed quickly. The developers are working on fixing the rest. [41][42][43]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from April 14. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from April 15. It will be on all wikis from April 16 (calendar).
Future changes
Some graphs have not worked on mobile. This will soon be fixed. [44]
The article tab on talk pages of redirects links to the target of the redirect. It could link to the redirect page itself instead. You can leave feedback on this.
For pages using syntax highlighting, the use of the deprecated <source> tag, as well as the use of the deprecated enclose parameter, will add tracking categories.
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
The next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 4 May 2020.
Recent changes
The small wiki toolkits is to help smaller wikis that need technical skills. They can learn and share technical skills. [45]
Over-qualified CSS selectors in Wikimedia skins have been removed. div#content is now .mw-body. div.portal is now .portal. div#footer is now #footer. This is so the skins can use HTML5 elements. If your gadgets or user styles used them you will have to update them. [46]
Changes later this week
There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
Some things on the wikis might look weird or not work in Internet Explorer 8 in the future. Internet Explorer 8 was replaced in 2011. [47]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 April next week. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 April next week. It will be on all wikis from 30 April next week (calendar).
Enterprisey's reply-link has been updated to fail less, especially around template transclusions.
Twinkle released new features, including a new option to disable individual modules, support for stub template nomination at CfD, and integration with the PageTriage extension used to patrol new pages. (See full list of changes)
Open tasks
The mediawiki.notify resource loader module was deprecated and is no longer needed; its functionality is now available by default. See mw:ResourceLoader/Migration guide (users) for more. Any dependency on it should be removed.
Twinkle's Morebits library added a new Morebits.date class to replace the moment library. It can handle custom formatting and natural language for dates, as well as section header regexes. If you were using getUTCMonthName or getUTCMonthNameAbbrev with Date objects, those have been deprecated and should be updated.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
Some wikis will be on read-only for a few minutes on 5 May. This will happen around 05:00 UTC. This is for database maintenance. [49]
Some wikis will be on read-only for a few minutes on 7 May. This will also affect CentralAuth. This can for example affect global renames, password changes, changing or confirming your email address and logging in to new wikis. This will happen around 05:00 UTC. This is for database maintenance. [50]
Changes later this week
You can get a notification when someone links to a page you created. You can soon turn these notifications off for individual pages. [51]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 May. It will be on all wikis from 7 May (calendar).
Hi, {{Geological range}} has a lot of sub templates to work with. So I have took the time to merge those into an only module. Also, reduced the size of the twice-processed data. The module is Module:Geological range, and the test cases can be seen here: User:HastaLaVi2/sandbox2. If we update the template with this module, we won't have to need any of the templates listed above the module page. We could also now merge {{Long fossil range}} template and its documentation into this one, since I merged all of them together and no parameter changed, nothing is affected. ~ Z (m)09:47, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Well, I did actually. But the template is under protection. So I do not know how to make the change now. ~ Z (m)13:52, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
You can always wait for more input — it seems you just recently posted it — but what you want to do is put Template:Edit template-protected on that talkpage. That will draw editors with the appropriate usergroup permissions to check it out and take care of it for you. Might take a day or two but should take care of it! ~ Amory(u • t • c)19:25, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
Everyone can now import photos from Flickr to Commons with the UploadWizard. Before this only autopatrollers on Commons could import photos from Flickr. [52]
Problems
Commons will be on read-only for a few minutes on 12 May. This will happen around 05:00 UTC. This is for database maintenance. [53]
Several wikis including Wikidata will be on read-only for a few minutes on 19 May. This will happen around 05:00 UTC. English Wikipedia will be on read-only for a few minutes on 21 May 05:00 UTC. This is for database maintenance. [54][55]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 May. It will be on all wikis from 14 May (calendar).
Future changes
JavaScript scripts and gadgets can no longer check multiple keys at once via mw.config.exists() or mw.user.tokens.exists(). You can use exists() or get() to check one at a time instead. [56]
Hey Amory, hope you're well. This script of yours does wonders, but I've been trying to customize it to do something logical with respect to all our users who wear many many hats, and I've been struggling a bit. Could you give me some pointers as to the order in which your script processes user-rights (or lines of script? this is where I've been mucking around) and also what the "important" field in your customization suggestions does? Vanamonde (Talk)19:37, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
To expand a little; I see that I can alter the order of priority; but it still seems like the script can only handle one designation per user; am I correct about this? If not, I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong. Vanamonde (Talk)19:47, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
Okay I get ya. Yes, that's true, only one per link. It should be easy to add all classes: it would slow things down, though, which I'd like to avoid, but I'm not sure how much or how noticeable it would be. I can do some testing and see? ~ Amory(u • t • c)19:54, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
That'd be great...the ARBCOM-crat-OS-CU Venn diagram has gotten quite complicated, especially since the last election. It's not a big deal if you're busy, but it would be quite useful otherwise. Vanamonde (Talk)20:01, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
I feel ya! I threw something together quickly that should do it. I did some minimal testing, but (for me on my decade+ laptop), the difference in the script loading on WP:AN was 150ms to 250ms. That's probably the worst case scenario (well, maybe ANI) but still seemed like a big increase. So what I did was added a preference option if you like: add window.all_groups = true; to your common.js, and it should be enabled! Holla if there are issues, it was a good idea. ~ Amory(u • t • c)20:14, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
Much appreciated...this seems to handle multiple symbols, now, but it's ability to do different colors seems to have disappeared? For instance, in my scheme, ARBCOM/OS are different from CU-only are different from sysop-only; but they've all been collapsed to the sysop color at the moment. Or maybe I've misunderstood the directions...Vanamonde (Talk)20:49, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
Vanamonde93, sorry, was writing up the details with the new changes. CSS will favor whichever rule was added last, so in your custom css page, the fact that you have the sysop rule last means it will take precedence over all the others. Basically, if you're using this, your customized CSS should try to be the reverse of the order you'd like. ~ Amory(u • t • c)21:01, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
If you forget your password you can ask for a new one to be sent to your email address. You need to know your email address or your username. You can choose that you need to enter both your email address and your username. This is a preference. This is to get fewer password reset emails someone else asked for. This is now available on all Wikimedia wikis. [57][58]
Problems
There is a bug that creates problems for iPhone users with iOS 13 and Safari. If you use an iPhone to read or edit Wikipedia and see bugs on the mobile site you can report them. [59]
Several wikis including Wikidata will be on read-only for a few minutes on 19 May. This will happen around 05:00 UTC. English Wikipedia will be on read-only for a few minutes on 21 May 05:00 UTC. This is for database maintenance. [60][61]
Graphs will be rendered in the reader's browser. This will use Javascript. Graphs will hopefully work better for everyone who uses Javascript. It will not work for users who don't use Javascript. This will not affect diagrams in image files. [63]
Some CSS for the skins has been simplified. This affects div#p-personal, div#p-navigation, div#p-interaction, div#p-tb, div#p-lang, div#p-namespaces, div#p-variants and div#footer. They will have to remove div. You will have to update your gadgets, scripts or user styles. This is so we can use HTML5. [64]
Some CSS for the Vector skin has been changed. This affects #p-variants, #p-namespaces, #p-personal, #p-views and #p-cactions. They can no longer use > ul. You might need to update your gadgets, scripts or user styles. See how.
A comment of yours in "Village Pump#WMF" helped me clear the slight doubt (thus making me happy :]) that I had about whether VPT was the appropriate place to post maintenance announcements. I'm new to this. The fact that the description of VPT doesn't mention anything about announcements, didn't help me either.
So I'm building up an AWB module for infobox genfixes, and among some of the more useful tidbits of code I came across RemoveExcessTemplatePipes(string templatecall). The only issue is that, unlike RemoveTemplateParameter(string articletext, string templatename, string parameter), which includes the articletext, the pipes function doesn't have that in there. Would I still set up the line of code along the lines of
ArticleText = WikiFunctions.Tools.RemoveExcessTemplatePipes(<insert template name here>);
based on the return for that tool I feel like that would only return the new template code, so I wanted to check with you before I broke things and couldn't figure out how to fix them. Primefac (talk) 13:52, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
Well, with the caveat that I've never worked with C# or done any work with AWB modules, I do believe based on the source that you're right: it only takes and only returns the new template call, so it'd be something like TemplateText = WikiFunctions.Tools.RemoveExcessTemplatePipes(<insert template name here>); or however your module ends up wanting to use it. ~ Amory(u • t • c)00:14, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
Weird, for some odd reason I thought you were pretty well involved in that. Thank you, at least, for verifying my concerns! Primefac (talk) 00:35, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
Please be aware that I am using the WikiBreak Enforcer in accordance with a previous Self-Requested block approved and enforced by this user/admin. If you would like to consider an additional block alongside my Javascript command, you are welcome to do so. Please visit my user page for more details. -- Sleyece (talk) 18:24, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
I have fully understood policy of Wikipedia.like this is an encyclopedia and neutrality should be maintained while writing on it as well as unsourced edit and copyright violation is not permitted here.
I have however seen that there are a number of pages on Wikipedia specially related to South Asian politics and important personality as well as historical figures which are vandalised by new users and remain vandalised as administrator attention is not drawn on some minor edits as well as less important pages.But as a history teacher I think that such minor edit can cost a lot to people who are dependent upon Wikipedia to enhance their knowledge base as after all they end up learning falsified stuffs. In such a scenario I request rollback right to help uphold the quality of Wikipedia article. Editor wikip6 (talk) 11:11, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
Hi there! I see you also posted this request at WP:PERM/R, so I think that's the best place for now. It will get reviewed in due time. ~ Amory(u • t • c)13:07, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The visual editor will now work in the Modern skin. The changes that needed to happen for this to work could cause problems for some scripts or gadgets. [65]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from May 26. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from May 27. It will be on all wikis from May 28 (calendar).
Articles for Creation: List of reviewers by subject notice
Hi Amorymeltzer, you are receiving this notice because you are listed as an active Articles for Creation reviewer.
Recently a list of reviewers by area of expertise was created. This notice is being sent out to alert you to the existence of that list, and to encourage you to add your name to it. If you or other reviewers come across articles in the queue where an acceptance/decline hinges on specialist knowledge, this list should serve to facilitate contact with a fellow reviewer.
To end on a positive note, the backlog has dropped below 1,500, so thanks for all of the hard work some of you have been putting into the AfC process!
The Wikimedia Foundation announced that they will develop a universal code of conduct for all WMF projects. There is an open local discussion regarding the same.
Arbitration
A motion was passed to enact a 500/30 restriction on articles related to the history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland. Article talk pages where disruption occurs may also be managed with the stated restriction.
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 beta version of the Wikimedia Commons app for Android. It has a new zoom function when you look at images. It can also suggest places when you upload geotagged photos. [66]
Problems
There was a problem with the Commons database on 27 May. Commons could not be edited for eight minutes. Because of this problem the database was moved. This caused another short read-only time on 29 May. [67][68][69]
The Vector skin had a problem where you couldn't add links to the article in other languages. You couldn't see the section if there were no links to other languages already. It also removed content translation links and links to language settings. This has now been fixed. [70]
Changes later this week
You can get a notification when someone links to a page you created. You can turn these notifications off for individual pages. You can soon turn them off also in the notifications you get. [71]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 June. It will be on all wikis from 4 June (calendar).
In your edit summaries for this page, you mention that you use a script to add/remove users from the list. What script do you use to do this task? - ZLEAT\C01:58, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
There's a link in the edit summary, but the page changed since that particular page was edited so it could be confusing! I added an anchor. It's linked at the bottom of User:Amorymeltzer/crathighlighter; it's a fairly-straightforward perl script, although with some git crap to make my life easier. I've got a version running on toolforge but there haven't been many changes lately! ~ Amory(u • t • c)02:26, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
It could, yes. What did you have in mind? I'll note that Bellezzasolo has a bot that maintains lists of other groups. ~ Amory(u • t • c)01:27, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
I was thinking of making an Admin Highlighter script that worked for all user groups with emojis. I found a script that checked the user's user groups directly and forked it, but I stopped work on it when I realized there are user groups that cannot be represented with existing emojis. At the moment I no longer have a need for your script, but I know who to talk to if I do in the future. Thanks anyway. - ZLEAT\C02:07, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Also, Bellezzasolo's bot hasn't been active for almost a year. I looked into it early on but ultimately chose to find an alternative way of checking user groups that wasn't outdated. - ZLEAT\C02:16, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Hello and welcome to the June newsletter, a brief update of Guild activities since March 2020. You can unsubscribe from our mailings at any time; see below. All times and dates stated are in UTC.
Current events
Election time: Nomination of candidates in our mid-year Election of Coordinators opened on 1 June, and voting will take place from 00:01 on 16 June. GOCE coordinators normally serve a six-month term and are elected on an approval basis. Self-nominations are welcome. If you've thought about helping out at the Guild, or you know of another editor who would make a good coordinator, please consider standing for election or nominating them here.
March Drive: Self-isolation from coronavirus may have played a hand in making this one of our most successful backlog elimination drives. The copy-editing backlog was reduced from 477 to a record low of 118 articles, a 75% reduction. The last four months of 2019 were cleared, reducing the backlog to three months. Fifty requests were also completed, and the total word count of copy-edited articles was 759,945. Of the 29 editors who signed up, 22 completed at least one copy edit. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.
April Blitz: This blitz ran from 12 to 18 April with a theme of Indian military history. Of the 18 people who signed up, 14 copyedited at least one article. Participants claimed a total of 60 copyedits. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.
May Drive: This event marked the 10th anniversary of the GOCE's copy-editing drives, and set a goal of diminishing the backlog to just one month of articles, as close to zero articles as possible. We achieved the goal of eliminating all articles that had been tagged prior to the start of the drive, for the first time in our history! Of the 51 editors who signed up, 43 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.
Other news
Progress report: as of 2 June, GOCE participants had processed 328 requests since 1 January, which puts us on pace to exceed any previous year's number of requests. As of the end of the May drive, the backlog stood at just 156 articles, all tagged in May 2020.
Outreach: To mark the 10th anniversary of our first Backlog Elimination Drive, The Signpost contributor and GOCE participant Puddleglum2.0 interviewed project coordinators and copy-editors for the journal's April WikiProject Report. The Drive and the current Election of Coordinators have also been covered in The Signpost'sMay News and Notes page.
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 articles have tables that can be sorted in different ways. For example a list of countries can be sorted alphabetically but you can click on the size column to sort them by size. If you clicked on the column a second time it would sort the countries from the bottom to the top instead. A third click will now take you back to the original sorting. [72]
Self-closed tags now work as in the HTML5 specifications. This means you should stop using some of them. <b/> is an example of a self-closed tag that won't work. area, base, br, col, embed, hr, img, input, keygen, link, meta, param, source, track, wbr can be self-closed. Pages with tags that should not be self-closed have been listed in a tracking category since 2016. They will be listed in Special:LintErrors/self-closed-tag. This doesn't affect <references /> or <ref />. [73]
There is a banner called WikidataPageBanner. It is for example used by the Wikivoyages, Wikimedia Russia and the Catalan, Basque, Galician and Turkish Wikipedias. It will now been seen by mobile visitors too. Before this it was only seen on desktop. The wikis should update instructions on MediaWiki:Sitenotice so that editors know to test and style for mobile too. [74][75]
Changes later this week
You can now edit MassMessage descriptions through the API. This is useful for tools and gadgets. [76]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 June. It will be on all wikis from 11 June (calendar).
Future changes
A temporary fix helped wikis make their main pages more mobile friendly. This was in 2012. It has not been recommended since 2017. It will not work after 13 July. Wikis should use TemplateStyles instead. 118 wikis need to fix this. You can read more and see if your wiki is affected. [77]
Haha yes, thank you. Was testing something on a different wiki and got my tabs mixed up. Immediately realized but you beat me to the punch — thanks! ~ Amory(u • t • c)20:12, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
Toolforge hosts several tools created by the Wikimedia community like edit counters or enhanced editors. It is changing the domain from tools.wmflabs.org to toolforge.org. The routing scheme is moving from tools.wmflabs.org/toolname to toolname.toolforge.org. You can read the details. Tools that use OAuth will have to be updated to keep working. You can ask for help.
Problems
There is a Wikidata item link in the sidebar on many pages. This disappeared for a couple of days for users who have the Monobook skin. This was because of a bug. It has now been fixed. [78]
Editing, logging in and logging out didn't work properly for a short period of time last week. It was soon fixed. [79]
Changes later 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 and some Wikipedias from 17 June. It will be on all wikis from 18 June (calendar).
Future changes
Pywikibot is a Python library to automate work on wikis. It will not support Python 2 after the new version in July. Support for Python 3.4 and MediaWiki below 1.19 will also be dropped. You should migrate to Python 3. You can ask for help. [80]
The selectors .menu and .vectorMenu will no longer work in the Vector skin. This can affect gadgets and user scripts. .menu should be replaced by ul. .vectorMenu should be replaced by .vector-menu. [81]
Feedback request: Wikipedia technical issues and templates request for comment
Your feedback is requested at Talk:Main Page on a request for comment. Thank you for helping out! You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.
Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment
Your feedback is requested at Talk:Anti-Hindu sentiment on a request for comment. Thank you for helping out! You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.
NPP Sorting can be a great way to find pages needing new page patrolling that match your strengths and interests. Using ORES, it divides articles into topics such as Literature or Chemistry and on Geography. Take a look and see if you can find time to patrol a couple pages a day. With over 10,000 pages in the queue, the highest it's been since ACPERM, your help could really make a difference.
Google Adds New Languages to Google Translate
In late February, Google added 5 new languages to Google Translate: Kinyarwanda, Odia (Oriya), Tatar, Turkmen and Uyghur. This expands our ability to find and evaluate sources in those languages.
Discussions and Resources
A discussion on handling new article creation by paid editors is ongoing at the Village Pump.
Also at the Village Pump is a discussion about limiting participation at Articles for Deletion discussion.
Adithyak1997, thanks for the reminder! I think I took care of it — it's not something I used, so I'm not 100% on how the tabs were supposed to look, but AFAICT it's all set? ~ Amory(u • t • c)18:05, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, but there was a lot of prior work on that regex, I really only tweaked it. It's a beast for sure! I'll take the "amazing contributions" compliment, though! ~ Amory(u • t • c)15:15, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment
Your feedback is requested at Talk:Julian day on a request for comment. Thank you for helping out! You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.
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 are some new tools to make it easier for newcomers to start editing. They are available on some wikis. These wikis had a problem with the visual editor for a short period of time last week. This was because of a bug in the new tools. It was soon fixed. [82]
Some user scripts and gadgets stopped working because of a change to CSS selectors. .vectorTabs should be replaced with .vector-menu-tabs to fix this. [83]
Changes later this week
The developers are working on a new interface to solve edit conflicts on talk pages. This will be released on 24 June. You can give feedback. [84]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 June. It will be on all wikis from 25 June (calendar).
Future changes
A temporary fix helped wikis make their main pages more mobile friendly. This was in 2012. It has not been recommended since 2017. It will not work after 13 July. Wikis should use TemplateStyles instead. 91 wikis still need to fix this. You can read more and see if your wiki is affected. [85]
In a different world absolutely but it's taking a lot of effort just to stay current here. I appreciate the offer of help, though — I'd love to get set up to contribute (and pick up some php!) down the line. ~ Amory(u • t • c)14:56, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
Everyone was logged out. This was because a few users saw the wikis as if they were logged in to someone else's account. The problem should be fixed now. [86]
Some readers didn't see new edits to pages. If the page had been recently changed they saw an older version of the page instead. This only affected readers who were logged out. It lasted for ten days. It has been fixed. [87]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 July. It will be on all wikis from 1 July (calendar).
Future changes
The Modern and Monobook skins use the ID searchGoButton for the go button. This is searchButton for Vector. To have the same ID for all skins it will change to searchButton in Monobook and Modern too. This will affect gadgets and user scripts. It will happen on 23 July. They should be updated to use searchButton. You can read more and see a list of affected scripts.
The Medicine case was closed, with a remedy authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for all discussions about pharmaceutical drug prices and pricing and for edits adding, changing, or removing pharmaceutical drug prices or pricing from articles.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
The Score extension has been disabled for now. This is because of a security issue. It will work again as soon as the security issue has been fixed. [88]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 July. It will be on all wikis from 9 July (calendar).
Future changes
Abstract Wikipedia is a new Wikimedia project. It will collect language-independent information that can be easily read in different languages. It builds on Wikidata. The name is preliminary. You can read more. [89]
Some rules for user signatures will soon be enforced. Lint errors and invalid HTML will no longer be allowed in user signatures. Nested substitution will not be allowed. A link to your user page, user talk page or user contributions will be required. You can check if your signature works with the new rules. This is because the signatures can cause problems for tools or other text on the page.
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 can thank others for their edits. Checkusers can now see user data related to that action. This can help identify sock puppets who harass others using thanks. [90]
Problems
Everyone was logged out a couple of weeks ago to fix a security problem. The problem was not entirely fixed. Because of this everyone was logged out once again last week. [91][92]
Changes later this week
Wikis that are not for one specific language can translate pages. Sometimes parts of translations are outdated or missing. Outdated translations are marked with a pink background. Missing translations will also be marked in the future. This markup can sometimes break things. It can soon be disabled by using <translate nowrap></translate> on the source page. [93]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 July. It will be on all wikis from 16 July (calendar).
Future changes
Wikimedia code review plans to use GitLab. It would be hosted on Wikimedia servers. [94][95][96][97]
Moneytrees, have you tried putting it in your custom warnings list? I've nothing against it, but Twinkle tries not to put brand-new templates in unless there's some broad support it. There are a lot of "Hey I just made this template it should be in Twinkle" and the list can get pretty unwieldy. ~ Amory(u • t • c)10:48, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
I think it could be useful. I can think of two times I would have used it if I knew about even though I don't actively work with copyright. --Trialpears (talk) 15:10, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Not stupid! There are lots of options, I forget about half of them myself! ~ Amory(u • t • c)15:37, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
A temporary fix helped wikis make their main pages more mobile friendly. This was in 2012. It has not been recommended since 2017. The mobile main page special casing stopped working 14 July. 60 wikis now have main pages that don't work well on mobile. You can see which ones, how to fix it and how to get help in Phabricator. This is the same problem that was reported in Tech News 2020/24 and 2020/26.
Problems
There is a problem with the interlanguage links. The interlanguage links are the links that help you find a specific page in a different language. The sorting is broken. The developers are working on a solution. [98]
Some users keep getting the notifications for the same event. Some of these are old events. [99]
Some users have trouble logging in. This is probably a browser cookie problem. The developers are working on understanding the problem. If you have trouble logging in you can see the details on Phabricator. [100]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 July. It will be on all wikis from 23 July (calendar).
Future changes
There is a Printable version link. This will disappear. That is because web browsers today can create a printable version or show how it will look in print anyway. [101]
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 Starter kit is now available for wiki communities. This page lists technical resources, tools, and recommendations. These are essential to operate a wiki project. This is mostly useful for smaller wikis where the community has limited experience with this. [102]
The first features of the Desktop Improvements project are available for logged-in users on all wikis. In order to use them, uncheck Use Legacy Vector in your local or global preferences in section Skin preferences. More improvements are planned. Feedback is welcome.
The deployment train for MediaWiki has been blocked this week. [103][104]
Translation Notification Bot was sending the same message multiple times to every translator. This has been fixed. [105]
Some users were receiving the same notification multiple times. This has been fixed. [106]
Changes later 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 and some Wikipedias from July 29. It will be on all wikis from JUly 30 (calendar).
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
All queries to the Wikidata Query Service failed between 17:50 and 17:59 UTC on Thursday 23 July. Some queries failed during a longer period. [107]
Interlanguage links were ordered incorrectly for the past few weeks. This problem was also mentioned in Tech News two weeks ago. The problem is now fixed. [108]
There is a problem with the global preferences for the "Use Legacy Vector" option. Developers are working on fixing it. [109]
A bug in the Wikibase extension had disabled the "move" and "create" types of protection in the main (Gallery) namespace on Wikimedia Commons. New protections could not be added, and existing protections were not enforced, allowing some page moves and page creations that should not have been possible. This has now been fixed. [110]
Changes later this week
The video player will change to be simpler and more modern. This week, the current beta feature will become the video player for everyone on most non-Wikipedia wikis. The old player will be removed. [111]
Users' global.js and global.css pages will now also be loaded on the mobile site. You can read documentation for how to avoid applying styles to the mobile skin. [112]
In the MonoBook skin, the searchGoButton identifier is now searchButton. This may affect CSS and JS gadgets. Migration instructions can be found in T255953. This was previously mentioned in issue 27.
Bot operators can use Pywikibot to regularly archive discussions. The behavior when the bot uses counter to prevent large archives was changed. [113]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from August 5. It will be on all wikis from August 6 (calendar).
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
FileImporter and FileExporter became standard features on all Wikis during the first week of August. They help you transfer files from local wikis to Wikimedia Commons with the original file information and history intact. [114]
Problems
The mobile skin displays a message at the bottom of the page about who edited last. This message showed raw wikitext. This has now been fixed. Some messages in Structured Discussions and content translation may still appear as raw wikitext. Developers are working on it. [115]
Changes later 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 and some Wikipedias from August 12. It will be on all wikis from August 13 (calendar).
Future changes
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 13:30 and 15:30 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [116][117]
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 you revert an edit using the undo link your edit is marked with an undo tag. This will now only happen if you don't change anything in the edit window before publishing the undo. This is to keep users from marking edits as undos when they actually do something else. [118]
The new OOUI version will not work with Internet Explorer 8. This means the wikis will look strange and not work well in Internet Explorer 8. This was reported in Tech/News/2020/17. This is because keeping the wikis working with very old browsers creates other problems. [119]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 August. It will be on all wikis from 20 August (calendar).
Future changes
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 13:30 and 15:30 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis next week. This is a reminder. You can help by translating the announcement message. [120][121]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 August. It will be on all wikis from 27 August (calendar).
Hello there, could you please take a look at Arameans article from time to time due to countless edit warrings with a group of national vandalists, such as user Mugsalot, who have successfully established themselves here on English Wikipedia by spreading POV editing. This has been going for the last couple of years. Permanently violating Wikipedia's policy instead of being a neutral encyclopedia, welcoming high-quality academic sources even if it doesn't fit these people's views, which shouldn't matter here. Many thanks in advance.
