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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.
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]
<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. [2]
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}}. [3]
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. [4]
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. [5]
Changes this week
Hidden HTML comments will be more visible when you edit with the visual editor. <!-- You write hidden HTML comments like this. -->[6]
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.
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. [7]
Did you know that you can easily re-arrange columns and rows in the visual editor?
Select a cell in the column or row that you want to move. Click the arrow at the start of that row or column to open the dropdown menu (shown). Choose either "Move before" or "Move after" to move the column, or "Move above" or "Move below" to move the row.
You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.
Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has mainly worked on a new wikitext editor. They have also released some small features and the new map editing tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the list of work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, releasing the 2017 wikitext editor as a beta feature, and improving language support.
Invisible templates have been shown as a puzzle icon. Now, the name of the invisible template is displayed next to the puzzle icon.[9] A similar feature will display the first part of hidden HTML comments.[10]
Categories are displayed at the bottom of each page. If you click on the categories, the dialog for editing categories will open.[11]
At many wikis, you can now add maps to pages. Go to the Insert menu and choose the "Maps" item. The Discovery department are adding more features to this area, like geoshapes. You can read more on MediaWiki.org.[12]
The "Save" button now says "Save page" when you create a page, and "Save changes" when you change an existing page.[13] In the future, the "Save page" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information is available on Meta.
Image galleries now use a visual mode for editing. You can see thumbnails of the images, add new files, remove unwanted images, rearrange the images by dragging and dropping, and add captions for each image. Use the "Options" tab to set the gallery's display mode, image sizes, and add a title for the gallery.[14]
Future changes
The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining 10 "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next month. The developers want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including Thai, Burmese and Aramaic.
The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. The 2017 wikitext editor will look like the visual editor and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices in October 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
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. [15]
Editors couldn't edit semi-protected pages in the Wikipedia app for Android. This has now been fixed in the beta version. [16]
Changes this week
There will be no new MediaWiki version this week. [17]
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.
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. [18]
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". [19]
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.
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. [21]
The visual editor is now available on all wikis using only one language script. [23]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 1st. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 2nd. It will be on all wikis from November 3rd (calendar).
Now you can use autocomplete for page names in "Preview page with this template (what's this?)" field when editing templates. [24]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
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).
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. [32][33][34]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
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. [35]
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. [36]
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.
As an AfC reviewer you're probably aware that a new user right has been created for patrolling new pages (you might even have been granted the right already, and admins have it automatically).
Since July there has been a very serious backlog at Special:NewPagesFeed of over 14,000 pages, by far the worst since 2011, and we need an all out drive to get this back down to just a few hundred that can be easily maintained in the future. Unlike AfC, these pages are already in mainspace, and the thought of what might be there is quite scary. There are also many good faith article creators who need a simple, gentle push to the Tea House or their pages converted to Draft rather than being deleted.
Although New Page Reviewing can occasionally be somewhat more challenging than AfC, the criteria for obtaining the right are roughly the same. The Page Curation tool is even easier to use than the Helper Script, so it's likely that most AfC reviewers already have more than enough knowledge for the task of New Page Review.
It is hoped that AfC reviewers will apply for this right at WP:PERM and lend a hand. You'll need to have read the page at WP:NPR and the new tutorial.
Notifications concerning Flow are no longer all grouped together in your preferences. The "Edits to my talk page" category will now include Flow notifications about your user talk page (if your user talk page uses Flow), and the "Mentions" category will now include mentions on Flow pages. Previously, all notifications related to Flow were grouped together in the "Structured Discussion" category. [40]
The orange bar will now also be displayed when a message is posted on a your user talk page if your talk page uses Flow; previously, it was only displayed if you had a wikitext talk page. [41]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
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. [42]
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. [43]
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. [44]
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. [45][46][47]
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. [48]
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. [49]
Hello, Lor. 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.
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. [50]
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. [51]
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]. [52][53]
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.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Everyone can now see Special:UserRights. Previously only those who could change user rights could. Other users got an error message. [55]
ORES can now show how likely an edit is to be damaging to the wiki with different colours. This only works for languages that have trained ORES to recognize damaging edits. [56]
Changes this week
You will now see categories with 0 pages in Special:Categories. Previously you did not see empty categories there. [57]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 December. It will be on all wikis from 8 December (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 December at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
BBC 12-hour Editathon - large influx of new pages & drafts expected
AfC Reviewers are asked to be especially on the look out 08:00-20:00 UTC (that's local London time - check your USA and AUS times) on Thursday 8 December for new pages. The BBC together with Wikimedia UK is holding a large 12-hour editathon. Many new articles and drafts are expected. See BBC 100 Women 2016: How to join our edit-a-thon. Follow also on #100womenwiki, and please, don't bite the newbies :) (user:Kudpung for NPR. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:02, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Hello everyone, and welcome to the December 2016 GOCE newsletter. We had an October newsletter all set to go, but it looks like we never pushed the button to deliver it, so this one contains a few months of updates. We have been busy and successful!
Coordinator elections for the first half of 2017: Nominations are open for election of Coordinators for the first half of 2017. Please visit the election page to nominate yourself or another editor, and then return after December 15 to vote. Thanks for participating!
September Drive: The September drive was fruitful. We set out to remove July through October 2015 from our backlog (an ambitious 269 articles), and by the end of the month, we had cut that pile of oldest articles to just 83. We reduced our overall backlog by 97 articles, even with new copyedit tags being added to articles every day. We also handled 75% of the remaining Requests from August 2016. Overall, 19 editors recorded copy edits to 233 articles (over 378,000 words).
October Blitz: this one-week copy-editing blitz ran from 16 through 22 October; the theme was Requests, since the backlog was getting a bit long. Of the 16 editors who signed up, 10 editors completed 29 requests. Barnstars and rollover totals are located here. Thanks to all editors who took part.
November Drive: The November drive was a record-breaker! We set out to remove September through December 2015 from our backlog (239 articles), and by the end of the month, we had cut that pile of old articles to just 66, eliminating the two oldest months! We reduced our overall backlog by 523 articles, to a new record low of 1,414 articles, even with new tags being added to articles every day, which means we removed copy-editing tags from over 800 articles. We also handled all of the remaining Requests from October 2016. Officially, 14 editors recorded copy edits to 200 articles (over 312,000 words), but over 600 articles, usually quick fixes and short articles, were not recorded on the drive page.
Housekeeping note: we do not send a newsletter before every drive or blitz. To have a better chance of knowing when the next event will start, add the GOCE's message box to your Watchlist.
Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators: Jonesey95, Corinne and Tdslk.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
Users who have Yahoo email addresses could not use Special:EmailUser to send emails. This has now been fixed. Emails will now come from a @wikimedia.org address. Users who get an email from you will still reply to your email address and be able to see it. [58]
You can now see how many categories and pages there are in the categories in Special:TrackingCategories. This is to help you find pages that could need attention. [59]
Because of work on cross-wiki watchlistsglobal renaming is not working. The plan is to turn it on again on 16 December. Global renaming was turned off for a while in late November and early December as well. [61]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 December. It will be on all wikis from 15 December (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on December 13 at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Dear Lor. I wonder if you can assist with making the references better so that the article can be published? Thanking you in anticipation. WendigoUK (talk) 15:08, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
A decision has been made about how the Recent Changes filtering scheme will affect current ORES beta feature users. When this new filtering system rolls out as part of the beta, it will replace the current ORES display on the Recent Changes page. That means the automatic color coding, the red “r” symbol and the “hide probably good edits” filter will go away, to be replaced by the new, more nuanced set of filters and user-defined color coding. All other pages that have ORES features, like Watchlist and Related Changes, will remain as they are now for ORES beta users. We think those pages could also benefit from the new filtering system. But we'll wait to see how users react to the beta test—and make any necessary changes—before we start spreading the new UI around. That's the plan as it currently stands. As always, please let us know if you have any thoughts, in any language.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Tech News
Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 9 January 2017.
The writers of the technical newsletter are asking for your opinion. Did you get the information you wanted this year? Did we miss important technical news in 2016? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us! You can write in your language. Thank you!
Recent changes
Administrators and translation administrators can now use Special:PageLanguage on wikis with the Translate extension. This means you can say what language a page is in. The Translate extension will use that language as the source language when you translate. Previously this was always the wiki's default language. This was usually English. [67]
Wikis connected to Wikidata can now use the parser function {{#statements: }} to get formatted data. You can also use {{#property: }} to get raw data. You can see the difference between the two statements. There are also similar new functions in Lua. [68]
Problems
Some abuse filters for uploaded files have not worked as they should. We don't know exactly which filters didn't work yet. This means some files that filters should have prevented from being uploaded were uploaded to the wikis. MediaWiki.org and Testwiki have been affected since 13 October. Commons and Meta have been affected since 17 October. Other wikis have been affected since 17 November. [69]
Changes this week
There is no new MediaWiki version this week. There will be no new MediaWiki version next week either.
Meetings
The next meeting with the VisualEditor team will be on 3 January at 20:00 (UTC). During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. See how to join.