User talk:Bamyers99/Archive 18

Archive 15

Archive 16

Archive 17

Archive 18

Archive 19

Archive 20

→

Archive 25

Tech News: 2022-25

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

Recent changes

• The Wikipedia App for Android now has an option for editing the whole page at once, located in the overflow menu (three-dots menu ). [1]
• Some recent database changes may affect queries using the Quarry tool. Queries for site_stats at English Wikipedia, Commons, and Wikidata will need to be updated. Read more.
• A new user_global_editcount variable can be used in abuse filters to avoid affecting globally active users. [2]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 June. It will be on all wikis from 23 June (calendar).
• Users of non-responsive skins (e.g. MonoBook or Vector) on mobile devices may notice a slight change in the default zoom level. This is intended to optimize zooming and ensure all interface elements are present on the page (for example the table of contents on Vector 2022). In the unlikely event this causes any problems with how you use the site, we'd love to understand better, please ping Jon (WMF) to any on-wiki conversations. [3]

Future changes

• The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated throughout July. Discussions will look different. You can see some of the proposed changes.
• Parsoid's HTML output will soon stop annotating file links with different typeof attribute values, and instead use mw:File for all types. Tool authors should adjust any code that expects: mw:Image, mw:Audio, or mw:Video. [4]

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

20:16, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 June 2022

• News and notes: WMF inks new rules on government-ordered takedowns, blasts Russian feds' censor demands, spends big bucks

• In the media: Editor given three-year sentence, big RfA makes news, Guy Standing takes it sitting down

• Special report: "Wikipedia's independence" or "Wikimedia's pile of dosh"?

• Discussion report: MoS rules on CCP name mulled, XRV axe plea nulled, BLPPROD drafting bid pulled

• Opinion: Picture of the Day – how Adam plans to ru(i)n it

• Featured content: Articles on Scots' clash, Yank's tux, Austrian's action flick deemed brilliant prose

• Essay: RfA trend line haruspicy: fact or fancy?

• Recent research: Wikipedia versus academia (again), tables' "immortality" probed

• Serendipity: Was she really a Swiss lesbian automobile racer?

• News from the WMF: Wikimedia Enterprise signs first deals

• Traffic report: Top view counts for shows, movies, and celeb lawsuit that keeps on giving

• Gallery: Celebration of summer, winter

• Humour: Shortcuts, screwballers, Simon & Garfunkel

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:30, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-26

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

• Wikimedia Enterprise API service now has self-service accounts with free on-demand requests and monthly snapshots (API documentation). Community access via database dumps & Wikimedia Cloud Services continues.
• All Wikimedia wikis can now use Wikidata Lexemes in Lua after creating local modules and templates. Discussions are welcome on the project talk page.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 June. It will be on all wikis from 30 June (calendar).
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 28 June at 06:00 UTC (targeted wikis). [5]
• Some global and cross-wiki services will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 30 June at 06:00 UTC. This will impact ContentTranslation, Echo, StructuredDiscussions, Growth experiments and a few more services. [6]
• Users will be able to sort columns within sortable tables in the mobile skin. [7]

Future meetings

• The next open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place tomorrow (28 June). The following meetings will take place on 12 July and 26 July.

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

20:01, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-27

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 July. It will be on all wikis from 7 July (calendar).
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 5 July at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 7 July at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
• The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated throughout July. Discussions will look different. You can see some of the proposed changes.
• This change only affects pages in the main namespace in Wikisource. The Javascript config variable proofreadpage_source_href will be removed from mw.config and be replaced with the variable prpSourceIndexPage. [8]

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

19:30, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Template Parameters tool

Hi. Could you please include enwiktionary at https://bambots.brucemyers.com/TemplateParam.php so it could be used? It'd be really convenient and I'd like to use it. Thanks, —Svārtava (t/u) • 10:37, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

@Svartava: I will look into automating the monthly template parameter usage. It currently takes about 6 manual steps for each wiki. Also, this only reads parameters for templates that have TemplateData defined. It will not read Module:parameters. --Bamyers99 (talk) 22:57, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

@Svartava: enwiktionary has been added. --Bamyers99 (talk) 22:47, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! I wanted to see the data for Wikt:T:cite-web [9] but that didn't show? —Svārtava (t/u) • 15:34, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

@Svartava: That template doesn't have TemplateData defined for it on its documentation page. If you edit the documentation page, there is a "Manage TemplateData" button in the upper left that displays a visual editor. --Bamyers99 (talk) 15:52, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Template data

When viewing a template's parameter data on https://bambots.brucemyers.com/TemplateParam.php?wiki=enwiki&template=, is there a way to view the specific values of the "Unique values" cell for a parameter, even when there are more than 50 unique values? TheGEICOgecko (talk) 05:27, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@TheGEICOgecko: Nope. Too much data to store. Millions of values. --Bamyers99 (talk) 16:37, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Would it be possible to see the 50 most used unique values, or even 50 random unique values? TheGEICOgecko (talk) 16:44, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@TheGEICOgecko: It now shows the first 50 encountered values. --Bamyers99 (talk) 02:09, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! :) TheGEICOgecko (talk) 03:45, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

TemplateParms tool

Hi can you enable this for English Wikisource?

I'm trying to track down issues with that wikis version of center? For English Wikipedia - https://bambots.brucemyers.com/TemplateParam.php?action=invalidlinks&wiki=enwiki&template=Center For English Wikisource - https://bambots.brucemyers.com/TemplateParam.php?action=invalidlinks&wiki=enwikisource&template=Center

obviously someone would have to add the TemplateData at wikisource though, hmm ... ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:01, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: enwikisource template parameters is available. --Bamyers99 (talk) 14:47, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Excellent, fixed a few more concerns almost straight away :)

I know it's probably a big ask, but could the tool be used to look at other namespaces ( such as Page:(ns 104) on Wikisource? (I think Wiktionary also has additional namespaces for Appendix: but not sure of the numbering, ). ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 15:44, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: Additional namespaces are now supported. The full list is at Namespaces.tsv (GitHub). Some bug fixes have removed some false positives. --Bamyers99 (talk) 20:20, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Template Params : Templates that shouldn't be supplied with parameters, and Shared documentation...

Example being : - https://bambots.brucemyers.com/TemplateParam.php?wiki=enwikisource&template=Fsx-block%2Fe

The relevant template being :- s:Template:Fsx-block/e

This template has no parameter arguments, and only appeared to do so because it imports it's template data block from shared documentation.

I can solve the latter issue by, implementing the templatedata directly on the template rather than on the /doc subpage. However I wasn't sure how to indicate in the templatedata JOSN thatthe params section should be 'nil' (or none at all).

What is your suggested approach for flagging up templates that have no arguments but that are called with them? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:51, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: {{Div col}}/{{Div col end}} handles this with a switch statement. Source: /doc TemplateData section. --Bamyers99 (talk) 19:14, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

TemplateParams (External Tool)

https://bambots.brucemyers.com/TemplateParam.php?wiki=enwikisource&page=2

Link to return to previous page absent in Firefox. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:35, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: There is no previous page link. Use the browser back button. --Bamyers99 (talk) 19:17, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Tambayan Philippines missing in WikiProject Cleanup Listings

Wikipedia:Tambayan Philippines is missing in the list of WikiProject Cleanup Listings. Please include it. Thanks. Sanglahi86 (talk) 10:39, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@Sanglahi86: Cleanup listing is now available. https://bambots.brucemyers.com/cwb/bycat/Tambayan_Philippines.html --Bamyers99 (talk) 12:40, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-28

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

Recent changes

• In the Vector 2022 skin, the page title is now displayed above the tabs such as Discussion, Read, Edit, View history, or More. Learn more. [10]
• It is now possible to easily view most of the configuration settings that apply to just one wiki, and to compare settings between two wikis if those settings are different. For example: Japanese Wiktionary settings, or settings that are different between the Spanish and Esperanto Wikipedias. Local communities may want to discuss and propose changes to their local settings. Details about each of the named settings can be found by searching MediaWiki.org. [11]
• The Anti-Harassment Tools team recently deployed the IP Info Feature as a Beta Feature at all wikis. This feature allows abuse fighters to access information about IP addresses. Please check our update on how to find and use the tool. Please share your feedback using a link you will be given within the tool itself.

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 12 July at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis).

Future changes

• The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated throughout July. Discussions will look different. You can see some of the proposed changes.

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

19:23, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Your reversal at Creed of the United States Coast Guardsman

I'm confused by your reversal here, especially since you didn't add an alternative short description. Is there a reason you feel the title doesn't establish enough context for the reader to understand what the article is about? If not, per WP:SDNONE, the short description template should remain as it was. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/they)^{Talk to Me!} 19:59, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

@ThadeusOfNazereth: Reverted. This useless templates value got copied to Wikidata. --Bamyers99 (talk) 20:02, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-29

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

Problems

• The feature on mobile web for Nearby Pages was missing last week. It will be fixed this week. [12]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 July. It will be on all wikis from 21 July (calendar).

Future changes

• The Technical Decision Forum is seeking community representatives. You can apply on wiki or by emailing TDFSupport@wikimedia.org before 12 August.

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

22:58, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-30

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

Recent changes

• The www.wikibooks.org and www.wikiquote.org portal pages now use an automated update system. Other project portals will be updated over the next few months. [13]

Problems

• Last week, some wikis were in read-only mode for a few minutes because of an emergency switch of their main database (targeted wikis). [14]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 July. It will be on all wikis from 28 July (calendar).
• The external link icon will change slightly in the skins Vector legacy and Vector 2022. The new icon uses simpler shapes to be more recognizable on low-fidelity screens. [15]
• Administrators will now see buttons on user pages for "Change block" and "Unblock user" instead of just "Block user" if the user is already blocked. [16]

Future meetings

• The next open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place tomorrow (26 July).

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

19:25, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Help!

Hi there. We tried to add the new lichen task force to the cleanup listing last week, but clearly must have done something wrong, as we got no listing after last night's run. The original attempt was entered as "WikiProject_Fungi => Lichen_task_force_articles", which showed project member category type 2. I've changed that to "WikiProject_Fungi => Lichen_task_force" but now I'm not sure if that's what I should be doing! (That shows project member category type 0.) Any help appreciated... MeegsC (talk) 10:56, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

@MeegsC and Esculenta: The listing is here. --Bamyers99 (talk) 13:02, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Bamyers99 – you're a star! Thanks for coding the cleanup listing bot too; it sure makes life a LOT easier! MeegsC (talk) 13:09, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

BadSearchResult for Cornish Bronze Age?

Hi! I have no idea what "BadSearchResult" means, but apparently my draft is included in it! Any idea why? Is there a toponym that looks like a swear word or something?  Tewdar  15:04, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

@Tewdar: The new article bot flagged it because of its size of more than 50,000 characters. Nothing to worry about. It will drop off the list after 14 days. --Bamyers99 (talk) 15:27, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Oh, okay. Am I to understand that the article might be considered too big? I've actually still got quite a lot to add (and some things that need to be trimmed, admittedly...)  Tewdar  15:29, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

@Tewdar: The report is just used to look for suspicious new articles. There are size checks and word checks, etc. --Bamyers99 (talk) 15:41, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 August 2022

• From the editors: Rise of the machines, or something

• News and notes: Information considered harmful

• In the media: Censorship, medieval hoaxes, "pathetic supervillains", FB-WMF AI TL bid, dirty duchess deeds done dirt cheap

• Op-Ed: The "recession" affair

• Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary (part 3)

• Election guide: The chosen six: 2022 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees elections

• Community view: Youth culture and notability

• Opinion: Criminals among us

• Arbitration report: Winds of change blow for cyclone editors, deletion dustup draws toward denouement

• Deletion report: This is Gonzo Country

• Discussion report: Notability for train stations, notices for mobile editors, noticeboards for the rest of us

• Traffic report: US TV, JP ex-PM, outer space, and politics of IN, US, UK top charts for July

• Featured content: A little list with surprisingly few lists

• Tips and tricks: Cleaning up awful citations with Citation bot

• In focus: Wikidata insights from a handy little tool

• On the bright side: Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war — three (more) stories

• Essay: How to research an image

• Recent research: A century of rulemaking on Wikipedia analyzed

• Serendipity: Don't cite Wikipedia

• Gallery: A backstage pass

• From the archives: 2012 Russian Wikipedia shutdown as it happened

• Humour: Why did the chicken cross the road?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-31

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

Recent changes

• Improved LaTeX capabilities for math rendering are now available in the wikis thanks to supporting Phantom tags. This completes part of the #59 wish of the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 August. It will be on all wikis from 4 August (calendar).
• The Realtime Preview will be available as a Beta Feature on wikis in Group 0. This feature was built in order to fulfill one of the Community Wishlist Survey proposals.

Future changes

• The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated throughout August. Discussions will look different. You can see some of the proposed changes.

Future meetings

• This week, three meetings about Vector (2022) with live interpretation will take place. On Tuesday, interpretation in Russian will be provided. On Thursday, meetings for Arabic and Spanish speakers will take place. See how to join.

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

21:20, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-32

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

Recent changes

• GUS2Wiki copies the information from Special:GadgetUsage to an on-wiki page so you can review its history. If your project isn't already listed on the Wikidata entry for Project:GUS2Wiki you can either run GUS2Wiki yourself or make a request to receive updates. [17]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 9 August at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 11 August at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).

Future meetings

• The Wikimania Hackathon will take place online from August 12–14. Don't miss the pre-hacking showcase to learn about projects and find collaborators. Anyone can propose a project or host a session. Newcomers are welcome!

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

19:48, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-33

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

Recent changes

• The Persian (Farsi) Wikipedia community decided to block IP editing from October 2021 to April 2022. The Wikimedia Foundation's Product Analytics team tracked the impact of this change. An impact report is now available.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 August. It will be on all wikis from 18 August (calendar).
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 16 August at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 18 August at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
• The Realtime Preview will be available as a Beta Feature on wikis in Group 1. This feature was built in order to fulfill one of the Community Wishlist Survey proposals.

Future changes

• The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated throughout August. Discussions will look different. You can see some of the proposed changes. [18][19][20]

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

21:07, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-34

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

• Two problems with Kartographer maps have been fixed. Maps are no longer shown as empty when a geoline was created via VisualEditor. Geolines consisting of points with QIDs (e.g., subway lines) are no longer shown with pushpins. [21][22]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 August. It will be on all wikis from 25 August (calendar).
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 25 August at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
• The colours of links and visited links will change. This is to make the difference between links and other text more clear. [23]

Future changes

• The new [subscribe] button helps newcomers get answers. The Editing team is enabling this tool everywhere. You can turn it off in your preferences. [24]

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

00:10, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Can the TemplateParametersTool also be run for article talk pages?

That way WikiProject templates can also be cleaned up easily -MPGuy2824 (talk) 02:37, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

@MPGuy2824: I don't have the resources on the server that the scanning is done on to process the 35.5 GB all pages file vs the 18.6 GB articles only file. --Bamyers99 (talk) 16:31, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Ah, ok. Now i understand why the frequency is only once-a-month. I assume that there is no talk-page-only file. If so, you could have processed it around the 15th, since the templates would be (mostly) different from the templates used on articles. If you need a voice of support while requesting resources for this in the future, feel free to ping me. Anyway, thanks for creating the tool. I use it to fix infobox parameters for Indian constituency articles. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 02:17, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-35

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 Realtime Preview is available as a Beta Feature on wikis in Group 2. This feature was built in order to fulfill one of the Community Wishlist Survey proposals. Please note that when this Beta feature is enabled, it may cause conflicts with some wiki-specific Gadgets.

Problems

• In recent months, there have been inaccurate numbers shown for various Special:Statistics at Commons, Wikidata, and English Wikipedia. This has now been fixed. [25]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 August. It will be on all wikis from 1 September (calendar).
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 30 August at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 1 September at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Foundation wants to improve how Wikimedia communities report harmful incidents by building the Private Incident Reporting System (PIRS) to make it easy and safe for users to make reports. You can leave comments on the talk page, by answering the questions provided. If you have ever faced a harmful situation that you wanted to report/reported, join a PIRS interview to share your experience. To sign up please email Madalina Ana.

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

23:02, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 August 2022

• News and notes: Admins wanted on English Wikipedia, IP editors not wanted on Farsi Wiki, donations wanted everywhere

• Special report: Wikimania 2022: no show, no show up?

• In the media: Truth or consequences? A tough month for truth

• Discussion report: Boarding the Trustees

• News from Wiki Education: 18 years a Wikipedian: what it means to me

• In focus: Thinking inside the box

• Tips and tricks: The unexpected rabbit hole of typo fixing in citations...

• Technology report: Vector (2022) deployment discussions happening now

• Serendipity: Two photos of every library on earth

• Featured content: Our man drills are safe for work, but our Labia is Fausta.

• Recent research: The dollar value of "official" external links

• Traffic report: What dreams (and heavily trafficked articles) may come

• Essay: Delete the junk!

• Gallery: A Fringe Affair (but not the show by Edward W. Feery that was on this year)

• Humour: CommonsComix No. 1

• From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 years ago

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:58, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-36

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 September. It will be on all wikis from 8 September (calendar).
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 6 September at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 8 September at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
• On Special pages that only have one tab, the tab-bar's row will be hidden in the Vector-2022 skin to save space. The row will still show if Gadgets use it. Gadgets that currently append directly to the CSS id of #p-namespaces should be updated to use the mw.util.addPortletLink function instead. Gadgets that style this id should consider also targeting #p-associated-pages, the new id for this row. Examples are available. [26][27]

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

23:19, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-37

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

Recent changes

• The search servers have been upgraded to a new major version. If you notice any issues with searching, please report them on Phabricator. [28]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 September. It will be on all wikis from 15 September (calendar).
• Syntax highlighting is now tracked as an expensive parser function. Only 500 expensive function calls can be used on a single page. Pages that exceed the limit are added to a tracking category. [29]

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

01:47, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-38

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

Recent changes

• Two database fields in the templatelinks table are now being dropped: tl_namespace and tl_title. Any queries that rely on these fields need to be changed to use the new normalization field called tl_target_id. See T299417 for more information. This is part of normalization of links tables. [30][31]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 September. It will be on all wikis from 22 September (calendar).
• In Kartographer maps, you can use icons on markers for common points of interest. On Tuesday, the previous icon set will be updated to version maki 7.2. That means, around 100 new icons will be available. Additionally, all existing icons were updated for clarity and to make them work better in international contexts. [32][33]

Future changes

• In a group discussion at Wikimania, more than 30 people talked about how to make content partnership software in the Wikimedia movement more sustainable. What kind of support is acceptable for volunteer developers? Read the summary and leave your feedback.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 22:13, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-39

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

Recent changes

• Parsoid clients should be updated to allow for space-separated multi-values in the rel attribute of links. Further details are in T315209.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 September. It will be on all wikis from 29 September (calendar).
• Visual diffs will become available to all users, except at the Wiktionaries and Wikipedias. [34]
• Talk pages on the mobile site will change at the Arabic, Bangla, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Korean, and Vietnamese Wikipedias. They should be easier to use and provide more information. [35] [36]
• In the Module namespace, pages ending with .json will be treated as JSON, just like they already are in the User and MediaWiki namespaces. [37]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:27, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 September 2022

• News and notes: Board vote results, bot's big GET, crat chat gives new mop, WMF seeks "sound logo" and "organizer lab"

• In focus: NPP: Still heaven or hell for new users – and for the reviewers

• In the media: A few complaints and mild disagreements

• Special report: Decentralized Fundraising, Centralized Distribution

• Discussion report: Much ado about Fox News

• Interview: ScottishFinnishRadish's Request for Adminship

• Opinion: Are we ever going to reach consensus?

• Serendipity: Removing watermarks, copyright signs and cigarettes from photos

• Recent research: How readers assess Wikipedia's trustworthiness, and how they could in the future

• Traffic report: Kings and queens and VIPs

• Featured content: Farm-fresh content

• Gallery: A Festival Descends on the City: The Edinburgh Fringe, Pt. 2

• CommonsComix: CommonsComix 2: Paulus Moreelse

• From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 Years ago: September 2022

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:00, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-40

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

Recent changes

• Kartographer maps can now show geopoints from Wikidata, via QID or SPARQL query. Previously, this was only possible for geoshapes and geolines. [38] [39]
• The Coolest Tool Award 2022 is looking for nominations. You can recommend tools until 12 October.

Changes later 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).
• Talk pages on the mobile site will change at the Arabic, Bangla, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Korean, and Vietnamese Wikipedias. They should be easier to use and provide more information. (Last week's release was delayed) [40] [41]
• The scribunto-console API module will require a CSRF token. This module is documented as internal and use of it is not supported. [5]
• The Vector 2022 skin will become the default across the smallest Wikimedia projects. Learn more.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:21, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-41

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

Changes later this week

• 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).
• On some wikis, Kartographer maps in full size view will be able to display nearby articles. After a feedback period, more wikis will follow. [42][43]

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

14:06, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-42

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

Recent changes

• The recently implemented feature of article thumbnails in Special:Search will be limited to Wikipedia projects only. Further details are in T320510. [44]
• A bug that caused problems in loading article thumbnails in Special:Search has been fixed. Further details are in T320406.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 October. It will be on all wikis from 20 October (calendar).
• Lua module authors can use mw.loadJsonData() to load data from JSON pages. [45]
• Lua module authors can enable require( "strict" ) to add errors for some possible code problems. This replaces "Module:No globals" on most wikis. [46]

Future changes

• The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated at most wikis. The "reply" button will look different after this change. [47]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:44, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-43

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

Recent changes

• There have been some minor visual fixes in Special:Search, regarding audio player alignment and image placeholder height. Further details are in T319230.
• On Wikipedias, a new preference has been added to hide article thumbnails in Special:Search. Full details are in T320337.

Problems

• Last week, three wikis (French Wikipedia, Japanese Wikipedia, Russian Wikipedia) had read-only access for 25 minutes. This was caused by a hardware problem. [48]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 October. It will be on all wikis from 27 October (calendar).
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 25 October at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 27 October at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
• Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Assamese Wikipedia, Bashkir Wikipedia, Balinese Wikipedia, Bavarian Wikipedia, Samogitian Wikipedia, Bikol Central Wikipedia, Belarusian Wikipedia, Belarusian (Taraškievica) Wikipedia, Bulgarian Wikipedia, Bhojpuri Wikipedia, Bislama Wikipedia, Banjar Wikipedia, Bambara Wikipedia, Bishnupriya Wikipedia, Breton Wikipedia, Bosnian Wikipedia, Buginese Wikipedia, Buryat Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [49]
• Starting on Wednesday October 26, 2022, the list of mentors will be upgraded at wikis where Growth mentorship is available. The mentorship system will continue to work as it does now. The signup process will be replaced, and a new management option will be provided. Also, this change simplifies the creation of mentorship systems at Wikipedias. [50][51][52]
• Pages with titles that start with a lower-case letter according to Unicode 11 will be renamed or deleted. There is a list of affected pages at m:Unicode 11 case map migration. More information can be found at T292552.
• The Vector 2022 skin will become the default across the smallest Wikipedias. Learn more.

Future changes

• The Reply tool and New Topic tool will soon get a special characters menu. [53]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:20, 24 October 2022 (UTC)