User talk:SPoore (WMF)

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Tech News: 2023-04

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

Problems

• Last week, for ~15 minutes, all wikis were unreachable for logged-in users and non-cached pages. This was caused by a timing issue. [1]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 January. It will be on all wikis from 26 January (calendar).
• If you have the Beta Feature for DiscussionTools enabled, the appearance of talk pages will add more information about discussion activity. [2][3]
• The 2023 edition of the Community Wishlist Survey (CWS), which invites contributors to make technical proposals and vote for tools and improvements, starts on Monday 23 January 2023 at 18:00 UTC.

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MediaWiki message delivery 23:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-05

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

Problems

• Last week, for ~15 minutes, some users were unable to log in or edit pages. This was caused by a problem with session storage. [4]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 February. It will be on all wikis from 2 February (calendar).

Future changes

• Wikis that use localized numbering schemes for references need to add new CSS. This will help to show citation numbers the same way in all reading and editing modes. If your wiki would prefer to do it yourselves, please see the details and example CSS to copy from, and also add your wiki to the list. Otherwise, the developers will directly help out starting the week of February 5.

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MediaWiki message delivery 00:05, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-06

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, logged-out users using the full-width toggle will be able to see the setting of their choice even after refreshing pages or opening new ones. This only applies to wikis where Vector 2022 is the default. [5]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 February. It will be on all wikis from 9 February (calendar).
• Previously, we announced when some wikis would be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. These switches will not be announced any more, as the read-only time has become non-significant. Switches will continue to happen at 7AM UTC on Tuesdays and Thursdays. [6]
• Across all the wikis, in the Vector 2022 skin, logged-in users will see the page-related links such as "What links here" in a new side menu. It will be displayed on the other side of the screen. This change had previously been made on Czech, English, and Vietnamese Wikipedias. [7]
• Community Wishlist Survey 2023 will stop receiving new proposals on Monday, 6 February 2023, at 18:00 UTC. Proposers should complete any edits by then, to give time for translations and review. Voting will begin on Friday, 10 February.

Future changes

• Gadgets and user scripts will be changing to load on desktop and mobile sites. Previously they would only load on the desktop site. It is recommended that wiki administrators audit the gadget definitions prior to this change, and add skins=… for any gadgets which should not load on mobile. More details are available.

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MediaWiki message delivery 10:21, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-07

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

• On wikis where patrolled edits are enabled, changes made to the mentor list by autopatrolled mentors are not correctly marked as patrolled. It will be fixed later this week. [8]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 February. It will be on all wikis from 16 February (calendar).
• The Reply tool and other parts of DiscussionTools will be deployed for all editors using the mobile site. You can read more about this decision. [9]

Future changes

• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [10][11][12]

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MediaWiki message delivery 01:49, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-08

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

Problems

• Last week, during planned maintenance of Cloud Services, unforeseen complications forced the team to turn off all tools for 2–3 hours to prevent data corruption. Work is ongoing to prevent similar problems in the future. [13]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 February. It will be on all wikis from 23 February (calendar).
• The voting phase for the Community Wishlist Survey 2023 ends on 24 February at 18:00 UTC. The results of the survey will be announced on 28 February.

Future changes

• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [14][15][16]

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MediaWiki message delivery 01:57, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-09

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

Problems

• Last week, in some areas of the world, there were problems with loading pages for 20 minutes and saving edits for 55 minutes. These issues were caused by a problem with our caching servers due to unforseen events during a routine maintenance task. [17][18]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 March. It will be on all wikis from 2 March (calendar).
• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. [19]

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MediaWiki message delivery 23:47, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-10

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 Community Wishlist Survey 2023 edition has been concluded. Community Tech has published the results of the survey and will provide an update on what is next in April 2023.
• On wikis which use LanguageConverter to handle multiple writing systems, articles which used custom conversion rules in the wikitext (primarily on Chinese Wikipedia) would have these rules applied inconsistently in the table of contents, especially in the Vector 2022 skin. This has now been fixed. [20]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 March. It will be on all wikis from 9 March (calendar).
• A search system has been added to the Preferences screen. This will let you find different options more easily. Making it work on mobile devices will happen soon. [21]

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MediaWiki message delivery 23:50, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-11

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 March. It will be on all wikis from 16 March (calendar).
• Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Chavacano de Zamboanga Wikipedia, Min Dong Chinese Wikipedia, Chechen Wikipedia, Cebuano Wikipedia, Chamorro Wikipedia, Cherokee Wikipedia, Cheyenne Wikipedia, Central Kurdish Wikipedia, Corsican Wikipedia, Kashubian Wikipedia, Church Slavic Wikipedia, Chuvash Wikipedia, Welsh Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [22][23]

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MediaWiki message delivery 23:20, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-12

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

Problems

• Last week, some users experienced issues loading image thumbnails. This was due to incorrectly cached images. [24]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 March. It will be on all wikis from 23 March (calendar).
• A link to the user's Special:CentralAuth page will appear on Special:Contributions — some user scripts which previously added this link may cause conflicts. This feature request was voted #17 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
• The Special:AbuseFilter edit window will be resizable and larger by default. This feature request was voted #80 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
• There will be a new option for Administrators when they are unblocking a user, to add the unblocked user’s user page to their watchlist. This will work both via Special:Unblock and via the API. [25]

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Wikipedia mobile apps teams. During the meeting, we will discuss the current features and future roadmap. The meeting will be on 24 March at 17:00 (UTC). See details and how to join.

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MediaWiki message delivery 01:26, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-13

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 AbuseFilter condition limit was increased from 1000 to 2000. [26]
• Some Global AbuseFilter actions will no longer apply to local projects. [27]
• Desktop users are now able to subscribe to talk pages by clicking on the Subscribe link in the Tools menu. If you subscribe to a talk page, you receive notifications when new topics are started on that talk page. This is separate from putting the page on your watchlist or subscribing to a single discussion. [28]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 March. It will be on all wikis from 30 March (calendar).

Future changes

• You will be able to choose visual diffs on all history pages at the Wiktionaries and Wikipedias. [29]
• The legacy Mobile Content Service is going away in July 2023. Developers are encouraged to switch to Parsoid or another API before then to ensure service continuity. [30]

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MediaWiki message delivery 01:13, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-14

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 system for automatically creating categories for the Babel extension has had several important changes and fixes. One of them allows you to insert templates for automatic category descriptions on creation, allowing you to categorize the new categories. [31][32][33][34][35]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 April. It will be on all wikis from 6 April (calendar).
• Some older Web browsers will stop being able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis from this week. This mainly affects users of Internet Explorer 11. If you have an old web browser on your computer you can try to upgrade to a newer version. [36]
• The deprecated jquery.hoverIntent module has been removed. This module could be used by gadgets and user scripts, to create an artificial delay in how JavaScript responds to a hover event. Gadgets and user scripts should now use jQuery hover() or on() instead. Examples can be found in the migration guide. [37]
• Some of the links in Special:SpecialPages will be re-arranged. There will be a clearer separation between links that relate to all users, and links related to your own user account. [38]
• You will be able to hide the Reply button in archived discussion pages with a new __ARCHIVEDTALK__ magic word. There will also be a new .mw-archivedtalk CSS class for hiding the Reply button in individual sections on a page. [39][40][41]

Future changes

• The Vega software that creates data visualizations in pages, such as graphs, will be upgraded to the newest version in the future. Graphs that still use the very old version 1.5 syntax may stop working properly. Most existing uses have been found and updated, but you can help to check, and to update any local documentation. Examples of how to find and fix these graphs are available.

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MediaWiki message delivery 23:39, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-15

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 visual editor, it is now possible to edit captions of images in galleries without opening the gallery dialog. This feature request was voted #61 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [42]
• You can now receive notifications when another user edits your user page. See the "Edits to my user page" option in your Preferences. This feature request was voted #3 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [43]

Problems

• There was a problem with all types of CentralNotice banners still being shown to logged-in users even if they had turned off specific banner types. This has now been fixed. [44]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 April. It will be on all wikis from 13 April (calendar).
• Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Moroccan Arabic Wikipedia, Danish Wikipedia, Dinka Wikipedia, Lower Sorbian Wikipedia, Ewe Wikipedia, Greek Wikipedia, Emiliano-Romagnolo Wikipedia, Esperanto Wikipedia, Estonian Wikipedia, Basque Wikipedia, Extremaduran Wikipedia, Tumbuka Wikipedia, Fulah Wikipedia, Finnish Wikipedia, Võro Wikipedia, Fijian Wikipedia, Faroese Wikipedia, Arpitan Wikipedia, Northern Frisian Wikipedia, Friulian Wikipedia, Irish Wikipedia, Guianan Creole Wikipedia, Scottish Gaelic Wikipedia, Galician Wikipedia, Gilaki Wikipedia, Guarani Wikipedia, Goan Konkani Wikipedia, Gothic Wikipedia, Gujarati Wikipedia, Manx Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [45][46]

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MediaWiki message delivery 20:05, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-16

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

Recent changes

• You can now see nearby articles on a Kartographer map with the button for the new feature "Show nearby articles". Six wikis have been testing this feature since October. [47][48]
• The Special:GlobalWatchlist page now has links for "mark page as read" for each entry. This feature request was voted #161 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [49]

Problems

• At Wikimedia Commons, some thumbnails have not been getting replaced correctly after a new version of the image is uploaded. This should be fixed later this week. [50][51]
• For the last few weeks, some external tools had inconsistent problems with logging-in with OAuth. This has now been fixed. [52]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 April. It will be on all wikis from 20 April (calendar).

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MediaWiki message delivery 01:54, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-17

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 date-selection menu on pages such as Special:Contributions will now show year-ranges that are in the current and past decade, instead of the current and future decade. This feature request was voted #145 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [53]

Problems

• Due to security issues with the Graph extension, graphs have been disabled in all Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia Foundation teams are working to respond to these vulnerabilities. [54]
• For a few days, it was not possible to save some kinds of edits on the mobile version of a wiki. This has been fixed. [55][56][57]

Changes later this week

• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on April 26. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. [58]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 April. It will be on all wikis from 27 April (calendar).

Future changes

• The Editing team plans an A/B test for a usability analysis of the Talk page project. The planned measurements are available. Your wiki may be invited to participate. Please suggest improvements to the measurement plan at the discussion page.
• The Wikimedia Foundation annual plan 2023-2024 draft is open for comment and input until May 19. The final plan will be published in July 2023 on Meta-wiki.

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MediaWiki message delivery 22:03, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-18

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 content attribution tools Who Wrote That?, XTools Authorship, and XTools Blame now support the French and Italian Wikipedias. More languages will be added in the near future. This is part of the #7 wish in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [59][60][61]
• The Video2commons tool has been updated. This fixed several bugs related to YouTube uploads. [62]
• The Special:Preferences page has been redesigned on mobile web. The new design makes it easier to browse the different categories and settings at low screen widths. You can also now access the page via a link in the Settings menu in the mobile web sidebar. [63]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 May. It will be on all wikis from 4 May (calendar).

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MediaWiki message delivery 01:45, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-19

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

• Last week, Community Tech released the first update for providing better diffs, the #1 request in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey. This update adds legends and tooltips to inline diffs so that users unfamiliar with the blue and yellow highlights can better understand the type of edits made.
• When you close an image that is displayed via MediaViewer, it will now return to the wiki page instead of going back in your browser history. This feature request was voted #65 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [64]
• The SyntaxHighlight extension now supports wikitext as a selected language. Old alternatives that were used to highlight wikitext, such as html5, moin, and html+handlebars, can now be replaced. [65]
• Preloading text to new pages/sections now supports preloading from localized MediaWiki interface messages. Here is an example at the Czech Wikipedia that uses preload=MediaWiki:July. [66]

Problems

• Graph Extension update: Foundation developers have completed upgrading the visualization software to Vega5. Existing community graphs based on Vega2 are no longer compatible. Communities need to update local graphs and templates, and shared lua modules like de:Modul:Graph. The Vega Porting guide provides the most comprehensive detail on migration from Vega2 and here is an example migration. Vega5 has currently just been enabled on mediawiki.org to provide a test environment for communities. [67]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 May. It will be on all wikis from 11 May (calendar).
• Until now, all new OAuth apps went through manual review. Starting this week, apps using identification-only or basic authorizations will not require review. [68]

Future changes

• During the next year, MediaWiki will stop using IP addresses to identify logged-out users, and will start automatically assigning unique temporary usernames. Read more at IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Updates. You can join the discussion about the format of the temporary usernames. [69]
• There will be an A/B test on 10 Wikipedias where the Vector 2022 skin is the default skin. Half of logged-in desktop users will see an interface where the different parts of the page are more clearly separated. You can read more. [70][71]
• jquery.tipsy will be removed from the MediaWiki core. This will affect some user scripts. Many lines with .tipsy( can be commented out. OO.ui.PopupWidget can be used to keep things working like they are now. You can read more and read about how to find broken scripts. [72]

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MediaWiki message delivery 00:36, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-20

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

Problems

• Citations that are automatically generated based on ISBN are currently broken. This affects citations made with the VisualEditor Automatic tab, and the use of the citoid API in gadgets and user scripts. Work is ongoing to restore this feature. [73]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 May. It will be on all wikis from 18 May (calendar).
• Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Gorontalo Wikipedia, Hausa Wikipedia, Hakka Chinese Wikipedia, Hawaiian Wikipedia, Fiji Hindi Wikipedia, Croatian Wikipedia, Upper Sorbian Wikipedia, Haitian Creole Wikipedia, Interlingua Wikipedia, Interlingue Wikipedia, Igbo Wikipedia, Iloko Wikipedia, Ingush Wikipedia, Ido Wikipedia, Icelandic Wikipedia, Inuktitut Wikipedia, Jamaican Patois Wikipedia, Javanese Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [74]

Future changes

• There is a recently formed team at the Wikimedia Foundation which will be focusing on experimenting with new tools. Currently they are building a prototype ChatGPT plugin that allows information generated by ChatGPT to be properly attributed to the Wikimedia projects.
• Gadget and userscript developers should replace jquery.cookie with mediawiki.cookie. The jquery.cookie library will be removed in ~1 month, and staff developers will run a script to replace any remaining uses at that time. [75]

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MediaWiki message delivery 21:45, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-21

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

Recent changes

• The "recent edits" time period for page watchers is now 30 days. It used to be 180 days. This was a Community Wishlist Survey proposal. [76]

Changes later this week

• An improved impact module will be available at Wikipedias. The impact module is a feature available to newcomers at their personal homepage. It will show their number of edits, how many readers their edited pages have, how many thanks they have received and similar things. It is also accessible by accessing Special:Impact. [77]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 May. It will be on all wikis from 25 May (calendar).

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16:55, 22 May 2023 (UTC)