User talk:EEMIV/Archive 20

This is a talk page archive. Please do not edit its contents.
If you'd like to get in touch with me, please leave a new message on my current talk page --EEMIV

Tech News: 2014-26

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

Recent software changes

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

VisualEditor news

You can now drag-and-drop selections of content, not just files and templates. [1] [2]
When dragging an item, you will now see a line that helps you to drop it. [3] [4]
You can now only move an image to the start of a paragraph, not to the middle of it, so you don't accidentally split it. [5] [6]
You will now be warned if you add wikitext to file captions and references. [7] [8]

Future software changes

You will no longer be able to upload files on wikis that do not have any copyright tags. [9] [10]
CirrusSearch will be enabled as the primary search method on additional 70 new wikis, including Meta-Wiki and Wikimedia Incubator, during the next week. [11]
CirrusSearch results will soon take into account categories, the first paragraph and the wikitext of a page. You will also be able to use regular expressions to search the wikitext. It will take a few days for the changes to be enabled on all wikis. [12]
You will soon be able to watch translations for e-mail notifications without receiving an e-mail when they are reviewed by another translator. [13] [14]
An IRC meeting to organize old high priority MediaWiki bug reports will take place on June 24 at 17:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). [15]

Problems

On June 19, all wikis were broken for about 15 minutes due to a high server load.
Between June 13 and June 15 there were problems with the scaling of video files due to a configuration error. [16]

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

07:20, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-27

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

Recent software changes

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

VisualEditor news

Context menus in VisualEditor will no longer flicker and disappear when you insert a new reference, formula, image, etc. [17] [18]
A bug that prevented relocating items due to cache was fixed last week. [19] [20]
VisualEditor will no longer scroll to the bottom of the page when you try to edit section 0. When you try to add a formula, VisualEditor will no longer scroll to the top of the page. [21] [22] [23] [24]
Links to category pages or file pages added with VisualEditor will now work correctly. [25] [26]

Future software changes

You will no longer be able to upload files on wikis that do not have any copyright tags. [27] [28]
Toolserver tools will be stopped on June 30. Please make sure to change gadgets that link to the Toolserver to point to Tool Labs instead.
CirrusSearch will be enabled on June 30 as the primary search method on 34 new wikis, including the Czech (cs), Danish (da), Finnish (fi) and Hebrew (he) Wikipedias. [29]
All Wikimedia wikis will be using a security method called perfect forward secrecy starting on July 1. If you see a problem, please report it. [30] [31]
Starting on July 1, it will be possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. [32]
You will soon see block information when you visit the contributions page or try to edit the user page or user talk page of a user who is affected by an IP range block. [33] [34]
You will soon be able to use {{!}} as a magic word to produce the pipe character, for instance for use in tables. [35]

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

06:53, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-28

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

Tech News updates

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 3. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 8, and to all Wikipedias on July 10 (calendar).
CirrusSearch was enabled on July 1 as the primary search method on 36 new wikis, including the Norwegian (no), Portuguese (pt) and Ukrainian (uk) Wikipedias. [36]
It is now possible to create Atom or RSS feeds for Word of the Day, Word of the Week and similar entries on Wiktionary wikis. [37] [38]
You can now use a graphical interface to edit TemplateData information on the English (en), French (fr) and Italian (it) Wikipedias. [39] [40]

VisualEditor news

Saving an edit with VisualEditor will now be much faster. [41] [42]
You can now add a caption when you add a file to a page with VisualEditor. You can also change the file to a different one and keep the existing caption. [43] [44] [45]
When you switch to the Edit source tab, you are now asked to keep your changes. You no longer need to find the option in the menus. [46] [47] [48]
The reference tool that adds empty <ref></ref> tags is now at the bottom of the Cite menu, below references that use templates like {{Cite web}}. [49]
Context menus will no longer be shown over items that you can edit directly, for example formulæ. [50] [51] [52]

Future software changes

Starting on July 9, it will be possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. The feature was first scheduled for July 1, but was delayed due to bugs.
A plan to enable CirrusSearch as the primary search method on the 11 largest Wikimedia wikis has now been prepared. [53]
If you use references on a page, you will soon always see them at the bottom of the page, even if you forget to add the <references /> tag (or a template). [54] [55]
Black-and-white XCF images will soon display correctly. [56] [57]
Description pages of SVG files will soon always show download links for multiple resolutions (example). The links were previously shown only for SVG files in large original resolutions. [58] [59]

Problems

Between July 2-3, there were problems with loading pages on multiple wikis due to a configuration issue. [60] [61]
For a few hours on July 1, there were problems with uploading new files on Wikimedia Commons due to a configuration error. [62] [63]

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

07:07, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-29

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf13) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 10. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 15, and to all Wikipedias on July 17 (calendar).
It is now possible to globally rename global (SUL) users. Please go to the username changes page on Meta if you want to rename your account on all wikis. [64] [65]
You can now read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for June 2014.
You can now read the latest issue of the Wikidata newsletter and translate it into your language.

VisualEditor news

The tool to add templates and citations will now work for templates that include HTML comments or templates in their titles. [66] [67]
The button to make images full size should now work correctly. [68] [69] [70]
References will now be shown in the default font size again. [71]

Future software changes

CirrusSearch will be enabled as the primary search method on the Dutch (nl) and Japanese (ja) Wikipedias on July 14, and on the Polish (pl) and Russian (ru) Wikipedias on July 16. [72]
The Special:Version page will soon show the exact version of MediaWiki and all extensions installed on your wiki (example). [73] [74]
It will soon no longer be possible to order printed books of wiki articles via PediaPress. You will still be able to create PDF files. [75]
Pages that use {{DISPLAYTITLE:''title''}} more than once will soon show a warning. You can use {{DISPLAYTITLE:''title''|noerror}} to hide it. [76] [77]
Pages that have the list of references added automatically will soon be added to a tracking category. Administrators will be able to configure the name of the category on their wikis. [78] [79]
Administrators will soon be able to easily merge histories of two pages using Special:MergeHistory. [80] [81]
Administrators will soon see links to delete files on Special:ListFiles. [82]

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

07:48, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, EEMIV. You have new messages at Raymie's talk page.
Message added 20:33, 19 July 2014 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]

Raymie (t • c) 20:33, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-30

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf14) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 17. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 22, and to all Wikipedias on July 24 (calendar).
CirrusSearch was removed as the primary search method from Wikimedia Commons and the Spanish (es) Wikipedia due to a high server load. The plan to enable it on the Dutch (nl), Japanese (ja), Polish (pl) and Russian (ru) Wikipedias was also postponed to a later date. [83] [84] [85]
The tool that stores information about languages (CLDR) was updated to its latest version. You can still help translate language names into your own language so they can be used in the sidebar and other places. [86]
Translation memory for newly translatable pages should now offer more suggestions. [87] [88]
A tool to convert MediaWiki pages to LaTeX is now available on Tool Labs. [89]

VisualEditor news

Tablet users visiting the mobile version of Wikimedia wikis will be able to use a special version of VisualEditor starting on July 31. You can test the new tool by choosing the beta version of the mobile view in the Settings menu. Feedback is welcome. [90]
All windows in VisualEditor have now a new design. Main action buttons will always be located in the top bar and will use simple words rather than icons. [91]
You can now easily open links inside the link editor, for example to see their target. [92]
Several bugs related to the positioning of the cursor around some items (like images and references) were fixed last week. [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98]

Future software changes

It will soon be possible to watch individual discussions in the Topic namespace rather than whole pages for talk pages using Flow. [99]
You can give comments about the new version of Winter, a proposal to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages. [100]
An IRC meeting to organize Pywikibot bugs will take place from July 24 to July 27 on the channel #pywikibot on freenode. [101]
A request for comments on how to improve MediaWiki API was re-started on MediaWiki.org. Your feedback is welcome.

Problems

Mailing lists were broken for about 16 hours between July 14 and July 15 due to a server problem. [102]

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

07:42, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Deaf culture

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Deaf culture. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:07, 22 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tarquin / Tarkin

My good faith edit, which you reverted, was intended to assist those readers who might be looking for the Ancient Roman kings, but don't know how to spell Tarquin. If they accidentally and inadvertently land at Tarkin, how are they supposed to know to try the disambiguation of Tarkin as a way forward? You place more of a burden on orthographically challenged users than they deserve, and I would like you to reconsider your judgement. Megapod (talk) 13:01, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It would take quite a few mis-clicks to arrive at Grand Moff Tarkin while doing a search for Tarquin or Tarkin. While well-intentioned, header text/links like that is more appropriate at e.g. likely typos, such as Tarkin, Tarqin, etc. But I don't see any likely typos set as automatic redirects to Grand Moff Tarkin; lacking that, the character article itself isn't an appropriate location for even well-intentioned header redirection. --EEMIV (talk) 22:47, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-31

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

Recent software changes

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

VisualEditor news

You can now create, edit, and view HTML comments in VisualEditor. [103] [104]
The cancel button in VisualEditor toolbar has been removed. You can still use the Read tab and the Back button in your browser to cancel your edit. [105]
If you try to use a template which has no suggested or required parameters in TemplateData, you will now be asked to add the parameters. [106] [107]
You will no longer be able to edit a page if you can't create it, for example on pages protected against recreation. [108] [109]

Future software changes

You will soon be able to filter Meta-Wiki's user rights log by wiki and user. [110] [111]
Wikidata will soon be able to store data about article status, for example "good article" or "featured article". If your wiki has highlighted content, please make sure it is on Wikidata's list. [112]
It will soon be possible to directly create empty pages, for example in the user namespace. [113] [114]

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

08:09, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-32

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

Tech News updates

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf16) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 31. Due to the Wikimania 2014 conference, it will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on August 12, and to all Wikipedias on August 14 (calendar). [115]
You can now test a new tool to render wiki pages as PDF files. [116] [117] [118]
You can now download an update to the archive of Wikimedia Commons files (uploaded up to December 31, 2013). If you have free space on your computer, please help preserve the files. [119]
New users using the mobile Commons site now need to make 75 edits before they can upload a file. [120] [121]

VisualEditor news

You will no longer see an edit confirmation message after making a null edit with VisualEditor. [122] [123]
VisualEditor will no longer change underscores to spaces in category sort keys. [124]
Many bugs that resulted in inserting the pawn and snowman symbols were fixed last week. [125] [126] [127] [128]
Several bugs related to the use of references were also fixed. [129] [130] [131] [132]

Future software changes

You will soon have a user option to watch pages where you revert edits. [133] [134]
All Toolserver data will be deleted in September. If you want to back up your data, contact Toolserver administrators before August 31. [135]
Pages in the Translations: namespace on wikis using the Translate extension will no longer be indexed by search engines. [136]

Problems

Wikivoyage wikis were broken for about 45 minutes on July 29 due to a configuration problem. [137]
Some users were not able to log in on test wikis and MediaWiki.org between July 31 and August 1. The problem is now fixed. [138]

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

07:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-33

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

Recent software changes

Due to the Wikimania 2014 conference, there were no MediaWiki changes this week. The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf16) will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on August 12, and to all Wikipedias on August 14 (calendar). [139]
Bureaucrats on all Wikivoyage wikis are no longer able to merge two accounts into one. [140]

VisualEditor news

Tablet users visiting the mobile version of non-Wikipedia wikis will be able to use VisualEditor starting on August 12. The feature will also be enabled on all Wikipedias on August 14. [141]

Future software changes

Internet Explorer 6 users will soon see a JavaScript-free version of Wikimedia wikis; JavaScript tools and scripts will no longer work on that browser. If you use Internet Explorer 6, make sure to update to a newer browser! [142] [143] [144]
If you visit a special page that requires you to be logged-in, you will soon be automatically redirected to the log-in page instead of seeing a warning. [145] [146]
You will now always see recent changes to the source language text when editing a translation with the Translate extension. [147] [148]
An IRC meeting to discuss VisualEditor will take place on August 14 at 09:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). [149]

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

07:43, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-34

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf17) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 14. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on August 19, and on all Wikipedias on August 21 (calendar).
There is a new protection level called superprotection. At the moment, only some Wikimedia Foundation employees have access to it. Administrators can't edit "superprotected" pages. [150] [151] [152]
You can now create empty pages directly. A message asks you to confirm that you want to create an empty page. [153] [154]
You can search for Wikimedia tools using a new list of tools. [155]
You can watch the first videos from Wikimania 2014. Some of them are about technical topics. More videos will come later.

Wikidata

After August 19, you can use Wikidata for inter language links on Wikinews. [156]
After August 19, you can use Wikidata for badges like "good" or "featured" articles. Next week, you will be able to show the badges in the article sidebar on Wikipedia, Wikisource and Wikiquote. [157]

Problems

There was an issue with ProofreadPage and WikiEditor on Wikisource wikis. It is now fixed. [158] [159]

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

07:17, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Artpop

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Artpop. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:05, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

On plot spoilers.

This is from a siilar discussion I had with Jim1138, which you may find interesting, even if you disagree with it:

There are two categories of plot summaries:

1. Gives the general gist of the story, generally excluding specific details of character deaths, romances, falling-outs, and many others, unless they are a vital part of the plot in progress. For example, if a character death is a crucial motivator for another character, and thus drives the story forward, an exception could be easily justified.

2. A blow-by-blow account of the entire story, generally considered inappropriate for an encyclopedia.

I see example #1 much more often in Wikipedia, and thus considered it the standard approach. Am I incorrect?

<snip>

Gibbousmoon100 (talk) 05:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

   @Gibbousmoon100: I'm not that familiar. I would suggest Wikipedia:How to write a plot summary for a guide. Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 06:20, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@Jim1138: Thanks for the link. The following sentence from that page seems to indicate that that entire sentence should be deleted, rather than having a spoiler tag placed before it: "However, when summarizing a plot and choosing what details to include, editors should use discretion. The advantages of exhaustive coverage of the work are in dynamic tension with the desire to preserve the artistic qualities of the work for readers.[4] Wikipedia should contain potentially "spoiling" detail where it substantially enhances the reader's understanding of the work and its impact but be omitted when it merely ruins the experience of the work of fiction for our readers." Does including the death of the protagonist at the conclusion of the story enhance the reader's understanding of the work, in your opinion? Gibbousmoon100 (talk) 06:36, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

   @Gibbousmoon100: I would think the protagonist's death should be discussed. Otherwise, the plot would be incomplete. Someone who saw the film and wishing to refresh their memory would want that info. Someone who hadn't seen the film and doesn't want it spoiled should stop at a heading of "plot". Stopping can be difficult! Should the heading "Story" be changed to "Plot"? Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 06:43, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@Jim1138: I disagree with you for the reasons I already outlined (namely, that I consider example #1 to be a superior plot description to example #2), but if you were to argue that this particular example represents a gray area, I would have to concede to that. But I've read many dozens, if not hundreds, of great plot summaries on wikipedia (of stories I've already seen or read) that gracefully exclude spoiling the very end of the story. In any case, I don't care enough either way to push the issue, not being a huge Star Wars fan. But I expect the paragraph left as is to both surprise and "ruin the experience of the work of fiction for our readers" for long-time users of wikipedia who are accustomed to plot summaries that adhere to my example #1 above. Gibbousmoon100 (talk) 07:55, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

   @Gibbousmoon100: I bow to your superior expertise. I am not one for films in general. Thanks for the discussion. I hope I didn't make this overly complex. Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 08:15, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

In summary, I feel that giving the gist of the plot, which need not include the ending (or any number of other details, even what some would consider important details!), is sufficient for an encyclopedic entry. The published wikipedia guidelines are consistent with this perspective, though they do unfortunately leave this particular question open to interpretation.Gibbousmoon100 (talk) 06:42, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-35

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

VisualEditor news

There was a error when you put your cursor directly after a reference list. It is now fixed. [160]
You can now add colors to links in the editor using gadgets. You can do this to see links to redirects or disambiguation pages. [161]
If you use Internet Explorer, you will soon be able to use VisualEditor. [162] [163] [164]

Future software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf18) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 21. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on August 26, and on all Wikipedias on August 28 (calendar).
After August 26, you will have a central JavaScript and CSS page. They will be on Meta-Wiki and will work on all wikis. Read more on the help page. [165]

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

09:21, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-36

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

Recent software changes

You can now test a new Beta Feature to see links to other wikis in the sidebar. The links come from Wikidata. [166] [167]
You can now search pages that link to a page. Use the linksto: keyword in your search. [168] [169]
A redirect to a section now changes the URL in the address bar of your browser. If "Dog" redirects to "Animals#Dog", you now see "Animals#Dog" instead of "Dog#Dog". [170] [171]
If you are testing Flow, you now have a Flow tab in your Notifications. It is called "Messages". [172]

VisualEditor news

You can no longer delete required fields in templates. [173]
We fixed many Internet Explorer bugs. If you use Internet Explorer 11, you will get VisualEditor next week. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [174] [175] [176]
VisualEditor now looks better in Monobook. [177]
We fixed a bug where some of your typing could be undone when you used "cut" (Ctrl+X). [178]
You will no longer see empty or deleted categories among the suggestions when you add a category. [179]

Future software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf19) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 28. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 2, and on all Wikipedias on September 4 (calendar).
There is a proposal to build a database on Commons for file data. It will make it easier to see the author, license and topics. You can give feedback on this idea. You can also come to the IRC chat on September 3 at 18:00 (UTC) in #wikimedia-office at freenode. [180]
You can give feedback on Media Viewer until September 7. You can say what needs to be improved and ask other people to give feedback too. [181]
You can test a new version of the tool to show math. It uses MathML. Report bugs in bugzilla.
You will no longer be able to upload images from the mobile site. [182]

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

07:49, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-37

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

VisualEditor news

From Thursday, Internet Explorer 11 users will get VisualEditor. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [183] [184] [185]

Future software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf20) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 9, and on all Wikipedias on September 11 (calendar).
You will soon confirm a "Thanks" inline instead of in a dialog. [186]
You can read more about the plan to move to Phabricator, a tool that will help people develop the MediaWiki software and report bugs. [187]

Problems

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

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

09:33, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-38

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

Recent software changes

You can now change the style of links to disambiguation pages. This is done with the mw-disambig CSS class. [188] [189]
There was a problem on right-to-left wikis with Wikidata log entries. The text was messy in watchlists and recent changes. The problem is now fixed. The same problem will be fixed soon for user names. [190] [191] [192]
New users are randomly chosen for a test on 12 Wikipedias. They get messages with ideas of articles to edit. The ideas come from what they have already edited. [193]

Problems

There was a problem with loading images on September 10. [194]

VisualEditor news

If you don't select text when you add a link, the link now shows a number. [195]
The citation tool no longer offers to reuse a citation if there are none on the page yet. [196] [197]
You can now use help buttons in the "Page settings" menu to see what the options are for. [198]

Future software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf21) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 16, and on all Wikipedias on September 18 (calendar).
These changes are coming with the new version:
- If you use Internet Explorer 7, JavaScript will no longer work. JavaScript tools and scripts will no longer work in that browser. You should update to a newer browser. [199] [200] [201]

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

08:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Talk page layout

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Talk page layout. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:06, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2014-39

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 software changes

You can test a new Beta Feature called HHVM. It should make editing faster. Please report bugs if you see them. [202]

Problems

There was a problem on the English Wikipedia on September 19. It was due to edits on a template used on many pages.
Sites were down for users in the Pacific area around 7:00 UTC on September 20. It was due to a problem in the San Francisco data center.
There were two bad bugs messing up articles in some browsers in VisualEditor. We fixed the bugs and updated the sites. [203] [204]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf22) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 23, and on all Wikipedias on September 25 (calendar).
If you have more than 2000 notifications, the oldest ones will be removed.[205] [206]
In the "Vector" skin, the icon used for users will show a neutral gender. [207] [208]
The VisualEditor template tool now tells you if a required field is missing. [209]
The "Cancel" button of the VisualEditor save window is now called "Resume editing". This shows that you can still edit and you won't lose your changes. [210]
There are new keyboard shortcuts in VisualEditor. Use Ctrl+Shift+6 for code and Ctrl+Shift+5 for ~~strikethrough~~. [211] [212]
In VisualEditor, you can now see that you are switching to the source editing mode. Before, it was not clear it was happening. [213]

Future site changes

You can see a plan for the move to Phabricator. It's the new tool to track bugs. A guided tour will be done via video on September 24. [214]

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

09:05, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-40

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 software changes

On Commons, you can now see what files are most used across all wikis. You can also see the same list for deleted or uncreated files. [215] [216]
There are now many more translations for language names. [217]

Software changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf1) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 30, and on all Wikipedias on October 2 (calendar).
Errors from Scribunto (Lua) are now shown on the page. Before, you had to click on "Script error" to see them. [218] [219]
You can add an "autovalue" for a field in TemplateData. When users add the template to a page, the value will be added automatically. An example is when a clean-up template shows the date it was added. [220]
If you change a user preference but don't save it, it now asks if you want to save it. [221] [222]
The PDF export tool has changed. The new one has better language support but it doesn't offer ZIM and EPUB formats. [223]

Future changes

You can watch a video showing Phabricator, the new tool to track bugs. You can also read more about the move from Bugzilla.
JavaScript authors: Many old methods will be removed soon. Please check your scripts and gadgets and replace the old methods by the new ones if needed. [224]

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

09:44, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-41

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

Recent changes

You can use the phab: and phabricator: interwikis to link to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org. [225] [226]
Some wikis have a template to track bugs in Bugzilla. You should update it to work with Phabricator. You can look at the one on mediawiki.org to see how. [227] [228]
You can look at Special:MediaStatistics to see what kind of files are on your wiki. [229]
A new tool can now create thumbnails of large TIFF images. This concerns files larger than 50 megapixels. These thumbnails are also sharpened. You can comment on Commons. [230]
The Media Viewer tool has a clearer link to the file page. It also has buttons to download, share and embed the file. You can enlarge images by clicking on them. [231]

Changes this week

The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf2) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since 2 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 7 October, and on all Wikipedias from 9 October (calendar).
If you make a code mistake when editing a Lua script, you won't be able to save your edit. [232] [233]
We fixed some more Internet Explorer bugs. If you use Internet Explorer 10, you will be able to use VisualEditor next week. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [234]
On Thursday, the tool to edit TemplateData will come to 30 more wikis. [235] [236]
You can help sort bugs in the Book and PDF export tool on October 8. [237]
1% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. [238]

Future changes

You can look at the plan of the Mobile team for their future work. [239]
More changes to Media Viewer are coming. It will be easier to disable it, and you will see the caption below the image. [240] [241]

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

06:10, 6 October 2014 (UTC)