Wiktionary:Simple talk/Archive 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 Wikipedia apps briefly showed pages without CSS last week. This meant they looked wrong. It was quickly fixed but cached pages without CSS were shown for a few hours. [1][2]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 September. It will be on all wikis from 17 September (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:19, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- There is a new tag for reverted edits. For example you can see it in the recent changes feed or in the article history. It is added to edits when they have been undone, rollbacked or manually reverted to an older version of the page. [3][4]
Changes later this week
- The number of times you can do something in a period of time on wiki is limited. This could be the number of edits per minute or the number of users you email in a day. Some users are not affected by all limits because of their user rights. They could soon see the limit even if it does not affect them. [5]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 September. It will be on all wikis from 24 September (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:28, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Admins can now see links to diffs of deleted revisions on Special:AbuseLog. This uses the interface of Special:Undelete. [6]
- Editors are automatically added to some user groups. For example editors are added to autoconfirmed users when they have edited enough times and long enough. Abuse filters can hinder users from automatically getting user rights for a period of time. They can also remove rights user have. Wikis can now ask to change how long this period of time is for their wiki in Phabricator. It is currently five days. [7]
Problems
- Last year some abuse filters stopped working because of a new change. If they tried to use variables that were unavailable for that action they would fail. This has now been fixed. [8]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 September. It will be on all wikis from 1 October (calendar).
Future changes
- You can't see the language links to other language versions from the talk page or history page. They are also not shown when you edit an article. This could change. It is not decided if for example the history page should link to another history page or to the article. You can take part in the discussion in Phabricator.
- The link colours could change. This is to make the difference between links and other text more clear. You can read more in Phabricator.
- In your preferences you can choose to get different notifications on the web or by email. You will see
Appsas one of the alternatives later this week. This is because the Android and iOS Wikipedia apps will use push notifications for those who want them. You can see the preferences on the test wiki. The goal is to have push notifications on Android in October and on iOS in early 2021. [9] - You can soon put pages on your watchlist for a limited time. This could be useful if you want to watch something for a shorter time but don't want it on your watchlist forever. It now works on mediawiki.org and will come to more wikis later. You can read more and see when it will come to other wikis.
- You can see what Wikimedians think are the best new technical tools this year. You can also nominate them.
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21:24, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
Wiki of functions naming contest
[change]Please help translate to your language.
Hello. Please help pick a name for the new Wikimedia wiki project. This project will be a wiki where the community can work together on a library of functions. The community can create new functions, read about them, discuss them, and share them. Some of these functions will be used to help create language-independent Wikipedia articles that can be displayed in any language, as part of the Abstract Wikipedia project. But functions will also be usable in many other situations.
There will be two rounds of voting, each followed by legal review of candidates, with voting beginning on 29 September and 27 October. Our goal is to have a final project name selected on 8 December. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at meta-wiki. Thank you! --Quiddity (WMF)21:16, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
Determiner templates
[change]I'm trying to provide more information about determiners, but it's getting a little unwieldy. I would like to mark the following information:
- Definite or indefinite
- Countability & number
- Only with count singular nouns (a ball)
- Only with plural nouns (those balls/glasses)
- Only with countable plural nouns (many balls)
- Only with uncountable singular nouns (little information)
- With any nouns (no ball/balls/information/glasses)
I'm not totally sure that no other combinations exist (e.g., only uncountable; only uncountable plural), but I think that covers the existing cases. Please, offer your suggestions on how to implement this without too much stuff before the definition.--Brett (talk) 15:42, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
- Implement as in? --Minorax (talk) 16:06, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
- As in produce a workable system of context labels that isn't too cluttered and produces useful categories.--Brett (talk) 12:36, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
- I think that singular and plural nouns should be categorized separately, with countable & uncountable nouns as a sub-category. --Minorax (talk) 03:55, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
- Like "1. (indefinite) (singular) (countable). A is used when the following noun could be any of a certain type."
- Only with count singular nouns (a ball) (singular) (countable)
- Only with plural nouns (those balls/glasses) (plural)
- Only with countable plural nouns (many balls) (plural) (countable)
- Only with uncountable singular nouns (little information) (singular) (uncountable)
- With any nouns (no ball/balls/information/glasses)
- --Brett (talk) 19:58, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Brett: So basically a template(s) to include several parameters? --Minorax (talk)
- @Minorax: That's what I'm wondering about. The example for a above seems cumbersome.
- BTW, do you pronounce your username "minor ax"?--Brett (talk) 15:00, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Brett: I'll see what I can do about the templates. As for my username, it's mi-no-rax. --Minorax (talk) 14:52, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Brett: Take a look at Template:singular/sandbox, it defaults with only (singular), and the template can take up to 2 additional parameters.
{{singular/sandbox|indefinite|countable}}will show (singular) (indefinite) (countable) . Categorisation can be done at a later point when the templates are up and running. --Minorax (talk) 05:38, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Brett: Take a look at Template:singular/sandbox, it defaults with only (singular), and the template can take up to 2 additional parameters.
- @Brett: I'll see what I can do about the templates. As for my username, it's mi-no-rax. --Minorax (talk) 14:52, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Brett: So basically a template(s) to include several parameters? --Minorax (talk)
- I think that singular and plural nouns should be categorized separately, with countable & uncountable nouns as a sub-category. --Minorax (talk) 03:55, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
- As in produce a workable system of context labels that isn't too cluttered and produces useful categories.--Brett (talk) 12:36, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
@Minorax:Thank you for this! It clarified some ideas for me. I think it's more intuitive to call it something like "det", since it applies to determiners. Every determiner is going to mark an NP as definite or indefinite, so I'd start with that in linear order. Most determiners are indefinite, making that the logical default, but it's a binary choice. Then there's number, which I'd put second. Some, like the are indiscriminate, marking singular, plural, countable, and uncountable, so it would potentially have five lables, which seems too much. Others, like a, are really picky, marking only singular countable NPs. I think the best say to deal with number is a 3-way choice between "singular", "plural", and "singular & plural". Similarly, we could have a 3-way choice between "count", "non-count", and "count & non-count".--Brett (talk) 11:58, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Brett: See Template:det, decided to go with the singular, plural option since it's simpler for readers to understand. The template defaults to indefinite with s, p & sp parameters. See table below for examples. --Minorax (talk) 12:29, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
TABLE REMOVED--Brett (talk) 17:54, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
- Sorry, I wasn't clear. I'd like to mark BOTH singular/plural AND count/non-count. Also, why "b"?--Brett (talk) 13:27, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- Ah ok. b = base template, can be changed to something more suitable. --Minorax (talk) 13:35, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- Updated, see above. --Minorax (talk) 13:38, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- I mean both s/p/sp and c/n/cn at the same time.--Brett (talk) 20:34, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Brett: Updated, see above. Only s/p/sp/c/n/cn are accepted parameters. If other letters are entered, invalid parameter will appear. --Minorax (talk) 04:46, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
- Thank you! This is very useful. What do you think about the visual results at the?--Brett (talk) 10:52, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
- Looks great. Can you list out the categories each parameter is suppose to link to? --Minorax (talk) 13:24, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
- Thank you! This is very useful. What do you think about the visual results at the?--Brett (talk) 10:52, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Brett: Updated, see above. Only s/p/sp/c/n/cn are accepted parameters. If other letters are entered, invalid parameter will appear. --Minorax (talk) 04:46, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
- I mean both s/p/sp and c/n/cn at the same time.--Brett (talk) 20:34, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- Updated, see above. --Minorax (talk) 13:38, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- Ah ok. b = base template, can be changed to something more suitable. --Minorax (talk) 13:35, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
- Sorry, I wasn't clear. I'd like to mark BOTH singular/plural AND count/non-count. Also, why "b"?--Brett (talk) 13:27, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
{{det|b=definite}}: Category:Definite determiners{{det}}: Category:Indefinite determiners{{det|s}}: Category:Singular determiners{{det|p}}: Category:Plural determiners{{det|sp}}: Category:Plural determiners & Category:Singular determiners{{det|c}}: Category:Singular determiners{{det|n}}: Category:Plural determiners{{det|cn}}: <Category:Plural determiners & Category:Singular determiners--Brett (talk) 13:50, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
- @Brett: Done, should be fine now. --Minorax (talk) 14:27, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
- Actually, should c & n be linked to Category:Count determiners and Category:Non-count determiners respectively? --Minorax (talk) 14:32, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- There is a new tool where you can see which home wiki users have in discussions on Meta. This can help show which communities are not part of the discussion on wikis where we make decisions that affect many other wikis.
- You can now thank users for file uploads or for changing the language of a page. [10]
Problems
- There were many errors with the new MediaWiki version last week. The new version was rolled back. Updates that should have happened last week are late. [11]
- Everyone was logged out. This was because a user reported being logged in to someone else's account. The problem should be fixed now. [12]
Many pages have JavaScript errors. You can read more and now see a list of user scripts with errors.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 October. It will be on all wikis from 8 October (calendar).
- Letters immediately after a link are shown as part of the link. For example the entire word in
[[Child]]renis linked. On Arabic wikis this works at both the start and end of a word. Previously on Arabic wikis numbers and other non-letter Unicode characters were shown as part of the link at the start of a word but not at the end. Now only Latin and Arabic letters will extend links on Arabic wikis. [13]
Future changes
- You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [14]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:25, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric
[change]Hello. Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language. Please help translate to your language.
Today the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees starts two calls for feedback. One is about changes to the Bylaws mainly to increase the Board size from 10 to 16 members. The other one is about a trustee candidate rubric to introduce new, more effective ways to evaluate new Board candidates. The Board welcomes your comments through 26 October. For more details, check the full announcement.
Thank you! Qgil-WMF (talk) 17:11, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- Because of the problems with the MediaWiki version two weeks ago last week's updates are also late. [15][16][17]
Changes later this week
- Live previews didn't show the templates used in the preview if you just edited a section. This has now been fixed. You can also test CSS and JavaScript pages even if you have the live preview enabled. Previously this didn't work well. [18][19]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 October. It will be on all wikis from 15 October (calendar).
Future changes
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:24, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 October. It will be on all wikis from 22 October (calendar).
Future changes
- You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [21]
- In the AbuseFilter extension, the
rmspecials()function will be updated soon so that it does not remove the "space" character. Wikis are advised to wrap all the uses ofrmspecials()withrmwhitespace()wherever necessary to keep filters' behavior unchanged. You can use the search function on Special:AbuseFilter to locate its usage. [22] - Some gadgets and user-scripts use the HTML div with the ID
#jump-to-nav. This div will be removed soon. Maintainers should replace these uses with either#siteSubor#mw-content-text. A list of affected scripts is at the top of phab:T265373.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:32, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
Important: maintenance operation on October 27
[change]Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language
The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.
They will switch all traffic back to the primary data center on Tuesday, October 27 2020.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.
You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.
- You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, October 27. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (14:00 WET, 15:00 CET, 10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 03:00 NZDT on Wednesday October 28).
- If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.
Other effects:
- Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
- There will be code freezes for the week of October 26, 2020. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.
-- Trizek (WMF) (talk) 17:12, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Important: maintenance operation on October 27
[change]Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language
The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.
They will switch all traffic back to the primary data center on Tuesday, October 27 2020.
Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.
You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.
- You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, October 27. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (14:00 WET, 15:00 CET, 10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 03:00 NZDT on Wednesday October 28).
- If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.
Other effects:
- Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
- There will be code freezes for the week of October 26, 2020. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.
-- Trizek (WMF) (talk) 11:51, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on October 27 around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [23]
- Last week, links to "diffs" from mobile watchlists and recentchanges were linking to page-revisions instead of diffs. This has now been fixed. [24]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
- Since the introduction of the interface administrators user group in 2018, administrators couldn’t view the deleted history of CSS/JS pages. Now they can. [25]
- There was a problem with the Change Tags. The software would apply the "Reverted" tag to any page actions such as page-protection changes if they came directly after a reverted edit. This has now been fixed for new edits. [26]
- The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias in November. Another announcement will be made once the date is finalized. [27]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:38, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- You can no longer read Wikimedia wikis if your browser uses very old TLS. This is because it is a security problem for everyone. It could lead to downgrade attacks. Since October 29, 2020, users who use old TLS versions will not be able to connect to Wikimedia projects. A list of browser recommendations is available. All modern operating systems and browsers are always able to reach Wikimedia projects. [28]
- There is a new automatic tracking category available: Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments. It collects pages which use the
{{formatnum}}parser function with invalid (non-numeric) input, e.g.{{formatnum:TECHNEWS}}. Note that{{formatnum:123,456}}is also invalid input: as described in the documentation, the argument should be unformatted so that it can be reliably and correctly localised. The tracking category will help identify problematic usage and double-formatting. The new tracking category's name can be translated at translatewiki. [29]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 4. It will be on all wikis from November 5 (calendar).
- Administrators and stewards will be able to use a special page (Special:CreateLocalAccount) to force local account creation for a global account. This is useful when account creation is blocked for that user (by a block or a filter). [30]
- The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias on November 4. This change excludes the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias, plus a few smaller Wikipedias with special circumstances. You can read the help page and the troubleshooting guide for more information. [31]
Future changes
- A discussion has been restarted about using a Unicode minus sign (− U+2212) in the output of
{{formatnum}}when it is given a negative argument. [32] - In the future IP addresses of unregistered users will not be shown for everyone. They will get an alias instead. There will be a new user right or an opt-in function for more vandal fighters to see the IPs of unregistered users. There would be some criteria for who gets the user right or opt-in. There will also be other new tools to help handle vandalism. This is early in the process and the developers are still collecting information from the communities before they suggest solutions.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:10, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
Wiki of functions naming contest - Round 2
[change]Hello. Reminder: Please help to choose the name for the new Wikimedia wiki project - the library of functions. The finalist vote starts today. The finalists for the name are: Wikicode, Wikicodex, Wikifunctions, Wikifusion, Wikilambda, Wikimedia Functions. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at Meta-wiki. Thank you! --Quiddity (WMF)
22:11, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
- You can see reference previews. This shows a preview of the footnote when you hover over it. This has been a beta feature. It will move out of beta and be enabled by default. There will be an option not to use it. The developers are looking for small or medium-sized wikis to be the first ones. You can let them know if your wiki is interested. [33]
- From November 16 the categories will not be sorted in order for a short time. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the internationalisation library. They will use a script to fix the existing categories. This can take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [34][35]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:50, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Listings on category pages are sorted on each wiki for that language using a library. For a brief period on 16 November, changes to categories will not be sorted correctly for most languages. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the library. They will then use a script to fix the existing categories. This will take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [36][37]
Changes later this week
- If you merged two pages in a namespace where pages can't redirect this used to break the merge history. This will now be fixed. [38]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 November. It will be on all wikis from 19 November (calendar).
Future changes
- The Community Wishlist Survey is now open for proposals. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 16 to 30 November. You can vote on proposals from 8 December to 21 December.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:37, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
Community Wishlist Survey 2021
[change]
The 2021 Community Wishlist Survey is now open! This survey is the process where communities decide what the Community Tech team should work on over the next year. We encourage everyone to submit proposals until the deadline on 30 November, or comment on other proposals to help make them better. The communities will vote on the proposals between 8 December and 21 December.
The Community Tech team is focused on tools for experienced Wikimedia editors. You can write proposals in any language, and we will translate them for you. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing your proposals!
SGrabarczuk (WMF) 05:52, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Timestamps in Special:Log are now links. They go to Special:Log for only that entry. This is how timestamps work on for example the history page. [39]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
- The Wikimedia Cloud VPS hosts technical projects for the Wikimedia movement. Developers need to claim projects they use. This is because old and unused projects are removed once a year. Unclaimed projects can be shut down from 1 December. Unclaimed projects can be deleted from 1 January. [40]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:19, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
Global bot policy proposal: invitation to a Meta discussion
[change]Hello!
I apologize for sending a message in English. Please help translate to your language. According to the list, your wiki project currently is opted in to the global bot policy. Under this policy, bots that fix double redirects or maintain interwiki links are allowed to operate under a global bot flag that is assigned directly by the stewards.
As the Wikimedia projects developed, the need for the current global bot policy decreased, and in the past years, no bots were appointed via that policy. That is mainly given Wikidata were estabilished in 2013, and it is no longer necessary to have dozens of bots that maintain interwiki links.
A proposal was made at Meta-Wiki, which proposes that the stewards will be authorized to determine whether an uncontroversial task may be assigned a global bot flag. The stewards already assign permissions that are more impactful on many wikis, namely, global sysops and global renamers, and I do not think that trust should be an issue. The stewards will assign the permission only to time-proven bots that are already approved at a number of projects, like ListeriaBot.
By this message, I would like to invite you to comment in the global RFC, to voice your opinion about this matter.
Thank you for your time.
Best regards,
Martin Urbanec (talk) 11:49, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
Wikidata descriptions changes to be included more often in Recent Changes and Watchlist
[change]Sorry for sending this message in English. Translations are available on this page. Feel free to translate it in more languages!
As you may know, you can include changes coming from Wikidata in your Watchlist and Recent Changes (in your preferences). Until now, this feature didn’t always include changes made on Wikidata descriptions due to the way Wikidata tracks the data used in a given article.
Starting on December 3rd, the Watchlist and Recent Changes will include changes on the descriptions of Wikidata Items that are used in the pages that you watch. This will only include descriptions in the language of your wiki to make sure that you’re only seeing changes that are relevant to your wiki.
This improvement was requested by many users from different projects. We hope that it can help you monitor the changes on Wikidata descriptions that affect your wiki and participate in the effort of improving the data quality on Wikidata for all Wikimedia wikis and beyond.
Note: if you didn’t use the Wikidata watchlist integration feature for a long time, feel free to give it another chance! The feature has been improved since the beginning and the content it displays is more precise and useful than at the beginning of the feature in 2015.
If you encounter any issue or want to provide feedback, feel free to use this Phabricator ticket. Thanks!
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 1 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 December. It will be on all wikis from 3 December (calendar).
Future changes
- The iOS Wikipedia app will show readers more of the article history. They can see new updates and easier see how the article has changed over time. This is an experiment. It will first be shown only to some iOS app users as a test. [41][42]
- The Wiki Replicas can be used for SQL queries. You can use Quarry, PAWS or other ways to do this. To make the Wiki Replicas stable there will be two changes. Cross-database
JOINSwill no longer work. You can also only query a database if you connect to it directly. This will happen in February 2021. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech. [43]
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17:45, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
2020 Coolest Tool Award Ceremony on December 11th
[change]Hello all,
The ceremony of the 2020 Wikimedia Coolest Tool Award will take place virtually on Friday, December 11th, at 17:00 GMT. This award is highlighting tools that have been nominated by contributors to the Wikimedia projects, and the ceremony will be a nice moment to show appreciation to the tools developers and maybe discover new tools!
You will find more information here about the livestream and the discussions channels. Thanks for your attention, Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 10:55, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time. Some wikis already had this function. [44][45]
Changes later this week
- Information from Wikidata that is used on a wiki page can be shown in recent changes and watchlists on a Wikimedia wiki. To see this you need to turn on showing Wikidata edits in your watchlist in the preferences. Changes to the Wikidata description in the language of a Wikimedia wiki will then be shown in recent changes and watchlists. This will not show edits to languages that are not relevant to your wiki. [46][47]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 December. It will be on all wikis from 10 December (calendar).
Future changes
- You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey between 8 December and 21 December. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:15, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Community Wishlist Survey 2021
[change]We invite all registered users to vote on the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey. You can vote from now until 21 December for as many different wishes as you want.
In the Survey, wishes for new and improved tools for experienced editors are collected. After the voting, we will do our best to grant your wishes. We will start with the most popular ones.
We, the Community Tech, are one of the Wikimedia Foundation teams. We create and improve editing and wiki moderation tools. What we work on is decided based on results of the Community Wishlist Survey. Once a year, you can submit wishes. After two weeks, you can vote on the ones that you're most interested in. Next, we choose wishes from the survey to work on. Some of the wishes may be granted by volunteer developers or other teams.
We are waiting for your votes. Thank you!
15:03, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- There is a Wikipedia app for KaiOS phones. It was released in India in September. It can now be downloaded in other countries too. [48]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 December. It will be on all wikis from 17 December (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:34, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
Formation of grammatically words with the sentences
[change]I don't know connect to the words. I'll never contacted words according to the grammatical rules. Which will always hard able for mine. It is very important to me. So that I want to improve my English language well.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Tech News
- Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 11 January 2021.
Recent changes
- The
{{citation needed}}template shows when a statement in a Wikipedia article needs a source. If you click on it when you edit with the visual editor there is a popup that explains this. Now it can also show the reason and when it was added. [49]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.
Future changes
- You can propose and discuss what technical improvements should be done for geographic information. This could be coordinates, maps or other related things.
- Some wikis use LanguageConverter to switch between writing systems or variants of a language. This can only be done for the entire page. There will be a
<langconvert>tag that can convert a piece of text on a page. [50] - Oversighters and stewards can hide entries in Special:AbuseLog. They can soon hide multiple entries at once using checkboxes. This works like hiding normal edits. It will happen in early January. [51]
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20:54, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- You can choose to be reminded when you have not added an edit summary. This can be done in your preferences. This could conflict with the CAPTCHA. This has now been fixed. [52]
- You can link to specific log entries. You can get these links for example by clicking the timestamps in the log. Until now, such links to private log entries showed no entry even if you had permission to view private log entries. The links now show the entry. [53]
- Admins can use the abuse filter tool to automatically prevent bad edits. Three changes happened last week:
- The filter editing interface now shows syntax errors while you type. This is similar to JavaScript pages. It also shows a warning for regular expressions that match the empty string. New warnings will be added later. [54]
- Oversighters can now hide multiple filter log entries at once using checkboxes on Special:AbuseLog. This is how the usual revision deletion works. [55]
- When a filter matches too many actions after it has been changed it is "throttled". The most powerful actions are disabled. This is to avoid many editors getting blocked when an administrator made a mistake. The administrator will now get a notification about this "throttle".
- There is a new tool to build new skins. You can also see existing skins. You can give feedback. [56]
- Bots using the API no longer watch pages automatically based on account preferences. Setting the
watchlisttowatchwill still work. This is to reduce the size of the watchlist data in the database. [57] - Scribunto's file metadata now includes length. [58]
- CSS and JavaScript code pages now have link anchors to line numbers. You can use wikilinks like w:en:MediaWiki:Common.js#L-50. [59]
- There was a new version of MediaWiki last week. You can read a detailed log of all 763 changes. Most of them are very small and will not affect you.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 January. It will be on all wikis from 14 January (calendar).
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15:42, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
Blocked Message
[change]What message will you get if you’re blocked from changing this wiki? 2603:8000:EA43:F8F5:97D:B098:1919:8DCE (talk) 15:23, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 January. It will be on all wikis from 21 January (calendar).
Future changes
- The Growth team plans to add features to get more visitors to edit to more Wikipedias. You can help translating the interface.
- You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for a short time on 26 January at 07:00 (UTC). [60]
- MassMessage posts could be automatically timestamped in the future. This is because MassMessage senders can now send pages using MassMessage. Pages are more difficult to sign. If there are times when a MassMessage post should not be timestamped you can let the developers know.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:10, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for a short time on 26 January at 07:00 (UTC). You will not be able to read or edit Wikitech for a short time on 28 January at 09:00 (UTC). [61][62]
Changes later this week
- Bracket matching will be added to the CodeMirror syntax highlighter on the first wikis. The first wikis are German and Catalan Wikipedia and maybe other Wikimedia wikis. This will happen on 27 January. [63]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 January. It will be on all wikis from 28 January (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:31, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Moving Wikimania 2021 to a Virtual Event
[change]
Hello. Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language. Please help translate to your language. Thank you!
Wikimania will be a virtual event this year, and hosted by a wide group of community members. Whenever the next in-person large gathering is possible again, the ESEAP Core Organizing Team will be in charge of it. Stay tuned for more information about how you can get involved in the planning process and other aspects of the event. Please read the longer version of this announcement on wikimedia-l.
ESEAP Core Organizing Team, Wikimania Steering Committee, Wikimedia Foundation Events Team, 15:16, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
Project Grant Open Call
[change]This is the announcement for the Project Grants program open call that started on January 11, with the submission deadline of February 10, 2021.
This first open call will be focussed on Community Organizing proposals. A second open call focused on research and software proposals is scheduled from February 15 with a submission deadline of March 16, 2021.
For the Round 1 open call, we invite you to propose grant applications that fall under community development and organizing (offline and online) categories. Project Grant funds are available to support individuals, groups, and organizations to implement new experiments and proven ideas, from organizing a better process on your wiki, coordinating a campaign or editathon series to providing other support for community building. We offer the following resources to help you plan your project and complete a grant proposal:
- Weekly proposals clinics via Zoom during the Open Call. Join us for #Upcoming_Proposal_Clinics|real-time discussions with Program Officers and select thematic experts and get live feedback about your Project Grants proposal. We’ll answer questions and help you make your proposal better. We also offer these support pages to help you build your proposal:
- Video tutorials for writing a strong application
- General planning page for Project Grants
- Program guidelines and criteria
Program officers are also available to offer individualized proposal support upon request. Contact us if you would like feedback or more information.
We are excited to see your grant ideas that will support our community and make an impact on the future of Wikimedia projects. Put your idea into motion, and submit your proposal by February 10, 2021!
Please feel free to get in touch with questions about getting started with your grant application, or about serving on the Project Grants Committee. Contact us at projectgrantsTemplate:atwikimedia.org. Please help us translate this message to your local language. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:01, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- IPv6 addresses were written in lowercase letters in diffs. This caused dead links since Special:Contributions only accepted uppercase letters for the IPs. This has been fixed. [64]
Changes later this week
- You can soon use Wikidata to link to pages on the multilingual Wikisource. [65]
- Often editors use a "non-breaking space" to make a gap between two items when reading but still show them together. This can be used to avoid a line break. You will now be able to add new ones via the special character tool in the 2010, 2017, and visual editors. The character will be shown in the visual editor as a space with a grey background. [66][67]
- Wikis use abuse filters to stop bad edits being made. Filter maintainers can now use syntax like
1.2.3.4 - 1.2.3.55as well as the1.2.3.4/27syntax for IP ranges. [68] - The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 February. It will be on all wikis from 4 February (calendar).
Future changes
- Minerva is the skin Wikimedia wikis use for mobile traffic. When a page is protected and you can't edit it you can normally read the source wikicode. This doesn't work on Minerva on mobile devices. This is being fixed. Some text might overlap. This is because your community needs to update MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext to work on mobile. You can read more. [69][70]
- Cloud VPS and Toolforge will change the IP address they use to contact the wikis. The new IP address will be
185.15.56.1. This will happen on February 8. You can read more.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:38, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
Wiki Loves Folklore 2021 is back!
[change]Please help translate to your language
You are humbly invited to participate in the Wiki Loves Folklore 2021 an international photography contest organized on Wikimedia Commons to document folklore and intangible cultural heritage from different regions, including, folk creative activities and many more. It is held every year from the 1st till the 28th of February.
You can help in enriching the folklore documentation on Commons from your region by taking photos, audios, videos, and submitting them in this commons contest.
Please support us in translating the project page and a banner message to help us spread the word in your native language.
Kind regards,
Wiki loves Folklore International Team
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:25, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- The Wikipedia app for Android now has watchlists and talk pages in the app. [71]
Changes later this week
- You can see edits to chosen pages on Special:Watchlist. You can add pages to your watchlist on every wiki you like. The GlobalWatchlist extension will come to Meta on 11 February. There you can see entries on watched pages on different wikis on the same page. The new watchlist will be found on Special:GlobalWatchlist on Meta. You can choose which wikis to watch and other preferences on Special:GlobalWatchlistSettings on Meta. You can watch up to five wikis. [72]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 February. It will be on all wikis from 11 February (calendar).
Future changes
- When admins protect pages the form will use the OOUI look. Special:Import will also get the new look. This will make them easier to use on mobile phones. [73][74]
- Some services will not work for a short period of time from 07:00 UTC on 17 February. There might be problems with new short links, new translations, new notifications, adding new items to your reading lists or recording email bounces. This is because of database maintenance. [75]
- Last week Tech News reported that the IP address Cloud VPS and Toolforge use to contact the wikis will change on 8 February. This is delayed. It will happen later instead. [76]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:42, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- There were problems with recent versions of MediaWiki. Because the updates caused problems the developers rolled back to an earlier version. Some updates and new functions will come later than planned. [77][78]
- Some services will not work for a short period of time from 07:00 UTC on 17 February. There might be problems with new short links, new translations, new notifications, adding new items to your reading lists or recording email bounces. This is because of database maintenance. [79]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 February. It will be on all wikis from 18 February (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:56, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- The visual editor will now use MediaSearch to find images. You can search for images on Commons in the visual editor when you are looking for illustrations. This is to help editors find better images. [80]
- The syntax highlighter now works with more languages: Futhark, Graphviz/DOT, CDDL and AMDGPU. [81]
Problems
- Editing a timeline might have removed all text from it. This was because of a bug and has been fixed. You might need to edit the timeline again for it to show properly. [82]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 February. It will be on all wikis from 25 February (calendar).
Future changes
- There is a user group for developers and users interested in working on Wikimedia wikis with the Rust programming language. You can join or tell others who want to make your wiki better in the future.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
00:17, 23 February 2021 (UTC)