User talk:Fluffernutter/Archive 40

Tech News: 2018-42
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems
 * Some pages, edits and users disappeared for a short while after the server switch. Missing content and users was fixed within a day. Some preferences and other things might take a few more days to fix.
 * Wikis are updated with new and updated translations from translatewiki.net again. This will happen once a week. The developers are working on fixing the problem so we can have translation updates more often again.

Changes later this week
 * When you create an abuse filter that prevents edits you can now write a specific error message for it. Before this all abuse filters that prevented edits had the same error message.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 October. It will be on all wikis from 18 October (calendar).

Meetings
 * There will be no more meetings with the Editing team. This is because not enough Wikimedians were interested. To tell developers which bugs you think are the most important you can use Phabricator as normal.
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  22:40, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-43
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 October. It will be on all wikis from 25 October (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 24 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * The Community Wishlist Survey begins on 29 October. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 29 October to 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  23:11, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 October 2018
 * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:09, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-44
 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 post proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals until 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The wikis now have a content security policy report. This means that you might get a warning in your javascript console when you load external resources in your user scripts. For security reasons it is recommended that you don't do this. It might not be possible to load external resources in your scripts in the future.

Problems
 * Your watchlist can show which changes you have already seen. This did not work for a few days. It has been fixed.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 October. It will be on all wikis from 1 November (calendar).
 * The 2006 wikitext editor is no longer available. It will be removed from Special:Preferences. It has not been the standard editor for a long time. It was replaced by the 2010 wikitext editor.

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 31 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  20:08, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Editing News #2—2018
Read this in another language •  Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter  •  Subscription list on the English Wikipedia

Did you know?

Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?

Tap on the pencil icon to start editing. The page will probably open in the wikitext editor.

You will see another pencil icon in the toolbar. Tap on that pencil icon to the switch between visual editing and wikitext editing.



Remember to publish your changes when you're done.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has wrapped up most of their work on the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual diff tool. The team has begun investigating the needs of editors who use mobile devices. Their work board is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are fixing bugs and improving mobile editing.

Recent changes

 * The Editing team has published an initial report about mobile editing.
 * The Editing team has begun a design study of visual editing on the mobile website. New editors have trouble doing basic tasks on a smartphone, such as adding links to Wikipedia articles.  You can read the report.
 * The Reading team is working on a separate mobile-based contributions project.
 * The 2006 wikitext editor is no longer supported. If you used that toolbar, then you will no longer see any toolbar.  You may choose another editing tool in your editing preferences, local gadgets, or beta features.
 * The Editing team described the history and status of VisualEditor in this recorded public presentation (starting at 29 minutes, 30 seconds).
 * The Language team released a new version of Content Translation (CX2) last month, on International Translation Day. It integrates the visual editor to support templates, tables, and images.  It also produces better wikitext when the translated article is published.

Let's work together

 * The Editing team wants to improve visual editing on the mobile website.  Please read their ideas and tell the team what you think would help editors who use the mobile site.
 * The Community Wishlist Survey begins next week.
 * If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly.  We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation.

— Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:11, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2018).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Sir Sputnik
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Everyking • Jackmcbarn

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Keilana

Guideline and policy news
 * A request for comment determined that non-administrators will not be able to request interface admin access.
 * A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the Mediation Committee should be closed and marked as historical.
 * A village pump discussion has been ongoing about whether the proposed deletion policy (PROD) should be clarified or amended.
 * A request for comment is in progress to determine whether pending changes protection should be applied automatically to today's featured article (TFA) in order to mitigate a recent trend of severe image vandalism.

Technical news
 * Partial blocks is now available for testing on the Test Wikipedia. The new functionality allows you to block users from editing specific pages. Bugs may exist and can be reported on the local talk page or on Meta. A discussion regarding deployment to English Wikipedia will be started by community liaisons sometime in the near future.
 * A user script is now available to quickly review unblock requests.
 * The 2019 Community Wishlist Survey is now accepting new proposals until November 11, 2018. The results of this survey will determine what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year. Voting on the proposals will take place from November 16 to November 30, 2018. Specifically, there is a proposal category for admins and stewards that may be of interest.

Arbitration
 * Eligible editors will be invited to nominate themselves as candidates in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 4 until November 13. Voting will begin on November 19 and last until December 2.
 * The Arbitration Committee's email address has changed to arbcom-en@wikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:18, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-45
 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 use TemplateWizard to edit templates. This works only with the 2010 wikitext editor and not in the visual editor or the 2017 wikitext editor. If you click on OOjs UI icon puzzle-ltr.svg you can enter the information in a pop-up. You can turn on TemplateWizard in your beta feature preferences.

Changes later this week
 * You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. The interface for the two-column edit conflict will change. You can read more.
 * When you edit with the visual editor you can use the "Automatic" citation tab. This helps you generate citations. You will now be able to write plain text citations or the title of a journal article or a book in this tab. This will search the Crossref and WorldCat databases and add the top result.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 November. It will be on all wikis from 8 November (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  17:28, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Precious anniversary
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:48, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-46
 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
 * Some old mobile browsers can use the watchlist again. This has not worked for a while. These browsers are called grade C browsers. This helps for example Windows Phone 8.1 with Internet Explorer and Lumia 535 with Windows 10.

Problems
 * You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. Users who use this view saw the edit conflict resolution page when they wanted to see a preview. This has been fixed.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 November. It will be on all wikis from 15 November (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 14 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * You can use the content translation tool to translate articles. The developers are working on a new version. One of the changes will be a maintenance category. Articles where users add a lot of text from machine translation without changing it will be in that category. This is so the community can review it. The users will also have been warned before they publish the article that it has a lot of unchanged text from machine translations.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  19:21, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-47
 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 vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can vote until 30 November.
 * Octicons-tools.svg There is an A/B test for  data. This is to make it easier to find the right information with a search engine. This changes the metadata for a wiki page. It doesn't change how the page looks.

Changes later this week
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * The Wikimedia wikis use templates to show readers there are problems with the content on some pages. For example if there are no sources or the page needs to be rewritten. The mobile website will soon show more information when you use these templates. Some templates may need to be updated.
 * The Education Program extension was removed from all Wikimedia projects. The database tables used by the extension will be archived. This will happen in a month. If you want the information on your wiki you should move it to a normal wiki page.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  23:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-48
 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
 * On wikis with translatable pages you could create a mess when you moved a page that had translatable subpages. A subpage is when you use  to create a new page:  . The subpages would be moved but not the translations. The subpages are no longer automatically be moved. This is to make it safer to move pages.

Changes later this week
 * The advanced search interface will be available by default on all Wikimedia wikis. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. It's already active on German, Farsi, Arabic and Hungarian Wikipedia.
 * Special:UnusedCategories show empty categories with no files or other categories. You can soon choose to not show soft redirect categories or some maintenance categories there. You can do this with the magic word.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 November. It will be on all wikis from 29 November (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 28 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg The  function was deprecated in 2012. It will be removed next week. Look for the warning   in the JavaScript console to know if you use an affected script or gadget. If you are a gadget maintainer you should check if your JavaScript code contains  . There is a migration guide. It explains how to use   instead.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  22:22, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 December 2018
 * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:47, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2018). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svgk Chan

Guideline and policy news
 * Following a request for comment, the Mediation Committee is now closed and will no longer be accepting case requests.
 * A request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the Bot Approvals Group should satisfy activity requirements in order to remain in that role.
 * A request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
 * A proposal has been made to temporarily restrict editing of the Main Page to interface administrators in order to mitigate the impact of compromised accounts.

Technical news
 * Administrators and bureaucrats can no longer unblock themselves unless they placed the block initially. This change has been implemented globally. See also this ongoing village pump discussion (permalink).
 * To complement the aforementioned change, blocked administrators will soon have the ability to block the administrator that placed their block to mitigate the possibility of a compromised administrator account blocking all other active administrators.
 * Since deployment of Partial blocks on Test Wikipedia, several bugs were identified. Most of them are now fixed. Administrators are encouraged to test the new deployment and report new bugs on Phabricator or leave feedback on the Project's talk page. You can request administrator access on the Test Wiki here.

Arbitration
 * Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 3 December 2018. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Miscellaneous
 * In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
 * Wikipedia policy requires administrators to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

Obituaries
 * (Raymond Arritt) passed away on 14 November 2018. Boris joined Wikipedia as on 8 May 2006 and was an administrator from 30 July 2007 to 2 June 2008.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:36, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-49
<section begin="technews-2018-W49"/> 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 will not be able to unblock themselves if they are blocked by someone other than themselves. This is because it can cause damage if someone else takes over an admin account and other admins can't block them. If this is a problem for your community you can report it on Phabricator. You can also ask questions on Meta. There is a discussion on Phabricator about how to solve this if two admins fight with each other on a small wiki.
 * Small SVG images are now bigger when you see them in MediaViewer.
 * You can go to a section from the edit summary by clicking on the section name. Before this you had to click on the arrow.
 * When you jumped to a footnote that was referenced several times in an article it could be difficult to see where you were in the text. Now there are jump marks and highlights to help you find your way back.

Changes later this week Meetings
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 5 December at 16:00 (UTC) and at 23:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2018-W49"/> 16:12, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

December 2018 GOCE newsletter
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:04, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-50
<section begin="technews-2018-W50"/> 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
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 December. It will be on all wikis from 13 December (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 12 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * New accounts will need passwords that are at least 8 characters long. Admins, interface admins, bureaucrats, oversighters, CentralNotice admins, global renamers, check users, stewards and some other user groups will need passwords that are at least 10 characters long. This is because an attacker could cause damage to the wikis if they took over these accounts.
 * When you hover over a footnote it will show you the reference as a pop-up. This is so you don't have to jump down to the bottom of the page to see a reference. This will happen in 2019. Some wikis already have gadgets that do this. You will be able to turn it off.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2018-W50"/> 17:33, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Random question
So I recently walked past a store that was selling fluffernutters (beverages, not sandwiches) and it occurred to me that I've not seen your signature in a long while; until I checked your contributions, I figured you'd retired. Question: have you changed your editing patterns, or am I not-seeing you for some other reason? Nyttend (talk) 03:07, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Nope, you're right - my editing has dropped quite a lot in the past few years. I used to do most of my editing during down-time at work, but I took a job with the WMF Trust & Safety team in 2015 which means that I'm already spending my days onwiki(s) in a professional capacity and once the day ends, I just want to get away from the computer, so I've been having a lot less time to just futz around the wiki and edit. Lately I've been missing it, though, and have been trying to get back into the swing of things when I have time. Thanks for thinking of me, it's nice to know people remember me :)


 * P.S. Was the store a Sheetz? Their fluffernutter milkshakes are...so American. And so good. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 13:28, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you, and you're welcome; the phrase is an odd one, and it immediately recalled a Wikipedia editor by the same name :-) As a librarian I'm on the computer most of the workday, so I can sympathise; I've written a few articles lately (all sitting on my hard drive still, waiting for me to post them), but they're the first significant bits of new content I've created in a long while.  And yes, it was a Sheetz.  Nyttend (talk) 03:30, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * now it's time for things i bought at Sheetz Writ Keeper &#9863;&#9812; 03:36, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Lol. Good god is there anything the McElroy brothers haven't done? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 12:02, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-51
<section begin="technews-2018-W51"/> 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 7 January 2019.

Recent changes
 * Some templates that show notices about the content of the page will now be shown on the mobile website. In many cases they were hidden before.
 * Admins can no longer unblock themselves, except for self-blocks. A blocked admin can block the user who blocked them but no one else. This is so no one can block all admins on a wiki without being stopped.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The ParserMigration extension has been removed. It compared the result of two versions of the MediaWiki wikitext parsing pipeline. It was used when we moved to the Remex parsing library instead of Tidy.

Problems
 * tags can use parameters such as "name" or "group". For example . If a   tag has more than two parameters all parameters are ignored. You don't get a warning that they don't work. This will soon be fixed.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 December. It will be on all wikis from 20 December (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 19 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * The Wikimedia Foundation Android app team are working on making it easier to edit on mobile phones. You can read more about these plans. If you have an Android phone and speak at least two languages you can help testing in English. Tell Dchen (WMF) you want to be part of the testing by writing on her talk page or email her.
 * Octicons-tools.svg  and   will stop working. They have no maintainers and run an old operating system. Tools which use it could stop working. This includes the mapnik gadget, hill shading, and hike and bike layers. New maintainers could help out and keep it going.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2018-W51"/> 20:34, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2018
<div class="hlist" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:35, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2018).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Galobtter
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Orangemike
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg BorgQueen •  Davidruben • Ocee • Revolving Bugbear • Theda • There'sNoTime • Timc • Tijuana Brass • Tristessa de St Ange

Bureaucrat changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Addshore



CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Joe Roe • SilkTork
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg AGK • Joe Roe • SilkTork
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Guideline and policy news
 * There are a number of new or changed speedy deletion criteria, each previously part of WP:CSD:
 * G14 (new): Disambiguation pages that disambiguate only zero or one existing pages are now covered under the new G14 criterion (discussion). This is db-disambig; the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages.
 * R4 (new): Redirects in the file namespace (and no file links) that have the same name as a file or redirect at Commons are now covered under the new R4 criterion (discussion).  This is db-redircom; the text is unchanged.
 * G13 (expanded): Userspace drafts containing only the default Article Wizard text are now covered under G13 along with other drafts (discussion). Such blank drafts are now eligible after six months rather than one year, and taggers continue to use db-blankdraft.
 * The Wikimedia Foundation now requires all interface administrators to enable two-factor authentication.
 * Members of the Bot Approvals Group (BAG) are now subject to an activity requirement. After two years without any bot-related activity (e.g. operating a bot, posting on a bot-related talk page), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice.

Technical news
 * Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length . All accounts must have a password:
 * At least 8 characters in length
 * Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the [//github.com/wikimedia/password-blacklist Password Blacklist library])
 * Different from their username
 * User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.
 * Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
 * Copyvio-revdel now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration
 * Following the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee:, , , , ,.

Miscellaneous
 * Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
 * Around 22% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:38, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-02
<section begin="technews-2019-W02"/> 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 writers, editors and translators wish you a pleasant 2019 year.

Recent changes
 * RelatedSites extension has been undeployed. It was used to create interwiki links on Wikivoyage, now handled by Wikidata.
 * Octicons-tools.svg MediaWiki logstash logging is moving to a new infrastructure. This is an ongoing deployment.
 * Octicons-tools.svg codesearch.wmflabs.org has been updated, with new and updated repositories and a new search options for code.
 * Octicons-tools.svg On several wikis, an account named "" has been created on December 17 to perform some technical maintenance on AbuseFilter. This account has sysop rights but it's a system user and no human can use it. The account already existed on wikis where AbuseFilter can perform blocks, which are issued using this account. See T212268 for more information and future plans.

Problems
 * Octicons-tools.svg In AbuseFilter, the "" action takes three parameters: count, period and groups. They must now strictly respect the requirements listed on mediawiki.org. A list of broken filters is on Phabricator. If you're familiar with AbuseFilter, please take a look and fix them.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 8. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from January 9. It will be on all wikis from January 10 (calendar).

Meetings
 * Search Platform Office Hours is rescheduled to January 9. Check the details for time and date.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2019-W02"/> 18:29, 7 January 2019 (UTC)