User talk:R'n'B/Archive 33

Tech News: 2021-24
 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
 * Logged-in users on the mobile web can choose to use the advanced mobile mode. They now see categories in a similar way as users on desktop do. This means that some gadgets that have just been for desktop users could work for users of the mobile site too. If your wiki has such gadgets you could decide to turn them on for the mobile site too. Some gadgets probably need to be fixed to look good on mobile.
 * Language links on Wikidata now works for multilingual Wikisource.

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

Future changes
 * In the future we can't show the IP of unregistered editors to everyone. This is because privacy regulations and norms have changed. There is now a rough draft of how showing the IP to those who need to see it could work.
 * German Wikipedia, English Wikivoyage and 29 smaller wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on 22 June. This is planned between 5:00 and 5:30 UTC.
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes in the week of 28 June. More information will be published in Tech News later. It will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks.

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

20:25, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-25
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg The  group name is now  . This could affect abuse filters.

Problems
 * You will be able to read but not edit German Wikipedia, English Wikivoyage and 29 smaller wikis for a few minutes on 22 June. This is planned between 5:00 and 5:30 UTC.

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

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

15:48, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

You've got mail

 * So, one bad edit constitutes "going haywire"? Umm, OK, well it is a legit bug so I will get to fixing it shortly. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:50, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * @R'n'B that was near to fifty but most of them are now deleted and the bot is blocked to not generate further erroneous pages. Ahmetlii (talk) 18:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Yikes. I didn't look at deleted user contributions; sorry, you were certainly right to block it. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:56, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * "Near to fifty" is a little on the light side, was almost 250 pages I deleted. I left one, as I put in my massdelete reason, so you could diagnose the problem. - TNT 😺 18:58, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * That was a smidge salty of me, I apologise - let me know when you've fixed it and I'll be happy to unblock - TNT 😺 19:27, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

RussBot
Special:Contributions/RussBot - oh dear? I've blocked to stop it going haywire - TNT 😺 18:23, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Probably worth adding in a check for  in the page title and skip creation if found, as there's never a valid reason for such a formulation as far as I know.  firefly  ( t · c ) 18:28, 22 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I've corrected the error and done a successful test run, so please unblock the bot. Thanks. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 22:00, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Unblocked. Cheers! BD2412  T 22:08, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Elias Comfort McConnell
Hey there this is Elias. The previous content with my filmography would be nice to have again as well as what I added…. my name change and the birth of my son. I now live in portland Oregon after living in New York for 10 years. Working at Bergdorf Goodman as a personal stylist. Now I’m in real Estate with Berkshire Hathaway. I changed my name dropping McConnell and announced it publicly in the magazine Fanzine137 to separate myself as an artist from the actor. I grew up in a family of 9 kids to the same parents. Raised Presbyterian. Amd I can list magazines I’ve been in and a poetry book I wrote and published by hand. Anyway you’ve edited my place before and I don’t know how to properly (with code) make it look and sound “wiki”. I briefly photographed for Patrick Mcmullan and was also featured in the New York Times of Bill Cunningham 14 times (that I know of) Paperthinner23 (talk) 01:25, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-26
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Wikis with the Growth features now can configure Growth features directly on their wiki. This uses the new special page.
 * Wikisources have a new OCR tool. If you don't want to see the "extract text" button on Wikisource you can add  to your common.css page.

Problems
 * You will be able to read but not edit the Wikimedia wikis for a few minutes on 29 June. This is planned at 14:00 UTC.

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

Future changes
 * ,  and   can be set in preferences. They are expensive to maintain and few editors use them. The developers are planning to remove them. Removing them will make pages load faster. You can read more and give feedback.
 * A toolbar will be added to the Reply tool's wikitext source mode. This will make it easier to link to pages and to ping other users.

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

16:31, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2021).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Trialpears
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg AGK • Eliz81 • Mulad • ThaddeusB • Vianello • Who
 * Pictogram voting rename.png →

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Ragesoss



CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg AGK • DGG

Oversighter changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg AGK

Guideline and policy news
 * Consensus has been reached to delete all books in the book namespace. There was rough consensus that the deleted books should still be available on request at WP:REFUND even after the namespace is removed.
 * An RfC is open to discuss the next steps following a trial which automatically applied pending changes to TFAs.

Technical news
 * IP addresses of unregistered users are to be hidden from everyone. There is a rough draft of how IP addresses may be shown to users who need to see them. This currently details allowing administrators, checkusers, stewards and those with a new usergroup to view the full IP address of unregistered users. Editors with at least 500 edits and an account over a year old will be able to see all but the end of the IP address in the proposal. The ability to see the IP addresses hidden behind the mask would be dependent on agreeing to not share the parts of the IP address they can see with those who do not have access to the same information. Accessing part of or the full IP address of a masked editor would also be logged. Comments on the draft are being welcomed at the talk page.

Arbitration
 * The community authorised COVID-19 general sanctions have been superseded by the COVID-19 discretionary sanctions following a motion at a case request. Alerts given and sanctions placed under the community authorised general sanctions are now considered alerts for and sanctions under the new discretionary sanctions.

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ArchiveSent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:27, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Bad redirect at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaestus_(Achaea)
Hi RussBot, For reasons unclear, someone has redirected Phaestus (Achaea) a little-known but probably real Classical town in Achaea, Greece (one ancient source), wikidata id Q7180149, to the completely unrelated Bronze Age archaeological site of Phaistos in Crete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaestus_(Achaea) Could you, as the expert with the most recent edit/redirect, fix it? Many thanks. JBradyK (talk) 06:35, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I am by no means an expert. My bot only did a routine, automated cleanup edit. Have you tried discussing this with the editor who redirected the page six years ago ? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:07, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Rise from the Ashes
The article "Rise from the Ashes" has no sources and has no notability, per WP:NMUSIC. As the guideline say, "it is probably more appropriate to have a mention in the main article and redirect to that article". Coltsfan (talk) 16:09, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree with any of that. But it's not correct to redirect a title to itself. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:05, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah my bad. I was going to redirect it to the album. My mistake. Coltsfan (talk) 20:14, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-27
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News
 * The next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 19 July.

Recent changes
 * AutoWikiBrowser is a tool to make repetitive tasks easier. It now uses JSON.  has moved to   and  .   has moved to  . The tool will eventually be configured on the wiki so that you don't have to wait until the new version to add templates or regular expression fixes.

Problems
 * InternetArchiveBot helps saving online sources on some wikis. It adds them to Wayback Machine and links to them there. This is so they don't disappear if the page that was linked to is removed. It currently has a problem with linking to the wrong date when it moves pages from  to.

Changes later this week
 * The tool to find, add and remove templates will be updated. This is to make it easier to find and use the right templates. It will come to the first wikis on 7 July. It will come to more wikis later this year.
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes
 * Some Wikimedia wikis use Flagged Revisions or pending changes. It hides edits from new and unregistered accounts for readers until they have been patrolled. The auto review action in Flagged Revisions will no longer be logged. All old logs of auto-review will be removed. This is because it creates a lot of logs that are not very useful.

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

17:32, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Precious anniversary
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:22, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Opinion polling for the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election page
Hello! I've seen, that you mentioned me on the DPL bot's talk page. Well, the Opinion Polling in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election page, the 24 Hungarian website, that i was readed it, the IDEA Polling thing mentioned, that the Fidesz is got the 47% votes, while the opposition is got the 45% votes, and the Our Homeland Movement is got the 3% votes. Listen, in the Opinion polling for the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election, i didn't write the updtades, it is hard to me, so, i let someone to fix it. If you speak Hungarian language, then it is good, because i only speak two languages, 1 is the English, and 2 is the Hungarian language. The page is also got the Hungarian language. There is lots of the Opinion Polling thing, the IDEA, Závecz, MEDIA, Publicus, and the other Opinion Polling things, you know what i am talking about, right ? --TomFZ67 (talk) 19:26, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I really don't know what you are talking about. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:46, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-29
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * The tool to find, add and remove templates was updated. This is to make it easier to find and use the right templates. It was supposed to come to the first wikis on 7 July. It was delayed to 12 July instead. It will come to more wikis later this year.
 * Special:UnconnectedPages lists pages that are not connected to Wikidata. This helps you find pages that can be connected to Wikidata items. Some pages should not be connected to Wikidata. You can use the magic word  on pages that should not be listed on the special page.

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

Future changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg How media is structured in the parser's HTML output will soon change. This can affect bots, gadgets, user scripts and extensions. You can read more. You can test it on Testwiki or Testwiki 2.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The parameters for how you obtain tokens in the MediaWiki API were changed in 2014. The old way will no longer work from 1 September. Scripts, bots and tools that use the parameters from before the 2014 change need to be updated. You can read more.

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

15:30, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-30
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * A new version of MediaWiki came to the Wikimedia wikis the week before last week. This was not in Tech News because there was no newsletter that week.

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

Future changes
 * If you use the Monobook skin you can choose to switch off responsive design on mobile. This will now work for more skins. If  is unticked you need to also untick the new preference  . Otherwise it will stop working. Interface admins can automate this process on your wiki. You can read more.

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

21:10, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2021).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg BusterD
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Kees08 • Nickshanks • Protonk • Schissel • Ultraexactzz • Wknight94



CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg TheresNoTime

Oversighter changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg TheresNoTime
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg ST47

Guideline and policy news
 * An RfC is open to add a delay of one week from nomination to deletion for G13 speedy deletions.

Technical news
 * Last week all wikis were very slow or not accessible for 30 minutes. This was due to server lag caused by regenerating dynamic lists on the Russian Wikinews after a large bulk import.

Arbitration
 * Following an amendment request, the committee has clarified that the Talk page exception to the 500/30 rule in remedy 5 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case does not apply to requested move discussions.

Miscellaneous
 * You can vote for candidates in the 2021 Board of Trustees elections from 4 August to 17 August. Four community elected seats are up for election.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:18, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-31
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg If your wiki uses markup like  or  without the required  attribute, then these will no longer work in 2 weeks. There is a short-term fix that can be added to your local wiki's Common.css page, which is explained at T287701. From now on, all usages should include the full attributes, for example: <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> or <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> . This also applies to some other HTML tags, such as  or  . You can find existing examples on your wiki that need to be updated, using the instructions at T287701.
 * Reminder: Wikimedia has migrated to the Libera Chat IRC network, from the old Freenode network. Local documentation should be updated.

Problems
 * Last week, all wikis had slow access or no access for 30 minutes. There was a problem with generating dynamic lists of articles on the Russian Wikinews, due to the bulk import of 200,000+ new articles over 3 days, which led to database problems. The problematic feature has been disabled on that wiki and developers are discussing if it can be fixed properly.

Changes later this week
 * When adding links to a page using VisualEditor or the 2017 wikitext editor, disambiguation pages will now only appear at the bottom of search results. This is because users do not often want to link to disambiguation pages.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).

Future changes
 * The team of the Wikipedia app for Android is working on communication in the app. The developers are working on how to talk to other editors and get notifications. You can read more. They are looking for users who want to test the plans. Any editor who has an Android phone and is willing to download the app can do this.
 * The Beta Feature for will be updated in the coming weeks.  You will be able to subscribe to individual sections on a talk page at more wikis.  You can test this now by adding   to the end of the talk page's URL (example).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="tech-newsletter-content"/>

20:45, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-32
<section begin="tech-newsletter-content"/> 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 can read but not edit 17 wikis for a few minutes on 10 August. This is planned at 05:00 UTC. This is because of work on the database.

Changes later this week
 * The Wikimania Hackathon will take place remotely on 13 August, starting at 5:00 UTC, for 24 hours. You can participate in many ways. You can still propose projects and sessions.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Octicons-tools.svg The old CSS <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> will not be supported after 12 August. Instead, templates and pages should use <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> . Please help to replace any existing uses on your wiki. There are global-search links available at T287962.

Future changes
 * The Wikipedia Library is a place for Wikipedia editors to get access to sources. There is an extension which has a new function to tell users when they can take part in it. It will use notifications. It will start pinging the first users in September. It will ping more users later.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Vue.js will be the JavaScript framework for MediaWiki in the future.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="tech-newsletter-content"/>

16:19, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-33
<section begin="tech-newsletter-content"/> 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 add language links in the sidebar in the new Vector skin again. You do this by connecting the page to a Wikidata item. The new Vector skin has moved the language links but the new language selector cannot add language links yet.

Problems
 * There was a problem on wikis which use the Translate extension. Translations were not updated or were replaced with the English text. The problems have been fixed.

Changes later this week
 * A revision tag will soon be added to edits that add links to disambiguation pages. This is because these links are usually added by accident. The tag will allow editors to easily find the broken links and fix them. If your wiki does not like this feature, it can be hidden.
 * Would you like to help improve the information about tools? Would you like to attend or help organize a small virtual meetup for your community to discuss the list of tools? Please get in touch on the Toolhub Quality Signal Sessions talk page. We are also looking for feedback from tool maintainers on some specific questions.
 * In the past, edits to any page in your user talk space ignored your mute list, e.g. sub-pages. Starting this week, this is only true for edits to your talk page.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="tech-newsletter-content"/>

19:25, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-34
<section begin="tech-newsletter-content"/> 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 Score extension (<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> notation) has been re-enabled on public wikis and upgraded to a newer version. Some musical score functionality may no longer work because the extension is only enabled in "safe mode". The security issue has been fixed and an advisory published.

Problems
 * You will be able to read but not edit some wikis for a few minutes on . This will happen around 06:00 UTC. This is for database maintenance. During this time, operations on the CentralAuth will also not be possible.

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

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="tech-newsletter-content"/>

21:57, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Read-only reminder
<section begin="MassMessage"/> A maintenance operation will be performed on. It should only last for a few minutes.

Also during this time, operations on the CentralAuth will not be possible (GlobalRenames, changing/confirming e-mail addresses, logging into new wikis, password changes).

For more details about the operation and on all impacted services, please check on Phabricator.

A banner will be displayed 30 minutes before the operation.

Please help your community to be aware of this maintenance operation. <section end="MassMessage"/>

20:33, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-35
<section begin="tech-newsletter-content"/> 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 musical score syntax no longer works and may needed to be updated, you can check Category: on your wiki for a list of pages with errors.

Problems
 * Musical scores were unable to render lyrics in some languages because of missing fonts. This has been fixed now. If your language would prefer a different font, please file a request in Phabricator.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-tools.svg The parameters for how you obtain tokens in the MediaWiki API were changed in 2014. The old way will no longer work from 1 September. Scripts, bots and tools that use the parameters from before the 2014 change need to be updated. You can read more about this.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).

Future changes
 * You will be able to read but not edit Commons for a few minutes on . This will happen around 05:00 UTC. This is for database maintenance.
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes in the week of 13 September. More information will be published in Tech News later. It will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="tech-newsletter-content"/>

15:59, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2021).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Jake Wartenberg
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Emperor • Viridian Bovary
 * Pictogram voting rename.png →

Guideline and policy news
 * Feedback is requested on the Universal Code of Conduct enforcement draft by the Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee.
 * A RfC is open on whether to allow administrators to use extended confirmed protection on high-risk templates.
 * A discussion is open to decide when, if ever, should discord logs be eligible for removal when posted onwiki (including whether to oversight them)
 * A RfC on the next steps after the trial of pending changes on TFAs has resulted in a 30 day trial of automatic semi protection for TFAs.

Technical news
 * The Score extension has been re-enabled on public wikis. It has been updated, but has been placed in safe mode to address unresolved security issues. Further information on the security issues can be found on the mediawiki page.

Arbitration
 * A request for comment is in progress to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules. Comments and new proposals are welcome.

Miscellaneous
 * The 2021 RfA review is now open for comments.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:45, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-36
<section begin="tech-newsletter-content"/> 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 wikis that have Growth features deployed have been part of A/B testing since deployment, in which some newcomers did not receive the new features. Now, all of the newcomers on 21 of the smallest of those wikis will be receiving the features.

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

Future changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg In 2017, the provided jQuery library was upgraded from version 1 to 3, with a compatibility layer. The migration will soon finish, to make the site load faster for everyone. If you maintain a gadget or user script, check if you have any JQMIGRATE errors and fix them, or they will break.
 * Last year, the Portuguese Wikipedia community embarked on an experiment to make log-in compulsory for editing.  The impact report of this trial is ready. Moving forward, the Anti-Harassment Tools team is looking for projects that are willing to experiment with restricting IP editing on their wiki for a short-term experiment. Learn more.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="tech-newsletter-content"/>

15:19, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-37
<section begin="tech-newsletter-content"/> 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
 * 45 new Wikipedias now have access to the Growth features.
 * A majority of Wikipedias now have access to the Growth features. The Growth team has published an FAQ page about the features. This translatable FAQ covers the description of the features, how to use them, how to change the configuration, and more.

Problems
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on 14 September. This is planned at 14:00 UTC.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Starting this week, Wikipedia in Italian will receive weekly software updates on Wednesdays. It used to receive the updates on Thursdays. Due to this change, bugs will be noticed and fixed sooner.
 * You can add language links in the sidebar in the new Vector skin again. You do this by connecting the page to a Wikidata item. The new Vector skin has moved the language links but the new language selector cannot add language links yet.
 * The syntax highlight tool marks up code with different colours. It now can highlight 23 new code languages. Additionally, <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> can now be used as an alias for the Go programming language, and a special <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> mode has been added to show a program's output.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="tech-newsletter-content"/>

15:32, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-38
<section begin="tech-newsletter-content"/> 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
 * Growth features are now deployed to almost all Wikipedias. For the majority of small Wikipedias, the features are only available for experienced users, to test the features and configure them. Features will be available for newcomers starting on 20 September 2021.
 * MediaWiki had a feature that would highlight local links to short articles in a different style. Each user could pick the size at which "stubs" would be highlighted. This feature was very bad for performance, and following a consultation, has been removed.
 * A technical change was made to the MonoBook skin to allow for easier maintenance and upkeep. This has resulted in some minor changes to HTML that make MonoBook's HTML consistent with other skins. Efforts have been made to minimize the impact on editors, but please ping Jon (WMF) on wiki or in phabricator if any problems are reported.

Problems
 * There was a problem with search last week. Many search requests did not work for 2 hours because of an accidental restart of the search servers.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Octicons-tools.svg The meta=proofreadpage API has changed. The <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> parameter has been renamed to <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> . API users should update their code to avoid unrecognized parameter warnings. Pywikibot users should upgrade to 6.6.0.

Future changes
 * The Reply tool will be deployed to the remaining wikis in the coming weeks. It is currently part of "" in Beta features at most wikis. You will be able to turn it off in Editing Preferences.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The previously announced change to how you obtain tokens from the API has been delayed to September 21 because of an incompatibility with Pywikibot. Bot operators using Pywikibot can follow T291202 for progress on a fix, and should plan to upgrade to 6.6.1 when it is released.

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18:30, 20 September 2021 (UTC)