Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-23/Technology report

This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Some bug fixes or new features described below have not yet gone live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version, and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active. Configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.

Bots approved
One new bot task was approved this past week:
 * AnomieBOT (task 34) – To update WP:BAG/Status and notify operators when OperatorAssistanceNeeded is added to their active BRFAs.

New features

 * The Squid response limit in MediaWiki is now configurable. (r59178, bug 21551)

Other news

 * Wikimedia Germany has purchased two new database servers for the toolserver, two smaller servers and a disk array. The smaller servers will provide redundancy for the NFS and LDAP, and the database servers will provide redundant access to the MySQL databases.
 * A new system has been set up on the toolserver for handling photo scavenger hunts, such as Wikipedia Takes The City. See main story for more information.
 * Two new SVN committers were approved this week: Reedy to work on the API, and Abigor for work related to Wikiportrait.