Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-06-07/Technology report

Full XML dumps resumed

 * From the Wikimedia Techblog

Users of full database downloads (known colloquially as "dumps") of Wikimedia content will be pleased to know that a full schedule of dumps has restarted after certain problems were fixed. These problems had caused XML dumps from several projects, including the English Wikipedia, to have inconsistencies or missing text. Dumps provide an offline backup of the content of Wikipedia and other projects, and can also be used in preference to "live" data for research and more complicated full-text queries.

PHP bot framework
Ideas and thoughts about unifying the many different frameworks written for bots in the programming language PHP have resurfaced at the bot operators' noticeboard. The idea is to parallel a similar framework written in Python, pywikipediabot, which has achieved a significant level of use among the MediaWiki/Python community. Anyone with experience of coding bots in PHP – or with any thoughts of how best to achieve the "holy grail" of a common backbone for PHP-based bots – is invited to comment.

Other updates

 * "Permanently disable mobile site" has been fixed in non-English variants (bug #23229)
 * A number of updates to the Flagged protect/"Pending changes" have been made before its impending release (see recent Signpost coverage).
 * Bugs pertaining to the usability rollouts, including the mis-inclusion of spaces by the "link" dialogue have been fixed. The Vector skin and new editing interface are scheduled to be rolled out on the Japanese, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Russian, Polish, Portuguese, and Dutch Wikipedias on Thursday June 10.