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Tech News: 2018-10

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 make longer edit summaries. [1]

Changes later this week

You can notify users in edit summaries. They will get a ping just as if they had been mentioned on a wiki page. [2]
On Special:AbuseLog you can now choose to list only actions that actually made an edit. Other actions are when the filter warned the editor or blocked the edit from being made. There are also more search options. [3][4]
Wikis can enable Citoid to provide automatic reference look-up in the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor, but it is complex. The tool will now warn in the JavaScript console if the configuration isn't correct. Soon Citoid will disable itself if the configuration isn't correct. Check that your wiki is configured correctly. You can ask for help if you need it. [5]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 March. It will be on all wikis from 8 March (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 March at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

In the future you will be able to use global preferences. This means you could change a preference for all wikis instead of having to change it every time for each wiki. You can now test global preferences and give feedback.
You can now read about planned works on maps during 2018. This will be done by June. You can give feedback on the planned maps work.

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

17:12, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-11

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

3D models can now be uploaded to Commons. [6]
Page Previews has been updated to use HTML for previews. This has fixed many issues. An A/B test was done on English and German Wikipedia to measure how it is used. Other changes were also made. [7]
Some edits have to be checked against too many conditions before they can trigger an abuse filter. If that is the reason no filter is triggered the edit will be tagged for review. [8]
Auto-saving has been added to the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. Right now it is meant to help if your browser crashes or if you accidentally close a tab. [9]

Problems

The abuse filter did not tag all edits that should have been tagged after last week's MediaWiki version had come to the wikis. It was fixed on 9 March (UTC). [10]

Changes later this week

You can notify users in edit summaries. They will get a ping just as if they had been mentioned on a wiki page. This was originally planned to happen last week. [11]
It is now possible to specify the block parameters for each filter in Special:AbuseFilter. The parameters include block duration and if the user should be blocked from editing their own talk page. The block duration is separate for anonymous and registered users. [12][13]
A hundred Wikimedia wikis will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 13 and 14 March. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed in the middle of 2018. [14][15][16]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 March. It will be on all wikis from 15 March (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 13 March at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 14 March 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.

19:44, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Is this public domain ?

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u8qicuu22xmfhg1/AADPXPe1obmF_0JwDpcqLJeMa

because of download limits, these files are only avalable early in the day, usually mid-morning

some background on the referring party :

User:Z75SG61Ilunqpdb/sandbox

Z75SG61Ilunqpdb (talk) 12:16, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-12

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

On March 12 early morning UTC, the number of 503 error messages increased due to an issue on esams datacenter. It has been fixed. [17]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 March. It will be on all wikis from 22 March (calendar).

Meetings

There is no Editing team meeting this week.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

From April 4, the autopatrol status of edits will only be accessible in the Recent Changes database table, so only for 30 days. [18][19]
In-Context Help and Onboarding is a new project, aiming to improve retention of new wiki editors. The goal is to give them short tutorials and other training experiences based on their activity. Collaboration team is expecting feedback and comments on the project talk page, especially from people working with newcomers.

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

15:03, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-13

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

Some of the interface icons and text sizes will change slightly, as part of the updates for improved accessibility and consistency. These icons are used in many features, including Notifications, Recent Changes, Beta Features, Visual Editor, 2017 Wikitext Editor, Code Editor, and others. While editor toolbars, dialogs, and menus will appear slightly bigger; elements on special pages will be slightly smaller. Functionality will not change. [20] [21]
The deprecated #toc and #toctitle CSS ids have been removed. If your wiki was still using these for fake Tables of Content (ToC) then these might lose their styling. They can be replaced with .toc and .toctitle classes where appropriate. [22]
TemplateStyles will be deployed to the Wikivoyages on 28 March 2018. [23]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 March. It will be on all wikis from 29 March (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 27 March at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be one hour earlier than usual on 28 March at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

From 9 April, the sort order of categories will be distorted for a short time. We are upgrading versions of an internationalisation library (ICU) and using a maintenance script to update existing database entries. This will last anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on wiki size. Read more details. [24]
Changes are coming to search for Serbian projects. Cyrillic and Latin variants of a word and different grammatical forms of a word will be able to find each other. Read more on MediaWiki in Serbian or English.

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

20:04, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Signpost issue 4 – 29 March 2018

Op-ed: Death knell for The Signpost?

News and notes: Wiki Conference roundup and new appointments.

Arbitration report: Ironing out issues in infoboxes; not sure yet about New Jersey; and an administrator who probably wasn't uncivil to a sockpuppet.

In the media: The media on Wikipedia's workings: the good and not-so-good

Traffic report: Real sports, real women and an imaginary country: what's on top for Wikipedia readers

Featured content: Animals, Ships, and Songs

Technology report: Timeless skin review by Force Radical.

Special report: ACTRIAL wrap-up.

Humour: WikiWorld Reruns

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:48, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

New Page Review Newsletter No.10

Hello AntiCompositeNumber, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!

Notability General notability guideline Subject-specific guidelines Academics Astronomical objects Books Events Films Geographic features Music Numbers Organizations and companies People Sports and athletes Web content See also Notability essays Guide to deletion Common deletion outcomes Why was my article deleted? .mw-parser-output .navbar{display:inline;font-size:88%;font-weight:normal}.mw-parser-output .navbar-collapse{float:left;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .navbar-boxtext{word-spacing:0}.mw-parser-output .navbar ul{display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;line-height:inherit}.mw-parser-output .navbar-brackets::before{margin-right:-0.125em;content:"[ "}.mw-parser-output .navbar-brackets::after{margin-left:-0.125em;content:" ]"}.mw-parser-output .navbar li{word-spacing:-0.125em}.mw-parser-output .navbar a>span,.mw-parser-output .navbar a>abbr{text-decoration:inherit}.mw-parser-output .navbar-mini abbr{font-variant:small-caps;border-bottom:none;text-decoration:none;cursor:inherit}.mw-parser-output .navbar-ct-full{font-size:114%;margin:0 7em}.mw-parser-output .navbar-ct-mini{font-size:114%;margin:0 4em}v t e

ACTRIAL:

ACTRIAL's six month experiment restricting new page creation to (auto)confirmed users ended on 14 March. As expected, a greatly increased number of unsuitable articles and candidates for deletion are showing up in the feed again, and the backlog has since increased already by ~30%. Please consider reviewing a few extra articles each day.

Paid editing

Now that ACTRIAL is inoperative pending discussion, please be sure to look for tell-tale signs of undisclosed paid editing. Contact the creator if appropriate, and submit the issue to WP:COIN if necessary.

Subject-specific notability guidelines

The box at the right contains each of the subject-specific notability guidelines, please review any that are relevant BEFORE nominating an article for deletion.
Reviewers are requested to familiarise themselves with the new version of the notability guidelines for organisations and companies. A further discussion is currently taking place at: Can a subject specific guideline invalidate the General Notability Guideline?

Nominate competent users for Autopatrolled

While patrolling articles, if you find an editor that is particularly competent at creating quality new articles, and that user has created more than 25 articles (rather than stubs), consider nominating them for the 'Autopatrolled' user right HERE.

News

The next issue Wikipedia's newspaper The Signpost has now been published after a long delay. There are some articles in it, including ACTRIAL wrap-up that will be of special interest to New Page Reviewers. Don't hesitate to contribute to the comments sections. The Signpost is one of the best ways to stay up date with news and new developments - please consider subscribing to it. All editors of Wikipedia and associated projects are welcome to submit articles on any topic for consideration by the The Signpost's editorial team for the next issue.

To opt-out of future mailings, go here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:06, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2018).

Administrator changes

331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG

Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

Guideline and policy news

Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
The notability guideline for organizations and companies has been substantially rewritten following the closure of this request for comment. Among the changes, the guideline more clearly defines the sourcing requirements needed for organizations and companies to be considered notable.
The six-month autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) ended on 14 March 2018. The post-trial research report has been published. A request for comment is now underway to determine whether the restrictions from ACTRIAL should be implemented permanently.

Technical news

There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.

Miscellaneous

A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-14

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

Template Wizard script available for testing. It will show up as a puzzle-piece icon in the 2010 WikiEditor. You can click on the icon to insert a template.
The Wikimedia Communities and Contributors survey is to be sent to participants around the world this week. If you are volunteer developer, and have contributed code to any pieces of MediaWiki, gadgets, or tools, please take 20 to 40 minutes to complete the survey.

Problems

MediaWiki deployment train has been rolled back to version 1.31.0-wmf.26 on week 13, due to a multiplication of lost connections during MySQL queries. Some of the recent changes may have not been applied. They will be deployed next week. [25][26][27]
The Notifications badge icons were overlapping other links. This has been fixed. [28]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 April. It will be on all wikis from 5 April (calendar).
User subpages ending in .json will now be protected from other people editing them, like .js and .css pages already are. If you have a tool that stores static configuration, you can now use a subpage like User:Example/mygadget.json to do this without concerns. [29]
Tidy will be replaced by RemexHtml on the next set of wikis. On April 4, we plan to turn off Tidy on all Wikiquotes (except frwikiquote) and Wikimedia chapters and user groups wikis. 23 wikis will have Tidy replaced this time. [30][31][32]
AbuseFilter will transition to use OOUI starting April 4, and the rule editor will also be changed to a CodeEditor (ACE) similar to what is found on user JavaScript pages. The move to OOUI will continue over the next few weeks. [33] [34]
In Special:Preferences, the preference "Reload the watchlist automatically whenever a filter is changed (JavaScript required)" is now only visible for users who have opt-out the New Filters for the Watchlist. [35]
You can see names of individual abuse filters in Special:AbuseLog. Now if the name of an abuse filter contains some wikisyntax like links, it will not change to a link when displayed. [36]
You can now search through filter patterns at Special:AbuseFilter. You may specify either a plain string or a regular expression and the matching filters will show a snippet of their pattern with the match highlighted. [37]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 3 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 4 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

If you're using, creating or improving Lua modules, you can give your feedback to help harmonizing the modules across wikis and add more useful functions.
On April 11th, we plan to turn off Tidy on all wikis with less than 50 entries in all high priority linter categories. About 60 wikis will have Tidy replaced. Currently about 600 wikis have had Tidy replaced and we have another 300 wikis to go. We plan to finish this transition from Tidy to RemexHtml by end of June 2018. Please follow T175706 to monitor progress of Tidy replacement. [38][39]

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

19:28, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-15

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 pages have templates that describe problems with that article. There is now more information for mobile readers and what is wrong with the article and how they could help fix it. [40]
You can now thank users for many more actions than edits to a page. This was one of the top ten requests in the Wishlist Survey last year. [41]
The sort order of categories will have errors for a short time starting Monday 9 April (UTC). We are upgrading versions of an internationalisation library (ICU) and using a script to update the database. This will take between a few hours and a few days depending on wiki size. You can read more details. [42]
Tag filter titles will now work better on wikis where the tag filter title is in a language that is written in another direction than the language of that wiki. This could for example be an English title (written from left to right) on a Hebrew or an Arabic wiki (written from right to left). [43]

Problems

The bookmark icon for saved filters on the recent changes page disappeared because of new icon changes. This has now been fixed. [44]
For a week in March rollbacks got both the rollback and the undo tag on the recent changes page and other pages where you see tags. This has now been fixed. [45]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 April. It will be on all wikis from 12 April (calendar).
Patrolled edits now have three states instead of two. Recent changes filters are updated to show unpatrolled, autopatrolled and manually patrolled edits. [46]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 10 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 11 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The iOS and Android apps will get synced reading lists later in April.

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

18:08, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer Flag

Hi, AntiCompositeNumber.
I've noticed that you are an AfC reviewer but don't yet have the New Page Reviewer flag. Can you please head over to PERM and request it?
As part of a larger plan to increase cooperation between New Page Patrol and Articles for creation, we are trying to get as many of the active AfC reviewers as possible under the NPR user flag (per this discussion). Unlike the AfC request list, the NPR flag carries no obligation to review new articles, so I'm not asking you to help out at New Page Patrol if you don't want to, just to request the flag.
Of course, if it is something you would be interested in, you can have a look at the NPP tutorial. Please mention that you are an active AfC reviewer in your application.
Cheers, — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 06:16, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

@Insertcleverphrasehere: Special:UserRights/AntiCompositeNumber is presented without further comment. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 12:07, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Haha, no worries, sorry to bother you. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 13:29, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-16

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

Profiling statistics for an abuse filter tell how often edits match the filter. The statistics for the abuse filters were reset after 10000 actions. Wikis can now decide to reset it more or less often. They can file a phabricator task to do so. [47]
Abuse filters will now treat integers and floats more precisely. For example, 5/2 was rounded down to 2 but will now be 2.5 and 2*4 will be the integer 8 and not the floating-point number 8.0. Division values are the only ones changed. For the rest only strict comparisons (=== and !==) will be affected leaving the values unchanged. [48][49]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 April. It will be on all wikis from 19 April (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 17 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 18 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The new PDF renderer could not create PDFs from books. Books are in this case collections of pages on a Wikimedia wiki. PediaPress will take over development of the books-to-PDF function. [50]
Pywikibot will no longer support Python 2.7.2 and 2.7.3. [51]
Volunteer developers can fill out the Wikimedia Communities and Contributors survey. The last day is April 22 (UTC). This is a third-party service survey. See the privacy statement.

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

15:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-17

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

All Wikipedias now have Page Previews.
The iOS and Android apps now have synced reading lists. This means you can save articles to a private list that can be seen on your other devices if you use the apps.
The icons in the 2010 wikitext editor have changed. [52]
The visual editor and the 2017 wikitext ask you to write an edit summary after you press Publish. This button now also shows an ellipsis. This is to show that pressing Publish is not the last step. [53]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 April. It will be on all wikis from 26 April (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 24 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 25 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

<mapframe> will come to most Wikipedias in May. This means that you can put interactive maps in the articles. Nine Wikipedias that use a strict version of flagged revisions will not get this feature in May. [54]
The rollback function could change. This was a German community request. All editors with rollback rights can leave feedback on the proposed solution. The last day to leave feedback is 4 May (UTC).

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

18:16, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

A message from Kathleen.peiris

Hi there, Thanks for your edit on my recent article. I'd like to correct any neutrality issues. I do work on the film, but nothing I posted is anything other than fact. I comprehend the Conflict of Interest potential, but all of the information in the article is available online. How do you suggest I make edits in order to get rid of any neutrality flags? Your input would be very appreciated. Thanks, KP

Kathleen.peiris (talk) 07:22, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 April 2018

From the editors: The Signpost's presses roll again

Signpost: Future directions for The Signpost

News and notes: Photo of Kim Jong-un. Stephen Hawking death tops hits on many Wikipedias.

In the media: The rise of Wikipedia as a disinformation mop

In focus: Admin reports board under criticism

Special report: ACTRIAL results adopted by landslide

Opinion: Guideline for Organization Notability revised

Op-ed: World War II Myth-making and Wikipedia

Community view: It's time we look past Women in Red to counter systemic bias

Discussion report: The future of portals

Arbitration report: No new cases, and one motion on administrative misconduct

WikiProject report: WikiProject Military History

Blog: Why the world reads Wikipedia

Humour: Our Favorite Places to Whine About Stuff

Traffic report: A quiet place to wrestle with the articles of March

Technology report: Coming soon: Books-to-PDF, interactive maps, rollback confirmation

Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

Gallery: A look at some famous and not as well-known border tripoints

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:49, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-18

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 parameter for unpatrolled edits in recent changes filters changed name. You might need to update saved filters and links. [55]

Problems

We are migrating wikis from Tidy to Remex. Because of a bug the 250 wikis which do not yet use Remex were switched on 23 April. This is two months early. This meant that pages with broken wikitext showed wrongly to readers. The bug was undone the next day. You can help fix broken wikitext to avoid this problem when your wiki switches. Tidy will be removed on all wikis before July 2018. You can follow the process on Phabricator. [56]

Changes later this week

You will be able use CodeMirror in the 2017 wikitext editor on all wikis. CodeMirror helps with syntax highlighting. It has previously been a beta feature and only available on wikis with scripts that are written from left to right. [57]
When an administrator blocks someone they will have a calendar they can use to choose when the block ends. This is to make it easier to pick a specific date. [58]
You can soon turn on the Performance Inspector in the Editing section in your preferences. It shows information about the performance of pages. This could be the size of modules in the page, how many CSS selectors are defined on the page and how many are used, or the size of the images on the page. This tool is intended to help editors fix pages that load slowly. [59]
There is a new abuse filter function called equals_to_any. You can use it to check if its first argument is equal (===) to any of the following ones. For example you can use it to check if the page's namespace is amongst a given set of values in a more compact way than you could earlier. You can read more on mediawiki.org.
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 May. It will be on all wikis from 3 May (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 1 May at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 2 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The Wikimedia Cloud Services team is working on a new project called Toolhub. The goal is to make it easier for Wikimedians to discover software tools they can use. You can leave feedback on the talk page or email jharewikimedia.org to leave private feedback.
All wikis with fewer than 100 high-priority linter errors in all namespaces will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 2 May. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Wikibooks wikis with fewer than 100 high-priority linter errors in the main namespace will switch on 9 May. Tidy will be removed on all wikis before July 2018. [60][61][62]

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

16:18, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2018).

Administrator changes

None

Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060

Guideline and policy news

The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely restricted to autoconfirmed users.
A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.

Technical news

AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash.
When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee is seeking additional clerks to help with the arbitration process.

Obituaries

Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-19

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 Wikimedia Commons mobile app has a new version. It is now easier to find nearby places that need pictures. It helps you with direct uploads and title and category suggestions. The app only works on Android phones. [63]

Problems

The abuse filters had a problem with blocks where you had changed how long they last. It used the default length everywhere. This was in late April. Abuse filter users should make sure the right block length is used and change them if needed. This is only for filters where how long blocks last had been changed. [64]

Changes later this week

The advanced search function beta feature will be on all Wikimedia wikis. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. [65]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 May. It will be on all wikis from 10 May (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 8 May at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 9 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

All wikis with fewer than 100 high-priority linter errors in the main namespace will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 16 May. Other wikis will switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed on all wikis before July 2018. [66][67]

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

16:28, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-20

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

Dynamic maps are now available on most Wikipedias. Labels on maps can also be in different languages.
The new Advanced Search interface is now available as a Beta Feature on all wikis. This makes it easier to learn about and to use many of the powerful options in our search. Feedback is appreciated. [68]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 May. It will be on all wikis from 17 May (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 16 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

In the mobile view, warnings for when something is wrong with a page are not as clear as they should be. The developers are working on this. You can give feedback and suggestions.
The developers are working on making the Wikipedia Android app available in more languages. You can give feedback, suggestions and help test it. Read more on mediawiki.org [69]

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

22:22, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-21

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 22 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 May. It will be on all wikis from 24 May (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

It could become easier to reference different pages of a book in an article. You can give feedback. The last day for feedback is 27 May.

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

17:34, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 May 2018

From the editor: Another issue meets the deadline

Op-ed: Has the wind gone out of the AdminShip's sails?

Opinion: Integrating my many lives on Wikipedia

WikiProject report: WikiProject Portals

Discussion report: User rights, infoboxes, and more discussion on portals

Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

Arbitration report: Managing difficult topics

News and notes: Lots of Wikimedia

In the media: Wikipedia in Turkish politics; COI politics in Wikipedia; most cited work

Traffic report: We love our superheroes

Technology report: A trove of contributor and developer goodies

Blog: Why I write about women on Wikipedia

Recent research: Why people don't contribute to Wikipedia; using Wikipedia to teach statistics, technical writing, and controversial issues

Humour: Play with your food

Gallery: Wine not?

From the archives: The Signpost scoops The Signpost

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:25, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 May 2018

From the editor: Another issue meets the deadline

Op-ed: Has the wind gone out of the AdminShip's sails?

Opinion: Integrating my many lives on Wikipedia

WikiProject report: WikiProject Portals

Discussion report: User rights, infoboxes, and more discussion on portals

Featured content: Featured content selected by the community

Arbitration report: Managing difficult topics

News and notes: Lots of Wikimedia

In the media: Wikipedia in Turkish politics; COI politics in Wikipedia; most cited work

Traffic report: We love our superheroes

Technology report: A trove of contributor and developer goodies

Blog: Why I write about women on Wikipedia

Recent research: Why people don't contribute to Wikipedia; using Wikipedia to teach statistics, technical writing, and controversial issues

Humour: Play with your food

Gallery: Wine not?

From the archives: The Signpost scoops The Signpost

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:17, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.11 25 May 2018

Hello AntiCompositeNumber, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!

ACTRIAL:

WP:ACREQ has been implemented. The flow at the feed has dropped back to the levels during the trial. However, the backlog is on the rise again so please consider reviewing a few extra articles each day; a backlog approaching 5,000 is still far too high. An effort is also needed to ensure that older unsuitable older pages at the back of the queue do not get automatically indexed for Google.

Deletion tags

Do bear in mind that articles in the feed showing the trash can icon may have been tagged by inexperienced or non NPR rights holders. They require your further verification.

Backlog drive:

A backlog drive will take place from 10 through 20 June. Check out our talk page at WT:NPR for more details. NOTE: It is extremely important that we focus on quality reviewing. Despite our goal of reducing the backlog as much as possible, please do not rush while reviewing.

Editathons

There will be a large increase in the number of editathons in June. Please be gentle with new pages that obviously come from good faith participants, especially articles from developing economies and ones about female subjects. Consider using the 'move to draft' tool rather than bluntly tagging articles that may have potential but which cannot yet reside in mainspace.

Paid editing - new policy

Now that ACTRIAL is ACREQ, please be sure to look for tell-tale signs of undisclosed paid editing. Contact the creator if appropriate, and submit the issue to WP:COIN if necessary. There is a new global WMF policy that requires paid editors to connect to their adverts.

Subject-specific notability guidelines

The box at the right contains each of the subject-specific notability guidelines, please review any that are relevant BEFORE nominating an article for deletion.
Reviewers are requested to familiarise themselves with the new version of the notability guidelines for organisations and companies.

Not English

A common issue: Pages not in English or poor, unattributed machine translations should not reside in main space even if they are stubs. Please ensure you are familiar with WP:NPPNE. Check in Google for the language and content, tag as required, then move to draft if they do have potential.

News

Development is underway by the WMF on upgrades to the New Pages Feed, in particular ORES features that will help to identify COPYVIOs, and more granular options for selecting articles to review.
The next issue of The Signpost has been published. The newspaper is one of the best ways to stay up to date with news and new developments. between our newsletters.

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:34, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-22

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 global preferences on most wikis. This means you can set preferences for all wikis at the same time. Before this you had to change them on each individual wiki. Global preferences will come to the Wikipedias later this week. [70][71]
It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked. [72]
Wikidata now supports lexicographical data. This helps describe words.
There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups. [73]
Some rare invisible Unicode characters have recently been banned from page titles. This includes soft hyphens (U+00AD) and left-to-right (U+2066) and right-to-left (U+2067) isolate markers. Existing pages with these characters will soon be moved by a script. [74]
There's a new Wikimedia Foundation team to support the Wikimedia technical communities. It's called the Technical Engagement team. Most of the team members did similar work in other teams before this. [75]

Problems

Some translatable pages are showing old translations instead of latest ones. The cause of this issue has been fixed. We will update all pages automatically to show the latest translations. [76]

Changes later this week

There will be a new special page named PasswordPolicies. This page gives information about the password rules for each user group on that wiki. [77]
A new way to see moved paragraphs in diffs is coming to most wikis. This is to make it easier to find the moved paragraphs and the changes in them. [78]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 May. It will be on all wikis from 31 May (calendar).
Wikis can enable Citoid to provide automatic reference look-up in the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. This is complex. The tool will now disable itself if the configuration isn't correct. It has warned about this in the JavaScript console since February. Check that your wiki is configured correctly. You can ask for help if you need it. [79]

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 29 May at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 30 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Content Translation drafts which have not been updated in over a year will be removed. This allows other users to translate those articles. [80]
A survey is collecting information on what users think about how Wikimedia wiki pages are loaded. This information could be used in future development. [81]
Some wikis will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 30 May and 13 June. Wikis with fewer than 100 linter issues in the main namespace in all high-priority linter categories will switch. This includes Wikidata. Tidy will probably be removed on all wikis in the first week of July. [82][83]

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

12:40, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Speedy deletion contested: File talk:Flag of Kkangleipak.jpg

Hello AntiCompositeNumber, and thanks for patrolling new pages! I am just letting you know that I contested the speedy deletion of File talk:Flag of Kkangleipak.jpg, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: Does not rely on a page that does not exist. You may wish to review the Criteria for Speedy Deletion before tagging further pages. Thank you. Linguist^un Eins ^uno (Linguist111) 14:43, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Linguist111: there is no local page, so, yes, it does rely on a nonexistent page. I've gone ahead and deleted it. You may wish to review the Criteria for Speedy Deletion before further use of CSDH to heckle people. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:51, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: How on earth am I "heckling" anyone? Linguist^un Eins ^uno (Linguist111) 14:54, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Linguist111: that's what I generally refer to non-admins doing busy work by reviewing the utterly non-controversial CSD categories and leaving automated templates with the newbie message enabled on competent users talk pages as. If you have a better word to describe it, I'm all ears. Oh, also, you look to be incompetent in this in other areas that actually matter, so I'd suggest you stay away from CSDH for the time being. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:02, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I honestly didn’t think that page was promotional, but whatever. Sorry for not being an expert at using a tool I started using yesterday and have only used about 10 times. Linguist^un Eins ^uno (Linguist111) 15:06, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes. I'd leave reviewing CSDs systemically as something for people who have the ability to use the other features in CSDH. Now, we've given AntiComposite too many notifications at this point, so best let him be. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:08, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2018).

Administrator changes

None

Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

Following a successful request for comment, administrators are now able to add and remove editors to the "event coordinator" group. Users in the event coordinator group have the ability to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit. Users will no longer need to be in the "account creator" group if they are in the event coordinator group.
Following an AN discussion, all pages with content related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies, broadly construed, are now under indefinite general sanctions.

Technical news

IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at the talk page.
There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups.
It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.

Arbitration

A recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e. Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.

Miscellaneous

In early May, an unusually high level of failed login attempts was observed. The WMF has stated that this was an "external effort to gain unauthorized access to random accounts". Under Wikipedia policy, administrators are required 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.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:59, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you

		The Original Barnstar
		For helping me with that script thing. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 20:42, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-23

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 MonoBook skin has been optimised for mobile devices. It now looks different. [84]
Planet Wikimedia collects blogs about Wikimedia. It will now use the Rawdog feed aggregator to do this instead of Planet. [85][86]
Redirect links in Special:WhatLinksHere now link to the original page and not the target page. This was done earlier and changed the used messages on some pages. This was a problem for wikis that customized the message. A new change fixed this by using the old messages with one more parameter for customization. Wikis that already changed their customized messages will have to move the customization back again. [87]

Problems

You will not be able to edit some wikis between 06:00 and 06:30 UTC on 13 June. You can see if your wiki is one of them.
MassMessage did not work 24–28 May. This is also why last week's Tech News was late. [88]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 June. It will be on all wikis from 7 June (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 5 June at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 6 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The new filters for edit review tools and interface for watchlists will leave beta. This is planned to happen in June or early July. [89][90]

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

21:54, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Can you upload picture on my behalf

I can send you picture ,please upload it on my behalf as i donot have destop site access , i am mobile user .I can email you picture Manns8447 (talk) 13:56, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

@Manns8447: Who took the picture? What does the picture show? Is it available online somewhere already? --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 14:03, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

This picture is of an politician . It has been given by him to me . It is taken by him Manns8447 (talk) 05:08, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

@Manns8447: If the politician has a Wikipedia article or the image would be useful on another page, please have the copyright holder fill out a release form and send the form and the image to photosubmissions

wikimedia.org. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 00:45, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

How to fill a release form , please explain to me clearly Manns8447 (talk) 06:32, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

@Manns8447: These release forms explain that the copyright holder allows anyone to use the image for any reason, subject to some restrictions. Because of this, they have to be filled out by the copyright holder. The person who took the photo is usually the copyright holder, unless a contract has been signed that says otherwise. The easiest way for a copyright holder to fill out the release form is to use the Interactive Release Generator. This tool guides you through the process. If that tool is not working for some reason, you can copy the text in Commons:Email templates to your email client. Then, replace everything in the grey boxes with applicable details and remove any footnotes, instructions, and bracketed text. Once a release has been filled out, it then needs to be sent to photosubmissions

wikimedia.org along with the photo. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 11:49, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-24

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

In the Wikipedia app for Android or iOS users can create reading lists. The reading lists can be seen on different devices if you are logged in to your account. There is now a browser extension so you can add pages to your reading list from a web browser. At the moment it works with Firefox and Chrome. [91]
There is a new version of Pywikibot. Pywikibot is a tool to automate tasks on MediaWiki wikis. [92]

Problems

The MonoBook skin was changed to make it work better for mobile users. This caused some problems. The change was rolled back to fix them. The new version is now back on the wikis. MonoBook users can opt out from the new responsive design. [93]

Changes later this week

The new filters for edit review tools and interface for watchlists will leave beta. For most wikis this will happen on 18 June. For the rest it will happen on 25 June. [94][95]

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 June. It will be on all wikis from 14 June (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the Readers Web team IRC office hour. There you can discuss tools to contribute on the mobile web for the existing MediaWiki skins. The meeting will be on 18 June at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 12 June at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

You will be able to move local wiki files to Commons and keep their original data intact. This is planned to come to the first wikis in June.

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

21:55, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

NPP Backlog Elimination Drive

Hello AntiCompositeNumber, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!

We can see the light at the end of the tunnel: there are currently 2900 unreviewed articles, and 4000 unreviewed redirects.

Announcing the Backlog Elimination Drive!

As a final push, we have decided to run a backlog elimination drive from the 20th to the 30th of June.
Reviewers who review at least 50 articles or redirects will receive a Special Edition NPP Barnstar: . Those who review 100, 250, 500, or 1000 pages will also receive tiered awards: , , , .
Please do not be hasty, take your time and fully review each page. It is extremely important that we focus on quality reviewing.

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 06:57, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-25

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

Syntax highlighting has been a beta feature on Wikimedia wikis with text written from left to right. It is now a normal feature. It is based on CodeMirror. [96]

Changes later this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 19 June at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 20 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Some old web browsers will not be able to read the Wikimedia wikis. This is because they use an insecure way to connect to them. This means that we get less security for everyone else too. This affects about 0.08% of all traffic to the Wikimedia wikis. This affects for example those who read Wikipedia on a PlayStation 3. [97][98]
The new filters for edit review tools and interface for watchlists will leave beta. Because there is no new MediaWiki version this week it will happen on 25 June for most wikis. For the rest it will happen in early July. [99][100]
All wikis that have not already done so will switch to use the Remex parsing library on 5 July. This is to replace Tidy. You can help fix remaining errors. [101]

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

21:47, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-26

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

PAWS, our JupyterHub system, got an upgrade and a logo. Several bugs should be fixed.

Problems

When a link text was in italics or had other formatting you could sometimes not edit it in the visual editor. This has now been fixed. [102][103]

Changes later this week

Content translation users who translate between any two of Arabic, English, French, Japanese and Russian will be asked to be part of a research project. This is to create better tools for translating articles. [104]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 June. It will be on all wikis from 28 June (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 26 June at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 27 June 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.

23:10, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 June 2018

From the editor: The Admin Ship is still barely afloat, while a Foundation project risks sinking

Special report: NPR and AfC – The Marshall Plan: an engagement and a marriage?

Op-ed: What do admins do?

Opinion: Google isn't responsible for Wikipedia's mistakes

News and notes: Money, milestones, and Wikimania

In the media: Much wikilove from the Mayor of London, less from Paekākāriki or a certain candidate for U.S. Congress

Discussion report: Deletion, page moves, and an update to the main page

Featured content: New promotions

Arbitration report: WWII, UK politics, and a user deCrat'ed

Traffic report: Endgame

Technology report: Improvements piled on more improvements

Gallery: Wiki Loves Africa

Blog: Wikipedia should be open for editors in Turkey

Recent research: How censorship can backfire and conversations can go awry

Humour: Television plot lines

Wikipedia essays: This month's pick by The Signpost editors

From the archives: Wolves nip at Wikipedia's heels: A perspective on the cost of paid editing

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:29, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-27

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

Recent changes

The database for tags will be changed. This will happen on 2 July on French Wikipedia and 9 July on all other wikis. Please report if recent changes get slower or you can't save edits. This could especially affect editors who use the database on ToolForge. [105]

Problems

Last week's MediaWiki update was rolled back. This was because of a database problem. [106]

Changes later this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 3 July at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 4 July 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.

00:46, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2018).

Administrator changes

Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor

Gogo Dodo

Andrevan • Doug • EVula • KaisaL • Tony Fox • WilyD

Bureaucrat changes

Andrevan • EVula

Guideline and policy news

An RfC about the deletion of drafts closed with a consensus to change the wording of WP:NMFD. Specifically, a draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at MfD if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion outlined in the deletion policy.
A request for comment closed with a consensus that the ((promising draft)) template cannot be used to indefinitely prevent a WP:G13 speedy deletion nomination.

Technical news

Starting on July 9, the WMF Security team, Trust & Safety, and the broader technical community will be seeking input on an upcoming change that will restrict editing of site-wide JavaScript and CSS to a new technical administrators user group. Bureaucrats and stewards will be able to grant this right per a community-defined process. The intention is to reduce the number of accounts who can edit frontend code to those who actually need to, which in turn lessens the risk of malicious code being added that compromises the security and privacy of everyone who accesses Wikipedia. For more information, please review the FAQ.
Syntax highlighting has been graduated from a Beta feature on the English Wikipedia. To enable this feature, click the highlighter icon () in your editing toolbar (or under the hamburger menu in the 2017 wikitext editor). This feature can help prevent you from making mistakes when editing complex templates.
IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in July (previously scheduled for June). This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.

Miscellaneous

Currently around 20% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 17% a year ago. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless if you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:22, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for fixing that code at the DS template talk. Much appreciated. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:02, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

No problem. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 19:20, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-28

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

WebM video files have smaller file size but still be of the same quality. Creating WebM files will take longer time. [107]
The new filters for edit review tools and interface for watchlists will leave beta. This was supposed to already have happened but was delayed. For most wikis this will happen on 9 July. For the rest it will happen on 16 July. [108]
All wikis now use the Remex parsing library instead of Tidy. This could cause errors. You can help fix the errors. [109]

Problems

When you rolled back an edit it could get both the Rollback and Undo tags. This has been fixed. [110]
Rollbacks from autopatrolled users were not marked as patrolled. This has been fixed. [111]

Changes later this week

When you edit a link in the visual editor there will be two separate buttons to change which page the link goes to (target) or its text (label). [112][113]
On the mobile version you can find a link to an editor's contributions from their user page. Now this will work even if they haven't created a user page. [114]
When you edit a discussion on the mobile version you sometimes get your signature automatically added. This will now not happen if you have already added a signature manually. This is to avoid double signatures. [115]
Structured discussions toolbars will have more style options. [116]
When you look at Wikimedia code in Gerrit there will be a new interface. It is on by default for new users. This is also true for developers. This is to make it easier to understand what is happening. [117]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 July. It will be on all wikis from 12 July (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 10 July at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 11 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Today all administrators can edit CSS and JavaScript for the entire wiki. There will be a new user group for editing CSS and JavaScript. Administrators will no longer automatically be able to do this. This is because it is a security risk when all administrator accounts can edit JavaScript even if they never plan to or do not know how it works. You can read more. [118]
Page previews will be on by default for new accounts. [119]

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

23:09, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-29

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

You can now use global preferences on Wikimedia wikis. You can set them on the global preferences page. [120]
You can now see a new log of pages being created at Special:Log/create. It includes pages which are later deleted. It is now available on all Wikimedia wikis except Commons and Wikidata. [121]
You can see how many pageviews a wiki had from specific countries. The Wikistats2 maps have now been updated. [122]

Changes later this week

Your watchlist will show changes from the last seven days instead of three. If you have already set a length preference it will not change. [123]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 17. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from July 18. It will be on all wikis from July 19 (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on July 17 at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on July 18 at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Some articles have messages to readers about problems with the article. For example that it does not cite sources or might not be neutral. Readers do not see these messages on the mobile version. The developers now want to show them. You can read more and leave feedback.
You can use <inputbox> to create search boxes for specific pages. For example to search the archives of a community discussion page. Instead of prefix:Page name you will see a text that explains which pages are being searched. You can read more and leave feedback.

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

16:00, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-30

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

When you log in to your account you can choose to keep being logged in. This checkbox now works better than before on the mobile version for users without JavaScript. [124]
Wikis that use Citoid can automatically generate citations for Swedish news sites. This only works in the visual editor. This now works for Swedish public service radio. More will come. Others could use this to add news sites in other languages in the future. [125]
Editors can do max 90 edits per minute. This is new since last month. This does not affect bots or administrators. [126]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 July. It will be on all wikis from 26 July (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 25 July 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.

09:44, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.12 30 July 2018

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.

Chart of the New Pages Patrol backlog for the past 6 months. (Purge)

Hello AntiCompositeNumber, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!

June backlog drive

Overall the June backlog drive was a success, reducing the last 3,000 or so to below 500. However, as expected, 90% of the patrolling was done by less than 10% of reviewers.
Since the drive closed, the backlog has begun to rise sharply again and is back up to nearly 1,400 already. Please help reduce this total and keep it from raising further by reviewing some articles each day.

New technology, new rules

New features are shortly going to be added to the Special:NewPagesFeed which include a list of drafts for review, OTRS flags for COPYVIO, and more granular filter preferences. More details can be found at this page.
Probationary permissions: Now that PERM has been configured to allow expiry dates to all minor user rights, new NPR flag holders may sometimes be limited in the first instance to 6 months during which their work will be assessed for both quality and quantity of their reviews. This will allow admins to accord the right in borderline cases rather than make a flat out rejection.
Current reviewers who have had the flag for longer than 6 months but have not used the permissions since they were granted will have the flag removed, but may still request to have it granted again in the future, subject to the same probationary period, if they wish to become an active reviewer.

Editathons

Editathons will continue through August. Please be gentle with new pages that obviously come from good faith participants, especially articles from developing economies and ones about female subjects. Consider using the 'move to draft' tool rather than bluntly tagging articles that may have potential but which cannot yet reside in mainspace.

The Signpost

The next issue of the monthly magazine will be out soon. The newspaper is an excellent way to stay up to date with news and new developments between our newsletters. If you have special messages to be published, or if you would like to submit an article (one about NPR perhaps?), don't hesitate to contact the editorial team here.

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 00:00, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-31

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

The design on Special:Log has changed. It will change again soon. Developers are working on fixing problems. [127]

Problems

Deployment of 1.32.0-wmf.13 has been partially delayed. All deployments have been resumed and successfully done after bug fixes. [128][129]
Deployment of 1.32.0-wmf.14 has been partially delayed. [130][131]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 August. It will be on all wikis from 2 August (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 31 July at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 1 August at 15:00 (UTC) as well as at 23:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

After a community discussion, a new group for users will be created. "Interface administrators" will be the only users allowed to edit interface pages like MediaWiki:Common.css or MediaWiki:Common.js. This is done to avoid technical issues and improve security. That change will be effective by the end of August 2018.

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

14:05, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Trump balloon

I've deleted it,and removed it from DYK. Not that it really matters with 7 minutes until changeover, but we may as well get it right.Black Kite (talk) 23:53, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

@Black Kite:Thanks for the quick response. Agreed that if things are worth, doing they're worth doing right. Good photo by the way, too bad we can't keep it. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 00:00, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 July 2018

From the editor: If only if

Op-ed: The last leg of the Admin Ship's current cruise

Opinion: Wrestling with Wikipedia reality

News and notes: Another newspaper for Wikipedia; Wikimania 2018 ends; changes at NPR

In the media: Blackouts in Europe; Wikipedia and capitalists; WMF Jet Set

Discussion report: Wikipedias take action against EU copyright proposal, plus new user right proposals

Featured content: Wikipedia's best content in images and prose

Arbitration report: Status quo processes retained in two disputes

Traffic report: Soccer, football, call it what you like – that and summer movies leave room for little else

Technology report: New bots, new prefs

Gallery: Independence days, national holidays, and football – all in July

Blog: Motivation of two editors

Recent research: Different Wikipedias use different images; editing contests more successful than edit-a-thons

Humour: It's all the same

Essay: Wikipedia does not need you

From the archives: The pending changes fiasco: how an attempt to answer one question turned into a quagmire

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:51, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2018).

Administrator changes

Sro23

KaisaL • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

After a discussion at Meta, a new user group called "interface administrators" (formerly "technical administrator") has been created. Come the end of August, interface admins will be the only users able to edit site-wide JavaScript and CSS pages like MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css, or edit other user's personal JavaScript and CSS. The intention is to improve security and privacy by reducing the number of accounts which could be used to compromise the site or another user's account through malicious code. The new user group can be assigned and revoked by bureaucrats. Discussion is ongoing to establish details for implementing the group on the English Wikipedia.
Following a request for comment, the WP:SISTER style guideline now states that in the mainspace, interwiki links to Wikinews should only be made as per the external links guideline. This generally means that within the body of an article, you should not link to Wikinews about a particular event that is only a part of the larger topic. Wikinews links in "external links" sections can be used where helpful, but not automatically if an equivalent article from a reliable news outlet could be linked in the same manner.

Technical news

The WMF Anti-Harassment Tools team is seeking input on the second set of wireframes for the Special:Block redesign that will introduce partial blocks. The new functionality will allow you to block a user from editing a specific set of pages, pages in a category, a namespace, and for specific actions such as moving pages and uploading files.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:31, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-32

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

Special:NewPages now has the OOUI look. [132]

Problems

The MediaWiki version that was released two weeks ago was late to some Wikimedia wikis. This was because of bugs. It was on all wikis 30 July. [133][134]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 August. It will be on all wikis from 9 August.

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 7 August at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 8 August 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.

19:39, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

A message from 195.29.86.210

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		Thanks for solving the issue on the Super 8's page.195.29.86.210 (talk) 16:08, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

195.29.86.210 (talk) 16:08, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-33

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

CSS in templates can now be stored in a separate page on all wikis. This is called TemplateStyles. This is to make it easier to edit how templates look. [135]

Changes later this week

There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 14 August at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 15 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The developers are planning more ways to block users. This could be blocking someone from just a page or a namespace. You can read more. You can leave feedback on the talk page. [136]

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

17:53, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-34

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 21 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 August. It will be on all wikis from 23 August (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 22 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

The 2018 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.
Legacy JavaScript global variables have been deprecated for seven years. They will soon be removed from all wikis. Gadgets and scripts that use them will stop working. You can test your community's gadgets on "group0" wikis. For example Test Wikipedia or mediawiki.org. The legacy JavaScript global variables are already disabled there. You can read the migration guide to fix old scripts. [137]

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

16:46, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-35

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 see moved paragraphs in diffs in the mobile view. It also works on all languages in the desktop view. [138]
Bureaucrats on all Wikimedia wikis can now remove the interface admin user right. [139]

Problems

Some diffs show lines in the wrong order. The developers are working on fixing it. [140]

Changes later this week

The message you see when you thank a user will change. This is to make it easier to understand. [141]
AWB will stop adding using AWB in the edit summary. Instead it will add a tag that says AWB. [142]
Some abuse filter variables have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title. [143]
Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age. [144]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 August. It will be on all wikis from 30 August (calendar).

Meetings

You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 28 August at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 29 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.

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

16:16, 27 August 2018 (UTC)