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
There is a new tool where you can see which home wiki users have in discussions on Meta. This can help show which communities are not part of the discussion on wikis where we make decisions that affect many other wikis.
You can now thank users for file uploads or for changing the language of a page. [1]
Problems
There were many errors with the new MediaWiki version last week. The new version was rolled back. Updates that should have happened last week are late. [2]
Everyone was logged out. This was because a user reported being logged in to someone else's account. The problem should be fixed now. [3]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 October. It will be on all wikis from 8 October (calendar).
Letters immediately after a link are shown as part of the link. For example the entire word in [[Child]]ren is linked. On Arabic wikis this works at both the start and end of a word. Previously on Arabic wikis numbers and other non-letter Unicode characters were shown as part of the link at the start of a word but not at the end. Now only Latin and Arabic letters will extend links on Arabic wikis. [4]
Future changes
You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [5]
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
Because of the problems with the MediaWiki version two weeks ago last week's updates are also late. [6][7][8]
Changes later this week
Live previews didn't show the templates used in the preview if you just edited a section. This has now been fixed. You can also test CSS and JavaScript pages even if you have the live preview enabled. Previously this didn't work well. [9][10]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 October. It will be on all wikis from 15 October (calendar).
Future changes
A new stable version of Pywikibot is coming soon. [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.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 October. It will be on all wikis from 22 October (calendar).
Future changes
You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [12]
In the AbuseFilter extension, the rmspecials() function will be updated soon so that it does not remove the "space" character. Wikis are advised to wrap all the uses of rmspecials() with rmwhitespace() wherever necessary to keep filters' behavior unchanged. You can use the search function on Special:AbuseFilter to locate its usage. [13]
Some gadgets and user-scripts use the HTML div with the ID #jump-to-nav. This div will be removed soon. Maintainers should replace these uses with either #siteSub or #mw-content-text. A list of affected scripts is at the top of phab:T265373.
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 will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on October 27 around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [14]
Last week, links to "diffs" from mobile watchlists and recentchanges were linking to page-revisions instead of diffs. This has now been fixed. [15]
Changes later this week
There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
Since the introduction of the interface administrators user group in 2018, administrators couldn’t view the deleted history of CSS/JS pages. Now they can. [16]
There was a problem with the Change Tags. The software would apply the "Reverted" tag to any page actions such as page-protection changes if they came directly after a reverted edit. This has now been fixed for new edits. [17]
The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias in November. Another announcement will be made once the date is finalized. [18]
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We hope you like this month's issue! If you'd like to discuss this issue, please go to this issue's talk page. Happy Reading & stay safe! --ThegooduserLife Begins With a Smile :)🍁 23:27, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sysops will once again be able to view the deleted history of JS/CSS pages; this was restricted to interface administrators when that group was introduced.
Twinkle's block module now includes the ability to note the specific case when applying a discretionary sanctions block and/or template.
The Soyuz MS-17 launched on 14 October 2020, 05:45:04 and docked after a "two-orbit rendezvous flight plan" to the ISS only three hours later at 08:48:47 UTC.
The OSIRIS-REx probe successfully makes brief touchdown and collects a sample from the asteroid Bennu at 22:13 UTC on 20 October 2020.
Expedition 63 ended on 21 October 2020, 23:32 UTC after 187 days, 21 hours and 38 minutes duration.
John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was a United States Marine Corps aviator, engineer, astronaut, businessman and politician. He was the third person and the first American to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962. Following his retirement from NASA, he served from 1974 to 1999 as a Democratic United States Senator from Ohio; in 1998, he flew into space again at age 77.
Image of the month.
Captured on Oct. 20, 2020 during the OSIRIS-REx mission’s Touch-And-Go (TAG) sample collection event, this series of images shows the SamCam imager’s field of view as the NASA spacecraft approaches and touches down on asteroid Bennu’s surface, over 200 million miles (321 million km) away from Earth.
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 no longer read Wikimedia wikis if your browser uses very old TLS. This is because it is a security problem for everyone. It could lead to downgrade attacks. Since October 29, 2020, users who use old TLS versions will not be able to connect to Wikimedia projects. A list of browser recommendations is available. All modern operating systems and browsers are always able to reach Wikimedia projects. [19]
There is a new automatic tracking category available: Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments. It collects pages which use the ((formatnum)) parser function with invalid (non-numeric) input, e.g.((formatnum:TECHNEWS)). Note that ((formatnum:123,456)) is also invalid input: as described in the documentation, the argument should be unformatted so that it can be reliably and correctly localised. The tracking category will help identify problematic usage and double-formatting. The new tracking category's name can be translated at translatewiki. [20]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 4. It will be on all wikis from November 5 (calendar).
Administrators and stewards will be able to use a special page (Special:CreateLocalAccount) to force local account creation for a global account. This is useful when account creation is blocked for that user (by a block or a filter). [21]
The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias on November 4. This change excludes the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias, plus a few smaller Wikipedias with special circumstances. You can read the help page and the troubleshooting guide for more information. [22]
Future changes
A discussion has been restarted about using a Unicode minus sign (− U+2212) in the output of ((formatnum)) when it is given a negative argument. [23]
In the future IP addresses of unregistered users will not be shown for everyone. They will get an alias instead. There will be a new user right or an opt-in function for more vandal fighters to see the IPs of unregistered users. There would be some criteria for who gets the user right or opt-in. There will also be other new tools to help handle vandalism. This is early in the process and the developers are still collecting information from the communities before they suggest solutions.
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
There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
You can see reference previews. This shows a preview of the footnote when you hover over it. This has been a beta feature. It will move out of beta and be enabled by default. There will be an option not to use it. The developers are looking for small or medium-sized wikis to be the first ones. You can let them know if your wiki is interested. [24]
From November 16 the categories will not be sorted in order for a short time. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the internationalisation library. They will use a script to fix the existing categories. This can take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [25][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
Listings on category pages are sorted on each wiki for that language using a library. For a brief period on 16 November, changes to categories will not be sorted correctly for most languages. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the library. They will then use a script to fix the existing categories. This will take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [27][28]
Changes later this week
If you merged two pages in a namespace where pages can't redirect this used to break the merge history. This will now be fixed. [29]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 November. It will be on all wikis from 19 November (calendar).
Future changes
The Community Wishlist Survey is now open for proposals. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 16 to 30 November. You can vote on proposals from 8 December to 21 December.
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We hope you like this month's issue! If you'd like to discuss this issue, please go to this issue's talk page. Happy Reading & stay safe! --つがるTalk to つがる:)🍁 02:34, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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
Timestamps in Special:Log are now links. They go to Special:Log for only that entry. This is how timestamps work on for example the history page. [30]
Changes later this week
There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
The Wikimedia Cloud VPS hosts technical projects for the Wikimedia movement. Developers need to claim projects they use. This is because old and unused projects are removed once a year. Unclaimed projects can be shut down from 1 December. Unclaimed projects can be deleted from 1 January. [31]
Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add ((NoACEMM)) to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:52, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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 1 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 December. It will be on all wikis from 3 December (calendar).
Future changes
The iOS Wikipedia app will show readers more of the article history. They can see new updates and easier see how the article has changed over time. This is an experiment. It will first be shown only to some iOS app users as a test. [32][33]
The Wiki Replicas can be used for SQL queries. You can use Quarry, PAWS or other ways to do this. To make the Wiki Replicas stable there will be two changes. Cross-database JOINS will no longer work. You can also only query a database if you connect to it directly. This will happen in February 2021. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech. [34]
Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.
The ISS has been continuously occupied for the last 20 years! Expedition 1 arrived on 2 November 2000 with the first long-term residents. That’s longer then Wikipedia has existed.
Arianespace had a launch failure after liftoff of its Vega rocket on the 17th November. Two satellites were lost due to an integration error of the fourth stage.
This is an image of the ISS from December 9, 2000. Almost 20 years ago, this image is one of a series of 70mm frames taken onboard Space Shuttle Endeavour. With the ISS being continuously occupied for the last 20 years, this shows how the space station has developed over the years.
Since October, 43 new pages have been added to Spaceflight. There has been 2 more images which have reached FM class, both GA and B classes have 1 more article. 5 more lists have been added to the project. While 25 articles have been improved to C class as well as 24 articles reaching start class and 5 new articles added to stub class.
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Newsletter contributors: OkayKenji and Terasail
Enterprisey's parsoid-round-trip uses Parsoid to convert wikitext to HTML and back, and then shows the result and the difference between the original wikitext and the post-conversion wikitext.
Frietjes's infoboxgap assists in renumbering infobox labels/data/classes, so that a new line can be inserted in the middle of the infobox.
Twinkle has made a number of improvements, including using a change tag to identify actions made with it and automatically filing edit requests for protected XfD nominations.
GeneralNotability's spihelper updated to 2.2.10, fixing a number of small bugs, automatically tagging globally locked socks as such in the sockpuppet template, and restoring open cases following an SPI history merge.
Enterprisey's script-installer gadget has been updated with more internationalization of messages, as well as addition of a user preference, window.scriptInstallerInstallTarget to allow controlling where new scripts are to be installed.
My apologies for the delayed issue. As always, if anyone else would like to contribute, help is appreciated. Stay safe, --DannyS712 (talk) 18:20, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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 put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time. Some wikis already had this function. [35][36]
Changes later this week
Information from Wikidata that is used on a wiki page can be shown in recent changes and watchlists on a Wikimedia wiki. To see this you need to turn on showing Wikidata edits in your watchlist in the preferences. Changes to the Wikidata description in the language of a Wikimedia wiki will then be shown in recent changes and watchlists. This will not show edits to languages that are not relevant to your wiki. [37][38]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 December. It will be on all wikis from 10 December (calendar).
Nominations for the 2020 Military history WikiProject Newcomer and Historian of the Year awards now open[edit]
G'day all, the nominations for the 2020 Military history WikiProject newcomer and Historian of the Year are open, all editors are encouraged to nominate candidates for the awards before until 23:59 (GMT) on 15 December 2020, after which voting will occur for 14 days. There is not much time left to nominate worthy recipients, so get to it! Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:46, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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
There is a Wikipedia app for KaiOS phones. It was released in India in September. It can now be downloaded in other countries too. [39]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 December. It will be on all wikis from 17 December (calendar).
Enterprisey's copy-section-link adds popups to section headers which has an appropriate wikilink and external link to the section.
DannyS712's FindBlacklistEntry can be used to figure out which line(s) in either the local or global spamblacklist prevent a particular url from being added.
The Watchlist Expiry feature worked on by the Community Tech team has been enabled on Wikipedia. For scripts that include watching or unwatching pages, developers may want to update their code to take advantage of the new functionality. See the documentation on mediawiki.org.
As noted in the prior issue, Enterprisey's links-in-logs script has now been implemented as part of MediaWiki core. By my count, this is his third script that was replaced by implementing the code in MediaWiki core or an extension, along with link-section-edits and abusefilter-hide-search. Additionally, his reply-link script is being converted in part to mw:Extension:DiscussionTools. Are there any other scripts that might be worth integrating directly in MediaWiki? Thoughts would be welcome at Wikipedia talk:Scripts++.
As always, if anyone else would like to contribute, help is appreciated. Stay safe, and happy holidays! --DannyS712 (talk) 00:19, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Tech News
Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 11 January 2021.
Recent changes
The ((citation needed)) template shows when a statement in a Wikipedia article needs a source. If you click on it when you edit with the visual editor there is a popup that explains this. Now it can also show the reason and when it was added. [40]
Changes later this week
There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.
Future changes
You can propose and discuss what technical improvements should be done for geographic information. This could be coordinates, maps or other related things.
Some wikis use LanguageConverter to switch between writing systems or variants of a language. This can only be done for the entire page. There will be a <langconvert> tag that can convert a piece of text on a page. [41]
Oversighters and stewards can hide entries in Special:AbuseLog. They can soon hide multiple entries at once using checkboxes. This works like hiding normal edits. It will happen in early January. [42]
Hello, ZLEA! Here is the December 2020 issue of TheWikiWizard.
Pilot Project, trying a smaller and different style newsletter
Here are the events of December 2020
Wikipedia News
On the French Wikipedia, the new vector skin design has already been rolled out! Check it out here!
Wikipedia will soon celebrate it's 20th Birthday very soon! Go back to 2001 by visiting nostalgia.wikipedia.org !
EN Wikipedia has more than 6,200,000 Articles!
Humor
Santa is watching you.... Don't vandalise Wikipedia, or he will reward you a block and no presents this year if you do so. (Seriously don't vandalise Wikipedia, even if santa isn't watching)
More turkey on Christmas
Notes
We are trying out this pilot style newspaper, making it easier for you, and our editors to use. Please let me know what you think about this new 'style' of newspaper!
The Wikipedia Ads section will be omitted, to make the flow of this newsletter easier. Discuss this issue here
To change your subscription, or to subscribe click Here.
Enjoy this Issue and stay safe! Happy Holidays --つがるTalk to つがる:)🍁 01:13, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The Chang’e 5 lander landed on the moon on December 1st, and started to gather lunar samples.
The Chang’e 5 ascent module launched from the moons surface on December 3rd and later docked with the service module in lunar orbit.
Hayabusa-2 has successfuly returned samples it collected from the asteroid 162173 Ryugu. It landed in South Australia on 5th December after a 6 year mission.
SpaceX Starship SN8 completed a 12.5km flight and successfully made it back to the launch pad however was unable to slow down and hit the ground creating an impressive fireball.
China becomes the third country to terurn samples from the moon. After the Chang'e-5 return capsule lands in Inner Mongolia at 01:59 local time on December 13th.
Mary Jackson (néeWinston, April 9, 1921 – February 11, 2005) was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer at NACA, which was succeeded by NASA. She worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for most of her career. She started as a computer at the segregatedWest Area Computing division in 1951. She took advanced engineering classes and, in 1958, became NASA's first black female engineer.
Image of the month.
With China becoming the third country to return moon samples back to earth, this is an image of the Apollo 11Lunar Lander being worked on by Buzz Aldrin. This mission was the first time moon samples were brought back to earth. This image was taken over 51 years ago on July 21, 1969.
Since November, 99 new pages have been added to Spaceflight. 1 new file, with 2 more files reaching FM class. There 3 more articles have reached FA class, with an increase of 2 GA class articles. 4 more lists have been added to the project. While 13 articles have been improved to C class as well as 2 articles reaching start class and 66 new articles added to stub class.
Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the Mailing list.
Newsletter contributor: Terasail
By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorizedfor all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes). The effectiveness of the discretionary sanctions can be evaluated on the request by any editor after March 1, 2021 (or sooner if for a good reason).
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 choose to be reminded when you have not added an edit summary. This can be done in your preferences. This could conflict with the CAPTCHA. This has now been fixed. [43]
You can link to specific log entries. You can get these links for example by clicking the timestamps in the log. Until now, such links to private log entries showed no entry even if you had permission to view private log entries. The links now show the entry. [44]
Admins can use the abuse filter tool to automatically prevent bad edits. Three changes happened last week:
The filter editing interface now shows syntax errors while you type. This is similar to JavaScript pages. It also shows a warning for regular expressions that match the empty string. New warnings will be added later. [45]
Oversighters can now hide multiple filter log entries at once using checkboxes on Special:AbuseLog. This is how the usual revision deletion works. [46]
When a filter matches too many actions after it has been changed it is "throttled". The most powerful actions are disabled. This is to avoid many editors getting blocked when an administrator made a mistake. The administrator will now get a notification about this "throttle".
Bots using the API no longer watch pages automatically based on account preferences. Setting the watchlist to watch will still work. This is to reduce the size of the watchlist data in the database. [48]
There was a new version of MediaWiki last week. You can read a detailed log of all 763 changes. Most of them are very small and will not affect you.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 January. It will be on all wikis from 14 January (calendar).
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 19 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 January. It will be on all wikis from 21 January (calendar).
MassMessage posts could be automatically timestamped in the future. This is because MassMessage senders can now send pages using MassMessage. Pages are more difficult to sign. If there are times when a MassMessage post should not be timestamped you can let the developers know.
The Reply tool is available at most other Wikipedias.
The Reply tool has been deployed as an opt-out preference to all editors at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.
It is also available as a Beta Feature at almost all Wikipedias except for the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias. If it is not available at your wiki, you can request it by following these simple instructions.
Research notes:
As of January 2021, more than 3,500 editors have used the Reply tool to post about 70,000 comments.
There is preliminary data from the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedia on the Reply tool. Junior Contributors who use the Reply tool are more likely to publish the comments that they start writing than those who use full-page wikitext editing.[52]
The Editing and Parsing teams have significantly reduced the number of edits that affect other parts of the page. About 0.3% of edits did this during the last month.[53] Some of the remaining changes are automatic corrections for Special:LintErrors.
A large A/B test will start soon.[54] This is part of the process to offer the Reply tool to everyone. During this test, half of all editors at 24 Wikipedias (not including the English Wikipedia) will have the Reply tool automatically enabled, and half will not. Editors at those Wikipeedias can still turn it on or off for their own accounts in Special:Preferences.
During Talk pages consultation 2019, editors said that it should be easier to know about new activity in conversations they are interested in. The Notifications project is just beginning. What would help you become aware of new comments? What's working with the current system? Which pages at your wiki should the team look at? Please post your advice at mw:Talk:Talk pages project/Notifications.
Did you realize that the word "Humour" has been spelt wrong? I didn't until now! ;)
I hope you didn't edit Wikipedia straight on and Missed Christmas...
Notes
We are trying out this pilot style newspaper, making it easier for you, and our editors to use. Please let me know what you think about this new 'style' of newspaper!
The Wikipedia Ads section will be omitted, to make the flow of this newsletter easier. Discuss this issue here
To change your subscription, or to subscribe click Here.
Enjoy this Issue and stay safe! Happy New Year! --つがるTalk to つがる:)🍁 01:18, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Did you realize that the word "Humour" has been spelt wrong? I didn't until now! ;)
I hope you didn't edit Wikipedia straight on and Missed Christmas...
Notes
We are trying out this pilot style newspaper, making it easier for you, and our editors to use. Please let me know what you think about this new 'style' of newspaper!
The Wikipedia Ads section will be omitted, to make the flow of this newsletter easier. Discuss this issue here
To change your subscription, or to subscribe click Here.
Enjoy this Issue and stay safe! Happy New Year! --つがるTalk to つがる:)🍁 01:18, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Bracket matching will be added to the CodeMirror syntax highlighter on the first wikis. The first wikis are German and Catalan Wikipedia and maybe other Wikimedia wikis. This will happen on 27 January. [58]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 January. It will be on all wikis from 28 January (calendar).
The NASASpace Launch System test-fire of the core stage on 16 January triggered a shutdown due to an hydraulic system issue. The test which was intended to last eight minutes, lasted just over one minute.
Space X sets a new world record for the number of satellites launched. 143 small satellites were launched on a Falcon 9 on 24 January.
Since December, 23 new pages have been added to Spaceflight. Including 1 new file. Unfortunately there are 8 less GA class articles however there was an increase of 13 articles at C class.
Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the Mailing list.
Newsletter contributor: Terasail
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
IPv6 addresses were written in lowercase letters in diffs. This caused dead links since Special:Contributions only accepted uppercase letters for the IPs. This has been fixed. [59]
Changes later this week
You can soon use Wikidata to link to pages on the multilingual Wikisource. [60]
Often editors use a "non-breaking space" to make a gap between two items when reading but still show them together. This can be used to avoid a line break. You will now be able to add new ones via the special character tool in the 2010, 2017, and visual editors. The character will be shown in the visual editor as a space with a grey background. [61][62]
Wikis use abuse filters to stop bad edits being made. Filter maintainers can now use syntax like 1.2.3.4 - 1.2.3.55 as well as the 1.2.3.4/27 syntax for IP ranges. [63]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 February. It will be on all wikis from 4 February (calendar).
Future changes
Minerva is the skin Wikimedia wikis use for mobile traffic. When a page is protected and you can't edit it you can normally read the source wikicode. This doesn't work on Minerva on mobile devices. This is being fixed. Some text might overlap. This is because your community needs to update MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext to work on mobile. You can read more. [64][65]
Cloud VPS and Toolforge will change the IP address they use to contact the wikis. The new IP address will be 185.15.56.1. This will happen on February 8. You can read more.
User:Ahecht/Scripts/pageswap - version 1.4 fixes reading destination from form field if destination is not in article namespace, and fixes self redirects.
Wikipedia:XFDcloser - version 4 brings a new user interface for dialogs, some preferences for customising XFDcloser, major behind-the-scenes coding changes, and resolves various issues raised on the talkpage. Also, since version 3.16.6 non-admin soft delete closure have been allowed at TfD.
Open tasks
As a reminder, the legacy javascript globals (like accessing wgPageName without first assigning it a value or using mw.config.get('wgPageName') instead) are deprecated. If your user scripts make use of the globals, please update them to use mw.config instead. Some global interface editors or local interface administrators may edit your user script to make these changes if you don't. See phab:T72470 for more.
Miscellaneous
For people interested in creating user scripts or gadgets using TypeScript, a types-mediawiki package (GitHub, NPM) is now available that provides type definitions for the MediaWiki JS interface and the API.
A GitHub organization has been created for hosting codebases of gadgets. Users who maintain gadgets using GitHub may choose to move their repos to this organization, to ensure continued maintenance by others even if the original maintainer becomes inactive.
As always, if anyone else would like to contribute, including nominating a featured script, help is appreciated. Stay safe, and happy new year! --DannyS712 (talk) 01:17, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
User:Ahecht/Scripts/pageswap - version 1.4 fixes reading destination from form field if destination is not in article namespace, and fixes self redirects.
Wikipedia:XFDcloser - version 4 brings a new user interface for dialogs, some preferences for customising XFDcloser, major behind-the-scenes coding changes, and resolves various issues raised on the talkpage. Also, since version 3.16.6 non-admin soft delete closure have been allowed at TfD.
Open tasks
As a reminder, the legacy javascript globals (like accessing wgPageName without first assigning it a value or using mw.config.get('wgPageName') instead) are deprecated. If your user scripts make use of the globals, please update them to use mw.config instead. Some global interface editors or local interface administrators may edit your user script to make these changes if you don't. See phab:T72470 for more.
Miscellaneous
For people interested in creating user scripts or gadgets using TypeScript, a types-mediawiki package (GitHub, NPM) is now available that provides type definitions for the MediaWiki JS interface and the API.
A GitHub organization has been created for hosting codebases of gadgets. Users who maintain gadgets using GitHub may choose to move their repos to this organization, to ensure continued maintenance by others even if the original maintainer becomes inactive.
As always, if anyone else would like to contribute, including nominating a featured script, help is appreciated. Stay safe, and happy new year! --DannyS712 (talk) 01:17, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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 Wikipedia app for Android now has watchlists and talk pages in the app. [66]
Changes later this week
You can see edits to chosen pages on Special:Watchlist. You can add pages to your watchlist on every wiki you like. The GlobalWatchlist extension will come to Meta on 11 February. There you can see entries on watched pages on different wikis on the same page. The new watchlist will be found on Special:GlobalWatchlist on Meta. You can choose which wikis to watch and other preferences on Special:GlobalWatchlistSettings on Meta. You can watch up to five wikis. [67]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 February. It will be on all wikis from 11 February (calendar).
Future changes
When admins protect pages the form will use the OOUI look. Special:Import will also get the new look. This will make them easier to use on mobile phones. [68][69]
Some services will not work for a short period of time from 07:00 UTC on 17 February. There might be problems with new short links, new translations, new notifications, adding new items to your reading lists or recording email bounces. This is because of database maintenance. [70]
Last week Tech News reported that the IP address Cloud VPS and Toolforge use to contact the wikis will change on 8 February. This is delayed. It will happen later instead. [71]
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
There were problems with recent versions of MediaWiki. Because the updates caused problems the developers rolled back to an earlier version. Some updates and new functions will come later than planned. [72][73]
Some services will not work for a short period of time from 07:00 UTC on 17 February. There might be problems with new short links, new translations, new notifications, adding new items to your reading lists or recording email bounces. This is because of database maintenance. [74]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 February. It will be on all wikis from 18 February (calendar).
THESE STATEMENTS ARE NOT TRUE/NOT GOOD ADVICE. ALWAYS FOLLOW THE POLICIES THAT WIKIPEDIA HAS. EVERYTHING LISTED HERE IN THIS SECTION IS SOLELY FOR THE PURPOSE OF HUMOUR
If you have a COI, and you don't want to declare it, don't! (For all we know, a dog could be writing [or rather typing] this statement ;) )
Notes
We have a new editor on our team! Berrely will be joining the TWW team as a proofreader starting from the next issue onwards! (No more typos now...)
The Wikipedia Ads section will be omitted, to make the flow of this newsletter easier. Discuss this issue here
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Enjoy this Issue and stay safe! Happy Chinese New Year! --つがるTalk to つがる:)🍁 01:02, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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 visual editor will now use MediaSearch to find images. You can search for images on Commons in the visual editor when you are looking for illustrations. This is to help editors find better images. [75]
Editing a timeline might have removed all text from it. This was because of a bug and has been fixed. You might need to edit the timeline again for it to show properly. [77]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 February. It will be on all wikis from 25 February (calendar).
Future changes
There is a user group for developers and users interested in working on Wikimedia wikis with the Rust programming language. You can join or tell others who want to make your wiki better in the future.
Hi I see your message . my information is completed about Bavar 373 . why change ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orsanpanir (talk • contribs) 14:40, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Hope orbiter reached mars on 9 February 2021. Seven months after its launch on 19 July 2020.
Confirmation of the Perseverance rover successfully landing on Mars was recieved at 20:55 UTC on 18 February 2021. With the first photo from the same day.
The Mars Pathfinder is an American robotic spacecraft that landed a base station with a roving probe on Mars in 1997. It consisted of a lander, and a lightweight wheeled robotic Mars rover named Sojourner, which became the first rover to land and operate on Mars.
Image of the month.
The first 360-degree panorama taken by Mastcam-Z, on Perseverance.
Since January, 44 new pages have been added to Spaceflight and 1 file has become featured. There are 2 new files as well as 1 more C class, 4 more start class and 3 more stub class articles, with an additional 3 list articles.
Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the Mailing list.
Newsletter contributor: Terasail
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 using the Growth team tools can now show the name of a newcomer's mentor anywhere through a magic word. This can be used for welcome messages or userboxes.
A new version of the VideoCutTool is now available. It enables cropping, trimming, audio disabling, and rotating video content. It is being created as part of the developer outreach programs.
Problems
There was a problem with the job queue. This meant some functions did not save changes and mass messages were delayed. This did not affect wiki edits. [78]
Some editors may not be logged in to their accounts automatically in the latest versions of Firefox and Safari. [79]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 March. It will be on all wikis from 4 March (calendar).
A request for comment is open that proposes a process for the community to revoke administrative permissions. This follows a 2019 RfC in favor of creating one such a policy.
A request for comment is in progress to remove F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a, which covers immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
A request for comment asks if sysops may place the General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 editnotice template on pages in scope that do not have page-specific sanctions?
When blocking an IPv6 address with Twinkle, there is now a checkbox with the option to just block the /64 range. When doing so, you can still leave a block template on the initial, single IP address' talkpage.
When protecting a page with Twinkle, you can now add a note if doing so was in response to a request at WP:RfPP, and even link to the specific revision.
By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, any gender-related dispute or controversy and associated people. Sanctions issued under GamerGate are now considered Gender and sexuality sanctions.
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
Section translation now works on Bengali Wikipedia. It helps mobile editors translate sections of articles. It will come to more wikis later. The first focus is active wikis with a smaller number of articles. You can test it and leave feedback.
When someone links to a Wikipedia article on Twitter this will now show a preview of the article. [81]
Problems
Many graphs have JavaScript errors. Graph editors can check their graphs in their browser's developer console after editing. [82]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 March. It will be on all wikis from 11 March (calendar).
The New Discussion tool will soon be a new discussion tools beta feature for on most Wikipedias. The goal is to make it easier to start new discussions. [83]
Future changes
There will be a number of changes to make it easier to work with templates. Some will come to the first wikis in March. Other changes will come to the first wikis in June. This is both for those who use templates and those who create or maintain them. You can read more.
Reference Previews will become a default feature on some wikis on 17 March. They will share a setting with Page Previews. If you prefer the Reference Tooltips or Navigation-Popups gadget you can keep using them. If so Reference Previews won't be shown. [84][85]
New JavaScript-based functions will not work in Internet Explorer 11. This is because Internet Explorer is an old browser that doesn't work with how JavaScript is written today. Everything that works in Internet Explorer 11 today will continue working in Internet Explorer for now. You can read more.
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 that are part of the desktop improvements project can now use a new search function. The desktop improvements and the new search will come to more wikis later. You can also test it early.
Editors who put up banners or change site-wide JavaScript code should use the client error graph to see that their changes has not caused problems. You can read more. [86]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 March. It will be on all wikis from 18 March (calendar).
Future changes
You can add a newline or carriage return character to a custom signature if you use a template. There is a proposal to not allow them in the future. This is because they can cause formatting problems. [87][88]
You will be able to read but not edit 12 wikis for a short period of time on 23 March at 06:00 (UTC). This could take 30 minutes but will probably be much faster.
You can use Quarry for SQL queries to the Wiki Replicas. Cross-database JOINS will no longer work from 23 March. There will be a new field to specify the database to connect to. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech. PAWS and other ways to do SQL queries to the Wiki Replicas will be affected later. [89]
There are 2 new editors now, one of them Berrely, and CanadianOtaku. As mentioned Berrely is our new proofreader (typos beware) and Canadian Otaku is now going to be writing our Humor sections, I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for joining us, and remember, if you want to join, just let me know!
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Enjoy this Issue and stay safe! --つがるTalk to つがる:)🍁 01:22, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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
There is a Wikipedia app for KaiOS phones. They don't have a touch screen so readers navigate with the phone keys. There is now a simulator so you can see what it looks like.
You will be able to read but not edit twelve wikis for a short period of time on 23 March at 06:00 (UTC). This can also affect password changes, logging in to new wikis, global renames and changing or confirming emails. This could take 30 minutes but will probably be much faster.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 March. It will be on all wikis from 25 March (calendar).
Flagged revisions will no longer have multiple tags like "tone" or "depth". It will also only have one tier. This was changed because very few wikis used these features and they make the tool difficult to maintain. [91][92]
Gadgets and user scripts can access variables about the current page in JavaScript. In 2015 this was moved from wg* to mw.config. wg* will soon no longer work. [93]
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 very old web browsersdon’t work well with the Wikimedia wikis. Some old code for browsers that used to be supported is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers. [94]
IRC recent changes feeds have been moved to a new server. Make sure all tools automatically reconnect to irc.wikimedia.org and not to the name of any specific server. Users should also consider switching to the more modern EventStreams. [95]
Problems
When you move a page that many editors have on their watchlist the history can be split. It might also not be possible to move it again for a while. This is because of a job queue problem. [96]
Some translatable pages on Meta could not be edited. This was because of a bug in the translation tool. The new MediaWiki version was delayed because of problems like this. [97][98]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 March. It will be on all wikis from 1 April (calendar).
Following a request for comment, F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a has been deprecated; it covered immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
Following a request for comment, page movers were granted the delete-redirect userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target.
Technical news
When you move a page that many editors have on their watchlist the history can be split and it might also not be possible to move it again for a while. This is because of a job queue problem. (T278350)
Code to support some very old web browsers is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers. (T277803)
On March 7 the Wide Field Camera 3 on Hubble Space Telescope entered safe mode after a software error was detected. And took days until the camera was fully active again. read more
The Space Launch System completed a full-duration (8 minutes and 20 seconds) static fire of the core stage on March 18, after an earler test in January failed to complete the test.
Featured Content
The Apollo 12 article was promoted to a Featured Article on March 27, 2021. After being nominated by Wehwalt who is a significant contributor to the article.
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versatile, renowned both as a vital research tool and as a public relations boon for astronomy. The Hubble telescope is named after astronomer Edwin Hubble and is one of NASA's Great Observatories.
Image of the month.
Astronaut Roger B. Chaffee is shown at console in the Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas during the Gemini-Titan 3 flight.
Since February, 28 new pages have been added to Spaceflight and Apollo 12 has been promoted to featured article! 1 more article has reached GA-class, with 1 more file, 6 more C-class, 14 more start-class and 8 new stub class articles.
Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the Mailing list.
Newsletter contributors: Ninney & Terasail
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
Editors can collapse part of an article so you have to click on it to see it. When you click a link to a section inside collapsed content it will now expand to show the section. The browser will scroll down to the section. Previously such links didn't work unless you manually expanded the content first. [99]
Changes later this week
The citoidAPI will use for example 2010-12-XX instead of 2010-12 for dates with a month but no days. This is because 2010-12 could be confused with 2010-2012 instead of December 2010. This is called level 1 instead of level 0 in the Extended Date/Time Format. [100]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 April. It will be on all wikis from 8 April (calendar).
Future changes
PAWS can now connect to the new Wiki Replicas. Cross-database JOINS will no longer work from 28 April. There is a new way to connect to the databases. Until 28 April both ways to connect to the databases will work. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech.
Hello, ZLEA! Here is the April 2021 issue of TheWikiWizard.
Wikipedia News
MediaWiki has a new logo. Looks great, doesn't it?
Did you get to see the April Fools DYK for the Main Page? If not, catch them here (Under April 1)
In the Beta Features, try out "Discussion tools" it is a very useful feature for replying to talkpage messages. You will need an account to do so!
Memorials
Pi zero has passed away. Our condolences go out for Pi zero and anyone who knew him. Thank you Pi zero for your service here at Wikimedia. We are very sorry to hear this. We will never forget your valuable contributions to Wikipedia and it's sister projects.
Humour
Tsugaru's Humour Section
April Showers can't Bring May Flowers, if the Flowers ran away to June!
You can't get in trouble, if you don't cause trouble!
The May Flowers can't be flowers if they are roses!
Please find CanadianOtaku's Humour Section below
Sadly, there was no edit war of 2021, maybe next year.
This joke space is up for rent!
You too can be a hacker by removing everything in an article!
Error 410: I dropped this joke and I can't find it.
Editor's Notes
Just a reminder that TWW is delivered between the 16th to the 20th of each month
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Enjoy this Issue and stay safe! --つがるTalk to つがる:)🍁 23:53, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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
Email to the Wikimedia wikis are handled by groups of Wikimedia editors. These volunteer response teams now use Znuny instead of OTRS. The functions and interface remain the same. The volunteer administrators will give more details about the next steps soon. [101][102]
If you use syntax highlighting, you can see line numbers in the 2010 and 2017 wikitext editors when editing templates. This is to make it easier to see line breaks or talk about specific lines. Line numbers will soon come to all namespaces. [103][104][105]
Because of a technical change there could be problems with gadgets and scripts that have an edit summary area that looks similar to this one. If they look strange they should use mw.loader.using('mediawiki.action.edit.styles') to go back to how they looked before. [106]
The latest version of MediaWiki came to the Wikimedia wikis last week. There was no Tech News issue last week.
Changes later this week
There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
The user group oversight will be renamed suppress. This is for technical reasons. This is the technical name. It doesn't affect what you call the editors with this user right on your wiki. This is planned to happen in two weeks. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections.
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
Templates have parameters that can have specific values. It is possible to suggest values for editors with TemplateData. You can soon see them as a drop-down list in the visual editor. This is to help template users find the right values faster. [107][108][109]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 April. It will be on all wikis from 29 April (calendar).