Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2014/December

Tech News: 2014-50
 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 software changes
 * All users are now getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster.
 * You can join a video chat about Phabricator on December 11 at 18:00 (UTC). Phabricator is the new tool to report issues.

Problems
 * There was a problem with Phabricator on November 29. It was due to a network issue.

Software changes this week
 * The new version of MediaWiki ( 1.25wmf11 ) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since December 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from December 9. It will be on all Wikipedias from December 10 (calendar).
 * You can now exit VisualEditor by pressing the "Esc" key.
 * It is now easier to use VisualEditor with IMEs. Typing in Malayalam now works better.
 * The new version of OOjs UI fixed many issues with the size and layout of buttons in dialogs.
 * (Lua) You can no longer use  to get the HTML from special page transclusion. You can see a list of scripts to fix.

Future changes
 * Starting next week JavaScript tools won't work if they use jQuery Migrate.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  17:10, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Spanish language sources
I'd like to cover Latin American issues. To do so requires that I use Spanish language sources. Can I do that or are reviewers going to have a problem with that? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tim Kayson (talk • contribs) 22:50, 14 December 2014


 * We'll do our best. I, for one, don't actually read Spanish but have often been able to limp through Spanish sources with effort, working from a combination of automated translation (which, as we all know, is really horribly useless by itself), consultation of wiktionary, a smattering of knowledge of Spanish grammar and cognates, and patience.


 * If you can see certain things are going to be especially difficult to translate (such as, perhaps, idioms), it would be helpful to leave some sort of helpful note about translation on the article's collaboration (that is, talk) page. Of course, you have to avoid copyvio when doing that...


 * We do call for use of English sources when available; on the other hand, we can be an excellent vehicle for improving coverage of under-reported stories, and we love it when we can include in that, improving English-language coverage of stories that have been well covered in other languages but not so well covered in English. --Pi zero (talk) 23:19, 14 December 2014 (UTC)


 * By the way, when providing direct quotes that were originally in other languages, we like to use translated quote, which allows us to give both the English translation and the non-English original; I enjoy doing that because mainstream English news orgs don't do it, so it's one more way we can give our readers added value; if they're not sure whether our English translation is right, they can see for themselves what the original was. --Pi zero (talk) 23:31, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-51
 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 software changes
 * You may see a new tool tested on the mobile site of the English Wikipedia. It asks simple questions to make the article better. In the future, your answers will go to Wikidata.
 * You can watch a video to learn how to use Phabricator to manage projects.
 * You can test a new version of the Content Translation tool.

Software changes this week
 * The new version of MediaWiki ( 1.25wmf12 ) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since December 10. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from December 16. It will be on all Wikipedias from December 17 (calendar).
 * You can now find and replace text in VisualEditor. You can open the tool via the menu,  or.
 * VisualEditor now doesn't change the space at the end of a text that you make bold.
 * The "Apply changes" button in the reference window of VisualEditor is now disabled until you make a change.

Future changes
 * The star image of the watchlist may change soon.
 * You won't be able to use Phabricator on December 18, 2014. It will be down between 00:00 and 08:00 (UTC).

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:43, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-52
 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 software changes
 * The Technical Operations team is now using Phabricator to track their tasks. The Operations team manages the Wikimedia servers. In the future you will be able to see the tasks that are not private.

Software changes this week
 * There will be no software changes this week and next week. This is because of the end-of-year holidays. The next update of MediaWiki will be on January 6.

Future changes
 * The system that displays citations will change in the future. The new system will not change the style of citations.
 * A new design for VisualEditor will come in January. You can try it now on test wikis.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:52, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-01
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Software changes
 * There are no technical changes this week.

Feedback about Tech News in 2014
 * The writers of the technical newsletter are asking for your opinion. Did you get the information you wanted this year? Did we miss important technical news in 2014? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us at m:Talk:Tech/News. You can write in your language. Thank you!

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:51, 29 December 2014 (UTC)