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

Infrastructure
I'm a little short on time, so I'll make this quick: based upon some recent discussions re: infrastructure and the development of such therein and yada-yada-yada.....I've had it in my head that it might help around here if we had some sort of concrete "shift" arrangement.....I know, that's tough in a volunteer model. I'm in no position to post a blank schedule or anything like that, but I can (and will) say this: For the remainder of this year, I will submit one article and review one article per week- -and will try very hard to do both of those on Thursdays. Solid, definite, concrete. There ya' go. --Bddpaux (talk) 17:10, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-02
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf9) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 2. It will be enabled on non-Wikipedia wikis on January 7 and on all Wikipedia wikis on January 9 (calendar).
 * The [//etherpad-old.wikimedia.org old note-taking site] (Etherpad) was removed on December 30, 2013. You can see most of the documents on [//etherpad.wikimedia.org the new site]. [//lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2013-December/073755.html]

Problems
 * On January 2, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata and all Wikivoyage projects were broken for 2 hours due to language cache update issues.
 * On the same day, it was not possible to edit most wikis for about 30 minutes, due to a database replication problem.

Future software changes
 * The new search tool (CirrusSearch) will be added as the default search method for Italian Wikipedia, French Wikisource, Wikidata and all Wikivoyage sites, and as a second search method for the German Wikipedia and all Wikibooks sites on January 6.
 * Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian Wikipedia users will also be able to enable CirrusSearch in their Beta Features options.
 * Plural form rules for some languages [//translatewiki.net/wiki/Thread:Portal_talk:Ru/Plural_changes_in_many_languages will be changed]. Many translations of the user interface for Belarusian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian and other languages will need to be changed. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56931] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/105148/] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/104795/]
 * You will see a warning when you try to delete a page linked to from other pages. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35485] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/65162/]
 * You will be able to hide redirect pages on the list of protected pages. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19233] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/104395/]
 * You will be able to use keyboard shortcuts in the Translate tool, by pressing Alt +1 and similar key groups. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/103072/] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/104934/]
 * E-mails sent by MediaWiki will include the name of the site in their  line. You will be able to change this name on your wiki by editing the   page. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32770]
 * Images viewed in the Beta Features media viewer will load faster. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56695] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/95282/]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  08:34, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-03
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

You can read a [//blog.wikimedia.org/2014/01/07/tech-news-fighting-technical-information-overload-for-wikimedians/ recent blog post] about how Tech News is put together, translated and sent to you across wikis each week.

Recent software changes
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf10) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 9. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 14, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 16 (calendar).
 * Searching in the  namespace on Wikimedia Commons may be slow due to a search engine issue. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/106537/]

VisualEditor news
 * VisualEditor will be added for all users on several Wikipedias on January 13. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/102208/]
 * You can now add and remove,   and   in the page metadata menu. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56866] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56867] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=57166]

Problems
 * For a few hours on January 6, it was not possible to edit pages using the Translate tool on Wikimedia Commons and the Wikimania 2013 wiki, due to a settings error. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59740] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59739]
 * For about 20 minutes on January 9, there were problems with CSS and JavaScript due to high server load.

Future software changes
 * Wikidata will be added to all Wikisource wikis on January 14. [//wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deployments#Week_of_January_13]
 * The new search tool (CirrusSearch) will be added as the second search method for the English Wikipedia on January 13. On Wikibooks and the German Wikipedia, you will also be able to test it by adding it in your Beta Features options.
 * You will soon be able to export page collections into other formats than PDF. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58151]
 * It will soon be possible to upload groups of photos from Flickr using UploadWizard. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43320] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/105393]
 * The Wikimedia Foundation has shared a multimedia vision for 2016. You are invited to comment.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  09:33, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-04
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 16. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 28, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 30 (calendar).
 * You can now see relatively recent results on special pages like Special:DoubleRedirects, Special:UncategorizedPages or Special:WantedCategories. They were disabled before because they were very slow. The results are now updated once a month. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15434]
 * As of January 16, you can make and use guided tours on the Asturian, Farsi and Russian Wikipedias. If you want this tool on your wiki, you need to [//translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:Translate&group=ext-guidedtour&filter=&language=&action=translate translate it] and ask in [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org Bugzilla]. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/105997/]
 * You can give comments on an idea to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages.
 * You can watch a video to learn how to report problems in Bugzilla. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54606]

VisualEditor news
 * In the toolbar, the menu to edit the styles (like bold, italic, etc.) now has a down arrow (VisualEditor - Icon - Text style.svgVisualEditor - Icon - Down.svg). The order of the Insert menu has also changed a little.
 * You can now edit  tags with a very basic tool. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/107537/]
 * You can now see a help page about keyboard shortcuts in the page menu. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52844]
 * When you change categories, you will now see them when you save the page. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48560]
 * When you edit templates, you will now see the parameters in the right order. The ones that you must add have a star (*). [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51930] [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53611]
 * The page will now be saved faster, thanks to a new way of coding the text that sends 40% less text to the servers. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59660]
 * Your wiki can ask to test a new tool to edit TemplateData. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51734]

Problems
 * There was a problem with search on the English and German Wikipedias between January 6 and January 14. You could not see new pages and changes in search results. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59979]
 * There were "pool timeouts" errors on several wikis on January 13; it was caused by a code change that was made to fix another problem. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59993]
 * On January 17, Bugzilla and Wikimedia Labs were broken for about 20 minutes due to network problems. IRC channels with recent changes (irc.wikimedia.org) were broken for about two hours.

Future software changes
 * If you have removed JavaScript in your web browser, you will soon be able to see the orange bar saying that you have new messages. If you have changed how the bar looks with a gadget, you may need to change the gadget again. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56974] [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/95102/]
 * You will soon be able to add a given Flickr user to a blacklist so that their files can't be uploaded using UploadWizard on Wikimedia Commons and other wikis. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/42770]
 * You will see a warning when you try to delete a page included in at least one other page. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/108188/]
 * You will so longer see disambiguation pages in Special:LonelyPages. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3483]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  10:21, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-05
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes


 * Pages from Wikimedia sites now load faster in your browser thanks to "module storage", a way for your browser to save data like JavaScript and CSS on your computer to avoid downloading them again. See video.
 * The code used to show videos has changed. You should be able to play the video on the page, with the play button on top of the video. If you see the play button on the right of the video, or if clicking on the video leads you to the original file, please file a bug or tell User:Bawolff. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/55550]
 * The  page will be removed because it's too slow. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/107988]
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 16. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 28, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 30 (calendar).

Problems
 * On January 21, Universal Language Selector was turned off on all Wikimedia sites because it makes pages load slowly. If you want to use web fonts, or write in scripts that aren't on your keyboard, you need to add it as an option in your preferences. It will be turned back on when the issues are resolved. [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/56433]
 * For about 20 minutes on the same day, there were problems with CSS and JavaScript due to high server load.

Future software changes
 * You can give comments about the new version of "Winter", a proposal to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  09:46, 27 January 2014 (UTC)