Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2020/September

Tech News: 2020-37
 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
 * Normally pages can be moved to a title that has no existing page yet or to a page that has only one revision, which is a redirect to the page to be moved. A new user right allows editors to move pages over one-revision pages that redirect to anywhere.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 September. It will be on all wikis from 10 September (calendar).
 * Octicons-tools.svg All MediaWiki API modules will now use  instead of  . This was inconsistent before.

Future changes
 * The Wikipedia Android app team might work on patrolling tools in the future. You can let them know what tools would be useful for you or for less experienced patrollers. See the page on mediawiki.org.
 * OTRS will be updated to a new version. This will probably take around two days. OTRS agents will not have access to the system during these days. Emails that come in during the update will be delivered when the update is done. The plan is to start around 08:00 UTC on 14 September. This could change.
 * The Wikipedia Android app will send push notifications if users want them. This could help you see for example when someone wrote on your talk page or your edit was reverted. This will need Google Play Services to work. It will also be possible to get the app without Google Play Services but push notifications will not work. Google Play Services is also used to make the app work for Android 4.4 users.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Wikimedia code review could move to GitLab. It would be hosted on Wikimedia servers. You can take part in the consultation.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Dropdown menus in the Vector skin use a  class. This will not work in the future. Scripts can use   instead.   and   will also not work. Some scripts need to be updated. You can read more in Phabricator.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  15:59, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikinewsie
Can someone fill us in on what is going on with the Wikinewsie email setup? I know there was an email that was sent out explaining the understandable hiccups it's experience. I'm just after an update? --RockerballAustralia contribs 00:10, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you mind joining #wikinewsie-group. I can brief you about it there. •–•  00:27, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Journalists see local news as less newsworthy
https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/09/journalists-perceive-stories-published-in-local-news-outlets-to-be-less-newsworthy/ —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:10, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Invitation to participate in the conversation
''. Apologies for cross-posting, and that you may not be reading this message in your native language: translations of the following announcement may be available on Meta. . ''

We are excited to share a draft of the Universal Code of Conduct, which the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees called for earlier this year, for your review and feedback. The discussion will be open until October 6, 2020.

The UCoC Drafting Committee wants to learn which parts of the draft would present challenges for you or your work. What is missing from this draft? What do you like, and what could be improved?

Please join the conversation and share this invitation with others who may be interested to join, too.

To reduce language barriers during the process, you are welcomed to translate this message and the Universal Code of Conduct/Draft review. You and your community may choose to provide your opinions/feedback using your local languages.

To learn more about the UCoC project, see the Universal Code of Conduct page, and the FAQ, on Meta.

Thanks in advance for your attention and contributions, The Trust and Safety team at Wikimedia Foundation, 17:55, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-38
 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
 * The Wikipedia apps briefly showed pages without CSS last week. This meant they looked wrong. It was quickly fixed but cached pages without CSS were shown for a few hours.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 September. It will be on all wikis from 17 September (calendar).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:19, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

That terrible Chinese word for 'hominuh, hominuh, hominuh'
--Pi zero (talk) 12:41, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Activity
FYI: English Wikinews is discussed on Jimbo's page in our thread. --sasha (krassotkin) 06:21, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-39
 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 tag for reverted edits. For example you can see it in the recent changes feed or in the article history. It is added to edits when they have been undone, rollbacked or manually reverted to an older version of the page.

Changes later this week
 * The number of times you can do something in a period of time on wiki is limited. This could be the number of edits per minute or the number of users you email in a day. Some users are not affected by all limits because of their user rights. They could soon see the limit even if it does not affect them.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 September. It will be on all wikis from 24 September (calendar).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  21:28, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-40
 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 Problems
 * Admins can now see links to diffs of deleted revisions on Special:AbuseLog. This uses the interface of Special:Undelete.
 * Editors are automatically added to some user groups. For example editors are added to autoconfirmed users when they have edited enough times and long enough. Abuse filters can hinder users from automatically getting user rights for a period of time. They can also remove rights user have. Wikis can now ask to change how long this period of time is for their wiki in Phabricator. It is currently five days.
 * Last year some abuse filters stopped working because of a new change. If they tried to use variables that were unavailable for that action they would fail. This has now been fixed.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 September. It will be on all wikis from 1 October (calendar).

Future changes
 * You can't see the language links to other language versions from the talk page or history page. They are also not shown when you edit an article. This could change. It is not decided if for example the history page should link to another history page or to the article. You can take part in the discussion in Phabricator.
 * The link colours could change. This is to make the difference between links and other text more clear. You can read more in Phabricator.
 * In your preferences you can choose to get different notifications on the web or by email. You will see  as one of the alternatives later this week. This is because the Android and iOS Wikipedia apps will use push notifications for those who want them. You can see the preferences on the test wiki. The goal is to have push notifications on Android in October and on iOS in early 2021.
 * You can soon put pages on your watchlist for a limited time. This could be useful if you want to watch something for a shorter time but don't want it on your watchlist forever. It now works on mediawiki.org and will come to more wikis later. You can read more and see when it will come to other wikis.
 * You can see what Wikimedians think are the best new technical tools this year. You can also nominate them.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  21:24, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Wiki of functions naming contest
. Please help pick a name for the new Wikimedia wiki project. This project will be a wiki where the community can work together on a library of functions. The community can create new functions, read about them, discuss them, and share them. Some of these functions will be used to help create language-independent Wikipedia articles that can be displayed in any language, as part of the Abstract Wikipedia project. But functions will also be usable in many other situations.

There will be two rounds of voting, each followed by legal review of candidates, with voting beginning on 29 September and 27 October. Our goal is to have a final project name selected on 8 December. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at meta-wiki. --Quiddity (WMF) 21:26, 29 September 2020 (UTC)