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current talk page.
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 which Wikipedia language versions are read in a specific country. This tool is called
Wikipedia Views Visualized.
[1]
You can get an email when a page on your watchlist was edited. You can choose not to get emails for minor edits. There is a bug that means that you then don't get an email when someone does a normal edit after a minor edit. The developers are working on fixing this. Until it has been fixed you can activate "Email me also for minor edits of pages and files" at the bottom of "User profile" in your preferences if you want to.
[3]
The thanks button sometimes didn't work for mobile users. This was because of a new bug and has now been fixed.
[4]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 August. It will be on all wikis from 10 August (
calendar).
Future changes
Editors and readers who still use Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP will not be able to use Wikipedia. Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP can't connect securely to the wikis. When we allow them to do so it means that we get less security for everyone else. If you use Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP you can install
Firefox 52 ESR instead. Around 0.1% of the traffic to the Wikimedia wikis comes from Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP.
[5]
Links to sections on Wikipedia don't work well in languages that don't use the
Latin script. The
URL in the address bar in your browser shows Latin characters like .D0.A1.D1.81.D1.8B.D0.BB.D0.BA.D0.B8 instead of the section heading in the wiki's language. Links to sections in non-Latin scripts will be in the script of that wiki in the future. This will happen in the next few months.
[6][7]
Wiki pages printed by the web browser "Print" function will have an updated style. This new style will be similar to the when you download a page as PDF. It will be better at showing tables, infoboxes and headings.
[8][9]
Interviewed by Facto Post at the hackathon,
Lydia Pintscher of Wikidata said that the most significant recent development is that Wikidata now accounts for one third of Wikimedia edits. And the essential growth of human editing.
Impressive development work on
Internet-in-a-Box featured in the WikiMedFoundation annual conference on Thursday. Hardware is
Raspberry Pi, running Linux and the
Kiwix browser. It can operate as a wifi hotspot and support a local intranet in parts of the world lacking phone signal. The medical use case is for those delivering care, who have smartphones but have to function in clinics in just such areas with few reference resources. Wikipedia medical content can be served to their phones, and power supplied by standard lithium battery packages.
Yesterday
Katherine Maher unveiled the draft
Wikimedia 2030 strategy, featuring a picturesque metaphor, "roads, bridges and villages". Here "bridges" could do with illustration. Perhaps it stands for engineering round or over the obstacles to progress down the obvious highways. Internet-in-a-Box would then do fine as an example.
"Bridging the gap" explains a take on that same metaphor, with its human component. If you are at Wikimania, come talk to
WikiFactMine at its stall in the Community Village, just by the 3D-printed display for
Bassel Khartabil; come hear T Arrow talk at 3 pm today in Drummond West, Level 3.
Link
Plaudit for the Medical Wikipedia app, content that is loaded into Internet-In-A-Box with other material, such as per-country documentation.
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
Bureaucrats can now set users as
confirmed. Previously only stewards could do this on most wikis. Nothing will change for wikis that have previously decided to let administrators set users as confirmed.
[10]
Problems
The symbols in the language list that show that an article is good or featured in that language doesn't work. Links to the Commons category in the sidebar doesn't work either. The developers are working on fixing it.
[11][12]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 August. It will be on all wikis from 17 August (
calendar).
Hello, Daniel Mietchen. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
I actually don't remember when this was added and by whom, so I'll just add this comment here in order to allow for it to enter the normal archiving process. --
Daniel Mietchen (
talk) 04:21, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Your watchlist can now have the option to unwatch pages. You have to turn this on in your preferences.
[15]
If a table has several columns you can often choose which column you want to use to sort the table. This has not worked for some columns for readers who have used Firefox or Safari. This has now been fixed.
[16]
The
RelatedArticles extension has shown related pages on Wikivoyages. You will now see the related pages at the end of the article together with an image. Previously the links were in the sidebar. Wikis that want this extension can request it on
Phabricator.
Changes later this week
Videos will now be played in the
WebM format in all browsers. Previously some browsers used
Ogg Theora (.ogv). If you use Safari, Internet Explorer or Edge you may see slower playback speed at high resolutions. Instead we will get better quality and smaller file size. You can still upload video as Ogg files. They are automatically converted to WebM. This doesn't affect Ogg audio files.
[17]
The default font in the edit window will change for some users this week. Instead of using the browser default, it will be monospace. Users can change this in their preferences. This should only change this for some users on Macs and iOS devices.
[18]
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 August. It will be on all wikis from 24 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
23 August at 15:00 (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
22 August at 19:00 (UTC). See
how to join.
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 is now a beta feature on Wikimedia wikis with text written from left to right. It will come to right-to-left wikis later. This beta feature is based on
CodeMirror.
[19][20]
You will now
get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device or IP address that have logged in to your account before you will be notified after five failed attempts. You can turn this off or choose to get an email notification in your preferences. You can also turn on to get an email when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address.
[21]
Problems
Some pages show the error Lua error in mw.wikibase.entity.lua at line 34: The entity data must be a table obtained via mw.wikibase.getEntityObject. This problem happens on pages with a
Lua module that use Wikidata. This has now been fixed and no new pages will get this problem. You still need to fix pages that were broken before and still show the error message. You can see how
on this page.
[22]
Changes later this week
You can block users from sending you notifications.
[23]
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 August. It will be on all wikis from 31 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
29 August at 19:00 (UTC). See
how to join.
In the future you will have
global preferences. This means you could set something in your preferences to work in the same way on all wikis. You will not be forced to use global preferences. The developers are now asking if editors need exceptions. This is where you want to use global settings on almost all wikis, but have some wikis where you want it to work in a different way. If you want this you need to tell the developers now. You can do so on
the talk page.
[24]
New filters for edit review is a beta feature to improve recent changes pages. It will work on watchlists from 5 September.
[25]
The jQuery library will be upgraded to version 3 in September 2017. Wikis can
ask on Phabricator to get it early, so they can help find and solve problems now.
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
We are asking Tech News readers five questions to make the newsletter better.
You can answer the questions here. We are grateful for every reply we get.
Recent changes
The
RevisionSlider user interface has changed. You can now select revisions by clicking on the bars. You can move the blue knob past the yellow one and the yellow one will move along, and the other way around.
[26][27]
Problems
Some users have problems loading very large watchlists. It is working better than earlier but the problem has not been solved. The developers are working on fixing it. Until it has been fixed you can turn on "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent" in your preferences and see if it helps.
[28]
Changes later this week
New filters for edit review is a beta feature to improve recent changes pages. It will work on watchlists from 5 September.
[29]
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 September. It will be on all wikis from 7 September (
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 September at 19:00 (UTC). See
how to join.
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 get a
notification when a page you created is connected to a Wikidata item. You can choose to get these notifications in your preferences. Some wikis already had this option. It is now available on all wikis.
[31]
The
Newsletter extension is now on mediawiki.org. The newsletter extension is for newsletters where you can subscribe by getting a notification when a new issue has been published. It will come to more wikis later.
[32]
The
Linter extension helps you find technical errors in articles. There is now a new high-priority category: tidy-whitespace-bug. This usually affects templates with horizontal lists. You can read more
about using Linter and the
Tidy whitespace bug.
[33]
Problems
Tech News
2017/36 reported about
new filters for edit review coming to watchlists. This was planned to happen last week. It will happen next week instead.
[34]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 September. It will be on all wikis from 14 September (
calendar).
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on
13 September at 15:00 (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 September at 19:00 (UTC). See
how to join.
Future changes
You can't use
OCG to create PDFs after 1 October. This is because of technical problems. You can use
Electron instead. Most PDFs are already created with Electron. Electron will get missing features before 1 October. You can create books but they will not have all planned features until November or December. You can
read more on mediawiki.org.
Clearly, conservation work depends on decisions about what should be done, and where. While animals, particularly mammals, are photogenic, species numbers run into millions. Plant species lie at the base of typical land-based food chains, and vegetation is key to the habitats of most animals.
ContentMine dictionaries, for example as tabulated at
d:Wikidata:WikiFactMine/Dictionary list, enable detailed control of queries about endangered species, in their taxonomic context. To target conservation measures properly, species listings running into the thousands are not what is needed: range maps showing current distribution are. Between the will to act, and effective steps taken, the services of data handling are required. There is now no reason at all why Wikidata should not take up the burden.
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 contributions from an
IP range at
Special:Contributions. Before you could only see contributions from single
IP addresses. Some older contributions from IP ranges could be missing at first because it will take some time to add them.
[36][37]
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 September. It will be on all wikis from 21 September (
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
19 September 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 September at 15:00 (UTC). See
how to join.
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
Wikitext
syntax highlighting is a beta feature on Wikimedia wikis with text written from left to right. This beta feature is based on
CodeMirror. You can now search through the entire article with CTRL+F or cmd+F when you edit. Before it just searched through a part of the article. The developers are also fixing a couple of other bugs.
[39][40]
You now
get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device or IP address that have logged in to your account before you will be notified after five failed attempts. For security reasons you will soon get an email by default when someone tries to log in to your account and when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address. This can be turned off in your preferences.
[42]
Users with extremely old browsers (for example Netscape 2–4, released from 1995–1997) which do not support Unicode will no longer be able to edit. They should try to install a new browser.
[43]
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 September. It will be on all wikis from 28 September. (
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
27 September at 15:00 (UTC). See
how to join.
You can't use
OCG to create PDFs after 1 October. This is because of technical problems. You can still create PDFs.
Tech News 2017/37 said the function to create PDFs from books would still work. It is now clear it will not work for the next few months. The developers are working on fixing this. You can
read more on mediawiki.org.
This monthly newsletter showcases the Wikipedia Education Program. It focuses on sharing: your ideas, stories, success and challenges. You can see past editions
here. You can also volunteer to help publish the newsletter.
Join the team! Finally, don't forget to
subscribe!
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
preload features in the visual editor. This means you can create links to create new pages and some text will already be in the edit window when someone clicks on it.
[44]
Changes later this week
If you have turned on "Automatically enable most beta features" you will now get the
2017 wikitext editor. Before this you had to turn it on manually even though it is a beta feature.
[45]
The jQuery library will be upgraded to version 3 on all Wiktionary wikis from 2 October. It will be on all non-Wikipedia wikis from 4 October. It will be on all wikis from 5 October.
[47]
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 October. It will be on all wikis from 5 October (
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
3 October at 19:00 (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 October at 15:00 (UTC). See
how to join.
Future changes
A new feature called Reading Lists are coming to the Wikipedia mobile apps. First it will be in the Android version. Reading Lists are a private user preference where you can see lists of articles on multiple devices. You can
give feedback on this feature.
[48]
The search function has used
fallback languages for language analysis. This means a language could be analysed with the grammar of a completely unrelated language to find related words. This will be removed from most wikis the week starting with 9 October. You can
read more and give feedback.
ISCB Wikipedia Competition: call for participation
ISCB Wikipedia Competition 2017-18: entries open!
The
International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) and WikiProject Computational Biology are pleased to call for participants in the 2017-18 ISCB Wikipedia Competition. The ISCB aims to improve the communication of scientific knowledge to the public at large, and Wikipedia and its sister sites play an increasingly important role in this communication; the ISCB Wikipedia Competition aims to improve the quality of Wikipedia articles relating to computational biology. Entries to the competition are open now! Articles may be claimed until 1 Dec 2017 and the competition closes on 31 Dec 2017.
For students/trainees: Entry to the competition is open internationally to students and trainees of any level, both as individuals and as groups. Prizes of up to $500 will be awarded to the best contributions as chosen by a judging panel of experts; these will be awarded at the
Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology conference in Chicago in July 2018. As in previous years, the ISCB encourages competition entries for contributions to Wikipedia in any language, and contributions to Wikidata items.
For teachers/trainers: We encourage you to pass this invitation on to your students, or even consider using the competition as part of an in-class assignment.
The short answer is YES. The long one is "yes, but maybe we cannot start to schedule thins in next weeks", due to ongoing political situation (difficult time for long term planing, as you may understand :-). Big hug! --
ÀlexHinojo (
talk) 14:10, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
Fully understood, and we don't need to start this part within the next few weeks. Bona nit! --
Daniel Mietchen (
talk) 22:42, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
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 number of active users listed by {{NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS}} and on
Special:Statistics will now only include Wikidata edits as activity on Wikidata and not on other wikis too.
[49]
You will not be able to edit or upload files to Commons for around 30 minutes on 11 October. This will start at
06:00 UTC. This is because of work to let Commons show 3D models.
[51]
Changes later this week
The font in the edit window is
monospace by default. Today you can change preferences to another font family or use "the browser default" instead of monospace. Switching to the browser default has only changed the font on Macs. The option to use browser default will be removed this week.
[52]
If you want to print a page or make a PDF of a page you can do so in the side menu. The way the pages look when you do this will change. You can
read more on mediawiki.org.
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 October. It will be on all wikis from 12 October (
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 October at 19:00 (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 October at 15:00 (UTC). See
how to join.
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 edit a template with the visual editor it follows the template's format configuration on how to save it. You can now change the format in
more powerful ways if your wiki wants it.
[53][54]
The
TwoColConflict extension is a new way to solve edit conflicts. It makes it easier to copy and paste the relevant text to the text field. It has been a beta feature for the last five months. You can now
try out the new interface on a page where you will actually get simulated edit conflicts. You can
give feedback to the developers.
Problems
There is a problem with recent changes pages and your watchlist that show a large number of pages. Until it is fixed, Wikidata edits will not be shown on recent changes or in your watchlist on Commons or Russian Wikipedia. If necessary, Wikidata edits will be removed from all wikis.
[55]
Notifications are not working for some actions. For example some users don't get a notification when they are mentioned. The developers are working on fixing this.
[56]
Users on some wikis could not change their preferences. This has now been fixed.
[57]
Changes later this week
Editors and readers who still use Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP will not be able to use Wikipedia from 17 October. Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP can't connect securely to the wikis. When we allow them to do so it means that we get less security for everyone else. If you use Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP you can install
Firefox 52 ESR instead. Around 0.1% of the traffic to the Wikimedia wikis comes from Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP.
[58]
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 October. It will be on all wikis from 19 October (
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 October at 19:00 (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 October at 15:00 (UTC). See
how to join.