Tech News: 2024-17

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Starting this week, newcomers editing Wikipediawill be encouraged to try structured tasks.Structured tasks have been shown toimprove newcomer activation and retention.[1]
• You cannominate your favorite tools for the fifth edition of the Coolest Tool Award. Nominations will be open until May 10.

Changes later this week

• Thenew version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 April. It will be on all wikis from 25 April (calendar).[2][3]

Future changes

• This is the last warning that by the end of May 2024 the Vector 2022 skin will no longer share site and user scripts/styles with old Vector. For user-scripts that you want to keep using on Vector 2022, copy the contents ofSpecial:MyPage/vector.js toSpecial:MyPage/vector-2022.js. There aremore technical details available. Interface administrators who foresee this leading to lots of technical support questions may wish to send a mass message to your community, as was done on French Wikipedia.[4]

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Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

Tech News: 2024-18

Latesttech 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 appearance of talk pages changed for the following wikis: Azerbaijani Wikipedia, Bengali Wikipedia, German Wikipedia, Persian Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia, Hindi Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia, Korean Wikipedia, Dutch Wikipedia, Portuguese Wikipedia, Romanian Wikipedia, Thai Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia, Ukrainian Wikipedia, Vietnamese Wikipedia. These wikis participated to a test, where 50% of users got the new design, for one year. As this testgave positive results, the new design is deployed on these wikis as the default design. It is possible to opt-out these changesin user preferences ("Show discussion activity"). The deployment will happen at all wikis in the coming weeks.[5]
• Seven new wikis have been created:
  • a Wikipedia inBetawi (w:bew:)[6]
  • a Wikipedia inKusaal (w:kus:)[7]
  • a Wikipedia inIgala (w:igl:)[8]
  • a Wiktionary inKarakalpak (wikt:kaa:)[9]
  • a Wikisource inBurmese (s:my:)[10]
  • a Wikisource inMalay (s:ms:)[11]
  • a Wikisource inGeorgian (s:ka:)[12]
• You can nowwatch message groups/projects onTranslatewiki.net. Initially, this feature will notify you of added or deleted messages in these groups.[13]
• Dark mode is now available on all wikis, on mobile web for logged-in users who opt into theadvanced mode. This is the early release of the feature. Technical editors are invited tocheck for accessibility issues on wikis. Seemore detailed guidelines.

Problems

• Kartographer maps can use an alternative visual style without labels, by usingmapstyle="osm". This wasn't working in previews, creating the wrong impression that it wasn't supported. This has now been fixed.[14]

Changes later this week

• Thenew version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 May. It will be on all wikis from 2 May (calendar).[15][16]

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Tech News: 2024-19

Latesttech 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 appearance of talk pages changed for all wikis, except for Commons, Wikidata and most Wikipedias (a few have already received this design change). You can read the detail of the changesonDiff. It is possible to opt-out these changesin user preferences ("Show discussion activity"). The deployment will happen at remaining wikis in the coming weeks.[17][18]
• Interface admins now have greater control over the styling of article components on mobile with the introduction of theSiteAdminHelper. More information on how styles can be disabled can be foundat the extension's page.[19]
• Wikimedia Enterprise has added article body sections in JSON format and a curated short description field to the existing parsed Infobox. This expansion to the API is also available via Wikimedia Cloud Services.[20]

Changes later this week

• Thenew version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 May. It will be on all wikis from 9 May (calendar).[21][22]
• When you look at the Special:Log page, the first view is labelled "All public logs", but it only shows some logs. This label will now say "Main public logs".[23]

Future changes

• A new service will be built to replaceExtension:Graph. Details can be found inthe latest update regarding this extension.
• Starting May 21, English Wikipedia and German Wikipedia will get the possibility to activate "Add a link". This is part of theprogressive deployment of this tool to all Wikipedias. These communities canactivate and configure the feature locally.[24]

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Tech News: 2024-20

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Recent changes

• On Wikisource there is a special page listing pages of works without corresponding scan images. Now you can use the new magic word__EXPECTWITHOUTSCANS__ to exclude certain pages (list of editions or translations of works) from that list.[25]
• If you use theuser-preference "Show preview without reloading the page", then the template-page feature "Preview page with this template (what's this?)" will now also work without reloading the page.[26]
• Kartographer maps can now specify an alternative text via thealt= attribute. This is identical in usage to thealt= attribute in theimage and gallery syntax. An exception for this feature is wikis like Wikivoyage where the miniature maps are interactive.[27]
• The oldGuided Tour for the "New Filters for Edit Review" feature has been removed. It was created in 2017 to show people with older accounts how the interface had changed, and has now been seen by most of the intended people.[28]

Changes later this week

• Thenew version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 May. It will be on all wikis from 16 May (calendar).[29][30]
• TheSpecial:Search results page will now use CSS flex attributes, for better accessibility, instead of a table. If you have a gadget or script that adjusts search results, you should update your script to the new HTML structure.[31]

Future changes

• In the Vector 2022 skin, main pages will be displayed at full width (like special pages). The goal is to keep the number of characters per line large enough. This is related to the coming changes to typography in Vector 2022.Learn more.[32]
• Two columns of thepagelinks database table (pl_namespace andpl_title) are being dropped soon. Users must use two columns of the newlinktarget table instead (lt_namespace andlt_title). In your existing SQL queries:
  1. ReplaceJOIN pagelinks withJOIN linktarget andpl_ withlt_ in theON statement
  2. Below that addJOIN pagelinks ON lt_id = pl_target_id
  • Seephab:T222224 for technical reasoning.[33][34]

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Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

Move request

Request for permission links

Reassurance

Tech News: 2024-21

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Recent changes

• TheNuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title.[35]
• New changes have been made to the UploadWizard in Wikimedia Commons: the overall layout has been improved, by following new styling and spacing for the form and its fields; the headers and helper text for each of the fields was changed; the Caption field is now a required field, and there is an option for users to copy their caption into the media description.[36][37]

Changes later this week

• Thenew version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 May. It will be on all wikis from 23 May (calendar).[38][39]
• The HTML used to render all headingsis being changed to improve accessibility. It will change on 22 May in some skins (Timeless, Modern, CologneBlue, Nostalgia, and Monobook). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins andreport any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in all other skins. The developers are also considering the introduction of aGadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.

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Tech News: 2024-22

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Several bugs related to the latest updates to the UploadWizard on Wikimedia Commons have been fixed. For more information, seeT365107 andT365119.
• In March 2024 a newaddPortlet API was added to allow gadgets to create new portlets (menus) in the skin. In certain skins this can be used to create dropdowns. Gadget developers are invited to try it andgive feedback.
• Some CSS in the Minerva skin has been removed to enable easier community configuration. Interface editors should check the rendering on mobile devices for aspects related to the classes:.collapsible,.multicol,.reflist,.coordinates,.topicon.Further details are available on replacement CSS if it is needed.

Changes later this week

• Thenew version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 May. It will be on all wikis from 30 May (calendar).[40][41]
• When you visit a wiki where you don't yet have a local account, local rules such as edit filters can sometimes prevent your account from being created. Starting this week, MediaWiki takes your global rights into account when evaluating whether you can override such local rules.[42]

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Engineer's Building airstrike

Introduction to contentious topics

Gianna "Gigi" Bryant

Tech News: 2024-23

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Recent changes

• It is now possible for local administrators to add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without JavaScript.Documentation is available.[43]
• The message name for the definition of the tracking category of WikiHiero has changed from "MediaWiki:Wikhiero-usage-tracking-category" to "MediaWiki:Wikihiero-usage-tracking-category".[44]
• One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia inKadazandusun (w:dtp:)[45]

Changes later this week

• Thenew version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 June. It will be on all wikis from 6 June (calendar).[46][47]

Future changes

• Next week, on wikis with the Vector 2022 skin as the default, logged-out desktop users will be able to choose between different font sizes. The default font size will also be increased for them. This is to make Wikimedia projects easier to read.Learn more.

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Tech News: 2024-24

Latesttech 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 software used to render SVG files has been updated to a new version, fixing many longstanding bugs in SVG rendering.[48]
• The HTML used to render all headingsis being changed to improve accessibility. It was changed last week in some skins (Vector legacy and Minerva). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins andreport any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in Vector-2022. The developers are still considering the introduction of aGadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.
• The HTML markup used for citations byParsoid changed last week. In places where Parsoid previously added themw-reference-text class, Parsoid now also adds thereference-text class for better compatibility with the legacy parser.More details are available.[49]

Problems

• There was a bug with the Content Translation interface that caused the tools menus to appear in the wrong location. This has now been fixed.[50]

Changes later this week

• Thenew version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 June. It will be on all wikis from 13 June (calendar).[51][52]
• The new version of MediaWiki includes another change to the HTML markup used for citations:Parsoid will now generate a<span> wrapper for both named and unnamed references for better compatibility with the legacy parser. Interface administrators should verify that gadgets that interact with citations are compatible with the new markup.More details are available.[53]
• On multilingual wikis that use the<translate> system, there is a feature that shows potentially-outdated translations with a pink background until they are updated or confirmed. From this week, confirming translations will be logged, and there is a new user-right that can be required for confirming translations if the communityrequests it.[54]

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Tech News: 2024-25

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Recent changes

• People who attempt to add an external link in the visual editor will now receive immediate feedback if they attempt to link to a domain that a project has decided to block. Please seeEdit check for more details.[55]
• The newCommunity Configuration extension is availableon Test Wikipedia. This extension allows communities to customize specific features to meet their local needs. Currently only Growth features are configurable, but the extension will support otherCommunity Configuration use cases in the future.[56][57]
• The dark modebeta feature is now available on category and help pages, as well as more special pages. There may be contrast issues. Please report bugs on theproject talk page.[58]

Problems

• Cloud Services tools were not available for 25 minutes last week. This was caused by a faulty hardware cable in the data center.[59]
• Last week, styling updates were made to the Vector 2022 skin. This caused unforeseen issues with templates, hatnotes, and images. Changes to templates and hatnotes were reverted. Most issues with images were fixed. If you still see any,report them here.[60]

Changes later this week

• Thenew version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 June. It will be on all wikis from 20 June (calendar).[61][62]
• Starting June 18, theReference Edit Check will be deployed toa new set of Wikipedias. This feature is intended to help newcomers and to assist edit-patrollers by inviting people who are adding new content to a Wikipedia article to add a citation when they do not do so themselves. Duringa test at 11 wikis, the number of citations addedmore than doubled when Reference Check was shown to people. Reference Check iscommunity configurable.[63]
• Mailing lists will be unavailable for roughly two hours on Tuesday 10:00–12:00 UTC. This is to enable migration to a new server and upgrade its software.[64]

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Tech News: 2024-26

Latesttech 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 will notice that there have been some changes to the background color of text in the diff view, and the color of the byte-change numbers, last week. These changes are intended to make text more readable in both light mode and dark mode, and are part of a larger effort to increase accessibility. You can share your comments or questionson the project talkpage.[65]
• The text colors that are used for visited-links, hovered-links, and active-links, were also slightly changed last week to improve their accessibility in both light mode and dark mode.[66]

Problems

• You cancopy permanent links to talk page comments by clicking on a comment's timestamp.This feature did not always work when the topic title was very long and the link was used as a wikitext link. This has been fixed. Thanks to Lofhi for submitting the bug.[67]

Changes later this week

• Thenew version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 June. It will be on all wikis from 27 June (calendar).[68][69]
• Starting 26 June, all talk pages messages' timestamps will become a link at English Wikipedia, making this feature available for you to use at all wikis. This link is a permanent link to the comment. It allows users to find the comment they were linked to, even if this comment has since been moved elsewhere. You can read more about this featureon Diff oron Mediawiki.org.[70]

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Appointment as a trainee clerk

Article for Munoz

Tech News: 2024-27

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Over the next three weeks, dark mode will become available for all users, both logged-in and logged-out, starting with the mobile web version. This fulfils one of thetop-requested community wishes, and improves low-contrast reading and usage in low-light settings. As part of these changes, dark mode will also work on User-pages and Portals. There is more information inthe latest Web team update.[71]
• Logged-in users can now setglobal preferences for the text-size and dark-mode, thanks to a combined effort across Foundation teams. This allows Wikimedians using multiple wikis to set up a consistent reading experience easily, for example by switching between light and dark mode only once for all wikis.[72]
• If you use a very old web browser some features might not work on the Wikimedia wikis. This affects Internet Explorer 11 and versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari older than 2016. This change makes it possible to use newCSS features and to send less code to all readers.[73][74]
• Wikipedia Admins can customize local wiki configuration options easily usingCommunity Configuration. Community Configuration was created to allow communities to customize how some features work, because each language wiki has unique needs. At the moment, admins can configureGrowth features on their home wikis, in order to better recruit and retain new editors. More options will be provided in the coming months.[75]
• Editors interested in language issues that are related toUnicode standards, can now discuss those topics ata new conversation space in MediaWiki.org. The Wikimedia Foundation is now amember of the Unicode Consortium, and the coordination group can collaboratively review the issues discussed and, where appropriate, bring them to the attention of the Unicode Consortium.
• One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia inMandailing (w:btm:)[76]

Problems

• Editors can once again click on links within the visual editor's citation-preview, thanks to a bug fix by the Editing Team.[77]

Future changes

• Pleasehelp us to improve Tech News by taking this short survey. The goal is to better meet the needs of the various types of people who read Tech News. The survey will be open for 2 weeks. The survey is covered bythis privacy statement. Some translations are available.

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Re: Richard Lovelace surname pronunciation

A barnstar for you!

Tech News: 2024-28

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Recent changes

• At the Wikimedia Foundation a new task force was formed to replace the disabled Graph withmore secure, easy to use, and extensible Chart. You cansubscribe to the newsletter to get notified about new project updates and other news about Chart.
• TheCampaignEvents extension is now available on Meta-wiki, Igbo Wikipedia, and Swahili Wikipedia, and can be requested on your wiki. This extension helps in managing and making events more visible, giving Event organizers the ability to use tools like the Event registration tool. To learn more about the deployment status and how to request this extension for your wiki, visit theCampaignEvents page on Meta-wiki.
• Editors using the iOS Wikipedia app who have more than 50 edits can now use theAdd an Image feature. This feature presents opportunities for small but useful contributions to Wikipedia.
• Thank you toall of the authors who have contributed to MediaWiki Core. As a result of these contributions, thepercentage of authors contributing more than 5 patches has increased by 25% since last year, which helps ensure the sustainability of the platform for the Wikimedia projects.

Problems

• A problem with the color of the talkpage tabs always showing as blue, even for non-existent pages which should have been red, affecting the Vector 2022 skin,has been fixed.

Future changes

• The Trust and Safety Product team wants to introducetemporary accounts with as little disruption to tools and workflows as possible. Volunteer developers, including gadget and user-script maintainers, are kindly asked to update the code of their tools and features to handle temporary accounts. The team hascreated documentation explaining how to do the update.Learn more.

Tech News survey

• Pleasehelp us to improve Tech News by taking this short survey. The goal is to better meet the needs of the various types of people who read Tech News. The survey will be open for 1 more week. The survey is covered bythis privacy statement. Some translations are available.

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Tech News: 2024-29

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Tech News survey

• Pleasehelp us to improve Tech News by taking this short survey. The goal is to better meet the needs of the various types of people who read Tech News. The survey will be open for 3 more days. The survey is covered bythis privacy statement. Some translations are available.

Recent changes

• Wikimedia developers can now officially continue to use bothGerrit andGitLab, due to a June 24 decision by the Wikimedia Foundation to support software development on both platforms. Gerrit and GitLab are both code repositories used by developers to write, review, and deploy the software code that supports the MediaWiki software that the wiki projects are built on, as well as the tools used by editors to create and improve content. This decision will safeguard the productivity of our developers and prevent problems in code review from affecting our users. More details are available in theMigration status page.
• The Wikimedia Foundation seeks applicants for theProduct and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC). This group will bring technical contributors and Wikimedia Foundation together to co-define a more resilient, future-proof technological platform. Council members will evaluate and consult on the movement's product and technical activities, so that we develop multi-generational projects. We are looking for a range of technical contributors across the globe, from a variety of Wikimedia projects.Please apply here by August 10.
• Editors with rollback user-rights who use the Wikipedia App for Android can use the newEdit Patrol features. These features include a new feed of Recent Changes, related links such as Undo and Rollback, and the ability to create and save a personal library of user talk messages to use while patrolling. If your wiki wants to make these features available to users who do not have rollback rights but have reached a certain edit threshold,you can contact the team. You canread more about this project on Diff blog.
• Editors who have access toThe Wikipedia Library can once again use non-open access content in SpringerLinks, after the Foundationcontacted them to restore access. You can read more aboutthis and 21 other community-submitted tasks that were completed last week.

Changes later this week

• This week,dark mode will be available on a number of Wikipedias, both desktop and mobile, for logged-in and logged-out users. Interface admins and user script maintainers are encouraged to check gadgets and user scripts in the dark mode, to find any hard-coded colors and fix them. There are somerecommendations for dark mode compatibility to help.

Future changes

• Next week, functionaries, volunteers maintaining tools, and software development teams are invited to test thetemporary accounts feature on testwiki. Temporary accounts is a feature that will help improve privacy on the wikis. No further temporary account deployments are scheduled yet. Pleaseshare your opinions and questions on the project talk page.[79]
• Editors who upload files cross-wiki, or teach other people how to do so, may wish to join a Wikimedia Commons discussion. The Commons community is discussing limiting who can upload files through the cross-wiki upload/Upload dialog feature to users auto-confirmed on Wikimedia Commons. This is due to the large amount of copyright violations uploaded this way. There is a short summary atCommons:Cross-wiki upload anddiscussion at Commons:Village Pump.

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Tech News: 2024-30

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Feature News

• Stewards can nowglobally block accounts. Beforethe change only IP addresses and IP ranges could be blocked globally. Global account blocks are useful when the blocked user should not be logged out.Global locks (a similar tool logging the user out of their account) are unaffected by this change. The new global account block feature is related to theTemporary Accounts project, which is a new type of user account that replaces IP addresses of unregistered editors that are no longer made public.
• Later this week, Wikimedia site users will notice that the Interface ofFlaggedRevs (also known as "Pending Changes") is improved and consistent with the rest of the MediaWiki interface andWikimedia's design system. The FlaggedRevs interface experience on mobile andMinerva skin was inconsistent before it was fixed and ported toCodex by the WMF Growth team and some volunteers.[80]
• Wikimedia site users can now submit account vanishing requests viaGlobalVanishRequest. This feature is used when a contributor wishes to stop editing forever. It helps you hide your past association and edit to protect your privacy. Once processed, the account will be locked and renamed.[81]
• Have you tried monitoring and addressing vandalism in Wikipedia using your phone?A Diff blog post on Patrolling features in the Mobile App highlights some of the new capabilities of the feature, including swiping through a feed of recent changes and a personal library of user talk messages for use when patrolling from your phone.
• Wikimedia contributors and GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) organisations can now learn and measure the impact Wikimedia Commons is having towards creating quality encyclopedic content using theCommons Impact Metrics analytics dashboard. The dashboard offers organizations analytics on things like monthly edits in a category, the most viewed files, and which Wikimedia articles are using Commons images. As a result of these new data dumps, GLAM organisation can more reliably measure their return on investment for programs bringing content into the digital Commons.[82]

Project Updates

• Come share your ideas for improving the wikis on the newly reopenedCommunity Wishlist. The Community Wishlist is Wikimedia’s forum for volunteers to share ideas (called wishes) to improve how the wikis work. The new version of the wishlist is always open, works with both wikitext and Visual Editor, and allows wishes in any language.

Learn more

• Have you ever wondered how Wikimedia software works across over 300 languages? This is 253 languages more than the Google Chrome interface, and it's no accident. The Language and Product Localization Team at the Wikimedia Foundation supports your work by adapting all the tools and interfaces in the MediaWiki software so that contributors in our movement who translate pages and strings can translate them and have the sites in all languages. Read more about the team and their upcoming work onDiff.
• How can Wikimedia build innovative and experimental products while maintaining such heavily used websites? A recentblog post by WMF staff Johan Jönsson highlights the work of theWMF Future Audience initiative, where the goal is not to build polished products but test out new ideas, such as aChatGPT plugin andAdd a Fact, to help take Wikimedia into the future.

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DYK for Department of State v. Muñoz

New page reviewer granted

"top level domain range"?

Tech News: 2024-31

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Feature news

• Editors using the Visual Editor in languages that use non-Latin characters for numbers, such as Hindi, Manipuri and Eastern Arabic, may notice some changes in the formatting of reference numbers. This is a side effect of preparing a new sub-referencing feature, and will also allow fixing some general numbering issues in Visual Editor. If you notice any related problems on your wiki, please share details at theproject talkpage.

Bugs status

• Some logged-in editors were briefly unable to edit or load pages last week.These errors were mainly due to the addition of newlinter rules which led to caching problems. Fixes have been applied and investigations are continuing.
• Editors can use theIP Information tool to get information about IP addresses. This tool is available as a Beta Feature in your preferences. The tool was not available for a few days last week, but is now working again. Thank you to Shizhao for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Project updates

• There are new features and improvements to Phabricator from the Release Engineering and Collaboration Services teams, and some volunteers, including: the search systems, the new task creation system, the login systems, the translation setup which has resulted in support for more languages (thanks to Pppery), and fixes for many edge-case errors. You canread details about these and other improvements in this summary.
• There is anupdate on the Charts project. The team has decided which visualization library to use, which chart types to start focusing on, and where to store chart definitions.
• One new wiki has been created: a Wikivoyage inCzech (voy:cs:)[83]

Learn more

• There is anew Wikimedia Foundation data center in São Paulo, Brazil which helps to reduce load times.
• There is newuser research on problems with the process of uploading images.
• Commons Impact Metrics arenow available via data dumps and API.
• The latest quarterlyTechnical Community Newsletter is now available.

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Mass message sender granted

Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 25

Hey there, welcome to the 25th issue of the WikipediaScripts++ Newsletter, covering all our favorite new and updated user scripts since1 March 2024. We've got a ton of wonderful editors taking back their pitchforks today. Don't worry, for they come in peace, to forcibly fix and extend existing scripts you use with sheer passion. There's so many, them forks have got what's basically their own column now!gift us with some rows before it's too lateAaron Liu (talk)04:01, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Got anything good? Tell us about your new, improved, old, or messed-up scripthere!

Featured script

inline-diff-inline-patrol byPonor is this edition's featured script. By loading diffs inline on every page that shows a list of changes, it implements the 2023 community wishm:Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Admins and patrollers/Inline diffs and inline patrol. Hopefully we won't need this script anymore soon, with the WMF'sfocus on the backlog...

Improve a script

• Many of our favorite scripts such asFred Gandt/userResourceManager,Guarapiranga/search-shortcuts andBradv/Superlinks haven't been updated for Vector 2022. You could be the one to change that!
• Elominius/media timer works, but its UI looks alien. Someone could improve it...
• To a lesser extent, the same goes forPrimeHunter/Search sort. I wish someone would integrate the sorts into the sort menu instead of adding 11 portlet links.
• We want...

• ...watchlist notices support forAaron Liu/Watchlyst Greybar Unsin
• ...a tool to automatically fixCAT:BROKENREFs, preferably a fork/addition toTheJJJunk/ARA
• ...a fix/fork ofDannyS712/SectionRemover to make it work

Requested scripts

• Automatically delink all duplicate links within the same section perMOS:LINKONCE.
• Collapsible parentheses in body text, which hada ridiculously long original request title and was accidentally moved toWP:US/L by me. Oops!
• An easily configurable script to add a link to the #p-vector-user-menu-overflow portlet with a name, target, and icon. This one should be a relatively easier one. I would do it myself, but I'm too busy rotting away onCeleste (video game).
• Preview an edit under the mobile viewport on desktop, with perhapsMediaWiki:Gadget-mobile-sidebar.js used for inspiration.
• ...and many more, all available atWikipedia:User scripts/Requests.Jeeputer andNardog have been the most active on the page in the past five months.

Updated scripts

• After theＲＩＩＪ(rewrite it injQuery) update,Aaron Liu:Watchlyst Greybar Unsin has a dismiss button that allows you to mark an item as read in one click and cycle to the next Watchlist item.
• Lordseriouspig/StatusChangerImproved is just like Enterprisey's script, except you select your status from a dropdown instead of cycling through them with a button. The WMF operates out of car-centric infrastructure anyway. Shame!

Newly maintained scripts

• Aaron Liu has createdDuplinks fromEvad37/duplinks-alt; his fork adds a config variable to automatically highlight duplicate links on the loading of any page where the portlet link would've appeared.
• BilledMammal/Move+ expands the powers ofUser:TheTVExpert/rmCloser to include common procedures done with the art of moving pages.
• On a holiday? Somewhere? Gotta learn ye ABCs?CanonNi/StatusSetter puts the fun intoEnterprisey/StatusChanger with a quadruple more statuses. That starts with a C!
• In our continuing trend(s?),DaxServer/DiscussionCloser forksDannyS712/DiscussionCloser to make it work. Sadly, this is the end of our lexicographic combo.
• Andrybak:
  • user-tabs-on-contribs is a fork ofUser:Enterprisey/user-tabs-on-contribs forVector 2022.
  • Archiver is a fork ofUser:Enterprisey/archiver with automatic calculation of the destination archive subpage and with support for non-Vector skins.
• Quite coincidentally,Elli/OneClickArchiver has been forked fromUser:Equazcion/OneClickArchiver to work with themw:Heading HTML changes.
• FlightTime/OneClickArchiver forks the same thing but also no longer nonsensically prepends{{clear}} to page archives.
  • There are now over 7 OneClickArchivers, legacy or not.

• 

  Aaron Liu:MoveTop adds a different padlock topicon for each level of move-protection.
• Andrybak/Not around can help you mark talk pages of inactive users with{{not around}}.
• BrandonXLF/AddCopied automatically tags talk pages of pages you've copied between with{{copied}}.
• Bugghost/UserRoleIndicator adds text labels (which default to emoji) to user links that label the user's usergroups. Wow, that's a mouthful
• CanonNi/AlertAssistant adds a Twinkle-style dialog for alerting users about contentious topics.
• CFA/AttributeTranslation automatically tags articles translated from other places with appropriate attribution.
• In the defense of the 'pedia, the humbleJeeputer/defconIndicator adds theWP:WIKIDEFCON status to the toolbar.
• Tired of staring at a bunch of filtering text and waiting for darn filter logs to load?Msz2001/AbuseFilter analyzer can parse abuse filters into a visual syntax tree and evaluate locally on-demand!
• Polygnotus/DuplicateReferences finds references with the same link and displays the number of them along with a button to add the{{duplicated citations}} tag under the references section. Being lazy has never been easier!
• fastest gun on the netPonor/really-quick-block really quick add to contribution lists three buttons awesome
• TheTechie/Help Me Tool is a quick and easy way of responding to{{help me}} requests.
• PerMOS:CONFORM,ZKang123/TitleCaseConverter converts all citation titles to... title case, unfortunately.

Tech News: 2024-32

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Feature news

• Two new parser functions will be available this week:{{#dir}} and{{#bcp47}}. These will reduce the need forTemplate:Dir andTemplate:BCP47 on Commons and allow us todrop 100 million rows from the "what links here" database. Editors at any wiki that use these templates, can help by replacing the templates with these new functions. The templates at Commons will be updated during the Hackathon at Wikimania.[84][85]
• Communities can request the activation of the visual editor on entire namespaces where discussions sometimes happen (for instanceWikipedia: orWikisource: namespaces) if they understand theknown limitations. For discussions, users can already useDiscussionTools in these namespaces.
• The tracking category "Pages using Timeline" has been renamed to "Pages using the EasyTimeline extension"in TranslateWiki. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match.

Project updates

• Editors who help to organize WikiProjects and similar on-wiki collaborations, are invited to share ideas and examples of successful collaborations with the Campaigns and Programs teams. You can fill outa brief survey or share your thoughtson the talkpage. The teams are particularly looking for details about successful collaborations on non-English wikis.
• The new parser is being rolled out on Wikivoyage wikis over the next few months. The English Wikivoyage and Hebrew Wikivoyage wereswitched to Parsoid last week. For more information, seeParsoid/Parser Unification.

Learn more

• There will be more than 200 sessions at Wikimania this week. Here is a summary of some of thekey sessions related to the product and technology area.
• The latestWikimedia Foundation Bulletin is available.
• The latest quarterlyLanguage and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: New design previews for Translatable pages; Updates about MinT for Wiki Readers; the release of Translation dumps; and more.
• The latest quarterlyGrowth newsletter is available.
• The latest monthlyMediaWiki Product Insights newsletter is available.

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Nomination for deletion ofModule:Page text

Tech News: 2024-33

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Feature news

• AbuseFilter editors and maintainers can nowmake a CAPTCHA show if a filter matches an edit. This allows communities to quickly respond to spamming by automated bots.[86]
• Stewards can now specify if global blocks should prevent account creation. Beforethis change by theTrust and Safety Product Team, all global blocks would prevent account creation. This will allow stewards to reduce the unintended side-effects of global blocks on IP addresses.

Project updates

• Nominations are open on Wikitech for new members to refresh theToolforge standards committee. The committee oversees the ToolforgeRight to fork policy andAbandoned tool policy among other duties. Nominations will remain open until at least 2024-08-26.
• One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia inWest Coast Bajau (w:bdr:)[87]

Tech news prepared byTech News writers and posted bybot •Contribute •Translate •Get help •Give feedback •Subscribe or unsubscribe.

Whether "Oldtfdlist should go at the top of the nomination"

Tech News: 2024-34

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Feature news

• Editors who want to re-use references but with different details such as page numbers, will be able to do so by the end of 2024, using a newsub-referencing feature. You can read moreabout the project andhow to test the prototype.
• Editors using tracking categories to identify which pages use specific extensions may notice that six of the categories have been renamed to make them more easily understood and consistent. These categories are automatically added to pages that use specialized MediaWiki extensions. The affected names are for:DynamicPageList,Kartographer,Phonos,RSS,Score,WikiHiero. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match. Thanks to Pppery for these improvements.[92]
• Technical volunteers who edit modules and want to get a list of the categories used on a page, can now do so using thecategories property ofmw.title objects. This enables wikis to configure workflows such as category-specific edit notices. Thanks to SD001 for these improvements.[93][94]

Bugs status

• Your help is needed to check if any pages need to be moved or deleted. A maintenance script was run to clean up unreachable pages (due to Unicode issues or introduction of new namespaces/namespace aliases). The script tried to find appropriate names for the pages (e.g. by following the Unicode changes or by moving pages whose titles on Wikipedia start withTalk:WP: so that their titles start withWikipedia talk:), but it may have failed for some pages, and moved them toSpecial:PrefixIndex/T195546/ instead. Your community should check if any pages are listed there, and move them to the correct titles, or delete them if they are no longer needed. A full log (including pages for which appropriate names could be found) is available inphab:P67388.
• Editors who volunteer asmentors to newcomers on their wiki are once again able to access lists of potential mentees who they can connect with to offer help and guidance. This functionality was restored thanks toa bug fix. Thank you to Mbch331 for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 18 other community-submitted tasks that wereresolved last week.

Project updates

• The application deadline for theProduct & Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) has been extended to September 16. Members will help by providing advice to Foundation Product and Technology leadership on short and long term plans, on complex strategic problems, and help to get feedback from more contributors and technical communities. Selected members should expect to spend roughly 5 hours per month for the Council, during the one year pilot. Please consider applying, and spread the word to volunteers you think would make a positive contribution to the committee.

Learn more

• The2024 Coolest Tool Awards were awarded at Wikimania, in seven categories. For example, one award went to the ISA Tool, used for adding structured data to files on Commons, which was recently improved during theWiki Mentor Africa Hackathon. You can see video demonstrations of each tool at the awards page. Congratulations to this year's recipients, and thank you to all tool creators and maintainers.
• The latestWikimedia Foundation Bulletin is available, and includes some highlights from Wikimania, an upcoming Language community meeting, and other news from the movement.

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Ciminelli v. United Statesoldid 1240387372

Request to change content model (again!)

New pages patrol September 2024 Backlog drive

Tech News: 2024-35

Latesttech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.Translations are available.

Feature news

• Administrators can now test thetemporary accounts feature on test2wiki. This was done to allow cross-wiki testing of temporary accounts, for when temporary accounts switch between projects. The feature was enabled on testwiki a few weeks ago. No further temporary account deployments are scheduled yet. Temporary Accounts is a project to create a new type of user account that replaces IP addresses of unregistered editors which are no longer made public. Pleaseshare your opinions and questions on the project talk page.
• Later this week, editors at wikis that useFlaggedRevs (also known as "Pending Changes") may notice that the indicators at the top of articles have changed. This change makes the system more consistent with the rest of the MediaWiki interface.[95]

Bugs status

• Editors who use the 2010 wikitext editor, and use the Character Insert buttons, willno longer experience problems with the buttons adding content into the edit-summary instead of the edit-window. You can read more about that, and 26 other community-submitted tasks that wereresolved last week.

Project updates

• Please review and vote onFocus Areas, which are groups of wishes that share a problem. Focus Areas were created for the newly reopened Community Wishlist, which is now open year-round for submissions. The first batch of focus areas are specific to moderator workflows, around welcoming newcomers, minimizing repetitive tasks, and prioritizing tasks. Once volunteers have reviewed and voted on focus areas, the Foundation will then review and select focus areas for prioritization.
• Do you have a project and are willing to provide a three (3) month mentorship for an intern?Outreachy is a twice a year program for people to participate in a paid internship that will start in December 2024 and end in early March 2025, and they need mentors and projects to work on. Projects can be focused on coding or non-coding (design, documentation, translation, research). See the Outreachy page for more details, and a list of past projects since 2013.

Learn more

• If you're curious about the product and technology improvements made by the Wikimedia Foundation last year, readthis recent highlights summary on Diff.
• To learn more about the technology behind the Wikimedia projects, you can now watch sessions from the technology track at Wikimania 2024 on Commons. This week, check out:
  • Community Configuration - Shaping On-Wiki Functionality Together (55 mins) - about theCommunity Configuration project.
  • Future of MediaWiki. A sustainable platform to support a collaborative user base and billions of page views (30 mins) - an overview for both technical and non technical audiences, covering some of the challenges and open questions, related to theplatform evolution, stewardship and developer experiences research.

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Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

Orphan articleCountering Foreign Interference Act