User talk:Matthew (WMF)/Archive 11
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The Signpost: 14 October 2015
- WikiConference report: US gathering sees speeches from Andrew Lih, AfroCrowd, and the Archivist of the United States
- News and notes: 2015–2016 Q1 fundraising update sparks mailing list debate
- Traffic report: Screens, Sport, Reddit, and Death
- Featured content: A fistful of dollars
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
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
- Tech News is trying to make reading the newsletter easier. The
icon means the item is in the newsletter every week, but with new dates. The 
icon means the item is mainly relevant for readers with technical knowledge. You can leave feedback on this change. - Timestamps in the protection log will now be in the user's timezone. Previously they would show Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). [1]
Problems
- A problem with MediaWiki made some pages show no content on October 14. This has now been fixed. [2]
- Some templates were misplaced in the Flow description bar. This could make it impossible to click on links. This will be fixed this week. [3]
- The deployment of the new MediaWiki version was stopped on October 14. No new code was deployed for the rest of week. This meant planned changes did not happen. [4]
Changes this week
- Changes that were planned to happen last week will happen this week. [5]
- Wikispecies, Meta and MediaWiki.org will be able to use Wikidata for sitelinks. [6][7][8][9]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 20 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:02, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 21 October 2015
- Editorial: Women and Wikipedia: the world is watching
- In the media: "Wikipedia's hostility to women"
- Special report: One year of GamerGate, or how I learned to stop worrying and love bare rule-level consensus
- Featured content: A more balanced week
- Arbitration report: Four ArbCom cases ongoing
- Traffic report: Hiding under the covers of the Internet
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
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 this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from October 27. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 28. It will be on all Wikipedias from October 29 (calendar).- The first time you use the visual editor, pop-ups will explain why and when you should use the citation and link tools. [10]
- You will be able to upload images to Wikimedia Commons from inside the wikitext editor by clicking "Upload" in the "Insert file" dialog. You will also be able to drag and drop them into an article when using the visual editor. [11][12]
- When you edit a code block in visual editor, you will have the syntax highlighted. [13][14]
- Index and Page namespaces on Wikisource will be defined as content namespaces in
$wgContentNamespaces. [15]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:04, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 28 October 2015
- From the editor: The Signpost's reorganization plan—we need your help
- News and notes: English Wikipedia reaches five million articles
- In the media: The world's Wikipedia gaps; Google and Wikipedia accused of tying Ben Carson to NAMBLA
- Arbitration report: A second attempt at Arbitration enforcement
- Traffic report: Canada, the most popular nation on Earth
- Recent research: Student attitudes towards Wikipedia; Jesus, Napoleon and Obama top "Wikipedia social network"; featured article editing patterns in 12 languages
- Featured content: Birds, turtles, and other things
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
- Community letter: Five million articles
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 how many editors are using a gadget on a wiki on Special:GadgetUsage. [16]
- If you are using the mobile version of Wikipedia, you can now see Wikidata descriptions under article titles in search results. [17]
- Editing conflicts are now detected when you edit on a mobile device. Before, this did not work properly on mobile. [18]
Problems
- On October 26 the Wikimedia sites went down for ten minutes. [19]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 4. It will be on all Wikipedias from November 5 (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 3 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join. You can also read the latest VisualEditor newsletter.
Future changes
- A help link will be added to Special:Search. Administrators might have to update the MediaWiki:Search-summary message to avoid two help links. [20]
- Empty list items could be allowed in the future. If so, this could affect some templates. [21]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:43, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 04 November 2015
- News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation finances; Superprotect is gone
- In the media: Ahmadiyya Jabrayilov: propaganda myth or history?
- Traffic report: Death, the Dead, and Spectres are abroad
- Featured content: Christianity, music, and cricket
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
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
- Superprotect has been removed. [22]
- You can now switch between the wikitext editor and the visual editor without saving. You will not lose the changes you have made. [23]
- JSON dumps of the production search indexes are now available. They can be imported to Elasticsearch. [24]
Problems
- Some translations for the Thanks and Echo extensions were missing. Translators have been asked to help and this should be solved soon. [25]
Changes this week
- Thumbnails of 16-bit TIFF files will be displayed properly. Before, this didn't work. [26]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 10. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 11. It will be on all Wikipedias from November 12 (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 10 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- A new tool to navigate through diff pages is being developed. You can test it out and give feedback. [27]
- The options on Special:Watchlist will look slightly different. [28]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:18, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
This Month in GLAM: October 2015
| ||||||
The Signpost: 11 November 2015
- Arbitration report: Elections, redirections, and a resignation from the Committee
- Discussion report: Compromise of two administrator accounts prompts security review
- Featured content: Texas, film, and cycling
- In the media: Sanger on Wikipedia; Silver on Vox; lawyers on monkeys
- Traffic report: Doodles of popularity
- Gallery: Paris
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 this week
- You can use TemplateData to indicate how you want a template to be displayed in wikitext. Tools like VisualEditor that edit templates will soon use this information. [29]
- Echo notification icons in MonoBook will look more like other icons in the theme. [30]
- The Community Tech team is doing a community wishlist survey to understand what they should be working on. They are now accepting proposals in all languages. You can create your proposal in the small box above the blue button and click it when you're done.
- Wikis can make the welcome notification link to a specific page. [31]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 17. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 18. It will be on all Wikipedias from November 19 (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 17 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Internet Explorer 8 will no longer have JavaScript support. You will still be able to browse and edit Wikipedia, but will not be able to use some features. This can be solved by upgrading to a newer version or switching to a different browser. The change will happen in January 2016. [32][33]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:39, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 18 November 2015
- Special report: ArbCom election—candidates’ opinions analysed
- In the media: Icelandic milestone; apolitical editing
- Discussion report: BASC disbanded; other developments in the discussion world
- Arbitration report: Ban Appeals Subcommittee goes up in smoke; 21 candidates running
- Featured content: Fantasia on a Theme by Jimbo Wales
- Traffic report: Darkness and light
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
- A new Pageview API has been announced. Feedback is requested to help decide which data to add to it next.
Changes this week
- There are no MediaWiki deployments this week (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Language Engineering team. The topic is: Content Translation updates and Questions & Answers. The meeting will be on 25 November at 13:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 24 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is "RfC: Raise MediaWiki's PHP version requirement and update coding standards". The meeting will be on 25 November at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- From 1 December, the MediaWiki API will no longer support the dbg, txt, and yaml output formats. [34]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:26, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 25 November 2015
- News and notes: Fundraising update; FDC recommendations
- Featured content: Caves and stuff
- Traffic report: J'en ai ras le bol
- Arbitration report: Third Palestine-Israel case closes; Voting begins
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The symbol for advanced news items has been changed. This is because the symbols were too similar. If a news item is for more technical readers it now looks like this: 
. You can give feedback on this change.
Problems
- On September 29 users' skin preferences were removed by mistake on small and medium-sized wikis. This changed preferences back to Vector. Restoring all data would cause even more problems. Affected users who want to have their preference changed back globally can ask for it as a comment on Phabricator task T119206 until December 21 2015. [35]
- Some scheduled tasks were not working properly from September to recently. This meant some pages in the special pages namespace were not updated. It has now been fixed. [36]
Changes this week
- Wikinews, Wikispecies, MediaWiki.org and Meta will be able to use information from Wikidata. [37][38]
- There are no MediaWiki deployments this week (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 1 December at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is using the <figure>tag for media. The meeting will be on 2 December at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Category watchlists are now available on test wikis and MediaWiki.org. The plan is to enable it on most wikis in January. [39]
- Cross-wiki notifications are being developed. When this is done you will not have to go to the wiki where something happened to be notified. [40]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 02 December 2015
- Op-ed: Whither Wikidata?
- Traffic report: Jonesing for episodes
- Featured content: This Week's Featured Content
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
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
- Revision scoring will help to automatically identify bad-faith and good-faith edits. The point is to make it easier to block vandals and welcome newcomers. It currently supports Wikidata and 14 Wikipedias. [41]
Problems
- Meta was not given access to information from Wikidata last week. This will happen later. [42]
Changes this week
- You will be able to use wikilinks in Flow topic titles. [43]
- IP users will have a toolbar with links to the user talk page and user contributions. Some Wikipedias already have this feature. [44]
- You will be able to edit the graph size in the visual editor. You can either specify the size in the graph dialog or drag it to be the size you want it to be. [45]
- It will be easier to write math in the visual editor if you don't know LaTeX. You can use symbol buttons instead. [46]
- You will be able to use syntax highlighting when you write math with LaTeX in the visual editor. [47]
- UploadWizard will look a bit different. [48]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 December. It will be on all Wikipedias from 10 December. (calendar).
- New MediaWiki versions will now be on Catalan and Hebrew Wikipedia on Wednesdays. Other Wikipedias get the new MediaWiki version on Thursdays. [49]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 8 December at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topics this week are "Graph/Graphoid/Kartographer – data storage architecture" and "Parametric JSON builder". The meeting will be on 9 December at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- A new beta feature will show users links to related articles at the bottom of an article. It will not be enabled by default. [50]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:52, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
This Month in GLAM: November 2015
| ||||||
About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 02:49, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 09 December 2015
- News and notes: ArbCom election results announced
- Gallery: Wiki Loves Monuments 2015 winners
- Traffic report: So do you laugh, or does it cry?
- Featured content: Sports, ships, arts... and some other things
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
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 this week
- Meta will be able to use information from Wikidata. [51]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 December. It will be on all Wikipedias from 17 December. (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 15 December at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is talking about the agenda for the Wikimedia Developer Summit. The meeting will be on 16 December at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join. [52]
Future changes
- A new gadget manager will come next year. The new gadget system is called Gadgets 2.0. [53]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:42, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 16 December 2015
- In the media: Wales in China; #Edit2015
- Arbitration report: GMO case decided
- Featured content: An unusually slow week
- WikiProject report: Women in Red—using teamwork and partnerships to elevate online and offline collaborations
- Traffic report: A feast of Spam
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
- Because of the holidays, the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 11 January 2016.
- The writers of the technical newsletter are asking for your opinion. Did you get the information you wanted this year? Did we miss important technical news in 2015? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us! You can write in your language. Thank you!
Recent changes
- CompletionSuggester is a new suggestions algorithm for Search. It is available as a Beta feature since 17 December. (more information)
- The Multimedia team is running an A/B test for the cross-wiki upload tool. They are testing four different interfaces. The test is running from 16-23 December. (more information)
Changes this week
- There is no deployment of MediaWiki scheduled until 12 January 2016 (calendar).
Meetings
- Should administrators and other users with advanced tools need stronger passwords? You can discuss about it in a Request for Comments.
- No meeting with the VisualEditor team on 22 and 29 December, and 5 January.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:29, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost: 30 December 2015
- News and notes: WMF Board dismisses community-elected trustee
- Arbitration report: Second Arbitration Enforcement case concludes as another case is suspended
- Featured content: The post-Christmas edition
- Traffic report: The Force we expected
- Year in review: The top ten Wikipedia stories of 2015
- In the media: Wikipedia plagued by a "Basket of Deception"
- Gallery: It's that time of year again
The Signpost: 06 January 2016
- News and notes: The WMF's age of discontent
- In the media: Impenetrable science; Jimmy Wales back in the UAE
- Arbitration report: Catflap08 and Hijiri88 case been decided
- Featured content: Featured menagerie
- WikiProject report: Try-ing to become informed - WikiProject Rugby League
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
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
- Wikimedia no longer uses visitor statistics from comScore. [54]
- You can make interactive graphs with the Graph extension. There is now a tutorial for how to do this. [55]
Problems
- Some pages do not turn in up in categories where they should be. This is because link tables are sometimes not populated. [56]
Changes this week
- The Nuke extension will work with Flow. This will make it easier to handle spam in Flow. [57]
- New file uploads will now be patrollable. [58]
- Internet Explorer 8 will no longer have JavaScript support. You will still be able to browse and edit Wikipedia if you use Internet Explorer 8, but will not be able to use some features. This can be solved by upgrading to a newer version or switching to a different browser. [59][60]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 12 January at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- URLs in the recent changes IRC feed will no longer be rewritten to unencrypted HTTP. This could be a breaking change for bots dependent on the IRC feed. [61]
- The edit tabs for the wikitext editor and the visual editor will be combined to one single edit tab. You will be able to choose which one you prefer. If you are not logged in, your choice will be saved as a cookie in your browser. You can test the single edit tab. [62][63]
- There is a beta feature that adds links to the subject on other Wikimedia projects. This works much like the links to for example Wikipedia articles in other languages. It will go out of beta testing and be enabled for everyone in January. Wikis that don't want this can decide to have it disabled. [64][65]
- The difference between "alerts" and "messages" notifications is unclear to some. The developers want feedback at the Phabricator task or on MediaWiki.org so they can make this better. You can give feedback in your language if you can't write in English.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:59, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
This Month in GLAM: December 2015
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About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 17:57, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 13 January 2016
- Community view: Battle for the soul of the WMF
- Editorial: We need a culture of verification
- In focus: The Crisis at New Montgomery Street
- Op-ed: Transparency
- Traffic report: Pattern recognition: Third annual Traffic Report
- Special report: Wikipedia community celebrates Public Domain Day 2016
- News and notes: Community objections to new Board trustee
- Featured content: This Week's Featured Content
- Arbitration report: Interview: outgoing and incumbent arbitrators 2016
- Technology report: Tech news in brief
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 will be able to find or mark bugs and suggestions in Phabricator that are specific for your language or wiki. [66]
- Notifications have been upgraded with more detailed and easier-to-access information. See the documentation. Cross-wiki notifications will be available soon on the two test wikis. [67]
Changes this week
- The visual editor uses the TemplateData extension to make editing templates easier. You will now get a warning when you edit a TemplateData form and leave it without saving. [68]
- MediaWiki will get a new authentication and authorization system called AuthManager. This is planned to happen in a month or two. Some bots will need to change how they log in. Two new and more stable authentication methods will be available now: Owner-only OAuth credentials and bot passwords. You can read more about the change. [69]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 January. It will be on all Wikipedias from 21 January (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 19 January at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is governance model. The meeting will be on 20 January at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:56, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 20 January 2016
- News and notes: Vote of no confidence; WMF trustee speaks out
- In the media: 15th anniversary news round-up
- Traffic report: Danse Macabre
- Featured content: This week's featured content
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 follow when pages are added or removed from a category on German Wikipedia. The plan is to add it to Wikimedia Commons and other Wikipedias this week. [70][71]
- Administrators can hide individual entries of a page with RevisionDelete. There is now a button to choose "all", "none" or "inverse" in Special:Log. The article history will get the same buttons soon. Wikis that have done this locally with JavaScript will be able to remove that code. [72]
Changes this week
- You will be able to see the references when you preview a section you are editing. This will happen even if there is no <references /> tag in that section. [73]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 January. It will be on all wikis from 28 January (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 26 January at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- There is now an extension called ArticlePlaceholder. It can automatically generate content on Wikipedia with data from Wikidata if there is no Wikipedia article. It will have a tag to remind the reader it is not an article and ask the reader to create one. The developer is now looking for smaller Wikipedias that want to try the extension. [74]
- The OTRS system will be upgraded. The plan is to do this on 3 February at 08:00 (UTC). It will probably take 6 to 8 hours. OTRS will be down during the upgrade. [75]
- Users will soon be automatically congratulated when they reach some edit count milestones. [76]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:39, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 27 January 2016
- News and notes: Geshuri steps down from the Board
- In the media: Media coverage of the Arnnon Geshuri no-confidence vote
- Recent research: Bursty edits; how politics beat religion but then lost to sports; notability as a glass ceiling
- Traffic report: Death and taxes
- Featured content: This week's featured content