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Tech News: 2014-31

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

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf15) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 24. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on July 29, and to all Wikipedias on July 31 (calendar).
• You can now download the latest version of the anti-vandalism tool Huggle.

VisualEditor news

• You can now create, edit, and view HTML comments in VisualEditor. [1] [2]
• The cancel button in VisualEditor toolbar has been removed. You can still use the Read tab and the Back button in your browser to cancel your edit. [3]
• If you try to use a template which has no suggested or required parameters in TemplateData, you will now be asked to add the parameters. [4] [5]
• You will no longer be able to edit a page if you can't create it, for example on pages protected against recreation. [6] [7]

Future software changes

• You will soon be able to filter Meta-Wiki's user rights log by wiki and user. [8] [9]
• Wikidata will soon be able to store data about article status, for example "good article" or "featured article". If your wiki has highlighted content, please make sure it is on Wikidata's list. [10]
• It will soon be possible to directly create empty pages, for example in the user namespace. [11] [12]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:08, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 July 2014

• Book review: Knowledge or unreality?

• Recent research: Shifting values in the paid content debate

• News and notes: How many more hoaxes will Wikipedia find?

• Wikimedia in education: Success in Egypt and the Arab World

• Traffic report: Doom and gloom vs. the power of Reddit

• Featured content: Skeletons and Skeltons

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:06, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-32

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

Tech News updates

• Tech News will be presented at the Wikimania 2014 conference in London! If you will be attending the conference, please join us in Auditorium 2 at 14:30 local time on Sunday, August 10.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf16) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 31. Due to the Wikimania 2014 conference, it will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on August 12, and to all Wikipedias on August 14 (calendar). [13]
• You can now test a new tool to render wiki pages as PDF files. [14] [15] [16]
• You can now download an update to the archive of Wikimedia Commons files (uploaded up to December 31, 2013). If you have free space on your computer, please help preserve the files. [17]
• New users using the mobile Commons site now need to make 75 edits before they can upload a file. [18] [19]

VisualEditor news

• You will no longer see an edit confirmation message after making a null edit with VisualEditor. [20] [21]
• VisualEditor will no longer change underscores to spaces in category sort keys. [22]
• Many bugs that resulted in inserting the pawn and snowman symbols were fixed last week. [23] [24] [25] [26]
• Several bugs related to the use of references were also fixed. [27] [28] [29] [30]

Future software changes

• You will soon have a user option to watch pages where you revert edits. [31] [32]
• All Toolserver data will be deleted in September. If you want to back up your data, contact Toolserver administrators before August 31. [33]
• Pages in the Translations: namespace on wikis using the Translate extension will no longer be indexed by search engines. [34]

Problems

• Wikivoyage wikis were broken for about 45 minutes on July 29 due to a configuration problem. [35]
• Some users were not able to log in on test wikis and MediaWiki.org between July 31 and August 1. The problem is now fixed. [36]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 August 2014

• Technology report: A technologist's Wikimania preview

• Traffic report: Ebola

• Featured content: Bottoms, asses, and the fairies that love them

• Wikimedia in education: Leading universities educate with Wikipedia in Mexico

• News and notes: "History is a human right"—first-ever transparency report released as Europe begins hiding Wikipedia in search results

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:51, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-33

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

Recent software changes

• Due to the Wikimania 2014 conference, there were no MediaWiki changes this week. The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf16) will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on August 12, and to all Wikipedias on August 14 (calendar). [37]
• Bureaucrats on all Wikivoyage wikis are no longer able to merge two accounts into one. [38]

VisualEditor news

• Tablet users visiting the mobile version of non-Wikipedia wikis will be able to use VisualEditor starting on August 12. The feature will also be enabled on all Wikipedias on August 14. [39]

Future software changes

• Internet Explorer 6 users will soon see a JavaScript-free version of Wikimedia wikis; JavaScript tools and scripts will no longer work on that browser. If you use Internet Explorer 6, make sure to update to a newer browser! [40] [41] [42]
• If you visit a special page that requires you to be logged-in, you will soon be automatically redirected to the log-in page instead of seeing a warning. [43] [44]
• You will now always see recent changes to the source language text when editing a translation with the Translate extension. [45] [46]
• An IRC meeting to discuss VisualEditor will take place on August 14 at 09:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on freenode (time conversion). [47]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:43, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 August 2014

• Special report: Twitter bots catalogue government edits to Wikipedia

• Traffic report: Disease, decimation and distraction

• Wikimedia in education: Global Education: WMF's Perspective

• Wikimania: Promised the moon, settled for the stars

• News and notes: Media Viewer controversy spreads to German Wikipedia

• Op-ed: Red links, blue links, and erythrophobia

• In the media: Monkey selfie, net neutrality, and hoaxes

• Featured content: Cambridge got a lot of attention this week

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:56, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-34

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

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf17) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 14. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on August 19, and on all Wikipedias on August 21 (calendar).
• There is a new protection level called superprotection. At the moment, only some Wikimedia Foundation employees have access to it. Administrators can't edit "superprotected" pages. [48] [49] [50]
• You can now create empty pages directly. A message asks you to confirm that you want to create an empty page. [51] [52]
• You can search for Wikimedia tools using a new list of tools. [53]
• You can watch the first videos from Wikimania 2014. Some of them are about technical topics. More videos will come later.

Wikidata

• After August 19, you can use Wikidata for inter language links on Wikinews. [54]
• After August 19, you can use Wikidata for badges like "good" or "featured" articles. Next week, you will be able to show the badges in the article sidebar on Wikipedia, Wikisource and Wikiquote. [55]

Problems

• There was an issue with ProofreadPage and WikiEditor on Wikisource wikis. It is now fixed. [56] [57]

Tech news written by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:16, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 August 2014

• Interview: Improving the visibility of digital archival assets using Wikipedia

• Traffic report: Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero

• WikiProject report: Bats and gloves

• Op-ed: A new metric for Wikimedia

• Featured content: English Wikipedia departs for Japan

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:09, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-35

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

VisualEditor news

• There was a error when you put your cursor directly after a reference list. It is now fixed. [58]
• You can now add colors to links in the editor using gadgets. You can do this to see links to redirects or disambiguation pages. [59]
• If you use Internet Explorer, you will soon be able to use VisualEditor. [60] [61] [62]

Future software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf18) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 21. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on August 26, and on all Wikipedias on August 28 (calendar).
• After August 26, you will have a central JavaScript and CSS page. They will be on Meta-Wiki and will work on all wikis. Read more on the help page. [63]

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09:21, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 August 2014

• In the media: Plagiarism and vandalism dominate Wikipedia news

• News and notes: Media Viewer—Wikimedia's emotional roller-coaster

• Traffic report: Viral

• Featured content: Cheats at Featured Pictures!

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:37, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-36

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

Recent software changes

• You can now test a new Beta Feature to see links to other wikis in the sidebar. The links come from Wikidata. [64] [65]
• You can now search pages that link to a page. Use the linksto: keyword in your search. [66] [67]
• A redirect to a section now changes the URL in the address bar of your browser. If "Dog" redirects to "Animals#Dog", you now see "Animals#Dog" instead of "Dog#Dog". [68] [69]
• If you are testing Flow, you now have a Flow tab in your Notifications. It is called "Messages". [70]

VisualEditor news

• You can no longer delete required fields in templates. [71]
• We fixed many Internet Explorer bugs. If you use Internet Explorer 11, you will get VisualEditor next week. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [72] [73] [74]
• VisualEditor now looks better in Monobook. [75]
• We fixed a bug where some of your typing could be undone when you used "cut" (Ctrl+X). [76]
• You will no longer see empty or deleted categories among the suggestions when you add a category. [77]

Future software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf19) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 28. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 2, and on all Wikipedias on September 4 (calendar).
• There is a proposal to build a database on Commons for file data. It will make it easier to see the author, license and topics. You can give feedback on this idea. You can also come to the IRC chat on September 3 at 18:00 (UTC) in #wikimedia-office at freenode. [78]
• You can give feedback on Media Viewer until September 7. You can say what needs to be improved and ask other people to give feedback too. [79]
• You can test a new version of the tool to show math. It uses MathML. Report bugs in bugzilla.
• You will no longer be able to upload images from the mobile site. [80]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:48, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 September 2014

• Arbitration report: Media viewer case is suspended

• Featured content: 1882 × 5 in gold, and thruppence more

• Op-ed: Automated copy-and-paste detection under trial

• Traffic report: Holding Pattern

• WikiProject report: Gray's Anatomy (v. 2)

• Recent research: A Wikipedia-based Pantheon; new Wikipedia analysis tool suite; how AfC hamstrings newbies

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:03, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-37

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

VisualEditor news

• From Thursday, Internet Explorer 11 users will get VisualEditor. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [81] [82] [83]

Future software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf20) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 9, and on all Wikipedias on September 11 (calendar).
• You will soon confirm a "Thanks" inline instead of in a dialog. [84]
• You can read more about the plan to move to Phabricator, a tool that will help people develop the MediaWiki software and report bugs. [85]

Problems

• There were problems with JavaScript and CSS on Friday, September 5 because of a code error.

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09:33, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 September 2014

• Op-ed: Media Viewer software is not ready

• Traffic report: Refuge in celebrity

• Featured content: The louse and the fish's tongue

• WikiProject report: Checking that everything's all right

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:55, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-38

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

Recent software changes

• You can now change the style of links to disambiguation pages. This is done with the mw-disambig CSS class. [86] [87]
• There was a problem on right-to-left wikis with Wikidata log entries. The text was messy in watchlists and recent changes. The problem is now fixed. The same problem will be fixed soon for user names. [88] [89] [90]
• New users are randomly chosen for a test on 12 Wikipedias. They get messages with ideas of articles to edit. The ideas come from what they have already edited. [91]

Problems

• There was a problem with loading images on September 10. [92]

VisualEditor news

• If you don't select text when you add a link, the link now shows a number. [93]
• The citation tool no longer offers to reuse a citation if there are none on the page yet. [94] [95]
• You can now use help buttons in the "Page settings" menu to see what the options are for. [96]

Future software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf21) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 16, and on all Wikipedias on September 18 (calendar).
• These changes are coming with the new version:
  • If you use Internet Explorer 7, JavaScript will no longer work. JavaScript tools and scripts will no longer work in that browser. You should update to a newer browser. [97] [98] [99]

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08:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 September 2014

• In the media: Turkish Twitter outrage, medical translation, audience metrics

• WikiProject report: A trip up north to Scotland

• News and notes: Wikipedia's traffic statistics are off by nearly one-third

• Traffic report: Tolstoy leads a varied pack

• Featured content: Which is not like the others?

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:36, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-39

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

Recent software changes

• You can test a new Beta Feature called HHVM. It should make editing faster. Please report bugs if you see them. [100]

Problems

• There was a problem on the English Wikipedia on September 19. It was due to edits on a template used on many pages.
• Sites were down for users in the Pacific area around 7:00 UTC on September 20. It was due to a problem in the San Francisco data center.
• There were two bad bugs messing up articles in some browsers in VisualEditor. We fixed the bugs and updated the sites. [101] [102]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf22) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 23, and on all Wikipedias on September 25 (calendar).
• If you have more than 2000 notifications, the oldest ones will be removed.[103] [104]
• In the "Vector" skin, the icon used for users will show a neutral gender. [105] [106]
• The VisualEditor template tool now tells you if a required field is missing. [107]
• The "Cancel" button of the VisualEditor save window is now called "Resume editing". This shows that you can still edit and you won't lose your changes. [108]
• There are new keyboard shortcuts in VisualEditor. Use Ctrl+Shift+6 for code and Ctrl+Shift+5 for strikethrough. [109] [110]
• In VisualEditor, you can now see that you are switching to the source editing mode. Before, it was not clear it was happening. [111]

Future site changes

• You can see a plan for the move to Phabricator. It's the new tool to track bugs. A guided tour will be done via video on September 24. [112]

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09:04, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 September 2014

• Featured content: Oil paintings galore

• In the media: Indian political editing, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Congressional chelonii

• Recent research: 99.25% of Wikipedia birthdates accurate; focused Wikipedians live longer; merging WordNet, Wikipedia and Wiktionary

• Traffic report: Wikipedia watches the referendum in Scotland

• WikiProject report: GAN reviewers take note: competition time

• Arbitration report: Banning Policy, Gender Gap, and Waldorf education

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:50, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-40

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

Recent software changes

• On Commons, you can now see what files are most used across all wikis. You can also see the same list for deleted or uncreated files. [113] [114]
• There are now many more translations for language names. [115]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf1) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 30, and on all Wikipedias on October 2 (calendar).
• Errors from Scribunto (Lua) are now shown on the page. Before, you had to click on "Script error" to see them. [116] [117]
• You can add an "autovalue" for a field in TemplateData. When users add the template to a page, the value will be added automatically. An example is when a clean-up template shows the date it was added. [118]
• If you change a user preference but don't save it, it now asks if you want to save it. [119] [120]
• The PDF export tool has changed. The new one has better language support but it doesn't offer ZIM and EPUB formats. [121]

Future changes

• You can watch a video showing Phabricator, the new tool to track bugs. You can also read more about the move from Bugzilla.
• JavaScript authors: Many old methods will be removed soon. Please check your scripts and gadgets and replace the old methods by the new ones if needed. [122]

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09:44, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 October 2014

• From the editor: The Signpost needs your help

• Dispatches: Let's get serious about plagiarism

• News and notes: Wikipedia article published in peer-reviewed journal; Wikipedia in education

• WikiProject report: Animals, farms, forests, USDA? It must be WikiProject Agriculture

• Traffic report: Shanah Tovah

• Featured content: Brothers at War

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:25, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-41

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 use the phab: and phabricator: interwikis to link to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org. [123] [124]
• Some wikis have a template to track bugs in Bugzilla. You should update it to work with Phabricator. You can look at the one on mediawiki.org to see how. [125] [126]
• You can look at Special:MediaStatistics to see what kind of files are on your wiki. [127]
• A new tool can now create thumbnails of large TIFF images. This concerns files larger than 50 megapixels. These thumbnails are also sharpened. You can comment on Commons. [128]
• The Media Viewer tool has a clearer link to the file page. It also has buttons to download, share and embed the file. You can enlarge images by clicking on them. [129]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf2) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since 2 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 7 October, and on all Wikipedias from 9 October (calendar).
• If you make a code mistake when editing a Lua script, you won't be able to save your edit. [130] [131]
• We fixed some more Internet Explorer bugs. If you use Internet Explorer 10, you will be able to use VisualEditor next week. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [132]
• On Thursday, the tool to edit TemplateData will come to 30 more wikis. [133] [134]
• You can help sort bugs in the Book and PDF export tool on October 8. [135]
• 1% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. [136]

Future changes

• You can look at the plan of the Mobile team for their future work. [137]
• More changes to Media Viewer are coming. It will be easier to disable it, and you will see the caption below the image. [138] [139]

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06:10, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 October 2014

• In the media: Opposition research firm blocked; Australian bushfires

• Featured content: From a wordless novel to a coat of arms via New York City

• Traffic report: Panic and denial

• Technology report: HHVM is the greatest thing since sliced bread

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:41, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-42

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 software changes

• You can now log into Phabricator, the new tool to track bugs. Create your account and add your Bugzilla email address. We are copying the bugs from Bugzilla. Bugzilla is still open. [140] [141]
• You will now get the VisualEditor newsletter in your language if someone has translated it. You can add translations. You can know about the next translations by joining the translators list or asking Elitre (WMF).

Problems

• 10% of Tool Labs was down on October 7. [142]
• Tool Labs was also broken on October 11. [143]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf3) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since 9 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 14 October, and on all Wikipedias from 16 October (calendar).
• 5% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. You can also test it as a Beta Feature. [144]

Meetings

• You can join a meeting with Language developers on October 15, 2014 at 17:00 (UTC). [145]
• There is a proposal to organize file pages better. It would use the same tools as Wikidata. You can join a meeting about it on October 16, 2014 at 18:00 (UTC). [146]
• You can join a meeting about VisualEditor on October 18, 2014 at 18:00 (UTC). [147]

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08:53, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 October 2014

• Op-ed: Ships—sexist or sexy?

• In the media: College player falsely linked to sports scandal by Wikipedia; the Nobel Prizes

• Arbitration report: One case closed and two opened

• Featured content: Bells ring out at the Temple of the Dragon at Peace

• Technology report: Attempting to parse wikitext

• Traffic report: Now introducing ... mobile data

• WikiProject report: Signpost reaches the Midwest

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:48, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-43

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. You can read translations.

Recent changes

• You can test a new system to see math using MathML. Go to your display options and choose "⧼mw math mathml⧽".
• You can add badges in Wikidata for quality articles and featured lists. [148] [149]

File information cleanup

• You can join a wiki project to help tools read file information. It will help people reuse files.
• See how to fix metadata. You can fix it by adding markers to templates and adding templates to files.
• You can see a list of files missing machine-readable information on your wiki.
• The files missing readable data are also in these categories: no license, no description, no author or no source. [150]

Problems

• Developers fixed a security problem. If you use Internet Explorer 6, you won't be able to log in any more. You should use a newer browser. [151]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf4) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 16. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 21, and on all Wikipedias from October 23 (calendar).
• 10% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. You can also test it as a Beta Feature. [152]
• If you add the same parameter twice in a template, it now puts the page in a tracking category. [153] [154]

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13:48, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 October 2014

• Featured content: Admiral on deck: a modern Ada Lovelace

• Op-ed: Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution—a wiki-protest

• In the media: The story of Wikipedia; Wikipedia reanimated and republished; New UK government social media rules; death of Italian Wikipedia administrator

• Traffic report: Death, War, Pestilence... Movies and TV

• WikiProject report: De-orphanning articles—a huge task but with a huge team of volunteers to help

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:22, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-44

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

Problems

• There was an issue with files from Commons on October 21. You could only see those with names between 140 and 159 characters by visiting Commons itself. [155]
• There was a problem with cut and paste in VisualEditor in Firefox. It was fixed quickly. [156]
• There was a problem with editing math in VisualEditor. It was fixed quickly. [157]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will now come to Wikipedia sites every Wednesday, instead of every Thursday. [158]
• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf5) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 23. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 28, and on all Wikipedias from October 29 (calendar).
• VisualEditor now uses autovalues for templates if they are in TemplateData. [159] [160] [161]
• VisualEditor's menu items now show their shortcuts beside them. [162]
• VisualEditor now opens faster when you click "edit". [163]
• The rules for plurals in translations changed in some languages. Interface translations are currently not being updated from translatewiki.net; this process will start again on November 6. [164]

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05:20, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 October 2014

• Featured content: Go West, young man

• In the media: Wikipedia a trusted source on Ebola; Wikipedia study labeled government waste; football biography goes viral

• Maps tagathon: Find 10,000 digitised maps this weekend

• Traffic report: Ebola, Ultron, and Creepy Articles

• Recent research: Informed consent and privacy; newsmaking on Wikipedia; Wikipedia and organizational theories

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-45

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 software changes

• The "Special:Cite" page is now called "Special:CiteThisPage". That way, you know it's to cite the page, not to add a reference. [165]
• You can no longer use the insource: keyword for text searches. It caused issues with the new search tool. It will come back later. [166] [167]

Problems

• There was a bug in VisualEditor with Internet Explorer. It hid tools like the link editor when you opened them. The bug was fixed on Monday. [168]
• Issues with the new search tool caused geo data code to show up on pages on Monday and Friday. The mobile "nearby" tool was also broken. The problem is now fixed. [169] [170] [171]
• HHVM caused server issues on Thursday. They are now fixed.

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf5) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 29. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 4, and on all Wikipedias from November 5 (calendar).
• Some wikis have icons at the top of a page to show if it is protected or featured. Icons show up using CSS. You can now use the <indicator> tag in these templates instead to add the icons. [172] [173]
• VisualEditor now tells you if you're editing a re-used reference. This helps you avoid changing it if you just want to add a new one. [174]
• The icons in VisualEditor's template editor tool for adding more fields are back, along with other fixes. [175] [176] [177] [178] [179]
• After November 6, all wikis will have the tool to edit TemplateData. [180] [181] [182]

Future changes

• The new search tool will come to the last wikis in the coming weeks. This includes Wikipedia in French, Chinese, German and English. [183]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:28, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 November 2014

• In the media: Predicting the flu, MH17 conspiracy theories

• Traffic report: Sweet dreams on Halloween

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:01, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-46

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 software changes

• You may see a new tool on the mobile site of the English Wikipedia. It asks simple questions to make the article better. In the future, your answers will go to Wikidata. [184] [185]
• The MediaWiki API now shows information in a nice format. You can translate it in translatewiki.net. [186]

File information cleanup

• Reminder: You can help fix file information on your wiki. It will help robots understand the information. After that, it will be easier for you to search files and re-use them.
• You can join two IRC chats this week to learn more about the file cleanup project. One will be on Wednesday at 18:00 (UTC) and the other on Thursday at 04:00 (UTC). You can ask questions during the chat if you need help to fix files on your wiki.
• You can see a list of files to fix on the Labs tool. You can report bugs and ask questions on the talk page.

Problems

• Wikimedia Labs was broken for a few hours on Thursday. It was due to a hardware problem. [187]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf7) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since November 5. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 11, and on all Wikipedias from November 12 (calendar).
• You can now use more editing tools for tables in VisualEditor. You can add rows and columns, merge cells, and edit table captions. [188] [189]
• The style and insert menus in the toolbar of VisualEditor now show fewer tools. This helps you see the most common tasks. You can see all items by clicking "More". [190]
• The way windows inside VisualEditor work has changed. VisualEditor should be faster and have fewer bugs. [191]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:00, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 November 2014

• In the media: Amazon Echo; EU freedom of panorama; Bluebeard's Castle

• Traffic report: Holidays, anyone?

• Featured content: Wikipedia goes to church in Lithuania

• WikiProject report: Talking hospitals

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:45, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-47

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

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf8) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since November 12. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 18, and on all Wikipedias from November 19 (calendar).
• The new search tool ("CirrusSearch") will be on the English Wikipedia from November 19. [192]

Move from Bugzilla to Phabricator

• The tool to track bugs will change on November 21.
• You won't be able to add or edit bugs between November 21 and November 24.
• You can make the change easier for you by creating your account.
• Bugzilla will be frozen after the change. You will see, edit and report bugs in Phabricator.
• You can join two IRC chats to learn more about the change. The chats will be on Tuesday, November 18 at 16:00 (UTC) and 23:00 UTC. [193]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:28, 17 November 2014 (UTC)