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current talk page.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Recent changes
iOS 15 has a new function called
Private Relay (Apple website). This can hide the user's IP when they use
Safari browser. This is like using a
VPN in that we see another IP address instead. It is opt-in and only for those who pay extra for
iCloud. It will come to Safari users on
OSX later. There is a
technical discussion about what this means for the Wikimedia wikis.
Problems
Some gadgets and user-scripts add items to the
portlets (article tools) part of the skin. A recent change to the HTML may have made those links a different font-size. This can be fixed by adding the CSS class .vector-menu-dropdown-noicon.
[1]
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 September. It will be on all wikis from 30 September (
calendar).
The
GettingStarted extension was built in 2013, and provides an onboarding process for new account holders in a few versions of Wikipedia. However, the recently developed
Growth features provide a better onboarding experience. Since the vast majority of Wikipedias now have access to the Growth features, GettingStarted will be deactivated starting on 4 October.
[2]
A small number of users will not be able to connect to the Wikimedia wikis after 30 September. This is because an old
root certificate will no longer work. They will also have problems with many other websites. Users who have updated their software in the last five years are unlikely to have problems. Users in Europe, Africa and Asia are less likely to have immediate problems even if their software is too old. You can
read more.
You can
receive notifications when someone leaves a comment on user talk page or mentions you in a talk page comment. Clicking the notification link will now bring you to the comment and highlight it. Previously, doing so brought you to the top of the section that contained the comment. You can find
more information in T282029.
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 more efficient way of sending changes from Wikidata to Wikimedia wikis that show them has been enabled for the following 10 wikis: mediawiki.org, the Italian, Catalan, Hebrew and Vietnamese Wikipedias, French Wikisource, and English Wikivoygage, Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikinews. If you notice anything strange about how changes from Wikidata appear in recent changes or your watchlist on those wikis you can
let the developers know.
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 October. It will be on all wikis from 7 October (
calendar).
Some gadgets and bots that use the API to read the AbuseFilter log might break. The hidden property will no longer say an entry is implicit for unsuppressed log entries about suppressed edits. If your bot needs to know this, do a separate revision query. Additionally, the property will have the value false for visible entries; previously, it wasn't included in the response.
[4]
A more efficient way of sending changes from Wikidata to Wikimedia wikis that show them will be enabled for all production wikis. If you notice anything strange about how changes from Wikidata appear in recent changes or your watchlist you can
let the developers know.
Future changes
You can soon get cross-wiki notifications in the
iOS Wikipedia app. You can also get notifications as push notifications. More notification updates will follow in later versions.
[5]
The JavaScript variables wgExtraSignatureNamespaces, wgLegalTitleChars, and wgIllegalFileChars will soon be removed from mw.config. These are not part of the "stable" variables available for use in wiki JavaScript.
[6]
The JavaScript variables wgCookiePrefix, wgCookieDomain, wgCookiePath, and wgCookieExpiration will soon be removed from mw.config. Scripts should instead use mw.cookie from the "
mediawiki.cookie" module.
[7]
You can also sign up for a slot at the birthday presents lightning talks session at WikidataCon 2021 to present your
gift for Wikidata birthday until October 16
Finished preventing a case where the same sitelink could be added to two different Items (
phab:T291377)
Continuing work on the
Mismatch Finder. Currently focusing on showing the details of the mismatches to the person reviewing mismatches.
Continued work on not allowing two Properties to have the same label after undo/revert (
phab:T289473)
Continuing work on improving how changes on Wikidata are propagated to Wikipedia and the other other Wikimedia projects. The new system is being rolled out to all wikis now. It should not change anything for editors and just be a technical improvement in the backend.
Proclamation Day of the Republic of Latvia is celebrated annually on 18 November. It marks the anniversary of the Proclamation of Independence of Latvia by the People's Council of Latvia in 1918.
(Please update the interwiki links on
Wikidata of your language version of the article after each week's translation is finished so that all languages are linked to each other.)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations are available.
Changes later this week
The
new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 October. It will be on all wikis from 14 October (
calendar).
We’re celebrating the
9th birthday of Wikidata on October 29 during the WikidataCon 🎂 Did you know that you can participate in the celebration by preparing a birthday present or attending events?
Here’s how you can get involved!
Upcoming: WMF search platform team office hour, Wednesday, October 13th, 2021 at 15:00-16:00 GMT / 08:00-09:00 PDT / 11:00-12:00 EDT / 17:00-18:00 CEST.
Etherpad,
Google Meet. You can come and chat about the Wikidata & Commons Query Service.
LIVE Wikidata editing #57 -
YouTube,
Facebook, October 16 at 18:00 UTC
Modeling and Documenting Queer Voices and Topics on Wikidata,
Panel on Metadata and Gender Diversity, Amber Billey, Clair A Kronk, John Samuel, Rachel Ivy Clarke, Sayward Schoonmaker, DCMI Virtual 2021, October 8, 2021,
Slides
Videos
Introduction to Wikidata for beginners. Part 2 (in Italian) -
YouTube
You can also sign up for a slot at the birthday presents lightning talks session at WikidataCon 2021 to present your
gift for Wikidata birthday until October 16
Mismatch Finder: We are continuing the work on the review part of the system. We are now working on letting reviewers indicate if the mismatch is on Wikidata, the other database, both or neither.
Fixed a bug where it was possible for two Properties to have the same label in a given language by undoing/reverting an edit (
phab:T289473)
Fixed a confusing error message that was being shown when trying to save geoshape / tabular data that doesn’t exist (
phab:T285758)
Removing some unnecessary entity link formatting in edit summaries and special pages to improve performance (
phab:T292203)
Fixing an issue with invalid dates that the API accepts but should not (
phab:T289417)
Migrated all Wikimedia wikis to use the new change dispatching system. This system is responsible for notifying the other wikis about edits made on Wikidata that affect their articles so the article is refreshed and edits are added to recent changes and watchlists.
Welcome to the fourth issue of Universal Code of Conduct News! This newsletter will help Wikimedians stay involved with the development of the new code and will distribute relevant news, research, and upcoming events related to the UCoC.
If you haven’t already, please remember to subscribe
here if you would like to be notified about future editions of the newsletter, and also leave your username
here if you’d like to be contacted to help with translations in the future.
Enforcement Draft Guidelines Review Wrap-up - The Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Draft Guidelines Review will come to a close on 17 October 2021, after more than two months of extensive consultations. (
continue reading)
Roundtable Discussions and Conversation Hours - Another successful roundtable session happened on September 18, 2021 to discuss the EDGR. One last conversation hour will be happening on October 15th, 2021. (
continue reading)
Movement Charter Drafting Committee Elections - The Movement Charter Drafting Committee selection process has kicked off and will be open until October 25, 2021. Contributors to Wikimedia projects can elect their favorite candidates on to the committee. (
continue reading)
New Direction for the Newsletter - As we round-up the consultation processes for the Universal Code of Conduct, the facilitation team is currently envisioning new directions for the newsletter. (
continue reading)
Diff Blogs - Check out the most recent publications about the UCoC on Wikimedia Diff. (
continue reading)
Juice jacking is a type of cyber attack involving a charging port that doubles as a data connection, typically over USB.
(Please update the interwiki links on
Wikidata of your language version of the article after each week's translation is finished so that all languages are linked to each other.)
We’re celebrating the
9th birthday of Wikidata on October 29 during the WikidataCon 🎂 Did you know that you can participate in the celebration by preparing a birthday present or attending events?
Here’s how you can get involved!
Next Linked Data for Libraries
LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call: Scottish Accused Witches Project with Ewan McAndrew and Emma Carroll (University of Edinburgh).
[8], Oct 19th.
Learn Wikidata is an online interactive course created by the Vanderbilt University thanks to a WikiCite grant and available in English, Spanish and Chinese.
More information here.
The 3rd edition of the
Coolest Tool Award is looking for nominations (see
announcement on wikimedia-l). Please submit your favorite tools by October 27th. The awarded projects will be announced and showcased in a virtual ceremony in December.
Mismatch Finder: We are continuing the work on the review part of the system. We are working on letting reviewers submit their decision if the mismatch is on Wikidata, the other database, both or neither.
In the previous week we migrated all Wikimedia wikis to use the new change dispatching system. This system is responsible for notifying the other wikis about edits made on Wikidata that affect their articles so the article is refreshed and edits are added to recent changes and watchlists. This week we monitored the new system and investigated and fixed a few issues that came up.