User talk:UOzurumba (WMF)/sandbox

Tech/Server switch

MediaWiki message delivery 00:03, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Temporary accounts for unregistered editors

Read this in your language • Please help translate to your language • Please tell other users about these changes

Next year, unregistered editors will start using temporary accounts.

In 2024, editors who have not registered an account will automatically begin using temporary accounts. These editors are sometimes called "IP editors" because the IP address is displayed in the page history.

The Trust and Safety Product team gave a presentation at Wikimania about this change. You can watch it on YouTube.

There is more information at m:IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation.

SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 01:56, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

The Vector 2022 skin as the default in two weeks?

Read this in your language • Please help translate to your language • Please tell other users about these changes

Hello. I'm writing on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Web team. In two weeks, we would like to make the Vector 2022 skin the default on this wiki.

Global preferences

If you prefer keeping the current skin select "Vector legacy (2010)" on the appearance tab of the global preferences and save the change. We encourage you to give the new skin a try, though.

Since I last came to you with this question, many things have changed. The skin is now the default on most Wikipedias, and all logos are done! We have also made some tweaks in the skin itself. Below is the text I've sent to you once, but I'm sending it again, just slightly edited, for those who haven't seen it.

If you know what this is about, jump straight to the section "Our plan":

It would become the default for all logged-out users, and also all logged-in users who currently use Vector legacy as a local (but not global) preference. Logged-in users can at any time switch to any other skin. No changes are expected for these skins.

• Top of an article
• 
  Vector legacy (current default)
• 
  Vector 2022

• A section of an article
• 
  Vector legacy (current default)
• 
  Vector 2022

About the skin

Slides to our Wikimania 2022 presentation. You may also listen to the recording on YouTube (in English).

[Why is a change necessary] When the current default skin was created, it reflected the needs of the readers and editors as these were 14 years ago. Since then, new users have begun using the Internet and Wikimedia projects in different ways. The old Vector does not meet their needs.

[Objective] The objective for the Vector 2022 skin is to make the interface more welcoming and comfortable for readers and useful for advanced users. It introduces a series of changes that aim to improve problems new and existing readers and editors were having with the old skin. It draws inspiration from previous user requests, the Community Wishlist Surveys, and gadgets and scripts. The work helped our code follow the standards and improve all other skins. The PHP code in the other available skins has been reduced by 75%. The project has also focused on making it easier to support gadgets and use APIs.

[Changes in a nutshell] The skin introduces changes that improve readability and usability. The new skin does not remove any functionality currently available on the Vector skin.

• The limited width and pin-able menus allow to adjust the interface to the screen size, and focus on editing or reading. Logged-in and logged-out users may use a toggle button to keep the full width, though.
• The sticky header makes it easier to find tools that editors use often. It decreases scrolling to the top of the page by 16%.
• The new table of contents makes it easier to navigate to different sections. Readers and editors jump to different sections of the page 50% more than with the old table of contents. It also looks a bit different on talk pages.
• The new search bar is easier to find and makes it easier to find the correct search result from the list. This increased the amount of searches started by 30% on the tested wikis.
• The skin does not negatively affect pageviews, edit rates, or account creation. There is evidence of increases in pageviews and account creation across partner communities.

[Customize this skin] It's possible to configure and personalize our changes. We support volunteers who create new gadgets and user scripts. Check out the repository for a list of currently available customizations and changes, or add your own.

Our plan

If no large concerns are raised, we plan on deploying on 31 October. If you'd like to ask our team anything, if you have questions, concerns, or additional thoughts, please comment in any language. If this is the first comment to my message, make sure to ping me. We will gladly answer! Also, check out our FAQ. Thank you!

The Vector 2022 skin as the default in three weeks?

Read this in your language • Please help translate to your language • Please tell other users about these changes

Hello. I'm writing on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Web team. In two weeks, we would like to make the Vector 2022 skin the default on this wiki.

Global preferences

If you prefer keeping the current skin select "Vector legacy (2010)" on the appearance tab of the global preferences and save the change. We encourage you to give the new skin a try, though.

Since I last came to you with this question, many things have changed. The skin is now the default on most Wikipedias, and all logos are done! We have also made some tweaks in the skin itself. Below is the text I've sent to you once, but I'm sending it again, just slightly edited, for those who haven't seen it.

If you know what this is about, jump straight to the section "Our plan":

It would become the default for all logged-out users, and also all logged-in users who currently use Vector legacy as a local (but not global) preference. Logged-in users can at any time switch to any other skin. No changes are expected for these skins.

• Top of an article
• 
  Vector legacy (current default)
• 
  Vector 2022

• A section of an article
• 
  Vector legacy (current default)
• 
  Vector 2022

About the skin

Slides to our Wikimania 2022 presentation. You may also listen to the recording on YouTube (in English).

[Why is a change necessary] When the current default skin was created, it reflected the needs of the readers and editors as these were 14 years ago. Since then, new users have begun using the Internet and Wikimedia projects in different ways. The old Vector does not meet their needs.

[Objective] The objective for the Vector 2022 skin is to make the interface more welcoming and comfortable for readers and useful for advanced users. It introduces a series of changes that aim to improve problems new and existing readers and editors were having with the old skin. It draws inspiration from previous user requests, the Community Wishlist Surveys, and gadgets and scripts. The work helped our code follow the standards and improve all other skins. The PHP code in the other available skins has been reduced by 75%. The project has also focused on making it easier to support gadgets and use APIs.

[Changes in a nutshell] The skin introduces changes that improve readability and usability. The new skin does not remove any functionality currently available on the Vector skin.

• The limited width and pin-able menus allow to adjust the interface to the screen size, and focus on editing or reading. Logged-in and logged-out users may use a toggle button to keep the full width, though.
• The sticky header makes it easier to find tools that editors use often. It decreases scrolling to the top of the page by 16%.
• The new table of contents makes it easier to navigate to different sections. Readers and editors jump to different sections of the page 50% more than with the old table of contents. It also looks a bit different on talk pages.
• The new search bar is easier to find and makes it easier to find the correct search result from the list. This increased the amount of searches started by 30% on the tested wikis.
• The skin does not negatively affect pageviews, edit rates, or account creation. There is evidence of increases in pageviews and account creation across partner communities.

[Customize this skin] It's possible to configure and personalize our changes. We support volunteers who create new gadgets and user scripts. Check out the repository for a list of currently available customizations and changes, or add your own.

Our plan

If no large concerns are raised, we plan on deploying on 14 November. If you'd like to ask our team anything, if you have questions, concerns, or additional thoughts, please comment in any language. If this is the first comment to my message, make sure to ping me. We will gladly answer! Also, check out our FAQ. Thank you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 01:07, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-06

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

Recent changes

• The mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. If you hear of any problems relating to mobile history usage please point them to the phabricator task.
• On most wikis, admins can now block users from making specific actions. These actions are: uploading files, creating new pages, moving (renaming) pages, and sending thanks. The goal of this feature is to allow admins to apply blocks that are adequate to the blocked users' activity. Learn more about "action blocks". [1][2]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 February. It will be on all wikis from 8 February (calendar). [3][4]
• Talk pages permalinks that included diacritics and non-Latin script were malfunctioning. This issue is fixed. [5]

Future changes

• 24 Wikipedias with Reference Tooltips as a default gadget are encouraged to remove that default flag. This would make Reference Previews the new default for reference popups, leading to a more consistent experience across wikis. For 46 Wikipedias with less than 4 interface admins, the change is already scheduled for mid-February, unless there are concerns. The older Reference Tooltips gadget will still remain usable and will override this feature, if it is available on your wiki and you have enabled it in your settings. [6][7]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 17:52, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-07

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

Recent changes

• The WDQS Graph Split experiment is working and loaded onto 3 test servers. The team in charge is testing the split's impact and requires feedback from WDQS users through the UI or programmatically in different channels. [8][9][10] Users' feedback will validate the impact of various use cases and workflows around the Wikidata Query service. [11][12]

Problems

• There was a bug that affected the appearance of visited links when using mobile device to access wiki sites. It made the links appear black; this issue is fixed.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 February. It will be on all wikis from 15 February (calendar). [13][14]
• As work continues on the grid engine deprecation,[15] tools on the grid engine will be stopped starting on February 14th, 2024. If you have tools actively migrating you can ask for an extension so they are not stopped. [16]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 05:34, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-09

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

Recent changes

• The mobile visual editor is now the default editor for users who never edited before, at a small group of wikis. Research shows that users using this editor are slightly more successful publishing the edits they started, and slightly less successful publishing non-reverted edits. Users who defined the wikitext editor as their default on desktop will get the wikitext editor on mobile for their first edit on mobile as well. [17]
• The mw.config value wgGlobalGroups now only contains groups that are active in the wiki. Scripts no longer have to check whether the group is active on the wiki via an API request. A code example of the above is: if (/globalgroupname/.test(mw.config.get("wgGlobalGroups"))). [18]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 February. It will be on all wikis from 29 February (calendar). [19][20]

Future changes

• The right to change edit tags (changetags) will be removed from users in Wikimedia sites, keeping it by default for admins and bots only. Your community can ask to retain the old configuration on your wiki before this change happens. Please indicate in this ticket to keep it for your community before the end of March 2024.

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MediaWiki message delivery 19:14, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-10

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

Recent changes

• The Special:Book page (as well as the associated "Create a book" functionality) provided by the old Collection extension has been removed from all Wikisource wikis, as it was broken. This does not affect the ability to download normal books, which is provided by the Wikisource extension. [21]
• Wikitech now uses the next-generation Parsoid wikitext parser by default to generate all pages in the Talk namespace. Report any problems on the Known Issues discussion page. You can use the ParserMigration extension to control the use of Parsoid; see the ParserMigration help documentation for more details.
• Maintenance on etherpad is completed. If you encounter any issues, please indicate in this ticket.
• Gadgets allow interface admins to create custom features with CSS and JavaScript. The Gadget and Gadget_definition namespaces and gadgets-definition-edit user right were reserved for an experiment in 2015, but were never used. These were visible on Special:Search and Special:ListGroupRights. The unused namespaces and user rights are now removed. No pages are moved, and no changes need to be made. [22]
• A usability improvement to the "Add a citation" in Wikipedia workflow has been made, the insert button was moved to the popup header. [23]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 March. It will be on all wikis from 7 March (calendar). [24][25]

Future changes

• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [26]
• The HTML markup of headings and section edit links will be changed later this year to improve accessibility. See Heading HTML changes for details. The new markup will be the same as in the new Parsoid wikitext parser. You can test your gadget or stylesheet with the new markup if you add ?useparsoid=1 to your URL (more info) or turn on Parsoid read views in your user options (more info).

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

MediaWiki message delivery 19:35, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-11

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 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 March. It will be on all wikis from 14 March (calendar). [27][28]
• After consulting with various communities, the line height of the text on the Minerva skin will be increased to its previous value of 1.65. Different options for typography can also be set using the options in the menu, as needed. [29]
• The active link color in Minerva will be changed to provide more consistency with our other platforms and best practices. [30]
• Structured data on Commons will no longer ask whether you want to leave the page without saving. This will prevent the “information you’ve entered may not be saved” popups from appearing when no information have been entered. It will also make file pages on Commons load faster in certain cases. However, the popups will be hidden even if information has indeed been entered. If you accidentally close the page before saving the structured data you entered, that data will be lost. [31]

Future changes

• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [32][33]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 22:45, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-12

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

Recent changes

• The notice "Language links are at the top of the page" that appears in the Vector 2022 skin main menu has been removed now that users have learned the new location of the Language switcher. [34]
• IP info feature displays data from Spur, an IP addresses database. Previously, the only data source for this feature was MaxMind. Now, IP info is more useful for patrollers. [35]
• The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. [36][37][38]
• Communities can now customize the default reasons for undeleting a page by creating MediaWiki:Undelete-comment-dropdown. [39]

Problems

• RevisionSlider is an interface to interactively browse a page's history. Users in right-to-left languages reported RevisionSlider reacting wrong to mouse clicks. This should be fixed now. [40]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 March. It will be on all wikis from 21 March (calendar). [41][42]
• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. [43][44]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 17:17, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-13

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

• An update was made on March 18th 2024 to how various projects load site, user JavaScript and CSS in Vector 2022 skin. A checklist is provided for site admins to follow.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 March. It will be on all wikis from 28 March (calendar). [45][46]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 18:37, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-14

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

• Users of the reading accessibility beta feature will notice that the default line height for the standard and large text options has changed. [47]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 April. It will be on all wikis from 4 April (calendar). [48][49]

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Foundation has an annual plan. The annual plan decides what the Wikimedia Foundation will work on. You can now read the draft key results for the Product and Technology department. They are suggestions for what results the Foundation wants from big technical changes from July 2024 to June 2025. You can comment on the talk page.

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MediaWiki message delivery 03:17, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-15

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

• Web browsers can use tools called extensions. There is now a Chrome extension called Citation Needed which you can use to see if an online statement is supported by a Wikipedia article. This is a small experiment to see if Wikipedia can be used this way. Because it is a small experiment, it can only be used in Chrome in English.
• A new Edit Recovery feature has been added to all wikis, available as a user preference. Once you enable it, your in-progress edits will be stored in your web browser, and if you accidentally close an editing window or your browser or computer crashes, you will be prompted to recover the unpublished text. Please leave any feedback on the project talk page. This was the #8 wish in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
• Initial results of Edit check experiments have been published. Edit Check is now deployed as a default feature at the wikis that tested it. Let us know if you want your wiki to be part of the next deployment of Edit check. [50][51]
• Readers using the Minerva skin on mobile will notice there has been an improvement in the line height across all typography settings. [52]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 April. It will be on all wikis from 11 April (calendar). [53][54]
• New accounts and logged-out users will get the visual editor as their default editor on mobile. This deployment is made at all wikis except for the English Wikipedia. [55]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:00, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-15

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

• Web browsers can use tools called extensions. There is now a Chrome extension called Citation Needed which you can use to see if an online statement is supported by a Wikipedia article. This is a small experiment to see if Wikipedia can be used this way. Because it is a small experiment, it can only be used in Chrome in English.
• A new Edit Recovery feature has been added to all wikis, available as a user preference. Once you enable it, your in-progress edits will be stored in your web browser, and if you accidentally close an editing window or your browser or computer crashes, you will be prompted to recover the unpublished text. Please leave any feedback on the project talk page. This was the #8 wish in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
• Initial results of Edit check experiments have been published. Edit Check is now deployed as a default feature at the wikis that tested it. Let us know if you want your wiki to be part of the next deployment of Edit check. [56][57]
• Readers using the Minerva skin on mobile will notice there has been an improvement in the line height across all typography settings. [58]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 April. It will be on all wikis from 11 April (calendar). [59][60]
• New accounts and logged-out users will get the visual editor as their default editor on mobile. This deployment is made at all wikis except for the English Wikipedia. [61]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:22, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-16

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

• Between 2 April and 8 April, on wikis using Flagged Revisions, the "Reverted" tag was not applied to undone edits. In addition, page moves, protections and imports were not autoreviewed. This problem is now fixed. [62][63]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 April. It will be on all wikis from 18 April (calendar). [64][65]
• Default category sort keys will now affect categories added by templates placed in footnotes. Previously footnotes used the page title as the default sort key even if a different default sort key was specified (category-specific sort keys already worked). [66]
• A new variable page_last_edit_age will be added to abuse filters. It tells how many seconds ago the last edit to a page was made. [67]

Future changes

• Volunteer developers are kindly asked to update the code of their tools and features to handle temporary accounts. Learn more.
• Four database fields will be removed from database replicas (including Quarry). This affects only the abuse_filter and abuse_filter_history tables. Some queries might need to be updated. [68]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:15, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-37

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

Feature news

• Starting this week, the standard syntax highlighter will receive new colors that make them compatible in dark mode. This is the first of many changes to come as part of a major upgrade to syntax highlighting. You can learn more about what's to come on the help page. [69][70]
• Editors of wikis using Wikidata will now be notified of only relevant Wikidata changes in their watchlist. This is because the Lua functions entity:getSitelink() and mw.wikibase.getSitelink(qid) will have their logic unified for tracking different aspects of sitelinks to reduce junk notifications from inconsistent sitelinks tracking. [71]

Project updates

• Users of all Wikis will have access to Wikimedia sites as read-only for a few minutes on September 25, starting at 15:00 UTC. This is a planned datacenter switchover for maintenance purposes. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [72]
• Contributors of 11 Wikipedias, including English will have a new MOS namespace added to their Wikipedias. This improvement ensures that links beginning with MOS: (usually shortcuts to the Manual of Style) are not broken by Mooré Wikipedia (language code mos). [73]

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MediaWiki message delivery 18:33, 9 September 2024 (UTC)