Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Some bug fixes or new features described below have not yet gone live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.4 (a8dd895), and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active. Configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.

Seven bots / bot tasks were approved in the past week:

• JCbot – To add portal boxes to article and category pages.
• CobraBot – To add OCLC# parameter to pages that use Template:Infobox Book based on ISBN in the infobox, if given.
• KingpinBot – To add WikiProject templates to the talk pages of pages, and send WikiProject newsletters and notices.
• SmackBot – To update names of arguments in infoboxes together, along with general infobox tidying.
• SmackBot – To add listas parameter to biography talk pages.
• Yobot – WikiProject Biography tagging.
• MGA73bot – To help migrate GFDL images, and move some images to Commons.

• A backwards compatibility fix has been implemented for file uploading on MediaWiki, allowing uploading tools including Commonist to work once again and resolving other uploading bugs that occurred with the September 16 code update on Wikimedia projects. [1]
• The LocalisationUpdate extension had bugs that cause very high CPU usage, making it not suitable for deployment. The initial update.php run involved very heavy database queries, slowing down replication. Then, the code that checked for the last update.php run was using stale data from the slave servers. The extension has been modified to instead use a file-based storage system, and the extension is being tested before being deployed on Wikimedia sites. (bug 20774)
• The file history page has been updated to show the thumbnail column only if the file type is an image. (r56917, bug 17747)

• A new permission (sendemail) has been added to MediaWiki. This is set as enabled by default, but could be used to deal with spam problems. (r56962)

• Chief developer Brion Vibber has announced he is leaving his position with the Wikimedia Foundation, and will be taking a new position as chief developer of StatusNet. (See "News and notes")

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In this issue

28 September 2009 (all comments)

Opinion essay

Localisation improvements

Office hours

News and notes

In the news

Discussion report

WikiProject report

Features and admins

Arbitration report

Technology report

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• And we mourn the loss of this page's acronymic namesake to a different project. Sigh. Radagast (talk) 03:44, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • This was my exact thought. I hope the acronym will not be changed (as there have been repeated demands for). The Signpost is entitled to its own inside jokes dammit! Circeus (talk) 17:00, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • If someone decides we must change it: Technology is a brainy subject; we could just change the capitalization: Bugs, Repairs, And Internal-operational News --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 13:27, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• I commented on Brion's post, and he replied "And I’d be honored if you keep the B.R.I.O.N. ;)", which would also be my preferred option. Full disclosure: I am a Private Eye reader :) . - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 16:48, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Let's keep it as B.R.I.O.N. until we demonstrably get someone with far more wiki tech contributions. =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 09:36, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]