Tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2017 #9–#23. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available on Meta.

• Problems
  • On 22 February the wikipedia.org portal did not work for an hour. This was because of a problem with a JavaScript file. (Wikitech incident documentation)
  • Some watchlist gadgets didn't work for a period of time in the first week of March. This has now been fixed. (Wikitech mailing list)
  • Admins who click on "mass delete" on a user's Special:Contributions will be taken directly to a list pages created by that user. It has worked like this before, but not lately. (Phabricator task T158502)
  • On 15 March some interwiki links to other languages were not correctly sorted. This has been fixed. If you still see pages where the interwiki links are not sorted as they should be, they should be fixed automatically with time or you can edit the page and save it without changing anything. If this doesn't work, please report it. (Phabricator task T160465)
  • Special:AllPages was disabled for two days due to some performance issues. It is back, but the filter for redirects is gone as the cause of the performance problem. It still needs to be fixed. (Phabricator tasks T160916, T160983)
  • Wikidata descriptions, aliases and labels that used some characters could not be saved. This has now been fixed. (Phabricator task T161263)
  • After the data centre test on April 19 the content translation tool was disabled. This is because of a database problem. It was restored on April 25.(Phabricator task T163344)
  • Some users have a problem with the watchlist. Some changes in categories make the watchlist a blank page. The developers are working on this. Until this is fixed you can try some things that have helped other editors if you have this problem. You can turn on Hide categorization of pages in your watchlist preferences. You can turn off Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent in your watchlist preferences. You can remove problematic categories from Special:EditWatchlist/raw. (Phabricator task T164059)
  • There was a problem with the visual editor for several days. You could not save edits that triggered a CAPTCHA. This would for example be when a new user added external links in references. This was fixed on 2 May. (Phabricator task T164157)
  • May 25th’s MediaWiki version was rolled back from some wikis because of a problem. This means planned changes did not happen. It was fixed late the following week. (Phabricator tasks T163512, T165957)
• Recent changes
  • Editing:
    • You will be able to use <chem> to write chemical formulas in the visual editor. Previously this only worked in the wikitext editor. (Phabricator task T153365)
    • The way you switch between wikitext and the visual editors in the desktop view has changed. It is now a drop-down menu. This is the same as in the mobile view. (Phabricator task T116417)
    • When you edit with the visual editor, you will be able to switch the direction you write in from right-to-left to left-to-right as you are editing. This is especially important for editors who edit in languages that write from right to left. You can do this with a tool in the editing menu. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+X on PCs or Cmd+Shift+X on Macs. (Phabricator task T153356)
    • When you edit with the visual editor, you can see a visual diff as well as a wikitext diff when you review your changes. (MediaWiki.org documentation)
    • The list of special characters in the wikitext editor and the visual editor will now have a group of Canadian Aboriginal characters. (Phabricator task T108626)
    • Tidy is going to be replaced with an HTML5 parsing algorithm. Bad HTML in wikitext would cause problems on a number of wikis. There is now a ParserMigration extension on all wikis that you can use to help clean this up. You can read more about how you can use it. (Phabricator task T141586)
    • DMOZ no longer works. Templates that use DMOZ can be redirected to archive.org or another mirror. DMOZ has been removed from the RelatedSites extension on Wikivoyage. (Phabricator task T128326)
    • The tracking category Category:Pages with template loops is now added when a template loop is found. A template loop is for example when a template tries to use a second template that uses the first template. (Phabricator task T160743)
    • The Save page button now says Publish page or Publish changes on most Wikipedias, and on other Wikimedia wikis except for Wikinewses. The point is to make it more clear that the edit will change the page immediately. Publish page is when you save a new page and Publish changes when you edit an existing page. Information on Meta-Wiki)
    • When you edit you can switch between the visual editor and the wikitext editor. This works if the wiki you edit has the visual editor. The menu will now say Visual editing and Source editing instead of Switch to visual editing and Switch to code editing. This is because it was confusing when the menu said you could switch to the editor you were already using. (Phabricator task T162864)
    • You can now use ISBNs to automatically generate citations in the visual editor. This works on wikis that have enabled Citoid. (Phabricator task T145462)
    • String comparisons in Scribunto modules are now always done case-insensitively by byte order. Before they were sometimes in a case-sensitive US-English collation order. This could break some modules. (Phabricator task T107128)
    • The 2006 wikitext editor will be removed the week of 27 June. This is the old toolbar with small square blue buttons. You can see a picture of it. 0.03% of active Wikimedia editors use this old tool. They will not see a toolbar at all.(MediaWiki.org documentation, Phabricator task T30856)
  • Interface:
    • You can see monthly page views when you click on Page information in the sidebar. Developers can also get monthly page views through the API. (Phabricator task T125917)
    • RevisionSlider will change how you move between revisions. This will be a default feature on all wikis. RevisionSlider is an easier way to move between changes in the page history. It has been a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia and a beta feature on all wikis. You will be able to turn it off in your preferences. (Phabricator task T163685)
    • When you use the mobile view and click on a link to an article in another language you will see that article in the mobile view. Previously it changed to the desktop view. (Phabricator task T156578
    • You can now search on English, French, Hebrew and Greek wikis and find words even if you forget the diacritics. It also works if you use diacritics in your search but the wiki doesn't. (Phabricator task T155515)
    • New filters for Recent changes are now available as a beta feature on most wikis. You can turn it on in your preferences. The new filters include filtering, highlighting and, on certain wikis, user intent prediction. User intent prediction means the filter tries to make it easier for editors to determine if the edit was made in good faith or not. (Phabricator task T158332)
    • The Two Column Edit Conflict View is available as a beta feature on all wikis. It is a new interface for the edit conflict resolution page. (Phabricator task T162806)
    • You will be able to control who can notify you on the Wikimedia wikis. You will have a user blacklist. When you add a user to the blacklist you will not get a notification when they mention you. You can test this on Beta Wikipedia. You can read more and give feedback on Meta. (Phabricator task T150419)
    • Wikimedia wikis can show fewer links to articles in other languages. This is to make it easier to find the languages likely to be useful to the reader or editor. Everyone can still click to see the full list. Logged-in users who use the compact language links will see languages they have in their Babel box on their user page in the first, shorter list. You can turn the compact language list off or on in your preferences. (Phabricator task T135371)
    • You can choose what dates to look at when you look at a user's contributions. (Phabricator task T120733)
    • When you click on your watchlist in the mobile view you get a list of all pages in the watchlist instead of the latest changes to them. Logged-in users with at least ten edits will now get the latest changes instead. (Phabricator task T88270)
    • The name "Wikipedia" is more obvious at the top of the page when you read Wikipedia in the mobile view. This is because many readers don't realize they are on Wikipedia. (Phabricator task T148514, MediaWiki.org project)
  • Administrators:
    • English Wikipedia now has cookie blocks. It will come to more wikis in the future. This is an extension to the autoblock system so when a user is blocked, the next time they visit the wiki a cookie will be set. This means that even if the user switches accounts and to a new IP address the cookie will block them again. (Phabricator task T5233)
    • When administrators, bureaucrats and stewards make a user a member of a user group they can now set an expiry date. A user group is for example "administrators" or "bots". This means that they can give someone user rights for a limited time. This is similar to how blocks and page protections can be limited in time. Special:UserRights will have new options for this. You can read more about user groups. (Phabricator task T159416)
    • You can now see a list of all autoblocks on Special:AutoblockList. (Phabricator task T146414)
    • The "flag the edit in the abuse log" checkbox will be removed from the abuse filter interface. This is because the edits are always flagged in the abuse log. (Phabricator task T154091)
    • Administrators will soon be able to search through deleted pages. (MediaWiki.org notes,Community Wishlist Survey discussion on Meta-Wiki)
  • Scripts:
    • Some older web browsers are no longer able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis. If you have an old web browser on your computer you can upgrade to a newer version. (Phabricator task T128115)
    • You can add ?safemode=1 to the end of the URL on Wikimedia wikis to disable your personal CSS and JavaScript. Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature?safemode=1. This means you can test if a problem is because of your user scripts or gadgets without uninstalling them. (Phabricator task T152169)
    • Scripts using very old deprecated wikibits functions show errors. These functions have not worked since 2013. You should fix or disable broken scripts. You can see examples of how to upgrade scripts. You need to add mw.loader.using( 'mediawiki.util' ) block for your scripts also, or add mediawiki.util dependency in gadget ResourceLoader section in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition. (Wikitech mailing list,Phabricator task T122755)
    • There will be a <div> tag around HTML from the MediaWiki wikitext parser. Gadgets with code that does not follow recommendations could have problems with this. You can report new problems you think are related to this. (Phabricator task T37247)
  • Other projects:
    • You will be able to show references from <references /> tags in more than one column on your wiki. This is the list of footnotes for the sources in the article. How many columns you see will depend on how big your screen is. On some wikis, some templates already do this. Templates that use <references /> tags will need to be updated, and then later the change can happen for all reference lists. This feature will be deployed turned off by default. It can be turned on at a local wiki by requesting a configuration change. (Phabricator task T33597, MediaWiki.org project)
    • The Linter extension is now on smaller Wikimedia wikis. It helps editors find some wikitext errors so they can be fixed. It will come to other Wikimedia wikis later. The extension will be able to find more errors later. (Phabricator task T148609)
    • The Wikiversity and Wikinews logos are now shown directly from the configuration and not from [[File:Wiki.png]]. If you want to change logo or have an anniversary logo, see how to request a configuration change. This is how it already works for other projects. They can request logo changes the same way. (Phabricator task T161980)
    • Wiktionary will handle interlanguage links in a new way. The Cognate extension will automatically link pages with the same title between Wiktionaries. For this to work all old interlanguage links have to be removed. You can read more about this. (MediaWiki.org announcement)
    • The MediaWiki-Vagrant portable development environment has been updated to use Debian Jessie. This means local development and testing will be more like on the majority of Wikimedia production servers. (Wikitech mailing list)
    • Your Meta user page is shown on all wikis where you don't have a local user page. You can now add the magic word __NOGLOBAL__ to your Meta user page to stop this. (Phabricator task T90849, MediaWiki.org documentation)
    • The Architecture Committee will change and get a new name. You can read and comment on the draft that describes the new committee.
    • You can upload 3D files to Commons. The file formats are AMF and STL. The plan is for this to work with the STL first; the AMF format will be available later. (Phabricator tasks T132058 & T158830)
  • New tools
    • The GuidedTour extension will be enabled on all wikis. This is a tool to explain to new users how to edit. (Phabricator task T152827)
    • Wikimedia wikis use OCG to create PDFs. The OCG code has a lot of problems and will stop working. It has to be replaced. An alternative is Electron. You can tell the developers what you need the PDF service to be able to do. Electron already works on German Wikipedia. It will be on English Wikipedia later this week so you can test it there too. (Phabricator task T165956)
• Future changes
  • CSS in templates will be stored in a separate page in the future. (Q&A, discussion on MediaWiki.org)
  • stats.wikimedia.org will be replaced. You can see the new prototype. You can leave feedback on this change.
  • Page Previews will be turned on for logged-out users on a large number of wikis in May. It could be postponed and happen later. Page Previews shows readers a short part of a linked article when they rest their mouse pointer on the link. This is to help them understand what it is about without leaving the article they are reading. Page Previews used to be called Hovercards. Users who have tested the feature can give feedback. Notes on Meta-Wiki)
  • All Wikimedia wikis will have cookie blocks from May 8. This is an extension to the autoblock system so when a user is blocked, the next time they visit the wiki a cookie will be set. This means that even if the user switches accounts and to a new IP address the cookie will block them again. (Phabricator task T5233)
  • The Publish changes, Show preview and Show changes buttons will look slightly different. This is to fit with the OOUI look. Users can test scripts, gadgets and so on to see if they work with the new interface by adding &ooui=1 to the URL. (Phabricator task T162849)
  • You will be able to get a notification when a page you created is connected to a Wikidata item. This will come to Wikivoyage on 9 May. If there are no problems it will come to most Wikipedias on 30 May. It will come to other projects and English, French and German Wikipedia later in the summer. It will be opt-in for existing users and opt-out for new users. (Phabricator task T142102)
  • Markup that looks like code for language variants might need to be fixed. If -{ is used in transclusions or web addresses it has to be escaped appropriately. You can use -<nowiki/>{ for transclusions and %2D{ in web addresses. A transclusion could for example be when you use -{ in a template: {{1x| sad :-{ face }}. This is because of some code fixes to the preprocessor and affects all wikis. (Wikimedia code review, MediaWiki.org documentation)

New tools

• MTC! (short for "Move to Commons!") by User:Fastily is an easy-to-use tool that simplifies and streamlines the transferring of files to Commons. MTC! includes mass-transfer options and a built-in file filter which skips non-free and other Commons-ineligible files.

New user scripts to customise your Wikipedia experience

• Word Count^[1] (source) by User:Caorongjin – Adds a link to the sidebar's toolbox to view various page size statistics. A variant on Prose Size that offers actual counting of words rather than counting whitespace characters, and handles separate counting of references.
• deCapitalizer^[2] (source) by User:WikiMasterGhibif - This script decapitalizes the selected text when the button is pressed.
• Raw Source Link^[3] (source) by User:Kangaroopower – Adds a portlet that links to the raw source of a js/css page.
• Footnote Cleanup^[4] (source) by User:Erutuon – Moves references, footnotes, and citation needed tags after punctuation.
• Image Size^[5] (source) by User:Erutuon – Converts image sizes in pixels to upright (scaling) values, as pixel sizes are officially discouraged by WP:IMGSIZE except when absolutely necessary.
• XFDcloser^[6] (source) by User:Evad37 – Close XfD discussions at AfD, CfD, FfD, MfD, RfD, and TfD, including actions to implement closes (e.g. deleting pages for "delete" results [admins only], removing nomination templates and adding 'old xfd' templates for "keep" results, etc)
• RefMan^[7] (source) by User:Uglemat - Allows you to edit and merge references.

Newly approved bot tasks

• JJMC89 bot (task 10) – Correct coordinate parameter errors and warnings from the enwiki ghel report.
• Pi bot (approval) – Fetches feeds and creates a wikitable from them (with appropriate formatting changes).
• Bender the Bot (task 8) – Convert http:// to https:// for certain domains.
• PrimeBOT (task 12) – Remove {{Research help}} template being deleted after TfD.
• MusikBot (task 11) – Replaces certain categories on BLPs to the BLP-specific counterpart.
• TheMagikBOT (task 3) – Replaces www.www. with www.
• MinusBot (approval) – Replaces hyphens by minus signs in superscripts and subscripts, as appropriate.
• JJMC89 bot (task 11) – Update MassMessage lists based on user groups from logs.
• BU RoBOT (task 36) – Changes "Game notes" headings to "Game summaries" in college football season articles.
• GreenC bot (task 4) – Convert machine-specific URLs at Internet Archive to generic work page URLs.
• PrimeBOT (task 14) – Fix Wikipedia:Wikipedia: links in bluelinks.
• BU RoBOT (task 35) – Slightly alters text in non-free use rationales to incorporate a new Supreme Court ruling (Star Athletica v Varsity Brands).
• PrimeBOT (task 15) – Change syntax usage of {{Episode list/sublist}} to allow for greater compatibility.
• Joe's Null Bot (task 12) – Purge/forcelinkupdate Category:All files proposed for deletion.
• JJMC89 bot (task 12) – Enforce WP:Non-free content criteria#10c.
• Magic links bot (approval) – Replace magic links with templates per RfC.
• AnomieBOT III (task 4) – When a redirect was broken by a move-without-redirect, update it instead of deleting it.
• Joe's Null Bot (task 13) – Purge WP:PCB once per hour.
• PrimeBOT (task 16) – Update links to Cornell's Law School (i.e. fix dead links).
• UKBot (approval) – Checks the contributions of enrolled users in writing contests and updates the result page.
• TPBot (task 3) – Uses Petscan to update Wikipedia:Featured articles/By length.
• Helpful Pixie Bot (task 54) – Replaces deprecated template {{This is a redirect}}, and using formatting as per the documentation {{Redirect category shell}}.
• UsuallyNonviolentBot (task 2) – Remove |$N= from Module:Unsubst.
• PrimeBOT (task 17) – Remove UTM parameters (Google analytics) from external links and references.