This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that not all changes described here are necessarily live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.12 (8b8c762), 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.

• Some interface bugs were fixed in the new 'Modern' skin, where certain elements (such as the new-messages bar and footer) were incorrectly styled, meaning that they were either the wrong colour or in the wrong position. (bugs 12876, 12863 and 12894; r30455 and r30490)
• Some invalid HTML in the deletion-confirm screen has been fixed. (r30458, bug 12887)

• There is a new magic word {{ROOTPAGENAME}} (and an escaped version {{ROOTPAGENAMEE}}) that returns the name of the non-subpage page that the current page is a subpage (directly or indirectly) of; for instance, the ROOTPAGENAME of Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-02-04/Technology report is Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost. (r30413, bug 12872, later reverted in r30547)
• A prop=imageinfo query in the API now returns a query-continue the same way that other API queries do. (r30483, bug 12875)

• The removal of the query.php API is being considered; it is recommended that bots and scripts that use it switch to the newer api.php API.
• It has now been made technically impossible for administrators to delete or move the Main Page. (Note that the technical block prevents the deletion-confirmation screen appearing; if the confirmation screen does appear for a deletion, then it means that the deletion is possible and should therefore probably not be attempted.) This follows on from two recent deletions of the Main Page; the first was as a result of an administrator having been told that the deletion was impossible and trying it for himself (ANI report), and the second to history-merge a lot of dummy revisions onto the Main Page in an attempt to push it over the large-history deletion limit (AN report); note that developers have since requested that this not be done on any page. The history of the Main Page has since been restored.

• Internationalisation has been continuing as normal; help is always appreciated! See mw:Localisation statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to bugzilla or use Betawiki.

• The Wu Wikipedia has reached both 500 and 1,000 articles.
• The Turkish Wikipedia has reached 100,000 articles.
• The Finnish Wikipedia has reached 150,000 articles.
• The Vietnamese Wikipedia has reached 30,000 articles.
• The Limburgish Wiktionary has reached 5,000 entries.
• The Luxembourgish Wikipedia has reached 20,000 articles.
• The Zealandic Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.
• The Quechua Wikipedia has reached 6,000 articles.
• The Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia has reached 15,000 articles.
• The Norwegian (Bokmål) Wikipedia has reached 150,000 articles.
• The German Wikipedia has reached 700,000 articles.
• The Italian Wikinews has reached 5,000 articles.
• The Malay Wiktionary has reached 500 entries.
• The Romansh Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles.

The Arbitration Committee opened one new case this week, and closed one case, leaving six currently open.

• Bluemarine: A case involving alleged civility and COI violations by User:Bluemarine on Matt Sanchez, the article on himself, which has also been edited tendentiously (from a hostile point of view) by a number of other editors, many of whom have been blocked. As a result of the case, Bluemarine was banned for one year and the article placed on article probation.

• Ehud Lesar: A case involving a dispute involving Ehud Lesar, with alleged sockpuppetry on his part and alleged harrasment by Fedayee, Eupator and others.

• Episodes and characters 2: A case involving alleged continuing disruption of articles concerning television series episodes and characters, following on from a prior case.

• Waterboarding: A case involving a dispute between a large number of editors on Waterboarding, relating to the question as to whether the technique should be described as torture. Remedies placing the article on article probation and imposing a "general restriction" have the support of two arbitrators.

• Highways 2: A case involving editing by NE2 on articles relating to WikiProject U.S. Roads, allegedly against consensus of other editors involved with that wikiproject. A remedy has been proposed counselling editors to consider contributing outside of disputed articles.

• IRC: A case involving an alleged personal attack by Tony Sidaway on Bishonen on #wikipedia-en-admins, which led to an edit war on WP:WEA, involving page protection and unprotection by David Gerard, Geogre and others, and a block of Giano II, which was quickly undone. Voting on remedies relating to Giano is split (although an editing restriction remedy is at 3-1), but a remedy subjecting Tony Sidaway to an editing restriction for one year has the support of three arbitrators, and a proposal stating that the committee will determine "Policy and procedure changes regarding Wikipedia IRC channels" separately to the case. If closed, all parties would be "strongly cautioned to pursue disputes in a civil manner designed to contribute to resolution and to cause minimal disruption".

• Matthew Hoffman: A case involving controversial blocks of MatthewHoffman by a vanished user. If closed, he would be "provisionally" desysopped for six months, and Matthew Hoffman's block log annotated to reflect the arbitrators' view that the blocks were unjustified. However, Newyorkbrad has opposed the motion to close.