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 pages had incorrect information stored about their protection status, making it impossible to unprotect them; unprotection of such pages is now possible. (r31243, bug 13132) (This change had problems and was reverted in r31276.)

• A new magic word __HIDDENCAT__ has been added; if the template is placed on a category description page, it causes that category to not appear in the list of categories at the bottom of non-category pages it is included in. On-wiki discussion is at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#HIDDENCAT; this change, and the next, were mentioned in this mailing list post. (r31113, corrected in r31121 due to bug 13085http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13085)
• The way that redlinks (links to nonexistent pages, like this one) are handled has changed to be clearer to new users. Hovering a redlink now displays the text "(not yet written)" in the tooltip (this is customisable via MediaWiki:Red-link-title); clicking on a redlink acts as before, except that if a user clicks on a redlink to a page that they cannot create (for instance, an unregistered user clicking on a redlink to an article), instead of opening the edit page and an error message saying that editing is impossible, the ordinary view page for the nonexistent article will be opened. (r31140, bug 13058)
• It's now possible to create user groups that can edit fully-protected pages but not protect or unprotect pages. (Such user groups, however, have not yet been created; community consensus would likely be required for this, and to sort out the details of how it would be granted.) The feature was intended to allow the creation of bots that can edit protected pages. (r31247, bug 13137)

• Many users have had problems staying logged in this week; some pages showed the user in question as being logged out, when the user had logged in (even with 'Remember me' selected). This problem was reported in many different places (there is a list on the technical village pump). The cause of the problem has apparently now been fixed, but some pages may still cause the problem; if you come across a page that shows you to be logged out, try purging that page, which should permanently fix the problem for that page.
• There have been some changes in the way that parser functions and templates work in interface messages, to make them behave more like they do in other pages; therefore, any techniques that work around the old behaviour will no longer work, and should be updated.

• 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.

Wikimania 2008 representatives have issued their Call for Participation; submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, posters, open spaces, and artistic artifacts are currently being accepted. The deadline is March 16, and submissions, if accepted, will be presented at Wikimania 2008, to be held from July 17 through July 19, 2008, in Alexandria, Egypt.

• The military history WikiProject's fifth coordinator election concludes on Thursday. Long-time lead coordinator Kirill Lokshin is not seeking re-election. Fifteen users are seeking nine co-coordinator spots; it is likely that one of the nine elected will hold a lead coordinator position.
• The English Wikipedia has reached 1,500 administrators.
• The Wikimedia Commons has reached 2,500,000 media files.
• The German Wikipedia has reached 2,000,000 total pages.
• The Esperanto Wikipedia has reached 1,500,000 edits.
• The Aymar Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.
• The Xhosa Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Thai Wikipedia has reached 1,000,000 edits.
• The Chechen Wikipedia has reached 200 articles.

The Arbitration Committee opened one new case this week, and closed no cases, leaving six currently open.

• New World Translation: A case involving alleged misconduct in a content dispute on New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.

• Mantanmoreland: A case involving alleged sockpuppetry by Mantanmoreland, which he denies.

• Franco-Mongol alliance: A case involving alleged misconduct over a dispute on Franco-Mongol alliance and related articles.

• Episodes and characters 2: A case involving alleged continuing disruption of articles concerning television series episodes and characters, following on from a prior case. An injunction has been enacted halting certain editing activities on these articles until the case is resolved. Kirill Lokshin has proposed remedies prohibiting TTN from requesting merges, redirections or deletions of these articles, and instructing all parties to "cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question".

• Ehud Lesar: A case involving a dispute involving Ehud Lesar, with alleged sockpuppetry on his part and alleged harassment by Fedayee, Eupator and others. Sam Blacketer has proposed a remedy, with the support of four arbitrators, finding that there is insufficient evidence of sockpuppetry and overturning the block.

• 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, with the support of two arbitrators, counselling editors to consider contributing outside of disputed articles. UninvitedCompany has proposed a motion to dismiss the case as a content dispute.