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.

• The Cortado player (used to play .ogg files) now stops at the right moment rather than continuing for several minutes on low-performance computers. (bug 11445http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11445)
• The Cortado player's control bar no longer covers the bottom of a video it's playing. (r36977, bug 13795)
• Several bugs were fixed in the CategoryTree extension (which shows hierarchical lists of subcategories on category pages):
  • Subcategories with no subsubcategories now no longer show a link to display their subsubcategories. (r36886, bug 11132)
  • Empty subcategories now have the message stating that they are empty with certain combinations of options that were buggy beforehand. (r36886, bug 12149)
  • The [+] link now links to the category it references when JavaScript is not enabled, rather than doing nothing. (r36773, bug 13680)
  • Subcategories are now shown in normal font rather than in bold. (r37054, bug 14730)
• When a page is created and then immediately moved, its new title now appears in Special:Newpages. (r36938, bug 3481)
• Unprotecting an unprotected page no longer creates a log entry. (r36967, bug 12716)
• The length (in characters) of a block expiry time is now limited to 50 characters, to prevent it corrupting the display of the block log. (r36980, bug 14088)
• Double-escaping was fixed in the RSS feed for log entries. (r37202, bug 14646)
• The parsing of MediaWiki:Loginsuccess was fixed; previously many more complicated constructions failed to parse due to mistakes in the way it was parsed. (r37209, bug 14709)

• Special:SpecialPages now has a Table of Contents. (r36907, bug 13862)
• The meta=siteinfo API query now returns a wiki's timezone and writing direction (UTC and left-to-right for enwiki). (r37034, bug 14723)
• It is now possible to mark a gadget (Special:Gadgets) as enabled for all users by default (with [default] at the end of its line in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition), or as limited to certain groups of users (with [rights:]). (bugs 13742 and 12211, r37263) reverted in r37278

• Global accounts can now only be administered by stewards, not by Meta bureaucrats. (bug 14461http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14461)
• The new toolserver URL has been whitelisted so that linking to the toolserver does not trigger CAPTCHAs for anonymous users. (bug 14632http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14632)

• 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.

Drawing discussion this week are a request for comment regarding administrative bots, and a discussion regarding a proposed MediaWiki extension that could allow administrators to add specific restrictions against actions made on-wiki.

A request for comment is currently ongoing regarding the use of administrative bots. Bot accounts have historically been denied adminship in most cases, even where the task is relatively non-controversial. As a result, some administrators have resorted to running automated bots on their main account, where they can access the administrative tools. Discussion centers mainly around what process should be used to approve such bots as a community.

Another discussion centers around a new, powerful extension (AbuseFilter) that could allow administrators to add specific restrictions regarding specific types of edits, page moves or other actions; these restrictions range from denying the user the right to make such edits, to blocking the user in obvious cases of vandalism. The actions could be different based on edit count, account age, and other variables relating to the user making the action in question.

After vacating a controversial case last week (see archived story), the Arbitration Committee issued a final report on the matter on July 4. It reads:

The Committee has decided to issue a Final Report on the Orangemarlin case, now resolved without formal proceedings by a voluntary mentoring agreement. What is said here is on the basis of an exhaustive review of all discussions relevant to the handling of the matter. It takes into account feedback from observers on our ArbCom mailing list.

This report supersedes earlier statements.

(1) Role of FT2

It was always an unlikely explanation that FT2, who is known for his careful and thorough work on and for Wikipedia, had wittingly gone outside and deliberately flouted our standard procedures. Part of the blame lies on email discussion as a way to get work done. The Committee takes collective responsibility for what occurred. Inferences that have been made, adverse to FT2's reputation for care, are simply not well founded.

(2) Handling of matters in private and public

We want to clarify the nature of two types of ArbCom "paths" - ways of handling matters, that are not the usual cases held in the Wikipedia: namespace. These are

(a) Summary actions (such as are often applied to serious sockpuppetry investigations); (b) Privately-held cases.

We do not hold cases under (b) that are handled under the terms of (a). That would be the kind of "secret trial" that has been alleged. We do not hold such private cases without the participation of the parties. Orangemarlin was handled directly under (a).

We shall make it a rule not to have such matters tracked this way in future, but the core of the problem can be said to lie in this point: trying to specify a completely rule-based system here failed us.

Meanwhile, a request for comment on the Committee and its role has received an unprecedented 650KB of discussion, and nearly 2,000 edits.

• A project to redesign the Main Page has been suggested, and is currently accepting design proposals. The page was last revamped in March 2006.
• The Polish Wikibooks has reached 3000 articles.

The Arbitration Committee opened one case last week, and closed one case, leaving three cases currently open.

• Giovanni33: A case involving the accusation of sockpuppetry by Giovanni33. The Committee has named at least fifteen accounts as likely sockpuppets of Giovanni33. As a result of the case, Giovanni33 and his proxy accounts were banned for one year. A proposed remedy that would have automatically renewed the ban every year, absent a decision by ArbCom to vacate the ban, was rejected; jpgordon called it "an end-run against our usual maximum one-year ban". Giovanni33 has, however, been banned indefinitely by the community as well.

• Geogre-William M. Connolley: A case involving wheel warring between Geogre and William M. Connolley. William M. Connolley inappropriately extended a block on Giano II, while Geogre inappropriately reversed the block, and reversed page protection on Giano's talk page. The case is currently in the voting phase; remedies targeting the behavior of Geogre, William M. Connolley and Avruch, and potentially modifying remedy 2.2 in IRC are still under discussion.

• Yorkshirian: A case involving perceived incivility from Yorkshirian. A remedy to ban Yorkshirian for one year has the support of five arbitrators, with none opposing.

• C68-FM-SV: A case involving disputes between Cla68, FeloniousMonk, SlimVirgin, JzG, and others. The case, which has seen little-to-no public input from arbitrators, is currently subject to a motion to dismiss, with the support of one arbitrator.