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 whitespace on Special:Contributions now displays correctly in Opera. (r39194, bug 15127)
• The access key alt-shift-i for 'minor edit' on Firefox 3 now works correctly. (r39287, bug 14757)
• The layout of Special:Allpages is no longer disrupted by pages with very long names. (r39515, bug 15186)

• Special:Listusers now accepts a username instead of or as well as a group name; for instance, Special:Listusers/Ais523 (note the capital A) is now a valid link, to accompany the existing syntax Special:Listusers/sysop (r39269, bug 15146). The same changes were also made to links to Special:Log (e.g. Special:Log/Ais523 now works) (r39518, bug 15194).
• Special:ProtectedPages can now be used to list only cascading protections. (r39290, bug 15141)
• \omicron and \Omicron are now valid syntax for omicron in <math> tags. (r39593, bug 13856)

• 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 Arbitration Committee closed one case this week, leaving three currently open. A motion also passed on a previous case.

• 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. As a result of the case, both administrators were prohibited from taking any administrative action with respect to Giano II.

• A motion was accepted in the Privatemusings case, which was originally closed in December 2007. Remedy 2, which restricted Privatemusings from editing articles related to biographies of living persons, was removed; in its place, Privatemusings was put under the mentorship of Lar, Jayvdb and Durova. If no issues arise, the mentorship would lapse after 90 days (on November 15, 2008).

• 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, was subject to a motion to dismiss, which has since been withdrawn.

• Alastair Haines: A case involving Alastair Haines and other users.

• SlimVirgin-Lar: A case brought by Thatcher, asking the committee to review the use of checkuser by Lar, in the light of comments by SlimVirgin (here, inter alia), alleging that he misused the tool. Evidence is to be submitted privately to the committee by e-mail, and voting will presumably occur privately as well.