Today we threw the big lever and turned on our new search backend at
mediawiki.org. It isn't the default yet but it is just about ready for you
to try. Here is what is we think we've improved:
1. Templates are now expanded during search so:
1a. You can search for text included in templates
1b. You can search for categories included in templates
2. The search engine is updated very quickly after articles change.
3. A few funky things around intitle and incategory:
3a. You can combine them with a regular query (incategory:kings peaceful)
3b. You can use prefix searches with them (incategory:norma*)
3c. You can use them everywhere in the query (roger incategory:normans)
What we think we've made worse and we're working on fixing:
1. Because we're expanding templates some things that probably shouldn't
be searched are being searched. We've fixed a few of these issues but I
wouldn't be surprised if more come up. We opened Bug 53426 regarding audio
tags.
2. The relative weighting of matches is going to be different. We're
still fine tuning this and we'd appreciate any anecdotes describing search
results that seem out of order.
3. We don't currently index headings beyond the article title in any
special way. We'll be fixing that soon. (Bug 53481)
4. Searching for file names or clusters of punctuation characters doesn't
work as well as it used to. It still works reasonably well if you surround
your query in quotes but it isn't as good as it was. (Bugs 53013 and 52948)
5. "Did you mean" suggestions currently aren't highlighted at all and
sometimes we'll suggest things that aren't actually better. (Bugs 52286 and
52860)
6. incategory:"category with spaces" isn't working. (Bug 53415)
What we've changed that you probably don't care about:
1. Updating search in bulk is much more slow then before. This is the
cost of expanding templates.
2. Search is now backed by a horizontally scalable search backend that is
being actively developed (Elasticsearch) so we're in a much better place to
expand on the new solution as time goes on.
Neat stuff if you run your own MediaWiki:
CirrusSearch is much easier to install than our current search
infrastructure.
So what will you notice? Nothing! That is because while the new search
backend (CirrusSearch) is indexing we've left the current search
infrastructure as the default while we work on our list of bugs. You can
see the results from CirrusSearch by performing your search as normal and
adding "&srbackend=CirrusSearch" to the url parameters.
If you notice any problems with CirrusSearch please file bugs directly for
it:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=MediaWiki%20extensions…
Nik Everett
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puck_of_Pook%27s_Hill#Original_illustrations
The last line (at most widths) is much taller than the others, which is
aesthetically ugly.
I honestly cannot think of any case where having the lines be different
heights would be preferable. I could see not using the full width available
to even out multiple lines, but not making one line much larger.
This mode is meant to replace the old mode, but such unaesthetic behaviour
would make this impractical.
-Adam
FYI for the below. Let me know if you see anything odd or have any
questions!
Greg
----- Forwarded message from Greg Grossmeier <greg(a)wikimedia.org> -----
> Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 14:08:33 -0700
> From: Greg Grossmeier <greg(a)wikimedia.org>
> To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Deploy schedule - Week of September 2nd, 2013
>
> Deployment Schedule and Highlights
> Week of September 2nd, 2013
>
> Full schedule:
> https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deployments#Week_of_September_2nd
>
>
> == Monday ==
> No deploys! US holiday! (Labor Day)
>
>
> == Tuesday ==
> * E2: Deploying updates/bug fixes to Echo and PageTriage
> * MediaWiki Core: We'll be deploying 1.22wmf15 to all non-Wikipedia
> sites (Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wikiquote,
> Wikiversity, and a few other sites)
> ** See the release notes here:
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.22/wmf15
>
>
> == Wednesday ==
> * Wikipedia Zero: Finalizing their intended code
> * MobileFrontEnd: Graciously moved to Wed to allow MWCore on Tuesday.
> * Gerrit: The machine that hosts Gerrit will be swapped for a much more
> powerful machine. This should not cause any issues to end users if
> things go to plan.
>
>
> == Thursday ==
> * MediaWiki Core: Version 1.22wmf15 will be deployed to all Wikipedia
> language sites.
> * MediaWiki Core: The next release of MediaWiki, 1.22wmf16, will be
> deployed to the test wiki group (test.wikipedia, test2.wikipedia,
> test.wikidata, and mediawiki.org)
> * E3 is deploying bug fixes to GuidedTour and GettingStarted.
>
> == Friday ==
> No deploys! It's Friday!
>
>
> Have a good weekend and let me know if you have any questions,
>
> Greg
>
> --
> | Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E |
> | identi.ca: @greg A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D |
----- End forwarded message -----
--
| Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E |
| identi.ca: @greg A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D |
On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 3:19 PM, Tyler Romeo <tylerromeo(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> After many months of struggle, WMF takes one big step towards a more secure
> Wikipedia. Good job everybody!
Agreed - fantastic to see this out the door :-). Thanks to everyone
who made it happen.
Erik
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
== HTTPS enabled by default for logged-in users on Wikimedia sites ==
Today, August 28, the Wikimedia Foundation is making a change to the
software that powers the Wikimedia projects: By default, all logged-in
users will now be using HTTPS to access Wikimedia sites. What this does
is encrypt the connection between the Wikimedia servers and the user's
browser so that the information sent between the two is not readable by
anyone else. This is in response to the recent concerns over the privacy
and security of our user community, and we explained the rationale for
this change in our post about the future of HTTPS at Wikimedia[0].
===What this means for you ===
How this works is simple: If a user wants to log in, they will be
redirected to use HTTPS for the login, thus keeping their username and
password secure. After they are logged in, they stay on the HTTPS
version of the Wikimedia site they are using.
=== Excluded Countries ===
Some users live in areas where HTTPS is not an easy option, most times
because of explicit blocking by a government. At the request of these
communities, we have made an explicit exclusion for users from those
affected countries. Simply put, users from China and Iran will not be
required to use HTTPS for logging in, nor for viewing any Wikimedia
project site
===Disabling===
Are you having a slow or unreliable experience while browsing Wikimedia
sites over HTTPS? Then you can turn HTTPS off in your user preferences,
under the "User profile" tab: Uncheck "Always use a secure connection
when logged in". You will need to log out and log in again for the
preference to take effect. But remember, you will still need to log in
using the secure HTTPS process.
===HELP!===
For further details, please see the HTTPS[1] page on Meta-Wiki, which is
available in several languages.
Are you unable to log in and edit a Wikimedia wiki after this change?
Please contact the Wikimedia Foundation Operations team via any means
you find comfortable, including this blog post's comments section, on
IRC in the #wikimedia-operations channel, or via the https(a)wikimedia.org
email address.
Greg Grossmeier
[0]
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/08/01/future-https-wikimedia-projects/
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/HTTPS
--
| Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E |
| identi.ca: @greg A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D |
Hello,
This is a reminder that the Language Engineering team will be hosting
an hour long bug triage for R-T-L bugs later today, i.e. August 28,
2013 at 1700 UTC/1000 PDT on the IRC channel #mediawiki-i18n
(Freenode).
etherpad link: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/BugTriage-i18n-2013-08
Thanks
Runa
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Runa Bhattacharjee <rbhattacharjee(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 11:56 AM
Subject: Language Engineering bug triage session for RTL language bugs
- Aug 28th 2013, Wednesday 1700 UTC/1000PDT
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia
Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, MediaWiki
internationalisation <mediawiki-i18n(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hello,
The Wikimedia Language Engineering team will be hosting a bug triage
session on Wednesday, August 28th 2013 at 17:00 UTC (10:00 PDT) for
some of the bugs that exist in languages written from Right-to-Left
(RTL). During this 1 hour session we will be using the etherpad
linked below to collaborate. We have already listed some bugs, but
please feel free to add more bugs (or file new ones!), and comments
about what you’d like to see addressed during the session. You can
send questions directly to me on email or IRC (nick: arrbee). Please
see below for the event details.
Thank you.
regards
Runa
=== Event Details ===
# What: Bug triage session for RTL language bugs
# Date: August 28, 2013 (Wednesday)
# Time: 1700-1800 UTC, 1000-1100 PDT (Timezone conversion:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20130828T1700
)
# IRC Channel: #mediawiki-i18n (Freenode)
# Etherpad: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/BugTriage-i18n-2013-08
Questions can be sent to: runa at wikimedia dot org
--
Language Engineering - Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
Hello Ambassadors!
Thread below, but, the gist of it is:
On Thursday (Aug 29th) we'll enable the CodeEditor extension for all CSS
and Javascript on Wikimedia project sites. This should be a great
improvement for people editing code on-wiki.
MZ started a page on metawiki describing CodeEditor and what purpose it
serves (thanks MZ!) and was looking for translations and wider exposure.
I agreed with him that it's a good idea (better documentation and
communication is always good ;) ).
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CodeEditor
With that, I ask: Please do help translate that page and share it where
you deem appropriate. Questions here or on the article talk page
welcome!
Thanks!
Greg
----- Forwarded message from MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> -----
> Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 22:01:55 -0400
> From: MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com>
> To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] CodeEditor deployment (was [Wikitech-ambassadors]
> Deployment highlights for the week of August 26th)
> Reply-To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>
> Helder . wrote:
> >On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 6:39 PM, Greg Grossmeier <greg(a)wikimedia.org>
> >wrote:
> >> == Thursday ==
> >> * CodeEditor support will be enabled for all JS and CSS on all wikis
> >
> >Without fixing the bug which makes it use spaces instead of tabs?
> >Seriously?
> >https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39616
>
> This bug is now resolved/fixed. :-) Thanks to Alex M. and Ori L. for
> working on this.
>
> I created <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CodeEditor>. Any help getting
> this page translated and advertised (to the ambassadors mailing list,
> etc.) would be great. It should possibly be merged with
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CodeEditor> in the future, but
> for now it seemed more right to keep the two separate.
>
> There was a fleeting thought of having the WikimediaMessages extension
> hook into the CodeEditor extension to add a header message above the edit
> window if CodeEditor is activated. This header message could be used to
> explain what CodeEditor is and link to more information about it, but...
> it's probably more trouble than it's worth to implement this.
>
> And I came across <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/53300> today (CodeEditor
> and UniversalLanguageSelector don't seem to play very nicely together).
> It'd be cool to get that bug resolved before Thursday.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
----- End forwarded message -----
--
| Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E |
| identi.ca: @greg A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D |
On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 6:39 PM, Greg Grossmeier <greg(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> == Thursday ==
> * CodeEditor support will be enabled for all JS and CSS on all wikis
>
Without fixing the bug which makes it use spaces instead of tabs? Seriously?
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39616
Helder
