Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the WMF Engineering Roadmap
and Deployment update.
The full log of planned deployments next week can be found at:
<https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deployments#Week_of_May_26th>
A quick list of notable items...
== Monday ==
* No planned deploys
** US Holiday (Memorial Day)
== Tuesday ==
* MediaWiki deploy
** group1 to 1.24wmf6: All non-Wikipedia sites (Wiktionary, Wikisource,
Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikiversity, and a few other sites)
** <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.24/wmf6>
* Flow enabled on <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Cite-from-id>
== Thursday ==
* MediaWiki deploy
** group2 to 1.24wmf6 (all Wikipedias)
** group0 to 1.24wmf7 (test/test2/testwikidata/mediawiki)
* MediaViewer
** Will be enabled on by default on all Wikisources
** <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/Media_Viewer/Release_Plan#Timeline>
== Friday ==
* WMF Labs downtime (~10 minutes) aiming to start at 18:00 UTC
** Addition of another bound network port to the NSF server
** Check the Wikimedia Labs mailing list for any updates as the date
approaches: <labs-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Thanks and as always, questions and comments welcome,
Greg
--
| 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 IRC office hour is
happening later today at 1700UTC on #wikimedia-office. Please see below for
the original announcement and local time.
Thanks
Runa
Monthly IRC Office Hour:
==================
# Date: May 21, 2014 (Wednesday)
# Time: 1700 UTC/1000PDT (Check local time:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20140521T1700)
# IRC channel: #wikimedia-office
# Agenda:
1. Content Translation project updates
2. Q & A (Questions can be sent to me ahead of the event)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Runa Bhattacharjee <rbhattacharjee(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Mon, May 19, 2014 at 4:11 PM
Subject: Language Engineering IRC Office Hour on May 21, 2014 (Wednesday)
at 1700 UTC
To: MediaWiki internationalisation <mediawiki-i18n(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia
developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
wikitech-ambassadors(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[x-posted]
Hello,
The Wikimedia Language Engineering team will be hosting the next
monthly IRC office hour on Wednesday, May 21 2014 at 1700 UTC on
#wikimedia-office. The event is delayed this month as the team was
traveling.
In this office hour we will be discussing about our recent work, which
has mostly been around the upcoming first release of the Content
Translation tool[1]. We will also be taking questions during the
session.
Please see below for event details and local time. See you at the office
hour.
Thanks
Runa
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation
Monthly IRC Office Hour:
==================
# Date: May 21, 2014 (Wednesday)
# Time: 1700 UTC/1000PDT (Check local time:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20140521T1700)
# IRC channel: #wikimedia-office
# Agenda:
1. Content Translation project updates
2. Q & A (Questions can be sent to me ahead of the event)
--
Language Engineering - Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
--
Language Engineering - Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
[x-posted]
Hello,
The Wikimedia Language Engineering team will be hosting the next
monthly IRC office hour on Wednesday, May 21 2014 at 1700 UTC on
#wikimedia-office. The event is delayed this month as the team was
traveling.
In this office hour we will be discussing about our recent work, which
has mostly been around the upcoming first release of the Content
Translation tool[1]. We will also be taking questions during the
session.
Please see below for event details and local time. See you at the office hour.
Thanks
Runa
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation
Monthly IRC Office Hour:
==================
# Date: May 21, 2014 (Wednesday)
# Time: 1700 UTC/1000PDT (Check local time:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20140521T1700)
# IRC channel: #wikimedia-office
# Agenda:
1. Content Translation project updates
2. Q & A (Questions can be sent to me ahead of the event)
--
Language Engineering - Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the WMF Engineering Roadmap
and Deployment update.
The full log of planned deployments next week can be found at:
<https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deployments#Week_of_May_19th>
A quick list of notable items...
== Monday ==
* Enable CirrusSearch as primary search backend on zh-yue wikipedia.
** <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Search>
* Enable anonymous editor acquisition experiment in GettingStarted on
enwiki, dewiki, frwiki, itwiki and test wikis.
== Tuesday ==
* MediaWiki deploy
** group1 to 1.24wmf5: All non-Wikipedia sites (Wiktionary, Wikisource,
Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikiversity, and a few other sites)
** <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.24/wmf5>
* Enable Flow at mw:Talk:Wikibase/Beta Features/Other projects sidebar,
mw:Talk:Design, and mw:Talk:Phabricator/Help
** <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow>
== Wednesday ==
* Swapping GeoData to use Elasticsearch as its backend everywhere.
** <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GeoData>
== Thursday ==
* MediaWiki deploy
** group2 to 1.24wmf4 (all Wikipedias)
** group0 to 1.24wmf5 (test/test2/testwikidata/mediawiki)
* MediaViewer
** English, German, Italian and Russian Wikipedias, and all Wikisources, in
stages.
** <
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/Media_Viewer/Release_Plan#Timeline
>
Thanks and as always, questions and comments welcome,
Greg
Hi all,
I just wanted folks to get a heads up that starting next week, we'll be A/B
testing new calls to register, directed at anonymous editors. These tests
will be for at least one week on English, German, French, and Italian
Wikipedias.
I'm not sure it merits Tech News, since the delivery of the new UI is
randomized and registered users will of course not see anything change. If
you want to learn more about the project, there's a blog post with
background and links at:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/16/anonymous-editor-acquisition/
--
Steven Walling,
Product Manager
https://wikimediafoundation.org/
Hi,
During the Zürich Hackathon I met several people that looked for solutions
about how to integrate external open datasets into our projects (mainly
Wikipedia, Wikidata). Since Wikidata is not the right tool to manage them
(reasons explained in the RFC as discussed during the Wikidata session), I
have felt convenient to centralize the discussion about potential
requirements, needs, and how to approach this new changing landscape that
didn't exist a few years ago.
You will find more details here
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/How_to_deal_with_open_…
Your comments, thoughts and ideas are appreciated!
Cheers,
Micru
Hi,
The report covering Wikimedia engineering activities in April 2014 is now
available.
Wiki version:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2014/April
Blog version:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/14/engineering-report-april-2014/
We're also proposing a shorter, simpler and translatable version of this
report that does not assume specialized technical knowledge:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2014/April/summ…
Below is the HTML text of the report's summary.
As always, feedback is appreciated on the usefulness of the report and its
summary, and on how to improve them.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Major news in April include:
- the change of
format<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/10/mediawiki-localization-file-format-ch…>
of
MediaWiki localization files from PHP to JSON, and the associated
modernization
of the LocalisationUpdate
extension<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/03/modernising-mediawikis-localisation-u…>
;
- the move of Wikimedia
Labs<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/04/migrating-wikimedia-labs-to-a-new-dat…>
to
a new data center;
- the “Heartbleed” security
vulnerability<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/10/wikimedias-response-to-the-heartbleed…>
and
how the Wikimedia Foundation’s team responded to it;
- an explanation of how the Mobile team uses
Trello<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/15/agile-and-trello-the-planning-cycle/>
to
plan their development sprints;
- a project report on a grant to create “gadgets” for
VisualEditor<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/04/22/visualeditor-gadgets/>
.
*Note: We’re also providing a shorter, simpler and translatable version of
this report
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2014/April/summ…>
that
does not assume specialized technical knowledge.*
VisualEditor<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/VisualEditor/Portal>
In April, the VisualEditor <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor> team
worked to improve the stability of the editor, adding some new features and
improving usability so that users can create and edit pages more swiftly
and intuitively with VisualEditor than before. When users edit templates,
only a few parameters are now shown at first rather than all possible ones
(some often-used templates like those for citations or infoboxes can have
dozens of parameters). It now also feels more natural to set the size of
images, and the page settings tool includes the complete set of page
options. The next version of the citation dialog was tested and simplified;
"suggested" parameters are now always added, like "required" ones. Finally,
a careful audit of all Wikimedia wikis led to fixing broken local
community-written code, to ensure that VisualEditor runs on all of them.
The Parsoid <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid> team continued to fix
bugs and tweak code; Parsoid is the parsing program that works behind the
scenes of VisualEditor to convert wikitext to annotated HTML, and vice
versa. Two areas in particular received a lot of attention: templates
encapsulation and link handling. Template encapsulation refers to how
content generated by wiki templates is tagged as such, in order for the
post-editing wikitext to be consistent; this is particularly important for
templates that interact with tables. We fixed many issues with how links
are handled, notably image links and their edge cases. In addition to bug
fixes, we also improved Parsoid's performance: some pages like *Barack
Obama <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama>* should now parse 30%
faster than before. Last, April saw additional progress providing support
for visual editing of transclusion parameters.
Editor engagement <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_editor_engagement>
This month, the Flow <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow> team focused on
behind-the-scenes changes to improve moderation and history viewing, as
well as implementing new JavaScript interface templates to make Flow more
responsive and easier to add new features onto. We released the ability to
close and summarize topics, which will allow users to manage active
discussions and end ones that have come to a resolution. Flow is now the
default discussion tool for many Beta Features discussions on mediawiki.org,
and the team is accepting requests to enable Flow on more pages on that
wiki to test complex multi-user discussions.
The Growth <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Growth> team started to focus on
a new experimental area: anonymous editor
acquisition<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Anonymous_editor_acquisition>.
The team prepared its first two experimental interface changes, aimed at asking
anonymous editors to register
accounts<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Anonymous_editor_acquisition/Signup_invites>(expected
to be launched in early May). The team also will be conducting basic
research into the role anonymous editors play in Wikipedia − more at
Research:Anonymous
phenomena <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Anonymous_phenomena>
and Research:Anonymous editor
acquisition<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Anonymous_editor_acquisition>
.
Mobile <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering>
<https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=File:2014-05-01_Mobile_Metrics.…>
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:2014-05-01_Mobile_Metrics.pdf?page=10>
Presentation slides on mobile usage (by the Analytics team, from the
monthly metrics meeting)
The Mobile Apps <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps> team
continued to work on the rebooted Wikipedia App for Android and iOS. The
team focused on bug fixes, editing refinements, and interface improvements.
Several issues related to keyboard, navigation bar, edit summary, and abuse
filter were fixed. The app now uses the newly-created Wikifont, which
reduced the size of the app and the number of images used Articles should
now look even closer to their mobile web counterparts.
The Mobile web <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_web_projects> team
added history and contributions pages, as well as an updated watchlist
view, for all users. We also released two new features geared toward
"humanizing" Wikipedia for readers and new editors: a prominent "last
modified" banner that indicates when articles haven't been edited in a
while and may need some attention, and a user profile feature to provide a
mobile-friendly snapshot of users' contributions and activity. For tablets,
we updated typography and layout and worked on adding the ability to add
and modify links via VisualEditor in beta, in preparation for redirecting
tablets to the mobile site later this quarter.
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_Zero_Update_Metrics_May_2014.…>
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_Zero_Update_Metrics_May_2014.…>
Presentation slides on Wikipedia Zero from the monthly metrics meeting
The Wikipedia Zero <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero> team
continued to set up the Partners portal and work on graceful reduction of
image quality. We continued analytics work on data from the SMS/USSD pilot
program, and generated custom pageview analyses for an operator to
distinguish traffic by high level device access characteristics.
Additionally, the team worked on the alpha version of the Android Wikipedia
app, as well as on the URL format for the forthcoming iOS Wikipedia app to
ensure pageview logging.
Mobile carrier IPKO joined the Wikipedia Zero program in Kosovo, bringing
us to a total of 28 partners in 26 countries. We delivered 68 million free
page views in April. We visited South Africa to meet with MTN (current
Wikipedia Zero partner), prospective partners, members of Wikimedia South
Africa and the Singenjongo High School. This trip was part of a broader
strategy to promote Wikipedia in our partners' corporate social
responsibility (CSR) and education initiatives, increasing awareness and
impact locally. We are identifying new collaboration opportunities with MTN
and local organizations, including the Wikimedia chapter in South Africa
and other mission-aligned nonprofits. Additionally, we will continue to
support the local initiative created by Sinenjongo High School teachers and
students.
--
Guillaume Paumier
Technical Communications Manager — Wikimedia Foundation
Hi all,
This is prior notice that, per bug 58626,[1] the user ID number will no
longer be visible in user preferences.[2]
User ID is public information, and will continue to be accessible via the
API or Special:Redirect. However, since user IDs are only relevant for
technical purposes, there's really no reason the average non-technical user
needs access via Preferences.
I'm sure this will get added to Tech News, if it hasn't already.
1. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58626
2. https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/132916/
--
Steven Walling,
Product Manager
https://wikimediafoundation.org/