Hi,

The latest tech newsletter is now available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2015/12 . Below is the English version.

You can help write the next newsletter: whenever you see information about Wikimedia technology that you think should be distributed more broadly, you can add it to the next newsletter at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/Next.

More information on how to contribute is available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News#contribute . You can also contact me directly.

As always, feedback (on- or off-list) is appreciated and encouraged.

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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• The servers that resize images are using new software. You should report new problems that you notice with images. [1]
• You can now see lists of bugs about Commons, Wikisource and Wiktionary. [2]
• It is now easier to add special characters in VisualEditor. You can edit the list of characters for your wiki. [3] [4]

Problems

• Wikis were broken for a few minutes on Thursday due to a code error.

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since March 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 17. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 18 (calendar).
• A puzzle piece icon () now shows hidden templates in VisualEditor. You can edit the template by clicking the icon. For example, you can now edit anchor templates. [5] [6]
• You can now add examples, and details about old parameters, in TemplateData. [7] [8]

Meetings

• You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
• You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 18 at 23:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The list of bad user names on your wiki will no longer work. The global list will replace it. You can ask to add rulesfor bad user names on Meta. [9] [10]
• You can comment on how you want to see Wikidata edits in your watchlist on other wikis. [11]
• The final steps of single user login (SUL) will happen in April. You can see the rules to rename accounts. [12]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback •Subscribe or unsubscribe.

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Guillaume Paumier