Hi,
The latest technical newsletter is now available at < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2021/11%3E. 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%3E.
More information on how to contribute is available at < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News#contribute%3E. You can also contact me directly.
As always, feedback (on- or off-list) is appreciated and encouraged.
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Latest *tech news https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News* from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2021/11 are available.
*Recent changes*
- Wikis that are part of the desktop improvements https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements project can now use a new search function https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Features/Search. The desktop improvements and the new search will come to more wikis later. You can also test it early https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements#Deployment_plan_and_timeline . - [image: Advanced item] Editors who put up banners or change site-wide JavaScript https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:JavaScript code should use the client error graph https://grafana.wikimedia.org/d/000000566/overview?viewPanel=16&orgId=1 to see that their changes has not caused problems. You can read more https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/03/08/sailing-steady%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8ahow-you-can-help-keep-wikimedia-sites-error-free . [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T276296
*Problems*
- Due to database issues https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T276968 the Wikimedia Beta Cluster https://meta.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/ was read-only for over a day.
*Changes later this week*
- [image: Recurrent item] The new version https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.36/wmf.34 of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 March. It will be on all wikis from 18 March (calendar https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.36/Roadmap).
*Future changes*
- You can add a newline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Newline or carriage return https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Carriage_return character to a custom signature if you use a template. There is a proposal to not allow them in the future. This is because they can cause formatting problems. [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_requirements_for_user_signatures#Additional_proposal_(2021) [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T272322 - You will be able to read but not edit 12 wikis https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T276899 for a short period of time on 23 March at 06:00 (UTC) https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20210323T06. This could take 30 minutes but will probably be much faster. - [image: Advanced item] You can use Quarry https://quarry.wmflabs.org/ for SQL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:SQL queries to the Wiki Replicas https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_replicas. Cross-database JOINS will no longer work from 23 March. There will be a new field to specify the database to connect to. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T268498 or on Wikitech https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:News/Wiki_Replicas_2020_Redesign . PAWS https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/PAWS and other ways to do SQL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:SQL queries to the Wiki Replicas will be affected later. [4] https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/News/Wiki_Replicas_2020_Redesign
*Tech news https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News prepared by Tech News writers https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/Writers and posted by bot https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/User:MediaWiki_message_delivery • Contribute https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News#contribute • Translate https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2021/11 • Get help https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech • Give feedback https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tech/News • Subscribe or unsubscribe https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_message_delivery/Targets/Tech_ambassadors.*
//Johan Jönsson