The latest technical newsletter is now available at <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2019/https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2019/0303>. 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>. 

We are also looking for translators, as always. The next issue will be available for translations starting Thursday, end of day UTC.


More information on how to contribute is available at <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News#contribute>. You can also contact Johan or I 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

  • You can now use Google Translate in the content translation tool[1][2]
  • You can now add captions to files on Commons. Captions are short descriptions of the file. They can be translated to all languages we use. They can't use wikitext markup.
  • Earlier a quoted HTML attribute had to be followed by a space. Now it doesn't. This means that some pages could look different when you save them even if you didn't edit that part of the text. [3][4]
  • Advanced item Templates with <templatestyles> could not show the difference between the live template and the sandbox version when they were tested. This has now been fixed. <templatestyles> has a new wrapper parameter now. You can use it for selectors like .mw-parser-output <wrapper parameter value> <selector from CSS page>[5]

Problems

  • When you see an edit in the recent changes feed or in the history of a page some of them have tags. Some tags are added automatically. You can also add tags manually. Tags for edits that have been added manually can be edited. This didn't work for a little while. This has now been fixed. [6]

Changes later this week

  • You can move files from your wiki to Wikimedia Commons and keep the file history with the new FileExporter. It will be a beta feature on all wikis from 16 January. If you want to test it you activate itand check your wiki's configuration file.
  • Users who could cause more damage to the wikis if someone took over their account have to have more secure passwords. This includes administrators and other user groups. They can't use passwords that are in a list of common passwords. Accounts with common passwords are easy to take over. The list of common passwords was made longer a few weeks ago and has a different error message. Some user groups have been added to those who can't use common passwords. This is to protect all accounts with user rights that could cause damage. [7]
  • Advanced item The AbuseFilter variable minor_edit has been removed. It was deprecated in 2016. Now you can't use it. You can fix the filters using it. You can find them if you use the search bar on Special:AbuseFilter.
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 January. It will be on all wikis from 17 January (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 16 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • Advanced item In the future users can be blocked from editing a page or a namespace. What a "block" means will change. This means that you might have to update tools you maintain that handle blocks. [8]

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


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Benoît Evellin - Trizek (he/him)

Community Relations Specialist

Wikimedia Foundation