The latest technical newsletter is now available at <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2021/38>gt;.
Below is the English version.
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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/2021/38> are
available.
*Recent changes*
- Growth features are now deployed to almost all Wikipedias. For the
majority of small Wikipedias <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T290582>,
the features are only available for experienced users, to test the
features
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Growth/FAQ#enable>
and configure them
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Growth/FAQ#config>.
Features will be available for newcomers starting on 20 September 2021.
- MediaWiki had a feature that would highlight local links to short
articles in a different style. Each user could pick the size at which
"stubs" would be highlighted. This feature was very bad for performance,
and following a consultation, has been removed. [1]
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T284917>
- A technical change was made to the MonoBook skin to allow for easier
maintenance and upkeep. This has resulted in some minor changes to HTML
that make MonoBook's HTML consistent with other skins. Efforts have been
made to minimize the impact on editors, but please ping Jon (WMF)
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jon_(WMF)> on wiki or in
phabricator <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T290888> if any problems
are reported.
*Problems*
- There was a problem with search last week. Many search requests did
not work for 2 hours because of an accidental restart of the search
servers. [2]
<https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incident_documentation/2021-09-13_cirrussearch_restart>
*Changes later this week*
- [image: Recurrent item] The new version
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.38/wmf.1> of MediaWiki will
be on test wikis and
MediaWiki.org from 21 September. It will be on
non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 September. It will be on
all wikis from 23 September (calendar
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.38/Roadmap>).
- [image: Advanced item] The meta=proofreadpage API
<https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Special:ApiHelp/query%2Bproofreadinfo> has
changed. The piprop parameter has been renamed to prpiprop. API users
should update their code to avoid unrecognized parameter warnings.
Pywikibot users should upgrade to 6.6.0. [3]
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T290585>
*Future changes*
- The Reply tool
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:DiscussionTools#Replying>
will
be deployed to the remaining wikis in the coming weeks. It is currently
part of "Discussion tools" in Beta features
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures>
at
most wikis. You will be able to turn it off in Editing Preferences
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion>
. [4] <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T262331>
- [image: Advanced item] The previously announced
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.37/Deprecation_of_legacy_API_token_parameters>
change
to how you obtain tokens from the API has been delayed to September 21
because of an incompatibility with Pywikibot. Bot operators using Pywikibot
can follow T291202 <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T291202> for
progress on a fix, and should plan to upgrade to 6.6.1 when it is released.
*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>
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