Hi,

The latest technical newsletter is now available at < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2021/02%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.

—————————————————————————————

Other languages: ‎English • ‎Hausa https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/ha • ‎Nederlands https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/nl • ‎español https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/es • ‎français https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/fr • ‎italiano https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/it • ‎magyar https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/hu • ‎polski https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/pl • ‎português do Brasil https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/pt-br • ‎suomi https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/fi • ‎svenska https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/sv • ‎čeština https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/cs • ‎русский https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/ru • ‎српски / srpski https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/sr • ‎українська https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/uk • ‎עברית https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/he • ‎العربية https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/ar • ‎ไทย https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/th • ‎日本語 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/02/ja

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/2021/02 are available.

Recent changes

- You can choose to be reminded when you have not added an edit summary. This can be done in your preferences. This could conflict with the CAPTCHA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:CAPTCHA. This has now been fixed. [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T12729 - You can link to specific log entries. You can get these links for example by clicking the timestamps in the log. Until now, such links to private log entries showed no entry even if you had permission to view private log entries. The links now show the entry. [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T269761 - Admins can use the abuse filter tool https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Extension:AbuseFilter to automatically prevent bad edits. Three changes happened last week: - The filter editing interface now shows syntax errors while you type. This is similar to JavaScript pages. It also shows a warning for regular expressions that match the empty string. New warnings will be added later. [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T187686 - Oversighters https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Meta:Oversighters can now hide multiple filter log entries at once using checkboxes on Special:AbuseLog https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:AbuseLog. This is how the usual revision deletion works. [4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T260904 - When a filter matches too many actions after it has been changed it is "throttled". The most powerful actions are disabled. This is to avoid many editors getting blocked when an administrator made a mistake. The administrator will now get a notification about this "throttle". - [image: Advanced item] There is a new tool to build new skins https://skins.wmflabs.org/?#/add. You can also see https://skins.wmflabs.org/?#/ existing skins https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Skins. You can give feedback https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_talk:Jdlrobson. [5] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2020-December/094130.html - [image: Advanced item] Bots using the API no longer watch pages automatically based on account preferences. Setting the watchlist to watch will still work. This is to reduce the size of the watchlist data in the database. [6] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T258108 - [image: Advanced item] Scribunto's https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Extension:Scribunto file metadata https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Scribunto/Lua_reference_manual#File_metadata now includes length. [7] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T209679 - [image: Advanced item] CSS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:CSS and JavaScript https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:JavaScript code pages now have link anchors to line numbers https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/40e4795d4448b55a6d8c46ff414bcf78/w/index.php/MediaWiki:En.js#L-125. You can use wikilinks like w:en:MediaWiki:Common.js#L-50 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:MediaWiki:Common.js#L-50. [8] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T29531 - [image: Recurrent item] There was a new version https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.36/wmf.25 of MediaWiki last week. You can read a detailed log https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.36/wmf.25/Changelog of all 763 changes. Most of them are very small and will not affect you.

Changes later this week

- [image: Recurrent item] The new version https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.36/wmf.26 of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 January. It will be on all wikis from 14 January (calendar https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.36/Roadmap).

*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/2021/02 • 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 --