Hi,
The latest technical newsletter is now available at <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2021/11>gt;.
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>gt;.
More information on how to contribute is available at <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News#contribute>gt;. You can also contact
me directly.
As always, feedback (on- or off-list) is appreciated and encouraged.
—————————————————————————————
Other languages:* English* • Nederlands
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/11/nl> • español
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<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/11/fi> • svenska
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/11/sv> • čeština
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/11/cs> • русский
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<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/11/ja> • ꯃꯤꯇꯩ ꯂꯣꯟ
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2021/11/mni>
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>
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<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_message_delivery/Targets/Tech_ambassadors>.*
//Johan Jönsson