On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 3:44 AM, Guillaume Paumier
<gpaumier(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote:
Hi,
The latest tech newsletter is now available at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2014/01 .
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 .
More information on how to contribute is available at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News#contribute . 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 inform other users about these
changes. Not all changes will affect you.
Translations<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/New…
available.
*Recent software changes*
- You can now see the text of DjVu and PDF files in search results on
wikis testing the new search tool
(
CirrusSearch<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Search>)h>).
[1] <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6421>
[
2]<https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/101252/>
- With the new version of the Wikibase
DataModel<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Wikibase_DataModel>…ension, you
can install it outside Wikimedia wikis.
[
3]<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2013-December/073721.…
*VisualEditor
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/VisualEditor/Portal>
news*
- Images are now shown inside VisualEditor as
HTML5<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/w:HTML5> <figure
/> elements.
Comments<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Feedback>are welcome.
[4] <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53436>
- You can now test a basic version of VisualEditor on mobile devices;
see this
article<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar?mobileaction=alpha>as an
example.
*Problems*
- On December 23, Wikimedia
Labs<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Labs>was broken for 4 hours due to an
NFS <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/w:Network_File_System> problem.
[5] <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58888>
*Future software changes*
- CirrusSearch will be added as the second search method for Spanish
(es), French (fr), Portuguese (pt) and Russian (ru) wikis on December 30.
Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies and Wikinews users will also be able to
enable it in their Beta Features
options<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsecti…
.
- AbuseFilter <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:AbuseFilter>log entries
will be visible in
CheckUser <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CheckUser> tool
reports. [6] <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=29583>
[
7]<https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/92053/>
- It will soon be possible to search for log entries done by users
without an account. [
8]<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54404>
[9] <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/85436/>
- It will no longer be possible to globally hide users with more than
1,000 edits. [
10]<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23653>
[11] <https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/103216/>
There is a lot going on with CirrusSearch and the above isn't entirely
accurate in that regard. Read on if interested.
Some CirrusSearch changes take longer to get into user's hands then others
due to reindexing time. Here is what you should expect from Cirrus after
the release in an hour and a half:
1. Commons, wikispecies, and all wikinewses will get CirrusSearch as a
beta feature.
2.
hastemplate:<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Search/CirrusSearchFeatures#…e:>,
boost-templates:""<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Search/Cirru…lates:.22.22>,
and the cirrussearch-boost-templates
message<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Search/CirrusSearchFeatures#boost…
be available to commons, wikispecies, and all wikinewses. The syntax
will technically work for all other wikis but won't be useful because all
pages won't have their templates indexed. I'll be kicking off a full
reindex sometime in the next few days.
3. We'll begin indexing the contents of pdf and djvu files and any other
kind of file from which Mediawiki is able to extract text. The file text
will start to trickle in as the files (or their pages) are modified and
when I perform the full reindex which is also required for #2 above.
4. We're going to start indexing eswiki, frwiki, ptwiki, and ruwiki.
You'll be able to watch our progress by adding &srbackend=CirrusSearch to
the end of the url of a search results page.
5. We're also trying to speed up search updates from single page edits by
stopping them from getting "behind" template edits. This has mostly been a
problem with commons but I've seen it happen a few days on enwikisource.
Our plans for next week (subject to change):
1. Default all searches to CirrusSearch on itwiki, frwikisource, wikidata,
and all wikivoyages.
2. BetaFeature for eswiki, frwiki, ptwiki, and ruwiki if the indexes are
ready. I imagine they will be but I've been surprised in the past.
3. Unify the "go" search behavior with the prefix search behavior in all
wikis that have cirrus as a primary. In other words: replace TitleKey with
CirrusSearch.
4. Start indexing dewiki and all wikibooks.
Nik