Hi,

The latest technical newsletter is now available at < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2019/12%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.

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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/2019/12 are available.

*Changes later this week*

- When you use rollback https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Reverting#Advanced_features you will be able to get a confirmation prompt on most wikis. It asks you if you wanted to do the rollback. This is to avoid misclicks. You will have to opt in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering to get it. On German Wikipedia it will be an opt-out feature from 28 March. [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T199534[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Rollback - [image: Recurrent item] The new version https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.33/wmf.22 of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 March. It will be on all wikis from 21 March (calendar https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.33/Roadmap).

*Meetings*

- [image: Recurrent item] [image: 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 20 March at 16:00 (UTC) https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20190320T16. See how to join https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_Advice_IRC_Meeting.

*Future changes*

- Admins will be able to block someone from editing a page or a namespace. This already works on a few Wikimedia wikis. You can read more https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Community_health_initiative/Partial_blocks. If your wiki wants to be an early tester of this, you can tell the developers https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_health_initiative/Partial_blocks . [3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2018-August/090842.html - [image: Advanced item] Toolforge https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Toolforge will shut down the Ubuntu Trusty job grid https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/News/Toolforge_Trusty_deprecation. This will happen the week of 25 March. Tools that use this grid needs to be moved to the new Debian Stretch job grid. If they haven't, they will be taken offline. Maintainers can restart the tools later. Users may not be able to use them in the meanwhile. You can see a list of affected tools https://tools.wmflabs.org/trusty-tools/.

*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/2019/12 • 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