Hi,

The latest technical newsletter is now available at < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2021/12%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/2021/12 are available.

*Recent changes*

- There is a Wikipedia app https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_for_KaiOS for KaiOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:KaiOS phones. They don't have a touch screen so readers navigate with the phone keys. There is now a simulator https://wikimedia.github.io/wikipedia-kaios/sim.html so you can see what it looks like. - The reply tool https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Talk_pages_project/Replying and new discussion tool https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Talk_pages_project/New_discussion are now available as the "Discussion tools" beta feature https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures in almost all wikis except German Wikipedia.

*Problems*

- You will be able to read but not edit twelve 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 can also affect password changes, logging in to new wikis, global renames and changing or confirming emails. This could take 30 minutes but will probably be much faster.

*Changes later this week*

- [image: Recurrent item] The new version https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.36/wmf.36 of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 March. It will be on all wikis from 25 March (calendar https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.36/Roadmap). - Syntax highlighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Syntax_highlighting colours will change to be easier to read. This will soon come to the first wikis https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T276346. [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/Improved_Color_Scheme_of_Syntax_Highlighting

*Future changes*

- Flagged revisions https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Extension:FlaggedRevs will no longer have multiple tags like "tone" or "depth". It will also only have one tier. This was changed because very few wikis used these features and they make the tool difficult to maintain. [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T185664[3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T277883 - [image: Advanced item] Gadgets and user scripts can access variables about the current page in JavaScript. In 2015 this was moved from wg* to mw.config. wg* will soon no longer work. [4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T72470

*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/2021/12 • 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