Hi,

The latest tech newsletter is now available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2014/39 . 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.m.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.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2014/39 are available.

*Recent software changes*

- You can test a new Beta Feature https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures called HHVM. It should make editing faster. Please report bugs https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ if you see them. [1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2014-September/000948.html

*Problems*

- There was a problem on the English Wikipedia on September 19. It was due to edits on a template used on many pages. - Sites were down for users in the Pacific area around 7:00 UTC on September 20. It was due to a problem in the San Francisco data center. - There were two bad bugs messing up articles in some browsers in VisualEditor. We fixed the bugs and updated the sites. [2] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70856 [3] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70897

*Software changes this week*

- The new version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf22 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.24/wmf22) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 23, and on all Wikipedias on September 25 (calendar https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.24/Roadmap). - If you have more than 2000 notifications, the oldest ones will be removed.[4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Thread:Talk:Echo_(Notifications)/More_than_2,000_Notifications,_will_start_to_be_removed [5] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/159413/ - In the "Vector" skin, the icon used for users will show a neutral gender. [6] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=41484 [7] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/157990/ - The VisualEditor template tool now tells you if a required field is missing. [8] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50747 - The "Cancel" button of the VisualEditor save window is now called "Resume editing". This shows that you can still edit and you won't lose your changes. [9] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69116 - There are new keyboard shortcuts in VisualEditor. Use Ctrl+Shift+6 for code and Ctrl+Shift+5 for strikethrough. [10] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60257[11] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52597 - In VisualEditor, you can now see that you are switching to the source editing mode. Before, it was not clear it was happening. [12] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=65012

*Future site changes*

- You can see a plan https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Phabricator#Migration_timeline for the move to Phabricator. It's the new tool to track bugs. A guided tour https://plus.google.com/u/1/b/103470172168784626509/events/c8qe7l0vtf4v6u07k3o059du2lg will be done via video on September 24. [13] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2014-September/000946.html

*Tech news https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News prepared by tech ambassadors https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/Ambassadors and posted by bot https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/User:MediaWiki_message_delivery • Contribute https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News#contribute • Translate https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2014/39 • Get help https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech • Give feedback https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tech/News •Subscribe or unsubscribe https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_message_delivery/Targets/Tech_ambassadors.*