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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/2022/43 are available.

*Recent changes*

- There have been some minor visual fixes in Special:Search, regarding audio player alignment and image placeholder height. Further details are in T319230 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T319230. - On Wikipedias, a new preference https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-searchoptions has been added to hide article thumbnails in Special:Search. Full details are in T320337 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T320337.

*Problems*

- Last week, three wikis (French Wikipedia, Japanese Wikipedia, Russian Wikipedia) had read-only access for 25 minutes. This was caused by a hardware problem. [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T320990

*Changes later this week*

- The new version https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.40/wmf.7 of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 October. It will be on all wikis from 27 October (calendar https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.40/Roadmap). - Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 25 October at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=dblists/s5.dblist) and on 27 October at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=dblists/s4.dblist). - Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:Growth/Tools/Add_a_link" (Assamese Wikipedia, Bashkir Wikipedia, Balinese Wikipedia, Bavarian Wikipedia, Samogitian Wikipedia, Bikol Central Wikipedia, Belarusian Wikipedia, Belarusian (Taraškievica) Wikipedia, Bulgarian Wikipedia, Bhojpuri Wikipedia, Bislama Wikipedia, Banjar Wikipedia, Bambara Wikipedia, Bishnupriya Wikipedia, Breton Wikipedia, Bosnian Wikipedia, Buginese Wikipedia, Buryat Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T304110. The communities can configure how this feature works locally https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Community_configuration. [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T304549 - Starting on Wednesday October 26, 2022, the list of mentors will be upgraded at wikis where Growth mentorship is available https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14339834. The mentorship system will continue to work as it does now. The signup process will be replaced https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Communities/How_to_configure_the_mentors%27_list#add, and a new management option will be provided. Also, this change simplifies the creation of mentorship systems at Wikipedias https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Communities/How_to_configure_the_mentors%27_list#create. [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T314858[4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T310905[5] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Structured_mentor_list - Pages with titles that start with a lower-case letter according to Unicode 11 will be renamed or deleted. There is a list of affected pages at m:Unicode 11 case map migration https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Unicode_11_case_map_migration. More information can be found at T292552 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T292552. - The Vector 2022 skin will become the default across the smallest Wikipedias. Learn more https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements#smallest-1 .

*Future changes*

- The Reply tool https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Talk_pages_project/Replying and New Topic tool https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Talk_pages_project/New_discussion will soon get a special characters menu https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/VisualEditor/Special_characters. [6] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T249072

*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/2022/43 • 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.*