Hello,
Due to the current situation, there are more and more collaborations
happening online instead. and now you can see Wikimedia-related discussion
groups in Slack, Discord, Telegram, Facebook, and many more. Besides being
scattered and inaccessible to people who don't have accounts in those
platforms (for privacy reasons for example), these platforms use
proprietary and closed-source software, are outside Wikimedia
infrastructure and some harvest our personal data for profit.
IRC on freenode is a good alternative but it lacks basic functionalities of
a modern chat platform. So we created Wikimedia Chat, a mattermost instance
in Wikimedia Cloud. Compared to IRC, you have:
* Ability to scrollback and read messages when you were offline
* Push notification and email notification
* You don't need to get a cloak to hide your IP from others
* Proper support for sharing media
* Two factor authentication
* A proper mobile app support
* Ability to add custom emojis (yes, it's extremely important)
* Profile pictures
* Ability to ping everyone with @here
* much much more.
You can use Wikimedia Chat by going to https://chat.wmcloud.org, anyone can
make an account. This is part of Wikimedia Social suite [1], the oher
similar project is "Wikimedia Meet". [2]
Some notes:
* This is done in my volunteer capacity and has been maintained by a group
of volunteers. If you're willing to join the team (either technical or
enforcing CoC, kicking out spammers, other daily work), drop me a message.
* Privacy policy of Wikimedia Cloud applies: https://w.wiki/aQW
* As a result, all messages older than 90 days get automatically deleted.
* As a Wikimedia Cloud project, all of discussions, private and public are
covered by Code of conduct in technical spaces: https://w.wiki/AK$
Hope that would be useful for you, if you encounter any technical issues,
file a bug in the phabricator.
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Social_Suite
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Meet
Best
--
Amir (he/him)
I'm pleased to announce the immediate availability of MediaWiki
1.35.0-rc.3, the fourth (and hopefully final; only minor documentation and
packaging changes are expected) release candidate for 1.35.x, the next LTS
version to replace 1.31 which is due to go end of life in June 2021.
Download links at the end of the e-mail. The tag has been signed and pushed
to Git.
Please note that the PHP version requirement has been raised from 7.2.9 in
MediaWiki 1.34 (and 7.0 in MediaWiki 1.31), to 7.3.19.
This is not a final release and should not be used for production websites.
Known issues are tracked in Phabricator on the release workboard [1]. As
always please do try out the release candidate in a test environment and
report any issues that you discover. Please use the #MW-1.35-Release [2]
tag in Phabricator when reporting issues specific to this release.
It is expected that MediaWiki 1.35 will become final in mid September 2020
(apologies for the delay), and will be supported for 3 years after that.
Known/outstanding issues/things to test:
* The PHP requirement for MediaWiki 1.35 has been raised to 7.3.19.
* Both the Vector skin and the underlying skin infrastructure are
undergoing numerous changes, so there might be things broken that are
already fixed in master and as such need backporting.
* VisualEditor and Parsoid are now bundled in the tarball and no longer
need a separate nodejs service. The documentation for this still may still
require some updates.
* Watchlist expiry (behind the $wgWatchlistExpiry flag) is currently
experimental. It should be finished for the 1.35.0 final release.
* If you're on Windows and use 7zip and had issues in the previous release
candidates (and the last round of security releases) extracting the
tarball, this should be fixed for this release.
Changes since 1.35.0-rc.2:
* (T258662) mediawiki.visibleTimeout: Update the nextVisibleTimeoutId value.
* Ensure Parsoid doesn't throw when <ref> is used w/o Cite installed.
* Remove maintenance/createCommonPasswordCdb.php.
* (T260468) Increase "sites.site_global_key" to varbinary(64).
* (T183759) Fix shell edge-cases in Windows.
* (T257879) Drop PHP 7.2 support; require 7.3.19.
* (T251661) User::pingLimiter: add user-global rate limit type.
* (T246991) User: enforce pingLimiter() expiry time.
* (T256831) Rest: Handle Uri constructor exception.
* (T259094) Fix RequestFromGlobalsTest failing in Travis CI.
* (T256831, T261344) Rest: Use try/catch to handle URIs with embedded colon.
Preliminary release notes:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/source/mediawiki/browse/REL1_35/RELEASE-N…https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Release_notes/1.35
Open Bugs:
[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/4035/
Bug report form:
[2]
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/1/?tags=MW-1.35-…
**********************************************************************
Download:
https://releases.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.35/mediawiki-1.35.0-rc.3.tar.gz
Download without bundled extensions:
https://releases.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.35/mediawiki-core-1.35.0-rc.3.ta…
Patch to previous version (1.35.0-rc.2):
https://releases.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.35/mediawiki-1.35.0-rc.3.patch.gz
GPG signatures:
https://releases.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.35/mediawiki-core-1.35.0-rc.3.ta…https://releases.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.35/mediawiki-1.35.0-rc.3.tar.gz.…
Public keys:
https://www.mediawiki.org/keys/keys.html
Hi all,
Here are the minutes from this week's TechCom meeting:
=== New RFC: Challenges of developing with npm dependencies ===
* The “frontend build step” RFC is overly broad, and has drifted over time, see
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T199004
* Dan will draft a new RFC focused on some of the issues we encounter in the
Analytics team when developing Node.js services. Specifically around code
review, CI/deploy, and dependency auditing.
=== Parsoid extension API ===
* https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T260714
* TT: this is a major milestone RFC, the new parser will replace the old one.
Hooks and methods not mentioned here will likely be deprecated/removed. I
believe that’s well-understood and the
* Parsoid team did great outreach over the past year. This should be detailed
and summarised on the RFC, or linked to.
=== Session expiry ===
* Pywikibot users have been experiencing CSRF tokens, see
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T261050
* This may be due to the fact that we have become more strict about expiring web
sessions after a given time since we moved session storage to the Kask
service.
* It is currently unclear from the documentation for how long a CSRF token is
valid for. This should be made more clear.
=== Removal of unused code without deprecation ===
* Daniel proposed a change to the stable interface policy on wikitech-l, in a
thread titled “Making breaking changes without deprecation?”
* Reactions are mixed, more feedback welcome.
* The input from the mailing list will be used to update the current policy
You can also find our meeting minutes at
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Technical_Committee/Minutes>
If you prefer you can subscribe to our newsletter here
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Newsletter:TechCom_Radar>
--
Daniel Kinzler
Principal Software Engineer, Core Platform
Wikimedia Foundation
I 've already sent the email below to otrs related mailing lists, but
I think wikitech-l can also benefit from this, so here it is.
--
Hello everyone,
This is to let you know that per
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T187984#6433997 on September 14th
2020 a 48 hour maintenance window for OTRS from 5.0 to 6.0 will begin.
While this is an unusually large time window, the migration process
from 5.0 to 6.0 is rather slow. We have looked into optimizing it, but
at the end preferred to stick with the software developers
recommendations.
During the maintenance window the system will be completely offline. That means:
* No access over the web to the interface
* No scheduled jobs of any kind will be run
* Email will not be delivered but rather backlogged. It will not be
lost as our MX systems will accept them and put them in the queue.
Once the system is back to being fully functional, the emails will
flow into the system.
We will have a rollback plan ready of course, just in case the
migration goes awry. We already have tested it but something might
arise anyway.
I am sorry for any inconvenience this might cause.
--
Alexandros Kosiaris
Principal Site Reliability Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
Hello,
The current logo of MediaWiki was adapted slightly more than fifteen years
ago and hasn’t changed since. This logo despite having the nice concept of
sunflower, is old. The sunflower represents the diversity, the constant
growth and also the wildness.
Among its biggest issues I can point out that it’s a bitmap picture so it’s
unusable in large sizes (like large posters) and it’s too realistic making
it unusable in small sizes.
Most, virtually all, software products use a simpler and more abstract
form. For example, docker, kubernetes, Ubuntu, VueJs, React, Apache Kafka,
and many more. It’s a good time for MediaWiki to follow suit.
My request is for changing the logo of MediaWiki and I have no plans or
interest in changing logo of any other project.
Please show your support, oppose or your comments in the discussion page.
You can also add more suggestions.
The discussion page:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Proposal_for_changing_logo_of_mediaw…
Best
--
Amir (he/him)
Hello,
This email contains updates for September 2, 2020. For the HTML version,
see: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Scrum_of_scrums/2020-09-02
Cheers,
Deb
------------------------
*= 2020-09-02 =*
== Callouts ==
* Datacenter switchover completed. All wikis are being served from codfw.
Switchback in 1 month from now. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to
this!
* [[GitLab_consultation|GitLab consultation]] is now open! Please comment
on the talk page.
== Product ==
=== iOS native app ===
* Blocked by:
* Blocking:
* Updates:
** Development of our 6.7 release - [[phab:project/view/4661]]
*** Article as a living document feature
*** New iOS14 widgets (Top Read, Picture of the Day, On This Day)
=== Web ===
* Updates:
** '''Summary''': Vue.js search performance tests, IE11 support, and
instrumentation.
** [[Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements|Desktop Improvements Project (Vector
/ DIP)]]:
*** [[phab:T261686|<nowiki>Search bar should shift to right edge of
container at low resolutions</nowiki>]]
*** [[phab:T261523|Revisit client exclusion rules for errors where file uri
matches URL or no URL]]
*** [[phab:T260867|PrefUpdate captures user preference modifications at
registration]]
*** [[phab:T256897|Decide on and clean up naming of CSS classes identifying
menus in toolbars and the sidebar.]]
*** [[phab:T250968|[ShoutWikiAds] Replace use of deprecated hook
VectorBeforeFooter]]
*** [[phab:T260412|[Spike 10hrs] Determine steps necessary for switch to
header-first DOM]]
*** [[phab:T258552|Add wordmarks and taglines for 26 more Wikipedias]]
*** [[phab:T258493|[Spike 8hrs] "Use Legacy Vector" is not working as a
global preference]]
*** [[phab:T256100|Add skin version and search version fields to search
satisfaction schema]]
*** [[phab:T254695|Build a pre-library loading indicator for Vue.js search]]
*** [[phab:T249363|Move the existing search to the header in preparation
for Vue.js search development]]
*** [[phab:T252774|Checkbox and mediawiki.toc.styles styles should be
merged into a single ResourceLoader module]]
*** [[phab:T251544|Add user journey performance tests for Vector's Legacy
and Vue.js search]]
*** [[phab:T213845|Change link colors in Vector]]
*** [[phab:T213778|Update link colors in Vector for improved UX (and
consistency)]]
*** [[phab:T244392|Vue.js search case study]]:
**** See [[Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Vue.js case study/Status
log|weekly status updates]].
** Mobile website (MinervaNeue / MobileFrontend):
*** [[phab:T258096|Regression: Nested references do not open if user clicks
on [ or ] (which are wrapped in span)]]
*** [[phab:T240622|[Technical debt payoff] Remove InlineDiffFormatter and
InlineDifferenceEngine from MobileFrontend]]
** Standardization
*** [[phab:T261391|Use standard external link icon for external links]]
** Miscellaneous
*** [[phab:T261378|Remove IE8 CSS hacks and fallbacks in Vector]]
*** [[phab:T259630|TypeError: results.error is undefined]]
*** [[phab:T259400|Drop MonoBookAfterContent hook]]
*** [[phab:T203023|skins.monobook.mobile.uls dependency doesn't do mobile?]]
*** [[phab:T253938|Future proof addPortletLink]]
== Technology ==
=== Site Reliability Engineering ===
* Blocked by:
** None
* Blocking:
** None
* Updates:
** Datacenter switchover successfully completed. All wikis are now being
served by codfw. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this!
--
deb tankersley (she/her)
sr program manager, engineering
Wikimedia Foundation
*(feel free to forward the message as is to your friends, family members
&colleagues)*
Hello folks,
We would like to invite you to apply to the Outreachy program with the
Wikimedia Foundation (a non-profit organization behind Wikipedia)!
*About the Outreachy program*
Wikimedia will be mentoring ~6 projects in the Outreachy’s December 2020 to
February 2021 Round, around data science and engineering. The initial
applications are due *September 20th at 4 pm UTC*.
Apply today: <https://www.outreachy.org/apply/> [1]
Outreachy offers three-month internships to work remotely in Free and Open
Source Software (FOSS) projects, coding, and non-coding related (e.g.,
design, documentation, translation, outreach, and research), with
experienced mentors. Outreachy internships run twice a year – from May to
August and December to March. Interns are paid a stipend of USD 5,500 for
the three months of work. They also have a USD 500 stipend to travel to
conferences and events. Interns often find employment after their
internship with Outreachy sponsors or in jobs that use the skills they
learned during their internship.
Outreachy is open to both students and non-students. Outreachy expressly
invites the following people to apply:
* Women (both cis and trans), trans men, and genderqueer people.
* Anyone who faces under-representation, systematic bias, or discrimination
in the technology industry in their country of residence is invited to
apply.
* Residents and nationals of the United States of any gender who are
Black/African American, Hispanic/Latin@, Native American/American Indian,
Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander.
Browse through the participants’ guides, to learn more about the
application process steps <
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreachy/Participants> [2]
*About the Wikimedia Foundation*
The Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> [3] is the
nonprofit organization that hosts and operates Wikipedia and the other
Wikimedia free knowledge projects <
https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/wikimedia-projects/> [4]. Our
vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum
of all knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute
something to our shared knowledge and that everyone should be able to
access that knowledge, free of interference. We host the Wikimedia
projects, build software experiences for reading, contributing, and sharing
Wikimedia content, support the volunteer communities and partners who make
Wikimedia possible, and advocate for policies that enable Wikimedia and
free knowledge to thrive.
We hope you will help us spread the word about Wikimedia’s participation in
these programs: <
https://twitter.com/gopavasanth1999/status/1299566047423377408> [5] (by
retweeting the post in the link or by sharing this email).
Looking forward to your participation!
Cheers,
Pavithra, Gopa Vasanth & Srishti (Wikimedia organization administrators for
Outreachy)
[1] https://www.outreachy.org/apply/
[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreachy/Participants
[3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/
[4] https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/wikimedia-projects/
[5] https://twitter.com/gopavasanth1999/status/1299566047423377408
--
Regards
Gopa Vasanth <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Gopavasanth>
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham <http://www.amrita.edu/> | Blog
<https://gopavasanth.wordpress.com/>
amFOSS <https://amfoss.in/@gopavasanth> | GitHub
<https://github.com/gopavasanth> | Gerrit
<https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/q/gopavasanth>
“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”
Hi all!
If you've never created a repo or fork on the Wikimedia GitHub
organization you can skip this email.
I know that some repos are developed on our GitHub org for reasons.
What is developed on our GitHub org? How many things are actively
being developed on GitHub org? I have no idea :)
I recently realized that there's not a great way to figure this
out[0], but I've been able to narrow the scope a bit. Now I have a
list of repos that are (a) in our GitHub org and (b) not in our Gerrit
that I could use some help sorting through[1].
== Help, please ==
* Look through repos on The List™[1]
If your repos are on the list, for each of your repos either:
* Archive or Delete it if it's no longer maintained or empty/useless,
respectively (and remove them from the list on mw.org)[2]
Or:
* put a "{{tick}}" in the "Active" column on the list on mw.org
== Why==
In a more perfect future we could add the "mirror"[3] tag to repos on
GitHub that are mirrored from Gerrit (with a link to their canonical
repo locations; for example, gnome-deskop has this[4] and I'm very
jealous).
Hopefully, this will help folks wanting to contribute -- either a
Wikimedia GitHub repo is a mirror (in which case there's a link to
Gerrit in the description) or it's actively being developed on GitHub.
<3
-- Tyler
[0]: <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T237470#6407509>
[1]: <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Gerrit/GitHub#Projects_on_GitHub>
[2]: <https://docs.github.com/en/github/creating-cloning-and-archiving-repositori…>
[3]: <https://docs.github.com/en/github/getting-started-with-github/finding-ways-…>
[4]: <https://github.com/GNOME/gnome-desktop>
Hi Community Metrics team,
This is your automatic monthly Phabricator statistics mail.
Accounts created in (2020-08): 305
Active Maniphest users (any activity) in (2020-08): 983
Task authors in (2020-08): 521
Users who have closed tasks in (2020-08): 290
Projects which had at least one task moved from one column to another on
their workboard in (2020-08): 294
Tasks created in (2020-08): 2312
Tasks closed in (2020-08): 2048
Open and stalled tasks in total: 45477
* Only open tasks in total: 44491
* Only stalled tasks in total: 986
Median age in days of open tasks by priority:
Unbreak now: 0
Needs Triage: 582
High: 912
Normal: 1282
Low: 1839
Lowest: 1866
(How long tasks have been open, not how long they have had that priority)
Active Differential users (any activity) in (2020-08): 5
To see the names of the most active task authors:
* Go to https://wikimedia.biterg.io/
* Choose "Phabricator > Overview" from the top bar
* Adjust the time frame in the upper right corner to your needs
* See the author names in the "Submitters" panel
TODO: Numbers which refer to closed tasks might not be correct, as
described in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T1003 .
Yours sincerely,
Fab Rick Aytor
(via community_metrics.sh on phab1001 at Tue 01 Sep 2020 12:00:17 AM UTC)