Hi everyone,
We’re happy to share the July 2022 edition of the Technical Community
Newsletter:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_Community_Newsletter/2022/July
The newsletter is compiled by the Wikimedia Developer Advocacy Team. It
aims to share highlights, news, and information of interest from and about
the Wikimedia technical community.
The Wikimedia Technical Community is large and diverse, and we know we
can't capture everything perfectly. We would love to hear your ideas for
future newsletters. Got something you would like to see or something you
want to highlight in the next quarterly newsletter? Add your suggestion to
the talk page:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Technical_Community_Newsletter
If you'd like to keep up with updates and information, subscribe to the
Technical Community Newsletter:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Newsletter:Technical_Community_Newsletter
Thanks,
Melinda
--
Melinda Seckington
Developer Advocacy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
The Search Platform Team
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Search_Platform> usually holds an
open meeting on the first Wednesday of each month. Come talk to us about
anything related to Wikimedia search, Wikidata Query Service (WDQS),
Wikimedia Commons Query Service (WCQS), etc.!
Feel free to add your items to the Etherpad Agenda for the next meeting.
Details for our next meeting:
Date: Wednesday, August 3rd, 2022
Time: 15:00-16:00 UTC / 08:00-09:00 PDT / 11:00-12:00 EDT / 16:00-17:00 WAT
/ 17:00-18:00 CEST
Etherpad: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Search_Platform_Office_Hours
Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/vgj-bbeb-uyi
Join by phone: https://tel.meet/vgj-bbeb-uyi?pin=8118110806927
Hope to talk to you next week!
—Trey
Trey Jones
Staff Computational Linguist, Search Platform
Wikimedia Foundation
UTC–4 / EDT
Hey all,
Out of an abundance of caution, please hold all non-emergency deploys
until we have a fix for this one:
* scap no longer restarts php-fpm on canary servers
- https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T313770
For urgent situations, be aware that:
1. Canary servers don't currently offer any assurances, since they
aren't currently being restarted after code is synced.
2. You'll need to restart PHP on:
{mw1414,mw1447,mw1415,mw1417,mw1418,mw1449,mw1450,mw1416,mw1448}.eqiad.wmnet
Thanks, and sorry for the disruption. We expect to return you to your
regularly scheduled deployments shortly!
(CC'd to listed deployers for upcoming windows.)
--
Brennen Bearnes
Release Engineering
Wikimedia Foundation
Dear all,
in a regular MediaWiki installation switched to de-formal, all help links point to the English versions. This is probably because there is not de-formal version of the MediaWiki documentation, which of course is fine. But all links to SpecialMyLanguage should lead to the German documentation, for settings of "de", "de-formal", "de-at" etc.
As an example: the help icon on Special:Recent changes leads to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:Recent_changes
But if you set your wiki to de-formal, it will lead you to the English help pages instead the German ones.
Best,
Bernhard
Hi all,
I originally sent this email out on 20 May, 2022, but it seems like it
didn’t go out to everybody, unfortunately.
We are beginning the process of undeploying API Feature Usage
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T313248> this week, and apologize for
the confusion, and what is now short notice for those of you who were not
aware of this announcement previously.
Best,
—
*Mike Pham* (he/him)
Sr Product Manager, Search
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
On 20May, 2022 at 10:18:44, Mike Pham (mpham(a)wikimedia.org) wrote:
Hi all,
The Wikimedia Foundation Search team is currently working on updating our
Elasticsearch version to 7.10 <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T263142>
from version 6.8.20. Our goal is to finish this work in the next couple of
months. Being on the latest (license-compatible) version will help ensure
the stability and reliability of our search infrastructure.
This update will include 2 breaking changes:
1.
Cloudelastic will be affected by breaking changes, with more details
below. The interface might also change slightly.
1.
https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.17/breaking-chang…
2.
https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.10/migrating-7.10…
2.
The API Feature Usage extension
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ApiFeatureUsage>, whose
functionality is unrelated to search, will no longer be supported. This
low-usage extension is currently implemented in a complicated and brittle
way that depends on Elasticsearch, which creates development drag on the
Search team’s work in order to continuously maintain and upkeep.
While in the short term API Feature Usage will be sunsetted, we recognize
that it’s probably useful for some users, and we encourage others to
continue to support and develop this extension in the longer term, without
its brittle dependency on Elasticsearch.
Though the Elasticsearch upgrade will provide overall net benefits, we
recognize that these breaking changes will unfortunately affect some users,
and appreciate your understanding as we improve our search infrastructure.
Best,
Search Platform
—
*Mike Pham* (he/him)
Sr Product Manager, Search
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hello everyone!
Mark your calendars for the Wikimania Hackathon! The Wikimania 2022
Hackathon is a free, online event open to the general public to work
together on technical projects, learn new skills, and meet other technical
contributors. You can find more information about this on the Wikimania page
<https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2022:Hackathon>, which will continue
to grow over the next few weeks. For more details, read below.
*Schedule: *
The Hackathon will take place virtually in three time blocks:
16- 22 UTC August 12
12-17 UTC August 13
A final showcase on August 14.
*Format:*
At the beginning of the event, anyone can present a technical project they
plan to work on at the Pre-Event Showcase. This session will provide a
space for people to find teams, brainstorm new ideas, and make plans for
what to hack during the Hackathon.
Throughout the following hours, there will be social sessions and training
sessions run by the community, but the majority of the time will be spent
hacking together. Attendees can also attend other Wikimania activities.
At the end of the event, there will be a final showcase to present advances
or new technical projects built during the Hackathon to all of Wikimania.
*Accessibility:*If you have any accessibility or translation requests,
please contact hlepp(a)wikimedia.org.
Looking forward to spending time hacking together!
Cheers,
Haley and the WMF Developer Advocacy Team