Wikitech-l July 2025

wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org

34 participants
28 discussions

User style to reduce Gerritbot comments on Phabricator
by Bartosz Dziewoński 09 Jan '26

09 Jan '26

Do your eyes glaze over when trying to make sense of Phabricator tasks with a long and troubled history of patches? Do you struggle to find the real people in the sea of automated bot comments? I've made myself a user style to compact the Gerritbot comments on Phabricator. You might like it too: https://userstyles.world/style/13140/wikimedia-phabricator-reduce-gerritbot… (See screenshots and installation instructions there.) -- Bartosz Dziewoński

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Struggling with Online Classes? Here's a Reliable Help Option!
by course fpx 20 Nov '25

20 Nov '25

Hey everyone, I’ve noticed a lot of students (including myself) struggling with the pressure of online classes, deadlines, and quizzes — especially with platforms like Capella FlexPath, WGU, and others. If you're overwhelmed, there’s a service I recently came across called Online Classes Help. They assist with everything from discussion posts and assignments to full course completion. Super helpful for those juggling jobs or other responsibilities! Whether you need one-time help or ongoing support, this could really reduce your stress and help you maintain a good GPA. Just make sure to use it ethically — as a support tool, not a shortcut! Has anyone else tried such services? Would love to hear your experiences. Cheers! fpr more info :https://coursefpx.com/online-class-help/

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Forthcoming maintenance to irc.wikimedia.org - Moving to ircstream
by Moritz Mühlenhoff 01 Oct '25

01 Oct '25

Hi all, we're moving irc.wikimedia.org to a new infrastructure [1]. This service is unrelated to the IRC network (Libera) we use for real time discussions. Instead irc.wikimedia.org is an IRC service for broadcasting recent changes events from public Wikimedia wikis to be used by various bots connected to per-wiki IRC channels. irc.wikimedia.org should not be used for any new bots (which should rather use Eventstreams[2]), but we still have various important bots relying on the legacy IRC-based infrastructure. The current setup is full of technical debt and ultimately based on a patched version of a very old release of ircd-ratbox with a relay service written in Python 2. We are replacing it with a modern standalone implementation in Python, which broadcasts IRC notifications in a format compatible to what is currently in use by the legacy setup: https://github.com/paravoid/ircstream Last week during the SRE Infrastructure Foundations hackathon the ircstream production setup was created. All our tests have been successful, so on Thursday October 10 at 08:00 UTC we'll switch the irc.wikimedia.org DNS name to the new setup. No changes are needed to any bots, but if you run into any issues after the switch, please notify us in the #wikimedia-sre-foundations IRC channel or leave a note at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T376014. Cheers, Luca, Simon and Moritz Footnotes: [1] https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Irc.wikimedia.org [2] https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event_Platform/EventStreams_HTTP_Service

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MediaWiki Extensions and Skins Security Release Supplement (1.39.11/1.41.5/1.42.4)
by Manfredi Martorana 21 Aug '25

21 Aug '25

Greetings- With the security/maintenance release of MediaWiki 1.39.11/1.41.5/1.42.4, we would also like to provide this supplementary announcement of MediaWiki extensions and skins with now-public Phabricator tasks, security patches and backports [1]: SocialProfile + (T373265 <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T373265>, CVE-2025-23074) - Special:EditProfile exposes the contents of profile fields marked "hidden"/friends or "friends of friends" when the privileged user isn't a friend of the user whose profile they edit(ed) https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/q/I4b77ced314bc6cea0ef3657a82e7467d3661fe2a GlobalBlocking + (T377855 <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T377855>, CVE-2025-23073) - API list=globalblocks can reveal IP of autoblock if username and IP are included in the bgtargets parameter https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/q/I2a2d32aedf6328be0a9f1b4e04a6567a25f19486 RefreshSpecial + (T378885 <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T378885>, CVE-2025-23072) - XSS in Special:RefreshSpecial https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/q/Ic9547e80a8296d707ad8a157eb8ba7aa26fb08dc DataTransfer + (T379749 <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T379749>, CVE-2025-23081) - Various security vulnerabilities in Extension:DataTransfer https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/q/I773c616db781d2f3f30893ad01ef503bf251a2b3 https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/q/I7c9de4c8dcdb3276ba923c6bc7c8eef3531324c7 https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/q/I9223c31f02f31f1e06e1a8cddf7d539cc8d3a3d9 https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/q/I5e1538a3bf66378810f905834c05626e1d2c82f0 https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/DataTransfer/+/1093931 https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/DataTransfer/+/1080451 OpenBadges + (T381220 <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T381220>, CVE-2025-23080) - XSSes in Special:BadgeView https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/q/Ic9448312fa7f1cbc8feac3f852bc8720568522e2 ArticleFeedbackv5 + (T381753 <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T381753>, CVE-2025-23079) - XSSes in Extension:ArticleFeedbackv5 https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/q/I6ee51c8b518bda41739fd666fa2891cc12e79ac3 BreadCrumbs2 + (T382043 <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T382043>, CVE-2025-23078) - XSS in BreadCrumbs2 https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/q/I7878f8f7bc067080f80427b90f8d85337f172711 The Wikimedia Security Team recommends updating these extensions and/or skins to the current master branch or relevant, supported release branch [2] as soon as possible. Some of the referenced Phabricator tasks above _may_ still be private. Unfortunately, when security issues are reported, sometimes sensitive information is exposed and since Phabricator is historical, we cannot make these tasks public without exposing this sensitive information. If you have any additional questions or concerns regarding this update, please feel free to contact security(a)wikimedia.org or file a security task within Phabricator [3]. [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T375631 [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Version_lifecycle [3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reporting_security_bugs

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Duplicate git tags for 1.43.0-rc.0 and 1.43.0 in mediawiki/core.git
by Atieno Njira 31 Jul '25

31 Jul '25

Hello all. Yesterday between roughly 1pm - 2:30pm UTC `git fetch` on core was failing with the exact error being 1.43.0-rc.0 -> 1.43.0-rc.0 (would clobber existing tag) for both 1.43.0-rc.0 and 1.43.0 tags. This error was because I recreated the 2 tags i.e. the original tags deleted and new ones with the exact names pointing to the exact commits created. The reason for the update was to add missing GPG signature. Tags are never meant to update (hence why fetching updated tags will by default reject the tags unless you fetch with --force or do a local git tag -d) The prompt for doing it now, was creation of a tarball diff for 1.43.0-rc.0, and that process led to a "tag not signed error", thus realizing it hasn't been signed. We fixed this error <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T400729>by restoring the original tags. Some ideas we have discussed going forward to prevent this is in addition to having the documented requirement in the Release Checklist <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Release_checklist> for signed artefacts, enforce the same from the artefacts scripts creation level. Cheers.

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Enforcement of the Wikimedia User-Agent policy
by Giuseppe Lavagetto 30 Jul '25

30 Jul '25

Hi, As part of our work to ensure a fair use of our infrastructure[1], we are going to progressively enforce our long-standing user-agent policy[2] more systematically than we used to. This will mean that, unless you set a user-agent that complies with the policy, your requests will be rate-limited and eventually blocked over the coming month. As usual, this excludes requests coming directly from toolforge/wikimedia cloud services. For details on the schedule and further discussion please refer to the phabricator task[3] Cheers, Giuseppe [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2025-2026/… [2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Wikimedia_Foundation_User-Agen… [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T400119 -- Giuseppe Lavagetto Principal Site Reliability Engineer, Wikimedia Foundation

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GitLab downtime Wed, 30 Jul 06:00–08:00 UTC
by Jelto Wodstrcil 30 Jul '25

30 Jul '25

Hello GitLab will be down this coming Wednesday, 30 July, from 06:00–08:00 UTC for a datacenter switchover[1]. Much of this switchover window will be downtime, during which you will be unable to access GitLab through ssh or the web interface. The process will involve a full backup of the GitLab server in the codfw datacenter, which will then be restored on the GitLab server in the eqiad datacenter. This work is required to perform maintenance on the currently active GitLab server.[3] You can follow along on IRC in the libera.chat #wikimedia-gitlab channel[2]. [1]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T399306 [2]: <ircs://irc.libera.chat:6697/wikimedia-gitlab> [3]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T399306

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Tech News 2025, week 31
by Nick Wilson (Quiddity) 29 Jul '25

29 Jul '25

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/2025/31> are available. *Weekly highlight* - The Community Tech team will be focusing on wishes related to Watchlists and Recent Changes pages, over the next few months. They are looking for feedback. Please read the latest update <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Community_Wishlist/Updat…>, and if you have ideas, please submit a wish <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Community_Wishlist> on the topic. *Updates for editors* - The Wikimedia Commons community has decided to block cross-wiki uploads <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Upload_dialog> to Wikimedia Commons, for all users without autoconfirmed rights on that wiki, starting on August 16. This is because of widespread problems <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Cross-wiki_media_upload_tool/His…> related to files that are uploaded by newcomers. Users who are affected by this will get an error message with a link to the less restrictive UploadWizard on Commons. Please help translating the message <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/MediaWiki:Abusefilter…> or give feedback on the message text. Please also update your local help pages to explain this restriction. [1] <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T370598> - On wikis with temporary accounts enabled and Meta-Wiki, administrators may now set up a footer for the Special:Contributions pages of temporary accounts, similar to those which can be shown on IP and user-account pages. They may do it by creating the page named MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer-temp. [2] <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T398347> - View all 21 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/Recently_resol…> . *Updates for technical contributors* - Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.45/wmf.12> *Meetings and events* - Wikimania 2025 <https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/2025:Wikimania> will run from August 6–9. The program is available <https://wikimedia.eventyay.com/talk/wikimania2025/schedule/> for you to plan which sessions you want to attend. Most sessions will be live-streamed, with exceptions for those that show the "no camera" icon. If you are joining online to watch live-streams and use the interactive features, please register <https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/2025:Registration> for a free virtual ticket. For example, you may be interested in technical sessions such as: - Temporary Accounts: Enhancing privacy for our unregistered editors <https://wikimedia.eventyay.com/talk/wikimania2025/talk/KFEFVG/> - Building a Sustainable Future for Wikimedia Contributors <https://wikimedia.eventyay.com/talk/wikimania2025/talk/TVCVAB/> - A dozen visions for wikitext! <https://wikimedia.eventyay.com/talk/wikimania2025/talk/WTRQCJ/> - Coordinate Across Stakeholders with the Product and Technology Advisory Council <https://wikimedia.eventyay.com/talk/wikimania2025/talk/8YKKP9/> - The MediaWiki Users and Developers Conference, Fall 2025 <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/MediaWiki_Users_and_Devel…> will be held 28–30 October 2025 in Hanover, Germany. This event is organized by and for the third-party MediaWiki community. You can propose sessions and register to attend. *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_d…> • Contribute <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News#contribute> • Translate <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2025/31> • 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_ambass…>.*

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New: Domain Events for MediaWiki
by Daniel Kinzler 29 Jul '25

29 Jul '25

TLDR: Extensions can now listen to events emitted by MediaWiki <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Domain_events>. Over the course of the fiscal year the MediaWiki Interfaces team has introduced a system of Domain Events into MediaWiki. Domain Events provide a new way for extensions and core components to be notified about changes in other parts of the system, offering a more expressive and sustainable alternative to hooks that were previously used for this purpose. The need for this new capability was identified by a survey of hook usage we conducted in the first quarter. The work on the domain events system was conducted in close collaboration with Data Platform Engineering with substantial support from the Growth team and the Language team. These collaborations have proven immensely valuable by allowing us to iterate on the design early on and fostered knowledge sharing across the teams. Our efforts have resulted in a simple yet powerful system that has already proven effective in avoiding coupling between core components and reducing the need for boiler plate code in extensions. The domain events framework itself is part of the MediaWiki 1.44 release, but the event classes themselves are still experimental. A set of events representing changes to pages is scheduled to become part of MediaWiki’s stable interface in 1.45. In the future, domain events will hopefully help to integrate MediaWiki into an event-based architecture that enables data-backed features: generalizing the mechanism for broadcasting events via Kafka that is currently implemented in EventBus would make it much easier to inform other processes about state changes in MediaWiki. But there is even more potential in providing a simple mechanism for MediaWiki to receive events from other services. If you want to know more about the architecture of the event dispatcher, the modeling of page changes as events, or about what we hope to do with domain events in the future, have a look at the report published on mediawiki.org <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Domain_events/Report_FY24-25>. If you want to dive right in, best follow the examples on the manual page <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Domain_events>. I'm very happy and proud of what we have achieved. I hope you like it too!

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Softwaretester Profil
by Markus Glaser 28 Jul '25

28 Jul '25

________________________________________________________________________________ Microsoft Teams Benötigen Sie Hilfe?<https://aka.ms/JoinTeamsMeeting?omkt=de-DE> Jetzt an der Besprechung teilnehmen<https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_MjhlY2ZjMzgtYTc5Ni00…> Besprechungs-ID: 352 420 582 239 3 Kennung: 7xQ7rk3p ________________________________ Für Organisatoren: Besprechungsoptionen<https://teams.microsoft.com/meetingOptions/?organizerId=65cb4ed6-acc9-4089-…> ________________________________________________________________________________

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Wikitech-l July 2025