This is an archive of past discussions with User:DatGuy. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Scripts using very old deprecated wikibits functions show errors. These functions have not worked since 2013. You should fix or disable broken scripts. You can see examples of how to upgrade scripts. This is the same thing as Tech News wrote about in issue 2017/16. You need to addmw.loader.using( 'mediawiki.util' ) block for your scripts also, or add mediawiki.util dependency in gadget ResourceLoader section in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition. [2][3]
Problems
Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for 20 to 30 minutes on 3 May. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. You can read more about this.
Changes this week
There is no new MediaWiki version this week. This is because of the data centre test.
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 2 May at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
All Wikimedia wikis will have cookie blocks from May 8. This is an extension to the autoblock system so when a user is blocked, the next time they visit the wiki a cookie will be set. This means that even if the user switches accounts and to a new IP address the cookie will block them again. [4]
The Publish changes, Show preview and Show changes buttons will look slightly different. This is to fit with the OOUI look. Users can test scripts, gadgets and so on to see if they work with the new interface by adding &ooui=1 to the URL. [5]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
Some users have a problem with the watchlist. Some changes in categories make the watchlist a blank page. The developers are working on this. Until this is fixed you can try some things that have helped other editors if you have this problem. You can turn on Hide categorization of pages in your watchlist preferences. You can turn off Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent in your watchlist preferences. You can remove problematic categories from Special:EditWatchlist/raw. [6]
There was a problem with the visual editor for several days. You could not save edits that triggered a CAPTCHA. This would for example be when a new user added external links in references. This was fixed on 2 May. [7]
Changes this week
When you edit you can switch between the visual editor and the wikitext editor. This works if the wiki you edit has the visual editor. The menu will now say Visual editing and Source editing instead of Switch to visual editing and Switch to code editing. This is because it was confusing when the menu said you could switch to the editor you were already using. [8]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 May. It will be on all wikis from 11 May (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 9 May at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
You will be able to get a notification when a page you created is connected to a Wikidata item. This will come to Wikivoyage on 9 May. If there are no problems it will come to most Wikipedias on 30 May. It will come to other projects and English, French and German Wikipedia later in the summer. It will be opt-in for existing users and opt-out for new users. [9][10]
Markup that looks like code for language variants might need to be fixed. If -{ is used in transclusions or web addresses it has to be escaped appropriately. You can use -<nowiki/>{ for transclusions and %2D{ in web addresses. A transclusion could for example be when you use -{ in a template: {{1x| sad :-{ face }}. This is because of some code fixes to the preprocessor and affects all wikis. [11][12]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
You can now use ISBNs to automatically generate citations in the visual editor. This works on wikis that have enabled Citoid. [13]
The mediawiki.util library does not load automatically any more. Your Special:MyPage/common.js may use it. If you have technical problems that started a couple of weeks ago you can try adding mw.loader.using('mediawiki.util').done(function(){ as the first line in the file and }); as a last one. Tech News wrote about this in the 2017/18 issue. [15]
Changes this week
The RevisionSlider extension will be a default feature on all wikis. RevisionSlider is an easier way to move between changes in the page history. It has been a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia and a beta feature on all wikis. You will be able to turn it off in your preferences. [16]
There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
Administrators will soon be able to search through deleted pages. [17][18]
Markup that looks like code for language variants might need to be fixed. Tech News wrote about this last week. If -{ is used in transclusions or web addresses it has to be escaped appropriately. You can use -<nowiki/>{ for transclusions and %2D{ in web addresses. This is because of some code fixes to the preprocessor and affects all wikis. You can now see the full list of wikis with this problem and help fix them to avoid that things break later this month. You might find false positives. You can read more about what to fix. [19][20]
Older unreported changes
Your Meta user page is shown on all wikis where you don't have a local user page. You can now add the magic word __NOGLOBAL__ to your Meta user page to stop this. [21][22]
GermanGamer77 We could either take this to a subpage or continue to first discussion in this section. Please let me know. Anyways, from WP:ADOPT, would you like to ask some questions? Would you like me to review your edits? Anything that I can do to help. Dat GuyTalkContribs13:50, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
Hi DatGuy, User:RonBot Approved fro trial. Now I know I need to uncomment the lines marked "DO NOT UNCOMMENT UNTIL BOT IS APPROVED" - two of these lines (in "main") are followed by "break" - I know from dummy runs that if the bot gets here then the program stops. Do I comment out these two breaks? Ronhjones (Talk)21:32, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
Nothing goes smoothly with a version 1.... I put a 7 files in Category:RonBotTest and pointed the program to that cat. First a print line it did not like (commented out for now), then it ran and not much on screen, but had to do a lot of undo-ing - just text changes. Added a huge amount of print statements and worked with one file in Category:RonBotTest2 and fond one syntax error - fixed that and it ran OK, removed the template, failed to revision delete!. See details of run at User:RonBot/Run1. It goes through the deletefile part OK, so I assume the api call is just not quite right? Ronhjones (Talk)21:21, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
Have not tried your line, as I managed to read up on the api and work out the problem and hack it - your line may well be what I need. In "deletefile" as run before, the "version" parameter came out as {u'archivename': u'20170503171956!National_Basketball_Federation_Kazakhstan.png'} - but all the api wanted was the number - 20170503171956. I'll let you read that before I re-run - your line might do that, my RegEx is way to rusty to work it out! Ronhjones (Talk)22:07, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
@Ronhjones: Tell me if you've watchlisted this page and I'm annoying you with pings :). Anyways, judging by your comments at Run3, it seems like you figured it out? You still have 42 revdels and edits left. Finish those before requesting an edit rate ramp up.
Pings is fine, I like pings - when you are an admin the watchlist gets very large...! I meant scale up to complete the 50 :-) Ronhjones (Talk)01:14, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
Edits to Anorgasmia
Hi, I see you removed some text from the Anorgasmia page. The article now shows an image of the Hitachi Magic Wand with no context o.o Maybe you could add the block of information back, edited to be less "advetorial"? Or remove the image? Xolodilnik (talk) 09:02, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
New Page Review - Newsletter No.4
Hello DatGuy/Archives/2017,
Since rolling out the right in November, just 6 months ago, we now have 858 reviewers, but the backlog is still mysteriously growing fast. If every reviewer did just 55 reviews, the 22,000 backlog would be gone, in a flash, schwoop, just like that!
But do remember: Rather than speed, quality and depth of patrolling and the use of correct CSD criteria are essential to good reviewing. Do not over-tag. Make use of the message feature to let the creator know about your maintenance tags. See the tutorial again HERE. Get help HERE.
Stay up to date with recent new page developments and have your say, read THIS PAGE.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 May. It will be on all wikis from 25 May (calendar).
There will be a <div> tag around HTML from the MediaWiki wikitext parser. Gadgets with code that does not follow recommendations could have problems with this. You can report new problems you think are related to this. [24]
I must be missing something then because the template seems to show 4/24 as the last update. WP:PCB. Maybe it is stuck in my cache or something. GtstrickyTalk or C18:45, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
@DatGuy:, Technically possible, but it would be more sensible for DatBot to do it at the point it updates the underlying file, wouldn't it? I'm probably missing something obvious, so lemme know what. :) --joe deckertalk17:06, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
Oh, I'd need a new BRFA as well, which is fine, and it'd be quite easy. I'll fine one tonight or tomorrow, sorry for the delay. How frequently do you think this needs to be done? Daily? Hourly? --joe deckertalk01:50, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
So, just to verify, just purging Template:Pending Changes backlog you need purged hourly? I'll file later today. Thanks! --joe deckertalk14:00, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
Last week’s MediaWiki version was rolled back from some wikis because of a problem. This means planned changes did not happen. [25]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 30 May at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
