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It's the latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community! Not everything may affect you. More translations are available.
Changes later this week
- There is a new user right that lets editors overwrite redirects when moving a page. This will only work if the redirect that is being overwritten has no further history. Previously overwriting an existing redirect was only possible when the redirect target was the page that is being moved. This limitation would be lifted for any user who has the new user right. [1]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 September. It will be on all wikis from 10 September (calendar).
All MediaWiki API modules will now use watchlistinstead ofwatch. This was previously inconsistent. [2]
Future changes
- The Wikipedia Android app team might work on patrolling tools in the future. You can let them know what tools could be useful on the project page on mediawiki.org.
- OTRS will be updated to a new version. OTRS agents will not have access to the system during the update process but emails that come in during the update will be delivered once the update is done. The plan is to start the update around 08:00 UTC on 14 September and it should take about two days, but this information is subject to change. [3]
- The Wikipedia Android app will send push notifications if users want them. This could help you see for example when someone left a message on your talk page or reverted your edit. Push notifications require Google Play Services to work, when the app is installed without Google Play Services the push notifications won't work. [4][5]
- Wikimedia code review could move to GitLab, hosted on Wikimedia servers. You can take part in the consultation.
- Menus in the Vector skin use the
.menu,.vectorTabsand.vectorMenuCSS classes. This is going to change and as a result some scripts and gadgets may need to be adjusted. More information on Phabricator.
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