Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-12-18/Technology report

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Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

By Simetrical, December 18, 2006

Note that a number of features were added recently that required database schema changes. They may not go live for a few days or even longer, until the databases can be updated, and neither will any other changes made since r18226.

Edit counts are now finally available directly from the database. There is not yet a software interface to display them, but they should soon be usable for many heuristics where they were previously not efficient enough to use (such as for when a user becomes "autoconfirmed" and is able to move pages). They will also likely be viewable somehow through the wiki interface. (Brion Vibber, r18325)

Users whose passwords were reset can now only log in using their temporary e-mailed passwords. The password entered by the resetting sysop will not be valid. Also, their e-mail addresses will no longer revert to being unconfirmed. (Brion Vibber, bug 6394 and bug 2259, r18307, r18319, r18320)

Users who have newly registered on a wiki with e-mail confirmation enabled (such as the English Wikipedia), if they have provided an e-mail address, will be notified of the confirmation e-mail once it has been sent. Users attempting to confirm their e-mail addresses will also now be warned if a confirmation e-mail was sent for their account recently. (Brion Vibber, r18320)

<nowiki> now works inside poems on wikis with that extension installed, such as Wikisource. (Steve Sanbeg, bug 7503, r18340) It also now works in the site notice. (Rob Church, bug 8153, r18390)

On wikis with the ConfirmEdit extension enabled, anonymous users can no longer avoid CAPTCHAs for inserting URLs by inserting an HTML comment (<!-- -->) or other simple obfuscation. Also, a bug that in some cases stopped the extension from working entirely was fixed. (Brion Vibber, bug 4823 and bug 8268, r18349)

Special:Booksources will now have a URL that can be copied and pasted for links. (Previously it used HTTP POST, and now uses GET.) (Rob Church, bug 8164, r18372)

A new extension, UserImages, dynamically creates a gallery of all images uploaded by a user. It is not enabled on any Wikimedia Foundation wiki. (Rob Church, r18376)

A few interface changes were made:

  • The undo link in edit histories now appears even on the current revision. It had previously been omitted there because its effect was essentially the same as clicking the "edit" link on the left-hand revision. (Andrew Garrett, r18254)
  • Special:Allpages now displays a link to allow users to navigate to the previous page. (Ashar Voultoiz, bug 4673, r18263)
  • When a user is blocked, the block message can now include a block ID (parameter $5). This will allow users to get unblocked more easily by administrators. If the message has been customized, it must be manually updated to display the added parameter. (Andrew Garrett, r18302)
  • The count showing how many characters changed in an edit now appears for page moves, page creations, and log entries. It also now works correctly in "enhanced" recent changes. (Leon Weber, r18313)
  • When viewing a user's contributions, "next 50" will actually get the next 50 contributions. Previously it retrieved only the next 49 revisions, with the last revision of the current page as the 50th. (Ashar Voultoiz, bug 8239, r18314)
  • Using a new extension, it is now possible for logged-in users to dismiss site notices. (Tim Starling and Brion Vibber, r18353 and r18357)
  • The message name filter on Special:Allmessages should now work somewhat more smoothly. (Ilmari Karonen, bug 7925, r18373
  • It is now possible for a sysop, when deleting a page, to check a box to watch it. The box may be checked by default as a user preference. (Rob Church, bug 4488, r18381)
  • Edit summaries now treat wikilinks beginning with a colon the same way as they're treated in ordinary wikitext (i.e., the colon suppresses special behavior but is otherwise ignored). (Rob Church, bug 2785, r18428)
  • "You can view and copy the source of this page" is no longer displayed on protected pages if the page has no text. (Rob Church, r18429–30)

Incorrect behavior for user pages in a corner case where users might have names ending in .js or .css (thus tricking the software into treating their user page as a CSS/JS subpage) was fixed. (Mark Haidar/Fyren, bug 8241, r18300)

Some updates were made to non-English messages, specifically:

Internationalization help is always appreciated! See m:Localization statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to Mediazilla.


Also this week: From the editor — Arbitration series — Fundraiser opens — WikiWorld — News and notes — Features and admins — Technology — Arbitration

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