Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-12-26/Technology report

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The Wikipedia Signpost


Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

By Ral315, 26 December 2005

Deleted edit summaries again hidden to non-admins

brion hid deleted edit summaries from non-admins this week. In a mailing list post, brion cited complaints about "private, embarrassing, vandalistic, [and] libelous" material placed in edit summaries that was still visible through Special:Undelete. brion hinted that changes will likely be made to the way these revisions are handled, allowing better revision deleting or revision editing.

Extensions installed

This week marked the installation of three extensions on all Wikimedia wikis: Special:Unwatchedpages, Cite.php, and Special:Filepath. All three were created by developer Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason.

Special:Unwatchedpages

Special:Unwatchedpages was installed on December 22. The page, only accessible by administrators, shows all pages not watched by any users. The extension was installed in response to a request by Jimbo Wales, and in the wake of the recent Seigenthaler controversy.

Cite.php

Cite.php was installed on December 25. Not to be confused with the similar SpecialCite.php, Cite.php allows parser hooks to be used to aid with creating in-line citations.

Special:Filepath

Special:Filepath was installed on December 25. The extension allows the creation of links forwarding users to the current version of an image. For example, Special:Filepath/Wiki.png redirects to the current location of the Wikipedia logo.

Last week in servers

Server-related events, problems, and changes included:

  • December 22 — New protection interface installed
  • December 23 — Amethyst skin removed from all wikis
  • December 24 — Wikitech wiki moved to https, the first step in a planned move to secure logins in other Wikimedia locations
  • December 26 — In response to upload vandalism, the ability to upload files is restricted to "autoconfirmed" accounts, or those older than 4 days.
  • December 26 — An old apache server is converted into an experimental https server for testing.


Also this week: Semi-protection — ArbCom update — Steward elections — Wiki tools — News and notes — Press coverage — Features and admins — B.R.I.O.N. — T.R.O.L.L.