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170:, progress with the final phase was slightly slower than anticipated but still good, with the French, Polish and English Wikipedias, along with Wikimedia Commons, having their version of MediaWiki updated within the first four hour window. Other wikis were then transferred during secondary windows on October 5 and 6. The deployment did not go perfectly, however, and a number of bugs have since been discovered with 1.18; as of time of writing, approximately 40 open ones are currently 191:). Responding to the relatively high volume of bugs found despite a recent emphasis on improving Wikimedia and MediaWiki's pre-release test infrastructure, Hershberger appealed for help in writing unit and/or parser tests for key bug fixes to ensure that regressions are spotted more quickly in the future. If this is the case when 1.19 nears deployment (currently scheduled for late this year), the whole process would be likely to pass off "a *lot* smoother", wrote Hershberger ( 439: 117: 107: 294: 33: 127: 87: 137: 97: 161:
With the dust settled from the first two phases of the deployment of MediaWiki version 1.18, on October 4 the full rollout programme began. Since small but technically interesting wikis had been the focus of the first two phases, only 2% of traffic had been routed through MediaWiki 1.18; now, all
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Yaaaaay HTTPS! I had given up on using HTTPS until now due to the frustrating problem of not being able to share links, because the people who clicked on them would not be logged in on the resulting page. This fixes that. This is very exciting, thank you to everyone who helped this happen!
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functionality was commended by many commentators; one wrote that "the lack of proper HTTPS" support had in his eyes been a long-standing issue with the site. At time of writing, support for secure browsing on the mobile site has not yet been enabled (bug
342:). The version of jQuery packaged with MediaWiki has since been upgraded to a version that does not cause the problem and Wikimedia wikis have been updated to reflect the change. In unrelated news, WMF Internalisation team member Gerard Meijssen 388:
have announced that they have awarded Wikimedia a $ 3.6 million grant to support technical projects aimed at making its wikis more newcomer friendly, including work on enabling editing from the new mobile site and the long-awaited visual editor
408: 269:) – there are no plans to enable mobile support until the mobile and non-mobile sites are fully merged – but the core support for non-mobile devices outlined by Lane in his blogpost at least appears to be working correctly. 245:
The SSL servers only do SSL termination, and they do it before our caching layers. This means that this is a transparent addition to our architecture. When we scale other pieces of our architecture, this will scale with it
364:. Discussion so far has focussed on the most widely acknowledged point of contention, whether MediaWiki should remain as one repository or spin-off extensions and/or localisation files into their own repositories. 519: 488: 478: 426: 417: 357: 224: 483: 468: 381: 73: 463: 473: 456: 273:, a popular browser add-on designed to make it easier to use the secure version of a website where it exists, is in the process of being updated to take advantage of the new format ( 450: 52: 41: 396: 400: 174:
under the auspices of bugmeister Mark Hershberger, although few are serious. The list of bugs reported but not yet fixed includes problems with the watchlist API (bug #
215:, operations engineer Ryan Lane said that the secure.wikimedia.org domain had been officially deprecated. Lane advised security-conscious visitors to simply change 162:
visitors and editors will be able to take advantage of its new features, which include support for gender-specific user pages and better directionality support for
649: 21: 624: 596: 330:: A bug in the JavaScript component of Wikimedia wikis that caused the browser windows of Internet Explorer 8 users to crash has now been fixed. The bug (# 619: 614: 227:). In addition to a noticeable speed improvement over its secure.wikimedia.org forerunner, Lane was clear on the benefits of the switchover to full 609: 249:
We can remove our CSS, JavaScript, and web server hacks. This simplifies everything, and makes it far less likely we'll have mixed-content issues.
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as a paradigm for good volunteer involvement in making sure bugs are fixed quickly (it has since been re-opened pending further investigation).
374:. Previously, mobile devices had been forced to display the full fixed-width layout that had been designed solely with larger screens in mind. 604: 438: 46: 32: 17: 343: 582: 546: 286:
Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.
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in their URL instead to take advantage of new functionality which has taken months of planning to achieve (including the
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I thought that the part of the title that said "but developer help now needed with new projects" was about the Sepedi
167: 630: 370:: A special mobile edition of the combined Wikimedia blog was released this week, according to an announcement 404: 385: 371: 347: 331: 266: 188: 179: 175: 171: 90: 68:
1.18 deployment and HTTPS switchover completed, but developer help now needed with new projects
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This week, Tomasz Finc, the WMF's Director of Mobile and Special Projects, issued a call for
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operating system, whilst developer Jack Phoenix appealed for help with the
334:) was fixed only a day after it was filed, tracked down to a fault in the 270: 335: 51: 242:
the URLs are exactly the same, just the protocol is different.
233: 437: 292: 31: 356:: The finer details of a plan floated late last month to 338:
library version that MediaWiki 1.18 came packaged with (
531: 524: 504: 403:. In addition, a BRFA focussed on article creation by 529:If your comment has not appeared here, you can try 401:mass updating instances of a biological infobox 380:: As reported in more detail in this week's " 8: 354:Discussion over conversion to Git continues 650:Knowledge (XXG) Signpost archives 2011-10 178:), the localisation update system (bug # 18:Knowledge (XXG):Knowledge (XXG) Signpost 532: 508: 397:helping automated Mediation Cabal pages 358:convert the MediaWiki repository to Git 67: 225:introduction of protocol-relative URLs 7: 328:Quick fix turnaround for serious bug 183: 555:is awaiting developer creation! ~~ 53: 28: 514:These comments are automatically 213:for the Wikimedia Foundation blog 207:Also announced this week was the 203:support comes to Wikimedia wikis 157:1.18 deployed to remaining wikis 135: 125: 115: 105: 95: 85: 166:languages. According to a post 525:add the page to your watchlist 368:Wikimedia Blog mobile friendly 362:on the wikitech-l mailing list 1: 378:$ 3.6 million grant announced 583:11:05, 11 October 2011 (UTC) 547:03:45, 11 October 2011 (UTC) 597:delivered to your talk page 666: 310:potential app developers 340:wikitech-l mailing list 275:wikitech-l mailing list 193:wikitech-l mailing list 522:. To follow comments, 442: 297: 260:The deployment of new 36: 441: 430:"Technology report" → 296: 182:) and the display of 168:on the Wikimedia blog 35: 518:from this article's 211:switchover. Writing 422:"Technology report" 303:Call for developers 509:Discuss this story 489:Arbitration report 479:WikiProject report 443: 386:Stanton Foundation 372:on the blog itself 298: 42:← Back to Contents 37: 580: 576: 533:purging the cache 494:Technology report 258: 257: 185:...</math: --> 65:Technology report 47:View Latest Issue 657: 633: 592:Want the latest 579: 578: 572: 567: 564: 563: 560: 536: 534: 528: 507: 484:Featured content 461: 453: 446: 429: 421: 360:began this week 301: 300:How you can help 295: 271:HTTPS Everywhere 263: 234: 230: 222: 218: 210: 202: 186: 153: 139: 138: 129: 128: 119: 118: 109: 108: 99: 98: 89: 88: 59: 57: 55: 665: 664: 660: 659: 658: 656: 655: 654: 640: 639: 638: 637: 636: 635: 634: 629: 627: 622: 617: 612: 607: 600: 589: 588: 577: 569: 568: 561: 558: 557: 553:Knowledge (XXG) 538: 530: 523: 512: 511: 505:+ Add a comment 503: 499: 498: 497: 454: 451:10 October 2011 449: 447: 444: 433: 432: 427: 424: 419: 405:Rich Farmbrough 324: 323: 322: 318:Video extension 305: 304: 299: 293: 283: 261: 231:functionality: 228: 220: 216: 208: 205: 200: 159: 154: 148: 147: 146: 145: 136: 126: 116: 106: 96: 86: 80: 77: 66: 62: 60: 54:10 October 2011 50: 49: 44: 38: 26: 25: 24: 12: 11: 5: 663: 661: 653: 652: 642: 641: 628: 623: 618: 613: 608: 603: 602: 601: 591: 590: 587: 586: 585: 571: 570: 549: 513: 510: 502: 501: 500: 496: 491: 486: 481: 476: 471: 469:News and notes 466: 460: 448: 436: 435: 434: 425: 416: 415: 414: 413: 412: 393:Bot tasks open 390: 382:News and Notes 375: 365: 351: 314:Google Android 306: 302: 291: 290: 289: 282: 279: 256: 255: 252: 251: 250: 247: 243: 238: 204: 197: 158: 155: 144: 143: 133: 123: 113: 103: 93: 82: 81: 78: 72: 71: 70: 69: 64: 63: 61: 58: 45: 40: 39: 30: 29: 27: 15: 14: 13: 10: 9: 6: 4: 3: 2: 662: 651: 648: 647: 645: 632: 626: 621: 616: 611: 606: 598: 595: 584: 575: 565: 554: 550: 548: 545: 540: 539: 535: 526: 521: 517: 506: 495: 492: 490: 487: 485: 482: 480: 477: 475: 472: 470: 467: 465: 464:Opinion essay 462: 458: 452: 445:In this issue 440: 431: 423: 410: 406: 402: 398: 394: 391: 387: 383: 379: 376: 373: 369: 366: 363: 359: 355: 352: 349: 345: 341: 337: 333: 329: 326: 325: 321: 319: 315: 311: 288: 287: 280: 278: 276: 272: 268: 248: 244: 241: 240: 239: 235: 232: 226: 214: 198: 196: 194: 190: 184:<math: --> 181: 177: 173: 172:being tracked 169: 165: 156: 152: 142: 134: 132: 124: 122: 114: 112: 104: 102: 94: 92: 84: 83: 75: 56: 48: 43: 34: 23: 19: 593: 581:(Incubator) 493: 457:all comments 392: 377: 367: 353: 327: 307: 285: 284: 259: 206: 160: 631:Suggestions 599:each month? 516:transcluded 474:In the news 346:about bug # 79:Share this 74:Contribute 22:2011-10-10 625:Subscribe 520:talk page 199:Improved 151:Jarry1250 644:Category 620:Newsroom 615:Archives 594:Signpost 574:Contribs 544:Dcoetzee 420:Previous 407:is also 389:project. 312:for the 281:In brief 121:LinkedIn 101:Facebook 20:‎ | 566:~~ (+) 384:", the 344:blogged 111:Twitter 336:jQuery 187:(bug # 131:Reddit 91:E-mail 610:About 348:31310 332:31424 267:31333 262:https 229:https 221:https 209:https 201:https 189:31442 180:31559 176:31526 16:< 605:Home 428:Next 409:open 399:and 217:http 141:Digg 562:123 559:Ebe 277:). 219:to 195:). 164:RTL 149:By 76:— 646:: 418:← 320:. 254:” 237:“ 537:. 527:. 459:) 455:( 411:. 265:#

Index

Knowledge (XXG):Knowledge (XXG) Signpost
2011-10-10
The Signpost
← Back to Contents
View Latest Issue
10 October 2011
Contribute
E-mail
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Reddit
Digg
Jarry1250
RTL
on the Wikimedia blog
being tracked
31526
31559
31442
wikitech-l mailing list
for the Wikimedia Foundation blog
introduction of protocol-relative URLs
31333
HTTPS Everywhere
wikitech-l mailing list
potential app developers
Google Android
Video extension
31424

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