Hi,

The latest technical newsletter is now available at <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2016/47>. Below is the English version.

You can help write the next newsletter: whenever you see information about Wikimedia technology that you think should be distributed more broadly, you can add it to the next newsletter at <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/Next>.

More information on how to contribute is available at <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News#contribute>. You can also contact me directly.

As always, feedback (on- or off-list) is appreciated and encouraged.

(In case anyone is wondering about the recent attacks and two-factor authentication being made available: The newsletter was already in translation by then. It'll be included next week.)

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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

  • Administrators, bureaucrats, oversighters and checkusers can now use two-factor authentication. This makes their Wikimedia accounts more secure. This can be turned on in Special:Preferences. There are discussions on how to best turn it on for everyone. [1]
  • You can now search for file properties. For example you can search for media type, how big a file is or what resolution it has. [2]
  • The latest Collaboration team products newsletter has been published. It has more details about their work than Tech News has.

Problems

  • A hacker group is hacking Wikimedia accounts. They can probably do this because users have the same passwords on Wikimedia wikis as on other sites. Please have a password you use only on the Wikimedia wikis and nowhere else. This is especially important for administrators, bureaucrats, oversighters and checkusers. These users can also turn on two-factor authentication. [3]

Changes this week

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
  • RevisionSlider will be a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia. This will happen on 22 November. It will come to other wikis later. [4][5][6]

Meetings

  • Octicons-sync.svg 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 22 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • It will be possible to do cross-wiki search. The developers who work on this are looking for communities that want to test this. [7]
  • Hovercards will leave the beta stage. The Wikimedia Foundation Reading Web team wants communities to set Hovercards as a default option for readers who are not logged in. Communities that are interested can say so on the Hovercards talk page. [8]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.


//Johan Jönsson