Wikitech-l August 2012

wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org

157 participants
168 discussions

Database dumps
by Byrial Jensen 17 Apr '25

17 Apr '25

Until some weeks ago http://dumps.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html used to show 4 dumps in progress at the same time. That meant that new database dumps normally was available within about 3 weeks for all databases except for enwiki and maybe dewiki where the dump process due to size took longer time. However the 4 dumps processes at one time become 3 some weeks ago. And after massive failures at June 4, only one dump has been in progress at the same time. So at the current speed it will take several months to come thru all dumps. Is it possible to speed up the process again using several dump processes at the same time? Thank you, Byrial

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User-Agent:
by Domas Mituzas 17 Apr '25

17 Apr '25

Hi! from now on specific per-bot/per-software/per-client User-Agent header is mandatory for contacting Wikimedia sites. Domas

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EBNF grammar project status?
by Steve Bennett 01 Apr '25

01 Apr '25

What's the status of the project to create a grammar for Wikitext in EBNF? There are two pages: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikitext_Metasyntax http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Markup_spec Nothing seems to have happened since January this year. Also the comments on the latter page seem to indicate a lack of clear goal: is this just a fun project, is it to improve the existing parser, or is it to facilititate a new parser? It's obviously a lot of work, so it needs to be of clear benefit. Brion requested the grammar IIRC (and there's a comment to that effect at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7 ), so I'm wondering what became of it. Is there still a goal of replacing the parser? Or is there some alternative plan? Steve

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Missing Section Headings
by Marc Riddell 13 Sep '24

13 Sep '24

Hello, I have been a WP editor since 2006. I hope you can help me. For some reason I no longer have Section Heading titles showing in the Articles. This is true of all Headings including the one that carries the Article subject's name. When there is a Table of Contents, it appears fine and, when I click on a particular Section, it goes to that Section, but all that is there is a straight line separating the Sections. There is also no button to edit a Section. If I edit the page and remove the "== ==" markers from the Section Titles, the Title then shows up, but not as a Section Heading. Also, I don't have any Date separators on my Want List. This started 2 days ago. Any thoughts? Thanks, Marc Riddell [[User:Michael David]]

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MediaWiki 1.19.0beta2
by Sam Reed 09 May '14

09 May '14

I'm happy to announce the availability of the second beta release of the new MediaWiki 1.19 release series. Please try it out and let us know what you think. Don't run it on any wikis that you really care about, unless you are both very brave and very confident in your MediaWiki administration skills. MediaWiki 1.19 is a large release that contains many new features and bug fixes. This is a summary of the major changes of interest to users. You can consult the RELEASE-NOTES-1.19 file for the full list of changes in this version. Five security issues were discovered. It was discovered that the api had a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in the block/unblock modules. It was possible for a user account with the block privileges to block or unblock another user without providing a token. For more details, see https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34212 It was discovered that the resource loader can leak certain kinds of private data across domain origin boundaries, by providing the data as an executable JavaScript file. In MediaWiki 1.18 and later, this includes the leaking of CSRF protection tokens. This allows compromise of the wiki's user accounts, say by changing the user's email address and then requesting a password reset. For more details, see https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34907 Jan Schejbal of Hatforce.com discovered a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in Special:Upload. Modern browsers (since at least as early as December 2010) are able to post file uploads without user interaction, violating previous security assumptions within MediaWiki. Depending on the wiki's configuration, this vulnerability could lead to further compromise, especially on private wikis where the set of allowed file types is broader than on public wikis. Note that CSRF allows compromise of a wiki from an external website even if the wiki is behind a firewall. For more details, see https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35317 George Argyros and Aggelos Kiayias reported that the method used to generate password reset tokens is not sufficiently secure. Instead we use various more secure random number generators, depending on what is available on the platform. Windows users are strongly advised to install either the openssl extension or the mcrypt extension for PHP so that MediaWiki can take advantage of the cryptographic random number facility provided by Windows. Any extension developers using mt_rand() to generate random numbers in contexts where security is required are encouraged to instead make use of the MWCryptRand class introduced with this release. For more details, see https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35078 A long-standing bug in the wikitext parser (bug 22555) was discovered to have security implications. In the presence of the popular CharInsert extension, it leads to cross-site scripting (XSS). XSS may be possible with other extensions or perhaps even the MediaWiki core alone, although this is not confirmed at this time. A denial-of-service attack (infinite loop) is also possible regardless of configuration. For more details, see https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35315 ********************************************************************* What's new? ********************************************************************* MediaWiki 1.19 brings the usual host of various bugfixes and new features. Comprehensive list of what's new is in the release notes. * Bumped MySQL version requirement to 5.0.2. * Disable the partial HTML and MathML rendering options for Math, and render as PNG by default. * MathML mode was so incomplete most people thought it simply didn't work. * New skins/common/*.css files usable by skins instead of having to copy piles of generic styles from MonoBook or Vector's css. * The default user signature now contains a talk link in addition to the user link. * Searching blocked usernames in block log is now clearer. * Better timezone recognition in user preferences. * Extensions can now participate in the extraction of titles from URL paths. * The command-line installer supports various RDBMSes better. * The interwiki links table can now be accessed also when the interwiki cache is used (used in the API and the Interwiki extension). Internationalization - -------------------- * More gender support (for instance in user lists). * Add languages: Canadian English. * Language converter improved, e.g. it now works depending on the page content language. * Time and number-formatting magic words also now depend on the page content language. * Bidirectional support further improved after 1.18. Release notes - ------------- Full release notes: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob_plain;f=RE LEASE-NOTES-1.19;hb=1.19.0beta2 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Release_notes/1.19 Co-inciding with these security releases, the MediaWiki source code repository has moved from SVN (at https://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3) to Git (https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/gitweb/mediawiki/core.git). So the relevant commits for these releases will not be appearing in our SVN repository. If you use SVN checkouts of MediaWiki for version control, you need to migrate these to Git. If you up are using tarballs, there should be no change in the process for you. Please note that any WMF-deployed extensions have also been migrated to Git also, along with some other non WMF-maintained ones. Please bear with us, some of the Git related links for this release may not work instantly, but should later on. To do a simple Git clone, the command is: git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/p/mediawiki/core.git More information is available at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Git For more help, please visit the #mediawiki IRC channel on freenode.net irc://irc.freenode.net/mediawiki or email The MediaWiki-l mailing list at mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org. ********************************************************************** Download: http://download.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.19/mediawiki-1.19.0beta2.tar.gz Patch to previous version (1.19.0beta1), without interface text: http://download.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.19/mediawiki-1.19.0beta2.patch.gz Interface text changes: http://download.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.19/mediawiki-i18n-1.19.0beta2.patc h.gz GPG signatures: http://download.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.19/mediawiki-1.19.0beta2.tar.gz.si g http://download.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.19/mediawiki-1.19.0beta2.patch.gz. sig http://download.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.19/mediawiki-i18n-1.19.0beta2.patc h.gz.sig Public keys: https://secure.wikimedia.org/keys.html

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bot activity in #mediawiki on freenode
by btb 14 May '13

14 May '13

hi- i'm hopeful this is the appropriate venue for this topic - i recently had occasion to visit #mediawiki on freenode, looking for help. i found myself a bit frustrated by the amount of bot activity there and wondered if there might be value in some consideration for this. it seems to frequently drown out/dilute those asking for help, which can be a bit discouraging/frustrating. additionally, from the perspective of those who might help [based on my experience in this role in other channels], constant activity can sometimes engender disinterest [e.g. the irc client shows activity in the channel, but i'm less inclined to look as it's probably just a bot]. to offer one possibility - i know there are a number of mediawiki and/or wikimedia related channels - might there be one in which bot activity might be better suited, in the context of less contention between the two audiences [those seeking help vs. those interested in development, etc]? one nomenclature convention that seems to be at least somewhat of a defacto standard is #project for general help, and #project-dev[el] for development topics. a few examples of this i've seen are android, libreoffice, python, and asterisk. adding yet another channel to this list might not be terribly welcome, but maybe the distinction would be worth the addition? as i'm writing this, i see another thread has begun wrt freenode, and i also see a bug filed that relates at least to some degree [https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35427], so i may just be repeating an existing sentiment, but i wanted to at least offer a brief perspective. regards -ben

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Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)
by Rob Lanphier 25 Feb '13

25 Feb '13

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Sumana Harihareswara <sumanah(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: > If you merge into mediawiki/core.git, your change is considered safe for > inclusion in a wmf branch. The wmf branch is just branched out of > master and then deployed. We don't review it again. Because we're > deploying more frequently to WMF sites, the code review for merging into > MediaWiki's core.git needs to be more like deployment/shell-level > review, and so we gave merge access to people who already had deployment > access. We have since added some more people. The current list: > https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/admin/groups/11,members Let me elaborate on this. As unclear as our process is for giving access, it's even less clear what our policy is for taking it away. If we can settle on a policy for taking access away/suspending access, it'll make it much easier to loosen up about giving access. Here's the situation we want to avoid: we give access to someone who probably shouldn't have it. They continually introduce deployment blockers into the code, making us need to slow down our frequent deployment process. Two hour deploy windows become six hour deploy windows as we need time to fix up breakage introduced during the window. Even with the group we have, there are times where things that really shouldn't slip through do. It's manageable now, but adding more people is going to multiply this problem as we get back into a situation where poorly conceived changes become core dependencies. We haven't had a culture of making a big deal about the case when someone introduces a breaking change or does something that brings the db to its knees or introduces a massive security hole or whatever. That means that if the situation were to arise that we needed to revoke someones access, we have to wait until it gets egregious and awful, and even then the person is likely to be shocked that their rights are being revoked (if we even do it then). To be less conservative about giving access, we also need to figure out how to be less conservative about taking it away. We also want to be as reasonably objective about it. It's always going to be somewhat subjective, and we don't want to completely eliminate the role of common sense. It would also be nice if we didn't have to resort to the nuclear option to get the point across. One low-stakes way we can use to make sure people are more careful is to have some sort of rotating "oops" award. At one former job I had, we had a Ghostbusters Stay Puft doll named "Buster" that was handed out when someone broke the build that they had to prominently display in their office. At another job, it was a pair of Shrek ears that people had to wear when they messed something up in production. In both cases, it was something you had to wear until someone else came along. Perhaps we should institute something similar (maybe as simple as asking people to append "OOPS" to their IRC nicks when they botch something). Rob

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Please help MediaWiki I18n/L10n improve
by Niklas Laxström 08 Dec '12

08 Dec '12

tl;dr: Please help in getting https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/38638 resolved and ensure that your code doesn't cause additional issues for translators. At translatewiki.net we have an [ask question] button for translators, and they have really used it to report various kinds of issues with the messages they are translating. In fact, we barely have time to sort those things into correct places, let alone poking developers to act on them. We are experimenting with different ways to improve this process – the last experiment is using Semantic MediaWiki to track open issues, see [1]. Basically the backlog is growing, and we need some help to reverse the direction. We have tried filing bugs and poking developers on IRC and via email, but that is not scaling anymore, moreover bugs and pokes are sometimes ignored[2]. There are many ways you can help: 1. Follow the best i18n practices like documenting new messages as they are added [4]. Some of you may have noticed that we have started to review any i18n and L10n changes more closely. This is not to annoy you. This is to help you write code that can be translated better and without too many questions from translators. 2. Have a look at [1] and act on issues. 3. Have a look at [1] and poke someone else to act on issues. 4. We need maintainers for [[Support]] [3] to sort stuff into the correct places. 5. When committing code which has i18n changes, add Nikerabbit (me) or Siebrand to reviewers. 6. Ideas on how to improve this process are welcome. We think that we are all responsible for providing them with the information they need. We feel it's our (translatewiki.net staff's) obligation to make sure translators can do their work without too many distractions and wasted efforts. [1] https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Support/Open_requests [2] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/38638 [3] https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Support [4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Localisation -- Niklas Laxström Siebrand Mazeland Raimond Spekking Federico Leva Amir E. Aharoni

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GSoC Project Update (ConventionExtension)
by akshay chugh 20 Nov '12

20 Nov '12

Hello everyone, This is one of my major updates regarding my GSoC project (named ConventionExtension), which I have been working on for about three months now. This project has come a long way and it has reached a point where a lot about it can be shared with others. Since I don't post that often in this list I would like to make this post a long one, and talk about the status of my extension and where its headed in the coming weeks. Some of the features which were part of my timeline for GSoC but were not completed are put under the section "Things yet to be done" along with the other features that I would be working on in the upcoming weeks. *1. Completed Features* * * 1. Dashboard Page (more features are likely to be added depending upon the feedback I gather from the people who have set up conferences on their wiki in the past) 2. Author Registration Page 3. Conference Setup Page 4. Backend (DB) for storing the conference details 5. The basic architecture of the extension: 5.a) Model classes - encapsulating the basic objects required for this extension 5.b) Api Module -- for interacting with ajax calls from the client 5.c) Util classes 5.d) Templates -- classes exending QuickTemplate class, providing a basic layout for Dashboard and Author Register pages 5.e) UI classes - classes extending SpecialPage class (Dashboard, AuthorRegister and ConferenceSetup pages) 5.f) JS + CSS resource modules 6. Parser tags, Magic Words (Variables) and a parser function parser tags --> <conference>, <page>, <account>, <registration>,<passport>,<author>,<submission>,<event>,<organizer> and <location> variables --> {{CONFERENCENAME}}, {{CONFERENCEVENUE}}, {{CONFERENCECITY}}, {{CONFERENCEPLACE}}, {{CONFERENCECOUNTRY}}, {{CONFERENCECAPACITY}}, {{CONFERENCEDESCRIPTION}} parser function --> {{#cvext-page-link}} 7. Sidebar modification (added some new portals for the conference) 8. Schedule Template System - which automates the process of creating a schedule for the conference, as new locations and events are added to the system. 9. Content Pages - these are the default set of pages that are created for the conference by the extension (Note : these are just like any other wiki pages whose content can be modified using the wiki interface) *2. Things yet to be done !* * * 1. *DB rollback implementation in most of my model classes 2. *Account Setup Page (for registration of users) 3. *Modification of User pages for displaying content related to the conference 3. Organizer management module (most part of it is already implemented in the basic architecture, just some additions needed regarding the permissions and rights for this group) 4. Payment Gateway 5. Support for languages other than English 6. Some more parser functions and variables which would help in editing the content pages of the conference * - These features were not completed during the GSoC period. I really enjoyed my experience of working with such a vibrant community over this summer, especially thankful to all the people who helped me out in the IRC channel may it be regarding the setting up of labs, or helping me out with the localisation issues, or even suggesting me come up with a better feature than what I had already implemented. Other community fellows who reviewed my big chunks of code, many issues which I very easily missed were pointed out with a proper explanation of what needs to be done, have helped me a great deal in improving it. And finally I would like to thank Sumana and Greg for managing this program so well, and my mentor Jure Kajzer for his unmatched support and guidance throughout the summer. Some important links: Proposal Page - http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Chughakshay16/GSOCProposal(2012) Gerrit changesets - https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/q/ConventionExtension,n,z Extension Page - http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConventionExtension Suggestions are always welcome ! -- Thanks, Akshay Chugh skype- chughakshay16 irc - chughakshay16(#mediawiki) [[User:Chughakshay16]] on mediawiki.org

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Improving Documentation on Handling Bug Reports
by Andre Klapper 29 Oct '12

29 Oct '12

Hi everybody, at last weekend's Hackathon I investigated how to get into bug management/triaging in Wikimedia. I'd like to propose some changes in order to streamline, harmonize and centralize documentation in order to make it easier to get involved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#Improv… Feedback, comments, criticism on this draft are very welcome. andre -- Andre Klapper (maemo.org bugmaster & GNOME Bugsquad) http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/

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Wikitech-l August 2012