Technology report needs editor; Media Viewer offers a new look

A few weeks ago, I decided to jump in and take on a responsibility that, as I now know, I am not quite up to. Gathering information and picking up the signals of any notable technology news requires some editorial talent that I don't have. So after a brief stint, I will step down as editor for the Technology report and demote myself to incidental contributor.

There are now sources like Tech News that basically supersede the Technology Report, and I feel copying another periodical publication in whole or part, does not add any value to the Signpost. I invite anyone to step up, as this will be my last issue as editor.

The Wikimedia Foundation's Fabrice Florin, a product manager, posted this announcement at the English Wikipedia's Village Pump. The views expressed are those of the author only; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. The Signpost welcomes proposals for opinion pieces.'

As discussed in earlier posts, Media Viewer is scheduled to launch on the English Wikipedia next week, to provide a better viewing experience for our users.

Media Viewer has been tested extensively on many large wikis around the world, and the feedback collected from thousands of users suggests that this tool is generally useful to them, as outlined in these survey results. More importantly, the rate of favorable feedback keeps increasing across all languages over time: for example, the French approval rate started out at about 64% a few weeks ago, and is now up to 70%, which is very encouraging.

Here on the English Wikipedia, over 13,874 beta users have been testing it, since the tool was first deployed as a beta feature in November 2013. Thanks to all their helpful feedback, Media Viewer has been greatly improved in recent months, and we are now getting ready to roll it out on all wikis worldwide.

Media Viewer will be enabled by default on the English Wikipedia on Thursday, May 22 at about 20:00 UTC. We will deploy this tool very carefully and keep a close eye on this release, to make sure it all goes smoothly. The tool will then be released to all wikis the following week, as described in this release plan.

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments about Media Viewer, which you can test here in beta -- or learn more about on this Help page (which includes tips for bypassing this tool, or turning it off in your preferences). You are invited to share your feedback in this discussion, to help improve this feature. You're also welcome to take this quick survey -- or join this in-depth discussion on MediaWiki.org, as you prefer.

Many thanks to all the community members who helped make Media Viewer possible! This tool was created with active community participation from its early planning phase -- all the way to its final release. This has been an exceptionally productive partnership, which we hope to build on for future projects.

• Vector navigation menu: As you can read in the Tech report below, the navigation menu in the Vector skin will no longer be able to collapse. This may trigger a few people to report the menu is 'broken'. The developers feel that cutting this feature (using JavaScript) will make the site faster. It will probably be turned into a gadget.
• April engineering report: The report covering Wikimedia engineering activities in April 2014 is now available in several formats:
  • Wiki version
  • Blog version
  • Plain language summary

• VisualEditor news
  • A new citation system in VisualEditor was enabled on the English Wikipedia. It will soon be enabled on more wikis. [1]
  • Templates that were previously broken in VisualEditor should now appear correctly. [2]

• Future software changes
  • It will soon be possible to move category description pages. Pages in changed categories will still have to be moved independently. [3] [4]
  • You will soon be able to clear your watchlist with one click or through the API. [5] [6] [7] [8]
  • You will soon be able to link to Flow posts and workflows with Special:Flow. [9] [10]
  • The jQuery JavaScript library will soon be updated. Please check that your gadgets and scripts will still work. [11]
  • The Vector skin will work faster, as the sidebar will no longer collapse partly after being loaded. [12] [13] [14]
  • MediaViewer will be enabled for all users on Wikimedia Commons on May 15. Feedback is welcome.
  • Toolserver tools will be stopped on 30 June. Please make sure to change gadgets that link to the Toolserver to point to Tool Labs instead. [15]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

In this issue

14 May 2014 (all comments)

Investigative report

WikiProject report

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Featured content

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Edokter, thank you for your work over the last several weeks. I personally appreciated them. I hope we'll see you around the Signpost, even sporadically, in the future! Best of luck, Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:58, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, I think the noncollapsing Vector navigation menu is broken. This situation reminds me of the old saw about the difference between a "bug" and a "feature":  A feature is a bug that has been documented.

  Seriously, though I do recognize that the peekaboo rendering of hidden content is problematic, I'm not sure this is the most elegant workaround. I certainly never thought it was one of the biggest performance hits degrading user experience. "Premature optimization is the root of all evil."[16]

  I don't mean to shoot the messenger. Thank you Edokter for the reportage. ~ Ningauble (talk) 20:02, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• It might be helpful to state that "the Toolserver" is tools.wikimedia.de, whereas "Tool Labs" is tools.wmflabs.org.  --Lambiam 22:57, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]