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Actors and Bots

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By DannyS712

Actor migration

Early this month, the mediawiki databases underwent a significant change, with 8 database tables each dropping 2 columns and gaining a new one, and a new database table being created. Each of the 8 tables formerly held references to both the user_ids, and user_names of the users/IPs that had performed the relevant log entry / edited the relevant revision / had been blocked / etc. Storing this information in each of the 8 tables, in addition to its existence in the user table, was a waste of storage and led to performance issues. Accordingly, these references were replaced with references to the relevant actor instead, and a new table, the (coincidentally named) actor table, was created. The new table associates an actor_id with a user_id and a user_name, and different revisions or log entries need only refer to the relevant actor. This change is also forecasted to dramatically speed up global renames, since, rather than changing the user_id and user_name associated with all of a user's edits and log entries, only the information in a single actor row needs to be updated.

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Bot tasks

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New user scripts to customise your Wikipedia experience

Installation code

  1. ^ Copy the following code, edit your user JavaScript, then paste:
    {{subst:lusc|1=User:SD0001/DYK-helper.js}}
  2. ^ Copy the following code, edit your user JavaScript, then paste:
    {{subst:lusc|1=User:DannyS712/Global watchlist.js}}
  3. ^ Copy the following code, edit your user JavaScript, then paste:
    {{subst:lusc|1=User:MJL/textDisallow.js}}

Latest tech news

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2019 #23, #24, #25, & #26. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available on Meta.

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