This is a summary of recent technology news for the MediaWiki software and Wikimedia configuration. Note that changes do not necessarily go live immediately; compare the revision number (starting with 'r') on Special:Version with the revision number on this page to see whether a change is live or not.

• It's now impossible for an admin to enter a block summary that's too large to fit into the relevant database field (such summaries were previously truncated). (r22578, bug 10036)
• The incorrect password attempt is no longer repeated back in the HTML of the login form if a user enters an incorrect password. (r22665, bug 8931)

• The 'upright' parameter can be given in image markup, which reduces the width of a thumbnail (for use with images that are significantly taller than wide). (r22305, bug 7003)
• Several changes were made to <math> tags:
  • The \hline notation was whitelisted. (r22477, bug 7899)
  • The rendering of \ker, \hom, \arg, \dim and \approx as HTML was improved. (r22658, bug 3624)
• Each entry on Special:Whatlinkshere for a page now has an entry to that page's own what-links-here. (r22546, bug 7960)
• The information about what user, IP, or range was actually blocked can now be shown in the block message (e.g. if a user is caught in a rangeblock, it's possible to distinguish this from their IP being blocked). (r22641, bug 10076)
• The deletion log for a page name is now shown when creating that page. (r22642, bug 7691)

There were two highly noticeable server problems this week:

• A bug in some new code confused the English Wikipedia and Commons database servers, messing up replication and causing Special:Contributions to gain an unusually large lag. [1]
• A fire alarm turned off the air conditioners in one area, causing several machines to overheat. The database was locked (preventing any edits, uploads, registration of new accounts, or just about anything that is saved by the database) and Wikipedia was incredibly slow for a while. [2]

Both problems have since been fixed.

• Internationalisation has been continuing as normal; help is always appreciated! See m:Localization statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to bugzilla.

bg:Потребител:Emil / User:Espetkov, one of the first editors of the Bulgarian Wikipedia, died on 20 May, 2007. The cause of death is still unknown. He was residing in the Netherlands and working as a Software Engineer and a researcher. His last edit was on 16 May. Emil made many contributions to the Bulgarian Wikipedia in many different areas for the past 3.5 years. He is survived by his wife and daughter.

A Wikimedia brand survey is open, regarding Wikimedia's current trademarks and brands, and the possibility of re-branding certain projects and logos, and licensing and brand protection and strategy issues. The survey follows a mailing list post by board member Erik Moeller that attracted many replies and differing opinions.

Many subpages of Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense were deleted this week due to non-compliance with the GFDL. Because most entries were not attributed to their original poster, most of the BJAODN subpages were deleted; however, an effort is currently underway on the talk page to restore many of the entries, with proper attribution.

After its closure in March 2006 (see archived story) and reopening in December (see archived story), the French Wikiquote reached 500 articles this week. The site is also nearing 2,500 total quotes.

• Wikipedia was mentioned in Sunday's issue of the daily comic The Lockhorns. In one panel of the comic, Loretta Lockhorn said to her husband, Leroy, "You're listed here in Wikipedia under 'cheapskate'."
• The Thai Wikipedia has reached 600,000 edits.
• The Spanish Wikipedia has reached 10,000,000 edits.
• The English Wiktionary has reached 375,000 entries.
• The Turkish Wikipedia has reached 80,000 articles.
• The French Wikipedia has reached 500,000 articles.

The Arbitration Committee accepted one case this week, and closed one case.

• Zeq-Zero0000: A case involving the actions of Zeq (talk · contribs) and Zero0000 (talk · contribs). Zero alleged that Zeq had engaged in POV-pushing, while Zeq alleged that Zero had misused administrative tools in blocking him, the case in particular involving the question of whether probations, article bans, etc. can be enforced by involved admins. The arbitrators considered several different versions of a principle covering to what degree involved administrators may enforce probation, but none attained majority support. As a result of the case, Zero0000 was advised not to take further administrative actions against Zeq, including enforcement of probation, and was admonished that editors who are not restricted in their editing of a page or area are entitled to be accorded good faith and be treated with respect and courtesy.

• Badlydrawnjeff: A highly controversial case involving the actions of Badlydrawnjeff, Doc glasgow, Tony Sidaway and JzG in relation inter alia to the article known as QZ, which underwent an AfD which was closed as delete by Drini, but overturned on DRV by Xoloz. The resulting AfD was then speedily closed by thebainer. Badlydrawnjeff then filed for a deletion review, which was speedily closed or removed by a number of administrators and others consecutively, including JzG, Doc Glasgow and Tony Sidaway, and the closures often reverted or new DRVs opened. There is dispute as to whether the actions of all parties were within process, and whether, as some believe, WP:BLP takes priority over DRV. A peripheral issue to the case is a 60-hour block of Badlydrawnjeff by Zsinj, apparently after discussions on the admin IRC channel, although some have stated that the consensus on the channel did not favour the block. The block was quickly undone by Gaillimh. Additionally, some allege that violetriga acted improperly in undeleting some articles deleted under BLP.

• PalestineRemembered: A case involving the actions of PalestineRemembered (talk · contribs), referred from the Community sanction noticeboard.

• Miskin: A case involving the actions of Miskin (talk · contribs), who was controversially blocked by Swatjester (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) for one month (later reduced to one week) for revert warring.

• Abu badali: A case alleging that Abu badali (talk · contribs) has disruptively tagged non-free images for deletion, even when a valid fair-use justification exists, and has harassed editors who have complained about this behavior. Abu badali denies the allegations.

• NYScholar: A case involving the actions of a number of users, including NYScholar (talk · contribs) and Notmyrealname (talk · contribs), in relation to the Lewis Libby article.

• Piotrus: A case involving administrator Piotrus (talk · contribs) and other editors on Central and Eastern Europe-related articles. Multiple parties accuse others of edit warring, incivility, unethical behavior and biased editing. (An earlier arbitration case, Piotrus-Ghirla, was dismissed without prejudice in part due to inactivity of Ghirlandajo (talk · contribs), who was listed as a party in the new case.)

• Paranormal: A case involving the actions of various users, especially as regards bias and attribution, on "articles on paranormal and pseudoscientific topics", such as parapsychology and Electronic voice phenomenon.

• Hkelkar 2: A case involving the actions of Rama's Arrow (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), Bakasuprman (talk · contribs), Dangerous-Boy (talk · contribs) and Sbhushan (talk · contribs), Rama's Arrow alleges that the others acted as meatpuppets of banned user Hkelkar, and blocked them for six months. They deny the allegations, and allege that Rama's Arrow acted improperly in blocking them, and in posting private e-mails to the incidents noticeboard. Kirill Lokshin has proposed remedies imposing no sanctions but calling on the parties to enter into mediation, as well as a finding of fact noting the lack of reliable evidence in the case, all of which have the support of six arbitrators, and a remedy prohibiting admin actions between the parties has the support of four. However, voting on principles regarding the posting of private e-mails is split.

• TingMing: A case involving the actions of TingMing (talk · contribs). Ideogram (talk · contribs) alleges that he has engaged in "controversial edits", edit warring, incivility, and possibly sockpuppetry. TingMing denies the allegations, and alleges incivility on the part of Ideogram. Kirill Lokshin has proposed a remedy banning TingMing for one year, which has the support of four arbitrators, but is opposed by Blnguyen.

• E104421-Tajik: A case involving the actions of E104421 and Tajik. The case had been suspended to allow a referral to Community enforceable mediation, but the mediation broke down after Tajik was alleged to have edited through sockpuppets while claiming to be away and unavailable for the mediation. Remedies have been proposed banning Tajik either indefinitely or for one year (which have the support of five arbitrators), and reminding AzaToth that Wikipedia operates by consensus (with the support of two arbitrators).

• Transnistria: A case involving the actions of MariusM (talk · contribs) and William Mauco (talk · contribs) on Transnistria-related articles. MariusM alleges that Mauco (who has not made a statement because he is blocked) has engaged in sockpuppetry, edit warring and other misconduct. If closed, MarkStreet (talk · contribs), William Mauco (talk · contribs) and EvilAlex (talk · contribs) would be indefinitely banned from any editing related to Transnistria.