This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that not all changes described here are necessarily live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.12 (8b8c762), and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active. Configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.

• A bug that accidentally caused an extraneous colon and space to show up on the deletion confirmation screen when a default deletion reason was given was fixed. (r28073, bug 12178)
• It seems that the tentative fix for the UNIQ bug that was still being tested at press time last week did work (see related story). (r28004, bug 12154)
• The history display for a page no longer says "Revision history" as a subtitle, because that information is already present in the main title. (r28137, bug 11993)
• A fix was added that speeds up loading times by several minutes on Internet Explorer 5 on Mac OS 9. (r28192, bug 12055)
• The paging (next 50/previous 50) links on Special:Linksearch now work in some situations where they failed before (for instance, if "mailto:" is used as the search term). (r28208, bug 12107)

• The 'Related changes' option (Special:Recentchangeslinked) now has an RSS feed; in particular, if a page is being used as a public watchlist, this provides a way to get an RSS feed for that watchlist. (r28274, bug 943)

• The Gadgets extension (mw:Extension:Gadgets) was enabled on the English Wikipedia. The extension allows administrators to add JavaScript and CSS (user scripts and user styles) as preferences on Special:Preferences, in a new 'Gadgets' section. (The procedure for administrators to add new gadgets is somewhat complicated, and explained on the extension page.) Currently, the gadgets that have been added are navigation popups, a gadget to disable access keys, and a gadget to open external links in a new tab or window. (bug 12190)

• The messages MediaWiki:Searchsize and MediaWiki:Searchscore have been replaced with MediaWiki:Lucene-resultsize and MediaWiki:Lucene-searchscore, to allow for better control over localisation (the message is given a number formatted according to the relevant language rather than a plain number), so any customisations there need to be repeated. (r28141/r28181, bug 10869)

• A change was scheduled to the software that would allow use of rollback to all users, not just administrators. There are new rate limits in the software to limit the rate at which non-administrators can use rollback, although they are currently irrelevant because non-administrators can't use rollback anyway. Following some discussion about the change (both supporting and opposing the change), this change was reverted; the limits are still present but non-admin rollback will not now be enabled without consensus on an individual wiki. A discussion about the matter here on the English Wikipedia is being held at Wikipedia:Rollback for non-administrators. (change made in r28193, reverted in r28248)

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

Elections for the Arbitration Committee are ongoing; these elections end on Sunday, December 16. Results of the elections are available, with only two users (Newyorkbrad and FT2) over 80%. FayssalF, Sam Blacketer and Deskana all have between 70% and 80% support, and Thebainer, Rebecca, Raul654, and Manning Bartlett trail behind in the 60-70% range. At least five candidates will be chosen after the elections by Jimbo Wales.

Elections for new stewards are also ongoing; these elections also end on Sunday, December 16. After the elections, the Board of Trustees has the option to select any candidate with at least 80% support. At present, eleven users have at least 85% support: Spacebirdy, .anaconda, Dungodung, Jusjih, Zirland, Thogo, Wpedzich, Lar, Millosh, Andre Engels, and Dmcdevit. Nick1915 is currently right at 80%, and DerHexer trails just below the cutoff point at 78%.

Confirmation of current stewards is also in progress; comments left there will be considered by current and incoming stewards, and some present stewards may lose their positions.

Wikimania 2009 bidding officially opens on Saturday, although bids have already been created. New bids will be open until January 12, at which time the jury will be announced. Bids already created will be open until February 3, when bidding will end, and deliberations will begin. On or before February 20, the host city for Wikimania 2009 will be announced to the public.

The Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser continued this week. In the first seven weeks of the fundraiser, about 35,600 people had donated at least US$1, and the Foundation had raised about $1,118,000. This surpasses the $1,040,000 raised in 2006; without counting a $286,600 matching funds donation from 2006, daily donations have averaged about 40% more than last year's.

Tuesday, December 4's total donations ($11,708.93) and Monday, December 10's number of contributions (345) reached a fundraiser low; however, average donations have risen, at least partly due to a few larger donations this week, including $1,000 donations by M Amy Batchelor and RuthAnn Harnisch, and anonymous donations of $2,000, $1,000, and ¥150,000 ($1,351.35).

• The Main Page was briefly deleted this week by Eye of the Mind, who claimed the deletion was made by his/her sister. The account was desysopped, and briefly blocked; the account has since been unblocked, but its sysop status has not been restored.
• The Greek Wikipedia has reached 30,000 articles.
• The Lithuanian Wiktionary has reached 15,000 articles.
• The Thai Wikipedia has reached 30,000 articles.
• The Limburgish Wikiquote has reached 200 pages.
• The Arabic Wikipedia has reached 100,000 registered users.
• The Venda Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Hindi Wikipedia has reached 15,000 articles.
• The Indonesian Wikipedia has reached 70,000 articles.

The Arbitration Committee opened four new cases this week, and closed one.

• RodentofDeath: Users allege that RodentofDeath has engaged in a variety of policy violations. RodentofDeath make similar accusations against Susanbryce.

• Physchim62: A case revolving around a block of fellow administrator Hesperian by Physchim62. Other users assert that Physchim62 has misused his administrative tools in the past.

• John Buscema: A case involving Tenebrae's action on the John Buscema article.

• Dbachmann: A case mainly involving alleged misconduct on the part of administrator Dbachmann on several race-related articles.

• Episodes and characters: A case involving alleged misconduct with regard to the notability of episodes and characters from television series. Remedies admonishing TTN and urging the parties to collaborate on the issue have the support of four arbitrators.

• Matthew Hoffman: A case involving a controversial block of MatthewHoffman as a sockpuppet by a vanished user. Arbitrator UninvitedCompany has proposed a remedy calling for Hoffman's block log to be annotated to show that the blocks were unjustified, which has support from three other arbitrators, but is opposed by Fred Bauder. Another remedy, proposed by Bauder, cautions the vanished user to avoid taking significant administrative action where he has strong opinions.

• Anonimu: A case involving revert warring and incivility by Anonimu. If closed, Anonimu's community ban would be confirmed and he would be concurrently banned for a year.