Forum:MediaWiki 1.14 upgrade

Hi everyone,

We're getting ready to roll out MediaWiki 1.14, the latest version of the MediaWiki software that runs Wikia. You can read more about the changes and new features in MediaWiki 1.14 here. MediaWiki 1.14 will be rolled out in two phases so that we can do some load testing and address important issues over a longer period of time. Our current plans for the roll-out schedule look like this (these dates may change): MediaWiki 1.14 has been live on Yu-Gi-Oh! for several days now and it has gone smoothly, so we don't anticipate any major problems, but if you see any issues or have any questions, please post them below.
 * April 22nd-23rd: All wikis except for the 10 wikis with the most articles/traffic (listed below) will be upgraded.
 * April 29th: The 10 wikis with the most articles/traffic will be upgraded.
 * Note: We expect to have beta versions of these 10 wikis running on MediaWiki 1.14 available for testing starting on April 20th.
 * www.wowwiki.com
 * wiki.ffxiclopedia.org
 * fallout.wikia.com
 * starwars.wikia.com
 * answers.wikia.com
 * runescape.wikia.com
 * tibia.wikia.com
 * lostpedia.wikia.com
 * guildwars.wikia.com
 * naruto.wikia.com

Thanks! -- KyleH (talk) 21:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

=Questions, Comments, and Bugs=

Special:Random
"Special:Random will now show a page in any content namespace " &mdash; which namespaces count as content namespace? -- ◄mendel► 22:34, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * By default, only the main namespace is considered a content namespace; however, many wikis have custom namespaces which have been added to the list of content namespaces. It's a configurable option. --KyleH (talk) 22:36, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you. -- ◄mendel► 22:54, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

'pagetitle-view-mainpage'
"New 'pagetitle-view-mainpage' message allows the HTML of the main page to be customized" — Is anyone going to bother fixing, or reminding people to fix the old setup where Wikia introduced parserfunctions into MediaWiki:Pagetitle to do just this? ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Apr 17, 2009 @ 22:56 (UTC)
 * Already thought of that. We've fixed it in the default messages/code, and will be running a bot to find->fix the old ones we put in place, and notify the wikis that have customized mw:pagetitle about this change. --Uberfuzzy 05:10, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

$wgRestrictDisplayTitle
Is the use of $wgRestrictDisplayTitle a good suggestion for any of the wiki that are currently making use of any one of the horrid hacks? ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Apr 17, 2009 @ 22:59 (UTC)
 * Details? Examples? Sounds like you have an understanding of said "hacks". --Uberfuzzy 05:10, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, I misunderstood. Currently only allows case changes (IPod -> iPod, but not IPod -> Zune), that restriction is not changing. This flag only allows the for possibility for that restriction to be lifted if desired. Most of the   hacks i've seen involve the use of javascript to replace the text. If you know of a way/place/example how it is being done with , I'm all ears. --Uberfuzzy 05:18, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * There are two versions floating around. One title hack uses JS to replace the title, the other uses CSS to overlay it. The JS one only works when JS is enabled, and the CSS one has bugs when you have a sitenotice.
 * There are two common purposes the hack are being used for. On some wiki it's used to be able to italicize part of the title. On other wiki it's used for do things like removing (parens) or Namespaces:.
 * The later use could be replaced with use of displaytitle rather than the title hack.
 * Though, I suppose it probably wouldn't be that far of a stretch to make it possible to use WikiText. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Apr 18, 2009 @ 05:25 (UTC)
 * It will be interesting to see what effects this flag has when enabled, and displaytitle can actually make those changes. The cases where we allow this will be very rare, if any I believe. --Uberfuzzy 06:28, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The point is that the hacks already make it possible to mess with the page titles (and in fact, messing with people's minds are some of the uncommon uses it's being put to, e.g. on humour wikis), and enabling this to be done via "displaytitle" would just make those wikis that do this more consistent and bugless in their viewing experience than they are now. -- ◄mendel► 10:06, 18 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The use of title hack are not only to change casing. It's very usefull to insert illegal caracters in the title (when absolutely necessary), like i've done on this page. But as you can see, my custom version of the hack also tell that the real title is something else. — TulipVorlax 20:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Note that 1.15 seams to have a change that makes it possible to use things like ,, and so on... inside of DISPLAYTITLE. So I expect next version 90% of the use cases of can be replaced by use of DISPLAYTITLE + $wgRestrictDisplayTitle. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Apr 29, 2009 @ 01:57 (UTC)

Edit Count Problem
The Edit count has been screwed up. It says that a user has no contributions under "All wikis", but the correct amount on each individual wiki. Just in case nobody found out yet.-- Bek  (talk)  03:00, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Is another known problem, but not related to 1.14, was doing this for a while on/off before the switch. Its related to a different cache issue. It only affects the "all wikis" data, but nothing is lost/missing, just not loading correctly. We're working on it. --Uberfuzzy 06:26, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Moving images

 * 1) If I move  to , will a page which has   on it show   (like a redirect)?
 * 2) Why should regular users not be able to move them? There is a move throttle there to stop mass page-move spam, so I can't see why it shouldn't apply to images as well.
 * Will there be a simple-ish url system when moving files (i.e. ). With something like that one could easily set up a "requests for file renaming" page.  17:52, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yep, a redirect will be left behind if you choose to leave one, if you uncheck the box, there will be no redirect.
 * I'm pretty sure a request from staff can adjust the access rights for the feature.


 * -- 17:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You should request the second at MediaWiki.org, so that it can be included in future releases. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 17:59, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't recommend that as MediaWiki default permissions are designed to accommodate Wikimedia Foundation Wikis. The norm is to have Wikia Staff adjust it to fit Wikia's needs. -- 19:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Btw, I checked on the image/file move throttler, it's the same as for articles - though as the ability is currently restricted to sysops anyway, you shouldn't notice any throttling. 13:11, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * As a "Bureaucrat,Sysop" I am able to move files but do not get the "Leave a redirect behind" option, but I do get the option with as a "Sysop,Bot"--Sxerks 19:12, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I had the same problem, but I tried it anyway and it seemed to do it automatically for me. Hunterj | My talk 20:14, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The 'suppressredirect' right isn't granted to sysop users by default in 1.14. Should be safe for staff to readd it, though. - Adan Aileron (talk) 20:51, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I have passed it on. 12:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * This should now be fixed. 16:23, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Dofus wiki redirects to the Central Wikia
Please see Forum:Dofus wikia redirected to wikia central. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 13:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * This has now been fixed - http://www.wikia.com/dofus/Dofus_Wiki works again. 14:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Spam filter Problem
It seems that there are problems of spam filter in EVCHK. Now we cannot edit any pages, even sysop could not.

It just shows that "The page you wanted to save was blocked by the spam filter. This is probably caused by a link to a blacklisted external site. "--疾風綾希 13:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Passed on to the tech team, we'll get it sorted out. 14:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks to be fixed. Apologies for the downtime. 19:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Memory Alpha inaccessible?
Hi, we're concerned that none of the version, except the English one, is accessible, since today at 01:00 p.m. It seems that the whole database was erased. Any suggest/help/hint? Thanks! --Gifh 13:54, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that - passing this on to the tech team. 14:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Should be fixed now :) 14:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Great, thank you for your quick solving! Best Regard. --Gifh 14:58, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

WoWWiki non-monaco skin problems
The following lines (or similar) appear to be missing from the Wowwiki skin's HTML source on beta.wowwiki:

/*<![CDATA[*/ @import "/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css&usemsgcache=yes&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=86400"; @import "/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Wowwiki.css&usemsgcache=yes&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=86400"; @import "/index.php?title=-&action=raw&gen=css&maxage=86400&smaxage=0&ts=20090423042102&useskin=wowwiki"; @import "/index.php?title=User:Pcj/wowwiki.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css"; /*]]>*/

This makes the site look like this (as opposed to live). If you could look into it, I (and others) would appreciate it. --Pcj (T&bull;C) 16:39, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Confirmed and passing it on, thanks! 17:07, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Should now be fixed. The wowwiki skin has also been updated for changes in the base monobook skin like the addition of pagename classes - please let me know if it all checks out. :) 11:06, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If you could've applied that to GuildWiki as well, that would've been ace and saved us some agony. :-( -- ◄mendel► 13:18, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Reported and being looked into. 14:03, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Deletedcontributions extension
As the functionality of this extension has been folded into the core of MediaWiki 1.14, the Deletedcontributions extension should be disabled on all version 1.14 wikis. - Adan Aileron (talk) 20:51, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Good call. Thanks! --KyleH (talk) 20:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Same goes for LinkSearch and Newuserlog. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Apr 24, 2009 @ 02:28 (UTC)

I was checking users contributions and i found duplicate links, some one is also seeing them? --
 * yup, the deleted contribs extension is still in the system, but is now part of mediawiki. it will go away next week. --Uberfuzzy 03:23, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

MediaWiki pages
Some one knows if there new MediaWiki pages or deprecated ones? --


 * MediaWiki:pagetitle-view-mainpage, replaces the need for parserfunctions inside of MediaWiki:Pagetitle when you want the main page to display something like "Animepedia" instead of "Main Page - Animepedia" ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Apr 24, 2009 @ 02:22 (UTC)


 * Configurable per-namespace and per-page notices for the edit form, respectively MediaWiki:Editnotice-# where # is the namespace number, and MediaWiki:Editnotice-#-PAGENAME where # is the page's namespace number and PAGENAME is the page name minus the namespace prefix.
 * MediaWiki:Print.css for adding css to the printable mode.
 * revision-info, revision-info-current, cannotdelete, redirectedfrom, historywarning and difference messages now use Wiki text rather than raw HTML markup
 * ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Apr 24, 2009 @ 02:42 (UTC)


 * dont get too used to the per-namespace edit notices, theyre going away in the next version mediawiki has already said. we may look into disabling soon, so people dont start using them, only to have them taken away later. --Uberfuzzy 03:17, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Do you mean this revert? AFAIK, it only reverts the per-page editnotice, but not the per-namespace editnotice. Don't drop the second feature! --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 09:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Sitestats mediawiki pages not working
HA! i knew i was bound to find deprecated media wiki pages and i was just getting used to the statics page with my tweaking.
 * MediaWiki:Sitestatstext
 * MediaWiki:Userstatstext

Guess i will have to check all the pages i have modify and look for the ones that dont appear any more on the MediaWiki list page --


 * Yes, unfortunately these are no longer used by MediaWiki on Special:Statistics. We find it slightly annoying as I spent time making it useful! However, I've added back a "more info" section at the end for the important stuff that we had added. 16:24, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Missing note
^_^ There's a new feature missing in the updates list. It's not properly listed in that release notes page so I expect it might be an older feature that Wikia just missed out on or something.

Rollbacks now show a diff of what was actually rolled back as shown here. This was an improvement I personally added to MediaWiki after ages of rolling edits back on wiki and always being annoyed at going from a combined edits link on recent changes, reverting it, and being uncertain of if I actually reverted the issue or if some of the other changes made snuffed out and screwed up my rollback causing it to revert something good instead. The feature can be disabled by a user preference if one decides that they don't want large diffs showing up in reverts they make. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Apr 24, 2009 @ 02:22 (UTC)
 * Mmmm thats not new (i think) i would say old or experimental i have been seeing them (min 2 months ago) but very inconsistent and thought it was a bug but did not knew how to duplicate so i did not report it as it was also not annoying. --
 * Yes it was originally a feature added to 1.13, I believe when Wikia updated I was confused why the feature wasn't added properly. When Wikia was on 1.13 I never in the entire time of piles of reverts saw it working. Well, in any case it's now a consistently working feature. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Apr 24, 2009 @ 06:11 (UTC)
 * yes, it was in 1.13.?, but that div containing that results was removed by us as it was unexpected change we didnt yet want. we'll likely leave it in this time. --Uberfuzzy 03:14, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Yay for Dofus Issues
the ES and DE (the ones i check but i bet all the languages are suffering from the same issue) due to our undisclosed reasons and unique URL... the MediaWiki:Common.css from central is being used instead the wikis CSS page. English its the only exception to this. I already report it with the Special:Contact --
 * Could you give me more info about that, some examples, expected behavior then I'll check this. I've checked DE dofus and I have properly built links, for example: http://de.wikia.com/dofus/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Monobook.css&usemsgcache=yes&ctype=text%2Fcss&smaxage=86400&action=raw&maxage=86400 --Eloy.wikia (talk) 15:26, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * When i report it, i had clear my cache, purge servers cache(action=purge), refresh a lot of times (like 2 hours) check with several computers and where i had firefox the firebug extension was showing the url of ES or DE dofus wiki but the content of the central. Now after reading this a simple refresh and the common.css has load properly so i guess one weird cache issue somewhere or a magic fix o.o --

and the welcome tool
The user creation log defeats the purpose of the welcome bot. If a user creates an account, then walks away, or doesn't want to contribute at the time, someone is going to welcome them because they see the new account. This needs to get sorted. -- LordTBT Talk! 03:34, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I dont see the problem here. The auto-welcome system doesnt kick in until someone makes their first edit at the wiki. It has nothing to do if they created their account at that wiki. And likewise, some people may make their account at a different wiki then where their first edit is (many people create there account here at central, and then edit elsewhere). The welcome system was written before there was a working new user log, and has nothing to do with it. Can you better show us what needs to "get sorted" so we can make adjustments to either system? --Uberfuzzy 21:24, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe just adding an option into mediawiki:welcome-enable. If a new string is found, also welcome users that created account in the local wiki. This way, admin or communities, can choose to enable this if they think it's beneficial and if later they see thing otherwise, they could still remove it. — TulipVorlax 22:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I would second TV's suggestion. The welcome bot welcomes upon account creation notification. What's the point of notifying everyone an account has been created if the bot isn't going to welcome the user? -- LordTBT Talk! 07:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * This could be related to Forum:New features on Wednesday, March 18th --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 13:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Because many would see it that until they make an edit at the wiki, they are not part of that community, (and thus dont need welcomed). You would not have welcomed random usernames that you knew to exist on your wiki until they made a first edit at your wiki (pre-new user log), so why would you welcome them now that you can see that someone created an account on that wiki, but before they edit? I'm not saying theres anything stopping you from manually welcomeing people that you see from the newuser log have made an account at your wiki, but havent edited yet. I can see great benefit to that, but why should the way the auto-welcome system works change just because you can now SEE who made an account but didnt edit yet? --Uberfuzzy 20:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Not false.
 * It's just that for some reason, some of us can't bare to see reds links on RC. Lol.
 * But we might get used to it. — TulipVorlax 02:40, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, when the new user log was implemented, and I found user talkpages that were red, I welcomed them. And you're missing something else: Let's say they register the account, and are busy making an edit when someone else welcomes them in the meantime...it negates the purpose of the bot. -- LordTBT Talk! 03:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The log only displays users that registered on that wiki. If someone created an account on Star Wars Fanon, and then goes to Wookieepedia, that user will only be recorded in Star Wars Fanon's log. Wookieepedia's log would then be useless in welcoming the user from Star Wars Fanon. As a result, the bot is needed to find and welcome users that registered on a different wiki. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 03:46, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * What Michaeldsuarez said :) 12:24, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, you are correct. However, the addition of the option to welcome users after account creation can't become available? -- LordTBT Talk! 19:42, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

CSS
I have a small problem with this new feature.

The entry in recents changes can't be targetted in any usefull way by CSS. on fr.guildwars, we have set comments in RC to be smaller and dark grey. The "New user account" string is not considered a comment by the software. But in this case, i would be glad if a CSS class would be added to the whole  element.

But maybe Wikia staff can't do this. — TulipVorlax 13:06, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Staff can't but techs could do that. Anyway, they probably won't fork the MediaWiki code only for that visual effects. Instead, you could request it to https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/. Anyway, the user creation log is a log entry, same as other logs like the upload log or the move log, so what you request would be applied to all logs, unless every log has its own CSS class. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 13:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * It's possible, but I don't think it would be worthwhile for something so small. It's a log, rather than a comment. 12:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Double-user creation
I'm just curious about that. See this log. Seems that it detects when the same user creates another account. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 15:41, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Seems its a mixup of user rights from the upgrade. Its being looked into. --Uberfuzzy 03:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Most wanted files
This add is quite nice but each file found has no links to the article including the file. I tried a search on the name given but with no results... 12:58, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * On your tools box inside the side bar should appear What Links Here, once you are on the page of the image, click that and you will see what pages are linking to that page, since there is no actual image, all links are links opose when there is an image that image links (Example.jpg) are treated different from normal links (File:Example.jpg) --
 * I'm very very happy that you can now see the difference between where something is linking TO an image vs where an image is USED :) --Uberfuzzy 21:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

PROTECTIONLEVEL parse
the parse hook PROTECTIONLEVEL is not included? --
 * Hmm? I dont remember seeing where that was added. Looks interesting though. --Uberfuzzy 21:52, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Why would it be? It's part of MediaWiki 1.15 - http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES?view=markup :) 12:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I could not find if it was released or was going to be release --
 * Hopefully 1.15 won't take as long as previous releases :) 00:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Image caches
Is the upgrade causing troubles with the caches? Some images like on the Narutopedia aren't showing updated versions. The primary image itself is showing an old cached version instead of a new version of the image.

Do note that is showing the incorrect image, while  is showing the correct image. This may have something to do with an old Wikia bug. For some reason a lot of Wikia's old image urls had a // in the url, so it's likely that there was some path misconfiguration. It's possible that the MW upgrade had a fix inside of it that fixed the paths so that the // was removed and turned into a proper /, however it's possible that things like purging the caches are still using an incorrect path and thus on image update the // image is being purged instead of the proper / image. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Apr 28, 2009 @ 16:26 (UTC)
 * The image caches (specificlly the purging systems) are causing their own problems. As for the double /, thats a mis-setup path config, I'll check naruto's settings. --Uberfuzzy 17:12, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Editcount
Seems to not do gloabl counts. &mdash; 00:25, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The global column is not live data, but pulls from generated cached data. We're currently in the process of moving some things around from machine to machine, to balance out the load to improve site speed/performance, and it seems these have been temporarily disabled. We hope to have them returning as soon as possible. --Uberfuzzy 14:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Shoutbox problem
The time displayed on posts on the shoutbox is not consistent with the time that is input into a user's preferences as the offset time (for instance, if a user lives in a different time zone than the default time would work for. Hope you understand what I'm saying, I sometimes don't phrase things very clearly.-- Bek  (talk)  01:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I think you're saying that it uses the server time, instead of local time? This appears to be true - I will pass it on. 16:29, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Recent changes oddity
My third problem sighting. Recently, while making edits, the "recent changes" widget on the side of the screen has been displaying stuff like this: "User talk:Xandus the Legend by Bek The Conqueror, -1 seconds ago". This is just one occurrence, but the time has been shown to be as much as "-5 seconds ago" for my changes since the update happened. This is probably the least of the problems, as well as the funniest, but you might want to check it out.-- Bek  (talk)  01:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The time thing has been reported. It seems one of the many cache servers keeps slipping out of sync. Its being worked on, but it shouldnt cause any problems (just looks very strange/confusing) --Uberfuzzy 14:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Merge
Will the merge option be activated or only by request? --
 * Do you mean Special:MergeHistory, or the ability to merge or rename user accounts? --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 21:44, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah the Special history merge --
 * I requested this for a wiki some time ago and staff wouldn't enable it because of some technical reason I can't remember. Not sure if the upgrade will change this. -- 17:57, 21 April 2009 (UTC)