User blog:Dopp/Technical Update: June 28, 2011

Here are the latest technical updates at Wikia. Keep in mind that our system updates happen every Wednesday, so we’re posting this on a Tuesday to give you advance notice. Also note that we change hundreds of tiny details every week, so these are just the highlights.

New Features

 * Chat is on its final week of pre-launch testing. We're putting the finishing touches on our latest big feature (private messages!) and will be launching Chat to Wikia Labs SOON™*.

Major Bugs Fixed

 * The Login popup link wasn't working properly on several wikis.
 * Non-HTML emails for wiki founders were displaying   tags.
 * Member Since dates on profiles reset to today's date for many users. (Note: while this fix will be released Wednesday, there may be some delays on it due to caching.)

Other Notable Changes

 * We've added some new servers to our datacenter, and are retiring some old ones. This will increase our capacity and reduce the likelihood of system issues during periods of peak traffic.
 * We're changing the way new categories work. Previously, if you added a brand new category to an article, it would appear as a red link and force you into editing mode when you visited the category page (and it would continue this behavior until you edited the page, even if you added the category to 50 pages). Now, new categories will appear as blue links, and they will display as regular category pages, rather than forcing you into editing mode. Unedited Categories will, however, continue to appear under Special:WantedCategories for maintenance purposes.
 * We've added a link to Community Central in the global footer to help more users discover this wiki. We're also making a few other changes around here, including giving the homepage a facelift, adding a dedicated space for founders and admins, and introducing some categorization suggestions for user blogs. More updates coming soon!

Select Known Issues

 * Database dumps aren't working properly at the moment. They're providing empty XML files rather than the content of the wiki.
 * Global Navigation has been experiencing issues in IE9 when browser is not set to compatibility mode.

Questions? Comments? Feel free to leave them below. And if you have additional bugs to report, please send them to us via Special:Contact.

* No purchase necessary. Terms and conditions may apply. SOON™ does not imply a specific date. Blog post to follow.