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)

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)

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)

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)