Hey hey! Another two weeks have passed, and those familiar with the Technical Updates series knows what that means: another Tech Blog! As always, I will walk you through some of the notable bug fixes and changes to the platform, as well as potential experiments we may be running. If you have questions yourself or have something to report, feel free to sound off in the comments about it, and I'll try to find an answer for you!
Three weeks ago, Fandom removed the ability to upload video files via Special:Upload, Special:NewFiles, and from within the editors. While we are not ready just to re-enable the functionality, we can tell you that we've finished addressing the issue that led to video upload being pulled down in the first place. To avoid a repeat of the same issue, we will have to change our video upload pipeline and storage. This work is beginning next week and will likely take up to a few weeks. Once this is complete, the Trust and Safety Team can give the green light to restore video uploads. In the meantime, know that the ability to upload videos via url and methods to embed them as noted on the video help page are still to your disposal.
Recent Fixes[]
Please note that some of the reported fixes below are "incoming fixes", meaning that right now, they're not live yet on the platform, but they will be on Monday.
A lot of MediaWiki 1.43 related fixes:
Copying content in the 2017 VisualEditor - source mode added unwanted linebreaks after every line.
MediaWiki:ImportJS loaded on the mobile skin. The Trust and Safety Team removed this ability again as it was an unintended change and posed a security risk, as well as negatively impacted mobile page load performance.
The upload limit for admins has been restored to being 40 images per minute rather than 20.
Embed thumbnails were broken when linking wiki pages from external sites (such as on Discord).
mw-collapsible expand/collapse uses the wiki theme again.
Everyone could leave an article comment rather than only autoconfirmed users.
Image thumbs showed incorrect white accents on dark theme.
The traditional MediaWiki gallery caption had an increased font size.
External link templates did not render correctly on FandomMobile.
Notice and Quote templates displayed differently on FandomMobile than they did on MediaWiki 1.39.
Slideshows were left-aligned by default instead of right-aligned.
Tables didn't use the full width properly on the FandomMobile layout.
The 2017 VisualEditor sometimes produced an error when saving an edit on a long page.
[MediaWiki Update] MediaWiki update from Version 1.39 to Version 1.43: The update continues to roll out to more and more wikis, but there are some aspects I want to highlight.
Perhaps one of the most important ones: We have identified some classes/ids changed by the MediaWiki update that may affect Dev Wiki scripts. Please read the help page for more detailed information on how to fix this issue in case your script is affected. We already fixed the scripts on Dev Wiki, but we can't check everyone's personal js, so please be aware of this change!. We expect more changes in future upgrades, because MediaWiki is starting to switch to the Codex design system.
With 70k wikis on MediaWiki 1.43 on the Fandom platform, over 50% of the traffic is now served on MediaWiki 1.43 wikis..
We are hopeful that all the migrations will be done before the end of April, with the majority of our major wikis having been updated by the end of March.
Visual example of how the "Skip to content" button will look.
[Upcoming Release] Keyboard Skip-navigation link Accessibility is important, period. As a company, we recently released a Fandom accessibility statement. One of our incoming changes that most likely will go live next week is the addition of a "skip to content" button when you're navigating our site via your keyboard. This button will be hidden until you start navigating via your TAB key. Selecting it will – as the name suggests – lead you directly to the content area without having to tab through all the navigational elements on the page. Creating an accessible platform is going to be a collaboration between Fandom and user design. Stay tuned for more web accessibility tips that you can do as well on your own wiki!
That's it for the issue! Per usual, if you encounter something that feels off about the platform, please report it by sending in a bug report, reach out to your Community Manager, contact the Product Support Owner on their Wall/talk page, or just simply sound off in the comments here. Remember to include a link to where you're experiencing the issue, a screenshot if it is something visible, as well as steps to reproduce your issue. As always, thank you for helping us by continuing to communicate. Happy editing, everyone!
Lostris is a Senior Product Support Manager. When not online, she lives to travel, play roller derby, and escape the world by watching anything that has a good plot, good acting, and preferably a ton of sassy one-liners.
