Wikitech-l July 2011

96 participants
96 discussions

Database dumps
by Byrial Jensen 17 Apr '25

17 Apr '25

Until some weeks ago http://dumps.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html used to show 4 dumps in progress at the same time. That meant that new database dumps normally was available within about 3 weeks for all databases except for enwiki and maybe dewiki where the dump process due to size took longer time. However the 4 dumps processes at one time become 3 some weeks ago. And after massive failures at June 4, only one dump has been in progress at the same time. So at the current speed it will take several months to come thru all dumps. Is it possible to speed up the process again using several dump processes at the same time? Thank you, Byrial

3 2

User-Agent:
by Domas Mituzas 17 Apr '25

17 Apr '25

Hi! from now on specific per-bot/per-software/per-client User-Agent header is mandatory for contacting Wikimedia sites. Domas

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EBNF grammar project status?
by Steve Bennett 01 Apr '25

01 Apr '25

What's the status of the project to create a grammar for Wikitext in EBNF? There are two pages: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikitext_Metasyntax http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Markup_spec Nothing seems to have happened since January this year. Also the comments on the latter page seem to indicate a lack of clear goal: is this just a fun project, is it to improve the existing parser, or is it to facilititate a new parser? It's obviously a lot of work, so it needs to be of clear benefit. Brion requested the grammar IIRC (and there's a comment to that effect at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7 ), so I'm wondering what became of it. Is there still a goal of replacing the parser? Or is there some alternative plan? Steve

26 217

Missing Section Headings
by Marc Riddell 12 Sep '24

12 Sep '24

Hello, I have been a WP editor since 2006. I hope you can help me. For some reason I no longer have Section Heading titles showing in the Articles. This is true of all Headings including the one that carries the Article subject's name. When there is a Table of Contents, it appears fine and, when I click on a particular Section, it goes to that Section, but all that is there is a straight line separating the Sections. There is also no button to edit a Section. If I edit the page and remove the "== ==" markers from the Section Titles, the Title then shows up, but not as a Section Heading. Also, I don't have any Date separators on my Want List. This started 2 days ago. Any thoughts? Thanks, Marc Riddell [[User:Michael David]]

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MediaWiki to Latex Converter
by Hugo Vincent 18 Jun '12

18 Jun '12

Hi everyone, I recently set up a MediaWiki (http://server.bluewatersys.com/w90n740/) and I need to extra the content from it and convert it into LaTeX syntax for printed documentation. I have googled for a suitable OSS solution but nothing was apparent. I would prefer a script written in Python, but any recommendations would be very welcome. Do you know of anything suitable? Kind Regards, Hugo Vincent, Bluewater Systems.

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About to commit improved DB2 database support
by Leons Petrazickis 20 Dec '11

20 Dec '11

I've been informally mentoring André, Tiago, Diego, and César. They are four students at Minho University who are currently working on a project to improve DB2 database support in MediaWiki. So far, they've: - Fixed several outstanding issues with DB2 support involving character encoding, Windows vs Linux, etc - Added DB2 support to the new MediaWiki 1.17 Installer and Updater - Put in the appropriate Updater sql patches to reflect database schema changes since 1.14 MediaWiki already had some DB2 support, but it's been broken since 1.15 and never complete. As a result of their work, it's now possible to successfully install MediaWiki on DB2 out of the box and to use the core wiki features. I'll shortly commit their first patch using my SVN account (leonsp). I've taken some care to look over the code and make sure it abides by the MediaWiki code guidelines. Regards, Leons Petrazickis http://lpetr.org/blog/

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RFC: Should we drop the rendering preferences for math?
by Brion Vibber 28 Nov '11

28 Nov '11

Bug 24207 requests switching the math rendering preference default from its current setting (which usually produces a nice PNG and occasionally produces some kinda ugly HTML) to the "always render PNG" setting. I'd actually propose dropping the rendering options entirely... * "HTML if simple" and "if possible" produce *horrible* ugly output that nobody likes, so people use hacks to force PNG rendering. Why not just render to PNG? * "MathML" mode is even *MORE* limited than "HTML if simple", making it entirely useless. * nobody even knows what "Recommended for modern browsers" means, but it seems to be somewhere in that "occasionally crappy HTML, usually PNG" continuum. So we're left with only two sane choices: * Always render PNG * Leave it as TeX (for text browsers) Text browsers will show the alt text on the images, which is... the TeX code. So even this isn't actually needed for its stated purpose. (Hi Jidanni! :) lynx should show the tex source when using the PNG mode.) It's conceivable that a few folks really honestly prefer to see the latex source in their graphical browsers (should at least do a quick stat check to see if anybody uses it on purpose), but I wouldn't mind removing that either. Fancier rendering like MathJax etc should be considered as a separate thing (and implemented a bit differently to avoid parser cache fragmentation!), so don't let future mode concerns worry y'all. Any thoughts on whether this makes sense to do for 1.18 or 1.19? https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24207#c9 -- brion

9 12

Software version control 101 (Re: Please don't commit broken code)
by Rob Lanphier 08 Aug '11

08 Aug '11

On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 12:30 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra(a)baylink.com> wrote: > More pointedly, is there a really *good* "Software Development Version > Management HOWTO" anywhere at all? I've looked at the git book, and it > just knocked me on my ass from the first chapter. I *almost* understand > BZR... but I haven't seen a good 30,000ft explanation of any of them, > written for people who are good programmers, but have never worked with > one before. I think this might be what you're looking for: http://producingoss.com/en/vc.html ...though the information is a little dated. Then again, our version control system is a little dated, so maybe this is just right (though ignore pretty much everything said about CVS). Regarding MediaWiki-specific information about branching and so on, that's largely covered here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Commit_access ...though that documentation could stand some improvement. (volunteers?) Rob

2 1

Protocol-relative URLs enabled on test.wikipedia.org
by Ryan Lane 05 Aug '11

05 Aug '11

Over the past couple days Roan Kattouw and I have been pushing out changes to enable protocol-relative URL support. We've gotten to a point where we think it is stable and working. We've enabled this on test.wikipedia.org, and plan on running it for two weeks before enabling it elsewhere. Please test if everything is working properly, especially with regards to the API and bots. Report bugs in bugzilla if any are found. - Ryan

2 1

https via GPU?
by Magnus Manske 04 Aug '11

04 Aug '11

Just saw this: http://shader.kaist.edu/sslshader/ As we move to offer "real" https access, maybe this could help keeping the CPU cost down?

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Wikitech-l July 2011