Wowpedia:Historical WoWWiki upgrades

Upcoming/not live
Upcoming updates include:
 * Upgrade to MediaWiki 1.16, once released

Spring '10 updates

 * Updated skin
 * The Monaco skin's base code has been updated in order to improve its loading speed - find out more here.

Summer/Winter '09 updates

 * Updated skin
 * WoWWiki's skin has undergone a few tweaks to make it look just that little bit cooler :)

Spring '09 updates

 * Codebase update to MediaWiki 1.14
 * Amongst the many many updates and fixes is the rename of the Image namespace to "File", the ability to move images, and the imagelink extension should no longer be required (it'll be built in).
 * See w:Forum:MediaWiki 1.14 upgrade for more info


 * Feature added: Shared Help
 * Adds content from the Wikia Help wiki to all Wikia wikis.
 * See Help:Shared Help for more info.


 * Feature added: Wikia Welcome Tool
 * Helps automate welcome notice added to the talk page of new users. It will post a different welcome messages based on whether a user is logged in or anonymous. The welcome message will link to the last admin to make an edit, a fixed user, or welcome will be disabled. It will include a default starter template for logged in users who haven't created a user page.
 * See Wikia Welcome Tool section of Forum:New features coming on Wednesday.


 * UI tweaks: Edit Page Enhancements
 * A modified version of the edit page enhancements: the site notice, wiki tagline, and talk page message notification are not displayed on the edit page; the size of the page title has been reduced; A bar at the top of the preview window now displays with a bright red background to make it clear that the edit has not yet been saved.
 * See Edit Page Enhancements section of Forum:New features coming on Wednesday.
 * Also see Tweaking edit page changes.


 * Feature added inline: CategorySelect
 * This feature makes it much simpler to add and edit categories from the edit page, whilst also making it possible to add new categories without ever visiting the edit page.
 * See Help:CategorySelect.

Winter '08/09 updates
During this winter, WoWWiki has had a few more updates:


 * The search engine has been updated, and more improvements are planned.
 * Special:TagsReport has been released, giving an overview of the most used special tags on the wiki.
 * The codebase has been updated to 1.13.3

Fall '08 updates
In September of 2008, WoWWiki underwent another upgrade. Check the article history page to see what has been updated recently.

Codebase updates (Fall '08)
 WoWWiki is now running MediaWiki 1.13.1 final. WoWWiki was previously on 1.12, which means a few new features. For some other info, visit MediaWiki 1.13 at Wikia Central or MediaWiki.org.

WikiaStats extension test
Here is a new feature we are testing out: Special:WikiaStats.

For every wiki at Wikia, we generate statistics that track the number of new editors, the number of articles, and various other information important to the life-cycle of a wiki. These stats are much more detailed than the in-built MediaWiki statistics page found at Special:Statistics.

As Wikia has grown, we have tried to improve our statistics package to our users more robust data. As part of our latest update, each wiki will receive a special page where any logged in user can view detailed statistical information about their wiki. In addition, a number of the statistics have had their methods of calculation updated to be more accurate. We hope this will aid users in deciding where to focus their efforts.

The new Wikia statistics pages can be found at Special:WikiaStats on this wiki. (Previously, the information could be found on wikistats.wikia.com.) In addition, there will be a central WikiaStats page which allows you to look up any wiki's stats, though this is not yet live.

You can find out more about the new stats page at Help:WikiaStats on Wikia Help.

WikiaStats Feedback
We are planning to release this to the rest of Wikia next week (September 15th?). In the meantime, we would love to get your feedback on the new stats page - where it's not clear, numbers that don't look accurate, or suggestions for improvement. You can leave feedback here, but it would help us keep everything organised if most of the feedback was left on this Central Wikia forum thread.

Known issues
To pre-empt two reports: the database changes size a lot around January - this probably is because the database was compressed at this time. The charts having white text on a white background is also known.

Spring '08 updates
From March to May 2008, WoWWiki underwent a series of major upgrades.

This article includes lots of troubleshooting and background info. Before asking questions, please make sure you have read below. For general Wikia help, please visit the Wikia Help wiki.

Server upgrades (Spring '08)
WoWWiki moved from its old single server system to spread out across all Wikia. This significantly reduces the possibility of a complete failure and should help with the site's reliability and speed.

Codebase updates (Spring '08)
 WoWWiki is now running MediaWiki 1.12 final. WoWWiki was previously on 1.10 (via 1.12 alpha), which means several new features. For some other info, visit Wowpedia:MediaWiki 1.12 changes, or MediaWiki.org.

When not upgrading to new versions of MediaWiki, Wikia performs general code releases every Tuesday with updates to Wikia-specific code.

1.12 alpha - 26th March 2008
Major changes from 1.10 are listed below, though there are several more minor tweaks.


 * Edit counts are now shown on the first tab of Special:Preferences. They are counted across all Wikia.

1.12 final - 23rd April 2008
Major changes from 1.12 alpha are listed below, though there are many many more minor tweaks.


 * User stuff
 * Special:Recentchangeslinked now has an RSS feed, so you are now able to use something like User:Username/Watchlist to create a Watchlist with an RSS feed to watch.
 * Special:Mypage and Special:Mytalk now allow you to pass &preload= and &editintro= parameters, so you can use the Inputbox or other link to help users intuitively create a new userpage or talkpage.


 * Admin stuff
 * You can now get a diff between deleted revisions of a page. So now you know what was changed, instead of just seeing what was there. Admin test link
 * The delete page now features a list of predefined delete reasons you can select from.
 * Nonexistent pages can now be protected. So a Title Blacklist using Cascade protection is no longer needed to prevent page creation of a bad page.
 * Special:Log now contains a revert link for pagemoves for those with permission to do so to help in reverting movepage vandalism.
 * &wpReason= can now be use in the url of a delete, so you can add a reason for quick deletion without using user javascript to do so.

New 1.12 parser/preprocessor
With 1.12 final comes a new faster parser/preprocessor. For more info on changes in the new preprocessor, see Migration to the new preprocessor on MetaWiki.

Please report bugs on the village pump or the related template talk page.


 * Tests and effects
 * Test for parser version (shows "new pp" if active):
 * You can check pages for parser changes by visiting Special:ParserDiffTest. You can append ?timing=1 to the url to test performance differences - e.g. http://www.wowwiki.com/Special:ParserDiffTest/Comparison%20of%20Aldor%20and%20Scryer%20rewards?timing=1
 * Category:Pages with too many ifexist calls is generated as a result of the new parser.

New extensions (Spring '08)
With the merge with Wikia's main codebase comes the ability to use many new extensions.

Many of these new extensions are detailed on Wowpedia:MediaWiki 1.12 changes.

New "Monaco" skin (Spring '08)
This is the most obvious new addition to the wiki. WoWWiki's default skin is changing from the old (that is, very old) monobook-based skin to a custom version of Wikia's new Monaco skin.

The skin has undergone extensive testing, but if you find any bugs (normally shown by white background, unreadable text) or feel that certain parts should be tweaked, please make a note about it on the Village pump.

To see the new WoWWiki theme skin, make sure "see custom skins" is ticked in your preferences (you should not need to select a skin, but if you have ever made changes you will probably need to select Monaco Sapphire).

New features
New features of the skin include:


 * Sidebar widgets
 * Visit Special:Widgets or click the more button at the top right of your screen to access a list. Drag the items you wish to use to the sidebar. You can reorganise and reorder widgets to your liking. See here for more info.


 * Upgraded sidebar menu
 * WoWWiki has a proper menu system at last! You can find links to a lot of the most important parts of the wiki via this menu.
 * All links in the sidebar are active. Do not feel you have to go to the lowest level in a menu to get what you want. Want help? Click "Help". No need to go searching for something specific in the subcategories :P

Much more can be found, have a poke around! You can find more details on Help:Monaco skin features on Wikia Help.

User customization
You can even customize the skin! Help:Customizing Monaco on Wikia Help is a good start.

The customization that will likely be most popular is changing the sidebar links. You can do this by visiting Special:Mypage/Monaco-sidebar and Special:Mypage/Monaco-toolbox. When changing these, note that caching may mean you do not immediately see any changes.

Problems?

 * Skin
 * You do not have to use the new WoWWiki-themed version of Monaco. You can use any of the other options (except Gaming, which is not supported). Monaco is the skin Wikia is actively developing. Quartz is no longer being developed, but should still work.
 * If you must go back to the old skin, the option "wowwiki" is still available to you. However, that skin is somewhat out of date and will not be updated by Wikia, and likely not by the site admins. Due to the very basic design, it is well suited to low power tech.
 * Remember that in order to use the other skins, you must untick the "see custom skins" box.
 * Note - the old skin is currently unavailable to choose. This will be fixed in the next code update.


 * Search
 * If you do not like using the MediaWiki search engine, click the "Google search" link in the sidebar toolbox. This will take you to a beautifully themed Google search page. Note that the results of a Google search are not as up to date as a MediaWiki search. We are looking at ways to improve the MediaWiki search.

Main page portals (Spring '08)
The main page of the wiki has changed, and now utilises a portal system.

You can navigate between portals either via the tabs on the articles themselves or via the sidebar menu on the new skin.

Currently, four portals are available. Please leave feedback about them on their respective talk pages.


 * Wowpedia / Portal:World of Warcraft
 * This is the portal you will normally see. It is mostly unchanged from the old main page, except interface links have moved off it.


 * Project:Interface customization
 * This is the new location of the interface portal. The design has been updated a little, but it should be very familiar.


 * Portal:Warcraft universe
 * Brand new portal for those not interested in the World of Warcraft (we know you're out there!).


 * Project:Community portal
 * The updated community portal. The design has been tweaked, but will likely get changed further in order to better serve the community.

You can read more about the philosophy of the portal system on Wowpedia talk:Village pump. Note that portals are all editable, but the situation will be monitored closely.

As of May 2nd 2008, the portals have had a second overhaul — you can find out more on Portal talk:Main.

User database merge (Spring '08)
WoWWiki's user database has merged with Wikia's. The major benefit is that you will have a single login to all of Wikia's wikis (of which there are now over six thousand).

Methodology

 * 1) If there are two accounts with the same name on Wikia and WoWWiki, then we compare email addresses. If they match, we set that name as one account, and all remains the same for you.
 * 2) If there are two accounts and the email addresses don't match, then we set the WoWWiki account to "WoWWiki-name". We can then look at that individually with you, and figure out how to resolve the name conflict.
 * 3) If you have a unique account on WoWWiki, with no matching Wikia name, then we automatically make that name yours on Wikia. It doesn't matter whether you use the account elsewhere or not, you will be "you" on the whole of Wikia.

If you have accounts of the same name on WoWWiki and on Wikia, please make sure your email address is the same on both accounts. To do this, go to your preferences page, make sure the "email" field is correct, and authenticate your email by clicking the link in the email sent to you.

If you have accounts of different names on WoWWiki and Wikia, and you would like them merged, please say so on the talk page! Again, please ensure that the email addresses in both accounts match.

Issues

 * Known issues
 * Some users may have lost their watchlists. If this affects you and you would like it restored, please post on the talk page. We will see if we can help you.
 * If you are still having problems logging in: login errors may occur if you were previously logged in on Wikia when the merge happened — logging out and back in on www.wikia.com or any other site seems to help.


 * Fixed issues
 * All admin and patroller account rights and watchlists should now be fixed.
 * We have completed mass moving userpages for renamed accounts. However, you will need to manually move your subpages.
 * Edit counts have been recounted - they now count edits across all Wikia.
 * IE6 users may have problems reaching the login/create account screen - if this affects you, you can login/create an account at any other Wikia (e.g. Wikia Gaming) and it should persist to WoWWiki. This issue should now be fixed.

If you are having problems, please visit our IRC channel if possible, or try the talk page; alternatively email me and I will try and help out. 14:10, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

General issues and tips (Spring '08)
Problems with site speed/crashes? Please check these things first:
 * Make sure your browser is up to date! IE6, especially, is only barely supported. It is supported though, as I know it makes up a fair portion of our visitors (browsing at work eh? )
 * We recommend at least Firefox 2.x, Safari 3.x, IE7 or similar up-to-date browser.
 * Update your OS! You never know...
 * Try turning Javascript off in your browser. If that helps, please tell us.

What's next?
Many more features are to come, but nothing quite a drastic as we have just been through. :)


 * Edit Page Enhancements will be added are now live.
 * Profile tools are planned, with avatars, user boards, awards, gifts and more. More details soon.
 * The MediaWiki software will continue to be upgraded with the next upgrade being 1.13 on 9th September 2008.
 * Wikia's wiki customizations are continuously being updated and new code releases are performed during most weeks.

Feedback and contacts
For further information on the changes, contact Kirkburn. If you are having problems or have bug reports he should be able to pass on information to the relevant parties (if you cannot post on the wiki, contact ).

Enjoy your shinier WoWWiki!