Talk:Tech/News/2017/19

Drafting one from the Parsing team

• Because of some upcoming code fixes to the preprocessor, markup that looks like language variants might need fixing in some cases to prevent them for breaking. If -{ is used in transclusions like this: {{1x|-{R|foo}-}} , change it to -<nowiki/>{. If -{ is used in URLs, change it to %2D{. This affects all wikis. [1], [2].

I have slightly changed the above to adapt it more to Tech News (please check if the source code is OK). It should probably also link to the relevant Phab task though. Other observations:

• I'd recommend linking to en:Preprocessor so people know what we're talking about. I wouldn't know what to link for language variant, though.
  • Link 2 above has a lot of detail about the preprocessor fixups to be done because of language variants. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 13:51, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
• Can transclusions actually be simplified with "templates", at least for Tech News? You aren't using that word on the page on mw.org anyway.
  • No, because this affects {{...}} markup rather than template code. If there is a way to convey that while saying templates, that is fine SSastry (WMF) (talk) 13:51, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

SSastry (WMF), Elitre (WMF): We can use an example. "A transclusion could for example be when you use -{ in a template: {{1x|-{R|foo}-}}" or something like that? /Johan (WMF) (talk) 14:04, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

User:Johan (WMF), Elitre (WMF), Sure, that is good! It gives ppl an example without using 'transclusion' SSastry (WMF) (talk) 14:27, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

SSastry (WMF), Elitre (WMF):Good, thanks. I added the item to the newsletter now, and tried to simplify and clarify it a bit in the process. Please tell me if anything was obfuscated in the process, or if I introduced any mistakes. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 15:02, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

User:Johan (WMF), Elitre (WMF), Thanks! I realized a bit late that the transclusion example is valid lang. variant markup and so to avoid further confusion, I changed that example. Otherwise, LGTM. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 15:50, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

• This needs to convey more urgency (as in "things will break if instructions aren't followed"), although we can take care about that when we repost it next week. It will also need to explicitly mention something like "this will affect all wikis", to avoid that people think it's only a matter for those that actually are in a language variant. I guess we can easily figure out whether there's been progress in the meantime?

Pings: User:Johan (WMF), User:SSastry (WMF), User:CAnanian (WMF) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 09:39, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I do not know if the relevant people can review this in time, but assuming that the syntax of the recommended changes is correct, I'd rather have it included as it is than not - since in any case we'll repeat the announcement next week too, and then we can maybe wordsmith appropriately. Elitre (WMF) (talk) 12:17, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I added the "This affects all wikis." line SSastry (WMF) (talk) 13:51, 5 May 2017 (UTC)