Wowpedia:Historical WoWWiki upgrades

Upgrade timeline
Server upgrades	completed (March)
New codebase	1.12 final live (23rd April) New parser active (28th April) Migrated to wikifactory (29th April)
New extensions	New extensions are live (29th April)
New "Monaco" skin	live (early April)
Main page portals	live (early April)
User database merge	live (24th April)

From March to May 2008 WoWWiki has been undergoing a series of major upgrades.
Check the article history page to see what has been updated recently.

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

WoWWiki has 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

<imagelink>Poweredby mediawiki.png|mw:MediaWiki</imagelink>

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 WoWWiki: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.
• Nonexistant 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): new pp
• 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

With the merge with Wikia's main codebase comes the ability to use many new extensions.

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

New "Monaco" skin

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

There's much more to 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

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.

Portal:Main / 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.

Portal: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!).

Portal:Community

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 WoWWiki talk:Village pump#Portal namespace redux. Note that portals are all editable, but the situation will be monitored closely.

As of 2nd May 2008, the portals have had a second overhaul - you can find out more on Portal talk:Main#New main page designs.

User database merge

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.

Notes

• You may have to log in again.

• Your username may have changed to WoWWiki-<oldname> (i.e. Bob becomes WoWWiki-Bob). The list of changed account names are listed here. This is an unfortunate, but neccessary, side-effect of the merge, and you have my apologies for it.
  • i.e. your old account name will still exist on the wiki, but the Wikia account will have taken precedence - if you can't log in, check WoWWiki-<oldname> before requesting new passwords or contacting us.
  • Account renames are possible to any account name not currently used on Wikia. We can also merge accounts owned by the same person. Please post requests on the talk page, and we'll try and help out!
  • If you want, you can create a new account, and we can merge the old account into it.

• You user preferences may have reset - including signature and skin preferences. To get back your custom signature, check WW:SIG. For skin issues see #New "Monaco" skin.

• You should notice that you can now log in with the same account on Wikia and WoWWiki (and logging in on one logs you in on the other), and your preferences will carry across.
• Signatures will carry between wikis. Be careful when signing on other wikis if you have customized your signature. See WW:SIG for how to deal with this.

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 (kirkburn at gmail dot com) and I will try and help out. Kirkburn  talk  contr 14:10, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

General issues and tips

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?

There's still much more to come, but nothing quite a drastic as we've 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 likely being bugfixes in 1.12.1.
• Wikia does weekly code releases every Tuesday with updates to Wikia-specific code.

Feedback and contacts

For further information on the changes, contact Kirkburn. If you are having problems he should be able to pass on information to the relevant parties (if you cannot post on the wiki, contact kirkburn at gmail dot com).

Enjoy your shinier WoWWiki!