Extension:FeaturedFeeds/WMF deployment

Notes to site administrators
The following feed types are supported:

Each feed has the following messages controlling its behavior (replace * with feed name):

How to set up a feed
Create page named MediaWiki:Ffeed-*-page containing page title (again, substitute * with feed name). The title will be processed with date and time functions such as 27 is set to feed entry's current date. Two cases are possible here:


 * Wiki uses different templates for each day, e.g. Wikipedia:Today's featured article/ on the English Wikipedia. In such case, use expression that evaluates to page title directly, e.g.  Wikipedia:Today's featured article/ .
 * Wiki uses a single template that uses date magic internally to display proper content. In such cases, either point MediaWiki:Ffeed-*-page to that template directly, or, if it has   sections not intended for readers to see, point it to a page that contains a transclusion of the said template and nothing else.

When FeaturedFeeds can be used and when it can't?
This extension requires an automatic featured content rotation system based on date. Currently, only content that changes once per day or less frequently is supported. Manual updates won't work.

Our wiki's current featured content changes less than once per day, how can we use FeaturedFeeds?
FeaturedFeeds outputs 10 days worth of featured content by default. Thus, if your content changes at least once per 10 days, everything will work. Just make sure that ffeed-*-page evaluates to a valid title only on days there's new content available. Examples:


 * Featured article every Monday:   will evaluate to Template:Featured article/2024/ every monday and will be empty on other days.


 * Sometimes we have a new featured picture, sometimes not:  .

Can we put whole featured articles into the feed?
You'd better not. Typical featured articles on Wikipedia are huge and are slow to render - even though rendered text is cached, it still requires CPU time and bandwidth to serve. You don't want to have a sysadmin running after you with a huge banhammer, don't you? :) Just stick to the same short excerpts shown on main page along with "read more" links.

Our wiki has a type of featured content not cureently supported. Can we just reuse an existing feed name?
For the sake of reusers that might expect a certain type of content under a feed name, just ask us to add a new feed type and we'll do it quickly.

Our wiki uses timezone other than UTC. Anything we should know?
FeaturedFeeds honors time zones. You might want to use functions that output local time and date such as instead of.

I did not understand a single word!
Just ask for help on IRC, channels #mediawiki and #wikimedia-mobile, we'll be happy to help you set up the extension on your wiki.

Technical notes for deployment

 * There's FeaturedFeedsWMF.php that contains typical feeds for every project, it should be included after extension's main file.
 * Requires and  for deployment to 1.18wmf1. ✅
 * Requires ParserFunctions to function properly on many wikis. Due to intermediate revisions, easiest would be to upgrade PF to trunk - seems to work fine on Labs.
 * Requires a change of $out->getLanguage->getCode</tt> into $out->getLang->getCode</tt> to work on 1.18wmf1. Not needed anymore.
 * $wgDisplayFeedsInSidebar should be set to false, at least initially.
 * Should be deployed to Wikipedia, Commons and Wikiquote.

Per-site rollout
For languages yours sincerely could grok in 5 minutes

Wikipedias
English (en)
 * FA: Wikipedia:Today's featured article/
 * OTD: Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/
 * POTD: Template:POTD protected/

Indonesian (id)
 * Rotating FA
 * OTD: Templat:HariIniDalamSejarah/27 August
 * Has a daily DYK at Wikipedia:Tahukah Anda/27 August

Malay (ms)
 * Monthly FA
 * Weekly pics
 * Weekly DYK
 * OTD: Wikipedia:Hari ulang tahun pilihan/27 August

Bulgarian (bg)
 * Weekly FA: Шаблон:Избрана статия
 * OTD: Шаблон:Начална страница 27 August
 * POTD from Commons

Catalan (ca)
 * FA: Plantilla:article  27
 * OTD: Plantilla: 27

Chinese (zh)
 * Weekly FA: Wikipedia:特色条目/2024年第周
 * OTD:  Wikipedia:历史上的今天/August27日
 * DYK: ?
 * ITN: ?
 * GA:  Wikipedia:优良条目/2024年August27日
 * POTD: Wikipedia:每日图片/2024年August27日

French (fr)
 * FA: Wikipédia:Lumière sur/August 2024
 * POTD: Wikipédia:Image du jour/27 August 2024