Talk:Development policy/Until 2018

False Link
there is a false link, in the section "Documentation policy" to the user guide. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.135.105.34 (talk • contribs). Please sign your posts!


 * I have fixed this, along with a few other discrepencies in the page. MinuteElectron 22:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Test server policy
The "Test server policy" section states that "For security reasons, there is no longer a test server within the Wikimedia server farm...". However, further up the page mentions the Test Wikipedia. Is test Wikipedia not part of the Wikimedia server farm, or is this one of the things that needs updating? --Brian 08:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Tables.sql and Updaters
I take it that when  is patched, it's also necessary to patch ,  ,  , and  ?

Also, it mentions,  , and  ; what about   and  ? Should those be mentioned too? Thanks, Leucosticte (talk) 02:56, 24 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Ideally, yes, but as there is not much man-power for support for non-MySQL databases, it would probably also be appropriate to minimize these patches to adding a "FIXME" rather than wait till a changeset is ported to, let's say, DB2.


 * One question: What does the "h" parameter to gitweb in the links you added? Does it reference the file or a particular commit of that file?  --Tim&#160;Landscheidt 11:44, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure. My intent was to reference the recent history of the file, in other words a list of recent commits. Hmm, so if we put a FIXME, won't that break the code for those people who are trying to use those alternative database systems, unless there's a configuration setting to turn off use of whatever fields have changed? Or is it like internationalisation &mdash; you're supposed to leave it to someone who knows what they're doing to finish the task that you started? So, just as translatewiki takes care of everything but the en and qqq messages, someone else takes care of those other database systems? I thought even the development version of MediaWiki was supposed to be in a working state at all times; does not not apply to those other database systems? Leucosticte (talk) 12:21, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as I am aware, the development version is only kept in a working state for MySQL/SQLite as those are the only ones tested in a somewhat managed way.
 * The idea of "FIXME"s would be to indicate in an unambiguous way to someone who wants to fix support for non-MySQL databases which patches to the MySQL  haven't been ported yet.  Otherwise you'd have to wade through the whole Git history to find out what needs to be done.  --Tim&#160;Landscheidt 05:22, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

How does one become a tester for the developers?
How does one become a tester for the developers? The current controversy over Visual Editor shows that there is a need for testing of software, by a group of volunteer testers, prior to its (even preliminary) deployment. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:27, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

A test site for admins ?

 * In test2 wiki a personnal site admin asked " Is there a sandbox wiki that I could use to test various admin-configurable options on, including js and css styles? Or a temporary sandbox wiki for that purpose ?" Sj (talk)‎2013-11-05T20:39:14
 * To learn freely [ Mediawiki:*, .JS, .CSS, gadgets, bot, extensions ...], tring without any risk to disturb !
 * A test site where anybody could use or quit the admin rights by himself. Perhaps even for each page he want. And always updated, a paradise !
 * It could become a school for admins and a training ground for risked operations ? --Rical (talk) 17:45, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

"You'll then have to pester the sysadmins incessantly to get them to make the schema change" is a policy?
Really? --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 07:03, 17 September 2015 (UTC)


 * This page (like many) could probably use a rewrite. That particular bit of guidance dates back to 2009.
 * I may now just take a crack at modifying that line. Pester me if I don't give further guidance on this.  :-)  RobLa-WMF (talk) 00:20, 18 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Actually, I am rewriting the schema change workflow at wikitech, mostly to delete things we do not do, and to impove its speed. Maybe something could be copied back here. It is just that that line made me laugh. --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 19:59, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Optional schema changes
Might be worth sending wikitech-l a notice about in a week or so. I note that any non-Wikimedia person may read that sentence as implying that everyone is expected to run update.php. ;-) Nemo 08:33, 25 August 2016 (UTC)