Technical Updates: May 3, 2024

Hello! It's been a fortnight since the last Technical Updates, which if you follow our blog you know all too well what this means: It's time to walk you through the labyrinth of bug fixes and technical changes to the platform in the last two weeks.

Now, our Technical Update is a bit emptier than normal - Most of our Product and Community staff was at Community Connect this week! The fun and conversations we had with our users exceeded even our wildest dreams, but this did mean that some projects had nothing new happen while we had our event.

But the show must go on, much like my inside joke to use as many Taylor Swift song titles as possible this week (five more just from this intro alone!). And so, here's what you need to know.

Recent Fixes[]

• 2010 editor: Keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Z had no effect
• Anonymous editors were not able to edit Interactive Maps due to always triggering an edit conflict warning.
• The "Filters" menu on Interactive Maps often did not close on tap.

Fixes in Development[]

• Turning syntax highlighting off in the Visual Editor menu has no effect.
• On Mobile, text outside of a p/section tag has a heavier-than-expected font-weight.
• Interaction with at least 2 embedded Interactive Maps breaks full screen button functionality.

Development Updates[]

Engagement[]

Product Support Owner: Héctor

• [Concluded Experiment] Register to mark Interactive Map progress: As we announced in the last technical update, we made a first attempt to release the second iteration of the experiment but it was canceled some hours later due a technical issue. After working during the next few days to ensure the wikis using the MapsExtended script wouldn't be included - as we properly did for the first iteration - we released it again on Monday, April 22nd. It was performed for a week and concluded last Monday, April 29th. We also performed on mobile for a week, while we initially stated it will run for two weeks on these devices. You can read more details about it here.

Platform team[]

Product Support Owner: Antonio

• OGV/OGG Files: The file format .ogv/.ogg has been dwindling in usage and compatibility in modern web browsers for the last few years. With Chrome recently deciding that OGV videos will no longer be supported, we're making some changes in the next two weeks to maximize compatibility for existing files and prevent more from being added to our network:
  • OGV files will no longer be an accepted type for upload.
  • Existing OGG files will receive an audio MIME type and become audio only. We intend to keep OGG files as an upload option, but be aware that only the audio component will be kept.
  • We are investigating converting remaining files to more modern formats, such as WEBM.
• DPL Performance Improvements: We will be testing some backend performance improvements to some complicated DPL queries. This should have no impact on the front-end appearance of the query results.

Traffic team[]

Product Support Owner: Jenny

• Quick Answers: Feedback from communities using the tool indicates that the AI's tone does not align with the encyclopedic voice of the wiki. Over the past few weeks, we have worked on adjusting the AI's tone to be more straightforward and in line with the encyclopedic style. We believe these improvements will better match the wikis using the tool, and we are prepared to expand the Quick Answers tool to more communities. Moving forward, we will continue to reach out to communities where Quick Answers will be introduced, providing information about the tool and addressing any questions they may have.

User-Generated Content (UGC) team[]

Product Support Owner: Antonio

• [Concluded Experiment] Welcome messages on Message Walls: The experiment concluded last Friday, April 26th. The results about its performance and impact would be ready throughout next week.

User Experience (UX) Team[]

Product Support Owner: Jenny

• We are currently working through an internal testing issue that is affecting experiments. Experiments, such as the Global Navigation Redesign mentioned in previous blogs, are currently on hold until the issue is resolved.

Thank you for all your support, and as always, if there is anything you think should be fixed, please contact us on our Walls/talk pages or send us a bug report!

Timothy Quievryn

Fandom Staff

Tim is the Director of Community Safety at FANDOM. You are likely to run into him hiking in some national park or at a racetrack. He pretends to not be pop-culture savvy, but he did once see a Star War. Long live the party parrot.

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