Merge "New Hook rc/watchlist hook ChangesListBegin"
[lhc/web/wiklou.git] / RELEASE-NOTES-1.23
1 Security reminder: MediaWiki does not require PHP's register_globals. If you
2 have it on, turn it '''off''' if you can.
3
4 == MediaWiki 1.23 ==
5
6 THIS IS NOT A RELEASE YET
7
8 MediaWiki 1.23 is an alpha-quality branch and is not recommended for use in
9 production.
10
11 === Configuration changes in 1.23 ===
12 * When $wgJobRunRate is higher that zero, jobs are now executed via an
13 asynchronous HTTP request to a MediaWiki entry point. This may require
14 increasing the number of server worker threads.
15 * $wgDebugLogGroups values may be set to an associative array with a
16 'destination' key specifying the log destination. The array may also contain
17 a 'sample' key with a positive integer value N indicating that the log group
18 should be sampled by dispatching one in every N messages on average. The
19 sampling is random.
20 * In addition to the current exception log format, MediaWiki now serializes
21 exception metadata to JSON and logs it to the 'exception-json' log group.
22 This makes MediaWiki easier to integrate with log aggregation and analysis
23 tools.
24 * $wgSquidServersNoPurge now supports the use of Classless Inter-Domain
25 Routing (CIDR) notation to specify contiguous blocks of IPv4 and/or IPv6
26 addresses that should be trusted to provide X-Forwarded-For headers.
27 * Preferences 'watchcreations', 'watchdefault', 'enotifwatchlistpages' ("Add
28 pages I create and files I upload to my watchlist", "Add pages and files I
29 edit to my watchlist", "Email me when a page or file on my watchlist is
30 changed") are now enabled by default. In addition new user accounts' personal
31 and talk pages are now watched by them by default.
32 * $wgLBFactoryConf: Class names have had underscores removed. The configuration
33 should be updated if LBFactory_Simple or LBFactory_Multi is configured.
34 * $wgPasswordSenderName has been removed and is no longer functional. To set a
35 custom mailer name, the system message 'emailsender' should be modified
36 (default: "{{SITENAME}}").
37 * $wgDBAhandler was removed as the only class using it was also removed
38 * The 'max threads' setting was removed from $wgDBservers.
39 * Support for AdminSettings.php has been completely removed. All configuration
40 belongs in LocalSettings.php.
41 * $wgSkipSkin, which has been replaceable by $wgSkipSkins since 2005 (r9249), is
42 now formally deprecated.
43 * Removed deprecated $wgDisabledActions as it is hardly used anywhere.
44 * $wgRateLimitLog has been deprecated and replaced by
45 $wgDebugLogGroup['ratelimit'].
46 * $wgLocalInterwikis is an array containing multiple local interwiki prefixes
47 (interwiki prefixes that point back to the current wiki). This effectively
48 allows more than one value of $wgLocalInterwiki to be specified and
49 understood by the parser. The value of $wgLocalInterwiki is automatically
50 prepended to the start of this array.
51 * $wgQueryPages has been removed. Query Pages should be added to by using the
52 wgQueryPages hook.
53 * $wgHttpOnlyBlacklist has been removed.
54
55 === New features in 1.23 ===
56 * ResourceLoader can utilize the Web Storage API to cache modules client-side.
57 Compared to the browser cache, caching in Web Storage allows ResourceLoader
58 to be more granular about evicting stale modules from the cache while
59 retaining the ability to retrieve multiple modules in a single HTTP request.
60 This capability can be enabled by setting $wgResourceLoaderStorageEnabled to
61 true. This feature is currently considered experimental and should only be
62 enabled with care.
63 * (bug 6092) Add expensive parser functions {{REVISIONID:}}, {{REVISIONUSER:}}
64 and {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP:}} (with friends).
65 * Add "wgRelevantUserName" to mw.config containing the current
66 Skin::getRelevantUser value.
67 * (bug 56033) Add content model to the page information.
68 * Added Article::MissingArticleConditions hook to give extensions a chance to
69 hide their (unrelated) log entries.
70 * Added LonelyPagesQuery hook to let extensions modify the query used to
71 generate Special:LonelyPages.
72 * Added $wgOpenSearchDefaultLimit defining the default number of entries to show
73 on action=opensearch API call.
74 * For namespaces with $wgNamespaceProtection (including the MediaWiki
75 namespace), the "protect" tab will be shown only if there are restriction
76 levels available that would restrict editing beyond what
77 $wgNamespaceProtection already applies. The protection form will offer only
78 those protection levels.
79 * Added $wgAPIFormatModules, allowing extensions to add additional output
80 formatting modules for the API.
81 * (bug 47812) The MediaWiki:Group-user.{css,js} pages can now be used to add
82 custom CSS or JavaScript enabled only for registered users.
83 * (bug 52005) Special pages RecentChanges, RecentChangesLinked and Watchlist
84 now include a legend describing the symbols used in lists of changes.
85 * Improved the accessibility of the tabs in Special:Preferences.
86 * Added ApiBeforeMain hook, roughly equivalent to the BeforeInitialize hook:
87 it's called after everything is set up but before any major processing
88 happens.
89 * The jquery.client module now performs a component-wise version comparison in
90 its #test method when strings are used in the browser map: version '1.10' is
91 now correctly considered larger than '1.2'. Using numbers in the version map
92 is not affected.
93 * All API modules now support an assert parameter, which can either be
94 'user' or 'bot'. The API will throw an error if the user is not logged
95 in (user) or does not have the 'bot' userright (bot). Based off of the
96 AssertEdit extension by Steve Sanbeg.
97 * WikitextContent will now render redirects with the expected "redirect"
98 header, rather than as an ordered list. Code calling Article::viewRedirect
99 can probably be changed to no longer special-case redirects.
100 * [[Special:Diff]] was added, allowing users to create internal links to
101 revision comparison pages using syntax such as [[Special:Diff/12345]],
102 [[Special:Diff/12345/prev]] or [[Special:Diff/12345/98765]].
103 * New user accounts' personal and talk pages are now watched by them by default.
104 * Added SkinTemplateGetLanguageLink hook to allow changing the html of language
105 links.
106 * Added MessageCache::get hook as a new way to customize messages across
107 multiple sites.
108 * Added jquery.throttle-debounce ResourceLoader module to limit the number of
109 callbacks for frequently occurring events.
110 * Special:ProtectedPages shows now a table. The timestamp, the reason and
111 the protecting user is also shown.
112 * Added experimental support for using Microsoft SQL Server as the database
113 backend.
114 ** Added new Microsoft SQL Server-specific configuration variable
115 $wgDBWindowsAuthentication, which makes the web server authenticate against
116 the database server using Integrated Windows Authentication instead of
117 $wgDBuser/$wgDBpassword.
118 * HTMLForm 'select', 'selectandother', 'selectorother', 'multiselect', and
119 'radio' fields can now use message keys as labels via the 'options-messages'
120 parameter, which overrides the 'options' parameter.
121 * Admins can expire users users passwords manually, or on a schedule using the
122 $wgPasswordExpirationDays configuration setting.
123 * Add new hook SendWatchlistEmailNotification, this will be used to determine
124 whether to send a watchlist email notification.
125 * (bug 42026) Special:Contributions now includes an option to filter page
126 creations, similar to the topOnly option.
127 * Add mediawiki.ui.button styling to all pages so wiki content can use styled
128 buttons.
129 * Special:UserLogin/signup now does AJAX checks for invalid and taken usernames,
130 displaying the error live.
131 * Added BaseTemplateAfterPortlet hook to allow injecting html after portlets in skins.
132 * Support has been added for a JSON based localisation file format. The
133 installer has been updated to use it.
134 * Add new hooks OldChangesListBegin and EnhancedChangesListBegin hooks to allow
135 extensions a chance to batch process the result set prior to rendering.
136
137 === Bug fixes in 1.23 ===
138 * (bug 41759) The "updated since last visit" markers (on history pages, recent
139 changes and watchlist) and the talk page message indicator are now correctly
140 updated when the user is viewing old revisions of pages, instead of always
141 acting as if the latest revision was being viewed.
142 * (bug 56443) Special:ConfirmEmail no longer shows a "Mail a confirmation code"
143 when the email address is already confirmed. Also, consistently use
144 "confirmed", rather than "authenticated", when messaging whether or not the
145 user has confirmed an email address.
146 * (bug 56912) Show correct link color on cached result of Special:DeadendPages.
147 * Classes TitleListDependency and TitleDependency have been removed, as they
148 have been found unused in core and extensions for a long time.
149 * (bug 57098) SpecialPasswordReset now obeys returnto parameter
150 * (bug 37812) ResourceLoader will notice when a module's definition changes and
151 recompile it accordingly.
152 * (bug 57201) SpecialRecentChangesFilters hook is now executed for feeds.
153 * (bug 58640) Fixed a compatibility issue with PCRE 8.34 that caused pages
154 to appear blank or with missing text.
155 * (bug 56931) Updated the plural rules to CLDR 24. They are in new format
156 which is detailed in UTS 35 Rev 33. The PHP parser and evaluator as well as
157 the JavaScript evaluator were updated to support the new format. Plural rules
158 for some languages have changed, most notably Russian. Affected software
159 messages have been updated and marked for review at translatewiki.net.
160 * (bug 14323) Redirect pages, when viewed with redirect=no, no longer hide the
161 remaining page content.
162 * (bug 23542) imagelinks now stores both the redirect and target (as
163 templatelinks does).
164 * (bug 58167) The web installer no longer throws an exception when PHP is
165 compiled without support for MySQL yet with support for another DBMS.
166 * (bug 56199) Raw option of parser functions must now match complete word,
167 to take effect.
168 * (bug 60543) Special:PrefixIndex forgot stripprefix=1 for "Next page" link
169 * (bug 29762) Undoing an already-undone edit will now display an appropriate
170 message instead of leading the user to make a null edit.
171 * (bug 52659) mediawiki.notification: Notification area remained visible when
172 empty and thus was stealing pointer events from links on the page.
173 * (bug 26811) When a DBUnexpectedError occurs, DB server hostnames are now
174 hidden unless $wgShowExceptionDetails is true, and $wgShowDBErrorBacktrace
175 no longer applies in such cases.
176 * (bug 60960) Avoid doing file_exist() checks on data: URIs, as they cause
177 warnings to be printed on Windows due to large path length.
178
179 === Web API changes in 1.23 ===
180 * (bug 54884) action=parse&prop=categories now indicates hidden and missing
181 categories.
182 * action=query&meta=filerepoinfo now returns additional information for each
183 repo.
184 * action=parse&prop=languageshtml was deprecated in 1.18 and will be removed in
185 MediaWiki 1.24.
186 * action=parse now has disabletoc flag to disable table of contents in output.
187 * (bug 25702) list=allcategories, list=allimages, list=alllinks, list=allpages,
188 list=deletedrevs and list=filearchive did not handle case-sensitivity
189 properly for all parameters.
190 * ApiQueryBase::titlePartToKey allows an extra parameter that indicates the
191 namespace in order to properly capitalize the title part.
192 * (bug 57874) action=feedcontributions no longer has one item more than limit.
193 * All API modules now support an assert parameter. See the new features section
194 for more details.
195 * Added prop=contributors to fetch the list of contributors to the page.
196 * The following API modules will now return entries where fields have been
197 revision-deleted: list=deletedrevs, list=filearchive, list=recentchanges,
198 list=watchlist. "hidden" indicators will be included, in the same style as is
199 already done for prop=revisions.
200 * The following API modules will now return the content of revision-deleted
201 fields, in addition to the "hidden" indicators, if the querying user has the
202 necessary rights: list=logevents, list=usercontribs, prop=imageinfo,
203 prop=revisions.
204 * The above modules, where applicable, will now return entries filtered by
205 revision-deleted fields if the querying user has the necessary rights. For
206 example, prop=revisions with rvuser or rvexcludeuser will no longer skip
207 revisions where the user was revision-deleted if the current user has the
208 deletedhistory right.
209 * The 'hideuser' right, used when blocking, is no longer necessary or
210 sufficient for seeing contributions with revision-deleted in
211 list=usercontribs.
212 * list=watchlist now uses the querying user's rights rather than the wlowner's
213 rights when checking whether wlprop=patrol is allowed.
214 * (bug 32151) ApiWatch now has pageset capabilities (titles/pageids/generators).
215 Title parameter is now deprecated.
216 * (bug 23005) Added action=revisiondelete.
217 * Added siprop=restrictions to API action=query&meta=siteinfo for querying
218 possible page restriction (protection) levels and types.
219 * Added prop 'limitreportdata' and 'limitreporthtml' to action=parse.
220 * (bug 58627) Provide language names on action=parse&prop=langlinks.
221 * Deprecated llurl= in favour of llprop=url for action=query&prop=langlinks.
222 * Added llprop=langname and llprop=autonym for action=query&prop=langlinks.
223 * prop=redirects is added, to return redirects to the pages in the query.
224 * list=allredirects is added, to list all redirects pointing to a namespace.
225 * (bug 42026) Added ucshow={new,!new,top,!top} to list=usercontribs.
226 Also added newonly to action=feedcontributions.
227 * (bug 42026) Deprecated uctoponly in favor of ucshow=top.
228
229 === Languages updated in 1.23 ===
230
231 MediaWiki supports over 350 languages. Many localisations are updated
232 regularly. Below only new and removed languages are listed, as well as
233 changes to languages because of Bugzilla reports.
234
235 * Support was added for Northern Luri (lrc).
236
237 === Other changes in 1.23 ===
238 * The rc_type field in the recentchanges table has been superseded by a new
239 rc_source field. The rc_source field is a string representation of the
240 change type where rc_type was a numeric constant. This field is not yet
241 queried but will be in a future point release of 1.22.
242 ** Utilize update.php to create and populate this new field. On larger wiki's
243 which do not wish to update recentchanges table in one large update please
244 review the sql and comments in maintenance/archives/patch-rc_source.sql.
245 ** The rc_type field of recentchanges will be deprecated in a future point
246 release.
247 * The global variable $wgArticle has been removed after a lengthy deprecation.
248 * The global functions addButton and insertTags (for mw.toolbar.addButton and
249 mw.toolbar.insertTags) now emits mw.log.warn when accessed.
250 * The ExpandTemplates extension has been moved into MediaWiki core.
251 * (bug 52812) Removed "Disable search suggestions" from Preference.
252 * (bug 52809) Removed "Disable browser page caching" from Preference.
253 * Three new modules intended for use by custom skins were added:
254 'skins.common.elements', 'skins.common.content', and 'skins.common.interface',
255 representing three levels of standard MediaWiki styling. Previously skin
256 creators wishing to use them had to refer to the file names of appropriate
257 files directly, which is now discouraged.
258 * The modules 'skins.vector' and 'skins.monobook' have been renamed to
259 'skins.vector.styles' and 'skins.monobook.styles', respectively,
260 and their definition was changed not to include the common*.css files;
261 the two skins now load the 'skins.common.interface' module instead.
262 * A page_links_updated field has been added to the page table.
263 * SpecialPage::getTitle has been deprecated in favor of
264 SpecialPage::getPageTitle.
265 * BREAKING CHANGE: Two potentially backwards-incompatible changes have been made
266 to the 'SpecialWatchlistQuery' hook's last parameter (array $values) to make
267 the hook more consistent with the 'SpecialRecentChangesQuery' one:
268 ** Several array keys have been renamed: hideMinor → hideminor,
269 hideBots → hidebots, hideAnons → hideanons, hideLiu → hideliu,
270 hidePatrolled → hidepatrolled, hideOwn → hidemyself.
271 ** The parameter value is now a FormOptions object, not a plain array (array
272 access operators should continue to work, as it implements the ArrayAccess
273 interface).
274 * Option to mark hooks as deprecated has been added.
275 * (bug 52811) Preference "Enable section editing via [edit] links" was removed.
276 * (bug 52813) Preference "Show table of contents (for pages with more than
277 3 headings)" was removed.
278 * (bug 52810) Preference "Justify paragraphs" was removed.
279 * OutputPage::showErrorPage raises a notice if arguments are incoherent.
280 * Thumbnails that keep failing to render in thumb.php will be rate-limited
281 againt further render attempts for 1 hour. $wgAttemptFailureEpoch can be
282 altered to reset all rate-limited thumbnails at once.
283 * (bug 56572) Builds of the OOjs and OOjs UI libraries are now available.
284 * mw.loader.go and mw.loader.version have been removed.
285 * (bug 52815) Preference "Enable simplified search bar (Vector skin only)"
286 was removed.
287 * A user_password_expires column has been added to the user table. The User
288 object expects this column to exist. Use update.php to create this new field.
289 * The jquery.delayedBind ResourceLoader module was deprecated in favor of the
290 jquery.throttle-debounce module. It will be removed in MediaWiki 1.24.
291 * mw.user.bucket has been deprecated.
292 * On Special:PrefixIndex, a table#mw-prefixindex-list-table was changed to
293 table.mw-prefixindex-list-table to avoid duplicate ids when the special page
294 is transcluded.
295 * (bug 62198) window.$j has been deprecated.
296 * Preference "Disable link title conversion" was removed.
297 * SpecialRecentChanges no longer includes any functionality for generating feeds
298 - it has been factored out to ApiFeedRecentChanges. Old URLs redirect to new
299 ones.
300 * RecentChange::mExtra['lang'] is no longer set and should no longer be used.
301 Extensions should read from other configuration variables, including
302 $wgLocalInterwikis, to identify the current wiki.
303 * Sections in the parser test framework have been renamed and the old
304 section names are deprecated. Please use "!!wikitext" and "!!html"
305 (or "!!html/php") instead of "!!input" and "!!result". This allows
306 us to extend parser tests to accommodate additional input/output
307 pairs, such as "!!html/parsoid" (for the output of the Parsoid
308 parser, where it differs from the PHP parser).
309
310 ==== Removed classes ====
311 * FakeMemCachedClient (deprecated in 1.18)
312 * RdfMetaData (unused)
313 * TitleDependency (unused)
314 * TitleListDependency (unused)
315 * WikiError (deprecated in 1.17)
316 * WikiXmlError (deprecated in 1.17)
317 * WikiErrorMsg (deprecated in 1.17)
318
319 ==== Renamed classes ====
320 * CdbReader_DBA to CdbReaderDBA
321 * CdbReader_PHP to CdbReaderPHP
322 * CdbWriter_DBA to CdbWriterDBA
323 * CdbWriter_PHP to CdbWriterPHP
324 * DiffOp_Add to DiffOpAdd
325 * DiffOp_Change to DiffOpChange
326 * DiffOp_Copy to DiffOpCopy
327 * DiffOp_Delete to DiffOpDelete
328 * HWLDF_WordAccumulator to HWLDFWordAccumulator
329 * LBFactory_Fake to LBFactoryFake
330 * LBFactory_Multi to LBFactoryMulti
331 * LBFactory_Simple to LBFactorySimple
332 * LBFactory_Single to LBFactorySingle
333 * LCStore_Accel to LCStoreAccel
334 * LCStore_CDB to LCStoreCDB
335 * LCStore_DB to LCStoreDB
336 * LCStore_Null to LCStoreNull
337 * LoadBalancer_Single to LoadBalancerSingle
338 * LoadMonitor_MySQL to LoadMonitorMySQL
339 * LoadMonitor_Null to LoadMonitorNull
340 * LocalisationCache_BulkLoad to LocalisationCacheBulkLoad
341 * csvStatsOutput to CsvStatsOutput
342 * extensionLanguages to ExtensionLanguages
343 * languages to Languages
344 * statsOutput to StatsOutput
345 * textStatsOutput to TextStatsOutput
346 * wikiStatsOutput to WikiStatsOutput
347
348 ==== Removed methods ====
349 * ApiBase::getValidNamespaces() (deprecated in 1.17)
350 * ApiMain::setCachePrivate() (deprecated in 1.17)
351 * ApiMain::setVaryCookie (deprecated in 1.17)
352 * Article::doRedirect() (deprecated in 1.18)
353 * Article::doUnwatch() (deprecated in 1.18)
354 * Article::doWatch() (deprecated in 1.18)
355 * Article::forUpdate() (deprecated in 1.18)
356 * Article::markpatrolled() (deprecated in 1.18)
357 * Article::unwatch() (deprecated in 1.18)
358 * Article::watch() (deprecated in 1.18)
359 * Block::clear() (deprecated in 1.18)
360 * Block::decodeExpiry() (deprecated in 1.18)
361 * Block::encodeExpiry() (deprecated in 1.18)
362 * Block::forUpdate() (deprecated in 1.18)
363 * Block::infinity() (deprecated in 1.18)
364 * Block::load() (deprecated in 1.18)
365 * Block::newFromDB() (deprecated in 1.18)
366 * Block::normaliseRange() (deprecated in 1.18)
367 * Block::parseExpiryInput() (deprecated in 1.18)
368 * CategoryViewer::addSubcategory() (deprecated in 1.17)
369 * EditPage::spamPage() (deprecated since 1.17)
370 * Exif::getFormattedData() (deprecated in 1.18)
371 * Exif::makeFormattedData() (deprecated in 1.18)
372 * in_string (deprecated in 1.21)
373 * Language::convertLinkToAllVariants() (deprecated in 1.17)
374 * LanguageConverter::convertLinkToAllVariants() (deprecated in 1.17)
375 * Linker::makeBrokenLink() (deprecated in 1.16)
376 * Linker::makeBrokenLinkObj() (deprecated in 1.16)
377 * Linker::makeColouredLinkObj() (deprecated in 1.16)
378 * Linker::makeSizeLinkObj() (deprecated in 1.17)
379 * MediaWiki::articleFromTitle() (deprecated in 1.18)
380 * ParserOptions::getkin() (deprecated 1.18)
381 * ProfilerSimple::getCpuTime (deprecated in 1.20)
382 * Revision::revText() (deprecated in 1.17)
383 * SkinTemplate::jstext() (deprecated in 1.21)
384 * SpecialPage::__call() (deprecated in 1.17)
385 * SpecialPage::executePath() (deprecated in 1.18)
386 * SpecialPage::exists() (deprecated in 1.18)
387 * SpecialPage::file() (deprecated in 1.18)
388 * SpecialPage::func() (deprecated in 1.18)
389 * SpecialPage::getGroup() (deprecated in 1.18)
390 * SpecialPage::getPage() (deprecated in 1.18)
391 * SpecialPage::getPageByAlias() (deprecated in 1.18)
392 * SpecialPage::getLocalNameFor() (deprecated in 1.18)
393 * SpecialPage::getRegularPages() (deprecated in 1.18)
394 * SpecialPage::getRestrictedPages() (deprecated in 1.18)
395 * SpecialPage::getTitleForAlias() (deprecated in 1.18)
396 * SpecialPage::getUsablePages() (deprecated in 1.18)
397 * SpecialPage::includable() (deprecated in 1.18)
398 * SpecialPage::init()
399 * SpecialPage::initAliasList() (deprecated in 1.18)
400 * SpecialPage::initList() (deprecated in 1.18)
401 * SpecialPage::name() (deprecated in 1.18)
402 * SpecialPage::removePage() (deprecated in 1.18)
403 * SpecialPage::resolveAlias() (deprecated in 1.18)
404 * SpecialPage::resolveAliasWithSubpage() (deprecated in 1.18)
405 * SpecialPage::restriction() (deprecated in 1.18)
406 * SpecialPage::setGroup() (deprecated in 1.18)
407 * SpecialRecentChanges::feedSetup()
408 * SpecialRevisionDelete::extractBitField() (deprecated in 1.22)
409 * User::getPageRenderingHash() (deprecated in 1.17)
410 * WebRequest::getFileSize() (deprecated in 1.17)
411 * WebRequest::isPathInfoBad() (deprecated in 1.17)
412 * wfGenerateToken (deprecated in 1.20)
413 * wfStreamFile (deprecated in 1.19)
414 * wfUILang (deprecated in 1.18)
415 * WikiPage::createUpdates() (deprecated in 1.18)
416 * WikiPage::quickEdit() (deprecated in 1.18)
417 * WikiPage::useParserCache() (deprecated in 1.18)
418 * WikiPage::viewUpdates() (deprecated in 1.18)
419
420 ==== Removed globals ====
421 * $wgBetterDirectionality (deprecated in 1.18)
422
423 == Compatibility ==
424
425 MediaWiki 1.23 requires PHP 5.3.2 or later.
426
427 MySQL is the recommended DBMS. PostgreSQL or SQLite can also be used, but
428 support for them is somewhat less mature. There is experimental support for
429 Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.
430
431 The supported versions are:
432
433 * MySQL 5.0.2 or later
434 * PostgreSQL 8.3 or later
435 * SQLite 3.3.7 or later
436 * Oracle 9.0.1 or later
437 * Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (9.00.1399)
438
439 == Upgrading ==
440
441 1.23 has several database changes since 1.22, and will not work without schema
442 updates. Note that due to changes to some very large tables like the revision
443 table, the schema update may take quite long (minutes on a medium sized site,
444 many hours on a large site).
445
446 If upgrading from before 1.11, and you are using a wiki as a commons
447 repository, make sure that it is updated as well. Otherwise, errors may arise
448 due to database schema changes.
449
450 If upgrading from before 1.7, you may want to run refreshLinks.php to ensure
451 new database fields are filled with data.
452
453 If you are upgrading from MediaWiki 1.4.x or earlier, you should upgrade to
454 1.5 first. The upgrade script maintenance/upgrade1_5.php has been removed
455 with MediaWiki 1.21.
456
457 Don't forget to always back up your database before upgrading!
458
459 See the file UPGRADE for more detailed upgrade instructions.
460
461 For notes on 1.21.x and older releases, see HISTORY.
462
463 == Online documentation ==
464
465 Documentation for both end-users and site administrators is available on
466 MediaWiki.org, and is covered under the GNU Free Documentation License (except
467 for pages that explicitly state that their contents are in the public domain):
468
469 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Documentation
470
471 == Mailing list ==
472
473 A mailing list is available for MediaWiki user support and discussion:
474
475 https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
476
477 A low-traffic announcements-only list is also available:
478
479 https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce
480
481 It's highly recommended that you sign up for one of these lists if you're
482 going to run a public MediaWiki, so you can be notified of security fixes.
483
484 == IRC help ==
485
486 There's usually someone online in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net.