Help:Update to MediaWiki 1.43

MediaWiki is the software which runs all of the wiki components on Fandom communities. Respecting our commitment to keep MediaWiki up-to-date on a regular basis, we are running at least one major update every few years.

Those major updates are updating not only the MediaWiki version, but also the extensions and functionalities used in the whole platform. The previous major update done in Fandom was the update to MediaWiki 1.39.

What will and won't happen

  • We aren't moving the wikis to a new host, platform, or software. The migration of a wiki is a specific part of the update. During the upgrade, we have the old and new versions installed in our platform, including two versions of every extension, and we "move" the wikis to the new version, checking that everything is working as it should. You have more info about this process here.
  • This upgrade will not change the design, so our wikis will keep the same look as they had previously. Our engineers will make the needed changes to be sure that our admins won't need to do design adjustments. Most of the changes will happen under the hood, meaning they're not user-facing, but they will be important to ensure that everything is still working correctly.
  • During the migration to 1.43, wikis will be set in read-only mode. It shouldn't take more than 30 minutes (major wikis could need more time). Some weeks before migration, a banner will appear on communities to let them know the migration is scheduled. For one week after the migration, a similar banner will be used to let users know the community is now on the new version.
  • If your wiki is experiencing problems after the migration, please contact your assigned Community Manager or another Fandom Staff. There is also a specific channel in our Discord server created for conversations about the upgrade, go to #mediawiki-upgrade and feel free to ask your questions or concerns.
  • See more information about the upgrade process in this blog post.

Timeline

In order to ensure a smooth upgrade, the migrations are done in different batches, starting with three or four wikis without complex extensions, and adding more traffic, content, and extensions progressively in the subsequent batches. Depending on the number of wikis and extensions included in every batch, it can take from one day to two weeks to complete.

  • End of 2024:
    • Preparation.
    • Default MediaWiki extensions review.
    • Community Team testing (two months).
  • January 2025:
    • Review of other used extensions.
    • DPL extension review.
    • Cargo and Semantic MediaWiki review.
  • February 2025:
    • A testing wiki is created to allow our users to play with the new version.
    • Help page is updated with the list of changes introduced with this upgrade.
    • 10% of the traffic is migrated to MediaWiki 1.43.
  • March 2025:
    • 50% of the traffic is migrated, including top 5k wikis.
  • April 2025:
    • Everything is done at the end of the month.

Changes

In the upcoming weeks, we will include a list summarizing the most relevant changes for regular users and visitors. For a detailed list, see the official release notes section.

Important notes for admins

Most of the CSS customizations should work as previously in 1.39. But MediaWiki is starting to switch to the Codex design system, so some custom CSS/JS might not work (e.g. mw-ui-button is updated to cdx-button). Please, check your scripts and identify styles using the format mw-ui-*, they might need to be replaced by cdx-*.

Major changes

  • Special:Preferences:
    • Included a new search field to find what you are looking for in the special page.
    • New option to always enable Safe Mode while visiting wikis.
    • CodeMirror allows now to enable/disable syntax highlighting for wikitext from this page.
    • Tabs were reordered and there is a new one for Notifications.
  • Special:RecentChanges: Added a new option to exclude tags and namespaces for the active filters.
  • CheckUser extension:
    • Special:Investigate: New special page that will help to fight the sockpuppets accounts.
    • Special:InvestigateBlock: New tool similar to Special:Block, that allows to block multiple users at once and add warnings in user pages, talk messages and Walls. (This tool isn't available yet, we are working on adapting it)
  • Special:Contribute: New special page with suggestions for starting to contribute.
  • Special:NamespaceInfo: New special page with a list of namespaces, including IDs and descriptions.
  • Special:Contributions: It shows the number of contributions and the account creation date before the filtering box.
  • Special:SpecialPages:
    • Included links to all the new special pages.
    • New section for account management.
    • Added a new Table of Contents.
  • Source Editor:
    • Added an option to change highlighting preferences from Advanced tab.
    • Magic words suggestions while you are editing by writing __.
  • Diff page: New option to compare the edits using visual or wikitext views.
  • Collapse/expand button element has changed from <a> to <span> as part of this change introduced by the version 1.41.

Official release notes

For more information about the changes, check the official release notes:

See also