Wikimedia site requests

Wikimedia site requests are requests to configure a Wikimedia project. This page gives an overview of the process for volunteers handling them, and other concerned parties from operations side.

Lifecycle of a request

A request generally follows this workflow:

1. The local project discuss the matter, in the manner the most appropriated for this project.
2. A task is filled on Phabricator, in the Wikimedia-Site-requests project. See meta:Requesting wiki configuration changes.
3. A volunteer writes a change to edit the relevant files in the operations/mediawiki-config repository.

   Note: please check Limits to configuration changes before.

4. The same volunteer - or if reluctant/absent/busy, another volunteer - schedules it for SWAT deployment on the Deployments page.
5. The change is merged and deployed.

Prioritisation

The requests are handled in a fast pace, using a one week cadence: we can deploy them three times per day between Monday and Thursday. There is no formal sprint.

Priority on Phabricator	Description
Unbreak now!	The change breaks normal production. You want a deployment right now or in the next hours. That also means you consider this task requests we set other requests aside.
High	The change is needed very soon, ideally in the next SWAT, or if not possible, this SWAT week (Monday-Thursday).
Normal	The change is helpful, we can do it this SWAT week or the next (so in max. 7-10 days). This is the priority assigned to most simple tasks.
Low	The change isn't needed before two weeks.
Lowest	The change can take as long as needed, or there is nothing actionable before a long time.

Common tasks

IP throttle exception

Often requested by editors who are hosting an edit-a-thon, account creation throttle exception are one of the most common tasks which Wikimedia site requests deals with.

Associated configuration file

• wmf-config/throttle.php

Process

1. Follow the normal Gerrit procedure to checkout and branch
2. Edit throttle.php, adding an exception (example below)
   • from UTC date/time of exception start
   • to UTC date/time of exception end
   • range IP range(s) the exception applies to
   • dbname wiki(s) this exception applies to
3. Commit your changes

Example

$wmgThrottlingExceptions[] = [
  'from' => '2017-09-29T12:00 UTC',
  'to' => '2017-09-30T02:00 UTC',
  'range' => [ '186.67.125.0/24', '163.247.67.20/30', '163.247.67.24/29', '163.247.67.32/28', '163.247.67.48/29', '163.247.67.56/30', '163.247.67.60/31', '163.247.67.62/32' ],
  'dbname' => [ 'eswiki', 'enwiki', 'commonswiki', 'wikidatawiki' ],
  'value' => 120 // 100 expected
];

Site logo changes

Associated configuration file and image path

• wmf-config/InitialiseSettings.php
• static/images/project-logos

Process

1. Follow the normal Gerrit procedure to checkout and branch
2. Add the image to static/images/project-logos
3. Edit InitialiseSettings.php, and ensure wgLogo (line 479) is set correctly as per the example below (include a commented task number if possible)
4. Commit your changes

Example

'avwiki' => '/static/images/project-logos/avwiki.png', // T48589

Useful links

• Configuration files - A general `about our configuration files` page
• mw:Manual:Using custom namespaces
• How to deploy code