WikiPatrika:WikiPatrika/2011-08/Tech News

MediaWiki 1.17 released
Tim Starling announced the release of MediaWiki 1.17.0. Besides many bug fixes, MediaWiki 1.17 features a new install wizard, the ResourceLoader (a tool to load JavaScript and CSS assets), category sorting improvements, and improved localization.

WikiLove extension deployed in English Wikipedia
The new WikiLove extension, a software feature created by Kaldari and other developers of the Wikimedia Foundation, allowing easy posting of messages of appreciation on user's talk pages, extending and  simplifying the long-standing custom of  awarding barnstars, went live on the English Wikipedia on June 30

Danese Cooper leaving WMF
Danese Cooper, in early June announced that she would be leaving as Chief Technology Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation at the end of July.

Wikimedia Foundation became a liaison member of Unicode Consortium
Wikimedia has joined the Unicode Consortium as a liaison member, putting it in the same category as the GNOME Foundation and Mozilla. Membership allows Wikimedia to contribute to official discussions relating to the Unicode character encoding standard(wikitech-l).