For details see MNT-1225

So much for weeks.

If the developers would just get on with it instead of tossing each other it would get done. Maybe, so much for months.

Would anyone care to dumb this down a bit?

Looks like they're adding a field to the en.wiki db; every entry in there has to be touched, and it is taking longer than initially anticipated.

If I followed the breadcrumbs correctly, it may have to do with this;

https://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki?...revision=109565

Yes, the new field is a hash value for every revision of every page, which will help check whether a series of edits actually made any change. I don't see any evidence that such a check could ever happen often enough that an ordinary string comparison of the page text is insufficiently fast.

In the mean time a whole lot of toolserver scripts, queries, and bots are broken or buggy, including some that are very important for behind the scenes maintenance.