I don't see any reason to have this category, JsonConfig is an extension used by other extensions, so telling pages "uses this extension" doesn't come out right.

No one was using the page property that this is replacing

It should have been completely deleted then

I fully agree with the comments on the linked Gerrit-task. This discussion comes too late, zero communication towards the technical community. The most important thing is to have guidelines on how to prevent cases like this in the future.

@Frostly what is the source for your last change on the task description? ("The tracking category is planned to be removed in 1.44 unless there are objections.")

@Frostly: Could you please answer the last comment? Thanks in advance!

In T378352#10389154, @Nemoralis wrote:

@Frostly what is the source for your last change on the task description? ("The tracking category is planned to be removed in 1.44 unless there are objections.")

@cscott said so in the Gerrit patch in the link:

I apologize for not having a phab task to track this. No one was using the page property that this is replacing, and as pppery notes below, this tracking category will likely be removed unless someone steps up with a use case during 1.44. I've created T378352 post-facto.

But it doesn’t seem like any work on removing this category followed.

Change #1182633 had a related patch set uploaded (by C. Scott Ananian; author: C. Scott Ananian):

[mediawiki/extensions/JsonConfig@master] Remove unused tracking category

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1182633

Change #1182633 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/JsonConfig@master] Remove unused tracking category

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1182633

Change #1183723 had a related patch set uploaded (by NMW03; author: NMW03):

[mediawiki/extensions/JsonConfig@master] Remove tracking category related messages

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1183723

Change #1183723 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/JsonConfig@master] Remove tracking category related messages

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1183723

For Tech News, please could someone both confirm if it is important to include this in Tech News, and if so, suggest draft wording for an entry? I'm not sure how much this change will affect existing uses, or if editors will need to do/fix anything based on this change. Thanks.

Hello @cscott,
For Tech News, please could you confirm if it is important to include this in Tech News, and if so, suggest draft wording for an entry? I'm not sure how much this change will affect existing uses, or if editors will need to do/fix anything based on this change. Thanks.

@UOzurumba The addition of this category led to confusion across wikis. Now that it has been removed from the software, wikis no longer require these categories, and administrators should delete them (Q130635582).

@Nemoralis (or @cscott or anyone!) Please could you suggest draft wording, or help further explain what exactly admins are being instructed to do? I.e. I checked a few examples linked from (Q130635582) and it seems the category is heavily used in some places (e.g. Welsh Wikipedia's category has ~144,000 entries) so it seems admins (might?) need to do something more than just delete the local category page? -- Or maybe those entries will automatically vanish once the category stops existing? (If so, maybe we can mention that in the entry, to prevent downstream confusion!). Thanks.

IMO it might be better to not mention it at all or mention it a week later: category will not become empty immediately after the patch gets deployed, so for a while admins should not delete it because that would make a category red link appear on all those pages where the page is still cached in that version. Any note on this would be better to have once the category actually becomes empty across wikis, and then it can be said something like ‘Administrators can remove the tracking category previously added by JsonConfig, see Wikidata item.’

Thank you, stjn, that helps. We'll plan to potentially put this in the following week's edition (or once we've confirmed the categories have auto-emptied), using your draft, with links like below, unless anyone suggests further wording/timing changes:

• Administrators can delete the tracking category which was previously added by the JsonConfig extension, as it is no longer used. See the categories linked from Q130635582 .

Is this definitely ready to go, and is there anything else we can add about how the category will automatically-empty itself? I.e. I see the Welsh Wikipedia's category (https://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categori:Pages_using_the_JsonConfig_extension) still has ~7000 entries; however if I look at articles within that category there is no reference to the category on the page (i.e. it's not even listed in the Hidden Categories). I tried a Null Edit, and that removed the example article from the category, so I think I understand this to be a caching issue. Therefore, I think we should add a sentence to the entry explaining this, to avoid confusion.
I suggest we add the sentence

"It is ok if there still pages listed in the category, as that is a caching issue, and they will automatically be cleared out the next time each page is edited."

But if anyone has a clearer/shorter way to describe this, please do suggest something!

The category will clear itself, yes. (Help:Job queue)

@Nemoralis @stjn @Quiddity how does this sound for Tech News?:

A JsonConfig tracking category that was previously added to replace a possibly unused page property across wikis has now been removed, as it is no longer required. Administrators should delete the category from their wikis. See the pages using this category in Wikidata item Q130635582.

Please note that pages still appearing in the category following deletion may do so due to caching; they will be automatically cleared the next time each page is edited.

Looks good to me.

@STei-WMF it looks like an entry for this task was already included in the last Tech News, under 'Updates for technical contributors'?

@A_smart_kitten thanks for catching that.