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vadaprocess problem

I have blanked User:Zhaofeng Li/vada/vadaprocess.js for the moment because it was appearing in CAT:CSD. I think this edit if repeated on all the db tags will solve the problem. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 10:53, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

@RHaworth: Then why isn't User:A930913/vada/vadaprocess.js (the source) causing the problem? Is it exempt from CSD or something? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 10:57, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
@RHaworth: Look like this fixed it. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 11:08, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I think it has. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 11:11, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-36

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

  • You can now test a new Beta Feature to see links to other wikis in the sidebar. The links come from Wikidata. [1] [2]
  • You can now search pages that link to a page. Use the linksto: keyword in your search. [3] [4]
  • A redirect to a section now changes the URL in the address bar of your browser. If "Dog" redirects to "Animals#Dog", you now see "Animals#Dog" instead of "Dog#Dog". [5] [6]
  • If you are testing Flow, you now have a Flow tab in your Notifications. It is called "Messages". [7]

VisualEditor news

  • You can no longer delete required fields in templates. [8]
  • We fixed many Internet Explorer bugs. If you use Internet Explorer 11, you will get VisualEditor next week. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [9] [10] [11]
  • VisualEditor now looks better in Monobook. [12]
  • We fixed a bug where some of your typing could be undone when you used "cut" (Ctrl+X). [13]
  • You will no longer see empty or deleted categories among the suggestions when you add a category. [14]

Future software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf19) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since August 28. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 2, and on all Wikipedias on September 4 (calendar).
  • There is a proposal to build a database on Commons for file data. It will make it easier to see the author, license and topics. You can give feedback on this idea. You can also come to the IRC chat on September 3 at 18:00 (UTC) in #wikimedia-office at freenode. [15]
  • You can give feedback on Media Viewer until September 7. You can say what needs to be improved and ask other people to give feedback too. [16]
  • You can test a new version of the tool to show math. It uses MathML. Report bugs in bugzilla.
  • You will no longer be able to upload images from the mobile site. [17]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

07:49, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

'West New Guinea dispute' and 'Western New Guinea dispute'

Sorry this was my first attempted 'move' on Wikipedia (I'm a relative novice) so I just did a 'cut and paste' move rather than using the proper 'move' method. I see this has caused a bit of a problem now due to Wikipedia's desire to preserve the editing history, so my humble apologies, I would be happy to have the two articles 'merged' into one article, 'West New Guinea dispute' but I'm not wikipedia savvy enough to figure out how to do that yet, so any help from yourself or others would be much appreciated,

Kind regards, Gfcan777Gfcan777 (talk) 04:44, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

It's okay, an admin did a history merge and corrected the issue. Please be careful next time, and happy editing! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 05:17, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi, just tried the Reflinks program and have a problem with the version as produced, there is no diff view so you can see what has been changed by the program before it is saved. Regards Keith D (talk) 14:31, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

@Keith D: Actually, clicking the button on the result page doesn't save the changes right away (It displays a preview instead), so you can view the diff there. Anyway, this is a great suggestion, and I'll work on it. Thanks! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 14:54, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
@Keith D and GoingBatty: Diff is now available on the result screen.Commit Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 07:27, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I just used the tool on Muhammed Lawal and I was given a notice that the article had been deleted since I had began editing. I checked and found that the article was still live. Some checking turned up that the article had been previously deleted in 2006! I had to tick the "Recreate" box to post it.--Auric talk 19:53, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

@Auric: That's a bug and will be fixed soon. wpStarttime isn't included in the edit form and the server doesn't know when we started to edit. Thanks for the report! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 23:36, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
@Auric:  Fixed Could you try again?commit Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 00:13, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
It no longer generates the reported error, but it doesn't change the four bare URLs. GoingBatty (talk) 00:23, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
@GoingBatty: The first bare link is a PDF, and the tool doesn't support PDFs. The other three return 404 (the Yahoo Sports one redirects to another article, http://sports.yahoo.com/news/bellator-123-results-pitbull-crowned-024600379.html ). Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 00:57, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Recent edits

All apologies, the edit you're referring to was completely an accident. Very sorry! And thank you for bringing it to my attention and restoring it — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnsgirl84 (talk • contribs) 16:20, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I also haram question,mod you know why the info box picture is now smaller than it was yesterday? Thanks in advance — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnsgirl84 (talk • contribs) 16:56, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

@Johnsgirl84: This edit fixed it. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 23:26, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Zhaofeng Li! Thank you very much for working on a new version of Reflinks! Some comments based on my testing of User:GoingBatty/Reflinks test:

  • It appears that it is not always adding |author=, |date=, or |language= parameters.
  • It is adding |work=Google Books, even though that's not supposed to be included.
  • Could you strip the work when it also appears at the end of the |title= parameter?
  • Could it add |work=Los Angeles Times instead of |work=Los Angeles Times Articles?
  • When it can't add a valid |work= parameter, could it add the domain in the |publisher= parameter?
  • Why didn't it add anything for the artsjournal.com ?
  • It didn't add the proper |title= and |work= for The New York Times article.

I didn't save my edit so you could use it for testing. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:27, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @GoingBatty: Hello! Thanks for the feedback.
  • It appears that it is not adding |author=, |date=, or |language= parameters.
    • |language= isn't supported yet (will work on it soon), and |author= / |date= only work for sites that include metadata on their pages (many major sites support it, e.g. Forbes, Engadget, Time, etc).
  • It is adding |work=Google Books, even though that's not supposed to be included.
    • |work= is extracted from the site name metadata. I'll implement a filter to make those case-by-case adjustments.
  • Could you strip the work when it also appears at the end of the |title= parameter?
  • Could it add |work=Los Angeles Times instead of |work=Los Angeles Times Articles?
    • The filter will do the job.
  • When it can't add a valid |work= parameter, could it add the domain in the |publisher= parameter?
    • Well, I don't think including a domain name in |publisher= makes sense. Site name != Publisher. The old tool seems to do this, and as a result, many references need to be cleaned up manually. The tool currently doesn't parse the publisher and leaves an empty |publisher= at the end.
  • Why didn't it add anything for the artsjournal.com ?
    • The connection timed out when trying to connect from Labs. Perhaps that's some kind of restriction (placed by the site)? I honestly have no idea.
  • It didn't add the proper |title= and |work= for The New York Times article.
    • Will look into it.

Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 23:57, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

It would also be swell if it would look for {{use dmy dates}} and {{use mdy dates}} to decide what date format to use. It might also be interesting to be able to specify this manually. GoingBatty (talk) 23:42, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Great idea! Added to todo list. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 23:57, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
 Done Commit. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 12:58, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Added one more to User:GoingBatty/Reflinks test, which does add |author= and |date=. Could you set up Reflinks so that it strips "By" from |author=? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:01, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

 Doing... Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 00:24, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 Done See commits: [18], [19] Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:18, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Confirmed - I'll work on finding more prefixes to remove. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:39, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

The original Reflinks had a disclaimer to encourage people to check the references and fix them before saving. Could you please add something similar? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:12, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

@GoingBatty:  Done See commit. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 00:24, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Confirmed - looks great. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:40, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to like the ampersand in Russ & Daughters, and instead tries to process Russ. GoingBatty (talk) 00:42, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

 Fixed It's a bug in the toolbox script. Fixed with this edit. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:18, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Confirmed - thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:31, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
It's better, but when you click the "Preview / Save on wiki" button, it is actually putting the content of Russ & Daughters onto Russ, which isn't very obvious. GoingBatty (talk) 01:37, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
@GoingBatty:  Fixed Try it again?commit Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 02:17, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
After clicking the "Preview / Save on wiki" button, I get an error stating "Some parts of the edit form did not reach the server; double-check that your edits are intact and try again." However, it appears that the edit was intact. GoingBatty (talk) 02:44, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
It's because the fake edit form on the result page doesn't supply enough parameters, but it'll work anyway. You can ignore the warning, and I'll fix it later. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 03:27, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 Fixed Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 13:55, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

It appears that it doesn't process PDFs (e.g. Model minority) - is this because it can't find a title? In the message that says "# reference(s) fixed!", could it also state how many were not fixed, and why? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:51, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

 Doing... Nice one. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:24, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
By the way, it doesn't do PDFs now, only HTML ones. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:26, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 Done See commit. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 02:08, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Now when it finds a reference it can't process, it doesn't process any references - see User:GoingBatty/Reflinks test. GoingBatty (talk) 02:16, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
@GoingBatty:  Fixed It actually does fix the references, but the counter failed since I changed the logic. Fixed it.commit Killed another bug also.commit Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 02:27, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Confirmed - thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:47, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

When the URL in the reference is redirected to the home page (e.g. List of Latter Day Saints), could Reflinks please do something other than provide a reference for the home page? (e.g. ignore it or add {{dead link}}) Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:56, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

 Doing... But I'll fix the other ones first. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:24, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

When adding a valid |work= parameter, could you please not add a blank |publisher=, as it's usually not needed per Template:Cite web#Publisher? (e.g. Anton Gunn)? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:04, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

 Doing... Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:24, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 Done See commit. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 02:08, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Confirmed - thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:53, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Could your tool show the article in the "Show changes" format, either before and/or after clicking the "Preview / Save on wiki" button? This would highlight the changes your tool makes and (hopefully) encourage people to double check the changes and make any necessary changes before saving. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:12, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

 Doing... This has been suggested above, and I'm working on it. It'll display a diff right on the result page. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:24, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 Done Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 07:27, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
This looks great - thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:07, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Your tool seems to have an issue with titles with diacritics in them (e.g. Getter Jaani) GoingBatty (talk) 01:29, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

 Fixed Commit Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 06:35, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Confirmed - thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:07, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Could you please expand your tool so it also works with references within brackets with no extra text? (e.g. <ref>[http://www.uuno.ee/?pid=194&lang=1&top=345]</ref> in Getter Jaani) GoingBatty (talk) 01:30, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

 Done earlier, in case if you don't know. There are also options to control this functionality on the main page of the tool. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 13:19, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

On Powder photography, your tool wants to add a |work= parameters that contain a "|", which generates an error. GoingBatty (talk) 02:00, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

 Fixed Commit Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 02:55, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Confirmed - thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:38, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

On PowerDesk, your tool wants to add very long |author= parameters. GoingBatty (talk) 02:02, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

 Fixed Commit Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 03:24, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
It now adds smaller |author= parameters, but I think it shouldn't add the author parameter for the Cnet references at all. GoingBatty (talk) 03:38, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
It will be possible when a filter is implemented to handle special cases like this one. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 04:12, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

When your tool doesn't fix any references (e.g. Model minority), should it not display the "Preview / Save on wiki" button? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:47, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

 Fixed Commit Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 03:00, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Confirmed - I'm very impressed at your work here - thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:38, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
You are welcome. A big thank-you for your testing! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 04:20, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
GB is an awesome beta-tester. way to go, Batty! -- Ohc ¡digame! 06:12, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you

What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
Thanks for fixing up Reflinks, it's fast and works brilliantly! Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 07:55, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Much appreciated! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 08:21, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

  • I have been quite a heavy user of Reflinks and seriously miss its functionality. I came here intending on giving you a barnstar for this rewrite of yours, but it seems that I've been beaten to it. ;-) I'm rather fed up with the impasse and the blame-shifting between Dispenser and WMF, but there seems to be some serious baggage there, so it's probably best left alone. Anyway, trying to dwell on the positive, I thank you for your initiative. I look forward to using it and will offer my feedback or features request in due course. In the meantime, you may be interested to know that I have a script to fix some of the common mistakes in referencing, which includes output from Reflinks. It could give you some ideas as to what filters may be added to enhance your program. Regards, -- Ohc ¡digame! 06:02, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-37

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

VisualEditor news

  • From Thursday, Internet Explorer 11 users will get VisualEditor. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [20] [21] [22]

Future software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf20) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 9, and on all Wikipedias on September 11 (calendar).
  • You will soon confirm a "Thanks" inline instead of in a dialog. [23]
  • You can read more about the plan to move to Phabricator, a tool that will help people develop the MediaWiki software and report bugs. [24]

Problems

  • There were problems with JavaScript and CSS on Friday, September 5 because of a code error.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:33, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks - debugging

Hi Z, thanks for getting reflinks back up. I notice that after you've pressed preview and gone back into wikipedia there's a bug that when you save changes, you have to do it twice if you've selected the option that an edit summary is required as it doesn't recognise your automatic edit summary the first time. appreciate that's quite specific. Please may you fix? Are you going to develop checklinks and dabsolver too? Also on reflinks, will it be possible to get to the functionality that you can save changes straight from the reflinks preview? Is it going to start autofilling the publisher and date correctly again? Appreciate that's basically a wishlist, thanks again for all your work on getting it back running Tom B (talk) 15:01, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Bug confirmed and will be fixed in a few days. I'm a bit busy, so things can be slow. Thanks for the report! Regarding |publisher=, it's currently not extracted since there is no reliable way to get the information. A blank |publisher= will be added if |work= cannot be found. And |date= is available if metadata is included on the page. I'll try to implement direct saving (which requires the edit token) this weekend. Thanks again! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 00:01, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
@Tpbradbury:  Fixed Commit Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 10:07, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
thanks :-) Tom B (talk) 11:55, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Here's the relevant diff. As you can see there, when there are two separate dates, it is able to create a date for the work as well. When there are not, all dates are transformed to the date that the tool was run. If the tool is used for copy-editing (which is what I usually do) this can be an issue. It also is a little variable with the publisher; it got MSNBC right, but not BBC. Thanks for your hard work, and regards, Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:38, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
@Vanamonde93 and Ohconfucius: My rewrite expands plain links by default, but can only reuse the old captions from the old citations, which is why it ignores the old access dates and use strange titles. Both can be disabled with the "Do not expand captioned plain links" (Should this be made default?) and/or the "Do not use old captions" options on the main page of the tool. Additionally, it does not parse publisher and intentionally leaves a blank one for filling in manually when work cannot be parsed (A note has been added on the result page explaining this). Moreover, PDFs are not supported at all. I'm focusing on the core features before attempting the other ones (PDF, etc). Regarding the BBC one, I will look into it this weekend. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 03:42, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Will look into it later. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 03:42, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
@Ohconfucius:  Fixed Does this suck less? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 12:18, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Yay, thanks. -- Ohc ¡digame! 09:31, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
Thank you for redoing reflinks :) YuviPanda (talk) 18:27, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks so much! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 08:37, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks: a minor API change

Please change the links for "Preview/Submit edit" and "fix page" from Javascript to a normal link. This would help so you don't have to keep going back to reach the tool again after making a change. KonveyorBelt 22:47, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

@Konveyor Belt: The buttons are form submit buttons, and no JavaScript is involved at all. Actually, there is a script to add a toolbox link. Just add {{subst: iusc|User:Zhaofeng Li/Reflinks.js}} to common.js. </nowiki> Zhaofeng Li talk... contribs...] 01:55, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Zhaofeng, check this diff out. Looks like reflinks populated the date field with the unix epoch. Should it have? If it didn't find a date I would expect it to leave it off, but not sure the intended behavior. -- ferret (talk) 23:27, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

@Ferret: Please double-check the diff. Looks like it filled the dates correctly. I don't see any Unix timestamp there. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:47, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
The date field for both references was set to 1 January 1970, the Unix epoch, Unix timestamp value of 0. -- ferret (talk) 01:52, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
@Ferret:  Fixed Didn't catch that, it was a stupid mistake left during the last refactoring. Thanks for the report! Commit Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 04:20, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

License

Hi, I was slightly confused to see the "Simplified BSD License" at User:Zhaofeng_Li/Reflinks, but the "all rights reserved" at github. I'm hoping it's actually the former, and the other was just a default/mistake. :)

Thanks (as everyone is saying above and elsewhere) for the great tool! Quiddity (talk) 16:07, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

@Quiddity: That's not a mistake. It's exactly how BSD 2-Clause license is written. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 09:26, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Oh I see! [/me mutters about confusing legal blurbs, and looks embarrassed.] Thanks again, then :) Quiddity (talk) 19:47, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
This Reflinks tool is amazing! Thanks, and keep up the great work! Dontreader (talk) 02:41, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 13:08, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks does not seem to preserve the watch status of a page. I have to tick the box every time I use it. Kingsindian (talk) 06:57, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Will deal with it tonight when I get home. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 09:30, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
@Kingsindian:  Fixed The tool now ticks the box by default, just like the original one.commit Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 13:54, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Kingsindian (talk) 14:48, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
@Kingsindian: If you are using the toolbox script, it's now determined by whether you are actually watching the page or not. Nothing is changed if you are not using it - It'll continue to watch every page by default. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 14:50, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

AFCH script

As you're using the old version of the AFCH script, please take a look at this discussion and the question (poll) raised below it. --Gryllida (talk) 11:01, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

 Fixed Thanks for the notice. Got it replaced in Greasemonkey. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 00:08, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

As you can see in this edit, it appears that your tool moved the first <ref> outside the parentheses. As noted in WP:REFPUNC, this will not always be appropriate. If a <ref> supports only the material inside the parentheses, it should stay inside the parentheses. – RobinHood70 talk 17:22, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

@RobinHood70: I wasn't able to reproduce the bug (See this edit), and it should skip any reference that is already filled. Perhaps you unknowingly moved the parentheses by dragging in the text box? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 00:05, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
It may have been the user who made the edit. I didn't know how fully automated your tool was. Thanks for the feedback. – RobinHood70 talk 15:38, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Zhaofeng Li, could there be a specific reason why on Young Pirates (Germany) in some cases the "|publisher= " space was not added automatically (I filled them in manually) and the tool skipped one of the links? Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 06:30, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

@Lotje: Currently there is no way to reliably parse publisher information, so a blank |publisher= is intentionally left for editors to fill out manually when |author= |work= cannot be parsed. Will add a note on the result page to explain that. The link you mentioned returns 404 for me, and it doesn't look like a reliable source anyway, since it's a wiki. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 06:55, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
Note added.commit Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 07:02, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, great! Lotje (talk) 11:02, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-38

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

  • You can now change the style of links to disambiguation pages. This is done with the mw-disambig CSS class. [25] [26]
  • There was a problem on right-to-left wikis with Wikidata log entries. The text was messy in watchlists and recent changes. The problem is now fixed. The same problem will be fixed soon for user names. [27] [28] [29]
  • New users are randomly chosen for a test on 12 Wikipedias. They get messages with ideas of articles to edit. The ideas come from what they have already edited. [30]

Problems

  • There was a problem with loading images on September 10. [31]

VisualEditor news

  • If you don't select text when you add a link, the link now shows a number. [32]
  • The citation tool no longer offers to reuse a citation if there are none on the page yet. [33] [34]
  • You can now use help buttons in the "Page settings" menu to see what the options are for. [35]

Future software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf21) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 16, and on all Wikipedias on September 18 (calendar).
  • These changes are coming with the new version:
    • If you use Internet Explorer 7, JavaScript will no longer work. JavaScript tools and scripts will no longer work in that browser. You should update to a newer browser. [36] [37] [38]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Well...

thanks for the advice. I'll work on creating another article just to be curious, do you mind to tell me how many main space edits I need for the pending reviewer's right? --Cheers!-- Allied Rangoon‧talk 01:34, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

@Crab rangoons: There isn't a hard-and-fast threshold for this, but admins typically accept requests from editors with a few hundreds of mainspace edits. Also, while it's nice to write some great content, this right is intended for users active in the vandal-fighting scene. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:58, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Wish I had one of those screen recorders. I revert like 16-20 sometimes a day. It's quite amazing!--Cheers!-- Allied Rangoon‧talk 02:06, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
@Crab rangoons: Actually, going through recent changes and reverting manually is quite slow, but you'll need to stick to doing that for some time to gain some experience before you move on to faster tools. You are willing to join CVUA, which is a good sign. When you have got the rollback tool, you can use automated programs like Huggle that are significantly faster and more convenient. Good luck and happy editing! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 04:39, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Special Barnstar
Thanks for recreating Reflinks - Very much appreciated :)

Cheers, –Davey2010 • (talk) 16:27, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 03:49, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks - templates other than cite web

Is it possible to use other templates than {{cite web}}? I remember the dispenser version had a dropdown to choose {{cite news}} etc. if needed on the 2nd page. Kingsindian (talk) 19:06, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: That's a great suggestion, but what's the intended functionality? Will users be able to select a cite template for every individual citation, or all references are changed at once? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 00:45, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
  • It's useful where there is no url. For example, when a printed newspaper is cited. In such cases, the {{cite web}} template gives a cs1 error due to the absence. I don't know how a drop-down version would work, nor have I ever noticed it when running Dispenser's tool. -- Ohc ¡digame! 01:42, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
  • @Ohconfucius: Well, plain citations without URLs are most likely to be created by newcomers and often do not adhere to CS1, making it somewhat difficult to parse metadata out of the citation. There is no URL, so it's not possible to extract anything from the web. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 03:48, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
The dispenser version had two modes, "non-interactive" and "interactive" version. The latter would have a page where each changed reference would have a bullet point with a dropdown. It would use {{cite web}} as the default. Choosing from the dropdown would make the citation use another template. Kingsindian (talk) 05:54, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Nice one. Added to todo list. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 07:23, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/addiction/berman/glossary is a reference on Drug overdose. When I right-click the page in Firefox and then click "view page info", I see this: "Stairway to Recovery: Glossary of Terms". Is there some way to make the Reflinks tool do what I just did? Thanks. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:27, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

@Timeshifter: That's a actually a "Connection reset by peer", which means the server restricted us from accessing the page. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:05, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. I do not understand the technical side, but if I can see it, can not your software see it, eventually? Or be made to see it? --Timeshifter (talk) 20:13, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

When I used Reflinks to update Drug overdose I found that it did more damage than good if I let it work unhindered. It removed useful info from already completed references. I tried a couple different ways of using it. With and without {{cite web}}.

I finally used it without {{cite web}} (see diff) and had to manually add back in The Guardian, 2012-11-28 and L.A. Times, 2012-11-17 to the references in the bottom paragraph in the diff.

So unless there is only a bare-links-only option many people may do a lot of damage to references. People like me who are in a hurry, and figure that Reflinks is a net benefit in the cost-benefits analysis.

Plus it is very hard to figure out what Reflinks is doing from the initial diff window provided by the tool. Only until one gets to the diff Window provided by the standard Wikipedia software does one really see what is going on. It is a much better diff tool, and has better highlighting, and it only shows changes. The diff Window initially shown by the tool is very inaccurate. It shows lots of strikeouts that aren't actually happening.

So an option to only update bare references without making any changes at all in other references would solve some problems for now. Then I could be sure that whatever I do will be an improvement. Even if I can not see what I am doing. For many people a Reflinks tool that requires lots of manual additions defeats the purpose of using a bot to update references.

The options (as written now) in Reflinks are baffling. They need to be clearer, or have "more info" tooltips or links or question mark (?) or something.

Need an affirmative "Simple Reflinks" box that is the default setting, and overrides all the other boxes and options. It would be the option to only do bare links - with or without the brackets []. "Bare" means there is no additional info in between the ref tags. Only the URL (whether surrounded by [] or not). --Timeshifter (talk) 19:14, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

@Timeshifter: There is "Do not expand captioned plain links" to ignore such references. Will make it default. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:07, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
@Timeshifter: As for the diff, I'm looking for a better diff engine for this. The "Do not expand captioned plain links" option is now enabled by default, which makes it skip already-filled references silently. Could you suggest alternative wording for the options? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 09:22, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
I made some suggestions concerning option wording in the following talk sections.
Thanks for making "Do not expand captioned plain links" the default. It makes Reflinks immediately useful and safe. :)
It does not fix the other main problem though. The problem that occurs when that option is unchecked. The software should not be removing info from references unless explicitly told to do so, in my opinion. Many references are detailed, and include explanatory info. I think reference templates have a spot for additional info. Info could be left there by Reflinks, instead of being removed.
I have been doing references for so long that I don't need or use reference templates. I find templates personally to be a hindrance more than a help. But that is just me. So I use this option: "Use plain links instead of {{cite web}}". So it is doubly confusing when stuff is removed while using that option. I can see why trying to fit everything in {{cite web}} may require additional programming of Reflinks. But it should be simple to prevent Reflinks from removing stuff when not using {{cite web}}. I am not talking about changing captions. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:26, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
@Timeshifter: Enhanced diff preview is now available, thanks to User:Cacycle/diff. The old one will be shown if JavaScript is disabled. By the way, I see some ads injected by my mobile carrier when not using HTTPS. It's probably on my side only, but please notify me if you see those ads, as I'm worried that my jQuery copy downloaded via 3G is might be bugged. Thanks. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 11:28, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Confirmed that my jQuery copy is intact. Everything should be okay. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 11:31, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Looks good to me so far. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:11, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks. Option to only add info, and not remove any info

Another solution to some of the problems I discussed in the previous talk section would be an option to only add info, and not remove any info. That would work on more than just bare-URL references.

So the bot would not do any substitutions either. Link captions would remain the same, since changing the link caption would mean removing the old caption, or part of it. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:26, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks. Need to add a period before "Retrieved by"

Minor typo. Software needs to add a period before "Retrieved by". So that text and meaning does not run together. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:28, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

@Timeshifter:  Fixed The other problems will be dealt soon. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 04:50, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. --Timeshifter (talk) 06:39, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

"Do not expand uncaptioned plain links (surrounded with [ ])." I think I understand why someone would want to do this in some situations. But the wording is confusing. "Plain links" is confusing. I suggest changing that to "external links". And remove the parentheses. Maybe something like this:

Do not expand uncaptioned external links that are surrounded by [ ].

"Plain links" can mean many things. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:35, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, this one is a bit confusing. Actually, it tells the program not to fix references like this:<ref>[http://example.com]</ref>. It doesn't fix any link other than references. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 06:51, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
OK. I assumed it was concerning external links within reference tags. Maybe word it something like this:
In references do not expand uncaptioned external links that are surrounded by [ ].
--Timeshifter (talk) 07:18, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
pardon me for being thick, but why don't we want the program not to fix references like this:<ref>[http://example.com]</ref>? I thought that was the entire point of the exercise... There are many pages with such links and they all need doing, IMHO. -- Ohc ¡digame! 09:37, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Agreed that it's useless after all. It was initially made for debugging purposes. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 11:21, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Actually, it can be useful when there are secondary links within a reference. I sometimes use them in uncaptioned form for secondary archives, additional forms of a document, and many other reasons. It is another reason why I do not usually use citation templates.--Timeshifter (talk) 20:09, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I suggest alternative wording. Something like this:

Use plain formatting instead of using templates such as {{cite web}}.

The problem is that "plain links" can mean many things. And more is involved than just the link. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:41, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

 Doing... Good idea. It is indeed clearer this way. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 06:53, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
The change in wording to Use plain formatting instead of {{cite web}} is clearer. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:14, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I suggest alternative wording. Something like this:

Do not expand already-captioned external links.

"Plain links" is not clear to many readers. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:45, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks. Enter wikitext. Fix wikitext

I clicked "Fix wikitext" and nothing was changed. I then realized that I had clicked the wrong button since I wanted to fix the page, and not the wikitext in the box. Many people may not figure this out. I suggest some text after, or under, that "Fix wikitext" button. Something like:

Only click this button if some wikitext has been entered in the above form.

I believe in making things as clear as possible for all possible readers, from all parts of the world, and with all kinds of understanding. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:54, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary since those two buttons are in separate headings, which is clear enough for most users. Anyway, I've added some visual cues if the user hasn't filled in the corresponding textbox. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 13:27, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
I have long wondered why so many developers are dismissive of feedback, especially feedback they ask for. And why so many are satisfied with "clear enough for most users". Especially when that statement is a belief, and not necessarily a fact. You might ask whether your changes (visual cues) solved the problem enough. I don't think they do. They do help, though.
I think my initial suggestion is now too wordy, especially after looking at the revised page:
https://tools.wmflabs.org/fengtools/reflinks
I see that a shorter button label will now solve the problem. Something like "Fix above wikitext".--Timeshifter (talk) 06:38, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
@Timeshifter:  Fixed I must be paranoid, but the added word looks so inconsistent with the other button and makes me feel uncomfortable (Really!). Nevertheless, I have another solution. Since the raw wikitext input is mainly for debugging (testing parser changes, running the tool against an old revision of a page, etc.), I've decided to hide it by default to remove the clutter. Advanced users can access it, which is only a click away. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 10:18, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
That is better. Thanks. Removing unnecessary parts makes things simpler. The simpler, the better. The form and button is still confusing though in my opinion. I am a very advanced user, and I found it confusing. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:22, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
I noticed that "Do not expand captioned plain links" is no longer checked by default. I am fearful of deletions occurring as I discussed before. People are loathe to change default settings. Especially settings that are not written clearly. To most people "plain links" just does not mean what you think it means. There is a specialist meaning that is mainly only used by advanced Wikipedia editors, and in a few other arcane places. But to most editors and people in general "plain" means "plain". And what that means in relation to links is totally vague. External and internal links is much clearer. Even those names though are usually learned by editing on Wikipedia. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:22, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
@Timeshifter: I've modified it to ignore plain references with anything beyond the external link, so it should now be safe to use. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 15:11, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
OK. I assume it solves the problem discussed in this section higher up: #Reflinks. Option to only update bare links. So it now logically does what unchecking that means? As in the default is now this:
"Expand captioned plain links."
If so, that can be a good thing to expand and change the link label-caption to more accurately represent what the page is titling itself. That can be problematic though, too. Many pages do not use titles other than the title of the whole site. Or nothing at all for many page titles.
But at least it won't be removing stuff outside the caption-label. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:38, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

@Timeshifter: Yes, and I've changed the wording as well. I've also hidden "Do not expand uncaptioned plain links" since those references are of exactly the same nature as bare references, with zero information beyond the URL. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 09:20, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I think I understand what is happening now. But my mind needs some time to wrap itself around all this. :) I guess I will have to try another page and see what happens. Later, when I have more time. The hard part is finding a page to test with. I guess that is why you have the wikitext box. To paste in something over and over for test purposes over time. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:42, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, that's exactly what the box is for, and I also have User:Zhaofeng Li/Reflinks test (forked from GoingBatty's one) and User:Zhaofeng Li/Reflinks test 2. I'm also making some unit tests to automate the testing process. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 12:23, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks. Do not use old captions

Maybe change wording to something like this;

Allow Reflinks to change captions of already-captioned external links.

Many references have both internal and external links. For example; publisher links, and names of magazines and newspapers, are often clickable internal links. Some authors, too. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:03, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks. The publisher field is intentionally left blank for filling out manually.

That line needs to be removed from the results page when {{cite web}} is not being used. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:31, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

 Done Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 00:45, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. --Timeshifter (talk) 06:40, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks. Click on "Show changes" on the preview page

It would be very helpful if this was added below the "Preview/Save on wiki" button on the Reflinks diff page:

Click on "Show changes" on the preview page to better see the changes being made.

Many people may not remember to do so otherwise, or may not even be used to using that tool. I normally don't use it when making text changes. But it is very helpful when making reference changes. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:44, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

 Done I've made it show the diff preview by default on wiki. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 13:54, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I see the diff preview is much better now. I like this addition too:
Colours: Blue = Added; Orange = Removed
So editors are now seeing the equivalent of "Show changes" even before going to the official Wikipedia preview. --Timeshifter (talk) 06:49, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-39

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

Problems

  • There was a problem on the English Wikipedia on September 19. It was due to edits on a template used on many pages.
  • Sites were down for users in the Pacific area around 7:00 UTC on September 20. It was due to a problem in the San Francisco data center.
  • There were two bad bugs messing up articles in some browsers in VisualEditor. We fixed the bugs and updated the sites. [40] [41]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.24wmf22) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 23, and on all Wikipedias on September 25 (calendar).
  • If you have more than 2000 notifications, the oldest ones will be removed.[42] [43]
  • In the "Vector" skin, the icon used for users will show a neutral gender. [44] [45]
  • The VisualEditor template tool now tells you if a required field is missing. [46]
  • The "Cancel" button of the VisualEditor save window is now called "Resume editing". This shows that you can still edit and you won't lose your changes. [47]
  • There are new keyboard shortcuts in VisualEditor. Use Ctrl+Shift+6 for code and Ctrl+Shift+5 for strikethrough. [48] [49]
  • In VisualEditor, you can now see that you are switching to the source editing mode. Before, it was not clear it was happening. [50]

Future site changes

  • You can see a plan for the move to Phabricator. It's the new tool to track bugs. A guided tour will be done via video on September 24. [51]

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09:05, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

There are a lot of {{cite web}} templates of the form {{cite web|url=http://www.foo.com}}. These references are essentially the same as bare URLs, and they create citation errors (see Category:Pages with citations having bare URLs). Can Reflinks be enhanced to look for {{cite web}} templates that contain only the URL parameter and then fill in as much useful information as possible? That would be extremely helpful. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:09, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: It's now on the test version. Could you try it out? Thanks. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 11:27, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
It worked for this edit. Nice coding. It was not able to find a title for the bare nytimes.com URL; I received an error that said "Host blacklisted (404)". I'm guessing that means that nytimes.com does not let the WMF tools server connect, which is not something you can fix.
Now that I look at the articles in the "bare URL" category more closely, it looks like many of the citations with errors have some information, like accessdates and dates, but no title. They are often not the simple one-parameter templates I described above. I imagine it might be tricky to set up Reflinks to look for citations with |url= but no |title= (even if some other parameters do exist), but if that were possible, we would be able to add titles to many thousands of citations that are currently missing titles. Is that something you can try? I'll be happy to test it. Thanks! – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:17, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
@Jonesey95: New York Times is blacklisted by me at the moment since the site only returns a log-in page instead of anything useful. It's possible for WMF to negotiate with them to provide the tool with access just like the search engines, but that's another story. Regarding cite templates without titles, yes, it's possible to expand those as well. I will try implementing it this weekend, but no guarantee. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 10:08, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Wayback Machine

Hi, Zhaofeng Li, just used your wonderful tool on Central Bank of Ireland. Had a question about the appearance of Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page). related to the Wayback Machine, for example, ref. 9 gives: http://www.centralbank.ie/frame_main.asp?pg=mnp_intr.asp&nv=mnp_nav.asp Archived 1 January 2011 at the Wayback Machine, is that how it should look like or should this be changed? Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 04:37, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@Lotje: Yes, I think it's okay. To make things even neater, try the |archiveurl= parameter in {{cite web}}. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 13:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
I must me doing something wrong, it just doesn't work. Would you be so kind and give it a try? Lotje (talk) 13:39, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
@Lotje: I've modified it to use {{cite web}} with this edit. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 13:51, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
I took out all the waybackmachine stuff and went to look for the magical tool, which is yours. Thanks Lotje (talk) 14:16, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Zhaofeng Li! Could you please try your Reflinks tool on Colgate-Palmolive? When it replaces the captioned plain link, it does not remove the square brackets. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 22:52, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: I used this version to test, but couldn't reproduce it. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 23:09, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Try the live version, and uncheck "Do not expand captioned plain links". GoingBatty (talk) 23:16, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
@GoingBatty: Ah, it's a "unified" diff. Orange-coloured text is deleted. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 23:27, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Oh, sorry for my lack of understanding. Could you please add a note explaining what the colors mean on the Result page? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:34, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
@GoingBatty:  Done Here you go! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 23:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Looks great - thanks! 02:58, 27 September 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by GoingBatty (talk • contribs)

A Barnstar For You

The da Vinci Barnstar
For the new reflinks!!!! Fantastique! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:57, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Much appreciated! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 10:21, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks. Box with wikitext for the full page

https://tools.wmflabs.org/fengtools/reflinks

I discovered more about the box with wikitext below the box showing just the highlighted changes in the wikitext.

I had no clear idea what it was at first. I only discovered it was the full-page wikitext by scrolling up to the top of the form, and down to the bottom of the form. I then wasn't sure whether it was the unrevised wikitext or the revised wikitext from the proposed Reflink changes. I was only able to figure that out by using browser search to look for the wikitext to be added. It found the added wikitext, and so I then knew I was looking at the revised wikitext for the whole page.

There is no way a random editor can know any of this at first. They can only guess until they look around like I did. So let us save them a lot of time, and add a note, and some visual cues. Maybe add this above or below:

Below is revised wikitext for whole page.

or

Above is revised wikitext for whole page.

Then people will immediately know. And they will immediately be able to revise it further if desired before going to Wikipedia preview. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:08, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

@Timeshifter: Um... Does this appeal to you? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 08:00, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that is better. I heard something on the radio that may be helpful. Someone was discussing how to write recipes for newspapers or something else read by average people. The newspaper did not want a chef copy-editing the recipe that finally ended up in the newspaper. They wanted an average person who occasionally tried recipes out to rewrite the recipe after testing the recipe. Rewrite the recipe to make it work every time. I am that average person. You are the chef. :) --Timeshifter (talk) 19:38, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

This wiki-kitten is here to express my thanks for your new reflinks replacement. It's excellent (and open source!)!

Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:17, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 10:20, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-40

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf1) is on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since September 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis on September 30, and on all Wikipedias on October 2 (calendar).
  • Errors from Scribunto (Lua) are now shown on the page. Before, you had to click on "Script error" to see them. [55] [56]
  • You can add an "autovalue" for a field in TemplateData. When users add the template to a page, the value will be added automatically. An example is when a clean-up template shows the date it was added. [57]
  • If you change a user preference but don't save it, it now asks if you want to save it. [58] [59]
  • The PDF export tool has changed. The new one has better language support but it doesn't offer ZIM and EPUB formats. [60]

Future changes

  • You can watch a video showing Phabricator, the new tool to track bugs. You can also read more about the move from Bugzilla.
  • JavaScript authors: Many old methods will be removed soon. Please check your scripts and gadgets and replace the old methods by the new ones if needed. [61]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:44, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Possible addition of author and date fields

Is there any way you could add blank |author= and |date= fields to the generated cite? I realize that adding these as autofilled is problematic on many levels, but adding blank fields would simplify typing them in manually.--Auric talk 13:28, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

@Auric:  Doing... Yeah, that's possible, and I'll make it opt-in. In case if you don't know, the tool can parse dates and authors, when metadata is available. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 13:39, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Thank you..--Auric talk 14:54, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
@Auric:  Done Sorry for being slow (I'm a bit of busy at the moment), and it's now available. Please check out the "Add blank |author= and |date= fields if the information is unavailable" option. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 23:55, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
The Original Barnstar
For the Reflinks rewrite. Lotje (talk) 15:07, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Thank you! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 23:56, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I recently used the Reflinks rewrite to process the Abu Mohammad al-Adnani article here [62]. However, I noticed that the rewrite did not fixed duplicated references; I had to fix them manually. I look at my usage of the old Reflinks tool dating back to June of 2014 and I had no cases where there were duplicated links to be fixed. Perhaps fixing duplicated links is something that can be implemented in the rewrite? David O. Johnson (talk) 05:45, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

It's gone nowe. :{ Lotje (talk) 16:29, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
@Lotje: What? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 02:33, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
@Lotje: I asked about it on IRC, and looks like there were some DNS issues on Tool Labs earlier. Everything should be okay now. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 02:45, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
There is already a bot which does this, and I'm focusing on the core features before moving on to the fancy ones. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 02:33, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
@Zhaofeng Li: Happy again now. Lotje (talk) 03:46, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for the response. David O. Johnson (talk) 04:04, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Please take a look at this edit. Thank you.   — Jeff G. ツ (talk) 17:27, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jeff G.: I couldn't reproduce that. Perhaps it's something done accidentally or caused by an add-on on your browser. Are there more edits like this, or is this an isolated issue? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 00:07, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
That was the only article I tried your version on. I'll let you know if it does or does not happen again.   — Jeff G. ツ (talk) 20:09, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-41

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf2) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since 2 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 7 October, and on all Wikipedias from 9 October (calendar).
  • If you make a code mistake when editing a Lua script, you won't be able to save your edit. [70] [71]
  • We fixed some more Internet Explorer bugs. If you use Internet Explorer 10, you will be able to use VisualEditor next week. Support for earlier versions is coming next. [72]
  • On Thursday, the tool to edit TemplateData will come to 30 more wikis. [73] [74]
  • You can help sort bugs in the Book and PDF export tool on October 8. [75]
  • 1% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. [76]

Future changes

  • You can look at the plan of the Mobile team for their future work. [77]
  • More changes to Media Viewer are coming. It will be easier to disable it, and you will see the caption below the image. [78] [79]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

06:10, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

October 2014

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Red X Won't fix That's not an error. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 09:57, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

"Reflinks" generating incorrect accessdate

See discussion here: the accessdate parameter should not be automatically set to the current date, since it's unlikely that people using the script are checking each reference to see if it (still) supports the statement. --NE2 14:05, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree, especially with this more explanatory post.   — Jeff G. ツ (talk) 05:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Noticed that there is a new option called "Do not add access dates in the result", which is ticked by default. --I am k6ka Talk to me! See what I have done 11:23, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Technical Barnstar
I thank you gratefully for recreating Reflinks with User:Zhaofeng Li/Reflinks. I use it alongside AutoEd for a nice cleanup of the article. I've even used it on a few wikis outside of Wikipedia and it's doing a marvelous job so far! Keep up the good work, and I look forward to any tools you may develop in the future to make a Wikipedian's life easier. --I am k6ka Talk to me! See what I have done 18:41, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
I really appreciate that. Thank you! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 04:29, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter—September and October 2014

Did you know?

TemplateData is a separate program that organizes information about the parameters that can be used in a template. VisualEditor reads that data, and uses it to populate its simplified template dialogs.

With the new TemplateData editor, it is easier to add information about parameters, because the ones you need to use are pre-loaded.

See the help page for TemplateData for more information about adding TemplateData. The user guide has information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing team has reduced technical debt, simplified some workflows for template and citation editing, made major progress on Internet Explorer support, and fixed over 125 bugs and requests. Several performance improvements were made, especially to the system around re-using references and reference lists. Weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org.

There were three issues that required urgent fixes: a deployment error that meant that many buttons didn't work correctly (bugs 69856 and 69864), a problem with edit conflicts that left the editor with nowhere to go (bug 69150), and a problem in Internet Explorer 11 that caused replaced some categories with a link to the system message, MediaWiki:Badtitletext (bug 70894) when you saved. The developers apologize for the disruption, and thank the people who reported these problems quickly.

Increased support for devices and browsers

Internet Explorer 10 and 11 users now have access to VisualEditor. This means that about 5% of Wikimedia's users will now get an "Edit" tab alongside the existing "Edit source" tab. Support for Internet Explorer 9 is planned for the future.

Tablet users browsing the site's mobile mode now have the option of using a mobile-specific form of VisualEditor. More editing tools, and availability of VisualEditor on smartphones, is planned for the future. The mobile version of VisualEditor was tweaked to show the context menu for citations instead of basic references (bug 68897). A bug that broke the editor in iOS was corrected and released early (bug 68949). For mobile tablet users, three bugs related to scrolling were fixed (bug 66697, bug 68828, bug 69630). You can use VisualEditor on the mobile version of Wikipedia from your tablet by clicking on the cog in the top-right when editing a page and choosing which editor to use.

TemplateData editor

A tool for editing TemplateData will be deployed to more Wikipedias soon.  Other Wikipedias and some other projects may receive access next month. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation.  When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "Edit template data" button at the top.  Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.

Other changes

Several interface messages and labels were changed to be simpler, clearer, or shorter, based on feedback from translators and editors. The formatting of dialogs was changed, and more changes to the appearance will be coming soon, when VisualEditor implements the new MediaWiki theme from Design. (A preview of the theme is available on Labs for developers.) The team also made some improvements for users of the Monobook skin that improved the size of text in toolbars and fixed selections that overlapped menus.

VisualEditor-MediaWiki now supplies the mw-redirect or mw-disambig class on links to redirects and disambiguation pages, so that user gadgets that colour in these in types of links can be created.

Templates' fields can be marked as 'required' in TemplateData. If a parameter is marked as required, then you cannot delete that field when you add a new template or edit an existing one (bug 60358). 

Language support improved by making annotations use bi-directional isolation (so they display correctly with cursoring behaviour as expected) and by fixing a bug that crashed VisualEditor when trying to edit a page with a dir attribute but no lang set (bug 69955).

Looking ahead

The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon, perhaps in late October.

The team is also working on support for adding rows and columns to tables, and early work for this may appear within the month. Please comment on the design at Mediawiki.org.

In the future, real-time collaborative editing may be possible in VisualEditor. Some early preparatory work for this was recently done.

Supporting your wiki

At Wikimania, several developers gave presentations about VisualEditor. A translation sprint focused on improving access to VisualEditor was supported by many people. Deryck Chan was the top translator. Special honors also go to संजीव कुमार (Sanjeev Kumar), Robby, Takot, Bachounda, Bjankuloski06 and Ата. A summary of the work achieved by the translation community has been posted here. Thank you all for your work.

VisualEditor can be made available to most non-Wikipedia projects. If your community would like to test VisualEditor, please contact product manager James Forrester or file an enhancement request in Bugzilla.

Please join the office hours on Saturday, 18 October 2014 at 18:00 UTC (daytime for the Americas; evening for Africa and Europe) and on Wednesday, 19 November at 16:00 UTC on IRC.

Give feedback on VisualEditor at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta. To help with translations, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact Elitre at Meta. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Bare urls for The Standard ignored

Please refer to this diff. -- Ohc ¡digame! 14:08, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

@Ohconfucius: It's a long diff, and I'm on my phone. Could you point out where the link is? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 10:54, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Oh sorry. I don't use Reflinks to populate one or two refs. There are three citations to the standard. Search for "thestandard.com" in your browser (refs 45, 91 and 94) in that version. Cheers, -- Ohc ¡digame! 12:34, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Diff highlighting no longer showing

When I last used Reflinks, I got the message "2 reference(s) fixed! Colours: Blue = Added; Orange = Removed", but no coloured diffs are showing. The references were fixed just fine. This is a recent change, I noticed it during the last week or so.--Auric talk 15:51, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

@Auric:  Fixed Cacycle recently changed the API of wDiff, breaking my script. It's now fixed. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 02:12, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-42

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

Problems

  • 10% of Tool Labs was down on October 7. [82]
  • Tool Labs was also broken on October 11. [83]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf3) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since 9 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from 14 October, and on all Wikipedias from 16 October (calendar).
  • 5% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. You can also test it as a Beta Feature. [84]

Meetings

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:54, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks: named reference ... invoked but never defined

Trying Reflinks on Mars One just now produced: 54 Cite error: The named reference http:.2F.2Fwww.mars-one.com.2Fen.2Fdonate was invoked but never defined (see the help page). Can see why but complicated to explain; haven't saved the edit so you can take a look yourself. -Arb. (talk) 10:45, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

@Arb:  Fixed I've fixed the routine a bit and it's now on the test version. Could you confirm? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 11:25, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
That was quick. Looks good; saved. Did you notice that references 47, 67, & 68 all point to the same URL; is that something Reflinks could eliminate/optimise? -Arb. (talk) 11:41, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-43

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. You can read translations.

Recent changes

  • You can test a new system to see math using MathML. Go to your display options and choose "⧼mw math mathml⧽".
  • You can add badges in Wikidata for quality articles and featured lists. [88] [89]

File information cleanup

Problems

  • Developers fixed a security problem. If you use Internet Explorer 6, you won't be able to log in any more. You should use a newer browser. [91]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf4) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 16. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 21, and on all Wikipedias from October 23 (calendar).
  • 10% of logged-out readers are getting pages from servers that run the HHVM tool. HHVM should make pages load faster. You can also test it as a Beta Feature. [92]
  • If you add the same parameter twice in a template, it now puts the page in a tracking category. [93] [94]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

13:48, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-44

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

  • There was an issue with files from Commons on October 21. You could only see those with names between 140 and 159 characters by visiting Commons itself. [95]
  • There was a problem with cut and paste in VisualEditor in Firefox. It was fixed quickly. [96]
  • There was a problem with editing math in VisualEditor. It was fixed quickly. [97]

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will now come to Wikipedia sites every Wednesday, instead of every Thursday. [98]
  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf5) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 23. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 28, and on all Wikipedias from October 29 (calendar).
  • VisualEditor now uses autovalues for templates if they are in TemplateData. [99] [100] [101]
  • VisualEditor's menu items now show their shortcuts beside them. [102]
  • VisualEditor now opens faster when you click "edit". [103]
  • The rules for plurals in translations changed in some languages. Interface translations are currently not being updated from translatewiki.net; this process will start again on November 6. [104]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

05:21, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Your recent update to this facility seems to have left it worse than before. It appears unable to operate when there are more than just one, or two references, to fill. Thanks,

Derek R Bullamore (talk) 19:12, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

@Derek R Bullamore: Could you give an example where it didn't work? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 23:05, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Sure. Friwo Gerätebau GmbH is one example, and Match fixing is another. - Derek R Bullamore (talk) 23:54, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
@Derek R Bullamore:  Fixed Nice catch! It's a bug in one of the metadata parsers that can cause the entire program to crash if a publication date is found. Gonna work on the automatic unit tests soon. Thanks! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:05, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
Works for me with 5 even.Lihaas (talk) 00:01, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
Well done and thank you - Derek R Bullamore (talk) 13:08, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks: Access dates

I installed reflinks per the instructions and tried to use it, but despite unchecking the use access dates it still dint show up. Oddly, when I manually use reflinks instead of it in my toolbar access dates then do show up. Wondering if you can fix it?Lihaas (talk) 23:55, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Turns out even that doesn't work. Pretty sure it worked a few days ago.Lihaas (talk) 23:59, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
@Lihaas:  Fixed Yeah, that's caused by some flawed logic. It should work now. Thanks for reporting! Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 01:05, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

I think Reflinks is down. The call to wmflabs times out. --NeilN talk to me 15:13, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

@NeilN:  Fixed I've restarted the server and everything looks fine now. Investigating into the issue so that it can never happen again. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 15:36, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! --NeilN talk to me 19:23, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
Yeah all fengtools has been down for a while.--Chamith (talk) 15:57, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
Confirmed. Down again. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:44, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
The tool had been bombarded by requests from "Geohack" (Probably due to some misconfigurations on their side), and it looks fine now. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 03:45, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Down again?

Can't use it right now, I get an "Internal error" message whenever I try to use the tool. --I am k6ka Talk to me! See what I have done 02:35, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

@K6ka:  Fixed The PHP back-end was overloaded, taking the tool down. I've made some optimisations to prevent it, let's see how it goes... Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...]
@Mhhossein: Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 06:16, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Down for the third time

And it's down again.

One of my student just run into this? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:47, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

@Piotrus: What operating system and browser was your student using? Is the error reproducible on this article and/or other articles? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:09, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
I really have no idea why it happened. @Jeff G.: Since you also encountered this bug before, could you give me details of your browser and operating system? Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 03:42, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
@GoingBatty: It was a Windows 7/Internet Explorer (not sure which version; I can check next time I am in the lab). We would use Chrome, but most computers there don't have it installed. Sigh. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:57, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
I'll test the tool on IE when I get home. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 09:54, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
When I use the tool, I also use IE, specifically 64-bit v11.0.9600.17420, on Windows 7 (64-bit) Home Premium SP1. IE is modifying the data to prevent cross-site scripting. IIRC the original reflinks had the same problem, but later compensated for it by using an inconvenient preview step.   — Jeff G. ツ (talk) 02:29, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-45

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

Problems

  • There was a bug in VisualEditor with Internet Explorer. It hid tools like the link editor when you opened them. The bug was fixed on Monday. [108]
  • Issues with the new search tool caused geo data code to show up on pages on Monday and Friday. The mobile "nearby" tool was also broken. The problem is now fixed. [109] [110] [111]
  • HHVM caused server issues on Thursday. They are now fixed.

Software changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki (1.25wmf5) has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since October 29. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 4, and on all Wikipedias from November 5 (calendar).
  • Some wikis have icons at the top of a page to show if it is protected or featured. Icons show up using CSS. You can now use the <indicator> tag in these templates instead to add the icons. [112] [113]
  • VisualEditor now tells you if you're editing a re-used reference. This helps you avoid changing it if you just want to add a new one. [114]
  • The icons in VisualEditor's template editor tool for adding more fields are back, along with other fixes. [115] [116] [117] [118] [119]
  • After November 6, all wikis will have the tool to edit TemplateData. [120] [121] [122]

Future changes

  • The new search tool will come to the last wikis in the coming weeks. This includes Wikipedia in French, Chinese, German and English. [123]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:28, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Why is it out of order?

Why is reflink out of order? Mhhossein (talk) 04:51, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

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