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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (technical). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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weirdness

Cross posting as this seems like a good place to find someone who might be able to figure out the issue under discussion at WP:AN#Can someone check something? Beeblebrox (talk) 23:41, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Tools to identify high-priority and high-yield articles?

Is there a tool to identify short, "low-quality", and highly-viewed articles? Limits for quality might include a certain number of cleanup templates, {{multiple issues}}, or Category:Wikipedia articles needing rewrite.

Also, is anyone aware of a list that sorts Category:Wikipedia articles needing rewrite based upon page views? I'm hoping to help a classroom (or classrooms, eventually) identify some targets for editing. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 19:36, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for, but right now SuggestBot does this for the Community Portal and to populate Special:GettingStarted (which is experimental interface getting delivered to new users immediately after signup). We're starting to build a more permanent system for doing that within the Special page, including expanding from copyediting, to two more tasks from Wikipedia:Backlog. The kind of queries necessary to gather this data are expensive to run (searching across categories is slow, and parsing wikitext for templates or other issues is just as bad, if not worse), but we're trying to get to a place where we can have some kind of dashboard of simple tasks. Regarding the page view issue, we initially prioritized the GettingStarted list based on pageviews, but found that two things happened:
  1. The list almost never fully refreshed. The number of very popular articles that are tagged with even common issues like copyediting is radically small.
  2. In the case of GettingStarted, we're focusing on tasks for newbies. It turns out that some very popular pages with issues tend to be articles like Pornography in India or BLPs, which attract more vandalism than we like. Popular articles as measured via page views are likely to be more appropriate for experienced editors to focus on.
Anyway, there's a general interest at the Foundation from multiple angles in trying to develop a better task system. People have been vaguely thinking about ways Wikidata could be used for these as well. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:26, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
We've been experimenting with adding info about viewership and predictions of article quality to SuggestBot. For those who do not know SuggestBot, it posts a list of article suggestions to user talk pages (or a page in your userspace, if you'd prefer that), where each article has to be member of a specific category identifying it as needing improvements (e.g. "needs sources" or "cleanup"). One of the things we've been working on lately is a redesign of SuggestBot's posts where info on viewership (avg # of views/day) and assessed and predicted quality are available, so editors can use that info when they decide which articles to work on. Hopefully we'll have that launched in a few weeks. Regards, Nettrom (talk) 20:49, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
There's also a new-user-friendly workflow for signing up for SuggestBot suggestions, based on wikiproject article categories, up on the Teahouse, which Nettrom and I put together. It's more a functional proof of concept right now, but I can see a bunch of ways of using it to route people to both relevant editing tasks and interesting projects. I'm (slowly) developing and documenting the code for generating lists of article categories now. - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 22:30, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
There are also lists of popular pages by WikiProject. The lists show both the assessed class and importance (which is usually a fairly accurate indication of quality), and since they are grouped by WikiProjects, it makes finding poor quality articles in an area that interests you quite easy.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 4, 2013; 22:47 (UTC)
^ The toolserver tool is what I was going to suggest. --Izno (talk) 22:57, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Many high-pageview articles need cleanup monthly: Examine many of the top 5,000 most-viewed articles (see list wp:5000), and note the continual amount of copy-editing needed, since the last major cleanup, perhaps 1 month earlier. The article which cemented this concept, in my mind, was for the uber-famous singer/actress "Jennifer Lopez" which needed about a hundred punctuation and phrase changes after numerous edits by various editors. I can go to almost any major article and find over 50 clerical corrections, such as use of commas or italic titles, and many need to set each image "alt=" text to describe the image for sight-impaired readers who have difficulty discerning the image contents. The implication of this is staggering: every multi-edited article needs cleanup, after a period of open editing by the general public. Compare article-edit traffic to people walking through retail stores, where enough dirt, debris, or mud must be cleaned away, following a period of heavy foot-traffic. There is no need to even use a tool for a list: just think of a famous person, place or thing, then go to that article and keep editing until 50 clerical corrections are made, plus add a few sources where needed, then repeat in a month or two. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:10, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
So is the number of IP edits received recently a valid "signal" for a low quality article? Jennifer Lopez is semi-protected so I guess that wasn't the issue there. This comes back to a wikitrust-like system I suppose, that can differentiate between the editing patterns of different registered users. As a new editor I've been surprised to learn WP is so actively propped-up by ongoing vigilance. It seems like blowing into a balloon that has holes in it, you can't stop. Long term I would hope artificial intelligence would take on more of the burden, like it does with some vandalism today, but I'm not holding my breath. Silas Ropac (talk) 13:31, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity." — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:51, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Answers: Generally, ~30% of IP edits are "hack edits" as graffiti or misguided facts, and that pattern seems very predictable across many articles. Although vandalism might seem a great danger, excessive outdated detail is worse, as in the quote, "The problem is not what they don't know, it's what they know for sure that just ain't so". Also, too many editors add trivial "fun facts" to articles (wp:Datahoard), or add speculative cruft text (wp:MINDREAD); we had a recent controversy because WP editors insisted on including an author's supposed "inspiration" for writing a specific novel, and the author complained the article was wrong about why he wrote his book, but debates arose about him being a wp:reliable source about his own thoughts, and so I wrote the essay "wp:Beware mindreader text" to warn to omit inspiration rumors. As for the active vigilance to revert hack-edits, I would not worry too much, because numerous long-term editors still enjoy reverting everyone. Perhaps there is an alluring sense of "censorship power" to revert and shutup other people, so we have no shortage of editors patrolling articles. Some bots seem to already use "AI" to detect hack edits, but also, I have suggested to use rapid Lua scripts to detect omitted facts or added rumors, as in Template:Watchdog, so the emphasis could be expanded to ensure crucial facts are not removed from a particular article, or common related fringe ideas are not re-added, by watching for hot-topic words inserted during an edit. Hence, we will be using more human intelligence to judge articles, with better computer-assisted tools, not just traditional AI techniques. The future is very exciting at this point, with over 9,200 editors each updating many articles every month. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:47, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

createaccount function API

Does anybody know what the name of the token for this feature happens to be? I can't find it. If I'm asking in the wrong place, please let me know.—cyberpower ChatOnline 15:27, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Moar docs at mw:API:Account creation, if that's helpful at all. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 21:46, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Is the documentation even updated?—cyberpower ChatOnline 23:56, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
(1) Not really and (2) you can scrape a token from Special:Userlogin/signup. The alternative is repeating the request in a similar manner to mw:API:Login. (This I find rather stupid, as fetching a token through prop=info or action=tokens is more than sufficient for preventing CSRF.) MER-C 05:15, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Hey thanks. Looking through the source codes on the signup page for the tokens, it appears its called "wpCreateaccount". I'll try it out and see.—cyberpower ChatOnline 14:52, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Doesn't work.—cyberpower ChatOnline 02:01, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
You'll need to supply the cookies you got on that page as well. MER-C 02:17, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm convinced that this feature isn't ready to be used. The API seems to be confusing itself when I try to use it. Also, there is no way to get a create token from the API, if page scratching is the only way to do it, then the function still has to be a work in progress.—cyberpower ChatOnline 13:45, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Is the API even ready for this feature. It's throwing back an unrecognized paramter that I'm not even pushing. I'm feeding it a token, and it's throwing back need token. HELP!!—cyberpower ChatOnline 02:14, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi. I've significantly updated the docs for that api module. I also have tested, and can confirm it works properly (There's one issue, sometimes a "nocookiesfornew" error is returned when it shouldn't be. If that happens, do the request again and it should work. I submitted a fix for that issue, and it will hopefully disappear in a couple weeks ). What the request you are making exactly, and what is it giving you back that is unexpected? needtoken means that the token parameter is either not specified, or incorrect (or cookies are not being sent). When you recieve a result=needtoken, you should repeat the request but with the token parameter set to the token specified in the previous request (This is the proper way to get a token for this module) Bawolff (talk) 09:21, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
  • I got it to work. There was a disconnect in the token retrieval function. I was doing it right all along but with a typo in the token name, which is why it wasn't getting a token.—cyberpower ChatOnline 13:26, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Posting to the math reference desk is really slow

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T47973

Posting to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics has been really slow for a few hours now. Whenever I try to save an edit, I get the Wikimedia Foundation error page ("Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem. This is probably temporary and should be fixed soon. Please try again in a few minutes"). The edit does eventually get saved, but I never get a notification of that; eventually on one of my attempts I will get an edit conflict with my own edit, or I give up and try reloading the page and see my edit there.

I am not noticing this problem with other pages. I have experienced the problem on two different Internet connections. There is also an anonymous editor who has posted the same question six or eight times now, spread over several hours, presumably because he or she keeps getting this error and doesn't realize that the post has been successful, so waits for a while and tries again. —Bkell (talk) 19:38, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I am experiencing the same slowness. I wonder if the math(s) rendering is causing the problem? In any event, I did manage to remove the duplicate postings.--ukexpat (talk) 20:02, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
If it's helpful, here are the details from the bottom of the error page that I get:
Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Mathematics&action=submit, from 208.80.154.134 via cp1017.eqiad.wmnet (squid/2.7.STABLE9) to 10.64.0.134 (10.64.0.134)
Error: ERR_READ_TIMEOUT, errno [No Error] at Wed, 06 Mar 2013 20:14:42 GMT'
—Bkell (talk) 20:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Same here. Just got the WMF error on the Math desk. The edit is listed in my contributions, though. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 21:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
The basic issue is simple, you have too many uses of <math>. They seem to run around 0.3 to 0.6 seconds each, so having 20 or 30 equations is a little slow, but very workable. At a high point yesterday, the desk had 108 distinct uses of <math>, which is pretty extreme and starts getting into the territory where time outs are possible depending on the performance of the individual equations. Obviously the Math desk cares about and needs to use math, so I don't know what to tell you. On occasions when things become unworkable, you probably need to look for ways to refactor to reduce or consolidate the equations used. It is possible there was some software change that made this issue worse recently, but I have no knowledge of any change that would have affected it. Dragons flight (talk) 17:24, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Use fewer math-tags or combine them: I have changed page wp:Reference_desk/Mathematics to show many math-tags in preformatted sections, to reduce reformat time by nearly 30 seconds, from 50 to 20 seconds. Timing tests have confirmed the numerous math-tags are using nearly 1 second, each, to format equations, but if combined into a single math-tag, then multiple equations could be formatted in under 1 second, of the 60-second timeout limit which triggers wp:Wikimedia Foundation error. For example, the phrase ", or," could be inserted between 2 equations, within just a single math-tag: <math>2y-\lambda+2y=0, or, \lambda=4y</math> to generate:
During talk-pages, if 20 math-tags were combined into just 4 math-tags, then the long reformat time could drop to nearly 3 seconds, although the formatting might be somewhat awkward. Otherwise, use the text form "a^2 + b^2 = c^2" which can be displayed instantly. Perhaps a Lua-based template could be developed to simulate the math-tag to handle a simple formula. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:25, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
I thought rendered math images were cached so that they wouldn't have to be regenerated all the time. In fact, in the past I've seen bugs where some math was rendered incorrectly, and then the bug was fixed, but the incorrect rendering was still seen in articles until the actual content of the <math> tags was changed (generally by adding \, or removing a space or something). In the present case, why should the MediaWiki engine be regenerating all of the math images on the entire page when I edit only one section? —Bkell (talk) 21:33, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
afaik, mediawiki always renders the whole page when hitting "save", regardless whether you edit a single section, the whole page, or nothing at all (aka "null edit"). to me it makes sense: e.g., when editing a section and changing a "ref", the "references" section should be re-rendered also, when adding or removing a ref, the reference numbers for all references in sections that come after the one you edit will change, when changing the section title, the TOC should change, and there might be other, less obvious connections between the content of one section and the rest of the page. so mediawiki does not try to optimize "on save rendering", and renders the whole page in all cases.
peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 22:09, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps the continual slow re-rendering of previous math PNG images (rather than cached) is a new problem. Earlier, the PNG software was thumbnailing various PNG images into slow high-resolution format, even though the PNG technology allows a quicker display with regular resolution, as seen on other websites. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:23, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Kipod: That makes sense. What I meant about caching was that I thought the MediaWiki software hashed the contents of the <math> tag, and then just used a cached rendering of the math if one existed. So even if MediaWiki is rendering the whole page, I thought it was able to skip the LaTeX/PNG rendering step for <math> tags whose contents hadn't changed. —Bkell (talk) 22:38, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Bkell: It should, but a recent update of the extension's code broke the caching behavior somehow. I'm not exactly sure why yet, but there are a couple of us WMFers looking into it. --Ori.livneh (talk) 23:36, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Template:Bigmath runs over 220 per second: Although the symbols can be grainy, the Template:Bigmath generates similar math-formula output, but using ampersand-semicolon entities, such as "&lambda;" to show "λ". I have run several timing tests to confirm {bigmath} can process over 220 formulae per second, which I have explained in the {bigmath/doc} page. Using {bigmath} now could be over 200x times faster, until the math-tag software is streamlined, or fixed, to run faster. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:23, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't think there is a general problem with rendering <math> tags. We have not had previous problems with rendering times for the math reference desk, which often has many more equations than currently, or Help:Displaying a formula which has lots of <math> tags. My guess is something has changed in the backend causing re-rendering of the png images. Hopefully this is a temporary problem will go away.--Salix (talk): 23:47, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Template:Math and Template:Bigmath do not “process” or “generate” anything, they just put a <span> around their arguments, so it’s no wonder they take negligible server time to render.—Emil J. 19:09, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I've filed a bugzilla ticket, bugzilla:45973, that describes the apparent problems that have recently appeared with the math caching system. Dragons flight (talk) 02:50, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

OK, this has been fixed. Thanks for the careful and detailed report, and sorry (to you & others) it was broken for this long. --Ori.livneh (talk) 05:11, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Bizarre null edit thingy

What on earth happened with this edit to Radiation therapy? The diff shows it as a null edit that occurred 11 seconds after the IP's first edit (found by changing the date format in preferences to ISO 8601), but the relevant history entry shows that the "edit" added one byte to the length of the article. This sounds rather weird. Graham87 02:26, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

A newline was added at the end. Trailing newlines are supposed to be stripped on save but something apparently went wrong here. bugzilla:42616 was also about trailing newlines but after page moves. There was no page move here. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:33, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Even if it isn't supposed to happen, it would still be nice if the diff showed when it did happen. bugzilla:42669 is about that. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:37, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, very strange indeed! how did you figure out where the line break had been added? I can't find a difference in the edit window. I've added the diff as an example in the second bug you linked. Graham87 05:34, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
When I replied, the edit box for the newer revision had an extra newline at the end. It's gone now. I don't know why but consider it another example of inconsistent treatment of trailing newlines. I used Firefox both then and now. I remembered the trailing newline issue from the old bug so it was the first thing I looked for earlier. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:49, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

No search index from main page

A reader posed an interesting question via OTRS.

If you are at the main page of a language, say, EN Main Page and start typing in the search bar, auto-complete will deliver suggested topics. E.g. type "NC" and the list will start with NCAA as well as others.

In contrast if you are at the overall main page, and start typing in the search box, it will not.

Why not, and shouldn't it?

My first thought was that we have search indices by language, and it might be too much to search all of them simultaneously, but there is a language listed, so why can't it default to searching in the index of that language?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 11:53, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Currently it is not technically possible to enable auto-complete at the Wikipedia's (or any other) central portal. I think theoretically it is possible to write a js script that will retrieve them asynchronously but nobody has done this. See m:Talk:Project_portals. Ruslik_Zero 12:17, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Help improving browser test automation for Wikipedia

WHAT: Writing a Wikipedia search feature description in plain English for the Wikimedia automated testing process. Let's feed the Test backlog!

WHEN: We will start with a video streamed demo on Wednesday, March 13, 2013 at 17h UTC and we will be helping volunteers during the rest of the week. This is an ongoing activity: you can arrive / leave at any time.

WHERE: #wikimedia-dev connect IRC channel.

WHO: Anybody interested, including you! The only requirement is basic level of plain English in order to describe the features to be tested automatically. It is that simple.

More details at mw:QA/Browser testing/Search features. --Qgil (talk • contribs) 18:32, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Tor block extension broken again

It appears to be broken again given the number of Tor nodes that's been able to edit over the past couple months. Elockid (Talk) 21:30, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Font size

The Wikipedia font size looks smaller for me today. I don't think my local zoom setting has changed, and other sites look unchanged. Has there been any change to Wikipedia recently? I am using IE 9 and Win 7. 86.167.19.237 (talk) 01:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Some browsers will remember settings for specific sites, so you may want to still check whether the zoom is, say, 90%. Hitting ctrl+0 should set it back to 100%. HTH. Chris857 (talk) 02:20, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I normally have zoom set at 115%. I can see it is unchanged at 115% for Wikipedia in the status bar. Yet the font definitely looks smaller than it previously did at 115%. It also looks smaller than Wiktionary at 115%, and I believe both sites used to look the same. Is there anything else that may be affecting this? Is anyone else seeing a smaller font? 86.167.19.237 (talk) 02:36, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
There is also a way to change the size at which text renders without scaling anything else. Instructions here, basically View -> Text size. What is that set at? Otherwise, I think I'm out of suggestions. I'm on Chrome on XP, so no help there for you. Chris857 (talk) 02:42, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
That says "medium". I am fairly certain that it has always been medium because when I change it to something else all sites appear very noticably different from usual. "larger" even now makes the Wikipedia font noticeably bigger than it historically has been, prior to the recent change. (I think that's originally why I set the zoom level rather than the text size, because "larger" was a bit bigger than I needed.) 86.167.19.237 (talk) 02:53, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
This idea may be way out in left field someplace, but I know that some applications will only run at certain screen resolutions and will change yours to run. I have an MMORPG that does it to me. Sometimes these applications fail to set your resolution back to what you had it set at. I would check that next. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 11:00, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
It does not appear to be an overall screen resolution issue but simply a font size change in Wikipedia. Font sizes on all other web pages (and in all other programs) are unchanged. The sizes of graphical elements are unchanged throughout. 86.176.211.90 (talk) 12:12, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Does anyone know where the Wikipedia font sizes are actually set? Is there any way to check whether there have been any changes to that module recently? 86.176.211.90 (talk) 12:58, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
CSS properties for all users are stored at MediaWiki:Common.css. Text body font size is set to default. And there have been no changes to it recently. But there have been a change to that page on 9 March which isn't even related to font size. And that is the only change brought to that page on this month. --Ushau97 talk contribs 13:16, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for checking. I just had the idea to delete the browser cache, and guess what, it's fixed the problem! Font size back to normal! Mysterious... 86.176.211.90 (talk) 13:40, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Scribunto update coming at 17:00 UTC

In preparation for the rollout to all WMF wikis tomorrow, we will be updating the Scribunto extension today at about 17:00 UTC. This brings the following bug fixes and additions:

  • (T47512) mw.title:getContent() added
  • (T47655) Fix mw.uri error with empty fragment or query string
  • (T47684) Don't count argument parsing time towards the 10-second CPU time limit
  • (T47774) Fix title.exists for Special and Media namespaces, add title.fileExists
  • (T47887) Underline "Script error" on mouseover to improve error popup discoverability
  • Correct return values for mw.ustring.find() in "plain" mode
  • mw.getCurrentFrame() is now usable in the debug console, and add frame:newChild()
  • bit32 library available
  • Added RTL functions and duration formatting for mw.language

I'll update this once the new version is deployed. If you notice any bugs with the new version, please report them here and/or in Bugzilla, or for the fastest response ping me (anomie) on IRC #wikimedia-tech connect. BJorsch (WMF) (talk) 14:03, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

could you please link to the (other wikis) rollout schedule page? i couldn't find such a page on mw or meta, and it will be helpful. thanks, peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 17:37, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
All the other wikis will be rolled out tomorrow at around 18:00 UTC. BJorsch (WMF) (talk) 17:43, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
The new version is now deployed! Please test, so we can try to fix any new bugs before the deploy to all wikis tomorrow. Thanks! BJorsch (WMF) (talk) 17:43, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Lua clock shows lower but gets timeout & Script error when very slow parameters: The change to the Lua clock, to omit time to expand parameters, seems to work for marginal cases over 10 seconds, but at 24 seconds, it has shown "Script error" despite low Lua clock only "Lua time usage: 1.638s" then logs into the HTML rendering "The time allocated for running scripts has expired" (as if 10-second timeout). The bug seems to be someone counting the 24 seconds, yet showing only "Lua... 1.638s". To repeatedly trigger the unusual timeout, I used 600 repetitions of {convert}, to use ~24 seconds in a parameter calculation, as follows:
  • {{hexadecimal |9600}} → 258016
  • {{hexadecimal | {{#expr: 0
+{{convert|5|m|ft|disp=number}} +{{convert|5|m|ft|disp=number}}
+{{convert|5|m|ft|disp=number}} +{{convert|5|m|ft|disp=number}}
...repeat to have 300 lines, as 600 {convert}...
}} }} → Script error
The expected result should be to show the total, of adding 600 {convert}, as 9600 displayed in hexadecimal as "258016". At lower repetitions, such as 540 {convert}, the timeout is sporadic, as if another timer limits the parameters to 21 seconds or such, but 24 is always a timeout. Fortunately, that timeout error would be extremely rare, while parameters which use 11-14 seconds are no longer triggering the timeout "Script error" as before. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:35/21:58, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
There was a bug in the code. The fix is deployed now. BJorsch (WMF) (talk) 23:29, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Wikid77, that's probably not the best example to use. {{convert}} has Module:Math as a buried dependency via both {{rnd}} and {{precision}}, and so your inside expression also depends on Lua. Dragons flight (talk) 00:18, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

spellchecker mystery

Ok, so I make lots of typos. always have and probably always will. In the past I have always relied on my spellchecker to mitigate the problem by highlighting misspelled words. However, I mostly edit from an iPad these days and it seems like the spellchecker doesn't work very well, sometimes not at all. Now, this is where it gets weird. It seems it doesn't work very well here, on WP, and does work as expected when composing an email or even editing at Meta. I also noticed when I am typing in the edit window at Meta there is a little icon that keeps popping up briefly in the lower right hand corner of the window, leading me to wonder if that might be a clue as to what is going on. Anyone have any idea what I might be able to do to make my spellchecker work here, where I do the vast majority of my typing? Specifically, what it is doing is:

Sometimes missing misspelled words altogether
When i ask it for suggestions on a highlighted word it flashes its suggestion so quickly I can't usually make out how it is different from what is already on the page, and of course it is way to quick for me to click on it and fix the spelling.

Beeblebrox (talk) 18:18, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

don't have an ipad available to verify, but the fact you said it does not happen on meta is intriguing. i suggest you try some edits outside of your account, and see if the phenomenon still happens. if logging out "cures" it., then a reasonable assumption is that there is some bad interaction between your ipad and one of the gadgets or scripts you use. in this case, i suggest you go over them and disable them one by one, until you isolate the culprit. then you can figure it out with the author of said script/gadget. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 18:42, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
The thing at meta: is a keyboard icon, and it appears when you are actively typing in e.g. an edit box; if you click it before it goes away, you can alter the input language setting. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:49, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Ah, yes, now that you say that it seems pretty clear that that must be it. I don't use any scripts or anything over there, but it is running on essentially the same software. I guess it's off to experiment, thanks to both of you for your replies! Beeblebrox (talk) 02:13, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

spurious 404 errors

I've been getting 404 errors when trying to open pages that exist. After I reload, the page is served properly. I got a 404 error when trying to make this post. Another is below: 

Not Found

The requested URL /wiki/Category:Canadian_people_of_Dutch_descent was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

—rybec 00:13, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I can reproduce this problem, but only(?) for URLs with /w/index.php in them. Assuming you are using the secure server, I'm guessing it has to do with some maintenance being done on said servers (see the various "pooling" / "depooling" messages). --SoledadKabocha (talk) 00:21, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Or it might relate to "manually creating missing /etc/apache2/wmf symlinks on servers that lack them." To be correct, I've seen some ResourceLoader (load.php)-related glitches as well. Anyway, it looks like someone else posted about this below (I meant to hit "edit" on the other section but got a little cross-eyed...). --SoledadKabocha (talk) 00:28, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
No. They just accidentally broke the servers. :P—cyberpower ChatOnline 00:31, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I should have thought harder and realized that: 1) the server admin log doesn't necessarily log every user-visible problem, and 2) problems with the secure servers would more likely have caused 502 Bad Gateway. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 00:46, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

404 Error

Wikipedia keeps intermittently failing. What's causing this?—cyberpower ChatOnline 00:16, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Can confirm that I'm currently seeing occasional 404 errors instead of the usual pages. Dl2000 (talk) 00:17, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm getting multiple 404 errors as well. Greengreengreenred 00:20, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
It seems to be fixed now. — nerdfighter 00:23, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
No it's not. There are still 404 errors.—cyberpower ChatOnline 00:27, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
I think things may have gotten a little better in the last few minutes (notice the couple of edits I managed to make in the above section). Did you try hard reloading the affected pages? --SoledadKabocha (talk) 00:29, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
They just accidentally broke the servers and they fixed it now. All is well. And I have my cache disable by default to avoid these things.—cyberpower ChatOnline 00:32, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Seems happy now from this end... now to see if it gets stressed by some edits ... Dl2000 (talk) 00:36, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Technical difficulty with editing ring (mathematics)

  • STATUS - Math-tag cache fixed: Per fix bugzilla:45973, older <math> tags again re-use cache images as 7-second reformat at 16:20, 12 March 2013, but each new formula runs ~0.6 seconds until cached; Special:Preferences "Math" (·) MathJax fails to render in some browsers. Discuss below to optimize reformat by splitting math tags as separate symbols. -Wikid77 06:18/16:56, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi,

I have been experiencing very weird editing difficult with ring (mathematics) for the past few days. At least 2 more editors confirmed the same issue. Basically, I try to submit an edit but then either it times out or I get an error page. Interestingly, the problem is limited to this particular article; not even its talkpage exhibits a problem. Any idea? -- Taku (talk) 01:28, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

It might be the same issue that has been raised above: #Posting to the math reference desk is really slow. —Bkell (talk) 02:04, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
I would say so; there's a huge amount of <math>...</math> going on. It is possible to save edits though, but not every attempt goes through. Here's my technique. Have two browser tabs open, one containing Ring (mathematics) itself, the other containing your contributions page. Make your edit to Ring (mathematics) as usual, and when it times out with "Wikimedia Foundation Error Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem. This is probably temporary and should be fixed soon. Please try again in a few minutes." etc., switch to the other tab and refresh your contributions. If your new edit gets listed, all well and good; but if it doesn't, switch back to the error screen and click the "try again" link. Repeat until it succeeds (as revealed by the contribs page) or you get pissed off. Using this method, this edit went through on second attempt. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:30, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
It's not just maths articles that cause time-outs - myself and a couple of editors are woking on the WP:RDT based User:Optimist on the run/WCML South, which has a large amount of template calls. This has also suffered from time-outs: see disccusions here and here. Has the time-out tolerance changed recently? An optimist on the run!   11:18, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
The WCML South article uses slow template {BS8} (runs only 9 per second), which I am rewriting in Template:BS8/sandbox to run 6-11 seconds faster, so that should avoid any future 60-second timeouts, even when the servers are very slow. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:01, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Timeout is 60 seconds but busy 35 seconds can slow to 61: At many times during a day (mostly Monday-Friday), the busy squid servers can show a long reformat time, of say 37 seconds, into almost double exceeding 61 seconds. In rare cases, the slowdown can be triple slow, where 21-second edit-preview would exceed 60. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:41, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Split/combine related math-tag formulae: For the math-tags, which are rendering, each, in ~0.7 seconds (85 in 60 seconds), I am recommending people to start splitting some related equations into a single math tag, for each symbol, or else combine complex equations perhaps separating the equations by ", or," then also use ", \text{ and }" or something similar. Also, perhaps some equations can be coded with Template:Math, while selecting a font face similar to the math-tag font, or use Template:Bigmath although the font is bigger than math-tag size. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:41, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi. I have noticed a lot of your edits to improve the rendering performance. Thank you very much for that. And thanks also for the insight into the matter. Unfortunately, tuning(?) didn't work or was not enough. My attempted edit timed out, but it still went through. I also noticed Gamma function also exhibits exactly the same issue when I tried to correct an error. (that article also has many formulae.). Clearly, we need a server-side fix. -- Taku (talk) 17:39, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Article "Ring" cut to 19 seconds by splitting equations but not matrices: I was able to reduce article "Ring (mathematics)" from 54 seconds to 19-second reformat time, by splitting small equations into separate math tags for each symbol, as processed over 600-1000 symbols per second, to then run about 105x faster for many of those equations. The current timeouts, for editing that article, are relatively rare now, as the 19-second reformat only rarely slows beyond 60-second busy reformat. However, the 4-x-4 matrix formulae still use the complex math tags, and they still use 2 seconds to render each 3 matrix tags. The separate timings of small expressions (such as "x+y" or "xy" or "Vn") show evidence that those partial symbol groups are re-using cache images, as are some small equations. In one section, I changed 2 complex formulae into 14 symbol math tags, which now run over 105x faster. In conclusion, I am seeing clear evidence that some PNG formula cache images are being reused in many equations, but not all. When I have more time, I will edit article "Gamma function" to be faster. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:37, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
There is a discussion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#User:Wikid77 and "breaking up complex formulas" which does not seem to be happy with these edits which have now been reverted.--Salix (talk): 20:54, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Confirmed reverts slowed 19-second reformat as 54: After several edit-preview sessions, I have confirmed the reverts of the 105x-faster optimized math tags, for separate symbols, have re-slowed the reformat time to 54 seconds, close to the 60-second timeout with "wp:Wikimedia Foundation error" when busy servers. Beware more edit-preview timeouts, pending the fix bugzilla:45973, and try section-based edits to allow partial previews. -Wikid77 06:18, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Math-tag cache fixed but any new formula slow until cached: Per bugzilla:45973, the PNG-cache storage for <math> tags is being improved. However, any new formula is likely to run ~0.6 seconds until cached. In most cases, the wait for the cached PNG symbols is acceptable, but a page could hit a 60-second timeout if adding more than 70 new formula/equation math tags at once, unless previewed (by one edit-preview) to store cache images while editing, or some math-tags were optimized by splitting into simple math-tags around each separate symbol or simple "" group. A formula with common variables (t/x/y/z) is more likely to have pre-stored cache images, than rare variables (w/s/q) which will take longer as needing to store the cached versions after a few minutes. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:56, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Ignoring Wikid77's assertions that this "splitting" is a solution; (it may speed rendering, but it significantly changes spacing and makes editing almost imposible,), how does previewing help. On my computers, no < math> formula appears in preview. Does it render, even if it doesn't appear? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:15, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Formulas do show up in preview for me, and it’s always been like that as far as I can remember. Did you perhaps install some script which does preview locally, such as User:Pilaf/InstaView, or something else that might interfere with preview?—Emil J. 21:10, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Mobile layout not properly rendering with BlackBerry device.

The mobile layout for this site seems have a css overflow: none; and everything is getting cut off and most things are not functioning well if at all. I would be happy to try and upload some screenshots at my first convenience. If this is a duplicate of another discussion, I apologize and please direct me to that discussion as I could not find it on my own. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 20:31, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Is there anyone that can help with this? I can't even use the site with my blackberry anymore. The sections headings are gray and won't let me expand to read, pages run off my screen with no ability to see what is out there (overflow: none;), even my menu runs off the bottom of my screen and I can't edit settings. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:27, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm afraid I can't help, but I can confirm the same problem exists on a different device. Using Kindle 3.4, I also see grey section headings with no content between them. The only part of the page I can read is the lede. Furthermore, the "Desktop" link is missing from the bottom of the page, so I can't get to the normal Wikipedia. Several other links are missing from the bottom too (e.g. there is no link to the licence or disclaimers).
The mobile site works fine if viewed in a full desktop browser (Opera 12.14 on Linux in my case). If I manually modify the URL to force desktop view on the Kindle (remove the m. and append &mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop), it works. I am mildly amused that the full site works better on a mobile device than the site supposedly optimised for mobile devices... – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:34, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
The desktop links are missing from my Blackberry as well, and forcing the desktop using the method you listed above does seem to work better for me as well. I decided to try something, and it seems that the mobile version works slightly better from my Blackberry when I am logged out. I don't understand this because although I did try the beta and "let there be dragons" modes, I have since turned them off and completely cleared my Blackberry's cache and history so forth... Is there any way to force a settings reset for the mobile site here? Are there Special:MyPage/Mobile.css and Special:MyPage/Mobile.js to allow me to toy with those things to fix the problems I am seeing? — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
For the record, I tried the mobile site while logged out (both on the Kindle and in Opera). I just tried logging in, and this didn't make any difference for me. (I'm afraid I don't have a clue if there are personal CSS/JS files for the mobile site. I haven't really used it before; I just tried it on the Kindle out of curiosity.) – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:52, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, so I've done some rooting around on en.wikipedia, and the documentation for the mobile site is lacking to the point that I would say it is missing. I did manage to find MediaWiki:Handheld.css and it doesn't seem to have much on it. I decided to check out the talk page to see if I could ascertain any more information there and was somewhat disappointed to find that it is simply a redirect to MediaWiki_talk:common.css. I also found some raw information on the Extension that drives it at MW:Extension:MobileFrontend. It offered a couple links that I haven't the chance to really read through or research. The first one went to META:Mobile_Projects/Mobile_Gateway#Mobile_homepage which was very brief with a link to META:Mobile_Projects/Mobile_Gateway/Mobile_homepage_formatting for more details. The second one went to MW:MobileFrontend which basically told me that as of 2012-05-03 they'll no longer be updating this project as all general work on MobileFrontend is complete. If anyone knows anything more about it, or can direct me to someplace I can gather more "useful" information to help users configure and be able to view on their device the mobile site, I would appreciate that. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 17:28, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Template include size is too large

The template size limit need to be raised on the Carlos Alberto Parreira article, if all the navboxes that are normal to have on these types of articles is going to work. – Terje Christiansen (talk) 03:41, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

  • Listing 28 navboxes is not normal but data hoarding: There need to be some rules about the excessive use of excessive navboxes in excessive numbers excessively. Meanwhile, the 2-megabyte include-size limit (actually 2,000 kb) provides a reminder that appending 28 boxes to the bottom of a team manager's article, to boxify the name of every major player ever managed, is fanatical wp:data hoarding of wp:UNDUE details in an encyclopedia article. Meanwhile, I have condensed the bottom 14 navboxes into a table of navpages, to reduce the article size by 60%. However, we need an essay, wp:LOCKERROOM, which explains how an encyclopedia article is not a locker room where the names of every related player are stenciled onto boxes which line the entire room, from wall to wall. Perhaps there should be a rule of thumb: when a biography article devotes over 70% of the page naming other people, then the names of the other people have exceeded wp:UNDUE weight by a few hundred too many. Please limit navboxes to just 1 or 2 per article. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:55, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
I would not say that this is excessive, it is just an extreme example. You will find these navboxes on every article about football managers, but this person has managed an unusual amount of clubs. And also he has coached a lot of national teams that have competed in the World Cup, so you get a lot of navboxes about tournament squads as well; these are normal to have, but, again, since he have coached so many clubs you get an unusal amount of boxes. But since this is an extreme example, and not normal at all, I think the limit should be raised exclusively on this article, if possible, so that the boxes works as they are intended. Finally I would like to say that this is the first time I have experienced this problem, and before this article I didn't knew that this could be a problem. And btw, It wasn't me who added these boxes in the first place either, just to make that clear. – Terje Christiansen (talk) 01:07, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

"Move succeeded" page

Hello. Just to suggest that if the "Moved succeeded" page shown after moving a page is in response to a template move, the bullet points in the "Please clean up after your move" box include something like:

Apologies if this not a suitable place to make this post.

CsDix (talk) 05:04, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, since the "proper" place Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages was closed a month ago today (see here), it ought to be discussed at the talkpage for the message. But of course not everybody knows which message is involved (here, it's MediaWiki talk:Movepage-moved) and few of the MediaWiki talk: pages have many watchers, so VPT is as good a place as any to notify others. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:16, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

API Bug

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T48070

When testing the new createaccount function on the API, I send it the necessary post commands, it creates the account, and returns nothing effectively stalling the program. Is this an issue with the API? When I run other requests using POST to the API, it returns results.—cyberpower ChatOffline 15:15, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Nevermind. The test wiki API just takes forever to process and reply to the query.—cyberpower ChatOnline 19:18, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Traffic statistics

Just wondering if it is possible that a bot/virus could be responsible for the recent dramatic and sustained increase in the London article's traffic statistics. The spike since 2013 started seems odd. I have no doubt that the increase could be real, but I'm just wondering if Wikipedia checks for this kind of thing. Thanks, Castncoot (talk) 00:29, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Where are you seeing a dramatic increase? I see a minor increase at http://stats.grok.se/en/latest90/London. Wikipedia has generally increasing traffic so a minor increase is nothing unusual. Here is what a dramatic increase looks like: http://stats.grok.se/en/201006/initial. Stats like that strongly indicate non-human page views, for example a bug causing some software to request a page repeatedly. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:14, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Automatic RFC linking should be disabled

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T12626

There's an extremely old feature in MediaWiki (so old, in fact, that it was inherited from the first engine we used for Wikipedia, UseModWiki) that any mentions of RFCs (link fixed, thanks PrimeHunter) are automatically displayed as hyperlinks. For example, when I type RFC 1149 I get the external link you see here. This behavior contradicts the first sentence of WP:EL by unnecessarily causing external links to be displayed in article body text.

This feature was useful before we had formatted citations, a style guide and conventions for the proper placement of links in articles, but those days are long gone. So, I propose that we switch it off. — Hex (❝?!❞) 17:30, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Related info from last month's VPT archive: RFC "magic links" have been a MediaWiki feature since 2004. Documented at Help:Magic#RFC, Help:Link#ISBN, RFC and PMID automatic links and mw:Manual:RFC. The decision to implement special links for RFCs probably reflects the greater significance that IETF and RFCs had at that time among typical internet users and Wikipedia editors. — Richardguk (talk) 20:07, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
You know, I was considering mentioning that but decided to keep it to stylistic reasons? :) It's true, though, there was a big bias towards techies in those days. — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:19, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
RFCs in the original post is a disambiguation page. The meaning here is Request for Comments (not the Wikipedia process). bugzilla:10626 "RFC links should not be generated from plaintext" was closed as WONTFIX in 2007. RFC is also an interwiki prefix so RFC:1149 gives an easy way to make a link without the automatic feature. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:25, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
That was nearly six years ago. It might be worth reopening it now; a "good reason to remove the feature" has been provided by Hex in that it violates WP:EL. jcgoble3 (talk) 20:36, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
All sounds sensible. Should the proposal extend to the other two magiclink words (ISBN and PMID)? They are similarly anomalous and none of them can be localised at present (though the destination link roots can be). I'm sure the consensus would be to retain ISBN linking, as the book sources are so useful and fit better with current reader expectations than the more obscure RFC (they are also mainly confined to footnotes). And a PubMed ID (PMID) is more likely to be used as a footnote like an ISBN. So it seems that it is only RFC magiclinking which has a strong case for being removed on enwiki.
The relevant code is in Parser::doMagicLinks(). A developer would need to amend the code to allow enwiki to opt out. The flexibility to prevent links (or possibly to localise the words) would be of even greater benefit to wikis in other languages or covering unrelated content.
— Richardguk (talk) 00:36, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for finding the bug, PrimeHunter. Reopening it seems like a timely idea, as Jonathan notes. Good catch - having an interwiki prefix means this feature is now provably redundant.
Richard: I agree about not widening this to ISBN and PMID. Those two are very unlikely to occur in article body text. — Hex (❝?!❞) 10:23, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
PMID agreed, ISBN less so. For example, I've seen quite a few wikipedia pages about Authors (For example, Isaac Asimov) where there are bibliography lists that include ISBN numbers.Naraht (talk) 15:31, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Hmm, not a use case I'd encountered. (I'm not sure if they should actually be listed like that at all; it's awfully messy. I would expect to find an ISBN in an article about the book it belongs to. In other words, the "notability" of an ISBN is that of its book.) ISBNs link to Special:BookSources, though, which is at least not external. — Hex (❝?!❞) 17:09, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
There was also a similar proposal on Portuguese Wikipedia. Helder 19:30, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Based on the lack of objections I've reopened Bugzilla:10626. — Hex (❝?!❞) 13:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

i do not think this is a good idea. this bug calls for removal of magic links feature, which will create a serious regression on tens of thousands of sites based on mediawiki platform. i can't imagine the developers doing such a thing, and of course, i believe that if they will, it will be a serious mistake. i did open Bugzilla:45942, calling for gating "magic links" by a configuration variable (aka "Defaultsettings/LocalSettings"). if this will be accepted and fixed, enwiki will be able to ask for a removal of magic links locally, without affecting any other wiki. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 13:59, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Sounds good. — Hex (❝?!❞) 09:10, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Template coloring

I am using the {{In creation}} template on another wiki. When this template is used n Wikipedia, the template infobox has a border and a grey background. In other words, it doesn't look any different when transcluded than it does on its own page. On my wiki, however, it lacks the border and grey background and does not look the way it does on its template page.

How does Wikipedia get this template to look identical when transcluded as it does on its own template page? RiverStyx23{submarinetarget} 02:03, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Are you sure it is exactly the same template? Templates are generally local files, the wiki you are on might have a different or outdated version. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:15, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
{{In creation}} uses {{Mbox}}, which uses {{Namespace detect}}. Hope that helps. nagualdesign (talk) 02:19, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
It uses other templates, and ombox and mbox classes in MediaWiki:Common.css. Please give a link to the template at the wiki you mention so we can see what happens. The corresponding code in MediaWiki:Common.css can be copied to the wiki by an administrator there, or the template can be changed to not use the CSS classes. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:22, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't want to post he link here but will send it my by email to Nagualdesign and PrimeHunter if they have email enabled. RiverStyx23{submarinetarget} 02:26, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
I got the mail. It's not a Wikimedia wiki so the question doesn't belong here. The wiki doesn't allow anonymous editing or account creation so I cannot test saving, previewing or personal CSS. The wiki doesn't have Special:ExpandTemplates and it doesn't use the same MediaWiki version. I'm not going to request an account or spend more time tracking this down. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:51, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @submarine: presumably you have "importer" permission on your wiki. if this is the case, the best thing for you, IMO, is to use Special:Export, mark the "Include templates" box, enter "Template:In creation" in the box, and press "export". this will create a local XML file on your computer containing almost all you need. then you can import this file onto your wiki, and voila! you are (almost) done. the only thing missing is a small number of classes from Mediawiki:Common.css. you can try to locate them and pick them up individually, or you can say "what the heck" and take the whole page (if my guess that you might want to import more stuff from enwiki in the future is correct, you may save yourself the bother and just take the whole thing, hook, line and sinker). peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 03:02, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
@PrimeHunter: The question I asked was how Wikipedia carries the template coloring through to the pages on which the wiki is translated.
@קיפודנחש|קיפודנחש: I did all that. In fact I had the entire ombox section of Wikipedia's Common.css in my own wiki and it made no difference. So I'm left with my original question: How does Wikipedia do this? If someone could give me the specifics on that then I can find out what's going on and correct it, hopefully without further ado. Thanks to all. RiverStyx23{submarinetarget} 23:51, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia doesn't do anything to achieve this. That's how templates are supposed to work automatically. You transclude them and get the same result as the template page. Something different is happening at your wiki for unknown reasons we would have to investigate, but you haven't given us the means to investigate. And the top of this page says: The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:24, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I think I "might" know what "part" of the problem might be. {{In creation}} has an argument "|css=" that doesn't exist in {{Mbox}}. It should be changed to "|class=" I believe. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 13:29, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you Technical_13. The wiki is publicly viewable now. In any case changing | css = margin: 1px to | class = margin: 1px didn't help. Giving the matter a little more thought, however, I added a line | class = ombox and that did the trick!

Thank you for klewing me in. RiverStyx23{submarinetarget} 17:21, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Stylesheets, security certificates, etc.

Anyone else having trouble loading CSS? I've logged out and back in, emptied cache, cleared cookies, switched from Monobook to Vector, and even closed my eyes and prayed to the Wikideity, but all to no avail. Running my usual antiquated version of Safari. Things look normal enough in Firefox, Opera, and SeaMonkey, but I'd almost rather be keelhauled than edit in any of those browsers. All other web sites I've checked load normally in Safari, so I don't think the problem is entirely on my end. Rivertorch (talk) 05:21, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Added: The problem is not happening if I use the non-secure http protocol, if that helps any. Rivertorch (talk) 05:52, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Seriously, no one else is having this problem? Rivertorch (talk) 09:41, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Are you perchance having your issues with the mobile version of the site? If so, you may want to read over Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Kindle_problem_reported_to_OTRS and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Mobile_layout_not_properly_rendering_with_BlackBerry_device. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 14:29, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
No, this is on a desktop Mac. I've made no changes in my settings, downloaded no new software or updates, and cannot explain it. Everything was as always when I logged out, then I logged in a few hours later and suddenly everything is screwed. Wikipedia is now unusable on Safari if do a secure login. One other thing: when I attempt such a login, I've begun getting a dialog box informing me that "Safari can't verify the identity of the website en.wikipedia.org"—this although when I check the certificate it's still valid and doesn't expire until 2016. I have the feeling that this last point should shed some light on the problem, and I'd be very grateful if someone who knows would take the time to respond. I've reconfigured my Opera for Wikipedia browsing, but I'm really hating it. Btw, I've checked out multiple secure pages on other sites, and Safari displays them all normally and doesn't warn me about certificates. On the one other site (Lycos) where I have seen such a warning (and have for years), style sheets work fine and everything displays normally. Rivertorch (talk) 18:44, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
And whatever the problem was, it's magically gone. Everything is normal again. It would be great to know what caused it, but I'm confident that even if I was the only one affected it wasn't on my end. Rivertorch (talk) 04:48, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

New pages feed problem

If you go to Special:NewPagesFeed, sort by oldest and unreviewed, Adam and Eve is listed as unreviewed from 2001. Clicking on the "Review" button takes you to the page but you can't mark it as reviewed. Obviously this page has been reviewed since it was made, probably many times over. Can we get this error fixed? ToastyMallows (talk) 14:27, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

This question has been answered at Wikipedia_talk:Page_Curation#Weird_inclusion_in_feed_list. --Ushau97 talk contribs 06:19, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
FWIW, I've replied with a link to a more detailed explanation. Graham87 09:33, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
So this is just stuck there now? That's all I'm gathering from the other discussions. Like I said there's no way to mark it reviewed. ToastyMallows (talk) 12:29, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Make a mirror of Wikimedia Foundation project servers

I propose to do this in order to increae data security - there may be a fire, a flood or a tornado in the USA so it is better to have a copy of this great cultural object of ours. Nikolay95 (talk) 05:28, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure at least one redundant one exists, already. --Yair rand (talk) 05:51, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Wikimedia has two data centers (in Tampa and in Ashburn) since January 2013, so there is some redundancy. See this blog entry for more information. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:45, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
That is interesting to me as I had thought that WMF lived in the cloud. Learn new stuff every day I guess — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 13:19, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:Database download there is information about how to download copies of the public information (page content, category records, etc.). The main difficulty is with images, because of the amount of storage and bandwidth required to copy them. There are multiple datacenters that have copies of the images, but it is harder to copy them all yourself. The page content is easy to download, particularly if you only need the latest version. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:32, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I meant creating an official WMF reserve data center, which would be protected against disasters, hooligans and criminals. --Николай95 (talk) 17:54, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

As an ops person, I would love another datacenter! We also need to bring content closer to many users so geographically diverse datacenters are a great thing! However we currently have backups of all critical information so we don't need this for redundancy reasons. Also budgetary constraints are preventing us from opening all the datacenters I would like (Solution.... donate please!!) LeslieCarr (talk) 18:30, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Requested deletion

I would like User:Wiki ian/mass rollback.js and User:Wiki ian/huggle.css deleted. I have no use for these tools and the speedy delete templates don't work. Wiki ian 13:27, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

 Done--Salix (talk): 13:36, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
For future reference, speedy deletion templates do work on JS and CSS pages in that the page will show up on the appropriate category page. They just don't display the template or show the category at the bottom of the page. I don't know if the same is true of Module: pages, though. jcgoble3 (talk) 19:33, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
No, they will not work on module pages. But you could place it (wrapped in <includeonly>...</includeonly> tags) on the module's doc page, where it will do what you want. Anomie⚔ 01:10, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Schönhaus vs. Schonhaus as reference names

In the article Franz Kaufmann I was combining citation references:

<ref name=Schönhaus>{{cite book |last=Schönhaus |first=Cioma |title=The Forger |publisher=Grant Books |year=2004 |isbn=}}</ref> and <ref name=Schönhaus>.

When previewing the page I got the error message: Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; references with no content must have a name. See the help page. If I changed the name=Schönhaus to name=Schonhaus, no error and everything works as it should. This is a bug?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:33, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Names for footnotes and groups must follow these rules:

  • Names are case-sensitive. Please do not use raNdOM capitalization.
  • Names must not be purely numeric; the software will accept something like ":31337" (which is punctuation plus a number), but it will ignore "31337" (purely numeric).
  • Names should have semantic value, so that they can be more easily distinguished from each other by human editors who are looking at the wikitext. This means that ref names like "Nguyen 2010" are preferred to names like ":31337".
  • Names must be unique. You may not use the same name to define different groups or footnotes. Try to avoid picking a name that someone else is likely to choose for a new citation, such as ":0" or "NYT".
  • Please consider keeping reference names short, simple, and restricted to the standard English alphabet and numerals. If spaces are used, the following technical restrictions become relevant:
    • Quotation marks are preferred but optional if the only characters used are letters A–Z, a–z, digits 0–9, and the symbols !$%&()*,-.:;<@[]^_`{|}~. That is, all printable ASCII characters except #"'/=<>?\ and space.
    • Inclusion of any other characters, including spaces, requires that the reference name be enclosed in quotes; for example, name="John Smith". But quote-enclosed reference names may not include a less-than sign (<) or a double straight quote symbol ("), which may however be included by escaping as &lt; and &quot; respectively.
    • The quote marks must be the standard, straight, double quotation marks ("); curly or other quotes will be parsed as part of the reference name.
  • You may optionally provide reference names even when the reference name is not required. This makes later re-use of the sourced reference easier.

From Help:Footnotes. Thus, you need to use "Schönhaus" as the ref name. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 14:42, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Of course. Thanks. I'm not always an idiot ...
—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:57, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
It is not obvious, and it took me a while to formulate the rules after a lot of testing. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 15:12, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Pages with missing references list

Category:Pages with missing references list has a number of files in it that seem odd. Loveeeeeee Song, Rize of the Fenix, and Rico Love, for example. No visible cite errors, and the pages themselves don't claim to be in the category. It's been pointed out that a number of the files that are there have recently been edited by Chartbot (talk · contribs), but a lot of files have recently been edited by Chartbot (talk · contribs), and I can't put together a cause-and-effect relationship.—Kww(talk) 15:04, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Looks like a minor bug, probably someone added a ref to a template or something and then removed it, should be fixed by the job queue or if needed a null edit should do it. Werieth (talk) 15:08, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Purging the page and the category doesn't clear it.—Kww(talk) 15:19, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Purge != null edit see WP:NULL Werieth (talk) 15:21, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Learn something new every day. That did it.—Kww(talk) 15:37, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
The category page has "This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more)" Which links to the FAQ on this. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 16:26, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
It was the purge/null subtlety that I had missed.—Kww(talk) 16:44, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

<span class="anchor" id="{{Infobox book}}">

Feedback watchlist changes

I've just found my article feedback watchlist has undergone some major changes. There appear to be some extra links on the page (the links still do nothing without scripts).

Furthermore, the meaning of ?filter=comment has changed; I now need to add ?filter=allcomment to the URL to get a similar effect to the old ?filter=comment.

Also notable is that all feedback on non-mainspace pages has disappeared. Has this been deleted? Or is there some other URL parameter that needs to be added to browse feedback for non-mainspace? I've tried namespace= and ns=, but neither seems to have any effect.

There also seem to be some missing interface translations, since there is a lot of text like "<articlefeedbackv5-special-filter-unreviewed-watchlist>" now appears. If any admins are interested in creating the missing translations (at least until the developers add default translations to MediaWiki itself), the MediaWiki-namespace pages are:

– PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 00:19, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Since all of the above are no longer red links, it seems the developers have already fixed the translations. Regarding my other comments, I've started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article Feedback Tool/Version 5#Feedback watchlist changes, since that seems to be the more appropriate place for this. Please comment there if you have any answers or other comments. Thank you. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 00:43, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

The default message above my watchlist. Can I modify it?

Right now, the default message above my watchlist is "Editors are invited to comment on a proposal to start a new sister project to take over the WebCite archiving service used to archive citations on Wikipedia." What is this type of notice called and where is it located? I would like to customize this message. Right now, I'm curious how many peer reviews have yet to receive any feedback. Maybe another day I might want to change it to see how many articles are in Category:Articles needing additional medical references. Can this be done? Biosthmors (talk) 19:14, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

This is a notice for all users coming from MediaWiki:Watchlist-details. See WP:WLN for details.—Emil J. 19:29, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. Is there any way for users to add something they care about into that box, that only they see? Or is there another similar way to put something up at the top of one's watchlist? Biosthmors (talk) 19:08, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
The answer is yes, but it is not pretty and requires css and/or javascript to make it work... So, what did you have in mind, and is it really worth it to you? — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 20:57, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Well ideally I'd like for it to be a preference so that anyone could pick a Wikipedia:Backlog they'd like to keep track of and manage it a bit. So I think it's worth it to Wikipedia much more than it is to just me. How might we get that feature enabled in the preferences? Biosthmors (talk) 21:02, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Also the messy version could be shared with WikiProject Medicine participants and we could pick something like Category:Medicine articles needing expert attention to display. Biosthmors (talk) 21:07, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Or is there a way to put it above the MediaWiki:Watchlist-details/WP:WLN box that doesn't require css/javascript? Biosthmors (talk) 16:32, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Most wanted/missed articles by Wikiproject/country

I wonder if it would be possible to obtain a list of Wikipedia:Most wanted articles or Wikipedia:Most missed articles but filtered by articles related to a WikiProject/country? I'd be happy, for example, to take a stab at whatever the most wanted/missed Poland-related articles are, if I only knew what they were. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:48, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that an article actually must already exist for a WikiProject to place their tag on it. Probably your best option would be to ask at WT:WikiProject Poland. - Roger (talk) 10:35, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Roger, I am asking as a representative of WT:POLAND; as far as we know, we don't have any tools or skills to generate such a list. We want to learn how to do it, or ask for someone to do it for us if it involves more than a simple request somewhere (we don't have any coders). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 12:34, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
I suspect this might be possible in a limited fashion by looking at the pages which are tagged as being within a particular WikiProject and seeing which red links exist for those pages, and counting the instances of each. I would imagine that would be an expensive query though. You should ask for comment on the question at WP:DBR. --Izno (talk) 12:16, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
WP:POLAND is pretty good at using our talk page templates. I'll check the DBR page you mention. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 12:34, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Someone was nice enough to create Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Red_links recently, so that might be what you were looking for. While helpful (after excluding templates), it wasn't as helpful to WikiProject Medicine editors as I had hoped. This depends upon how well red links are placed, and I don't thing we do a good job of that as a whole. Biosthmors (talk) 16:37, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll drop him a note. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:48, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be possible to do a study (through Wikidata I suppose) of which articles on the Polish Wikipedia that doesn't have en-wiki equivalents, and then sorted via (Polish Wikipedia) article traffic statistics? --Saddhiyama (talk) 16:45, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

It's a cool idea, but how to do it? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:48, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

{{Infobox book}}

I would like to modify this template to identify and track articles where the cover/image is missing or empty. I think the easiest method would be to just add a parser function that adds a category if there is not a file, but since the template is widely used and protected I thought I would bring the idea here. Werieth (talk) 17:01, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

You can edit {{Infobox_book/sandbox}} then test it on {{Infobox_book/testcases}} page then propose the change on the talk page of the template using {{editprotected}} template. Ruslik_Zero 18:55, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I also don't really understand/write the mystery that is template code, especially now that lua has been introduced. Werieth (talk) 19:01, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Lua isn't compulsory. You can continue to write templates the traditional way; you just need to be aware that if you see code that looks like {{#invoke: xxxx }} then there is some Lua going on, so be careful not to remove it by accident. Anyway, the sandbox/testcases stuff is described at WP:TESTCASES. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:39, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I would be happy to help because I approve of this project:

What you basically want to do is have the following added someplace on the template: 

{{#if:{{{image|}}}|{{#ifeq:{{{image}}}||[[Category:Books with missing cover]]}}|[[Category:Books with missing cover]]}}

What that says is: IF the image argument exists, check to see if it is an empty space. IF it is an empty space, categorize it. IF it doesn't exist at all, categorize it. Good luck! — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:52, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Not sure how that would work with the existing code
| image        = {{#if:{{Hide if placeholder image|{{{image|}}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{Str left | {{{image|}}} | 1 }}|[|{{{image|}}}[[Category:Infobox book image param needs updating]]|[[File:{{{image}}}|{{px|{{{image_size|}}}|frameless}}|alt={{{alt|}}}|{{#ifeq:{{{border|}}}|yes|border}}]]}}}}
Werieth (talk) 13:34, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Maybe like this:
|image = {{#if:{{{image|}}}|{{#ifeq:{{{image}}}||[[Category:Books with missing cover]]|{{#if:{{Hide if placeholder image|{{{image|}}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{Str left | {{{image|}}} | 1 }}|[|{{{image|}}}[[Category:Infobox book image param needs updating]]|[[File:{{{image}}}|{{px|{{{image_size|}}}|frameless}}|alt={{{alt|}}}|{{#ifeq:{{{border|}}}|yes|border}}]]}}}}}}|[[Category:Books with missing cover]]}}
— T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 14:11, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Ghost articles

Having a problem that requires some attention. The situation is that ever since last September, there are 43 titles that have been permanently stuck on the Uncategorized Articles list at the Toolserver, even though most of them are in fact titles that were deleted a few weeks before the period that they started showing up — although a couple of them are articles which do exist and are properly categorized, and one of them is a redirect. Nothing I can do — recreating the articles, redeleting them again, creating dummy pages that are filed in Category:Temporary maintenance holdings, adding extra categories to the pages that do exist, etc. — makes the articles drop at all, and even the tool's maintainer hasn't been able to do anything to get them off either.

The problem appears to be somewhere in Wikipedia's database, and therefore outside of toolserver's control — but it needs to be fixed as soon as possible, because it's been interfering with the proper use of the tool for seven full months now. Several of the non-existent articles have in fact been accidentally recreated at least once since last September because somebody ran a bot to autotag the list for categorization (which is something people should be able to do, but can't as long as this issue isn't resolved.)

The affected titles are as follows:

  1. Deleted articles: Ajk college, Alice Chesley, Application to electrical networks, Audesi, Bab-e-khyber, Basic Skill Charter Mark, Basic definitions and background, Cactuq, Computer Assisted Farming System, Costarrica's Next Top Model, Top Boy, Costarrica's Next Top Model, Top Boy, Cycle 1, Costarrica's Next Top Model, Top Boy, Cycle 2, David Munir, Demonstrating Size (dimension), Effective resistances and Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator, Giorgos Litsas, Illuminati NSA Web Hoax, Jorge Luke, Kamal Al Hajj, Lawrence Huang, List of Presidents of Polytechnic, Luxury Lounge FM, National Distance Learning Week, On determinant identities, Otago Country R.F.U., Project string game, Redland Liedertafel, Shawnee rivera, ShiningHub.com, St.Michael, Yorktown, Stathis tsevas, TEEKARMAFI, Tamika newhouse, The square root of the minus Laplacian, Thomas Lacey, Torreslfchero/common.css, Up against, Vincotto Salentino, Ziad abdeen.
  2. Legitimate articles which are properly categorized: List of mayors of Naranjito, Puerto Rico, Terminal Bliss, Varun Grover.
  3. Legitimate redirect: Prarie Point, Texas.

I'm willing to repost my request elsewhere if there's a better venue for it than here, but if it isn't resolved to my satisfaction within a reasonable amount of time I will need to make the request again as many times as it takes to get it resolved — because it requires some kind of solution, and is not a trivial issue that the categorization project should just learn to live with. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 04:36, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

The toolserver has some known data corruption issues with their copy of enwiki. The roots are in the process of re-importing a non-broken copy, that process started about 12 hours ago, and they have two servers with enwiki so give it a few weeks and if you are still having these issues we can revisit the situation. Werieth (talk) 12:38, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Okay, fair enough — I was going to give it a few weeks anyway, so as long as I know that an attempt is currently underway I'll just keep an eye on it for now. Bearcat (talk) 18:30, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Over Transclusions of template

Hi All, look at the bottom of this page, template used in list dosent translude all rows of list, and in preview mode a warning message prompted

Warning: Template include size is too large. Some templates will not be included.

How to fix it, so that the template transcludes all rows of list? Muhammad Shuaib (talk) 12:05, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I added a colon before your interlanguage link so it works. See Wikipedia:Template limits#Post-expand include size. Without knowing Urdu it's hard to give specific suggestions on how to reduce the post-expand include size in your case. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:19, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, so the first thing you do when you get this error is look at the source for the page. When that loads, you search for "NewPP limit report"... What you want to see is the comment near the bottom of the page that looks like: 

<!-- 
NewPP limit report
Preprocessor visited node count: 59968/1000000
Preprocessor generated node count: 27278/1500000
Post-expand include size: 2047999/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 227075/2048000 bytes
Highest expansion depth: 7/40
Expensive parser function count: 500/500
-->

⇑ This is the comment section from the page you linked. As you can see, you have reached the max of "Expensive parser function count: 500/500." Expensive parser functions include:

Without being able to read your language or have any clue what your symbols mean, this is all of the help I can offer and hope that it points you in the right direction or at least gives you enough information to give me some more details and ask new questions. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:25, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to All, I have changed the template script and bug ressolved. :) Muhammad Shuaib (talk) 12:58, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Related changes view both talk and article

How do you view the related changes for both talk and article namespaces for a category such as Category:Low-importance medicine articles. Smallman12q (talk) 12:24, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that is possible. If there is a limited number of fixed articles of interest to you then you can make a user subpage and link both article and talk page there, for example using {{la2}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:00, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I've found that there are many VERY long pages on Wikipedia. Would it be possible to add a link to the bottom of every page to be able to quickly navigate back to the top or even better, to the TOC if one exists? Perhaps something could be added to one of the MediaWiki: pages like MediaWiki:Lastmodifiedat to add Return to top before the last edited? Maybe someone else has an even more elegant idea? — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • View signature as intended) 12:43, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I've found that Home works very nicely for that with the added benefit of not adding another link to the browser's back button.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:40, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
For some reason "shortcut" keys have never worked for me. :( — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • View signature as intended) 13:52, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Template:ArbitrationCommitteeChart

I do not understand the timeline syntax but I would love to see another version of this, with a breakdown of arbs on the side, and date across the top. with bars filling it in when they where serving. (some arbs would have multiple bars). Who do I need to bribe to get this done? :) Werieth (talk) 12:47, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

If I understand your request, you want one really tall chart, each arb having their own line? Given the syntax for the template, I think it would take a good deal of work to achieve, around as much as starting from scratch. Monty845 13:17, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Correct, right now it is almost impossible to track a users time on arbcom. Werieth (talk) 13:35, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
If you can offer me what one line of this table/list would look like, I can make you a template to do that. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 13:53, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Something like:

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
John Doe f f f
jane Doe

That is the visual layout, but using the timeline extension. Where F is a bar Werieth (talk) 14:21, 15 March 2013 (UTC) See Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/History#Former_members NE Ent 18:24, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Showing file uses when previewing file page in edit mode

Is there a tool or something to have the file uses shown in preview when editing a file page? If not, could this easily be implemented? -- Toshio Yamaguchi 18:44, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Your question is confusing to me. What do you mean by "file uses"? Are you referring to a "What links here"? — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • View signature as intended) 18:47, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
When viewing a page in the file namespace in Read mode, there is a section at the bottom called File usage. When I view the page in Edit mode, this section is no longer visible. I preferred if the section File usage were visible in Edit mode as well after hitting Show preview. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 18:55, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Okay, so you are talking about a "What links here" section. The reason that disappears when editing is because when you edit a file page on a WMF site, you are editing the "Summary" and "Licensing" sections only. Your request would have to be submitted as a request on bugzilla.wikimedia.org if one doesn't already exist. Good luck! — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • View signature as intended) 19:32, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

PRODs not expiring

See Category:Proposed deletion as of 1 March 2013 which has 28 articles - despite more than 7 days passing, none have 'expired' (Category:Expired proposed deletions is empty) - why would this be? GiantSnowman 19:11, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Joe's Null Bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) is supposed to take care of this, but may have failed (and due to the nature of the bot, we can't tell if it has failed because it never edits). In the meantime I have manually performed a forcelinkupdate purge for both the March 1 and March 2 categories via the API sandbox. jcgoble3 (talk) 20:18, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks - but this is by no means a new problem. I have seen it for as long as I can remember. GiantSnowman 21:24, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
I have forcelinkupdate-purged all articles in both the March 3 and March 4 categories. jcgoble3 (talk) 03:06, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
March 5, 6, and 7 categories have been special-purged. jcgoble3 (talk) 19:44, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
March 8 and 9 categories purged. jcgoble3 (talk) 19:22, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


Way after the fact -- Joe's Null Bot is only handling BLPPROD categories, the bot was never authorized for the rest of 'em, and in fact, I'm not sure I knew there was a problem with 'em, as PROD and BLPPROD have different template behaviors and misbehaviors. --j⚛e deckertalk 18:15, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Lua performance

I've added some tests of Lua performance to User:Dragons flight/Lua performance.

The bottom line is that Lua is significantly faster than template coding in many use cases. For the important case of citation templates, the pending deployment of Module:Citation/CS1 should reduce the time required to render citations by about 80% while maintaining all of the existing formatting options. So, for example, 300 full citations can be rendered in 3.5 seconds rather than 18 seconds. Lua is good and should ultimately make Wikipedia considerably more responsive for editors as many of the slow templates get upgraded. Dragons flight (talk) 16:52, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Very interesting. I wonder if 5 trials is enough, but it would take someone who actually remembers anything about statistics to answer that. Anomie⚔ 17:54, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Randomly selected, that's usually the absolute minimum (from memory). With a population the size we have, probably not particularly representative, however. --Izno (talk) 17:58, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Based on the variance among the five tests, the standard error on the mean time per iteration is generally about 5-15%. For the purposes of this discussion, I would say that is fine. Dragons flight (talk) 18:06, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Long-term speed comparisons of wp:CS1 cite templates: Because the speed of the wp:CS1 cite templates has been studied (and hotly debated) for years, there are some solid speed statistics. Recall that other cite styles, such as Vancouver cites in Template:Vcite, have been 5x-7x faster than wp:CS1 cite templates (which use Template:Citation/core). Also, I have run hundreds of benchmarking tests (which should satisfy concerns about sample size). These are the speed comparisons:
  • {Cite_*} with COinS metadata: 14/second
  • {Cite_*} without COinS data: 20/second
  • {Cite_*/lua} with COinS back: 115/second
Because the current markup-based cites omit the COinS metadata, they are running about 20/second, so the Lua-based cites will be about 6x faster (but re-add COinS data into formatted articles). However, from the debates of 2010-2012, when the CS1 cites contained the formatted COinS metadata, the speed was only 14/second, while Lua will be over 8x faster than those old days. The amazing thing about running so quickly is to gain the "efficiency dividend" which avoids the double-slow server effect. Specifically, many times each day, a busy server often delays markup-based templates to run 2x slower (rarely over 3x slower). Hence, an article with "21" seconds of cite templates would slow to ~42 seconds of edit-preview, on 2x busy servers, and when very busy (3x), the 21 seconds would drag to need over 63 seconds, then hit the 60-second timeout as "wp:Wikimedia Foundation error" (often Monday-Friday). With the efficiency dividend of faster templates, then the 3-second cites could slow to 6-second edit-preview, but even 3x slower is only a 9-second reformat and cannot reach the 60-second timeout. Meanwhile, Lua seems to resist the 2x or 3x slower effects, because a Lua-based template only slows by perhaps 20% (not 200%) on busy servers, while markup uses the NewPP parser to process those templates and risks the common 2x-slower performance. Thus the efficiency dividend of Lua is even better than optimized markup templates. Overall, I would estimate 350 Lua citations to typically run within 3-3.6 seconds, while the non-COinS, markup-based citations run 18-35 seconds (rarely 60-second timeout). Thus, with very slow servers, then wp:CS1 Lua cites could run beyond 17x times faster than markup-based cites and never (hopefully) get a timeout error. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:46, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Sudden slowness

Has page loading, particularly when previewing or saving a page, suddenly gotten very slow for anyone else? - The Bushranger One ping only 23:21, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, me too, especially when going to my watchlist, page edit histories, or saving an edit. It's happening for both the regular server and the secure server. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:28, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
It's better for me now. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:50, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Something bad happened around that time. It affected Wikivoyage too. But both sites have been fairly slow for a day or so. Nurg (talk) 01:33, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
Going very slow right now. Nurg (talk) 22:55, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Getting byte deltas with usercontribs API

To experiment with the API I'm making my own version of "Contributions". I query "usercontribs" to get most of the info. But what about the byte count deltas? I think I could get them by making 2 calls per page to get the "size" of the revision and it's parent. But that is a lot of calls. Right now I can get 500 contributions in one call, but that would be 1000 more calls just to get the byte deltas. Is there a faster way to get everything needed in one call? I have never used the API before, so I'm not at all familiar with it. Silas Ropac (talk) 02:01, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Set ucprop=sizediff. MER-C 03:50, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks works perfectly. But where is it documented? I was looking at mediawiki's API docs, and it is not there. Are there docs which are more specifically for wikipedia? Thanks. Silas Ropac (talk) 12:05, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
If you go to the API endpoint without specifying any parameters (or if you use action=help), like this for example, the API will produce some automatically-generated help text that is more comprehensive (but less explanatory) than the documentation at mw:API. Please feel free to update the mw:API documentation. Anomie⚔ 14:04, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
For experimenting and occasional manual queries, there's also the much more user-friendly API sandbox. jcgoble3 (talk) 19:10, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
Cool I like the self-help from the API and also the sandbox. And here I am reading the manual, what a chump. The docs for ucprop were missing a few parameters: parsedcomment, size, sizediff, and tags. I added them all here. Silas Ropac (talk) 02:04, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Lua text problems with wikitables and nowiki tags

With no other place to discuss text strings as used in Lua script, I am worried about "bugs" in Lua chopping text which contains wikitables, either with "{|" tokens or with "<table>" tags. While I have been able to use Lua to scan entire articles (with expansion of all infoboxes, span-tags, {convert}'s, category links, and navboxes), but unless every wikitable is commented-out by "<!--...-->" or noinclude'd, then Lua's view of the article contents stops at the first wikitable. That action seems like a bug, where Lua should allow all article-page data into a text string. Also, Lua cannot see inside a nowiki tag (nor inside a "<pre>" tag), which always has length 43 characters, and never reveals any contents between "<nowiki>...</nowiki>" but only text before/after nowiki tags. I wonder if we need a new tag for literal text, such as "<literal>...</literal>". These are complex issues, and we need to discuss them in another long page. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:21, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

you should be more specific. either point to a (preferably short) module that demonstrate the issue, or post a snippet. as it is, it is difficult to say whether this should be classified as <As designed>, bug in one of the functions (surely it has nothing to do with the lua language itself - i guess you use some mw.XXXX() or title.XXXX() method), or bug in your code.
ideally you should post a very short snippet, "what i expected to see", and "what i saw". peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 09:27, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Example of <table>: Seems to work now. Compare the effect of "<table>" with the Lua-based Template:Str_find in searching the whole string length:
  • {str_find|123456789012|78} → 7
  • {str_find|123456789012|90} → 9
  • {str_find|1234<table><tr><td>5678</td></tr></table>9012|78} → 22
  • {str_find|1234<table><tr><td>5678</td></tr></table>9012|90} → 42
  • {str_find|12345<span>67890</span>12|78} → 13
Using the "<table>" tag formerly stopped the string. Also, inserting a wikitable "{|" in column 1 would produce a similar effect (since "{|" generates a "<table>" tag). However it seems correct now in this example. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:25, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Example of <nowiki>: Compare the effect of "<nowiki>" with the Lua-based Template:Str_len in getting the whole string length:
  • Nw1: {str_len|123456789012} → 12
  • Nw2: {str_len|1234<nowiki>5678</nowiki>9012} → 42
  • Nw3: {str_len|1234<nowiki>567890</nowiki>12} → 40
Using the "<nowiki>" tag hides the text but counts as +43 characters. So, for the case Nw2, the length is 4+43+4=51, and Nw3 yielded 4+43+2=49 long. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:25, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
The mw.text.unstrip function at the Lua reference manual (which is not yet live) may be of help with the nowiki tags. (also see T47085) -- WOSlinker (talk) 11:22, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Repeated in talk-page of new essay: I have created a new Lua essay where the talk-page contains a version of this Lua-string discussion. See pages:
By having a whole separate talk-page, devoted to Lua string-handling, then we can debate numerous tedious details there, without cluttering this PUMPTECH page. I am still concerned that some types of wikitables (inside text strings) can stop Lua strings from functioning as expected. Discuss at WT:Lua_string_functions. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:53, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
maybe a separate talk page will do some good, but what you describe has very little to do with lua per se, and absolutely nothing to do with lua strings. we need to understand how arguments are passed to templates, and by extension, to lua.
let's start at the top: not being able to pass {| (or "begin table marker") to lua: trying to pass to lua an argument that contains | is just like trying to pass to any template an argument that contains the vertical bar. when the wiki parser encounters the vertical bar, it understands that the current argument terminates, and the next argument begins, and by the way discards the | which fulfilled its mission.
when we want to pass and argument that contains | to lua, we do what we always do when trying to pass | to a template: substituting it with {{!}}. by the time the argument gets to lua, wiki parser will have replaced it with |, and everyone is happy.
the "nowiki" thing is a bit more tricky: when the parser encounters a "nowiki" tag, it replaces its contents with a unique (hopefully) identifier, and places the content in a table. after all the parsing is done, as a last step, the parser looks for all those unique identifiers, and replaces them back with the appropriate entries from the "nowiki" table. the 43 characters you counted are simply this unique identifier (typically looks like so: "UNIQ8a649bc788b6da65-nowiki-00000000-QINU", and null-terminated to boot, so it's practically impossible to create it accidentally).
again, both the thing you report have very little to do with lua, and absolutely nothing to do with lua string-handling. they are related to argument processing by the wiki parser.
peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 18:09, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
Those unique identifiers are called strip markers. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 18:51, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

PUMPTECH bottom thread

(This is a filler thread used to reduce wp:edit_conflicts when updating the thread above, in case a new thread is added below during the same time. Feel free to delete this thread when no longer the final thread on this page.) -Wikid77 16:11, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

La2 template question

I'm using Template:La2 on a subpage which is fodder for "Related Changes", as kind of a secondary watchlist. La2 works fine for articles, but is there something similar for user, wikipedia or file namespaces? That is with just the one "(talk)" link not all the (edit | article | history | links | watch | logs) links which templates lu, lw, lf would have. Although for my purposes maybe it doesn't matter, if related changes ignores those links. But would be "neater" to just have the "(talk)" link since that's all I need. Thanks. Silas Ropac (talk) 03:37, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't know whether we have an existing template but it's simple to make code which works for all namespaces: [[{{{1}}}]] ([[{{TALKPAGENAME:{{{1}}}}}|talk]]). PrimeHunter (talk) 03:59, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks that works great. I put it as X1 and tried it out for articles, user pages, file pages, wikiedia pages, worked for all of them. Definitely should be a real template, if it isn't already. I'm looking through Category:Internal_link_templates and it seems like there are so many permutations, yet I can't find this one. Should I just add it or is there a talk page about adding/naming new templates I should approach first? Naming it seems like the hardest part. Silas Ropac (talk) 15:20, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't know a naming convention. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:11, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Well I just picked a name and created it: Template:LinkTalk and I added docs for Template:La2 which is similar and See Also'd them to each other. If someone has a better short name for it, I can switch it over, since only I'm using it so far. Silas Ropac (talk) 15:40, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
It seems to me, given the template name {{LinkTalk}} that the resulting output should be a single link to the talk page, to wit:
{{LinkTalk|Swiss Alps}} → Swiss Alps (talk) ([[talk:Swiss Alps|Swiss Alps (talk)]])
Also, the template name should be similar to most if not all template names. Perhaps: Link talk or Linktalk.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:04, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for input. Is there a style guide for template names? I saw tons of names like LinkTemplate, LinkSummaryLive, AddNewSection, AdSenseSummary, CatDescr1, DetailsLink, LatinGrammy, NoBackLink so it seemed like that was acceptable. Broken window syndrome. As for the name I'm not going to change the output of the template, it outputs what I want, but I can change the name. What says "outputs a link to a page plus a link to its talk page in parentheses" to you? There's a some cryptic template names: Tlsetl, Tltts3, TlxU, Laabbr, Lht, Lxg. I was thinking Lat (links to article and talk page) but that is taken. Maybe "Latalk"? Or something with "pair" in it because the page and its talk page are kind of a pair, so maybe "Link pair"? Silas Ropac (talk) 19:19, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I will rename it to Latalk if know one has a better idea. But I'm open to suggestions. Silas Ropac (talk) 02:13, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
As far as I know, there isn't a style guide for template names, per se. But, at its most basic, isn't a template simply an article in Template space? Main space articles use sentence case, white space between words, etc. Why shouldn't these conventions be applied to template space "articles"? Names really should be descriptive. What your template does is link to an article and its namespace talk page so: {{Link article namespace talk}} and a redirect {{lant}} might be an option. Maybe the long name is never used anywhere but I like it for the title of the template page because readers can see at a glance what the template is.
Since {{LinkTalk}} is a fork of {{La2}}, it occurs to me to wonder why you don't just edit {{la2}}. Can you not replace ([[talk:{{{1}}}|talk]]) with ([[{{TALKPAGENAME:{{{1}}}}}|talk]]) to achieve the same thing? Is there a case to be made that doing so will break {{la2}}? I created a forked template once. It wasn't long before it ended up at WP:TFD.
Document. Document! {{LinkTalk}} has no documentation to explain why an editor should use it and not {{La2}}. Be specific, state the purpose of the template, give examples from multiple name spaces. Do not simply copy {{La2}}'s documentation and call it good.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:40, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
I didn't know you had to hit Purge to get the docs to update, I had written stuff. And I made the doc page for La2, it didn't exist. But I like the idea of just modifying La2. As far as I know LinkTalk is a strict superset of functionality, does the exact same thing but works for all namespaces. Only issue I could imagine is the TALKPAGENAME template costlier? Or does it matter? Having both La2 and LinkTalk (or Latalk or lant) doesn't really make sense since they both do the same thing yet the names don't echo each other at all. So I will delete LinkTalk and modify La2. Do I then just eyeball the various pages where La2 is currently used to make sure they don't break? Is that how one modifies a template or is there a safer way? Thanks for helping me with this. Silas Ropac (talk) 14:31, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
TALKPAGENAME is a pagename variable magic word. I suspect that it is relatively less costly than a template though I don't know that for certain. Certainly it is more expensive than the simple text Talk: namespace prefix.
{{La2}} is used thousands of times but in relatively few places so I supose that you could just eyeball it. It can't hurt to create {{La2/sandbox}} and Template:La2/testcases pages as a safe way to do this experiment.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:14, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay I created the sandbox and testcases and tried out the new version of {{La2}}, it worked so I updated La2 so now it can do any namespace. Then I eyeballed some real pages using La2, looked good. Then I put {{LinkTalk}} up for deletion. Now it seems like overkill here, but down the road how could I have benchmarked the two template versions? Presumably on a page which had hundreds of instances of the template. Is there a way to get a page processing time or template expansion time, in statistically significant way, so as not to be confused by natural variance between successive runs? Silas Ropac (talk) 17:58, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

If {{La2}} works, why are these talk links red? Those two pages have talk pages so the talk links ought not be red, right?
RNAS Kirkwall (talk)
RAF Grimsetter (talk)
Answering my own question, it's because RNAS Kirkwall and RAF Grimsetter are both redirects to Kirkwall Airport. The redirect pages don't have talk pages. Should this be how {{La2}} works? I suppose there is little option unless you can detect a redirect. That being the case, a usage note and example in the documentation might be in order.
I don't know how speed benchmarks are done. You might consult some of the editors who are doing the Lua testing – they post here regularly.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:42, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Yeah I noticed the redirect problem also. But yeah that happened with the old La2 as well as the new one. And happens with {{La}} itself and all those variants. I added a "limitations" section to {{La2}}. I wonder if there is a fix. I will start a new thread on this out of curiosity. But since {{La}} and {{La2}} all do this and have always done it, I don't see it has a pressing problem. Silas Ropac (talk) 19:14, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Where to discuss Lua usage problems

I am wondering where to debate complex issues of Lua script processing (other than here). Although the rapid speed of Lua, to perform complex data formatting, is likely to attract Lua into every facet of Wikipedia work, I am wondering if there should be a wp:LUAPUMP, as a place to hash the details of Lua technical problems. I worry this page might get cluttered with too many Lua debates. Any thoughts yet? -Wikid77 (talk) 08:21, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Making spelling of "e-mail" consistent in Special:Preferences

Special:Preferences has a very silly mix of "email" and "e-mail" throughout the user interface currently. If an admin could take a look, that would be great. Looking at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences?uselang=qqx>, it seems like it's MediaWiki:prefs-help-email, MediaWiki:prefs-help-email-others, and some others that possibly need tweaks. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:40, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I'll do it, but are you supporting e-mail or email? Looks like email is the way to go. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 03:52, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
I personally prefer "e-mail", but "email" appears to predominate nowadays (and it's our article's title), so it would seem to be the more logical choice. —David Levy 03:58, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I looked around some more and it was clear. I think I got 'em all; also changed Special:EmailUser but I can't figure out how to change the preloaded subject. Any hints? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 04:07, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
MediaWiki:Defemailsubject is the message you're looking for, but the full list would be approximately here. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:29, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
A long road indeed. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 04:38, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
 Done except for MediaWiki:Gadget-popups.js/de 'cause, well, German. Not sure if they use e-mail or email — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎Amorymeltzer (talk • contribs) 04:46, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Wow, 1 hour and 27 minutes for consensus. Quite frankly, I prefer "eMail" -- For our purposes though, after reading our article on it and considering these "are" system messages and consensus may change on this subject many times, shouldn't all of the references to the word point to {{int:Email}} to allow quick and easy changing of it in the future as consensus declares? This would also make the German one not an issue... — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:09, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
I imagine many MediaWiki messages do not support {{int:E-mail}} expansion. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:13, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T47461
I just submitted my question on T47461 anyways. I think it makes sense myself since it is something that could be fluid and changing sometime in the future. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 22:20, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
For reference: MediaWiki defaults are slowly but surely being changed to "email" instead of with the hyphen. The relevant bug is 45461. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 21:57, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Hello.

I just discovered that articles seem to link to themselves in the "What links here" function. Is that a changed behaviour? I've never seen it before.

Check:

HandsomeFella (talk) 15:31, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

It might be changed behaviour; I've not observed it before. But it's not universal: see recently-created orphan Special:WhatLinksHere/Hannah Humes. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:28, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
The Lua mw.title module records a link for any page for which a title object is created. And it automatically creates a title object for the current page, even if that isn't used. I've submitted gerrit change 54225 to avoid recording this self link. BJorsch (WMF) (talk) 18:59, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Meetup & videostream tomorrow - focus on Lua

Tomorrow's meetup at Wikimedia Foundation headquarters in San Francisco focuses on how Lua as a templating/scripting language improves Wikipedia, and includes a brief introduction to Lua. It'll also be streamed live on the web, and the video will be posted afterwards. Please feel free to visit or watch! Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 15:46, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Where do I go to watch the live stream? —Remember the dot (talk) 04:21, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
The Youtube URL is created only shortly before the talk starts. They will be announced on #mediawiki-office IRC and on the meetup page as soon as the URLs are known. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:41, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
The video recording is now up on YouTube and I'm asking to get it onto Commons. Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 15:57, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

MASSIVE BUG in Special:Upload. Please help!

Listen, I tried uploading a .ogg, and the page itself even says it's an .ogg, which is allowed, but when I press the button to upload, it pretends that it's an .ogx, which isn't allowed. (If .ogx is related to .ogg, why shouldn't it be? Also, what's wrong with uploading mp3s for the WP:SPOKEN project?)

Please fix this bug so the page doesn't glitch to pretend that an ogg is an ogx.

This is my imgur screenshot of the page. Thank you for helping. --Let Us Update Wikipedia: Dusty Articles 06:15, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

More likely, your ogg file probably contains more than just Vorbis audio, which is why it's being detected as an ogx. Without being able to see the actual file it's hard to know for sure. As for MP3s, they have a troublesome patent history (see MP3#Licensing and patent issues); maybe in 2017 or so they might be usable. Anomie⚔ 10:41, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Hmm, I thought the screenshot would show, but what other way would, that works for you? Also, why doesn't WP accept .ogx? Thanks. --Let Us Update Wikipedia: Dusty Articles 10:11, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
What happens is this: all ogv/oga/ogg extensions map to the mime-types video/ogg, audio/ogg. These are aliases for application/ogg. The primary file extension for application/ogg is .ogx with ogg, ogv and oga being allowed aliases for that. So you upload the file, it is normalized as being a file of type 'application/ogg' with the primary extensions .ogx. Then it finds content streams in the file that it is unable to handle (we only support a limited type of audio, video and subtitle codecs for ogg) and reports back that it cannot support your file. It reports back with the 'normalized' type instead of the original, it doesn't allow you to upload with the normalized file extension, and also fails to tell you that it were actually the filetype contents that were unsupported, and not the filetype itself :D —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:48, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the great explanation! BJorsch (WMF) (talk) 11:33, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Watchlist error

Accessing Special:Watchlist returns a database error. The technical details being: 

Last attempted database query: (SQL query hidden)
Function: DataModelBackendLBFactory::getList
MySQL error: 1146: Table 'enwiki.aft_feedback' doesn't exist (10.64.0.5)

I assume this isn't just me? James086Talk 18:17, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm getting that too. It just started happening a couple minutes ago. --Elkman (Elkspeak) 18:18, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
me too, on both my watch list and on my contributions. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:19, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Fixed for me now. Thanks, :) James086Talk 18:20, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
There were issues on Friday between approximately 4:13 - 4:23pm PDT. Quoting the operations team: "Initial root cause appears to be database contention issues caused by a version of AFTv5 that was deployed (but hidden from users)." The culprit was one time-consuming query which unfortunately was overlooked. The extension quickly got disabled by the operations team for the time being. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused by this. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:08, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Rollout of Lua navboxes

I've written a Lua implementation of the core {{navbox}} template, and am proposing to do a test deployment on a few widely-used meta-navbox templates, before rolling it out to all 2 million navboxes. Any feedback would be appreciated at Template talk:Navbox#Lua implementation. Toohool (talk) 02:56, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

The new implementation has been deployed to {{Navbox with collapsible groups}}. If any problems are noticed with navboxes using this template (these are navboxes that have several sections collapsed by default, such as {{India topics}}), please report them at Template talk:Navbox. Toohool (talk) 01:39, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Looking for a table guru...

Hi everyone -- I've got a conundrum. Take a look at the "WikiWork" row in User:WP_1.0_bot/Tables/Project/Brands. It uses the syntax found at User:WP_1.0_bot/WikiWork/ta/1 -- namely, some colspans, to correctly format itself at the bottom of the table. This works perfectly...except for when the "WikiWork" row needs to show up in a table like User:WP_1.0_bot/Tables/Project/Eastern_Mountain_Coal_Fields_task_force. Irregular tables don't work due to having a different number of columns. There has to be a better way... <cue the music> Anyhow, I'm curious if anyone knows of a way to make a cell take up a set width of the table (50% for the first one, 25% for the other two). I know you can do it with pixels or points, but can I make it dynamic? Thanks! —Theopolisme (talk) 03:20, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe that's possible within a single table, as all cells in a column must be the same width (or equal to the sum of the widths in the case of a colspan). However, what you could do is make that row a single cell, using colspan="{{{colspan}}}", and nest a second, single-row, table in that cell, which would give you the freedom to define the cell widths by percentages without needing to adhere to the layout in previous rows. Then when invoking the template within other tables, pass a |colspan= parameter to the template, set to the total number of columns in that specific table. jcgoble3 (talk) 05:00, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
All table columns may have their widths set either in absolute terms, i.e. using width="50px" or in relative terms, i.e. using width="20%" - but bear in mind setting the width of one cell forces the other cells in the same column to take the same width. Where colspan= is in use, or when two cells in the same column have different widths, more complicated formulae are used. See Calculating the width of columns in the W3C HTML 4.01 spec - the equivalent in the W3C HTML5 spec, 4.9.12 Processing model, is a real pain to understand properly. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:39, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Gah, yes, that is a pain. :) So, nested tables still have to use the same column widths as the table they are nested within? I guess the reason I'm asking is because it seems like theoretically I could just nest another table within, and then use % widths that way... —Theopolisme (talk) 14:56, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Not necessarily:
A B C D E
1st row Cell A1 Cell B1 Cell C1 Cell D1 Cell E1
2nd row Cell A2 B2 C2 D2 etc.
Left item Middle item Right item
When tables are nested, the outer table sees the inner table as just another kind of cell content which needs to have space allotted to it. The inner table doesn't see the outer table at all, just the cell within which it is contained - it might as well be enclosed in a <div>...</div>. The inner table has internal dimensions that are independent of the outer table, although its overall dimensions may be constrained by the outer table.
The main problem with my demo is the colspan=6 - where does that figure come from, and what happens if the number of columns in the outer table changes? The bot that prepares these tables omits rows and columns where every cell would be empty, hence the absence of "Top", "High" and "Mid" columns from User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project/Eastern Mountain Coal Fields task force. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:17, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
What about setting the colspan to an absurdly high value? Say, 100. When I tried this out, it worked in both places:
|colspan=100|
{| width="100%"
|width="50%" align=left |'''WikiWork factors''' (?) ||width="25%" align=left |W = !!!! ||width="25%" align=left | OM = !!!
|}
|-
Seems kind of hacky, but, hey, it works...right? I'm thinking about implementing this as kind of a "backup", if you know what I mean (i.e., if anyone complains). —Theopolisme (talk) 16:04, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
It is hacky, and somebody suggested that technique for a different situation a few weeks back, see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 103#Table footer. I didn't comment in that thread because I ignore posts that begin with a bullet and boldfaced text. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:41, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
That's why I suggested using a template parameter to set the colspan. That way, it can be easily set to the correct number on each usage without "hacky" solutions. :) jcgoble3 (talk) 18:30, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I couldn't sleep at night knowing that that was what I'd ended up with, so I'm in the process of implementing a |colspan parameter. Thanks, both of you, for your help! —Theopolisme (talk) 11:04, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Bits in trouble again

I suspect that the "bits.wikimedia.org" servers are in trouble again... about three in four pages are coming through largely unstyled, which tells me that I'm not getting the site CSS, although certain aspects of the page appearance tells me that Special:MyPage/skin.css and Special:MyPage/common.css are being processed. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:14, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Template parameter case insensitive

Resolved
 – Smallman12q (talk) 01:50, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

What's the proper way to check for both a lowercase param and one that starts with a capital letter such as "|date=" or "|Date="?Smallman12q (talk) 23:43, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

You have to make one the default value of the other (e.g. {{{date|{{{Date|}}}}}}). There's no magic case-insensitive flag. jcgoble3 (talk) 00:00, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Which is a pain in the rear... But, what Jcgoble said it accurate. Is there a need in your template to explicitly define each argument? "most" if not all templates assume all lower case if it is explicitly defined. Many template implicitly assume {{{1}}}, {{{2}}}, {{{3}}}, etc... — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 00:19, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
So I have to define each...well that is a pain...was hoping there would be another way. Thanks.Smallman12q (talk) 01:50, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible to resolve a redirect in template?

The template {{La2}} is: [[{{{1}}}]] ([[{{TALKPAGENAME:{{{1}}}}}|talk]]). If the page is a redirect, then the talk link is to the redirect's talk page, not the main page's talk page like: RNAS Kirkwall (talk). This works the same as {{la}} {{lw}} {{lu}} and all those related templates. But is it possible to "resolve" the redirect in the template, so the talk page can be the real one? I'm not necessarily suggesting we change any of these templates, arguably the current way is even correct, but I am just wondering if it is possible. Silas Ropac (talk) 19:30, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

If I understand what you are asking, then yes. [{{fullurl:User:{{{1}}}|redirect=no}} {{{1}}}] ([[{{TALKPAGENAME:{{{1}}}}}|talk]]) for the User's page, [[{{{1}}}]] ([{{fullurl:User_talk:{{{1}}}|redirect=no}} talk]), for the User's talk page, or [{{fullurl:User:{{{1}}}|redirect=no}} {{{1}}}] ([{{fullurl:User_talk:{{{1}}}|redirect=no}} talk])) for both using your example with template {{La2}} using MW:Help:Magic words#URL data as a reference. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 19:46, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Oh thanks, so fullurl is the key then. I'm surprised the parameters there is redirect=no, don't we want the redirect? The {{La2}} template works for any namespace, that is the trick, so in going to this fullurl thing we'd be back to one template per namespace? As for the wisdom of changing any of these (La2, La, Lw, Lu, etc), I'm inclined to say don't bother unless people are really running into trouble. I only stumbled into the issue, it isn't really bothering me. Silas Ropac (talk) 20:18, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, you want {{la2|RNAS Kirkwall}} to resolve the redirect and render as Kirkwall Airport (talk)? If so, fullurl doesn't seem to do anything like that, it simply turns the article name into a full URL. This could be done with a Lua module, using the mw.title.isRedirect property to check if the linked article is a redirect, and if so, fetching its content and parsing it to find the redirected article. This is an expensive operation though, and may be too slow for a template that's likely to be used many times on a single page. Toohool (talk) 21:37, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

My understanding was that he wanted to ignore the redirect and post directly on the page. fullurl with redirect=no will do that, otherwise, be more specific and I will help you with that. It can probably be done without lua (why use extra coding that relies on an extension if you don't have to). — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 21:53, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
So if A redirects to B, la2 today does A (Talk:A). It links you to A (which redirects to B) but then links you to A's talk page, the redirect page's talk page. So I was suggesting A (talk:B), now A would still redirect you to B, but you'd have B's talk page. But you could go whole hog and do B (talk:B), resolve the redirect completely. I don't know which is better. Given that there are a ton of related tamplates like {{la}} {{lw}} {{lu}}, and given no one is complaining about current behavior, I'd be inclined to make no changes. For example {{la|RNAS Kirkwall}} renders as:
In this case all the links are "wrong" they are to the redirect page. But people seem fine with that. I think the "solution" is to just use the real page name always, never a redirect. Silas Ropac (talk) 14:45, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Of course, one can always redirect the redirect's talk page to the target's talk page but that seems like a bit of work and it doesn't solve the problem of the history, protect, links, watch, and logs links.
Is there anyway to make a "non-external" link that includes a redirect=no keyword? Right now, the only way I know of to link to a redirect page and not get redirected is like this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RNAS_Kirkwall&redirect=no RNAS Kirkwall] → RNAS Kirkwall
That will do the job but it contains the external link icon and I think that external link coloring is different from internal link coloring. A bit of local CSS might fix that.
If there is a way to not get redirected then {{la2}} and friends could all be changed to always include the redirect=no bit so all of the links point to the same page and it's associated pages. Am I making any sense?
—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:14, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Wrap it in {{plainlinks}} RNAS Kirkwall; for several links it might be easier to wrap all of them in <span class=plainlinks>...</span> --Redrose64 (talk) 17:01, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. I'll tweak the sandbox version of {{La2}} and give it a try. At the very least, I'll use this in the {{La2}} documentation.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:48, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Ding! Ding! Ding! It worked. Required the {{canonicalurl}} magic word to prevent the spaces in the article name from disrupting the links, and I used the CSS instead of {{plainlinks}} but:
{{La2/sandbox|RNAS Kirkwall}} → RNAS Kirkwall (talk) and
{{La2/sandbox|Kirkwall Airport}} → Kirkwall Airport (talk)
So, at least for this sandbox version of the template, the article link and the talk link remain paired together as they should be. I don't think that this quite answers Editor Silas Ropac's question at the start of this thread, but perhaps it gets halfway there.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:31, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Oh that's interesting. That does keep them paired. Not what I was thinking, but maybe it is useful. Today when using {{la2}} with a redirected page, you get kind of mixed bag. Click on the main link, goes to the redirect target, but click on the talk link, it goes to the redirect page's talk page. You have fixed it by making both go to the redirect page itself. I was thinking the opposite, make both go to the redirect target page. But I don't really see changing anything at this point. But maybe we can leave a recipe behind on the template's talk page or something. Since {{la2}} is very similar to {{la}}, {{lt}}, {{lw}}, {{lafd}}, {{lu}}, {{lc}}, {{lf}}, {{lp}}, {{lm}}, {{lh}}, and {{lb}} I can't see fixing {{la2}} by itself, but I can't see fixing them all either, they are used super widely and no one is complaining about them that I've heard. So I think all this is interesting and educational, but I wouldn't personally endorse really making these changes, unless there was more impetus driving it. Silas Ropac (talk) 01:43, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't know whether it has good use in this case, but I just wrote Module:redirect. [[{{#invoke:redirect|main|WP:AFC}}]] gets you Wikipedia:Articles for creation, for example. I haven't written a template to make that #invoke with less baggage, but if you want to of course there's little difficulty to it but choosing just the right name. For extra credit you might want to look for "[[ ]]" before passing the parameter and add it to the result if it was there; right now sending a link in brackets will get an error. I'd add that to the module but I think we want the absolute most basic thing for such a fundamental function. On second thought I just added a "bracket=yes" option, so {{#invoke:redirect|main|[[WP:AFC]]|bracket=yes}} gets you Wikipedia:Articles for creation also. (I still suspect that for complex templates it is better to get a clear error that a name is a link earlier, rather than for them not to know if the result contains brackets or not) Wnt (talk) 16:44, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Wait a minute Silas, are you simply looking for RNAS Kirkwall (talk)? Which would be [[{{{1}}}]] ([[{{TALKPAGENAME:{{{2}}}}}|talk]])? — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 00:52, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
With yours the talk link isn't even to a talk page. I was thinking of with one template argument have it work like this: {{la2|RNAS Kirkwall}} → RNAS Kirkwall (talk). But as I wrote above I've lost the faith that any of these changes are wise. How it works today is great and simple for normal links, and a bit broken-feeling for redirected pages. But redirected pages are probably an edge case, I now see them as not worth bending over backwards for. Just don't use redirect pages seems to be the easiest remedy. Silas Ropac (talk) 02:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, the link would be to the talk page, I just mistyped it in the example because I was in a rush with a screaming baby behind me... The link would come out as "RNAS Kirkwall (talk)" if you used [[{{{1}}}]] ([[{{TALKPAGENAME:{{{2}}}}}|talk]]). Sorry again for the confusion. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 11:14, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm lost, doesn't that code require 2 inputs? We want it to work with one input like {{la2|RNAS Kirkwall}} not require {{la2|RNAS Kirkwall|Kirkwall Airport}}. Somehow you have to resolve the redirect, to derive Kirkwall Airport from RNAS Kirkwall. But again yeah I think not worth it at this point. Silas Ropac (talk) 13:49, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Wnt, it wouldn't be hard to {{#replace:{{#replace:{{{1}}}|[[||}}|]]|}} if you have string functions extension on this wiki (not sure if you do) — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 00:52, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Query of user edits

What would be a query to generate database report about useredits in all namespaces. Muhammad Shuaib (talk) 01:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Could you be more specific? What info are you looking for? Edit counts?Smallman12q (talk) 01:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I would like to count all edits of users in all namespaces. Muhammad Shuaib (talk) 06:18, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
This might help you. 151.188.213.237 (talk) 16:22, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Failed page move attempt

I got a "Database error" after I attempted to move Florida Gators football, 1950–1959 to Florida Gators football, 1950–59. Even though the page is still at its previous location, the title now reads Florida Gators football, 1950–59. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Gators_football,_1950–59 takes you to the red link while adding &redirect=no arbitrarily takes you to the article. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 06:46, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I gave it a shot and it looks like the move went through fine. Not sure what the issue was with your attempt. Everything look good now? Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 06:54, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Well that's the easy short-term solution but these Database error problems are relatively common (~1/200?). This could be problematic if this happens every time there is a database hiccup like I think it does. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 07:22, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Not sure why you would want to move page names away from a four-digit year if years are involved. This particular case may be extreme, but what happens in 46 years when it is 2059? Are you going to move it back? — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:59, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm thinking the most appropriate page name for this particular case might be Florida Gators football, 1950s? — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 13:02, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
1950–59 is generally correct per MOS:YEAR. jcgoble3 (talk) 18:09, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm assuming you are referencing "A closing CE or AD year is normally written with two digits (1881–86) unless it is in a different century from that of the opening year, in which case the full closing year is given (1881–1986). The closing year in the same century may be written with four digits (1881–1886) if four-digit years are predominantly used in the article." After looking at the article, four-digit years are predominantly used in the article. So, per MOS:YEAR 1950–1959 is generally correct. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 18:42, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
This was added just yesterday with no reasoning and apparently no discussion. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 23:28, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't know anything about that, and to be honest it is irrelevant according to the next paragraph it should be Florida Gators football, 1950s anyways. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 00:41, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Reading down just a little further, WP:DECADE says "Decades as such contain neither an apostrophe nor the suffix -ies (the 1980s, not the 1980's, not the 1980-ies, and definitely not the 1980s'). The two-digit form is never used in reference to the decade as a time span per se" implies 1950s would be correct. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 18:47, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Ghost template

Resolved

At the bottom of the Giovanna Ralli article, among two templates about Nastro d'Argento winners, it magically appears a non-existent (and unrelated) template about "Films starring Ornella Muti". I cannot find what originated the template nor the way to eliminate it. Cavarrone (talk) 07:45, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Fixed. It was hiding within {{Nastro d'Argento Best Actress}} -- WOSlinker (talk) 07:54, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I had to think about something like that! Many thanks! Cavarrone (talk) 08:10, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

JavaScript protected edit requests

Hi all. Are there any editors out there who know JavaScript and who wouldn't mind taking the time to look at some edit requests? There are a couple of requests at CAT:EP (MediaWiki talk:RefToolbar.js#editprotected and MediaWiki talk:Gadget-citations.js#editprotected) that need to be reviewed by someone who understands JavaScript, and unfortunately that doesn't appear to include any of the patrolling admins. One request is from January 30, and the other from February 23, so it's probably about time we actually got them answered. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 08:00, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Used templates collapsing

Sorry if that was asked before, but as a non-english user I am not so clever in finding under which aspects it might be discussed before.

Since a few days the English Wikipedia does show the used templates within an arcticle only in "collapsed" modus, not as before and as other language versions clearly visible. I don't like this collapsing – what can I do for reverting this appearance for me to the former state? I guess some CSS trick will do it but I am pretty stupid concerning such things. Or is there a gadget i haven't found yet?

BTW: the same for hidden categories. I want to see them and don't like to click somewhere firstly to view them. --Matthiasb (talk) 08:50, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Can you give an example of a page where you are seeing problems? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 08:57, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Are these the template/category lists that are displayed below the edit window? I think the software tries to remember whether you have those collapsed or uncollapsed. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:05, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes I am meaning them. It seems you're right. I thought I would need something like NavigationBarShowDefault = 10; what I am using for vollapsed navigation bars.
@ Mr: Stradivarius: Any page using templates. --Matthiasb (talk) 09:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Need help for other wiki

How can i translated "Edit links" (See this photo) for other (my lang) wikipedia. This text is showing after Wikidata was live. (this is not en wiki problem. don't delete this. if u can, help me) Thanks --Leemon →talk 17:15, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Add ?uselang=qqx to the url to see which MediaWiki message is displayed. It says "(wikibase-editlinks)" so it's MediaWiki:Wikibase-editlinks. You can edit my:MediaWiki:Wikibase-editlinks to change the display at mywiki. I don't know where to request a change for all wikis with my as default or user-chosen language. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:32, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Such translations are made on translatewiki.net. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:17, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Recommendations on Lua figures?

I've just brought my Module:ImportProtein to what I'd optimistically call a "beta testing" stage, placing it in use at Src (gene). However, I'm not sure what opinions people will have about the relative overhead of displaying this admitted div-monster and the accompanying large table, or if people will suggest technical options for reducing it. Anyway ... it's out here, and in theory we can start pasting protein motif diagrams all over the place. Suggestions? Wnt (talk) 18:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Note: there's apparently still a bug somewhere --- because I only see the figure if I'm logged in. Otherwise it is blank space. I don't think Lua is allowed to know if you're logged in ... well anyway, I suppose it won't hurt them, much, until I get this figured. Wnt (talk) 18:32, 19 March 2013 (UTC) Fixed. Apparently my settings allow me to see negative z-indexes and theirs don't. Wnt (talk) 18:37, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Announcing the Wikimedia Iconathon 2013

The Wikimedia Foundation is partnering with The Noun Project to do a public service "Iconathon." The goal of this event is to generate 30-40 icons for the public domain, with the intent of primarily using them on Wikimedia Foundation projects. The event is open to the public in an effort to bring talented designers and civic-minded individuals into the process. The event will be held on April 6, 2013 at the Wikimedia Foundation headquarters in San Francisco.

All icons will be released under a public domain license.

We want your help and input!

For more information, including a list of the icons we're working on, please visit one of three places:

Please stop by one of these pages and share your thoughts and ideas. --Jorm (WMF) (talk) 20:48, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor fortnightly update - 2013-03-18 (MW 1.21wmf12)

Hey all,

Here is a copy of the regular (every fortnight) update for the VisualEditor project, so that you all know what is happening (and make sure you have as much opportunity to tell us when we're wrong, as well as help guide the priorities for development and improvement).

VisualEditor was updated as part of the wider MediaWiki 1.21wmf12 branch deployment on Monday 18 March. In the two weeks since 1.21wmf11, the team have worked on building infrastructure for the new features that we are adding for VisualEditor's wider launch as the default way users will edit wikis.

In the way that the code integrates with MediaWiki, the save button now will be disabled if a user makes changes and then undoes all of them (42939). When an error happens with the Parsoid server, those errors are split out so that the user can report what broke in a way that we can trouble-shoot their issue (44354). When the Parsoid server is not responding, the code supplies a better error message for users (45916).

When selections are auto-expanded to the current context (when a user double-clicks on a word), we now better cover the concept of a 'word boundary', working towards Unicode's definition (44085). Lists now don't get corrupted for Parsoid when "unlist"ing their contents, removing their 'generated' property (45590).

Leaving the link inspector no longer clears a link accidentally (46025). The document model layer now presents categories (and other kinds of meta-content, like language links) for editing to other parts of the code base ahead of supporting user editing of categories in VisualEditor (39597), which is one of the four major features planned before wider launch.

A complete list of individual code commits is available in the 1.21/wmf12 changelog, and all Bugzilla bugs closed in this period on Bugzilla's list.

Per the MediaWiki deployment roadmap, this should be deployed here on Monday 25 March.

Hope this is helpful! As always, feedback gratefully received, either here or on the enwiki-specific feedback page.

Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:14, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Protection and management of scripts?

See discussion at Village Pump (policy)#Protection and management of scripts?. Relevant to Lua, js, and user scripting generally, and (despite the page name/description) covers technical as well as policy aspects of scripting, including technical thoughts about a way to improve script management on Mediawiki/Wikipedia.

Comments appreciated. FT2 (Talk | email) 02:08, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Admin viewing of deleted pages

Since I got my mop, I've been wondering why the viewing of deleted pages is set as it is. When a link to a page is clicked, instead of a page view, an 'edit page' type view appears, with two buttons for preview and changes. Preview gives the view I want - an easily readable page with infoboxes and tags displayed in all their glory. I consider that an actual view of the page as it was would be more use than a view of the edit screen type, and for anyone desiring to see the coded version, the current 'preview' button could be set to show this instead. Is there a reason why things are set as they are, or is it just a 'that's the way it's allus bin' situation? Peridon (talk) 19:55, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

As an admin on an external wiki, I find the current setup rather annoying. It would certainly be better, at least IMO, to initially show the "preview" instead of the "edit" box. Or even add a separate link to view the rendered page next to each deleted revision so admins can choose for themselves which one they want. jcgoble3 (talk) 00:55, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
No idea, but it is a real pain. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 05:03, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Have you thought about making a proposal at WP:VPR to have it changed? There the whys and the wherefores would be discussed, and you may just get your desired improvement approved by the community. The Transhumanist 23:21, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
The last copy when the article was deleted says little about the deleted content. For example: editors may delete criticism and render an article without notability. A way to get all the <ref>'s out of the archives would be very helpful if not essential to restore stuff. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 11:52, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Slight misunderstanding here: This is not about going to Special:Undelete and immediately being presented with the last version. The proto-proposal is to, when going to Special:Undelete and being presented with the list of deleted revisions, be able to open the revision of your choice directly in rendered mode, rather than the current behavior of showing it to you in an edit-type box and requiring the admin to click preview to see the rendered version. jcgoble3 (talk) 18:02, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Not at all, I took that as to say "the code of this part of the wikipedia has not been written". In contrast with the popular assumption: To figure out if the article should have been deleted depends entirely on the available sources rather than a random copy of the archives. We may expect the administrator to be to lazy busy to research the topic sufficiently. But if editors had already added these materials to the wikipedia such laziness is increasingly dishonest. Or to put it differently, we cant delete a notable topic with reliable sources. (BLP exceptions aside) When we do there is loss of content and it creates friction. If Jane Doe wrote a good article and people delete it, what is she still doing here? Is there still a point to the wikipedia? I'd say in the view of such editor we have reached maximum troll level. If there is still a point it isn't obvious. There is only one more opportunity left to mistreat the user. This is to have the reviewing admin write something that illustrates his ignorance about the sources added to the article. Mind you, this admin thinks he is doing you a big favor. But are such praises justified if the request for review is technically obstructed to the point where the admin has to read the raw wiki code?
I want the admin to have a button where we pump the raw archive though a regex, stripping out everything that isn't a ref or http -- Easy stuff. Lets imagine a scenario where Jane Doe added 6 different NYT articles to an article, she got reverted 6 times then the article was deleted. She asks you to review this deletion. Here the quality of your review depends entirely on your ability to find those sources. Unlike administrators with single page raw wikicode interfaces the regex will get this right every time. It goes: Whoooshhhh then it poops out a pile of facebook, twitter and blogspot links -> nothing of substance -> your done! You will think to yourself Woah, that was easy. Praise whoever thought of that one! More coffee! 84.106.26.81 (talk) 01:38, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not much of a fan of it either, and to get to the link to actually view it is a hassle to get to.—cyberpower ChatOffline 01:46, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Deletion nominations and edit summaries

Would it be possible to make a filter or something that makes it impossible to leave a speedy, PROD or AFD template on an article page without leaving an edit summary to that effect? (I assume that nobody thinks it would be a bad idea to have such a filter.) --Hegvald (talk) 13:04, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

✔ — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) gives his support for this section's subject at 13:27, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I was about to post a frank comment on the above green support banner but let me just note that the newly created templates that make it have been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 March 15#Template:Iapprove. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:03, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Off-topic, but thank you and I have already proposed a replacement. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 14:31, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I appreciate the support, but I really have to agree that the green box is a rather unnecessary distraction from the point it is intended to make. I hope nobody minds me marking up this off-topic issue with <small> tags. --Hegvald (talk) 15:05, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't mind at all and encourage anyone that has something to say about it make all further comments about it on Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 March 15#Template:Iapprove where they belong. Thank you. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 15:13, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Edit-conflict on final thread when another added

I am still seeing cases where a solitary update to the last thread on this PUMPTECH page will get "edit conflict" with a new thread added as the new "final thread" on the page. The problem has made me want to add the empty bottom thread, "==PUMPTECH bottom thread==" when the final thread is likely to attract frequent edits, which each risk edit-conflict unless another topic is the "final thread" on the talk-page. Perhaps we could have a "suggested practice" to treat "PUMPTECH bottom thread" as a filler, for inserting new topics above, or just delete when it seems unneeded. Any objections? -Wikid77 (talk) 16:11, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I thought you always got an "edit conflict" for any intervening change, no? Assuming I'm wrong about that, it seems a bit of a nuisance to try to keep a dummy footer thread in place. I don't personally think it's such a great idea. It would be better to improve the intelligence of the process that identifies edit conflicts. I also find the current wording quite confusing. 86.160.215.108 (talk) 23:49, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
The footer thread would be for unusual cases of a popular final thread. The bottom thread is often involved in edit-conflicts, because new threads are also added at the bottom (by re-editing). If a final topic is obscure, then few edits would be made, and hence less risk of edit-conflict when rarely attracting new edits. As for wording, the more something is viewed, then the better the understanding can become. -Wikid77 12:27, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
86.160.215.108, you only get an edit conflict if MediaWiki can't automatically merge your changes with the intervening changes. If the intervening changes are to a completely different part of the page, you won't get an edit conflict.
I'm a little surprised that section=new generates edit conflicts. I'd have hoped MediaWiki treated the user's intent when using this as wanting to add a new section at the end of the page, regardless of what is at the current end of the page. By the sounds of it, MediaWiki is cautious about assuming intent, so raises an edit conflict if the page end content has changed. If the latter is the current case, I'd agree that the automatic conflict resolution needs to be more intelligent. (I'm assuming Wikid77 uses "New section" for adding new sections. If not, they should!) – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 21:30, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't think that section=new does generate edit conflicts. Some people don't use the "new section" tab, but instead edit the last section (or even the whole page) and type a new header under the existing text. That will definitely cause an e/c if somebody else is attempting to edit the last section (or any section). --Redrose64 (talk) 22:40, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
An edit conflict will happen if two people add content to the end of the page at the same time (e.g. one adding to the final section, while the other creates a new section without using "New section"). An edit conflict should never happen if the two people edit different sections (which are not adjacent), even if they make their changes by editing the whole page. MediaWiki should automatically merge such conflicts without human intervention. (E.g. I simultaneously saved these edits in two browser tabs without getting an edit conflict with myself.) – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:23, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
I have definitely received edit conflicts on pages like this one, WP:ANI, and WP:Help desk, in situations where I thought it un-necessary. I think it has occurred when I was adding a comment to a non-final section and someone else added a new section or maybe edited the last section, though probably not always. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 01:09, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Wanted: Lua script errors without Javascript

A vast number of beginners don't understand that the red "script error" is a link, and indeed, with Javascript disabled it isn't.

But it is less for their benefit than mine I'd like to ask, please, can there be a way to know where the script failed for those not running the scripts?

Enabling them means that

  • You are doomed to the crummy custom text editor that the scripts get edited in. That means...
  • Every time you backspace or hit return at the beginning of a line god knows what will happen. It seems to jerk you around whenever you get close to where you're trying to reach.
  • Every long line flies off to the far end of nowhere. Attempting to select a region of text (even if it appears on-screen) tends to send you flying wildly.
  • Sometimes hitting backspace deletes the next character, or nothing.
  • Slow. Clunky.
  • Plus, when scripts are enabled I've noticed that there's the glorious feature of a section you started while editing normally to just disappear if you go forward to a link or something.

So please, please, just give us a plain text error, no Javascript required. I know this must be possible - it prints "script error" doesn't it? Wnt (talk) 17:09, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

this reply is not about the script error message, but rather about the editor:
if you do not like the script editor (which, by the way, can be used not only for lua pages but also for .css and .js pages, by using some magic incantation in Special:Mypage/common.js), just press the /* icon in the toolbar (for me it appears as the leftmost button, but ymmv), and voila! you disabled the code editor. the nice thing is that you can turn it on and off whenever you like. it has some cool features, e.g. the ability to mark the matching parens, braces and brackets, or mark all the instances of the selected variable name in the text (i.e., if your script has a local identifier named "showme", by double clicking (and hence selecting) any one of the places this identifier is used, all the other places it is used are highlighted), line numbers, and more.
the editor is nice enough to remember the last state you left it: if you disable it, the next time you'll open a lua script on same machine/browser, it will appear disabled.
i do agree that the whitespace handling of the code editor is fubar, and that this is a serious and annoying problem.
peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 17:54, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, which browsers + version of the browser did you see this issues ? I do know that the code editor is a bit limited in it's support for browsers. I'm not sure which version of ACE the code editor is on, but perhaps an update there might improve a few things. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:47, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Current Firefox. (Thanks! kipod for pointing out the button I should have noticed) Wnt (talk) 23:31, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Please report your problems with Lua editing as bugs against the CodeEditor extension. It has been proposed that this extension be used for all JavaScript and CSS editing (MediaWiki:Common.css etc.), in addition to Lua, which would greatly increase the impact of any bugs. So it's important that they be reported. -- Tim Starling (talk) 02:54, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Just so you know, the barrier that puts people off from doing that is that you have to sign up on Bugzilla with an e-mail address that they warn you is exposed to spam, which is a minor pain in the neck that I've kept putting off for, I dunno, maybe five years now? Why do they insist on e-mail verification when they tell you to get a throwaway e-mail address anyway? Wnt (talk) 16:06, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Main Page Updating Problem

The main page seems stuck on yesterday's (18th March) content. I have purged the page on the latest releases of Firefox and Chrome to no avail. I'm located in the UK; I seem to remember a similar incident not too long ago, but I don't recall how it was solved. Thanks! 86.159.200.5 (talk) 07:07, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Wow. Nevermind, it just fixed itself. 86.159.200.5 (talk) 07:08, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Still stuck on 18 March for me too. Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 19.0.2. UK location. Previous incident was around 25-27 January (and other separate earlier incidents were discussed then, if I remember rightly). 92.40.8.2 (talk) 09:13, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Yep, I just encountered it on de.wp, too (for IPs). Looks partially like January reloaded to me, regards --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 12:25, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Still stuck on yesterday, here in the UK, no matter what I try to do to refresh. (Visiting Wikipedia these days is a bit like visiting an old uncle - he appears to be a fount of all knowledge, able to pontificate interminably on any topic at all, but you are always a bit wary of his veracity when he can't tell you what the date is.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.59.43.240 (talk) 15:45, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I've notified operations. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 21:59, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I downloaded the main page from a random host in Amsterdamn using wget and it works for me, i got the March 19 content. Please make sure it's not your local browser cache. 22:15, 19 March 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mutante (talk • contribs)

FYI, I seem to be stuck on 18th March again. I can't seem to get anything up to date. 86.159.200.5 (talk) 08:33, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Still stuck on 18th March here, too. I've completely cleared my local cache, to no effect. (UK, IE9) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.132.39.184 (talk) 09:35, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Same thing here (southern Germany, firefox), still getting the March 18 content. Purging the cache didn't help either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.134.223.12 (talk) 14:51, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Page not updating

To whom it may concern...

It is now about 18:09 GMT on 19th March, and I am incorrectly still seeing an old version of Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language from 01:29 19 March. The "View history" page also incorrectly shows no edits since that time. When I click on the 01:29 19 March edit in the "View history" page it tells me it's an old version. I can then click on "Newer revision" repeatedly and see that there are numerous edits beyond 01:29. Nevertheless the page itself and the history page are stubbornly stuck on 01:29. Purging local cache and Wikipedia cache makes no difference. 86.179.113.161 (talk) 18:09, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Guess what ... just after saving the above, the problem has gone away. I now see the latest version. 86.179.113.161 (talk) 18:13, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
See also #Main Page Updating Problem above. The previous iteration of this bug was discussed in-depth at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 107#Users reporting site time issues and delay in visible update of edits. jcgoble3 (talk) 18:18, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't know if this info may be useful... It happened again, on both Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language and this page (Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)) -- both stuck hours out of date. But again, when I saved an edit to a completely unrelated article, both pages refreshed up to date. I suppose it may be just coincidence, but perhaps it's significant. This problem seems quite serious. I hope some resources can be put onto tracking it down. If there are any more tests I can do to help, please let me know. 86.179.113.161 (talk) 04:29, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
(I'm in Russia.) Yes, the same exact problem has returned yesterday. I don't edit currently, but I think it's everywhere, I noticed it in the Japanese Wikipedia too. When I'm not logged in, the edit histories aren't updating too, I can see the newest edits in my contributions, but not in articles and article histories. When I log in, I can see everything, the latest versions, the full histories. --Moscow Connection (talk) 13:12, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
(In order to check, you need to log out and clear your browser's cache.) If you need an example, 4Minute (this bot edit is not shown in the article history: [1], ja:5TH DIMENSION (this bot edit: [2]). --Moscow Connection (talk) 13:16, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Current version of article not displayed.

I have made a major revision to the article Wessex Institute of Technology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wessex_Institute_of_Technology) but the edits I have made do not appear on other peoples computers.

On my computer I see the latest revision of the article but on other machines I see the version from 31st December 2012.

I have cleared the browser cache on other machines and tried different browsers. I have also tried the purge action but to no effect.

The strange thing is that if I click on the edit button on a computer showing the old revision I am presented with the text of the new version to be edited.

Can anyone see any problems with the article that I have missed that may cause the latest version not to be displayed.

Thank you in advance for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markaleonard (talk • contribs) 10:24, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like the same problem as I had at at #Page not updating above and apparently a number of other people have been getting too... 86.171.43.66 (talk) 12:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Think I made a mistake in naming an article

Hi,

I moved a page to the correct name but I didn't know how to make it italics. So I named it A Cyborg Manifesto, but now I see that people add the italics a different way and the italics shouldn't be in the name. Is that right? It should be A Cyborg Manifesto, with the italics on the outside? I made a mess but I'll clean it up if someone will tell me what's the right thing to do.

Thanks, Star767 (talk) 18:17, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I have moved it to A Cyborg Manifesto. It required an administrator because the target has a page history. You can add {{italic title}} to make the title display with italics on the article. It cannot display with italics in other places like categories. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:35, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

File redirects still broken

The problem described at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 107#File redirects broken has re-emerged (unless it was never fixed the first time). File:Bandeira do Estado de São Paulo.svg is a redlink but should go to File:Bandeira do estado de São Paulo.svg. There is a suitable redirect, at commons:File:Bandeira do Estado de São Paulo.svg. The image was moved 24 hours ago so it's a current problem. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:46, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't see any redlinks there... Could it have been a caching issue that has already resolved itself? — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 21:13, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Commons image links slow to update for years: I have had numerous 20/30-minute delays, in prior months/years, where I wondered if I had misspelled the image name on enwiki, because it refused to see the Commons image, but within 30 minutes, the link was completed. It can be very frustrating, re-reading an image name obsessive times, changing spaces to underscores "_" or whatever desperate tricks, to try to "force" enwiki to see new images on Commons. However, it all cases, within 1 hour, the links to Commons images got connected. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:28, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Create a username for IP editors

I just searched the web for a name generator, I put 2 letters in a box and got all sorts of usable names for wizards. It shouldn't be that hard to write a wikipedian name generator that produces usable names for wikipedians. We make a database entry for each first edit from an ip address. Visiting wikipedia from this ip address automatically logs you into your account. When your ip address changes we just create a new username for you. It is fairly simple.

Technical accomplishments:

  • stop showing visitors ip addresses to other visitors
  • stop assumption of bad faith
  • more effective discussion

Stop showing visitors ip addresses to other visitors: Wikipedia leaks information about peoples contributions when they visit websites elsewhere on the Internet. There is loss of privacy but we are not getting anything in return. It is all nice to argue the editor was suppose to have known this before making his contribution and be right while still being wrong. lol In the end the encyclopedia doesn't benefit from drawbacks. If we can make contributing easier we should.

Stop assumption of bad faith: We can twist the argument but the paradox of Schrödinger's cat is not resolved by writing an IP number on the box. Even if IP editors never made a single useful contribution in the history of wikipedia, "wp:Assume good faith" doesn't allow you or anyone else to assume the next guy to be just like that. We should aim to remove a feature that invites and encourages people to assume bad faith.

More effective discussion: The primary purpose of a user name is to be able to identify the editor around the wiki, IP addresses are not very useful for that. It gets rather plural. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 19:38, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

You might be interested in User naming convention proposal which is not the same thing, but related.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:45, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
Bad names can be rerolled. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 01:07, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Why should our developers waste time doing something for them that they have no interest in doing for themselves? Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 20:12, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
I think I provided 3 reasons? 84.106.26.81 (talk) 01:07, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm against the proposal as such. Here's one I'd like, though: Compress IPv6 addresses into something more readable/tractable/shorter. I would still prefer that these identifiers be obviously from an IP, because otherwise you don't know whether you can contact the person. Ideally the IP address should be recoverable from the compressed version, so that we can use geolocate, and at least get some information on the editor and possible biases etc. --Trovatore (talk) 20:32, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm opposed, as well. See, for example, User:Arthur Rubin/IP list (no longer maintained by me) for a list of IP addresses obviously used by the same person. It would be significantly more difficult to tell that the pattern continued if the raw IP addresses weren't available. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:46, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
If we give IP addresses a name you can still propose this idea for a public wp:CheckUser tool. I think checkuser for auto approved users would never make it though the proposal stage? Or do you think the investigative tools should be different for a self-named user? 84.106.26.81 (talk) 01:02, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure i even understand what the proposal is. Assign names to IPs? Or just give someone a name when they edit from an Ip- and they're stuck with it? Or what? I don't get it. How would this be better than IP editing, how would we knoe, if the name is assigned to an IP, that it is the same user each time, was that even the point, etc. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:45, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
    My take is that the propsal would be that WikiMedia would assign "editor names" to each IP, and automatically log in to that account. I don't see that it helps, though, except preventing tracing (by non-CHECKUSERs) and making it impossible to contact the ISP to tell them someone is vandalizing, which might violate the ISP's terms of service. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:46, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
The ip information doesn't vanish. It will be just as easy to come-by as the ip information from registered self-named users. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 01:02, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
  • In 2006 we talked about this - obviously there was no consensus at the time (cant find the talk) - But as mentioned above for technical reasons it did not go anywhere. A few solution were proposed for the fact that IP address are visible to all (thus traceable to an extent). The most popular solution was to automatically assign a random 10 digit number to all IP edits. The other popular idea was to IP edits be named "Anonymous". The name "anonymous" would still be linked to the IPs so that talk page discussions can happen but only Admins would actually see the IP address (this one sound confusing to say the least).Moxy (talk) 01:10, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
I think the challenge presented by the exercise is to develop a review process that doesn't involve any form of 2) judging contritions that haven't been made and 2) doesn't rate users by other qualities than contributions & conduct.
What we want is: contributions => quality of user => mythology
Rather than: contributions <= quality of user <= mythology
The slightest leakage in your formula will ruin the results.
A lot of ip contributions get reverted, it gets harder for editors who know this to stay objective. When you see the ip number, how do you shut off the subconscious? By what means is a person suppose to ignore the statistically obvious? Right, you cant. No amount of steering after disclosure can balance anyones review. Not me, not anyone posting here not even Harry Wu could do it.
Building a good review process should take priority over anything else. Persecution cant be an excuse to abandon the core mission. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 14:44, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Meh, the accounts would still have to be marked as anonymised IP addresses. Editors wouldn't treat these any differently than they do IP addresses. The only thing this would prevent would be instances of real life harassment using information obtained via the IP address (e.g.), but this isn't exactly a big issue. -- 92.2.76.62 (talk) 02:09, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
    No, the only thing this would prevent would be instances of contacting ISPs to inform them that their users are vandalizing Wikipedia. If you call that "harassment",.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:05, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
First there is the assumption of good faith, then there is the vandalism, if the vandalism is repeated there is a valid excuse to stop assuming good faith and do the investigation. If the user typed his own username has very little to do with it. You should forget about all of your ideas that involve abandoning wp:assume good faith before there is a valid reason to abandon it. If your account doesn't allow viewing registered users ip addresses then there is probably a good reason for that? Or not? 84.106.26.81 (talk) 15:39, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Sigh. I provided a clear instance of real life harassment (an attempt to get someone fired to win a content dispute) using information from an IP address, so yes anonymised IP addresses would prevent such harassment. It's the only workable positive in 84's proposal that I can see, that it would prevent normal editors from contacting ISPs or employers (which is almost never acceptable anyway) isn't a bad thing. -- 92.2.76.62 (talk) 20:13, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
The order of likelyhood of such "harassment" (or informing associates for good reason):
  1. Editors who use their real name. (Bowing.)
  2. Editors who do not use their real name, but indicate their affilation.
  3. IP editors.
  4. Editors who do not identify their affiliations, but do bad things, sufficient for a CheckUser to get into the act.
"We" (well, I, at least) generally will not contact an ISP (which, in that case, happened to be the employer) unless the IP is violating real-world laws (vandalizing a web site, even if made easy (as here), is a violation of US Federal law; and the ISP may also be found guilty if they are informed and fail to stop it), or, I'm forced to admit, the IP is stable, and has done little constructive, and much non-constructive, even if in good faith, and short of outright vandalism. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:24, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
But that only describes the bias of a small group of wikipedians. We IP editors make up a much larger group. Therefore: Likelyhood of harrasment is extra high if editors are called Rubin. If you see any editor named Rubin, BEWARE! He is most likely going to harras you. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 17:22, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Vandalizing Wikipedia, in itself, may be illegal in some jurisdictions, but not in every jurisdiction. I tried to get the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office to do something about harassment and vandalism against me and some other editors at Conservapedia and they wouldn't do anything about it; they said it wasn't illegal. I tried to get them to do something about some guy that had been engaging in cross-wiki harassment and cyberstalking against me and some other editors at various wikis (including Wikipedia), and they took a report but did nothing further; they said it was illegal, but only a misdemeanor. That said, vandalism violates many ISPs' acceptable use policies, and because they don't want to be subjected to a rangeblock, many will take action to stop the vandalism. If someone engages in content disputes from a work IP address, then they're opening up a can of worms; that's why I've always tried my best to keep my edits from a work IP mostly uncontroversial. What would make vandalism illegal would be if a vandal made death threats, attempted to setup a drug deal via Wikipedia vandalism, uploaded kiddie porn to Wikipedia, criticized his/her communist government, leaked classified information etc. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 00:43, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
I like the idea of anonymizing users editing without an account. There has to be some way to do it efficiently though. IPv6 addresses will be horrible to have to read and look at once it is fully implemented and replaces IPv4... What if, we offered a javascript style popup box that allowed people to "edit as" and let them pick a name? The system would still register the edit as the IP, but only admins would see the IP and everyone else would see the "Alias." — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:54, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Only if the account type is exactly the same can we avoid our bias blind spot and the horrors that come with it. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 15:39, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Creating an account doesn't change the content of my contributions. Or does it? 84.106.26.81 (talk) 17:28, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment 84 is coming from the position that IP editors should be equal in all respects and should not be discriminated against in any way. Is that true? Let's say it forthrightly: No. it is not true. Failure to register makes it more difficult to interact with an editor and to understand the background behind his/her contributions. Registration is not a burden and should be encouraged, including by having some disadvantages attach to editing from an IP address. --Trovatore (talk) 19:07, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
twist my words?
I wrote: Stop showing visitors ip addresses to other visitors. Your fabrication: IP editors should be equal in all respects.
I wrote: Stop assumption of bad faith. Your fabrication: IP editors should be equal in all respects.
I wrote: More effective discussion. Your fabrication: IP editors should be equal in all respects.
You previously wrote: "I would still prefer that these identifiers be obviously from an IP, because otherwise you don't know whether you can contact the person. Ideally the IP address should be recoverable from the compressed version, so that we can use geolocate, and at least get some information on the editor and possible biases etc." Then claim to know where I'm comming from? This is not accurate. Rating contributions objectively does not involve rating users, definitely not by means of Nationalism. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 17:11, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Although I "mostly" agree with that assessment, as a system operator of a few other wiki's, I've found that there are some cases where people cannot make an account. I've gotten reports that due to impairments or technical difficulties, people have been unable to make an account, or actively refused an account by the system. I had to go in and manually create an account for them and force it through. I would venture to say that "most" people wouldn't care that much to get an account if it wasn't easily available. With the popup method, they could create a pseudo account that would allow the option to email verify them when the "normal" system fails. Just my thought on that issue. — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 21:26, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, please remember that I (anonymous today, as usual) get a different IP address each time I log in to my ISP. So giving that particular IP a name wouldn't help you to recognise me again (the only way to do that would be to enforce account sign-up, please don't), and also risks giving "my" new "name" to the next person who gets that IP address from that ISP. 188.29.34.72 (talk) 16:59, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

How can you search all Wikipedia content using regex?

Wikipedia:Tip of the day/March 22 is entitled Searching Wikipedia with regular expressions (regex).

With respect to searching all of Wikipedia content with regex, the tip states:

To search all of Wikipedia using regex, you could download the Wikipedia database and run a perl script on that.

Is there an easier or more effective way? The Transhumanist 23:08, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Sort of. You could use AWB's Database Scanner. Graham87 14:39, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
I just tried it. It works great! Thank you. The Transhumanist 05:01, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
I've been told to drop a note here: You can email betacommand at toolserver.org and he'll run the query for you. Lucasoutloud (talk) 17:55, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not trying to run a query. I'm trying to write a TOTD on methods available for searching Wikipedia with regex. But I'll keep this option in mind for future reference. Thank you. The Transhumanist 04:26, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
P.S.: What about direct methods for users to use?
There aren't any. Graham87 06:45, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Seems like it would be a great tool on toolserver. The Transhumanist 20:46, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
It would be, but the Toolserver's database does not contain any of the text of Wikipedia's pages (or that of any Wikimedia Foundation project). Graham87 09:42, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Pseudo-rollback

It appears some tool uses the name "rollback" for an undo function it provides in history. Does anyone know which tool, and should we change it so it uses a different word, since rollback is subject to all sorts of policy restrictions and stuff. Rich Farmbrough, 08:11, 20 March 2013 (UTC).

Can you post some example diffs? -- John of Reading (talk) 08:23, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
That would be Twinkle for instance. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:04, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
As I understand it, the policy restrictions are on reverts with no explanation, rather than on the specific technical means with which the reverts are made. So a manual revert with an edit summary of "revert" is subject to the same restrictions as a Twinkle pseudo-rollback with the default edit summary, which in turn is subject to the same restrictions as native rollback. I agree that calling Twinkle's reverting function "rollback" is a bit confusing though. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 11:36, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

OTRS reports re Main Page not updating

Folks, we have received several reports at OTRS over the past couple of days that the main page is "stuck" on March 17. It is clearly limited to a small minority of users. I have given the usual bypass and/or purge advice but it is still happening for some users. Not sure if it's related to the up-page reports of other pages not updating. I did forward one of the reports to the tech guys, but I know they are busy. Thanks.--ukexpat (talk) 14:17, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

  • On the main page itself, I think I am seeing the latest revision. (I'm in Russia.) There are the latest "Did you know" from 8:00 (UTC), 20 March 2013 and "On this day" also from March 20. But elsewhere it is the same exact problem that has returned. I noticed it yesterday, but I'm not editing currently, so it might have been earlier. I also replied at #Page not updating above. --Moscow Connection (talk) 16:00, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Image update problem - full resolution version only

A new version of File:REPTILICUS (3).JPG was recently uploaded. Everything has updated fine except for the "full resolution" version. I've tried to eliminate caching problems as the reason, and I can add that the program "For The Common Good" is also failing to find the new version of the image. For the record, I've been using the most current release of Firefox (19.0.2), have also checked Internet Explorer 9.09, and have refreshed the images and tried clearing the cache. It would be good if someone else reproduced the problem before I report it elsewhere - thanks, Easchiff (talk) 07:07, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Looks like the March 17th version for me, even on full resolution. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 10:49, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
there were recent issues that were fixed.Bawolff (talk) 13:05, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses; I appreciate them. As of just now, it is working fine. Easchiff (talk) 13:21, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Section tag

I just noticed at Special:Version that there is now a <section> extension tag listed. Anyone know what this is? --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 12:43, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

ctrl+f on the same line in the extension table finds me mediawikiwiki:Extension:Labeled_Section_Transclusion. --Izno (talk) 12:58, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Must have skipped right over that. Thanks. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 15:05, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
I was about to ask "When did we get LST enabled here?". But then I answered my own question: February 27. Anomie⚔ 00:39, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
I have to pause to wonder where the consensus is for en.wiki to have it turned on. I would personally disfavor it, as it can create a big mess in the article space if not managed appropriately. --Izno (talk) 00:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Things like this are usually turned on for all the WMF wiki's unless there is reason to believe that it may be contentious. Get consensus to turn it off for en.wiki, and it can be turned of for this wiki. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:05, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Do we have a guideline that says not to put content in templates? This is pretty much the same, but able to transclude various chunks of another article. I can see the pros and cons. But it can also be very useful outside articles. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 01:22, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Mobile version of Wikipedia

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T48442

When I am logged into Wikipedia on my phone and am using the mobile view, the front page shows "Welcome, Ezhiki!" at the top of the page. It's written in a huge font, serves no useful purpose, and eats up about 10% of the screen estate. Other than logging out, is there a way to turn this off somehow? Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 21, 2013; 17:32 (UTC)

Since there's no obvious change of state from logged in to logged out on the mobile view – unless you've opted into our experimental Beta mode and can see the edit button ;) – this message was intended as a post-login confirmation to assure you that you are, indeed, logged in. I kind of like it as a reminder that I'm logged in (or not), but I can see how it might be a bit annoying to see it every time you visit the Main page. I've added this as a bug. Thanks for the feedback! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 23:32, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for looking into this. I agree that having such a reminder is not a bad idea per se, but my main concern is that in its current form it just takes too much space on a small phone screen.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 22, 2013; 12:10 (UTC)

Articles linking and not linking to themselves

There seems to be a problem with Special:WhatLinksHere. According to the tool, the articles link to themselves and yet when ypu look within the articles themselves there are no links to themselves present. I've actually noticed over the past few days. Simply south...... catching SNOWballs for just 6 years 18:15, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

See #Self reference (sort of) in what links here above. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:02, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Help with fixing a script

Is anyone able to figure out what's wrong with the editing part of User:Drilnoth/delresized.js? It deletes the old versions of the file with no trouble, but doesn't seem to do anything when it comes time to remove the tag, and I can't see what's wrong with it. Category:Rescaled fairuse files more than 7 days old is slowly getting backlogged, so there are plenty of files to test it on at the moment. (The regex could also use some cleaning up, if you're interested, but that's not horribly urgent.) --Closedmouth (talk) 03:15, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Kindle problem reported to OTRS

Folks, we have just had an e-mail from a Kindle user who says that recently they have been unable to read Wikipedia on their Kindle and are being prompted to create an account. Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this and what the fix is? Thanks in advance.--ukexpat (talk) 13:03, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I have no problem accessing and reading Wikipedia on my Kindle 4. If I click on the star in the upper right, the site correctly tells me that I must login or sign up to watch the page, but that does not hinder reading. jcgoble3 (talk) 19:34, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
On a Kindle 3, I can only read the lede of each page. See my comment in the discussion about BlackBerry display problems. I don't get any prompt to create an account, however.
By the sounds of it you are seeing the full desktop site, since the option to watch a page is not available on the mobile site. Either the WMF don't do automatic redirection to the mobile site for Kindle 4, or you clicked the "Desktop" link at the bottom before they broke it. My problems using Wikipedia with the Kindle only apply to the mobile site; the full desktop site works fine. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:42, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm definitely viewing the mobile site (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/), and yes, there apparently is a watch option now (the WMF recently implemented a mobile watchlist). To view anything below the lede, you have to click on the arrow on the right-hand side to expand the section; everything below the lede is collapsed by default on the mobile site. jcgoble3 (talk) 00:49, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
I just did a bit a messing around on my desktop PC, where I logged in on the full desktop site then tried to go to the mobile site. I was rather surprised to get the full desktop site served to me when I went to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/, along with a security warning that the SSL certificate is for *.wikipedia.org (not *.m.wikipedia.org). (I never submit passwords or login cookies without HTTPS.) Perhaps something similar happened to you, where the full desktop site was served even though you were on the m.wikipedia.org domain? I couldn't reproduce this on my Kindle, though. On my Kindle, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/ always goes to the mobile site, even if I logged in using the desktop site, though I still get a security warning about the wrong SSL certificate.
I think the mobile watchlist feature the WMF added is the option to browse the changes to pages on your watchlist. You can access this by clicking the menu icon in the top left, then clicking "Watchlist". This seems to work well on the Kindle, at least (though I'd prefer the ability to read the content of articles...). There are no options to edit the watchlist on the mobile site that I can find. I have to add pages to the watchlist (or remove them) using the desktop site.
Regarding the arrow on the right... what arrow on the right? After the lede is just a greyed out list of section headings on the Kindle. There are no arrows or other such icons in sight. I've tried moving the Kindle pointer around the area on the right of the headings, but it doesn't snap to any hidden links. Also note that the section headings are not auto-collapsed when the mobile site is viewed under Opera.
I've just had a thought... There seem to be a lot of differences in the mobile site between Opera and the Kindle, and by the sound of it you're seeing something completely different again. Perhaps the WMF are serving completely different sites to different devices? Or are they doing some form of A/B testing with the mobile site at present? – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 00:34, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
See my comment about jQuery below – I suspect that's the culprit. As for removing items from the watchlist on mobile, it's as easy as tapping the star again, just like on the regular desktop site :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 02:12, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
See my comment below too . As for removing items from the watchlist on mobile, that's easier said than done. On the mobile site, the watchlist star has a dependency on jQuery that does not exist on the desktop site. As a result, I can't see the watchlist star on the mobile site, while it works fine on the desktop site. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:43, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
My Kindle can't take a screenshot, but I did the next best thing and took a photo of the page with my camera. This is what I'm seeing, and it is the exact same thing (except for the obvious daily change in TFAs and the occasional ITN update) I've seen every time I've brought the page up in the past few days. The star in the upper right (below the reload button) is what I was talking about in my first post above. Does that look like what you're seeing? jcgoble3 (talk) 02:40, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
(Direct link to Jcgoble3's image)
Wikipedia Main Page on a Kindle 3. There is no "watch" star visible on the page. The place where it should be is blank.
Main Page on my Kindle 3
Bottom of the Wikipedia Aberystwyth article on a Kindle 3. Only shows grey section headings, with no content between them. Most of the links you would expect at the end of the page are missing.
Aberystwyth on my Kindle 3
Okay, that looks like the mobile site, though it isn't quite what I see. The first image on the right shows the same page as viewed on my Kindle. Note that the place where you see a star is blank for me. I've moved the pointer around that area to check for links; there is nothing clickable there. On my desktop PC (Opera) I get a blue "Go" button here, which simply submits the search entered in the box to the left.
If I scroll to the bottom of the main page, there is a grey "Read in another language" heading at the end, with no way to expand it. In Opera, the list of languages appears beneath this heading without any need to expand anything. For a better example of the grey headings, look at my 2nd image, which shows the end of our article on Aberystwyth. Here, you can see several grey headings with no content between them, and no arrow to expand them either. At the end of the page, there should be links to go to the Desktop version, the page history, the licence, disclaimers, etc. However, none of these show on my Kindle, though they do show on Opera. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 00:15, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
OK, both my Kindle 4 and my regular laptop (the latter checked on Firefox 19.0.2, Chrome 25.0.1364.152 m, IE 10, and Safari for Windows 5.1.7) show the same mobile site, with no problems expanding collapsed sections. The desktop, etc. links are hidden in a collapsed section at the end of the page that uses the Wikipedia wordmark as its header, but that expands just fine for me also. Perhaps something in the mobile site is not compatible with older Kindles? jcgoble3 (talk) 00:42, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I didn't think of clicking the "Wikipedia" wordmark (it's not something that would be obviously clickable). I've tried it now, and it does nothing on my Kindle. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:43, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I normally read articles on mobile, even on my laptop and computer. Recently, whenever I look up a page, the rest won't load, section headings are gray, and the arrow doesn't show up. At first, I thought it was a problem with my computer, but when I checked with my laptop, I get the same problem. Turns out it's not limited to computers. Can somebody fix this problem ASAP? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 12:04, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment – Maryana here on behalf of the Wikimedia mobile web team :) We recently made some changes that affect users on devices that don't support jQuery. We did this knowing that only a tiny percentage of our users (1% or fewer) accessed the mobile site from these devices, and that the benefits as far as serving new features (like the watchlist you all may have noticed, or editing/uploads, which we're currently building out) outweighed this cost. Unfortunately, if you're on an older model Kindle, it looks like you're affected by this. An unrelated problem is that site hiccups (like the one that happened today as a result of a flood of users trying to find out about the new Pope) mess with our JavaScript and render sections temporarily unnavigable. If you're accessing the mobile site from a device that does support jQuery and you notice this, please be assured that it's only temporary. If you have any more questions, just let me know, or feel free visit our IRC channel: #wikimedia-mobile connect. Thanks! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 02:09, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
You knowingly excluded readers from Wikipedia? That seems to go against what the WMF is about. What happened to freely sharing the sum of all knowledge with every human being? There seems to be a gaping gulf between your dismissal of 1% of Wikipedia's mobile readers and Steven Walling (WMF)'s comments 5 months ago ("job number one for us is to give away the encyclopedia to as many people as possible").
http://en.wikipedia.org/ redirects to http://en.m.wikipedia.org/ when viewed on a Kindle, and the link back to the desktop version isn't visible. I doubt most readers know how to manually change the URL to get to the desktop site, so these readers are completely unable to read any article past the lede. Given Wikipedia's readership, 1% is a very large number of people affected. Did you also take into account the number of readers affected every time the scripts on Wikipedia go flaky? It happens quite often, so I'm certain it's more than 1%. Also consider that not everyone in the world has access to the same level of technology as the US and UK.
Also, your explanation doesn't entirely make sense. In Opera (on my desktop PC), the mobile site works with JavaScript completely disabled; the only issue is the missing "watch" star. On the Kindle, I still can't read past the lede with scripts disabled. Without JavaScript, both browsers don't support jQuery, so how come the site works in Opera?
Your reliance on jQuery is inexplicable. The normal Wikipedia implements watchlist, page editing and file upload without any requirement for jQuery. (Okay, the main upload wizard requires it, but Wikipedia:Upload/old is available for those who need it, as well as the plain Special:Upload form.) I understand that jQuery might make things easier for developers, but the desires of the developers should not take priority over the needs of the readers. I suspect there's also a "when you have a hammer, everything's a nail" problem: When you have a developer that knows how to use jQuery, everything becomes a problem to be solved with jQuery...
Whew! Sorry about the length of all that. (It doesn't help that I've been dealing with issues at work where bad jQuery code causes errors on customer sites, and the stuff it does can be done with HTML and CSS alone.) – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:43, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
First let me stress that if you're seeing collapsed sections that can't be expanded that is a bug. The mobile view, like the desktop view, uses a technique known as progressive enhancement: basic functionality like reading text and searching is available to all browsers that can access the site and render HTML with the characters needed for the language you're reading. Additional features like login and watchlist are, on mobile, mostly aiming at relatively current and future devices -- the market for internet-enabled phones is still young and billions of low-cost smartphones will be sold over the next few years, including in "less developed" countries -- so we're not spending time on non-JavaScript fallbacks for interactive features. You should either have working JS-based features or a working but limited JS-free experience; anything else is a bug. If it was a bug that went out knowingly, hopefully we will get that sorted out soon. --brion (talk) 01:19, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Yep, what Brion said :) And I apologize if I made it seem that we "excluded readers from Wikipedia!" You won't be able to toggle (open or close) sections on a non-jQuery-supporting device, but you should still be seeing the content itself. The expected behavior for those users is permanently expanded sections. If you're still encountering this problem after Pope-a-palooza brought down our servers temporarily the other day, something else is amiss. We're investigating... Maryana (WMF) (talk) 01:43, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I've done a little more research... Internally, we're only enabling the section-collapsing for browsers that we detect as "supporting jQuery", and the collapsing is done only if JavaScript is actually enabled. The Kindle 3 has a WebKit-based browser, and if I'm reading the code right it will be detected as supporting jQuery. Clearly something is failing though... Can you check if there's any kind of "debug" or "developer" switch that will show JavaScript errors? Either some of our software is disagreeing on whether it's compatible, or it's encountering an error before initializing the section expansion. --brion (talk) 01:50, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
There's nothing obvious in the Kindle to show JavaScript errors. The only settings are "clear history", "clear cookies", "enable/disable JavaScript" and "enable/disable images". If anyone is aware of a hidden setting to do this, please say. Personally, I really wish the thing had a "view source" command, or some option to copy the received pages to a PC so I could check what had been served to the Kindle. No such luck, though. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:21, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
As a workaround, try disabling JavaScript in the browser options; my Googling indicates that this is possible, and it should prevent the section collapsing from happening at all. --brion (talk) 01:58, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I probably didn't make it too clear in my earlier comments: This bug is happening with JavaScript disabled. On a hunch, I visited http://www.isjavascriptenabled.com/ with JavaScript disabled and received the ambiguous response "YES NO". (Under Opera, it correctly says "NO".) It appears that the Kindle still executes some JavaScript when JavaScript is disabled, so I suppose I can't really blame the mobile site for not functioning properly under those circumstances.
Interestingly, content collapsed using {{collapse top}} is correctly shown as expanded when JS is off, on both the mobile and desktop sites. I'm guessing this uses a different collapse mechanism from the section collapsing on the mobile site. With the section collapsing, the Kindle runs the collapse code then "disable JavaScript" stops me expanding it again. For {{collapse top}} content, "disable JavaScript" takes effect before the content is collapsed in the first place, so it remains expanded. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:21, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
✘
— T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) is sad he's in the 1%.
Maryana, please also read BlackBerry display problems. Since mobile is the way things are moving, I would like to add a bugzilla request to add a tab to my preferences so that I can make changes to my mobile settings from my desktop or any device. I'm not sure what to classify it under though? MediaWiki: or does it belong under the MobileFrontEnd extension in MediaWiki extensions:? Thanks — T13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:01, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Firstly it's worth noting all javascript on the desktop site depends on jQuery (the above thread suggests otherwise). On mobile certain phones we do not currently serve jquery to, however on these pages content should be visible - the ability to read always comes first. The bug you talk about has happened before and it is usually related to caching. To make this easier to fix could you please attempt to clear your cache on your Kindle and see if that resolves the problem? If not then I believe it is a specific javascript error that is being thrown by your browser which we will need to investigate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdlrobson (talk • contribs) 14:30, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

There is no option to clear the cache on the Kindle; I don't think it keeps one. I tried the "clear history" command and also rebooted the Kindle to clear anything that might have been in memory, but this made no difference.
Given my findings above when I visited http://www.isjavascriptenabled.com/, I think it's clear there is a bug in the Kindle's JavaScript handling. Working around the bug might be hard. You could possibly implement the section collapsing in a similar manner to the {{collapse top}} handling, since that seems to work as expected on the Kindle. Failing that, simply don't collapse the link to the desktop view; make it easy for readers to fall back to the desktop site if they can't expand the sections on the mobile site. (Or, you could put the link to the desktop site on the menu in the top left, since that seems to work.)
BTW, a big thank you to Brion and the rest of the developers who are looking at this. There are too many sites that ignore problems like this, so it really is refreshing to see that you're taking this seriously. Thank you! – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:21, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Now that you've clarified that this bug occurs with JS disabled, I can verify the problem as well on the Kindle 4. I get the same result from http://www.isjavascriptenabled.com/ ("YES NO") and the same grayed-out unexpandable section headings when I disable JS. This is indeed a bug, but more a Kindle bug than a Wikipedia one (not to say that it can't be fixed on the WP end). jcgoble3 (talk) 01:56, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
I've submitted a patch to allow you to access the deskop link in the meantime https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/54080/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdlrobson (talk • contribs) 23:46, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
I've also opened a bug https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46287 Jdlrobson (talk) 16:17, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for both. I can confirm your patch is working. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 22:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
I've obtained a Kindle 3 (with keyboard) and it looks like it actually does expand sections... but the mouse cursor is hard to position and often skips over the sections. Probably we can fix this by making the section titles links when collapsed.... we'll experiment. :) --brion (talk) 22:55, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Can the folks seeing the problems report what software version is running on your Kindle? Hit 'home', then 'menu', pick 'Settings', and on the bottom it should say something like "Version: Kindle 3.2.1 (576290015)". The first 4 digits of the serial number under 'Device Info' on the settings screen might also help, to confirm which model we're working with. Thanks! --brion (talk) 23:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Version: Kindle 4.1.1 (1813030025), first 4 characters of serial number: B00E. Note, for extra clarification, that the bug only occurs with JavaScript disabled. jcgoble3 (talk) 00:05, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't have the "JavaScript off" problem on my Kindle 3, but I can confirm the gray non-expandable sections with "JavaScript off" on my other (no-keyboard) Kindle, running 4.1.1 (first 4 chars of serial: 9023). Looks like a bug in this version of the software, which unfortunately appears to be the latest for these models. Workaround: turn JavaScript on... --brion (talk) 17:40, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Version: Kindle 3.4 (1725970040), first 4 characters of serial number: B008. Since your Kindle isn't affected, the bug may have been introduced between Kindle 3.2 and 3.4. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 22:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Cluebot NG not editing

What's going on? Look in #wikipedia-van on irc.cluenet.org... "(Not Reverted) (Run disabled)" The run page is set to True. Also see Cluebot's contributions... nothing for hours. Anybody know what's happening? Vacation9 00:40, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

All the people with access are European, so an inside fix would have to wait until morning. The relevant people have been notified. Nothing I can see seems broken, so my suggestion is for an admin to edit User:ClueBot_NG/Run and replace with enable. Maybe an edit and a purge will nudge it. 930913(Congratulate) 03:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC) P.s. use the command .reason in #clueirc on irc.cluenet.org to find why the bot is down. ;)
I tried screwing around with ClueBot NG/Run a few times, no effect. It looks like it has been struggling today: it stopped for about 8 hours, came back and reverted some edits that were 7 or 8 hours old, took a two hour lunch break, came back and made a few more edits, then stopped again. I'm not a technically-minded sort, so I won't pretend to know what's wrong. If everyone would please not vandalize for a few hours until they get it sorted, that would be swell. --Bongwarrior (talk) 03:56, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
It did have an effect I think. Something looks like it's changed. There may be more than one issue; I just need a bit more vandalism to be sure :p 930913(Congratulate) 04:06, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm on it - I'll start scribbling "I like turtles" and "YOLO" everywhere until bedtime. --Bongwarrior (talk) 04:09, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
OK, so it looks like the stream that tries to make edits is breaking. :/ I guess we'll find out in the morning, when Damian logs in to find a scrollback of error messages. In the meantime, the humanoids seem to be doing a good job of clearing up, like in the good ol' days. 930913(Congratulate) 04:57, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

ClueBot appears to be editing normally again, so I guess whatever it was is now fixed. --Bongwarrior (talk) 05:17, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Turns out it was migrating database servers, to a greener pasture for springtime. :) 930913(Congratulate) 10:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Admin preferences for Special pages

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T48412

In a recent discussion at WP:AN, some administrators favored (and none opposed) the idea of having some admin-specific options added for Recent changes and watchlist pages. For every change listed there is a rollback button and for every user a block beside contribs. This may be convenient for some tasks, but many of us aren't likely to do a rollback without first looking at the diff or block someone without first looking at their contributions. Personally, I prefer Twinkle to rollback anyway. So the buttons simply clutter up the pages and provide us with lots of opportunities to click on the wrong thing. It would be nice to have the options "Hide rollback buttons" and "Hide block buttons" added to the Recent changes and watchlist tabs of Preferences. How would I go about requesting that? RockMagnetist (talk) 15:52, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I have filed a Bugzilla report here. —Theopolisme (talk) 11:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
They should both be able to be hidden with css or javascript as the case may be. The rollback links have a span.mw-rollback-link tag.class so it should be easy to set display: none (or hidden); and make it disappear. For some reason though, I can't seem to make that class respond to my css and I have tried on two different wikis that I have admin privileges on. The display thing wasn't working, so I tried to just make it do something to stand out:
span.mw-rollback-link {
    text-decoration: blink; /* Just to see if it would respond, and it doesn't.  I even tried it with !important */
}
Can anyone make this class respond to them before I submit a bug report? — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:45, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
The next thing I tried was to inject the css with JavaScript after the pages was loaded:
$('span[class^="mw-rollback-link"]').css("text-decoration", "blink !important");
This gave me the following result:
<span style="" class="mw-rollback-link">...</span>
Not sure what is going on here... — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 13:00, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Okay, so I finally got it to blink for me with:
$('span[class^="mw-rollback-link"]').css("text-decoration", "blink");
Apparently you can't mark things as !important when injecting with JavaScript. Working on the rest now. Will post a workaround script here today as well as on the bugzilla report. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 13:31, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Neither should you ever use !important. It's a dangerous override that should be avoided at all cost and often CAN be avoided, with a little bit of knowledge about how specificity works. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:30, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Okay, so I came up with a script that works for me as a jsfiddle:
/* make [rollback] and "blocklink" disappear */
if (document.location.href.match(/Special:Watchlist/) || document.location.href.match(/Special:RecentChanges/) || document.location.href.match(/Special:Contributions/)) {
    $('span[class^="mw-rollback-link"]').remove();
    $('span.mw-usertoollinks a').last().remove();
    $('span[class^="mw-usertoollinks"]').each(function() {
        this.innerHTML = this.innerHTML.replace(" | )", ")");
    });
}
Would an admin here like to try it? — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 16:18, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
I just do this through CSS, which loads faster. Admittedly, it's only for the rollback link, since there's a confirmation page for blocking but not for rollback. The CSS looks like:
body[class~=page-Special_Watchlist] .mw-rollback-link {display: none;}
Also, it's probably easier to just use the wgTitle variable (i.e. wgTitle == "Watchlist"), or some other equivalent, rather than matching the href. Writ Keeper (t + c) 16:29, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Would this go in common.js? RockMagnetist (talk) 16:34, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Technical13's would; sincemine is CSS only, it would go into common.css Writ Keeper (t + c) 16:38, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
The javascript seems to have no effect (I'm using Chrome, so it should work as soon as I reload). For the rollback button, the script provided by ReaperEternal does what I want:
.mw-rollback-link {display:none}
(I'm quite happy to remove it from all pages) so it's really only the block button that I need a solution for. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:54, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
I already have the rollback in common.css. Could that interfere with the javascript? RockMagnetist (talk) 16:57, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Worked here I'll play with it a little more and see if I can get it working on the wiki... — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 16:59, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
It shouldn't interfere with the Javascript, no. Anyway, a CSS solution for that would be 
[title*="Special:Block"] {display: none;}
, if you don't mind hte stray pipe character that will leave. Writ Keeper (t + c) 17:08, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Functionally, that does just what I want. Removing the pipe character would be icing on the cake, but I can live with it. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:23, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

The reason my javascript solution is working in jsfiddle and not here I have found is the way the wikipedia loads it. In the fiddle, I had it set to Jquery 1.9.1 onload when it should have been nowrap - in <head> --- from the head, it doesn't seem to be able to process the $('a').last() or $('a:last') like it is ignoring it. Going to see if there is another way to make it work. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 18:08, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, here you go... This SHOULD work (it works on other wikis I administrate):
/* make [rollback] and "blocklink" disappear */
if (document.location.href.match(/Special:Watchlist/) || document.location.href.match(/Special:RecentChanges/) || document.location.href.match(/Special:Contributions/)) {
    $('span.mw-rollback-link').remove();
    $('span.mw-usertoollinks').each(function () {
        var $elem = $(this);
        $elem.children('a:last').replaceWith("-");
        $elem.html($elem.html().replace(" | -", ""));
    });
}

and it goes in your common.js. I'll be posting it to bugzilla as well. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 19:14, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

That works well, although I had to replace 
replace(" | -", "")
by 
replace("| -", "")
(removing the first space) to get rid of the hyphen. RockMagnetist (talk) 20:28, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
I also tried the suggestion of Writ Keeper and replaced the first line by 
if (wgTitle == "Watchlist" || wgTitle == "Special:RecentChanges" || wgTitle == "Special:Contributions") {
That works equally well while looking more elegant. RockMagnetist (talk) 20:34, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, that might not work on recentchanges or contributions page; if you find that it doesn't, you should instead try:
if (wgTitle == "Watchlist" || wgTitle == "RecentChanges" || wgCanonicalSpecialPageName == "Contributions")
(wgTitle doesn't include the namespace ("special:"), and wgTitle for contribs includes the "\<username>", while wgCanonicalSpecialPageName doesn't). Writ Keeper (t + c) 20:46, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
I cleaned mine up a little as well with:
if (wgPageName == "Special:Watchlist" || wgPageName ==  "Special:RecentChanges" || wgPageName ==  "Special:Contributions") {
— User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 20:53, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Again, be careful about the contribs page for that one; wgPageName, like wgTitle, includes the "/<username>" suffix, when you're looking at <username>'s contribs; wgCanonicalSpecialPageName, though a wordy variable name, strips out that suffix. Writ Keeper (t + c) 20:56, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
You're right, Writ Keeper, my changes didn't work everywhere, but yours do. Sloppy testing on my part! Once we have a canonical version for the script, I'd like to post it where admins are likely to find it. Any suggestions? I have discovered that Customizing_watchlists already has some CSS script for blocking rollbacks, on watchlists only. I'm leaning towards adding material to Administrators' how-to guide. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:05, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, I usually just put my scripts on the list of scripts in the User Scripts wikiproject. Probably not the most visible place, though. Maybe the new admin school? It's up to you, really. Writ Keeper (t + c) 00:23, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

How about this for hiding rollback on watchlist? It was pointed out to me the other day. Then I was also pointed to this conversation. — -dainomite   02:17, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I just cleaned up and edited that yesterday Dain... — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:00, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Haha, gotcha. Well then... I uhh... have nothing further to contribute Keep up the hard work you smart cookies! — -dainomite   14:06, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I think we can consider this problem solved. Thank you, Theopolisme, for submitting it to Buzilla; and Technical 13 and Writ Keeper for coming up with some nice solutions! RockMagnetist (talk) 16:41, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Math tag error

I am getting the following error on an equation I would like to include in my article:
Failed to parse (lexing error): Q_10 = \frac{\text{Shelf Life at temperature T°C}}{\text{Shelf Life at temperature \left (T°C + 10°C \right )}}

This is located at this article about food systems in space.

All of my other formulae are formatted correctly and I have tried many different combinations that will get me the desired output for this equation. Please let me know what I am doing wrong and how to o about fixing it. Jssteil (talk) 20:24, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I think someone may have fixed it for you as I do not see any parsing error. However, I did just change "Q_10" to "Q_{10}" because the subscript was not showing correctly. 86.160.211.55 (talk) 23:59, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Omit "\left" and "\right" to stop lexing-error message: While "Q_{10}" puts "10" in the subscript, also change the "\left(" and "\right)" to be just the "(" and ")" parenthesis brackets:
<math>Q_{10} = \frac{\text{Shelf Life at temperature T°C}}{\text{Shelf Life at temperature (T°C + 10°C)}}</math>
I am sorry the math-tag message was so poor, as to not specifically report the "\left" and "\right" options were rejected, as would be the case in better software. So much of today's software acts like compu-trash crapnology, but perhaps someone could fix the math-tag software to display more-specific error messages. Also, it is rather bizarre that math-tag subscripts consider the "Q_10" directive to separate the digit "1" from digit "0" as being "" rather than the 2-digit numeral "10" because, for decades, token scanners have quickly treated consecutive digits as being the same number. It seems as though numerous computer programmers have no concept of following a typical context-free grammar to logically parse computer markup languages. Similarly, the wikitext markup treats reftag text "<ref>...</ref>" as a separate context-dependent language, with different rules for what is allowed inside a reftag element, versus the outside markup. If anyone asks why Wikipedia is needed in today's world, then also reply that if more people knew typical computer technology from decades ago, then they could quickly improve today's primitive computers to be 10x-100x times faster and easier to use. The math-tag processing needs to treat consecutive digits as being one number, and perhaps deprecate the separate-digit processing as too error-prone, then display specific messages as to what math-tag text is being rejected. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:23, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
As explained at displaying a formula the formatting rules are pulled directly from LaTeX, a set of mathematical formatting conventions developed about 30 years ago. LaTeX doesn't treat consecutive digits (or for that matter letters) as groups, and we are unlikely to change that since it would break things like <math> A = \frac12mv_0^2T </math> = . Of course notation like that is fairly insane, but we have no way of knowing how many existing equations would be broken by deviating from the LaTeX standard. Dragons flight (talk) 15:40, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
To add to Dragons flight’s comment, LaTeX is a widely used professional typesetting standard in mathematics and other sciences, and thus familiar to many editors likely to contribute to Wikipedia articles on those topics. Even if it were technically feasible to implement, any discrepancy between WP markup and LaTeX is bound to cause much more confusion than what it could possibly solve.—Emil J. 16:16, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Plan to write a math-tag analyzer: The math-tag problems are so puzzling, to many users, so I think I will write a math-tag analysis template in Lua, within limits. In general, fear of change is often worse than the impacts of the change, and we should try to find real problems which prevent advancements. The regex standard has similar problems, from decades ago, so we might be stuck with confusing syntax, but at least we could warn users with a math-tag analysis template to report potential problems in math-tag formats. The use of "\frac" allows spaces between numbers: <math> A = \frac1 2</math> gives   and so new users could better understand the format. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:18, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Firefox change with no return button

Resolved

can someone explain why my firefox changed its frame? There is no button "back to old style". -DePiep (talk) 00:29, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Not WP related. -DePiep (talk) 11:13, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Browse script

I have created a script to browse through the articles alphabetically. The manual can be found at User:Zanaq/Browse. Hope you like it. — Zanaq (?) 12:05, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Module: sandbox naming patterns

About naming sandbox pages in Module space. Over at WP:LUA I have started a discussion to stabilise it into few(er) patterns. See Wikipedia_talk:Lua#Sandbox_naming_pattern. -DePiep (talk) 17:01, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Slow

The site's really slow right now, and I'm sometimes getting WMF errors. What's up? Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 19:18, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I've gotten errors too... — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 19:27, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Name any slow articles or pages and we might optimize: Although the Lua transition of Template:Cite_news has made many large articles reformat over 20% faster, it is possible to use rapid Template:Cite_quick or the Template:Vcite to format some articles even 2x faster. If a page still averages over 20-second reformat time, then very busy servers could triple the delay and hit the 60-second timeout as "wp:Wikimedia Foundation error". For the train/road route-map articles, we are planning to install Template:BS-overlap/sandbox2 as 2x times faster. However, we need to know of other pages which run slow, and see what can be done to optimize them as well. So, name the troublesome pages, and we can check to optimize them. -Wikid77 20:30, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Reduced "Vowel" from 23 to 11 seconds by omitting off-topic navbox: To avoid wp:Wikimedia Foundation error of 60-second timeout, I removed the 12-second, off-topic bottom navbox {IPA navigation}, from article "Vowel" as excessive focus on only one form of vowel-pronunciation text which was wp:data hoarding consonant links into the same slow navbox. In general, many articles have become bloated by hoarding of excessive, or often off-topic, text, such as listing numerous consonants in an article about vowels. The wp:grandstanding of off-topic text is especially found in numerous bottom navboxes which contain remotely related articles, often as the boxified contents of another article but tacked onto the bottom. Many navboxes are becoming ultra-slow boxified, graphical categories which have been allowed because wp:boxoboxes tend to demand their own attention and escape review from being wp:UNDUE text (off-topic) in many articles. Such wp:boxification is tolerated because navbox contents seem protected, from critique, within the walls of the boxed area. For many major articles which format very slowly, several seconds can often be cut by removing the excessive bottom navboxes, although a single 12-second navbox, such as {IPA navigation}, is relatively rare. Anyway, as common utility templates become faster, such as with Lua versions, then slow timeouts of articles will more likely be caused by data hoarding, and typically in excessive navboxes. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:10, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Experienced template coder needed

Hi. I'm an experienced content editor, but I have virtually zero background in template coding. I'm a template user, but a complete novice when it comes to coding. Is someone who is an experienced coder available and willing to help with the modification of the coding for an existing complex template (an infobox), and also able to create a visually representative mock-up of same before it goes live? If you are able and willing to help, please feel free to leave a response here or on my user talk page. Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:54, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

How to revert multiple sequential vandalisms?

I wanted to revert three recent sequential vandalisms from Carnival, and clicked "Undo" on the first of these, thinking it would also remove the following edits - but the edit preview display showed the subsequent vandalizing edits still there, so that instead of reverting all three I would be reverting only the single initial one. What is the proper way to remove all of these edits together? Milkunderwood (talk) 23:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

When viewing the page history, there are two columns of radio buttons (to the left of the date and time of each edit). You can use these to select a range of edits to undo:
  1. For the right radio button, select the most recent vandalism edit (typically the top revision).
  2. For the left radio button, select the last revision before the vandalism.
  3. Click the "Compare selected revisions" button above the columns of radio buttons.
  4. In the diff that is displayed, click the "undo" link shown above the right side of the diff.
  5. In the edit window that appears, enter an edit summary and click "Save page".
Alternatively, if there are no good faith edits after the vandalism, you can revert instead:
  1. In the page history, click the date/time of the last non-vandalised revision.
  2. Click the "Edit" tab at the top.
  3. Enter an edit summary and click "Save page".
  4. Return to the page history and check that you didn't accidentally revert any good faith edits. (Reverts will never give an edit conflict warning, so you must check yourself.) Redo anything you didn't mean to revert.
– PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 00:17, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks very much - got it. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:47, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I was starting an article today and noticed that the big long lists of interwiki links that used to be at the bottom of each page have vanished. I was told this is now done by bot. No offense to the speakers of the "& l t ; 0 & g t ;" language, but I think the Interwiki Machine is broken... Yes? Carrite (talk) 02:32, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Wikidata. --Rschen7754 02:35, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
Needlessly complicated and ineffective. Not sure why the rush was made to dump the baby down the drain with the bathwater. Right now I've got two new articles with no interwiki links and seemingly no way to effectively make them... Carrite (talk) 21:40, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
1. Log in to Wikidata.org with the same user name and password you have here. After that, the account should be added to your SUL. 2. On Wikidata, click "Create new item". Choose a label for the new entry (I guess preferably the title of the article in the English Wikipedia), then add interwiki links (in the section "List of pages linked to this item"). Someone has already did it today for Avetis Sultan-Zade. You may need to purge the page, though. --Moscow Connection (talk) 22:36, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
If you are unable to use Wikidata (as I am), just add the interwiki links to the article as you would have done before Wikidata. There appear to be bots that pick up such links and move them to Wikidata anyway.
Also, Rschen7754, there is no mention of the "&lt;0&gt;" problem at Wikipedia:Wikidata. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Wikidata doesn't work with Internet Explorer, by the way. (Just in case you use IE, and therefore are unable to edit.) As far as I know, it doesn't work to a different extent with different versions of IE. --Moscow Connection (talk) 23:37, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Citing Wikipedia

Two changes I think they should make to Special:Cite:

  • The publication is called Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, but this generates a capitalization error whenever I insert it into Word. Might I suggest decapitalizing "the": Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.
  • The publisher is also "Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia", similarly giving me a green underline. I think it should be "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc." to avert this problem altogether.

Thank you. 68.173.113.106 (talk) 22:53, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll offer my advice from a purely technical standpoint: When you CTRL-V (or CMD-V on Macs I believe) the text into Microsoft Word, you should see a popup at the bottom right corner of the copied text. Click on that, and say "Keep Text Only," and see if that changes anything. Otherwise, we really can't change our citations or they wouldn't follow proper MLA, APA, Chicago, etc. styles.. Sorry :/ gwickwiretalkediting 23:28, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not talking about the format of the citations, but the fields in them (author, title, publisher etc.). 68.173.113.106 (talk) 02:47, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Word is wrong, like it is on a few other things I won't go into. Try sending Microsoft an email to fix their product. That would be the proper course of action. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:10, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
As opposed to Wikimedia/Wikipedia being bug free, right? - Nabla (talk) 12:27, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

index.php not processing arguments on Special:RecentChanges or Special:Watchlist

When I'm looking at my Watchlist, and I click on the "all" link for days the page reloads with http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Watchlist&days=0, but I see no change in the output. Even when I append &limit=1000 to it, I do not get more results. Anyone else having this issue? If so, I'll post a report on Bugzilla. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 19:00, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any problems here. Perhaps a temporary glitch? I'm using Firefox 19.0.2 on Windows 8, if it matters. jcgoble3 (talk) 19:45, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm using Mozilla Firefox 17.0.4ESR on a Win7 Ent SP1 and the problem also happens on my laptop which is Mozilla 19.0.2 on Windows Vista. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 19:50, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
I see the same thing (Opera 12.14 on openSUSE 12.1)... My watchlist is set to show 7 days; when I click "all", it still shows 7 days. I seem to recall it being mentioned somewhere (can't remember where) that "all" uses the number-of-days setting from your preferences. Hence, unless you've clicked a time period different from your preferences, I wouldn't expect "all" to make a difference. (You can manually edit the URL to add days=30 if you want more.) – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:24, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
When I click "all", I get edits back to March 11 (presumably where it hits the limit of 1,000 changes), despite my preferences saying 7 days (which would be March 15). jcgoble3 (talk) 00:52, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
I've gone so far as to try http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Watchlist&days=30&limit=1000 and gotten no change from my default of 3 days & 100 edits... (I have it set so low because of page load times on my BlackBerry (See T48247)) — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:03, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
My preferences were set to a limit of 500 changes. It just so happened that this worked out as 7 days of changes when I checked the other day... I think what I read earlier (I still haven't found it) might have referred to this maximum limit rather than the number of days in preferences. Sorry for any confusion! – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 00:58, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

UTC articles

Hi - a suggestion about pages relating to time zones (e.g., UTC−05:00, UTC+11:00) - is there any way to add a feature to each page displaying the current time in the time zone? I picture it as being somewhat like the coordinate links on geographical articles, but rather than being static, it could actually update the time as the page is being read (in the same way that the standard clock in the top left of the page does). It would then be possible to have a lede for each page something along the lines of this:

UTC−05:00 is a UTC offset of 5 hours earlier than Coordinated Universal Time. It is observed as Central Daylight Time in the United States and Canada from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November (see Daylight saving time); otherwise, as Eastern Standard Time. The current time in this time zone is xx:xx:xx.

Unfortunately, I'm very much an "end-user" hen it comes to the technical side of things, so I've no idea how to go about creating such a feature... any help, ideas or suggestions? Thanks in advance - Grutness...wha? 23:50, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Not a good idea for two reasons: first, the time would always be out-of-date due to the server cache and would update to the current time only when the page is purged, and second, such a statement would be meaningless in a printed version of the article. jcgoble3 (talk) 00:57, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Grutness, what you are looking for is {{#time:H:i:s|now (offset)}}. I recommend against putting it on those pages because it would force the page to be re-cached with every visitor, this wiki is slow enough, and it would be useless for printed version. You may however, want to take advantage of WP:Comments_in_Local_Time and/or MediaWiki:Gadget-UTCLiveClock which can be turned on from your "Gadgets" tab of your preferences page. You may also be interested in User:Technical_13/Gadget-LiveClock.js which is my own project to put my local clock in the top corner instead of UTC, but beware, as it is still in alpha. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:29, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

OK - it was just a stray thought - thanks for the advice. Grutness...wha? 22:34, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Unbulleted lists issue

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T48480

This template is for making lists with items that have no bullets before them. This is working correctly on the desktop versions of pages. However, on the mobile versions of pages, for example this page, in the "Key people" section and "Products" section on the infobox, it is putting the bullets in. It may be from a problem on either or both of two MediaWiki pages.

On MediaWiki:Mobile.css, this is what makes up the unbulleted lists section: 

.plainlist ul {
    line-height: inherit;
    list-style: none none;
    margin: 0;
}

On MediaWiki:Common.css, this is what makes up the unbulleted lists section: 

.plainlist ul {
    line-height: inherit;
    list-style: none none;
    margin: 0;
}

--Energybender (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

When I view the page source and click through to the loaded stylesheet, this is all the CSS that is loaded:
/* No modules requested. Max made me put this here */
Who is Max? jcgoble3 (talk) 02:35, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Max is one of the developers. The mobile site was not supporting any of the custom CSS that we added. At some point a fix was made to make it include MediaWiki:Mobile.css, but it seems this no longer works. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:10, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Developers, developers, developers, developers. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:54, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

­Content

This is about the word "content" when used as a section header.

Please go back up to this page's TOC, find this section header, "Content", and click on it. If it brings you back down to this section, then I know it's not Wikipedia and my computer's going ditsy. If, on the other hand, you click on "Content" and it takes you almost to the top of this page, then maybe you can explain to me why that happens? – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 04:12, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

It jumps down here in Firefox, but to the top in IE. This is because IE is not case-sensitive on anchor links. See this extract from the HTML source of this page:
<body class="mediawiki ltr sitedir-ltr ns-4 ns-subject page-Wikipedia_Village_pump_technical skin-vector action-view vector-animateLayout">
		<div id="mw-page-base" class="noprint"></div>
		<div id="mw-head-base" class="noprint"></div>
		<!-- content -->
		<div id="content" class="mw-body" role="main">
			<a id="top"></a>
			<div id="mw-js-message" style="display:none;"></div>
Note the highlighted line; because IE is not case-sensitive with regard to anchors, #Content and #content both jump to the top, whereas on Firefox and other browsers, #Content jumps down here and #content will jump up there. Moral of the story: get a real browser. :P jcgoble3 (talk) 04:32, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Good one. I hear that all the time. I use Firefox and Chrome to check some of my edits that might appear differently in those browsers, but I don't like to use them for actual editing. Different strokes? Anyway, it's not easy to understand how you can use the above very excellent explanation as a platform to put IE down. After all, you do say Firefox jumps to the top when a lowercase "content" is encountered. So why do our browsers do this? Is it the <div id="content"... in the code? So, Firefox and other browsers won't jump to the top on a page like, say, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Content, and IE does jump to the top. And due to your obvious dislike for IE, you don't seem to consider this to be a Wikipedia technical problem? The devs I've had contact with seem to disagree with that stance. They feel that, for example, new changes made in the software should be tested and should pass cross-browser and they include IE in those tests. Why? Because there are still a significant number of people who prefer IE over other browsers. So now that I am satisfied that there is a Wikipedia technical problem, what do I have to do to get it fixed? Would you say that a bug report is the way to go? – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 04:58, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed – never mind. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 06:36, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

For anyone puzzled about what Paine's fix was, he added a soft hyphen at the start of the heading for this section. This is invisible when displayed, but changes the link for the section to #.C2.ADContent, fixing the issue. (".C2.AD" is how a soft hyphen is encoded in section links by MediaWiki.) – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 00:53, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Log bug in Bugzilla how header "Content" does not link: It is worth a try, to log the issue in Bugzilla, for the IE7-IE9? family of browsers, because the Foundation is aware more users have IE browsers, but Wikipedia's poor support, for IE features ignoring CSS classes and needing "line-height:0" when positioning images, is likely driving thousands of users away from editing WP. Your comments about the "dislike" for IE are well-placed, because the dwindling support for the world's most-popular browsers is likely to fire up the leaders of WMF. Also, the problems seem simple to fix, and you never know when a clever developer will find a solution soon. For IE browsers to show wikitable cell borders, they need "border=1". Just recently, I lamented that the new Scribunto interface to Lua script was unfortunately 3x slower than small templates, allowing only 180 #invoke's per second, compared to simple templates running 350-600/second, and the developers have already found a way to double the Scribunto interface speed, to allow small Lua functions to run perhaps 350 per second. In the next release, Lua-based templates will start almost as quickly as markup while also running hundreds of times faster internally. Remind the developers how IE works differently, and perhaps they will find more ways to re-support the majority of browser users again as in 2009. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:48, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
See my comments about case-sensitivity at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 107#CSS for hiding rollback links on watchlist. The rules governing case-sensitivity (or otherwise) for the HTML id= attribute are, for all the browsers that I have checked, the same as those for the class= attribute. In brief: don't use "Content" for a section heading. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:29, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Submitted rename request at WP:NOT: Although "#Content" has been fixed to find a section-link inside the same page, it does not seem to work in the URL address with older browsers (IE7-IE9?). Hence, I have submitted a rename request of header "#Content" for the WP:NOT page, as mentioned above:
The Wikipedia HTML has div-id names for both "top" and "content" as <div id='content'>, so I opened a request to rename the section header for WP:NOT. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:21, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
 Done. I had used the soft hyphen on that page as well, but it was a poor bandaid. So I just renamed the section to Encyclopedic content. Redrose64's suggestion is the best way to go. Anytime one runs across "Content" all by itself in any section or subsection header, just give the section a different, appropriate title. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 04:29, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
PS. I anchored "Content" to that header.

Template:Yesno

I've altered Ori.livneh's Module:Yesno so that it duplicates the functionality of {{yesno}}. There's a working implementation at {{yesno/sandbox}} and test cases at Template:Yesno/testcases. However, when I tried doing a whole load of test cases at once with either template, page loads with the Lua version took about twice as long as with the old template (0.6s compared to 0.3s). {{yesno}} has ~5,900,000 transclusions, so I'm leery to change to the Lua version if it is going to cause that much of a performance hit. Is this just because the old template is simple enough that it doesn't make using Lua worthwhile, or is there some part of the Lua code that could be more efficient? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 10:59, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Note: I have made extensive unit testcases, comparing module with template. Results at Module talk:Yesno/testcases. At the moment, two fails appear (difference between module and template). This says nothing about the efficiency of the module. -DePiep (talk) 13:46, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Nice catches! I've fixed the module so that everything passes. How did you think of all of those test cases? Anyway, I did the same performance test as earlier, and this time the old template gives me 0.545s and the Lua version gives me 0.738s, which is looking better. Not sure if this is enough to justify a switch just yet though - thoughts? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 14:29, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Long time ago I analysed the template (and added the overview table to its documentation). The template recognises five different logical situations (by default folding them into two: "yes" and "" (blank)). Then there are five optional output settings (the named params), some of them interacting (overruling another). in the testcases I tried to systematically attack each (combination of) options. After building one list, the most others were easily created by s&r. And of course thinking mean and dirty input is a nice play. The Lua unit test greatly allows for checking against a template (rather than manually entered data). -DePiep (talk) 16:25, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Optimize yes/no branches but use Lua only for long #switch functions: The main (but small) problem with Template:Yesno is lack of alternating the top choices as higher in the #switch (it should be ordered: y=yes, n=no, yes=yes, no=no, with rare ¬={{{¬}}} as last), to process answers even faster. In many cases, a short markup-based template, such as {Yesno}, will be 2x-3x times faster than a Lua-based version, such as for a #switch function with less than 30 branches. Other rapid templates are those which use small parser functions, such as Template:Str_left using {padleft:|}, because the wp:parser functions run about 6x faster than a similar tiny Lua function. However, we need a Lua function to handle switches with hundreds of branches, such as a simple mapping of id-codes to words, or town names to populations. In general, when a template runs over 70 per second, then Lua is not really needed there (as {yesno} runs 700/sec), but re-ordering the #switch branches (as most-frequent first) could help (where Template:Yesno/sandbox2 runs 850/sec). -Wikid77 (talk) 15:25, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
    I see sandsbox2 uses an "=" for every entry (not stringing like |n|no=...). That is part of the speeding up too? -DePiep (talk) 16:37, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
    Makes sense to me. I assume the code after the "=" doesn't get processed unless there is a match, and if that's correct then it would be just as fast to have equals signs after every case string. All the test cases check out for sandbox2, so I think we should update the main template with it. It will be a heavy load on the job queue, but the long-term performance benefits are probably worth it. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 17:01, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
I strongly suggest to remove &lt;!-- null --&gt; from the sandbox. First, it is not null (but a nullstring), second it may introduce undocumented and unwanted side-effects. -DePiep (talk) 17:55, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Might it not already be causing undocumented side-effects in places where the template is used in substitution? I agree with fixing it in principle, but if we do so there's no way of knowing what might break. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 18:03, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Let it break. -DePiep (talk) 00:40, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
This is used pervasively, but is it actually used often per page? The template runs hundreds per second, but I've yet to discover a use case with hundreds of examples on a single page. Do such examples exists? If not, then discussing optimization is largely pointless. Dragons flight (talk) 17:09, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
At a glance I count 21 transclusions on {{WPBannerMeta}} and 38 on {{WikiProject Biography}}. Not quite hundreds, I admit, but perhaps worth the change? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 17:56, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I expect Talk:Barack Obama has hundreds if not thousands [sic] of instances. This will be due to the WikiProject banners, particularly {{WikiProject United States}}, most (all?) of which are built around {{WPBannerMeta}} which uses {{yesno}} extensively. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:59, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
That's a very good point. From Talk:Barack Obama, just counting {{WPBannerMeta}}, {{WikiProject United States}} (203 transclusions), and {{WikiProject Biography}}, I got up to 577 transclusions, and there's bound to be quite a few more. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 18:12, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Module: new pages needeed

With the new Module space, we need extra pages next to our standard ones (Speedy, XfD, ...).
Sometimes the abbreviation "m" is occupied (miscellaneaous, ...)
Please expand the list :

To be added: Speedy db-mx (Module nonsense)
To be added; ModForDiscussion: module:nonsense (I create one every day)

-DePiep (talk) 22:07, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Can't they just be bundled with the templates? -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:32, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Really, M is a space.
If it is like, codecopy ({{Db-t3}}) then still it should be like (module-xx): ({{db-m3}}) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DePiep (talk • contribs) 23:31, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Tried to add {{db-g7}} (author self delete request) to Module:User:DePiep/sandbox2: not accepted (cannot save). -DePiep (talk) 01:22, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

API sandbox help

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T48481

I'm getting two "titles" params with the API sandbox:

  • Go to Special:ApiSandbox
  • Choose Action=query
  • Choose 2nd Action prop=revisions
  • For titles write: User:Jimbo (note: the first titles field, not the later one)
  • Click Make Request

I get the request URL:
/w/api.php?action=query&prop=revisions&format=json&rvlimit=10&titles=User%3AJimbo&titles=User%3AJimbo
where titles is in there twice. Seems like the 2nd one is not needed, if I chop it off the query works the same way. Silas Ropac (talk) 03:28, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay cool I guess this is already fixed and will be rolled out at some point. Wasn't bothering me, just noticed it. Silas Ropac (talk) 22:32, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Confusion about Pending Changes

here it appears that the latest revision was pending [3] even though the page appears to be set Accept: require "autoconfirmed" permission, the user user was autoconfirmed and there were no previous pending changes by IP's. What's going on here? Regards, Crazynas t 01:38, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Might the PC system have detected that Jiiimbooh was reverting directly to a previously rejected version? If the software is capable of detecting that, it stands to reason that if the version was rejected once before, it would be unlikely to be accepted by a human reviewer on a second try (though in this case it was arguably a valid revert), and as such it might choose to not automatically accept such edits out of caution, requiring human review of the edit instead. I'm no expert on PC, though, so I have no clue whether this makes any sense. jcgoble3 (talk) 03:46, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Indeed, I noticed that I thought that might be the reason as well, but if there is, we should probably update the documentation at pending changes. Crazynas t 04:33, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Crazynas, you might want to post a query about this at WT:Pending changes. Rivertorch (talk) 08:28, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

keeping multiple accounts in Sync

I am right before creating another accounts for security reasons (internet cafe, open WLAN and so on)

And I want to ask, is there any way to keep wachlist and such in sync???

My1xTreme 19:56, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

There is no automatic means: no user has the ability to find out the watchlist of another user, therefore no two users can share watchlists. However, there is a manual method for making two watchlists identical: this works on Windows systems; a similar system is available for Apple Mac (but I don't know the keypresses).
At either one of the two watchlists, go to Edit raw watchlist, click anywhere inside the large edit window, and type Ctrl+A Ctrl+C to copy the whole watchlist to the Windows clipboard. Then at the other of the two watchlists, go to Edit raw watchlist, click at the end of any line and press ↵ Enter to open up a blank line; then in that blank line, type Ctrl+V to paste in the clipboard contents, and click on Update watchlist.
Then repeat the whole process in the other direction, and the two watchlists are now identical. They will not remain identical unless you ensure that pages added to (or removed from) one are also added to (or removed from) the other. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:39, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Remember also that if the purpose of the alternate account is to insure the integrity of your "main" account then they will probably end up editing in the same areas, so you should publicly link the accounts through a notice on the alt account's userpage in order to avoid the appearance of socking. You could aalso do something obvious like use the same name and just add (public) or (alt) or some other identifier at the end. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:57, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
@Redrose64
ok, THAT can be funny. but it would be intresting to create a function which enables a sync if you know the credentials (hope I wrote it right) of the other user...
and also one Idea insted of the keypresses I know something that should work everywhere (I mostly use windows and used Linux and Mac also a bit)
Right click in edit field->Select All >> Right click on the selected text->Copy >> right click in other field->Paste My1xTreme 21:03, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Sure you can do that; like most functions in Windows, there are several alternate methods to perform copy/paste (I know of two others, making four - there may well be a fifth I'm unaware of), but to give them all is unnecessary (even Microsoft don't tell you about all of them). It's down to which you find easiest: I find hitting two keys to be much quicker than a click and a menu selection. Returning to your first comment in this post: making one user's watchlist visible to another user (even if they were the same real-life person) would need a change to the MediaWiki software, which means bugzilla:. There's nothing we can do from here. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:06, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
@Beeblebrox
I read the socking and so on things, in fact that's the origin of the 2nd account Idea.
I Just talked with JohnCD about that and for the fact of syncing I should ask here, the rest is already told out...
My1xTreme 21:03, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Another possibility is to set up a public watchlist in the userspace of one of the two accounts. You could then access and edit this watchlist from any account (so could anyone else, of course). – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 21:45, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you wouldn't just take a more progressive initiative to protect the security of your account. Set a Strong password and just in case, confirm your identity. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 22:27, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
of course I also do that, I just commited yesterday and strong pass is the basics, but since it also seems to be normal pratice of security-wise users I'll do that too, after my usurp is done...
and also when a keylogger gets my pass a stong password doesnt matter anymore and if my account is then used for vandalism, I have a problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by My1xTreme (talk • contribs) 03:44, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Project ideas and mentors for Google Summer of Code

The Wikimedia Foundation is planning to participate again at Google Summer of Code. The deadline is Friday, March 29. We have several possible projects, but so far we have found only 3 in good shape to be listed as GSOC project ideas. We are working to include more, and you can help. We need more feedback, concretion and mentors. For instance: we would like to include proposals related to Lua templates and JS gadgets, but we lack projects defined that would keep a student busy during 12 weeks - and someone willing to mentor them.--Qgil (talk) 20:11, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Search index not updating

The search index has failed to update since 13 March.
Help:Searching#Delay_in_updating_the_search_index says this should be reported here.
These backlogs frustrate us WikiGnomes in our tidying up, and we get a huge backlog of spelling, grammar and other mistakes to correct when it is eventually updated. Could someone kick-start it please?
Arjayay (talk) 15:37, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Just to record that the search index has still not been updated since 13 March - Arjayay (talk) 12:50, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, yes, yes. This is a great hindrance to some of us. It's like working with one hand tied behind our back. Chris the speller yack 13:37, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
And, yet again, I report that the search index has not been updated since 13 March - Arjayay (talk) 08:23, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
This was reported on a weekend so response times are slower. :) As a first step: How to see / identify that the search index on en.wp has not updated for a few days? Any testcase or way to see output to prove the statement? --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:11, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
My usual reply:-
My standard test-case is this search for "recieve" (sic) which has a core of about 60 mis-spellings that can't be corrected (URLs, quotes etc) and normally has 12-15 new mis-spellings per day. If you search the list for 13 March you will find 16 entries, however, if you search for 14 March, 15 March, 16 March, 17 March or 18 March you will find no entries whatsoever. So there have been no additions to the list since 13 March.
Moreover the list still includes the mis-spellings dated 13 March, which I corrected on 14 March such as this diff [4]
Arjayay (talk) 10:59, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
There is a very simple test - think of an article that will have had several recent edits - currently, I suggest "Pope". Enter "Pope" in the search box, and click "Containing Pope" at the bottom. This says the article Pope was last edited @ 21.44 on 13 March. Click on the article history, and you will see there have been actually 40 edits since that edit - on 13, 14, 15, 16 & 17 March. Arjayay (talk) 12:53, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
An easy way, without trying to think of an active topic, is to search for the day before yesterday (March 16, if today is March 18). It shows edits on the 16th, but the search results show the last update as March 13. Chris the speller yack 16:04, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
May be on completion of an update the time could be recorded somewhere so that people know when the search index was last updated. Keith D (talk) 13:47, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Excellent idea
Perhaps someone could also add some code so that, if the last update was over, say, 26 hours ago, it automatically alerted someone in WMF that it wasn't working. - Arjayay (talk) 15:37, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
This is all lovely, but do we know that the operators at WMF have been informed about the current situation? If they perused WP:VPT daily, they would have (or should have) said something here by now, such as that they expect to have it corrected by August. Chris the speller yack 16:10, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't think anyone in Platform knew about this, it didn't come up in our meeting earlier today. -- Tim Starling (talk) 02:56, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I fixed it. It may take a while to get through the backlog. -- Tim Starling (talk) 03:18, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I should have added to my initial comment above the sentence "Feel free to file a bug report in the issue tracker at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org to bring it to the developers' attention" - sorry for not mentioning that explicitly. In general a number of WMF folks and volunteers read the village pumps. Also thanks to Tim for the quickly tackling this, of course. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 13:42, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
If that is where it should be reported (not that I've ever understood how to file a bugzilla report) why does Help:Searching#Delay_in_updating_the_search_index say it should be reported here? - Arjayay (talk) 18:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I haven't looked at the page history to see who wrote that instruction or why they chose that instead of suggesting that people go to Bugzilla, but I've now altered the instructions to suggest Bugzilla instead. Here is a how-to guide regarding how to file a Bugzilla report; I hope it helps. Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 16:27, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Though I'm glad this has finally received some attention, it has been over 17 hours, and no improvement can be seen in the search results. I'm getting the creepy feeling that it has gotten hung up again. Can someone check, please? Chris the speller yack 22:06, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

OK, now it is working. Thanks again. Chris the speller yack 04:42, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
But it didn't update last night - as the misspellings of receive I corrected yesterday, are still in this list today. - Arjayay (talk) 10:31, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
And it hasn't updated overnight, yet again - last additions are about 06.00 on 20 March - Arjayay (talk) 09:18, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

((OD)) And, yet again, I have to report that it didn't update last night (although it did the night before). Arjayay (talk) 13:12, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I pinged Andre to have him look at this. Chris the speller yack 17:28, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi Chris, please file a bug report in Bugzilla against the "Wikimedia" product (see mw:How_to_report_a_bug for more info), and bonus points for putting tstarling, who has commented here earlier, into the CC field of that report. Thanks! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 17:37, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
On a related note, the Server Admin Log has an entry for March 22: "02:52 Tim: on searchidx1001: started incremental indexer, apparently it died on March 21 at 02:08 when it ran at the same time as a cron job import" --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 18:10, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T48530
I've created bugzilla:46530. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:46, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Search is horribly broken

Sorry, this point doesn't seem to have been made very clearly by the people working for the Wikimedia Foundation, so I'm writing a subsection. Search is horribly broken. Well, perhaps "horribly broken" isn't the most precise term to use, but it's been creaking along for months, now turning into years. A few Wikimedia system administrators have tried applying band-aids and other quick fixes, but the search infrastructure itself is in desperate need of tender loving care.

Robert S. had been supporting search for years on Wikimedia wikis in a volunteer capacity. At some point in the past few years, he decided to stop supporting search. The current search code (Lucene) is in Java. Wikimedia developers primarily work in PHP and Python, so there are issues generally supporting and maintaining Lucene. The Wikimedia Foundation, for its part, finally recognized this issue at some point and hired a full-time developer to support search (Munagala R.) and is currently actively seeking another full-time developer to support search (cf. this job posting). Munagala has been getting up to speed these past few weeks (some of his notes are here: wikitech:User:Ram/Search). I'm not sure what his status is now, but he's the guy you actually want to be poking about getting search properly stabilized and fixed. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:55, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the correct explanation. If search issues happen because of the codebase: Ram is still catching up, see for priorities. If it's the servers to blame, this is oeprations team territory. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:39, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Timeout errors

Is it just me, or have there been a lot of timeout errors when saving pages? I've been getting this on most saves in the last 24 hours. The save is usually successful, but data has been lost on a couple of occasions. Edgepedia (talk) 21:40, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

e.g. Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_the_District_line&action=submit, from 91.198.174.56 via sq61.wikimedia.org (squid/2.7.STABLE9) to 10.2.2.1 (10.2.2.1) Error: ERR_READ_TIMEOUT, errno [No Error] at Mon, 18 Mar 2013 21:49:37 GMT for [5] Edgepedia (talk) 21:52, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
If you remove {{District Line RDT}} from that page, then the rendering time will drop from 36 seconds to 4 seconds, and you won't see any more timeouts. Yes, it's pretty, but is it worth waiting 32 seconds for? -- Tim Starling (talk) 02:44, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
I wasn't just getting problems on that page, but also lost comments I'd made on a talk page. If it's just me and the problem continue, I'll look at the scripts and gadgets I've enabled. Edgepedia (talk) 17:26, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Need to streamline the {BS2-2}, {BS6-2}, {BS7-2}, etc. I have been working to reduce the runtime of similar {BS8}, with Template:BS8/sandbox, to shave several seconds off the reformat time, but all the variations, each, require a careful rewrite to run faster but not insert extra newlines between the rail/road segments nor change the background color. In most cases, it is better to just create a static image of the whole route-map path, and ask other editors to update those images when the route is changed. Regenerating a route map, live, based on checking thousands of branch conditions, is extremely slow, similar to a computer paint-by-number to regenerate a famous painting's image. It is better to just store the whole map, or painting, into a static image file, and then update when the data needs to be adjusted. Meanwhile, we need to streamline those {BS2-2}, {BS6-2}, etc. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:52, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Update {BS-overlap} to use {Superimpose5} as 30% faster: The easiest method to quicken the route-map templates is to change protected Template:BS-overlap to use new Template:Superimpose5, rather than the prior {Superimpose2} which runs 10x slower with the empty parameters x6-x50. For {{District Line RDT}}, that map will generate within 25 seconds, rather than 37 seconds, as almost 30% faster. Now, long-term, the other route-map templates can be rewritten as much faster, because even 1,000 route-map line images can be displayed within 3 seconds. Hence, the remaining 23 seconds is an indication of too many #if/#ifexpr parser functions being repeated where not needed. Those route-map templates should reformat within 7 seconds, as within 2,500 if-functions. Anyway, the Template:BS-overlap/sandbox2 runs 30% faster. -Wikid77 08:17, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Could you test if {{BS-overlap/noalt}}, which skipped the {{BS-alt}}, runs even faster? Also I changed noalt a bit to have the similar effect you did on {{BS8/sandbox}} to avoid using the file:BSicon_.svg which can still potentially cause timeout error when generated too many in the map. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 08:36, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
The {BS-overlap/noalt} version runs nearly 2x times faster than {BS-overlap}, as ~17 seconds rather than 35, but needs white color to match the prior {BS-overlap} by style="background:white;width:20px". All line segments in {{District Line RDT}} appeared the same with {BS-overlap/noalt}. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:45, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Continuous discussion in Wikipedia talk:Route diagram template#Proposed changes to protected BS-overlap. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 02:59, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

non-free file size reduction requests - order by size

It would be nice to somehow be able to order Category:Wikipedia non-free file size reduction requests by megapixels so that the largest offenders might get attention first. – JBarta (talk) 04:52, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

An API call with generator=categorymembers/prop=imageinfo&iiprop=size is a good place to start. Someone could maybe pop out a script using that for you. --Splarka (rant) 08:07, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
That API call doesn't seem to work for me. It only gives me a not styled XML document and there is no order. Here is a snippet:
<page pageid="38857910" ns="6" title="File:101 Chodyangal.jpg" imagerepository="local">
  <imageinfo>
    <ii size="179797" width="960" height="646" />
  </imageinfo>
</page>
<page pageid="38824474" ns="6" title="File:125 Jazz Breaks Glenn Miller 1927.jpg" imagerepository="local">
  <imageinfo>
    <ii size="91090" width="712" height="960" />
  </imageinfo>
</page>

.. SNIP ..

<page pageid="38814158" ns="6" title="File:Airfmradiologo.png" imagerepository="local">
  <imageinfo>
    <ii size="123700" width="1026" height="646" />
  </imageinfo>
</page>
<page pageid="21618539" ns="6" title="File:Akron Beacon Journal front page.jpg" imagerepository="local">
  <imageinfo>
    <ii size="185530" width="300" height="551" />
  </imageinfo>
</page>

They are obviously not ordered by size, width, or height... If there was an API call that worked to order them, you could simply add a link somewhere on the categories page like <span class="plainlinks">[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?(REST OF CALL) Show this page ordered by file size]</span> — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 13:13, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

If it could be done so the megapixels (or even image dimensions) could be listed with the filename, that would be a good start. "Ordered" can always be added later. – JBarta (talk) 16:41, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
I could see it being listed by byte size or image dimensions (what dimension would be alpha and which would be beta for sorting?), not sure if by mega-pixels is possible though. I'll look into the api some more. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 21:16, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
I might also mention that when I say "size" I mean image size... width×height or megapixels (width×height/1,000,000) rather than file size (KB or MB). By megapixels would be the ideal. – JBarta (talk) 21:25, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Drop a request at WP:DBR, see what they can do for you. Request might be out of scope, but that's my go to for this kind of question. --Izno (talk) 21:58, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Done. Thanks. – JBarta (talk) 23:38, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm still working on this for you as well. I'm reading and researching the api's commands. It can be accomplished, but if you want mega-pixels, that is going to have to be calculated using a javascript that your group will have to import into your common.js pages. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 00:26, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Just wondered if this is going anywhere or if it's been relegated to the "not very important to do now but we might get to it someday" bin. – JBarta (talk) 14:03, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
LOL It's requiring me to learn AJAX which is new to me. Since I also am a father of a 17 month old, who is going through a separation, and is a full time workstudy student with four classes and a ton of homework (Hardware, XML, Networking, and Eng lit this semester), it may take me a week or two to put something together to get started. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 14:11, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Is there any way to contact the operations folks at WMF?

Again, the WP search index was not updated (it has only been updated once in the last week). Posting here (as directed) never gets prompt attention. In a previous section, it was claimed that the WMF folks read the Village Pump daily, but I am skeptical about that, since they seldom respond to situations such as this that require their attention. Chris the speller yack 19:11, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Posting at User talk:Okeyes (WMF) might help. Biosthmors (talk) 19:20, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
I have done so. Thanks much. Chris the speller yack 20:21, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi there. Can I ask who directed you to post here (in Village Pump:Technical) to try to get the attention of Wikimedia Foundation staff? Here's a guide to reporting an issue in our bug tracker, Bugzilla -- doing it that way ensures that it quickly comes to the attention of User:AKlapper (WMF), the WMF Bug Wrangler, and other technical people who can recognize urgent problems and help get them fixed quickly. Andre Klapper does read this page regularly, but not as frequently as he looks at new issues in Bugzilla. He's happy to help get problems fixed, whether the problem's one for Operations, Mobile, Language engineering, or any other Wikimedia Foundation engineering group to fix. If you think WMF is not responding fast enough to an important problem, please contact him. Hope this is helpful!
I'll poke some folks about the search issue. Thanks for pointing it out. Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 20:39, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, you can ask who directed me to post here (in Village Pump:Technical) to try to get the attention of Wikimedia Foundation staff? — H:SEARCH did, until a few hours ago, when you changed it. Chris the speller yack 00:25, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Let me get this right. You want me to register on Bugzilla and expose my real email address to whoever else uses Bugzilla, just to report a condition that at any rate might not be a software bug, but might be the result of some action taken by an operator? Seems to me that the failure of the update process to complete should be detected by the operators themselves, or by another automated process that checks for timely completion of important processes. Chris the speller yack 00:49, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi. Nobody is ever required to use Bugzilla. :-) You can always report issues here on this technical village pump. Its global counterpart is m:Tech. If it's a very serious issue that must remain private, you can e-mail security@wikimedia.org. Sumana was saying that Bugzilla is watched more closely than this talk page, which is sometimes true. Any actual technical issue will very likely need a filed bug report in Bugzilla at some point, but it's not your responsibility to use Wikimedia's Bugzilla installation. It's always optional. You can always report issues on the wiki (this wiki or Meta-Wiki). There are also mailing lists and IRC, if you're into that kind of thing.
Better integration between Bugzilla and MediaWiki would be great. It's being tracked in Bugzilla (surprisingly ;-) here: (umm... somewhere, I can't find the bug right now). I did trip across mw:Grand plot to overthrow Bugzilla, though. So I'm gonna go clean up that mess. Hope some of this helps. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:11, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Oh, here we are:
There you go. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:52, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
If there's a technical problem you're trying to get solved, and you realize that it's a problem that requires Wikimedia Foundation staffers to do something in order to solve it, it's more likely that you'll get that solution quickly if you use Bugzilla, or at least ping Andre so he can get something copied into Bugzilla. And yes, I think actions taken by systems administrators (operators) count here. You're right that it would be better if this kind of failure would be caught by an automated process; I'll follow up on that. I appreciate your reports of problems no matter where they take place, and hope to help get them resolved more quickly. Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 19:55, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I repeat the (unanswered) question I asked in Village_pump_(technical)#Search_index_not_updating above - If it should be reported via a bugzilla report, why does Help:Searching#Delay_in_updating_the_search_index say it should be reported here? Arjayay (talk) 13:08, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I had already updated that help page to indicate that Bugzilla's the better place to report this kind of issue, and to point to a how-to guide. I've now also responded to your comment in Village_pump_(technical)#Search_index_not_updating. Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 16:28, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
With regard to email addresses in Bugzilla, the Create Account page warns "We recommend using a secondary account or free web email service to avoid receiving spam at your primary email address" (and MZMcBride already mentioned bugzilla:148). If you quickly want to talk to the operations team it might be worth to try the #wikimedia-operations channel on IRC. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:44, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
...and the search issue is now filed as bugzilla:46530, by the way. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:10, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Czech fundraising appeal disappeared?

Hello, can't find the Czech version of the latest fundraising appeal although in many other languages the text exists. It was available yesterday but suddenly lost. Thanks! Lub — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.70.164.223 (talk) 21:22, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Was it hosted here at en.Wikipedia? Seems like it would have been over at Meta or on the Czech Wikipedia itself. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:59, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Works for me on cs.wikipedia.org (with a fresh browser) - Czech fundraiser is displayed. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 14:23, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Template to flag a section of an article to which another article links

Hi, I'm looking for the template that editors use to flag a section of an article to which another article links. The purpose is to let other editors know to change the linking article's wikilink in the event that the templated section's name changes. I've seen it a few times but can't remember.... Thanks in advance, Middle 8 (talk) 04:44, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

There's no such template AFAIK; this is best done with a WP:COMMENT, as aptly illustrated on that page. Another solution is to use an {{Anchor}} and link the other article to the anchor instead of the section title; the section title can then be changed at will without breaking the link. jcgoble3 (talk) 04:52, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
2 things: 1st, articles should not link directly to a paragraph in another page: when such a link is required, almost always the right thing to do is to create a redirect to the paragraph, and link through this rediretion. I could explain why i think so, but for brevity sake i'll pretend everyone agrees. 2nd, i think we should always use anchores when linking to internal part of an article. Peace --קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 06:18, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Got it, thanks; {{Anchor}} was exactly what I had in mind despite not knowing precisely how it worked. Cannot believe I didn't think to use a comment... brain dead today.... that seems like the best bet for what I was just doing. Thanks! cheers -- Middle 8 (talk) 08:12, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Code problem at age in years and months

There is a problem in the above template: {{age in years and months|1975|3|21|1983|3|11}} should report "7 years, 11 months"; instead it reports "7 years". The problem seems to occur regardless of whether two dates are specified (as in my example) or one date is measured against the current date (e.g., {{age in years and months|1975|3|21}}). This bug has been noted on the talk page three times going back to 2010 (four if you include my note there today), and nothing has been done to fix it. I think the problem is that it reports months by saying "if the numbers of days is more than X months but less than Y months, report Y-1 months." I suppose that whatever the template relies on for computation of time uses months 0 to 11, so there is no 12 to subtract one from. Could someone take a look? And if it is possible, would it be possible to make it optional to round so that 21 March 1975 to 11 March 1983 would be eight years rather than being 7 years, 11 months? -Rrius (talk) 07:10, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I've put some changes in the sandbox for others to test. -- WOSlinker (talk) 07:25, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Code Live Sandbox
{{age in years and months|1975|3|21|1983|5|11}} 8 years, 1 month 8 years, 1 month
{{age in years and months|1975|3|21|1983|4|11}} 8 years 8 years
{{age in years and months|1975|3|21|1983|3|11}} 7 years, 11 months 7 years, 11 months
{{age in years and months|1975|3|21|1983|2|11}} 7 years, 10 months 7 years, 10 months
{{age in years and months|1975|3|21|1983|1|11}} 7 years, 9 months 7 years, 9 months

Transcluding sections

We now have the ability to transclude sections but lack guidelines. See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Transcluding sections. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 14:40, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Linking problem to Google books

Sorry if this is the wrong place, but I am having problems incorporating this link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=YsUfc8Ijb-wC&pg=PA146

Into this citation:

{{cite book |last=Sedgwick |first=John |title=Popular Filmgoing In 1930s Britain: A Choice of Pleasures |publisher=[[University of Exeter Press]] |year=2000 |isbn=9780859896603 |pages=[http://books.google.com/books?id=YsUfc8Ijb-wC&pg=PA146 146]–148}}

Rendering:

Sedgwick, John (2000). Popular Filmgoing In 1930s Britain: A Choice of Pleasures. University of Exeter Press. pp. 146–148. ISBN 9780859896603.

For some reason the citation template isn't accepting the hyphen in the link (if you click on "146" in the rendered citation you will see what I mean. Is this a bug or am just messing it up? Betty Logan (talk) 15:58, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

The new version of the template converts a hyphen to and endash. Reporting the problem. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 16:02, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


Sedgwick, John (2000). Popular Filmgoing In 1930s Britain: A Choice of Pleasures. University of Exeter Press. pp. 146–148. ISBN 9780859896603.

Cite book comparison
Wikitext {{cite book|first=John|isbn=9780859896603|last=Sedgwick|pages=[http://books.google.com/books?id=YsUfc8Ijb-wC&pg=PA146 146]–148|publisher=[[University of Exeter Press]]|title=Popular Filmgoing In 1930s Britain: A Choice of Pleasures|year=2000}}
Live Sedgwick, John (2000). Popular Filmgoing In 1930s Britain: A Choice of Pleasures. University of Exeter Press. pp. 146–148. ISBN 9780859896603.
Sandbox Sedgwick, John (2000). Popular Filmgoing In 1930s Britain: A Choice of Pleasures. University of Exeter Press. pp. 146–148. ISBN 9780859896603.
You might just want to use
Werieth (talk) 16:08, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
And I was just going to suggest that. Putting a link in the pages parameter will mean that the link will be included in the COinS metadata which is not a good thing. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 16:32, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
The problem here though is that many editors link from the page number if they are just linking to one page since it's a more intuitive link. It's not a huge deal in my particular case since I can use the url parameter now that I'm aware of the issue, but if this a recent development then it's possible a substantial number of links have been broken as a result. Betty Logan (talk) 16:37, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
That should never have been done. The templates output COinS metadata for reference management systems. By including the link, the COinS page number looks like:
rft.pages=%5Bhttp%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DYsUfc8Ijb%E2%80%93wC%26pg%3DPA146+146%5D%E2%80%93148&
Where just the numbers would look like:
rft.pages=146%E2%80%93148&
--— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 16:55, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Well look, I don't know the ins and outs of how the templates work, but it seems what you are saying is inconsistent with the MOS. WP:PAGELINK seems to advocate linking from the page numbers as an option, and it advocates the use of citation templates to do so. If there is a technical reason to not link from the page numbers then ideally it should say that in the guideline, because you are dealing with editors from very different backgrounds with a wide range of citation styles, and if something shouldn't be done then it's best just to say it shouldn't be done. Betty Logan (talk) 17:25, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
You can link to a specific page, but the only parameters intended for a link are url and archiveurl. You can stuff a link into any other parameter but they weren't intended for such use. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 17:31, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
I feel we are somewhat going around in circles here. The point isn't whether editors should or not, which is besides the point now: it's the fact they have done and now these links don't work if the contain the hyphen. And if this is indeed a practise that needs stopping then the guidelines for the templates should offer more instruction in this capacity, otherwise the problem is perpetual. Betty Logan (talk) 17:42, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Just a comment about something which confuses me: Why include a link to Google Books when Special:Booksources does that (provided by the ISBN link)? The inclusion of the link in the template in this case only eases location of the appropriate information by a click or two.... How does a link add to the information necessary for a citation, when that link is a GBooks link? --Izno (talk) 17:04, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
    • A combination of two reasons: (1) WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT — if I find a source by reading a Google books link, it's appropriate to say so, for instance to aid in verifiability if some of the other metadata turns out to be inaccurate, and (2) the book sources link doesn't go to the specific page number at which the source information can be found, but a Google books link can. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:09, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Ignoring COinS (and other questions of which parameters are appropriate) for the moment, why not simply move the hyphen and final page inside the link?

  • {{cite book |last=Sedgwick |first=John |title=Popular Filmgoing In 1930s Britain: A Choice of Pleasures |publisher=[[University of Exeter Press]] |year=2000 |isbn=9780859896603 |pages=[http://books.google.com/books?id=YsUfc8Ijb-wC&pg=PA146 146–148]}}
  • Sedgwick, John (2000). Popular Filmgoing In 1930s Britain: A Choice of Pleasures. University of Exeter Press. pp. 146–148. ISBN 9780859896603.
It's not a problem with the citation template but the basic way that the single-square-bracket syntax works. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:43, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
I get the exact same problem with that link. I get that there are plenty of ways to address the problem, I can use the url parameter, I can put the link outside of the template, but it doesn't address the problem of broken links that link from this parameter: the template shouldn't be converting anything really, what you put into a template is what should come out. Betty Logan (talk) 17:58, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
The Lua version of the template looks for a hyphen and converts it to en dash, which is the proper mark to separate page ranges. There is no expectation that external links would be added anywhere but url or archiveurl. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 18:24, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Editor Gadget850 hit on it earlier. What ever is making the hyphen-to-ndash convertion is also converting the hyphen in the google books id#:
http://books.google.com/books?id=YsUfc8Ijb-wC&pg=PA146 works
http://books.google.com/books?id=YsUfc8Ijb–wC&pg=PA146 doesn't
Aside from all of that, and as an editor who has created a bunch of {{cite book}} citations with links from |page=, perhaps it's time to consider creating a new parameter |pageurl=; requires |page= or |pages= or |at=. Editors will do what editors will do so we might as well accommodate unless there is compelling reason not to do so.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:22, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Need to fix this we have thousands and thousands of links that are not working. Cant expect our editors to not add this type of URL link if its part of the content guideline on how to link pages WP:PAGELINKS.Moxy (talk) 18:54, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Just another reason that this damn typography madness has to come to an end. Things breaking over this fanaticism about the difference between an en-dash and a hyphen is ridiculous.—Kww(talk) 19:02, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

For the record, the links should now be fixed (by disabling hyphen to endash conversion if any markup is present, e.g. []<>{} ). Including URLs (or other wiki markup) in the pages field will still lead to broken COinS metadata and always has. If people want to include page links in citations (which seems like a reasonable option) then in the long run we probably ought to add a dedicated field for that so we aren't breaking the metadata. Dragons flight (talk) 19:24, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The issue should now be resolved. We do need to think on this some more, as including links in fields not intended for links is certainly a COinS issue and can cause other issues.
Please bear with us as we continue to upgrade the CS1 templates. You will find that they are faster and use fewer resources and a number of perennial problems have been fixed. We do regression testing before updating a template, but we run into uses like this that the templates were not to do in the first place.
--— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 19:28, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
On a side note is there any keyboard in the world that has an &nbsp; key? Why are we making the page coding so complicated for no reason.Moxy (talk) 21:02, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Apple keyboards do have option-space as a non-breaking space character. But it would probably be a bad idea to use it as a replacement for &nbsp; when coding here, in part because it doesn't look much different than a space. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:09, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Page counters

Hi everybody! Firstly, sorry for my terrible English. I'm just a Brazilian guy that has been a wipedian since 2004, currently a Mediawiki administrator in a Brazilian university. :D Well, here we go: I know that Mediawiki allows to view system data through codes like {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} and {{NUMBEROFFILES}}, but I would like to use the "Page Counters" data. We can view it by default using the Mediawiki (though not used in Wikipedia, however), but just on a simple Special page. I would like to use it outside that page, using some code like {{PAGENAME|PAGE_COUNTER}}. Is that possible? Best regards, Sturm br (talk) 16:07, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

This is currently not possible I think. You have to request a change to the software. Here is some info on the proces of filing a ticket. Also, for non-wikipedia/wmf related issues, you should ask your questions on the MediaWiki wiki or the support mailing list. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:26, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Javascript Slideshow Widget for Board Games

This proposal is based on WP:Village_pump_(technical)#Display_Chess_games_.28with_animation.29_using_PGN_data

The problem: for every board game, there are articles that describe sequences of moves. The ideal would be to allow the user to treat the board game like a slideshow, where he/she can move backwards and forwards at his/her own pace.

Proposal:

A thing written in Javascript, added to Common.js, which creates a slideshow. Each element of the slideshow can be either a picture file or arbitrary Wiki markup, but each element is expected to be the same size. The display consists of a canvas of user-specified size, and a row of four buttons below the canvas: first, previous, next, and last. The previous proposal had cool/fancy animations. This one is not animated.
If Javascript is disabled or the user has accessibility needs (for example, blind), there are a few choices: display only the first slide, display an "error" slide that is supplied by the user, or display all slides. I'm not sure which is best, and the best option may depend on the context in which it is being used.

Accessibility: For accessibility reasons, the slideshow must either (1) only display information that could also be deduced from the article text, or (2) display every single slide. Users who are blind or who have Javascript disabled must not be placed at an unreasonable disadvantage.

Primary Use: Showing sequences of moves for a board game.

Secondary Use: Showing any kind of biological or physical process, like an embryo growing into a fetus, or a cell undergoing mitosis.

Objections:

  • My response: My top priority is that the Slideshow Widget be in Common.js and not a Gadget, and if that means narrowing the scope then so be it. By narrowing the scope, (1) it will be useful for any board game, not just chess, which strengthens the argument that this is a valuable addition to Wikipedia. (2) the Javascript code can be MUCH simpler, which weakens the argument that it will bloat Common.js.
  • User:TheDJ said: "So what happens for people without Javascript, or users of the mobile site ? I think you should come up with a strategy to retain this information in a readable form for those users. Also, there are quite a few accessibility issues when it comes to capturing information in JS. Don't forget our blind readers."
  • My response: Yes. I think blind readers are best served by a single image where the ALT text is the sequence of moves in text form. I think that for them, displaying 50 pictures one after the other would be really annoying. But I don't have experience in this.
  • [me] It would be a pain in the neck to show a chess game because you would have to create every chess position as a separate slide.
  • My response: WP:Lua can be used to automate this. The individual Wikipedia page will still be bloated a bit, but it's better to bloat the pages that use the slideshow than to bloat Common.js.

Mattj2 (talk) 20:25, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

The core {{Navbox}} template has been converted to Lua. Please report any problems at Template talk:Navbox. Toohool (talk) 05:37, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Errors with editing interface and sidebar

This is what I'm getting.

The picture on the right is rather small, but as you can see, I'm getting a rather odd setup in my editing interface and the sidebar subsections are not collapsible as usual. Also, the drop-down menu in the search engine is not working either. I have tried bypassing my cache, but the problem remains. I'm probably missing something obvious, as I'm no computer genius, but does anyone know what the problem is? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 20:37, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

This seems to be the same problem being discussed above. - The Bushranger One ping only 21:34, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
My bad. I didn't read that entire discussion because I thought it was something different. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 21:49, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
And not just a bit of the same of the above, but may I add that the sortable wikitables, as well, although still sortable, don't appear to be so due to the now-invisible arrows – they're gone. Jared Preston (talk) 21:46, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Is this the same problem? I use chrome and two of the edit options on the "advanced" edit toolbar aren't where they should be but appear in the body of the where I want to edit. Any clues on how this may have happened? It was fine until WP sort of went down this a.m. I've purged the cache, even reloaded chrome but it persists. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 01:09, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

It appears to be an overall "CSS gone wild" problem causing all of these issues, yes. - The Bushranger One ping only 01:37, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Assuming this is the same as above (bugzilla:46401), this is currently being investigated by developers. You can track the progress in the bug report. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:11, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
That would be Krinkle.--Eloquence* 05:06, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Something else curious I just noticed...

...some hits for Wikipedia articles on Google are turning up at the https:// address, not the http:// one. For instance, Borel-Odier Bo-T Googles to [6], but others are pointing to the normal server (i.e John Andretti). Is this new? - The Bushranger One ping only 23:12, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

T48241 suggests they are aware of the redirecting to the https:// site. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 23:19, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Bug 46241 appears to be about mobile devices not staying logged in? - The Bushranger One ping only 01:36, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
It is, but if you read the comments, it seems may have something to do with it redirecting to the https:// — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 10:42, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Umm, no, that's not related at all. Legoktm (talk) 11:03, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Categorisation suppression on Free images of non-free subjects

I'd appreciate some assistance in resolving this, as I can't edit protected pages.

Yesterday an additional dw param was added to some templates to suppress the categorisation of images of non-free subjects as 'free media'. Where the license is a simple tag, this now works (and the affected templates can be updated on an as-is basis).

However, 2 issues have arisen, because of how certain templates handle multiple licenses.

  1. Any of the GFDL type tage will based on the migration param add an additional Creative Commons license. Currently the template logic which implements appears to know about the dw param, but it's not being passed by the templates that call it.
  2. The dw param is not currently passed to daughter templates by {{self}}.

It would be appreciated if someone that can edit protected pages, implement an appropriate, consistent approach that allows use of the dw param for suppression of the free media categorisation from all relevant templates, including the GFDL type ones and {{self}}.Sfan00 IMG (talk) 09:43, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Two banners, different values

Why two of these yellow banners above the same article, and different values in each case?

  1. Dear Wikipedia readers: We are the small non-profit that runs the #5 website in the world. We have only 150 staff but serve 450 million users, and have costs like any other top site: servers, power, programs, and staff. Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind, a place we can all go to think and learn. To protect our independence, we'll never run ads. We take no government funds. We survive on donations averaging about R$60. Now is the time we ask. If everyone reading this gave R$10, our fundraiser would be done within an hour. If Wikipedia is useful to you, take one minute to keep it online and ad-free another year. Please help us forget fundraising and get back to Wikipedia. Thank you.
  2. Dear Wikipedia readers: We are the small non-profit that runs the #5 website in the world. We have only 150 staff but serve 450 million users, and have costs like any other top site: servers, power, programs, and staff. Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind, a place we can all go to think and learn. To protect our independence, we'll never run ads. We take no government funds. We survive on donations averaging about RR$250. Now is the time we ask. If everyone reading this gave RR$30 our fundraiser would be done within an hour. If Wikipedia is useful to you, take one minute to keep it online and ad-free another year. Please help us forget fundraising and get back to Wikipedia. Thank you.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:9.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/9.0.1. 143.107.45.213 (talk) 14:04, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Fundraising had a bug in CentralNotice that caused this issue to appear on cached pages - specifically we changed where the banner injection began (it used to be in the Skin, now it's auto started from a script). As soon as we determined this was not an isolated problem we pulled all banners globally and fixed the issue. I do sincerely apologize for the terrible experience -- I always attempt to make sure that my deployed changes will not affect the site in obviously negative fashions and this time I failed. Mwalker (WMF) (talk) 02:43, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

A helpful fix for the BLP noticeboard, pretty please

Hi, as a regular over on the BLPN one of the most irritating/time-consuming/confusing issues is actually working out what article the people are posting about, or converting section headers to links or adding the {{la|Yanni}} template, to make it easier for other editors.
Could we not automate this? For example when I hit "create new report" and enter the article name I get this as a section header (not wikilinked). Being able to force the article template with edit/talk/history would be even better, any thoughts? CaptainScreebo Parley! 18:01, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Your question confuses me because I don't see any difference from using your link and using the InputBox to create a new section. What exactly are you asking for it to do differently? — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 18:21, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Hello there, it creates a non-clickable section header, what I am requesting, if you are capable of implementing it, is either a wikilinked section header OR the article template which appears at the top of the section. Hope that's clearer. Thanks. CaptainScreebo Parley! 18:28, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
What generates that link? Werieth (talk) 18:45, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

What? Sorry let's start again, at the BLPN there is a box that says "To start a new request, enter the name of the relevant article below:", a box where one enters the text and a "create report" button BUT the section header is not a wikilink to the article, it appears in plain text, so it says 'Jack Black' and not 'Jack Black', what I am asking is can we not make the report header a clickable link to the article, or force the use of the {{la|Yanni}} template, which for Jack Black gives us

Could you expand on the second option (like how?)? Thanks. CaptainScreebo Parley! 16:42, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Sure, add preload=Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/CreateReport to your <inputbox>...</inputbox> section of the header template. I've done most of the legwork for you unless you want more details or specifications from people. All together, I would change:
<inputbox>
type=commenttitle
editintro=Template:BLPN notice
default=
page=Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard
buttonlabel=Create report
width=40
</inputbox>

TO 

<inputbox>
type=commenttitle
editintro=Template:BLPN notice
default=
page=Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard
buttonlabel=Create report
width=40
break=no
placeholder=[[Please type your title in square brackets]]
preload=Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/CreateReport
</inputbox>

— User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 17:43, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Wow, that all looks very tecchy and just the job, I will introduce over at the TP and try to implement it soonish, will keep you posted, thanks and bazinga! ;-) CaptainScreebo Parley! 16:45, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Resolved

Glad I could help. If you need any wording changes or want more information from the user or whatever, send me a message on my talk page and I'd be happy to expand or embellish it for you. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 16:53, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Great, thanks again, i was just pondering a couple of maybe necessary tweaks, but I have watchlisted your talk (so I can easily get back there), will try to propose this and maybe run a beta-test over the weekend or early next week, check the feedback and take it from there. CaptainScreebo Parley! 17:01, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Language preferences getting mishandled

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T48579

Just a few minutes ago, a lot of tabs and log data suddenly stopped being translated properly. I use the Dutch language interface to English Wikipedia, and, out of the blue, "(laatste wijziging) [één bewerking terugdraaien]" changed to shifted to "(current) [rollback: 1 edit]" in the contribution history and "bewerken" shifted to "edit this page" on the control tabs. Obviously, I still know what those things mean, but why is my interface suddenly getting Anglicized? This hodgepodge of Dutch and English is strange. It happens on both the "nl" and "nl-informeel" language settings. I use the Monobook skin.—Kww(talk) 18:56, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

The message bar has gone wonky, too, with "You have een neieuw bericht from 1 other user", a bizarre Dutchlish phrase if I've ever seen one. This is all still working fine at Commons.—Kww(talk) 19:25, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
More CSS issues maybe? - The Bushranger One ping only 23:07, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
No. Localisation isn't done by CSS. MediaWiki serves different HTML content depending on the user's language preference. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 21:06, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I verified that it breaks in exactly the same pattern when the interface language is set to Japanese as well. Opened Bugzilla 46579. There are no pending translations for the Dutch interface with the word "rollback" in them, either, judging from translatewiki.net.—Kww(talk) 20:21, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I have British English (en-gb) set in my preferences. When admins change interface messages in the MediaWiki namespace, they normally only change American English (en), so I don't see their customised messages. In the last few days that changed, and I've started to see the customised American messages. I suspect something similar is happening with Dutch – you're seeing a mix of the customised American messages and non-customised Dutch messages.
My theory is that a developer was trying to implement a technical fix for admins forgetting to update the British and Canadian messages, by having MediaWiki use the American message if it had been customised. Unfortunately, they didn't consider this would look thoroughly wrong in non-English languages... (The feature would be fine if it were constrained to English variants.) – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 21:06, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
You seem to be right. The trouble is with messages that have a customized English interface and no customized Dutch interface: instead of sticking with the Dutch, it overrides it with the customized English. Creating MediaWiki:Rollbacklinkcount/nl fixed it by overriding the standard Dutch interface with a private copy of the standard Dutch interface.—Kww(talk) 22:30, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Source of text?

I seem to be the only one that cares that the Dutch language interface to English Wikipedia is broken, so I guess I will have to fix it myself. Right now, my tabs at the top of this page read

projectpagina-talk-edit this page-geschiedenis-verwijderen-hernoemen-beveiliging wijzigen-niet volgen

I want to put talk back to "overleg" and edit the page back to "bewerken", like they were up until yesterday morning when someone broke them and like they still are on commons.

Where is that text actually stored? I assume there's a big table somewhere indexed by language preference.—Kww(talk) 15:24, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

It seems likely that this is another symptom of the general problem with CSS being discussed in various places above. --ColinFine (talk) 15:52, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Kww, is this the same issue that you posted above about? --Redrose64 (talk) 17:02, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, same issue. I'm pretty certain that localization is done during HTML generation prior to CSS generation. It's really irritating, though: I keep looking for the "bewerken" button, and all I can find is "edit this page".—Kww(talk) 17:27, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

The CSS fixes haven't done anything. It's really annoying. My watchlist works fine:

  • (wijz | gesch) . . User talk:DeltaQuad‎; 18:51 . . (+230)‎ . . ‎Stwalkerster (talk | bijdragen | blokkeren)‎ (→‎Error message!: done) [terugdraaien]
  • (wijz | gesch) . . User talk:Tomica‎; 18:51 . . (+629)‎ . . ‎Dan56 (talk | bijdragen | blokkeren)‎ (→‎Rated R) [terugdraaien]
  • (wijz | gesch) . . User talk:GiantSnowman‎; 18:50 . . (+221)‎ . . ‎TheShadowCrow (talk | bijdragen | blokkeren)‎ (→‎Arsen Beglaryan) [terugdraaien]
  • (wijz | gesch) . . Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention‎; 18:50 . . (+223)‎ . . ‎Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk | bijdragen | blokkeren)‎ (Reporting Kangsiyaart. (TW)) [terugdraaien]
  • (wijz | gesch) . . Calvin Harris discography‎; 18:50 . . (-2.019)‎ . . ‎SnapSnap (talk | bijdragen | blokkeren)‎ (Reverted 1 edit by Canadaolympic989 (talk): The Canadian chart is more notable, and Scotland is a part of the UK anyway. (TW)) [terugdraaien]
  • (wijz | gesch) . . Sawdust (album)‎; 18:50 . . (+49)‎ . . ‎Koavf (talk | bijdragen | blokkeren)‎ (added Category:English-language compilation albums using HotCat) [terugdraaien]
  • (wijz | gesch) . . Chris Brown (American entertainer)‎; 18:49 . . (+173)‎ . . ‎Contactman7 (talk | bijdragen | blokkeren)‎ (→‎2011–2012: F.A.M.E. and Fortune) [terugdraaien]

but a contribution history looks like crap:

  • (del/undel) 26 mrt 2013 18:23 (wijz | gesch) . . (+159)‎ . . User talk:Kww ‎ (→‎A Nobody ...) (current) [rollback: 1 edit]
  • (del/undel) 26 mrt 2013 17:49 (wijz | gesch) . . (+397)‎ . . Wikipedia talk:Banning policy ‎ (→‎Indefinite sitebans for repeated sockers) (current) [rollback: 1 edit]
  • (del/undel) 26 mrt 2013 17:27 (wijz | gesch) . . (+301)‎ . . Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) ‎ (→‎Source of text?)
  • (del/undel) 26 mrt 2013 15:25 (wijz | gesch) . . (+10)‎ . . Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) ‎ (→‎Source of text?)
  • (del/undel) 26 mrt 2013 15:24 (wijz | gesch) . . (+670)‎ . . Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) ‎ (→‎Source of text?: new section)
  • (del/undel) 26 mrt 2013 15:17 (wijz | gesch) . . (+354)‎ . . Wikipedia talk:Banning policy ‎ (→‎Indefinite sitebans for repeated sockers)

A contribution history on Commons still looks fine:

  • 9 jan 2013 23:58 (wijz | gesch) . . (+390)‎ . . User talk:JeremyA ‎ (→‎ComputerGeek3000: new section)
  • 14 nov 2012 01:37 (wijz | gesch) . . (-1.360)‎ . . File:Ripe grapes.jpg ‎ (spammy description (#1 on Google for "ripe grapes", surprise,surprise)) (laatste wijziging)
  • 11 nov 2012 15:16 (wijz | gesch) . . (+212)‎ . . Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Sysmithfan ‎
  • 22 feb 2012 04:11 (wijz | gesch) . . (+90)‎ . . File:1960 Morris Minor Pickup.png ‎ (adding rename request)
  • 22 feb 2012 04:02 (wijz | gesch) . . (+421)‎ . . N File:1960 Morris Minor Pickup.png ‎
  • 5 dec 2011 00:11 (wijz | gesch) . . (+200)‎ . . User talk:Eddyegghead ‎ (File:Kellyrowland3.jpg has been nominated for deletion) (laatste wijziging)

The contribution history either isn't being localized or the localization file is blown. So, back to my question: where is the text for localization kept?—Kww(talk) 19:01, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Special:AllMessages... but that looks fine. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 20:33, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm seeing the same problem with the rollback links on Commons. My contributions look like this:

  • 2013-03-27T00:06:26 (skillnad | historik) . . (+999)‎ . . Commons:Deletion requests/File:Cambridge University Crest.svg ‎ (→‎File:Cambridge University Crest.svg: keep) (senaste) [rollback: 1 edit]
  • 2013-03-26T23:04:38 (skillnad | historik) . . (0)‎ . . m Commons:Deletion requests/File:Sochi Train Station.JPG ‎ (→‎File:Sochi Train Station.JPG: typo) (senaste) [rollback: 2 edits]
  • 2013-03-26T23:04:15 (skillnad | historik) . . (+288)‎ . . Commons:Deletion requests/File:Sochi Train Station.JPG ‎ (→‎File:Sochi Train Station.JPG: reply)

My watchlist looks like this:

  • (skillnad | historik) . . Commons:Deletion requests/File:Cambridge University Crest.svg‎; 00:06:26 . . (+999)‎ . . ‎Stefan4 (talk | bidrag)‎ (→‎File:Cambridge University Crest.svg: keep) [rulla tillbaka]
  • (skillnad | historik) . . Commons:Village pump‎; 00:02:45 . . (+243)‎ . . ‎Andrew Gray (talk | bidrag)‎ (→‎Report a file (feedback) tool: +) [rulla tillbaka]
  • (skillnad | historik) . . Commons:Village pump/Proposals‎; 00:02:00 . . (+434)‎ . . ‎Andrew Gray (talk | bidrag)‎ (→‎Report a file (feedback) tool: +) [rulla tillbaka]

That is, I see "rulla tillbaka" in Swedish on my watchlist, but it says "rollback" in English when I check my contributions. Same if I try Dutch (watchlist: terugdraaien, contributions: rollback: 1 edit) or Japanese (watchlist: maki-modoshi (巻き戻し), contributions: rollback: 1 edit). The "Discussion" link properly changes to "Diskussion", "Overleg" or "Giron" (議論) on Commons. On the other hand, on Wikipedia it only changes to "Overleg" while it remains as "Talk" in Swedish and Japanese. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:33, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

It works in Dutch on Wikipedia now because I got irritated and created Dutch overrides. It's being handled and discussed at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46579 .—Kww(talk) 00:18, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Explanation and Some Background

An overview of how MediaWiki handles the interface is required -- there are actually two language stores: one is shipped with MediaWiki and contains all the translations from TranslateWiki.net -- internally this is referred to as the language cache, or language cdb. The other store is MediaWiki itself -- all messages can be customized. Because they are two different stores; there are multiple ways of merging the messages in order to generate the site UI. This selection logic is handled deep in the UI generation code server side.

This new behavior was my solution to bug 1495. Originally, MediaWiki only looked for an on-wiki message in the users locale before falling back to the language cache. 1495 requests that we change this merge behavior to look in all on-wiki variants. The decision was made at the time I wrote the patch that if there was any customized on-wiki message (in any locale with languages higher in the fallback chain taking preference) that this should always take precedence over the possibly incorrect language cached version -- e.g. if the community cared enough to change it; obviously there was something wrong with it and so we should present this to everyone before falling back to the cached version. For example -- some customized messages on wiki contain project specific templates -- it was thought that we should present these to all users.

We do need to solve this problem; and multiple solutions exist if this is not the correct choice in the long run. We can, for example, hop between the on-wiki and language cache down the language fallback chain. Such a system would always present the best available language; but not perhaps the best possible content.

The language team is currently asleep; and the decision on if we should revert this change has been punted until they wake up. Please bear with the Foundation on this; we are trying to make the best possible decision that optimizes all goals across all languages. In the meantime; I welcome your thoughts on the best possible solution -- because permanently ignoring bug 1495 is not the answer.

Mwalker (WMF) (talk) 03:03, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

The current solution actually has both advantages and disadvantages. For example, MediaWiki:Watchlist-details is currently used to inform people about a discussion related to WebCite. Currently, anyone can see this notice by going to Special:Watchlist. However, in the past you would only see the notice there if you have set your interface language to English. This is maybe not a big problem on a monolingual project such as Wikipedia, but it can be worse on a multilingual project. For example, I had to add Commons:MediaWiki:Watchlist-details to my watchlist in order to see those messages on Commons. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:55, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
If it's kept, though, we are going to have to go through the MediaWiki section and delete about 90% of the custom files. There's no way that changes like these are worth overriding a language selection.—Kww(talk) 14:44, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
The solution we've chosen to go with until we have a better idea what we want to do is: to not force a wiki's content language on someone who has chosen a different locale unless the override was placed in Message/<content language>. Mwalker (WMF) (talk) 00:16, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

CSS errors with search box, etc.?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T48575
Commons example, doing the same thing here.

I first noticed this on Wikimedia Commons the other day, but it has surfaced on en.wiki a few minutes ago. Specifically, when typing into the Search box, instead of getting the drop-down menu, the items that /would/ be in the drop-down menu appear unscripted at the bottom of the page. There appears to be something going screwy with the scripts? - The Bushranger One ping only 19:03, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

And now the "Your edit was saved" box at the top of the screen when saving an edit isn't a box, but plain small text in the upper left of the screen that leaves an empty bar between the tabs and the rest of the page until it goes away (something else Commons started doing the other day). - The Bushranger One ping only 19:12, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not seeing this myself, but maybe there's something different about my setup. Which browser are you using? Do you see any errors in your Javascript console when you witness this? Does this happen when you're logged out (e.g. using Private/Incognito mode)? What sort of user scripts and gadgets do you have enabled? -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 19:16, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
The saving error
I'm using Firefox 5.0. The error console appears to be throwing up 'cssText.indexOf is not a function' errors? It does still do it when I'm logged out entirely, which means it's doing it in Vector as well as Monobook. I should note it appears to only have started doing it here on en.wiki after some Wikimedia Foundation Error pages came up a little bit before I noticed. I have a few user scripts installed, including HotCat, Twinkle and others from gadgets, and Anomie's link-color script (among quite a few others), but as it's doing this logged-out it doesn't seem to be a userscript/gadget issue? Note that I tested this on Commons yesterday after it started occuring there, and it did it in both Monobook and Vector - and Classic had no scripting/text formatting at all. - The Bushranger One ping only 19:21, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Classic skin, er, problems.
Aaaaaand the same thing happens in Classic skin here too. - The Bushranger One ping only 19:24, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
The problem appeared to go away after I log out and clear my cache - but it reappeared the moment I logged in, and when I logged out again, it was still there until I cleared my cache, at which point, logged out, the search box worked fine - until I logged in again. However, then I decided to log out, clear my cache, then go to another page while logged out...aaaaand same problem on the second page, after it worked on the first. So this is very bizzare. - The Bushranger One ping only 19:37, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't know if this is also a script problem, but "interaction" and "toolbox" on the left hand side, although collapsible, are underlined in blue and no longer have the small grey downward arrow like before. This has happened on Vector using an old version of Firefox some time in the past 5 hours. Jared Preston (talk) 19:46, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)The box and everything appear to be working just fine in IE8. Was there a change in the WMF scripts somewhere that made them no longer compatible with older versions of Firefox? - The Bushranger One ping only 19:54, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
CSS IS AWESOME! :-) --Atlasowa (talk)

—Preceding undated comment added 20:26, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

These aren't "script" errors; these are CSS glitches, and I'm seeing them too in Chrome (but not Firefox), most notably as it shows dropping some of the toolbar buttons into the text field. — Edokter (talk) — 19:58, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Ah. Well, all those script/CSS/RSS things look the same to me. . However, right now, it's intermittent; a moment ago, they were working just fine briefly, but as I started writing this, it started doing the stupid CSS tricks again. - The Bushranger One ping only 20:01, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Is the fact that the main page being the only page I've noticed without this problem a result of browser caching, just out of curiousity? Jared Preston (talk) 20:18, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
It's happening to me on the main page, too. It's random, off and on: on the last two pages I edited, the searchbox was working as intended, but now, once again, the dropdown contents are at the bottom of the page, unformatted. It's very random, but is more often "borked" than it is "working". - The Bushranger One ping only 21:22, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
The Bushranger, hey, could you turn off all of your gadgets, including ProveIt and see if it still reproduces? Thanks! Greg (WMF) (talk) 23:08, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Test performed! With all gadgets disabled (didn't have ProveIt active anyway), it does the same thing, and it also does it even after completely blanking monobook.css and monobook.js as well. - The Bushranger One ping only 23:18, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I've experienced several changes today, but I don't know whether they're already being discussed somewhere. There are no suggestions anymore when I search. And the edit toolbar has disappeared, and has been replaced with ... a series of links that I don't know how to describe, which sometimes appear above the edit window and sometimes inside it. Also, the font in edit mode has changed (using an older version of Firefox). Does anyone know what has happened? SlimVirgin (talk) 00:20, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I lost the search suggestions on Commons several hours ago, but they have now disappeared here as well. Keith D (talk) 00:30, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Take a look down at the bottom left corner of the page - that's where the search suggestions go. I'd suggest that perhaps somebody go through any and all changes to Wikipedia's CSS that were done in the last 48 hours, and possibly roll them back? - The Bushranger One ping only 00:33, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Twinkle affected
I seem to be experiencing the same issue and I'm pretty sure I don't have any fancy gadgets set up. Praemonitus (talk) 02:40, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
This is now tracked as T48401. Thanks for your reports, hopefully we'll get a fix in soon. -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 05:11, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed I filed bug 46575 (bug 46401 was unrelated) and deployed a fix. In a few minutes this should all be resolved. If anyone is still experiencing this cssText.indexOf exception after (say) an hour, please re-open that bug report. Krinkle (talk) 18:17, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm still getting misplaced toolbar buttons in Chrome, namely the Newline and Table buttons. They drop back to their proper place after collapsing/re-expanding the Advanced toolbar buttons. — Edokter (talk) — 19:08, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, Krinkle. That certainly worked (for me; using Firefox 3.6.28 btw). I hope Edokter's problems can be fixed too. Jared Preston (talk) 19:26, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm getting the same errors as Edokter. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 17:10, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Search suggestions are back for me. The toolbar is back, though I first see a strange set of links, then there's a jump, then the toolbar appears. Thank you for sorting it out, Krinkle. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:59, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
My error console is now 100% error-free. Thanks for the quick fix! - The Bushranger One ping only 21:51, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for addressing the concern. Praemonitus (talk) 01:58, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Java error console report

If it helps, I am getting tons of 'cssText.indexOf is not a function' errors in the error console every time I visit or refresh a page. Here's a sample of one.

Error: cssText.indexOf is not a function

Source File: http://bits.wikimedia.org/en.wikipedia.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%2CSpinner%7Cjquery.triggerQueueCallback%2CloadingSpinner%2CmwEmbedUtil%7Cmw.MwEmbedSupport&only=scripts&skin=monobook&version=20130318T175747Z

Line: 148

One click of 'show preview' on this post turned up 19 Error Console csstext.indexOf errors. - The Bushranger One ping only 01:01, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Excellent, this was helpful. Knowing that error message helped me find T48401 and raise the priority on that. -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 05:11, 26 March 2013 (UTC)530
Glad to help out. I've added another image illustrating what this bug is doing to Twinkle, if that helps. - The Bushranger One ping only
This console report is incomplete, it only includes the line number where the failure originates from (the line where "cssText.indexOf" is in the original code). However that we already know. We need the stracktrace in order to get the location of the code that causes it. I've deployed some debugging code to https://test.wikipedia.org. Please try to reproduce the issue there (be sure to clear your browser cache, just in case). If you can reproduce the problem, please report the following here: Your browser and version thereof, and the stacktrace reported in your browser's developer console. Krinkle (talk) 17:14, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Autoconf

Hi, quick question: Can a non auto-confirmed registered editor create subpages in their userspace or user talk space? Thanks! Ocaasi t | c 13:47, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Yep. (A registered user can create pages in any namespace, regardless of autoconfirmed.) Writ Keeper (t + c) 13:50, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
All spelled out at WP:AUTOC.--ukexpat (talk) 15:28, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Further: notwithstanding WP:SALT, the title blacklist and any unexpired blocks, any user (registered or not) may create pages and subpages in any talk namespace. For non-talk namespaces, there are some more restrictions; for example, pages in MediaWiki: space can only be created by admins; and creation of pages in File: namespace, being part of the upload process, is not available to unconfirmed users. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:30, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Creation of pages in the file: namespace does not have to be part of the upload process. I just created (and subsequently deleted) File:Whee! creating pages in inappropriate namespaces is fun! using my non-autoconfirmed good foot account. More seriously, users can create a local page for an image that is actually on Commons, whether deliberately or otherwise. Graham87 07:46, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Template edit request

There's a question been posed at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#About references in templates about the template {{CODATA2010}}. In it's current form it displays a link to the physics.nist.gov page as part of the output like this

Markup Renders as 
{{CODATA2010|constant=u|ref=no|link-to-value=yes}}

1.660538921(73)×10−27 kg [1]

The request is to make the link to the physics.nist.gov appear as a reference, the equivalent of

Markup Renders as 
{{CODATA2010|constant=u|ref=no|link-to-value=no}})<ref>http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?u</ref>
{{reflist}}

1.660538921(73)×10−27 kg[2]

  1. ^ Atomic mass constant National Institute of Standards and Technology
  2. ^ http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?u

Is this possible (or desirable)? NtheP (talk) 22:04, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Like this, you mean?
Markup Renders as 
{{CODATA2010|constant=u|ref=yes|link-to-value=no}}
{{reflist}}

1.660538921(73)×10−27 kg[1]

  1. ^ Mohr, Peter J.; Taylor, Barry N.; Newell, David B. (2011). "CODATA Recommended Values of the Fundamental Physical Constants: 2010". Database developed by J. Baker, M. Douma, and S. Kotochigova. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899.
I've not looked at the docs for the template; that ref= parameter was just crying out to me... – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 22:16, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Afraid not, the ref parameter takes you to the index page of constants, but the desire is to have the reference point directly to the page about the constant. NtheP (talk) 22:29, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Will this do?
Markup Renders as 
{{CODATA2010|constant=u|ref=no|link-to-value=yes}}
{{reflist}}
That looks good to me but I'll ask the editor who first posed the question to have a look. On thing I notice the constant u is hardcoded into the template ref line about "if link-to-value=yes". Is it dynamic so that if another value for |constant= is chosen the reference is towards the correct page at physics.nist.gov? NtheP (talk) 20:53, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out, that "default" value was what was holding it together... I'll have to figure out why it isn't applying the arguments later, busy with a RL issue. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 21:26, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
No hurry on my part, very grateful for your assistance. NtheP (talk) 21:41, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
This is nice! Thanks NtheP for your help and Technical 13 for fixing the template code :) --KDesk (talk) 22:02, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
The answer to why this was not working has been found and fixed. I just wish I would have looked at MW:Extension:Cite/Cite.php#Substitution_and_embedded_parser_functions sooner... — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 23:01, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
That's a lot of brackets there! But a test on various units in my sandbox seems to confirms it works. Thanks for the help. I don't know how many people watch the template talk page but I'll stick an edit proposal up there to modify the template in line with the sandbox page. NtheP (talk) 23:11, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Resolved

Just remember that my "ref" fix is in Template:CODATA2010/sandbox2 because someone else seemed to be doing something with Template:CODATA2010/sandbox You may want to delete both once you get that fix applied. Glad I could help. If you want to add more stuff or have further questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 23:21, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Template:Ln#Edit request

I requested changes to {{Lx}} and {{Lu}} to wit:

I'm requesting that Template:Lx (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) and Template:Lu (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) be replaced with Lx/sandbox and Lu/sandbox respectively to allow alternate text to be entered as in Lx/testcases and Lu/testcases. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 21:42, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Not done: I've seen people request alternate text for user links templates before (the last time was at {{user-multi}}) but it saw some opposition. I tend to agree, as well - if we are going to list links to a username, I personally would prefer to see the actual username rather than an alias, as aliases could be confusing or even misleading. I don't have anything against actioning this request if there is a consensus to do so among a wider group of editors, however. Two ways you could try and get such a consensus would be to post on a noticeboard (probably WP:VPT) or to start an RfC. VPT is probably the easier and quicker of the two, so I'd start with that first. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 01:42, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
What I am hoping to accomplish is to shorten the link name. For example, if you wanted to list subpages of User:ThisOrThatLongAsHeckUserName/My_Creations/UserBoxes/ in a table format on that page, and one of the subpages was for example User:ThisOrThatLongAsHeckUserName/My_Creations/UserBoxes/Operating_Systems/Microsoft_Windows/Version_8/Without_graphics. Using the template as it currently is results in:
User:ThisOrThatLongAsHeckUserName/My_Creations/UserBoxes/Operating_Systems/Microsoft_Windows/Version_8/Without_graphics (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
What I would prefer to see is:
User:ThisOrThatLongAsHeckUserName/My_Creations/UserBoxes/Operating_Systems/Microsoft_Windows/Version_8/Without_graphics (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Which although is still fairly long, is still much shorter than the full version. I have no issue with re-writing the template to use a boolean argument of perhaps |short= and use the {{#titleparts:}} parser function to know how much of the subpage to abbr into a "." -- Would this be okay instead? There would be no chance of confusion this way. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 11:59, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:58, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


Sysopdetector javascript

Is it just me or did User:Splarka/sysopdectector.js suddenly stop working. When it was working, the names of sysops turned blue for me. Now they're not. That page doesn't appear to have been changed recently. Anyone else noticing the same thing ?  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ...  16:17, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't think that's what that script does; rather, I believe it's User:Ais523/adminrights.js that does that. Ais523's script is in turn just a redirect to Amalthea's script, which is what I use, but it still seems to be working (although I'm not sure it's updating the status for new admins). Are you getting any Javascript errors in your console? Writ Keeper (t + c) 16:48, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Writ. I usually use Mozilla (no javascript console). I just switched to Chrome and checked and I'd messed up my own monobook with html style comments, javascript wasn't processing them right. I'm back to blue highlighted sysop names!

Thanks again!  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ...  17:34, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

No problem. Just as an aside, I use Firefox, too, and I've found the Firebug addon to be extremely helpful; it adds a JS console and other things similar to Chrome's. Writ Keeper (t + c) 18:02, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Toolserver again, different problem

About two weeks ago, I posted a request here regarding 43 articles that had been stuck on the Untagged Uncategorized Articles list since last September, and requested assistance in getting them off. There's now a different problem which requires assistance, however — ever since my request, the list has consistently failed to pick up any new articles at all, meaning that the 43 problematic articles are now the only articles that turn up on the list no matter how many times I try to update it.

This is, for the record, not a task which can be left undone for weeks at a time; it's a mandatory cleanup task which needs to be done on a regular basis. At least 150 new uncategorized articles (and formatting errors which are causing existing category tags to malfunction) are created every single day, meaning it takes less than two weeks for the number of uncategorized articles to get into the thousands (and less than a month for the task to turn into the wiki equivalent of having to clean up after a herd of elephants with diarrhea.) So the toolserver list, which is the only tool that currently exists to identify the articles that require attention, cannot be left in a non-functional state, and this problem has to be addressed and fixed promptly. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 22:41, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Display Chess games (with animation) using PGN data

I'm reviving this discussion from the archive. The last time around it lived for four days, people commented on it but it didn't generate strong support or opposition and nothing came of it.

Archives:
WP:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_97#Display_Chess_games_.28with_animation.29_using_PGN_data
WP:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_104#Display_chess_games_from_PGN_data

Summary: PGN is a standard format to record chess games. The proposal is to use a Javascript viewer so the user can view the chess game one move at a time, moving forwards and backwards by pressing buttons. (The current options are to include an animated GIF, a static image, or a movie, but nothing in Wikipedia right now allows the user to control the chess game interactively.) This is already working on the Hebrew Wikipedia but needs consensus to be brought over to English Wikipedia.

[Edit: this will be a Gadget, not a change to MediaWiki:Common.js. This means:

  1. Only users who explicitly choose to install the Gadget will be able to view the animation.
  2. The complete move list must appear in the text of the article, since not everyone will be able to view the animation.
  3. For users who choose not to install the gadget, a static image of the chessboard will be shown instead.]

The original proposal is copied below. Mattj2 (talk) 22:21, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

There is a standard, called Portable Game Notation to describe chess games. This is the dominant standard to store and present chess games on computers, and is also used in many books and newspapers. There are numerous databases containing tens of thousands of chess games, all using this notation.
There are many chess web sites that can display chess animation based on this format, e.g., http://chesstempo.com/pgn-viewer.html (just an example - i listed it just because it was the first google hit for "pgn viewer").
There is a mediawiki extension called Extension:EmbedChessboard which displays chess games using PGN notation. This extension has it cons and pros. However, i do not believe it is likely that this extension will be accepted for any wikimedia site.
i developed a pgn animation script+template which is now deployed in hewiki (demo page: he:משתמש:קיפודנחש/ארגח 1, example of one of the articles using the template: he:עמוס ברן.
The script is a roughly 720 lines of easy to read JS. in order to use it on enwiki it will have to be included from common.js. it can be viewed here: he:Mediawiki:common.js/pgn.js. discussions in chessclub here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Chess#PGN_viewer. discussion in WP:VPT here: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 104#Display chess games from PGN data.
Proposal: Add the pgn script, optionally with required modification to common.js, and Create a template to display chess games using PGN format.
קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 04:30, 24 December 2012 (UTC)


The dynamics of a chess game (and its analyses) are a major encyclopedic issue. It's just you are not used to time-based information? Don't say that you do print WP pages before reading, I'd suggest. -DePiep (talk) 01:53, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, if you want to understand a game you have to go through the moves. Now we have the moves listed, which means that most people will have to follow along with a chessboard and set. Not so with the PGN method proposed. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 03:10, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
So what happens for people without Javascript, or users of the mobile site ? I think you should come up with a strategy to retain this information in a readable form for those users. Also, there are quite a few accessibility issues when it comes to capturing information in JS. Don't forget our blind readers. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:06, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Retain the present method of listing the moves. Besides the readers you mention, some people would want to see the moves written out instead of, or in addition to, the animation. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 14:49, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


  • Comment (This is me commenting on my own proposal; I hope I'm allowed.) (1) In response to Technical_13, this is something that would only be used by a tiny minority of users, but to those users it would be a huge improvement. (2) The most important thing to me is that this be a slideshow that is controlled by the user. If there isn't support for a chess-specific widget, then let it be a widget that just shows a bunch of pictures one after the other, with the user able to go forwards and backwards at will. This could be used for any board game like checkers or Go. Every board game has pages that list sequences of moves, and all of those pages could benefit from a slideshow widget. I'm kind of new.. should I list the "generic slideshow widget" as a separate proposal on this page? This proposal is for a chess-specific viewer. Thanks. Mattj2 (talk) 05:17, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm not saying I'm opposed to the script or having it available. What I'm saying is that it should be an optionally loaded script (such as a gadget or something the individual user can add to their common.js or skin.js). What I am opposed to is forcing it to be "unconditionally loaded for all users on every wiki page."source There is already enough stuff the majority of people don't use that is loaded and doesn't need to be, which in turn slows down every page on the wiki. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 11:24, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Actually, such a script is usually only loaded on pages that actually require it (although it seems he.wp is not that smart about it). So it would only slow down those pages with chess animations, it wouldn't even register as an addition (in terms of processing) of all the JS that we already have. The complexity of pages themselves, and the numerous tools that we already have that do actually run on all pages dwarf the addition of a 'doest this page require png.js' check. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:06, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Scholar's mate has an animation in the upper right. But the reader can't control the speed or pause it to study. This proposal would be much better than that animation. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:57, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Having looked at the demo page, I support this, and Mattj2's suggestion of a generic animation system as a extremely useful addition to our coverage of board games. — Hex (❝?!❞) 10:22, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
as the script author, i'd like to respond to some of the comments:
  • Same user says: "certainly not something everyone is required to load via MediaWiki:common.js", aluding to the weight of the script.
    • i do not think this script is that heavy. it weighs less than 1/4 of, say, MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js, which was made "default" for all registered users recently. in all the discussions of making everyone load hotcat as default, i did not see a single mention to the size or weight of the script as consideration. However, it will be very easy to load this script from common.js only if needed (basically moving the very simple test whether or not the page contains a PGN from the script itself to common.js)
      • That is rich... Let's run with your comment here though. You think that a script that will be actually used on a minority of a minority of pages (yeah, I wanted to emphasize it is a minority), should be loaded in MediaWiki:common.js when MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js that is potentially useful or used on every page spent three years, four days, six hours, and twenty-eight minutes as a gadget from 12:18, March 21, 2008 to 18:46, March 25, 2011? I'm not saying it shouldn't be available, I'm saying I think it should be available as a gadget so that all of those people that don't want it or that it won't properly run for will be able to opt-out of it. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 21:14, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
        • Now that I've had time to think about it, I think you're right that a chess animation thing has too much of a niche audience to lobby for inclusion in Common.js right away. Also, for accessibility reasons the chess animation should be a helpful addition to the page but not a requirement. So nothing important is lost by making it a Gadget. I edited the proposal above. (Am I allowed to do that?) Mattj2 (talk) 07:33, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
  • User:TheDJ asks about users with no JS.
    • The template in hewiki displays for users with no JS a short message stating that in order to see the games one needs to enable JS. An alternative would be to display the PGN of the games. either of these two approaches is possible. to some extent it's like asking "what do people browsing using pure text browser (such as Lynx) see when the editor puts a photo on the page", or "what happens when the browser does not support a specific media type that we allow (sound, video etc.)". the standard answer is that if your browser do not support a specific WP-supported media type, you will not be able to see some of the content on some of the pages. it's important that editors will not make the whole article dependent on the ability of all users to view specific media types, and the same holds here: one should not create an article such that being able to see the PGN animation is critical for reading and understandingthe article.
  • Several people, including [[User:Hex and User:Mattj2 discussed some means to display other board games interactively
    • i'd like to make the point that this specific script will be of no help for other board games. it's very specifically limited to chess + PGN. it does support some very close variation of chess - specifically Chess960, but not any variation with different pieces or different moves (i.e., no Fairy chess support).
peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 18:36, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
There is a lot to be said for animated gif... it works without javascript and you can put the notation besides or under. (unblurred --Atlasowa (talk))
kipod, again: This makes an unreadable mess of the mobile Wikipedia pages, or is this just me? You seem to be saying that you don't care anymore about those mobile user than about Lynx user? The page views to mobile Wikipedia are steadily growing. You want to establish a new template that disregards mobile user trends? Confused: --Atlasowa (talk) 20:10, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
What you're talking about is a bug. IMHO the bug is serious enough that this animation thing shouldn't be used on English Wikipedia until it's fixed. I'd like to address (if possible) the more central question of: is this a good idea or not? Bugs can always be fixed. Is this something that will be of enough benefit to enough pages that it is worth including, in Common.js or a Gadget or whatever? Mattj2 (talk) 20:34, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
regarding mobile view: originally it was an oversight on hewiki. now that i've became aware of it i fixed it (i think) but currently the fix doesn't do anything, due to a bug in the MobileView extension. once this is fixed, we'll test to see if my fix actually solves the problem, and if it doesn't, we'll find another way to solve it. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 17:44, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
That sounds good. :-) BTW, your PGN chess thing has got some admiration by chesslovers on german WP. I'll give them a note about this discussion, an improved chess template would be most interesting. deWP is currently using the Article Feedback Tool on category chess in german WP - and some readers do actually ask for PGN and the like. I see why this would be great and i see why animated gif kind of sucks in comparison. But there are other considerations as well, compatibility and loading i.e., and i'm glad that you care about that too. peace :-) --Atlasowa (talk) 18:53, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Speaking of the chess template, there is a version in the works that uses Forsyth–Edwards Notation (FEN) to specify a position rather than doing it the way it does now. The main reason is probably performance. The author says that saving an article with the current chess template takes about 1 second per template. That seems to be true; and some pages have dozens of chess templates. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 01:29, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
small correction: the template is not "in the works" - it's done. so far nobody made any comments or reported any problems. i don't think it's in actual use, but there is no work being done on it, and no work is planned (if someone _will_ make a comment or report a problem, then of course, it might trigger some changes. otherwise no addition to the template is planned). fyi - the template is {{Chess diagram-fen}}. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 06:44, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Have a look at Template:Scroll_gallery, Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_92#Scroll_galery, Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_102#Scroll_galery. It is activated on german WP as de:Vorlage:Galerie and it is unpopular because it breaks pages for IE and mobileWP. Compare on mobile. --Atlasowa (talk) 21:08, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! I don't want to reinvent the wheel. I can't push for the adoption of that one until the bugs are fixed but otherwise it looks great! Mattj2 (talk) 06:02, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
  • comment about the animated gif - that doesn't really serve the purpose. Sure, it shows the moves, but the point is that the reader needs to be able to control it. The user needs to study each position and move to understand why it was made or why it is good or bad. PGN supports inserting comments after moves. These could be displayed, although I don't know if that is included in this proposal. Also, the pieces are blurry in the animated gif. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 15:52, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks. What I was trying to say was: the most important thing is to allow the user to study the chess game, not as an animated GIF and not as a static image, but where they can take as much time as they need to analyze each position. I personally am not concerned about supporting every single feature in PGN. For accessibility purposes, I think it's best if the full list of moves is written out in the article. If there's a comment it could be listed in plain text in the article as well. About the blurry pieces.. they're not blurry for me. Are they blurry for anyone else? Mattj2 (talk) 06:02, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
regarding animated gif: first, i do not think this is suitable for showing a full game. it may work for a repeating sequence of relatively small number of moves, but not a full game.
what's more, the vast majority of editors do not have any means to create those animated gif images.
this is in contrast to the template/script combo discussed here (as used in hewiki), which any editor can use relatively easily - all you really need is the PGN, which is readily available, without copyright, for huge number of games. i believe it's fair to say that the PGN of every single documented game of every chess player for whom there is an article in enwiki, can be obtained without too much difficulty. you can't compare this with animated gif - even if using a gif animation for a full game was acceptable, i do not know of any way for an editor to create or obtain such a gif for any specific game they might want to write about. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 07:06, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
  • About the fallback chessboard, I think instead of just a static chessboard, it should be the animated gif. I also think that the animated gif should mirror the actual game. By this I mean, the moves in the gif should be timed to accurately mirror the actual game in instances of a representation of a game that was played. I think that a reasonable delay between moves (maybe 2500ms?) should be set as a guideline of sorts for how a generic set of moves/game should be played. I would be happy to assist with the creation of a few of these animated gifs (color scheme should probably be different than the one above that is hard for me with out vision problems to see well) and write a documentation on how to create them for the chess enthused community to take it from there and create the rest. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 11:42, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
just wondered: how do you envision creating those gif animations? is there an available tool or website that would consume a chess game (presumably in PGN format - after all this is the undisputed standard for representing chess games in a machine-consumable form) and squirt out gif animation? if so, could you point to it? thanks, peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 16:18, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
in my opinion there is no need for the animated gifs, i'am following Bubba73 statement above. and as kibod pointed out, there's no ready tool to create this animated gifs. the static chessboard fallback doesn't break the other media types? maybe the template should also take the standard links to chessgames, chessresults & co? Antimaterie (talk) 17:28, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
I was going to build them one frame at a time using a program like UnFREEz. I'm sure that a program could be created specifically for this purpose, but I do not personally have the knowledge or programming experience to write it myself yet. It would be a long and tedious process and likely take quite a few people working on it. The biggest problem I have at the moment with the PGN setup is that there is no time parameter. Part of the excitement of watching a chess game using this format would be watching it in real time as it was played. Was that data ever recorded? Are there YouTube videos or something of the sort where the original games could be watched to add that data? — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 17:32, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
hmmmm... this will be mighty nice of you, but i'm not sure it's an answer to the need - iiuc, this means that anyone who writes or edits a chess article and wants to include a game animation will have to ask for your services, right? if this is so, then i don't believe this can be "The Answer"™
IMHO, only a solution that will allow editors to do it independently is applicable on a reasonable scale. there are hundreds, if not thousands of chess-related articles, and dozens of active editors editing them. if there isn't a tool, or at least a recipe that reasonable person can use to create those, i don't think it's a viable general solution.
as to timing data: standard PGN does not include timing data per move. sometime there is some timing-related information in the Tags (these are the data pieces that appear in square brackets, and tells you who is black, who is white, when and where the game took place etc.), but these pertain to the whole game rather than to individual moves. pgn supports per-move comments, and it's conceivable that on some databases these comments are used to record timing information, but it's not part of the standard, and you can't rely on it or expect it.
peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 18:11, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
i commit to kibod on this, only a programmatic solution is suitable. but once again, in my opinion the the reader needs to be able to control the moves. Antimaterie (talk) 18:32, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't think that a real-time animation will be of much use, other than to the aficionados. Chess, when played well (particularly by masters) is a slow game. There are long periods where nothing seems to happen: yes, you and I know that the player is considering all the possible moves, and the likely outcomes of each one, but is the average person likely to be interested? They might instead assume that the animation has somehow "stuck", and blame Wikipedia for again producing faulty pages. If the moves are played at a steady rate (whether two per second or one every five seconds), the viewer will observe that something is still happening. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:32, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

No, no, no... That wasn't what I was suggesting. I'm still saying the buttons should be there to allow the user to control the playback (I think there should be a table with player one's moves on the left, player 2 on the right, and in the middle the ability to use first, back, play, forward, last. I guess I'm not really that knowledgeable when it comes to chess, but I thought there was a play clock that limited the players to a few minutes per move? As far as the animated gifs, the idea was I would create a few, write a document on how I did it to allow everyone to easily write their own... It may even be possible to expand svg somehow to accommodate this automatically. I'd have to do a lot more research for something like that though. I would be happy to go further into my production ideas for this project once there is a gadget talk page for it. I don't feel this is the place or that this project should take much of any more space on this forum. Seems there is a pretty reasonable consensus that this project should go ahead as a gadget. As far as your concern about people thinking it is stuck Rose, we could simply offer a play clock that counts down to the next move. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 23:03, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Chess clocks are commonly used in tournaments, but their use does not necessarily imply that there is a restriction on time taken to make a move. Some tournaments do have such rules; but by no means all. At the end of the game, the clock records the aggregate time taken by each player - it does not record the moments when each move is made. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:17, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
I think he is talking about displaying a clock that shows low long it is until the animation shows the next move. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 01:10, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
Very Strong Support. The supporters above (especially Bubba73) have already summarized almost everything I was going to say. Double sharp (talk) 03:07, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you all for your support!! Please continue this conversation on the talk page for the project. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattj2 (talk • contribs) 03:25, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Title blacklist

Dear Tech guys: I have been having a problem that two more experienced editors could not explain, so they suggested I come here. To see what's been happening, will someone who knows about title blacklists please read the discussion at User talk:Anne Delong#Speedy deletion declined: User:Mohammad sameer hussain/sandbox and explain why I am occasionally having trouble moving pages. Thanks! —Anne Delong (talk) 00:38, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Depending on exactly what triggered the filter it was probably the title being in all CAPITAL LETTERS. Werieth (talk) 00:46, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes. 13 consecutive characters without a lowercase letter. --Carnildo (talk) 03:35, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks - I was just moving a page to Articles for creation so that I could review it; next time I'll change the case. I wonder, though, if a more informative message could be used, since "title blacklist" lead to several editors spending their time trying to figure out what was wrong, since it made it seem as though the subject of the article was in bad repute. My guess was that an article of that name had been deleted multiple times. Maybe the message could say "bad title format" or "too many capital letters". —Anne Delong (talk) 14:39, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
It is vague for a reason see WP:BEANS if you tell the vandals exactly what triggers the filter they can make the filter useless. Werieth (talk) 14:44, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Ah, I see that, I think... —Anne Delong (talk) 15:11, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't think all caps titles are a very good indication of vandalistic intent. Foolish non-vandals could also try creating pages with titles in all caps. Our normal attitude with such good faith efforts is to let them get it wrong, since the nature of wikis means it will eventually be fixed by someone. I agree with Anne's earlier comment that the editor should be told what they've got wrong, so they can correct it. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 21:18, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
This is admittedly cynical, but what are the chances that a user who hasn't read enough basic policy to know not to all-cap a title has produced an article that's otherwise suitable? The help desk routinely gets questions from those who have had some sort of technical problem in the creation process, only to find that the articles are unsuitable for inclusion anyway. Good faith or not, it's better if they are "nipped in the bud" than after multiple people spend time on them, isn't it? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 08:03, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Copyright violation page notice red link

I don't if it is a new one or I never noticed... the link beside common copyright violation notice you get while editing any page is a redlink! --Tito Dutta (contact) 06:21, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

It's not a red link for me. It leads to WP:CV --Ushau97 talk 06:33, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable. Work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used, and redistributed—by anyone—subject to certain terms and conditions.
I see no redlinks there. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 12:06, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Titodutta, at Preferences, what is your language setting? --Redrose64 (talk) 14:14, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
And please quote what the red link says so we know what you are talking about. Is it "Page notice"? As an account creator I think you have that link. It can be used to create a Wikipedia:Editnotice for that page. Most users don't have the link when it's red. Battle of Baxi is an example where the link should be blue, visible to everybody, and lead to Template:Editnotices/Page/Battle of Baxi. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:05, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Exposing Wikidata equivalence

On an article which exists only in English (i.e. with no interwikis), such as Ampelocissus asekii, there appears to be no link to the corresponding Wikidata entry, either in the reading or editing views. Can we change that? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:55, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Does the wikidata entry exist? Werieth (talk) 19:59, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes - d:Q8441774 Chris857 (talk) 20:18, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
If you are talking about an missing "edit links" link for items with only one language link, then that has been done and is only waiting for deployment. See Wikidata weekly summary #50 for details.--Snaevar (talk) 00:52, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. That's a partial solution, I suppose, but I should like to see the Wikidata ID exposed for articles with either one or more languages, perhaps "Edit Wikidata Q8441774" rather than just "Edit links". Or perhaps the final entry after the languages, but before the edit link, could be "Wikidata Q8441774". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:26, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
You don't need to know the Q number in advance. The universal syntax is [[d:Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/pagename]], as in d:Special:ItemByTitle/enwiki/Ampelocissus asekii. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:58, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Lua error messages not displaying on "preview page with this template"

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T48633

Hello all. I've noticed that when previewing Lua modules using the "preview page with this template" option, if there is a script error, the JavaScript error message doesn't show up when you click the link. To demonstrate this, I have made Module:User:Mr. Stradivarius/previewbug and User:Mr. Stradivarius/Sandbox/Previewbug. If you click on the link in User:Mr. Stradivarius/Sandbox/Previewbug you can see the error message, but if you edit Module:User:Mr. Stradivarius/previewbug and then use "preview page with this template" with User:Mr. Stradivarius/Sandbox/Previewbug, the error message does not appear.

However, this bug does not occur on the test2 wiki - see the equivalent module and sandbox over there. This makes me think that it's not a Scribunto bug, but something local. But I could be wrong. Does anyone know what's causing this, and if so how to fix it? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 04:16, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Just musing aloud here: Alternatively, it could be that it has already been fixed, and the patch has been deployed to test2, but is still awaiting deployment to enwiki. Just a possibility. jcgoble3 (talk) 05:47, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, ok, you're probably right, and this was probably a stupid question. But how can I go about finding if this is actually the case? I did look through the Scribunto extension page and bugzilla, but I didn't find anything relating to this bug. Was I just looking in the wrong places? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 06:17, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
test2 saw its last deployment on March 22, en.wp on March 25, see mw:MediaWiki_1.21/Roadmap. Please feel free to file a new bug report against Scribunto or ask on mw:Talk:Lua_scripting so the developers will see it. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by AKlapper (WMF) (talk • contribs) 11:22, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Maybe it wasn't such a bad question after all. :) I've submitted bugzilla:46633, so we'll see what comes of that. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 11:58, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
It works for me here on enwiki when I try it. Note that the "link" is actually JavaScript; are you getting any sort of JavaScript error when using the TemplateSandbox that might be preventing the script from running? BJorsch (WMF) (talk) 14:36, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Aha, that got it. It's clashing with Wikipedia:Citation expander, one of the gadgets available in preferences. I was getting these errors on using "preview page with this template": 

Timestamp: 03/29/2013 12:04:50 AM
Error: TypeError: document.getElementById(...) is null
Source File: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Gadget-citations.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&471744142
Line: 36

Timestamp: 03/29/2013 12:04:51 AM
Error: TypeError: $(...).data(...) is undefined
Source File: https://bits.wikimedia.org/en.wikipedia.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=ext.codeEditor%2CwikiEditor%7Cext.wikiEditor.dialogs%2Ctoolbar%7Cext.wikiEditor.toolbar.hideSig%7Cjquery.codeEditor%2CwikiEditor%7Cjquery.wikiEditor.dialogs%2Ctoolbar%7Cjquery.wikiEditor.dialogs.config%7Cjquery.wikiEditor.toolbar.config%2Ci18n&skin=vector&version=20130328T022227Z&*
Line: 1

After I disabled the gadget in preferences, I stopped getting JavaScript errors, and the Lua script errors started showing up properly.

In fact, the problem isn't limited to the Lua script errors, something I should have realised before. I get the exact same JavaScript errors when I click the edit link on Module:User:Mr. Stradivarius/previewbug even without using "preview page with this template", and it prevents both the module editing/highlight script and the debug console from running. Again, when I disable the citation expander from my preferences, they run with no problems. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 15:26, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I've notified Smith609, the author of the citation expander gadget. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 15:44, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Village pump tab order doesn't match icon order

Does it bother anybody else that the order of the icons on the Wikipedia:Village pump page is

  • Policy, Technical, Proposals, Idea lab, Miscellaneous

while the order of the tabs after the new design is

  • Idea lab, Miscellaneous, Policy, Proposals, Technical

I think one should be changed to match. Jason Quinn (talk) 04:42, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I hadn't actually even noticed. I think the more intuitive order is "Policy, Technical, Proposals, Idea lab, Miscellaneous" and they should all be set to that. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 11:54, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

lo:ແມ່ແບບ:ລາຍການອ້າງອິງ

Resolved
lo:Template:ລາຍການອ້າງອິງ

I'm very active at lowp at the moment and cleaning up that small Wikipedia. Does anybody know which template this is? It looks like Reflist, but that isn't it (or is it something like a duplicate?)

I want either to add it to wikidata (to the correct item) or want to transform it to a redirect for the case it is already there. mabdul 09:57, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

It is an an older version of {{reflist}}. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 10:58, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
Uhm thanks... I checked the date and chose the nearest version, but that looked somehow different for me. I transformed it to a redirect as reflist is also existent. Thanks. mabdul 14:03, 28 March 2013 (UTC)


JS code for "Expand Table all the time" stopped working

Hi, I have been using a js code that expands all collapsible tables in talk pages so I can easily see the WikiProjects a page belongs to and their class and importance assessments, avoiding the BannerShell collapse effects. Apparently this code has stopped working. I am using the Vector skin and have the code in the /vector.js subpage, as well as in a /common.js. I use Firefox 19.0.2. but have also tested it with Chrome 25.0.1364.172 and IE8 and it does not work. I have purged cache in all. Here is the code in question (between nowiki tags): 

function expandTable()
{
  var autoCollapse = 2;
  var collapseCaption = "hide";
  var expandCaption = "show";
 
  for ( var tableIndex = 1; tableIndex  < 100; tableIndex ++ ) {
 
    var Button = document.getElementById( "collapseButton" + tableIndex );
    var Table = document.getElementById( "collapsibleTable" + tableIndex );
 
    if ( !Table || !Button ) {
        return false;
    }
 
    var Rows = Table.rows;
 
    if ( Button.firstChild.data == expandCaption ) {
        for ( var i = 1; i < Rows.length; i++ ) {
            Rows[i].style.display = Rows[0].style.display;
        }
        Button.firstChild.data = collapseCaption;
    }
  }
}
 
if ( wgPageName.indexOf("Talk\:")>-1 || wgPageName.indexOf("talk\:")>-1 ) {
    addOnloadHook( expandTable );
}

Any update/suggestions? Thank you.

Additional note: up to yesterday or the day before, I used to see ALL banners of a talk page fully expanded, which is what stopped working.Hoverfish Talk 16:02, 28 March 2013 (UTC)Hoverfish Talk 15:56, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

the code seems a bit complicated for the amount of work it's supposed to do. please try to replace it with:
if ( mw.config.get( 'wgNamespaceNumber' ) % 2 == 1 ) 
$(function() { $( 'span.collapseButton  a:Contains(show)' ).click() } )
peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 16:55, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi kipod and thanks for your help. I first erased the previous code, placed this one, shift-reloaded and it was still all the same. But after deleting once more the code, refreshing, entering it anew and refreshing, I got finally the desired effect. Thanks again and peace. Hoverfish Talk 17:44, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

JavaScript tool request

Can someone write a tool that adds a tab while editing when pressed it prompts for a reason, then includes that reason in {{archive top}} just below the section header and then throws {{archive bottom}} at the end of the text. ?? Thanks. Werieth (talk) 17:10, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

The easiest way to do this might be to modify one of User:Doug/closetfd.js, User:King of Hearts/closeffd.js, User:King of Hearts/closecfd.js, or User:King of Hearts/closerfd.js. jcgoble3 (talk) 19:49, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
Probably, but I ended up writing one from scratch. Try User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/autoCloser.js (you might want to keep an eye on it for a bit, though). Writ Keeper (t + c) 20:47, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Aerobic exercise

We have received a report at OTRS (that I have confirmed) that this article is not displaying correctly in IE8, but is in Firefox. Anyone else seeing this and if so any idea what the problem might be? (don't say upgrade to IE9, for some of us that is not an option). Thanks.--ukexpat (talk) 17:41, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with it using Internet Explorer 7.0.6001.18000, Internet Explorer 9.0.8112.16421, Google Chrome 26.0.1410.43 m, or Firefox 19.0.2. What is wrong with it using IE8? — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 18:52, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
Looks fine in ie8 on my machine (please don't make me use that, often!) under WinXP. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:36, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
Typical, "no fault found" now just like when I take my car to the dealership. When I saw the fault before it was just a page of random ASCII characters.--ukexpat (talk) 20:58, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Changes to Special:UserLogin (signup)

Hey all,

If you visit Special:CreateAccount (or rather, it's redirect destination, Special:UserLogin/signup), you'll notice that it's been reverted back to the original version prior to new interface that the Foundation's experimental features team built and enabled. (Original blog post about the project.)

We removed the experimental version today, in prep for deploying a more permanent version, able to be fully localized and used on all the projects on a permanent basis. For those familar with MediaWiki development: the version here on enwiki for the last few months was built in an extension and relied heavily on JavaScript to transform the interface on the fly. Our new commits are to MediaWiki core, and are a more robust implementation.

The good news is that we're doing this because we expect the upcoming changes to the account creation and login pages to be ready for everyone to try soon, hopefully within the next couple weeks. We are basing our new interface on the version that tested most successfully in terms of the number of signups (more details about that data), with a few other enhancements and changes to the login page to make the design consistent with the new look across desktop and mobile Web.

Keep your eyes peeled for another announcement about when and how to test the next iteration, including login updates. Just as a quick description: you'll be able to try both the new signup and login on an opt-in basis at first, so we can make sure to iron out bugs before making it the default.

Many thanks, and please speak up if you have any questions. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:38, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Strange error in edit mode

I don't know whether this is related to some of the above posts, but suddenly two of the icons from the edit toolbar, namely the New line button and the Table button appear below the bar and inside the edit window. I have no idea what might be causing this, so I am bringing it here. (See screenshot for how it appears in my browser Safari). -- Toshio Yamaguchi 13:53, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, I still have no idea what caused this, but it seems to be normal again, now. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 22:00, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

This was probably the CSS issue above. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:39, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
this intermittent error is caused by local (i.e., enwiki specific) modification to the toolbar content, and by changes to JS modules loading order. it's an old problem that gets "fixed" periodically and then resurfaces again. it happens only if you leave one of the panels (usually "advanced") open. in the past, reproduction was highly browser dependent, i.e., it was very easy to reproduce on some browsers and very difficult to reproduce on others, though it could happen with any browser.
there is an easy workaround: when you encounter this "icon leakage" from the toolbar to the editbox, fold and reopen the tab (again, more often than not it's the "advanced" tab). this is not a solution, just a workaround - someone should probably open a bug in bugzilla, or even better - find the old bug that was closed and reopen it (i won't be surprised at all if there were multiple, duplicate such bugs - this often happens with high visibility issues). peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 00:47, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
This is not related to the previous reports of the "cssText.indexOf" exception. The WikiEditor icons sticking out of the toolbar is bugzilla:27698 (an old bug that returns from the past - or perhaps wasn't properly fixed to begin with). Krinkle (talk) 04:04, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Email article option

I know that there is no consensus for social media links ("share buttons") on Wikipedia, but looking through those proposals, I did not notice anyone suggesting that an "email article" option at least be considered. I personally email links to dozens of Wikipedia articles to many people each month, and I know many others who do so as well, but since there is no option to email a link(s) to someone directly from Wikipedia within the "export" area (where you can export to PDF or view a printable version), obviously you have to do so using some kind of browser plugin or from the email client. Is it realistic for Wikipedia developers to add an "email link to article" option within the export sidebar, or some such option? If this is feasible to implement, then it would greatly streamline sharing articles with others via email without having to rely on special browser plugins that may not be available on mobile devices or other platforms. Laval (talk) 04:13, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Laval. I assume you already found the Share pages on Facebook perennial proposal. I did a search for "email article" (no quotes) in the archives of the Village Pump. Here is someone suggesting the same thing back in 2007:
WP:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_AR#.22Email_this_article.22
You might want to suggest that it be a Gadget that is only usable for users who are logged in, as opposed to something that all users have access to. Have fun! Mattj2 (talk) 04:55, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
Hello. I am concerned that if we start allowing Facebook or any third party "share buttons" on wiki we will be giving Facebook and Youtube the opportunity to make money every time someone clicks on their logo. We are also allowing Wiki to be associated with these brands. The amount of advertising currently on Youtube in particular is very concerning, and I do not think it aligns with Wiki values. If wiki designed it's own "share" option, it could provide on request a unique wiki url address which could be hyperlinked from any external source and direct the person to the exact same place the link was generated from. Imagine instead of a Twitter "button" there was a non commercial, secure, permanent URL provided. I think we take it for granted at the moment that we can still see url codes in google. I recently updated my OSx Lion and the address bar has been replaced with a single google search bar which will only display the main part of the address in black while the extended URL link is in GREY, they are fading it out!Katherine Herrington (talk) 16:06, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
There is already a "non commercial, secure, permanent URL" for every article. Just send them the URL to the article. Unless the article is moved or deleted, that will work just fine. It's really not much more work to copy the URL from the address bar, go to whichever social media site you want to go to, and then post the URL there. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 16:16, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Claim an iPad2 popup

Maybe Norton has let some malware slip by, but at Talk:David Chalmers when I hover over the 'Wikipedia' link in "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" (the line just after Talk:David Chalmers. It also happened on the page that comes up after you block someone. Dougweller (talk) 14:22, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Norton let some malware slip by. --Golbez (talk) 14:35, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
Odd malware then as I no longer have the problem on that page. Possible of course. Dougweller (talk) 15:23, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
Not malware, some weird Firefox addons. Gone now. Dougweller (talk) 19:33, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
If the Firefox add-ons mysteriously appeared on your computer, possibly through a browser exploit, I would consider them to be malware. PleaseStand (talk) 03:29, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Replag

Replag seems to be going up in real time about 17 1/2 hours and counting. Any idea what's causing this?--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 16:51, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Not an official answer, but based on the reports from Ops regarding two brief outages yesterday, the culprit is mostly likely Wikidata's impact on the job queue (i.e. refreshing interwiki links). It's not really the fault of Wikidata per se, but rather that the job queue needs to be rebuilt to scale better than the current system. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:49, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
Are such reports public somewhere? Dragons flight (talk) 21:03, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
This wasn't a report per se, I just meant that Ops reported it. In this case, the message was forwarded to the Wikidata public mailing list. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:14, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Link. Legoktm (talk) 02:01, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
You might want to mention to someone at Ops that the first outage occurred a couple minutes after I made this edit to Module:Citation/CS1. That module, a core part of the citation system, had about 1 million uses at the time, so editing it leads to 1 million pages being queued for rebuilding. I can't help wondering if that was the straw that broke the jobqueue's back, either instead of or in addition to heavy load from Wikidata. I actually recall seeing error messages shortly after making the edit, so I remembered it. I've made edits to that page and other pages that are very heavily transcluded on many occasions, and they aren't usually associated with all of Wikipedia locking up, so my guess would be that it was a combination of factors that pushed things too far that specific time. Dragons flight (talk) 01:33, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Apply hAudio microformat to Template:Audio

Please comment on the proposal at Template talk:Audio#Apply hAudio microformat. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:59, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Are there instructions somewhere on how to format my signature?

Nothing seems to work, including copying others. I've asked around and no one says anything more than go to Preferences and change it. Well, I've been trying for the last two hours, and even copying others doesn't work. Isn't there a page of instructions or something? (I wouldn't bother you folks here with this, but I'm really frustrated and there doesn't seem to be help anywhere. I asked on IRC but no help there.) Thanks, [[User talk:Star767&#124;Star767]] (talk) 05:29, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

most of the information can be found on WP:SIG. What are you trying to make it look like? — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • View signature as intended) 05:43, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Try checking (☑) Treat the above as wiki markup in Preferences and see if that helps. If you want hands-on help, feel free to contact me on my talk page. The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 05:45, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
I did all that. Over and over again. But you can see the results! I'm trying to get my signature to go to my talk page and skip my user page, because I just have a few notes for myself on it. [[User talk:Star767&#124;Star767]] (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:51, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
So, what you want is [[User_talk:Star767|Star767]]. Before you say it, since that pipe character (&#124;) is inside a wikilink, it is required to be just a regular pipe character. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • View signature as intended) 05:57, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll use that. (I tried with the normal pipe first, but that didn't work, so that's why I added the (&#124;) - since that's the only tip in preferences.) [[User talk:Star767&#124;Star767]] (talk) 06:10, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Or Star767 ([[User talk:Star767|talk]]) – looks like this: Star767 (talk). The Anonymouse (talk | contribs) 06:12, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, I guess I don't add the nowiki? <nowiki>[[User_talk:Star767|Star767]]</nowiki> (talk) 06:14, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Just kill the nowiki and you'll be fine. —Theopolisme (talk) 06:16, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

<span class="ShoeSig">— [[User:Technical 13]]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(&nbsp;[[Special:Contributions/Technical_13|C]]&nbsp;•&nbsp;[[User_talk:Technical_13|M]]&nbsp;• [[User:Technical_13/Sig|Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ]])</span> is the exact raw text code for my signature. Feel free to take what you want from that. Just copy what I gave you from the content section, not from the edit input box. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • View signature as intended) 06:18, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) ok Star767 06:20, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Sorry, I'm so tired from working on this for hours. Thanks for the tips. I'll try them tomorrow. Meanwhile, this works! Star767 06:25, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity

It seems to have gone now, but yesterday I had a load of 'nanny says' type info coming up when performing admin actions (i.e. deletions and blocks). There was so much, I had to scroll down to get to the blocking bit. What was it there for, and why's it gone again? (Note I am not begging for its return - just being nosy...) Peridon (talk) 20:58, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

If you want them back, set your interface language to "en". Not British English, not Canadian English. All of the "nanny says" kind of stuff only shows up in the plain English version of the site. There was a problem with selecting overrides of the user interface based on language settings. For a while, I was getting volumes of English on every action I took even though I keep my user interface set to Dutch. That change got undone because it really irritated the foreign language users. I think someone should undertake the effort to realign all the English interfaces, though.
The history can be found at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46579 and WP:Village pump (technical)#Language preferences getting mishandled—Kww(talk) 23:54, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. For anyone technical reading this, I hadn't changed my preferences (Brit English), and there's a bit more discussion at AN, 'Repost from VP (Tech)' thread. Peridon (talk) 00:07, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

File upload bot's uploads aren't registering in the log history

See https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=recentchanges&rcprop=title%7Cloginfo%7Ctimestamp&rcnamespace=6&rclimit=200&rctype=log

Why aren't uploads by commons:User:File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) showing up in this log? Is this new or has it been this way for a while? It is totally messing up my bot. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 22:56, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Hmmm. At commons:Special:Contributions/File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske), I currently see...
21:25, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (7070387667).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:25, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924307424).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:25, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924307270).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:24, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (7070386259).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:24, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924307088).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:24, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924306760).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:24, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924306646).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
21:24, 29 March 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+510)‎ . . N File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924306472).jpg ‎ (Transferred from Flickr by User:GrapedApe) (top)
At your API link, I currently see...
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (7070387667).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:25:07Z" logid="59314832" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924307424).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:25:07Z" logid="59314829" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924307270).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:25:00Z" logid="59314802" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924306646).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:24:59Z" logid="59314793" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (7070386259).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:24:59Z" logid="59314791" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924307088).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:24:59Z" logid="59314792" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924306760).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:24:59Z" logid="59314790" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
      <rc type="log" ns="6" title="File:Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania (6924306472).jpg" timestamp="2013-03-30T02:24:59Z" logid="59314789" logtype="upload" logaction="upload" />
It looks like everything is getting logged, but some of the uploads have the exact same timestamp, so the order of the results isn't exactly the same. Is this what you mean? --MZMcBride (talk) 02:42, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
I've spotted the error; in the querycontinue variable in the API, there is subvariable recentchanges, but there is no longer the rcstart subvariable. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 17:55, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Search term wildcard

I tried to use the asterisk (*) as a wildcard on the Special:PrefixIndex page and it didn't work. I was looking specifically for pages that were prefixed "C*:". If the asterisk had worked there would have been listings like "C:xxxxx", "CAT:xxxxx" and so forth, but the page was empty. Evidently the asterisk is not seen by the software as a search term wildcard, and I wonder if there is another symbol that is recognized as a wildcard? – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 04:37, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it works on namespaces, read somewhere it only works on page names. — User:Technical 13   ( C • M • Click to learn how to view this signature as intended ) 05:34, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Neither C: nor CAT: are namespaces. Rather, they are pseudo-namespaces. As far as MediaWiki is concerned, pages with those prefixes are in main article space and the C: or CAT: is just part of their title. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 22:06, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
No, there is no wildcard for Special:PrefixIndex. Anomie⚔ 12:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Oh  d a r n. Had to give it a shot. Thank you both very much! – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 19:58, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
you can't use "prefix search", but you can still use the search: in the special search screen (i.e., the page that opens when you press the little magnifying glass icon in the search box) you can press "advanced", and select exactly the namespaces you want to search. then you can use "intitle:XXXX", to look only for articles where this string appears as part of their title. this may not be as precise as "prefix", but it's much closer than nothing at all (you can look for more advanced search options in the help page linked from "advanced search")... peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 22:31, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Import a Wordperfect document containing footnotes?

Over at this Help desk thread, a new user has prepared a long article in WordPerfect X6 using Wordperfect footnotes for referencing. Can anyone think of a way to get the text and its footnotes into Wikipedia? -- John of Reading (talk) 18:36, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Announcing new Module: Charts

After some discussions in Wikipedia:Lua requests, i developed a module that can display bar-charts from user input. There are several options, such as stacking the bars on top of each other or showing them side by side, using different scales for different groups in one chart, and a little more. see Module:Chart for partial documentation and some examples. 

{{ #invoke:Chart | bar-chart
| group 1 = 40 : 50 : 60 : 20
| group 2 = 20 : 60 : 12 : 44
| group 3 = 55 : 14 : 33 : 5
| colors = green : yellow : orange
| group names = Apple : Banana : Orange
| x legends = Before : During : After : Post mortem
}}


10
20
30
40
50
60
Before
During
After
Post mortem
  •   Apple
  •   Banana
  •   Orange


comments and bug reports expected on Module talk:Chart. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 21:18, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Very cool. Thanks kipod. Is there something similar to {{Line chart}} in a Lua module? 64.40.54.208 (talk) 01:37, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
Overall, very nice. I think the legend is a little awkward, though. Maybe better to have simple text labels adjacent to colored boxes rather than inside them. Dragons flight (talk) 03:05, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
you are correct, of course. this is how i did it to begin with. don't know why it did not work at first shot, and instead of fixing the problem i found a way around it. i think it's better now. one of the problems is that i can't write a decent unit-test. there may also be a better solution for the Y-scale units (see example in Module:Chart). maybe use border instead of background or something. problem is, some light colors may be OK for the bars, but not good enough for text, like yellow, so we can't use it for the text itself. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 04:36, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
oh, and about {{line chart}}: no way i can touch this thing. my sincere admiration to the people who managed to do this by perverting the timeline extension, but i feel that if i state at this convoluted code for two more minutes i might go blind. the only way i can think of ATM for creating line chart is by using something called "transform", which is semi standard. the problem is that i am not sure all browses support it, and i am not sure that the ones that do, behave exactly the same. the problem is not writing the Lua code, the difficulty is that this requires some deep html magic - prolly more than i posses at the moment... maybe what we should do is to lobby the developers to create a decent chart extension. then we can have not only bar and line charts but also pie charts, and more goodies. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 04:55, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
{{line chart}} is well beyond my my ability, but thanks for taking a look. BTW, I've added Module:Chart to WP:Graphs and charts. Cheers. 64.40.54.208 (talk) 06:35, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
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