Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 164

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Village pump (technical) archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (technical).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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Archive-date parameter

Moved to Help talk:Citation Style 1 § Archive-date parameter

Add link for search on Wikidata

RFC here, please join -> MediaWiki_talk:Wdsearch.js#Add_link_to_search. --Superchilum^{(talk to me!)} 10:51, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

lowercase sigmabot III not archiving Talk:Robert Downey Jr.

Hi,

All discussions on Talk:Robert Downey Jr. are supposed to be archived after 180 days (at least, if I'm reading the template right):

{{User:MiszaBot/config
| algo                = old(180d)
| archive             = Talk:Robert Downey, Jr./Archive %(counter)d
| counter             = 1
| maxarchivesize      = 150K
| archiveheader       = {{Automatic archive navigator}}
| minthreadstoarchive = 1
| minthreadsleft      = 4
}}

However, there's a lot of old discussions there, from anywhere between 2012 and 2016. Can anyone see why the bot isn't doing its work? Thanks! rchard2scout (talk) 13:42, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

The archive must be a subpage of the archived page. I have changed it to | archive = Talk:Robert Downey Jr./Archive %(counter)d with no comma. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:04, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, that was probably it, must've been missed in a page move some time ago. rchard2scout (talk) 14:46, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Parsing templates with bot

Let's say there is a cite:

{{cite web |title=USS Zumwalt |website=Naval Vessel Register |url={{NVR url|DDG-1000}} |accessdate=1 October 2016}}

Currently my bot (running off-site) is unable to parse the |url= because it downloads the wikisource as plain text and doesn't know what {{NVR url}} is or how it would expand. {{NVR url}} is just an example, there are dozens+ templates known and unknown. Is there an API (ideally) that can parse wikicode? I can't imagine using a sandbox to post the template and reading the output the volume would be high. -- GreenC 14:53, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

I think that you can use mw:Parsoid/API. Ruslik_Zero 20:39, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

@GreenC: You can use mw:API:Expandtemplates (e.g. [1]) or mw:API:Parsing wikitext (e.g. [2]) - Evad37 [talk] 01:41, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Perfect, thanks User:Evad37. -- GreenC 21:48, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Odd message when saving/publishing or previewing

Recently I have been getting an unexpected message saying "Do you want to leave this site? changes you made may not be saved Leave/stay" in a little pale blue box top centre when I hit the preview or publish buttons from source edit, This happans for both firefox and chrome on Windows 10. Clicking on leave works fine, there is no loss of edit and the preview and save work as expected. Has this happened to anyone else? · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 21:27, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood: is this only happening when you use the visual editor? — xaosflux ^Talk 03:14, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

If so, it sounds like bug phab:T154093. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:15, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Xaosflux, I only use edit source, No idea if it does that in VE, but I thought source edit is going through VE these days. I have noticed a slowing down and partial greying during saves. The problem is intermittent and not very predictable. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:05, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

The message is in the middle of the screen in a white box for Firefox. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:05, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

The message on Firefox is "This page is asking you to confirm that you want to leave - data you have entered may not be saved. Leave page/Stay on page", which is different in detail, but the same in intention. It looks like the site is passing a message to the browser which is displayed slightly differently depending on browser. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:54, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

There are other anomalies. The wikitext insertion function from the menu below the edit window is also not working. If I click on one of the options I get sent to the top of the page, as if I clicked [home]. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:17, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

There is a wikitext mode in Extension:VisualEditor, but you are not using it. You might consider mw:Help:Locating broken scripts. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:52, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Editing News #1—2018

Read this in another language • Subscription list for the English Wikipedia • Subscription list for the multilingual edition

Did you know?

Did you know that you can now use the visual diff tool on any page?

Sometimes, it is hard to see important changes in a wikitext diff. This screenshot of a wikitext diff (click to enlarge) shows that the paragraphs have been rearranged, but it does not highlight the removal of a word or the addition of a new sentence.

If you enable the Beta Feature for "⧼visualeditor-preference-visualdiffpage-label⧽", you will have a new option. It will give you a new box at the top of every diff page. This box will let you choose either diff system on any edit.

Click the toggle button to switch between visual and wikitext diffs.

In the visual diff, additions, removals, new links, and formatting changes will be highlighted. Other changes, such as changing the size of an image, are described in notes on the side.

This screenshot shows the same edit as the wikitext diff. The visual diff highlights the removal of one word and the addition of a new sentence. An arrow indicates that the paragraph changed location.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has spent most of their time supporting the 2017 wikitext editor mode, which is available inside the visual editor as a Beta Feature, and improving the visual diff tool. Their work board is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, supporting the 2017 wikitext editor, and improving the visual diff tool.

Recent changes

• The 2017 wikitext editor is available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices. It has the same toolbar as the visual editor and can use the citoid service and other modern tools. The team have been comparing the performance of different editing environments. They have studied how long it takes to open the page and start typing. The study uses data for more than one million edits during December and January. Some changes have been made to improve the speed of the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual editor. Recently, the 2017 wikitext editor opened fastest for most edits, and the 2010 WikiEditor was fastest for some edits. More information will be posted at mw:Contributors/Projects/Editing performance.
• The visual diff tool was developed for the visual editor. It is now available to all users of the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. When you review your changes, you can toggle between wikitext and visual diffs. You can also enable the new Beta Feature for "Visual diffs". The Beta Feature lets you use the visual diff tool to view other people's edits on page histories and Special:RecentChanges. [3]
• Wikitext syntax highlighting is available as a Beta Feature for both the 2017 wikitext editor and the 2010 wikitext editor. [4]
• The citoid service automatically translates URLs, DOIs, ISBNs, and PubMed id numbers into wikitext citation templates. This tool has been used at the English Wikipedia for a long time. It is very popular and useful to editors, although it can be tricky for admins to set up. Other wikis can have this service, too. Please read the instructions. You can ask the team to help you enable citoid at your wiki.

Let's work together

• The team is planning a presentation about editing tools for an upcoming Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting.
• Wikibooks, Wikiversity, and other communities may have the visual editor made available by default to contributors. If your community wants this, then please contact Dan Garry.
• The <references /> block can automatically display long lists of references in columns on wide screens. This makes footnotes easier to read. This has already been enabled at the English Wikipedia. If you want columns for a long list of footnotes on this wiki, you can use either <references /> or the plain (no parameters) {{reflist}} template. If you edit a different wiki, you can request multi-column support for your wiki. [5]
• If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly. We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation. Thank you!

—User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:14, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Checking This is a minor edit count as an edit summary?

I've got Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary checked in my preferences. Is there some way to get checking the This is a minor edit box count as entering a summary? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:50, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

@RoySmith: Changes to your preferences are not changes to editable pages, and so cannot be logged as if they were. I expect that there is some sort of log of preference changes, but it's not accessible to anybody except the sysadmins. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:21, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Did you reply to the wrong question? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:45, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

@RoySmith: A really hacky workaround would be to add the following to your Special:Mypage/common.js, which will add " (minor edit)" to the edit summary when you click the checkbox:

if(wpMinoredit=document.getElementById("wpMinoredit")){wpMinoredit.onclick = function() {if(wpMinoredit.checked) {document.getElementById("wpSummary").value += " (minor edit)";}}}

--Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:45, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

A better way would be to change the value of the wpAutoSummary hidden field when the minor edit checkbox is checked. And change it back if the checkbox is unchecked. Anomie⚔ 12:02, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Finding people who edit a particular topic

I have plans on reviving Wikiproject West Bengal. Most of the participants there have left Wikipedia. Is there a way to get the names of all users who edit that particular topic so that I will be able to send invitations শুভ দোলযাত্রা — FR™ 10:21, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, there is a way to do this, but I can't find the link (again. I can never find this link). User:Harej worked on it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

@Force Radical: User talk:Bobo.03 is assisting WikiProjects by using his machine learning program to find users to invite to join/participate. The program analyzes edits on related subjects, etc. He may be interested in adding WikiProjects to his current round of testing. See my talk page for examples of the output of his program.     — The Transhumanist    20:27, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

autowikibrowser 2

hello how to active this js in autowikibrowser--Monorodo (talk) 06:04, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

I do not think that you can: AWB does not execute user javascript. Ruslik_Zero 18:59, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

@Monorodo: If you have node.js installed on your computer, you might be able to use AWB's external processing feature to feed its pages to a JavaScript program, and receive the pages back once processed. Though you may need to write a script specifically to work in this context (to edit wikicode, for example). AWB can call an external program and pass arguments to it. If node.js can receive your arguments, you may be in business. For AWB's side of this issue, see Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User manual#Tools for more information. Let me know if you find a way. I'd be very interested.     — The Transhumanist    20:52, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Extra-long edit summaries

Thursday (UTC) just being over, I see that we now have extra-long edit summaries. Do we wish to encourage comments like this which occupy more than five lines in my watchlist? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:13, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Turn off extended edit summaries. --Majora (talk) 00:17, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Whoops, I have now found Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Turn off extended edit summaries on this exact matter. Everybody over there please! --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:18, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Help with tables

Looking to see if it's possible to offset cells on a table, for example, the top row has 2 cells (cols), the second row has 3 cells (cols), is it possible to center the top row on the second row (and if so, with mark up or some other means?)

example 1

R1/C1	R1/C2
R2/C1	R2/C2	R2/C3

example 2

R1/C1

R1/C2

R2/C1

R2/C2

R2/C3

Example 1 is what I'm seeking to adjust. Example 2 is to demonstrate how I want the top row of cells offset/centered on the second row (and what is being used right now in some articles ad hoc), but I would like to do this with a single table, is possible. Thanks - ^theWOLFchild 16:41, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

You can make 6 columns and use colspan 2 or 3 in all of them to give the same effect:

R1/C1-3			R1/C4-6
R2/C1-2		R2/C3-4		R2/C5-6

PrimeHunter (talk) 17:09, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

That's works in in the example above, but for a table with 55 cells, I guess that means I would have to add "colspan" to every cell? Or will this work on just the first two rows of a 14 row table? If not, any other tricks? Thanks again - ^theWOLFchild 22:16, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Alternately, for your example, you might dispense with the table altogether and instead, in §Award ribbons, use |link= in the ribbon images to link to the ribbon's article:

[[File:Medal of Honor ribbon.svg|110px|link=Medal of Honor]] →

{{ribbon devices}} would need to be tweaked to support article links in the images that it creates.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:25, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

That is another option, (but it doesn't immediately show the name of the medal, and while hovering the cursor does, would it show other details? eg: dates, countries, notations, etc.) Anyway, right now many of these military BLPs are already set up with a ribbon board followed by a table, and some of those tables are in need of a fix that I'd like to add without major rewites. Thanks for the advice, it's always appreciated. Cheers - ^theWOLFchild 22:01, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Another (related) question, why does this work, and automatically without any additional mark-up, on ribbon boards (eg: award images), but not on tables with text (eg: award names)...? Thanks again - ^theWOLFchild 22:22, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Because the top line of the ribbon board table is essentially three images one-right-after-the-other on the same source line:

[[File:Medal of Honor ribbon.svg|110px]]{{Ribbon devices|number=2|type=oak|ribbon=Distinguished Service Cross ribbon.svg|width=110}}{{Ribbon devices|number=4|type=oak|ribbon=Distinguished Service Medal ribbon.svg|width=110}}

This is accommodated by adding table markup to the first line of the four-column table:

colspan="4" align="center"

The rest of the rows are all four cells each with a single ribbon in each cell. It does not have to be that way, one can make the ribbon board as a single-column table. Here are the top three rows of MacArthur's ribbon board written as a single-column table:

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:51, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

I see. Well, that's handy enough for the ribbon boards, but is there a quick fix to be found for the table? Or do I have to add "colspan" markup to every cell, just to merge those top three cells onto the rest of the table? (and thanks again) - ^theWOLFchild 01:47, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

You can use margin 0 to remove the space between the two tables.[6] PrimeHunter (talk) 10:14, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Boom! There's the quick-fix I was looking for. Thank you - ^theWOLFchild 03:23, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

This is making my head spin

File:Caribou at the campsite.jpg

I was trying to crop this image to emphasize the real subject, the caribou swimming in the river. I thought I had done that, and uploaded a new version, but when I was done could still see the top of the yellow tent for some reason. So I did it again, and the same thing happened again. In the revision history the thumbnails look like exactly what I was going for, but for some reason the actual image keeps displaying with part of the tent visible, about halfway between what it originally was and what I was attempting. I waited a few minutes in case it was some sort of server lag issue but that didn’t do it either. I’m so confused right now. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:10, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: I've restored an earlier version and cleared my cache using (CTRL+SHIFT+R) and it seems to appear fine for me. Does following those steps give you the same result? Jon Kolbert (talk) 19:22, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

No, but I’m using an iPad (but still on desktop version of WP). That command does nothing as far as I can tell, but I did hit the page refresh button about ten times. What’s so weird is that what I’m seeing isn’t the original image, nor is it my crop, it’s as if the system is making its own version somehow. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:41, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: Hm, maybe it's worth transferring to commons and then just using the CropTool available there on the original. Right now I see a version without any yellow tent in it, so it may just be an issue specific to browsing on the iPad. I would try viewing it in a different browser if possible. Jon Kolbert (talk) 19:48, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

When using iOS to double check changes to images introduced via uploading a new version of the file, I find it's best to force purge the page to ensure it worked. There's a gadget for it under preferences (on the "Gadgets" tab, under "Appearance"). It enables a purge link under the "More" tab at the top of articles and other appropriate namespaces, below the "Move" link. It basically does what "CTRL+SHIFT+R" does on a keyboard, and is mucho useful on iOS. oknazevad (talk) 18:52, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

I just kind of waited to see if it would work itself out, and it did, image is displaying as expected now. Thanks for your replies. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:10, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, March 2018

Bots Newsletter, March 2018

Greetings!

Here is the 5th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

ARBCOM

• Magioladitis 2 happened, leading to further restrictions on Magioladitis (decision, summary).
• Betacommand 3 was proposed to be amended to lift the indefinite ban on Δ, but was unsuccessful (decision).
• A motion concerning Crosswiki issues (mostly concerning Wikidata) was passed (see discussion).

BAG

• Hersfold was removed from the BAG due to long term inactivity.

BRFAs

We currently have 6 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!

Discussions

While there were no large-scale bot-related discussion in the past few months, you can check WP:BOTN and WT:BOTPOL (and their corresponding archives) for smaller issues that came up.

New things

• WP:BOTDICT, a dictionary of common bot-related terms (see discussion).
• 6 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion).
• The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey happened. Two bot-related proposal passed, #6 deploy Article Alerts to other languages and #10 Commons deletion notification bot, although other entries may affect bots as well.
• Category:Wikipedia bots and its subcategories has had some cleanup. Bot-related pages that were historically important but are no longer of interests can be found in Category:Wikipedia bots (historical)
• The edit summary limit has been increased to 1000 characters (see T6715). If a bot you operate relied on the old truncation limit (255 characters), please review/update your code, as overly long summaries can be disruptive/annoying. If you want to use extra characters to have more information in your edit summary, please do so intelligently.
• You will soon be able to ping users from the edit summary (see T188469). If you wish to use this feature in your bot, please do so intelligently.

Upcoming

• HTML Tidy will be phased out in June 2018, or possibly earlier. This may affect some bots (see FAQ).

Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 03:12, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

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(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Why is Visual Editor blocked on Wikipedia: ?

Hi

Can someone tell me why Visual Editor is blocked for all of the Wikipedia: namespace, it would be very helpful for Wikiprojects if it was enabled, especially when using tables.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 17:52, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Why does it seem like you ask this question every month or so? --Izno (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

@John Cummings: Same answer you got last time: phab:T152794. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:18, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I thought this was answered last time you asked the same question. [7]? Black Kite (talk) 18:21, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminders @Izno:, @Ahecht: and @Black Kite:, can you tell me if there is a Wikiproject: namespace on en.wiki? I really need to create some Wikiproject pages that use VE. John Cummings (talk) 19:46, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

@John Cummings: No, no such namespace exists. I am doubtful that the community would approve such a namespace. --Izno (talk) 19:47, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

OK @Izno:, do you have a suggestion of a namespace I can put a set of pages on en.wiki that I could use VE that are not Wikipedia: or in userspace? John Cummings (talk) 19:49, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

John, you might talk to User:Kerry Raymond about her workaround for this limitation. Note that you will have to choose between the workaround or letting users have access to the 2017 wikitext editor, because the two are incompatible in a fairly dramatic way. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:52, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks very much Whatamidoing (WMF), can you point to her workaround? I'm really stuck and have to work this out for an event in two weeks. John Cummings (talk) 19:54, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Why not copy the source text to a sandbox in your own userspace where VE is enabled, edit it there and then copy it back to the page? Or why not host the page in question in your userspace and transclude it to the WP page? Regards SoWhy 20:09, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

@SoWhy:, I'm creating a resource for new users so this isn't really viable, I've tried..... John Cummings (talk) 20:22, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

• Question: does VisualEditor work in User: or Draft: space? If so, could you create your table there, then copy the code to your intended project page? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:28, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

  Oh, SoWhy just said that. Never mind. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:30, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

  For future ref, WP:VE#Limitations, first bullet, summarises the namespace restrictions. WP:NS has a table listing all of the namespaces for English Wikipedia. Namespaces numbered above 15 vary between different language Wikipedias, and also between other Wikimedia projects such as Commons. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:32, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

• John, have a look at Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:VEFriendly to see what Kerry has been doing. It's not elegant, but it might be enough to get you through this one workshop. (Just make sure that nobody enables the new wikitext editor, or every page they use this on will be replaced by raw HTML.) The Help: namespace might be another alternative, if what you're doing is mostly instructions about how to edit, etc. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:56, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

John Cummings, just try this: https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Notability&veaction=edit . This works in easy steps.

1. Edit in code
2. Go to url , add a ve and press enter (replace &action=edit with &veaction=edit)
3. You edit in VE.

   ManosHacker ^talk 18:58, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks @ManosHacker:, John Cummings (talk) 10:38, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Reflinks error

When I try to reach [8] or [9], I get:

"Hmmm...can’t reach this page Try this Make sure you’ve got the right web address: https://dispenser.info.tm Search for "https://dispenser.info.tm" on Bing Refresh the page Details". Please {{ping}} me when you respond. --Jax 0677 (talk) 21:08, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

@Jax 0677: Those web pages are outside our control. You need to ask Dispenser (talk · contribs). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:03, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

I am also seeing this issue, I commented on it when I opened my FLC. ~ Matthewrbowker ^{Comments · Changes} 23:07, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

User scripts - a maintenance nightmare

The current system with user scripts is admirable. However, it becomes quite regular that users use the scripts of others. Editors without the edituserjs right (i.e. not Administrators) cannot edit the scripts of others. Unfortunately, this has lead to forking of scripts when a new feature is wanted or when the maintainer becomes inactive. Take for example User:Theopolisme/Scripts/adminhighlighter - based on User:Amalthea/userhighlighter.js which was in turn based on User:Ais523/adminrights.js. Then I made this one based on that: User:Bellezzasolo/Scripts/adminhighlighter. It would be far better to have one centralized script with parameters for custom features. At the same time, there are problems re. vandalism - user scripts are particularly sensitive, especially with malicious code possible.
Possible solutions:

• Centralized scripts generally editable - support - more maintainers oppose very risky
• Centralized scripts editable by template editors/admins - support more centralized oppose those without bit may create forks
• Template editors have edituserjs - support Better maintenance possible by technically minded editors oppose uncentralized, does not eliminate forking issue
• Do nothing - support status quo, safe. oppose Forking and maintenance problems above.

∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 04:35, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

You may be interested in reading WP:Gadget. Anomie⚔ 05:15, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Anomie oops... I'd better take a look around. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 05:26, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Monobook skin: Add VE tab

Okay, here it is: I'd like to have a tab on pages that allows me to open the VisualEditor directly without having to open the source editor first and then switching. I know that this can be achieved by appending something to the URL, so what I now need is to add a tab to the page to take me directly there. Can someone with the technical skills tell me the code to use? Regards SoWhy 13:22, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

It's already at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing. If you have a checkmark at "Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta" then remove it and save preferences. Go back to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and select your tabs at "Editing mode". PrimeHunter (talk) 13:51, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Weird way to hide it there but thanks for pointing that out to me. I had it disabled initially because it was loading every time and so of course I didn't realize they now actually made it useful. Regards SoWhy 17:12, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Strange page markings

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T188865

Special:Contributions/There'sNoTime currently looks like this:

Extended content

pending email) (current) 13:25, 4 March 2018 (diff | hist) . . (+166)‎ . . Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Alechkoist ‎ (→‎Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments: Likely. (using responseHelper)) 13:24, 4 March 2018 (diff | hist) . . (+146)‎ . . User talk:Chamellen ‎ ({{checkuserblock-account}}. (TW)) (current) 13:24, 4 March 2018 (diff | hist) . . (+146)‎ . . User talk:Luke Raz ‎ ({{checkuserblock-account}}. (TW)) (current) 13:23, 4 March 2018 (diff | hist) . . (+112)‎ . . Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Alechkoist ‎ (In progress. (using responseHelper)) 13:02, 3 March 2018 (diff | hist) . . (+6,114)‎ . . User talk:There'sNoTime/Archive 13 ‎ (OneClickArchiver adding 1 discussion) (current) 13:02, 3 March 2018 (diff | hist) . . (-6,114)‎ . . User talk:There'sNoTime ‎ (OneClickArchiver archived 1 discussion to User talk:There'sNoTime/Archive 13) (current) 21:38, 2 March 2018 (diff | hist) . . (-5)‎ . . User:There'sNoTime/sandbox ‎ (. . 1̸̧͖̲̘̳͈͎̼̦̜͆̿̽̃̕2̥̫̤̟͓̬̟̓̄̌͂͌̿̑͢͜͝3͕̥͇̥͔̱̦̅͗͋̃̀͐͐̀͜͟1̴̳͓͇̜͉̣͙͓͍̾̐̔̈́̄͊͠2̧̬̳̥̱̪̹͔̣̿̇̑̾̃͟3̸̨̼̲̩̣̮͔̜̦̹̔̒̂͂̐1̸̨͚̲̙̤̤̦͎̊̎̍͗̅͗̃͘͞͝ͅ2̷͕̤̦̲͔̻̗̥͈́̔̽̃͐͘3̵̨̡̩͕̮͌̓͐̓̑͝ͅ1̛̰̼̠͎̮̹̌̌̄͗̍̓͢͝2̢̛̲̞͖̹͈͑̓̒́̒̋͢͞͡ͅ3͎̰̰̹̪̟͑̅̎̒̐͋͆̚͜͡1̵̧̛͖̦̺͙̰̯̺̿͊̽̕͜͞2̮͍̩̟̙̘̯̍͂́̈̓̕̕͡3̷̧̛͈͍̦̥͕̟̝̆̅̎̾1̛̠̬̯͚͓̩̤̽̌̀͊͗̎͌̅̐2̗̘̯̖̹̝̂̏͆̓͛̌͛̑͝ͅ3̹̝̭̼̼̟̺͂̌̂͒̔̔̒͢ͅ1̧͔̙̻̞̭̥͉̗̈̂̍͐̀̆̕͟2̛̰̝͍͔̼̲̦̍͂̂̄̒͘ͅ3̡̡͙̪͎͕͍̻͋͆̐̔̑̍͌̾̔1̨͇̬̲̥̑͌́͠͠ͅ2̵̣͙̣̤͔̫̌̓̆̌̆͘͝ͅ3̡̝͙̣͔̺͈̍̌̓́͘͟1̡͚̦̰̱̗̠̦̀̏̄̊͛͌̐͋̋͋2̧̛̠̼̤͍̱̗̩̰͑͌̎̂̋̐͘3̵̨̛̭̯̹̻̤̙͙͚̪͆̊̋͛́1̥̞͉͚̮̖̼̮̭̄̂̏̋̈̊̔͜2̩̙͉͍̳̟̍̾͒͂͐̄̾͆͜3̨̢̛̦͎̳̟͇͇͚̀͊̅̂͢1̸̡̥̦̣͙́̐̋́̕2̴̦͚͙͚̦͈̘͇̽͑͐̅̇́͡3̸̡͖̦̖̮̭̗́̔̓̊͒͛̓͝ͅ1̧̛͉̫̠̞͑́̐̿̐̔͢͡͞2̸̡͇̠̬̱̘̗̫̐͂͌̏̓̂̓͡͠3̡̞͔̞͍͊̑̋̋̂͆̿͘̚͢͡1̧̻̯͚̝͚̩̽̈̂̾̇́̌́͞2̷̩͙̪͓̘͚̦̄͂͗̌̓̏́́̇͞ͅ3̹̙̙̤̣̯̮̙͊́̏̍̍̂́͞1̸̝̻͈̟̼͔̮̞̃̎́̂̚2̹̮̲̩͉͖͓̦͚͓͂́͒̈̇͆͑̍3̡̗̝̘̙̰̗̲̣̙̐̎͆̔͛̚͠͡1̟͔̻̯̻̈́̔̂̂̚2̶̮͇̼͔̙̦̹͔͍͐̋̀̈́̒́ͅ3̴̣̹͈̱̫̞͕̪̹̀̅́͊̚͢1̷̡̢̘͍̮̤̼̯̆̈́̅̄̏͜͝2̷̨̡͚͎͕̯̟̜͑͌͂̅̿̿́̚͟3̵̢͕͕̝̤͉̓̿̉̆̋͂̓̇͜ͅ1̣̳̠̱͒̅͐̑̀͢2̵̨͈̳̺̤̝͗̆̓͂̉̀͑͘̚͝3̶̡̡̨̖̘̙̭͎͑͊̊̓͗͜ͅ1̷̠̬̩̟͉̼̞̀̏͌̔͐̎͌͂2̟̜͚͈̔̿̀͛̚͘͢͡3̴̡͚̩͍̙̅̀̓̽͑͂̽̚͜͞1̸͔͓̭̳̗̥̙̍͌̈́̄̌̇̄̏͡2̯̩͇̹͓̠̰͍̩͕̈̈̎̓̏̏͞3̶̡̛̭̰̬͌͑̂̂͛̊̀͞ͅ1̷̢̪͙̮͓̖̜̺̠̮̒̓̒̆͗2͎͚͍͉̩̙̜͌̓̃̿̇̀...) (current) 21:35, 2 March 2018 (diff | hist) . . (+2)‎ . . User:There'sNoTime/sandbox ‎ (B̨̨̖̘̬̰̘͖̥̳̠̣͙̖̼̦̼̰̈́ͪͥ̂ͪ̀̚͡ų̶̤̼̲͎͓͖̭͓̲̹͐ͧͦ̌̾̒̾̈̒ͦͧͩ͑ͭ͜ͅl̑̌̈ͦ҉̴̪̯̻̞̳̥̰̘̮̺͇̟͖̺̣͈͕̠͟͞ḷ̴̻̳̳͍͙͓̱̂̔ͬ͗͐̃ͬ̒̍̃̓̀͟͠ṗ̧̡̨͎͕̩͔̹͔̣̪̯̜̲͕̗̮͚̜͍ͣͬ̊̐̽̅ͧ͒͌͋̑͐̇ͨ͒e͕̥̠͙̟̙̟̹̝̱̠̞͉̼̟̦̍ͪͯ̽ͯͫͣ̉̇ͣͯͪ͐̑ͫ̏̃̑ͤ̀͡n͍̟̞̬͍̅͌́̈́̂͒ͬͮ̔ͬ̋̎͊̎͌͌ͮ̈́ͨ͟͢ ̧̲͇̟̺͕̫͓̍ͣ̓̓ͫ̀̚s̸̙̮̩̣͈̳̲̾͋ͭ͗̈́ͪ̓̐ͭͥ͋̇̀ả̡͉͕͚͕̘͎̩̟̱͓̙͈̱͓͋̋͆ͧͮ̉͊̔̐ͭ̐̊ͭ̃͞c̵̵̢͓̥͉͓̝͚̦̞͙ͮ̽ͫ̔ȑ̛̦͍͖̰̳̣͎̯͉̘̼̩͈̰̔̑̉͆ͬͩ̈̓̋ͦ̈́̈́̽̇̂̀̀͢i̫̮̪͎̟͇̗͚̲ͮ͒̽ͥ̒͆̄ͭ̀f̶̡͚͍͍̮̥͚͕͉̠͎ͯ͒ͦ̀ͯ͛͟͞͝ͅi̶̢̧̳̞̠̦̺̼̬͚͈̜̺͊̄̾ͥ̓ͥ̆ͧ̇͗́c̶̻̫͈͕͕̱̯̣̺̳̙̰͓͍̪̟͂ͩ́͐ͨ͑ͪ͊̃̿ͫ̑̏́̆ͣͩͤ̇e̶̷̲̞͚͉͑́ͥ͑̆̋̇ͨ̓ͬͩ̈̓̾̈̋̀̾͠ ̸͚̫̲̭͔͔͓̙̩̻̲̈̎̄͐̋ͮͣ̋̀͘f̈́ͣ̃ͪ͋ͩͩ̓ͥͮͩ̀̒̈́̕͟͝͏͓̮͇͎̮̦͍̳̭̙͉̩̟̘ͅl̴̗̳͈ͥͨͬͦͭ̐ͭͪ͂̊͊ͨ̾̑ͣ͘͢y̵͙̜͓̩̦͕̟͇̮͓̬̦̦̺͔̦̜̲ͦ̔̃̍̉ͮ̃̉̌̆͒̌̀ͧ͜͝ ͐ͭ̑̋͏̢͏̣̜̙͕̜̯ͅlͦ̈͋ͯ͐̚͜͟҉͔͓̹̥̗͓̙͓͕̯̠̖͎̞̭̞̭̱eͭ̂ͧͨ̀ͭͧ̓ͦ͏͕̫̯̙̻̖̯̮̙̠̬̦̣̘̻͘ͅa̵̴͖̦̳̣̖̮̹͚̟̗͍̓ͭ͋͋̿̈̈́̃͛̑̓̓̋ͭ̿͠g͈͔̯̭͔̲͎͑͆̔̋͟u̶͌ͥ̑ͯ͆ͬͪ̉̃̋̚̕҉͏̹͙̖̙͕̟̻͖͎̻̲͕̯͉̗̱̘ͅe̢̖͎͎̖̫͛̿ͮ͆͛ͦ̔̇̀̂̓͌ͩ͌ͫ̀͞ ̷̵̟͙̫͚͇̬̲̠͙̟̹̪͈̖̮̺̭͙͓ͫ͛̅͗͂͌ͨ̔͝ļ̸̺̝̜̣̺͆̓ͫ̇ͭ̆̉̑̊̊̀̑̾̉ͤ̀͞͠ȩ̛̛̪̥̰̹̲͕̘̒̌̀͒ͫ̒̀͛ͣ̉ͯ̓͟͠f̶̡̳̭͍̥̩̭̲͉͈̲̯͖̞̥̫͚̗̬̲ͮ̔ͭͭͣͣ͊͑͒̍̀͐̈͆́͑̚͟ţ̷̺̬̲͎͓̝̯͈̩̥̣̦̬̐ͬͥ̈́ͧ̎́͜ ̶̰͍̙̹͓̟̘̯͈̲͎̙̗̖̲͖̬̻̿ͩ͑͌͒̽̾̇ͣͯͥ͟ơ̡͎͉̹̣͕̥̈́ͫ̑ͬ̈́̌̒ͭ̈́ͨͭͮ̆͞ņ͖̠̭̮͓̗͓̠͚̲̱̝͚̖̲̹͔̰̇̃̆̾ͣͥͤ͊͊̇ͨ͌̎͛͌̿̆́̚͟ͅ ̅ͪ...) 21:33, 2 March 2018 (diff | hist) . . (+3)‎ . . User:There'sNoTime/sandbox ‎ (Ţ̴̛̝͉̱̬̎̎̈́ͣ͒̔̎̅̈̃͋͋̓͛ͧ̃ͮ̒̕͠ö̧̡̦͎̦̱́́̈́ͫ͂̾̑̑̽̉̆̑̓ͅ ̣̦̳̻̪͓̲̳̹̊̈̓͌̽ͤͭ̒̈ͯ̆͌̓͆̊͠͠i̸̢̜̜̘̩̥̯̤̙̠̱̣̱͍̤̹ͪͪͫ͐́͑̅̽̕n̶̨̙̩̻̩̞͙̱͔͖͕̼͈̮͕̍ͬ̌ͫ̔ͧͬͩ̆ͤͫ̉͒͗͗̉ͅͅv̸̵̵́̾̃͂̓͗͂͊ͧ̈͗̈́̑͆́͂̑͒̚͏͓̠̙͉̣͉o̊͗̋̾̆́ͯ͛̍ͮ̃̔̋͂ͣ͡͏̤̩̜̫͇̻͎̪̬̻͚͕̣̼̟̲̣̖͘ͅkͯͨ̀ͨ͋̇̑͋̚҉̴҉̱̗̣̮͇̙e̸̥̗͙̝͎̰͍̞̻̺̺̠̹͖͛̔̋͌̿ͧ̿ͪ͐̏͌͋̈ͧͨ̄̕͜͡ͅͅ ̴̧̧̼̭͎͈̝͈̩͙̍̏̒͛̀ṫ̊̔̎͡҉̝̳̟͎̦͚͇̞̝̘̭̘͖͕̰̖̻h̡͈̻͇̘͕̼͕͚̄ͦͤͣ̏̈ͥe̙͕̼͍̥̖̪̠̱̦̱͒͋̔̎̓͆͑ͩͣ̏̋͘ ̐ͣ̓̒̏̃̇̉̈͞͏̥̞͇̦͕͖̥̗̜͢͡ͅh̡̛̓̌̿̐̌͛̒̂̏̆̌̓̃ͥ̕͏̵͕̲͈̫i̿̑̔̋͒ͤ̍͑̎̐͐ͨͫ̑͒̎̾͞͏̢̤̩̪̰͙͢͝v̧̢̜̱̞͍̦͍̖̿̐̓͒̋͊̀ͬͤ̅ͪͯ̚͠͡ȩ̟̮̤̭̱̰͇͎̦̖̰͓̜͕̞̠͓̠͂͐̒͆ͦ̎̿̅͒͗ͥͭͬ̄̄̍ͨ͑ͮ́͘͘-̸̼͇̩̼͍̰͈̺̬͍̘̏̐̾̀̏̇ͤ̑̅̽̌̿ͧͮ̈́͋̊́̚ͅm̟̹͍̻͈̰̖̅ͪ̇ͨ͋ͨͣ͘͢ͅi̸̺̥̥̝̺͓̜̪̬̤͔ͨͦͮ̄͒̅͆͛̋́̀̕n̵̷̲̣̩̦͕͔̠̻̦̦͕̠̯̙͔̱̱̳ͣ̄ͥ̍͐͗͆̿ͦ́ͥ̑ͧ̈͡ḍ̷̖̦͚̱̮̩̟̠͗ͩͣͦ̌͛̅ͪ̍ͧ͛́̀̄̚͟͞ ̤͈̩̰̭̙͎͇͔͖̺̜͕͚̙̦̦̀ͧ̆͋̊̆̆ͭ͆ͭ̑̔͂ͩ̅̕ͅr̡͛ͣ̓̽̊́͊͊͋͗ͨ́҉͔̳͓̫͚̬͕̱̪̳̥̥̝͍̫̜̱̀͝ȅ̷̢͖̩̤͉͈͔͍͓̯͔̥̞̟͚̫ͭ̏͋͜p̢̛̣͎̹̤̯̹̲ͦ̔̽̎̕r̽̉̓ͦ͌͗̚͏̵̶̱̦̭̝̙̖̘͍̝̯̲̖̼̝͈̱̤̭́e̵̡̋͊ͪ͗̓͂͋͆ͥͫ́̿̊̒̀̚҉̗̼̲̥̲̼sͧ͊̿͐̑́ͦ͗͛̑̊̀̚͟͠͏̴̧̘̲̪͉͖̙͙̮̦̳̪̩̥̙̺ͅe͓̻̰̜͍̯͖̠̲͔͆͛̂̎ͫ̂̃̋ͫ̍̊ͭ́͞n̶̶͙͚̳͈̖̥̱̺̮͙̻͈̖̱̥̫̟̽̎̆̓͐̽̑͊͋t̷̮̻͓͕̤̆͒ͪͣͯ́̐ͮͫ͢į̷̷̡̪̤̺̜̦͉̺̹̯̩̉̾́̊͂̀̊̈͋̒͛ͦ͋ͮͦ̓͂͘n̸̲͙̭̲͇̞̤̹̗͍̺̟̮͍̳̣̲ͧ͗͌̊̅̽̂͋̐́̉ͯ̍͊̿̀̋̅̀͝g̶͚̦̩͔̯̦̻̳͎ͧ͗̆̆͑̈́̓̓́̓̔ͮ̑͐̎̀͡ ͛͑͗)

Is somebody hacking it? The interference has been getting worse over the course of the afternoon. 92.8.223.244 (talk) 15:14, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Looks like testing of weird edit summaries to me. But you could just ask them on their talk page. —Kusma (t·c) 15:19, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

I deleted the edit summaries. They really disrupt the readability of their contributions page.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 15:39, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

It's because of this dev request implemented: now there's 1,000 character max in edit-summaries. ...SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 15:41, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Apologies for any alarm, this was a test. When I last looked it was a minor disruption, but it appears that it expanded as my contribs list grew in size both below and above the edit summary. I've collapsed it above - TNT^❤ 15:50, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Stand down indeed. It's just weird unicode characters.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 16:03, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

@Cyberpower678: ugg - sounds like we're going to need to make another abuse filter. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:12, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Wanna teach me how to make one? :D—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 16:13, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Ha - though really I think this should be handled in core - going to open a ticket. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:13, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

• @Cyberpower678: @There'sNoTime: I've opened phab:T188865 for this, think it is something that needs to be addressed globally, not just here. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:23, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Good call Xaosflux - perhaps combining characters could be limited in edit summaries somehow? - TNT^❤ 16:24, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
• Incidentally, this thread was created by a prolific (well, socking prolifically) LTA...who must be falling over themselves laughing at the amount of admin time they've managed to choke up  :) ...SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 19:34, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm sure it'll be

    quoted at me out of context

    in the near future.. ho hum - TNT^❤ 19:39, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Android Chrome: when visiting mobile site on phone, check "desktop site" doesn't direct you to the actual desktop view

Instead, it will only display the same mobile view with different proportion.

On Firefox, though, it will initially show the same, but then redirect you to the actual desktop view.

Is this a bug of Chrome or MediaWiki?--fireattack (talk) 01:37, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

On my phone (an iPhone 7 running iOS 11), I tried switching to desktop view on Chrome and it worked just fine. — MRD2014 ^Talk 02:52, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I should I specify I'm on Android. IIRC browsers on iOS in general are quite different, so it's possible they act different. --fireattack (talk) 04:52, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

I have an android phone and desktop view on Chrome works and switches with no problems. Dr. K. 05:21, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

It suddenly works now. Thanks for the testing. -fireattack (talk) 23:13, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Extra padding on mobile for ul items generated using plainlist

Can someone please take a look at this issue I brought up a few days ago? Thanks! – Srdjan m (talk) 10:47, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Image quality

I've noticed that the quality of PNG rendering has improved dramatically sometime in the last few months, and thumbnails are no longer blurred. However, is it just my imagination or have JPGs gotten a lot worse? I do a lot of work cleaning up logos, and whenever I remove the artefacts from a JPG and save at a reasonable compression I'm disappointed by the low quality of the images rendered in article space. (I realize that such small logos should probably be converted to PNG files rather than JPG.) The additional compression applied by the Mediawiki software when serving images at non-native sizes is understandable with large images but pretty woeful when it comes to smaller images, especially those smaller than 100,000 megapixels (such a Fair Use logos). It seems to me that, given the already small file sizes, it's hardly worth applying additional compression at all. Where can I look at the technical specifications and maybe stick my oar in? nagualdesign 03:16, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

I am guessing you are referring to logos stored on wikis other than Commons (here on enwiki, probably?). This is likely due to a standardization of image processing that happened last summer that I forgot to communicate. When we migrated thumbnail processing to a new platform (which actually uses the same underlying image processing software and settings as before), we decided to not have special cases per wiki anymore - which are taxing to maintain - and we put the settings in line with Commons for all thumbnails. Commons (and now, "everything") optimizes JPGs for photos (using settings determined by the Commons community a long time ago), using enhancements like conditional sharpening. Which while they improve the visual quality of photo thumbnails, are indeed detrimental to logos and schematics. Because the workaround - and policy/expectation on Commons I believe - is to indeed upload non-photos as PNGs. I apologize about the disruption this change has caused, and I can imagine that re-uploading these images is going to be a significant amount of work. I encourage you to upload that type of image as PNGs if it's not too much trouble, as it fixes the problem and lets us keep image processing consistent across all of Wikimedia production.

FYI PNG processing hasn't changed recently. Maybe some underlying libraries have seen an update through Debian, but I'm not even sure that's the case, nor that it could explain a sudden improvement. Our integration tests compare reference images created 2 years ago to the current output with DSSIM and for PNG the threshold is 99% (it's only not 100% to let the tests pass locally on different platforms). Any drastic change in quality (for better or for worse) would be very likely have been detected by those tests.GDubuc (WMF) (talk) 09:39, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

@GDubuc (WMF): Thank you very much for the in-depth reply. nagualdesign 12:23, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

EVERYONE IS AN ANONYMOUS USER!

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T188214

When I see the contribution history of any page (mobile website), all users are "sleeping". 179.228.224.8 (talk) 22:14, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Someone? 179.228.224.8 (talk) 22:55, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't have access on mobile, so I'm not sure what you're asking for. Maybe others here also don't understand. Please clarify. — Maile (talk) 23:11, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

@Contributions/179.228.224.8: I so happen to use Wikipedia on both computer and tablet. I checked the contribs, and didn't find anything strange. Could you specify what you saw? Thanks. Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 23:17, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

@Zanygenius: Registered users used to have a gray icon with a smile. But now all users have the pink sleeping face. 179.228.224.8 (talk) 01:20, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/179.228.224.8 Aha, you mean this, which I have no idea what that's about, sorry. What I can do for you is take this to the phabricator team. They'll know what's going on. For now, I wouldn't worry. And you can always see those grey faces on the history list (go to the bottom and click on the green bar.) Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 01:55, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

@Zanygenius: Can you take this to Phabricator, please? 201.42.15.101 (talk) 12:00, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

 Done Okay, I've asked them, and hopefully your question will be responded.Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 16:49, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Resolved

201.1.217.139 (talk) 16:33, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-10

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

Recent changes

• You can now make longer edit summaries. [10]

Changes later this week

• You can notify users in edit summaries. They will get a ping just as if they had been mentioned on a wiki page. [11]
• On Special:AbuseLog you can now choose to list only actions that actually made an edit. Other actions are when the filter warned the editor or blocked the edit from being made. There are also more search options. [12][13]
• Wikis can enable Citoid to provide automatic reference look-up in the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor, but it is complex. The tool will now warn in the JavaScript console if the configuration isn't correct. Soon Citoid will disable itself if the configuration isn't correct. Check that your wiki is configured correctly. You can ask for help if you need it. [14]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 March. It will be on all wikis from 8 March (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 March at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• In the future you will be able to use global preferences. This means you could change a preference for all wikis instead of having to change it every time for each wiki. You can now test global preferences and give feedback.
• You can now read about planned works on maps during 2018. This will be done by June. You can give feedback on the planned maps work.

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

17:11, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Severe display problems when editing

I'm (often but not always) having problems editing pages. Sometimes the cursor is displaced horizontally or veryically or both from where I am actually editing; sometimes the text I have typed is randomly rearranged (the beginning of this message curfently reads "I'm (ofte nbu tnot always) havgpro niblems editing pages", but I'm pretty sure I typed it correctly). Sometimes when I view the preview it has randomwly inserted newlines, so that part of my message appears monospaced. I've taken to saving the text and then going back and correcting the typos, because that's the only way I can get it to work. I'm using Firefox 58.0.2 on two different Windows machines, and I've looked at my editing preferences in WP, and can't see anything that looks relevant.

Going back into editing after reviewing the text, I see that the first line displays correctly in review, but still appears as I copied it above in the edit window.

Help!--ColinFine (talk) 10:37, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Your edit summary tags show you are using mw:2017 wikitext editor ("New wikitext mode" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures). It has a feedback page at mw:2017 wikitext editor/Feedback. Does it happen if you disable it? If you add &safemode=1 to the edit url? If you log out? What is your skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:00, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks PrimeHunter. I forgot there was a "beta features" tab in preferences. I've tried turning that off - at the moment it seems to be behaving properly, but I'll try a few more edits over the next couple of days. It seems very likely that that is where the problem is (though it's obviously a bug somewhere, that needs fixing). --ColinFine (talk) 14:43, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

My skin is Vector, by the way. However, although I turned the mode off in my preferences and saved the change, before I replied above, it is now turned on again. --ColinFine (talk) 14:46, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

If guess you have selected "Automatically enable all new beta features" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. Disable that and then the individual features you don't want. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:19, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

@ColinFine: The 2017 wikitext editor and syntax highlight beta features can sometimes do weird things when used together. Are you using the syntax highlighting beta feature? --Dan Garry, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 10:48, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Dan. As Pr9imehunter surmised, I had "Automatically enable all new beta features", and therefore had both Wiked 2017 and syntax highlighting on. I have just tried turning off syntax highlighting to see what happens. (I tried turning off Wikitext editor yesterday, but that didn't take effect, evidently because I had the automatic enable on) . --ColinFine (talk) 15:48, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Improvements to Page Previews

Hello,

We wanted to take a moment to update you all about a reader-focused feature called Page Previews, which has also been popular as a Beta Feature among editors. The Readers web team at the Wikimedia Foundation has been working on a few things we’d like to share. Most recently we:

• Deployed the new HTML endpoint for generating previews, leading to better rendering of preview content (math equations work, more predictable formatting of information in parentheses, etc.) (T113094)
• Completed two A/B tests on English and German Wikipedias. The results displayed a decrease in pageviews, but an overall increase in the number of pages readers interact with, indicating that they are more likely to explore a larger variety of topics when the feature is on. We also noted decreased usage of the back button and very low rates of disabling the feature. These experiments built on earlier qualitative and quantitive testing of the feature.

Other improvements:

• Addressed and fixed many bugs
• Refactored the code (that's fancy developer-speak of restructuring the code to be more performant and stable) (T149801)
• Made sure Page Previews do not interfere with the functionality of Navigation Popups
  • As both can not be run simultaneously, users of Nav popups will need to disable the gadget in order to try out Page Previews.
• Reviewed feedback from readers across the web [15] [16][17] [18]

If you haven’t already, you can enable the feature in your preferences under Appearance. Feedback on how things are working for you is welcome. The HTML endpoint change was deployed just last week and we’re very excited to see the improvements. We’re expecting some smaller bugs and edge cases, so please let us know if you notice something out of order. You can find out more about the feature on MediaWiki.org.

Thank you, CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 20:59, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Edit tab missing for lede

Several weeks ago I noticed I no longer get an edit tab for the lede (as I had long selected in my Preferences); to edit a lede I have to open the whole article. Any reason why? Also, about the same time I no longer have the drop-down Insert tab under the edit window that gives me a choice of Symbols, Latin, etc.; I get a box with everything (almost?) in it. I use the Vector skin, and had not made an changes to my preferences in a while. And now I don't even see (because I'm blind??) a check box for an edit tab on the lede. Anyone know what's going on here? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:58, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

It should be at Preferences → Gadgets, as "Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page" immediately below the "Appearance" heading. It's working for me, in MonoBook skin. Perhaps a different gadget has been amended in such a way that they now conflict with one another. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:03, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

This symptom is usually caused when you are using a gadget or script which has not been updated for the various and sundry changes made to the MediaWiki Javascript environment over the past several years. The less likely but still possible cause is the one that RR64 gives. Given that you have had multiple scripts stop working, I would guess it is the former. What gadgets do you have enabled? --Izno (talk) 03:49, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

In Preferences I unchecked "Add an [edit] link", saved, then re-checked and again; no change. (Are the changes effected immediately? Or only on login? Help:Preferences doesn't say.)

I switched to Monobook. Font changes immediately, but no tab. Logged out, back in, no change. (Answering the prior question.)

Under Gadgets I have enabled:

• Browsing:

Suppress display of fundraiser banners

Enable the Teahouse "Ask a question" feature -

Reference Tooltips (it also is not working)

FormWizard

• Watchlist:

Display watchlist notices

base style

Display green

• Editing:

Citation expander

Syntax highlighter

Form for filing dispute

CharInsert

refToolbar

Add extra buttons

• Appearance:

Add an [edit] link

Add a clock

Display an assessment of an article's quality

Show radio buttons

I have disabled each one and saved; no edit tab. I had "Wikitext syntax highlighting" enabled; disabling made no difference even after logging out. Any other ideas? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:56, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Did you bypass your cache at any time (especially after removing everything)? --Izno (talk) 01:25, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I hit the page reload button, but perhaps that just goes to the cache. Dang. So... do it all over again? :-< Tomorrow. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk)

No joy. I unchecked everything under Gadgets (except "base style"), changed the skin to Monobook, saved, logged out, cleared my cache (ctrl-F5), and logged in again. No edit tabs. What .... wait a minute, standing by for a flash.

Yup, just found it. A month ago I added the "NoScript" extension to Firefox. And apparently it didn't quite understand that I trust Wikipedia absolutely, every last word, even if there are a bunch of funny characters running all over the place. :-) And now, back to the garden. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:31, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Lost the delete button

I can't seem to find the delete button in the "More" drop-down anymore. If I refresh a page quickly it's there and I can click on it and get the delete page, but if I let it load, it disappears. Could it be one of the scripts I've got? Anarchyte (work | talk) 09:42, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Does safemode work? It omits loading local js and css pages, also from gadgets and the MediaWiki namespace. You can preview personal js and css pages to see the effect of changes on that page (but not on other pages). Do you get a delete link when you preview blank versions of any js page at Special:PrefixIndex/User:Anarchyte/? If safemode fails then you can just say so and skip the js tests. What is your browser and skin? PrimeHunter (talk) 11:14, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: It works fine in safemode and when I blank my common.js and hover over "More", nothing comes up at all. I'm using Firefox 58.0.2 with the Vector (default, I believe) skin. Anarchyte (work | talk) 11:25, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

It appears from the "Page" tab in your screenshot that you have enabled "MoreMenu" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. I don't use that gadget but after enabling it all of my Delete, Move and Protect links have disappeared from "More", and I don't see any of them under "Page". The gadget also removes Move from my autoconfirmed non-admin account. I use Vector and Firefox. Pinging MusikAnimal who made MediaWiki:Gadget-dropdown-menus-vector.js. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:08, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

With the gadget enabled I have Delete, Move, Protect under the "page" tab in MonoBook but in Vector they just disappear from More. I guess the gadget tries to remove the links from More and add them to Page instead but the latter part fails. Tested on Example. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:18, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I have all three links under "Page" in Vector with IE, Edge and Chrome. It only fails in Firefox where the only links under Page are:

Page logs…
Analysis…
Tools…
Latest diff
Purge cache
Subpages

In Chrome I have:

Page logs…
Analysis…
Tools…
Delete page
Latest diff
Merge page
Move page
Protect page
Purge cache
Subpages

Merge (admin feature for history merge) is also missing in Vector. That link is only added by MoreMenu and not part of the normal More tab. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:32, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes it moves the More links to Page/User accordingly, to consolidate them. It should also remove the More menu if it is empty, but I guess that part was never implemented... Anyway, let make sure I've got this right -- Anarchyte does have the relevant links, they just didn't realize they were moved under Page. Is that correct? Perhaps you recently enabled the gadget?

Meanwhile, even under "Page" the links are missing for PrimeHunter in the Vector skin while using Firefox. Can you try clearing your browser cache (or try in Firefox's "Private browsing")? All the links show up for me, in Chrome and Firefox. It's possible MoreMenu somehow has a cached version where it doesn't think you're an admin. — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:18, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

It also failed to display the Move link in a non-admin account where it should be present. But it worked to clear all website data in Firefox. I now have the missing links under Page. It wasn't enough to use Ctrl+F5 or clear cached web content. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:29, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Glad you got it working! :) The only thing MoreMenu caches is your user rights. My guess is the initial API call to fetch your user rights failed, so it thought you were an unconfirmed user, hence why the Move link was missing. Reviewing the code, I don't think this (rare) failure is properly handled. I will look into it!

Unrelated, you say clearing the cache by itself didn't do the trick, which tells me that issue probably isn't MoreMenu, because it caches using localStorage. Maybe something with ResourceLoader... who knows! — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:56, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal and PrimeHunter: Thanks for your help! I cleared cache and cookies for Wikipedia and now all the buttons are back under "page". Cheers, Anarchyte (work | talk) 04:35, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Hover highlighting

This feature is to be primarily used in collapsible assistive boxes, not in articles, although one could find such a functionality useful to build collapsible serial map boxes for metro lines, where hide/show clickables, if used instead, would mess the box and annoy as the only clickable area to do expand/contract.

Hover highlighting is useful (or needed) in Template:user sandbox+ (granted) tool which renders like this User:ManosHacker/sandbox in English and like this el:Χρήστης:ManosHacker/πρόχειρο in Greek. There is quite a difference between the two, to catch the eye and the will to play.

Hover highlighting code, used in Greek Wikipedia, is placed in Mediawiki:Common.js and is given below.

$('.hover-bgc').hover( function() {
	$(this).attr("data-hover-bgc-original", $(this).css("background-color"))
	var parentSpec = $(this).parent('.hover-bgc-parent').attr('data-hover-bgc-child');
    $(this).css({ "background-color" : ((typeof parentSpec !== typeof undefined) && (parentSpec !== false)) ? parentSpec : $(this).attr('data-hover-bgc') });
}, function() {
    $(this).css({ "background-color" : $(this).attr('data-hover-bgc-original') });
});

If you have a look in Template:Cheatsheet and el:Πρότυπο:Εργαλειοθήκη to compare, you will see a difference while hovering above the text of collapsible headers. By highlighting on hover, the reader gets a hint to click. For another demonstration, check el:Πρότυπο:Συγγραφή λήμματος (also in Greek) which is a collapsible help with sub-levels. There is no hint to click the collapsible, if hover highlighting is absent. And what about building a collapsible help, where click is done upon collapsible headers that reveal videos of 15 seconds each, to immediately assist an editor giving specific editing instructions? (coming soon)

I think it would be assistive to implement it in English.   ManosHacker ^talk 11:26, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

It would be great if an admin could add this, it is a feature that manos has been working on for a long time, it has been already implemented on greek wikipedia and soon is going to be added in couple of more Mardetanha (talk) 07:39, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

I am transferring it in technical VP, from idea lab VP. The full code, as given here, is tested for months in Greek Wikipedia. An example of code usage is this:

<div class='hover-bgc' data-hover-bgc='#e5f0fe'>►hover over me</div>

►hover over me

You can enable in your own Common.js and see the result here and in the examples above.

If it does not issue a security or other issue, please enable it.   ManosHacker ^talk 17:35, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Oppose just do it the way such things normally work on enwiki: having separate "show" and "hide" buttons {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 21:17, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Also, at least to me, Template:User sandbox+ is a huge mess internally. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 21:37, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

instead of getting into technicalities, can someome please first explain what they are trying to do ? My first intuition tells me that this is something that doesn't work on mobile, and for people with screenreaders and the likes.. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 06:59, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello TheDJ, these are templates to be used inside the sandbox space of users, to help newbies create articles. The main tool can also be handy to advanced users who wish to work using their own page templates for article creation and publish directly to main space. User sandbox is not present in mobile devices as a link, so it is a safe place to put these tools for assistance, until collapsible becomes ready for mobile (if any).   ManosHacker ^talk 07:07, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Invisible text bugs not fixed?

T188215 is said to be fixed in MediaWiki 1.31.0-wmf.23, which has been dpployed to all Wikipedias as of 1 March. However, I am still getting the same bug: When both the 2017 wikitext editor ("new wikitext mode") and syntax highlighting are enabled, I get invisible text on image pages. (Note: A workaround is to simply refresh the page, unless two edit tabs are enabled in preferences.)

Is anyone else still getting this bug? Anon126 (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 23:37, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this on the Phab task. I pinged Rummana to it; she's absolutely amazing with sorting out bugs like this. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:50, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Problems with the visual editor?

Since today, whenever I try to use the visual editor it will sporadically delete, move, link, italicize, or add spaces to parts of the article. This video should show what I'm talking about. User:Itsquietuptown reported a similar problem here. ^–User_Dude 02:32, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

@UserDude: This sounds like it might be related to Severe display problems when editing above. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:32, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Maybe. It seems to be triggered by the nowiki tag in the middle of that article. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:26, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Get page ID via API

Guys, could someone remind me, how to get page ID via API if I have page title? Did look trough action=query, but didn't find the right option. Actually, I would like to get page IDs for all pages linked from this page (specifically Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/*** pages), but specific query for one page will be ok. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 18:33, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

action=query, prop=info. https://wiki.riteme.site/w/api.php?action=query&prop=info&titles=Main%20Page => pageid=15580374. —Cryptic 18:39, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

You don't even need prop=info to get the page ID: https://wiki.riteme.site/w/api.php?action=query&titles=Main%20Page&formatversion=2 Anomie⚔ 20:03, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 18:37, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Watchlist adding and removing fails intermittently

Has anyone else been having problems today adding pages to, and removing pages from, their watchlist? It started happening to me for no apparent reason at around 21:00 UTC, 7 March 2018 (I don't often have the need to do this regularly, so it's been probably at least a week since I've have to change my watchlist before today). I tried to add about 10 pages in a row (opened in different tabs) to my watchlist via the star-click method and the vast majority failed, giving a "An error occurred while changing your watchlist setting…" pop-up message. Retried, and all or almost all failed again. I tried using the Alt-Shift-w keyboard shortcut, same thing. Tried logging out and logging back in, same thing. Occasionally one attempt would work, but the majority of times failed with the same error message. Since the problem was intermittent (in particular, sometimes working), I figured it wasn't just a problem with the configuration of my browser (FF 52.4.0 on Gentoo Linux) or my particular wiki account, so I reported the issue at the Phabricator (phab:T189160); more details can be found there. Given that no one seems to be talking about this here at VPT or at VPM, it doesn't appear to be a widespread problem, but I figured I'd post about it here, anyway. It's still happening as I post this, although the failure rate is way down (looks like waiting just a few seconds after a failed attempt is enough now to allow for a success; that wasn't true even a few hours ago). - dcljr (talk) 05:17, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Apparent problems with STiki

Hi. I started using STiki today. Apparently, despite me attempting to revert only one edit, it is reverting the edit I intend to revert and the edit after that without my agreement. I had to go back and undo these changes. It seems strange for STiki not to work. I pressed Vandalism when I found vandalism and it reverted that edit and the edit after that. Why is this happening? I had to stop using this tool as I can't continue if it is blindly reverting without my agreement. Pkbwcgs (talk) 21:25, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi, this sounds like a serious bug. I would ask about it at WT:STiki, and be sure to include what operating system you're using (Windows 10, MacOS Sierra, etc.). Best — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:30, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Infobox title is not center-aligned on mobile

I don't know if this was brought up before, but the title of certain infoboxes is not center-aligned on mobile. It seems to break depending on which {{Infobox}} parameter is used to make the title. When you use "above", like in {{Infobox person}}, it's fine (see Albert Camus – screenshot), but when you use "title", like in {{Infobox company}}, the software seems to think it's a regular table caption and it applies text-align: left; to it (see Blizzard Entertainment – screenshot). – Srdjan m (talk) 08:22, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

The one is a header cell, and the other is a table caption. Due to the way table captions work, if they are too long, they overflow unhelpfully. If they are wider than the table, you would see the 'middle' part of the title, and not the start of the title. There aren't very simple fixes for that problem that could be found, so it was decided to keep them left aligned instead. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:58, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

I'll see if I can find the ticket on this problem, maybe some things have changed for the better since we last looked at it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:05, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Visual Editor freezing at 'Publish Changes'

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T187690

Hi - I'm experiencing severe problems demonstrating Visual Editor during an editathon event in which we're seeing VE freeze at the 'Publish changes' stage. It will not allow me to switch back from VE to source editing, either.

We have reproduced this issue on two separate Windows machines, and in both Chrome and Firefox. In the latter instance I logged out as me and tried to edit as another autoconfirmed user here who, unlike me, has never changed any of their default settings or installed scripts or activated any beta functions. A third editor also recreated the problem via their account. There was no difference in what we experienced - VE froze. The accounts we edited from were mine, User:Jonxennialuk and User:Mainlymazza.

To reproduce the fault we edited Buxton & Leek College in VE, we tried to copy, cut and then repaste an entire section with its heading into a different part of the article. At times a few letters that we had not typed ourselves also appeared, and we deleted these. At times we lost formatting of the Heading without any user input. On hitting Publish changes the process froze, so we were unable to enter an edit summary. On trying to switch to Source editor we got as far as the 'confirm' you want to switch stage and could go no further; we had to close the programme. The same fault was recreated whilst editing another article in exactly the same manner.

Any ideas? Regards from Derby University's IWD Editathon. Nick Moyes (talk) 13:38, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

@Nick Moyes: Not sure if mw:VisualEditor/Debugging offers any ideas. The "Network" tab of your web browser's Developer Tools might also show you where things get stuck. --Malyacko (talk) 13:43, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

@Malyacko: Thanks. I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently technical to be able to understand/investigate this further myself. I will have to 'leave this here' and hope others can attempt to reproduce the issue or advise whether this might be some local issue as a result of half a dozen editors at max logged on to the IP network accessing Wikipedia at once. I've advised fellow hosts at the WP:TH that I'm experiencing this issue in case other new editors do too. Nick Moyes (talk) 13:52, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

I also had some trouble there. I copied a section, and then pasted it just before the "References" section and VE magically added "Refer" between my paste and the references section. I then tried to click the publish button and the console reported: "TypeError: null is not an object (evaluating 'parentDomElement.lastOuterPost')". Might be something specific to that page ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:54, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Pretty sure this is T187690 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:21, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that looks like it. Thanks for linking to my report here. Nick Moyes (talk) 15:25, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Edit conflict with myself

For the second time in as many weeks, I've edit conflicted with myself on ANI. The edit goes through but I get an edit conflict message. Very strange. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:05, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

I get this too sometimes when I accidentally double click publish changes. I don't suppose there is a remedy to this? Alex Shih (talk) 18:28, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

I get this occasionally. My mouse is old and sometimes the left button bounces, so that an intended single click goes through as two clicks. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:08, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Historical block records erased — bug or Ministry of Truth?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T188826

Bishzilla was admin in 2008 and 2009, perform some blocks, compare AN thread. See also example of block of specific user. Used to be log of these blocks! Now gone![19] How that happen? Where is block log? Pre-September 2009 block log by other admins also apparently erased. Why history erased? Especially considering old blocks still logged under blocked user. Is bug? Now look like Jimbo Wales never blocked Bishonen.[20] (He did, in 2009.) Disgraceful! bishzilla _ROARR!! 10:33, 8 March 2018 (UTC).

Joking aside, it does indeed seem as if all blocks performed before ca. 20 September 2009 have been removed from the block log for all admins, which is probably not a good thing. Has this been communicated or discussed before? Fram (talk) 10:39, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Hmm...This definitely do look like a bug.Any phab ticket opened somewhere?~ Winged Blades^Godric 11:59, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Not all of them are missing. The block log has plenty of entries for September 2009 and earlier, going right back to 23 December 2004 - those entries dated before 04:53 that day seem to be testing of a new feature. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:37, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

That's not what this is about, Redrose64. When I try to look at the blocks by an individual admin, such as Bishzilla or Jimbo Wales, it shows nothing earlier than September 2009. I know those blocks show up when you look in other ways: for instance, at the blocks of an individual user (example), or at the whole block log, as exemplified by you. Phabricator now says it's been fixed[21] and the fix is "being deployed" — I suppose not deployed yet, because the problem persists when I look. Bishonen | talk 16:23, 8 March 2018 (UTC).

None of the previous comments state that it is only the blocks by an individual admin that are affected. Indeed, Fram wrote "all blocks performed before ca. 20 September 2009 have been removed from the block log for all admins". So I looked at the block log for all admins - and found thousands of entries. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:45, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

The problem is fixed. Fram (talk) 09:05, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Authority control

I think it could be useful there was a template like the {{Authority control}} template that included {{IMDb name}} (IMDb), {{Find a Grave}} (Find a Grave), {{MusicBrainz artist}} (MusicBrainz), {{Discogs artist}} (Discogs) and {{Wikidata entity link}} (Wikidata) identifiers.

As I see it the authority control is a kind of navigation bar to other websites, specifically those that catalogue people, books and the like. It is clearly intended to assist identification of the subject. For various reasons related to reliability a number of indexes have been excluded, possibly due to reliability, although ORCID is also user-generated and is included.

Imdb is listed at the bottom of almost every article about an actor, it would make sense to have a template similar to Authority control but for biographies of people in the entertainment industry. I also don't see why there are links to all the library databases except ours, adding wikidata seems completely logical, especially as that is where the data is coming from. By having a set template, it would be easier to stop the proliferation of external links (often used as a store for promotional material), because the section would not be needed to link to IMDb/etc. It would also be easier to add the same template to all actors/musicians, and display better for people that are both. Prince of Thieves (talk) 10:39, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

All these sources are unreliable ones. Musicbrainz is already included in Authority control anyway (but should be removed from it as it is a wiki where the main text is just a reproduction of our article anyway), and Wikidata is linked from the left side panel. Adding Findagrave and the like to more articles, or institutionalizing it in a template, is the wrong way to go. Removing them from many more articles is what needs to be done. Fram (talk) 10:43, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

There is this big difference: {{Authority control}} ({AC}) only cross-links external identifiers, not additional information ("what is this article named in library system Xyz?"). Accordingly, {AC} is not part of the article content (same as navboxes). So if you want to link to WP:EXTERNALLINKS (that do have extra info and are within article content), that would require a different template. One can not use {AC} for this.

That said, by information approach: I think such an {AC}-like, and an MOS:EL-defined template is useful and needed. Today {{Chembox}} (an infobox), is overloaded with EL's in the identifiers section (e.g. Carbon monoxide). - DePiep (talk) 11:00, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

User:DePiep, you might consider using Template:Medical resources as a model. Those links were previously handled in infoboxes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:04, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

• To be clear I am looking for a new template like Authority control, not to add imdb to the existing Authority control template, this would then be used instead of existing imdb, musicbrainz, discogs and fa grave templates. It would be used purely as an external link template, and would not allow people to cite imdb any more than they do already. Prince of Thieves (talk) 11:07, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

@Fram: I can't see Musicbrainz in the Authority control template documentation, for sme reason it's implementation has not been made clear. It is in Module:Authority control, but I cannot not I can't see why it should be in that template. Prince of Thieves (talk) 12:12, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

There are many more resources included in Authority control than there are listed in its documentation. Who decides about which numbers are included is not really clear, I suppose the handful of people reading the template talk page? A thorough discussion about which IDs should be included (or which ones should be included in some cases but not in others), and how to display this (removing the actual numbers and keeping only the database names would reduce the "heaviness" of the template significantly), is needed, but I'm not the one who is going to start it. Fram (talk) 09:10, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Article creation date

A researcher wrote to Wikimedia asking for help identifying the creation date of an article.

I responded that we typically equate the creation date to the date of the first edit.

I was slightly surprised I didn't find anything formally stating this.

I can think of a couple things to be concerned about if one adopted this is a rule (the intention, I believe, is to do a statistical analysis of the entire set of articles).

1. Some of the edits of the very oldest articles are missing, so that the first edit one can find in the existing database is slightly more recent than the original creation edit.
2. There may be some issues when a redirect is converted to an article. For example, if someone created a redirect 2010, and someone else converted it into a proper article in 2015, what is the creation date of the article? Depending on the nature of the study, one could make an argument for both dates and given that they might be separated by years, this is worth thinking about.

Are there other important classes of articles that could be an issue? In the case of deleted and restored articles typically the history is preserved so I don't see an issue there.

I would also urge the researcher to think about the definition of an article. For example, I believe we have more redirects than articles, and deciding to count redirects as articles would have major implications on average edits per article, for example.S Philbrick(Talk) 21:26, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

If a draft is moved to mainspace then it can be discussed whether the first edit or the move is the creation date. Sometimes the first edit is from a sandbox used for other purposes. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:37, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

The Did You Know? project's criteria for a newly created article is the date on which it first appeared in mainspace. As PrimeHunter suggests, an article can be worked on by one or more people in Draftspace or user sandbox for a very long time - years even - prior to being moved into mainspace. Sometimes moving a draft from a sandbox is a simple copy/paste job into mainspace or to WP:AFC, thus losing every scrap of prior editing history. I'm not sure I'd ever consider that creating a redirect is the same as creating an article - in what circumstances might that seem to apply? Nick Moyes (talk) 09:58, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Please test pings in edit summary

1. Read this:

"You can notify users in edit summaries. They will get a ping just as if they had been mentioned on a wiki page. phab:T32750"-- meta:Tech/News/2018/10

2. Sign up at https://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/ using a different user name and password (not the one you use here). You may create multiple accounts if you like, just put a note on their user pages.

3. Edit a page and put a username link in edit summary. Confirm that you are receiving the notification correctly.

4. Test at different pages and in different ways.

5. Report bugs to Phabricator.

6. Share this comment with other people on other wikis, in different languages.

--Gryllida (talk) 23:33, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Please see mw:How to report a bug and use this Phabricator link instead (as follow-up bug fixes were nothing that was voted on in the Community Wishlist Survey 2017). Thanks. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:48, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

NOTICE: EducationProgram extension is being deprecated

Please help translate to other languages.. Thank you!.

Over the years many issues have been discovered from our engineering colleagues regarding the Education Extension, including security concerns. For this reason, and with a viable alternative platform available, we are starting the process to deprecate the extension and having it uninstalled where it has been activated. This includes this wiki Special:Courses.

This means that the following steps will be taken:

1. New programs are discouraged from using the extension and encouraged to use the Programs and Events Dashboard.
2. Current ongoing programs will be supported, until the month of June, 2018.
3. On June 30, 2018, the Education Extension will be shut down.
4. If you are still running an education program that uses the Education Extension, please take the appropriate measures and also reach out to your colleagues and communities so they are also aware.

It should be noted that data of previous programs that ran on the Education Extension will remain safe, and we are working on documenting how to access that data.

Thus, we invite all Education Program Leaders (and users of the Education Extension) to take the online training for the dashboard so that you can benefit from this tool and make your work easier.

Did you know you can also use the P&E Dashboard at edit-a-thons, writing competitions, and other Wiki-based activities? More training courses for the dashboard are available here, so take a look!

Do you need to communicate with us about this?

• If you have comments or questions, please reach out to the Education Team at educationwikimedia.org, or the Programs and Events Dashboard group at dashboardwikimedia.org.
• If you use Phabricator, you can also go to: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T125618.
• You are also welcome to share questions and comments on outreach.wikimedia.org.

-- On behalf of the Education Team 19:56, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

This is just a dummy reply that contains a signature with a link to a user page so this thread will be archived. Graham87 12:14, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Fixing bugs in math rendering

Is there some standard forum for reporting bugs with the Wikipedia software itself? Specifically, I'm looking for a place to report the bug described at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Typography#Apparent_bug_in_rendering_\operatorname* -- The Anome (talk) 19:31, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

@The Anome: Here is usually the correct first stop. If you are comfortable, you can report the bug yourself on Phabricator. --Izno (talk) 19:41, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

As Izno said, bugs ideally get reported on phab:Phabricator by someone. It might also be useful to leave a note at mw:Extension talk:Math, but I don't know how closely that page is watched.

Support for math rendering has historically been an area where volunteer devs such as User:Physikerwelt have contributed more than WMF staff. User:Debenben had a proposal up for the most recent m:Community Wishlist to make some substantial improvements in rendering, but it didn't get enough votes to win. The WMF is working on the plans for the upcoming fiscal year right now, and I've not heard anyone talk about math as a key area for improvements (which isn't proof that they're not). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:52, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

See also here for a similar issue. I added a phab task for something similar, but no one seems to have really paid attention to it. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 20:31, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

For some reason the input \operatorname* is replaced with \operatorname {*} by the texvc "validation". My suggested fix is to get rid of the broken validation. @Whatamidoing (WMF): Is there a way to influence the plans to include math as an area for improvements?--Debenben (talk) 22:53, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I believe that most of the changes you've outlined belong to the Reading team (because most of them are about how the formulas display to the readers), and probably User:Jkatz (WMF) knows the most about that team's plan. Eventually, the drafts will be posted on Meta, and any interested person can comment. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:50, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! Actually, I should let @OVasileva (WMF): speak to this, as she is closer to the plan than I am. Apologies for the delay. Jkatz (WMF) (talk) 19:41, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

@OVasileva (WMF): Any updates?

I think investing some time into improving the math rendering now would save the reading team a lot of work in the future. Currently there are various different incompatible workarounds used by the editors, each with its own set of problems affecting the readers: The svg and png images usually look bad (unreadably small on iPad1, broken image icons on android 2...), unable to handle languages with non-latin characters, uncopyable... The templates are difficult to use, non-standard, inaccessible to screenreaders and can't handle everything. All of these workarounds have to be maintained only due to the lack of a working rendering system like MathJax, which is what other websites use.

Also, I don't think any volunteer developer would help to re-integrate MathJax or enable client side, HTML-based rendering if it will not become default. As an opt-in via MathML-capable browsers, plug-ins or user-scripts it is already possible today and an alternative system for hiding rendering problems of average readers from the editors is not useful. This situation will not change until the problem that kept the MathJax rendering option from becoming default is resolved: Providing servers (or using a third party cdn?) capable of delivering web-fonts to readers that don't have any suitable math-fonts installed on their device. I believe the additional traffic should not be an issue anymore.

Finally, bad software that is completely useless will not attract volunteer developers. For example, I currently don't see the \operatorname* problem this thread started with ever getting fixed. I created a ticket for my proposed fix: phab:T188879, it would already help if it gets discussed and agreed on.

--Debenben (talk) 19:23, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Teahouse Ask-A-Question form fails to function in iOS

Screenshot of Teahouse's "Ask a Question" form on iPhone 5 showing overlapping text and no acccess to the question box itself.

Over the last few months we've seen a number of reports at the Teahouse that our page does not display properly in iOS, and especially that our "Ask a Question" tool doesn't work on iOS devices. See here, and here. I can certainly confirm this to be the case, having first reported it myself in December 2017. The screenshot shown here was taken today, and is no different from how it displayed back then.

On clicking the blue "Ask a Question" form, it's possible to enter text into the "Subject" line, but there is no access to the box to complete the question text itself, and, as can be seen, other elements of the page overlap one another. - a real mess. I can also confirm that if I log in from my alternative account User:NM Demo (which uses only the default settings any newly signed up person would have), the problem is also seen there, too.

The issue is of special concern because new users who want to ask a question simply won't have sufficient knowledge to know what to do once the Teahouse's own form fails them. I'd really appreciate it if this could be investigated. Regards from the Teahouse, Nick Moyes (talk) 10:51, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

@Nick Moyes: which version of iOS ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:56, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. I can only speak for myself: iOS 10 (10.3.3 - if I'm reading my phone correctly). I've intentionally not updated to iOS11 as I understood that version 11 now saves image files in a format that renders them unreadable to Windows users. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:02, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

@TheDJ: It's worth adding that I've just tried the similar-looking "Ask a Question" form at WP:CQ and I don't have any problem accessing the form's subject line, the main text entry box,or the Publish changes button, whereas that's not possible with the Teahouse's question box. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:07, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, that's MediaWiki:Gadget-teahouse/content.js and it's about as broken on desktop as it's on mobile really. Really needs to be rewritten from scratch with OOui or something. Maybe if we look very nicely at MusikAnimal he might be willing to take it on as part of community tech ? :) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:50, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

I've disabled it for now as this is just obstructive and prohibitive right now I think. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:12, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

@TheDJ: - thank you. I've just made a couple of test posts from a desktop PC and from my iPhone 5, and both post published OK. It's great when disabling something makes something else work properly. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 15:09, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

It does seem like a fairly important script. However it probably won't be trivial to rewrite it, at least if we use OOJS =p. I can't say if Community Tech would be able to work on this but feel free to create a phab task. You'd need to find something else to tag it with other than just community-tech, though :) — MusikAnimal ^talk 21:43, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

User talk namespace template message for updating accessdate

Is there a user talk namespace template message to notify editors to update the |access-date= parameter in citing templates, such as {{cite web}}? -- Alex^TW 11:57, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Why would we need to do this? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:12, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

It's a common thing, I've noticed, for an editor to update the statistics for websites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, especially for films and television series, and not update the access-date parameter when they do so. Per the documentation of {{cite web}} for |access-date=: Full date when the content pointed to by url was last verified to support the text in the article [...] Note that access-date is the date that the URL was found to be working and to support the text being cited. This means that the parameter needs to be updated whenever the statistics are as well. For editors that do not do this, a user talk namespace template message would be handy; I was wondering if anything like this already existed. If it didn't, I was planning to create it. -- Alex^TW 12:23, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

I also see this often in box office numbers, sports statistics and other changing data with a fixed source. An addition to Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace sounds fine. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:36, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Okay, great. Just wanted to make sure that they didn't exist before I created them. -- Alex^TW 03:21, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done Now at {{uw-accessdate1}} and {{uw-accessdate2}}. -- Alex^TW 04:32, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Documentation on the int: construct

I was tipped to use this: {{button|{{int:publishchanges}}}}, to show Publish changes all right. Could someone give a link to int: documentation (help, WP, mw, ...). Likely it will also lead to the available options (like this 'publishchanges'). -DePiep (talk) 10:19, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

@DePiep: See mw:Help:Magic_words#Localization. It basically give the translated version of a MediaWiki: translation key. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:07, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) See mw:Help:Magic words#Localization. {{int:publishchanges}} displays MediaWiki:publishchanges in the reader's interface language, e.g. MediaWiki:publishchanges/de if you select "de - Deutsch" at Special:Preferences. Any pagename in the MediaWiki namespace can be used. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:09, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Oh and Special:AllMessages lists all predefined translation keys (used by the software) and opening a page with language code qqx shows you the names of the keys being used on that page. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:16, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks TheDJ, PrimeHunter. Helpful. -DePiep (talk) 00:21, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Also, it's been in Help:Magic words#Other for four years (as of tomorrow). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:17, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Redrose64, what are you trying to say? You think I did not search it? Or try WP:int:? To me, magic words look like __TOC__, and anything like {{#if: is a parser function (quote from there, lede: "* Parser functions: these take parameters and are either of the form {{foo:...}} or {{#foo:...}}, e.g. {{#invoke:}}. See also Help:Extension:ParserFunctions"). So far for mw consistency and documentation clarity. - DePiep (talk) 15:25, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

A search on help:int would have found information. I have added a hatnote to WP:INT. There are three types of magic words at mw:Help:Magic words#Localization. The term is most commonly used about behavior switches of form __TOC__, but built in parser functions of form {{int:}} with no # are also sometimes called magic words. Extensions like mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions can add more parser functions with # like {{#if:}}. Such added parser functions are not called magic words. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:38, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

This all may be OK, but: I did not find it. "You searched the wrong word spelling [stupid]" is not a reply I expect (yes, this is tough re good editors, but can one disagree?). Already above I pointed out (with links): mw help etc. is inconsistent. - DePiep (talk) 00:29, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

I didn't in any way imply you are stupid. I merely showed that searching the help namespace may be useful. I thought it was a helpful tip and didn't expect it to offend you. I don't know which inconsistency you refer to. Your only link was to mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions. It's a help page for a specific extension. {{int:}} is not part of the extension so it's not listed there, but the opening sentence links mw:Help:Magic words#Parser functions where it's listed. If there is a page incorrectly claiming that magic words can only look like __TOC__ and not {{int:}} then please identify it. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:56, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

I encountered int a while ago at Commons and for anyone noticing it there, they have an interesting trick. By convention (at Commons), [[MediaWiki:Lang/XX]], where XX is a language code, contains XX. That means {{int|lang}} is replaced with XX, where XX is the language code for the current user. For example, if your user language preference is French (or if ?uselang=fr is used in the URL), {{int|lang}} would be fr. That happens because c:MediaWiki:Lang/fr contains fr so lang is translated to fr for French. phab:T4085 is relevant. Johnuniq (talk) 22:10, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

BTW, this int is from "interface", not "i18n" nor "integer". -DePiep (talk) 00:29, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

"int" can be short for "interface", but it could also be short for "internationalise". The {{int:...}} function at Commons is exactly the same as it is here, at meta, wiktionary and all the others. At none of them does it mean integer; and I don't know where that i18n comes from. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:45, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

internationalization (i, 18 characters, n) - Internationalization and localization#Naming - but I don't really follow DePiep either... I see int: used a lot at Commons, as Johnuniq describes, and in multilingual file description templates, like: == {{int:filedesc}} == -- Begoon 11:54, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Broken template

Template:USS seems to have suddenly broke. For example, see USS Enterprise (CVN-65) Is there a template editor or knowledgeable admin than can take a look? This is affecting every ship article right now. - ^theWOLFchild 19:08, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

I undid the last edit to the template, which seems to have fixed the problem for now. Honestly, I have no idea what that edit was trying to accomplish so I'm not sure if there would be a better way to do it. Paging DePiep, who made the edit. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:19, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for getting to that to that so quickly. List of current ships of the United States Navy was a ghastly red mess! Cheers - ^theWOLFchild 19:23, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

My mistake. Did the edit again, without it. - DePiep (talk) 19:24, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Abusefilter conditions

Moved to Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard § Abusefilter conditions

OK. Thanks. --Horus (talk) 15:07, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

How to test that a date/time string is in "yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss" format?

Need an explanation, or perhaps a pointer elsewhere. How can I check that a supplied date/time string is in yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss format? Presumably with a suitable regex, but I can't find any parser functions for that. Do I have to dip into Lua? Is there a module for that? (I know regex, but having trying to avoid having to learn Lua.) ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:46, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

@J. Johnson: What is your purpose? Does the time parserfunction help the overall purpose, or no? If it does not, there are similar functions in Lua. --Izno (talk) 01:01, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

If you decide to go with Lua, I wrote a simple function dateFormat() that returns the format (dmy, mdy, iso, ymd) of a given date. In Module:Webarchive - it would need expansion to parse hh:mm:ss -- GreenC 01:11, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Does {{#ifeq:{{#time:Y-m-d H:i:s|TIME}}|TIME|yes|no}} work. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 01:30, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

As others have said, please explain the purpose, preferably with an example of what would go in an article and what the wanted result would be. Module:Date can parse dates, see the examples in the documentation at {{extract}}. That template can tell you what format was used, but it only returns dmy, mdy or ymd.

• {{extract|2001-2-1 14:30:25|show=format}} → ymd

Johnuniq (talk) 02:07, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

If you use anything other than a plain regular expression, there is a danger the function will have limitations you didn't think about, like failing for dates before AD 100, regarding 29 February 1900 as invalid, etc. A full statement of the requirements is called for. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:24, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you all, those look like good ideas. The key element is that I want to check the format, not validate or return a date/time. Which I think I can work out now. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:06, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Lopadotemachoselachogaleokra etc...

There is a rendering problem with this article, basically the title carries on way off the screen breaking the format and creating a bottom scrollbar where there would not be one normally, but the rest of the page stops short at it's normal breakpoint, leaving the title projecting on it's own. Prince of Thieves (talk) 01:15, 12 March 2018 (UTC) ~

@Prince of Thieves: it is wrapping at the display end for me, with both Firefox and Chrome, logged in and logged out. What browser and conditions are you viewing it under? — xaosflux ^Talk 01:42, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Firefox 58 on Mac OS. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:42, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

The reported version is [22] which doesn't wrap the title for me in Firefox. I fixed the DISPLAYTITLE with word breaks to match the article name so the name can wrap at top of the article. It cannot wrap in other places like categories and search results. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:44, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

What PrimeHunter did fixed it, it wraps fine now. Prince of Thieves (talk) 01:51, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Searching user contributions

We used to be able to go to an account and look at all contribs in a certain year. Now we have to fiddle with a calendar and add start and end year, month and day. Does anyone know why this was changed, and is it possible to get the old interface back? SarahSV ^(talk) 04:33, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

2015 Community Wishlist Survey, coming in 15th place overall. No, you cannot revert back to the old interface, but I agree the calendars don't really help your use case. Perhaps it's easier to type in the dates (YYYY-MM-DD format)? You shouldn't have to put in an end date — MusikAnimal ^talk 05:33, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

There's always tradeoffs :) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:59, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

I guess it would help if you could just type "2008" in that field and it would automatically interpret that as 2008-01-01... It seems more strict on that fields validation now, than it has to be really. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:01, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

@TheDJ: yes, that would help a lot. It does require an end date, by the way, but I've just discovered that it doesn't require a start date. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:13, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

The old query string parameters still work, try these out:

• https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Contributions/SlimVirgin?year=2017
• https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Contributions/SlimVirgin?year=2017&month=3

I guess somebody could write some JavaScript that adds the appropriate <input /> or <select>...</select> elements to the existing form. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:04, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

@Redrose64: thanks, that's good to know. Pinging Kaldari too. Can the interface be changed to allow us to enter the year only, so that we have access to that year and everything before and after it as needed? That is, the way it worked before. The new interface is fiddly. It would be nice if we could easily bypass it. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:13, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Parse Template:Location map entries

Blore Heath

Tewkesbury

class=notpageimage|

Example.

Dear Wikipedians,

I'm looking for a solution to parse the {{Location map~}} templates. So from

{{Location map+|England|width=300|caption=Example.|float=right |places=
  {{Location map~ |England |label=[[Battle of Blore Heath|Blore Heath]] |label_size=86 |position=top |lat=52.913611 |long=-2.424722 |mark=Battle_icon_(crossed_swords).svg |marksize=16 }}
  {{Location map~ |England |label=[[Battle of Tewkesbury|Tewkesbury]] |label_size=86 |position=top |lat=51.986389 |long=-2.161389 |mark=Battle_icon_(crossed_swords).svg |marksize=16 }}
}}

I would like to get out all label=, lat= and long= tags. Do you know any linux commandline tool, which could do this? Sorry if that's not obvious to me.--Lazy Eight (talk) 07:22, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

I was able to do this partially with:

grep lat|sed '/lat/s/.*| *lat *= *\([^}|]*\).*$/lat=\1/g' |grep lat=
grep long|sed '/lat/s/.*| *long *= *\([^}|]*\).*$/long=\1/g' |grep long=

But label broke due to the pipes in the link Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:17, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

I think it was just solved on Stackoverflow. @Graeme Bartlett: How should your code be run?--Intl Railways (talk) 11:03, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

This is part of a pipe. You can add <filename to the grep. or use something like wget -O- "URL" to launch it into the pipe. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:14, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

This is why we should move all this into wikidata :) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:13, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-11

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

Recent changes

• 3D models can now be uploaded to Commons. [23]
• Page Previews has been updated to use HTML for previews. This has fixed many issues. An A/B test was done on English and German Wikipedia to measure how it is used. Other changes were also made. [24]
• Some edits have to be checked against too many conditions before they can trigger an edit filter. If that is the reason no filter is triggered the edit will be tagged for review. [25]
• Auto-saving has been added to the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. Right now it is meant to help if your browser crashes or if you accidentally close a tab. [26]

Problems

• The abuse filter did not tag all edits that should have been tagged after last week's MediaWiki version had come to the wikis. It was fixed on 9 March (UTC). [27]

Changes later this week

• You can notify users in edit summaries. They will get a ping just as if they had been mentioned on a wiki page. This was originally planned to happen last week. [28]
• It is now possible to specify the block parameters for each filter in Special:AbuseFilter. The parameters include block duration and if the user should be blocked from editing their own talk page. The block duration is separate for anonymous and registered users. [29][30]
• A hundred Wikimedia wikis will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 13 and 14 March. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed in the middle of 2018. [31][32][33]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 March. It will be on all wikis from 15 March (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 13 March at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 14 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

19:43, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

updated since my last visit ???

I see updated since my last visit in a lot of edit summeries. What does that mean? Is there some piece of automated software that's inserting that? It's a pretty useless edit summary, since it doesn't give somebody scanning the history any clue what changed, or why. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:51, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

It isn't an edit summary, it's an automated message after the edit summary that tells you that this edit was done after the last time you checked the page. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:02, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:17, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

You can hide it with this in your CSS:

.updatedmarker {display: none;}

PrimeHunter (talk) 19:58, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Enlarging text

Sorrowfully, I can't seem to find instructions for enlarging text in the edit window. I'll appreciate any help that comes in that regard. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 05:55, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

On my browser I can do ctrl-mouse wheel rotation to enlarge or shrink all text. ctrl-shift-+ also enlarges. There would be a style sheet change that should change it too. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:01, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

OK style sheet change in User:John Cline/common.css: .mw-editfont-monospace {font-size: 200% !important;}

will double the size. Change 200 to get a size you like. (I am finding its a bit too big for me!) Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:08, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

(I also note you are trying to include the deleted page: MediaWiki:Gadget-textareasansserif.css in your vector.css.) (this originally said textarea { font-family: sans-serif; } Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:18, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you very much!--John Cline (talk) 08:59, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Labels and data are misaligned in Infobox film

Just dropping by to let y'all know that there's an issue relating to line-height that might be of interest to anyone watching this page. – Srdjan m (talk) 15:38, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks not working

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T187757
Resolved

Hi, Not sure if it's just me but my thanks doesn't seem to be working?
I go to thank someone (it then says thanked as it should) but then when I thank someone else on the same page it doesn't do anything and then when I reload the page the edit I thanked no longer says "thanked" (I just have the option to rethank basically),
Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 00:15, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Davey, see if the thanks you tried to send are in your log. I don't know why it doesn't seem to work twice for you on the same page, but I do know that "thanked" reverting to "thank" when you come back to a page is an annoying issue that has irritated me for a while, but I've just kind of put up with it. If you want me to check if I get the same issue, reply to this, and I'll see if I can thank you for both edits from the page history. -- Begoon 01:13, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I thanked Davey2010 for his edit here, and it now says I thank Begoon. I'm going to file a bug — MusikAnimal ^talk 01:25, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

The system tells me you thanked me twice, MA, according to my "notices"... -- Begoon 01:28, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Yep, I tried a second time and it thanked you for your other edit. It's thanking whatever the most recent non-thanked revision is. I created a bug at phab:T187757 — MusikAnimal ^talk 01:30, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Well, just to maybe add to the confusion, I thanked you both, from the page history, and each time I got the expected message, and "thank" said "thanked" for both edits on the page history after the second one. My log has 2 entries, one for MA, one for Davey... -- Begoon 01:35, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Maybe you thanked before intermediate edits were made? Because that would mean Davey and I's edits are the most recent ones that aren't yours, if that makes sense. Either that or it is magically working for you but not others. @Begoon and Davey2010: What browser/OS/skin are you using? — MusikAnimal ^talk 01:39, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Vector, FF 58.0.2, Win 7. And yes, you could be right, looking at the times of the edits/thanks they could well have been the last 2 edits that weren't mine (Nagual edited in the same minute, I don't have seconds to compare.) -- Begoon 01:47, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi Begoon, I've never had an issue before but got your thanks (thanks! :) ),

MusikAnimal - My thank log now shows as

"01:01, 20 February 2018 Davey2010 (talk | contribs) thanked My name is not dave (talk | contribs)

00:59, 20 February 2018 Davey2010 (talk | contribs) thanked Tacyarg (talk | contribs)

00:10, 20 February 2018 Davey2010 (talk | contribs) thanked Casliber (talk | contribs)

00:09, 20 February 2018 Davey2010 (talk | contribs) thanked Dodger67 (talk | contribs)

00:09, 20 February 2018 Davey2010 (talk | contribs) thanked Callanecc (talk | contribs)"

All of which I've never thanked (I tried thanking Ritchie333, SoWhy and Lourdes on Lourdes's RFA),

I'm currently using Vector skin, Chrome, OS is Windows 7, Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 01:51, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I get the same error and added an example with screenshots to phab:T187757. This is serious. I suggest we hide thanks links until it's fixed. We can do it by placing the below in MediaWiki:Common.css. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:11, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

.mw-thanks-thank-link {display: none;}

@PrimeHunter: I was about to suggest the same. I'm going to up the task to Unbreak Now, but there's a chance it won't get fixed until tomorrow. So yeah, let's hide it. I don't think we can hide it on mobile too, can we? — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:22, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't know a way we can hide it in mobile but I suspect the vast majority of thanks are from desktop. Pages with thanks links are harder to find in mobile and most editors are in desktop. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:31, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree. I've gone ahead and hidden it with Special:Diff/826612112 — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:32, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Similarly for mobile. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:20, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Despite MusikAnimal's edit of 02:30 today, thanks are still happening. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:04, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Redrose64, those edits are done through mobile. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 13:07, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Even those thanks that were made after TheDJ amended MediaWiki:Minerva.css at 11:20? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:19, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

@Redrose64: yeah, but we still have caching, the mobile apps, maybe a userscript and anything else that uses the api (possibly including troll bots). :) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:29, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Judging by the patch, I'm guessing the mobile version is unaffected. We might as well leave it hidden until the ticket is resolved, though. Thanks for figuring that out. Now I know where the mobile CSS is :) Which go figure is the SkinName.css — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:31, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

"thanked" link reverting to "thank"

I've put this in a subsection so as not to pollute the discussion of the above serious error, but I'd still be interested in an eventual answer to this, which was touched on above. While the thanks "links" on this page history for the thanks I just made today, above, still show as an unlinked "thanked" no matter how many times I refresh or purge, if I revisit the page histories for the thanks I sent yesterday the link has reverted to a blue-linked "thank", with the opportunity to do it again. Is this how it's supposed to work (ie the links revert after a period of time)? -- Begoon 02:27, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I think you probably had the same issue. When you thank in the interface, it looks like it goes through, but if you refresh, it ends up having thanked the most recent revision. The ones you did today were probably the most recent revisions, hence why they worked. — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:36, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

No, I think it's separate. The edits which have reverted to "thank" are correctly shown as thanked in the log. Also, at least one of them was definitely the last revision when I thanked it (and still is, as I type). Also, also, this has done this, like this, for some time (weeks, maybe months), I've just never asked or "complained" till Davey mentioned something similar. -- Begoon 02:41, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

For as long as I can remember, any time I would log out and log back in, it would reset any edits I had thanked and allow me to thank them again. They remained in the log properly. Home Lander (talk) 02:49, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, actually I do recall seeing that as well -- where the Thanks did go through but still reverted back to a Thanks link. For me it would revert back after a few days, not immediately, if I remember correctly. Anyway I agree this is probably an unrelated issue. I don't see a bug for it in Phabricator, so let's revisit it after the above bug is fixed.

Unrelated, I love that Nihlus just Thanked me for removing Thanks =p — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:51, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I was testing out the Mobile to see if there were any issues. :P Nihlus 02:52, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm guessing this issue arose today; all my thanks in the log from yesterday and earlier appear to be correct. Guess I'm glad I didn't try to thank anyone today. Home Lander (talk) 02:59, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: There is a phab ticket at Notifications: Getting multiple "Thank"s from one user for the same edit is possible (double/duplicate), this may cover it. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:10, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

That's it! Thanks :) — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:31, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks not appearing

I'm presenting problems with the thanks feature too. In the article's history the thank option disappeared from the edits, and reads as (undo | ). Only those edits I have thanked before appear as (undo | thanked). I noticed that in the Spanish Wikipedia my option is shown normally. --Jamez42 (talk) 03:24, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

@Jamez42: That's because MusikAnimal removed it for now; see above thread. Home Lander (talk) 03:29, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I added a watchliist notice for this outage, pointing to this thread. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:14, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the watchlist notice! I thought it was just me for a moment. Alex Shih (talk) 05:28, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I just thanked you on your watchlist notice edit and I notice the action is logged both in my thanks log and your received thanks log. Did you receive notification for this or is it just not going despite the logs showing so?–Ammarpad (talk) 06:17, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

The problem appears to be that the thanks function is thanking the last unthanked edit in the page, regardless of which edit is chosen, so in many cases it is thanking the wrong edit/user. If the edit you thanked happened to be the last unthanked revision you were possibly "lucky" and it will possibly have worked "ok", by chance. The logs seem to be correct, but the feedback you receive at the time of thanking may not be. Don't rely on it at all until it's fixed would be my advice, though. I'm guessing you must have done it from mobile though, and I don't think anyone has confirmed exactly what that is doing, or if there is any difference. -- Begoon 06:36, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

...and I received your thanks for this edit, which, from my log, does appear to have been the most recent revision at the time you thanked me... -- Begoon 07:08, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I am trying to figure it out because from the above, it seems to me like people are also not seeing the button at all. But I understand this edit now hid it, so I am now not seeing the button on desktop version, but still it appears and works in mobile. –Ammarpad (talk) 09:33, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes I got it, no we don't have it disabled on mobile. See the phab ticket for some more details. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:37, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

It should be disabled on mobile view now as well. (Not necessarily the mobile APP). — xaosflux ^Talk 14:47, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I just discovered it had disappeared from sight on my PC so came here to find that others have the same problem. I can no longer thank people. Doug Weller talk 13:52, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I too discovered that I can see only the parenthesis(), but the Thanks word is absent.SouravDas1998^{t@lk to me?} 19:05, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks is fixed

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T187757
Resolved

• Thanks to everyone who helped on this. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:17, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Danke L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 22:17, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
    • +1 Thanks to everyone who fixed this here and over at Phab. –Davey2010^Talk 18:07, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks isn't fixed

• At least not for me. Ericoides (talk) 21:28, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

  @Ericoides: How does it not work? -A lad insane (Channel 2) 20:58, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

  Thanks, David. It works now! Ericoides (talk) 06:59, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Gender research on deleted articles

Hi all

I've been thinking a lot about the gender gap on Wikipedia recently and would like to understand if there is a relationship between the gender of a biography articleand article deletions. Is there a way to know the gender of the subject of deleted biography articles?

The question I'd most like to understand is are biographies about women more or less likely to get deleted? and if there is a large difference, why does this happen.

Also related questions:

• Are articles about women more or less likely to be nominated for deletion than articles about men and in general?
• Are articles about women that are nominated for deletion more or less likely to be deleted than articles about men and in general?

Is the data to do this research available? And if so how ould it be collected?

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 14:29, 13 March 2018 (UTC) (@Victuallers: who may be interested.) John Cummings (talk) 08:32, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

@John Cummings: your edit that tried to ping Victuallers didn't work because you didn't add a signature while making it. Graham87 07:00, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks @Graham87:, fixed. John Cummings (talk) 08:32, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi John (thx Graham) I'm not sure this is a technical question yet, as to my mind the major problem is to just phrase the experimental query that may lead to a convincing answer. There may be more notable male footballers than there are women who have played professionally. There are I guess more notable Crimean female nurses than there were Victorian male nurses. Some will seize on the results to feed the idea that the reason why there are so few women biogs is because of wiki admin discrimination. I'm not saying that the latter might not exist (can you prove it) but with (maybe) 100,000 plus missing notable women biographies already listed then it would just be misleading to highlight an article that was deleted as being the "poster girl" cause for systemic bias. (There are instances where female editors have been bullied off Wikipedia, but these are anecdotes.) So if I had to suggest an experiment then I would apply ORES scores to a month of newly written articles. I would see what percentage were deleted as just "rubbish" within a day. I would take a sample of those that were PRODed and those that were AFD'd and then those that were deleted. And then I would look at whether any of those groups contained a higher percent of females (adjusted for ORES score) than the original population. Or something like that. I suspect you may just discover systemic bias (which feeds a lot of twitter anger). Good luck!! Roger aka Victuallers (talk) 09:11, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Oooo! I just thought of a counter experiment. Let us presume that the AFD system is absolutely biased and corrupt and all the female articles that were deleted were deleted unfairly. So if we put ALL of those back into our new 'Wikipedia .... then what effect would that have on the percentage of women on the new 'Wikipedia? How about if we also halved, quartered or decimated (divide by ten) all the male biogs that were successful .... then would that make a substantial difference? I think that answer might be quite revealing. Victuallers (talk) 09:37, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Just FYI, in many cases "gender" of the article subjects is recorded at their WikiData entry, so it should be able to be looked up even if the page is removed. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:25, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Gender is not consistently recorded for deleted articles, a number of which are deleted before wikidata entries are completed or the articles are categorized, and categorization does not always include gender, in any event. I do find that at least for the last several years that inclusion on deletion sorting lists is fairly common for individuals. Men are usually included at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/People, whereas women are usually included at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Women and sometimes Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/People. I'd be tempted to say that the implications of this linguistic decision are an exercise left to the reader but that would truly be unfair as, in my experience, women are included on the specialized list by the hardworking volunteers who do sorting so as to facilitate review by editors particularly interested in women's biographies. This does not include articles deleted via WP:PROD or WP:SPEEDY but might be a place to start gathering data. Caveats about taking into account all the potential inappropriate comparisons assumed. 24.151.116.12 (talk) 16:04, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Double move

Does anybody have any idea why I seem to have moved the same pair of pages twice within the same minute? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:24, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't have an idea but this query along with your above query suggests that something might be up with your account. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:38, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I found another pair of double log entries from twenty minutes earlier. What do you think might be up with my account? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:42, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

When you move some page the related talk page also gets moved, hence the "talk" part in them. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 09:25, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

@Sjoerddebruin: I know that; my question is not about why the talk pages are logged, but about why there are two log entries for each category page and for each category talk page. That is to say, the log at 20:45, 13 March 2018 shows two instances of "moved page Category talk:NA-Class Finance articles to Category talk:NA-Class Finance & Investment articles" together with two of "moved page Category:NA-Class Finance articles to Category:NA-Class Finance & Investment articles" when I should expect only one of each. Similarly, the log at 20:26, 13 March 2018 shows two instances of "moved page Category talk:Start-Class Finance articles to Category talk:Start-Class Finance & Investment articles" together with two of "moved page Category:Start-Class Finance articles to Category:Start-Class Finance & Investment articles" when I should expect only one of each. Other page moves that I carried out in that timeframe log only one entry for each category page, and one for each category talk page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:23, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

My best guess at the moment is that if you accidentally click "Move page" twice, the two submissions might both get past the "valid move?" checks before either gets to actually performing the move so both wind up doing the move. The second mostly does no-op updates like setting the page's title to the already-set new title, but it does create an extra log entry and null revision in the moved page's history. Spot checking a few date ranges, I see this has happened for other users' moves too and goes back at least a few years (e.g. Nishonoseki stable (1935) was supposedly moved twice at 2015-01-01 18:54). Anomie⚔ 12:15, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Can double-clicks really do that? Since a number of people are unclear as to when a single click is sufficient and may use double-click "just in case", it sounds like something we should guard against, like not firing another event when there's already an identical one pending. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:23, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Visual editor - discard "unsaved changes"

Is there any way to discard the "unsaved changes" of the visual editor. It's all very well that it saves them, but here am I, using VE for the automatic citation filler, then copyediting in source to use LDRs. Then, VE wants to revert those changes because they weren't made under VE. This is a problem, and could catch out somebody who discarded changes for a reason. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 19:56, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

You might want to try VisualEditor's wikitext mode, which you can enable in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. (I recommend turning the "syntax highlighting" beta feature off, as the two sometimes don't play well together.) Then you'll get the visual editor's toolbar, with the mw:citoid button, but you'll be working in wikitext the whole time and not need to switch at all (except perhaps for table editing, because everyone agrees that deleting columns from tables is much easier in the visual mode  ;-). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:27, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Refill Mr

Hi I wanted refill on Marathi Wikipedia but I don't find the way out for it. I requested for it's translation on it's Transifex page yet no response. Can anyone create a version of it for Marathi Wikipedia? I and the community is ready to help in translation and templates needed. --✝iѵɛɳ२२४०^{†ลℓк †๏ мэ} 05:51, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Have you tried doing this in the visual editor? The Marathi Wikipedia already has the citoid service installed, and the visual editor offers a "convert" button for bare URLs. Open the page (in the visual editor; you may need to enable that in your preferences), select the blue ref tag, and then click the "convert" button that will pop up. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:29, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF) and MusikAnimal: While citoid is concerned we have just installed it few days ago and it's not working fine. I've seen the convert button there and it fills one reference at a time (currently not working). Marathi Wikipedia has a lot of bare urls so I needed this tool to convert them on a large scale. Any developer that can make the same type of tool? --✝iѵɛɳ२२४०^{†ลℓк †๏ мэ} 00:58, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

@Tiven2240: Hi, the reason it's not working is because the citation templates added to the message are missing the required TemplateData. I have temporarily disabled the message until this can be fixed. So for instance, the template संकेतस्थळ स्रोत, जर्नल स्रोत, and स्रोत पुस्तक didn't have template data. See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Citoid/Enabling_Citoid_on_your_wiki#Step_2.a:_Create_a_'citoid'_maps_value_for_each_Cite_template. Once this template data is added, we can re-enable the message. Mvolz (WMF) (talk) 08:07, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

I certainly don't have time to work on it, sorry :( User:Dispenser has a similar tool, maybe he could assist with adding support for mrwiki? Otherwise, as I said ok my talk page, I would ask for help at User talk:Zhaofeng Li/reFill. According to the FAQ this is the means to request that new wikis be added. Best — MusikAnimal ^talk 06:18, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

User:Mvolz (WMF), can you take a look at the citoid situation at w:mr:? This article looks like it has a couple of bare URLs, and citoid is no longer visible there (doubtless due to the 'hide if broken' feature that went out today). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:47, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

@Mvolz (WMF) and Whatamidoing (WMF): I have prepared the template data and seen that the templates are working fine. Hope y'all make the further necessary changes for citoid. --✝iѵɛɳ२२४०^{†ลℓк †๏ мэ} 09:56, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

I did a very quick test, and it looks like it's working now. Do you see any other problems with it? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:42, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Citoid is working all fine. --✝iѵɛɳ२२४०^{†ลℓк †๏ мэ} 23:13, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

/a/ in IPA

Hi. Im trying to add pronunciation help to an article, in the form of a phonemic transcription using IPA, like this: (/ˈkɒns.tənˌtɪn/). It all works, except the a -- whether I use the cheat-sheet or copy the character from another good source. Where am I going wrong, please? I'm using Safari 11.0.3. Thanks --Frans Fowler (talk) 02:29, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, found it myself. Use aɪ as a 'single' character - (/ˈkɒns.tənˌtaɪn/) --Frans Fowler (talk) 02:42, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Shortcuts (Ctrl+I, Ctrl+B etc.) don't work any more in source code editor

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T189901

Hi, I recently discovered that these shortcuts don't work in source code editor. I remembered them to work before. The weirder is, if you turned on syntax highlighting, upon pressing, say, ctrl+I, you can visually see the selected text became italic and then immediately changed back to normal.

I'm using Google Chrome. I have this problem on Chinese Wikipedia as well, tested logged in and logged out (to make sure it's not caused by non-default gadgets). --fireattack (talk) 15:23, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello, fireattack, and thank you for this note. Which of the mw:editors are you using? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:54, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF):: I believe it's mw:Extension:WikiEditor one (2010). --fireattack (talk) 22:40, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I haven't been able to reproduce this in Safari or Firefox on my Mac, but the flash for syntax highlighting happens in Chrome. Are you running Windows (version?)?

Also, I wanted to say thanks for your thoroughness in testing (logged in and out, more than one wiki). I really appreciate it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:06, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF):: I'm on Win 10/7. I tested with Firefox, these shortcuts are overridden by Firefox's own features (both Ctrl+B and Ctrl+I will just toggle Firefox's bookmark sidebar), so I doubt it even gets registered by the web page (needless to say, no flashing since they straighly up don't do anything). -fireattack (talk) 19:22, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Help needed on French Wikipedia

I am needing the help of a French speaking Wikipedian. On French Wikipedia, user Angela Criss is an obvious sockpuppet of Jack Gaines (talk · contribs). As I do not speak French, could someone please inform any French Wikipedia admins as to the user's doings, and ask them to protect any articles pertaining to Alan Jackson? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 23:48, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Pintoch (talk · contribs), one for you perhaps? Merci bien. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:50, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

@Redrose64: sure! but it looks like it was done and dusted before I arrived. − Pintoch (talk) 05:40, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Notification from edit summary

Greetings,

The ability to notify other users in edit summaries will be available later this week, on 15 March 2018. Other users can be notified if a link to their user page is provided in an edit summary. Some user-made gadgets and scripts that automatically put user names in edit summaries may need to be changed to put a colon in the link, such as [[:User:Example]]. You can change how you receive these mention notifications in your preferences. This feature was highly requested in the 2017 Community Wishlist survey, and feedback is welcome.

Thanks, happy editing to you. -Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:09, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

• The English Wikipedia should be good to go as far as modifications to scripts are concerned, what hasn't been updated yet will be by Thursday. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 21:41, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

This is cool. Thanks for implementing Keegan (WMF) (and all those involved) --TheSandDoctor (talk) 15:13, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Editing edit summaries

Like these nested dolls, putting things in things gets complex. If you edit the edit summary and leave an edit summary for your edit summary, then that edit summary for the edit summary could need to be edited, in which case there would be an edit summary for the edit summary of the edit summary of the edit, which could in turn need to be edited. This can go on ad infinitum and be a distracting mind game, or a interesting film plot. -- Prince of Thieves (talk) 19:27, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

I know there must have been plenty of people who have proposed this before, but I would like to know if the interface could be modified to allow editors to change their edit summaries after they have saved the edit, rather than having to make a new edit where they don't do anything (or as it is sometimes called, a "null edit") just to modify their last edit summary. On a project otherwise defined by an almost complete ability to modify content after it has been posted, it seems odd that no one can change their own edit summaries (but of course you shouldn't be able to change others', just your own). Every morning (there's a halo...) 03:55, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

See e.g. the declined phab:T12105 and phab:T15937. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:17, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

There would have to be a history of changes to each summary, and the ability for people to patrol changes to summaries to watch for vandalism or personal attacks or the like, and so on. That sort of thing quickly gets rather complicated. Anomie⚔ 13:35, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

As Anomie implied, building a miniwiki for edit summary content would not be particularly productive. It's not too hard to make another empty edit, but it's super easy to preview your edit summary before hitting save/publish. We can edit content, but not history; same goes for the edit summary. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:59, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

If I were to edit a prior edit summary, there should be somewhere for me to provide a description of the edit too, hmm that one might need to be adjusted to, it will be summaries all the way down. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:06, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

This sounds like corrections would become recursive, and that would cause really weird situations when trying to quote a diff. There would also be the issue of how to view the past revisions of edit summaries. Prince of Thieves (talk) 19:27, 17 March 2018 (UTC) (added image Prince of Thieves (talk) 19:27, 17 March 2018 (UTC))

JavaScriptWikiBrowser interface text: where is it?

There's a script called JWB.js that is a partial port of AWB to JavaScript. I've been looking over its source code, and I can't find the interface text. There are phrases included on the screen when the program runs, but a search of the source code does not reveal them. For example: "Enter list of pages:" is part of the interface, but it's nowhere in the source code. The same goes for the other text displayed in the program's various frames. None of it seems to be in the source code, or in the program's css page. It's got to be coming from somewhere. But where?     — The Transhumanist    07:09, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: I think it loads them from User:Joeytje50/JWB.js/i18n.js -- John of Reading (talk) 07:26, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

There it is! Thank you.     — The Transhumanist    07:40, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

A technical question regarding warning users before submitting potential copyright violations

First, this is not a proposal; do not !vote on it. This is a question for anyone who has a good idea how the Wikimedia software works regarding whether something would be technically possible, as well as the difficulty level required.

Would it be possible to put a system in place which does the following:

• Whenever a new article is created, prior to 'publishing' going through, the article is automatically run through the copyvios detector.
• If the submission has a confidence of 50% or higher, a warning message pops up warning the user that they might be submitting a copyright violation (link to the copyvios report) and giving a bit of information on what is ok to copy and what isn't (i.e. you can't copy from your own website unless the content there is under a suitable licence).
• The warning asks the submitting user if they want to proceed or not, and if they do, it publishes the article but also flags the article for New Page Patrol as a potential copyright violation needing review.

Some information if there are any technical or legal roadblocks to the implementation of such a system would be great. Thanks. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 09:14, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

No, this would not be possible as things currently stand. You'd need to either A) port the copyvio tool to be a MediaWiki extension outright, or B) have the tool expose an API of sorts that a MediaWiki extension could call and then use the results from. Either way, you'd need a new extension. FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY ^[u+1F602] 17:51, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

There is an extension request for images (that's phab:T31793). A similar phab task could be filed.

It sounds like a pretty good idea, generally, and it is definitely something which could be implemented. We do have ORES today (ORES documentation), so deeper integration there (ORES supports edit filters I think--but definitely has an API which a bot could use) might be a good idea. --Izno (talk) 18:07, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

From a tech standpoint, your use case is trivially subverted (a) create the page (b) edit it to include the "copyvio" stuff. So instead you'd need to score each edit - which could be computationally expensive if you wanted it to be real time (the current tool says Running a full check can take up to a minute if other websites are slow or if the tool is under heavy use. Please be patient. If you get a timeout, wait a moment and refresh the page.. Other tech challenges - putting such a tool in the way of production editing would mean that it would have to be well supported, 24/365 by paid staff. The other, much more serious problem is that those automated tools are horribly prone to false positives. For example I pulled up a Featured Article (Acrocanthosaurus) and ran that check on it - it got a 98% copyvio score. So either its a huge FP, or we are doing a poor job maintaining FA's.... (or the editor published elsewhere, etc,etc etc) - they are also bad with public domain text. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:49, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

I would assume in this case the Detector is detecting pages out on the web which are copies of our Acrocanthosaurus article, as it has been a featured article for quite a while. Presumably, it would have less trouble with newly created articles. - dcljr (talk) 05:42, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

[interpolated comment] Actually, xaosflux, come to think of it, the results of your test could be seen as a complete success, since anyone creating a new article that's an exact copy of the Acrocanthosaurus one would indeed be submitting a copyvio. [grin] - dcljr (talk) 05:54, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

It is trivially easy to circumvent but that doesn't mean it couldn't be useful to stop copyvios, even if it only checked when a new page is created. Most people adding those copyvios are not of the malicious sort. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:49, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

I think this could make copyvios harder to detect as the users would start rewording the plagiarised text until the copyvio detector stops complaining (but the copyvio issue would remain simply by putting words in different order). I would personally favour making more adequate use of edit intros and interactive wizards which encourage users to copy/paste quotes from sources into a dedicated text area so that they do not have to switch tabs back and forth, and have an opportunity to rewrite them in their own words in the article. Gryllida (talk) 02:24, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Mysteriously-watched pages

Normally, I only watch pages that I have edited. Occasionally, something will show up on my watchlist and I have no recollection of why I might be interested in the page, but after checking the history of the page, its talk page, and their logs, an explanation surfaces. So, it's something of a puzzle as to why this edit has shown on my watchlist. I can't find evidence of me editing the page. Insects aren't my thing either - they creep me out. This is not the first page that is watched w/o explanation. Any ideas? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:24, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

You could just have accidentally clicked the watch tab while viewing the image. You reviewed Template talk:FPCresult#Adding noinclude 28 January 2013. The template was on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Acrocinus longimanus MHNT femelle.jpg, while Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Harlequin beetle was open and got the template two days later. Maybe you looked for uses of the template and also clicked the image. I have no recollection of random pages I came by five years ago. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:57, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

You also might want to check your settings in preferences. One of them is "Add pages I create and files I upload to my watchlist", and another is "Add pages and files I edit to my watchlist". This may not account for the beetle pic, but it might be the source of links you haven't seen in a long while.     — The Transhumanist    22:24, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I've had both of those enabled since forever; but I have no edits or uploads scored against that page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:26, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

It could be interesting to log watchlist changes somewhere. Added phab:T190003 which may or may not be a duplicate as I haven't checked. Please check its status in the coming days. Gryllida (talk) 02:28, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Line breaks don't appear in edit summaries without spaces in watchlists / contrib pages

This diff page shows my long edit summary wrapping so as to not run way off the end of the page. However, this permalink page shows that same edit summary running way off the end of the page, and the same occurs when viewing this edit in my watchlist or contributions page. Is this a bug (and if so, has a Phabricator report already been filed)? Has this always been the case and I just didn't notice because I don't normally use long edit summaries without spaces? Regardless, it is an issue that needs fixing. Master of Time (talk) 23:31, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

For me at the permalink the edit summary does not exceed screen width. Gryllida (talk) 02:10, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

This is how it displays for me. Master of Time (talk) 02:18, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

@Gryllida: Does the edit summary just cut off? Or does it actually display as multiple lines? Do you have a very wide monitor perhaps? Master of Time (talk) 02:18, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Confirm with monobook, vector, not with timeless skin. Gryllida (talk) 02:30, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

The timeless skin technically just 'covers up' the right side. If I click my middle mouse in the center part of the page, it still lets me drag way off to the right. The very end of the edit summary is a lowercase v. With that being the case, every skin has the problem where the edit summary won't break into multiple lines despite not fitting on the page. Master of Time (talk) 02:40, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

No, the timeless skin wraps. It does not cut off.

It has "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY" on the first line and "ZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEF" on the next line (and a few more lines to follow).

Add "#mw-revision-info .comment { word-wrap: break-word; display: block; }" to your common.css (Special:MyPage/common.css) to fix it, I think that's what it does. Gryllida (talk) 03:13, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

That didn't do anything, unfortunately. My edit summaries still won't wrap properly. Master of Time (talk) 03:55, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

This is due to en.wp's use of mbox tables of the the mw-revision-info. Leave a comment at MediaWiki_talk:Common.css and when I or someone else has some time, we can probably fix it. (Or maybe it's time to finally rewrite our mboxes to get rid of those tables...) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:32, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Whatever it is, it is working for me with the CSS applied when I use the ?useskin=monobook or vector parameter. I apologize for misleading commentary about my suggested css code fixing the issue, perhaps someone who uses monobook as their main skin may be able to resolve the problem further. --Gryllida (talk) 22:37, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Please volunteer to document mw:Extension:Graph, update it to use Vega 3?

Hi all! mw:Extension:Graph allows to draw graphs and charts and variously sized and colored points on maps. Documentation appears to be lacking using Vega 2 library. Vega version 3.0 documentation is not very introductory level. Do we have volunteers who could expand the extension documentation to include an explanation of how its features work, starting from hello world and gradually increasing complexity? And or volunteers to update the extension to Vega 3?

Specifically what interests me is the ability to create timelines spanning across several days with events with hours and minutes. I had tried this at mw:User:Gryllida/sandbox (starting from mw:Extension:Graph/Demo#Timeline_/_lifeline) but could not figure out how it should work. No error message has been produced. --Gryllida (talk) 02:08, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

To clarify, what I expect to make or use is a template that takes a set of timestamps and strings as argument and outputs a timeline, for instance,

"{{MyTemplate|

|2018-03-01 12:04:I had lunch {{fixed}}

|2018-03-02 08:01:Someone had [[breakfast]] in a hall.}}

Would output a timeline with these times set (and 20% at each side of the earliest and latest event for readability). The annotations need to be able to contain clickable links and images. --Gryllida (talk) 03:22, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Gryllida there's {{Simple_Horizontal_timeline}} and mw:Extension:EasyTimeline either of which would be simpler for this case, I assume Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:14, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

? -Gryllida (talk) 11:00, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, simple horizontal timeline only supports individual years. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:19, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Please don't use EasyTimeline anymore. It has a lot of bugs and display issues that are virtually impossible to fix, not to mention that its timelines look terrible. (Having said that, I don't know what the current state of the art is for timelines and the like. Presumably it is Graph, if anyone can work out how to use it.) — This, that and the other (talk) 11:06, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

If we can eliminate its usage on all current pages perhaps it is worth uninstalling it. --Gryllida (talk) 00:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

File restore error

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T189985

Hello. I tried to perform a WP:HISTSPLIT on Wikipedia:Files_for_discussion/2018_March_10#File:Taisekiji_Hoanden.JPG. Everything worked fine, except the last stage - restoring. I want to restore these revisions, but depending on which revisions I select, I am either faced with this or this error. Any clue what's going on? I've done file splits many times on Commons. But I think this is the first time I've tried on enwiki. Cheers, Rehman 02:00, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

This sounds like a MediaWiki bug. You'd be advised to file it in Phabricator: mw:How to report a bug. — This, that and the other (talk) 08:17, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

File:Enwiki restore error 2.png is now filed as phab:T189985. I don't know about the other screenshots. BJorsch (WMF) (talk) 14:45, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks User:This, that and the other and User:BJorsch (WMF). Rehman 04:10, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

@Rehman: The error in File:Enwiki restore error 2.png should be fixed now. The other error may or may not still remain; if so, please file a separate task in Phabricator about it. BJorsch (WMF) (talk) 22:17, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you BJorsch (WMF). The errors no longer exist. Best regards, Rehman 03:30, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Template to test whether string is a decade?

Resolved

Is there any template which will test whether a string is a decade? Or parser code to do the same job?

I want something which will return a true/non-null for a valid decade (e.g. "1830s", "560s") but return a false/null value for a non-decade (e.g. "1741", "1920x", "sdsjjdh").

Any suggestions? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:28, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Ah I found I can do it with Module:String:

{{#invoke:String|match|{{{DateWhichMayBeaDecade|}}}|^%d%d%d0s$|ignore_errors=true}}

--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:51, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

That won't work for "560s". That'd be {{#invoke:String|match|{{{DateWhichMayBeaDecade|}}}|^%d?%d?%d?0s$|ignore_errors=true}} Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:58, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, @Galobtter.

I know it won't work before the 1000s, which suits this use. I should have noted that I am using it in Template:Infobox GAA club, and since GAA clubs date from the 19th cent, I only needed to validate 4-digit decades.

Your search pttern will be useful for anyone seeking to do this for decades which may precede the 2nd millennium. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:39, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

You might want to check for [12]%d%d0s$ to catch transposition errors like "9180s". – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:50, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

9180s is a valid decade, in the 10th millenium. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 01:57, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: I'm not worried about that. Any 9180s-type errors will make the template try to populate several non-existent categories, so the error will be visible. Keep it simple. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:11, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Failed login attempt info

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T174388

Would it be possible to receive details about failed login attempts beyond "this happened"...?

It'd be useful to know what password they tried to use. For example, if you can tell they're just trying common passwords (e.g. password, 123456, etc), then you shouldn't have much to worry about. If they're using your older passwords, then you need to change your password immediately.

It'd also be useful for at least CUs (if not others) to know what IP address was used in the attempt.

Ian.thomson (talk) 14:00, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

That's a fairly atrocious idea. What happens if you typo your own password? You've just exposed yourself to anyone who can see what you tried. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:02, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I would assume that the info would only be shared with people who can see that there was a failed login attempt anyway. This should only be the user in question and the few folks who can see anyone's password anyway. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:54, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Passwords aren't stored anywhere so nobody can see them. Only a hash of the password is stored. Many people use the same password at multiple sites and somebody with access to their email should absolutely not be able to see the password even if they can use the email access to request a new password and hack the Wikimedia account. And good faith users who mistype their username at login but enter their right password also shouldn't have the password revealed to a user with the mistyped name who may be able to guess who mistyped it. As xaosflux said, this is never going to happen for all sorts of reasons. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:18, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@Ian.thomson: The "what password was used" is never going to happen for all sorts of reasons. The CU stuff has already happened, and there are additional changes being considered now. See phab:T174388 and its linked tasks for more information. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:29, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Problem with thumbnail derived from xcf file

The_Immortal_Ten has a thumbnail in the top right of the page with obviously reversed colors. The original file at [34] looks fine, and there is a thumbnail on the image page that looks fine. I'm not sure if this is a Wikimedia bug, or if the thumbnail needs to be regenerated, but I'm not seeing an obvious way to fix this myself. Wingedsubmariner (talk) 16:51, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

@Wingedsubmariner: the thumbnail on that page for File:Immortal10WP.xcf looks fine to me, try clearing your cache and checking again? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:44, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Note, it does appear to render 'darker' (more contrast - but not "reversed") in IE compared to FF and Chrome. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux:Strange, it looks fine for me too now. Should have taken a screenshot. Wingedsubmariner (talk) 17:02, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Events calendar

screenshot

For Wikimédia France, 0x010C developed the tool Events calendar. The Events calendar is a common calendar, that can be used by anyone to share events having some connection with the Wikimedia movement. The central calendar, displayed on m:Events calendar contain all the events, while each project page can display his own, through a filter system.

The events calendar can be used on any other pages, with location or tag filters enabled. For example, it can be used to display all events of a given user-group, taking place in a city (Paris) or linked with a given subject (Wikisource).

It is possible to export a set of events in the iCalendar file format.

The event calendar can be viewed and used directly by anybody, connected or not, but its functionalities are limited to the features described in the template's documentation. To unlock the ability to navigate between months, to dynamically change the view or filter the events, and the easily manage events (add new ones, edit or delete existing), you will have to copy-paste those two lines in your common.js:

importScript( 'User:0x010C/Events-calendar-editor.js' );

importScript( 'User:0x010C/Events-calendar-navigation.js' );

Pyb (talk) 21:05, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

"each project page can display his own, through a filter system." how is this achieved? Via {{Events calendar}}? What are the steps to import this template to another wiki? --Gryllida (talk) 22:42, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

@Gryllida: the pages are meta-local at meta:User:0x010C/Events-calendar-editor.js and meta:User:0x010C/Events-calendar-navigation.js - you could review these and localize them if you want them on a local project. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:12, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Where they could become a gadget if there was community support. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:12, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Xaosflux and thanks for your advice I just put the importScript lines from the message above into my global.js and they allow me to view the calendar but I do not think they fully resolve the problem, I would like to define my own set of events on a local wiki and I do not know where to store them in a way that they do not show on your calendar. I can understand this is all open source but I am busy this month as I have a lot of homework so I think it should be possible to obtain documentation of this from the contributors who already are familiar with this tool. Gryllida (talk) 04:33, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@0x010C: may be able to answer you. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:36, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

You can create a specific calendar on meta. It is not intended to be used outside of meta. But if you want, you'll need to copy-paste the script in Lua, templates, javascript fils, json files, etc. Pyb (talk) 07:48, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi thanks. Would you most kindly please be interested in documenting the list of files that would need to be copied? I think it would be nice to have the calendar feature at other sister projects locally so that they can organize meetups and similar events without visiting meta wiki. These events are only in one language and do not necessarily need translation or exposure to other regions.

This would also allow the calendar tool to be used outside of Wikimedia wikis, i.e. at a wiki that is run for a non-profit organization on their own wiki. Gryllida (talk) 09:37, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Gryllida:,

The initial goal of this calendar was to gather in one place (on meta) all events in relation with the Wikimedia movement (to be able to see Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource,... related events for example, without having to go on each project individually), while allowing people to create their own subsets using tags and/or location filters.

So you can add your events to the global calendar, and put on another page (on meta) a template like {{Events calendar|tags=1Lib1Ref|locations=Greece}} for exemple, to show only 1Lib1Ref events in Greece. As others also filters their calendar, it won't show up on the calendar of people looking for events in France. It won't appear either on the Wikisource UserGroup's calendar, as they filter to show only Wikisource-related events in all countries (meta:Wikisource Community User Group/Events). See meta:Template:Events calendar for other examples.

Currently the main drawback is that to add new locations or tags, you will have to edit manually a json file, I'll work on that point next week-end.

As you are not the first to ask to import this on an other Wikimedia wiki, I'll look in some weeks to allow import on other wiki, while keeping the data centralized.

Regards — 0x010C ^~discuter~ 09:51, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks and I would also like to use it on a non-commercial wiki which is not a part of Wikimedia movement - so please consider making it possible to store data locally. Gryllida (talk) 17:42, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Bot for infobox image cleanup

Hello, I have done many cleanups in which image was being used in infobox inappropriately like this. Can such tasks be performed across wiki by a bot? Capankajsmilyo (talk) 04:46, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

To answer your question yes it can be done, but based on my own experience of doing it I would say its better being done with WP:AWB because there's no accounting for the numerous wonderful ways editors managed to format the code for fields like that. - X201 (talk) 10:02, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

AWB is tedious and this is a recurring issue. Another important fact is that the image does not display at all in such pages. Capankajsmilyo (talk) 15:38, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

If you find it tedious, that sort of editing might not be for you. Some of us find it relaxing. As for the image, it was displaying just fine before your edit. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:45, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Doubled-up overlapping coordinate links

In Upper Twin Falls Bridge, there are two overlapping and slightly offset coordinates links in the upper-right corner (Firefox 52.6.0 on CentOS 7, vector skin). {{coord}} is in {{Infobox NRHP}} which is embedded in {{Infobox bridge}}. Since the coords are repeated in both infoboxes, would that be part of the cause? Chris857 (talk) 16:06, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I moved the coords from the NRHP infobox out to the Bridge infobox, and that fixed it in this case. I'm not sure what the general-case fix should be. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:12, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Checking the history, it looks like the edit that's currently causing the problem was here, where the individual NRHP coordinate parameters were combined into the coord template. I don't know if the double display started happening then, or if there was a later change to coord that caused it. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:29, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Template:Infobox bridge was changed in January to pull coordinates from Wikidata if they were not present in the infobox. Coordinates embedded in the NRHP sub-template were displayed along with the Wikidata coordinates. Moving the coordinates from the NRHP template to the bridge template made the infobox stop looking in Wikidata for the coordinates. It looks like there is not any sort of error tracking built into the template to detect this condition. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:51, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

My own username

How do I obtain my own logged in username? The userspace linking templates require you to manually enter a username. Three tildes will get me my signature, but how can I automatically get just my logged in username? Thanks,  Buaidh  22:50, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

4 tildes. Natureium (talk) 22:55, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Nope. That gets me my signature and the date, but not just my username. This ought to be simple, but I haven't found it yet.  Buaidh  23:07, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

{{subst:REVISIONUSER}} will produce it when you save. For what purpose? PrimeHunter (talk) 23:20, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I would like to produce a version of Template:User that does not require the user to enter their own username (or a falsified username.) Ideally the template would produce the user's signature with a link to their talk page, a link to their contributions page, the time, and the date. e.g.,  Buaidh  (talk · contribs) 23:48, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Such a template can only work if it's substituted so the documentation must specify to write {{subst:User}}. You need someting to keep the right code on the template page itself, e.g. {{sub<noinclude></noinclude>st:REVISIONUSER}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:56, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to work either. Thanks,  Buaidh  (talk · contribs) 20:00, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

The safesubst version may fail more gracefully when the caller doesn't use subst. It will display the latest editor of the page instead of the one who saved {{Sign in}}, where my version will display ugly code. If {{subst:Sign in}} is used as required then the two versions should behave the same. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:08, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

@Natureium: Three tildes and 4 tildes differ only in the absence or presence of the timestamp. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:53, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Tildes default to the user signature rather than the username. How do I extract the username?  Buaidh  (talk · contribs) 20:00, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

@Buaidh: you may have to use a SAFESUBST. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 20:02, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I think we finally got it. Please see Template:Me. Yours aye,  Buaidh  (talk · contribs) 20:37, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Bug adding lines of blank text

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T190351

Hi all, per instructions at Phabricator, I'm stopping to inquire here first; I'm well out of my depth on this and would be grateful for guidance.

I appear to be encountering a bug that is now repeatedly adding extra blank lines to the same spot in one entry (1, 2, 3). I'm editing in browser Firefox Quantum 58.0.2. If I'm tracking this correctly, it's only when I use the Visual Editor, although I was working on the same entry earlier in the day and this had not been happening, even on Visual Editor.

Might someone be willing, firstly, to cast a second set of eyes to make sure there's not some straightforward issue I'm overlooking, and if not, then assist me in properly reporting the matter (whether that's at Phabricator or wherever the appropriate place might be)? Much obliged! Innisfree987 (talk) 00:50, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Huh. Error no longer reproducing today. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Nope, jinxed it. Appears only to be happening when I edit the section nearest the error. Innisfree987 (talk) 20:13, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for this bug report! I wish we knew how to reproduce it reliably, because a third-party MediaWiki site was asking about this recently (they really want to add extra blank lines/whitespace on their pages). I think I can trigger it by adding a single space at the very end of the paragraph that begins "After layoffs at MTV News". Does that work for you? Or do you have any other ideas about how to reproduce this? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Ha, yes I would gladly hand off the bug to someone who has a use for it! Let me tinker a bit and see if I can pin it down more precisely for you. More TK. Innisfree987 (talk) 19:30, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Ok, looking more closely: one thing I can tell you is the bug appears to have moved (or, the text moved around the bug, who can say?) In the first three instances I cited, it came above the paragraph you mention; the most recent time, it came afterward. Will now go test-edit more systematically, more shortly. Innisfree987 (talk) 23:09, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi there, so I've played around with it and I do think any edit--addition or subtraction--to the paragraph you mention triggers the additional lines. I now don't find the same thing happening with any other paragraph in that section, even though, as I mention above, previously the bug had added lines elsewhere. I did move big chunks of text around though (e.g. here), and I have not closely examined whether the bug followed those moves. What I can tell you is that if in perusing revisions, you see extra lines where they don't belong, it was almost definitely the bug--of course an errant click on the return key that I just overlooked is possible, but I didn't have any instances, e.g. where I know hit "save" sooner than I meant to and accidentally left in extra lines I had meant to clean up.

Does that help? Let me know if there's anything else I can do! Innisfree987 (talk) 23:32, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

This is totally cool. Thanks for doing that. I've filed a bug and pointed the devs here, because I like your explanation so much. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:34, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for kind words--especially nice to hear on something well outside my wheelhouse!

One more thought to add: here's the diff where I first notice the bug, which is after an IP made a big edit that included what I'm guessing is a deprecated template (or anyhow it didn't work) as well as some other invisible source text of purpose unknown to me... I think I removed all that text (here and here) and the bug's still happening, so maybe that addition is irrelevant, but perhaps something to look into if other options are exhausted.

Thanks for filing the bug report for me! Innisfree987 (talk) 23:17, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

extract only infobox template

is there any tools or way to extract only Infobox settlement from pages and save in txt. i want save infobox of citys of india in txt and run by bot to create article.--Monorodo (talk) 20:11, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

pywikibot is capable of giving you the parameters to template invocations, I believe. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 12:35, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

pywikibot.page.Page.templatesWithParams(get_redirect=NotImplemented) ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 12:39, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Shortcut to display User Contributions

A keyboard shortcut to display another editor's 'User contributions' whilst on their User Page or their Talk page would seem to be incredibly useful and save a lot of fiddly mouse/finger movement and scrolling down. The link to Special:Contributions is buried half-way down the left hand side of the page in Tools, yet is one of the most frequent page links I use. I can only find one proposal of this nature on Phabricator, but it relates to Huggle. Have I missed something obvious, or would others see this as meriting a Phabricator proposal? Nick Moyes (talk) 10:52, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I might be misunderstanding this but if you look at m:Help:Keyboard shortcuts there is a table (also see Manual:Interface/Access keys). In that table there is an item accesskey-t-contributions which is blank, meaning undefined by default. It doesn't seem to be "my contributions" as that seems to be accesskey-pt-mycontris (defined as 'y'). The "User contributions" link under "Tools" certainly has id="t-contributions" in CSS. So there are 2 'ifs' here - if I'm right about how it works, and if accesskey-t-contributions would do what you want when enabled, then it could be as simple as getting consensus for doing it, what key to use, and an admin adding that key to MediaWiki:Accesskey-t-contributions, with no code changes needed. ...Or I could be hopelessly misreading it all and that won't work... -- Begoon 11:28, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

It appears from the blue link and [35] that MediaWiki:Accesskey-t-contributions is still in the software, and from MediaWiki:Tooltip-t-contributions ("A list of contributions by this user") that you are right about its purpose. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:00, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

@Begoon and PrimeHunter: Ok -thank you very much - that sounds very positive. I accept that concensus would be needed to create this keyboard shortcut. I would really welcome a steer on how best to now go about obtaining that support. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:47, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Nick, sorry to take so long to answer, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't sending you on a wild goose chase, so I dug out the backup of my old local MediaWiki install, upgraded it to ver 1.30.0 (that was fun...), and tested it out. The good news is it works. While my local MediaWiki:Accesskey-t-contributions page was empty the shortcut key I chose ('g' because it didn't seem to be used for anything else) did nothing. As soon as I put the single character 'g' at my MediaWiki:Accesskey-t-contributions page and flushed my cache that shortcut key (alt-shift-g in Win7 firefox, varies per OS/browser) now functioned, taking me to wherever clicking the "User contributions" link in the "Tools" sidebar menu would, i.e. the contribs of whatever user's page, talk page etc I had open. So, I guess the answer to your question would be to propose it at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), and point them to this discussion for reference. -- Begoon 15:16, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

@Begoon: Thank you so much - that's very good news. I will start preparing that sometime next week as I'm now going to be away for a few days. I really appreciate you investigating whether this is feasible, and confirming that alt-shift-g is available and functions as we discussed. So, assuming consensus were gained, would I come back to you with that evidence and ask you to deploy it, or is there a different route to follow? My apologies for my ignorance on these matters. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 15:40, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

No, you'd need an admin who can edit that page in the Mediawiki namespace according to the consensus. The Mediawiki namespace is restricted because it contains interface messages and pages that affect how the software for the whole site functions, like this example. -- Begoon 15:55, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Infobox position

Infoboxes have been uniformly appearing for me at the top of the page, aligned left, pushing the lede down and off of my screen. Example image shown:

This can't possibly be the expected behavior, right? Viewing the desktop site in google chrome. Cheers, Tazerdadog (talk) 06:50, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Tazerdadog my first thought is that you may have a corrupted CSS stylesheet (or equally a buggy user script). I assume this issue is new, have you made a change to something like that recently? ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 12:29, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Then again, when I checked your user scripts, the last change was on User:AlexTheWhovian/script-redlinks.js - 14th December 2017. I dobut it's related, but it might be worth uninstalling user scripts to see if that fixes matters, and, if not, gadgets. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 12:34, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

The screenshot shows you have MonoBook at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. The infobox at Human is floating to the right for me in Google Chrome 65.0.3325.181 with MonoBook. And it has a border your screenshot is missing. I see the same as you at https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Human?useskin=monobook&safemode=1. safemode=1 omits loading site-specific JavaScript and CSS so it appears your browser is not loading it correctly, specifically infobox CSS from MediaWiki:Common.css. Try to clear your cache. Does it happen if you log out? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:45, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Clearing my cache and viewing the page while logged out both resolved this problem. Thank you. Is this a situation that could arise again for other editors, or is it outside of wikipedia's control? Tazerdadog (talk) 17:33, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Later revisions menu in diffs?

File:Later-revisions-screenshot.jpg

What is the "later revisions" menu supposed to do? If I'm at this diff page and select "7 days forward" from the "later revisions" menu, the page refreshes, but I'm left at the same diff URL. The "former revisions" menu works as I expect, taking me back that many versions or amount of time. Is this broken, or am I just not grokking how it's supposed to work? I'm sure this is some optional feature I turned on at some point, but I don't remember which feature it was. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:30, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Looks like revisionjumper to me. – Srdjan m (talk) 14:33, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Excluding unprintworthy redirects from search bar autocomplete?

Not sure where I got the impression that this should already be the case, but apparently it is not so. The idea is that Unprintworthy redirects (or at least Redirects from incorrect names) should not appear as autocomplete suggestions when a user types in the search bar. This is because while these redirects are useful for redirecting users who type in the query to the correct article, they are confusing as suggestions to the general user. Discussions from 2012 and 2013 don't seem to indicate consensus. Has there been more recent discussions on this? Should this be filed as a bug? --Paul_012 (talk) 23:04, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Page move and Page delete links missing

I am finding the menu items to do a move of the current page, and to delete the current page, missing from the page menu. Nor are they under any other menu or sub-menu. I assume that some change has broken some script I have in my js or css page. I would like advice on this point. Has anyone else experienced such an issue? I am editing from Firefox 59.0.1. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 20:31, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

The page menu is made by MoreMenu at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. I had the same issue 3 weeks ago. It was fixed by clearing all website data in Firefox. It wasn't enough to use Ctrl+F5 or clear cached web content. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:54, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

@DESiegel: Did this possibly happen 3 weeks ago, and you just didn't notice until now? I ask because as PrimeHunter pointed out, they and one other had the same issue around the same time. I wonder if this was an isolated event (Firefox update, perhaps), or if it is a recurring bug. I've never heard of this issue until it was reported on March 6, and only trivial changes have been made to the script over the past year or so. — MusikAnimal ^talk 23:43, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

No, I know I deleted pages just a few days ago. However, today I was editing on a machine other than my usual desktop. Tonight I am back at my usual machine and all is as it sho9uld be. I will probably bne on the other machine tomorrow or soon, and I will try clearing the cache and possibly updating Firefox then. Thanks, PrimeHunter, MusikAnimal. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 01:08, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

UILANGCODE

I don't know how to display code name of user language on Special:Preferences, such as {{UILANGCODE}} #1 in Translatewiki.net. I find a previous talk page about it in Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive AU#Magic Word for My Preferences Language. But it isn't the answer I am looking for.

My question is, for example, if "template:abcdef" had some subpages (e.g. "/ar" or "/zh") as below, what value should I put in field "UILANGCODE"?

{{#ifexist: 
|{{Template:abcdef/{{UILANGCODE}}}}
|{{Template:abcdef/{{UILANGCODE}}}}
|{{Template:abcdef}}
}}

Could somebody help me about this? Thanks. --Garam (talk) 11:13, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

For what purpose? I don't think the English Wikipedia can do this in a practical way and we may not want it since we are not a multilingual wiki and generally don't want users to see different text except in the user interface. There are also possible cache and link table issues mentioned at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive AU#Magic Word for My Preferences Language. Commons made a system to do it at commons:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 11#MediaWiki:Lang. They created a bunch of subpages with language codes at commons:Special:PrefixIndex/MediaWiki:Lang. We would need consensus to do that here and I'm not sure the developers would like it. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:29, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

This basically, we don't want "content" displayed to readers in different languages - managing it from a vandalism prevention aspect alone would be hard. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:59, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter, Xaosflux: Ah, it is needed in other Wikimedia project, not English Wikipedia. :p Sometimes it may be used in Wikispecies or Meta-Wiki etc, if no language template is available, such as c:Template:Header in Commons. And I think, Commons's "lang" system is similar to wikt:ko:틀:어원/언어 이름 ("Template:Etymology/language name"). But it is not what I wanted. Umm, in other words, we don't have magic words covering all project? Thanks --Garam (talk) 16:17, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

The point of my question is, what can I do, as per species:Wikispecies:Distinguished author? --Garam (talk) 16:21, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

You wasted both our and your own time by concealing it's not about the wiki you posted the question to. The edit notice for this page says "Where did you encounter the problem?". Wikispecies already has the same system I mentioned at Commons: species:Special:PrefixIndex/MediaWiki:Lang. So you can just write {{int:Lang}} to get the language code. I don't know whether they have a policy about what to use it for. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:47, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Oh, I'm sorry. I misunderstand the meaning of your comments. That is what I'm looking for. Thanks a lot! --Garam (talk) 17:43, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Getting a bot to run of WMF servers

After a long period of sleep I wanted to reactivate my bot for Teahouse archival notification (see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Tigraan-testbot for details) to get it run on WMF servers as a cron job. However, the documentation to getting a bot run on the servers is quite hard to decipher. If someone could give me a step-by-step guide (either here or on my TP) it would be nice. (I already have the source code I want to run, and it would probably pass BRFA easily since it is just a refactoring of the previously-approved task, but I do not have any account on the WMF servers or OAuth key or whatever else is needed to technically run the thing). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 20:57, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi thank you for asking. This should hopefully be relatively easy. https://tools.wmflabs.org/admin/ says

1. Create an LDAP account (you must have an LDAP account to access the Toolforge project) https://toolsadmin.wikimedia.org/register/

2. Add a public SSH key (you will need this to access Toolforge servers using SSH) https://toolsadmin.wikimedia.org/profile/settings/ssh-keys

3. Request access to the Toolforge project (Join us!) https://toolsadmin.wikimedia.org/tools/membership/apply

4. Create a new Tool https://toolsadmin.wikimedia.org/tools/create/

Once you are in the system via your username, use 'become toolname' to log in under the tool's account, 'jsub script' to submit your job to the cluster queue. wikitech:Help:Toolforge/Grid#Submitting_simple_one-off_jobs_using_'jsub'.

Use #wikimedia-cloud ^connect to ask for help on live chat. Gryllida (talk) 02:14, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Gryllida. I just requested toolforge access. I cannot ssh into gerrit.wikimedia.org right now (access denied even though I am pretty sure of my SSH footwork) but this could be because I do not have the credentials yet. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 18:36, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Tigraan gerrit is a code review tool for mediawiki developers you do not need to log in there. Try logging in to login.tools.wmflabs.org instead using a username that is all lowercase. I see your username is in the system as "id tigraan" returns me "uid=19061(tigraan) gid=500(wikidev) groups=500(wikidev)" so I am not sure of its status but at least it is there. --Gryllida (talk) 22:33, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I think you need to wait for step 3 to finish as I am in a user group called 'project-tools' which you are not. Perhaps give it several hours or days but it should be a quick process I think. --Gryllida (talk) 22:35, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

OK, I was misled by the Git instructions that referred to a different server. On login.tools.wmflabs.org it works fine. I could submit a couple of jobs to the grid from the "muninnbot" project. I still have quite a way to go (Pywikibot modules won't import, and I still need to see how to log in under the bot account from Toolforge), but I am past the stuck point. Many thanks. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 19:25, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

You're welcome. --Gryllida (talk) 20:38, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Resolved

Tech News: 2018-12

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

Problems

• On March 12 early morning UTC, the number of 503 error messages increased due to an issue on esams datacenter. It has been fixed. [36]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 March. It will be on all wikis from 22 March (calendar).

Meetings

• There is no Editing team meeting this week.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• From April 4, the autopatrol status of edits will only be accessible in the Recent Changes database table, so only for 30 days. [37][38]
• In-Context Help and Onboarding is a new project, aiming to improve retention of new wiki editors. The goal is to give them short tutorials and other training experiences based on their activity. Collaboration team is expecting feedback and comments on the project talk page, especially from people working with newcomers.

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

15:03, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

No mention of edit summary pings being deployed...? Are they live now or what? Thought that'd go into tech news issue. --Gryllida (talk) 22:39, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

It was mentioned last week, see #Tech News: 2018-11 above. Anomie⚔ 00:42, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Oh, thanks, I think I missed that issue. Sorry. Thanks again. :-) Gryllida (talk) 00:48, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Gryllida, I sometime miss things from Tech News as well, so I sometimes thing about a "Previously in Tech News" section on any new issue... :D (And thank you for the reply, Anomie!) Trizek (WMF) (talk) 15:28, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Great thanks. :) (Please do not comment the last line as it shows which person delivered the message.) Gryllida (talk) 17:52, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

The line is appended by MediaWiki:Massmessage-hidden-comment with source: <!-- Message sent by User:$1@$2 using the list at $3 -->. It's designed to be a hidden comment as the message name says. I see no good reason to unhide it here. The post already says: "Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot". PrimeHunter (talk) 18:33, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I'll include it in my own message for others' reference, then. Here it is: "Message sent by User:Trizek (WMF)@metawiki using the list at https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_message_delivery/Targets/Tech_ambassadors&oldid=17845447". Maybe someone finds it helpful - at least to know why I pinged Trizek when writing my message. --Gryllida (talk) 20:40, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

The problem with hiding bot edits in watchlist

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T11790

There's an option to hide bots edits from your watchlist in your preferences, and I believe it's on by default. It makes sense; approved bots pretty much always make uncontroversial changes mostly involving maintenance tasks, so you don't want your watchlist to clutter up with those.

But let's imagine a scenario where user A watchlists article P, and user B comes along, adds a maintenance template (like {{refimprove}}) to the article without the |date= parameter. And in subsequent edits (or even in the same edit), B also makes some pretty controversial changes. Now MaintenanceBot notices the missing date parameter and adds it.

Problem is, anyone who checks their watchlist after MaintenanceBot made the most recent edit will not see any changes to article P, and user B will (at least for a while) get away with their controversial changes.

One solution is to show the last human edit made since the page was viewed by the watcher, disregarding the most recent edit if it was made by a bot. This seems ideal, but it might be technically hard to implement without breaking something: the rollback button can no longer be displayed on only specific pages on your watchlist.

Another solution is to show bot edits where a human also made changes before the bot edit and after the watcher last saw the page. This is obviously less-than-ideal, but at least it draws attention. Smtchahal (talk) 04:13, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Welcome to the 9th+ year of people wanting phab:T11790 to happen @Smtchahal:. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:15, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Wasn't aware of that, guess I should've looked first, thanks! Smtchahal (talk) 04:22, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

This only applies if people are grouping recent changes by page, but not otherwise? --Gryllida (talk) 04:36, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@Gryllida: This applies to your watchlist, I don't know about recent changes. Smtchahal (talk) 05:05, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Gryllida: It applies if "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent" is disabled at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist. Disabled is the default. It's mentioned at Help:Watchlist#Options with a reference to phab:T11790. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:49, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Enabled this option for myself in case someone makes two edits both of which are worth looking at. Didn't know if it before, I was assuming watchlist already shows all changes!! Thanks. --Gryllida (talk) 20:45, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

The bot-edit-hiding option is not on by default. Graham87 09:54, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

JavaScript exploit at fawiki

Paraphrased from wikitech-l and a couple of other posts: On 14 March 2018, cryptocurrency mining software was discovered on fawiki. It was removed and the user responsible globally locked soon after. It appears (from here) that fawiki was configured so that anyone with the template editor right could also edit the MediaWiki namespace, including fa:MediaWiki:Common.js. Any website (particularly those with adverts) could attack users browsing with scripting enabled, and at enwiki, a compromised admin account could attack individuals or everyone with js exploits. Johnuniq (talk) 04:07, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

It is interesting why that revision was fully suppressed after that? Ruslik_Zero 18:33, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

For WP:BEANS reasons mostly I presume. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:01, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

This kind of exploit has been possible in MediaWiki for over a decade. Discussions to solve this exploit start again every year or so, but typically the same solutions are proposed as in previous discussions, and the same arguments for and against the solutions are rehashed each time. --Deskana (talk) 11:26, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Yeah this is nothing new that it is possible, but it is one of the more atrocious occurrences of it having actually been exploited by a 'trusted' user (possibly boosted by the crypto hype making people more aware of the seriousness of such incidents). We've been discussing ways to fix this hole without pissing off users for several years. As I've stated many times before, if we were to have started MediaWiki in the late 2000s, early 2010s, then this whole feature would have never existed and neither would user scripts. But since it does, it will take many many years to get rid of it. Some day... either it will be abused so terribly that we have to shut it down completely, or we find a solution that works and piss off some people :) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:16, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

I am not sure that it would not be a solution in search of a problem - this is incident actually proved that it is impossible to insert any malicious code in the MediaWiki namespace scripts. Ruslik_Zero 20:02, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

TheDJ, mediawiki without user scripts would be difficult to use, no? How do you think that would be implemented? Experienced editors would perhaps have to rely on desktop apps instead of using the web site. There is just so many routine tasks which need to be customized by the user that I do not know how that ecosystem would even work. For instance I started reviewing drafts recently and I find I often need to mark things and add comments ('wonderful professor(biased, rephrase or remove)' kind of thing inline). If not for user scripts then doing this would become rather laborious and time consuming. Gryllida (talk) 02:20, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

JavaScript is wonderful but it can produce problems. Paraphrased from wikimedia-l, a recent snafu resulted in JavaScript from Facebook being used for a certain central banner. The result was that Facebook received data about who viewed any page displaying the banner (no click required). The banner was only displayed for IPs, so only they were affected, and only for a short time. Johnuniq (talk) 06:07, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I didn't say "without Javascript". I said without user scripts and site scripts. We would likely only have (global) gadgets. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:26, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

That could leave users without ability to write scripts for themselves and instantly see how they work which in my view would be demotivating. Gryllida (talk) 21:32, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Named reference not recognised

I edited the page European Union–South Korea Free Trade Agreement to add a reference named PolletFort2011, which I invoked from different parts of the article using the ref name="..." syntax. Other than where it is defined, it is invoked from two places in exactly the same way, but one of them produces the error message Cite error: The named reference PolletFort2011 was invoked but never defined (see the help page). Purging the cache for the page did not help. Is there anything obvious that I am missing? --Joshua Issac (talk) 21:24, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

@Joshua Issac: Fixed it. It seems that PolletFort2011 is different from PolletFort2011" with a trailing double quote. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:34, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. --Joshua Issac (talk) 23:42, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Archiving community Good Article reassessments

Hi all. I used to work on community Good Article reassessments area years ago and have recently returned. Old community reassessments are archived by Veblenbot. When I was involved I would have to manually update the category listing to open up the next archive. However I am unable to do so now. CBM (talk · contribs) gave control of the GAR archiving function of Veblenbot to Ruhrfisch, who is no longer able to maintain it (see User talk:Ruhrfisch#WP:GAR needs category list updating.). I found two relevant discussions at the Bot noticeboard (Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 8#New operator needed for VeblenBot and PeerReviewBot and Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 10#User:VeblenBot) The last good article reassessment that was successfully archived was in April 2015 (Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Archive 59).

This is obviously a long term problem that may affect other processes (peer review has been mentioned in a few threads). Is it possible to archive these reviews in a different way that doesn't require the manual updating of a bot? @GamerPro64, BlueMoonset, and Geometry guy: as editors familiar with the problem. AIRcorn (talk) 02:17, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I originally took over Veblenbot thinking it would be for a short time, and I could hand it over to someone who knew how to run and maintain it far better than I. No one has ever come forward to take over the bot and I am not able to maintain it now. Sorry, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 13:13, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Will try Bot requests as no response here. Please ping me if you need me back here as I will take this off my watchlist. New thread Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 76#GAR archiving. AIRcorn (talk) 23:44, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

[SOLVED] "invoke" does not work (parserfunction)

Yum. Hungry?

Hi ya'all!

On my own mediawiki wiki - I added:

wfLoadExtension( 'ParserFunctions' ); to localsettings

And yet template:red which coding is here:

<span style="color: Red;">{{{1}}}</span>

Still looks like this:

{{{1}}} {{#invoke:documentation|main|_content={{ {{#invoke:documentation|contentTitle}}}}}}

why?

I will give you cookies if you answer.

(please)

Infinitepeace (talk) 11:44, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

UPDATE The page just needed to be refreshed, now the template looks like this:

<red>{{{1}}}</red>

I maybe able to eat my own warm moist cookies!! Infinitepeace (talk) 11:49, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

[SOLVED] solved these cookies are fucking awesome. Infinitepeace (talk) 11:51, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

@Infinitepeace: I'm glad you were able to solve your issue. If you have MediaWiki troubles in the future, you might get more assistance if you post to mw:Project:Support desk instead, which is a MediaWiki-specific forum. — This, that and the other (talk) 01:47, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Any way to display how many pages were in a certain category over a period of time?

Is there a way to show the number of pages in a certain category at a certain time or does that require a tool to record this information beforehand? Specifically, I am under the impression that the amount of pages in Category:Good article nominees awaiting review climbed after WP:ACTRIAL ended (from ~300 last week to 400+ a week later) but I have no idea whether that's correct. Regards SoWhy 12:52, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

This historical information is not tracked as far as I remember. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:55, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

The Internet Archive at https://archive.org/ sometimes has snapshots of a category page showing the member count at the time. But they only have six snapshots of https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Category:Good_article_nominees_awaiting_review and the most recent is from July 2016. At Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist you can disable "Hide categorization of pages". If you add Category:Good article nominees awaiting review to your wathclist then you can see pages being added and removed up to 30 days back. You may want to do this in an account which only watches that page. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:26, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Googles cache often has a single snapshot. Search for site:https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Category:Good_article_nominees_awaiting_review, click the green triangle after the url and select "Cached". It currently shows 4 Mar 2018 23:35:11 GMT and says "The following 200 pages are in this category, out of approximately 393 total". PrimeHunter (talk) 16:30, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Interesting tip with the watchlist. If this information is apparently saved for 30 days, do you have any idea where the software caches it? I doubt the software checks all revisions in the last 30 days to determine which contain additions or removals of the category. Regards SoWhy 19:13, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

You are right it doesn't check old revisions when a watchlist is viewed. Apart from inefficency it would be unreliable when time dependent features like templates are involved. I don't know the details but guess it's stored in a table associated with the category when MediaWiki first registers the category has been added or removed. mw:Manual:CategoryMembershipChanges and https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/1808/ is about the feature. It's disabled by default in MediaWiki but enabled in Wikimedia wikis by setting wgRCWatchCategoryMembership to true in https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:50, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

It's added to the recentchanges table, along with rows for edits, log entries, Wikidata changes, and so on. The watchlist works by looking for entries in recentchanges that match pages in your watchlist. Anomie⚔ 20:58, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't know that. I thought it would be too slow to examine all recent changes to generate a watchlist, so I incorrectly guessed that each page on the users watchlist was looked up in a table just for that page to see whether it has recent changes. That could also be slow for a huge watchlist. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:16, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

@Anomie and PrimeHunter: Thanks to both of you! That is really useful to know. It let's you query stats quite nicely which means you can also create some charts for category usage over time (at least over 30 days). Sounds like something that might be a useful tool to have... Regards SoWhy 14:43, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Re mw:Manual:CategoryMembershipChanges Would be be useful to show page additions and removals from a category in its history tab? Gryllida (talk) 20:54, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

@Gryllida: The point of the history tab on category pages is to show changes made to that page, not to the category. Considering there are some categories which have hundreds of changes daily (like CAT:CSD), that history would soon be unreadable otherwise. Plus, the changes are stored in the recent changes table only (i.e. for 30 days), so what you suggest would require saving those changes permanently, which requires a change to the software. Feel free to use Phabricator to suggest such a feature. Regards SoWhy 06:44, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions

Maybe I've missed it, but this category doesn't seem to be populating as of late. Is there some specific process that should be populating it, but isn't? Home Lander (talk) 22:33, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

It's automatically populated by {{AFC submission/draft}} and {{AFC submission/declined}} when they register a page hasn't been edited for 6 months. The templates look OK. Maybe somebody has just emptied the category recently. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:05, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Is this one of the workflows that relies on Joe's Null Bot (talk · contribs) to purge the pages from time to time? Better ping @Joe Decker: in case there's a problem. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:51, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Category watch says Shadowowl has removed several old drafts from Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions today, tagging them for speedy deletion so they move to Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as abandoned drafts or AfC submissions. @Shadowowl: Do you find them in Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions and empty the category regularly, or do you find them at User:MusikBot/StaleDrafts/Report or elsewhere? It may take a day or more for time-dependent categories to populate automatically. If editors go through User:MusikBot/StaleDrafts/Report daily then it's possible the software never or rarely gets time to display them in Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:38, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I daily take a look at User:MusikBot/StaleDrafts/Report, and nominate the abandoned drafts for G13 that do not have a chance to be accepted when submitted. Regards, -- » Shadowowl | talk 11:40, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I guess Home Lander and others just have to also use User:MusikBot/StaleDrafts/Report if they want part of the action. Nothing wrong here. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:46, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I will check in with the Null Bot logs later today and report back. --joe decker^talk 17:09, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

FWIW, Null Bot reports poking 2203 G13 drafts (about the expected number) concluding at 0503 UTC today, so I suspect that folks are just getting to the expired ones before Null Bot does. --joe decker^talk 17:17, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Typefaces supported in Wikipedia

Hi. How can I find a list of all fonts supported by the Wikipedia code? Leefeni de Karik (talk) 18:15, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

@Leefeni de Karik: for the most part, this is not a wikipedia side issue, it is a browser issue. Can you be more specific about what you want to do? — xaosflux ^Talk 19:14, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

See User:Xaosflux/Sandbox35 for some font examples. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:16, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

A font name is just passed to the user's browser which may or may not be able to display it, and may fall back to another font. See MOS:FONTFAMILY. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:18, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

This is very helpful, thanks. I was looking for this more in general terms, but I was specifically looking for a Gaelic type. Leefeni de Karik (talk) 19:29, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

@Leefeni de Karik: please keep in mind, that for language displays, the "font" may not be what causes you an issue, but the lettering and support for it (see Gaelic_type#In_Unicode) (also by the browser). — xaosflux ^Talk 20:50, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: There are many open source Gaelic fonts imitating the Gaelic type, I believe Unicode only includes separately more peculiar symbols. I can't find anyone supported by my own computer, so I shouldn't presume one to be supported by the average machine. Thanks anyway! Leefeni de Karik (talk) 21:08, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Internal links appearing in washed out blue on mobile site

I don't know how long this has been going on as I always switch to the desktop version on my phone, but I've just noticed that on the mobile site (en.m.wiki) the internal links that appear in dark blue on the desktop site, here appear in washed out blue just like interwiki and external links. I hope this isn't a new feature, I like being able to tell where the link leads at a glance. 93.136.0.248 (talk) 07:55, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

External links normally have an icon after them. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:25, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Interwiki links don't and they have the same color now on functionality has been lost. E.g. this and this look the same now. 93.136.0.248 (talk) 15:21, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi 93.136.0.248

1. I didn't know there was CSS for this for logged out users. How are you doing this right now?

2. There is a mobile friendly timeless skin, work is underway to make the others become mobile friendly too. However only logged in contributors are able to alter their skin preferences, and if you don't want to make an account you may wish to wait for the Vector skin updates to be finished and deployed.

3. Try adding

/* Let's color links based on destination - added by Gryllida */ 
#mw-content-text a:not(.external):not(.extiw){color:rgb(50,50,150);}

to your Special:MyPage/common.css (also available to logged in contributors) to color local links in darker blue than the normal links. If you don't want to create an account, you may wish to find a means for your web browser to support custom CSS - something that I could help you with if I know what mobile web browser you are using. --Gryllida (talk) 21:26, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello! for reference, we have planned a better visual change for these links. Goal is to have a differentiator that is accessible so that users with colorblindness can also use this feature. feel free to add feedback here on the phabricator https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T190549 Npangarkar (WMF) (talk) 21:17, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Display a message in a template only to user with a certain user-group?

Is it possible to have part of a template, or some of the code of a template appear only to autoconfirmed users (or higher), but not to non-autopatrolled users? I'm thinking whether a message could be built into the AfC decline template indicating to a user that it is optional and giving them the option to move it themselves, but only have it appear if they actually have the user-rights to do the move. (assuming ACTRIAL is approved moving forward). — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 05:59, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

The following series of *-show classes in our site .css:

• sysop-show
• templateeditor-show
• extendedmover-show
• patroller-show
• autoconfirmed-show
• user-show

Use them in a span and div to wrap content that is only intended to be seen by editors in that group. For example, I see "deleted contribs" and "block user" links in {{Checkuser}} because I am in group=sysop, but their <span class="sysop-show">...</span> wrapper would make them invisible for you. DMacks (talk) 06:21, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Just in case that was not clear: this masks some text, but you cannot rely on it to protect secret information. Masking elements by .css still sends the text to the browser, which can be read by "inspect source code" and similar tools. For the purpose asked (customizing a template message depending on userrights) it is fine, but for others it might not be. Example of a poor use: <span class="sysop-show">Please oversight the last edit on the Donald Trump page, it gives his phone number +66-666-666 in the clear</span> (WP:OVERSIGHT must not be requested on public forums). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:51, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Indeed @Tigraan:. I can see the sysop elements without inspecting the source code merely by setting custom CSS. Of course, the sysop buttons don't actually do anything for me. Might come in useful writing user scripts for admins though... ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 10:13, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I think you mean autoconfirmed. --Izno (talk) 12:03, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I did... I accidentally write the wrong one altogether too often... — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 21:08, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

There is also anonymous-show to show only to logged out users, FYI. We don't appear to have one for autopatrolled users, but we could create one (though I agree that here I think you want autoconfirmed-show, not autopatrolled :) — MusikAnimal ^talk 19:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Is anonymous-show the antonym of user-show? I can't think of a simple general way to do the *-hide effect (show for users not in a certain group). DMacks (talk) 19:52, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, in MediaWiki:Group-user.css .anonymous-show is hidden, and hence elements with that CSS class are only shown to logged out users. You could do the same for the other user groups. E.g. add .patroller-hide {display: none !important} to MediaWiki:Group-patroller.css. Indeed the !important is important :) so that it overrides other display properties — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:17, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

The !important annotation is a cop-out, it's almost always better to use a more specific selector instead. The problem is this: what happens when you want to override an !important declaration? There isn't a !more-important annotation, there are no levels of importance. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:55, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Certainly, !important is bad in practice, but here it would seem these rules should never be overridden, no? Of course feel free to update the -show rules if you want. They all currently use !important (the system invented by someone other than yours truly :) Also forgot to mention there's .unconfirmed-show. Probably should document these somewhere, since they are scattered across a bunch of CSS files — MusikAnimal ^talk 15:57, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

@DMacks: Classes may be negated, but only at style sheet level, not on the individual elements. So a rule like

.templateeditor-show { ... }

would match template editors, including admins; but a rule like

.templateeditor-show:not(.sysop-show) { ... }

would match template editors, but not those who have the templateeditor right as part of the admin bundle. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:55, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Contribs log not showing

If I go to my contribs log, I see nothing. How strange. Server hiccup, right? It still shows in Lupin's popups. talk to !dave 14:41, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/My name is not dave and Special:Log/My name is not dave look normal to me. Does it work if you log out or clear your cache? PrimeHunter (talk) 15:29, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi PrimeHunter, I should have done that, but I guess I was spooked by the most unusual change. It is stemmed from me enabling the 'Show only likely problem edits (and hide probably good edits)' in my preferences section. Despite that option being in the 'recent changes' tab, such option operates for one's contributions as well, which I seriously do not get. I'm slightly disappointed by that because it could be very useful for RC patrol, if it wasn't hardcoded to operate on contributions. @DannyH (WMF): can you comment? Cheers. talk to !dave 16:10, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Edit summary ping

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T189819

Hi, Is there any way to turn off the edit summary ping ? .... I'm now being pinged when editors revert to my revision (ie here, I don't want to be notified when an editor reverts to my last revision ..... Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 19:30, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Known issue since the new deploy. Should be fixed soon. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:56, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Ah right thanks TheDJ, –Davey2010^Talk 22:15, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

This fix should have gone out this week, we're looking into what may have caused this specific type of revert edit summary. (If it is a bot or other custom tool, updating the link from [[User:Foobar]] to [[:User:Foobar]] will not trigger the notification.) — Trevor Bolliger, WMF Product Manager (t) 22:45, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi, So far I've not had any notifications (and I believe my revisions have been reverted too) so I'm assuming this is all now fixed, Apologies for the rage above I thought this was some sort of new notification thing and as one can probably imagine I wasn't best pleased, Anyway all fixed by the looks of it so thanks all. –Davey2010^Talk 16:25, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Watchlist maximum

I notice that the maximum number of items on a watchlist is 1000, which does not show me 30 days of articles. I know this was discussed in August 2017. Is there a plan to fix this issue? --Jax 0677 (talk) 14:49, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

And here I was annoyed that my watchlist only covers ~30 hours. I assume it's a performance thing, specifically for jerks like me who have too many pages to comb through. At any rate, you can get more coverage if you sort by namespace; the limit applies for each. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:44, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Procedurally generated articles?

Ok. This is a little silly. In the past hour we've had:

• Discount Log Off The Bench And In The Game With One Of These Major Hobbs Pants Guidelines Official Boutique
• Cheap Ralph Lauren Shorts Ideas To Construct Your Business Enterprise Or Manufacturer Official Boutique
• 2018 Have Some Concerns About Adidas Energy Boost Get Replies Right Here Sale Shop

And those are just the ones that I've seen personally. For those without access, these are just pure garbage, barely intelligible as advertising, and are either procedurally generated by throwaway accounts or such poor translations that they may as well be. Is there an obvious edit filter that would catch these, dear tech savvy people? GMG^talk 13:23, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

These sound like the subject lines of emails that GMail automatically diverts to my spambox. Is GMail open-source? If so, we can harvest its spam filtration code. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:51, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Don't think gmail is open source. See SpamAssassin, cat, wiki filter. Gryllida (talk) 21:08, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

We need your feedback to improve Lua functions

Hello,

If you’re regularly using Lua modules, creating and improving some of them, we need your feedback!

The Wikidata development team would like to provide more Lua functions, in order to improve the experience of people who write Lua scripts to reuse Wikidata's data on the Wikimedia projects. Our goals are to help harmonizing the existing modules across the Wikimedia projects, to make coding in Lua easier for the communities, and to improve the performance of the modules.

We would like to know more about your habits, your needs, and what could help you. We have a few questions for you on this page.

Thanks a lot for your help, Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 08:20, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

RexxS and Thayts are editors I know of who have written a significant amount of code to access Wikidata; they might like to comment. Mike Peel would also be interested. Modules I'm aware of are Module:Convert/wikidata (my code) + Module:Wd + Module:Wikidata + Module:WikidataIB. A module has to do a lot of mucking around to access data and a ton of defensive programming should be used to avoid crashing with the effectively unstructured Wikidata. Thanks for the opportunity to comment which I might do later. Johnuniq (talk) 09:12, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

@Lea Lacroix (WMDE) and Johnuniq: Thanks, I've given my input on the linked page. Thayts ••• 21:24, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Custom watchlists script not working

Does not read in from User:Gryllida/watchlists, needs a debug. --Gryllida (talk) 21:05, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

@Gryllida: What browser (e.g. Chrome) and skin (Vector, Monobook, etc.) are you using? I can take a look at this tonight — MusikAnimal ^talk 21:20, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Bah, I see you've already stated this at User talk:MusikAnimal/customWatchlists. Let's continue discussing there. Honestly this script needs to be rewritten from scratch. It is awfully written =p Surprisingly you're the first to say it doesn't work! — MusikAnimal ^talk 21:27, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Sortable link disables navbar links?

I believe that the following used to work

A	B	C
1	2	3
0	4	2

but now, if you try to click on the edit link, it toggles the sorting instead. is there a way to make the edit link work again? the regular wikilinks appear to work. Frietjes (talk) 15:44, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

It's caused by {{navbar}} adding tooltips to the link text with <abbr title="Discuss this template">t</abbr> instead of just t. There is no current option to omit the tooltips but it could be requested at Template talk:Navbar. Below is an unstable hack to remove the tooltip on t with {{replace}} in the call. I don't recommend this method but it shows that it works to remove tooltips. I don't know whether the problem can be solved without removing tooltips. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:26, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

A	B	C
1	2	3
0	4	2

PrimeHunter, thank you for figuring out the problem. I have implemented something here for Module:Sports table. Frietjes (talk) 17:20, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

These are required for accessibility. Without them, the v, t and e links would be cryptic; hence, each one is enclosed in an abbr element in order to semantically mark them up as abbreviations. The title="..." attributes provide the expansion of those abbreviations; browsers need not display them as tooltips but most do. Screen-reader software uses these attributes in order to speak out the expansion when requested (Graham87 (talk · contribs) please confirm). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:21, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, this is true, but there is no way for a screen reader user to know that there is a tooltip behind the link ... so it's almost useless. Graham87 09:43, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

No Watchlist notice for RfAs

I just read a question at the Teahouse about RfA notices on the Watchlist, which made me realise that two RfA discussions were going on but my watchlist hasn't displayed the notice. I know I saw the notice about Lourdes' RfA, which was the most recent one before these two, so something seems to have happened in between. I have not added any code to my skin.css and I have not unchecked "Display watchlist notices" in my Preferences. What else may I have done to stop the notices from showing up? I'm not a frequent contributor to RfAs, but I do like to get the notifications! --bonadea contributions talk 15:02, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

The problem may be User:Bonadea/common.css where you have set the display of .mw-special-Watchlist to none. Mduvekot (talk) 15:39, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Hmm. That's the code that removes the rollback link from my watchlist - I've had it there for several years and it has not caused this problem before, but I'll remove it and see what happens. --bonadea contributions talk 16:11, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

No, that did not help. --bonadea contributions talk 16:38, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Go to the gadgets section of your preferences, and scroll down to the watchlist settings. Do you have "Display watchlist notices" checked? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:04, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes. --bonadea contributions talk 17:52, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Does it work in safemode? — xaosflux ^Talk 17:57, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I thought I replied to this already - no, I'm afraid not. --bonadea contributions talk 18:36, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

You may have clicked dismiss at the message. If your browser has a cookie for wiki.riteme.site with a name starting with hidewatchlistmessage then delete it. The method depends on your browser. See http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-delete-cookies-in-chrome-firefox-safari-and-ie/. You can also try another browser or computer first. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, yes, I could have done that - I did not have that cookie though (and the problem exists both in Firefox for MacOSX and Safari for iOS.)

I very much appreciate you all taking the time to come up with suggestions, and like a good Swede I am now rather ashamed of none of the suggestions working, so far... --bonadea contributions talk 20:17, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

1) Do you have the default language "en - English" at Special:Preferences? 2) If not then do you see the message in en? 3) Do you see it at MediaWiki:Watchlist-messages? 4) Do you see it here:

5) Or here:

PrimeHunter (talk) 21:05, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! That was the problem right there. (I changed it to British English a few weeks ago, but there's no particular reason for me to keep that setting, not when it hides watchlist notices.) Thanks again! --bonadea contributions talk 21:12, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

@Bonadea: I copied the message to en-gb, but strongly discourage you from using en-gb here - you could expect a lot of little things to go wrong. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:17, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Also updated phab:T122712 as another example of why missing en-xx messages on en. projects should fall back to /en instead of mediawiki defaults. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:25, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Ah, en-gb has caused problems with many features for many users. Preferences viewed with en-gb displays MediaWiki:Preferences-summary/en-gb with a mild note: Your language setting of "British English" means that you may miss some local customisations. The page history shows I tried to say a stronger "not recommended" and then "poorly supported", but it was opposed. Last time I checked the only advantage with en-gb was around 10 small spelling changes in the entire interface. For this you lose (or "may miss" as it was changed to) a lot of messages customized for the English Wikipedia with links to relevant policies, guidelines, processes, help pages and so on, and various other things like watchlist messages. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:32, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: MediaWiki:Preferences-summary/en-ca is "stronger" - through an edit request out there for a week and see if you get any feedback - it certainly causes issues. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:53, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I use en-gb too, that's what I was taught at school. --Gryllida 01:43, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Let's just do away with en-gb and en-ca as language setting options. Anybody using these can be switched over to en, by one of the devs running a table maintenance update. I'd like to see a valid objection to this proposal. Honestly, the existence of these two options causes more trouble than they're worth, considering that they make zero difference to article text. How many times do words like "elevator", "faucet" or "sidewalk" come up in MediaWiki interface pages? When they do, who fails to understand them? Does it matter that "color" is spelled without a U, or how "tomato" is pronounced? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:08, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Does it matter? Does it matter??!!? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:18, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

if the contents of Category:Varieties_of_English_templates, or the talk pages of aluminium, caesium, or sulfur are any indication, people sure seem to think so Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:19, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm not talking about articles. I'm talking about system interface messages, such as MediaWiki:Abusefilter-edit-builder-vars-file-bits-per-channel. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:33, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I was having this issue too, changing en-GB to en fixed it for me too. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 15:24, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I support removal of en-gb and en-ca as interface language options at the English Wikipedia. In 2014 at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 130#Changing the interface texts for users who have Wikipedia configured for British English I wrote:

Here is a possibly complete summary of differences between en and en-gb: uncategorized/uncategorised, [former difference omitted], "$1"/‘$1’ (different quote characters in many messages), color/colour, canceled/cancelled, vandalized/vandalised, Kilometers/Kilometres, meters/metres, digitize/digitise, program/programme, License/Licence. So for a few British spellings and different quotation marks, users with en-gb lose hundreds of customized messages at the English Wikipedia.

The number of en-gb messages has grown a little since but is still insignificant. I haven't checked whether it's just more examples of the above differences or there are new differences. For an example of what en-gb loses, see our customized MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext versus the MediaWiki default at MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext/en-gb, when trying to edit a protected page. It can be seen in action at en versus en-gb. Admins can log out to see the difference. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:21, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Please note, removal of these (locally deleting) will not resolve the issue unless phab:T122712 or something like it is done to define the fall-back language from en-gb to en for example. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:49, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Apparently that phab request has been refused...I suggest we more strongly warn editors to just not use en-xx variants. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:26, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Do we have the technical ability to completely disable the en-gb and en-ca options for editors so that there is only one "option"? If we have the technical ability to make that change, perhaps a discussion could form a consensus around doing so. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:54, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Doesn't look like it. We could put a banner message up for them that says "hey you - go change back to /en if you want this to go away! :D — xaosflux ^Talk 15:13, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

• we could do some hacky workarounds like translude the main mediawiki message in all the variants - but I think it is more trouble then it is worth and may not work with some of the modules and certain types of messages. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:13, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Transclusion doesn't work properly when the message has parameters. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 158#Odd looking block message for my attempts. There are also messages where wikitext is not parsed and all transclusion is impossible. If we want a local solution to synchronize messages without software changes then we may need a bot with admin rights to automatically find and copy all changes from en to en-gb and en-ca. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:39, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Ugg yuck. I'd rather just strongly discourage this use. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:48, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Proposed deletion template request

I made this request a couple of weeks ago at Template talk:Proposed deletion#Proposed deletions needing attention but I guess there is no one watching the page who can help.

Can we have a means of removing pages from Category:Proposed deletions needing attention. I mean without the nuclear option of removing the prod template. Sometimes the new article is on a different subject to the deleted article (eg different person with same name) so the prod is actually valid. There is no obvious way for administrators to process the category when that happens. SpinningSpark 22:47, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

If there were any, then users could use it to effectively shut down the usefulness of this feature. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:21, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't see why anyone would want to do that maliciously. By policy, anybody, including the creator, can permanently kill a proposed deletion just by removing the template, and without giving a reason. That gets it out of the category for sure. Actually leaving it in the category increases the chances the prod will be declined. SpinningSpark 17:06, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Why does the ill template only allow red links?

Why does this only link to other langs if the article is red linked on WP? As an example, Zoe Cramond does not work, I've tried everything possible. Zoe Cramond only links to en, however if I spell it wrong Zoe Cramod it does the appropriate linking. Is this only available if an article doesn't exist? This seems silly as there are other reasons to use ill for existing articles (outside of article space.) CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 20:29, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

The intent was that they would become regular blue links when the English language article was created, the idea being that a foreign language article was better than none at all. You can use the |preserve= option to get the effect you want, ie {{ill|Zoe Cramond|es|preserve=1}} generates Zoe Cramond Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:43, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

You can also just make a wikilink yourself with [[:es:Zoe Cramond]] producing es:Zoe Cramond. See Help:Interlanguage links#Inline links. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:55, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Porting foreign Lua modules not licensed under CC-BY-SA

I would like to use an ordered-set implementation for Module:Infobox gene over on zh.wp, which is already using a naive dict-based set implementation for merging labels from both "en" and "zh". There is a library available under Artistic License 2.0 on GitHub, but I am not sure whether I can just introduce the library here by copying the entire file over and declaring a license different from CC-BY-SA. Can I have a compatible license declared for in a Lua Module separate from the rest of the site? I would imagine the case is similar to media files... --Artoria2e5 contrib 06:54, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea about the licensing but do you really need OrderedSet? If you point me to a discussion somewhere (module talk?) explaining what the problem is I might be able to offer some thoughts. I guess the issue is aliasSet in zh:Module:Infobox gene but I don't want to take the time to work out what is actually needed. Johnuniq (talk) 07:18, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Artistic License 2.0 has a very flexible re-licensing clause, which permits re-licensing of derivatives as CC-BY-SA. Ruslik_Zero 20:40, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Puget

I moved the French town of Puget (a remote French commune) to Puget, Vaucluse in order to create a disamguation page. Now I can't seem to find the French place through my page moves. Any help is appreciated.– Gilliam (talk) 04:57, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

There's been some wonky things happening with page moves lately. I believe a thread was here recently about it. I undeleted the revisions on Puget, Vaucluse and restored the content. Strangely enough, I gave myself an edit conflict when doing so. Killiondude (talk) 05:05, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done Thanks!– Gilliam (talk) 05:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Edit summary length

The space allowed for an edit summary is far too big. See, for example, this one where the spammer has put all his text in the edit summary and nothing in the article. As well as or instead of shortening the summary length it would be possible really clever and put out a warning if the edit summary is a lot longer than the actual edit. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 17:17, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

RHaworth - You may want to participate in Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Turn_off_extended_edit_summaries, Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 17:24, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I see that that discussion seems to have been closed with a firm intention to reduce the size to 500 bytes. So no further comments needed here. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 17:44, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Lead section [edit] link sliced by the horizontal line

(archived without resolution) –  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  17:21, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

When we go to Preferences → Gadgets and scroll down to Appearance, the first checkbox is "Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page". When this is checked, and when the "Move section [edit] links to the right side of the screen" preference is also checked, the edit link appears low enough to be sliced by the horizontal line that underscores the page title. This is unlike all the other edit links for later sections of an article. Those edit links are above the horizontal line that underscores section titles. Is it possible to raise the lead-section edit link so it appears above the line like the other edit links? (Note that if the "Move section [edit] links to the right side of the screen" preference is not checked, then the [edit] link comes right after the title and is positioned correctly above the horizontal line.) I use Windows 10 and have checked this in IE v11 and Chrome v65.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  15:33, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

It looks normal for me in Win10 and Chrome (vector skin). What skin do you use? Ruslik_Zero 16:25, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

I use the vector skin, too.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  17:13, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

(You should consider upgrading to Edge from IE11.) --Izno (talk) 16:48, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

I have Edge. eeyechhhh!  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  17:13, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

PS I just checked it with Edge v41 and have the same problem. PS left by  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  17:22, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

PPS I just checked it with Firefox v57 – same problem. PPS added by  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  17:44, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

What screen resolution do you use? Ruslik_Zero 00:04, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

My Windows 10 setting is 1280 x 1024, and in IE and Chrome the text size is set to "largest" with 100% zoom. In Edge and Firefox the text size is set to normal.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  12:30, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

It may be an interference from another gadget or script. Try to disable them one by one. Ruslik_Zero 18:26, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

If you have more than a couple, then a binary search pattern is faster: disable half, and see if it's still a problem. If it's still broken, then disable half of what's left and check again. If it isn't, then put half of the removed ones back in, and check those. You may also want to see mw:Help:Locating broken scripts. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:16, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Ruslik_Zero and Whatamidoing (WMF)! The gadget that makes the difference is under "Appearance" called "Vector classic typography (use only sans-serif in Vector skin)". I started using that when titles and section headers were changed by the software. I find that when it's not checked, not only is the lead section edit link high enough to clear the horizontal line, all the section header edit links appear visibly higher than when it's checked, as well. This looks like something that can and should be fixed by the software, doesn't it?  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  15:15, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

You may want to talk to Edokter, who is the writer of MediaWiki:Gadget-VectorClassic.css and MediaWiki:Gadget-righteditlinks.css, and also the most recent editor of MediaWiki:Gadget-edittop.js. --Pipetricker (talk) 20:03, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

You may not wish to ask users who retired in 2016. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 20:18, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I just noticed that. --Pipetricker (talk) 20:22, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Edokter is an awesome person and editor. I too was unaware he'd retired. Seems to be doing much better and might return, though I doubt if this little charming challenge is enough to make that happen. Thank you, Pipetricker, for responding. I'd make an edit request to one or more of those MW gadget pages, but I haven't a clue what to ask.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  01:28, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Retrieval of revision timestamps

Given a revision number (ID) is it possible to get the date&time stamp of the revision? This would be for Template:Copyvio-revdel, see my post on its talk page just now. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 14:00, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Template:Correct title on titles longer than 256 bytes

Is there a way to make it so we don't have to reproduce the entire article title atop the page? Right now the only way to make the template work right is to use the full title, and while this works fine for forbidden character titles it leads to articles like When the Pawn... or The Boy Bands Have Won having an unnecessarily gigantic mass of bold text at the top; accordingly, having a way to say (as a rough draft) something like "The correct article title is explained below, it exists at this title due to technical restrictions" instead of hitting readers in the face with a huge wall of text would be helpful. Before floating any kind of proposal, first I wanted to see if it was technically feasible to do so. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:32, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

In that case, I just removed the hatnote as unecessary; you can always put a custom {{hatnote}} at the top with your text or create another template that gives whatever text you want, dunno what you mean by "only way to make the template work right is to use the full title". Per COMMONNAME and WP:CONCISE in any case where there is a really long title we'd likely use a shorter title regardless of technical restrictions, so it's unecessary IMHO Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:04, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

As in if you don't have a parameter for the correct title it has some ugly red text, like what you see on the template page itself. I could see this being an issue on chemical articles too, though I haven't take a look around those yet. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:11, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

well it'd be easy to change {{correct title}} to show whatever text you want when no parameters are passed in; but I don't see the necessity. I do work on chemical articles and I don't think there's any with a problem; there's always a shorter name that people use. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:16, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

OK, makes sense. I'll try a couple different things and see if I generate anything useful. The value of that template is it categorizes pages which run into technical limits in the software, but I suppose it may not be necessary if the shorter titles are just as valid. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:29, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Help with conditional expressions

How could I use the {{#ifexist}} expression but preclude results that are redirect pages? Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 00:31, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

See Module:Redirect#IsRedirect. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:38, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 01:03, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

As a special thank you PrimeHunter, I have a follow on request. I hadn't worked with modules unless they were embedded by others in an interface that I use, until today. I'm very novice and though I got it working, I am curious to know some "sure enough" better ways. If it wouldn't be too much trouble, will you look at the coding I came up with at {{Self-reference tool}} and if it's awful, maybe edit one expression properly and I'll come around to the better way. And appreciate it very much. Of course, others are as welcome, if willing. If I managed to do it right, It'd be great to know cause I called myself trying. Thank you again.--John Cline (talk) 05:32, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I haven't examined your code but I found template interfaces to the module at {{Ifexist not redirect}} and {{Ifexist check redirect}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:03, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes that is very useful as well. I certainly appreciate your help.--John Cline (talk) 10:27, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Bot read / write "reasonable limits"?

That's more out of curiosity than anything else, but WP:PERFORMANCE does not list even orders of magnitude for maximum edits or maximum API read requests for bots. I understand the whole point of the page is that you should not worry about it until someone from IT complains, but how is one supposed to see that it's plain something could cause drastic problems? I mean, I guess anything that increases the daily number of edits or API calls by less than 0.01% is probably OK, and more than 10% is probably not-OK-unless-there-is-a-good-reason, but I am pulling those numbers out of thin air, so...

(In my case, I was thinking about an extension of Muninnbot's functionality that would require up to 10k API revision history pulls per day, thought it was a huge number, checked the high-cost SineBot and saw it makes >200 edits/day and presumably a much larger number of API read calls as it patrols recent changes, and decided not to worry; but hard numbers would be good.) Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 14:31, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

mw:API:Etiquette has a tad more info, but no hard numbers, says that as long as you're doing is sequentially you'll definitely be fine and that If you are finding that reading via the API rather than directly reading from databases is impeding your client's performance, consider whether to put it into Wikimedia's Toolforge.; I assume API calls do not load servers more than say viewing the revision history manually and the number of times the revision history of various pages is viewed per day would be in the millions, so the bot would be negligible. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:44, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

@Tigraan: some guidance on dynamic adjustments related to load can be found in: mw:Manual:Maxlag_parameter. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:44, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

The API etiquette and maxlag pages have some good advice, so +1 to that. Generally speaking I'll say two things...firstly: when in doubt, be conservative. If you think you're doing too much and your workload can afford to be slower, do so. And secondly: if your bot/script/etc is causing issues, we'll shut it down pretty quick (which is why a good user agent is always a good thing). FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY ^[u+1F602] 17:19, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

RFC 8369 support

When will MediaWiki add support for Unicode IPV6 addresses? Lojbanist ^{remove cattle from stage} 17:57, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-13

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

Changes later this week

• Some of the interface icons and text sizes will change slightly, as part of the updates for improved accessibility and consistency. These icons are used in many features, including Notifications, Recent Changes, Beta Features, Visual Editor, 2017 Wikitext Editor, Code Editor, and others. While editor toolbars, dialogs, and menus will appear slightly bigger; elements on special pages will be slightly smaller. Functionality will not change. [39] [40]
• The deprecated #toc and #toctitle CSS ids have been removed. If your wiki was still using these for fake Tables of Content (ToC) then these might lose their styling. They can be replaced with .toc and .toctitle classes where appropriate. [41]
• TemplateStyles will be deployed to the Wikivoyages on 28 March 2018. [42]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 March. It will be on all wikis from 29 March (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 27 March at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be one hour earlier than usual on 28 March at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• From 9 April, the sort order of categories will be distorted for a short time. We are upgrading versions of an internationalisation library (ICU) and using a maintenance script to update existing database entries. This will last anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on wiki size. Read more details. [43]
• Changes are coming to search for Serbian projects. Cyrillic and Latin variants of a word and different grammatical forms of a word will be able to find each other. Read more on MediaWiki in Serbian or English.

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

20:03, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

So we still need to remove/fix these 1,453: /[ |]id=["']?toc["' \n]?/ — Dispenser 00:24, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

It's not that bad. Most of those are on tables which already have class="wikitable" applied. Only those without this class would need any changes. (By the way, tables on Wikipedia are a real mess. There is a sizeable minority of tables that lack class="wikitable" which should have it applied, or even worse, are using ugly and/or inaccessible custom styling.) — This, that and the other (talk) 10:05, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

(ec)@Dispenser: not necessarily. id=toc is valid and allowed for fake ToCs (for now), it just doesn't provide styling any longer. For styling you need to add class="toc" (if not already present). However when casually browsing similar results before we made that change, I concluded that the majority of the uses of id=toc is actually either incorrect copy paste work, predates templates and should really be replaced with one of the Category:Wikipedia table of contents templates, or was just decorative use of the color scheme (so not a Toc) for which there is class="toccolours". For instance, many of the search results show that id=toc is used on a table, but the proper ToC hasn't been a table for years and the styling for those tables was already broken before this change (broken margins and cellpadding). These should be replaced with our ToC templates, so that they can more easily be maintained, instead of be specific to a page. So there's quite a bit of manual evaluation and labor in that set unfortunately. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:13, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Oh and indeed a lot of them should be wikitable instead indeed. wikitable (earlier known as prettytable) was introduced after some of those tables were authored. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:15, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Will the default MediaWiki-generated TOC still have the id="toc" attribute? If not, templates like {{skip to talk}} will fail. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:16, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

@Redrose64: yes they will. There is also no plan to change that. We just want to avoid using IDs for styling and this particular set of styles had been double defined (for both #toc and .toc) since 2005. It was time to finish the migration :) I note this particular change has been live since last thursday. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:40, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

/* Misuse of the Table of Contents ID */
#toc {
  outline: #ff4500 dashed 0.6em;
}
div#toc.toc[class="toc"], /* MW TOC */
div#toc.toc[class="toc plainlinks hlist"] { /* Template:Compact ToC */
  outline: none;
}

For anyone wanting to work on this, add the above code to Special:Mypage/common.css to add red outlines when id="toc" is misused. — Dispenser 02:22, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

• I am sceptical that "the sort order of categories will be distorted for a short time" and "will last anywhere from a few hours to a few days" - last time, it took several weeks to shake out completely. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:16, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
  • The ticket refers to 6 days as the expected period for en.wp. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:35, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Edits to MediaWiki namespace take an unusually long time to save

This started happening maybe a few months ago. Whenever I make an edit to any MediaWiki namespace page, however simple it may be, it takes 5+ seconds to save, sometimes much longer. I thought this was a slow edit filter, but I've noticed the same problem on other wikis. I found phab:T158084 but that was filed over a year ago, when for me the issue popped up late 2017 or early 2018. Has anyone else noticed this? — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:27, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Any way to get rid of "Your edit has been saved" box? (grrrrrrr)

As the subject header says, with an extra order of grrrr. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 00:29, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Try this in your CSS:

.postedit { display: none; }

PrimeHunter (talk) 10:25, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Some custom "undo" text on English Wikipedia has line breaks in the middle of words

Please see Phabricator T191167. Apparently English Wikipedia has chosen to have a line break within the word "changes" in the "This edit can be undone..." box! If this is so, can this choice be reviewed? Thank you: Noyster (talk), 11:26, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T191167

@TheDJ: ^ --Izno (talk) 13:53, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

For reference, the change here is this one, performed by TheDJ five days ago. Fixing it would be as simple as reverting the change, though the result CSS is technically malformed, since break-word isn't a valid value for the word-break style. To fix it for now on a per-user basis, you can put .fmbox > tbody > tr > .mbox-text { word-break:normal !important} on an new line in your personal CSS page. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:04, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Sub-optimal splitting of word

Notice from the above screenshot how Global contributions has been split into "G" on one line and "lobal contributions" on the other. It's not a good technique for certain. Can it be corrected? Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 14:50, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Oh gawd, looks like this [44] definitely needs reversion, Writ Keeper willing to do it? Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:54, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I didn't revert it fully; TheDJ made the change to keep long, unspaced edit summaries from breaking the box in page histories like this one (the red box at the top). But I did change it to fmbox to fmbox-warning; this should at least keep the change from breaking edit notices, while keeping the fix for the warning ones. I'll look at getting it more specific, but for now, that should relieve most of the problems, at least with edit notices and the like. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:04, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

"Related articles"

Who can tell me how the "related articles" section of a page in mobile view is populated? Is this something editors can control/influence, or is the "related articles" list generated by some algorithm? I'm seeing some really strange things listed there that seem to have no obvious relevance to the article in question. As an example I'm looking at the Tom (TV series) article, which has United States Senate election in South Carolina, 2014 and Payload (EP) as related articles. 28bytes (talk) 15:18, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

@28bytes: See mediawikiwiki:Help:Extension:RelatedArticles#Can I manually add articles?. --Izno (talk) 15:47, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

The above link shows how to change it. By default the feature uses mw:Help:CirrusSearch#Morelike. morelike:Tom (TV series) currently has the chosen pages in the top-8. The result sometimes seems random. I guess one of the factors for United States Senate election in South Carolina, 2014 is that the name Graham occurs many times like in Tom (TV series). PrimeHunter (talk) 16:14, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

@Izno and PrimeHunter: Thanks both, that's just the info I was looking for. 28bytes (talk) 16:25, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Is there an actual limit to the length of a customized sig? Big user wishes for big sig.

Hello all. Bishzilla, always hospitable, has attempted to add a link to her pocket to her sig, as a standing invitation to little users to request residence there. The proposed sig looks like this, bishzilla _ROARR!! pocket, and like this in edit mode: [[User:Bishzilla|<b style="font-family:comic sans ms;font-size:125%;color:#0FF">''bishzilla''</b>]] [[User talk:Bishzilla|<i style="color:#E0E;font-size:175%;"><small><small><small>_ROA</small>R</small>R!</small>!</i>]] <b>[[User:Bishzilla/Self-requested pocketings|<span style="color:red;">pocket</span>]]</b> Is that a problem? Too big? I ask because when she attempted to paste it into her preferences, there didn't seem to be room for it — it was cut off. For comparison, this is her current sig: bishzilla _ROARR!!. I can't find any explicit limitation in Wikipedia:Signatures#Customizing your signature — just a general implication that "a lot of code" is undesirable. So, does the version with the pocket have too much code? Or is it a problem of space in the Preferences signature field, which can possibly be overcome? Before you opine that even Bishzilla's regular sig is objectionably tacky and garish and takes up too much space, I'll mention that she never, or hardly ever, posts on article talkpages or in Wikipedia space. Normally only on the user talkpages of friends, who have never objected to her current sig, and would hopefully be pleased with the "pocket" version too. Bishonen | talk 17:41, 23 March 2018 (UTC).

The maximum length is 255 characters, way too short for such a big user. Maybe the developers could do something clever to provide a 'zilla-only exception! Incidentally, Anomalocaris is good at finding shorter methods of achieving the same effect (or nearly the same effect...I noticed recently that my contribs link is no longer there). Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 18:02, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Create a user subpage with the desired sig, say User:Bishzilla/sig.js, and in the preferences field write {{subst:User:Bishzilla/sig.js}}. When you sign it will substitute the page as it is at that time—which means that if others can edit the page, they can change the sig. however putting it in a user .js file means that only admins can edit it. (Disclaimer: I have not fully tested all of this). BethNaught (talk) 19:00, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

The maximum length in the field is 255 characters. You can still create a subpage such as User:Bishzilla/Sig and then add {{subst:User:Bishzilla/Sig}} and have as long a signature length as you want. However, for the most part, you're requested to remain inside or around the 255 character length signature. Given that this is a joke account, it might be a reasonable WP:IAR spot. That said, you should not use <font> per WP:SIG#Font tags. --Izno (talk) 19:03, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Bishzilla pocket no joke. Many cakes, winter sports, good company. Even cat flap! Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 19:13, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

It work — see? Thank you very much clever little users. bishzilla _ROARR!! pocket 21:33, 23 March 2018 (UTC).

WP:SIGLEN says: "If substitution of templates or another page is used, please be careful to verify that your signature does not violate the 255-character length limit when the templates are expanded, as the software will not do this automatically". And WP:SIG#NT says: "Substitution must not be used to circumvent the normal restrictions on signature content, including the use of images, obnoxious markup, or excessive length." PrimeHunter (talk) 22:07, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Little Hunter consider Bishzilla's new "hospitality sig" contain images, obnoxious markup or excessive length? Really? Please consider point made above: sig will very rarely be used outside userspace. bishzilla _ROARR!! pocket 22:21, 23 March 2018 (UTC).

As it stands, it's 317 bytes - 62 too many. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:00, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

{{User:Bishzilla/sig.js}} - works without the subst, which avoids cluttering the edit window. I think IAR can then be invoked. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 14:52, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Transclusion is a bad idea because then many signatures could be changed after the fact.

Also, SIGLEN is a guideline, not a policy, and in this case the breach is reasonable. For a humorous (bite me, Bishzilla) account editing mostly in userspace, I think people are overreacting to this. In any case, VPT is not a proper venue. If someone thinks Bishzilla is being too naughty and has to be stopped, take it to a proper noticeboard. BethNaught (talk) 15:02, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

WP:SIG#NT uses the phrase forbidden for transclusions. I do agree that WP:IAR to subst the signature is pretty reasonable for a joke account. --Izno (talk) 15:28, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

WP:SIG#NT also says "Substitution must not be used to circumvent the normal restrictions on signature content, including ... excessive length." --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:00, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

(I dislike customized signatures, they make it difficult to ping contributors in edit summaries and make messages more difficult to read.) Gryllida (talk) 21:27, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Hence uptight little Bishonen not customize hers. But for Bishzilla, is part of her... style. [Gathers confidence. Didactically:] Stylish style! bishzilla _ROARR!! pocket 21:46, 25 March 2018 (UTC).

All of us could put that to the personal page. Just a thought. Gryllida (talk) 00:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps this can be done without transcluding. To begin with, you could save 24 characters by redirecting User:Bishzilla/P to User:Bishzilla/Self-requested pocketings, and using the redirect in the signature. Also, perhaps you can cut a few characters by using a font with a shorter name than "comic sans ms". bd2412 T 13:58, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Thinking even further outside the box, you could register a backup account under shorter unregistered username like User:Bza, and then redirect that to User:Bishzilla (and User talk:Bza to User talk:Bishzilla), and save 18 more characters. bd2412 T 14:03, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you little user. Will consider it. Well, not the backup account — sounds very confusing — have enough socks as is! And "Bza" not very pretty name. But will consider the rest. bishzilla _ROARR!! pocket 15:17, 2 April 2018 (UTC).

If User:Bishzilla were to make a post and sign it as if it were by User:Bza, that would be WP:SIGFORGE whether or not Bza was registered. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-14

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

Recent changes

• Template Wizard script available for testing. It will show up as a puzzle-piece icon in the 2010 WikiEditor. You can click on the icon to insert a template.
• The Wikimedia Communities and Contributors survey is to be sent to participants around the world this week. If you are volunteer developer, and have contributed code to any pieces of MediaWiki, gadgets, or tools, please take 20 to 40 minutes to complete the survey.

Problems

• MediaWiki deployment train has been rolled back to version 1.31.0-wmf.26 on week 13, due to a multiplication of lost connections during MySQL queries. Some of the recent changes may have not been applied. They will be deployed next week. [45][46][47]
• The Notifications badge icons were overlapping other links. This has been fixed. [48]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 April. It will be on all wikis from 5 April (calendar).
• User subpages ending in .json will now be protected from other people editing them, like .js and .css pages already are. If you have a tool that stores static configuration, you can now use a subpage like User:Example/mygadget.json to do this without concerns. [49]
• Tidy will be replaced by RemexHtml on the next set of wikis. On April 4, we plan to turn off Tidy on all Wikiquotes (except frwikiquote) and Wikimedia chapters and user groups wikis. 23 wikis will have Tidy replaced this time. [50][51][52]
• AbuseFilter will transition to use OOUI starting April 4, and the rule editor will also be changed to a CodeEditor (ACE) similar to what is found on user JavaScript pages. The move to OOUI will continue over the next few weeks. [53] [54]
• In Special:Preferences, the preference "Reload the watchlist automatically whenever a filter is changed (JavaScript required)" is now only visible for users who have opt-out the New Filters for the Watchlist. [55]
• You can see names of individual abuse filters in Special:AbuseLog. Now if the name of an abuse filter contains some wikisyntax like links, it will not change to a link when displayed. [56]
• You can now search through filter patterns at Special:AbuseFilter. You may specify either a plain string or a regular expression and the matching filters will show a snippet of their pattern with the match highlighted. [57]

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 3 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 4 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• If you're using, creating or improving Lua modules, you can give your feedback to help harmonizing the modules across wikis and add more useful functions.
• On April 11th, we plan to turn off Tidy on all wikis with less than 50 entries in all high priority linter categories. About 60 wikis will have Tidy replaced. Currently about 600 wikis have had Tidy replaced and we have another 300 wikis to go. We plan to finish this transition from Tidy to RemexHtml by end of June 2018. Please follow T175706 to monitor progress of Tidy replacement. [58][59]

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

19:28, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

For anyone looking at the "less than 50 entries" item and wondering if this wiki is on the list: Nope. Special:LintErrors estimates that the English Wikipedia still has more than 5,000,000 high-priority errors to clean up. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:08, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Please take a moment to talk with SSastry in the future. The current path is likely to be cleaning up the remaining main space pages, which number around 9.7k (still a lot), and then turning Remex on. --Izno (talk) 20:22, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you think I should talk to him about. You and I agree that this wiki still has more than fifty pages that contain high-priority errors, right? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:47, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): estimates that the English Wikipedia still has more than 5,000,000 high-priority errors to clean up. <- You are implying incorrectly that we need to work through 5M errors. We instead need to work through 10k errors. --Izno (talk) 20:49, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. That's not what I meant, but I see that it would be very reasonable to interpret it that way.

While we have everyone else's attention: If you don't like visibly broken pages, please go to Wikipedia talk:Linter and ask how you can help. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:41, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Lua error in Module:Hatnote_list at line 179

This is fyi only. Works now, so no feedback needed if you're happy with it:

Lua error in Module:Hatnote_list at line 179: attempt to concatenate field 'extratext' (a nil value).

script backtrace
Script error: Lua error in Module:Hatnote_list at line 179: attempt to concatenate field 'extratext' (a nil value). Backtrace: Module:Hatnote_list:179: in function "forSeeTableToString" Module:Other_uses:53: ? (tail call): ? mw.lua:511: ? [C]: ?

What I did: went to the Wikipedia search box on an article page, and typed in 'Galliass' (sans quotes) and hit Return.
Not repeatable, when I tried the same thing again. Mathglot (talk) 05:31, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Mathglot apologies, made an error when making a change, not repeatable because I fixed it Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:43, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Galobtter Love it when a problem goes away because it's real and has been fixed, rather than finding it was just some random event. Thanks! Mathglot (talk) 06:13, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

infobox

Okay so this is just weird. im seeing the text {{subst:tfm|Infobox Muslim leader]} on the top of the page for Visakha. It appears to be attached to the infobox too, so i cant remove it without removing the infobox. Any idea how to fix this? I havent been able to find anything apparent in the source code that would cause this. Wikiman5676 (talk) 06:27, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

scratch that. it appears to be glitch on the infobox for religoius infoboxes in general. im seeing it on the Anathapindika and Gautama Buddha page as well. Any1 know where to go to resolve this? I dont deal with too much internal wiki stuff. Wikiman5676 (talk) 06:30, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I put this on TeaHouse earlier, this may be a better place to put it. Wikiman5676 (talk) 06:38, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Fixed; there was a broken attempt at substituting this template (wrong bracket at the end of the template). @Pppery: FYI. — This, that and the other (talk) 06:53, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Can these two subtemplates be merged?

I am not quite sure on how to do this myself of asking here. Is it possible to merge {{Infobox religious building/color}} and {{Infobox deity/color}} somehow? Capankajsmilyo (talk) 11:41, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Alert bell & Notice screen symbols.

Is my eyesight deceiving me? or have the alert bell & notice screen symbols been enlarged. GoodDay (talk) 01:01, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

If the developers for Wikipedia could settle on a design and stop changing them, that'd be great... -- Alex^TW 02:27, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

It was likely part of Unify and refine WikimediaUI icon set. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:40, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, it was. Thanks, JJMC89 for pointing to the right task. We've carefully defined icon guidelines that resulted in the overhauled icon set. It does enable us to consistently use the icons across products and also improve them to be better understandable in various Wikimedia communities. Among those changes was for example better right-to-left languages support while we tried to keep the changes as little disruptive as possible. — Volker E. (WMF) (talk) 06:13, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

One day you'll settle on a set. -- Alex^TW 07:17, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Ah thanks JJMC89 - I came here to ask why my thanks box now resembles an Ipad but seems I got my answer lol, Just a suggestion but could we please stick to one bell and one box and simply one notification system ? (When I say one notification system I mean no updates to it). –Davey2010^Talk 17:38, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Structured Data on Commons Newsletter - Spring 2018

Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter and contribute to the next issue. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!

Community updates

• Our dedicated IRC channel: wikimedia-commons-sd ^webchat
• Several Commons community members are working on ways to integrate Wikidata in Wikimedia Commons. While this is not full-fledged structured data yet, this work helps to prepare for future conversion of data, and helps to understand how Wikidata and Commons can work better together.
  • Thanks to Jarekt and other contributors, some Commons templates can now be filled via Wikidata: {{Creator}} (Phabricator) and {{Institution}} (Phabricator). Work is ongoing on the {{Artwork}} template (Phabricator).
  • Thanks to Mike Peel and others, Wikidata-powered infoboxes can now be added to Commons categories, with the template {{Wikidata Infobox}}. (Example)
  • Multichill is working on an experimental workflow to upload images to Commons via Wikidata (and using metadata from Wikidata). See a part of it here.

Things to do / input and feedback requests

• Join the community focus group!
• Do you want to help out translating messages about Structured Data on Commons from English to your own language? Sign up on the translators page.
• Contribute to the next newsletter.

Discussions held

• Conversation about licensing and copyright modeling.
• High-level discussion on ontology for Commons.
• Review first designs for multilingual captions.
• IRC office hour, 13 February

Events

• Wikimedia Conference, Berlin, 20-22 April (+ Learning Days 18-19 April): several sessions and workshops around Structured Commons
• EuropeanaTech Conference, Rotterdam, 15-16 May: several presentations + a full workshop day on Monday 14 May about Wikidata and Structured Commons
• Wikimedia Hackathon, Barcelona, 18-20 May: Structured Commons as a focus area.

Partners and allies

• We are still welcoming (more) staff from GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) to become part of our long-term focus group (phabricator task T174134). You will be kept in the loop of the project, and receive regular small surveys and requests for feedback. Get in touch with Sandra if you're interested - your input in helping to shape this project is highly valued!

Research

• The research about GLAM contributions to Wikimedia Commons is concluded. A blog post on the Wikimedia blog provides a summary, and you can read the full results on meta.wikimedia.org.

Development

• Prototypes will be available for Multilingual Captions soon.

Stay up to date!

• Follow the Structured Data on Commons project on Phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/34/
• Subscribe to this newsletter to receive it on a talk page of your own choice.
• Join the next IRC office hour and ask questions to the team! The date for next quarter will be announced soon.

-- Keegan (WMF) (talk)

Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery - 19:48, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Spontaneous undeleting?

I just CSD-tagged Anthony P. Sgro and Frank Ippolito while patrolling, and they were both deleted. Both were recreated with what seemed to me to be the same material, although I can't actually check. They were recreated within minutes. Is this just a coincidence or is there a technical problem here allowing people to recover deleted articles? Natureium (talk) 18:56, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

What is probably happening is that the editor has the article open in an editing window. An admin deletes the article and the editor then saves the edit and the article is recreated. ~ GB fan 19:08, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

That makes sense. I was just surprised that I saw it happen twice in a row. Natureium (talk) 19:14, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Hiding the latest revision

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T191472

I've come across some probably unintended behaviour with revision deletion. I don't really have the phabricatoor skills to deal with it. It's long been known that you can't revision-delete the latest revision text. An error is displayed: "Revision visibility could not be updated: Error hiding the item ...: This is the current revision. It cannot be hidden." I always thought the username and edit summary could be deleted, as was mentioned in our description of the tool.[60] If you try to delete them there is no error displayed, and they disappear from the page history. However they are both still visible if you look at the oldid= revision. I think they should probably be hidden from that place, but if not an error should be displayed. You can see an example of this here. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 10:02, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Just to make sure it wasn't the previous username and edit summary being shown (they were the same in the two edits in your example), I made a test at User:PrimeHunter3/sandbox where they were different. I got the same result as you reported. The page history and diff hide the username and edit summary. A permanent link [61] to the latest revision shows them: "PrimeHunter2" and "remove a link". The edit is hidden at Special:Contributions/PrimeHunter2. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:00, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

That is no longer showing, I wonder if it was caching somehow. I think I got it to reoccur on testwiki can you see that one? — xaosflux ^Talk 11:56, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I can currently see the username and edit summary on testwiki [62] (Ans, [[{{FULLPAGENAME}}]]) and the example [63] by zzuuzz (💤, empty). It has disappeared from my own example [64] (PrimeHunter2, remove a link) since my first post. uselang=qqx shows all three [65][66][67] use MediaWiki:Revision-info-current but it's currently only called with (rev-deleted-user) and (rev-deleted-comment) on my example. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:23, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I get the same results. I can no longer see PrimeHunter's example as I did before, so something weird has happened in that case. I'm using an incognito browser so it's not a client cache issue. Purging and null edits seem to make no difference. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 13:28, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

phab:T191472 created. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:11, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Ref error

Something in the page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tanzeel Akhtar is causing it to show up on Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting. I can't seem to locate the problem--Auric talk 18:24, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

It was fixed in this edit. ~ GB fan 19:10, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks!--Auric talk 22:30, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Assistance requested

If anyone who is available would take a look at the problem noted here Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Odd archivebox it would be appreciated. MarnetteD|Talk 23:10, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

List of parameters of an infobox

Is it possible to get a list of param of an infobox via template / module rather than listing it manually? Capankajsmilyo (talk) 16:17, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

@Capankajsmilyo: I'm not sure what you're trying to do. If you look at the template code it should have any supported parameters. If the template has a TemplateData section set up, there's a monthly report that will show all parameters used by instances of the template (including invalid/unsupported parameters). Here is that report for Infobox writer. Plantdrew (talk) 18:55, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I think the user is looking for the template wizard which is being worked on and is now in beta testing. --Izno (talk) 20:22, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Ok, let me try to clarify. I want such a thing for 3 templates. {{testcase table}}, {{Parameter names example}} and Module:Check for unknown parameters. They each require listing of all the parameters (mostly) and when template codes change without giving effect to them they become difficult to maintain. If it's possible to give them a default setting in which they auto populate all the parameters defined in a template and such a setting can be customised to suppress some the parameters instead of including all, that would be really helpful. Thanks Capankajsmilyo (talk) 02:03, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

New user script: SearchSuite

Provides some menu items on Wikipedia's search results page to modify search results:

• change formatting to single-spaced list items
• sort
• etc.

It's a bit cludgy, and I'd like to make it more efficient.

Suggestions are welcome. Please post comments to its workshop page (link in heading).     — The Transhumanist    10:08, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Transclusion in an indented collapsible template causing errors

Hey there! On my custom-made reviews page, where I showcase all my Did you know... and GA-class reviews, some errors, such as a "lint error" and other unspecified errors are brought up when I attempt to indent a collapsed table, which is holding a transclusion of my GA-Class reviews. This was discovered and brought up to me by Anomalocaris, when he discovered the errors on my page through Special:LintErrors/multiline-html-table-in-list and subsequently removed the indents. This was later discussed on his talk page, leading to me bringing this issue to the Village pump. I just wanted to ask a simple question; is it possible to transclude a GA Review and put it into anything that's collapsible (and collapsed by default), and indent it, without causing any problems? As noted on his talk page, I have seemed to have unconsciously done this correctly in the "Did you know... reviews" section, but the same process doesn't seem to work in the "Good article reviews" section. What seems to be the thing I'm doing wrong on one section and doing right in the other? – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 08:16, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@PhilipTerryGraham: the wikicode : is not for indentation (or rather, it was not intended for indentation, we simply abuse it for that purpose on talk pages). They actually generate list items. Tables are not supposed to fit inside list elements, and this behaviour will soon stop working (that's why it adds to linterrors.). Instead, you should use CSS. I have given an example on your page. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:39, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@TheDJ: I see! I saw what you did on the page, and recognise the changes made in the CSS style at the top of the wikitable. Thanks for educating me on this, I would definitely have never known otherwise! – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 08:47, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@TheDJ: You have solved the colon problem, but I believe PhilipTerryGraham's real issue is transcluding into a table something that does not belong in a table. Before and after your change, under the heading "Good article reviews", click on either "show" link, and "==GA Review==" displays just like that, but the equals signs are supposed to be wiki markup for headings. —Anomalocaris (talk) 09:37, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@Anomalocaris: I honestly don't mind that "==GA Review==". I understand why you'd want to draw attention to that, but it doesn't seem to be breaking anything, or at least not in a way that makes the page show up on some sort of "broken pages" list. All the problems I have been concerned about have been solved. The colon problem was the only problem I ever addressed, really. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 09:45, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

The solution is easy however. Section headers need to start at the beginning of the line. Also when you transclude them into another page, into table syntax. So you just move where the transclusion occurs. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:49, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Noted. Thanks for the help, again! – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 09:52, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@TheDJ: That was easy, why didn't I think of that? Thanks! —Anomalocaris (talk) 10:27, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Temporary maintenance holdings

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T132467

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T157670

Category:Temporary maintenance holdings - over 82,000 articles in this, and it's appearing for no reason in articles (see e.g. Darren Moore) - any idea why? GiantSnowman 13:32, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

There was a notice somewhere that there would be some technical maintenance that would affect categories, but I don't remember where that was posted. Chris857 (talk) 13:38, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Galobtter added the category to {{Tooltip}} when nominating it at RfD.[68]. I don't know why it was added but I have removed it. Maybe it was intended for noinclude tags. The template is used in 82689 pages. It will take time to propagate the edit and gradually clear the category. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:02, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

That might take months. On 17 February 2018, I noticed that these edits still hadn't propagated through to all transcluding pages. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:53, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

It varies a lot. 16,000 pages have already been removed. New tracking categories added automatically by MediaWiki can take years to populate. If the pages and any transcluded pages aren't edited to force an update then maybe they will never be parsed again and added to the new category. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:52, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Category:Temporary maintenance holdings is down to 197 pages and none of those I examined used {{Tooltip}}. The search incategory:"Temporary maintenance holdings" hastemplate:Tooltip is empty but when the issue is link table updates, I wouldn't trust the search by itself. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:31, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

PrimeHunter didn't add it myself, was from the subst of RfD (which is designed to work with templates); having the category every time was done in [69], I fixed it so that Module:RfD does the categorization in temporary maintanece holdings only when not transcluded, and removed that from Template:RfD Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:28, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Why don't block templates display in mobile view?

Hi all, anybody know why block templates like {{SockBlock}} don't display in mobile view? Seems like that would create a good deal of confusion for people who get blocked and have no idea what their next step is, and that could be why we get a lot of unblock requests sent through UTRS, which just wind up getting closed without resolution. Is this something that would have to be changed at the template level? Is this something the community prefers? Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 15:32, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Heya Cyphoidbomb. Many moons ago there was a decision to not show certain templates that are formatted for desktop on the mobile web. Not an ideal situation. Currently the Readers web team is focusing on getting more of these templates to work on mobile. Here's the big task for page issues templates. There's also work happening to make it so template creators/maintainers can style any template with custom CSS for better mobile support. This feature, TemplateStyles, is being deployed to a few wikis as we speak with English Wikipedia being eventually included. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 16:13, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@CKoerner (WMF): Thanks for the reply! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:22, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@Cyphoidbomb and CKoerner (WMF): - see this ticket that the Anti-Harassment Tools team is working on: phab:T165535. Patrick Earley (WMF) (talk) 16:26, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Template:Iron Chef Gauntlet 1

Whenever I add this navbox to an article that already contains other navboxes (refer to any article in the navbox), it always added a few trailing lines of whitespace. I can't figure out why that's happening. Erpert ^{blah, blah, blah...} 00:36, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

I have removed a line break from the template.[70] <noinclude> should usually be on the same line as the last transcluded code. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:41, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Also this edit. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:25, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. :)

Update to ICU Unicode library - category order problems are expected

English Wikipedia in particular, will take a few days. Possibly a week or a little more.

Starting on April 9th we'll migrate the servers running the MediaWiki application servers to a new release of the ICU Unicode library (International Components for Unicode) (from version 52 to 57). This unblocks some future work on upgrading the servers to a new Operating System release and will also allow the use of improved internationalisation in the future (as wikis will then be able to use features introduced by the new ICU release such as new collation definitions, and allows us to use a more recent version of Unicode in MediaWiki).

This migration will cause some unavoidable temporary user-visible impact: The sorting of some category pages will be distorted – all pages which have been updated with the new software version will use the new sorting while untouched pages still use the old sorting. As such, we need to run a maintenance script to update the sorting for old entries.

The distortions may last from a few hours (on medium-sized wikis), up to a day (on the largest wikis), and a few days on English Wikipedia. The start-time will depend upon when the migration script reaches each wiki.

This affects a number of large wikis (including eight out of the ten biggest Wikipedias). The detailed list and the task for the technical implementation is at phab:T189295. Thank you. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:07, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Why is there no sizediff in deletedcontributions/alldeletedrevisions?

I've finally managed to get access to deleted revisions via the API, but have now realised that one of the key bits of data that I'd like isn't there. Is there any reason that sizediff is in Special:Contributions and action=query&list=usercontribs but not in Special:DeletedContributions and action=query&list=alldeletedrevisions? It doesn't make much sense to me that the data is being calculated but then discarded when the contribs are deleted. It seems like I can extract it using action=compare&prop=diffsize but that means making one request per diff, rather than getting 500 in one query, as is possible from action=query&list=usercontribs. SmartSE (talk) 19:03, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

To what end would you be looking at that data? --Izno (talk) 20:26, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Analysing contribs of undisclosed paid editing sockfarms. SmartSE (talk) 20:27, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

To answer the question, it's probable that no one thought analyzing deleted contribs for sizediff would be needed. That seems like a reasonable need. --Izno (talk) 20:39, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes I realise it's a niche interest, especially as there are only ~2000 people who'd ever be able to see it. SmartSE (talk) 21:28, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I imagine it's at least partially because in the archive table, the ar_parent_id field (from which the size differences are calculated) is only filled in for pages deleted in MediaWiki versions 1.13 and later (which as far as I can tell would have been used on Wikipedia starting in early-to-mid 2008. Reconstructing this data would not be easy due to pages that have been deleted more than once and deleted revisions without revision ID numbers. The data does exist for later revisions; I don't think getting size differences out of it would be an easy task though. An easier way to find the size differences between each edit would be to undelete the affected pages, but that would leave its own paper trail. Graham87 09:33, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@Graham87: Ah ok thanks that makes sense. I thought it was odd, looking more closely at Special:Undelete, that it uses timestamps but now I know. Wouldn't it be possible to fill in all the values for pre 1.13 with NaN or similar though. Technically I could undelete them, query them and undelete, but that's very inelegant. I have got them out now using compare&prop=size and manually calculating the diff so I guess I'll have to live with that. SmartSE (talk) 20:17, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Script not working right

So I finally managed to get some free time this afternoon, and when I logged on, this script kept popping up errors. I know it is this one because the error code that comes up on every page load says this:

Javascript Error https://wiki.riteme.site/w/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%7Cmediawiki.legacy.wikibits&only=scripts&skin=monobook&version=1nv7gwr at line 52: Uncaught TypeError: fn is not a function

and this is the only script I have enabled that uses jQuery. How can I fix this, and what is the problem so I don't have this problem next time? Bardic Wizard (talk • Happy Easter!) 01:03, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

I get this problem on every computer I use, namely a Macbook running Safari, and an Acer Chromebook running Chrome. Bardic Wizard (talk • Happy Easter!) 01:08, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

I made some fixes for you. Some of those examples you used are VERY old, so that don't work any longer. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:29, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@Bardic Wizard: Also, I see you are trying to create reading list functionality. Note that there is a ticket for that in phab:, and that you can use the experimental reading list apis to achieve this, and have them synced with the mobile apps. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:12, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@TheDJ: Thanks! I like my reading list maker, and since it actually works, I am very thankful because this has been a problem for a while. Bardic Wizard (talk • Happy Easter!) 13:05, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

One quick problem: Now even when it has been successful adding the page, it comes up with a “request failed” notification. I have checked, and it actually is editing it, but I could see why anyone casually using this might think it didn’t work. Bardic Wizard (talk • Happy Easter!) 13:16, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@TheDJ: It works, thanks! Bardic Wizard (talk • Happy Easter!) 22:52, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Turn on mapframe? We’re ready if you are

See also: mw:Help:Extension:Kartographer § Getting started

In October 2017, English Wikipedia community members approved an RfC requesting implementation of mapframe—a feature that enables contributors to easily display dynamic maps within article pages. At the time, there was some question about whether technical support for the maps service would be available long term. I’m writing now to say that those questions have been answered, and a small team will be assigned for routine maps maintenance. So, assuming the community still wants mapframe on enwiki, we’re ready to turn it on in April. Here’s some background on where things currently stand.

Over the last few months, the Collaboration team has been working on a project called Map Improvements 2018, which will conclude at the end of June, 2018. The goals are twofold: 1) to ensure that Kartographer and the associated map systems are stable and can be easily maintained by the small team mentioned above; and 2) to address the winning 2017 Community Wishlist proposal Kartographer Improvements, fulfilling its two “main wishes” and as many of the other wishes as time allows. (The main wishes are T112948 “All map location names should be shown in the user's language”—a very challenging but fundamental upgrade; and T180907 “Add zoom level 19.”)

This list of approved tasks for the Map Improvements project shows the type of work that’s been prioritized. A lot of effort is going into getting the technology onto a stable footing. The new user-facing features being added come mostly from the Wishlist request and have been selected because they improve the usefulness of what one might call “locator” maps—maps that show location and basic geography—as opposed to more advanced annotation and interactive mapping features. (The philosophy behind that decision is explained on the project page, but the short version is that a more advanced service would require a lot of technical resources.)

Maps are a valuable form of visual data that can improve readers' understanding across a wide range of topics. Fifteen Wikipedias and all other wiki projects are using mapframe today to display maps on hundreds of thousands of pages. Unless we hear from you that the consensus on adding mapframe to English Wikipedia has changed since last year’s RfC, we plan to move forward in April 2018. This is a timeframe that, should any unexpected issues arise, will enable the Collaboration team to deal with those concerns before rolling off the project in July 2018. So, if you foresee any issues, let us hear from you. Otherwise, happy mapping! JMatazzoni (WMF) (talk) 20:14, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Some examples of what a mapframe looks like and what it can do (feel free to add to this list) --Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 14:15, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• sv:Västkustbanan: a map of Sweden's west coast rail line (right below the infobox)
• sv:Landshövding (Sverige)#Sveriges landshövdingar: a map of Sweden's provinces (län); when you click each province it shows you who its governor (landshövding) is
• sv:Visby garnison#Visby: a map with numbered pins indicating various points of interest
• sv:Attentatet i Stockholm 2017: the path driven by the truck used in the 2017 Stockholm attack

Support, I think. I need to double check the details of mapframe, but from what I've encountered, e.g. Stalbridge with {{OSM Location map}}, I think it'll be good. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 20:32, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

@Bellezzasolo: Wow, I had not seen {{OSM Location map}} before, that's a pretty impressive way to abuse <maplink> and <graph> to emulate what <mapframe> would give you natively (those interested in the details, look here). The result looks pretty similar; compare the map on Stalbridge that you mentioned with the examples I posted up above. If and when mapframe is deployed here on English Wikipedia, the {{OSM Location map}} template (or its uses) could probably be changed to use mapframe over time; the template has a lot of advanced features, most of which (not sure if all) are supported in mapframe too. However, I recommend using <mapframe> directly rather than through a template, because then people can visually edit the map (add markers etc) using VisualEditor. --Roan Kattouw (WMF) (talk) 14:16, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

@Roan Kattouw (WMF): I only encountered it by accident. Certainly, it has its limitations- a maximum of 21 marks being the most significant. I'd like to look at the potential for mapframe to be integrated into infoboxes in the future (like the current {{Location map}}, I think there's a lot of potential. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 16:14, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Well whadda you know? Ping User:Tigraan with whom I has a related discussion recently in response to a help desk question. Seems surely they'd be interested in this. GMG^talk 20:34, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea, I agree. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 07:39, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• • Yay, sounds good, thank you @JMatazzoni (WMF)! Mike Peel (talk) 17:23, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Support, I do not see any issues.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:16, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Support, I think having mapframe is an important step. Also, <mapframe> should support drawing the same way as <graph> - there are already very popular templates like {{OSM_Location_map}} that demonstrates similar idea - where article-related information is drawn on top of the map. The current <mapframe> doesn't allow nearly as much flexibility as what graph does, but the <graph> does not allow interactive scrolling/zooming of the map. --Yurik (talk) 23:27, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• Support and thanks for the hard work on this. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 21:36, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• Support waiting for it -- naveenpf (talk) 10:07, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Looks great. Thanks for the work! Sandstein 10:09, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support Looks interesting - would be interesting if polygon data could be stored on Wikidata - might be especially useful for organism distribution maps - and getting rid of many hard-to-maintain and hard-to-query categories like "organisms of country/area X" . Shyamal (talk) 10:39, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support - why not, while it doesn't screw up articles like some other tests did. L293D (☎ • ✎) 02:33, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support. I'm not fond of a lot of technical proposals from WMF, since they're sometimes not well thought out, but since this is already being used a good deal on a bunch of projects, it's obviously working well enough for them. Aside from the technical details, I can't imagine why not; zoomable and scrollable maps in articles are surely a good idea as long as we can get the technical stuff worked out. Nyttend (talk) 00:58, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Looks like we're good to go. Thanks for all your input. With the support I see here, we'll plan to release mapframe to English Wikipedia as soon as we've released T112948, which provides for the display of map labels in English instead of in the language of the territory mapped (as long as English labels are available in the underlying map data from OpenStreetMap). We expect to release that challenging but fundamental upgrade in the next few weeks, so an April release of mapframe looks to be on track. I'll keep you posted. If questions or issues arise in the meanwhile, please post them to the Map Improvements 2018 talk page. —JMatazzoni (WMF) (talk) 00:08, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Discussion/Replies to the above:

• @Shyamal: you can already place shared map data on Commons using Data namespace with .map, and use it from any wiki. Or use .tab for data tables. Works in mapframe, lua, etc.
• @Roan Kattouw (WMF): I agree that it would be nicer to be able to edit things visually, but I seriously doubt it will be possible to match everything <graph> can do on top of the leaflet map with a pure mapframe. I actually think it would be a good solution to allow graph to work on top of the mapframe, making it possible to draw arbitrary complex graphs with multpile data sources on top of a movable/zoomable map.
• @Bellezzasolo: I suspect the limitiation is due to the template itself, not the graph underneath it. The graph allows any number of marks - which is actually less limiting than what mapframe. Mapframe only allows basic geometric shapes and pushpins, not arbitrary imagese/complex data-driven drawings, etc.

--Yurik (talk) 00:32, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Problems with Ukrainian

Trade_route_from_the_Varangians_to_the_Greeks

In this article of a problem with Ukrainian. I have added Ukrainian, using a template of languages which were in article. The Ukrainian translation has to be obligatory: because the znachushchy percent of a route passes through Ukraine and the Ukrainian city of Kiev was the center of Kievan Rus'. Through Kiev Dnieper (waterway of a route) flows Bohdan Bondar (talk) 10:53, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what your problem is here. But I do see a red error message in the lead section, which has:

[Шлях із варягів у греки, Shlyakh iz varyahiv u hreky] Error: {{Langx}}: text has italic markup (help)

Please observe that help link, there is advice there. Documentation for the template is at Template:lang-uk. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:06, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Copyvios tool with Google broken

The copyvios tool on labs (ie: https://tools.wmflabs.org/copyvios/) appears to have stopped working against a Google search. Attempting to do so just reports a 403 error, and has throughout most of the day. Any ideas? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 22:52, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

So it's not just me getting this. The exact message appearing is

An error occurred while using the search engine (Google Error: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden). Try reloading the page. If the error persists, repeat the check without using the search engine.

Running the check without the search engine still seems to work. Home Lander (talk) 04:21, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

That's also being discussed at User_talk:The_Earwig#Copyvio detector not working (just a convenience link). GermanJoe (talk) 04:53, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

To follow-up from that conversation to this one, it seems to be related to a huge spike in request that put it over the daily query limit; appears to be fine now. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 12:03, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Should we change the archiving interval for this village pump?

Discussion on the talk page: WT:VPT#Archiving interval for WP:VPT
--Pipetricker (talk) 13:41, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Issues with marking pages for deletion

We at NPP have been having problems the past few days with marking pages for deletion. (See Wikipedia_talk:New_pages_patrol/Reviewers for discussion) When applying certain tags, a message comes up saying "failed to apply tags the page". Does anyone know what's up with this? Natureium (talk) 16:25, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Help restoring old menu appearance

Some time in the past few weeks, the appearance of some dropdown menus changed. I think this is related to the first item in the March 26 Tech news and covered in phab:T97631. The upshot is that dropdown menus are larger and more in -line with the overall vector theme; examples are the dropdowns at Special:MovePage and when deleting.

I much prefer the compressed menus, and can't figure out how to undo this. The old menus are there (awkwardly uneven: named wpNewTitleNs for move and with #wpDeleteReasonList id for delete) but are hidden by the addition of display: none in the css for .oo-ui-dropdownInputWidget select. It should be trivial to show those, but I don't know how to hide the new menus; there are no ids, and (I think?) the .oo-ui-dropdownWidget class is too broad. Any thoughts? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:29, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Yep it's broken at least on Firefox. I didn't report it on Phab as I fear it would be declined. But I made a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30-93fPcqFE), as you can see the font size is too big, you can't fully see all the characters there anymore. Stryn (talk) 20:57, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

@Stryn: I've commented at the older existing task, phab:T99567#4110486, giving a concrete example (which always helps to make things clearer. Thanks!). @Amorymeltzer: I use .oo-ui-menuOptionWidget {padding: 0.2em 1em;}, but do bear in mind that personal overrides might lead to unexpected breakages, elsewhere or in the future. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:40, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Quiddity (WMF), that helps a bit; I can fiddle with font sizes from there. As someone using the Modern skin, the Vector style menus are a bit surprising to see. Is there a reason why the new one doesn't have an identifying id? I used to hide oversight and office actions from delete menus, found that quite helpful. I'll note the RevDel menu is still how it used to be. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 01:00, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, but it was not exactly my problem :) I meant that some characters are cutted off from the bottom. See screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/JyeuS8H.jpg?1. For example "g" and "[". Stryn (talk) 07:06, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I see! Filed as phab:T191650. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 17:52, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Formatting problem with template:Tree list

A week ago I pointed to a (future) problem with tree lists, but so far nobody has responded. Is there a CSS doctor in the house? Please comment at template talk:Tree list#Tree list will break. --bdijkstra (talk) 08:43, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Update: problem fixed! --bdijkstra (talk) 19:06, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Are WebCite links really necessary in video game articles?

I have a problem. Lately I've been working on the Wolfenstein: The New Order article, and I've been replacing broken WebCite archive links with those from the Wayback Machine. Suddenly, however, Rhain has reverted my edit on many links, even though a few links archived are dead, and claimed that there was "Nothing wrong with previous links. WebCite is fine." But I tried telling him that Google Chrome says the WebCite links are broken, and all I get is the message "This site cannot be reached", as indicated in this link. But I feel worried. If the WebCite links are broken when Rhain claims they are not, then is WebCite truly necessary? I'm very confused. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 01:38, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Have you considered the possibility that it is, in fact, something wrong with your system that's making the link seem broken? The example link you have there works for me in Firefox and Chromium. Anomie⚔ 02:24, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Works for me too. Re: this edit, archive links are often added preemptively. I tend to agree they create a maintenance and clutter headache and should wait for the link to die before adding them, but not everyone agrees. It might even be a precondition for Good Article status that every cite have an archive link (not sure). -- GreenC 04:12, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

It is not a requirement for GA status; archiving isn't even mentioned in WP:GACR. The only thing that the actual criteria require is that it be possible for the reader to identify the source. Even an incomplete and unformatted citation can be sufficient, since Page 262 in Unusually Titled Book is enough to figure out what the source is.

Having said that, there is a long history at GA of individual reviewers making up their own requirements and claiming (sometimes in perfectly good faith) that things outside of the criteria were actually a requirement. ("No dead links, even though just removing them violates WP:CITE" was a popular made-up requirement a few years ago.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:43, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Yes, I've had a run-in with three or four GA regulars who seem to have WP:OWN issues when it comes to the GAR process, such as the idea that only two people are permitted to comment in a GAR: the nominator and the person who picks it up from WP:GAC. I've even been told, in no uncertain terms, that I should "keep out of [their] way in future". This after they had asked for article changes to meet certain criteria that were simply not mentioned at WP:WIAGA, and I asked them to justify that request. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:15, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Not really sure that is a technical question unless you are just on about the links not working for you but archived links are not required for a GA however they can be included with local consensus. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:22, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Edittools not working

I don't see the tools at the bottom of the textarea right now. I checked every browser and every old WikiEditor, and I still don't see it. Is there something wrong with MediaWiki:Edittools and MediaWiki:Edittools.js? --George Ho (talk) 21:05, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Wait a minute. When logged-out, I can see the lower tools. When logged-in, I can't. I'm very positive it's not my common.js subpage because I still didn't see the tools when I reinserted and then re-deleted the script code. --George Ho (talk) 07:56, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

You are probably running more scripts than just the ones in your common.js file. See mw:Help:Locating broken scripts. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:56, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I have disabled the Toolbar for months, switching me to 2003 editor. I still have the same problem. I checked the F12 developer tools to test some pages, but I do not see error messages. Also, I disabled the gadgets in my Preferences settings and tested my scripts. I still don't see the lower tools, so I re-enabled some gadgets back. I used ?debug=true to sample some pages, but I still can't find any relevant errors. Nonetheless, when I used ?debug=true for a source page, like a link to adding a new section, the URL containing the additional entry leads to the full source code of the whole venue page. I tried ?safemode=1, resulting in this URL, but the problem still exists. --George Ho (talk) 22:13, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

The Edit tools section may have changed appearance recently as part of the OOUI work; if you have it set to "Insert" on some desktop computers, it may show as just a single line. I'm using the the 2003 wikitext editor for this edit, and it's visible immediately underneath the editing window, above the Edit summary. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:35, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I can see the tools while I'm still logged out. I can't remember whether I set the option to "Insert" or "Wiki markup". I can see local lower tools at Wikimedia Commons, Wiktionary, and some other projects, and I also see tools at other non-English Wikipedia sites. Why can't I see the lower tool at English Wikipedia on my account? And I am using various browsers at Windows 10 on a public computer. --George Ho (talk) 23:36, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Do you have the same problem at other wikis (such as Commons or Meta)? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:49, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Mysteriously, no. I recently realize that the problem applies to only English Wikipedia. Indeed, I can still see local lower tools there. --George Ho (talk) 23:02, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I opened up developer tools by clicking "Inspect" from context menu on Google Chrome v65, and I found that my account is missing the following that is found while logged-out: div id="editpage-specialchars" title="Click on the character or tag to insert it into the edit window". I still don't know why "editpage-specialchars" is missing. --George Ho (talk) 23:34, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

How long can an edit summary be?

Look what I found!— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:47, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

About yea long. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:57, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Currently 1000 Unicode codepoints (for English and most other languages that generally means "1000 characters"). The limit was raised here from 255 bytes on 2018-02-27, although the summary field in the "2010 editor" wasn't changed until 2018-03-01 and VE until the week after. There's talk of lowering it to 500. Anomie⚔ 23:07, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

@Anomie: Ouch, you're still in 2017? That must be rough. --Izno (talk) 01:38, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Fixed. Anomie⚔ 03:01, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Someone needs to update Help:Edit summary and I don't feel confident that I would do it right.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 14:11, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I've updated that Help page. I'm not quite sure about the wording of some stuff, but I'll open a discussion on the Talk page about that. rchard2scout (talk) 10:34, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

1000 characters can hold a large portion of spam. Should we be reporting edit summaries such as this example for removal and, if so, where? Certes (talk) 11:24, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Those type of edit summaries should be removed and I did remove it. WP:AN would probably work to report them. ~ GB fan 11:28, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yes, and indeed, long edit summaries present an additional vector for spam and copyright violations. If you're already there it's not too much work to revdel that as well, but it's definitely more work. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 11:29, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I struck my WP:AN suggestion above, the guidance is at WP:REVDELREQUEST. ~ GB fan 11:34, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

There was a ridiculously long one on this rev the other day. - X201 (talk) 19:04, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• yep, here is another long annoying one. This longer edit note thing just blows for en-WP. Jytdog (talk) 01:29, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Customizable images in templates

Is there any way to customize the images in templates using CSS? I want a script that replaces the default brooms, hands, globes, arrows, etc. with something similar to the "Red Cats" theme that was formerly available for Firefox. Lojbanist ^{remove cattle from stage} 03:39, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Could we not technically enforce 1 to 3RR; per page; in real time?

If after 3 reversions (unless tuned lower) an editor became automatically unable to edit that page alone, for 24 hours, we could nearly end edit wars by making them technically impossible. Could something like this be done (technically)? Are there reasons for not doing so (technically)? Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 12:28, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

• How would you distinguish reversions of vandalism vs real edit warring..how would you even determine what is a reversion (one could just edit the article to revert, instead of using the marked undo and rollback ones, and then it'll become very difficult to figure out whether it is a revert) - people disagree what counts as a reversion etc etc Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:39, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
• It can be very difficult to have software determine what is a "reversion" as opposed to a "revision", as reversions are not necessarily declared as such. While an extension could determine if there were more then 3 "edits" to a page per user per time period, we don't really want to stop that. Even if these were declared, or a less perfect identifier (like the free form edit summary text) were used - the technical challenge is that a real-time edit filter would need to review an indeterminate number of prior edits to do the counting, and that would be a very slow process that would need to occur to every single edit made. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:08, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
• I think it would be too difficult for a computer program to properly enforce WP:3RRNO. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:46, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

  I guess if editors trigger an edit using the revert button so many times in 24 hours you could make the "undo" button inoperable for 12 hours or whatever. Obviously you can't stop editors edit-warring if they are determined to do so but it would be interesting to see what sort of cooling effect (if any) inconveniencing the revert would have. If somebody is having to revert vandalism more than three times in 24 hours then they should be considering ANI or page protection anyway. Betty Logan (talk) 14:32, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

• I don't see how this would really be helpful. Edit warring users can just edit the page to remove/add what they are fighting about, and the reversion of obvious vandalism would be slowed down by the inability to do a simple reversion. Natureium (talk) 16:22, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
• I appreciate the replies. If I understand them correctly, this is a basic nonstarter as no consensus would ever form in its favor? Interestingly, I had imagined the technical implementation quite differently than most of the comments assume, yet the answer in each comment remains completely true. No matter how it gets conjured, now or in the future, it will never be put into practice. And I get that.--John Cline (talk) 09:26, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

  @John Cline: I think the technical issue are the major hurdle - but without strong use cases it is unlikely to attract the time and resources that would be needed to overcome them. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:30, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Mobile hlists

Hlists on mobile (en.m.wikipedia.org...) are not outputting any middle dot as on desktop version but empty space instead. Maybe MediaWiki:Mobile.css could be modified in order to fix this. This problem also happened before and used to be fixed.

Also, when desktop version is being viewed on a mobile device - there are no hlist separators between items at the very bottom of the page (Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers ...).

Btw, at the top of Village pump page (only mobile version), first and third items (Table of contents and End of page links) are not displayed and their bullets are displayed so there is •First discussion• •New post or something like that. --Obsuser (talk) 13:56, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

@Obsuser: Notifying TheDJ and Jdlrobson, who participated in the previous VPT discussion about the hlist and hlist-separated CSS classes. The lack of dot separators in the Vector skin's footer list is normal and it probably doesn't need to be changed. Jc86035's alternate account (talk) 13:24, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Is this a bug?‎

This diff looks weird to me. The link content says that it's a diff in Trump and JCPOA while it takes me to somewhere else, i.e. Woodford Reserve Is this a bug? Saff V. (talk) 13:39, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

@Saff V.: The oldid= parameter is probably missing a digit. The title= parameter is ignored for these links if a revision ID is included; this link doesn't contain the page title, but the linked page displays the same content. Jc86035's alternate account (talk) 13:58, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Missing digit supplied. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:12, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Notifications for creation of userspace subpages?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T166924

Is there a way to get notified when someone other than you creates a subpage in your userspace? Apparently this has happened to me before and I had no idea until now. Thanks, ansh666 00:44, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Ansh666: this is already in tracking as a feature request at phab:T166924. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:57, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! ansh666 00:58, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Question re: Two Factor Authentication

I have Two-Factor Authentication ... a feature I normally support, but which now threatens to lock me out of my account.

My cell phone received an update; and it froze at the launch screen. I tried to troubleshoot it myself; then called my carrier via a landline. When a half dozen attempts all failed, finally gave in and did a factory reset on my phone - wiping out the two-factor authentication setup. Without the two-factor code, I can no longer log into my Wikipedia account on my phone's browser. So on my laptop I go to my profile to try to re-activate tw-factor authentication ... only to find the only menu option is to entirely disable it, but only IF I enter my two-factor code first.

In other words, I can no longer log into my account on a new device, and I cannot find a way to disable the "feature". Once my laptop crashes, needs replaced, or just decides it's time to re-verify my identity ... I'll likely lose access to my account entirely.

Does anyone have a suggested work-around for this? Or is this account doomed to be lost? I'm hoping there's a solution I've overlooked - but I'm losing hope. Help? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 03:41, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I know there was at one time a hard-copy printed backup code for just this type of event ... I learned today that the backup codes I had for here and for other sites were apparently the victims of a cleaning spree for which I wasn't around. Okay, my fault for placing them in an accessible unmarked folder instead of locked in a non-existent wall-safe. But all the other sites where this impacts me allows for secondary methods such as a verified email address attached to the same account, or via an SMS and/or automated phone call system. From what I can find, unlike every other website where this issue impacts me, Wikipedia has no such backup methods - is that correct? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 04:25, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

@Barek: if you lost your authentication information, and your scratch codes your only option right now is to beg the developers. An example ticket someone else had is phab:T168779. This is not guaranteed, and you may need provide additional authentication information - possibly including personally identifiable information. One method for next time is to create multiple authentication devices with the initial seed. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:28, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: - thanks for the suggestion, I've created a ticket at phab:T191708 ... hopefully a developer is willing to resolve this for me by disabling two-factor authentication on my account. I would hate to lose this account after all the history on it. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:31, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Issue now resolved. Thank you again for the suggestion on the best venue for requesting assistance. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:22, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

@Barek: good news - it is quite a hassle and a messy process, there is a lot of process improvement work being discussed to make that better but its going to take time (and WMF legal is involved). — xaosflux ^Talk 01:01, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Is there a way to know how many users are blocked because of their username?

Hi all

Is there some way to know how many users are blocked because of their username? If so is there a way to know how many of these were because the name was a name of an organisation?

A bit of background, I recently ran a gender gap event (Wiki4Women) where one of the new contributors who took part User:YEMEN EMBASSY THE HAGE was almost immediately blocked because of their username.

Their experience was:

• Them: I would like to spend time to contribute my knowledge to Wikipedia
• Wikipedia: Hi, welcome to Wikipedia, please sign up here, its easy
• Them: Ok, thanks, that was easy
• Wikipedia: No you did it wrong because of rules you likely didn't know existed, you have been permanently blocked from contributing, bye

This is really not ideal, given that they have shown in interest in Wikipedia and are likely knowledgeable and could also be a potential partner for Wikimedia, in terms of knowledge, content and potentially resources like event hosting, funding etc.

I think it is reasonable to assume this happened because they were unaware that they could not use the name of an organisation in their username. Currently Special:CreateAccount simply has a link that says 'help me chose' implying that there are better choices but all names are allowed, which is not true.

Can I suggest that we try to understand how often this happens and to try to think of some simple ways to reduce this happening? E.g a very simplified list of username rules on the sign up page (possibly based on the most common blocking and other issues because of username choices).

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 21:41, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi John Cummings, There's Category:Blocked Wikipedia users if's of any help, In terms of providing a list I don't think that would help as it would be easy to pick something similiar and still end up blocked, I do agree it could be maybe sign-up/username friendly but how is the millionaire dollar question. –Davey2010^Talk 21:52, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

You've hit on a pet peeve of mine. I don't like our approach to usernames. I came up with an alternative proposal here.

It hasn't yet caught on. Maybe it's too complicated but in essence I'd like to have a system where temporary usernames can be auto generated which are guaranteed to pass username policy. If an editor decides they want to stick around and have a long-term presence, which is the minority of new editors, they can apply for a new name after some period of time and/or some number of edits, and it can be done after they have a chance to read the username policy.

While I think your goal of having simplified username rules is something to discuss, it almost inevitably will start with something simple and then gradually, it will become more complex until it matches the actual set of rules and long before then become too long to read in an initial sign up period.--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:46, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

WP:BADNAME lists some templates; they're usually subst'd, but you could search for it.

User:Alexf, you made the block. Do you remember making this block? The policy specifies only "Certain disruptive and offensive usernames (such as those containing contentious material about living persons, or those that are clearly abusive towards any race, religion or social groups)" as requiring immediate blocks, so blocking immediately was a judgment call. What factors made you judge in favor of an immediate block instead of the other options outlined in the policy? AFAICT, the only edits by the account were to write five sentences about a potentially notable dead woman. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:55, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Another version of Main Page which I created

I have created an alternative to the current main page here. Where can I get consensus where there or not to add it to WP:main page alternatives page. Also despite being heavily discouraged in WP:VPI(On an earlier version) I would like to know what are the chances of it replacing the main page on a later date(I agree that it still will need a lot of improvement before such a thing occurs) — FR⁺ 09:53, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

I have learned it won't be changed, too many people like the current version. See also Wikipedia:Main page redesign proposals. Stryn (talk) 18:44, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

I wish you learn something from the feedback you were given here. Also, this is wrong venue for proposal, WP:VPT is for technical matters. So you need to do it at the appropriate venue; WP:PROPS. –Ammarpad (talk) 07:04, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Hampton Roads

There's a formatting error appearing in the infobox at Hampton Roads, something to do with the rounding of the total area. I've had a play with it but I can't get it to resolve. Can someone sort it out? Home Lander (talk) 03:43, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Fixed here and here. The |area_km2 and |area_mi2 parameters take only raw numbers and nothing more. Reference for these area values can only be added to dedicated |area_footnotes parameter. This is because, the "raw values" are used to do the calculation and autogenerate the value of the third |total parameter, which is not in the source code. So basically, anything beyond raw number will generate expression error. –Ammarpad (talk) 06:44, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Ammarpad. I wasn't even close to getting it myself. Home Lander (talk) 16:14, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Call css from user script?

So I'm starting a new user script, and I want to know how to add css to the script without adding a css file. Longer version: I'm attempting to write a script that gets the class of a page (the wikiproject assessment) and changes the wikipedia logo to the icon for it. (Think User:Zhaofeng Li/RetroLogo, but responsive. Bardic Wizard (talk • Happy Easter!) 02:55, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

You can change the CSS of any DOM element with jQuery, for instance:

$('.mw-wiki-logo').css('background-image', 'url(https://upload.wikimedia.org/...something...)')

If you just want to see the wikiproject assessment of an article when you browse to it, I highly recommend the Wikipedia:Metadata gadget. — MusikAnimal ^talk 05:25, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

AIV templates ping targets?

Resolved

 – No changes needed. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:55, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I reported an IP at WP:AIV using the standard {{IPvandal}} template. I then received an alert saying "Your mention of 121.220.60.89 was not sent because the user is anonymous". Evidently the wiki software interpreted my AIV report as an attempt to ping the vandal. Two questions:

1. Can {{IPvandal}} be tweaked so as to not ping the IP, to avoid this unnecessary alert?
2. Does the corresponding template for registered users, {{vandal}}, alert the vandal that they've been reported? Seems counterproductive if it does.

Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 09:41, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I hope someone will give a clueful answer but I will give a dirty trick and a test. If you want to make sure that you do not ping someone, make your post but do not sign it. Then quickly edit again and add a signature. That should not cause a notification. The test follows:

Adrian J. Hunter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

{{vandal}} uses {{noping}} so the above should not have notified you. Johnuniq (talk) 10:13, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

And indeed it didn't! (Not sure why I didn't think to test that myself using my own test account.) Thanks Johnuniq. Re {{noping}} - ah, I see. Presumably adding that to {{IPvandal}} would eliminate the unnecessary alerts. Any reason not to do that? Maybe with a comment in the wikicode or doc so future editors don't wonder why it's there. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 10:33, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

{{noping}} seems to work correctly for IPs: 121.220.60.89. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 10:38, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

{{vandal}} makes its own links so it's able to use {{noping}} to avoid pings. {{IPvandal}} currently calls {{User-multi}} which calls Module:UserLinks which doesn't have a noping option. It would be possible but not with a small tweak to prevent failed ping alerts in {{IPvandal}}. You only get the failed ping alert because you have enabled "Failed mention" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo. It's disabled by default so most users don't get such alerts. If we use noping in {{IPvandal}} then the page using the template is not listed in Special:WhatLinksHere/User:121.220.60.89 so other editors examining the IP address may overlook the report. I don't think we should use noping for IP's. If they actually did get pinged then I would support it but IP's cannot be pinged. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:52, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Failed mention – right, I was wondering why no-one else had raised this. I must've enabled this option then forgotten about it. I agree it wouldn't be worth disabling WhatLinksHere. Thanks PrimeHunter. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:55, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

"Lua error in Module:Navbar at line 66"

This is fixed in Module:Navbar. Pages still showing the error can be purged. Only report if purge does not work. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:54, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Lua problem at Malaysian general election, 2018

Hi. I make some edits on Malaysian general election, 2018 but a problem appears there. It reads: "Lua error in Module:Navbar at line 66: Tried to write global div." Can anyone please solve this problem? Thanks. Aamuizz (talk) 13:04, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

@Aamuizz: This has been reported at Module talk:Navbar. --Izno (talk) 13:20, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Lua error in article. Any takers?

Hi good folk. Not sure if this is where I should post this, but being bold! International Communist Party has shown a red error - for many versions, it seems. I'm hoping a cleverer editor than I am will fancy correcting it.

The error, in red, reads:

"Lua error in Module:Navbar at line 66: Tried to write global div.".

Thanks in advance; I'll see if I can learn from the fix. Trafford09 (talk) 13:10, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I've made div into a local. Don't know if that is 'the' fix but at least the module isn't failing with the big red error message. Primefac? You were the last editor.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:11, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I saw the same problem at a completely unrelated area Programmable Logic Controller. North8000 (talk) 13:15, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Template:Computer security

Lua error in Module:Navbar at line 66: Tried to write global div.

This template is redirect to Template:Information security and used in articles.

For example in Network security.

Please fix this error. Thanks. Oleg3280 (talk) 13:15, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Videos do not seek anymore

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T188878

Did Wikimedia just disable seeking in a video?

I noticed like 2 months ago or so that when I play a video (like that in The Sheik (film)#Cast), I can't seek the video. It's very annoying because there may be extremely long clips that I don't want to watch in full or that I want to repeat a part.

I was redirected here from Meta. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 19:46, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

It's also broken for me in all three tested browsers. This is phab:T188878 from a month ago. I also get "TypeError: embedPlayer.pc is undefined". A patch by TheDJ is apparently waiting for review. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:25, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I think the way it is right now is fine because it reduces copying 71.169.163.170 (talk) 21:13, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

No idea what you mean about copying. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 14:03, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Authority control should be like language links

Hello, I think {{Authority control}} should appear below language links on the left side instead of appearing below every article. Also it should appear by default, instead of adding the template to every article. Can this be done? How? Capankajsmilyo (talk) 19:49, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

@Capankajsmilyo: By filing a feature request at phab:, hoping that other language Wikipedias (such as French, German etc.) agree, and then waiting several years for action. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:34, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

phab:T177721 Capankajsmilyo (talk) 14:45, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-15

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

Recent changes

• Some pages have templates that describe problems with that article. There is now more information for mobile readers and what is wrong with the article and how they could help fix it. [71]
• You can now thank users for many more actions than edits to a page. This was one of the top ten requests in the Wishlist Survey last year. [72]
• The sort order of categories will have errors for a short time starting Monday 9 April (UTC). We are upgrading versions of an internationalisation library (ICU) and using a script to update the database. This will take between a few hours and a few days depending on wiki size. You can read more details. [73]
• Tag filter titles will now work better on wikis where the tag filter title is in a language that is written in another direction than the language of that wiki. This could for example be an English title (written from left to right) on a Hebrew or an Arabic wiki (written from right to left). [74]

Problems

• The bookmark icon for saved filters on the recent changes page disappeared because of new icon changes. This has now been fixed. [75]
• For a week in March rollbacks got both the rollback and the undo tag on the recent changes page and other pages where you see tags. This has now been fixed. [76]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 April. It will be on all wikis from 12 April (calendar).
• Patrolled edits now have three states instead of two. Recent changes filters are updated to show unpatrolled, autopatrolled and manually patrolled edits. [77]

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 10 April at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 11 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The iOS and Android apps will get synced reading lists later in April.

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

18:08, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Help with tables

What I'm looking for is a way to add a column of numbers to a table to rank all the rows, that would change automatically if a row is removed or added (so we don't have to renumber all the rows that are below the changed row). Similar to the way # character will automatically number bullet points, it doesn't matter if you add/remove/swap entries, they are always in numerical order (a table with a column of # characters that do the same thing would be great). I've looked through the help;table guide and didn't find anything that would suit the article I want to modify. If anyone here has a solution, it would be appreciated. Cheers - ^theWOLFchild 02:34, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

You can put the data of the list in a Lua data module, then autogenerate the moduletable with lua code. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:41, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

TheDJ - The framistan is connected to the micronbobulator which drives the... whatsis now? Sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about. I am not at all familiar with that kind of coding. Is there not any wiki-code that set up an automatic aligning rank column in a table? If not, and this Lua is the way to go, would you be able to add the coding to the table I want to modify? (I don't know what's involved in that, so if it's kind of an ordeal, I understand if you'd rather pass). Thanks for the reply. - ^theWOLFchild 08:31, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

No, there is no such wikicode for tables. And it's unlikely to be created in the short future as a sustainable method to do so has not been identified (people tried). I don't have time to help write modules at this time, but maybe someone on WT:Lua can help. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:38, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I'll give that a try. Thanks again for the replies and the info. Cheers - ^theWOLFchild 08:54, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Analytics "pagecounts-ez" not generating

The article viewership data source hasn't been updated in April. I posted this to the Analytics mailing list, but haven't received a response after several days. This is the data source that powers the WP:5000 and from which the WP:Top25Report is derived, and we're already behind one of the weekly reports. West.andrew.g (talk) 14:25, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

On the 1st of april the whole dumps server migrated to new servers. I suspect that that is the cause. I think it might be phab:T189283 and sent a mail on wikitech-l inquiring about it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:36, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Page histories rendering weird in Opera

VPT history

User page history

I use the Opera web browser (yes, I know I'm weird) and the past few days I've been having trouble viewing page histories outside of the user space, and I was wondering if it was something with mediawiki or my browser (to my knowledge, I haven't changed anything.) I've uploaded a screenshot of how the page history looks when I view this page and also how the page history looks when I view a user page. Oddly enough, not all user pages look normal (my own looks the same as the VPT history), but the only pages where I see a normal history are user pages. It also doesn't seem to have anything to do with number of revisions, as I've had the issue with pages that only have one revision. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:49, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: Might be a caching problem. Try to clear your browser cache. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:44, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Clearing the cache worked. Thanks. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:38, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

{{#statements:P18}}

Hi, Can someone explain what "{{#statements:P18}}" is please?, I've come across it twice acting as the infobox image (recent article being Kris Aquino) so now the curiosity's got the better of me, Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 02:39, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

{{#statements}} gets the data from Wikidata. image (P18) in this case. See d:Wikidata:How to use data on Wikimedia projects#Parser function. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:16, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Ahhhh right thanks JJMC89 for kindly explaining, Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 15:28, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Move discussion related to proper use of the Template namespace

A move discussion is being held at Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Requested move 10 April 2018 which may be of interest to editors following this page. It relates to the Wikipedia:Did you know nomination process and the Wikipedia:Template namespace guideline. -- Netoholic @ 19:59, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Bizarre display with green text/black screen gadget

I have the " Use a black background with green text" gadget enabled in my preferences. For the last few days (possibly longer, I had been away from desktop access), it has displayed mainly as usual, but with a strip across the top of the page in grey. Today, vast swathes of every page display as green text on a grey background. Anyone know what is up? DuncanHill (talk) 14:55, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

It works for me in Firefox and Vector. Try to clear your cache. What is your browser and skin? Please give an example page and describe which parts have grey background. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:49, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Duncan, I've had the exact same issue as well. ^{(talk page stalker)} CrashUnderride 16:01, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: I followed your suggestion and it still appears as it was. Here is a screenshot of the issue I'm having. My browser is Firefox and the skin is Space Fantasy. ^{(talk page stalker)} CrashUnderride 16:08, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

That's not your skin - that's a Firefox add-on, but it is likely to be the culprit. Your skin is set at Preferences → Appearance, first box (choice of: Vector, Cologne Blue, MinervaNeue, Modern, MonoBook, Timeless). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:40, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The correct link is Space Fantasy. I meant the Wikipedia skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering but does it help to disable Space Fantasy? MediaWiki:Gadget-Blackskin.css was edited today [78] by MSGJ on request from Dispenser. I have Firefox 59.0.2 and no problems. Does it work if you log out and click here? PrimeHunter (talk) 16:41, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, I've tried each of the skins and they all do the same. But my current one is Monobook. My Firefox is also up-to-date. ^{(talk page stalker)} CrashUnderride 16:52, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Update I switched from Monobook and it works fine. I think I figured out the issue. ^{(talk page stalker)} CrashUnderride 16:53, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I use Monobook, Edge, Win10, and the problem is just the same as in Crash Underride's screenshot. Example pages would be this one, the front page, my watchlist, my contributions, and every article I have visited today. I have tried clearing cache, that makes no difference. DuncanHill (talk) 20:46, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I have reverted the change for now. @Dispenser: perhaps you could comment? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:58, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks - a lot better! Now we're back to just the strip around the Golfball and across the top (where the talk/sandbox/preferences etc links are in Monobook) being grey. AS I said, not sure when that started happening, sometime in the last month. DuncanHill (talk) 20:59, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

@MSGJ: Apparently Mediawiki:Monobook.css loads after gadget CSS, overriding MediaWiki:Gadget-Blackskin.css. In this case, adding a light blue background to talk pages and white to articles. I've added higher specificity CSS to address this. — Dispenser 00:39, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Converting infobox writer to a wrapper

I have made the sandbox and testcases and started a discussion at Template talk:Infobox writer. Comments and any other help is invited. Thanks Capankajsmilyo (talk) 09:04, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Problems with OSM map overlay

Over the last few weeks- the |commons-on-osm overlay has stopped updating. for instance File:Whitstable Harbour West Quay 8137.jpg was uploaded to Commons on 14th March and still is not visible on the OSM map overlay.

When viewing the file on here (en:)- well it does click you over to Commons- then- using the link in the summary box Camera location 51° 21′ 47.26″ N, 1° 01′ 32.65″ E Kartographer map based on OpenStreetMap. View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap - Google Earth info. I suppose technically this is a Commons tool- but it does affect us here. Any ideas?--ClemRutter (talk) 10:54, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Why has reFill become so slipshod with the "publisher=" field?

I used to be a big user of RefLinks, and switched to reFill since that seems to be the go-to URL processor. I could've sworn it was better a month and some ago, but as of late the vast majority of the time I run reFill, I need to manually go in and figure out the "publisher=" field, even when using really established news sources like The Telegraph or New York Times.

Has something gone wonky with reFill? Why is it not filling out the publisher field? Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 02:27, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

For periodicals, the publisher parameter should typically be left blank. The documentation for the {{Cite news}} template says: Do not use the publisher parameter for the name of a work (e.g. a book, encyclopedia, newspaper, magazine, journal, website). Not normally used for periodicals. ... Omit where the publisher's name is substantially the same as the name of the work (for example, The New York Times Co. publishes The New York Times newspaper, so there is no reason to name the publisher). – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:37, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Okay, that part makes sense, it should go under "work=" or "newspaper=". But still the same question: why is reFill not filling it out? I'm getting some reFill mods where it gives the title and author, but the footnote itself gives zero indication what newspaper/magazine it's from. That seems like something important that the tool should strive to provide. Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 09:56, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

There is a somewhat controvertial option "Use the base domain name as work when this information cannot be parsed" that is more agressive about filling out the "work". It defaulted to "on" for a while, but it was later changed to default to "off". If you feel the option should be turned back on by default, that discussion should probably go at User_talk:Zhaofeng_Li/reFill. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:11, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

NoScript blocks editing toolbar at top of articles in Firefox Android app

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T192018

I thought it would be worth bringing to your attention that upon logging in, NoScript blocks the editing toolbar at the top of the article, making it impossible to edit the lede or the infobox. Oddly, though, the edit button remains visible for any subsequent sections of the article. Obviously, placing Wikipedia in the trusted zone (or logging out) restores functionality. I have not attempted to replicate this issue on the desktop version of Firefox, but I can do so if desired.

Incidentally, the only reason I discovered this glitch is that the article editor is utterly unusable in Chrome on Android. (Come to think of it, it's also unusable in the AdBlock browser, which is strange, considering that browser is simply a modified version of Firefox). Are there any plans to rectify the crippling incompatibilities that continue to plague the editor in Chrome? Nonstopdrivel (talk) 09:07, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

@Nonstopdrivel: You appear to have installed the "Add an [edit] link for the lead section gadget. This gadget is built in Javascript. If you choose to browse or use Noscript without whitelisting this or related websites (possibly Commons), the script in question will not load. You should still be able to edit the top of the article by clicking the normal "Edit [article]" button. The links later in the article are not built in Javascript, which is why they are visible for you. --Izno (talk) 13:19, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

@Izno: Thank you for your help. I just checked my preferences page, and the checkbox for the "Add an [edit] link" for the lead section gadget is not checked (not terribly surprising, since I didn't even know that Wikipedia had gadgets!). So that doesn't seem to be the issue. As I mentioned above, this is specific to the Firefox Android app. The link appears in other mobile browsers, and it appears in Firefox if I disable NoScript or whitelist Wikipedia. --Nonstopdrivel (talk) 21:17, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Huh. --Izno (talk) 23:17, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Nonstopdrivel I have Firefox, but don't use an app, and don't use Android. I'm on Windows. There are just things I have to disable NoScript to do, and there is no getting around that. The current version of NoScript is not as user friendly as it was before they revamped Firefox and NoScript. So, if I find something is not working, I disable NoScript, do the edit I wanted, and re-enable NoScript. It stinks, but I'm slowly using Chrome for certain things. — Maile (talk) 23:26, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

It appears that non-Javascript editing was fixed last year for the rest of the article, but Javascript is still required to open the first section (and changing that will not be very easy). See phab:T192018. In the meantime, Javascript is required for editing that section on the mobile view. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:23, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Main Page modules & templates

Hello all. I'm currently working on moving the main page of the Simple English Wiktionary to the project namespace, as well as making the necessary adjustments (including removing the page title from the top of the page). What related templates and modules are needed for that task?

Apologies if I'm posting in the wrong place; I could not figure out if this belonged in technical or miscellaneous. hiàn 21:10, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia hides some things on Main Page with code in MediaWiki:Vector.css and other skin files. You can copy it to MediaWiki:Common.css and see whether it works for all skins of interest. Give the new page name in the code instead of Main_Page. Templates and modules depend on how the wiki makes the contents of the main page. I haven't examined that for your wiki. MediaWiki:Mainpage tells the name of the main page to the interface. I suggest you start by copying the code but wait with changing MediaWiki:Mainpage until the new page works as wanted. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:10, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

hiàn, why do you want to do that? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:56, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

The little community over at simple.wikt agreed to it, I checked with the only active sysop and he agreed that the move should be done. The only issue was that no one knew what to do, so I took up the task. hiàn 23:34, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

There has also been several proposals to place our Main Page outside mainspace: Wikipedia:FAQ/Main Page#Why is Main Page in the main namespace? Many Wikimedia wikis do it: wikidata:Q5296#sitelinks-wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:52, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Infobox image cleansing

I've asked it before, I am asking it again. Would it be possible to automate edits like these. Capankajsmilyo (talk) 08:50, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

While a bot could do something like that, why is it needed, especially in bulk? There doesn't appear to be any change to the rendered page for readers. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:42, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, I was trying to fix a few pages listed in maintenance category populated using Module:Check for unknown parameters which showed that thumb thing as error. It was fixed by the edit mentioned above. And this is just one of the instances of similar errors. Capankajsmilyo (talk) 17:56, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

@Capankajsmilyo: OK so step 1, get a conversation (perhaps at Template talk:Infobox religious building if that's the template in need of cleanup) going to establish that this is useful. Step 2, file it at Wikipedia:Bot requests and see if someone wants to pick it up. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:01, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

The error is not limited to {{Infobox religious building}} but appears in multiple templates using the module check. I see two possible solutions, either automate this job or does not include such text as errors. Which one would be preferred and is technically possible / feasable? Capankajsmilyo (talk) 18:13, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

There are many more than two options, such as "fix the errors manually", "fix the errors with a script or AWB", or "work on something else, because this isn't a huge deal". The text in question is definitely an error, though, and error checking of this kind often turns up a variety of errors, vandalism, and other problems with templates. I would not recommend hiding the errors, i.e. pretending that they do not exist. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:05, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia was temporarily down for Australia - why?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T191940

The outage time was roughly between 22:00 UTC to 23:36 UTC. However, I was able to access the website using a proxy in Tokyo during this time period. This website [79], is saying that I'm not the only one who had this problem either, there have been 134 reports of people having the same problem, during roughly the same time period, to that site.

So, what happened? I'm not watching this page, please ping me if you reply. QuietOwl (talk) 23:54, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I experienced this too. Tested on many devices and used different connections. Anarchyte (work | talk) 00:28, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Me too. Like QuietOwl, I checked against the website, which told me that it was down for everyone. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:33, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Probably only down for Australia as everyone else was asleep and did not notice! Other language fy. Wikipedia was also down. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:41, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

See https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incident_documentation/20180410-Routing for the incident report. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): The summary should say "A configuration change on routers" and not "outers". Sorry to be pedantic but I guess you don't want users to wonder whether there is hardware feature designed to out them. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:18, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: I fixed it. You need an account to edit that site but anybody with a normal Wikimedia account can create one there. Graham87 04:47, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Category sorting

I've got a weird category sorting problem I can't seem to figure out, and wanted to ask if anybody can assist. I created an article about Canadian writer Fernand Dorais about 10 minutes ago — but for some reason I can't seem to identify, even though I used the DEFAULTSORT template to specify the correct sortkey it seems to be acting completely randomly in different categories: in both Category:1928 births and Category:2003 deaths it does seem to be sorting him in his correct alphabetical spot in the D list, but in most other categories he's getting bumped all the way to the bottom of the D list below other writers he should be ahead of in alph order, and in Category:Canadian male novelists he's entirely failing to show up at all. Can anybody look into this and figure out how to fix it? Bearcat (talk) 23:35, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

It is possible that this is the resorting mentioned at #Tech News: 2018-15. Not entirely certain though since it's not obvious that they've started on the server with en.WP on it. --Izno (talk) 00:01, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. That does sound like it's probably the culprit here, even if it's not 100 per cent certain yet — and I've already tried deleting the article and then restoring it just to see if that would fix the problem, and it didn't. So for the moment I guess I'll just accept that there's nothing to be done about it, and ask again if it's still missorted in about a week or so. Bearcat (talk) 00:04, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

@Bearcat and Izno: Yes, that would be it. See also the reminder above at #Update to ICU Unicode library - category order problems are expected - It did start on Enwiki, and is currently expected to last for ~8 days. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 15:48, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Category:Songs by songwriter

There appear to be having a number of indexing problems at this category.

1. The Cattoc takes me to the next letter, rather than the requested letter, i.e. if I select S it takes me to T.
2. (previous page) (next page) working intermittently (probably after using cattoc only).
3. Songs written by Roger Dumas appears after E in a new D column (seems to affect new categories only).
4. As above, Songs written by Roger Dumas (had seen in D, but in wrong order).

Note, These are two recently created cats.

These are examples, I have checked a couple of other categories which appear to have the same problem – which may only affect categories containing categories. Does that make sense?--Richhoncho (talk) 11:10, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Category sorting is wacky while new software is deployed. See #Category sorting. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:22, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, and I did look through what was here as well! Must have missed it. --Richhoncho (talk) 11:25, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Category:World Series-winning managers

I need help regarding a category I started about World Series-winning managers. It was nominated for deletion, but it was chosen to be kept. Now, however, when I try to add more names, I find that the category is not being properly alphabetized. I hope there's somebody here on Wikipedia that can help me fix this problem. I did try to fix it myself, but I was fighting a losing battle. If you can help me, please leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you very much. Mr. Brain (talk)

I just came back to check on the category, and before I do anything else, I wanna thank whoever fixed the problem I was having with the alphabetization of the category of World Series-winning managers very much. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Mr. Brain (talk)

Page Previews

After positive results from our most recent A/B tests on Page Previews on German and English Wikipedias, the Readers web team are planning the next steps of feature rollout for the first half of April 2018. We have requested feedback on how Page Previews should behave for logged-in users. There's a discussion happening over on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous). Yours, OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 20:27, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Next Steps - Thanks for your participation in the discussion. Since we haven’t heard any comments in the last few days, we've posted next steps for deployment based on the feedback we received so far. Let us know if you would like more time for discussion. Thanks! OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 14:40, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Template:Available conflicting with Template:Being deleted

(Section heading changed to remove template calls, see the comment in the wikitext. --Pipetricker (talk) 12:04, 13 April 2018 (UTC))

Special:Diff/836168056 broke the <noinclude>s and wikitables in this one, but I couldn't restore it to the old version and make it work. Symptoms of this are seen at Talk:List of TCP and UDP port numbers.

toollabs:templatecount says 107 transclusions, so it's fortunately not as widespread of an issue as I initially feared it to be. I'm not sure how to really solve this one though. 84.250.17.211 (talk) 03:08, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

• This is also, possibly, an XFDcloser bug with tag handling. 84.250.17.211 (talk) 03:16, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
• Related symptoms at Template:Table cell templates/doc. 84.250.17.211 (talk) 03:37, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

  Fixed. {{Available}} was a complete red herring -- the problem was actually with {{contained}} and {{bad}}, which is why you weren't able to fix it (you had the right idea). {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 03:47, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Unable to edit Preferences

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T192147

Not browser specific. The Save button is grayed out. I've tried it in Firefox and Chrome. Been going on since at least last week. Affects everything - English Wikipedia, Commons, Wikisource, Media Wiki, Wikidata. Also applies to other languages. — Maile (talk) 11:32, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

The Save button only works if there is an actual change in the preferences. So you need to first un/check a box first. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:38, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Maile66: you have a lot of .js files, try preferences in safemode. Note, the "save button" is responsive and only activates once you have changed something in the tab. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:41, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

OK, it's a jumping through hoops on one item. I was trying to change an entry under Muted users, and it would not let me save that (it used to). But if I add a name, click or un-click another unrelated box, then it saves. The extra step is to go back and revert the one box I had to click or un-click. Never used to be like this, but I get it. Thanks. — Maile (talk) 11:45, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

@Maile66: thanks for that, you found a bug changes to muted users (echo-pref-notifications-blacklist) do not activate the save button (saveprefs) in special:preferences; someone will need to open a phab ticket on this - I don't have time right now but may be able to later today. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:00, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

The email blacklist "Prohibit these users from emailing me" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-personal has the same issue as "Do not display notifications from these users" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo. I will create a phab ticket. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:18, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I have created phab:T192147: "Changes to email blacklist or muted users do not activate Save button in Preferences". PrimeHunter (talk) 12:32, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Related note that gadgets, user scripts/CSS, etc. are not active at Special:Preferences. It effectively is already in safe mode :) — MusikAnimal ^talk 20:48, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Template:About falsely calls an article a redirect

(Section heading changed to remove template call, see the comment in the wikitext. --Pipetricker (talk) 11:47, 13 April 2018 (UTC))

Pipetricker: Thank you, I will comply in the future. —Anomalocaris (talk) 19:52, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I just converted a former redirect,  1945  1945 (film), to an article, adding a hatnote using {{About}} to help users get to the target of the former redirect. Although the article is no longer a redirect, the hatnote says

This redirect is about the 2017 Hungarian film. For the upcoming Indian Tamil-Telugu bilingual period film, see Madai Thiranthu.

Why does it say "redirect" instead of "article"? Will it fix itself automatically in time, or do I have to do something? —Anomalocaris (talk) 20:24, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

I do not see any problem. You should reload the page. Ruslik_Zero 20:26, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Ruslik: Thanks. I had repeatedly refreshed, and it didn't help. After your comment I refreshed again and it didn't help, so I did a null edit and that fixed it. I'm not sure what the problem was. —Anomalocaris (talk) 20:30, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

You mean 1945 (film). The template identifies the type of the already saved version of the page. When you first save with new content it uses the old content at the moment of saving. You can update it with a purge. A null edit or any edit also works. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:33, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

PrimeHunter: Thanks, and sorry to Ruslik or anyone else who didn't guess that I meant 1945 (film). —Anomalocaris (talk) 21:36, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

@Anomalocaris: It looks like 1945 (film) partially duplicates content at the already existing article 1945 (2016 film). older ≠ wiser 11:42, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Bkonrad: Thank you. I have merged the content from 1945 (film) into 1945 (2016 film), turned 1945 (film) into a disambiguation page (for now; I think it should be deleted), and modified 1945 (disambiguation) to avoid linking to a disambiguation. —Anomalocaris (talk) 19:52, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

User:Anomalocaris I've made 1945 (film) into an incomplete disambiguation redirect back to 1945 (disambiguation). older ≠ wiser 20:41, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Bkonrad: Thanks! —Anomalocaris (talk) 21:22, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

User contrib search errors out

This returns:

        Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/data/project/sigma/cherry/cherryhtml/app.py", line 33, in inner
    return func(*a, **kw)
  File "/data/project/sigma/cherry/cherryhtml/app.py", line 82, in usersearch_py
    return tpl.render(store=store)
  File "/home/sigma/.local/lib/python3.3/site-packages/mako/template.py", line 445, in render
    return runtime._render(self, self.callable_, args, data)
  File "/home/sigma/.local/lib/python3.3/site-packages/mako/runtime.py", line 829, in _render
    **_kwargs_for_callable(callable_, data))
  File "/home/sigma/.local/lib/python3.3/site-packages/mako/runtime.py", line 864, in _render_context
    _exec_template(inherit, lclcontext, args=args, kwargs=kwargs)
  File "/home/sigma/.local/lib/python3.3/site-packages/mako/runtime.py", line 890, in _exec_template
    callable_(context, *args, **kwargs)
  File "usersearch_query_mako", line 50, in render_body
  File "/mnt/nfs/labstore-secondary-tools-project/sigma/cherry/cherryhtml/usersearch.py", line 128, in fix_results
    yield self.contrib_line(args)
  File "/mnt/nfs/labstore-secondary-tools-project/sigma/cherry/cherryhtml/tool.py", line 102, in contrib_line
    stamp = ch_locale(store.lang, ts.strftime, [fmt])
  File "/mnt/nfs/labstore-secondary-tools-project/sigma/cherry/cherryhtml/localeshit.py", line 33, in ch_locale
    p.start()
  File "/home/sigma/.local/lib/python3.3/multiprocessing/process.py", line 111, in start
    self._popen = Popen(self)
  File "/home/sigma/.local/lib/python3.3/multiprocessing/forking.py", line 91, in __init__
    sys.stderr.flush()
OSError: [Errno 116] Stale file handle

--NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:26, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Endorse Edit summary search has stopped working: Noyster (talk), 22:29, 13 April 2018 (UTC)