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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (technical).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

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Preference page "improvements" aren't improvements

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T181770

The preference page was just changed. There are too many blank lines on this page, especially at the top "Basic information" section.

The check box next to

Treat the above as wiki markup....

needs to be top-aligned, because it is now, confusingly, next to the words Do not use images, templates, or external links in your signature.

Can we please revert to the previous preferences page? —Anomalocaris (talk) 21:32, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I highly doubt that that will happen. @MatmaRex: Care to expand a bit on this? Nihlus 22:41, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
List of ways the new Preference page is not as good as the old
  1. User Profile: The new screen has ludicrously large white spacing, causing something that could be fully traversed with one PgDn keystroke on a 1080 monitor to one that requires two PgDn keystrokes.
  2. User Profile: The helpful boxes are lost, and the sections are not as distinct.
  3. User Profile: Language field is no longer next to its descriptor; this is inconsistent with the Basic information section, where other fields are next to their descriptors.
  4. User Profile: Your existing signature is no longer next to its descriptor, which weakens the association between the two.
  5. User Profile: check box for Treat the above as wiki markup is badly placed.
  6. User Profile: Email (current) is not next to its descriptor (Email (optional)*), weakening the association between the two.

I was going to review the other tabs, but it's more of the same. This change was unwarranted, ill-considered, and harmful. Please revert immediately! —Anomalocaris (talk) 00:13, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

The centered signature checkbox at Special:Preferences is only confusing because the English Wikipedia changed the default one-line message at MediaWiki:Tog-fancysig/qqx to the long MediaWiki:Tog-fancysig with two bolded parts. We can avoid or reduce the confusion by starting with "Check the box" or by changing the message layout, e.g. unbolding the second bolded part. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:23, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
You could reduce "Custom signatures should link to your user page or your user talk page. Do not use images, templates, or external links in your signature. Please ensure your custom signature complies with the relevant guideline" to just "Please ensure your custom signature complies with the relevant guideline." FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY [u+1F602] 01:04, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
Xaosflux:  Done (my first use ever of {{done}}! —Anomalocaris (talk) 02:19, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
Xaosflux: Painstakingly detailed. —Anomalocaris (talk) 19:25, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

I have reverted the change. See Gerrit change I44b5daea for a longer explanation. If all goes well, the revert will be deployed to Wikimedia wikis this week, per the usual schedule (Wikipedias on Thursday). Matma Rex talk 22:08, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

(Side note: You must spell my name correctly if you wish for me to receive pings. "MatmaRex" does not ping me. If you need urgent response, it's better to send me an email, e.g. via Special:EmailUser/Matma Rex.) Matma Rex talk 22:08, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Matma Rex: Thank you for reverting. I am not sure if my lobbying on this issue made any difference, but I applaud your decision. —Anomalocaris (talk) 12:04, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
@Matma Rex: Do we need to wait until Thursday? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:53, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
I've started the backport process now. Since it's still Sunday in the US, I'm not going to deploy it this afternoon/evening, but I'll finish it up tomorrow morning. So short answer: no, we won't wait. FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY [u+1F602] 21:09, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
@Matma Rex: That's a pleasant surprise. Thanks for taking the initiative to not only improve the wiki but also to go back to the drawing board (despite the way in which the message was delivered). Nihlus 21:36, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:2014–15 A-League National Youth League#Pseudo-headings

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:2014–15 A-League National Youth League#Pseudo-headings. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:22, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

HELP: Templates broken - need urgent attention?

PROBLEM: Seems "Template:Human timeline"; "Template:Life timeline" and "Template:Nature timeline" on the "English Wikipedia" are broken? Up until a very short time ago, all the templates looked like their related respective ones on the "Simple Wikipedia" => "simple:Template:Human timeline"; "simple:Template:Life timeline" and "simple:Template:Nature timeline" - Help and/or Comments Welcome - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 22:57, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Fixed. Transcluding pages may need a WP:PURGE to display correctly. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:04, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
@Redrose64: Yes - verified - all templates now seem *entirely* ok - Thank you *very much* for your help with this - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 23:09, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64: and others => URGENT HELP NEEDED - *MORE VANDALISM* (see odd-images at => https://imgur.com/a/pYfrF ) on TEMPLATE(s) at => Template:Life_timeline - Thank you in advance for your help with this - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 13:45, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

BRIEF Followup - VANDALISM has also occurred on related TEMPLATES => Template:Human_timeline and Template:Nature_timeline - Thanks for your consideration of these issues - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 13:52, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Seems to have been to do with these edits which have been reverted by another editor. —PaleoNeonate – 13:54, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
It was fixed six hours ago. Affected pages just need a WP:PURGE. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:54, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
One of those cases reminding that resurecting some Template space protection discussion may be worthwhile... —PaleoNeonate – 13:59, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64 and PaleoNeonate: Thank you for your help with this - for my part, should have "purged" Templates beforehand - lesson learned - Thanks again - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 14:05, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I added it to my watchlist earlier (when I noticed the user page block notice), thank you very much for filing the case. I now added to my TODO list to search for previous discussions about Template: space cascading protection, edit filter requests, etc. Two that I remember of so far: 1, 2. —PaleoNeonate – 09:45, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

wl-hovering shows unrelated image

When hovering ISO 4 (mouseover to give article preview), I see an unrelated image. Any ideas? -DePiep (talk) 22:22, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

It's because of this edit to a template. If you purge the cache it should go away. Nihlus 22:26, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
 Fixed. OK, purge. -DePiep (talk) 22:36, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-49

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

Recent changes

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 December. It will be on all wikis from 7 December (calendar).
  • Very old versions of the Opera Web browser are no longer supported. This means that technical development will not be tested to make sure it works with those Opera versions. Use Opera 15 or above or another browser if you have problems. [4]
  • Almost 170 wikis with no high-priority errors in Linter categories will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. A few larger wikis such as German and Italian Wikipedia will also make this switch. It will happen on 5 December. 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. [5][6]

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 5 December 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 6 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

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

17:50, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

How to search diff history

What are the best methods and options for searching an article's diff history for the origin of a given piece of text? It will be for a bot, so API needed. I believe there's a user-level tool for this also, but don't know where (maybe it's open source I can check out). Anyone with experience with this who has any suggestions before I get started, thanks. -- GreenC 15:28, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Are you looking for Wikipedia:WikiBlame? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:33, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes that's it, thanks. I'm also looking for help from programmers who may have done revision history searching for a text string origin, what methods you use or suggestions. I can download sequentially each revision working backwards in time until I find one where the string doesn't exist, but that seems wasteful and slow. Are there any other methods or options? -- GreenC 15:45, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Think I may have found the answer.. User:Flominator/WikiBlame uses a binary search algorithm to speed up discovery. -- GreenC 16:02, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
I wonder how accurate that is for text that has been edit-warred over. If the middle edit doesn't contain the text, then you'd search the wrong half for the origin, and the "result" would be the edit in which someone re-adds, rather than the origin. (That's the method I use manually; I don't know of a better one.)
Depending upon your goal, you might also be interested in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#Authorship details are now avaliable within article space as a script. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:50, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Flominator mentions on the support page that edit warring is a weak point in the algorithm. I guess it would make sense then to walk forward from the first revision looking for the search text. -- GreenC 20:40, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Log of changes to wikipedia

Is there somewhere a log of the changes that have been made to the wikipedia interface? The font in the edit box in my browser changed to a much less readable font, and I want to know if it is a site-wide change or if it's an issue with my browser. Natureium (talk) 16:02, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

This that log, but what you are describing there may be a browser issue. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:19, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
You may want to look through WP:Tech News as well. Ravensfire (talk) 16:25, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks! Natureium (talk) 19:25, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Could be in preferences. More specifically the option for Edit area font style. -- The Voidwalker Whispers 21:15, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Automatically generated reference list: numbering

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T70293

When the {{Reflist}} or <References /> markup goes missing, since 2014 the numbered list of references still appears at the very foot of the article (see [8]). Now, the reference numbers are not shown and you just get a bullet and a carat against each item. See, for example, [9]. In these cases it would be helpful to readers if the numbers could be reinstated. Could someone please raise a bug report?: Noyster (talk), 10:16, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

@Noyster:You can do it yourself - please follow the instructions at WP:BUGS. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:35, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
The references will normally be numbered. It fails in your example because the last rendered wikitext is a list with asterisks in external links. The references are displayed as part of that list. Any other content like a navigation or stub template would have broken the list. It's not uncommon that a page ends with a list in a see also or external links section so a fix would still be nice. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:50, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
This is phab:T70293 from 2014: "Cite: Markup before automatic reference list displays list style as unordered". PrimeHunter (talk) 12:07, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Fundraising campaign

I just switched on a computer in a place I've not visited before and was greeted by this message:

Hi reader in the UK, it seems you use Wikipedia a lot; I think that's great and hope you find it useful. It's a little awkward to ask, but today we need your help. We depend on donations averaging £10, but fewer than 1% of readers choose to give. If you donate just £2, you would help keep Wikipedia thriving for years. That's right, the price of a cup of coffee is all that I ask. Please take a minute to keep Wikipedia growing. Thank you. — Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Founder

How do they know? 217.36.120.146 (talk) 11:10, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Checking the contributions log I see the IP number has been used before. Does this have something to do with it? 217.36.120.146 (talk) 11:12, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

How do they know what? Whether you are in the UK? That's geolocation - all IP addresses will resolve to a geographical area, with a greater or lesser degree of accuracy. Normally the country is correct. If you go to the bottom of your contributions list, you will see some links in a box. The last row of this box should include these links:
Try those out. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:42, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
If you ask how they know you use Wikipedia a lot: If you didn't log in then they can often use HTTP cookies in your browser to say that the used computer and browser has visited Wikipedia. I don't know whether the IP address of readers is also used for this. An IP address can be shared by many people and be reassigned so it would be unreliable. See also foundation:Privacy policy. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:57, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
I know that the geolocation of the computer is identified - for example if I go to Google maps my latitude and longitude comes up. However, that link you provided says that WMF only collects information when I interact in some way (i.e. editing). Do they also place a cookie in my browser the first time I connect to the site? Is my IP address recorded every time I visit the site? 217.36.120.146 (talk) 12:10, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
"Is my IP address recorded every time I visit the site?" Yes, almost every website will record this. Wether or not they do something with that information is another story of course. "Do they also place a cookie in my browser the first time I connect to the site? I" yes, but they do not identify you. They either reflect functional state, or a bit of behaviour over a short term. You can find the storage elements, their purpose and their duration on the FAQ. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:24, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
Cookie: WMF-Last-Access (30 days): "Helps us calculate Unique devices accessing our site." That's technically identifying. I filed a task 2 years ago to get those ugly EU cookie notices.

You can see the list of banners we're running at meta:Special:CentralNotice. The one you hit was likely B1718_1116_enGB_dsk_p2_sm_amt_cnt. — Dispenser 16:42, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Last year the European Court of Justice ruled that E U laws forbid the "general and indiscriminate" retention of internet data. The current legislation is the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2011. The new law, the General Protection Data Regulation, is expected to come into force in May. Users must consent to sharing their personal information by choosing privacy settings via browsers or other software. Publishers can ask users to reconsider their choice not to consent, but users are under no obligation to give up their information. An added provision prevents websites from denying users access if they refuse to share their information, "regardless of whether this service is remunerated or not". The embedded browser privacy settings, which will replace publisher site notices, would, by default, be set to the most "privacy friendly" option. I understand this to mean that personal data will no longer be available unless the user takes some action to allow the website to collect it. Sockpuppets are unlikely to give consent. Does this mean that all the CheckUsers will be out of a job? 217.36.120.146 (talk) 18:32, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
Example CheckUser information is this:
91.198.174.192 1 January 2017 12:01 am
Browser (Safari)
Mozilla/5.0 (Mackintosh:Intel Mac OS X 10_12_3) AppleWebKit/602.4.8 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/10.0.3 Safari/602.4.8, gzip (gfe), gzip(gfe)
Will the GPDR inhibit the collection of this and other information mentioned at Device fingerprint? 217.36.120.146 (talk) 15:37, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
@Dispenser: Any info? 217.36.120.146 (talk) 14:49, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Well I'm not in nor operate in the EU, so I don't follow it much. IIRC the cookie directive applies to non-logged in users. And that particular cookie was being set on upload.wikimedia.org causing caching problems. — Dispenser 16:00, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Diff viewer

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T180259

Am noticing that the diff viewer is providing less than useful results lately. In this diff for example the change that occurs is not highlighted.[10]

Any thoughts? Have tried it with WikEd on and off, and with chrome and firefox.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:28, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm experiencing the same thing. Without looking at the number of bytes, I wouldn't have known that anything was changed. I've had this problem a few times recently. (I use Chrome without WikiEd). Natureium (talk) 19:48, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Comm Tech was/is playing around with an algorithm to better-detect/display overall changes which introduce new lines. Maybe this is a case of a regression for that work. --Izno (talk) 21:18, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
WP:WIKEDDIFF shows the changes to the actual text. It clashes with the new syntax highlighting, but may be an alternative temporary solution. Nihlus 23:39, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
WP:WIKEDDIFF should be standard. I use it all the time to reveal changes that are otherwise impossible to see. -- GreenC 03:01, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

I think this is phab:T180259. There were some changes recently to better detect moved sections, and it seems that those are making this particular diff worse. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:28, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

2-factor Authentication

Hi. I am a wiki user in both Farsi and English wikipedia. I have activated 2-factor authentication via authenticator's camera barcode reading and documented the numeric codes that was requested to be kept safe. However, due to reseting my mobile the app and wikipedia related data have been deleted from the app. I have downloaded the app again but there is no barcode to read it via camera access via the authenticator to add my wikipedia data in the app again. I need to deactivate 2-factor authentication to try to reactive it to get the barcode again to enter it in the app again. But, to deactivate that it asks for a code from the app. It is a catch 22 how can I fix this? How can I use those numeric codes. I am still logged in in my account both Farsi and English (both same ID "Gharouni"). Thanks.Gharouni Talk 17:23, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Solved. I have used one of the codes and it worked. Thanks. Gharouni Talk 17:58, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Location map alignment

Perhaps it is just a missing flag or something, but the location map in the Project Emily article, about 2/3rds of the way down, is aligned on the right. Is there a way to center it? Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:47, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Template:Location map+#Parameters says | float = center. That works for me in preview. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:59, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

How to add more leaders to country infobox?

In the Australia article I noticed that the infobox included the names of various government officials, so I thought that it would be appropriate to include also the names of the heads of the upper and lower houses. How can I do that? Thinker78 (talk) 22:12, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

@Thinker78: Without commenting on whether consensus is there to do this, it can be achieved by adding more |leader_title#= and |leader_name#=:
|leader_title1      = [[Monarchy of Australia|Monarch]]
|leader_name1       = [[Elizabeth II]]
|leader_title2      = {{nowrap|[[Governor-General of Australia|Governor-General]]}}
|leader_name2       = [[Peter Cosgrove|Sir Peter Cosgrove]]
|leader_title3      = [[Prime Minister of Australia|Prime Minister]]
|leader_name3       = [[Malcolm Turnbull]]
|leader_title4      = [[Chief Justice of Australia|Chief Justice]]
|leader_name4       = [[Susan Kiefel]]
|leader_title5      = 
|leader_name5       = 
|leader_title6      = 
|leader_name6       =
Let me know if you have any questions. Nihlus 08:59, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

CSD tag fails to log

Not a major malfunction, but not much point in a log that doesn't log  :) See the image. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Serial Number 54129 (talk • contribs) 12:13, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Automated notice after changing email address outdated/erroneous? [SOLVED]

Hi y'all, hopefully this is a decent place to share this …

I just updated the email address associated with my user account and after entering my new address via the "(Change or remove email address)" link found under § "Email options" in "preferences" the system displayed this, as so:

Change or remove email address

A confirmation email has been sent to the specified email address. Before any other email is sent to the account, you will have to follow the instructions in the email, to confirm that the account is actually yours.

Return to Special:Preferences.

However, when I checked my email the message I received, titled Wikipedia registered email address has been changed, simply stated:

Someone, probably you, from IP address XX.XXX.XXX.XX, has changed the email address of the account "XXXXXXXXXX" to "XXXXX@XXXXXXX.XXX" on Wikipedia.

If this was not you, contact a site administrator immediately.

– note: "XXX"s = redaction by me –

No confirmation link was included, nor indeed apparently necessary as my account appears to have succesfully updated without such.

I'm inclined to presume at this point that the prominent red notice I received onsite was just some sort of legacy remnant lingering in place.

Hopefully this will help someone who knows how to tinker around 'under-the-hood' bring things up-to-date and into alignment.

Thanks for your time and attention, --–A Fellow Editor– 20:52, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Arrgh, this may not be so simple after all. Though my new email address shows in 'preferences' for me my 'user' and 'user talk' pages aren't showing an email link in the 'tools' sidebar ... However, manually clicking the "Confirm your email" link found under § "Email options" in "preferences"—above which it now states, with golden yellow background color, "Your email address is not yet confirmed. No email will be sent for any of the following features."—leads to ...
Confirm email address

You must validate your email address in order to use email features. Click the button below to send a confirmation email to your address. Then, follow the instructions in the email. To check whether you have already confirmed, please see your preferences.

A confirmation code has already been emailed to you; if you recently created your account, you may wish to wait a few minutes for it to arrive before trying to request a new code.

[Mail a confirmation code]

... Which at first seems to me to imply it's noting the sparse email message I received as if it had carried a confirmation link. However, another possibility may be that it still has retained some toggled value from when I set up my account's associated email some years ago. Meh, I'm gonna' try and 'click' the "Mail a confirmation code", regardless. --–A Fellow Editor– 21:36, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
  • AHA! My gmail acct. is sorting the confirmation emails into its 'social' tab, yet the updated address message had shown up in the primary inbox tab. I'd already checked the 'spam' folder, but had forgotten to check gmail's inbox sub-categories. I've now confirmed the new address and all's well. --–A Fellow Editor– 21:54, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Either Template:Sfn or some subtemplate of it appears to be broken

Either Template:Sfn or some subtemplate of it appears to be broken. See, for example, the article Dunkirk evacuation at the end of the sentence that reads "they would never return": Template:Sfn is generating a very long line of visible wikisyntax starting out "[[#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHart1948" that should not be rendered. —Lowellian (reply) 08:30, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

@Lowellian: I've moved the {{page needed}} template outside the call to {{sfn}}. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:52, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
(More) I've made the same fix at Lady-in-waiting. Perhaps something has changed behind the scenes, and {{sfn|Author|Year|p={{page needed}}}} used to work better than it does now. @Trappist the monk: might know. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:35, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I think I found it but don't understand the fix. In {{fix}} was this line:

}}[[{{{link|Wikipedia:Cleanup}}}|<span title="{{delink|1={{{title|{{{link|Wikipedia:Cleanup}}}}}}{{#if:{{{date|}}}|<nowiki /> ({{{date}}})}}}}">{{{text|}}}</span>]]{{#if:{{{post-text|}}}

That self-closed <nowiki /> tag was (I think) the source of the strip marker in this:

[[#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHaydon1964<sup_class="noprint_Inline-Template_"_style="white-space:nowrap;">[<i>[[Wikipedia:Citing_sources|<span_title="This_citation_requires_a_reference_to_the_specific_page_or_range_of_pages_in_which_the_material_appears.<nowiki>{{#ifexist:}}_(February_2017)">page needed]]]-6|[1]]]</nowiki>

I replaced the <nowiki /> tag and the following space with &#32; and the 'problem' seems to have gone away. Today is Thursday so shit breaks. Did MediaWiki decide that self-closed <nowiki /> tags are no longer acceptable? (replacing <nowiki /> with <nowiki></nowiki> didn't fix the problem).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:12, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Invitation to Blocking tools consultation

Hello all,

The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team invites all Wikimedians to discuss new blocking tools and improvements to existing blocking tools in December 2017 for development work in early 2018.

How can you help?

  1. Share your ideas on the discussion page or send an email to the Anti-Harassment Tools team.
  2. Spread the word that the consultation is happening; this is an important discussion for making decisions about improving the blocking tools.
  3. Help with translation.
  4. If you know of previous discussions about blocking tools that happened on your wiki, share the links.

We are looking forward to learning your ideas.

For the Anti-Harassment Tools team SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 23:23, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Unregistered user with edits

I just came across User:Alan D, who is unregistered but has some edits from 15+ years ago - see User:Alan D~enwiki for the actual account (logged as registered 8+ years ago despite edits being 15+ years ago). The contributions are split between the two accounts, seemingly without any pattern. How do we handle this, for example, does it count as an unregistered username for WP:CSD#U2 purposes? ansh666 03:32, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

The edits at Alan D without the enwiki suffix have their [[user ID stored as 0 (as opposed to their actual user ID number) in the rev_user field of the revision table, or I (or another user) may have imported them from another Wikipedia database without remembering to change the username. The reason this happened is that the user didn't exist in the database when their edits were originally imported into the Wikipedia database in September 2002. Graham87 06:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, I figured that something like that would be the problem. Is there any way to merge the contributions between the two accounts? ansh666 18:14, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Not really, but this Phabricator ticket is kinda relevant. Graham87 05:41, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I've just happened to delete User talk:Alan D a few moments ago. I hope that wont trigger a zombie apocalypse. Please feel free to revert if you believe it will (or I can too, if you ask). Rehman 06:34, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Meh ... IMO it technically doesn't qualify for U2 because it's the previous name of a renamed user, but it doesn't really matter because it just contained an automated notice. Graham87 07:25, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Legend box on watchlist is obscured

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T182156

As title. It looks like there was a recent change to the features added to the watch list quite a while ago as I noticed the Live Updates button is in a different position, and now the box with "List of abbreviations," etc. is obscuring text: [11]. Amaury (talk | contribs) 02:14, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Amaury: This is phab:T182156. I personally can't reproduce this. May I ask you what browser and skin you're using? Nirmos (talk) 03:23, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Also, does the problem go away if you're in safemode (RecentChanges with safemode, Watchlist with safemode)? Nirmos (talk) 03:45, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Chrome. Default. No. Amaury (talk | contribs) 05:34, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Ok. So, if you see the error in Chrome, and Legoktm's screenshot in phab:T182156 is taken in Firefox, we can rule out browser as a factor. Skin can also be ruled out as Schnark can see the error in any skin. And if you still see the problem in safemode, we can rule out all user css/js, all site css/js and gadgets, so the error has to be in MediaWiki. But because I (and many others, obviously) don't see this error, it has to be related to some kind of preference. Nirmos (talk) 06:26, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Found it. "Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rc causes this. Nirmos (talk) 07:03, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I guess I'll disable that option for now until/if it's fixed. Amaury (talk | contribs) 16:44, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Sorry if this is a known issue. It is new to me.

A wikilink to a nonexistent page, with "User" or "User talk" in Arabic, followed by a colon, followed by the name in Arabic, instead of displaying as a normal redlink, displays as a gray-pink link. This description is probably more specific than it needs to be. Maybe it is also true of all r-t-l languages, or whatever. I don't have time to experiment about that. Here is an example, involving redlinks to User:Anwar and User talk:Anwar in Arabic.

  • [[مستخدم:أنور |Anwar]] + [[نقاش المستخدم:أنور|talk]] : Anwar + talk

Compare this to the Devanagari symbol ॐ, which redirects to the article Om. As expected, the valid link is blue; two symbols together are invalid and display as a redlink.

—Anomalocaris (talk) 05:21, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

The examples you posted above look fine for me, are you having this problem on the English Wikipedia? I don't expect we support Arabic namespace aliases here. — xaosflux Talk 05:38, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Xaosflux: I have just discovered that the Anomalous wikilink color is not an issue in Internet Explorer or Google Chrome. It is a problem in Mozilla Firefox. Also, there is no rule against having a user name in non-Latin letters. It is anomalous, however, to express "User" and "User talk" in a foreign language. But, this is exactly what User:أنور has in their signature, as you can see on User talk:أنور. The signature has redlinks to bogus user and user talk pages with the words "user" and "user talk" in Arabic instead of English. I have advised the user to change the links to working links to the actual user and user talk pages, but meanwhile, the redlink signature is gray-pink in Firefox, see for yourself. —Anomalocaris (talk) 06:18, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
The above links Anwar + talk are normal redlinks for me in Firefox. If you refer to the user's signature then they apply text-shadow: silver and font color="#004225" in: anwar call me. The result may depend on your browser. For me it's red with a silver/grey shadow to the bottom-right of the letters. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:39, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
The grayish/pink link is a visited red link as far as I know. Nihlus 10:41, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Nihlus, same observation in Firefox for me - there is a slightly different shade for "visited" and "non-visited" red links. @Anomalocaris:, yes these usernames are supported, but localized aliases for namespaces are not supported on other projects - it's not a ltr/rtl specific issues (e.g. Usuario:Xaosflux doesn't work on enwiki even though it works on eswiki). The linking to a wrong namespace in their signature is also noted at User_talk:أنور#Your_signature - and should be changed by that user for use on enwiki. — xaosflux Talk 13:27, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Nihlus nailed it. Firefox and Internet Explorer display visited redlinks in the gray-pink. Chrome displays redlinks the same whether visited or not. Perhaps there are browser preferences involved also. —Anomalocaris (talk) 17:08, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, and Firefox also displays visited bluelinks in a darker blue - I'd guess it's just overlaying a grey on to the original colour, or something like that. I find it very useful for seeing which pages in lists of, say, unblock requests I haven't yet examined. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:46, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

MP3 uploading now supported on Commons

Chopin, Waltz in E minor, B. 56
Performed by Olga Gurevich
Problems playing this file? See media help.

See the blog post or the announcement on Commons. Kaldari (talk) 23:19, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

transcoding to MP3 so we can guarantee playback for everyone

This is already working, and there seems to be a script or something running that is starting transcode for most / all previous audio files. Oddly enough it seems to also be transcoding mp3 -> ogg , which seems rather pointless and a waste of time and space. 07:34, 7 December 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.218.83.78 (talk)

You're thinking of OGV.js. It decodes Vorbis/Opus in JavaScript and is disabled for a sizable number of readers (iPhone users). Native MP3 decode would consume less battery and/or allow smoother video playback. — Dispenser 00:16, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Nope, real transcodes (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T181749 , https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T165717). 06:49, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

A note that seems important. Commons currently uses an abuse filter to block most people from uploading MP3s. So while this is "allowed" copyright wise it is not allowed for most people. The Commons right extended uploader has been created to allow certain people to upload MP3s after they have proven they know what they are doing. --Majora (talk) 00:56, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Bizarre Favicon Issue

I just noticed this really odd quirk with the Wikipedia favicon. When I click away from any Wikipedia tab on Firefox 57, two of what appear to be diaereses appear over the "W" in the favicon. I have no idea why, and thought I'd pint this out as a possible bug. These dots blink once when the tab is rolled over, and vanish when the tab is active. A screenshot of this is available at [12] Any ideas what's going on? Is this a Wikipedia issue, or should I report this to Mozilla instead? CreationFox Talk Page 02:08, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Graphics related, hence not a Wikimedia issue. --Malyacko (talk) 13:27, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Are you sure? I see the same in Firefox except for me it's the active tab which has the dots and the other tabs don't. When I reload a page the dots appear a little after the W. If there are enough tabs to get an arrow to display them vertically then both the active and other tabs have the dots in the vertical display. I have a similar but not identical issue in Microsoft Edge. The first Wikipedia tab I open has the W a little blurry but no dots. Additional Wikipedia tabs get a non-blurry W but a single dot in each of the upper left and right corner, farther from the W than the double dot pairs in Firefox. The favicon is from https://en.wikipedia.org/static/favicon/wikipedia.ico which has no dots when I view it directly. I haven't noticed any dots in IE or Chrome whether there is one or multiple tabs. In Firefox and Microsoft Edge I have only seen such favicon dots at Wikipedia so I wonder whether https://en.wikipedia.org/static/favicon/wikipedia.ico has an issue which could be fixed. Favicon says "a file containing one or more small icons". I don't know how to analyze ICO (file format) but that article also says "contain one or more small images". Could https://en.wikipedia.org/static/favicon/wikipedia.ico include a problematic icon which is only shown by some browsers in some situations? Zooming shows the image has rounded corners near where the dots appear. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:35, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Hiya! Do you love Prime95 as much as I do? I use Icofx to open .ico files. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 10:22, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Slowness with gadgets and loading pages in general

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T182322
Resolved

Is anyone else having Twinkle (and sometimes, it seems, HotCat?) loading tremendously slow lately, including just about all day today? Pages load, but then sit there "still loading" for 10-15 seconds sometimes before the Twinkle tabs load in, and clicking on a link brings up the 'Could not load twinkleoptions.js" banner in the upper right. Sometimes it cleared up - and, naturally, as soon as I started typing this, it went away completely...- The Bushranger One ping only 10:23, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Although now it seems to be doing it again. But posting this, it's not. Sigh! - The Bushranger One ping only 10:40, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Oh it's not just me? I even switched my Internet connection earlier because the whole site was taking ages to load, but scripts (Popups and Twinkle) were being especially slow. It made clearing the AIV backlog rather difficult. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:46, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Nope, not just you (and it's good to know it's not just me either!). I would muse on "It's-Thursday" but I've seen this happen before a few times. (Although maybe those were always Thursdays too? I dunno, let me check my notes.) - The Bushranger One ping only 11:02, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Issues like these are usually infrastructure problems, not software stack problems, so unlikely to be connected to the thursday release schedule. Their cause can be any of the many intermediate places between your computer and the wikimedia server. It can help to gather a traceroute and report this back to the Wikimedia operations team. If the problem is close enough to them, sometimes they can cause the traffic to be rerouted to avoid the problem. Note that this might reveal your IP and/or location. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:57, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Not sure if it's related - User:RonBot1 Ran very slowly last night (1-2 pages a minute, when it usually manages 7), also noticed same issue with AWB (could not do better than 4 pages a minute and expected 50+) and user:Theo's Little Bot1 was affected as well (so not my PC at fault). Ronhjones  (Talk) 16:38, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Same slowness here. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:40, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Me too - periods of very slow loading of pages, and frequent "Could not load twinkleoptions.js" error (though the latter not for a couple of hours). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:49, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Same here since yesterday. I also noticed that my Special:Contributions page now says "No changes were found matching these criteria," although my Preferences page gives my correct edit count. Cleared the cache. No change. JimVC3 (talk) 19:16, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Me too, both general loading of pages and very late loading of scripts on pages (not Twinkle, which I haven't used lately, but other scripts). Makes it hard for me personally at WP:SPI.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:25, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
@JimVC3: Your issue with contributions is described at #Contributions in preferences. --Izno (talk) 20:20, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
@Izno: Thank you! I'll take a look. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JimVC3 (talk • contribs) 22:36, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I can confirm the speed of pages loading, etc, has gone down from terrible to dogshit. Please fix. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 19:38, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I asked on IRC and apparently phab:T182322 is likely the cause. They are working on it — MusikAnimal talk 20:03, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm relieved that it's not just me! Natureium (talk) 20:08, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Was also wondering what happened. Kante4 (talk) 20:26, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
My speeds suddenly speeded up, no wait after pressing "save" on AWB - fingers crossed it's a fix Ronhjones  (Talk) 20:30, 8 December 2017‎
Yep, looking good. For now! Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 10:39, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

is it possible to have a bug that automatically edits, adds/removes a character, and then saves a page repeatedly?

Subject says it all, really. Without introducing a custom Wikipedia tool/bot, by what technical mechanism(s) would it be possible for browser/operating system/hardware problems to cause an account -- otherwise functioning/editing normally -- to edit a page, add or remove a character, and then save, making about 30 such edits in a row in a short span of time? I can't wrap my head around it, but asking here in an attempt to AGF. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 03:13, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: some crazy user script (which could run client side) - an interface bug, several things. Examining the edits may help - were they made with visual editor? — xaosflux Talk 03:56, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
To expand, the edits in question consisted of adding a line of white space, saving, removing the white space, and then saving again - doing that several times in the same article, and then moving on to another article to do the same thing - with affected articles in alphabetical order. And it sometimes went on for hours at a time, with multiple sessions spanning days and weeks. The editor in question denies there was any deliberate act involved, was not doing any manual editing at the time, and insists it was a computer fault. Rhododendrites has deliberately not linked to the discussion in question, which makes it harder, and I could (and will if you need it) show you some of the edits in question - but based just on this, how likely does the "computer fault" explanation sound? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:09, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
PS: I don't know if the edits used Visual Editor - is there any way to tell? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:10, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
@Boing! said Zebedee: That story is unlikely to be true. Check their userscripts (e.g. common.js and vector.js). Edits made while using VE are tagged, see Special:Tags and Wikipedia:Tags. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 13:13, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I have found the edits we are talking about. On the 23rd of March the same user seems to have used software to remove a category from articles that were in said category. Note that the +1 edits are also editing articles in a specific category sequentially. The edits are not tagged with AWB. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 13:29, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. There are no tags I can see on the edits, and the user does not appear to have a common.js or vector.js (assuming I could see them as an admin). So you're saying that this was done with something automated, but which does not appear to be AWB? Interesting that the +1 edits are category-driven. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:32, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Any editor can see anyones vector.js afaik. I think it is extremely likely that the same script that made those changes on the 23rd was used to do the +1 edits. Heck, I would bet money on it. It would be a bit bizarre if there was a bug that happened to reproduce the same behaviour. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 13:35, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I see the category driving the +1 edits at that time now, thanks. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:40, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
The chances that this was caused by a computer fault are negligible to 0. Computers aren't magical, able to log on some days and make only the changes in question (review UTC April 6 and April 16 where these are the only edits which were made those days). --Izno (talk) 13:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I think you folk have pretty much nailed it for us, many thanks for your help. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:40, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
A couple of years ago there was a user (who may still be with us) who had installed some third-party browser add-on that would scan through a page looking for clickable links, and open each and every one in a new tab. Unfortunately, they had the rollback right, and when they went to their watchlist, the most recent edit(s) to every listed page were reverted, silently. It took some time to work out what was happening, by which time they'd picked up a block and (I think) forfeited the rollback right.
Maybe this is another case of third-party browser add-on. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:39, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Nope, the person in question has admitted that I am correct. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 11:52, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Watchlist so big that I can't edit it

Other than manually going and removing articles, is there a solution when your watchlist is so big that you can't edit? I keep getting the "There are too many pages to display here." message when I try either of the two options to edit my watchlist. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:32, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

@Flyer22 Reborn: how big is it? Are you able to access the page here: Special:EditWatchlist/raw? — xaosflux Talk 01:18, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
It currently has 8,996 pages. No, I can't edit it that way. Again, I tried both options offered. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:46, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
@Flyer22 Reborn: Can you try safemode? — xaosflux Talk 02:06, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, that works. So did the raw editing, even though it didn't work before. Some pages I tried to remove before were a lot of IP user pages. Because I don't see any IP user pages on my watchlist right now (although I probably overlooked some), I wonder if my initial attempts did work but were delayed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:57, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
@Flyer22 Reborn: Is the message "There are too many pages to display here" being displayed when you begin editing the watchlist, or when you click the "Remove titles" button at the button of the "edit watchlist" page? As a response to "Remove titles", the message seems to be short for "The software has successfully removed lots of pages from your watchlist, but it is impractical to list them in this confirmation message" -- John of Reading (talk) 07:17, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
When I get an actual problem of being too big, the error message is in a pink box. Backing out once and trying again succeeds, albeit with the "There are too many pages to display here" warning. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:30, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
John of Reading, I would get the message after I clicked the "Remove titles" button. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:57, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
@Flyer22 Reborn: Then you can safely ignore it. @Everyone else: - where does this message come from? Can it be made clearer? -- John of Reading (talk) 17:40, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
It's MediaWiki:Watchlistedit-too-many. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:39, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
  • I've had the "There are too many pages to display here" message a few times after deleting a lot of entries from my watchlist, but I'm pretty sure it's only been referring to an inability to display the list of deletions - the deletions still worked. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:36, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

History display

Ordinary editors see a display like this:

00:01 1 January 2017 Wikipedia editor (talk) | (contribs)..(10,000 bytes) (+100)..(Add references) (undo)

However, it appears that administrators see a display like this:

2017-01-01T00:01:00 Wikipedia editor (talk) | (block)..(10,000 bytes) (+100)..(Add references) (undo)

Is the display really set up so that the administrator can block virtually instantly without checking the editor's contribution record? When the blocking dialogue box comes up is it prepopulated with the editor's account details to make blocking that much faster? 217.36.120.146 (talk) 14:45, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes it's everywhere - it's not quite like that because (for logged in users) we also see a contribs link - and it's very handy. I use it a lot, for example I recently used it on User:ExtraLongJucySchlong. Though most relevant admins will have popups enabled so you can see contribs, edit count, and other details without wandering too far. And yes, the form contains the username to block, but the reason and other details need to be filled in. -- zzuuzz (talk) 14:55, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I was just about to ask, given that for IPs the username is the contributions link, would there be a contributions link in the example, and you've clarified that. 217.36.120.146 (talk) 15:00, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Orange box on move dialog

(split from above section)

Is the appearance of an orange background around the pink "You will need to delete the page you're attempting to move to" box related to this somehow? - The Bushranger One ping only 02:48, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

@The Bushranger: this is not present on the test sites, appears to be enwiki localization related to the template wrappings called from: MediaWiki:Delete and move text. — xaosflux Talk 16:33, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Gotcha. It's not annoying, it's just something I never noticed before, so I thought I'd ask. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:49, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Two quick questions

  1. Is there a way to thank directly from my Watchlist?
  2. Is there a quick or one-click way to watchlist all articles in a list (say, the contribs of a sock puppet) or a category?

Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:31, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

1. Without seeing the actual edit? I am not sure why you would want that. "Thank" links are not part of watchlists or recent-changes. They are only in page histories and edit-diff pages. To be honest I think it would be better to remove those links from the page histories.
2. Not as far as I know. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 22:38, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
I use them from page histories regularly. I usually go "view diff - view history to see if anything else changed - thank". - The Bushranger One ping only 22:51, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
You don't have to; when viewing a diff you can see if there are newer revisions than the diff you are currently viewing (if so then a "Next edit →"-link appears). If that link is absent then nothing else has changed and you are looking at the latest revision. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 23:14, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
  1. phab:T51541 is the task for this. I would guess someone has a Javascript lying around which can do this.
  2. phab:T3710 is the task to be able to do this with the software directly with a category. There is a comment a little bit down the page with a Javascript you can install. Special:Recentchangeslinked is also a pretty good alternative.
--Izno (talk) 00:39, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
@Justlettersandnumbers: If you are checking the diff with popups without leaving the watchlist, you can choose "actions > send thanks" from the popups menu. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:32, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, John of Reading, but I'm used to the way this excellent script works; and no, The Quixotic Potato, I've no wish to thank anyone if I don't know what I'm thanking them for (and removing the thank link from page histories wouldn't really make it easier to express thanks). Thank you, Izno, will look. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:54, 10 December 2017 (UTC) (Re-ping Izno, not enough coffee. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:56, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
The second one didn't work either. --Izno (talk) 13:38, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Template: Infobox civilian attack - missing parameters

G'day from downunder! {{Infobox civilian attack}} shows that |coroner= is an unknown parameter type. Can anyone help or explain to me why this occurs? Many thanks and seasons greetings, etc. Rangasyd (talk) 15:15, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I've traced it back to this edit which capitalised the parameter name incorrectly. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:38, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Error in Tuckingmill article

Hiya. Not sure where to post this. I'm seeking an editor to correct a formatting error in the Leed of Tuckingmill, Camborne, Cornwall article. Thx in advance, Trafford09 (talk) 17:47, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

@Trafford09: See this edit. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:51, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Many thx TQP - I saw how you fixed it. Trafford09 (talk) 18:32, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Filtering page list based on source content

Is there any reasonable way to remove from User:Od Mishehu/hd cat any pages which, ignoring spaces, contain "nocat=y"? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:11, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

You seem to have AWB permission (on the account Od Mishehu AWB). You can also ask another AWB user to do it, see Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 14:55, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
How would I do the filtering using AWB, other than through trying to edit each article which has this? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:05, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
AWB can pre-parse lists, without making any edits. You can import the list, preparse it to remove pages that contain the stuff you do not want, and export the list. If you post an AWB task you can ask them to describe how they did it. I am currently on my phone so I cannot give detailed instructions at the moment. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 15:22, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
I think you need to enable preparse mode (in the Options menu). In the "Skip" tab you can say that if the text contains "nocat\s=\sy" then the article must be skipped and removed from the list. In regex \s means whitespace. Remember to check the regex checkbox. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 15:34, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
My AWB is running. It will take a while (roughly two hours I believe). I am not sure if the instructions I gave above are clear enough, if not then please let me know. Screenshots are probably easier. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:52, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
I have posted the results over at User_talk:Od_Mishehu/hd_cat. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 19:06, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:17, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Special:Undelete OOUI idiocy

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T182398
Resolved

To pre-empt the inevitable complaints about the latest round of OOUI whitespace stupidity, this time afftecting Special:Undelete, I have created phab:T182398. MER-C 10:51, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

MER-C: If I understand correctly, what you don't like is that the container for the textarea has a max-width. You can remove it by adding
.oo-ui-textInputWidget {
	max-width: none;
}
to Special:MyPage/common.css. Nirmos (talk) 12:07, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
@Nirmos: I 100% agree with @MER-C: here - this goes beyond a WP:IDONTLIKEIT issue and shoudn't require a hack, especially not a per-user hack. max-width abuse has been rearing its ugly head in multiple OOUI updates lately, and need to continue to be called out to the programmers. In this case, it appears it has already been accepted that this should not have been released as-is and will be fixed. — xaosflux Talk 13:41, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Hi folks. Sorry about this, my bad, I should have caught this during review of the change. We're going to revert back to the old textbox (but keep the buttons OOUI) on Special:Undelete, on monday. Bawolff (talk) 17:43, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Shit happens, thanks for fixing it ASAP. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:45, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. I hope the changes to the text box stay reverted. Having monospaced font is often useful for me, especially when I need to copy some text or when I need to count the number of characters. It's easier to click between any pair of monospaced characters than to click between two narrow ones, like a pair of apostrophes, and with monospaced you can just count a specific number of characters and divide up your paragraph into equal-sized lines. Totally impossible with a proportional font, superior though it is for the publicly viewable side of things. Nyttend (talk) 02:45, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Wait, there are font changes ? That would be unexpected AND not what this discussion was about, so please file separate tickets about that. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:59, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
The font changes are awful. I've tried a few browser work-arounds and I still hate it. Natureium (talk) 16:44, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

This is reverted now (The textbox anyways, the buttons are staying OOUI). Bawolff (talk) 14:52, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-50

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17:57, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Regex intitle searches

It seems that intitle:/U\.S\.A/ doesn't work – it's ignoring the punctuation just like doing a search on intitle:U.S.A would. This doesn't happen with insource:/U\.S\.A/. Is there some trick that works for getting intitle: searches to stop ignoring punctuation when you're explicitly telling them to stop?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  08:14, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Our search box cannot do it as far as I know. https://tools.wmflabs.org/grep/ can but it's slow and cannot be combined with other searches. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:16, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
It looks to me as though you are getting results, and they all have titles that involve "U.S.A." -- they're all redirects though! Since that's the case, the primary listing will be the target of the redirect, with original title listed as (redirect from ...). I think it just looks odd because it's not immediately visual that your results are correct. I've uploaded a screenshot of my first few results, including sister projects. By the way, syntax variations I used for escaping which all gave basically the same results were: intitle:U.S.A., intitle:"U.S.A.", intitle:U\.S\.A\., intitle:U\\.S\\.A\\., intitle:U\\\\.S\\\\.A\\\\. (implies to me we're doing a good job of stripping overly zealous escape sequences, heh). FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY [u+1F602] 10:43, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
PS: the first suggestion, intitle:/fooooo/ wouldn't work as you intended here. Intitle does not support regular expressions and so the slashes would be stripped. FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY [u+1F602] 10:46, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
intitle does not support regular expressions; T156474 is the task. T156510 is the task for better punctuation support, barring support for regular expressions. --Izno (talk) 13:41, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
The Article List tool associated with Release Version Tools can handle regex title searches with a period. Try this search for WikiProject United States articles with U.S.A. in the title (the search chokes for me if I don't limit it in some way, such as by WikiProject). Plantdrew (talk) 20:31, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

New-page curation toolbar: issue/potential bug with AFD

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T169441

Please see [18], which happened when I used the new-page curation toolbar to create an AFD for an article that, unbeknownst to me, had already been deleted prior to a deletion discussion. (I have resubmitted the AfD via Twinkle, which did its thing correctly.) Thanks! - Julietdeltalima (talk) 21:38, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

@Kaldari: - can you take a peek at this? Let us know if a new phab ticket should be opened. — xaosflux Talk 22:19, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
Disregard, GeoffreyT2000 found it! — xaosflux Talk 23:56, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
@Julietdeltalima: This is phab:T169441. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Someone (probably you) recently logged in to your account from a new device

Hi! I received the following email:

«Someone (probably you) recently logged in to your account from a new device. If this was you, then you can disregard this message. If it wasn't you, then it's recommended that you change your password, and check your account activity.»

I did logged out and back in recently. So it is probably that. But... I used the same computer, and the same browser - maybe a newer version, I upgraded days ago. My contributions are OK, I changed the password just in case (though a bad faith intruder would have changed it too).

The point is: could the message be more useful? *Why* was it triggered? *which* new device? This way I can not know for sure if it was me. And it is the second or third time I write here because of vague security messages... maybe it is within industries best standards, I suppose they are, but then the standards are quite poor, aren't they? Or maybe I expect the impossible? - Nabla (talk) 02:42, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Imagine that someone has hacked your email, and has reset your Wikipedia password that way. The attacker would also get information about which device you (last) used, when, from which IP etc. I think the vagueness of these messages is protecting us. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 07:36, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
There is this ticket phab:T174388, which suggests adding IP/geolocation to the message. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:08, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
Bad idea. Maxmind's free database is complete shit (except on country-level) and their paid stuff isn't much better. Including geolocation information will only cause more confusion and problems. I expect an endless stream of messages like: "Oh no, someone logged in from another city in the same country, but I haven't been in that city lately. Help!". Confusing noobs with misinformation can be fun, but not in this case. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 09:43, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
The last idea for that was to only use country level information (also because that is translatable). But currently, no one is working on it, nor planning to work on it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:12, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. On country-level it is do-able, and the quality of the database is good enough. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 10:26, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, being more specific than a country is fraught with problems, see User:Redrose64#Where am I? It's why I (occasionally) advise people at WP:Geonotice not to be too specific in the coordinates. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:26, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I agree with adding country level info. While that info may not help in the event someone else in the same country gets into your account.. The information presented would be reliable and helpful in all other situations. My IP regularly shows up as belonging to a city/town up to 600 kilometres (370 mi) away (but always within the same country)... this is simply due to the nature of dynamic IPs within your local telco. - Vanstrat ((🗼)) 15:06, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
  • From an unrelated web site, I recently got a message telling me that someone had successfully logged in to my account from somewhere in South Korea. That was very valuable, and it led me to immediately log in and change my password. Had it not been country specific, I might not have done that, as my ISP in the UK tends to provide varying nonsense locations for IP lookups (though always in the UK) and I would have assumed that's all that had happened. I therefore strongly support adding the country information to the message. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:12, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

CSS to prevent list items wrapping in a hlist?

Is there any CSS class to prevent list items wrapping in a hlist?

I would like to do that in Template:United Kingdom MP categories header, where YYYY–YY links get wrapped on the endash ... but don't want to clutter the markup by enclosing each list item in a {{nowrap}}. It would be easy to do in raw CSS, but wikimarkup doesn't give access to that.

Similar issues at {{Teachtaí Dála category navigation header}} and {{Members of Seanad Éireann category navigation header}}. In each case the by-term entries get wrapped on the endash. (Slight difference to the UK MPs, in that entries here are of the form nth (YYYY–YY) ... but only the "nth" is linked.

Any pointers or suggestions? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:21, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I can only propose defining a new class, which should be like 'hlist' but prevent contents of <li> elements from wrapping. Ruslik_Zero 20:45, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
That's what I'd like. I hoped that it might exist already, ready to meet me. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:56, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Surely you can already do this in {{hlist}}, by putting a suitable CSS declaration into an appropriate style parameter? For instance, |item_style=white-space:nowrap; --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:26, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, @Redrose64. In these cases, I am not using {{hlist}} directly; the templates use {{infobox}} or {{navbox}}, and I don't see any item_style param in either case.
Have I missed something? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:42, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Hmmm, I tried it - seems that it just prevents wrapping between an item and the following bullet, wrapping can still occur between a bullet and the following item, also between the en-dash and the following figure. At least, that's what happens in Opera 36 - other browsers may vary. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:21, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: You can use {{wj}} or {{zwj}} (or &zwj;) on either side of the endashes to prevent it from breaking at those points. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:07, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, @Ahecht. That sounds like the most elegant solution so far. Not as pretty as CSS, but better than wrapping the whole thing in a template. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:22, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
This is an ugly solution. Ruslik_Zero 20:23, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
I added an appropriate css to User:Ruslik0/common.css. It works. So, a class can be defined I think. Ruslik_Zero 20:34, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Prior version environment?

So I know we have testwiki and test2wiki where releases get pushed slightly early (mw:MediaWiki 1.31/Roadmap) - is there anywhere where they are pushed purposefully LATE? Whenever we get a "Must be Thursday" troubles - we always get a "was it like this before?" problem - but nowhere to actually go check. Is it time for test3wiki? — xaosflux Talk 12:33, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

I support this idea. Natureium (talk) 18:44, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
This came up on the wikitech-l mailing list a while back, and basically everyone said you should report anything that seems like a bug, regardless of whether you think it's a regression. I'm mostly in support of a test3 wiki too, so we can easily compare/contrast, but I'm not smart enough with infrastructure things to really make a case. I recommend creating a phab ticket proposing this, and tag it with "Release-Engineering-Team". — MusikAnimal talk 23:09, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi all, is there a tool/gadget that I can activate that will indicate (say with a color) that a link points to a redirect page? There's a gadget under Preferences > Appearance that will display links to disambiguation pages in orange. Looking for something like that. Context: List of former child actors from the United States has a lot of blue links, but how many of those point to redirect pages, implying that the individuals may not be notable? Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 22:10, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Links that point to redirects have the CSS class mw-redirect. So if you want to you can add a line to Special:MyPage/common.css.
For example:
.mw-redirect { color:green;}
If you also want to control the color of links that you've visited already:
.mw-redirect:visited { color:darkgreen;}
You can find a list of colors over at Web_colors. For example, you can replace "green" with #000 (which is black).
(((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 22:20, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
I put the following in my Special:MyPage/common.css, which puts the icon after the link (similar to how external links are presented):
.mw-redirect {
	background: url(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/Insert_redirect.png/12px-Insert_redirect.png) center right no-repeat;
	padding-right: 13px;
}
--Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 23:28, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
A simple solution for occasional use in cases like the mentioned article, that works very well in Google Chrome, is to view the HTML code ("View source") of the page and do a text search for "mw-redirect". The hrefs in the HTML are linked to the corresponding web pages for easy access.
I think this works better in Chrome, where "View source" uses a regular browser tab, than in Safari, which shows the HTML in a Web Inspector tab. It doesn't work at all in Firefox, where hrefs on the HTML source page are linked to other pages of HTML code. --Pipetricker (talk) 12:08, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
@The Quixotic Potato, Ahecht, and Pipetricker: Thanks for the ideas, guys. Appreciated. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:24, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Structured Commons newsletter, December 13, 2017

Welcome to the newsletter for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons! You can update your subscription to the newsletter. Do inform others who you think will want to be involved in the project!

Community updates
Things to do / input and feedback requests
A multi-licensed image on Wikimedia Commons, with a custom {{EthnologyItemMHNT}} Information template. Do you also know media files on Commons that will be interesting or challenging to model with structured data? Add them to the Interesting Commons files page.
Presentations / Press / Events
Presentation about Structured Commons and Wikidata, at WikimediaCon in Berlin.
  • Sandra presented the plans for Structured Commons during WikidataCon in Berlin, on October 29. The presentation focused on collaboration between the Wikidata and Commons communities. You can see the full video here.
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
  • Research findings from interviews and surveys of GLAM project participants are being published to the research page. Check back over the next few weeks as additional details (notes, quotes, charts, blog posts, and slide decks) will be added to or linked from that page.
Development
  • The Structured Commons team has written and submitted a report about the first nine months of work on the project to its funders, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The 53-page report, published on November 1, is available on Wikimedia Commons.
  • The team has started working on designs for changes to the upload wizard (T182019).
  • We started preliminary work to prototype changes for file info pages.
  • Work on the MediaInfo extension is ongoing (T176012).
  • The team is continuing its work on baseline metrics on Commons, in order to be able to measure the effectiveness of structured data on Commons. (T174519)
  • Upcoming: in the first half of 2018, the first prototypes and design sketches for file pages, the UploadWizard, and for search will be published for discussion and feedback!
Stay up to date!

Warmly, your community liaison, SandraF (WMF) (talk)

Message sent by MediaWiki message delivery - 16:32, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Title blacklist

Resolved

Is there a tool to show which row(s) of the title blacklist a proposed title violates? (It wouldn't be hard to write one, but it feels like a wheel that someone wil already have invented.) I'm trying to move {{S-line/MINSKMETRO left/Avtozavodskaya}} to {{S-line/MINSKMETRO left/Aŭtazavodskaja}} but getting a generic "on the title blacklist" message. Knowing the exact problem would tell me whether I'm trying to do something that's been banned for good reason, or just caught by an overzealous regex. Thanks, Certes (talk) 11:44, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

You can look at mw:Extension:TitleBlacklist#Testing_for_matches. Ruslik_Zero 12:41, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
@Ruslik0: Thanks, that's exactly what I needed. The new title is deemed too shouty, as it has more than 9 consecutive capital letters (the same 10 as the old title). Certes (talk) 16:41, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

The Intorient template does not display properly on Wikipedia Mobile Dark Mode.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T182128
A screencap demonstrating the broken nature of the Intorient symbol

I noticed that the Intorient carries a white background with it unlike most math symbols because unlike most math symbols which use the 'math' tag the Intorient is template. I was wondering if there was a way to edit how the template works or if it could be permanently replace by LaTeX's \ointclockwise (as seen here on page 2), how ever that would need to be integrated into what Wikipedia recognizes as a symbol as \ointclockwise is not currently recognized as a symbol.
What intorient looks like: \ointclockwise
The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 04:24, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

@The Editor's Apprentice: Those characters are not part of amsmath and thus not supported by our math mode. This is why a template is used to insert an image of them instead. The dark and sepia modes of the apps however do not invert colors of images (as most of the time that would be highly annoying for most images), so you get this white background. This is the downside of using dark mode unfortunately I think... —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:41, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
I created a ticket for this problem, but I suspect it will be rather low priority as there are several fundamental issues that will likely block it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:00, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
@TheDJ: Why does Wikipedia only support the amsmath package? — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Editor's Apprentice (talk • contribs)
@The Editor's Apprentice: Because it's a reputable, maintained and stable package, and included in almost all LaTeX distributions of all operating systems. Most additions are considerably less stable and thus riskier to introduce. Which doesn't mean we are not open to adding more, just that we are careful about doing so. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:54, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
@TheDJ: That makes sense, how would one go along getting the relevant LaTeX package included? The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 00:25, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Mutilated and vanishing text, history and edit screens, green on black gadget

I use the green on black gadget when using Wikipedia, as I fid it more comfortable. For the last few weeks I have noticed a couple of oddities on the edit screen, and on history pages. On the edit screen, most of the text below the edit summary box and the save button is now illegible (apparently it is in black, or nearly black). On the history screen the external tools are apparently overprinted with gibberish. I've made some screenshots on Imgur, I hope they make sense. this and this are the links. At first I just thought "Oh, they're buggering about as usual, it'll pass in a day or two", but it hasn't. Anyone know what has caused this and how to fix it? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 23:45, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

It's called "Use a black background with green text" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. The talk page is MediaWiki talk:Gadget-Blackskin.css. I see the same issues with Vector and Firefox. The text around the edit summary is black on grey background without the gadget. I guess the gadget doesn't know how to handle that properly. The gibberish is a series of external link icons as background of the link text instead of a single icon after the text. I don't know why that happens. The links are made with code in MediaWiki:Histlegend. Some of the styling apparently misbehaves when used with the gadget and displayed outside the normal wikitext area. It works fine for me when rendered below with the gadget. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:18, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
For any version listed below, click on its date to view it. For more help, see Help:Page history and Help:Edit summary.
External tools:
(cur) = difference from current version, (prev) = difference from preceding version,  m = minor edit, → = section edit, ← = automatic edit summary

The problem here is a combination of two things.

  1. MediaWiki:Gadget-Blackskin.css defines a background-image for external links, but does not specify how this image should behave with regard to position and repetition.
  2. MediaWiki does specify how background-images should behave with regard to position and repetition, but the rule is scoped to .mw-parser-output, which is the part of the page that comes from the wikitext.

This means that there are three ways to solve the problem:

  1. You can remove 
    html .mw-body-content .external {
    background-image:url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAwAAAAMBAMAAACkW0HUAAAAFVBMVEUAAAAAAAAAZv8AZswAL14hZIUwYI+U+klIAAAAAXRSTlMAQObYZgAAADxJREFUCNdjgAMmJSUFIBUmKAiimAKBFLOxkSOIElQRCQRSQo5OakBKJEWZlQEo6CTMAKIEwZSxsTHcJAD6JwXY6XjSLgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==);
}
    entirely from MediaWiki:Gadget-Blackskin.css.
  2. You can specify how this background-image should behave with regard to position and repetition in MediaWiki:Gadget-Blackskin.css, using background-position and background-repeat.
  3. The selector .mw-parser-output .external could be changed to .external in MediaWiki.

Nirmos (talk) 04:24, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia, its sister projects and Wikimedia in general use spreadsheets for some purposes?

I am curious whether spreadsheets (Excel, Google Sheets or others) are used for any tasks at Wikipedia/Wikimedia and related projects. If so, which tasks are those? orschiro (talk) 19:41, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I have not seen editors use spreadsheets for behind-the-scenes work, but editors creating article content may find it convenient to create tables in their favorite spreadsheets, then import. See WP:TOOL for approaches to this. --Mark viking (talk) 20:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, Mark! orschiro (talk) 06:14, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
@Orschiro: I use Excel for maintaining my book citations. One row for each book; one column for each element e.g. title, last1, first1, last2, first2, publisher, isbn etc.; the last column is a formula which puts all this together into a {{cite book|...}} template. When I acquire a new book, I add a new row. When I use any book in a Wikipedia article, I find the row for the relevant book, copy the last cell on that row, and paste it between my <ref>...</ref> tags. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:06, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
@Redrose64: thanks! That's interesting. How do you synchronize between your Excel and Wikipedia articles? Manually? Would a tool help you to do the sync automatically? orschiro (talk) 07:28, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Why would I need to synchronise? Books, once they have been printed, don't change. So the content of the {{cite book}} has no need to change. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:18, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, you are right...Thanks! orschiro (talk) 06:31, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Monobook formatting

I am currently working on quite a large table that appears pretty disjointed and squashed in Vector skin, yet perfectly fine in Monobook skin. I was just wondering whether there might be an option to have the table appear as it did in Monobook in Vector, perhaps by the creation of a new template such as {{Monobook begin}} or by adding |style="monobook" in the table. I know that the obvious solution would be to decrease the overall font size down to 90%, but sadly that would in turn affect how the table looks in Monobook. I am not quite sure what to do.--Nevé–selbert 00:05, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Can you point to the table? Is it a different font that you can just use? — xaosflux Talk 02:28, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Once again: you will get better help if you provide a link to the thing you are working on. Being vague in your problem reports does not help you get your problems solved. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:44, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Sorry Jonesey95, I will try and be more specific. @Xaosflux: The page I am working on is the list of British prime ministers, and my point is that the table formatting in Monobook skin is vastly superior than that in Vector skin. I don't believe a different font will help, per MOS:FONTFAMILY. I would like to find a way of reducing the font size as it appears in Vector without affecting the size in Monobook. I don't know whether that is possible, or whether there might be an easier way to solve this.--Nevé–selbert 10:37, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
The table appears to be functional in both skins, I think it looks more "squashed" in monobook (which is my normal skin), the biggest side by side difference is just that the entire body shifts because the article space is more to the right in vector. Please keep in mind that readers could be at any resolution or zoom level, so the layout will be mostly browser (and browser setting) dependent to them. — xaosflux Talk 12:16, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
You can, but you shouldn't, per xaosflux. --Izno (talk) 12:25, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. It helps. I looked at the two links you provided, and the pages look essentially the same to me. The only thing that looks not quite right to me is the text for the "Ministerial portfolios held during tenure" column; the leading of the rows is too tight. It appears that someone has set "line-height:90%" in the cells of that column, even though there is room for the text. I removed that line-height setting and previewed the result, and the table looks better to me.
If you are still seeing problems, perhaps a screen shot would help us understand what you are seeing. I know that it is harder to provide a screen shot than a link, so I will understand if you find it difficult to provide one. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:41, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply Jonesey95. I have changed the line-height setting to 100%, from 90%, which might work better. You're right that the skin doesn't really make that much of a difference, and I guess the real issue is browser width. On the subject of screenshots, the issue of misaligned table lines persists. See here, "1802" is not aligned correctly.--Nevé–selbert 00:46, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't see misaligned tables in three up-to-date browsers on Mac OS. I did clean up some mismatched brackets and braces, along with one set of italics, but I don't think that would change anything. I suspect a rowspan/colspan error, but diagnosing it on that table is a major endeavor. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:45, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
@Jonesey95: Where do you think the best place would be to ask about the misaligned lines? This might be an Internet Explorer bug.--Nevé–selbert 11:20, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Screenshots of Wikipedia for instructions. Alternatively, sometimes e-mailing it to one or two people is just as useful. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:07, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

File usage problem

Afternoon, all. File:SarekOfVulcan with Bag Balm.jpg, under File Usage, states "No pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file." What Links Here, on the other hand, shows that it was linked from at least two discussions, using the :-syntax used above. This has caused it to be tagged twice (and deleted once) as an orphan file. Should the File Usage be fixed, or should the bot use different criteria, or what? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:09, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

A link is not a file usage and thus the image is indeed an {{orphan image}}. However that is not an automatic reason for deletion, but I guess stuff easily slips through. I would either move it to Commons, or mark it with {{keep local}}. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:23, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
How about {{Esoteric file}}? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:30, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
I can see how the text written under "file usage" can be confusing. Might it be better to use the word "transclude"? Or more simply, "display"? Killiondude (talk) 21:28, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Display would be clearer, yes. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:30, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
I have long wondered why it says "link to" this file instead of display or use. The message is MediaWiki:Nolinkstoimage. We have customized it but the MediaWiki default at MediaWiki:Nolinkstoimage/qqx also says "link to", and the message name hints it's supposed to say that. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:13, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
That message is also displayed for audio and video files, so it seems something like MediaWiki:Nouseoffile or Notusedfile would be a better name. --Pipetricker (talk) 13:23, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
"Display" may seem to be the wrong word for audio files, but all used media files have a visual representation on the page, so I think "No pages on the English Wikipedia display this file" would be a good wording. --Pipetricker (talk) 13:23, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

"Clipping" of text/caret in edit summary and subject/headline

When I enter an edit summary the lower part of the text is not displayed - eg the bottom of the letter "g" and underscore characters are not visible. When the text gets long enough to reach the right-hand side of the edit summary text box (near the remaining-character count) the caret (vertical bar) disappears. This is quite annoying. The problem appears with MonoBook skin. It always seems to be a problem with articles, and sometime is also a problem with subject/headline. I'm using Pale Moon (web browser) v27.6.2 (the current version), but a similar problem occurs with FireFox v54. FF v57 fixes the descenders but not the disappearing caret. Does anyone know if this is a problem with Wikipedia, or is it a problem with the browser? If it's the browser, does anyone know if there is a specific bug (eg on Mozilla's website) covering it, which I could point the Pale Moon developers at? Or is there some other fix eg my custom CSS)? Mitch Ames (talk) 07:13, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Opera too, and not just those: most one-line input boxes, including those in the goshawful new preferences thing (such as the custom signature). I picked MonoBook over Vector for some very good reasons, two of which were compactness and clarity. These are being thrown by the wayside and soon we will have a situation where it doesn't matter what skin we pick, it'll all look the same - unreadable. This is NOT GOOD for accessibility, and I REQUIRE some means of obtaining the former appearance. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:30, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Nevermind that basically every accessibility guideline in existence disagrees with you when it comes to compactness. Padding is good for the eyes. But hey, maybe people will listen to your REQUIREMENTS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.88.208.155 (talk) 03:44, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Listen, I have poor eyesight. The MonoBook version of the prefs was just fine. This one is not. Clipping off descenders can in no way be considered "helpful". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:55, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
I think we can safely trust users to know whether they can read things on their own computer screens. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:41, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Unable to reproduce on macOS. Can someone check on Windows/Linux ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:39, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

I have the problem on Windows 7. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:17, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Could someone with this problem please check to see whether the descenders are clipped on the edit summary box while logged out/in a private window, or in &safemode=1? I'd like to see if we can rule out the possibility of broken scripts. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:41, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
While logged out the problem does not appear (i.e. descenders and underscores are visible, caret is visible at the extreme right of the edit box) - but so far as I know you can't chose anything other than the default skin unless logged in, and even when I am logged in I see the problem with MonoBook but not Vector. (I.e the difference may not be that I am logged in/out, but that I have a different skin when logged out.)
While logged in, with MonoBook and &safemode=1 (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assyria&action=edit&safemode=1) I can see descenders and underscores, but the caret disappears when it is on the right side of the edit box.
Mitch Ames (talk) 14:02, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
You can try https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assyria&action=edit&useskin=monobook while logged out/in a private window. But I think that these results so far suggest that the problem with the descenders is in a gadget or script. Perhaps you and Redrose64 have a script in common? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
I was under the impression that user scripts were disabled at Special:Preferences, so that you would still have a recovery means if you happened to lock yourself out with careless scripts. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:36, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't think that user scripts (that is in one's own .js subpages) can be controlled through a preference. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:19, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm not saying that they can be controlled through a preference. I'm saying that user scripts are normally sent to your browser automatically when you visit any Wikipedia page (perhaps in a <link /> element or a <script>...</script> element), and such scripts are suppressed when you visit Special:Preferences as a safety feature. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:40, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assyria&action=edit&useskin=monobook while not logged in behaves the same (other than the expected MonoBook look) as the default: descenders and underscores are visible, caret is visible at the extreme right of the edit box.
Perhaps you and Redrose64 have a script in common — How do I get a definitive list of what scripts I'm running? I know I'm using https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Remember_the_dot/Syntax_highlighter, and my common.css has #wpTextbox1 { height: 52em; }. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:18, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

There are at least these modifications to your account:

Are you still using WikEd? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:08, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

The problem appears to be the syntax highlighter gadget. Clearing all of my .js and .css scripts made no difference, but the missing descenders and underscores is only a problem when the syntax highlighter is enabled. @Remember the dot: can you help us out here?
The caret still disappears at the right end of the edit box, even with the syntax highlighter disabled.
(I tried WikEd and the Beta Wikitext syntax highlighting, but for various reasons I much prefer the syntax highlighter.)
Mitch Ames (talk) 13:22, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
I can reproduce both the invisible underscore problem and the disappearing cursor problem, with or without the syntax highlighter enabled, using the MonoBook skin on Pale Moon 27.6.2 on Windows 10. I can't reproduce either problem with Pale Moon on Linux. You could try different versions of Firefox to figure out approximately when the behavior changed, and then look for people discussing similar problems online. —Remember the dot (talk) 02:21, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
I've just tested with Pale Moon on Windows 10 (in a VirtualBox virtual machine) and I get the same results - the problem appears whether or not use the syntax highlighter. Also, the problem appears with Pale Moon and not syntax highlighter on my normal Windows 7 machine if I delete my Pale Moon profile and use a default profile. It looks like some obscure combination of any number of things is triggering the problem. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:23, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
Just to make it more interesting, I tried Windows 7 in a VM, with a new Windows user (default Windows and PM profile), not logged in to Wikipedia - now in both Win 7 and 10 I can see the descenders and underscores disappear and re-appear as I scroll the up and down the page using the browser scroll bars! If nothing else, this gives me something reproducible to report to the Pale Moon developers. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:42, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

I've reported the problem on the Pale Moon bug report forum: [19]. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:32, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Recent changes changes

Resolved

When using the Recent changes / Related changes page as of late, the basic URL to which I usually use now automatically gets appended with filter information (for example "?hidebots=1&hidecategorization=1&hideWikibase=1&limit=500&days=30&target=Watchlist&urlversion=2" ) ever since the more specialized filter options app started being used. I've also noticed that if I click a link in the RC page (simple click rather than open a new tab) but then try to return to the RC page by using my browser's back button, I only get on the RC page "No changes during the given period match these criteria." Is this a bug or is there a a setting in my preferences to get the simple RC page back? Thanks in advance. —Mr. Matté (Talk/Contrib) 16:47, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

@Mr. Matté: I moved your post to an existing section about the issue. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:40, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
@PrimeHunter: It doesn't seem like my issue is related to the parent issue. Mine is related to clicking the back button (Firefox 53 BTW at least at this computer) and having information not appear on the related changes page while the parent issue seems to deal with a user sandbox redirect. —Mr. Matté (Talk/Contrib) 21:25, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
OK, maybe there are just similarities. I have returned it to a level 2 heading. I cannot reproduce your result in Firefox 57.0.2. Try posting the full url at each step, including before you click Recent changes / Related changes. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:02, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
At home using FF 47, it seems as though the issue is if there's a / in the article title. Starting with this, clicking on any link and then using the back button, no issues found. Trying out User:Mr. Matté/sandbox, doing a recent changes click like this, going to another link and returning via back brings me to giving the recent changes for User:Mr. Matté. Next trying out the RC page for User:Mr. Matté/sandbox/test here, doing the same procedure ends up giving me the RC for User:Mr. Matté/sandbox. Even non user pages like Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Maps task force/Requests, doing the same procedure for this brings me up one level to RC for Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Maps task force, repeating the iterations from this then gives me the RC for Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads. I guess it was similar to the previous issue, I only assumed it was different as I got the "No changes..." message (probably because the previous RC page I was using had no links in the next level up). —Mr. Matté (Talk/Contrib) 01:48, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Like the section above, my issue is resolved. —Mr. Matté (Talk/Contrib) 16:09, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Error with italicized Cyrillic names

Resolved
 – Answered, thank you. Jip Orlando (talk) 17:16, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

In looking through random articles, I've noticed that many Cyrillic names are displaying the following error: (error: {{lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help). Here is an older revision of an article that has this error: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gorublyane_Knoll&oldid=771768710 And a diff displaying what I did: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Krassin_Himmirsky&diff=prev&oldid=815389963

Did something happen in the with the markup that now displays this problem? There appear to be many articles that now display this error flag. I'd be happy to fix on sight but if they don't need to be modified it would be easier. Thank you! Jip Orlando (talk) 16:10, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

There is a lot of change happening with the {{lang}} template. See Template talk:Lang. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:20, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
The error message has a (help) link, which takes you to the tracking category page Category:Lang and lang-xx template errors, which is informational, in particular: § italic markup errors. --Pipetricker (talk) 16:39, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Sandbox returns to User page

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T181032

I’ve noticed an irritating problem recently when using my sandbox, if I click on an article link from my sandbox and then press the back button, it returns to my User page and not my sandbox, using this odd url-link The same thing happens if you refresh the sandbox. It doesn’t happen with other users sandboxes, only my own. Occurs with both Android and Win 8.1 on IE11, and when logged in and out. TonyTheTiger reported something similar on the help desk.

Does anyone else have the same annoying problem as this...Jokulhlaup (talk) 11:16, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

@Jokulhlaup: I'm in a bit of a hurry this morning, but I can let you know that this is the section of the page that is triggering it:
{{scrolling window|link=Special:RecentChangesLinked/User:Jokulhlaup/Smite|height=200px|title=Lighthouses}}
— xaosflux Talk 12:27, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
I can reproduce in Fx 57.0.2 on Windows 8. It's probably related to the fact that you are transcluding Special:Recentchanges (based on the ?hidebots=1&hidecategorization=1&hideWikibase=1&limit=50&days=7&target=sandbox&urlversion=2 part of the string, which is part of the filters work done) and probably worth a Phabricator report as such. --Izno (talk) 12:28, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Phab task already filed: phab:T181032. --Izno (talk) 12:40, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick replies, now I know what is causing the problem. Thanks to Izno for completing the Phab report, much appreciated...Jokulhlaup (talk) 14:59, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T183045

It seems that for users with the rollbacker right, when at the watchlist page, the most recent edit to every page is given a "[rollback]" link even when page protection would prevent that user from editing said page. Is this a recent software change? See Wikipedia talk:Rollback#Rollback allowing non-admins to rollback edits on fully protected pages? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:05, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm glad that the system inherently checks permission level and clicking those links doesn't work. Since the rollback link doesn't show up in the page history itself, It seems like whatever check is being made there that decides not to show the link simply isn't being made in the watchlist. If it's possible to correct it to remove confusion I recommend it. - Vanstrat ((🗼)) 14:53, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
Redrose64, would this be worth creating something in Phabricator about? Or is this outside of that system's scope? - Vanstrat ((🗼)) 18:20, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
I've created a task in phabricator. - Vanstrat ((🗼)) 22:40, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Obscure problem with Template:Cite certification and asterisk in a parameter

I appear to be having a problem with Template:Cite certification that I am unable to figure out. When I put "*NSYNC" into the |artist= parameter and the region is Germany, the template appears to replace the asterisk with a line feed and an asterisk, which causes an undesirable white space in the title parameter along with a red error message. When I replace the asterisk with its corresponding HTML entity number, it works fine. Can anyone explain what is going on here, and if there is a way to fix the template? 

<!-- disabled to prevent eternal error categorization -->
{{Certification Table Top}}
{{Certification Table Entry|region=Germany|type=album|artist=*NSYNC|title=*NSYNC|accessdate=25 July 2012|relyear=1998|award=Gold}}
{{Certification Table Entry|region=Germany|type=album|artist=*NSYNC|title=*NSYNC|accessdate=25 July 2012|relyear=1998|award=Gold}}
{{Certification Table Bottom}}

{{reflist-talk}}

Thanks for any help you can provide. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:14, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

It's the issue at Help:Template#Problems and workarounds. You found the right fix in the call. A possible fix in templates is mentioned at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 158#Template:la and wikisyntax but it's not ideal and hasn't been used in practice as far as I know. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:31, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I figured it was something like that, since the asterisk is treated specially by WP. I don't think that description fully described the effect here, since the asterisk was not the first character of the template or of a parser function. I have amended the text to describe it more fully (and possibly incorrectly; correct it if I got something wrong) and to add words that describe these characters so that searching within WP might turn up this paragraph as a result. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:53, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Help:Template#Problems and workarounds is talking about the first character produced by a template or parser function. I have clarified this and added: "The problem often occurs when a parameter value in a template call starts with one of the four characters."[20] The caller of the template does not know how the template processes the parameter so it's unpredictable for the caller whether the problem happens. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:39, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Editing templates

When editing a template like "Template:Jesuits", does it take time for the edits to take effect in articles where it is used, or must something else be done to make the edits take effect? I find the template wasn't affected in articles, like Society of Jesus. Jzsj (talk) 22:23, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

@Jzsj: yes, you can WP:PURGE the pages to get it to update right away. — xaosflux Talk 22:24, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Purging updates the display of the page on your computer only. If you made a change that involves categorization or something similar, you need to WP:NULLEDIT the page in question (click edit and then save without changing anything). – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:00, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Jonesey95 you linked to the same page I did :p — xaosflux Talk 23:16, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Purging updates the display of the page on everyone's computer (except for categories and "What links here"), since it clears the cache on the server. --Pipetricker (talk) 08:49, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Right. @Jonesey95: As a template editor I suggest you check out the difference between Wikipedia:Bypass your cache, Wikipedia:Purge and Wikipedia:Purge#Null edit. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:16, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I read them, thanks, but the description of purging does not comport with my (likely faulty) memory. My recollection is that even after a page was purged, some viewers did not see the updated version, possibly due to delayed syncing between multiple load-balanced servers. Maybe this is a fake memory, or maybe it was a bug that has since been fixed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:10, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you all. I think this did it. Jzsj (talk) 00:42, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

@Jzsj: The other way is to simply wait, see Help:Job queue. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:36, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Title blacklist for page moves but not for page creations?

I tried to move Template:M23 SBS BRT map-infobox to Template:M23 SBS BRT RDT, and Template:M79 SBS BRT map-infobox to Template:M79 SBS BRT RDT, for consistency with other templates in Category:MTA Regional Bus routes. When I did, I got an error that the new names were on MediaWiki:Titleblacklist. However, I was able to create the new pages just fine. What happened that prevented me from moving a template to a target I was able to create? epicgenius (talk) 23:14, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

The moves are blacklisted: .*\p{Lu}(\P{L}*\p{Lu}){9}.* <casesensitive | moveonly> # Disallows moves with more than nine consecutive capital letters. — JJMC89 (T·C) 23:24, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I see, thanks. But I also noticed that this move seemed to be allowed, and that move was made on November 27 by an editor without page mover or administrator rights. I was also able to move Template:Bx6 BRT map-infobox to Template:Bx6 SBS BRT RDT without any problems, even though the latter had nine consecutive capital letters. epicgenius (talk) 00:36, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Useddenim is a template editor, which have tboverride allowing them override the blacklist. — JJMC89 (T·C) 01:17, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, see Special:ListGroupRights or Wikipedia:User access levels#Table. The regex disallows more than nine consecutive capital letters with "consecutive" meaning no lower case letters between them but other characters can be between them. Template:M23 SBS BRT RDT gives 10 capital letters including the initial M. Template:Bx6 SBS BRT RDT has a lower case x so the initial B is not included in the count and there are only 9 capital letters which is allowed. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:25, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. I'd known that there was something that I was missing. epicgenius (talk) 02:19, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Impossible lifespans

I just now almost assigned someone to an impossible lifespan: the person lived 1871-1948, but thanks to a typo I almost put him in Category:1871 births and Category:1848 deaths. I vaguely remember there being something on the Toolserver that tracked articles of people who died years before they were born, but (a) was there such a tool, (b) if so, is it still around, and (c) if so, where is it? Nyttend (talk) 16:00, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

@Nyttend: Wikipedia:Database reports/Unbelievable life spans might be what you are remembering, but it hasn't been updated recently. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:25, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. The updating bot is still active, so I've asked the operator to start handling this task again. Nyttend (talk) 01:30, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Impossible lifespans, take two

In response to my #Impossible lifespans question, John of Reading pointed me to Wikipedia:Database reports/Unbelievable life spans but noted that it was years out of date. I asked the update-bot's operator, MZMcBride, if the updates could be restarted, and there's now been an update. If people could start checking this report periodically, it would be helpful. Nyttend (talk) 04:23, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Contributions in preferences

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T182462

In my user preferences, I have the button enabled to "hide probably good edits". This has never affected my viewing of my own contributions until now. When I clicked on the link, it said "No changes were found matching these criteria" (or something like that), and the box on top (Hide probably good edits) on top had been automatically checked. I tried to uncheck it, but it would not let me. (It appeared to uncheck, but then I clicked the search button to make them appear and it rechecked it.) I had to go into my preferences and remove that setting to view them. I'm not on my normal computer (using a school Chromebook, usually use a Mac); could this be a reason why or is this just a new change with a bug? A lad insane talk 23:42, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I am so tempted to de-red-link WP:ITSTHURSDAY. Basically, software is deployed on en.WP every Thursday. When you see something not working now where it used to work before, and the day happens to be Thursday, it's a solid bet that the software changed. This is probably a "we didn't quite think through how Special:Contributions should implement Advanced Filters" and likely deserves a task in Phabricator. --Izno (talk) 23:50, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Okay, makes sense. Having the same problem on Mac. Would file a bug report but don't know how. A lad insane talk 04:55, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
@A lad insane: I fixed this problem (eventually) by going to Preferences→Recent changes→Revision scoring on Recent changes, Related changes, and Contributions and un-tick 'Show only likely problem edits (and hide probably good edits)' (this was so annoying). J947 (c · m) 05:47, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. Seems to work. A lad insane talk 14:56, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

"contributions"

The "contributions" choice following "watchlist" suddenly produces a special page with no entries at all. What am I doing wrong? I am running Windows 7 with Mazilla Firefox 57.0.2 (64 bit) browser.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 20:04, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

I assume you mean those links in the top right of the screen.
Is the URL you visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Dthomsen8 ? If you click that link, do you see an empty page? I see your contribs. Can you make a screenshot? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 20:10, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
If you have enabled "Show only likely problem edits (and hide probably good edits)" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rc then try disabling it. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:17, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
@PrimeHunter: Dthomsen8 has sent me a screenshot of his contributions page. It has a tick at "Hide probably good edits", so your suggestion looks correct. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:28, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, that was it!--Dthomsen8 (talk) 18:28, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
I was having the same problem but PrimeHunter's solution worked. Thank you!   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 06:23, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

User contributions page not functioning

This morning my User contributions page stopped functioning. Can this be connected to the fact that I just dropped Microsoft Word and went to a shareware provider? "Hide probably good edits" keeps popping up on the User contributions page and it doesn't respond to any dates I put in. I think I'm using the latest version of Google Chrome browser. Jzsj (talk) 18:03, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Quote from User:PrimeHunter: "If you have enabled "Show only likely problem edits (and hide probably good edits)" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rc then try disabling it.". (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 18:49, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
And no, I don't think Microsoft is punishing you for dropping Microsoft Word . (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 18:51, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Thanks much, you got it. I hadn't made any recent changes myself and so didn't think to look under that. (Microsoft had received access to my computer yesterday, and I thought they may have made a mistake.) Thanks again! Jzsj (talk) 22:44, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Archive bot

Hi, I'm an admin in Azerbaijani Wikipedia and I've been referred to coders. We were just wondering is it possible to create archivebot and patrol system for Az.Wikipedia? --Azerifactory (talk) 04:37, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

@Azerifactory: while the software will be largely re-usable, a key component is having an operator that is able to understand it, willing to run it, and has somewhere to do it from. All "archiving" is done by making edits, so software must regularly check pages to see if it is ready, then do it. — xaosflux Talk 15:43, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
This page is archived by User:lowercase sigmabot III. It is written in Python. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:15, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you and I will contact him.--Azerifactory (talk) 07:00, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Gathering User Inputs for WikiCV Project

Hi all, I'm a 4th year Computer Science undergraduate student based out of India. I've been selected as an intern for Wikimedia under Round-15 of Outreachy. I'll be building a web tool called WikiCV (under the mentorship of Gergő Tisza and Stephen LaPorte), somewhat similar to your LinkedIn, StackOverflow or Github profile. Before starting with the project, I wanted inputs from users who are my target audience, that is you all!
We came up with this project because we feel that Wikipedia needs a powerful force to draw new editors to the project and allow existing editors to spend more time on it without harming their career; unfortunately, due to the highly collaborative nature of Wikipedia, the value of one's participation is hard to measure for an outsider, which makes it very hard for contributors to take credit for value added to Wikipedia.
Hence, we want to create a contribution summarizing tool which (unlike the existing ones that focus on statistics and are hard to interpret for someone not familiar with Wikipedia editing) highlights contributions in an easy-to-understand manner.

I want your inputs on:
1. What all things would you like to see in your CV for Wikipedia contributions?
2. In what way should we present the data/ contribution summary so that it is understandable by a non-Wikipedia user?
3. What are the benefits/problems of the current tools that summarize the contribution of a user (like Xtools)?
4. The CV will definitely reflect your contribution, but would it be better if it shows your current standing with respect to other users? For example, reputation points in Stack Overflow reflect how good you are relatively. One idea that I thought was - Imagine a tool that tells someone is in the top 1% of editors. Would it be nice? If yes, what would you consider a good basis for that statement?

Also, I prepared a mockup for the CV to give a rough idea as to what we are thinking of. Please check it out as well.
Apart from this, I thought of presenting the contributions in a manner similar to Github. I've prepared a tool for that. Kindly have a look at that as well and give your reviews about it.

My work is largely dependent on your inputs, so please pour in your comments/views. Your help will be quite appreciated!
Anyone can reach out to me through mail(meghasharma4910@gmail.com) as well.
Eagerly waiting for your inputs :)
Meghasharma213 (talk) 19:37, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

I moved my comment to Wikipedia_talk:WikiCV. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 07:42, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Connecting one infobox to another

What is the syntax for connecting one infobox to another using "module=?"--Georgia Army Vet Contribs Talk 23:44, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

I have replied at Wikipedia:Teahouse#Modules in templates. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:28, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

SVG file question

Why does clicking some versions of File:Question book-new.svg in the file history produce a page of code rather than displaying the image? To be clear, this link shows a page of code but this link shows the image. There is some related discussion at File talk:Question book-new.svg#MIME type. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:15, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

@MSGJ: The servers cannot determine the mime type and thus return it as html. This is most likely because the old file version doesn't have a DOCTYPE, causing some of the services between the original upload and serving the file up again, to not be able to recognise it as an svg+xml document. This is known as issue phab:T131012. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:39, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
@TheDJ: I really don't think that it's the absence of a DOCTYPE. Indeed, the SVG spec (section 1.3 SVG Namespace, Public Identifier and System Identifier) advises against adding one.
In recent weeks, I've seen the problem elsewhere; during which I've noticed that other SVG images lacking a <!DOCTYPE ...> display fine. Instead, I think it's the lack of a <?xml ... > and I've expanded on this at File talk:Question book-new.svg#MIME type. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:01, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
@Redrose64: This is absolutely correct! The missing XML processing declaration <?xml ... > together with missing server configuration is in some cases resulting in this error. We've recently started an SVG coding convention (for internal use in Foundation products for now), which also mentions both of those finding. --Volker E. (WMF) (talk) 16:25, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Wikitext syntax highlighting vs. dashes script

I use this script for fixing dashes, but it doesn't work if Wikitext syntax highlighting (one of the beta features in preferences) is turned on. Are these fundamentally incompatible, or is this something that can be fixed? I also noticed that turning on highlighting causes the browser to think you've made a change to the form, so you can't leave the page without confirming even if you've made no changes to the text. It would be nice to fix that too. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:00, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

if you edit the textarea value and want to take into account other editors editing the same value, then you need to make use of Mediawiki's jquery.textSelection javascript api. Without that, multiple textarea manipulators are not aware of each other and might thus overwrite each others edits. AutoEd (on which this script is based) does not currently use this api. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:19, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:33, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

noprint

I am currently working on a table (see here) and there is a cell containing a self-reference that I would like to hide if printed, so I added |class=noprint before it. The problem is, this is the result. I tried using <span class="printonly">foo</span>, per Help:Printing#Controlling print, although this apparently no longer works. I would like the Foo8 and Foo9 cells to rowspan (in print) from where the Foo3 cell is on screen. Alternatively, it would be great if there were a template which could transclude both noprint and printonly, as in {{print|foo|foo1}} (which I tried having a go out). It's a shame that {{Only in print}} no longer works.--Nevé–selbert 13:56, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

I do not understand you question. "there is a cell containing a self-reference" which cell exactly? You showed a result but did not describe what you expected to see and why the result is wrong. Ruslik_Zero 14:20, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
@Ruslik0: Foo3 is meant to be a self-reference. I am basically trying to hide that cell in print mode, so that it only appears on screen.--Nevé–selbert 14:23, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
You can not do this using the standard table syntax. You can read this, which shows how to do this using custom 'div' containers. Ruslik_Zero 17:05, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Please don't construct tables in bizarre ways just to remove a cell from printable. You can use {{noprint}} inside the cell to hide the contents in printable but there would still be an empty cell. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:21, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
@PrimeHunter: Might there be a way to float the cell, perhaps? I'm not quite sure how to format custom 'div' containers.--Nevé–selbert 10:41, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
You cant create two tables: one with 'printonly' class and the second with 'noprint' class. The first will show in non-print media, the second in print media. Ruslik_Zero 18:47, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-51

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

Tech News

  • Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 8 January 2018.

Problems

  • When you import a page from another wiki the usernames of the users who edited the article on the wiki you imported it from are shown in the article history. This should link to the users on the original wiki. A script to fix this caused problems for Wikidata and German Wikipedia. It also created a large number of SUL accounts on wikis where editors had never edited. [21]
  • Some bot owners got email about their bots logging in from a new computer. If this is from one or a couple of wikis, you can turn these messages off in your preferences on those wikis until the problem has been solved. If not, you can report more about the problem in Phabricator.

Changes later this week

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week. There will be no new MediaWiki version next week either.

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 19 December at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

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

15:26, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

I notice that this message calls Template:CURRENTCONTENTLANGUAGE (or perhaps someone thinks it is a WP magic word). Is this template or magic word supposed to exist? Does it exist on other WPs? Should we create it? I was unable to find it in a revision history search of Help:Magic words. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:09, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
It exists on Meta-Wiki m:Template:CURRENTCONTENTLANGUAGE. It was lately reported at m:Talk:Tech/News#CURRENTCONTENTLANGUAGE. Stryn (talk) 16:14, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. So should we submit a bot request to replace all instances of CURRENTCONTENTLANGUAGE on en.WP with CONTENTLANGUAGE? It appears to be a cosmetic edit, and there are about 425 instances. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:02, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Or we could just create Template:CURRENTCONTENTLANGUAGE with en or {{CONTENTLANGUAGE}}. The above Tech News originally said {{#time:j xg|2017-12-19|{{CURRENTCONTENTLANGUAGE}}}}. This has a purpose at meta in translated subpages like meta:Tech/News/2017/51/it where the month name will be displayed in Italian. The English Wikipedia does not use translated subpages so it seems safe to just return en always. It's cosmetic here in {{#time:j xg|2017-12-19|{{CURRENTCONTENTLANGUAGE}}}} since an unrecognized language code is ignored and #time then uses the default language of the wiki. A non-existing template may confuse some users but I don't think it's worth 425 edits to mostly user talk pages when we can just create the template. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:54, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Potential bug with {{NAMESPACE}} variable

I have just noticed that the {{NAMESPACE}} variable gives no output when it is wrapped inside the {{Multiple issues}} template. Other variables that I checked give the correct output so the failure seems to be with the variable and not the template. Can someone look at this to see what may be awry. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 07:29, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

This variable returns namespace name, so unsurprisingly it's empty for main namespace. This is a documented and expected behavior. Max Semenik (talk) 08:35, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
@John Cline: You may find it easier to use {{Pagetype}} -- John of Reading (talk) 08:59, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you both. I'll certainly consider an alternative.--John Cline (talk) 09:19, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Use of Template:lang-XXX when There are english description word needed in between.

How to present the following content properly within the lang-XXX template?

QQQ (XXXese: AAA, BBB, or CCC) ....

One might want to simply write it as:

QQQ {{lang-XXX|AAA, BBB, or CCC}}

However it is problematic because it would tell the browser, reading software the English word "or" is part of the XXXese, and the word or will also be italicized to visually give user an impression that the "or" is XXXese while it is not.

One way to mitigate that would be writing

QQQ {{lang-XXX|AAA, BBB, ''{{lang|en|or}}'' CCC}}

Which would both tell the browser that "or" is an English word and also escape Italic sequence, however it would trigger an warning from the tempkate that italic markup not being allowed in the template, therefore I swithed to use

QQQ {{lang-XXX|AAA, BBB, </i>{{lang|en|or}}<i> CCC}}

Which created the desirable effect. However this things is too long, complex, and contain HTML code which might not be intrusitic to some editors, therefore is there a better way to use the template function and syntax to achieve same result? Note that, while the English word in between in this context is "or", it might also be another English word(s) instead depend on context.C933103 (talk) 06:45, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

QQQ ({{lang-XXX|AAA}}, {{lang|XXX|BBB}}, or {{lang|XXX|CCC}}). --Izno (talk) 12:30, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that's the correct markup. Not all languages even use the comma that English does.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  11:46, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Annoying search for "CAT:"

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T115756

When I type "CAT:PROD" in the search bar, it automatically converts it to "Category:CAT:PROD", which doesn't ecist. The same happens with "CAT:CSD", which brings me to Category:CAT:CSD. Basically, every search for "CAT" expands to "Category:CAT", instead of to "Category:" or to "CAT:". Is this a new problem or a known bug? Fram (talk) 13:58, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

What is your setting at Preferences → Search? There are four choices. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:20, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
Completion suggester: "default (recommended)". Prefix search: not selected. Fram (talk) 14:28, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
There you are: "Corrects up to two typos. Resolves close redirects." In short, a PITA. I suggest you switch to "Classic prefix search", as this has "No typo correction. Matches the beginning of titles." in short, it won't attempt to second-guess you. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:33, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll change my preference, but if someone from the WMF (or whoever developed this "completion suggester") reads this, perhaps they should take a look and change the code for this specific issue? Fram (talk) 14:58, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
The bug does not depend on that preference. It occurs after you have included "Category" at Advanced search and chosen "Remember selection for future searches" (only possible when logged in). mw:Extension:CirrusSearch/CompletionSuggester is only supposed to suggest existing pages. Suggesting non-existing pages like Category:CAT:CSD when you type CAT: is a clear bug and not just poor typo correction. I assume the bug is triggered by CAT:CSD redirecting to the category namespace. Any tested search starting with CAT: only gives non-existing pages starting with "Category:CAT:". Typing Category:CAT: gives the same false results when it should have given no results. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:14, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
It sounds like phab:T115756 from 2015: "Search suggests non-existent title due to namespace/redirect mixup". The same can happen for redirects to other namespaces. I selected "Wikipedia" at Advanced search and chose "Remember selection for future searches". Then MOS: suggests red links like Wikipedia:MOS:NUM instead of MOS:NUM. It's not limited to names with colons. Expanded a suggests Wikipedia:Expanded article instead of Expanded article. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:03, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. Let's hope that after more than two years they can fix this! Fram (talk) 13:57, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks PrimeHunter for mentioning that task. I shared the conversation here with the Search team and they've got a patch (software change) that should remedy most of the cases like this. However, due to the timing it won't be applied until after the holiday. We try not to do anything that will break when everyone is away with family and friends. :) I wanted to mention this here before the thread disappears into the archive and to let folks know before the holiday break. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 14:41, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Seemingly spurious Harv error warnings

Hi, I wonder if anyone might have any suggestions on this issue that started for me yesterday, before I head over to Phabricator with it. TIA Nortonius (talk) 21:20, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

@Nortonius: I normally use User:Gadget850/HarvErrors.js, and using that I see no errors in HMS Spiteful (1899). When I switched to User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js temporarily I saw spurious errors. Perhaps our local scripting experts can compare the two scripts and repair either or both of them? -- John of Reading (talk) 21:34, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Responded at Nortonius's talk page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:52, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the input John of Reading and Jonesey95, I'll follow this back to my talk. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 14:59, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Infobox NRHP

Can anyone figure out how to stop {{Infobox NRHP}} placing Flemington Historic District in the non-existent Category:Historic districts in USA New Jersey Hunterdon County, instead of the correct Category:National Register of Historic Places in Hunterdon County, New Jersey?

AFAICS, Whitehouse–Mechanicsville Historic District uses exactly the same parameter locmapin = USA New Jersey Hunterdon County#New Jersey#USA, but doesn't cause this error. W–M is correctly in Category:National Register of Historic Places in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.

I have no idea how {{Infobox NRHP}} works, and am stumped. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:49, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

This is actually a good example of why we don't use user-facing templates to populate categories automatically. It would probably be easier for you to post a request at WP:Bot requests to have the lot cleaned up. --Izno (talk) 23:04, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm checking the template, but I do note that the category for W-M seems hardcoded, and not coming from the template. Still checking. --Masem (t) 23:36, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Adding "nocat=yes" to the template makes the template stop trying to resolve the category name. I would recommended doing that for the first case, and add the category manual (eg replicate what happened on W-M).
The categories come out of Template:Infobox NRHP/conv. In the calls in the main template, if it is not one of a few special areas (like DC, Georgia, etc.) it is passing the value of "locmapin" directly to the /conv template , which then gets put into the Category name. But that is missing the translation of the machine-sensible text used to pull up the right Location map to a human-sensible name. --Masem (t) 23:43, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, @Masem.
I fixed[22] it using nocat=yes.
And yes, @Izno, these auto-categorisations are a nuisance. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:23, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
PS I have let a note at WT:NRHP#Infobox_NRHP_broken_categorisation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:30, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I agree. I did spend some time looking at this myself, to no avail. I will look with interest to see how it was resolved. Thanks Masem.--John Cline (talk) 03:43, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I didn't touch anything, I just noted what I saw above. I believe the specific page was fixed by adding "nocat=yes" to disable that functionality, but that still leaves the problem that the template is broken in some fashion. --Masem (t) 03:47, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. It seems that setting |nocat=yes is indeed outlined in the templates documentation (here) to mitigate the eventuality of such nonexistent categorization. I think using {{#ifexist:}} will prove to be better.--John Cline (talk) 06:26, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm in the process of dealing with this - the first step is to make sure that all articles categorized in this method are also in the categories directly, so that they won't be removed when I (or someone else) fix the template. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:00, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

{{Infobox NRHP}} is currently transcluded in 62,867 articles. Autocategorization does have advantages when implemented appropriately. Many of those articles would probably be missing a category without it, and there are thousands of possible categories in Category:National Register of Historic Places by state and its subcategories. The template has a documented nocat parameter as recommended at Wikipedia:Category suppression#Attribute-based suppression examples. John Cline's suggestion to use {{#ifexist:}} seems better than removing auto-categorization. If the automatically chosen category does not exist and nocat is not set then articles could be added to Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup or a new subcategory instead of adding a non-existing category. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:20, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Actually, most of these 62,867 articles aren't categorized by the template. I added direct categorization to 233 articles (including both manual and AWB-assisted); I have a list of 671 articles to check over - and probably fewer than half of them actually depend on the template to categorize them. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:53, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I just looked at the top 10 of the 671 articles. Of them, only for 4 does the template include a category; and 2 of these articles already included explicit categorization in that category. I certainly can't guarantee that this 20% represents everything, although if it does then there would only be 134 articles needing to be updated. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu
Checking the cases using Special:Search, I see a lot of places where there is no manual category (and also where the automatic category has been suppressed). Listing those with no manual category: 583, 5400 that need the appropriate Category:Historic districts in ..., 7 for Category:Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register, 332, 30 for Category:Historic district contributing properties [...], 0 for Category:National Memorials of the United States (and could be removed from the code today), 5 for Category:National Battlefields and Military Parks of the United States. --Izno (talk) 15:32, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
(Searches are a little restrictive on their whitespace judgement--a search with * rather than  ? may yield slightly different results. --Izno (talk) 15:37, 19 December 2017 (UTC))

View source text next to section titles on protected pages

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T11394
Moved from WP:VPP

You know how for editable pages, the word edit appears next to each header, and clicking it allows one to view and edit the source code only for that section? It's especially convenient for long pages. I propose that this also be done for pages that can't be edited, but instead of saying edit, the text would say view source, and the reader would be able to but not edit the source. This would make finding wikicoding for a particular thing in the middle of a long page or something easier.50.235.102.246 (talk) 14:46, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

This looks like a good idea, but requires changes to the software. Please see Wikipedia:Bug reports and feature requests for the proper place and method to make these requests. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:57, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Note, this has nothing to do with policy, if available this would be at most a user option not requiring a policy change. Moving to WP:VPT. — xaosflux Talk 16:39, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Lowest-impact string replacement?

What's the lowest-impact solution we have for doing string replacement? I want to patch a template to auto-escape double quotation marks in input that refers to #anchorName link targets, without unduly adding to parserfunction and template load.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  11:54, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Can you use {{Trim quotes}}? It should be a little faster to bypass the template and invoke Module:Trim quotes directly. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:40, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Clicking "Show preview" publishes the edit

About a half dozen times or so over the past few weeks, when I click "preview" to review changes I've made, the page saved (or "published") instead. If it was only once or twice, I could see it possibly being my error, (as in, I thought I clicked 'preview' but actually clicked 'save'), but I am now certain that this issue is with the site, that clicking 'preview' did result in the page saving my changes. Anyone got any advice on what I should do about this? (if there's anything I can do, that is). Thanks - theWOLFchild 23:58, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't happen for me and I don't know what causes it for you but you could try to separate the buttons more with code like this in your CSS:
#wpPreview {margin-left: 10em;}
PrimeHunter (talk) 00:11, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Hi, I appreciate the reply, but I am certain that some of the pages I've edited have saved when I clicked the 'preview' button, so while your suggestion may be helpful (and I will try it), it doesn't address the problem. I'm just wondering if there is anything else I can or should be doing? I'm also curious if anyone else has experienced this issue. Thanks - theWOLFchild 00:31, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I haven't seen reports from others at any help pages so it may be something at your end like mouse, browser, or yourself being less accurate than you think. All these could potentially be helped by separating the buttons. I see you added the code to User:Thewolfchild/common.css. __NOINDEX__ and {{nobots}} are meant for wikitext pages. CSS pages use another language. It doesn't have an equivalent but you don't need it anyway. Userspace pages are noindexed by default. Only yourself and administrators can edit your CSS pages, and I haven't heard of any admin bots doing it. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:04, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
When did the "default" status begin? My user pages used to show up on Google. They haven't since I added those templates. My page at the sco.wiki did show up today in a Google search, and it didn't have those template. (It does now). So, I have found these two little bits of markup helpful, they seem to do what they're supposed to and I haven't noted any problems because of them. Cheers - theWOLFchild 02:13, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
The English Wikipedia decided to noindex userspace by default in 2015 at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 126#Userpage drafts shown in search engines. It's implemented with this code in https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php:
# ROBOT @{
'wgNamespaceRobotPolicies' => [
...
	'enwiki' => [
		NS_USER => 'noindex,follow', // T104797
		NS_USER_TALK => 'noindex,follow',
Some other wikis do the same but not scowiki. T104797 refers to phab:T104797. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:07, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Which of the many editing environments are you using? And are you clicking (i.e., with a mouse or trackpad), or do you commonly use the keyboard shortcuts? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 07:15, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
The issue has occurred at least once on 3 different devices; 2 laptops with finger pads and buttons and a smartphone with touchscreen. Never used keyboard short-cuts. Cheers - theWOLFchild 07:23, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Were you always logged in or always logged out when it happened? Can you remember a specific edit when this happened, and give me the diff?
I also need to know which editing tools you were using at the time. There are about a dozen different wikitext editors, and the devs have to know where to look for the problem. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:19, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
I believe I was logged in. I don't use special tools or text editors (that I'm aware of). I'll see if I can find a specific edit where this issue occurred. Thanks - theWOLFchild 02:13, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Infobox's population_total displaying year 2011 as 2,011 at Challur

Resolved

Title says it all, I guess. I came across this article when fixing typos. [23] (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 07:27, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Fixed. The right parameters just weren't being used. Nihlus 07:31, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
@Nihlus: Thank you! (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 07:44, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Problem with Protected Template Edit Requests

I've been advised (see this) to report this problem here. When I requested a change at protected Template:Smiley, by going to the template and clicking on 'View Source' and then on 'Submit an edit request' thus ending up here, I entered the change's description, but it created a section with no such description (here), thus forcing me to add in the change description manually (here). Luckily I had a copy of the description, but some other editor might have to type it in twice. Also I was left uncertain as to whether the description could be seen at whatever Noticeboard really matters, especially as the comment field just above the place we're told to put the description tells us 'Blank edit requests will be declined.' (I've since learned there's no description field at the Noticeboard either (see here)). And I was also left uncertain as to where to report the problem (which is why it took me 5 days to report it, after having to ask for this info twice). I also tested it again both at the time and today, and it still shows a blank description, at least in the Preview. Regards, Tlhslobus (talk) 14:52, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

@Tlhslobus: Since your edit request contained an equals sign, I suspect that this edit is what was needed. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:01, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, John, that seems to have fixed the problem, and I note that the 1= now appears automatically, at least for Template:Smiley (as for other Templates, I assume you know a lot more about that than I do). Thanks again and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you.Tlhslobus (talk) 15:41, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
For the record, it's the first point at Help:Template#Usage hints and workarounds. The source usually keeps the parameter even if it's ignored but in the reported case it disappeared from the source because the template was substituted. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:46, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. Tlhslobus (talk) 12:24, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Problem with Mobile App and Template:Photomontage

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T183347

Is this intentional? While using the mobile app, some of the articles which use the Template:Photomontage are showing this image instead of the montage. Screenshots of two articles are given here. AG47 Talk 21:31, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Template:Photomontage was vandalized today and fixed 17 hours ago.[24] It sometimes takes a while before all pages using a template are automatically updated in the desktop and mobile version of the site. A purge can update a page right away there. I don't know which of the many apps at List of Wikipedia mobile applications you refer to or how it updates after template edits. After some searching (please always link relevant pages) I found your examples Thiruvananthapuram and Trujillo, Peru. They display correctly for me in desktop and mobile. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:13, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I did a purge and null edit of the Thiruvananthapuram page, but the vandalism image is still showing up in the official Android app for me. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 23:19, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

This is essentially the same issue as Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 161#HELP: Templates broken - need urgent attention? - different template, different image, probably different perp, but same fix. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:25, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Its in the official Android Mobile App here. Don't know weather it works fine on ios and other platforms. The desktop version, mobile browser version and the windows 10 store app works fine. I tried reinstalling the app, purging the page and tried different devices and the image still shows up in the Android App. And its only affecting some of the articles which uses the template. Some of the affected articles are Majuro, Thiruvananthapuram, Trujillo, Peru, Kabul, Art Deco, some color pages like Green, Blue, Red, Yellow. AG47 Talk 07:49, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Some more screenshots here. AG47 Talk 08:12, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Have you WP:PURGEd each of the affected pages? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:33, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
If it helps I manually null-edited AND purged the desktop-version of the affected pages within an hour of the vandalism. I also blacklisted the image at the same time. Do we need to also purge the mobile versions? It would be nice if there was a way to have this automated. Perhaps someone has a script to do that? -- zzuuzz (talk) 08:44, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes. I tried purging the desktop version. No change in the Mobile app. But the desktop and mobile version don't have any problem. The vandalism image still showing up only in the official Android app. I don't know much about Apps, but it seems like the Android Application somehow managed to cache this image in it's database. Is there any way to purge the Android App? AG47 Talk 09:17, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
It's supposed to be automated. When you purge, that is the way to get around of the automation failing :) This seems like a deeper problem somewhere in the application. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:12, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
I've found that the app api endpoint is serving up stale HTML content. I've created a ticket. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:27, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
@TheDJ: this sounds a similar issue to ticket T174993. Nthep (talk) 12:06, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
@Nthep: I had the same thought.. couldn't immediately find back that ticket, so thank you for mentioning it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:24, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Call for Wikimania 2018 Scholarships

Hi all,

We wanted to inform you that scholarship applications for Wikimania 2018 which is being held in Cape Town, South Africa on July 18–22, 2018 are now being accepted. Applications are open until Monday, 22 January 2018 23:59 UTC.

Applicants will be able to apply for a partial or full scholarship. A full scholarship will cover the cost of an individual's round-trip travel, shared accommodation, and conference registration fees as arranged by the Wikimedia Foundation. A partial scholarship will cover conference registration fees and shared accommodation. Applicants will be rated using a pre-determined selection process and selection criteria established by the Scholarship Committee and the Wikimedia Foundation, who will determine which applications are successful. To learn more about Wikimania 2018 scholarships, please visit: wm2018:Scholarships.

To apply for a scholarship, fill out the multi-language application form on: https://scholarships.wikimedia.org/apply

It is highly recommended that applicants review all the material on the Scholarships page and the associated FAQ before submitting an application. If you have any questions, please contact: wikimania-scholarships at wikimedia.org or leave a message at: wm2018:Talk:Scholarships. Please help us spread the word and translate pages!

Best regards, David Richfield and Martin Rulsch for the Scholarship Committee 19:24, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Unbundling rollback

Rollback is only to be used to revert vandalism, not for any other purpose. If it is abused it is usually withdrawn. This revert [25] was not of vandalism. Rollback is not part of the administrator toolkit. Is it possible to withdraw it without affecting use of the tools? 2A00:23C1:3180:8301:F1B4:1DBA:E6E5:EF62 (talk) 16:17, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

While it may be technically possible to remove the (rollback) from the Administrators group, it is never going to happen here. If you have issue with a particular edit, first discuss it with the editor that made it. — xaosflux Talk 16:25, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) And then admins could still self-assign the rollbacker right. {{repeat|p|3}}ery (talk) 16:26, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
See WP:ROLLBACK, lead section, last paragraph which includes "an admin could be stripped of their administrative privileges". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:08, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Seems a bit much. It would probably make more sense to have an AN or ANI discussion. If it concluded that the party in question is careless with rollback, but not a loose cannon with admin tools, they could be get rollback removed and be banned from using rollback (would who, of coruse, preclude them administratively giving it back to themself), pending some later appeal. A restriction doesn't have to be a technical one to be implemented, or we would not have move bans, topic bans, interaction bans, 3RR/1RR, and other restrictions which have no technical enforcement mechanism.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  12:03, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Well, theoretically, the edit filter could be set up to enforce most of those restrictions to some degree. {{repeat|p|3}}ery (talk) 12:38, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
It's nothing to do with the technical question being asked, but the revert being questioned was justified as reverting a banned user, which I would posit is a permissible use. QuiteUnusual (talk) 16:24, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Remove spurious Template:italics title from articles with infobox journal/magazine

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval#JCW-CleanerBot 3 is a proposal for a bot to cleanup unnecessary {{italics title}} in articles with infobox journals/magazine. Before 2009, you had to italicize the titles of articles on journal/magazine by hand, now this is done by the infoboxes. Most of these instance date from before 2009.

The bot, while technically WP:COSMETICBOT, would remove crap from the lead space of the article, and make things much less confusing for newcomers, that try to copy-paste from existing article to create new articles. It also causes issues if |italic title=no is set, since there's a clash, and the article title will remain italicized. I plan on running this with genfixes enabled which would maximize the usefulness of the run. This would be a one time run that affects ~1200 pages. No one in the WP:JOURNALS/WP:MAGAZINE project objects to this, but I was told to start a discussion here to gain consensus for that. It's not a high priority issue, but it makes maintenance journal/magazine articles that much easier, and more editor-friendly.

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:47, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Support. I don't see a point in retaining code that does nothing (because another piece of code is doing the same thing). I agree that it can be confusing for new editors; when I started editing articles on species and genera of organisms, I was blindly adding {{italic title}}, not realizing, that in many cases {{Taxobox}} already automatically italicized article titles (I'd also support a separate bot request to remove {{italic title}} from species/genus articles). Plantdrew (talk) 19:22, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

File Upload Wizard

I was told that I should ask here for the solution to a problem I am encountering. The file upload wizard does not seem to work for me. I click on it but it just changes the bottom where it says when it was last modified and who modified it for a second then goes back to the original screen. This is a problem because I find many missing album/single covers on the Wikipedia. I know you can’t upload those to Wikimedia because I have gotten many copyright strikes for it. I would greatly appreciate help. DatBoy101 (talk) 23:23, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

What browser/OS do you use? Do you use some custom gadgets? Ruslik_Zero 15:46, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

I use Safari on my iPad Mini. DatBoy101 (talk) 16:49, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

What version of iOS? Ruslik_Zero 19:57, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
DatBoy101, I'm happy to help file a task to have the engineers look at the issue, but I need some more infomration. As Ruslik0 asks, what version of iOS are you using? Are you using the mobile web view or the desktop view? CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 21:08, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I use IOS 11.2 I’m using the mobile view DatBoy101 (talk) 00:29, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

@CKoerner (WMF): Ruslik_Zero 13:12, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
DatBoy101 Sorry for the delay. Ruslik, thank you for the ping. I made some time before the holiday break to see if I could reproduce. I didn't want to leave you all hanging as things get quiet around here. :) Yep, I can reproduce. It looks like something is weird with the link at Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard when using the mobile skin. I created a task to let the folks smarter than I take a look. If someone familiar with that page is interested, I left some notes in the task. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:07, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you DatBoy101 (talk) 03:06, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

A strange problem with UK articles which pull map data from Wikidata

I often patrol Category:Location maps with marks outside map and outside parameter not set, an error tracking category for problems with location maps. Yesterday I noticed that about 50 articles had landed on the page. When I went to the pages to check, they all had a UK map and all had a dot which was correctly within the map. If I did a blank edit and save, they came off the category. The only common feature which they share is that they all use a UK map and they all have an infobox which pulls from Wikidata. I can't find a suspect edit to Wikidata or to the various nested layers upon layers of templates that pull Wikidata and then feed it into location map templates. While it's a pretty easy fix to get all the articles off the tracking category, this problem is concerning, because an edit was made somewhere which broke a part of a number of articles, but which is very difficult to track down and therefore very difficult to fix. Can anyone figure out what happened??

On a side note, I'm amazed at how easily changes at Wikidata can break a large number of pages in ways that are not obvious how to fix them...Tobyc75 (talk) 16:27, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, it's almost as if the relentless march towards automating infoboxes based on Wikidata is a bad idea or something... --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:57, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
@Tobyc75: Well i'd first blame template syntax, lua and a gazillion years of stacking template backwards compatibility due to merged templates, but yeah. The more complicated stuff becomes, the harder it is to reverse engineer. Anyway, without knowing an actually example article where this occurred, it's not even hard, but simply impossible. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:40, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
Probably some item common to these pages which was vandalised on Wikidata, which then was propagated to enwiki causing the errors, but corrected on Wikidata before you came along to do your null edits. Having a few actual examples of articles where this happened would help. (I have seen the same happen with articles on Romanian topics, when "Romania" was changed to "Moldavia" on Wikidata, only then the vandalism wasn't corrected yet on Wikidata). "I'm amazed at how easily changes at Wikidata can break a large number of pages in ways that are not obvious how to fix them..." is one of the main reasons that using Wikidata on enwiki isn't as positive as it sometimes seems... Fram (talk) 09:24, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Script window sizes

I'm using Chrome 63.0.3239.84 (adblock/tracker blocker disabled on WP) on Windows 8.1. Sometimes scripts open in super tiny windows - this more just a nuisance for resizable ones like WP:Twinkle (which frequently pops up as almost just a horizontal bar), but others like mw:WikiLove are practically unusable. Has anyone else seen this? Could it be a setting that I missed somewhere, or will I just have to live with not being able to send people kittens? ansh666 18:58, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Taxbobox and Category:Near Threatened species

Can anyone gure out why {{Taxobox}} is placing 2 articles (Blanfordia simplex and Blanfordia japonica) in Category:Near Threatened species rather than in the correct Category:Near threatened species?

The conservation status categories were moved from capitalised format to sentence case at WP:CFD 2011 May 18, so I presume that the templates were updated at the time. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:15, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl:, the underlying issue seems to be that no |status_system= is specified. It's likely IUCN3.1, but neither species is listed in the IUCN Red List database, and I'm not comfortable assuming it's actually IUCN3.1 on the basis of a dead-link to a document in a writing system I can't read. Plantdrew (talk) 05:30, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, Plantdrew.
It doesn't seem like there is an easy fix, so I have reverted your 2 edits which unintentionally broke the categories, just to remove them from Special:WantedCategories (which was the only reason I visited the articles). Good luck in sorting it out. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:45, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Contribs page filter

I've never found a way of actually getting it to filter results (I particularly wanted to isolate CSD noms), and I couldn't see anything specific at WP:WATCH; can anybody advise? Many thanks in advance if so! (Apologies if this is- probably- a stupid question!). >SerialNumber54129...speculates 12:37, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

purge this page

I have an approved bot running AWB which I use from time to time. Now, when I try to use it, a message appears which I cannot get rid of and cannot use the bot. So what to do? Message is: 

 User talk: Hmainsbot1
   Purge this page
   Clear the cache of this page?  
   YES
Purging a page clears the cache and forces the most  
 current revision to appear

Hmains (talk) 04:54, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

@Hmains: Try logging in to the Hmainsbot1 account in a web browser and visiting the bot's talk page. This will clear the "account has new unread messages" indicator that AWB checks for. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:49, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, this solved the problem, which was perhaps related to when the bot's talk page had been vandalized and I was not being forwarded the notices to my regular account. Thanks. Hmains (talk) 19:41, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Template:BillboardURLbyName

I left a message on Template talk:BillboardURLbyName#No longer works a week ago that it does not appear to work properly anymore - the link goes to the main page for the artist rather than the chart specified, for example, all the Billboard chart links in Rihanna discography go to the same page, whether they be US album/single or Canadian charts. I don't know if this is fixable (it could be simply just a change in url), but since it is protected, we can't change it ourselves. Can someone with the right permission do it for us? Hzh (talk) 18:36, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

The Rihanna article has many Billboard links. Please choose one that does not work, and inform us of what it should be amended to. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:27, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
It looks like the Billboard site has changed its URL structure. The old URL for Rihanna Chart History for Dance/Electronic Albums was https://www.billboard.com/artist/365068/Rihanna/chart?f=946. The new URL for the same chart history is https://www.billboard.com/music/rihanna/chart-history/dance-electronic-albums. It looks like Template:BillboardChartNum and probably some other related templates need to be rebuilt to match the new URL structure. Good fun. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:40, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
The article code for this example is {{BillboardURLbyName|artist=Rihanna|chart=Dance/Electronic Albums}} which produces https://www.billboard.com/artist/rihanna/chart-history/dance/electronic-albums. At the time of my post it says https://www.billboard.com/artist/365068/Rihanna/chart?f=946 where 946 comes from |Dance/Electronic Albums = 946 in {{BillboardChartNum}}. Hundreds of previously numbered charts may need a text name, and other templates need changes to use the name. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:20, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
It sounds daunting, but if it is just a change in structure, presumably we can just ignore the code number and simply use the chart name (which is specified) which would be simpler, but I suspect there would be complications. Hzh (talk) 21:46, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Lua error on Spain infobox

https://i.imgur.com/A3aBD2D.png Any explanation for these errors? Eman235/talk 03:44, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

It is not there now. I think it was an error in Module:Lang that has since been fixed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:02, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

The Wikitext Infobox in an article has been broken and I don't know how to repair it )

Resolved

Offset_(rapper)

I hope this is the right place to make this request. At some point, an editor broke the Infobox on this Wikipedia page, and I don't yet have the knowledge to repair it. Thank you. Beauty School Dropout (talk) 05:22, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Problem has been solved by another editor. Thank you. Beauty School Dropout (talk) 05:31, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

How to quote a poem in a citation template's |quote= ?

Resolved

Use–mention distinction#Notes has a footnote (not written by me) which quotes a limerick. The limerick is formatted using : and :: wiki markup, but the (required) preceeding line breaks lead to line feed character in |quote= at position 245 (help). Is there a right way to do this? 23.83.37.241 (talk) 09:40, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

This has been resolved by another editor. Thanks for reporting it. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 07:55, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

URLs of Wikipedia articles in print

Merry Christmas everyone. I was just wondering whether there's a template that display the URLs of Wikipedia pages in print.--Nevé–selbert 13:39, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

You do not need a template. You can use {{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|printable=yes}}, which produces this. Ruslik_Zero 19:25, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Problem with named footnote

Resolved

The Population decline complains, "Cite error: The named reference bizweek was invoked but never defined". I took a look, and it looks as if it is defined OK to me. I'm probably missing something which should be obvious; could someone else please take a look? Thanks. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:53, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

another <ref> was missing its </ref>.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:58, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I thought to go look for that while you were responding with astounding rapidity. I fixed it. Thanks. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:02, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

"Clipping" of text/caret in edit summary and subject/headline

When I enter an edit summary the lower part of the text is not displayed - eg the bottom of the letter "g" and underscore characters are not visible. When the text gets long enough to reach the right-hand side of the edit summary text box (near the remaining-character count) the caret (vertical bar) disappears. This is quite annoying. The problem appears with MonoBook skin. It always seems to be a problem with articles, and sometime is also a problem with subject/headline. I'm using Pale Moon (web browser) v27.6.2 (the current version), but a similar problem occurs with FireFox v54. FF v57 fixes the descenders but not the disappearing caret. Does anyone know if this is a problem with Wikipedia, or is it a problem with the browser? If it's the browser, does anyone know if there is a specific bug (eg on Mozilla's website) covering it, which I could point the Pale Moon developers at? Or is there some other fix eg my custom CSS)? Mitch Ames (talk) 07:13, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Opera too, and not just those: most one-line input boxes, including those in the goshawful new preferences thing (such as the custom signature). I picked MonoBook over Vector for some very good reasons, two of which were compactness and clarity. These are being thrown by the wayside and soon we will have a situation where it doesn't matter what skin we pick, it'll all look the same - unreadable. This is NOT GOOD for accessibility, and I REQUIRE some means of obtaining the former appearance. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:30, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Nevermind that basically every accessibility guideline in existence disagrees with you when it comes to compactness. Padding is good for the eyes. But hey, maybe people will listen to your REQUIREMENTS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.88.208.155 (talk) 03:44, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Listen, I have poor eyesight. The MonoBook version of the prefs was just fine. This one is not. Clipping off descenders can in no way be considered "helpful". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:55, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
I think we can safely trust users to know whether they can read things on their own computer screens. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:41, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Unable to reproduce on macOS. Can someone check on Windows/Linux ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:39, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

I have the problem on Windows 7. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:17, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Could someone with this problem please check to see whether the descenders are clipped on the edit summary box while logged out/in a private window, or in &safemode=1? I'd like to see if we can rule out the possibility of broken scripts. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:41, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
While logged out the problem does not appear (i.e. descenders and underscores are visible, caret is visible at the extreme right of the edit box) - but so far as I know you can't chose anything other than the default skin unless logged in, and even when I am logged in I see the problem with MonoBook but not Vector. (I.e the difference may not be that I am logged in/out, but that I have a different skin when logged out.)
While logged in, with MonoBook and &safemode=1 (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assyria&action=edit&safemode=1) I can see descenders and underscores, but the caret disappears when it is on the right side of the edit box.
Mitch Ames (talk) 14:02, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
You can try https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assyria&action=edit&useskin=monobook while logged out/in a private window. But I think that these results so far suggest that the problem with the descenders is in a gadget or script. Perhaps you and Redrose64 have a script in common? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
I was under the impression that user scripts were disabled at Special:Preferences, so that you would still have a recovery means if you happened to lock yourself out with careless scripts. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:36, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't think that user scripts (that is in one's own .js subpages) can be controlled through a preference. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:19, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm not saying that they can be controlled through a preference. I'm saying that user scripts are normally sent to your browser automatically when you visit any Wikipedia page (perhaps in a <link /> element or a <script>...</script> element), and such scripts are suppressed when you visit Special:Preferences as a safety feature. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:40, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assyria&action=edit&useskin=monobook while not logged in behaves the same (other than the expected MonoBook look) as the default: descenders and underscores are visible, caret is visible at the extreme right of the edit box.
Perhaps you and Redrose64 have a script in common — How do I get a definitive list of what scripts I'm running? I know I'm using mw:User:Remember the dot/Syntax highlighter, and my common.css has #wpTextbox1 { height: 52em; }. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:18, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

There are at least these modifications to your account:

Are you still using WikEd? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:08, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

The problem appears to be the syntax highlighter gadget. Clearing all of my .js and .css scripts made no difference, but the missing descenders and underscores is only a problem when the syntax highlighter is enabled. @Remember the dot: can you help us out here?
The caret still disappears at the right end of the edit box, even with the syntax highlighter disabled.
(I tried WikEd and the Beta Wikitext syntax highlighting, but for various reasons I much prefer the syntax highlighter.)
Mitch Ames (talk) 13:22, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
I can reproduce both the invisible underscore problem and the disappearing cursor problem, with or without the syntax highlighter enabled, using the MonoBook skin on Pale Moon 27.6.2 on Windows 10. I can't reproduce either problem with Pale Moon on Linux. You could try different versions of Firefox to figure out approximately when the behavior changed, and then look for people discussing similar problems online. —Remember the dot (talk) 02:21, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
I've just tested with Pale Moon on Windows 10 (in a VirtualBox virtual machine) and I get the same results - the problem appears whether or not use the syntax highlighter. Also, the problem appears with Pale Moon and not syntax highlighter on my normal Windows 7 machine if I delete my Pale Moon profile and use a default profile. It looks like some obscure combination of any number of things is triggering the problem. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:23, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
Just to make it more interesting, I tried Windows 7 in a VM, with a new Windows user (default Windows and PM profile), not logged in to Wikipedia - now in both Win 7 and 10 I can see the descenders and underscores disappear and re-appear as I scroll the up and down the page using the browser scroll bars! If nothing else, this gives me something reproducible to report to the Pale Moon developers. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:42, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

I've reported the problem on the Pale Moon bug report forum: [26]. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:32, 15 December 2017 (UTC) Restored section archived by Lowercase sigmabot III to give the Pale Moon people a bit longer to look at it. Mitch Ames (talk) 06:41, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Is there a template for Country/The Country?

Resolved

Do we a have template to check whether a country's name is prefixed with "the" in running text?

Something which would take the name of a country, and return it with or without the prefix as appropriate.

e.g.

  • {{TheCountry|Canada}} → Canada
  • {{TheCountry|Comoros}} → the Comoros
  • {{TheCountry|Japan}} → Japan
  • {{TheCountry|Gambia}} → the Gambia
  • {{TheCountry|Spain}} → Spain
  • {{TheCountry|United States}} → the United States

or maybe just return either "the" or nothing e.g.

  • {{TheCountry|Canada}} →
  • {{TheCountry|Comoros}} → the
  • {{TheCountry|Japan}} →
  • {{TheCountry|Gambia}} → the
  • {{TheCountry|Spain}} →
  • {{TheCountry|United States}} → the

I vaguely remember finding something like that before, but may be mistaken. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:48, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Duh. Facepalm Facepalm
I made it myself, in January: {{CountryPrefixThe}}. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:11, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
What an interesting idea! Do you think it could be used to fix this ambassador-article-naming problem? – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:11, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, @Jonesey95. Looks like it would solve that problem. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:24, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

User contributions

User contributions has changed. It used to have a From year (and earlier) box and a From month (and earlier) box which was simple and quick to use. It now has a From date and To date box, which requires some fiddling to get to the year and month required. Also, sadly, it doesn't work at all for me. I suspect it may be because I have javascript disabled by default on my main browser. However, when trying it out on a browser with java enabled, though it was more responsive, it still did not take me to the year I wanted. Is there a way I can return to the previous system? SilkTork (talk) 23:15, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

On my device, I do get the date selector dialog, but I am still able to directly type in the date in YYYY-MM-DD format. Does that not work for you? 🎄BethNaught (talk)🎄 23:19, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
I am now using a third browser, which allows all scripts, and on that it does work. So, it seems to fail if java is disabled (which is my preference), and if noscripts is running. On your device I assume you are running java. If you turn off java, you'll see the problem.
Is it possible for me to do a user contributions history search without having to enable java? And, preferably, using the previous system which was quick and easy. SilkTork (talk) 23:27, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, when I disabled JavaScript I ended up without direct text input. I can't answer your other question, sorry. If nobody can help I suggest you open a Phabricator task. 🎄BethNaught (talk)🎄 23:32, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks Beth. Sometimes when there are technical changes which create user difficulties, somebody develops a fix or workaround which can be used. If there is one, perhaps someone will direct me to it. SilkTork (talk) 00:09, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
@SilkTork: Works for me; Both with javascript enabled, and with javascript disabled (BTW Java is something different). I suspect this is due to the usage of noscript, which blocks execution of certain scripts, instead of actually disabling scripting, which makes it very simple to accidentally break the website. Likely the website detects that you have javascript capabilities and starts running on that assumption, then you block some, but not all of the Javascript and stuff gets confused. Usage of no script is NOT supported, just to be clear. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:44, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for that. Yes, I meant javascript throughout. I'm looking at my browser configuration to see what it is that I've done that may be breaking the code. I have noscript on my Waterfox, but not on Opera, my main browser, because it's rather interfering! SilkTork (talk) 09:55, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Edit filter question

Moved to Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard § Article age variable
 – To prevent forking. — xaosflux Talk 19:46, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Non breaking spaces

Invisible non-breaking spaces are being added to Wikipedia in the 100s. They were added in this edit for example.[27]

Than when one edits the article with WP:WikEd on, the 450 invisible non-breaking spaces turn into these "&nbsp;"

I think this has something to do with WP:VE as the edits adding the invisible hard spaces are always edits via VE.

Have started this phabricator ticket[28] trying to figure out how to get this issue fixed. Others thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:14, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

I've been getting exactly the same thing for months now and wondering wtf. I've got WikiEd enabled and it only happens when I'm in Visual Editor. Thanks for raising this, James. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:59, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
Actually, James, I just checked my preferences and I've got wikiEdDiff enabled, not wikiEd. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:31, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes the problem appears to be being generated by WP:VE. Maybe we can look at blocking edits from VE that contain this error? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:39, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
Also see the discussion and comments in phab:T183647. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 14:01, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
User:Beetstra as an expert in edit filters, can these invisible hardspaces be blocked? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:28, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
I recommend not setting up an abuse filter for that. The end result will be losing content from users who didn't cause the problem and (in 99% of the cases) can neither see the problem nor fix it. If it bothers you, then you could try to convince WikEd to ask how you want 'invisible' non-breaking spaces to be converted (i.e., to plain spaces or to visible HTML codes). In the meantime, I think you should let the devs look over the bug report and see if it can be fixed first, and if you want that to happen faster, then it'd be really helpful to know exactly how those spaces are getting added. If you directly type non-breaking spaces into the visual editor, then it automagically converts them to normal spaces (in Safari 11/Mac OS 10.12). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:44, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
The original description of phab:T183647 is incorrect. It appears that something (VE? copy/paste using an external editor?) is inserting dozens of U+00A0 characters into articles. An edit filter could at least tag such edits so their source can be examined. wikEd was only mentioned because it makes the problem visible when it converts the U+00A0 characters to &nbsp;. Johnuniq (talk) 07:15, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, the ideal solution is to figure out how some editors are putting non-breaking spaces into articles while using the visual editor, and to stop that. Or, ideally, to stop them from doing it accidentally and allow me to do it intentionally. If you (or anyone) can figure out how to create non-breaking spaces in the visual editor, then please share that information.
But WikEd is relevant: If WikEd didn't blindly convert all of the nbsp's to the HTML code, but instead first asked Doc James whether he actually wanted to convert them to HTML or to plain spaces (especially on talk pages!), then it could be a one-click solution to his immediate problem. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 07:27, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Okay it is fairly easy to verify that their are hidden hard spaces in this version of the article.[29] As it is impossible to seperate "Spine," and "sternoclavicular" in the Signs and symptoms section. It would definitely be best if VE stopped adding them. I will see if I can duplicate the problem. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:25, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Okay I have just replicated the issue.
1) Take this section of the article Septic_arthritis#Signs_and_symptoms. Hit edit using VE.
2) Copied it here within VE editing mode User:Doc_James/HardspaceTest
3) Copied it from User:Doc_James/HardspaceTest but did not hitting edit in VE first (just copied in reading mode).
4) Pasted it back[30]
5) They appear.[31]
In this version I cannot separate "fever" and "is" so even when not visible they are there. These are NOT being added by WikEd but by VE.
Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:31, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
Note that it does not appear to happen if the copying occurred within the edit mode of VE.
The edit filter could explain to people that they need to be in the edit mode before they copy and paste.
Edit mode is also required to bring the references along, so useful advice regardless. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:35, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
It's not easy to see U+00A0. Two browsers that I have tried copy them as normal spaces. I used wget to download
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Septic_arthritis&oldid=817270489&action=raw"
and searched the file for U+00A0. As Doc James reports, his 08:28, 27 December 2017 edit introduced several of them. For example, the red asterisks in the following show where the edit replaced a normal space with U+00A0.
joint rigidly.*Fever*is also a symptom
For testing, I could write a Q&D module to show U+00A0 if it were really needed, but an edit filter to tag them would be better. Johnuniq (talk) 09:07, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
User:Johnuniq how would we go about creating an edit filter?
I have started a request here as I do not know how to make one myself. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:26, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, I can't help create a filter, but I commented at the filter request. Writing a filter requires experience. Johnuniq (talk) 09:48, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
The edit filter (as proposed, to "explain to people that they need to be in the edit mode before they copy and paste") is too late. Imagine a new editor doing this. He works for an hour to get sourced information ready. Then he tries to save his changes. What happens then? He gets a note from the AbuseFilter that basically says, "Hey, probably about 57 minutes ago, you should have magically known that you needed to click an extra button before copying something. Now, somewhere in your changes, there's at least one non-breaking space, which (a) you can't see, (b) you can't find, and (c) you might not be able to fix even if you do." What do you think he's going to do then, other than feel bad?
Until the problem can be fixed properly (which could be as soon as next week), I think it's better to leave the hapless, innocent editor alone and clean these spaces up later. Which, as I've repeatedly said, would be a lot easier for some editors to do if WikEd included an option for stripping pre-existing invisible nbsps, instead of always converting pre-existing invisible nbsps to their visible HTML code. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:35, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
The discussions on this are confused. An edit filter should merely tag insertions of U+00A0 without notifying anyone. That is needed for a few days to gather evidence about whether there is a significant issue. WikEd is not relevant except that it reveals the problem. The underlying issue (if significant) should be fixed.
The problem is seen at Septic arthritis:
  • An edit by a new user (tagged Visual edit) occurred at 00:30, 23 December 2017: diff.
  • That changed the first of the following permalinks to the second:
I had to download the permalinks with wget to verify the above. Why did VE insert 234 U+00A0 characters? Are other examples available? Johnuniq (talk) 01:12, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
So yes we need to simple start by tagging the problem
Agree it would be nice if WikEd gave the option of removing rather than converting these (agree the problem is not created by WikEd but they could be part of a temporary solution)
The Visual Editor team needs to fix this. Certainly they can be given a few more weeks.
Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:43, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Watchlist issue?

Resolved

Hi, my watchlist appears as empty and I'm getting a Below are the last 0 changes in the last 0 hours, as of 28 December 2017, 12:09 message despite having more than 4000 pages on my watchlist. Anyone is having the same issue? -- Luk talk 12:11, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

@Luk: Go to Preferences → Watchlist and make sure that "Days to show in watchlist:" and "Maximum number of changes to show in watchlist:" are both positive and non-zero. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:16, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
@Redrose64: yay thanks! Days to show in watchlist was set to 0. Weird... -- Luk talk 12:23, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
At one time, 0 was interpreted as "maximum legal value", which for Days to show in watchlist: was 30. A few weeks ago, they altered it to be treated literally. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:26, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

I am currently experiencing an issue with a particular sidebar, which I brought up before Christmas here. Screenshot.--Nevé–selbert 21:13, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

I seem to be unable to reproduce the problem. Are you using IE 11 (v11.125.16299.0) on Win10? What is the zoom level and screen size? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:56, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Mobile viewing of closed discussions

When reading discussion pages (usually ITNC) in mobile view, the standard archive template used there (ITNC) displays irregularly, with several screen's worth of blank space between the top closing statement and the actual discussion. Is this normal? A lad insane talk 21:23, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Same with {{archive top}} ... {{archive bottom}}. -DePiep (talk) 11:04, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 158#template:Archive-top on mobile? Anomie⚔ 18:37, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Should pages of the namespaces:Draft, Template and User be included in Category:Commons category template with no category set

Hello,

I would like to raise the attention to some questions I rose on Category talk:Commons category template with no category set#Should pages of the namespaces:Draft, Template and User be included in this category? here in order to reach a bigger number of users.

many thanks for your attention and for your feedback on this topic. --Robby (talk) 22:08, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

I froze my sandbox

Hi while drafting a new article I evidently piled in too many templates or something. The result is I can’t access my sandbox in any browser any more, it just times out. Same for other editors who’ve tried from their machines. Is there any clever way of just zapping everything in my sandbox so I can start again? Many thanks.Mccapra (talk) 14:12, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Tag the page with {{db-u1}}, an administrator deletes it, make the page again, and then ask an administrator to restore the deleted revisions. --Izno (talk) 14:15, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
How is tagging going to be possible if one cannot even access the sandbox? It isn't working for me either. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:17, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
I was able to access the page. I use Firefox 57 on Windows 8 FWIW. It's very odd that the user can't access the page as there's only about 2kb of wikitext. What browser and OS are you two using? I've just reverted to the September blanking. --Izno (talk) 14:21, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
Also, what gadgets/Javascript are you two loading? --Izno (talk) 14:22, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
Works on firefox for me, not on chrome. On firefox it is slow to load but it loads. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:30, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
@Mccapra: I deleted User:Mccapra/Sandbox for you. — xaosflux Talk 14:35, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
wow that was quick! Thank you all very much for your help!Mccapra (talk) 15:13, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
For those wondering how to edit an un-readable page: You can hand-edit the URL without first visiting the page to read it. Just tack ?action=edit onto the end of the regular URL that won't load, or ?action=submit if you have the beta feature for the 2017 wikitext mode enabled, and you want to bypass that in favor of the 2010 WikiEditor. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:39, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
Or you can supply a delete link for an admin to action, by using ?action=delete and pasting the result into a discussion page that admins are known to visit. If you really want to be complete about it, use ?action=delete&wpReason=%5B%5BWP%3ACSD%23U1%5D%5D%3A+User+request+to+delete+page+in+own+userspace The %5B%5BWP%3ACSD%23U1%5D%5D part is merely an encoding of the link WP:CSD#U1. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:43, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

WikEd blocks the keyboard shortcuts on Google Chrome and Firefox.

@Imaginelenin: I'm using Firefox v56, and they work fine. Maybe it's a script conflict. Do you have any (other) scripts installed? Have you reset your preferences to test if it works with no [other] gadgets installed? The Transhumanist 13:29, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
thank you @The Transhumanist: I did unistall all other scripts and alt+shift+save worked on Google chrome. I have other wikis and alt+shift+s [save] also works just fine too. So it is definitely an issue with WikEd. Does alt+shift+s work when you have WikEd installed? Imaginelenin (talk) 14:51, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Testing, testing...
Yes.
@Imaginelenin: What version of Firefox are you using? The Transhumanist 18:02, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
57.0.2 @The Transhumanist:
It works on Firefox! I think the problem was I had the English/Russian language on for Microsoft 10, and those keyboard shortcuts were conflicting with Wikipedia shortcuts. But that doesn't explain why it won't work on Google Chrome!
It still DOES NOT work with Google Chrome.
Let me make a video...
Here is the youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=11LoI-eSI1Y&video_referrer=watch
Definitely WikEd, as you can see in the video. Thanks for your time Trans :) Imaginelenin (talk) 19:30, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
@Imaginelenin: I don't have nor desire a youtube account. Not sure why the link is protected.
I tried some of the WP keyboard shortcuts in Chromium, while in WikEd, and they do not work. I tried them in the regular editor, and they work. Yep, it's WikEd, just like you said. Updated the report at User:Cacycle/wikEd#Known general issues, and also posted my findings in your thread on the talk page. I don't have time to dig deeper at the moment, but will be certain to return to this issue soon. The Transhumanist 07:32, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Twinkle and bot edits

Resolved
 – Question has been answered. For further discussion, see WP:VPR#Twinkle's "unlink backlinks" feature and meatbot edits; for the drama, see WP:ANI#Near-orphaning of English language. – Uanfala (talk) 20:48, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Anyone has an idea what's happened here. That's over 400 edits done by a single user in the space of two minutes, all apparently bearing a Twinkle tag in the edit summary. I know you can write anything in your edit summary (like link to Twinkle without actually having used the tool), and there's apparently nothing physically stopping users from running unauthorised bots, but that still appears somewhat strange. – Uanfala (talk) 18:24, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Could it have been the editor used it to avoid being stopped by an edit filter? (Hoping someone with familiarity with current filters will chime in.) Killiondude (talk) 18:44, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
Ah, it turns out they've used Twinkle's unlink backlinks feature (thanks Galobtter for pointing this out!). Mystery solved. But then this leaves me wondering how on Earth is access to this feature not restricted in some way, given its potential for wreaking havoc? – Uanfala (talk) 19:11, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
You know, when I learned about that feature, I too had (and have) the same question of "huh?" how is anyone with over 10 edits have access to that feature. There should be some sort of guideline on it. Maybe WP:BEANS though; but i'd say surely he should've gotten consensus for that first. Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:20, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
there is some limit. Both inside twinkle, and the server has rate limits. Anyway. Twinkle doesn't allow you to do anything you couldn't do by opening 400 browser windows. It's your perception that assumes this is a lot of edits, but it really isn't that much. :) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:12, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Search for multiple incategory tags: doc/functionality is broken?

Context: Wikipedia:Help_desk#Search_question.

Help:Searching#Parameters gives that example for a double incategory: search, but the resulting output is empty (which it should not be, for instance Brooklyn bridge should pop out). I am not sure if that is a problem with the search itself, with the handling of subcategories, or something else entirely. TigraanClick here to contact me 14:19, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

@Tigraan: incategory doesn't look in subcategories. --Izno (talk) 14:33, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
OK then... (1) Is there a way to search through subcategories? (2) Shouldn't the doc be corrected, then? TigraanClick here to contact me 14:39, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
(2) Possibly. I didn't review the doc.
(1) You have to use another tool such as WP:Petscan, but that's less a search and more a query. Try it, see if you like it. --Izno (talk) 15:13, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

NOINDEX

How did User talk:The359 get to be in Category:Noindexed pages? User:The359 does not know; see User talk:The359#NOINDEX. —Anomalocaris (talk) 07:16, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

John of Reading discovered the reason: I pasted the whole of this talk page into Special:ExpandTemplates to track it down. In the January 2017 section, above, there is an {{Unblock-auto reviewed}} template; that template calls {{vandal}} to display some links about the IP address; and that template includes the __NOINDEX__ keyword. And, finally, pages containing that keyword are automagically placed in the category. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:09, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
עוד מישהו: Thanks for the explanation! —Anomalocaris (talk) 02:50, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Simple diff

Normal diff - text and markup
Simple diff - text only, no markup

I'm looking for someone or a team who can program Mediawiki. I'm sick of squinting at diffs trying to find the text changes amongst all the markup. I want a simple diff option: a diff that shows only changes to article text and none of the markup. To make this simple diff to the right, I (1) copied just the article text from the current version and a historical version of an article (2) pasted my copy of the historical version into a new wiki page and saved it (3) replaced that text with my copy of the current version and (4) clicked "cur" beside the older version in that page's history. It's this process I'd like to be automated. Can anybody help?

I submitted this to the WMF "community tech wish list" last month. There were 214 proposals and this proposal shared 21st place with two others. The WMF community tech team has only been funded to address the ten most popular proposals.

Any volunteers? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:08, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

You're referring to meta:2017 Community Wishlist Survey/Reading/Simple diff I assume. Have you tried WikEdDiff? It is a gadget that makes reading changes much easier, with or without syntax changes. --Izno (talk) 15:10, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
I played with it a year ago but was unable to make a diff like this. Maybe I'm doing it wrong or maybe it's evolved in the meantime. Are you able to make a simple diff using it, @Izno:? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:44, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
@Anthonyhcole:Please don't use text from Wikipedia, including in screenshot form, without attribution to its author(s); linking to the original page is considered good enough, but a simple statement of "Wikipedia editors" isn't. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:32, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
More at WP:WPSHOT. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:56, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you both, Od Mishehu and Redrose64; I hadn't thought about that and will do in future. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:44, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
There is already something like this in the works: visual diff. But it needs some further optimization and it needs some better support for changes in big blocks like tables and templates, before it will become available. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:05, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm aware of that and discussed it with James Forrester. Presently, it can't do anything remotely like what I need, and my guess is it will be at least two years before it can. I want this now. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:44, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

What if I offered to pay for this?

Does anybody here have a feel for the amount of labor this task would involve, and so the order of cost? Or do you know anyone who might be able to sensibly estimate the cost? (The task is automating steps 1 to 4 in my opening post.) --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:44, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

@Anthonyhcole: I've made a userscript in less than 24 hours that basically does what you want: User:Evad37/TextDiff.js. It's a bit rough, quite slow, and probably buggy, but it seems to work on a few diffs that I tested, and refinements should be possible. - Evad37 [talk] 19:10, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
Interesting. How muuch do you want for it, Evad37, and can you show me how to install it (if that's the right word) and use it? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:12, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
@Anthonyhcole: See User:Evad37/TextDiff for installation/usage instructions. I honestly didn't do this for any sort of monetary reward (I didn't see you're offer to pay until after I had finished it), so you don't have to pay me anything. But if you still want to reward me with something, whatever you decide would be fine – email me and we'll work out the details. - Evad37 [talk] 03:53, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
Jesus Evad37, you are a machine. The WMF should have hired you years ago. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 04:02, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
I love it User:Evad37 amazing work. Barnstars on it way :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:35, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
Evad37, I just tested this too, and it is awesome. Presenting it as a 'toggle' is perfect. I think I will use this quite regularly. I add my thanks to the others. -- Begoon 06:53, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Global object?

"mw" is the alias for "mediaWiki", the global object.

What is a global object? The Transhumanist 12:58, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: is this a quote from somewhere else, context may help. You may be referring to the meta:Interwiki map. — xaosflux Talk 13:50, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Context, right. See below... The Transhumanist 18:39, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I think you are talking about a Javascript object. Global variables are declared outside any function, and they can be accessed (used) on any function in the program. Local variables are declared inside a function, and can be used only inside that function. Same thing with global and local objects. mw:ResourceLoader/Core modules Disclaimer: I am not a Javascript expert. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:57, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
@The Quixotic Potato: That link is where I came across the term. At mw:ResourceLoader/Core modules#mediawiki It says:

This is the mediawiki base module. It initialises the mediaWiki global object (with mw as alias). Alias mw is available everywhere and should be used.

But I can't find the definition of "global object" anywhere. As far as I can tell, it means that "mediaWiki" and "mw" refer to the mediaWiki object (initialized by the mediawiki base module) no matter what script they are used in on Wikipedia.
Does that mean scripts on Wikipedia don't need a bodyguard function to protect the mw alias?
Is "global object" a neologism? It would be nice to be able to look up the definition. The Transhumanist 18:25, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I'll ping @TheDJ: who knows a hell of a lot more about this stuff than I do. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 18:29, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
mediaWiki is a library using the javascript object structure. It is accessible via the variable name mediaWiki (or mw) in javascript's global scope for variables. Global variables can be written and read by everyone, so they are a bit dangerous to use, therefor we try to limit how many we use, so that we make fewer mistakes. We use bodyguards functions to 'hoist' these global variable names and make them functionally scoped variables (we import jQuery and mediaWiki, and instead of using them directly within the bodyguard, we use by renaming them to the function parameters $ and mw). This has multiple advantages. First, by lifting, we basically get to name them however we want and we can be consistent about that throughout the module (pick one and stick to it). Second, we won't be bothered by other libraries accidentally overwriting the global variable after our code in the bodyguard began executing (these can be very hard problems to debug, as they are cause by someone else's code). Third, it makes it easier to keep track of the global variables that you are using, making it harder to unintentionally use a global variable. For jshint/eslint, we define just the globals that we import with the bodyguard, allowing us to easily spot unintentional global variable usage in any other place in the code. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:47, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
@TheDJ: I don't understand the answer (I was expecting a "yes" or "no" response). Do "mediaWiki" and "mw" have the power of reserved words (in scripts on Wikipedia)? Do scripts on Wikipedia need a bodyguard function to protect the mw alias? I generally include the following, but is it providing any benefit?
// Start off with a bodyguard function to reserve the aliases mw and $
( function ( mw, $ ) {
    // body of program goes here
}( mediaWiki, jQuery ) );
What am I missing?
By the way, I'm still having trouble grasping a particular term. On the page at mw:ResourceLoader/Core modules#mediawiki it says:

This is the mediawiki base module. It initialises the mediaWiki global object (with mw as alias). Alias mw is available everywhere and should be used.

In the quote above, what exactly does "mediaWiki global object" refer to? I look forward to your replies. The Transhumanist 15:31, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
I assume "global" refers to scope (computer science) (especially global scope) whereas object refers to a Javascript object. In other words, it is an object which any program can access on a specific MediaWiki page. Changing some attribute of the object will cause all other programs or scripts accessing the object to be affected. (And for that reason, I assume that the majority of attributes of the object are read-only.) --Izno (talk) 18:35, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
@Izno: Thank you. Any comments on TheDJ's Dec 19 answer above? (I don't get it). The Transhumanist 23:26, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

How did this happen?

A few minutes ago, I decided to take a quick glance at the New Pages Feed. When filtered to articles created "by newcomers," three appeared on the list: Qasymbek Arabin, Allan Katerega, and Marcus Van Wattum. The first article was created on December 28 by an IP. This case is especially remarkable; I thought IPs had been forbidden from creating article for over a decade, ever since the Seigenthaler incident. The latter two articles were created by non-autoconfirmed users on December 5 and 27, respectively. Both dates are after the implementation of the ACTRIAL.

Is there some kind of loophole here? Biblio (talk) 02:02, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Drafts moved to mainspace... The 3rd one by a new user, as soon as they became autoconfirmed, maybe a COI, from username - but nevertheless, moved by autoconfirmed user. -- Begoon 02:20, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
I see. Evidently, some AFC reviewers do not mark pages as patrolled when they move them. Biblio (talk) 02:32, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

KML data for Wilts & Berks Canal article

There seems to be a problem with the kml data on the Wilts & Berks Canal article. In the "Map of route" section, there is a GeoGroup template, with options to show all co-ordinates on Google maps and on OSM. Clicking the Google maps option works ok, and shows the 20 or so points on the map. Clicking on the OSM option shows just a single point, and when you click on the description in OSM, it takes you back to the article on Wiltshire, rather than the Wilts & Berks Canal. I have tried replacing the GeoGroup template with a kml template, but that looks and works in the same fashion. I have checked the OSM option on several other canal articles, and they all work fine. It feels like the kml data that is passed to OSM is for the wrong article (ie Wiltshire), and that flushing something somewhere might fix it, but I have no idea if this is the case of not. Cheers. Bob1960evens (talk) 18:11, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

I think I may have found part of the solution. It appears that the ampersand in the title Wilts & Berks Canal confuses whatever invokes OSM, and it picks up the data from Wilts_, rather than Wilts_&_Berks_Canal. I don't know if anything can be done about that, or whether this should now be reported as a bug, and if so, where? Bob1960evens (talk) 18:16, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
Map all coordinates in "Wilts and Berks Canal" using OpenStreetMap

Download coordinates as:

Yes, it looks like some weird urlencoding thing - the template tries to encode the & as %26, then osm4wiki on the toolserver encodes that again into %2526, and it then seems to treat this as the end of the page title. Seems to be a bug in osm4wiki and I'm not sure how to report that.
There is a workaround, though! If you tell the template to look at Wilts and Berks Canal, which is a redirect to the ampersand title, it follows that redirect okay and picks up all the points - it displays a little bit clunkily but it's definitely functional. {{GeoGroup|article=Wilts and Berks Canal}}. I've made the change on the page. Andrew Gray (talk) 00:05, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
There are maintainers listed at https://tools.wmflabs.org/admin/tool/osm4wiki. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:18, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for your help. Bob1960evens (talk) 09:57, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Bot removal of <center> in Template:US Census population

I have requested approval for a bot (BRFA) to remove <center> where it is present inside |footnote= of {{US Census population}} and to replace it with |align-fn=center, in the mainspace. This would cause approximately 20,000 edits, mostly to articles on US locations.

I am looking to do this as part of the WP:Lint effort as <center> is an obsolete HTML tag. From a visual point of view today, there would likely be no change for the majority of readers. From an non-visual point of view, these tags cause validation warnings. At some point in the future (either in MediaWiki or in your Internet browser), these tags will not appear as they do today (it is likely that the tag will either be silently ignored, or displayed as the literal string <center>centered thing</center>).

This first effort is a low-hanging fruit out of the 16 million obsolete tag errors. This task would not be authorized to remove <center> everywhere. (<center> is sometimes context-sensitive, especially in tables where there are superior replacement options.)

Your feedback is appreciated. --Izno (talk) 17:54, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

I want to say: Thank you for working on this huge and important project, whose goal is to fix pages now, so that some upcoming technical changes to MediaWiki parsing don't result in readers getting visibly broken pages. I appreciate and admire your dedication, and I hope that other technically minded folks will pitch in to help out. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:36, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't know how the Wikipedia template software works, so I have a question. Instead of making 20K edits, is it possible to instead have the template ignore the <center> code and not emit it back out when it generates the HTML? RudolfRed (talk) 23:43, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
The template could do this, but that makes both the template itself and the page in which the template is placed more complex (without obvious good reason besides avoiding bot edits--the purpose of the template doesn't require the additional complexity), and additionally it requires expensive processing of the input.
The direct answer aside, these are probably going to come off these pages with some other bot run in some way. There are approximately 80k pages in total of this particular tag, and the vast majority are not inside templates. --Izno (talk) 00:06, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
One other point: teaching newbies to use better syntax is easier when they do not have bad examples to follow.
I did have an aside that PrimeHunter didn't touch on but which came to mind: instead of adding the |align-fn=center, it might be easier just to remove center and then add the alignment by default in the template. --Izno (talk) 00:24, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
Seems fine to me, though I would advise a low edit rate (because people are weird about that). I also think you should just make the style for that template centered by default, instead of adding align-fn=center, if in any way possible without being too disruptive. One more thing you should check, is if there is any images or other block content, as <center> enforces both text and block alignment, whereas those are two different things in CSS. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:06, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
@TheDJ: As it happens, 18.5k are using <center> and 6.5k are using align-fn to center the text (total 25k of the 30k uses), so I've just made the default text alignment centered. I'll plan to remove the center tags only now.
In the limited (anecdotal--set was not random) AWB run I've already done on IznoRepeat, I didn't see any files or other block content. Although my regex-fu isn't strong, this is a search that would capture the file/image case, all of which are false positives (I did not realize insource could capture newlines with the . class--+ too). Every other block content is either unaffected by the difference (lists and tables would have a slight rendering delta due to the block centering lost, but I don't see a big issue in the context of these tables) or invalid in wikitext (figure/video/canvas) given the default styling of browsers for the tag in question. --Izno (talk) 14:10, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

I totally support the removal of the html center tag. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:23, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm not particularly familiar with this issue, so maybe you should ignore this comment as clueless :-) Is there a way that the template could be coded so that it interprets <center as |align-fn=center? If so, what's the point of making all these edits? If you can't, I agree that a bot run should be performed. Nyttend (talk) 23:50, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

@Nyttend: See response to RudolfRed above, broadly, as well as the first paragraph in re to TheDJ. TL;DR: No, not clueless, your suggestion is possible. However, this is only the low-hanging fruit of an effort to remove these everywhere, and given the quantity, those removals will need to be botted also. --Izno (talk) 06:42, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
I'd stopped reading halfway through this discussion; I saw the response to RudolfRed but not the part about making the template centered by default. Thank you for the pointer. Nyttend (talk) 12:22, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

File deletion - small bug

I just deleted file:Sui_Dhaaga_2018.jpg and got the message back:

"Sui Dhaaga 2018.jpg" has been deleted undelete | salt.

Note that in the undelete and salt links there is a "File:" missing. Please fix. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 13:12, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

I just undeleted and redeleted it, and the message is identical. But it's not just this one; I got the same links with File:Nyttend's bad link alignment.png. Commons is different; I just deleted c:File:Kukoamines 2D Structure.png and got links to c:Special:Undelete/File:Kukoamines 2D Structure.png and c:Special:WhatLinksHere/File:Kukoamines 2D Structure.png. Nyttend (talk) 13:37, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
It must have been caused by this this edit to MediaWiki:Filedelete-success. I have made a fix.[32] It didn't work a minute after my edit but there is sometimes a delay before edits to the MediaWiki namespace take effect. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:26, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Lang template

The {{lang}} template (i.e. not the lang-xx ones such as {{lang-de}}) now seems to automatically make the target text italicised. It didn't use to, but now for example {{user de-1}}, which uses the template, is all in italics, this has happened in the last few days I think, though the last edit to Template:lang was made weeks ago. Does anyone know what happened and why? – filelakeshoe (t / c) 00:52, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

The template was recently rewritten to use Lua, so most of the action now happens at Module:Lang. I haven't been following the recent developments but the italics question figures quite prominently in several thread on the template's talk page. – Uanfala (talk) 01:07, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
It looks like adding |italic=no to {{lang}} in the user box would remove the italics. Johnuniq (talk) 02:19, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
Seems to me that this text should be italicized on en.wp. --Izno (talk) 14:02, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Search across a category and a WikiProject

Hi. How would I be able to search in the category Category:No local image but image on Wikidata for biographies that are tagged for the Olympic Project? Is that possible? Thanks in advance. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 14:33, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

@Lugnuts: Fairly certain WP:Petscan can do that for you. --Izno (talk) 14:38, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
Of course! I think I cracked it with this. Thanks Izno. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 14:50, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Throttle on the number of edits per minute from a single user?

Does the Mediawiki software have any built-in defence against unauthorised bots? Is there any way to detect high editing rates coming from a single user? Does some sort of throttle exist? If not, is it technically feasible to introduce one? – Uanfala (talk) 17:46, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Our current configuration is 8edit/min for non-logged in and very new users. — xaosflux Talk 17:50, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
I believe there are different limits for different actions, but admins and bots are exempt from them (just as well because I made >400 edits in two minutes the other day). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:53, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
Correct, for example it is 20 Special:Email/day for normal users. — xaosflux Talk 17:55, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
Here is someone making 400+ edits in two minutes, see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Twinkle_and_bot_edits. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:56, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Twinkle's_"unlink_backlinks"_feature_and_meatbot_edits for a discussion on that. — xaosflux Talk 17:58, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
From a technical point of view, we could change the edit rate across the entire project, it would need a well discussed RFC to do it. As @HJ Mitchell: mentioned above, certain accounts (like admins and bots) are exempt. — xaosflux Talk 17:59, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Are these limits documented anywhere? Perhaps Wikpedia:Rate limits should be turned blue? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:35, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
@HJ Mitchell: see InitialiseSettings (search page for wgRateLimits). For the tech manual on this configuration see mw:Manual:$wgRateLimits. — xaosflux Talk 18:43, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
  • So where should a proposed threshold be, in edits per minute? It needs to be high enough so that it lets in those who use AWB at a rate where they're able to review individual edits. And it should be low enough so it stops other Twinkle unlink incidents (or people running AWB too fast to see what they're doing). Are there any acceptable editing practices that will become difficult with such a limit? – Uanfala (talk) 20:00, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Most proposals get at least linked to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), you could blue link Wikpedia:Rate limits, document the current and discuss on the talk (with discussion links in from well advertised venues) - it would be worth spending time drafting and discussing to determine (a)what is the actual current problem (b)is there an existing way to deal with this? (c)what are the edge cases?. Twinkle automation, AWB, etc are all things to consider. The throttle is in edits per seconds so it could be 100 per min, 1000 edits per hour, 10 edits per second, etc - I don't think they can be stacked (e.g. 10edits per second AND 50 edits per min). The throttle can apply to a usergroup, and different throttles can apply to different user groups. — xaosflux Talk 20:25, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
  • This seems like an overreaction. The rate limits are to protect the entire project, not against abusers of a single tool. As the tool notes: "Warning: You take full responsibility for any action you perform". The rate limits are very high for a reason, because during normal use they should NEVER be tripped. I consider the usage referred to as a 'normal' usage of the servers and as such they should not be adapted. The rate limits have so far not been documented per WP:BEANS. I currently don't see the need, it's not like something like this happens every month or so. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:03, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
    From a less VPT perspective, I agree mostly with TheDJ here; it appears this conversation is driven by a behavioral edge case - and those can be controlled administratively. — xaosflux Talk 00:13, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
    Well, if there's an easy method to prevent such behavioural "edge cases" from occurring, and if this method does no collateral damage, then it should be the default choice, no? For me, the question is whether there is such collateral damage. That's why I'm wondering if there are any situations where it's acceptable for a user to be editing at bot speed without having a bot tag. – Uanfala (talk) 01:36, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
    And for the record, I don't think it's only edge cases. True, Twinkle unlink fails get to ANI about once a year. But we don't know how many get solved without the drama, and we know that Twinkle's unlink feature is not the only tool that can be misused. I occasionally witness (and quietly deal with) AWB cock-ups that would have never occurred had the perpetrator been forced to actually see what they were doing (as they were supposed to anyway, and not that they don't know it: in one of those cases it was an admin who did that). – Uanfala (talk) 01:44, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. At the very least, admins need to be able to quickly revert large-scale vandalism, even if the vandal figures out a way to get away with doing it slowly. There are also definitely circumstances where I have needed to make rote edits more quickly than proposed, to tackle large tasks. bd2412 T 02:15, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
    • So there are situations in which it's legitimate for a non-admin to be making edits at bot speed without bot approval? Just for the avoidance of doubt, I haven't made any proposal, nor have I named anyone or tried to stop them from pursuing their favourite projects. I'm just trying to find out if there are such projects that will get disrupted. – Uanfala (talk) 02:27, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
      • Large scale disambiguation fixes following a consensus-based page move would be an appropriate time for a trusted editor—admin or not—to make edits at such a rate. I can easily do forty edits a minute that way. bd2412 T 02:43, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
        • This is precisely the most common situation in which I've witnessed AWB cock ups. But again, if an editor is capable of making forty edits per minute and sees what they're doing, I see no problems in that: any hypothetical proposed limit will anyway be around a similar number. – Uanfala (talk) 03:02, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
    • @BD2412: please note: Account creators, Bots, Bureaucrats, Stewards, and Administrators (and a few global groups) are exempt from ratelimits. Any change to that setting would not impact them. — xaosflux Talk 03:06, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
      • Still leery of throttling if applied to long-term trusted editors. If we're talking about comparatively untested accounts, that's different, but it's not clear to me that any leeway is being suggested. bd2412 T 03:09, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
        • @Bd2412: I'm not really advocating for this, but technically a "fast editors" type of configuration could be tied to an existing user group (e.g. rollbackers, extended confirmed) or yet another new group could be made to set a different limit. {E.g. (ip/newbies get 8edits/60seconds), ("fast editors" get 50edits/60seconds), (exempted are still exempted)}. — xaosflux Talk 16:51, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
Reasonable, fast but not limitless, enough to prevent major disruption. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:18, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
Of those responsible for the situations that brought me here, more than half happen to hold various sorts of semi-advanced permissions, so I don't think tying the configuration to a particular group will have enough of a benefit. And I don't know if introducing the complication of a dedicated new user group will be commensurate with the scale of the problem that this will be trying to solve. – Uanfala (talk) 17:47, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
Ehh, 50 edits per minute is still slower, and would've meant it would've taken 8 minutes for him to do that instead of 1. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:52, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
Well, 8 minutes is not much different from 1 minute: the community's reaction times are generally slower than that. But then that's an issue with any reasonable rate limit. As far as I understand the settings, if a user exceeds the limit then they get html error 500. This is so generic that I suspect the user is unlikely to figure out why this has happened. Is there any way to throw up a more meaningful message, something along the lines of "The wikipedia servers have detected that you're going too fast. Please have a look at the bot policy and the guidelines for automatic editing."? – Uanfala (talk) 18:08, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
@Uanfala: I expect it would have caused their process to end when it hit an error, then would have to be manually restarted afterwords - over and over again. It would not prevent them restarting, but perhaps would pause to reconsider. — xaosflux Talk 18:12, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
@Uanfala: Also, they wont get a 500 error, they will get: MediaWiki:Actionthrottledtext, this unexpected result may make client side scripts (like Twinkle) fail out though. — xaosflux Talk 23:38, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
It actually returns a 429 (too many requests) along with that message. Bots & user scripts like Twinkle could use this and provide useful feedback to the editor. FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY [u+1F602] 14:43, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
Well, this is more helpful then. I got the reference to error 500 from mw:Manual:$wgRateLimits. – Uanfala (talk) 17:23, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
On an earlier question: Reverting vandalism is not an admin-only task. Therefore, that, too, is a situation in which it's legitimate for a non-admin to be making high-speed edits.
Also, if null edits and purging are rate-limited (I don't know if they're counted the same way), then there wouldn't necessarily be anything to "see". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:16, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Blocking defaults

Is it possible for me to specify a default expiration time and reason on the Special:Block page? --NeilN talk to me 20:45, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Not in the UI that I know of, but I think something equivalent can be done with Javascript. What time/reason did you have in mind? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:47, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
24 hours and [[WP:Blocking policy#Evasion of blocks|Block evasion]]. I normally use this interface when blocking LTAs and don't want to leave a talk page message. --NeilN talk to me 20:53, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
@NeilN: Give User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/simpleBlockDefaults.js a shot (installed in the usual fashion to the .js page of your choice). Might take a second to load, but it should do the trick, I think. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 21:40, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
@Writ Keeper: Works like a charm! Thank you! --NeilN talk to me 21:47, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

There are some copyright warnings like MediaWiki:Editpage-head-copy-warn and MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning making users scroll down more than necessary. After more than 10 years of editing Wikipedia I would like to disable them. Is it possible to find a technical solution so warnings could be canceled under some conditions, maybe in preferences? --Janezdrilc (talk) 22:25, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

A single scroll doesn't really seem like much since that statement is a legally binding release of your work under a different copyright license than would normally be present. In any case, those warnings are set by WMF legal. Even if there was a gadget for disabling them I don't think, for legal reasons, that it would be made readily available. --Majora (talk) 22:32, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
I can just imagine someone saying that the own the copyright as no warning was present. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:35, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
You can hide the messages with this in your CSS:
.editpage-head-copywarn {display: none;}
#editpage-copywarn {display: none;}
PrimeHunter (talk) 22:47, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, PrimeHunter. At least you understand me. --Janezdrilc (talk) 23:15, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Column or table formatting problems

In looking for an example of an unrelated bug, a couple of us ran across some pages with formatting problems. Here are two: Hazelwood, Missouri#Climate and Broward County Public Schools#Elementary Schools. Could someone figure out whether this is just an accident, or if there are problems with some of the formatting templates? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:25, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

The public schools page at that section is missing an opening template (i.e. a "col-start" or similar), which usually indicates mistake or vandalism. The same for the former. --Izno (talk) 20:50, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
In the case of Broward County Public Schools, it was caused by this edit from September 2017, which was probably well-intentioned. In the case of Hazelwood, Missouri, it was caused by this good-faith edit in April 2014, which was ultimately caused by a botched attempt to move the text around in April 2011. I've fixed both the articles. Graham87 06:10, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Section citation formatting bug(?)

When I added a citation in a section here: List of Foreign Archaeological Institutes in Greece, it was formatted as part of the last section of the page, although in the preview it appeared correctly; is this a known bug? 195.251.104.50 (talk) 07:20, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

It's intended behaviour and not a bug. If there is no instruction like {{Reflist}} for where to display references then they are displayed at the bottom of the page or preview. See Help:Referencing for beginners. An editor has added a References section with {{Reflist}}.[33] Wikipedia does not display references at the end of sections. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:07, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Username disabling a move

While doing NPP I noticed that PEARL IDEA had made a blank article, so I decided that I would move it to their user space. Not allowed, apparently. The blacklist disallows moves to titles that have nine or more capital letters. This is obviously some regex that needs refining, to stop innocent users from doing their work. BTW the article ended up at Draft:Tera_Baap_Mera_Baap. !dave 15:25, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

More than 9 capitals with no lowercase letters between them is disallowed. User:PEARL IDEA/Tera Baap Mera Baap is disallowed because 'T' counts as the 10th capital. You can make a suggestion at MediaWiki talk:Titleblacklist but I think it's a rare issue and the blacklist would be unable to test whether the user exists. Administrators and Template editors can make the move. See Wikipedia:Requested moves#Requesting technical moves. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:32, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
You could ask for autoconfirmed to be added to the conditions for the entry, if we want to allow autoconfirmed users to make such a move. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:39, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Eh. I guess the rationale for blacklisting is that WE DON'T WANT PEOPLE SCREAMING IN ARTICLE TITLES, but that is not really a problem if the screaming is part of the user name. (Well, it could be a problem, but that is not a problem to address via title blacklisting). (@PrimeHunter: I do not think we really care about testing whether the username exists. That is a test to avoid screaming, not a test for an allowed subpage.)
The regexp could probably be tweaked to ignore the username part in the screaming test. If I assume the current regexp is something that looks like (pattern){10,} (where the pattern matches for "capitals without lowercase"), and it does not already call ^ to match the start of the string, we can simply use (^User:[^\/]*\/|^)((pattern){10,}). I tested on https://www.regexpal.com/ for basic cases, this seems to do the job of "ignore the User:Foo/ part if it exists". TigraanClick here to contact me 17:23, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Note: I just suggested that change on the aforementioned page. TigraanClick here to contact me 17:29, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Template:Timecell

Template:Timecell doesn't show the correct date in the Chinese calendar, and purging doesn't help. The problem might be caused by Template:Ctime:d, which is supposed to output the day of the month, but currently outputs 46. I am not familiar with the template syntax. Can someone fix the problem? Gulumeemee (talk) 03:46, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

This seems to be part of a whole set of templates written in 2015 by Orienomesh-w (talk · contribs), who hasn't been active for six months:
Documentation is minimal, and there are no discussion pages. In most cases, the only edits not by Orienomesh-w were by Cydebot (talk · contribs), which was renaming a category. In one case, there was also one inconsequential edit by John of Reading (talk · contribs). But in the case of Template:Ctime:N, there have been five edits by three different IPs which may or may not have been detrimental.
What I suspect is that the template can't handle the period between the two New Years Days. I can't confirm this. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:36, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
The template can't handle some dates before the Gregorian calendar's New Year. {{Ctime:f|2017-12-30}} and {{Ctime:d|2017-12-30}} produce {{Ctime:f|2017-12-30}} and {{Ctime:d|2017-12-30}}. {{Ctime:d|2017-10-30}} outputs {{Ctime:d|2017-10-30}}. Gulumeemee (talk) 09:44, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Peculiar title case change

Resolved

So I was trying to link to the article List of French generals of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (see [34]). So I copied the article title as displayed "List of French Generals of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars" -- but notice that "Generals" is capitalized -- and this resulted in a red link (at least at the time). Looking through the article, I don't see anything that would make the title display differently, unless it is buried within some other non-obvious template. Can anyone else spot what is going on here? older ≠ wiser 13:28, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Nevermind. I think I see what was happening -- my Chrome browser "helpfully" autotranslated and capitalized General. older ≠ wiser 13:32, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

User contributions counter seems to be off

An extremely minor issue, but one I just happened to notice. If you look at my contribs, click "older 50", and then "newer 50", the two most recent edits are missing. You have to click "newer 50" again, and it then shows only those two edits. I'm writing this from my alt account in order to preserve this. Away Lander (talk) 16:51, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Huh, that is pretty strange. Shows same for me. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:55, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
@Away Lander and Galobtter: This is probably because you each made multiple edits which were logged at the same time (this should happen with page moves, since all two or four edits are from the same action). Note that the first two edits' revision IDs here are actually out of order (hover over the links). This makes the newer/older buttons malfunction, since the links are generated based on the edit timestamps. Jc86035 (talk) 17:16, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Ooooh. I meant when I saw his contributions, I think my contributions are working fine at-least for the first two, but interesting. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:22, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
@Jc86035: Interesting. The edits right around the 50 mark were a mass-revert of a sockpuppet account so I'm guessing some of them are "out of order" as you describe above. Away Lander (talk) 19:00, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Doesn't happen with limit=100, so I added ?limit=50 to your link to make it work for people with other settings. --Pipetricker (talk) 17:19, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
@Pipetricker: Thanks, didn't even think of that. Away Lander (talk) 19:00, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, something is definitely weird with the edits right around the mass-rollback; as I'm editing more pages, the amount of edits being "missed" and showing up only when you click "older 50" twice, is growing. Home Lander (talk) 19:19, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Education Program namespace

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T139901

Why does Special:PrefixIndex find no pages in the Education Program namespace? See Special:PrefixIndex/Education_Program:. The same happens if you try to find a random page in that namespace (Special:Random/Education_Program). Yet, perplexingly, there are plenty of pages in the Education Program talk namespace, and accompanying course pages; see Special:PrefixIndex/Education_Program_talk:. Thanks, -- Black Falcon (talk) 20:29, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@Black Falcon: see phab:T139901, also note this namespace is being planned to be removed in phab:T169676 (eventually). — xaosflux Talk 20:42, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, that's very helpful to know. I'll track the tasks in Phabricator. -- Black Falcon (talk) 20:47, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Categories in AFC script

Whenever I try to accept an AfC draft such as Draft:Murder by the Lake, when I type anything in the "Add categories" box, instead of displaying categories, it just says "No results match Foo". GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 15:57, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I guess you refer to "Yet Another AFC Helper Script" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. You can post to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Helper script or the GitHub link there. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:14, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Spurious or invisible notification

Oddly, a red 1 was shown in the notifications/alerts at the top (as usual for new notifications). When checking the notifications, nothing new appears to be present (and old notifications have no X to clear them or their group anymore), but the 1 is now gray and persists. —PaleoNeonate – 23:19, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Adding: "Show notifications from other Wikis" is also on in my preferences (and I would expect to see an event telling me from which Wiki, if that was an inter-Wiki one). —PaleoNeonate – 23:24, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

If you go to Special:Notifications is there anything pending? — xaosflux Talk 00:22, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
That occurs if you have scripting disabled. Johnuniq (talk) 00:46, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Special:Notifications shows all previous notifications but not this new one. I remember notifications not showing up anymore with noscript, although with scripts completely disabled they normally do. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 02:29, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Could someone please ping me to see if I still can see normal notifications or if they generally broke about two days ago? Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 06:50, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
@PaleoNeonate:. Later I'll try that from another site. If scripting is enabled, you will see the site and will be able to remove the notification. Johnuniq (talk) 07:02, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
This ping notification worked normally, thanks (and got flagged as seen successfully). I now have yet another pending one that I cannot see, however (so two gray ones after visiting the notifications list). So it might be interwiki notifications that recently broke with scripts disabled... —PaleoNeonate – 07:38, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
That's what I'm saying although the change happened months ago. If you really don't want to temporarily enable scripting to dismiss the notifications, you can dismiss the ping I sent you from Commons by visiting any page there, for example c:User talk:PaleoNeonate. Johnuniq (talk) 09:16, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, I confirm that I can also receive revert notifications for en-Wiki. I now know that one notification originates from Commons (so visited it), but have no way to know what other Wiki I should visit to clear the other one, unfortunately (I am not actively editing any of the others). —PaleoNeonate – 08:19, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I see a different change that just happened in today. When clicking on any notification, you get the drop down list, but every message is teeny-tiny font. Nothing else seems to have changed, and I see nothing under my Notifications preferences that deals with this. What happened? Also, zooming the browser in or out will enlarge or shrink the page visuals, but has no effect whatsoever on the Notifications drop down visuals. I updated to Firefox 57.0.4 earlier. Is it another one of those funky Firefox issues? — Maile (talk) 20:13, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
I guess you use the Modern skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. I have created phab:T184295: "Notifications have small font in Modern skin". PrimeHunter (talk) 20:57, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
PrimeHunter Ah ha ... you are correct in that it's limited to Modern skin. I tested the other skins, and the notification drop down list is normal on all the rest. Thanks for the info on T184295. — Maile (talk) 21:06, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Moving to a page that already exists

If you try to move a page to a name that already exists, there is an error page, but it does not contain a link to a target page. It is sometimes a problem: if I would like to move Russian Empire to Russian empire, then I can not just enter a target name Russian empire into search field as it will be automatically corrected to a name of the existing page Russian Empire, so I should do more actions to open this page. Can we just add a link to target there? Wikisaurus (talk) 23:04, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Wikisaurus The reason you can't move the page, is that Fish and karate protected it on November 17, 2017, requiring Admin access to move it. The edit summary says "(Edit warring / content dispute: Stop edit warring over this. Discuss it on the talk page. The next editor to change (or rollback, or undo) the flag being used without discussing it gets blocked)". — Maile (talk) 23:19, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Maile66, it was an example. Wikisaurus (talk) 23:20, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
If you are actually able to move the source page but not overwrite the target name then the message appears to display MediaWiki:Permissionserrorstext-withaction and MediaWiki:Articleexists. Neither has access to the target name as a parameter based on translatewiki:MediaWiki:Permissionserrorstext-withaction/qqq and translatewiki:MediaWiki:Articleexists/qqq. That means we would probably have to request a change to MediaWiki itself at phab: to pass the name as $1 to MediaWiki:Articleexists. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:26, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Can you provide a different example? bd2412 T 23:27, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Just pick any two of your subpages: Special:PrefixIndex/User:BD2412/. But the message is only shown to autoconfirmed non-admin accounts. Without autoconfirmation you cannot move pages at all, and admin accounts can move over existing pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:23, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
PrimeHunter, thank you! I asked on Phabricator: phab:T184357. Wikisaurus (talk) 22:46, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Add Reading List to the Desktop

Hi All Apologies if this has already been raised as an issue (I couldn't see anything on here but didn't exactly do a deep dive to search). I'm very non-technical so have no idea of the feasibility of this suggestion. I love the reading list function on the app and was wondering if anyone knew how to add this to the desktop version so that it syncs between your devices?

Many thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.192.134.161 (talk) 23:04, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Reading list? Eh, what that? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:05, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
No, but you can see meta:2016_Community_Wishlist_Survey/Categories/Reading#Browser_reading_list and the tracking task, phab:T91902. — xaosflux Talk 23:32, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Is there a way that I can get a current count of articles made?

Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by article count has been dead since last fall. How can I find out my current count? bd2412 T 23:31, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

See the "articles created" link at the bottom of Special:Contributions/BD2412. Johnuniq (talk) 00:01, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Not for me, unfortunately - "User has made too many edits! (Maximum 350,000)". bd2412 T 00:03, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Are you trying to include all your "articles" that are just massive numbers of redirects (why isn't that being done by a bot if it is important anyway?)? — xaosflux Talk 00:25, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Also, this may be able to be done with quarry, ask for what you want at mw:Talk:Quarry and someone will probably write it for you, then you can run whenever you need. — xaosflux Talk 00:34, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
I am most interested in my real article count, which I would estimate is somewhere in the range of ~3,120 by now. As for the redirects, tens of thousands of them result from closing RM discussions (I was the most active admin there for a number of years, and still dabble a bit), which, obviously, a bot can't do. I have asked a few times for a bot to do sortname redirects, which are probably my next largest batch, but apparently those are not a priority. bd2412 T 00:44, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Gotcha, go the database query route, once it is built you can run it anytime. — xaosflux Talk 01:10, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Local page Wikipedia:Request a query. — xaosflux Talk 01:16, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
I was told to use this:
select count(*)
  from revision
 where rev_user = <<your-user-id>>
   and rev_parent_id = 0
Great. Now where exactly do I use it? bd2412 T 19:07, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
{{doing}} standby. — xaosflux Talk 19:09, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
@BD2412: that SQL above looks incomplete. First, it will find all 'pages' you created, not just 'articles', 2 (assuming you want it) it will include redirects. Also FYI, your userid is 196446. — xaosflux Talk 19:19, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
I'm trying a tweak on it. — xaosflux Talk 19:22, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
@BD2412:, this one might work, it is currently running - check on it in a bit to see if it completes or if it is too big and times out: quarry:query/23937. — xaosflux Talk 19:32, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
"Query status: killed" - woe is me, I have edited too much. How about just counting from the date of the last update to Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by article count (if that can be determined)? bd2412 T 19:56, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
OK, so can't do it using quarry (and I don't think adding in an additional condition will fix it), someone with an offline database may be able to. @Certes:, maybe? — xaosflux Talk 20:04, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Does Xtools provide what you need? If not then I don't have anything offline that would help. (I only keep a list of article titles to search.) Certes (talk) 21:12, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
@BD2412: does 3688 created articles seem right? — xaosflux Talk 23:28, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
It sounds high by a few hundred or so, but not impossible. I'll take it, though! bd2412 T 23:35, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Implementing Wikivoyage banner in a Wikipedia

Hello! I ask here since I think there'll be more feedback: is it possible to import the Wikivoyage main page banner into a Wikipedia? I'm an admin in the Basque Wikipedia and want to propose some changes to the main page, and this feature looks extra cool. -Theklan (talk) 00:03, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

If you mean the automatically scrolling content at wikivoyage: then the feature is called Carousel. Try copying the Carousel pages and Carousel lines in other pages in a Carousel search of their MediWiki namespace. I don't know whether you need more. Their Main Page code uses wikivoyage:Template:Banner so also copy that if you want to use Carousel in the same way. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:35, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Help:Customizing toolbars features not working

Anyone else not able to get any of the features described at Help:Customizing toolbars to work?

I have loaded various p-personal and pt-tb tools in User:SMcCandlish/common.js and none of them have any effect at all. I thought perhaps that meta:MoreMenu (available under Special:Preferences##mw-prefsection-gadgets, in "Appearance") was interfering, but turning it off had no effect. Anyone else had this issue and worked it out? At this point I seem left with deleting one item from my common.js and common.css pages, and turning off all optional preferences, one at a time, which would take all day.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  11:49, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Wouldn't creating a new account for testing purposes be quicker? I would recommend using a name like SMcCandlish (alt). There are several people here who have an alternative account they use for testing techy stuff. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 12:08, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
Your personal js and css pages run when you preview them so many things can be tested if they should have an affect when viewing those pages. Try changing null !== moveSubpagesBox to undefined !== moveSubpagesBox in the old version [35] of User:SMcCandlish/common.js. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:26, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
I already have a bunch of doppelganger accounts ("SMcLandish", etc.) to prevent impersonation, so I could probably use one of those. Good idea. PS: I wasn't really asking if anyone would go over my js and css pages; people have better things to do. Was just hoping someone had some kind of "oh, yeah, that happens when [well known issue here]" kind of answer from previous experience.  :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  12:44, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
That null → undefined trick did have a positive effect; I'm at least getting the "subpages" menu to appear now, and "auto ed" is now also showing up under "More". I'm not sure where I got that null from, presumably an old version of WP:PAGEMOVER, which currently uses the undefined version.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  12:55, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Very strange spike in views in several articles

A number of low-profile articles about places in the Middle East ('Ain Ghazal, Ayn Ghazal, Al-Bassa, Al-Bassah, Al-Buwaydah, Buwaydah, Al Baqa, Baqa'a refugee camp, Diban) started receiving huge increase in views this year: Pageviews Analysis (Up to 50,000+ each). If you check 'Agent' parameter on the left, you'll see that until June 9 it was "Spider", and then "User". Views for some of those are almost identical day-by-day, and it stops and starts randomly. It's 100% unnatural. What can explain this? --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 23:01, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Web crawler maybe? --Malyacko (talk) 00:10, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
But why these articles? --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 00:18, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
I have seen these sorts of pattern before, but I can see no sense to them, unless the pages are being used as a covert messaging channel. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:58, 4 December 2017 (UTC).
It's possible these towns were discussed and linked in an Arabic news article or social media site. External linkage can create traffic spikes that sustain over a couple weeks. It's sometimes possible to track down the source but sometimes not. -- GreenC 15:21, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, as Onceinawhile pointed out, it is only the English version which gets these hits.[36], [37] If it had been in the Arabic news, then also ar.wp articles would have gotten hits. Huldra (talk) 21:56, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
No way. These places are not in the news, numbers are identical for different pages and they suddenly disappear and reappear. Only English wiki pages of these articles are affected. Click on Pageviews Analysis above. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 18:14, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
In my experience, when you see a pattern like that it's generally because a celebrity has tweeted a link to the page for some reason or another (there's a particularly extreme example of the phenomenon here). ‑ Iridescent 18:21, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
That's different. Your example is a developed article about known subject of broad interest (urban legend/internet meme kind of thing). It has at least hundreds of views each day and it changes more gradually. I'm talking about stubs about unrelated non-notable villages that no one tweeted about, and that go back and forth like this simultaneously: Pageviews Analysis. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 02:57, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
It's really difficult to tell. For example Al-Bassa is linked from this page and maybe that page is the one getting the traffic due to news etc.. with some viewers clicking through to Wikipedia. Or possibly that page has a maintenance script that has gone haywire, polling Wikipedia for existence. Do you have any theories? -- GreenC 15:14, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
I suppose it's some technical error. I decided to bring it here because it's seems too odd that articles that always averaged less than 100 views a day, now accumulated more than 10 million views in the last 8 months. --Triggerhippie4 (talk) 17:01, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
User:Onceinawhile noted the same, back in September, here. As one of the editors who have done lots of work on both articles, Ayn Ghazal and Al-Bassa, I am totally bewildered. I am quite familiar with the fact that whenever a place in the Middle East is in the news, then the page views goes through the sky on that article. But this is something different. For one thing, none of the places have been particularly in the news, lately, AFAIK. Secondly, look at the page views for both articles for the last 90 days: they follow each other closely. It would be interesting to see if the page views came from the same IP address...or if this is just some technical error. Huldra (talk) 20:49, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
My guess is machine generated because there is no collateral spike in connected articles. For example Ayn Ghazal, which gets 15k-30k hits a day, the lead section prominently mentions Ofer. But Ofer is only getting about 10 hits a day. If they were live people visiting Ayn Ghazal, some percentage would be clicking through to Ofer, but that is not happening: (PageView Ayn_Ghazal|Ofer). Ofer stays at a very low flat rate while Ayn Ghazal jumps up and down with high numbers (higher than Israel itself at times). Can't think how it would make sense unless machine generated. -- GreenC 21:24, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
I agree that this numbers are false, in one way or another. The question is: is it the Wikipedia page views counting which is wrong, or is some machine sitting somewhere viewing these articles over and over again? Huldra (talk) 21:28, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

@BBlack (WMF): please could you let us know who is best placed to investigate this? It has been going on for many months now. Perhaps a quick look at the IP addresses of the tens of thousands of daily hits would quickly shed some light on the issue. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:16, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

I looked into this, specifically 'Ain Ghazal on November 29, 2017. I don't know how much I'm allowed to say, so I'll keep it generalized :) On that day, most of the hits originated from a single city. It is a large city (where we'd expect more viewers), but the ratio was still big enough that I'd say it's inline with other false positives I've seen. Indeed, when I compare desktop pageviews vs. mobile web (or mobile app), you'll see the spike in traffic is strictly on desktop. For the English Wikipedia, generally mobile viewership will be on par if not more than desktop. As such, I would say with some confidence that this article is being continually scraped by an undeclared bot. I suspect the same is true with the other articles you speak of -- just try comparing desktop vs mobile. This is the same trick that The Signpost uses to filter out their WP:TOP25 reports. The issue unfortunately is common. Currently I believe the logic to identify bots and other non-human sources is solely to go by the user agent. Of course if someone were to spoof their user agent to look like it is human, there's no a whole lot we can do. More on that at phab:T123442 and in the Topviews FAQ (I can add the same information to the Pageviews FAQ, since this issue is not limited to the top-viewed articles API). It is possible to dig deeper and get more answers, but I should let you know this sort of research is very tedious and time consuming. The takeaway here I think is to improve bot detection, as it seems every time we investigate a report it is the same story of an undeclared bot. Hope this helps! MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 19:12, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal (WMF): thank you for looking into this, and for confirming our suspicions. I didn’t understand all of the technical language in your post, but imagine the results you describe mean that the traffic is mostly emanating from one person’s computer. I just can’t understand what possible motive someone would have to set up a bot crawling over these articles of relatively minor interest.
Pinging @Triggerhippie4, Malyacko, Rich Farmbrough, GreenC, Huldra, and Iridescent: in case you hadn’t seen. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:55, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
One reason might be inclusion in the top views list. It could have political repercussions, such as using the metric to embarrass Israel about Wikipedia "spotlight" on these villages. Or it might be a script gone haywire and no one noticed. The mystery is probably better than the truth :) -- GreenC 22:17, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Whatever it is, they seem to have gone on holiday for the last three days, as the page views have been down to normal since the 28th, Huldra (talk) 23:21, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
I will say that for that particular article and day that I checked ('Ain Ghazal on November 29, 2017), the "majority" of pageviews did not originate from those universities, unless they were accessing the site via VPNs/proxies that belong to another country. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 14:54, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Editing DYK nominations on mobile is broken?

For some reason, when I try to edit a DYK nomination on my phone or tablet using the mobile site, the edit page just refuses to load: the loading icon pops up, then it just gets stuck. Editing using the desktop site works though, and editing any other page on mobile seems to work. Anyone else have this problem? I left a message at WT:DYK but didn't get any replies. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 01:41, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Example: Template:Did you know nominations/Bill Dubuque. The only pencil icon in mobile says "Edit the lead section of this page", but it goes to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Bill_Dubuque&mobileaction=toggle_view_mobile#/editor/1 which keeps trying to load. editor/1 is the first named section. The lead is editor/0 so it should have said https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Bill_Dubuque&mobileaction=toggle_view_mobile#/editor/0 which works. I guess mobile makes a wrong edit url because it gets confused by the lead code using a template to produce a section heading which is also visible in the source but as part of a template parameter:
{{DYKsubpage
|monthyear=January 2018 
|passed=<!--When closing discussion, enter yes, no, or withdrawn -->
|2=
{{DYK conditions}}
====Bill Dubuque====
...
}}
PrimeHunter (talk) 12:39, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
Best to use the Reveiw or Comment link on the top110.227.71.46 (talk) 15:45, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Total edits per month

Is there a way to get a list of total edits in English Wikipedia per month for 2017? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:31, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox#action=query&format=xml&list=allrevisions I think you'll have to split it up by month yourself. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 20:11, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
The Quixotic Potato Thanks! -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:11, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

The Quixotic Potato how about the total number of edits per month? -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:15, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

That one is more difficult, I'll have a look. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 21:20, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
mw:Talk:Quarry Wikipedia:Request a query @Xaosflux: Would a Quarry query be a good solution? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 21:25, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Or a querry quary. Your choice. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:28, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
See the WMF's stats page for English Wikipedia. isaacl (talk) 22:11, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
@Magioladitis: See also [38] (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 22:16, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
https://stats.wikimedia.org/v2/#/en.wikipedia.org/contributing/edits (you can change the linechart to a table).
Month Edits
2017-01-01 5118176
2017-02-01 4744859
2017-03-01 5049862
2017-04-01 4687982
2017-05-01 4992655
2017-06-01 4982182
2017-07-01 4790873
2017-08-01 4818284
2017-09-01 4789522
2017-10-01 4838996
2017-11-01 4772932
2017-12-01 4971554

(((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 23:36, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

The Quixotic Potato Wow. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 00:39, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Note that the message at the top of the wikistats page says that the first task for the new interface is to make the numbers match those produced by the old interface. I'm not sure why, but the numbers produced by WikiStats2 are considerably higher than that of the old page. isaacl (talk) 20:25, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Image won't render?

In the Blood in stool, there's a section of wikimarkup that says 

[[File:Red feces.png|thumb|Hematochezia typically presents with bright red blood mixed  in with the stool.]]

which renders as

File:Red feces.png
Hematochezia typically presents with bright red blood mixed in with the stool.

rather than the expected image. What gives? The markup seems valid to me, and replacing the image what different one renders correctly. What's the problem/fix? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:01, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

File:Red feces.png is on MediaWiki:Bad image list. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:12, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
So, how do we bypass this? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:41, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
You can post a request at MediaWiki talk:Bad image list. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:45, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I added it as an exception to disallowing use of this image. Please note, for future reference, that PrimeHunter is correct about the correct place to make these requests. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:53, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
@PrimeHunter:As an admin, you could have also done this - see here how to do it - since Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. There is no doubt that allowing this exception is reasonable. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:22, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Can anyone safely run a links check on New Jersey Women's Hall of Fame? I ran the "Fix dead links", but I'm still concerned. I found under "External links" section that the New Jersey Women's Hall of Fame website link was a redirect to an Asian language site. I removed it. I randomly tried another link on the page, and it also redirected to an Asian language site. Can anyone safely check the links on this article and remove anything redirecting to Asian websites? — Maile (talk) 14:11, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

@Maile66: This looks like a case of usurped website. You can set |deadurl=usurped in the CS1/2 citations to remove the offending links. --Izno (talk) 14:34, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
@Izno: set it where? I don't fully understand. — Maile (talk) 14:40, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
@Maile66: In each citation template that you think needs to be fixed. --Izno (talk) 14:42, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
@Izno: I won't actually know unless I open every page link to see which ones are redirecting. I was hoping there would be something more automatic. — Maile (talk) 14:45, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
@Maile66: No, there's nothing automatic. I think it's fairly safe to say, having opened one or two links, that the entire website has been usurped. --Izno (talk) 14:48, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Warning on lowercase title

I've added {{lowercase title}} at eldiario.es per WP:NCLOWERCASEFIRST, and the template shows a red warning "Warning: Display title "eldiario.es" overrides earlier display title "<i>Eldiario.es</i>".". The template works fine at pages like iPad or eBay.

What am I doing wrong? Diego (talk) 14:28, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

P.S. I've found that the error message only appears when templates {{Infobox Newspaper}} and {{lowercase title}} are both included. Diego (talk) 14:35, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

@Diego Moya: That just means there is a second display title being defined; in this case, in {{infobox newspaper}}. Review the use instructions there to fix the issue. (Recommendation: you may want to use the DISPLAYTITLE magic word in the article after fixing the displaytitle issue in the infobox rather than a passthrough template such as {{lowercase title}} since you should include the italics i.e. {{DISPLAYTITLE:''eldiario.es''}}.) --Izno (talk) 14:39, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, that solved the problem. It required adding |italic title=no to infobox newspaper to prevent it from adding an incorrect uppercase title definition. Diego (talk) 15:37, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-02

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

  • On Wikidata, the "save" button when you edit is now called "publish". This means all Wikimedia wikis have now changed from "Save page" to "Publish changes". This is to help new editors understand what it does. [39][40]
  • Some edits will get an automatic tag on all wikis. This will happen when making a page a redirect, blanking a page, removing almost all content, undoing an edit, or rolling back an edit. You can see the tags for example in the recent changes feed, article history, user contributions or on your watchlist. Some wikis had already marked edits like these in other ways. [41]
  • Special:UnusedFiles shows files that have been uploaded but are not used. It will show a file that is not used on the wiki it has been uploaded to, even if the file is used on another wiki. The new Special:GloballyUnusedFiles page on Commons only shows files that are not used on any wiki. [42]
  • Structured discussions now uses the 2017 wikitext editor instead of its old custom one. This will work with your preference for wikitext or visual editor. The documentation has been updated. [43][44]

Problems

  • Older versions of the Chrome web browser on mobile devices may see the PDF download button, but it does not work. The developers are looking into the problem. [45]
  • With the new filters in the recent changes, "Exclude selected" in "Namespaces" did not work for "Saved filters" between 13 December and 2 January. When you loaded the saved filter all other namespaces were excluded instead. This has now been fixed. If you made any changes to your saved filters between 13 December and 2 January, you need to save your filters with excluded namespaces again. [46]
  • The latest version of Google Chrome broke how section links are shown in the address bar. You now see #R%C3%A9sum%C3%A9 instead of #Résumé even if MediaWiki did not encode it that way. This happened in early December. This problem has been solved. The fix will be in Chrome 64 (23 January) or Chrome 65 (6 March). [47]
  • Some POST requests to the API took longer than usual in parts of December. This affected the Wikidata UI and some gadgets the most. It has now been fixed. [48]

Changes later this week

  • Wikidata will be moved to its own database servers. This is because it is growing and needs more resources. Because of this you will be able to read but not edit Wikidata and the German Wikipedia between 06:00 and 06:30 UTC on 9 January. You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. This includes editing the language links on other wikis. [49]
  • The font size in the editing window will change slightly for some users. It will now look the same on all browsers and operating systems. [50][51]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 January. It will be on all wikis from 11 January (calendar).
  • WikiEditor's ResourceLoader modules have been simplified to one: ext.wikiEditor. All the other modules are now deprecated aliases and should be removed. [52]

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 9 January 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 10 January 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.

16:19, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Template talk:Legend0

Can somebody help me with my edit request? I am trying to add a |text= option per {{Legend#Full parameter list}}.--Nevé–selbert 18:15, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

How to edit descriptions of articles that appear on mobile devices

I apologize if this is documented somewhere. Is it possible to edit the descriptions of articles that appear on mobile devices at the bottom of the page? I've seen some that are confusing and could be improved. Is it on wikidata? Is it somewhere else on the page? Or is it not part of Wikipedia at all? Thank you. Lollipop (talk) 16:44, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Lollipop It's on wikidata. The wikidata item for VPT is - this and has a description of "Wikimedia technical village pump" Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:53, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
ok thank you..... I will make use of that by editing on the big screen . Lollipop (talk) 17:18, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:FAQ/Editing#How do I edit mobile subtitles? PrimeHunter (talk) 19:49, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Lollipop you may also be interested in WP:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC:_Populating_article_descriptions_magic_word. Alsee (talk) 20:24, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:New_user_landing_page" should be able to opt out or outright removed

What if I want to view the non-existent page's deleteion log to see why it shouldn't be created? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ywwuyi (talk • contribs) 14:23, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

@Ywwuyi: can you clarify? The View History (then the View Logs) controls work on the page Wikipedia:New_user_landing_page. Also, this page exists and has no deletions in the history. — xaosflux Talk 14:46, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I go to any non-existent page and will get redirect there. I don't want to view WP:New user landing page, but a page that has yet to be created. Ywwuyi (talk) 14:57, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
@Ywwuyi: this is by design, only on the Article namespace. See WP:ACTRIAL. The reason why is that very new editors (such as your self) are not allowed to create pages in that namespace directly. Feedback to improvement of the landing page or suggestions for specific edits on it can be submitted at Wikipedia talk:New user landing page. — xaosflux Talk 20:02, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
The deletion log is hard to find for logged in users without autoconfirmation. If you log out then you get the deletion log at for example Rifal Lastori instead of being redirected to Wikipedia:New user landing page. See Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed article creation trial/Archive 5#Deletion log not shown. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:18, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
(a) The normal way is to: (i) click the redlink; (ii) in the browser's address bar, remove the query string parameters &action=edit&redlink=1; (iii) find where it says ?title= and after this, insert this string: Special:Log&page= and press ↵ Enter
(b) The alternative way is to (i) go to any page; (ii) click the "View history" tab; (iii) click the "View logs for this page" link near the top; (iv) in the browser's address bar, locate the page= parameter, remove whatever follows that and append the name of the page that you're interested in (use underscores instead of spaces). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:42, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

WikiData moving to new servers - data loss possible if you try to save during the move

From Tech News (posted above a while ago, but not everyone reads it who should):

Wikidata will be moved to its own database servers. This is because it is growing and needs more resources. Because of this you will be able to read but not edit Wikidata and the German Wikipedia between 06:00 and 06:30 UTC on 9 January. You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. This includes editing the language links on other wikis. [53]

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  22:48, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

A request on a generic infobox

Dear all, in Wiki Project Ancient Egypt, we have a problem with the pharaoh infobox (visible on hundreds of articles). We noticed that the [show] button in the infobox, next to "Royal Titulary" is rarely if ever noticed by casual readers (see e.g. Nyuserre Ini). This means many cannot see the pharaoh's five names in hieroglyphs with translations. This has all sorts of negative consequences, from complains about the absence of this information to well-meaning people editing the hieroglyphs in the article. Thus, we contemplate the idea of making the [show] button more conspicuous by replacing it by [click to show] or put it in bold, or both. Unfortunately, Template:Infobox_pharaoh does not allow us to edit the appearance of the [show] button which seems to be defined at a higher level, perhaps in templates called by the infobox template. Could someone help us by showing us how to edit the appearance of the show button for pharaoh infoboxes ?Iry-Hor (talk) 17:57, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Someone here should hopefully be able to tell if/how the appearance of the [show] button can be changed. But I'm wondering whether, in addition, the caption of the collapsed part of the infobox could be changed to something that will more immediately signal the presence of hieroglyphs. Say, if the "Royal titulary" bit was followed, in brackets, by the hieroglyphic rendition of the concept. – Uanfala (talk) 18:09, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Uanfala This would be difficult because it would be hard to pinpoint hieroglyphs for this concept without entering endless debates in Egyptology and second, the hieroglyphs would distord the infobox and I believe make it quite ugly. However I agree that we could say something like [click for hieroglyphs] instead of just [show].Iry-Hor (talk) 08:44, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
I think the problem is not really specifically with the look of the [show] button, but that other than that, the "Royal titulary" line appears just like the {{{name}}} and "Pharaoh" headings above it, as a heading on a colored background. A heading representing folded content should have a more obvious graphic indication of this, other than the [show] button. Perhaps put [show] on a line by itself below the heading, with a lighter background color. --Pipetricker (talk) 18:30, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, it's not immediately obvious that it can be expanded - just looks like a heading for the remaining stuff in the infobox. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:37, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Pipetricker Galobtter Uanfala Thanks for your ideas, as you pointed out the problem is that it looks like "Royal Titulary" is the heading of the section below when it is really the heading of the name section which is hidden until the button [show] is clicked. We could also add another heading under it for the next section, I don't know what's best really and on top of that I do not know how to change the show button.Iry-Hor (talk) 08:42, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
This demo shows the basic minimum. It illustrates that the text "show" is set by the javascript that is associated with the NavFrame class. Therefore, you can't configure it by modifying an infobox template or any of its subtemplates. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:15, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
Redrose64 ok so that means the only way to make the show button more conspicuous is that there is no way?Iry-Hor (talk) 14:33, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
mw:Manual:Collapsible elements#With custom toggle link implies that the toggle link may be customised, and even supplies three HTML elements that it claims will carry out such customisation. But it doesn't say where these should be placed, nor does it provide a working demo. I also can't find where in mw:MediaWiki:Gadget-NavFrame.js this code would hook to. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:29, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
Redrose64 Thank you, I will try to find out how this works.Iry-Hor (talk) 18:41, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
You might replace this:
{{{name}}}
Pharaoh
Royal titulary
additional names
| headerstyle = background:#decd87;padding:0.1em; {{#if:{{{titulary_notes|{{{notes|}}}}}} | |display:block;margin-bottom:0.3em;}}
| header = {{bigger|[[Ancient Egyptian royal titulary|Royal titulary]]}}<!--(resized here rather than via headerstyle otherwise [show/hide] link also resized)-->
with this:
| headerstyle = font-size:150%;background:#decd87;padding:0.1em; {{#if:{{{titulary_notes|{{{notes|}}}}}} | |display:block;margin-bottom:0.3em;}}<!--(resize [show/hide] link)-->
| header = <span style="font-size:75%;">[[Ancient Egyptian royal titulary|Royal titulary]]</span><!--(now resized header smaller to emphasize [show/hide] link)-->
Sandbox version at right uses |headerstyle= to set the whole header to 150% of normal size then applies a size reduction to the header title leaving the [show/hide] at the larger size. Play around with the values till you find something that you like.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:49, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
Trappist the monk Thank you for your precious help! I will implement something like this when the discussion on the subject is closed (see talk page of the infobox). Also is there a way for the button to say something else than [show]?Iry-Hor (talk) 18:40, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
I don't know how to change the [show/hide] label. That appears to be hard-coded at the top of mw:MediaWiki:Gadget-NavFrame.js.
Another think that you might consider is adding |showhide=left which will mode the [show/hide] label to the left side of the header. Because this is en/wiki and English is read left-to-right, doing that make make the label more obvious to readers without the necessity of size changes.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:19, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
@Iry-Hor and Trappist the monk: You can do this by using the newer mw-collapsible and mw-collapsible-content classes instead of NavFrames. {{Hidden/sandbox}} has the newer classes but there are a few things that need to be done (like centring the header text with a div with margin on left and right, since the show/hide button is different, and maybe checking that the slight change in display doesn't break anything?) before the code in {{Hidden begin/sandbox}} is moved to the main {{Hidden begin}} template (which {{Hidden}} uses). The left-side button is also currently a local bit of CSS which isn't in MediaWiki core like the standard mw-collapsible classes. Jc86035 (talk) 05:55, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Jc86035 Will this allow me to replace [show] by [click to show] and put it on the left ?Iry-Hor (talk) 06:36, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
@Iry-Hor: It will, but I think you shouldn't change the text to that since clicking might not be possible for e.g. those using the desktop site on tablets. Furthermore, I think it would be best to have a separate header for the content below the titulary, regardless of what the button looks like, since this would make it clearer that the button isn't referring to the rest of the infobox. Also, people might not know what "titulary" means (it's not even in the two English-language Oxford dictionaries that macOS has), so it might help to clarify that with, for example, "names in hieroglyphs" in brackets. Jc86035 (talk) 07:26, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

In the article, "List of SpongeBob SquarePants episodes", the featured star is unusually huge. In fact, it takes up much of the article. I doubt it is just my browser since Archive.is also captures that same mistake, seen here. Yoshiman6464 ♫🥚 22:06, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I saw what you were talking about, but it went away when I reloaded the page. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:18, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
@Enterprisey: Because I made an edit. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 22:19, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
That's interesting; I wonder why two copies of the template were necessary. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:20, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I have removed one of the two. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 22:22, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict × 2) Purging and a null edit didn't seem to fix it for me but moving the {{featured list}} template up did. Not sure why. – by AdA&D at 22:21, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Hm, weird editconflicts. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 22:25, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I guess the problem when {{featured list}} is at the bottom is related to the page being in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded. Templates at the bottom are not supposed to be transcluded at all in that case. A link to Template:Featured list was displayed as normal for pages in the category, but maybe a messy partial transclusion was made. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:32, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I've seen a massive FA star before, and that was also on a page that had maxed out the template limits, and used selective transclusion (the parametrization method). It was the "natural" size, as displayed at File:Cscr-featured.svg. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:32, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

​​​ Since it wasn't displaying properly for me I've temporarily substituted the episode tables for seasons 1 and 2. I think the best solution would be not to transclude the articles for the seasons at all (and remove the hidden episode descriptions after substitution), since AFAIK it doubles the count towards the template limit. Jc86035 (talk) 08:08, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Reset edition calling cite module for cite_book

There is a convoluted math-source template, "Template:Introduction to Algorithms" which attempts to alter authors based on "edition=" or "1=" but cannot reset "edition=3" as "edition=3rd" so I generated "version=3rd edition" which works, but cannot reset "edition=" as blank to hide when invoke of the Lua script cite module. Used in page "Merge sort". Are there any other solutions, beyond simply call {{cite book}} rather than invoke module? No hurry on this. Thanks. -Wikid77 (talk) 02:00, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

I've reverted to {{cite book}} for now.​​ I think Module:Citation/CS1/Wrapper could use a blacklist parameter to prevent the module from using specified parameters, |edition= in this case. Perhaps |blacklist=edition,example2,example3 would prevent the module from passing |edition=, |example2=, and |example3= to the wrapped template. — JJMC89 (T·C) 06:17, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Yes, until this works properly reversion is appropriate. I encountered similar issues trying to get the module invocation to work for {{mathworld}} (in that case not deployed because it was more obviously problematic already for the sandbox/test cases); there didn't seem to be a way to get it to ignore the template-specific parameters that should not be passed to the invocation. In the meantime see {{Introduction to Algorithms/sandbox}} for the broken invoke version and {{Introduction to Algorithms/testcases}} for some test cases. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:29, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

I do not have a clear understanding of the |edition= problem. Example of what it shouldn't do along with an example of what it should do?

I changed {{Introduction to Algorithms/sandbox}} to use |title= and |title-link= and /testcases to use |title-link=unset which eliminated the notitlelink error.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:28, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: |edition= should be used by {{Introduction to Algorithms}} but not passed to {{cite book}}. {{Introduction to Algorithms}} uses |edition= to determine the value of other parameters passed to {{cite book}}, including a different value for |edition=. For example, {{Introduction to Algorithms|edition=1}} should result in {{cite book|edition=1st}}, but we get {{cite book|edition=1}} instead since the module passes |edition=1 directly to {{cite book}}, overriding the value in {{Introduction to Algorithms}}. Normally this behavior is desired in order to allow overriding the default parameter values in the wrapper.
A similar issue can occur with other parameters. Say a I have a {{cite web}} wrapper that uses |potato= to determine some {{cite web}} parameter value, e.g. |url=. If |potato= has a value, it will result in an error for an unknown parameter for {{cite web}}, but it is a perfectly valid parameter for the wrapper. — JJMC89 (T·C) 15:28, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
I don't think that it is necessarily a good idea to blacklist valid cs1|2 parameters because that will prevent a legitimate override of that parameter. {{Introduction to Algorithms}} provides for the unnamed parameter {{{1}}} as an alias of |edition=. Because Module:Citation/CS1 does not accept positional parameters, I have tweaked Module:Citation/CS1/Wrapper so that it does not hand-off positional parameters to the cs1|2 template. Now, instead of writing:
{{Introduction to Algorithms/sandbox|edition=2}}
Cormen, Thomas H.; Leiserson, Charles E.; Rivest, Ronald L.; Stein, Clifford (2001) [1990]. Introduction to Algorithms (2nd ed.). MIT Press and McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-262-03293-7.
write:
{{Introduction to Algorithms/sandbox|2}}
Cormen, Thomas H.; Leiserson, Charles E.; Rivest, Ronald L.; Stein, Clifford (2001) [1990]. Introduction to Algorithms (2nd ed.). MIT Press and McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-262-03293-7.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:20, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Also, taking a tip from {{test case}}, I've tweaked Module:Citation/CS1/Wrapper so that is does not pass parameters with names that begin with an underscore:
{{Introduction to Algorithms/sandbox|_edition=3}}
Cormen, Thomas H.; Leiserson, Charles E.; Rivest, Ronald L. Introduction to Algorithms. MIT Press and McGraw-Hill. Unknown parameter |_edition= ignored
Alas, because of the leading underscore, this scheme does not work inside {{test case}}
—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:03, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
It would be preferable if we could also make it work with the original named parameters instead of requiring all-new parameters or only positional parameters. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:53, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

A note about wmf labs AFD stats…

The log takes your earliest timestamp, and attaches the !vote to that date even while acknowledging that you !voted later. This messes up your logs if you delsort but then come back a week later or so and !vote. See December 30 and you'll find a Jan 6 !vote listed in the middle of those Dec 30s. L3X1 Happy2018! (distænt write) 17:03, 7 January 2018 (UTC) dnau L3X1 Happy2018! (distænt write) 14:23, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm investigating this and should have a fix out pretty soon. Enterprisey (talk!) 19:05, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

This may be a bit of a pain, but would it be possible to generate a list of red links that appear exactly one time in mainspace? I have a theory that a good number of these are either well-meaning links with typos, or things that should not be linked. Further to the second idea, would it be possible to generate a list of articles containing the largest number of one-time red links? Cheers! bd2412 T 23:52, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

AFAIK Special:Wanted doesn't even ignore redlinks in non-article space (please correct me if I am wrong). But yeah, it would be possible to create a list of red links that appear exactly one time in mainspace. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 00:32, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Do we have any idea how many results this would generate? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Something in between? bd2412 T 17:39, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

catastrophic formating in a french-to-english translation

Hello, I've tried the translation tool for the first time, resulting on a catastrophic result here : Vésuve de Brekka. Can somebody help to fix ? Thanks. And sorry. --Tsaag Valren (talk) 12:57, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

@Tsaag Valren: Please don't use exaggerations like catastrophic.. the world is not ending just yet. Normally you have 3 options to deal with templates when you translate. Which did you choose ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:45, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
@TheDJ: Tried to use correspondig template, and edited. It works for the "quote" model, but not for {{article}} and {{lien web}} / {{weblink}}. --Tsaag Valren (talk) 14:03, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
@Tsaag Valren: You have to use a corresponding English template or avoid using a template. You cannot assume a template has the same name or parameters in another language. fr:Modèle:Article under languages in the left pane has a link to the English Template:Cite journal. The English Template:Article is a completely different template which cannot be used for citations. You also have to translate or avoid month names. |date=9 janvier 2018 is not accepted in English. Write |date=9 January 2018 or |date=2018-01-09. Other users have fixed the citation errors. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:11, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

How does (public) thanks work?

In article history, there's a link for sending thanks, that links to Special:Thanks. When you click on it, it prompts you if you want to, Send public thanks for this edit? I get the part about a thank you item showing up in their notification list, but I don't get the public part. Is this really a public action? Does it show up in a publicly-visible log someplace? -- RoySmith (talk) 17:28, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Notifications/Thanks#How do I see the thanks I've given out. It says: "You will only be able to see who you thanked, and when. The log does not record the specific edits, and you cannot access other editors' notifications." PrimeHunter (talk) 17:31, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Yes, it's at Special:Log/thanks. Here is the log of whom you have thanked, and here is the log of who has thanked you. Mz7 (talk) 18:47, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
We can't have any secret thanking going on around here. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:32, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks -(Redacted) 19:34, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Private thanks is so easy. It is possible to thank me here, but if you do, I shan't reply. I prefer it face to face. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:38, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
MORE THAN HAPPY TO THANK YOU FACE TO FACE STOP PLS FWD AIRFARE AND LODGING EXPENSES EARLIEST STOP ―Mandruss ☎ 21:35, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Somewhere is a list that groups users by most thankful/least ingrate and most thanked. Probably what the sekrit admin scores are calculated off of.[FBDB] L3X1 Happy2018! (distænt write) 13:48, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Merging characters in article heading (Arēna Rīga)

Can anyone answer as to why on the Arēna Rīga article (and maybe others with 'ē') that 'r' and 'ē' overlap in headings, but not in the content text? Does anyone else experience this problem? -- AxG / ✉  16:19, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

It sounds like a font problem in your browser. I see no problem in Firefox, IE, Edge or Chrome with the Vector skin. What is your browser and your skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? PrimeHunter (talk) 17:23, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
It’s Firefox and Vector. I checked over on the Polish and Latvian Wikipedia, put these don’t use Georgia for the article titles, with the old sans serif being fine. -- AxG / ✉  19:29, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
The same is also happening in Chrome and Opera, but IE is fine. -- AxG / ✉  19:40, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Is this only Vector skin? Try the others - View Arēna Rīga in the skin:

--Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:15, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

MinervaNeue and Timeless both have the same problem, two skins that use Georgia. -- AxG / ✉  20:59, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
They all look fine for me in Firefox 57.0.4 on Windows 10. What is your operating system? Do you see the same problem in "Arēna Rīga" and the heading below? PrimeHunter (talk) 21:57, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Arēna Rīga

(Note: the above heading was marked up as <h2>Arēna Rīga</h2> for the purpose of test and discussion. To not mess up archiving, it has been changed to a "fake heading", which may have changed its visual appearance.)

Windows 7, and no to the one you've wrapped in <span style>, but yes to h1, and h2 headings. -- AxG / ✉  22:07, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
That does not look like Georgia to me. The serif in the top-right of the "g" in Georgia is a perfectly horizontal line, rather as if someone grafted a small hyphen onto the end of the letter. Your screenshot shows a different "g", leading me to doubt that Georgia is the font being shown. Wikipedia's styles instruct the browser to choose Linux Libertine ahead of Georgia if available, so perhaps there is a problem with Linux Libertine. If you don't require this font, removing it from your system may help (maybe not just with Wikipedia but with other sites too). — This, that and the other (talk) 11:36, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
You were right User:This, that and the other, it was Linux Libertine, and not Georgia. I went ahead and deleted the font, then re-download and install it and it's fine now. Thanks for everyone's brains and knowledge! -- AxG / ✉  14:10, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Problem trying to move draft to main

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T184735

I am experiencing difficulty in moving a page to mainspace. When I click on 'move' I get the usual dropdown but when I try to scroll upwards to where 'article' is at the top of it, the panel 'disappears'. I can get to 'article' by dragging the little bar thing in the scrolling 'column' but the cursor remains as a pointer and does not change to a small 'hand'. If I then try to click on it the panel again disappears. The panel is also partially obscured by the 'talk' icon at the page top. Is there an anomaly of some sort? Thanks. Eagleash (talk) 11:02, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Which operating system, which browser, which skin? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:22, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Windows 7, Google Chrome, Vector (default). Eagleash (talk) 11:25, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I have the same problem with Windows 10, Firefox, Vector. I have reported it with screenshots at phab:T184735: "Namespace selection at Special:MovePage can clash with navigation menu". PrimeHunter (talk) 16:05, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. Eagleash (talk) 16:31, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

An IGN link won’t post when I try to add it.

Hello why won’t an IGN link post when I at least why to update a game article, with a link I found thanks. Danny231 (talk) 08:42, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Which link, which article, and what goes wrong? Place the link inside <nowiki>...</nowiki> here if you cannot save it. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:50, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
This is the link I was on about http://m.uk.ign.com/articles/2017/11/07/elder-scrolls-online-clockwork-city-dlc-and-xbox-one-x-enhancements-out-today Danny231 (talk) 12:09, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I originally thought that it might be an issue with the blacklist, but IGN certainly isn't blacklisted. I was able to post the link on Talk:The Elder Scrolls Online. @Danny231: Would you be able to post a screenshot of what happens when you try to post it? There's nothing in your filter log so it's not disallowing you from adding it. Anarchyte (work | talk) 13:11, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I tried to do it again for a screenshot it just doesn’t come up with an error or even show up I posted the link. Strange. Danny231 (talk) 13:15, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
The link works fine. Special:Contributions/Danny231 shows you have saved no edit on any other page between your posts here. Maybe you didn't click "Save" or "Publish changes", or maybe you ignored a message after doing so. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:28, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Indication whether Talk page posts are present or not

It annoys me that I have to view an article's Talk page to see whether any posts have been made. Could there be an indication next to the link? Example: 0 if posts not present. Even better might be to keep the link's colour light red (as if the Talk page is totally empty) even if templates are present. In other words, disqualify the templates from changing the colour. Akld guy (talk) 19:32, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if this is technically feasible, but I absolutely second this proposal. – Uanfala (talk) 19:58, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
1. Realistically, I don't think the page-rendering software is going to read every linked talk page to see if there are any section headings in it, just to avoid annoying a few editors (this does not annoy me). And that would be the only way to do it, the page history does not distinguish between "posts" and other edits.
2. Your "even better" is a non-starter anyway, as it would make it impossible to see if the target page exists. Redlink means no page, and it's unlikely we're going to invent a third color for this purpose—even if that's something within the control of our developers. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:02, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
It would be nice if MediaWiki assigned a class to the "Talk" link for an almost empty talk page so the link could be styled like Help:Link color#Styling all links just for you. But if it was a general MediaWiki feature then you would need a general way to define "almost empty". PrimeHunter (talk) 20:34, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Even if possible, that's a lot of feature creep for a minor annoyance to a small minority of editors. How about making pings and other userpage links generate notifications when added after the fact, or at least devising a way to make it clear that no notification was generated? That's a major annoyance to what I suspect is a majority of editors who use notifications. It's actually more than an annoyance, as notifications are an essential part of discussions. This, not single-click-saver features, is the kind of thing where our developers should be spending their limited time. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:51, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Mandruss, in your personal preferences ("Notifications" tab) you can turn on the option of receiving notifications for each successful (or unsuccessful) ping you make. – Uanfala (talk) 23:06, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
@Uanfala: I checked the "Failed mention" box and still got no indication that this edit did not generate a notification. It isn't clear to me that that option addresses the problem I'm talking about. In any case, if there were an option for such a solution it should be enabled by default. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:32, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

If we're brainstorming, something like [talk (3)] rather than [talk] to indicate 3 level 2 headers could very likely be scripted. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:54, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

That's a pretty good idea. I wrote a script that does that: User:Enterprisey/talk-tab-count.js Enterprisey (talk!) 21:55, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
@Enterprisey: Thanks. I'd like to check it out, and I guess it's time I learned how to enable something like that for my account. How? ―Mandruss ☎ 22:07, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Oops, I forgot to write documentation and installation instructions - I'll ping you when those are posted. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:10, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Mandruss, installation instructions are up at User:Enterprisey/talk-tab-count. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:16, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
@Enterprisey: Thanks. It shows (14) for Talk:Donald Trump, which has 10 L2s and 5 L3s. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:24, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Okay, I fixed it so it only counts level 2's. I don't really want to fix it further to display 10 instead of 9, because it would be too expensive to check for section headers inside everything transcluded on the page. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:35, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Roger. Guess we're done here then, and everybody's happy. The performance hit seems large enough to be noticeable, but no problem if the user deems the benefit worth it. I'll decline. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:42, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Whoa! That was quick! Who would have thought this would get solved so easily. Good job, Enterprisey! – Uanfala (talk) 23:04, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Can someone add this to the Gadgets please? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 04:42, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Sure. There used to be a dedicated page, but now all we need is a WP:VPT discussion, which I'll put in a new subsection. Enterprisey (talk!) 05:30, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm, my suggestion got hijacked to a totally different one. I'm not impressed. Akld guy (talk) 05:34, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Were you asking for a post count in any link to a talk page, not just the one in the tab at the top? That would be technically feasible too, if a bit visually noisy. Enterprisey (talk!) 05:40, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
@Akld guy: It seems to me that Enterprisey's tool gave you exactly the functionality you asked for: it puts the number of talk page posts that have been made to a talk page at the top of the article, so that way, if a talk page hasn't had any posts, it will read 0. Please give it a try: see User:Enterprisey/talk-tab-count for installation instructions. Mz7 (talk) 06:25, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
@Enterprisey: and @Mz7: I didn't ask for a tool. I asked for a system-wide implimentation that would indicate that user posts have been made on each article's Talk page. When viewing an article, it's annoying to have to click "Talk" to see whether any posts have been made. Numbering was one method. My better suggestion was that if no user posts have been made, the colour of the Talk button should stay light red, as if no content was present. The way it's currently set up, as soon as someone puts a template on the Talk page, the colour changes to blue. If there were some way to disqualify templates or any other notifications from changing the colour to blue, that would work well. Akld guy (talk) 07:45, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Well, how does it matter to you whether it is system wide? The script could be configured so that it displays light red when 0 discussions are there and blue if 1 or more is there. Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:51, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Akld guy: I'm afraid I disagree with a system-wide implementation (i.e. switched on by default for all users) in the way you describe. Those templates that go on talk pages belong mostly to WikiProjects, and sometimes they contain other information that may be pertinent to editors, such as {{BLP}} notices or {{Ds/talk notice}} notices. A red talk page link currently means that these project templates don't exist and should be added. In any case, Enterprisey is one of the project's most helpful scriptwriters, and he has specifically volunteered his time to write you a script that will change your own interface in one of very ways that you initially suggested to help mitigate your annoyance for this issue, and he has also proposed in the section below that it be added to Special:Preferences so that it is easily available to all users. It may be possible to adjust the script to turn the link red; I don't know, but I don't really understand why you have so readily dismissed Enterprisey's efforts to help you. Mz7 (talk) 08:01, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
I didn't realise he had helped me. It looked to me like Mandruss hijacked this thread and turned it into a completely different complaint about something unrelated to mine. If it had been made clear to me what you were all doing, I would have understood. It seems everyone went off on a tangent and came up with a solution that was beyond my comprehension. Akld guy (talk) 09:42, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
@Akld guy: You're right, I did go off topic there. Apologies. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:25, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
@Mandruss: No worries, and thank you for not trying to deny it. Akld guy (talk) 10:29, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

A while back I wrote User:Anomie/talklink that does something like is requested here. Anomie⚔ 23:12, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to make talk-tab-count a gadget

The user script User:Enterprisey/talk-tab-count was written as part of the above discussion to display the postlevel-2 section count of a talk page on the "Talk" tab. Transcluded sections are not counted. Should it become a gadget? Enterprisey (talk!) 05:55, 9 January 2018 (UTC); updated 21:45, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

So apparently the requirements are:
  • Gadgets must work if just included with no further configuration. They can be configurable via personal common.js, but must work unconfigured.
  • Gadgets must be compatible with all major browsers, i.e. they must not terminate with errors.
  • Gadgets should be functional in most major browsers (cross-browser compatibility). Exceptions must be clearly stated.
  • Gadgets only working in some skins must be marked as such if that data is available.
Works at-least on firefox and chrome. Support Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:01, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
display the post count For clarity, that's "the count of level-2 section headings". Also it should be reiterated that it won't include any transcluded headings, although they are relatively rare on article talk pages. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:20, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
This should be at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) in my opinion. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:30, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Mandruss is probably correct. Support as requester. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 11:26, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
I put the proposal here because this venue was slightly favored over VPPR in the discussion where we closed WP:Gadget/proposals. (The editors in the discussion thought the technical village pump was more suited for gadgets, as they're more of a technical matter.) I've added a notice on VPPR, though. Enterprisey (talk!) 21:59, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
No oppose template - after all it isn't a vote :) :P Hmm, one additional feature might be checking if it is a redirect. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:33, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Ha, wrong project, changed to tic's - and just a general summary of my current opposition. — xaosflux Talk 14:25, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Who maintains code/table for anti-vandalism bots?

What group is in charge of anti-vandalism bots? (I'm wondering why this edit wasn't picked up by same. It seems a no-brainer keyword for basing a tentative anti-valdalism revert on.) Ok, --IHTS (talk) 00:12, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Each bot is managed by its own respective operator. — xaosflux Talk 01:04, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
Thx. --IHTS (talk) 02:55, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
@Ihardlythinkso: perhaps you are thinking of filters, rather than bots. There are a number of links at Special:AbuseFilter where you can post an inquiry about the filters missing something that should have been blocked. — Maile (talk) 01:26, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
Thx for the clarification & lead. --IHTS (talk) 01:56, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
Actually I think this should have been cleaned up by a bot, not prevented by a filter. --IHTS (talk) 02:54, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Templates that fetch data from wikidata

Hello. Do we have templates that fetch data from Wikidata? Xaris333 (talk) 10:19, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Category:Wikidata templates. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:22, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Per: Special:WantedPages §Question/Suggestion

___NOT_A_TECH_ISSUE__

Admins:

Salutations, Members of the Wikipedia Community It must be brought to attention that articles show up no matter whether they were deleted, or they weren't, nonetheless, they we're thrown in together. I don't nessicarily find this as a problem, however I find it to be like

speed bumps on the road of editing

— unknown
.

Nowadays, I often find my self scrolling the list, and today I tried clicking on Iceland Sea. I was considering taking it under my wings, only to find it deleted by User:Zzyzx11, so I was unsure whether it would be a good idea. I often felt steered away from pages because of this entropy.

--

Now, I understand the Administrative needs of showing the deleted pages', don't get me wrong here. I shall implement my solution below, and submit what would be like a summary, except it's my solution, potentially the answer, in my opinion, to the problem.

It would be found quite harsh and unnecessary to delete the deleted pages, so why not provide a button. One that could temporarily hide the deleted pages to Auto-confirmed users and reveal the same to the administration, buearucrats, and the stewards(which Special:Statistics counts as 0, huh?), who could really use it. Why not provide a button like you'd see on your watchlist, in which sorts the desirable content out of the thickness. A button like: Hide Deleted Pages would really do the trick.

--

I would like to take the time to thank you for all you've done for Wikipedia. What you have, what you do, and what you'll contribute to in the future, so much contributions, I must thank you. I must also thank you in advance, for responding to me, and resolving perhaps one of the most arrogant problems of the Special Pages, at least affecting me.

Thank you, let's keep Wikipedia strong.

Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 01:28, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

The reason it was deleted can be useful to know. In this case it was deleted for reason G7, which means that the original author wanted it deleted. This means that it is fine to recreate it. You can even ask for a restore, though what was there was not that useful, and had no references. Also the page was actually deleted by Sphilbrick, so perhaps you are looking at another entry. There is already a mechanism to hide or eliminate the deletion entry, but it should only be used in certain cases. (perhaps the title was libelous or very offensive, etc). As an admin I see "(change visibility)" which will allow me to hide the entry. This message appears when attempting to hide a log entry: "Deleted log events will still appear in the logs, but parts of their content will be inaccessible to the public. Other administrators will still be able to access the hidden content and to undelete it, unless additional restrictions are set. " Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:38, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
@Graeme Bartlett: I find that to be interesting perspective there, though I have stated that there is importance to the visibility of deleted pages in parapgraph 3. Now I don't find this completely un-useful, as I decided to post a message to the Creator about his article, as you suggested, and so hopefully he'll respond soon.
Well, I'll try to keep in mind all that you've said, as I progress forward. Have a wonderful day!
Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 15:54, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Is it possible....

...to create a bot, or "auto-generated reminder" as follows: an admin blocks an editor, and...

  1. in their block summary for the user log, the admin adds a date command that on a specific date, triggers a bot reminder...
  2. the reminder simply says "Review block log of (bot inserts respective user's name);
  3. the bot posts the reminder to AN, and on the TP of the blocking admin and blocked user.

Please ping me when responding. Thank you! Atsme📞📧 11:53, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, of course. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 12:50, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
@Atsme: Forgot to ping you. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 12:51, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, TQP - is this something that can be done locally without having to get the WMF involved? In other words, if community consensus approves a policy change/modification that will allow admins to add such a reminder to the block log, is it simple enough a project that it can be implemented (via java script, perhaps?) without having to jump through the WMF's hoops of fire to get a programmer to write the script? Atsme📞📧 13:41, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
This COULD be done with a bot since it could be done by an editor (that is read block logs, store data locally, read data locally, make edits). To be done with a bot it would not require any software changes - it would require someone to create and run such a bot. To actually be useful you'd have to convince admins to actually use these custom block log triggers and where the edits should go. — xaosflux Talk 14:22, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  1. Download daily block log.
  2. Search each entry for trigger (e.g. "remindme 17/12/2019") and store it in a little database. Check if the date is in the correct format (dd/mm/yyyy v.s. mm/dd/yyyy)
  3. Check if there are remindme instructions for today in the database and send out the appropriate notifications if that is the case.
This isn't very difficult to program. Ideally the person who writes this software already has a bot or bots that run every day (I wouldn't run it on this computer because it is not always turned on). That person would need a botflag to post outside of their own userspace. The WMF does not have to be involved.
(((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 14:32, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Note that HTML comments do not appear in the message displayed to the blocked user; ideally, you could use that to append metadata to your blocks. This is already routinely done for Sockpuppets. -- Luk talk 13:51, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
A "remind me to check on this later" is one of the features originally envisioned for mw:Flow. The most obvious use case is probably WP:U problems, to give good-faith users a chance to request a different username. Reviewing indef blocks would be another useful situation. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:56, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Undo and rest of twinkle on mobile

Is there a wiki-gaget or script which can modify twinkle or atleast the Undo feature for the mobile interface. Also what is the official WMF status of officially adding the Undo and twinkle to the mobile interface — Force Radical ( Talk • Contribs ) 11:27, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Heya Force Radical, there's nothing on the radar for the WMF teams I work with (largely mobile and web). I've passed along your request as I am aware that the teams are looking for ideas on what sort of contributions might work best on mobile devices. Your question might be a good one to add to Wikipedia_talk:Twinkle as there's a similar question there as well from Kailash29792. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 19:37, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

div col template

This was pointed out on the template's talk page, but it seems to have gone unanswered, so I figured I'd bring it up here instead. In {{div col}}, the default is to use cols=2, despite that being deprecated. I most often see this template used in "See also" sections, and whenever I see cols used explicitly, I tend to change to to colwidth= something between 20em and 30em, but I'm probably not consistent with which. Is there a good solution so articles are consistent? Maybe just a basic wrapper for "See also"s that picks a reasonable default width? It almost never needs to be changed from some reasonable default anyway. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 17:39, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

It might be worth looking at Template talk:Reflist/Archive 29 and some of the work done there by RexxS and others. A fixed number of columns (too narrow on smartphones, too wide on big screens) has been deprecated by this community for years. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:40, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to be looking at exactly. I realize that setting a fixed number of columns is deprecated, but that's exactly what the template does by default (with 2) despite that. Would a {{See also cols}}/{{See also end}} wrapper be reasonable? This could just pick a reasonable default (say, 30em), and would be easy to update. This would help avoid inconsistent column widths, as is currently the situation. Even better would be to use something like this on most every page, and enable columns if there are more than some minimum number of entries, but I don't know if that's possible to check for with a pair like above. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 19:16, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
I have added some discussion to Template talk:Div col, which has only 38 watchers. Feedback from technical folks is welcome. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:22, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Anyone else think 200 characters is too much for the "Reason" parameter when moving a page?

[54] -- is there any way to access the actual <200 character reason I actually wrote, or is it lost to the aether? I'm pretty sure it was meant to say something like "over the manuscript tradition relates to the New Testament rather than the Hebrew Bible, because of the abundance of fairly early but relatively variant manuscripts we have of the former", but with it being cut short because the automatic part of the edit summary came to 162 characters and cut the end of my reason off. If I had planned ahead for this, I would have tried to fit my reason into 93 characters or less, but... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:19, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: See the move log. — JJMC89 (T·C) 07:32, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
Like the edit summary, the actual limit is 255 bytes; but a significant proportion of that is soaked up by the default text "moved page Foo to Bar" which could potentially include such strings as "over a redirect", "without leaving a redirect" or both. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:28, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
Soon the limit will be raised to 1000 Unicode characters. But you'll still have to take that 162 characters into account if you're writing that much text in the move reason. Anomie⚔ 00:49, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Strange vandalism

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, but on several pages, Human and Barack Obama are specifically the ones I know of but I've been told there are more, there are transparent images covering the entire page that link to a YouTube stream. These links don't show up in the source code or the edit history of the pages. FrederickE♠♣♥♦ 04:35, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Also it appears that the pageXinjiang conflict has the same issue linking here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYntVKsbvFM has this page been hacked?? I know this is not the right place to report this but i do not have the ability to to sign up for a phabricator account right this moment Thanks Sassmouth (talk) 04:42, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
There was vandalism to Template:Excessive citations inline, I'm running a purge job against pages it was on and have increased its protection. The vandal has been blocked. — xaosflux Talk 04:42, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
@FrederickE: and @Sassmouth: the purge job is done, please let us know if you still see issues. — xaosflux Talk 04:54, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
Additionally, I've added this to the spam blacklist. SQLQuery me! 04:45, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Method to flag names

User:Theopolisme/Scripts/adminhighlighter.js is a useful script to know who is an admin, it highlights the signature in a blue bar. I'd like to expand this with the ability to highlight other designated names with custom colors. For example, highlight User:Theopolisme with the color red so whenever I come across Theopolisme in the future, it reminds me this is someone I wanted to remember for whatever reason (I could keep a separate "key" or list with notes). Is there any tool like this available, or would it be easy to expand adminhighlighter.js? (Theopolisme has not logged in since September..) -- GreenC 21:23, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

One doesn't need a script to highlight individual linked names. CSS is enough ( https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Attribute_selectors). 21:34, 13 January 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.218.83.2 (talk)

In Firefox 57, created a userChrome.css per instructions with content as described:
a[href*="User:GreenC"] {
  background-color: silver;
}
Rebooted Firefox.. but doesn't work. Is the CSS ok? -- GreenC 22:31, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

The CSS is fine, but this would be better: 

a[href="/wiki/User:GreenC"] {
  font-style: italic;
}

It will ensure that it only matches the user name and not subpages or other random page that may also contain that string. Creating that custom firefox css seems like overkill. Tampermonkey or greasemonkey or "stylish(?)" extensions would achieve the same thing.

It is simpler just add it to wiki User:XX/common.css as you're a registered user. 23:29, 13 January 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.218.83.2 (talk)

Also see WP:CUSTOMSIG for similar advice. Johnuniq (talk) 23:40, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
Got it, thanks IP! -- GreenC 23:41, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Unregistered account has a contribution

See Special:Contributions/Computer. Though this account is unregistered (appears to have been renamed), it shows a contribution when queried. How is this possible? For those wondering, I picked this up off of WP:LAME, where the account is mentioned (in a very old edit war). Home Lander (talk) 01:21, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

The diff for that edit is here, which says it was by User:タチコマ robot. DuncanHill (talk) 01:25, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
... and the contrib shows up for that account as well. This is a mystery for the ages, here. ;-) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:26, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
This entry appears in the log: 23:53, 18 July 2007‎ Andrevan ‎ m . . (1,072 bytes) (0)‎ . . (moved User:WOPR to User:Computer: Automatically moved page while renaming the user "WOPR" to "Computer")
and : 20:12, 8 July 2008‎ EVula ‎ m . . (5,878 bytes) (0)‎ . . (moved User:Computer to User:タチコマ robot: Automatically moved page while renaming the user "Computer" to "タチコマ robot")
Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:44, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
The same bug with User:NeuroproteXeon, it is reported at phab:T128276. Stryn (talk) 16:07, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Centring Template:Tree list

(Section heading changed to remove template call, see comment in the wikitext.)

Can someone help me with this? I'm trying to force said template to appear in the centre of a table cell. |style="text-align:center" doesn't work.--Nevé–selbert 22:08, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

@Neveselbert: It generates a <div>...</div>-type block element, which won't respond to inline styling placed outside itself. Where are you trying to do this? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:11, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
@Redrose64: I am editing a draft. Here are the contents of the cell I would like to have centred:
Can the template itself be modified to allow centre formatting? Thanks.--Nevé–selbert 22:19, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
This might work:
--Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:57, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
That does indeed work! @Redrose64: can you implement the changes in {{Tree list}}? Thanks.--Nevé–selbert 00:11, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
I have to add though that, when line breaks are invoked, this happens:
 Foo
|center=yes does not appear to work in this situation.--Nevé–selbert 00:28, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Try it without width="195px" --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:53, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
@Redrose64: Is that the only way to fix the problem? It's just that the table I'm editing uses fixed widths, so I'd rather not. Do you know of any way to insert the treeview lines without having to transclude {{Tree list}}? I've looked and I have only seen {{hr}}, which only inserts a straight line.--Nevé–selbert 19:50, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
I've been testing out different values, parameters, and what not, @Neveselbert:, and I think you'll be satisfied with my findings, which can be seen below.
The problem seems to arise when there is only 1 row width setting in the main table. I do find that odd, but it's not the only reason. The 1st column is too small in order for the machine to "centerise" it. So, now I'm proposing a change in the row parameter, using
{| class=wikitable style="width:395px"
| width="400px" |{{Tree list/sandbox|center=yes}}
as the beginning to the table. That produces
 Foo
And it centers better using higher | width= paremeter. For extra long trees, try 500 or higher. Now, I think that should solve all your problems. Questions? Feel free to come back and ask them. We won't get annoyed.
Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 20:47, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Template:Panorama

I made this template defaulting to center in focal area, to get proper width, I used width: min-content; to calculate box width. But there is a problem that Microsoft Edge does not support this property, so this template cannot get desied width on Edge if this template including very small image. I hope Microsoft fix it soon. Is there anyway to contact them? --Great Brightstar (talk) 14:22, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

@Great Brightstar: Good morning, Sorry, there's No available phone, however I recommend visiting their website for help. Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 15:18, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
@Great Brightstar: Where have you seen this min-content value described? It's not in Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 Revision 2 (CSS 2.2) Specification W3C First Public Working Draft 12 April 2016, which describes the width: property and its proposed extensions for CSS 2.2; nor is it in CSS basic box model W3C Working Draft 9 August 2007, which describes the width: property and its proposed extensions for CSS 3. This implies that few browsers (if any) will recognise a width: min-content; declaration. Personally I would not use anything that isn't described in the most recent W3C Recommendation, which for the width: property is Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 Revision 1 (CSS 2.1) Specification. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:47, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
This value is described in MDN Web Docs. According to MDN, this is defined in CSS basic box model 7 September 2016, and currently available in Chrome (without prefix), Firefox (with -moz), Opera and Safari (with -webkit). --Great Brightstar (talk) 10:25, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
That doc is an Editor's Draft, so will be highly fluid - don't rely on it. Indeed, the big yellow box states "This draft is undergoing changes and many parts are not consistent with other modules of CSS. Please, refer to CSS level 2 [CSS21] instead for the definition of the basic box model." --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:38, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Linking to section with template name in title

How does one generate a proper link to: [[c:Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#{{Dw_no_source_since}}_pettifogging]]?

The problem is that the section title has a template name in it and Mediawiki disrupts the link in other to look for the template, i.e. [[c:Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#{{Dw_no_source_since}}_pettifogging]]. Dragons flight (talk) 14:02, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

@Dragons flight: By encoding the curly brackets: c:Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#{{Dw_no_source_since}}_pettifogging -- John of Reading (talk) 14:15, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. Funny, I tried to do that before posting and it didn't seem to work. I guess I got the encoding wrong somehow. Thanks again. Dragons flight (talk) 14:23, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Gave it an {{anchor}} as well, now it works without the odd markup to c:Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#Dw_no_source_since_pettifogging. — xaosflux Talk 15:19, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
For this I recommend User:The Earwig/permalink.js -- though that produces a permalink, which may not be what you want. — MusikAnimal talk 00:37, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Template:Free-content attribution evaluates to wrong HTML with icon floating in apparently disconnected locations

Resolved
 – Fixed incorrect formatting in the template. Jc86035 (talk) 01:52, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Template:Free-content attribution reportedly evaluates to wrong HTML. Moreover, the use of this "Free-content attribution" template in a list of items generates a multi-colored circular icon icon that floats out of place in a list.

These two phenomena may not be related, but the free-floating icon problem suggests a moderately urgent need to modify the HTML to which that template translates. For more detail, see Template talk:Free-content attribution#The template evaluates to wrong HTML. Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 01:42, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

"Page size" Tool: "Word count" script 'User:Dr pda/prosesize.js' does not work with skin = Timeless

The useful "Page size" Tool (which shows an article's "Prose size" and its actual word count) does not display within the Timeless skin.

I've tested repeatedly but, when "Timeless" is the chosen skin (in User / Preferences / Appearance / Skin), the coding for this "prosesize" script doesn't seem to work when placed in either the "Shared CSS/JavaScript for all skins" (i.e. in common.js) or directly in the "Custom JavaScript" for that specific skin (i.e. in timeless.js) or when placed in both.

The coding I am referring to is this:

importScript('User:Dr pda/prosesize.js'); //User:Dr pda/prosesize.js

It may be my user error, but could this be a (known?) bug? I searched the Village pump archives but did not locate a mention of this. I have gotten around the problem by choosing to use the (default) Vector skin. Users of the Timeless skin might wish to be aware of this current lack of functionality. Many thanks, -T2.Timbuk-2 (talk) 19:11, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

The script will only work with monobook and vector skins. Ruslik_Zero 19:53, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
@Timbuk-2 and Ruslik0: I wanted to let you know that similar information is now available in the XTools' Page History tool. Look for the "Prose" column in the "General statistics" section at the top. In case you were unaware, you can load any article in XTools from within Wikipedia by going to the "View history" tab, and clicking on "Revision history statistics".

Furthermore, there is a public API to programmatically retrieve prose statistics. What this means is the user script could be updated to use the XTools API, and it will work for any skin. Pinging Dr pda in case they are interested (though it seems they may have retired from the project).

Hope this helps — MusikAnimal talk 02:12, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Brilliant! MusikAnimal, the first option you mention meets my needs and works in all skins except MinervaNeue (or am I just not seeing the "Page history" tab in that skin?). I will spread the word about this. Many thanks. Timbuk-2 (talk) 02:40, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

I was told to come here for help writing a Wikipedia-editing script and running it on my account

Everything is explained in the link in the section header. Care to differ or discuss with me? The Nth User 03:14, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

List formatting

What's the best syntactically correct way to do the list and column formatting in "Don't Stop the Music" (Rihanna song) § Track listing and formats without changing the layout too much (e.g. without making the line spacing too small, without splitting the numbered lists across columns)? Would a helper template be needed to do custom formatting? Currently it's syntactically ten separate lists inside {{col-start}}/{{col-2}}, which are probably deprecated by something somewhere. On some articles I've also seen things like *; (as well as * ;, which doesn't actually work) instead of the bold formatting in this article, which passed FA despite having these formatting issues. Jc86035 (talk) 16:28, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

@Jc86035: Good morning, I'm currently only at level-3, so I don't know super specialized layouts. However, I can tell you that when I went to look at the problem, an organized, understandable, list (shown in the box below) appeared, so I don't know if it should really be messed with. However, you may insert a wikitable.[1] Hopefully this helps some, and don't be to hard on yourself.[2]

References

  1. ^ Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works#List styles mentions that sometimes, simpler is better.
  2. ^ Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a work in progress Don't be to fast!
Track listing and formats
Track listing and formats
Notes
  • a^ Released as separate digital singles in both United States and Canada via iTunes.
  1. ^ a b c d e f This is just a dummy reference to avoid error messages. The real references are at Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song) § Track listing and formats.
Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 16:58, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
@Zanygenius: It's not syntactically correct, however, since if it were correct it would be nested (*, *#), it wouldn't be ten separate lists in the rendered HTML (the newlines should be removed but I'm not sure of the best way to make it look nice) and it wouldn't be split in the middle with {{col-2}}, since this splits the list unnecessarily into two table cells (help page · Manual of Style).
You've only been here for less than a month, so I don't know if it's the best thing for you to go around giving other editors advice yet. It's also probably best to avoid extraneous bold and italic formatting (even in your comments), since it can distract from the words. Jc86035 (talk) 00:51, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Main questions:

  • Is it possible to mark within a list that an element shouldn't be split between columns?
  • Is it stylistically correct(?) to use margin-left: 1.6em (default seems to be 3.2em) to reduce the indent of a numbered list?
  • Do these things require changes to MediaWiki:Common.css or the creation of a template/Lua module for these sorts of lists to make them correctly formatted? (In any case, indenting an <ol> inside a <li> would require a template for either the outer list or the inner lists to add styling or CSS classes.)
  • Are {{col-begin}} and other column templates using tables (instead of divs) deprecated? Should they be deprecated?

Jc86035 (talk) 01:05, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

The markup in the collapsed box above creates bad lists partly because of the blank lines, but mainly because it switches from one style to the other without nesting. A format like this would be better (refs omitted):

  • Promotional remix singles
    1. "Don't Stop the Music (Solitaire's More Drama Mix)" – 8:04
    2. "Don't Stop the Music (The Wideboys Club Mix)" – 6:38
  • iTunes EP
    1. "Don't Stop the Music" – 4:27
    2. "Don't Stop the Music (The Wideboys Club Mix)" – 6:38
    3. "Don't Stop the Music (Instrumental)" – 4:19

which gives a single unordered list, into which are nested some ordered lists. To Jc86035's first question (element shouldn't be split) though, this is within the scope of CSS Fragmentation Module Level 3 but be warned, this is only a W3C Candidate Recommendation so is not yet finalised. (CSS 2.1, which is a full W3C Recommendation, only has provision for break control in paged media such as hardcopy printout). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:03, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Problem with move

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T182602

I tried moving Draft:Nancy_Wilson_(basketball_coach) into article space, but when I click the Move option, it didn't seem to allow "article" as a choice. (Possibly related, I can see the word "talk" highlighted and almost interfering.) I tried selecting some other options such as Category and Book (obviously, not carrying out the move, and those seemed to work. Am I missing something?--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:19, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

What browser and what version of your browser are you using? You can try clicking on the dropdown box to where it is highlighted (but the dropdown doesn't show) and then type ( to make it appear as a temporary workaround. Nihlus 14:21, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
Same here on Chrome 63, but typing ( and clicking enter allows selection. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:29, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback that it is a known problem, and scheduled to be fixed. Thanks also to Galobtter and Nihlus - I had to try a couple times, but that worked as a temporary workaround.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:35, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-3

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

  • Bureaucrats on Wikimedia wikis where the Translate extension is installed can now add and remove the translation administrator permission by default. Administrators of wikis where this extension is enabled can add and remove this permission to or from themselves. Wikis that used a different configuration before have not changed. [55]
  • There is a new Discourse test support channel for Wikimedia developers. You can ask questions or answer others questions about MediaWiki and Wikimedia software development. [56]

Problems

  • Last week's MediaWiki update was rolled back. This was because of a bug that changed non-ASCII characters when a page was edited. [57][58]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 January. It will be on all wikis from 18 January (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 16 January 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 17 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • A few hundred wikis with less than ten high-priority errors in Linter categories will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 31 January. 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. [59][60]

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

18:45, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Editconflicts with yourself

If I doubleclick the "Publish changes" button I can get an editconflict with myself. Why don't we disable that button in Javascript for a second after it has been clicked? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 22:22, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

  • Pointless comment I know but this has been a thing for like 4-5 years however it's never been an issue well not for me anyway so don't see much pointing changing stuff. –Davey2010Talk 23:01, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
The Quixotic Potato, try User:Enterprisey/disable-save-on-click.js. I don't know if it works, because the next page loads too fast for me to let me doubleclick it, so let me know if there's a way I could improve it. Enterprisey (talk!) 07:54, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

How can I remove a display language from the Languages list on the left side of the page?

After recently making contributions to other langwikis, Wikipedia has started to list Deitsch (Pennsylvania German) in the list of languages, even though such an article doesn't exist. I believe this is intended to suggest that I make a new translation for the article. However, I don't speak Deitsch, and would not be able to make useful contributions to that language's wiki. How can I remove Deitsch from my list of languages? {{u|Rey_grschel}} {Talk} 00:20, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

On which page are you seeing this link? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:28, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
You can't remove it. Those aren't a list of languages. They're links to a same-named article at a Wikipedia of another language. — Maile (talk) 01:46, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
The post is referring to a feature of "Content Translation" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. If the feature thinks you know a language and the current article does not exist in that language then you get a gray language link to translate the article. mw:Help talk:Extension:ContentTranslation#Removing the gray interwiki links says you cannot edit the list of languages. You can remove the whole list by disabling "Automatically enable all new beta features" and "Content Translation" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:59, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
That's exactly what I'm seeing. I'd disable "Content Translation" but it's a useful feature when translating articles. I guess I'll just have to live with it. {{u|Rey_grschel}} {Talk} 02:16, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
I don't mean to sound rude, but I know that this list normally contains links to articles on other langwikis, however, this language is at the top of the list and is greyed out (perhaps something I should have mentioned, even though I said the article already existed). PrimeHunter has exactly what I'm looking for. {{u|Rey_grschel}} {Talk} 02:16, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
You should have followed the edit notice for this page, specifically: "Where did you encounter the problem? Please add links when possible." You could have said: "For example, Teisterbant has a gray 'Deitsch' link to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ContentTranslation&page=Teisterbant&from=en&to=pdc. Then people could see it's about a feature which is disabled by default. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:52, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
I'll make sure to do that in the future, sorry about that. {{u|Rey_grschel}} {Talk} 04:03, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
On various pages throughout the enwiki, particularly on Teisterbant and several of its related articles. {{u|Rey_grschel}} {Talk} 02:16, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
I tried enabling content translation at beta features, and went to Teisterbant but I don't see any mention of Deitsch. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:23, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Deitsch is an example for Rey_grschel. I see svenska, Ελληνικά, dansk (Swedish, Greek, Danish) without knowing any Greek. mw:Help talk:Extension:ContentTranslation#Removing the gray interwiki links says: "the list is determined based on certain criteria like your browser preferences, past languages you have translated into, geographical location (if shared) etc". I'm in Denmark with Danish in my browser. Swedish is very similar to Danish. Don't know where Greek came from. I did make one edit to the Greek Wikipedia in 2011. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:25, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Is there any way to disable these notifications on a page-by-page basis? I understand it can be disabled entirely, but I was just wondering if I could only disable it for a few popular pages that get used in references, etc. Anarchyte (work | talk) 09:51, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Not as far as I know. There are a number of preferences which it would be useful to have set on a page-by-page basis, such as categorisation - I want to know when articles are added to certain maintenance categories but I generally don't care when articles are added to most content categories. If I turn off "Hide categorization of pages" at Preferences → Watchlist, I get a watchlist flood, and with the new 1,000-entry maximum, I could easily miss out on edits more than a day or so earlier. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:21, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

OAuth - Developing Locally

tl;dr: what do I put here to develop on my local machine?

I'm trying to create a web application that uses MediaWiki OAuth. I'm confused by the OAuth "callback" URL field on the propose page. From my understanding of the definition, it seems that this field is hardcoded/permanent (i.e. can't be changed once set in the registration form). Does this mean that I won't be able to develop on my local machine with the consumer I create for production? What should I put in this field if I want to develop locally? Thanks in advance. -FASTILY 09:50, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Definitely sorry that's been a while before anyone can answer. And You're welcome in advance. The best advice I have to offer is answered in your own question, where it's stated that you're "create a web application that uses MediaWiki", so maybe try the Media Wiki url. Otherwise I don't have a clue.Maybe try your question here if you're still not sure. Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 17:31, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Turns out you can use Localhost (e.g. http://localhost:8080/) for that field. Here's an example consumer for anyone who's interested. -FASTILY 07:48, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
OAuth 1.0a (the version we use) requires the callback to be set, even if it's unused. As you've discovered, even URLs at localhost are ok. Alternatively, the worst case scenario could be: you could probably get an OAuth grant approved for testing, which could then be revoked when you're ready to go live. FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY [u+1F602] 15:24, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Wikimedia error

Resolved

Just for documentation, I got a Wikimedia error when I tried to post a few minutes ago, saying the site was under maintenance.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:26, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Greetings, @Vchimpanzee: So your problem is on Wikipedia, or one of the other Wikis? Leaves a bit of confusion. Thank you in advance,
Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 22:35, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, it was English Wikipedia. It only happened once.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:53, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Always copy the error :) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:51, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
I would have, but I had something else copied that I didn't want to lose.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:42, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
@Vchimpanzee:Glad to hear that it's resolved!
Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 21:02, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for reporting, but if it's just a one-off error that didn't repeat and you didn't copy the message, there's precious little that can be done to track it down. Please let us know if you see it again though. FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY [u+1F602] 15:46, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Two-factor authentication progress?

There are a lot of things I do here that I find enjoyable, but logging in to find the pictured notification is not one of them. It's times like these that make me wish that the 2FA extension were available for all accounts. I see we have a tracking Phab task for this (T166622) but of course it's had no serious activity since August last year. The Phab project also seems low-activity to me. What's the status on this, and is there an estimate for when we can have it? Enterprisey (talk!) 22:03, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

At least you can log in. If 2FA were enabled, there would be a dozen complaints every month from people with a fouled-up system that did not allow them to log on. No one can guess a password in a thousand attempts providing the password is reasonable (WP:STRONGPASS) and providing the editor does not reuse their password on various sites. Does anyone know what the rate limit of guessing passwords is? It is likely that the IP of the person attempting to log on will be displayed in the alert to the targeted user fairly soon (phab:T174388) and that will at least be interesting. Johnuniq (talk) 22:19, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
@Enterprisey: if you REALLY REALLY want this, you can have it already (see your talk page). Please note, as far as I can tell - it will not stop those errors - they will still have invalid logon attempts. — xaosflux Talk 22:34, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
If your password is secure and unique to Wikipedia, or you have 2FA enabled, you can safely disable the "Failed login attempts" notifications in your preferences. This particular notification is intended only as a wake up call that your account should be secure. If it is, you have nothing to worry about. — MusikAnimal talk 02:10, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
I wouldn't say nothing to worry about but rather no immediate cause for concern. One should always be at least cognizant that someone is assaulting their account--if the hacker is determined & targeting you they could try other vectors beyond just brute-force. Can't hurt to be cautious :) FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY [u+1F602] 15:55, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
Re my rate limit question above, mw:Requests for comment/Passwords (2014) says the default allows one guess per minute per IP, with possibly a captcha every few attempts. A person controlling a bot with access to 1000 IPs could perform 1000 attempts per minute to guess the password of a single account, or could attack several accounts concurrently. I don't see any recent information about the current requirements for a password or the enwiki rate limiting settings. Johnuniq (talk) 09:32, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Template syntax + wikidata question

Someone added some category to wikidata, and then set up a popular infobox to automatically display that information when it is available. The problem is, it's not especially important information (in my opinion). I want the template to by default NOT display this information (even if it's available on wikidata), with a way to override that and display the wikidata information in any particular article.

The status quo (which displays the information no matter what) looks like: 

...
| label5 = [[Dimensional_analysis#Definition|Dimension]]
| data5 = {{#if:{{{dimension|}}} |{{{dimension|}}} |{{#invoke:wd|property|P4020}} }}
...

How would I edit it so that it is possible to display this wikidata information, but it is not displayed by default? Is that even possible? --Steve (talk) 00:46, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't know whether there is any practice for how to handle this but you could for example say that dimension = wikidata means pull from wikidata. Any other value is displayed, with empty or undefined meaning nothing will be displayed. Untested code:
| data5 = {{#ifeq:{{{dimension|}}}|wikidata|{{#invoke:wd|property|P4020}}|{{{dimension|}}}}}
PrimeHunter (talk) 00:59, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
@RexxS: This one should be an easy one. --Izno (talk) 17:42, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
@Sbyrnes321, PrimeHunter, and Izno: All of the code and logic for whitelisting and blacklisting fields on a per-article basis is already available in Module:WikidataIB. Looking at ISQ dimension (P4020) in electric charge (Q1111)
{{#invoke:WikidataIB |getValue |qid=Q1111 |P4020 |fetchwikidata=ALL |onlysourced=no }} → unknown data type: math Edit this on Wikidata
You could exclude that field by default by using something like
| data5 = {{#invoke:WikidataIB |getValue |qid={{qid|}} |P4020 |name=dimension |fetchwikidata={{{{fetchwikidata|ALL}}} |suppressfields={{{suppressfields|dimension}}} |onlysourced=no |{{{dimension|}}} }}
Then in an article where you want to display dimension, add |suppressfields=none to the infobox. It may be worth studying the WikidataIB documentation to see other ways how you could use it for these sort of cases.
One caveat: it displays plain text, not Math markup because it was expressly designed for use in infoboxes, not normal article text. You would have to add the Math markup around the #invoke if you really wanted that. --RexxS (talk) 18:14, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

No talk pages appear on Mobile

Whenever you click view talk page on an article or user page on mobile, it goes to the browser wikipedia and says this article cant exist because it has a bad title. YuriGagrin12 (talk) 20:48, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

It works for me. When logged in at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar I have a link at the bottom saying "Talk". It goes to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar#/talk where I see the talk page. Are you using some app or the normal mobile site in a browser? Does the link actually say "view talk page"? Does the mesasge actually say "this article cant exist because it has a bad title"? Please post an example url where you see the link, and the url it takes you to. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:36, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
This definitely happened to me about a week ago, but only for one afternoon. I cannot remember whether I was in Mobile view or Desktop view (my preference is the latter). Using Android with Samsung S5. I have a suspicion that an update that afternoon hadn't fully unpacked and installed at the time I started to browse, or an update led to problems that had to be rectified by another update the next day. Akld guy (talk) 23:26, 10 January 2018 (UTC) Added comment: browser was Chrome. Akld guy (talk) 00:14, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I was using the app as I like the ability to save articles however when I click view talk page it says that(almost always)YuriGagrin12 (talk) 00:23, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Hello, YuriGagrin12! The talk button on the mobile skin is currently only visible to logged-in users, or logged-out users who have opted-in to the beta setting. This differs from desktop which shows it unconditionally. The mobile apps shows the talk page link regardless if you are logged in to you wiki account or not. There's a little more discussion in this Phabricator task, constructive feedback there is welcome! CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 19:52, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
@CKoerner (WMF): Yes, im logged in. Its not a question of whether i can see the talk page button or not, its that when I click on view talk page it takes me to safari and I almost always get "BAD TITLE this article cannot exist because it has a bad title" Even when i've been on those talk pages. YuriGagrin12 (talk) 00:56, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
YuriGagrin12, does this happen just in the main namespace or other areas (like User:)? Links to pages where you're seeing the error would be handy. It sounds like it might be this task. I'll leave a note there of your issue. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 21:06, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
@CKoerner (WMF): I have encountered it a few times in the mainspace, such as in the article Pyramid, but in the mainspace(at least for me) it seems like it occurs once on only a few articles. For other talk pages, its different, I can never access a user talk page or special page talk pages. But it has occurred in the mainspace, the only ones i can remember are the pages
Shenzhou (spacecraft), Yuri Gagarin and Pyramid
YuriGagrin12 (talk) 00:19, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Pathways

In Triglyceride the interactive pathway image, at least for me does not show well, only about half being visible. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:12, 19 January 2018 (UTC).

It says {{StatinPathway WP430|highlight=Triglyceride}} and is supposed to be cropped according to the documentation of highlight: "Where you want to crop the pathway view to center on a particular [something]". I see Triglyceride in bold near the center of the displayed part so I think it's working as intended. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:39, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Weird text cursor / insertion point behaviour when editing source box, iPad Safari, iOS; Windows 10

I was trying to edit a Wikipedia article using Safari ios 11.2.2 on an iPad Pro 12.9" and I got into a state where no text cursor was visible. Then when I clicked in the textvat some point and made some changes the text edits were actually happening at a different point in the text, not at the point corresponding visually to the point where I had clicked. It was as if it had somehow got the offset into the text wrong, speculation :- perhaps by getting font widths wrong?

Has anyone ever seen anything like this?

I had to give up and close the browser and lose the edits. I tried editing the same page using a different browser, iCab, and it was all good. CecilWard (talk) 19:16, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

@CecilWard: Happnes to my computer sometimes, and my tablet other times. This past month has been better. I recommend typing slowly. But I seriously can't wait for the day they correct that. Also, this seems to happen after 20 mintues of straight up typing, so do bits at a time.
Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 19:58, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Do you have the syntax highlighting beta enabled ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:09, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
I have the same problem, possibly worse and almost immediately on attempting an edit. Its random when it happens. Mine is a PC/Windows 10 problem as opposed to ios though. Does it on chrome, Edge, and IE. If I paste in text and then position the cursor, and then hold down the shift key to capitalise, the cursor jumps to the very start of the edit. I have to right arrow back to where the cursor was placed. Hope that makes sense. Very irritating. --BeckenhamBear (talk) 02:18, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
Update: I seem to have sorted out the edit box problems I was having by disabling the "syntax highlighting beta" I was using. --BeckenhamBear (talk) 17:25, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Search for word in an AfD close?

Sometime in the past few weeks, I remember closing an AfD (or possibly it was a DRV?) and using the word "obit" in my close. Scanning my contributions history, I can't find it. Is there some way to do a search for something like "namespace:Wikipedia user:roysmith content:obit" — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 19:11, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

See Help:Searching for features. roysmith obit prefix:Wikipedia:Deletion review finds Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2017 December 28. roysmith obit 2018 prefix:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion finds a lot I haven't examined. I added 2018 to reduce the number of hits. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:28, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
@RoySmith: Something like this should do you. You can mux with the search phrasing if you don't find it at AFD. --Izno (talk) 19:32, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
That makes two of us, @RoySmith:, in the fact that you remember putting something that wasn't there. According to this edit diff, I'd say there's nothing embarrassing to worry about! Have a great day, and enjoy your weekend. Here's a weekend quote for you:

Dear Rest/Napping/Weekend, I'm sorry I was a jerk to you as a kid. I can't live life without you now.

— Funny Quotes on Facebook
Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 19:56, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
Ah, I found it. Thanks to everybody for your help. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:39, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
I'm just glad you found it, sorry that I didn't provide correct, verified info.
Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 23:15, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
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