Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 174

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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (technical).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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Another category redirect template problem

Category:Wikipedians in Nizhny Novgorod is a redirect to Category:Wikipedians in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast but populated by Template:User Nizhny Novgorod in such a way that it's not possible to simply amend the user category. Instead it seems to be detecting the redirect and populating it by default. Can anyone untangle this one? Timrollpickering (Talk) 10:56, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

It can add a wanted category directly and call {{User Russian city}} with nocat = yes. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:15, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Sorry I tried that but it doesn't seem to do the trick. Timrollpickering (Talk) 23:10, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Eventually I reverted recent edits back until it got to the previous settings. This seemed to be the only solution. Timrollpickering (Talk) 23:15, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
You tried to add nocat = yes to {{userbox-2}} (which is only called for |oblast) instead of {{User Russian city}}. I have done the latter now.[1] PrimeHunter (talk) 00:14, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Redirect question

Can someone tell me the difference between these two redirects: Doña Ana County Jane Doe and Dona Ana County Jane Doe as one works (goes to the correct portion of the target article) and the other doesn't (goes to the top of the target article) Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 07:14, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

@GrahamHardy: Doña Ana County Jane Doe redirects to List of unidentified decedents in the United States, which doesn't mention Doña Ana County. Dona Ana County Jane Doe redirects to a different article, List of unidentified murder victims in the United States, which does have a section about her. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:21, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Doh! Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 08:42, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
She was moved from the decedents list in January 2018.[2] The same user made the redirects in 2015 but forgot to update one of them. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:52, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
I have updated categories, but believe that Dona Ana County Jane Doe should be deleted as it is now identical to Doña Ana County Jane Doe, do people agree ? And what is the best mechanism for achieving this ? Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 09:20, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Further to the above I will remove all categories from Dona Ana County Jane Doe to stop duplication is categories. GrahamHardy (talk) 09:55, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
@GrahamHardy: Neither redirect was created recently (both were created in 2015: Doña; Dona), so should not be deleted without a formal WP:RFD. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:48, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
As one has an ñ and the other doesn't, they're not identical. The latter can be a redirect to diacritic. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 14:06, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Responsive images

Is there any way to enable full-width/%-based width automatic resizing for images? I know Meta uses a {{Image}} template with custom .css to do that but we don't have that. Am I missing a more obvious solution that already exists? --qedk (t 桜 c) 15:53, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

QEDK yes, using template styles and the File syntax has a 'class' param that no one knows about ;) See how I used that on the header image of the Wikidata main page in d:Template:Main Page/Header new and d:Template:Main Page/Header new/styles.css. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:12, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, that certainly helps! I asked the {{Image}} salting admin to unsalt it for this purpose, let's see. --qedk (t 桜 c) 17:53, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
see {{scalable image}} Frietjes (talk) 19:20, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

did something break watchlist and make it too short again?

My watchlist is set for 30 days and 1,000 items. It's showing roughly 100 items starting at April 29, 2019, 9:50a (it's now only May 4). I want to see back to Apr. 20, and this happened once before (it was fixed somewhere behind the scenes, not by me), and apparently the starting date-time was a clue last time. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:44, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Mine's showing the full list (250 items, which is my setting). Did you accidentally limit it to a single namespace or save a filter? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:50, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
Does it say "Days to show in watchlist: 30" and "Maximum number of changes to show in watchlist: 1000" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist? What does the first line of the "Watchlist options" box at Special:Watchlist say? For me it says "Below are the last 300 changes in the last 70 hours". There was once a problem with some integer days which could be fixed by setting a decimal like 29.9 instead of 30. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:52, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
Today, May 6, it's showing May 2-6 only and roughly 200 items only. Thus, the earliest date now follows the latest date, which is not the old problem but a different one. With all filters cleared (thus no active filters), the date range is the same but the item count is roughly 350 (including VP(T)). (I tried a quick and more precise count by searching for strings but got bizarre behavior: e.g., diffhist got some and (diff | hist) got others. No namespaces are checkmarked, so I should be seeing whatever is watchlisted in any namespace (I probably don't have anything in most namespaces). It does say "Days to show in watchlist:"/"30" and "Maximum number of changes to show in watchlist:"/"1000" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist. I have no box titled Watchlist Options. I do remember that commonly there is a count of what's on the page, but I don't have that now. A browser search of the page for "the last" (which is part of the string you describe) finds nothing. I tried changing 30 days to 14 and back again on the watchlist page, but with no effect. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:43, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
The quoted messages were because I have enabled "Use non-JavaScript interface" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist. Without that I see "300 changes, 2.9 days" in a box to the right. Have you tried a decimal like 29.9? PrimeHunter (talk) 09:13, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Today, the range is May 2-7, I think the earliest date-time is the same now (time 18:22) as it was yesterday, though not what it was on Saturday, when it was an earlier date and, I think, earlier in the first day.
I tried 29.9 on the prefs page and then in the watchlist's URL but those made no difference. The latter change reflects above the watchlist items, where the menu title now says "1,000 changes, 29.9 days".
I cleared all filters again. This time, the earliest date-time, still May 2, is a little later for the time, suggesting that maybe the number that should be 1,000 is actually smaller but not saying so.
I removed VP(T) from my watchlist, since that's a frequently-edited page, so I hoped maybe earlier changes for other pages would show up. The odd result was that doing so extended the range a bit, May 1-7, but then I saw that the filters had come back (unsolicited by me), so I removed all of the filters, and the watchlist shrank to May 2-7. I don't understand how it shrank when filters went away.
I cut the intended number of changes from 1,000 to 100. That made the watchlist show 8 (eight) changes only, all for May 7. The URL says "limit=100".
I edited the URL to "limit=10000". That got me back to April 8. So now I have a kludge, but that's not the best solution.
I edited the URL from 29.9 to 30 and the start date became May 2 again, but then I saw that limit had become 1000, so I changed that to 10000 again with days left at 30, which got me back to April 7, a day earlier than a few minutes ago. A kludge, but not a happy kludge.
The basic problem is new, discovered last Saturday. My previous visit, on April 20, was uneventful, so the problem arose sometime between April 20 and May 4.
Nick Levinson (talk) 00:52, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Date templates

@J JMesserly, Hgrosser, and Zyxw: {{Birth-date}} and similar templates, for some reason, convert MDY dates to DMY dates, but only if no time zone is specified. The templates don't have |mf= or |df=.

  • {{start-date|November 22, 1964}}: November 22, 1964 (1964-11-22)
  • {{start-date|21:00 EST, November 22, 1964}} 21:00 EST, November 22, 1964 (1964-11-23UTC02)

Does anyone know how those templates actually work? There's clearly something wrong with them, and I noticed this years ago but I don't think I did anything about it. Jc86035 (talk) 10:28, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Fixed. The {{start-date}}, {{birth-date}}, {{end-date}}, and {{death-date}} templates all now display dates as entered. Same examples in DMY format (with |tz=y added for timezone as per documentation):
  • {{start-date|22 November 1964}} → 22 November 1964 (1964-11-22)
  • {{start-date|21:00 EST, 22 November 1964|tz=y}} → 21:00 EST, 22 November 1964 (1964-11-23UTC02Z)
-- Zyxw (talk) 15:57, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Page Preview Javascript error

I'm getting a JavaScript error window popup when I preview a page: https://imgur.com/a/Kiv9oCJ RedWolf (talk) 18:50, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

@RedWolf: I get the same error, in my browser console. Does it go away when you disable Twinkle? It does for me. It may have been caused by Special:Diff/896151420 (pinging Amorymeltzer). Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:02, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Indeed, I think it's the mw.config.get('wgCurRevisionId') !== mw.config.get('wgRevisionId') check in Mediawiki:Gadget-twinklefluff.js that's the culprit. wgRevisionId === 0 when edit or previewing, apparently, so Twinkle.fluff.oldid is getting called even when there's no mw-revision-info element. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:16, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Yup! Just pushed a quick fix; should take a few minutes to go through. Thanks for the ping, sorry for the inconvenience! ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:19, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
That was quick! I no longer get the error, and the new "restore" button works for me. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:27, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes, it's fixed. Thanks. RedWolf (talk) 19:40, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Seasons After font size too small

The font size on this article from the discography onward is too small, but I'm unable to locate any unclosed font tags that are causing it. Can someone resolve this? Home Lander (talk) 02:48, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed. The unclosed tag was in the preceding section. – Ammarpad (talk) 04:05, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Visual editor citation tool munging URLs?

In the visual editor, if I pull up the citation tool, automatic tab, paste https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/a/augustus-holly.html into the box, and click Generate, it changes the hostname in the URL. Any idea what's going on? -- RoySmith (talk) 16:03, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm guessing it's because VE takes url from that tag:
<meta property="og:url" content="http://public1.nhhcaws.local/content/history/nhhc/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/a/augustus-holly.html">. In code editor url stays the same (history.navy.mil). --MarMi wiki (talk) 16:22, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
MarMi wiki, the site publishes that as the ‘better url’ and also the one that should be used when sharing on facebook, twitter and google previews. That site really should be fixed. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 06:20, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Collapsible blocks in mobile version

Is there any reason why collapsible blocks (like Hidden, NavFrame, mw-collapsible) do not work in mobile version? I understand that this is because the code that deal with collapsible elements are in Common.js and not in Mobile.js, but is there any reason why this is a case? Screen space is more valuable on mobile devices, so mobile users would benefit from this feature even more than desktop users. Alexei Kopylov (talk) 22:22, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

@Alexei Kopylov: Will this be helpful? Adithyak1997 (talk) 03:11, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
No. I have not find an answer there why collapsible element are not collapsible in mobile version. Alexei Kopylov (talk) 14:56, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
@TheDJ:: do you know why mw-collapsible is supported by desktop version and not by mobile version? Alexei Kopylov (talk) 08:39, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Alexei Kopylov, because no one put effort into making that so, and because a lot of the content would be inaccessible (due to tiny controls) because no one ever implemented mw-collapsible with mobile kept in mind (it literally predates mobile phones). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:49, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Also it has ALWAYS been the case that editors should NEVER expect collapsing to work, which is why it is not advisable to use in primary content. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:50, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. Alexei Kopylov (talk) 08:51, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Repeated child templates

(reposted with some changes from Template talk:U.S. premium television services)

{{North American TV}} appears three times in {{U.S. premium television services}}: As a child of {{U.S. premium television services}}, of {{U.S. premium television services (variety)}}, and of {{U.S. premium television services (PPV)}} (the latter two are children of U.S. premium television services):

  • U.S. premium television services
    • U.S. premium television services (variety)
      • North American TV
    • U.S. premium television services (PPV)
      • North American TV
    • North American TV

Removing it from U.S. premium television services leaves two copies; removing it from U.S. premium television services (variety) and U.S. premium television services (PPV) would leave those templates without it, should they be used outside of the U.S. premium television services template. What's the best way to clean this up? BlackcurrantTea (talk) 07:52, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

I will make it optional to add {{North American TV}} in {{U.S. premium television services (variety)}} and {{U.S. premium television services (PPV)}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:41, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Done.[3][4][5] {{U.S. premium television services}} was the only template which duplicated {{North American TV}}. I don't know whether any articles have multiple navboxes which each add {{North American TV}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:51, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Thank you! I've yet to find any with the multiple navboxes, but if I do I'll try using the same syntax. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 10:26, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Scratch code - 2 factor authentication

Hi, If I lost my photo, and would like to log in to my Wiki account, I could just key in the scratch code into the code box? do I have to reset the 2 factor authentication all over again once I got my new phone? CASSIOPEIA(talk) 12:12, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

@CASSIOPEIA: if you lost your 2FA device then you need to reset your 2FA as soon as possible! If you are logged in (and you are editing so it looks like you are) you can go to Special:Two-factor_authentication and DISABLE your 2FA using one of your one-time-use-only scratch codes. When you get a new phone you can enroll as a new 2FA setup. — xaosflux Talk 13:31, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Xaosflux Thank you for the info. Another question, what should I do, if I am logged out and lost my 2FA device at the same time, how do I get myself log in prior disable my 2FA by using one of the given ten scratch codes? CASSIOPEIA(talk) 13:42, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
@CASSIOPEIA: You can use the scratch codes (once per code) to log in as well. See Help:2FA for more details. So if you lose your phone and are not logged in, you will burn at least 2 scratch codes to get in, then disable your 2FA so you can reset it. — xaosflux Talk 13:51, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Xaosflux OK, I see, good to know. Thank you. If I enroll a "new" 2FA setup, will I get a new 10 scratch codes? or user would have "only one time" 10 initial scratch codes and no more even after set up for new 2FA code? CASSIOPEIA(talk) 14:09, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
@CASSIOPEIA: yes, it will be just like you are brand-new. All "old" TOTP client connections and old scratch codes will be voided, you will get a new TOTP initiation secret and 10 new scratch codes. — xaosflux Talk 14:43, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Xaosflux OK thank you very much for answering my questions. Appreciate it. Cheers. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 14:52, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Account creation block prevents SUL unification?

For background please see User talk:Ivanvector/Archive 12#Information about MediaWiki user and mw:Topic:Uzbq12lb6qltymd0.

A user on an IP range that is locally blocked with account creation disabled has created an account on mediawiki, but that account will not unify to enwiki and the user cannot edit here. Is this expected behaviour? A couple more specific questions:

  1. If an accountcreator creates an account with the same name here, will the two accounts unify or can they be unified manually?
  2. Same, but via WP:ACC

TIA Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:03, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, block account creation prevents both local creations and autocreations. Otherwise vandals on blocked ranges would just sign up at a different wiki before immediately turning up here. That doesn't happen. I believe it's simply no longer possible to manually create an account when the global account exists. Two solutions: Sign up on another range, or lift the AC on the block. If you want a CU to follow that up, I'm sure that can be arranged. -- zzuuzz (talk) 15:40, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Does the current architecture still use SQUIDs?

The servers seem slow today; I thought that our edits get saved, and the changes get propagated to the SQUIDs. But my previous post seems to have gotten lost (it's the same question I am posting right now). --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 15:28, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

We've since changed from using Squid to using varnish. (Basically same thing, just made by different people). However, if you are logged in, you never use varnish for viewing site content, so varnish is probably unrelated to whatever issue you experienced. Bawolff (talk) 22:27, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Commons file lacks metadata here

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T222935
View of Lordsburg from US 70 and the junction with I-10 in New Mexico

If I go to Interstate 10#New Mexico and click File:I-10 New Mexico 5.JPG (also reproduced at right), I get what looks like a normal en:wp page for a Commons image, but there's almost no metadata: below the image I see No higher resolution available and I-10_New_Mexico_5.JPG ‎(410 × 308 pixels, file size: 21 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) as would be expected, then Open in Media Viewer and the normal "this image is on Commons" box the width of the page, and immediately below that is the file history. Initially I figured that the file had been vandalized, but when I view it on Commons, I see {{Information}} and {{PD-self}} looking entirely normal. I wondered if it had been cached after recent vandalism and before reversion, but the file was last edited in 2014. Can anyone guess why these aren't displaying when I view the file on en:wp? This appears to be a skin issue; I've viewed it logged-in (Monobook) and logged-out with IE, Firefox, and Chrome, and in every browser I saw a normal description page when logged out and a bad description page when logged in. Nyttend backup (talk) 20:36, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

PS, on this account, I've disabled Media Viewer. If you've not, please try opening the file in a new tab. Nyttend backup (talk) 20:38, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

To be clear, the bottom section called "Metadata" is not missing. It is the "Summary" and "Licensing" sections at commons:File:I-10 New Mexico 5.JPG which are not displayed at File:I-10 New Mexico 5.JPG. Those are the only sections made by the wikitext in the Commons page. All the other sections are made automatically by MediaWiki. The wikitext is also missing at other wikis, e.g. wiktionary:File:I-10 New Mexico 5.JPG. For comparison, File:Example.gif works and displays the wikitext at commons:File:Example.gif. The missing sections are sometimes but not always displayed for me when I log out and reload the page. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:34, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
If we compare with the metadata for similar locations, what jumps out for me is simply the difference between cameras: File:US_Route_54_in_New_Mexico.JPG --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 22:54, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Visual editor edit summary auto cursor

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T222859

Previously after you clicked "Publish changes..." the cursor automatically selected the edit summary box so you could immediately type, but now it is not and you must also click in the box before you can type a summary. Please change back to the original functionality or let me know how/where to fix or further comment on this, thanks. Reywas92Talk 06:55, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

I have opened a ticket. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:57, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Message when moving a page

Can anyone tell me where the text (highlighted in yellow) comes from? The box above is MediaWiki:Movepage-moved. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:31, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

@MSGJ: It is from multiple messages: MediaWiki:Movepage-moved-redirect/MediaWiki:Movepage-moved-noredirect, MediaWiki:Wikibase-after-page-move, and MediaWiki:Movepage-page-exists. — JJMC89 (T·C) 07:52, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
For another time, WP:QQX has an API link with all messages. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:41, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks both, that's very helpful — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:02, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Archive pages not moved when moving a page

When I recently moved an article to another name, I noticed that an archive page of the article's talkpage wasn't moved, despite me including the talkpage in the move. I had to do that move separately.

Aren't archive talkpages supposed to follow the talkpage when they are moved to another name?

HandsomeFella (talk) 18:14, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

@HandsomeFella: Admins and page movers have the move-subpages right, giving them an extra checkbox to ask for the subpages to be moved. The rest of us have to move them one at a time, or ask for help. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:29, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Why is this separate? If a page move is valid, wouldn't you want associated subpages to go along for the ride? Seems to me that it would make more sense to give admins and page movers the option to leave subpages behind and make moving them the default. --Khajidha (talk) 18:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
I've thought this for years. The number of occasions when people want to move pages but not their subpages must be very small. I could see an RfC on this topic being of use.  — Scott • talk 12:53, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Per phab:T76263, it seems there are issues with rate limits and vandals exploiting that. Another extremely dumb thing is that even for people with the move subpages right, it isn't checked by default.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:02, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T222953
I agree wholeheartedly about that checkbox and have just requested that it be enabled by default. That's been irritating me for years as well and I'm kind of surprised that I didn't request this sooner. Thanks for the idea.  — Scott • talk 13:26, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Methemoglobin: article history broken?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T222857

Hi,

When I try to compare the two most recent revisions in the Methemoglobin article as of 16:02 GMT on 10 May 2019, I get the error message:

Internal error Jump to navigationJump to search [XNWSnwpAMFUAABhNTAMAAAAL] 2019-05-10 15:02:56: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Assert\ParameterTypeException"

I believe this is the right place to report MediaWiki bugs? IAmNitpicking (talk) 15:04, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

diff in the page history. I get a similar error, also for the revision. diffonly works. The changes look simple. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:29, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
@IAmNitpicking: Hi, see mw:How to report a bug. This one is already reported under phab:T222857. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 17:21, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. IAmNitpicking (talk) 17:31, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Odd transclusion

I seem to have caused this, but don't know how to correct it. The transclusion would be from all the blue links on Template:Tony Hillerman .

Yesterday, I created an article with a typo: The Fly on the Wal I immediately realized my error and moved it to The Fly on the Wall without a redirect. That same typo was in Template:Tony Hillerman, and I corrected that yesterday. For some reason, the titles on Template:Tony Hillerman were not transcluding to "What links here" So, I created a redirect with the typo, pointing to the correctly named page. When I go to "What links here", I see the transclusion under the redirect name only. But that template is not actually on the Redirect. How can this be corrected? And please advise where I messed up, so I can avoid it in the future. Thanks. — Maile (talk) 19:38, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Your description is a little unclear but I guess you mean: Why does Special:WhatLinksHere/The Fly on the Wall list many articles under "The Fly on the Wal (redirect page)" when the redirect hasn't been used by the articles since this edit to {{Tony Hillerman}}? It's because automatic updates of link tables after a template edit can take a long time. The article pages are often updated faster without updating the link tables used by WhatLinksHere. Category pages can also take a long time to update after a template has changed categories and the list of categories on the article has been updated. The link tables for a single article are updated right away if you make a null edit or any other edit to the article, but there is no need for a fast update here. A purge of the article only updates the article page and not the link tables. Summary: Don't worry, it will eventually be fixed automatically. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:38, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Yes. That is exactly what I meant. Thanks. — Maile (talk) 23:51, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Invalid url from Create tab

Resolved
 – Was user-specific .js file. — xaosflux Talk 02:29, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

When on a soft 404 article page for non-existent article "ONLY-A-TEST", I would expect that clicking either the "Create" tab, or the "Start the article" link would have the same behavior, namely, opening the "Creating ONLY-A-TEST" page. However, in one particular sequence of events, this is not the case. When using the "Create" tab, I'm seeing an Error: No such action page instead.

This is likely caused by a defective url generated by the Create tab, that places the query string parameter delimiters (? and &) in the wrong place. This only happens, afaict, when adding a nonexistent article name to the url of an existing page in the browser address bar.

What I'm seeing:

Wikipedia does not recognize the action specified by the URL.

Return to Main Page.

To reproduce:

  1. go to any existing article, e.g. Foobar
  2. in the browser address bar, replace 'Foobar' by 'ONLY-A-TEST' and hit Enter.
    • browser goes to soft 404 page 'Wikipedia does not have an article by this exact name...'
    • Note the urls underlying the 'Create' tab and the 'Start the article' link are not the same
  3. Click the Start the article link
    • Expected behavior: browser opens the edit window of 'Creating ONLY-A-TEST'
    • Actual behavior: this works correctly. (but compare 5b)
  4. browser back-arrow to 'Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name' again.
  5. Click the Create tab. (Note the reversed query string delimiters.)
    • Expected: browser opens edit window of 'Creating ONLY-A-TEST'
    • Actual: browser gives No such action page. (Not surprising, given the defective url.)

Why doesn't the Create tab generate the same url as the "Start the article" link? Mathglot (talk) 23:08, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

@Mathglot:  Works for me both the link and the create tab go to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ONLY-A-TEST&action=edit. Also I'm not getting anything with the "redirect=no" part, where is that coming from for you? — xaosflux Talk 23:33, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
When you are creating the page, are you using the visual editor by chance? — xaosflux Talk 23:33, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Also, I notice you have added special redirect javascript here: User:Mathglot/common.js - can you try taking that out? — xaosflux Talk 23:35, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Xaosflux: No, the text editor. And using a PC, haven't tried mobile. Did you follow the reproduction steps? I wonder if this is browser-dependent somehow? This was Opera 60.0, I'll try a few others. Mathglot (talk) 23:39, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Oh, shoot! I just added that js; I'm sure that must be the problem, I'm so sorry. That was related to another issue that was recently solved by some JS, which probably needs to be adjusted, to not cause this problem. I'll have to be more aware of knock-on effects of js changes. Thanks, and sorry for the false alarm. Mathglot (talk) 23:39, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
The problem is that User:Mathglot/common.js always adds ?redirect=no. If the url already has a query string after a ? then it should add &redirect=no instead. ? starts a query string while & separates parameters in a query string. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:49, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
@PrimeHunter:, Yes, I realized that as soon as xaosflux made his comment. See WP:US/R#Redirect page tab behavior. Mathglot (talk) 23:57, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Undo and Redo Buttons

Hello, I'm from ckbwiki. I want to add undo and redo buttons to ours Wikipedia. Who can help me to do that? What should i do? Thank you, ئارام بکر (talk) 11:48, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@ئارام بکر: ,WP:UNDO is built in functionality, you can see there is a link at this random ckdbwiki page I just loaded here. Can you describe this a bit more? — xaosflux Talk 13:00, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: No, I mean... add them such as button in Source edit, not history page. Just i want the source code. ئارام بکر (talk) 13:47, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
You can already do that with CTRL + Z and CTRL + Y. Amaury (talk | contribs) 14:18, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
"New wikitext mode" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures has such buttons (and other changes). It's also an option at ckb:Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:00, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
@PrimeHunter: and @Amaury: thank you both, but i am a mobile user (not computer user) and i am use source editor (not visual editor). Mmm... i see the tool (on enwiki) in my preferences and active it. I think so it is an Mediawiki gadget. And i want to add that tool to ours Wikipedia. ئارام بکر (talk) 16:25, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
Gadgets are local user scripts.
User:PPelberg (WMF), I think that you might want to consider this for the toolbar improvements project. Without this available as an in-editor tool, then I don't know how else an editor on a smartphone would undo/redo a change inside the editor. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:51, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
User:Whatamidoing_(WMF), thank you for bringing this to my attention. I agree with both you and ئارام بکر in thinking it ought to be clear in the mobile wikitext editor how to undo/redo edits/changes to the document. ئارام بکر, does this ticket task:T222316 accurately represent what you are requesting? As for prioritization, while we are planning to redesign the mobile editing toolbar this quarter (see task:T211255), that work – for now – is limited to VE. Which leaves me with a question, ئارام بکر what do you like most about editing using wikitext on mobile? It's what you're used to? It is difficult/not possible to make a certain kin of edit using the mobile Visual Editor? Something else? PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 22:38, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
@PPelberg (WMF): Thanks for your answer! When i joined to Wikipedia, i used wikitext on mobile and i'm happy with using it rather than VE. What about the result of this discussion? Can i see the buttons on ckbwiki in the future? Thanks! -- ئارام بکر (talk) 08:10, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
@PPelberg (WMF): I am waiting:) Thanks! --ئارام بکر (talk) 17:55, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
@ئارام بکر: Thanks for the nudge ^ _ ^ The decision to add a way to visually "undo" and "redo" changes within the wikitext editor on mobile is something we plan to revisit some time after July of this year. I suspect hearing this isn't as satisfying in this moment as hearing a definitive "yes" or "no," but I'd rather give you the most accurate answer I can. If you are interested in staying up-to-date on the discussion around this issue, you might find value in "subscribing" to this Phabricator ticket. If anything else comes up, please, leave me a message on my talk page (User talk: PPelberg (WMF)).
@PPelberg (WMF): Thank you for your answer! I subscribed. OK! I come back (maybe to your talk page) for the result in July. Please notify me if you opened this case again. Thank you all! --ئارام بکر (talk) 19:08, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
@ئارام بکر: awesome and will do :) Also, if you'd be interested in trying out the new features we're working on for the mobile VisualEditor over the next few months, please ping me. I know you mentioned wikitext was the editing interface you've come to prefer, but wanted you to at least be aware! PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 03:31, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Inflated edit character changes

Resolved

Hi, when I look at the history of Talk:United Nations I see this edit as adding "+5,874‎" and this edit as adding "+5,834‎". These appear to be the total size of the page rather than the size of the changes. Does anyone know why this error occurs? Thanks, CMD (talk) 14:52, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: there are some oversighted edits around that time that are spoiling the diff counter. — xaosflux Talk 15:02, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
The page was deleted and restored several times. One of these actions was a selective restore, and some edits which were selectively not restored (and so remained deleted) were also oversighted. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:56, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks xaosflux and Redrose64, appreciate you clearing that up! CMD (talk) 17:48, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Some mobile users are removing every section but the one they are editing

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T223023

See e.g. Special:AbuseLog/23957087, Special:AbuseLog/23956301, Special:AbuseLog/23955139, Special:AbuseLog/23954164. I don't think it was intentional in every case.

The following steps seem to cause this:

  1. Find a page with multiple sections, and switch to the mobile view.
  2. Choose a section somewhere in the middle, and click the edit icon.
  3. In you are not already in source editing mode, switch to that mode without changing anything.
  4. Modify the content in some way.
  5. Switch to visual editing mode.
  6. Again, modify the content in some way.
  7. Publish the page.

The expected behavior is that the one section you were editing is modified. The actual behavior is that the entire page is replaced with the section you were editing.

Can anyone else reproduce this, before I report it on phab? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:46, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Confirmed - using Chrome 74 on Windows 10, with the devtools "device toolbar". rchard2scout (talk) 21:23, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
I did some more testing in my sandbox, and reported it on phabricator: T223023. (Also, @Suffusion of Yellow:, forgot to ping you for my first comment, sorry) rchard2scout (talk) 21:57, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

One specific template count in article

Is there a way to count how many times one template was used in article? Is there something like "What links here" for the template but with use count per article. --MarMi wiki (talk) 18:10, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Some progress:

Just discovered that you can use regex in search, is it possible to find two or more instances of template in one article?

Something like this, but for two or more Inflation hits per article:

hastemplate:Inflation AND insource:/(\{\{ *Inflation *.*[\}\|])/ --MarMi wiki (talk) 01:39, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Taxobox questions

Resolved

I am having a few issues understanding taxobox (the article in question is Amphinotus nymphula):

  1. The image in the infobox is not appearing, when I used the [[File:]] argument earlier (which was wrong), it previewed once and disappeared. It still isn't appearing.
  2. The italic page name don't work a lot of the times (|name= was not defined obviously), why?
  3. When I placed the status/status_system/status_ref parameters at the end (after binomial_authority), the graphical representation did not appear.

--qedk (t 桜 c) 10:12, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

  1. Fixed.[6] There were some bad characters which prevented the image parameter name from being understood. It was fixed when I copy-pasted the line in Firefox so I guess Firefox automatically removes them when copying.
  2. Please be specific with a link to an example you think should have italics according to Template:Taxobox#Bold/italic markup.
  3. Maybe you had a similar problem with bad characters when status/status_system/status_ref parameters were at the end. It works when I move them to the end.
PrimeHunter (talk) 11:31, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
status_system had similar bad characters before [7] so it still failed when you first moved the parameters to the top in [8]. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:23, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
@QEDK and PrimeHunter: The "bad characters" were non-breaking spaces and this is another instance of this problem. In some browsers (I think Firefox is one), merely cutting the bad line and pasting it back in will convert all the NBSPs to normal spaces, which are valid. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:26, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
See this diff for the italics problem. I don't know what I changed but after this change, the title appeared as italics. I didn't realise there was non-breaking spaces, which is weird, because I even copy-pasted it off another of my working articles (Ellen Clark's crayfish) and I was equally surprised. Maybe the spaces are being converted to nbsps in Safari? --qedk (t 桜 c) 13:05, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Other than iOS (mentioned in that archived thread that I linked earlier), I know of no browser which converts normal spaces to NBSPs. Experimenting with Firefox and Opera, I find that if you have a line of Wikicode that contains NBSPs, and cut or copy this using Opera, the NBSPs are preserved, and in Firefox they are converted to normal spaces. In either browser, pasting into the edit window will not affect the resultant type of space.
Cut or copy from Paste to Effect on NBSPs
Firefox Firefox Converted to normal spaces
Firefox Opera Converted to normal spaces
Opera Firefox Preserved
Opera Opera Preserved
I can't check Safari, since the most recent version available for Windows refuses to load Wikipedia pages - it 'can't establish a secure connection to the server "en.wikipedia.org"'. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:28, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Your diff added italics in binomial = ''Amphinotus nymphula''. This caused italics in the page title. Template:Taxobox#Bold/italic markup says: "Italicization must be done manually in all parameters. If the entry for genus or species (with manually added italics) matches the page title then the name of the taxobox and the title of the page will be italicized." It appears this "genus or species" rule also applies for binomial. Template:Taxobox#Italic page titles says: "If the value of |genus=, |species=, or |binomial= exactly matches the title of the page, and |name= is unspecified, the taxobox and page title will be italicized automatically." binomial is included here but the rule apparently only applies when the parameter value has italics. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:09, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Still no idea as to where the nbsps came from (given that I copy-pasted it from another of my articles with working parameters). I clarified the |binomial= documentation as it's not exactly accurate. Thanks a ton, @PrimeHunter and Redrose64:! --qedk (t 桜 c) 17:23, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Easy Timeline question

Hi, is there any way to use <timeline>...</timeline>, for ex, the way I use it is Template:F1Laps2019. How can I change, the "color" parameter and using a hex code (or similar)? For ex: #FFFFFF. Because some colors like sky blue doesn't work.

I have this two pages, [9] [10], if this can help me. So the point agaiin is that I want to change the color:yellow for a hex code that didn't limit the colors. ShaGuarF1 (talk) 19:58, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

@ShaGuarF1: Usually, if I want to use a complicated extension that I've not used before, I find an existing page that uses that extension and play withe the parameters (previewing always, and not saving) in order to work out what effect various changes might have. Apart from that, the general documentation is at mw:Extension:EasyTimeline, and the main parameters that accept a colour value are: mw:Extension:EasyTimeline/syntax#BackgroundColors; mw:Extension:EasyTimeline/syntax#Colors; and see the list of valid named colours at mw:Extension:EasyTimeline/syntax#Predefined colors. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:24, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, I have used it but having a pattern to do that templates. But not in a "complex way". I edit while writing this: well, I don't remember if I visited that page before (I did a little investigation in the past), but I now already did it, that was not so hard to understand. Thank you for the comment. ShaGuarF1 (talk) 20:51, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

{{Maplink}} not working

Can you tell me why {{maplink|frame=yes|zoom=6|id=6250|type=shape|text=Interactive map of Western Sahara}} will not work on Western Sahara? The entry at d:Q6250 has c:Data:Western Sahara.map associated with it. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:42, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Hm. Similar problem at Palmyra Atoll: c:Data:Palmyra Atoll.map and d:Q123076#P265 are centered properly but the interactive map here is in the middle of the Pacific... Why is this? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:47, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Koavf,Western Sahara fixed and reported as desirable improvement —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:54, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:54, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
@TheDJ: Can you figure out what's up with the Palmyra map? Why is it incorrectly centered? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:55, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Koavf, it's not. it was simply so far zoomed out that you couldn't see the atoll —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:10, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Hm, when I scrolled in, I must have panned as well. Thanks. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:14, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-20

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00:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

excessive captchas

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T223195

For my last dozen or so edits I've been getting a captcha on every save, sometimes more than one, even though I'm not inserting any links. That wasn't happening earlier. Is something broken, is it a temporary setting because of a spambot running amuck somewhere, or what? Thanks. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 06:47, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Please provide diffs of the edits where this occurred; or at the very least, the names of the pages concerned. It might be that there is an external link elsewhere in the same section. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:17, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
There are external links in the same section, but you're only supposed to get a captcha if you try to add a link that wasn't already there. This was at WP:AN. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 01:03, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Is the problem still present? Did you get a captcha making this edit? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:19, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
I don't think I had a problem with that one, but it is intermittent. I was able to save this current edit without it (i.e. I'll change this wording if I get a captcha). 67.164.113.165 (talk) 02:07, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Did it happen today on WP:AN? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 02:09, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
I made a post on AN that inserted 2 new links, and I think I got 3 captchas. I made a later post that didn't add any links and don't remember with certainty whether there was a captcha for that one. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 02:47, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
  •  Confirmed. I just tried (as Suffusion of Yellow alt 5) to make an edit to WP:AN#Administrators preventing me from having RfC about an Administrative action containing NO added links, and got a captcha. But edits to other pages, also containing existing links, saved with no issue. Strange. I wonder what's special about that page. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 02:53, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
    @Suffusion of Yellow: if you can actually make the edit past the captch, and let us know the Diff, we can examine it in more detail. — xaosflux Talk 03:37, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
    @Xaosflux: I got a captcha for Special:Diff/896996976. I think it's the IPV6 address in {{ipvandal}}. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:42, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
    @Suffusion of Yellow: http://<an ip address> is "an external link", so that certainly could do it. — xaosflux Talk 03:45, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
    @Xaosflux: Except the external link was already on the page in that edit. The problem, I've figure out, is that http://<an IPV6 adddress> is not a valid URL at all. See RFC 2732. If I format the URL correctly, as http://[<an IPV6 adddress>], the problem goes away. So it looks like a bug in MediaWiki and a problem with {{IPvandal}}. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 05:21, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
    This edit should fix {{IPvandal}} to generate a valid link. Anomie⚔ 13:04, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
    Wow, interesting. I have to sign off soon but I appreciate your looking into this. Thanks. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 03:49, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion for a new tool

I have a suggestion for a new tool. Short story: When you find an unsigned post like this, you activate the tool and it looks in the edit history to find the probable commenting user. After finding a possible match, it prompts the user for confirmation. We accept and it either tags it as {{unsigned|49.14.98.130|11:53, 11 May 2019‎}} or it properly formats the post by itself and maybe even sends a "please remember to sign your posts with four tildes" notice. The automatic signing bot doesn't always work and when I encounter these in the wild I have to do a bunch of copy/pasting and editing just to get someone's post set up right. Thanks! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 05:38, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

@Cyphoidbomb: User:Anomie/unsignedhelper does part of this. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:25, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
The "automatic signing bot" is SineBot (talk · contribs), which doesn't always work because it is down at the moment (I don't know whether Slakr (talk · contribs) is aware, but this mention should notify them). Also, {{unsigned}} is not the best one for IP addresses - for IPs, use {{subst:unsignedIP|49.14.98.130|11:53, 11 May 2019‎}}; for logged-in users, use {{subst:unsigned|Example|11:53, 11 May 2019‎}} - please also note the presence of subst: in both cases. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:53, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
You can also use {{subst:xsign|11:53, 11 May 2019‎ 49.14.98.130}}, which lets you copy and paste the time/IP string directly from the edit history, and automatically detects whether or not it is an IP address. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:10, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Pseudo-heading or acceptable dlist?

In List of shooting sports organizations we have markup like this:

Markup Renders as 
;Indonesia:
* [[IPSC Indonesia]], international member of [[International Practical Shooting Confederation|IPSC]].
* [[Indonesian Target Shooting and Hunting Association]], international member of [[International Shooting Sport Federation|ISSF]].

;Iran:
* [[Shooting Federation Islamic Republic of Iran]], international member of [[International Shooting Sport Federation|ISSF]].

;Iraq:
* [[Iraqi Shooting Federation]], international member of [[International Shooting Sport Federation|ISSF]].

;Israel:
* [[Israel Shooting Federation]], international member of [[International Practical Shooting Confederation|IPSC]] and [[International Shooting Sport Federation|ISSF]].

;Japan:
* [[IPSC Japan]], international member of [[International Practical Shooting Confederation|IPSC]].
* [[National Rifle Association of Japan]], international member of [[International Shooting Sport Federation|ISSF]].
* [[Japan Clay Target Shooting Association]], international member of [[International Shooting Sport Federation|ISSF]].
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Israel
Japan

Is that an acceptable description list or should it be regarded as a pseudo-heading? Sam Sailor 05:54, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

It appears there's not any technical problem with the heading itself, so the best place to discuss this is at the talkpage of the article or talkpage of Accessibility MOS: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility. – Ammarpad (talk) 06:01, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

That copy is inappropriate for two reasons at least: It mixes actual list types, and WP:LISTGAP. If you want to have these be description lists, you would need to do something like:

Markup Renders as 
;Indonesia
:* [[IPSC Indonesia]], international member of [[International Practical Shooting Confederation|IPSC]].
:* [[Indonesian Target Shooting and Hunting Association]], international member of [[International Shooting Sport Federation|ISSF]].
Indonesia

(Note I removed the colon directly after the term, instead placing it on the next line to make intent clear.)

The list gap piece is trivial when you've decided how to do your list; that's fixing it so that there are not spaces between the terms and descriptions:

Markup Renders as 
;Indonesia
:* [[IPSC Indonesia]], international member of [[International Practical Shooting Confederation|IPSC]].
:* [[Indonesian Target Shooting and Hunting Association]], international member of [[International Shooting Sport Federation|ISSF]].
;Iran
:* [[Shooting Federation Islamic Republic of Iran]], international member of [[International Shooting Sport Federation|ISSF]].
Indonesia
Iran

I am on the fence about whether this is an appropriate kind of description list. I tend toward no, but you should invite others to discuss here (per WP:MULTI) from WP:Accessibility and/or WP:WikiProject Accessibility to see if they agree. --Izno (talk) 12:51, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

  • This doesn't appear to be a technical issue, just an editorial one (how to style an article) - there are better venues than VPT (the article's talk page, a MOS page, etc) to hash this out. — xaosflux Talk 13:21, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
    Not really. There are two technical questions and the style question even though asked only as a single question; the former two I answered, but regardless, we should not split the discussion now that we're having it here (so it could be moved wholesale if interested). --Izno (talk) 13:57, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
    @Izno: can you clarify the technical issues, along the lines of "What were you expecting and what was the actual result" ? — xaosflux Talk 14:02, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

@Izno: It looks like you're still getting a listgap in there, apparently MediaWiki gets confused when the last colon line before a semicolon line has nested lists. It's easy enough to work around though by including an empty colon line:

Markup Renders as 
;Indonesia
:* [[IPSC Indonesia]], international member of [[International Practical Shooting Confederation|IPSC]].
:* [[Indonesian Target Shooting and Hunting Association]], international member of [[International Shooting Sport Federation|ISSF]].
:
;Iran
:* [[Shooting Federation Islamic Republic of Iran]], international member of [[International Shooting Sport Federation|ISSF]].
Indonesia
Iran

If you want to visualize listgaps, you could use something like User:Anomie/listgap.css. Anomie⚔ 12:17, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Interesting. I wonder if that's worth a phab task. --Izno (talk) 14:05, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
phab:T223277. --Izno (talk) 14:10, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

{{lang-he-n}}

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but I've so far failed to get help elsewhere. I'd really appreciate if someone who's good with templates could take a look at my proposed changes to {{lang-he-n}} (See Template talk:Lang-he-n § Idea: select version without niqqud) and give me some comments. Thank you in advance! Psiĥedelisto (talk) 03:51, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Psiĥedelisto, I suggest raising that at Template talk:Lang, where at least two {{lang}} experts are active contributors. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:12, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

G13 – "missing parameter"

I don't know what script or whatever determines whether a G13 is valid or not and gives a green OK if the last edit was more than six months before. So I don't know where to ask why it doesn't work in, for example, this case – it's not eligible, but the template reads "Missing parameter - Unable to calculate qualification to be deleted per WP:CSD#G13"? Can anyone shed any light? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:34, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

I'd guess template talk:g13 to start. --Izno (talk) 18:58, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
@Justlettersandnumbers: It's the timestamp. Twinkle and YAAFCH take care of it, but this tagging was done manually, by just adding {{db-g13}} without a timestamp. The documentation for Template:Db-g13 should clear things up. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:46, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Izno, Amorymeltzer! Yes, I should have thought to look at the template documentation, but had not expected to find script documentation there too. So, does any of that work on mobile? We have a new(ish) user who seems to have chosen G13 as a career path, and I'd quite like to be able to guide him/her towards a better way of going about it – if there is one, that is. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:06, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Dunno what you mean about script documentation. I don't think either works well on mobile, they'd have to enter the ts manually I guess? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:52, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Firefox glitch?

It seems that anytime I use an indent/endash/bullet point, a space gets somehow added without me intending to. See 1 or 2 as an example. Using Firefox 66.0.2. YE Pacific Hurricane 23:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

@Yellow Evan: are you using WP:WikEd? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:36, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
Yes. YE Pacific Hurricane 01:24, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Template help

Hi all,

I've recently been working on changing the {{32TeamBracket-WSC2}} template from it's current form to one that uses named parameters to complete scores such as at 2019 World Snooker Championship. There's been a few WP:ACCESS issues, however I believe these to be at least in part fixed.

The issue I'm having, is that this template won't work for all championships. Whilst the number of frames for the final is somewhat static (it's been best of 35 frames since 1979); the sessions can have less/more frames than what is standard. It's supposed to be 8-9-8-10, however, some years certain sessions have overrun, and had different amounts (such as in 2016, where the third session only played 7 frames).

My question is, how would the best way to make a table such as the one that shows here as fluid like this. What my thoughts were, to have a parameter for each session, that said how many frames were supposed to be played in that session, and it would make the table fit those amounts of frames.

Please let me know if this makes any sense, as I realize it's a confusing question. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:14, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Cropping an image

Is there a way to show only a cropped portion of an image in an article?

In Derivative work, I have added a captioned, already-existing image, File:Marcel Duchamp, 1919, L.H.O.O.Q.jpg. For this article, I want to crop and zoom that image to eliminate the large whitespace border around the image, to ... make the Mona Lisa's mustache more obvious. The existing image is 800x1033 in size, and I'd want roughly the center 70% of the image, about 560x723. I was hoping there's an image template that lets me supply arguments for cropping, whether in pixel units or percentages.

The brute force method would be for me to download the image, crop it myself, and upload it under another name, duplicating the justification information from the original; but I was hoping there was a more elegant solution. I think a technical solution already exists at some level on Wikipedia, as when I mouse over the link derivative work, the image in the popup has clearly been cropped a bit around the edges (at least in my browser). On Sober Reflection (talk) 17:50, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes; the {{Annotated image}} template can do it. The instructions are at Template:Annotated image#Cropping. In most circumstances, it's actually preferable to upload a separate image cropped as appropriate, as it makes it easier to translate the article into other languages which won't necessarily have a local equivalent of the template. ‑ Iridescent 17:57, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
@On Sober Reflection: {{CSS image crop}} also has this functionality. — xaosflux Talk 17:59, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
Also, if you are dealing with a free image, you can easily crop on Commons with commons:Commons:CropTool. — xaosflux Talk 18:01, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
CropTool overwrites the existing image, though; as I understand the question, it's "how do I display only a portion of the image without either uploading a second version, or permanently changing the existing image?". ‑ Iridescent 18:09, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
Iri It only overwrites if you tell it to, and most of the time you shouldn't per c:COM:OVERWRITE. GMGtalk 18:37, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
Yup, it is easy enough to make a new file, and it copies all the description/licensing for you as well (example here). — xaosflux Talk 18:54, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
Regarding {{CSS image crop}}, you can try to do the reverse of this edit. But with a different pic, of course --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:15, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

How do I login to the WIKI using the API?

Naturally specification https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Login closely studied. I tried both Method 1 and Method 2.

In the first case, he writes: "Fetching a token via "action=login" is deprecated."

In the second case: "Invalid CSRF token".

How do I log in to the MediaWiki API? Are there examples? MaxiFix (talk) 10:17, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

@MaxiFix: You can use
api.php?action=query&meta=tokens&type=login&format=json
to get a login token, but as for actually using it and logging in; nobody knows :-) We're all plebeians here. If I figure it out, I'll let you know. Good luck. Guywan (talk) 15:39, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
MaxiFix, Method 1 only works with Special:BotPasswords. And you need to use a user-agent to keep track of the cookies. Tokens are available as described by Guywan. But what is it that you want to do ? Because the usecase should dictate if you use method 1, method 2 or an OAuth grant. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:34, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Redirect page tab behavior

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T5324

The "Article" tab on a redirect Talk page should go to the article, not to its redirect target.

The "Talk" and "Article" tabs should be a toggle: click one, and it should go to the other. Practically anywhere else in the encyclopedia, this is the case: if I'm on a Talk page of some article or project page, and click the "Article" or "Project page" tab, I go to the accompanying article, or Project page. Not so with redirect Talk pages, however. If I'm at Talk:This is a redirect page and I click the "Article" tab, it does not go back to the article, it goes to the target of the redirect. Not what I wanted. If I want the target page, I know how to get there.

I'd like to see this behavior changed. My guess is, a large majority of the time, someone on a Talk redirect page clicking the Article tab, wants to go back to the redirect article, not to the redirect target. If there's some legacy reason to keep this as the default behavior, then please at least offer an option in WP:Preferences to check a box assigning the "Article" tab (and "Project page" tab) to the article/project page, instead of to its redirected target page. Or, maybe some javascript whiz can cook something up for commons.js. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 02:20, 9 May 2019 (UTC) {{ping}} please.

Hi, @Mathglot: I believe this belongs to where you first posted it; that is VPT, as it's more a technical decision than a social one. This is not something ideal for a preference setting but you can ask at Wikipedia:User scripts/Requests if someone is willing to write some script for this. The task phab:T5324 was asking the same thing and was declined because if this is implemented there's no way to go directly to the target page without manually editing the URL, among other reasons. – Ammarpad (talk) 04:34, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! See WP:US/R#Redirect page tab behavior. Mathglot (talk) 06:23, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
@Mathglot and Ammarpad: I've reopened the Phabricator issue because I found the original reasons for the close didn't seem to directly address what changing this behavior would affect. For convienance, I'll include the main body of the comment I posted on the Phabricator ticket:

As far as I can tell, there is no advantage to immediately going to the target page after switching to the Page or Read tabs. One can only access these tabs from other tabs, and when I am in the Edit, Talk, or History tab, I am already examining the redirect in more detail, usually in preparation for editing it. In fact, I cannot think of a single instance where I wanted to go directly to the target page when I clicked on the Page or Read tab.

While this can easily be partly solved by the user script posted here, I still think it would beneficial if this was the core behavior. This would also make the interface more consistent; one is not taken to a redirect page's target after saving and editing, so I think the the Page and Read tabs should behave the same.

I don't know if reposting here is technically correct, since the VPT header says Bug reports and feature requests should be made in Phabricator, but I thought I would move it here from the proposals page so any potential further on-wiki discussion can be done here. eπi (talk | contribs) 01:38, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
@Mathglot and Ammarpad: Fix ping. eπi (talk | contribs) 01:40, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
According to Help:Redirect and my own experience, when a redirect is followed, a link to the redirect itself is just below the title. So it's one click away. DMacks (talk) 01:53, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
DMacks If it's scoped to the main article, that works fine, but if it's section scoped, it gets annoying (you may end up scrolling up the page significantly). So it's not always one click when going to the target page. But it's always one click away to the target page when one is at the redirect itself. eπi (talk | contribs) 02:00, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Good point. There have been proposals over the years to have the window decorations (header/tabs and left-column toolbox) frozen and only the article itself in a scrolling pane. That would resolve the section-link "I have to press the 'home' key or scroll up" situation. I think there is also a gadget that places a "home" link in each section-header line. DMacks (talk) 02:13, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
@DMacks: Also, I have a quick question: have you ever been at the Edit, Talk, or History tab of a redirect page and wanted to go to the redirect's target directly? eπi (talk | contribs) 02:05, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Sure, if I'm at a talkpage of an article that was merge/redirected while looking for previous discussion of a certain bit of article content, I then want to look at the current article content (follow redirect) or the history at the time of that discussion (History tab of the redirect), not at the redirect itself. If I'm editing a redirect, I sure want easy access to its target so I can work on extracting a self-contained section that has grown large enough to be a stand-alone. DMacks (talk) 02:13, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
I would agree that the intended behavior of the "Article" button, when on a talk/history page of a redirect, should be to link to the redirect itself. The number of times an editor wants to go directly from the redirect talk page to the redirect target is small compared to the number of times the editor wants to go to the redirect itself. This is not really a technical issue, as the technical implementation is straightforward if there is consensus to change the behavior, so I think VPP was probably a better venue. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:02, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Template:Infobox song contest entry

Template:Infobox song contest entry has double bold in parameter "Name" in embded version. Template is protected and only template editors and administrators can edit it. Eurohunter (talk) 08:35, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Template:Infobox song contest entry has no Name or name parameter. Click the "View source" tab to submit an edit request to a protected page. Clearly state which change you want. If you are thinking of the song parameter then the double bolding may be deliberate to indicate that the below headings are subheadings for song and not for the parent infobox. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:53, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Talk pages consultation: Phase 2

"icon depicting two speech Bubbles"

The Wikimedia Foundation is currently conducting a global consultation about communication. The goal is to bring Wikimedians and wiki-minded people together to improve tools for communication.

Phase 1 of the consultation is over – thank you to everyone who participated! – and we've published the Phase 1 report. The report summarizes what people have said and what we've learned, proposes a direction for the project, and asks specific questions to explore in Phase 2.

Very briefly, the proposed direction is that wikitext talk pages should be improved, and not replaced. We propose building a new design on top of talk pages that changes the page's default appearance, and offers key tools like replying, indenting and signing posts. To keep consistency with existing tools, the new design will be a default experience that existing users can opt out of. We also propose building features that experienced contributors want, including the ability to watchlist a single discussion, and the ability to move, archive and search for threads. Building these features may require some loss of flexibility, or small-to-medium changes in wikitext conventions. The goal is to only make changes that directly enable functionality that users really want.

You can see more information and discussion about the proposed direction in the Phase 1 report, including the results of new user tests and some of the quotations from Phase 1 discussions that led to this proposal.

Now it's time to start Phase 2!

We have six questions to discuss in Phase 2, asking for reactions to the proposed direction, and pros and cons for specific changes that we could make.

You can help by hosting a discussion at your wiki. Here's what to do:

  1. First, sign up your group here.
  2. Next, create a page (or a section on a Village pump, or an e-mail thread – whatever is natural for your group) to collect information from other people in your group.
  3. Then start the conversation with the six questions listed in the Questions for Phase 2 section of the report.
  4. When the conversation is concluded, the host should write a summary of the discussion on the Phase 2 community discussion summaries page, and report what you learned from your group. Please include links if the discussion is available to the public.

You can read more about the overall process on MediaWiki.org. If you have questions or ideas, you can leave feedback about the consultation process in the language you prefer.

Thank you! We're looking forward to talking with you. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 17:42, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Talk pages consultation 2019 – phase 2

The Wikimedia Foundation has invited the various Wikimedia communities, including the English Wikipedia, to participate in a consultation on improving communication methods within the Wikimedia projects.

Phase 2 of the consultation has now begun; as such, a request for comment has been created at Wikipedia:Talk pages consultation 2019/Phase 2. All users are invited to express their views. Individual WikiProjects, user groups and other communities may also consider creating their own requests for comment; instructions are at mw:Talk pages consultation 2019/Participant group sign-up. (To keep discussion in one place, please don't reply to this comment.) Jc86035 (talk) 14:48, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

From the plebs to the devs

script execution order

One would expect imported scripts to execute in a linear fashion (or at least I did), but this does not appear to be so. How does one force the execution order of scripts imported into common.js (or other)? For reference, this is basically what I'm doing in my common.js: 

   importScript("A");
   importScript("B");
   importScript("C");

Regards, Guywan (talk) 13:19, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

So, you could do this by using the ResourceLoader function of Mediawiki--which incidentally you should switch to anyway, because importScript is deprecated. mw.loader.getScript provides a means to load a script, and also provides a callback for when loading is done; you'd basically daisy-chain the callbacks. Like this: 
mw.loader.getScript('/w/index.php?title=User:Foo/bar.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript').then( function () 
{
  mw.loader.getScript('/w/index.php?title=User:Foo/shoosh.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript').then(function ()
  {
    mw.loader.getScript('/w/index.php?title=User:Foo/pap.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');
  });
});
If I may ask, though; why do you want them to run sequentially? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 13:27, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
I don't, really. I was importing two scripts that added links to the Tools section of the sidebar, and sometimes the links would be in a different order. So, I was wondering if there was a way to prevent this. Thanks for the help! Guywan (talk) 17:57, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
@Writ Keeper: forgotten ping. Guywan (talk) 18:01, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

new lines

Also, completely unrelated: Is there a character code for inserting newlines into wiki pages? Regards, Guywan (talk) 13:19, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

@Guywan: it really depends on what you are trying to do, can you show an example of where you need a newline? The direct html code <br /> could be used in some cases, however we mostly try to avoid it in articles. — xaosflux Talk 14:34, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks,  Xaosflux:. Hopefully this might clear it up.

Hello, World!

Hello,

Wikipedia!

In the second example, what invisible character did the parser read that told it to insert a line-break, and how can I insert it programmatically? Regards, Guywan (talk) 17:57, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Programmatically in what context? A JS user script? You can put a new line through the standard \n character within a string. For example: the call new mw.Api().newSection("User:Writ Keeper/sandbox","test","test\n\ntest"); led to this edit, newlines included. Does that help? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:13, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
The parser wraps double \n\n characters as paragraphs. Single \n characters are included in the same paragraph tag. The "Magic" character is a \n.--Jorm (talk) 18:20, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, @Writ Keeper and Jorm:. This helps very much. The problem was I only used a single \n, and not seeing what I wanted, assumed \n was stripped. Guywan (talk) 16:37, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Oops

Resolved

I managed to mess up the AFD that I started here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of tragedy films and TV programs. If someone can fix my error it will be most appreciated. MarnetteD|Talk 17:56, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

What's wrong with it? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:29, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
Nothing now. Thanks to QEDK for fixing it. MarnetteD|Talk 18:33, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
@MarnetteD: It was just an external link that you wikilinked accidentally, which broke the substitution, all fixed now! --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:47, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
D'oh! Thanks for letting me know QEDK. MarnetteD|Talk 18:51, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
That would just display brackets around the link: [this note]. The problem was mismatched brackets in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_tragedy_films_and_TV_programs&diff=next&oldid=895915235 this note]. When source code is displayed in the rendered page, always look for something mismatched. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:12, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Can someone generate a new list for Wikipedia:Templates with red links

Wikipedia:Templates with red links lists all templates containing red links, but has not been updated in eight years. Can someone generate a new list? The existing subpages (Wikipedia:Templates with red links/001 through Wikipedia:Templates with red links/150) can be overwritten. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:09, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

  • @Pppery: can do a database dump probably? -qedk (t 桜 c) 20:56, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
    @QEDK: What do I have do do with this? * Pppery * survives 20:57, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
    @Pppery: I saw you do a query over at Quarry, so I thought you could help BD2412 with fetching this. That was quick! --qedk (t 桜 c) 20:59, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

watchlist too short again

In order to see my watchlist for a date range of about a week or two, I had to edit the number of items to 10,000, which I did in the watchlist URL by editing "limit=1000" to "limit=10000". Apparently, this has been disabled, with efforts to set the limit to 10,000 or 5,000 causing a redirect to 1,000, resulting in my seeing only about 50 items. What it shows me should be 30 days, and I've tried 29.9 and 14, but no matter, it's showing only May 14-18. The earliest on May varies, but sometimes it's an item from 7:37a. The first time it was around 7:37, then it was later in the day, and now it's 7:37a. I tried editing "days=30" in the URL to 40, but that auto-redirected to 30, with the earliest item now being 16:43p on May 14.

Removing VP(T), which has a lot of edits, from my watchlist did not solve the date range problem.

I'm not bothered by the closing off of one kludge, but we need something, so what solution or kludge can I try now?

Nick Levinson (talk) 19:46, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

The max is 1000, AFAIK, per the Prefs->Watchlist screen. When I go away for a week, I have to go through my Watchlist namespace by namespace. It's yet another way of making life a little more difficult for WP power users. T10681 is related, in that it also makes it harder to catch up after multiple days away. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:30, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
What would be nice is if the watchlist URL accepted a parameter like &offset=20190512223000 in its query string, the same way that user contribs and page histories do; even better if it also allowed &dir=prev. That way, when you have finished going through your watchlist, you would note the date and time time of the most recent edit that you have examined, and on return from hols, set the offset to the date and time that you had reached, and work forward from that point. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:48, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
Support all of the above. At the very least let's get rid of the limit for extended confirmed users or for the non-Javascript watchlist. I'm fairly sure I used to be able to see more than 1,000 pages before the new watchlist was rolled out. Daß Wölf 04:12, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
@Daß Wölf: No, the "improved version of the Watchlist" moved from an opt-in beta feature to an opt-out live feature in July 2018; the 1000-change limit was introduced in August 2017. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:52, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

please fix Category treatment in watchlist (kludge is to exclude that)

I found a kludge, not my favorite and with some possibilities not tested: Leaving settings at 1,000 items and 30 days and with no active filters, open the Namespaces menu and select to exclude Category. You don't even have to exclude Category Talk.

If filtering is to include Category only, I get May 15-18, but if I want articles and Category only, then I get May 14-18, but if I want articles only, I get April 18 to May 18. That means that including Category alters the date range for one or more other namespaces. Most of my tests produced April 20-May 18. The difference between April 18 and April 20 may be the 1,000-item limit, so that's probably not a fault.

But Category should not be truncating my watchlist. If it must, then please add an explanation to the page so we'll know to select namespaces accordingly.

Nick Levinson (talk) 00:12, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

I reported this as a bug to Wikimedia's Phabricator. Perhaps the other suggestions in this topic should be reported there, too; I'll leave that to other people at their discretion. Nick Levinson (talk) 01:09, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
Are you seeing edits like this "(diff | hist ) . . Category:Heist films‎; 17:51 ‎Gjs238 ( talk | contribs‎ ) (Category:Japanese heist films added to category)"? When I'm watching a category and someone adds/removes multiple pages from it, they all show up in the watchlist, not just the most recent change (regardless of whether I'm watching the pages which were added/removed from the category), so when someone makes a real flurry of edits like that it can swamp the watchlist. Perhaps you've watchlisted some very active categories and those changes are not showing up but still counting towards the 1,000 limit somehow. Daß Wölf 04:33, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Error

Resolved
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T222418
Resolved

I've been getting this error intermittently for the last hour or two. It seems to happen on some pages a lot more than others. For instance, I got it once on VP(T) while leaving a reply in the section above, but after getting my last edit saved I can't access Virtual reality sickness at all anymore. Oddly this only seems to be a problem in one browser, despite the page showing a 503 code (server error). (I wasn't logged in on the other browser I tried.) Anyone else seeing this? Daß Wölf 04:21, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

  • Not just you. --qedk (t 桜 c) 08:04, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
  • It has been happening for days, on and off. - Sitush (talk) 08:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
    • I've seen it frequently in the last half hour, here and at Wikidata. The explanation on the error page about complicated templates doesn't fit the current error. If the revision history of this page loads several times without an error, and it hasn't changed, it shouldn't start producing error messages. Yet it did. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 08:29, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Can confirm, happened to me in id.wikipedia as well. Vulphere 10:00, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
  • The issue is closed as resolved, if the issue persists (after the timestamp of the resolving comment only!), reopen the Phab ticket. --qedk (t 桜 c) 13:37, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Caps lock

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T219480

About a week ago, my computer started locking on all-capital letters when I capitalize a letter, but only when I'm typing in an English Wikipedia edit box--not in the edit summary box, and not in French Wikipedia or Wiktionary or non-Wiki sites. How do I turn off the automatic caps lock? (I'm using an iPad.) Loraof (talk) 15:41, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

This is a known issue, of which the cause has not been fully tracked yet. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:25, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-21

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

Problems

  • File descriptions for files from Commons were not shown properly on other Wikimedia wikis for a few days. For example the image descriptions and license information were missing. This has now been fixed. [11][12]
  • Some diffs show an error message when you try to see them. The developers are working on fixing it. It could be because of some edit comments. [13][14]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 May. It will be on all wikis from 23 May (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 22 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • The content translation tool on Wikipedia can use machine translations. There is a system to stop translations where the editors do not fix machine translation mistakes. This warns or stops them if they seem to just copy what the machine translation gives them. If this system is too strict or not strict enough you can tell the language team. [15]
  • Advanced item The Wikidata wbeditentity API endpoint will remove all aliases if the request includes an empty alias. This is how it supposed to work. It has not been working this way because of a bug. This will start on 12 June. [16]


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

13:03, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Magic word

Hello everyone, I'm from ckbwiki. I added this mediawiki page, but it doesn't work properly! Now what should i do to create {{SHORTDESC:description}} (The magic word) on our Wikipedia? Thanks! --ئارام بکر (talk) 17:26, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

@ئارام بکر: see phab:T184000 and related tasks. ckbwiki does not appear to have the shotdesc parser hook enabled (w:ckb:تایبەت:وەشان). — xaosflux Talk 17:36, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: but why? English wikipedia how did that? Why other wikipedias can't? I want to add the magic word in same way that enwiki did that. Any way? --ئارام بکر (talk) 19:04, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
@ئارام بکر: Using and changing the appropriate letter-code descriptions on Wikidata will do the same thing. Your wiki probably does not need the short description magic word. --Izno (talk) 19:46, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
@Izno: I know, but that gadget is more useful and easy than we go from ckbwiki project to wikidata and repeat again and again always. --ئارام بکر (talk) 23:04, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
Unless I'm missing something, that gadget makes a LOCAL description, it doesn't update the normally used wikidata entry. — xaosflux Talk 23:42, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
@ئارام بکر: I'll look into making the gadget work on other wikis (so you can edit the wikidata description without going to wikidata) while working on User talk:Galobtter/Shortdesc helper#Export to wikidata?; should be easy enough. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:17, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Page download speed

The code for Wikipedia:Database reports/Indefinitely blocked IPs has a size of 1,784,147 bytes, and as it's basically a big chart with lots of text, I expect that the complete page size isn't significantly larger than that. (It has no images at all, except the little up-and-down arrows, and images present on all pages, like File:Wiki.png and File:Wikimedia-button-for-homepage.png.) Conversely, http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/fed16/papers/fed_86.pdf has a size of 27,717,239 bytes. Can anyone guess why the first page takes a lot longer to load than the second page? I just discovered the second page a few minutes ago; it's not as if I had it cached. And while Esri is an important player in its field (software for Web-mounted GIS), I suspect that their servers' speed and capacity are significantly less than Wikipedia's, with Alexa rankings of #7,072 and #5 respectively. And it's not just my computer; go to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 158 and look for "Indefinitely blocked IPs" to see Galobtter's comment. Nyttend (talk) 21:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

PS, please note that Esri's self-hosted GIS sites tend to be mounted on arcgis.com, so I don't think the nature of the site would require them to have significantly faster servers. Nyttend (talk) 21:16, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

@Nyttend: Does the page still take a long time to load while you are logged-out? --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 01:28, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Interesting: it loads a lot faster, even though I have no scripts installed except one to hide a link in a certain infobox and another to give me the traditional "You have new messages" bar. Could it be the skin? I use Monobook. Nyttend (talk) 01:39, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Nyttend, when you are logged in, you get a fully dynamically generated page, when you are logged out, you get a partially cached pre-rendered page which is slightly faster, but still not as fast as a fully pregenerated thing like a PDF. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:53, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Nyttend, they don't really compare. One is a website, the other a pdf. One is generated on the fly based on wikicode, the other is pre generated. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:38, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Hm, okay; I didn't realize that there was a difference from the server's perspective. I figured it sent me a bunch of 1s and 0s (about 14¼ million for the webpage and 221.7 million for the PDF), and once they'd all downloaded, the page was ready. Nyttend (talk) 11:03, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Nyttend, yeah it's not like that. By that definition buying a factory printed book in the store vs having the store employee type over a book using a typewriter and handing you that copy would take the same time ;) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:43, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Both of them took negligible time for me, which means, it's a problem with your internet connection, browser, intermittent server-side problems, OS, or a combination of them (not an exhaustive list). --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:09, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Labs is down, or partially down

I am having issues accessing https://tools.wmflabs.org/copypatrol/en, getting an error "HTTP error 500" message. Some of the other pages on Labs are not working, for example these ones are not working:

Any assistance in getting this fixed would be appreciated. Thank you, — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 12:41, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Update: Some of these are now working, including CopyPatrol, but others are not. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 14:24, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

CopyPatrol has been fixed. The outage was due to phab:T223992. I assume it was the same issue that affected toolforge:admin/tools. @Diannaa: You should not be using any of those legacy XTools links. Range contributions is now part of core, just enter the IP range at Special:Contributions. I don't know anything about toolforge:rangecontrib but I assume it did the same thing. Autoblocks are viewable at Special:AutoBlockList. If you need to search by autoblock ID, currently you need to do this at Special:BlockList, putting #123 as the "IP address or username", where 123 is the autoblock ID. — MusikAnimal talk 14:29, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, I will remove the old tools from my collection. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 14:34, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

This template editnotice doesn't work

Resolved

Template:Parenthetical referencing editnotice is supposed to place an editnotice that is only visible when someone opens up the editing window on an article but instead it places a BIG BRIGHT notice onto the article itself when it is in the Read-only mode. (See this lovely example at Hyde Park Picture House.)
If this editnotice worked the way it says it's supposed to work, it should only be visible to editors when they are editing a Harvard-cite'd article that the template has previously been placed upon. Someone, please fix it...I don't know how and have just discovered this editnotice and it would be really really REALLY useful to (hopefully) forestall editors not following an established Harv-cite referencing style on an article. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 05:40, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

@Shearonink: Edit notices are created in a pseudo-namespace at Template:Editnotices/Page/___. I've created Template:Editnotices/Page/Hyde Park Picture House for you --DannyS712 (talk) 05:46, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Thank you...but that sort of doesn't answer my question... There then needs to be additional documentation/instructions on the actual Template page to tell editors how to implement this template. And, does that mean that for every time I want to use this Template that I have to create a pseudo-namespace for it? Can't it be transcluded or something? On almost every single article that uses Harvard cites that I come across there is a continuing problem of editors adding the more-common straight inline citations and then that subsequently creates a funfunfun mess to clean up afterwards. Shearonink (talk) 05:58, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
@Shearonink: If you want to post a list at my talk page, I'd be happy to create edit notices for you --DannyS712 (talk) 06:00, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Heh, you have no idea how long that list can get...I mean, now that I understand what to do I can do it myself but seriously...this is the only way to do it? Also, just to make sure I understand how to implement it... When the pseudo-namespace thingy is created it then will just appear on the article whenever the article is edited, it doesn't have to be added to the article itself as another bit of code? Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 06:09, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
@Shearonink: Correct --DannyS712 (talk) 06:25, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Ah...ok, thanks. Since you understand how editnotices work would it be possible for you to add some instructions on the template itself? Editors not understanding how editnotices work seems to be a longstanding issue from the Template's talkpage... Thanks again, Shearonink (talk) 06:39, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Shearonink, you may be thinking of {{Use Harvard referencing}}, which is meant to be placed at the top of articles. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:43, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
I might have been but I wasn't. I had already found that Template, used it and found it wanting for my purposes. I wanted and want an edit notice to boldly appear when the editing window is opened. In my opinion the "Use Harvard referencing" is a little too demure for most editors to really see it... Shearonink (talk) 07:22, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Shearonink, well.. the template does say: "To create a new editnotice, please follow the instructions at WP:Editnotice" and that should explain everything right ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:40, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Does it? I don't see that line of text anywhere on Template:Parenthetical referencing editnotice so I obviously missed that part when I tried to use the template and that's why I asked here. And if someone who is somewhat-experienced around WP misses it so might others. So far as I can tell the template at present reads as follows:
  • To display this message when an editor edits an article, create an editnotice for the article containing {{Parenthetical referencing editnotice}}. This template is not for use in articles. Editnotices are separate pages that display as message boxes shown about the edit window when a user edits a page.
Btw the present instructions at the How-to guide WP:Editnotice?... Well, DannyS712's explanation above was very clear, very concise, and I understood it right away. The "official" how-to guide instructions?...well, I had to ask here didn't I. Shearonink (talk) 17:00, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
@Shearonink: The methods for adding editnotices to specific pages differ according to whether or not you have the templateeditor user right or not.
If you do not have this right, you need to make an editnotice request by following the directions at WP:Editnotice#How to request an editnotice.
If you do have this right, you will find when editing any page (or section of a page) that one or two links are displayed at upper right, titled "Group notice" and "Page notice", which may each be red or blue. The "Group notice" one may be absent; but regardless, the one to click and edit is "Page notice". For example, when editing Actuary, there is only a "Page notice" link, which is blue, and goes to Template:Editnotices/Page/Actuary. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:41, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
@Redrose64 and Shearonink: also, User:DannyS712/Edit notice.js adds a link to a page's edit notice, without needing to edit the page --DannyS712 (talk) 20:05, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Illegible talk page

All of my talk page below the edits of February 18, 2018 (15 months ago) were rendered illegible by this edit by Wikiacc. Why? How can it be fixed? Michael Hardy (talk) 19:45, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

... and now it appears I've fixed the problem, except that the thing that appeared to be causing it has been there for a long time, so it's a mystery why it suddenly happened now. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:57, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
An edit in February last year added a <math> tag without the balancing closing tag. Wikiacc's edit added three (balanced) pairs of <math>...</math>, the first of which was taken as the closing tag for the one added in February. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:16, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

A gadget seggestion

Hello everyone, I'm from ckbwiki. I thought enwiki add this (and a sipmle) gadget like ckbwiki and arwiki also. If this community accept the gadget, please an interface editor create the gadget by following these instructions:

Create Mediawiki:Gadget-RedirectLinks with the following: 

Display links to [[Help:Redirect|redirect]] pages in near-green cola

Then, create Mediawiki:Gadget-RedirectLinks.css with the following 

/**
 * Display links to redirect pages in near-green cola
 * @revision 1.0 (2019-05-21)
 * @author ئارام بکر
 */
a.mw-redirect { color: #4e6f1c; }

Then, at MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition in appearance section add the following: 

* RedirectLinks[ResourceLoader]|RedirectLinks.css

Finally, check the gadget and enjoy!

Goal: See all redirect page links with the different color ("near-green cola" for now).

Thanks:) --ئارام بکر (talk) 23:07, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

@ئارام بکر: I suggest you start by listing this at Wikipedia:User scripts/List and see if people start using it first. — xaosflux Talk 01:25, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
There is also User:BrandonXLF/GreenRedirects, which does something similar --DannyS712 (talk) 02:18, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: and @DannyS712: I do apology to User:BrandonXLF. I didn't know that this gadget (or script) is available already. However, thank you both! --ئارام بکر (talk) 15:41, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

What's

Resolved

the obnoxious weird box being visible over pages that have a red linked category? See this image. ∯WBGconverse 12:14, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

See Template_talk:Sockpuppet#Sockpuppet_categories. According to the documentation, it's garish. -- zzuuzz (talk) 12:28, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
For the technical side, the image is from User:PedroLucas151204 with source {{sock|João Victor23567|confirmed}}. It uses {{Sockpuppet/categorise}} which uses mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##ifexist to test whether the corresponding category exists. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:37, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
The helper script is creating new cats and I don't see any reason for the message to exist. Inclined to revert. ∯WBGconverse 12:41, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Just someone's way of throwing errors, it's not that garish imo, either way,  Fixed. --qedk (t 桜 c) 12:41, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
@Winged Blades of Godric: Please don't upload Wikipedia screenshots to imgur. My browser takes several minutes to display anything, and then it's the cookie information box which I am obliged to "accept" before I can see anything useful. Even when I have exited the website, my computer slows to a crawl necessitating at the very least close and restart the browser. In the past, my antivirus software has warned me about imgur and I don't want to reboot every time.
Instead, we have guidance at WP:WPSHOT. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:20, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
If something appears when you log out and it doesn't look like a browser issue (layout often is) then you can usually just link the page and describe it. If it's text then quote a sample. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:30, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Same with me, but it eventually opens and doesn't affect my system. Idk if this is helpful, but I upload stuff to imgBB (which downsizes it) and generally distribute the hotlink to the static image page. --qedk (t 桜 c) 13:43, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
I don't personally care as much about imgur screenshots as I do about un-search-friendly, unhelpful section headings like "What's", made out of the first word of the comment. But that's probably just me... -- Begoon 13:39, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Begoon, Apologies. I ought to keep that in mind. ∯WBGconverse 15:44, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Don't lose any sleep over it - just a peculiar niggle of mine. People in help forums I frequent do it a lot and it inexplicably irritates me whereas I don't usually care about small stuff like that. Illogical, but true... -- Begoon 15:53, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Why was I not signed in?

I'm certain I checked the box when for some reason I wasn't signed in earlier this week. I turned off the computer on Monday and turned it on this morning.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:13, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Your browser probably just cleared your cookies. Happens occasionally. --qedk (t 桜 c) 17:47, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
I have noticed a lack of purple links. But the last time I restarted the computer because of updates was Sunday.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:38, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
That's a definite sign your browser is clearing your history. Updates sometimes have something to do with it and sometimes don't. Cookies are set to expire after a while and while the Wikipedia "Remember me" cookie is indeed set for 365 days, it probably won't last that long anyway. --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:58, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Weird new user account

Resolved
 – Nothing was technically wrong here, but there is a suspect compromised account being dealt with and cleaned up after. See also Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Probable_compromised_admin_account. — xaosflux Talk 20:17, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Sorry if this is off base, but I just came across User:NVPA8200. They have no contributions anywhere, and were created 16 hours ago. However, they are in the following user groups: edit filter manager, edit filter helper, account creator, autopatrolled, confirmed, event coordinator, extended confirmed, page mover, file mover, IP block exempt, mass message senders, new page reviewers, pending changes reviewers, rollbackers, and template editors. That being said, I can't find any log of the account being created or given these rights (see enwiki log and meta log). Any ideas? --DannyS712 (talk) 19:00, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

The logs are redacted. Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:08, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
@Galobtter: Oh, never mind then --DannyS712 (talk) 19:09, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, it's not the first time, I think. Some people prefer CLEANSTARTs like this (not assuming anything about this account). --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:13, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
These logs probably shouldn't be revdel'ed, per Wikipedia:Revision_deletion#Log_redaction. I'm not sure if I can say who RD'ed it (erring on the side of caution). SQLQuery me! 19:21, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Per WP:ADMINACCT I'd like to know the reasoning behind this and why it's not visible with a reasoning for it. Clean starts don't mean you get logs redacted and all the perms...Praxidicae (talk) 19:24, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
  • What Praxidicae said. Clean starts mean you create a fresh account and restart from scratch, they don't mean you get to keep those parts of your previous history you feel like keeping while jettisoning those parts you consider inconvenient. ‑ Iridescent 19:27, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
This also brings up a potentially much larger issue but I'll wait for the answer to the "why" before I get into it...also how can we apply WP:ADMINACCT to something like this where such an action is not visible to the larger community? I would think that any type of RD or even OS of this nature would warrant an explanation that would make it obvious to at least someone with a mop that there was good reasoning? Praxidicae (talk) 19:29, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Agree with Iridescent. I think the number of rights is primarily why they did not want a blanket new account — gaining this many rights takes a significant amount of limbs into each field, and that's a lot of time and effort. Although, and I am playing the devil's advocate here, what's the point of the EFM+EFH combination? --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:35, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
  • @QEDK, the EFM+EFH combination is because they've literally granted the new account every single bit that it's technically possible for an admin to grant unilaterally. ‑ Iridescent 19:37, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
@Iridescent: The EFM bit worries me but I explained a little more below.
  • I think I've put 2 + 2 together here so forgive me if I'm wrong and as I'm not a mop holder and have no ability to review the logs, this is merely based on what is obvious but I think an explanation is warranted given the admin appears to have created a second account, given it all the perms that aren't crat given and then redacted the logs. I apologize if this isn't allowed but they also don't have email enabled so I can't even ask privately. Would pinging the user here be any violation? I'm quite concerned given the recent compromises and the fact that there's no email but they've given themselves EFM access on a redacted account. Praxidicae (talk) 19:40, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
    It's kind of stupid to redact one log and leave the other one as-is. --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:44, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
    @QEDK: I think they were just unredacted by TonyBallioni --DannyS712 (talk) 19:47, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
    @DannyS712: There was a 2:00 Special:Log/rights log by Nv8200pa which was not redacted, immediately followed by a 2:09 redacted (now unredacted by Tony) log — that's why I called it stupid, since they redacted only one of them. --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:53, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
    @QEDK: One of them was for the hidden account, and one was for themselves, but I see what you mean --DannyS712 (talk) 19:54, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
  • User:Nv8200pa is an admin, who has been around since at least 2003. This admin is currently active, so this is not them, but it's an interesting coincidence. — Maile (talk) 19:47, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
    @Maile66: Not a coincidence - the logs were unhidden. Nv8200pa created the account and added the rights --DannyS712 (talk) 19:48, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Since it's been unhidden, I'll do it here: @Nv8200pa:. Can you explain this mess and also your unblock of this with the explanation of: (Incorrect ISP Identification; No longer owned Webhost; Residential IP Pool.), which is easily identified as a webhost. Followed by your assignment of IP block exempt to yourself via a UTRS ticket: Nv8200pa talk contribs changed group membership for Nv8200pa from administrator to IP block exempt (temporary, until 02:00, 22 May 2020) and administrator (Requested via UTRS #223560 - Trusted user across multiple projects)) (thank)? And can another administrator with UTRS access verify that it is indeed a ticket from the person in question? Praxidicae (talk) 19:49, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
    • 223560 isn't even a valid UTRS#, UTRS is only in the tens of thousands right now, not the 200 thousands. — xaosflux Talk 20:09, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
I'd also suggest a block of both accounts until this is sorted out as it appears to either be compromised or an egregious abuse of tools (or possibly incompetency) and none of these things are good. Praxidicae (talk) 19:51, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Qedk Not at all. In one of the last spates of compromised admin accounts, they created alt accounts after editing innocuously and gave them perms too. If this was indeed a compromise, the EFM alone could do a TON of damage. Praxidicae (talk) 20:06, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
@QEDK: ^^^ --DannyS712 (talk) 20:07, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
This one tops that too is what I'm trying to say. Giving alts perms is one thing but erasing your tracks so meticulously is new to me. --qedk (t 桜 c) 20:09, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
QEDK, wasn't meticulous enough, DannyS712 caught it! SQLQuery me! 20:10, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
  • @SQL: Yeah, before the logs were unhidden here is what I pieced together (I sent it to Praxidicae becauce I thought they were an admin and could check, but here it is verbatim):
Here is what I've managed to piece together:



From the user table in the database,

"user_id"       "       user_name"      "       user_registration"

36574779        "       NVPA8200"       "       20190522020807"



NVPA9800 was created on 05/22/2019 at 02:08:07



Log event (revision deleted) at 02:08, 22 May 2019 (likely creation of the account):

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&logid=99346409



Log event (revision deleted) at 02:09, 22 May 2019 by Nv8200pa (likely adding the user rights):

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&logid=99346427



New users (account creation) log item hidden at 02:11, 22 May 2019 by Nv8200pa:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&logid=99346469



User rights log item hidden at  02:10, 22 May 2019 by Nv8200pa:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&logid=99346460



I'm all for assuming good faith, and I could be completely off base since I can't see the log entries myself, but to me it appears that Nv8200pa created NVPA8200, gave them rights, and then hid it. You may want to check those log entries.
If you know what you are looking for, its not hard to piece together --DannyS712 (talk) 20:14, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: Yeah but how'd you find NVPA8200? --qedk (t 桜 c) 20:19, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
@QEDK: I was bored DannyS712 (talk) 20:21, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
--qedk (t 桜 c) 20:24, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
@QEDK: In all seriousness, in the context of exploring @SQL: (the language) I ran a database query that I've recreated at Quarry:query/36356, ordering template editors by time of account creation. I ran similar queries with a few other rights, and thought I would investigate why an account created earlier today had all of these rights. I posted here, and then went on to figure the rest out, before Tony undeleted the lock entries so I could confirm my suspicions (the text above was sent when it was still hidden) --DannyS712 (talk) 20:28, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Ahhh, so we got lucky afterall. But it's a good thing that we did. Let me make some progress regarding this over at ANI. --qedk (t 桜 c) 20:32, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Hi all, I ran a check after unrevdeling the log entries. There were several oddities in the edits that to me suggested the likelihood of account compromise. The account moved from editing on a static IP with one operating system for all previous edits within the CU period to a proxy with an entirely different device for the log entries in question. I have blocked locally, notified ArbCom, and requested a steward lock the account. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:12, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
    That was quick, @TonyBallioni:! --qedk (t 桜 c) 20:13, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikiscan down?

Hi. This morning in the UK I noticed that I was unable to access en.wikiscan, and that's still the situation this evening. I can access the site http://wikiscan.org/, but not http://en.wikiscan.org/ For the latter, I either get "The connection has timed out" error in Firefox or simply "Sorry, the website en.wikiscan.org cannot be found" via by ISP. Everything seemed OK yesterday. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 18:01, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

In the US the same thing is occurring as well. OkayKenG (talk) 21:33, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Appears to be working now. Thanks to whoever helped behind the scenes. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 13:34, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Timelines?

Idk if this has been asked before, i first questioned this on the Teahouse and they redirected me to this page, i went to a band's page and it shows that they have a timeline but there is nothing on it so i tried editing to fix it, on the preview it is shown but on the real thing nothing (I use a phone to edit btw, so it's probably because of that). --FromFrank✎Talk♬ 14:35, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

See phab:T216318. You have to use desktop view to actually see the timeline, at least for now. – Ammarpad (talk) 14:46, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Blocked user able to upload

Has anyone ever seen an editor who's able to upload while blocked? If so, please visit Commons:COM:VP/T and offer an opinion. Commons:User:Drbaseball95 was indefinitely blocked in 2012 and hasn't been unblocked, but as you can see from Commons:Special:Contributions/Drbaseball95 (temporarily, until I delete them) or Commons:Special:Log/Drbaseball95, the account uploaded dozens of images in 2019. Nyttend (talk) 00:52, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

@Nyttend: The files were uploaded to this wiki and then imported to commons by User:Magog the Ogre. * Pppery * survives 01:13, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Thank you for helping me understand. I was under the impression that a little marker (like <at en:wp>) was added to an uploader's username when an import occurred in the last few months, so I rejected the idea of an import when it came to mind. Nyttend (talk) 01:26, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

A "special" page is taking a very long time to load

I just visited my bookmarked site to check contributions by new users, but it is way too slow to respond for some reason; I reloaded the page a couple of times, even with a different ISP, but it didn't help.

The page is Special:Contributions; it responds instantly, but if I add these two parameters: contribs=newbie&target=newbies, it takes roughly 40 seconds to load, which is absurd.

If you'd like to help, please let me know if you can reproduce the issue: link with the said parameters added. Thanks. —RainFall 11:30, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

  • @RainFall:  Confirmed I got this error: PHP fatal error: entire web request took longer than 60 seconds and timed out. Must be quite an intensive request. Guywan (talk) 12:12, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
  • There's phab:T137478; filtering recent changes by new users is much faster ([17]). Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:25, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
The Special:Contributions&contribs=newbie&target=newbies worked fine until about 10 days ago when I started getting the same problem as User:RainFall. The phab task to remove this option as I see it is not a good idea despite the ability to get pretty much the same information via Special:RecentChanges. Nthep (talk) 17:51, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Nthep, ok. so you have a patch to make the thing magically faster ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:27, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
I wish. Although the same link on Commons continues to be rapid. I accept that the load here is greater but something must have been changed to make the performance degrade so badly. Nthep (talk) 21:34, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

New user contributions slow

For the past week or so, whenever I try to look at new user contributions ("Show contributions for new users only"), the query takes VERY long (sometimes so long that the Wikimedia server gives up and throws up an error page). Has anyone else experienced this? Anyone looking into it? WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 00:31, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

See #A "special" page is taking a very long time to load. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:47, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Newbie edits function not working

Hi all,

In recent weeks, the new editors' contribs feature has not been loading. When it (rarely) does, it is very, very slow. I've also been getting Wikimedia errors ("Our servers are currently under maintenance or experiencing a technical problem.") Would appreciate any help resolving this.

Thanks,

GABgab 08:26, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

See #New user contributions slow and #A "special" page is taking a very long time to load sections above. – Ammarpad (talk) 09:13, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Lead section paragraphs out of order again

 – --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:57, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T201131

At Surtsey on mobile, the second paragraph has been put above the infobox instead of the first one, resulting in an incorrect reading order. This isn't the first time this has happened. Hairy Dude (talk) 02:52, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi Hairy Dude, next time you should post at the actual village pump Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) instead of this talkpage as people rarely reply to posts here. – Ammarpad (talk) 12:32, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Offensive Captcha

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T224343

Wikimedia received an email from someone attempting to create a new username. ticket:2019052510000337 They were prompted to enter a Captcha with the phrase "nazisgood". They were understandably surprised as were some other agents, who thought this would be excluded by a blacklist.

I thought that there may be editors here who might be able to said some light on the issue.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:34, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

I assume it is because "nazis" isn't in the bad word list (which does appear to exist per phab:T163148). Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:33, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Galobtter, That sounds plausible. S Philbrick(Talk) 18:17, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Was there a picture of the catpcha attached? Reedy (talk) 18:37, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Reedy, there is now. S Philbrick(Talk) 21:38, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Thumbnails in mobile search

Is there a way to tag an image in an article so that it won't be used as a thumbnail in mobile search? GoldenRing (talk) 16:03, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

It's called the page image and is used for several things. mw:Extension:PageImages#Can I exclude certain page images? says: "There is a blacklist on every wiki that administrators can edit, at MediaWiki:Pageimages-blacklist (example). Any images that appear here will not be page images for any article." I guess we shouldn't make a long MediaWiki:Pageimages-blacklist for efficiency reasons. Moving the image out of the lead would also work. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:49, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Let's beat around the bush a little less and get to specifics - when searching on mobile with terms starting with "human" (hell, I even managed to reproduce it with "hum"), the pictures on human penis and human penis size show up as thumbnails. There is some concern that this is inappropriate if you're searching for something innocuous like the article on Huma Abedin or hummus. Primefac (talk) 14:55, 26 May 2019 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

Request/proposal for ability to suppress certain redirects from searches

At this Redirects for Discussion entry, concern was expressed over them cluttering the search results, as a justification for deletion. This seems like a kludge that does not address the underlying problem.

I'm writing here to open a discussion about the desirability/feasibility of marking redirects with, for example, Category:Unsearchworthy redirects, and having them be removed from the search dropdown, and from search results unless they're specifically requested to be included. That would allow the redirects to be retained to preserve inbound links if desired, without getting in the way. (It would make them WP:CHEAPer, I suppose.)

Thank you for considering this! —{{u|Goldenshimmer}} (they/their)｜😹｜✝️｜John 15:12｜☮️｜🍂｜T/C 18:16, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Isn't this already a feature of some templates, like {{R unprintworthy}}? Perhaps Paine Ellsworth (talk · contribs) knows. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:15, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Oh, that would be cool if so! —{{u|Goldenshimmer}} (they/their)｜😹｜✝️｜John 15:12｜☮️｜🍂｜T/C 22:55, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
If so that is news to me (and that would be great)! {{R from subpage}} and {{R from camelcase}} both should have this feature, if it exists. Some of the RfD guidelines would also probably need to be updated if this feature exists. - PaulT+/C 03:09, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
I agree that this sounds very much like editors with an R#DELETE #1 agenda testing the meaning of "unreasonable" as it applies to search-field-dropdown-menu hogs, and I also agree that R#KEEP #4 far outweighs. I know of no redirect category for such hogs. And I wonder if anyone in that RfD has actually tested "The Simpsons" in their search field? It yields very different results than "The Simpsons/" with the backslash. Printability is an altogether different issue, yet there is likely some overlap. For the millions of mainspace redirects, one thing that unprintworthy redirects would have in common with unsearchworthy redirects is that this is not a choice that should be given to a bot, since it would often be difficult to assess the "unworthiness" of a redirect. This will remain an issue that should be decided at RfD. Paine Ellsworth, ed.  put'r there  08:49, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
That all makes sense. There are definitely some tricky edge cases with this feature that require human judgement. Do you agree that this is a feature that makes sense? Where is the best place to request it? WP:PHAB? Or does there need to be more discussion first, perhaps at WT:SEARCH? - PaulT+/C 12:24, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
To editor Paul: it certainly makes sense to minimize the search field noise if that's possible. As I wrote in my RfD rationale, when I type "The Simpsons" in my search field, I get very different results than when I type it in with the backslash, as in "The Simpsons/", so I don't see the problem there. It seems that all the results for "The Simpsons" have "natural" priority over the results for the backslashed version. I might not be the right person to ask. Couldn't hurt to write a phab ticket, because at least that way you get to find out from the devs whether or not it's a good idea or even doable. Want you to know that I appreciate your interest in all this, because it seems to me that filling and monitoring such a category would be a major task with a long-term commitment. Paine Ellsworth, ed.  put'r there  11:31, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
@Paine Ellsworth: This →/← is a slash. A backslash is this →\←. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:18, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
To editor Redrose64: lol, thank you! always getting those wards backwards. Paine Ellsworth, ed.  put'r there  20:29, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Major schema changes coming to database replicas

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T223406

On June 3 the _user and _user_text fields of revision, logging and a few other tables on the Toolforge replicas will be dropped, as part of the actor migration that has been going on for over a year. The full list of changes can be found at phab:T223406. At simplest, you'll need to JOIN on actor to get user names and/or the value for the *_actor foreign key in revision, etc. Pinging maintainers of bots and tools that I'm fairly sure are affected: @Enterprisey, Σ, SQL, and MZMcBride. The time to update your tools is now. If you're not already, you should subscribe to the Cloud-announce mailing list to get notified of such changes with more advanced notice. Best, — MusikAnimal talk 00:10, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

MusikAnimal, I've updated SQLBot's AIV task. I'll try to hunt it down in all my remaining tools when time permits. SQLQuery me! 06:13, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Oh, yikes. Thank you for the ping! This change is almost certainly going to break some scripts that I'm foolishly still maintaining. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:11, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping! My stuff should be good but I'll do another check. Enterprisey (talk!) 21:38, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Toolbar highlight duplicate links

I've had User:Ucucha/duplinks in my common.js for a very long time. It used to highlight duplicate links pretty well. Now, the only way I can tell what it's highlighted, if anything, is by enlarging my screen and using a magnifying glass. And how it highlights is one link is a a teeny-weeny very thin red line around one duplication, and a very faded dotted box around the other instance. For one thing, red is not easy to see for some visions that have no problem with other colors. And what is the use of making the other link so subtle that it can hardly be seen? Is there a better tool than this to highlight the duplicate links? This is just not workable as it. I've tried it on Firefox and Chrome, so the issue is not browser specific. — Maile (talk) 01:05, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

@Maile66: User:Ucucha/duplinks.js was merged with User:Evad37/duplinks-alt.js on 24 January 2019. Have you asked Evad37 (talk · contribs) about it? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:47, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Redrose64 (talk · contribs) Thanks. I switched the script with Evad37's script. Same thing. Perhaps that's the editor who changed the visuals. I'll contact him. — Maile (talk) 12:57, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Maile66 - it looks like the script adds two CSS selectors: .duplicate-link { border: 1px solid red; } and .duplicated-link { border: 1px dashed green; }. You could probably add those to your common.css and modify them to get thicker lines, other colors, or anything you might want. For instance, try this to make the lines 3 times as thick:
.duplicate-link {
    border: 3px solid red !important;
}
.duplicated-link {
    border: 3px dashed green !important;
}

(note: I haven't tested this, and haven't used the extension, so I don't know if this would work) --rchard2scout (talk) 10:37, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Global locking? Or blocking?

Color me confused.

A new editor user:Jflemmingjr wrote to Wikimedia, ticket:2019052510003218 saying they could not login. Their account is two days old with zero contributions. I didn't see any sign they were blocked, so I asked them to try again. It didn't work and they provided a screenshot.

Then I remembered I had run into a similar situation, and I was told to check to see if it was a global block.

I checked here, and see no sign of a block.

According to Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Global_blocks:

Registered users cannot be globally blocked. The analogous action is global locking, which prevents anyone from logging into the account.

However, the screenshot clearly states that they are "blocked globally".

What am I missing?--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:13, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

The account Jflemmingjr is not globally locked and the only global blocks that exist are IP global blocks. Ruslik_Zero 20:39, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Ruslik0, Thanks. I thought a message notifying an individual that they are subject to a global lock would identify the IP address. I saw a sample somewhere recently but can't seem to track it down at the moment, but the message this person received identify their username not their IP address so I'm still unclear on what happened. I've asked them to share their IP address so I can check the global lock list. I won't be terribly surprised if they failed to tell me their IP address. I know I wouldn't share mine if someone simply asked. S Philbrick(Talk) 21:51, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Pinging @Swarm: who helped me. DuncanHill (talk) 21:57, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
DuncanHill, the individual shared their IP address with me, which I'm not going to share publicly.
They created their username two days ago so I assume they want blocked or locked then.
I looked at all global blocks since then and did not see it in the list. I also looked to the last 500 to see if it was an arranged and it wasn't. The page has a box to enter the IP address which I did and the response was "The requested IP address is not blocked." S Philbrick(Talk) 22:38, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
One of the things which baffled everyone about my case was the message saying "you are blocked globally" when I wasn't blocked anywhere, that ties in with the initial post here. I don't recall the specifics of how I found out it was a global IP block, but it was bloody obscure. DuncanHill (talk) 22:54, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it was a global IP rangeblock that was preventing a password change. We have a rangeblock finder around here somewhere... ~Swarm~ {sting} 02:56, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
The IP address associated with Jflemmingjr is indeed not globally blocked. So, it is not clear what it is all about. Ruslik_Zero 13:25, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
It would be helpful is the user showed a screenshot of the actual block message. Ruslik_Zero 13:29, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
They did send the screenshot in the ticket. The source message is MediaWiki:Globalblocking-blocked-nopassreset. – Ammarpad (talk) 13:38, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
It's possible that they're trying to log in through a blocked proxy or VPN, but supplied their actual IP address in the ticket. —DoRD (talk)​ 13:48, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
  • @Sphilbrick: - yes, the message Ammarpad links to is precisely the situation that DuncanHill encountered. Due to a bug, underlying global IP blocks prevent password changes, even if set to anon-only, and even for accounts with IPBE (there are multiple Phab tickets about this languishing in the backlog). If you can't find the block, it is likely because it is a rangeblock. Rangeblocks can be tracked down using Rangeblock finder and disabled locally, even if just temporarily, to allow the blocked user to regain access to their account. That is currently the only workaround that I am aware of. It's good that DuncanHill saw this because this is an obscure one. ~Swarm~ {sting} 18:39, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
    Swarm, Thanks, although apologies in advance for not being sure how to carry out the next step. The individual informed me that they almost always use their phone. They did give give me an IP address but it's an IPv4. For some reason, I thought that mobile devices was used IPv6. Is that assumption flawed?
    I did enter the IP into the range finder. Both the local block count and the global block count are identically zero for all entries. My interpretation is that there is no block for this IP address. Is that correct? S Philbrick(Talk) 19:14, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
    My mother's iPad connects to Wikipedia via the WiFi router in her house. Seen from outside (i.e. from Wikipedia), her iPad's IP address is actually that of the router; being dynamic, it's pot luck, and in my experience is often IPv4. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:45, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
    No, that assumption is indeed flawed. As Redrose says, if I use my phone at home it will reflect the router's IP (IPv4). If I go to the pub across the road it will reflect the pub's router (also IPv4). However if I turn off WiFi it will pick up the local 4G signal for my phone's provider ... which is also IPv4. This is in the UK, it may of course be different for other countries. Black Kite (talk) 21:44, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
    IPv4/IPv6 is about allocation, since IPv4 addresses are considerably old, more fixed-line ISPs opt for IPv4 addresses since IPv6 is relatively new and lots of old fixed-line devices don't support IPv6. Phone service providers take more IPv6 since there's more of them available and newer phones support any technology you throw at them. --qedk (t 桜 c) 07:22, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
    Black Kite, thanks for cleaning up my flawed assumption S Philbrick(Talk) 14:56, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-22

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

Changes later this week

  • Advanced item Big changes to the replica database will happen on 3 June. Some tools on Cloud Services will stop working if the maintainers do not update them to use the new schema. This probably affects tools that query for revisions or log entries made by a user. [18][19]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 May. It will be on all wikis from 30 May (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 29 May at 15:00 (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.

15:33, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Special:MobileDiff with invalid ID

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T224430

Why do Special:Diff and Special:MobileDiff react differently to an invalid ID number when I load them on a laptop? They work similarly with a valid ID; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/898964501 and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/898964501 both take you to an edit I made a few minutes ago, and there aren't any differences beyond what you expect with mobile versus desktop. However, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/898964501898964501 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/898964501898964501 do not react the same; Diff gives you MediaWiki:Difference-missing-revision, just as it would if you linked to a diff that's since been deleted, but MobileDiff produces a 404 error. I can't envision why it doesn't return some sort of MediaWiki error page (or take you to the Main Page) rather than a 404 error; this is the first time I can ever remember getting a 404 error on any WMF page when the servers were working properly. Nyttend (talk) 01:31, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

I observed this issue for a while but didn't think it's enough problem to report. It's still low priority, nice to fix. Reported as phab:T224430. – Ammarpad (talk) 15:37, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Template:Life timeline needs fixing?

Seems most noted wikilinked items in the {{Life timeline}} template work very well - but (using Dell Wintel10-1903 PCs/Chrome & Firefox browsers) several links seem to have stopped working well for some reason, including the "Flowers", "Plants", "Arthropods", "Birds" and "water" links - fixes or workarounds welcome - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 13:48, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

This template is used in 136 pages. Please revert to the last working version and experiment in the sandbox. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:43, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
@Jonesey95: Thank you for the advice - restored the last working version to the template - all links now seem to be working ok - seems some code (re: "lint errors resolved"?) may have been added which seems to have been the problem - Thanks again - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 18:53, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Double spaces after periods are showing up in rendered articles

According to MOS:DOUBLE SPACE, "Some editors type two spaces after a period/full stop; these are condensed to one when the page is rendered, so what the reader sees is not affected". This has always been my experience. However, today I saw that double spaces in wikitext are showing up as double spaces in rendered articles. I first noticed the issue here; see the double spaces in the first paragraph. The problem is present in Firefox 67, Chrome 74, and Internet Explorer 9 on my Windows 7 machine. Has a MediWiki software change caused this problem? Can it be fixed? Thanks! --Albany NY (talk) 03:19, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

That article had a lot of non-breaking spaces (hex 00A0). That is why some double spacing was visible. It's been cleaned up now. Johnuniq (talk) 03:30, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
Oh good, I'm glad it's not a widespread problem. Thanks for your quick response! --Albany NY (talk) 17:12, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Timeless background image

If you use Timeless, you may have noticed the background image, the angry cat chewing its way out. As I announced in the newsletter, this can now be configured to be, well, whatever, by setting it to a different image. So two questions:

  1. Does anyone care what we put there, or should I just upload a drunk patch with a kitten rolling around with the puzzle globe like a ball of yarn at 2am sometime?
  2. Where should the image live? Is it better to have the file(s) locally or on commons and protected such that only admins can overwrite them, or have them with the rest of the wmf-config images, where developers need to submit patches for review to overwrite them?

That last bit may also apply to the logo itself. There is a chance we may be wanting to start migrating the logo in all skins into a two-part thing, with the wordmark separate from the logo image - maybe sometime in the next 5-10 years - and this is something I intend to test in Timeless in particular soon. Given that it would be better to be able to reuse the Minerva wordmark for that one, though, we will probably want all of that in the config repo...

Any thoughts? -— Isarra ༆ 09:38, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

@Isarra: I rarely use timeless, but look at it occasionally. I'm creating this reply in timeless right now to check, I'm not getting any background image at all. Are there pages we should be seeing it on? — xaosflux Talk 15:12, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: It's there, just not obvious (like I didn't know there was a book in Monobook). Look at short pages such as homo (subgenus) and see the curves just below the bottom of the content-proper. --Izno (talk) 15:21, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
@Izno: thanks, I'm able to see just the very bottom edge of it sticking out. So as far as this goes, I suggest: Change to blank / disable, since this is a reader-facing easter-egg that is inconsistently displayed (based on body size) and doesn't contribute to the articles. — xaosflux Talk 15:25, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
You can see it more clearly on Special:BlankPage. I personally like it, and I think a similar watermark-like variant of the WP logo would make more sense. But, it is sort of an easter egg that doesn't hold much value. — MusikAnimal talk 17:18, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Forced logout (not reproducible)

I have an occasional problem I have been unable to reproduce. I normally work as a registered user in the mobile view (iOS, iPhone, Safari). Sometimes when I invoke the desktop view, I return to the mobile view by the back arrow (<) in Safari rather than the "Mobile view" link in the page footer. There have been times when I suddenly find myself logged out. I have also edited pages in desktop view and discovered that the edit was recorded with my IP address and that I had indeed been logged out at some point. I can also mention that when I log out in the mobile view and have invoked the desktop view in a session, I am switched to the desktop view with a session error message. I then retry and am logged out normally. This behavior is consistent. I have seen the FAQ entry "Hey! Why was I automatically logged out?", which might apply. Jmar67 (talk) 11:21, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

CSS for bulleted lists looks weird

At https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ellen_DeGeneres&oldid=899325737#External_links, the bulleted list seems like it's way off to the left several pixels and the bullets seem very large--I have used this site for over 10,000 hours for over 15 years... Am I just seeing things? Is someone monkeying with the site-wide CSS somehow? e.g. compare with https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chronic_Town&oldid=898933556#External_links, where the bullets are steely-blue squares that are several pixels to the right rather than black dots to far to the left. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:25, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

It looks like it might be to do with the presence of {{Wikinewspar2}} in that section - preview with that template removed and the bullets look like you'd expect to see. Nthep (talk) 09:36, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
Apparently {{Wikinewspar2}} does something weird with the CSS for bulleted lists. Adding an empty line between the template and the start of the list fixed it. rchard2scout (talk) 10:55, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
I've updated Module:Side box to make a better fix. -- WOSlinker (talk) 11:26, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Earwig's tool broken?

Is Earwig's tool broken? I can't get it to give me anything but 500 Internal Server Error. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:02, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Justlettersandnumbers, It works for me. I was getting errors on some of my tools earlier this morning, don't know if that might be related. SQLQuery me! 13:16, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it seems to be back now. Thanks, SQL, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:36, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Accessibility

What language is this?

𑢹𑣈𑣚𑣚𑣉𑢿𑣉𑣜𑣚𑣑

All I see are boxes. I found this under Asian input methods. Guywan (talk) 20:02, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

It would seem to be from Warang Citi (Unicode block), which is used for the Ho language (insert bad joke here). –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 20:10, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
@Guywan: (forgot to ping). –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 20:17, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
The script is Warang Citi [20], one of the writing systems for Ho language. Maybe your browser shows boxes with the hexadecimal values of the characters (my Firefox does that). What do you mean by "under Asian input methods"? If it's a page then always link pages you refer to. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:21, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
@Deacon Vorbis: Ho'ly moly, thanks a ho lot.
Not a page. Input methods via the cog in the sidebar. Guywan (talk) 20:53, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
@PrimeHunter: Forgotten ping. Guywan (talk) 20:57, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
Firefox does show boxes with the hexadecimal values of the characters; Opera just shows empty boxes.
Raw characters may be converted into their Unicode representations using Richard Ishida's Unicode code converter. Paste the mystery chars into the green area near the top, and click the "Convert" button above that. Various representations will appear in the grey areas. Just above the first grey area, titled "Characters", is a button "View in UniView", this is a direct link to the tool that PrimeHunter mentioned.
Another way of reaching this "Input methods" thing is via Special:Preferences: just below the gender selection and above the custom signature settings is a link "More language settings". Unfortunately, what gets displayed in this popup is dynamic and depends upon a number of factors. English is always written using the Latin script, so you won't get input methods for English variants. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:02, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
Chrome also happens to display these as boxes. --Izno (talk) 23:44, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
Well, strictly speaking, browsers only show boxes if you don't have an appropriate font installed. I see the characters, though they are rather blocky—I think they are being rendered with GNU Unifont (which substitutes completeness for beauty). Eman235/talk 00:32, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

New behaviour at Special:Contributions

Resolved
Tracked in Phabricator
Task T224524
Resolved
New behaviour on Commons contribution page

I'm not seeing this on en:wp yet but I am at Commons and Wikidata. On my contributions page this list of accounts show automatically. I can vaguely see a usefulness in allowing quick selection of alternate accounts (Nthep-vanilla is an alt account of mine) but seeing another username which is nothing to do with me is annoying. Why can't it be a user operated dropdown rather than being automatic and how should the accounts displayed be controlled? The layout is also pretty rubbish overlaying other fields like that. Is this a recent change to Mediawiki? Nthep (talk) 11:51, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Having it auto expand is bad at best, someone needs to open a phab on this. The auto selector should only apply when clicking IN TO that field, not just because it is auto-selected. — xaosflux Talk 12:10, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
Happens in other dialogs like the global user rename as well. –xenotalk 12:16, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
Happens with all Performer/Target text boxes in Special (Contributions included), I don't see a problem with it. With a decent internet connection, the lag is just barely noticeable. --qedk (t 桜 c) 12:30, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
This will soon be resolved at phab:T224524. – Ammarpad (talk) 12:33, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
QEDK, I'm not sure what you mean - the list doesn't go away unless I make a deliberate and previously unneeded selection. Neither does the list disappear if I make any other field the focussed field. Nthep (talk) 12:48, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
@Nthep: It seems that the bug was that it was automatically brought up expanded, I couldn't replicate the issue so I assumed you were talking about the autocomplete suggestions being annoying. Either way, it's fixed now per the Phab ticket (and my Contributions looks ok as well). --qedk (t 桜 c) 13:49, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Watchlist not being marked read

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T218511

So sometime over last night my watchlist behavior changed, and the nodes on the side won't change from green to grey after I visit the diffs like they usually do. The marked pages as read seems to work, though. I do have some custom CSS which I know might be an issue, and am using Monobook, but it is extremely useful to know if I missed anything when I go through my list. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 12:38, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Not caused by your custom CSS, being looked at in phab:T218511. – Ammarpad (talk) 14:35, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
I hope it's sorted soon. Today I saw a page on my watchlist with new edits not marked as new. It's the first time I've noticed this; it's generally been the problem described above. This behaviour's described on the phabricator page as well. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 04:05, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
I've been having this and related problems on and off since mid-March. See here for past discussion. I hope this all gets done with soon. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:46, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I'm seeing it again too now, with the added benefit of changed, unseen pages showing up without bold. It's kinda insane this is STILL an issue six weeks later! —Joeyconnick (talk) 03:42, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Sigh. And now bolded and non-bolded entries are entirely random. GMGtalk 12:18, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Melodia, I'm getting pages showing I've visited since the last change when it's not true. --valereee (talk) 18:09, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
I get this too. – Tea2min (talk) 06:40, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
My watchlist is buggered too, exactly as described above, but that Phabricator report is weeks old, and my issue only started a couple of days ago.Roxy, the dog. wooF 14:27, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
It seems that it was related to whatever update included a time stamp on the "view new changes" button. Or maybe that's just a coincidence. At any rate, it's a problem across all projects, and not just the English Wikipedia. GMGtalk 14:46, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
The issue with Firefox certification made teh Internetz unusable for me yesterday. Mozilla script kiddies fixed that quite quickly. Could WMF poach some of the Mozilla nerds to help? Roxy, the dog. wooF 14:52, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
As noted above, the issue has been affecting some users (including me) since March, so something else must be involved with the problem. isaacl (talk) 17:26, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
Started happening for me a few days ago too - David Gerard (talk) 17:36, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Seems to have stopped happening for me now - David Gerard (talk) 19:35, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
Just started again for me. —Joeyconnick (talk) 05:23, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
I have these two gadgets enabled: "(D) Display green collapsible arrows and green bullets for changed pages in your Watchlist, History and Recent changes (unavailable with the improved Watchlist user interface)"; "Display pages on your watchlist that have changed since your last visit in bold (see customizing watchlists for more options)". Both have been misbehaving for several weeks now. But interestingly, there was an occasion a day or two back when the Wikimedia servers were slow, and not all of the JavaScript and CSS was being sent back to me. During that period, the Watchlist was behaving as it should: unread posts were boldfaced with a green bullet; read posts were normal weight with a blue-grey bullet. Once the servers were back to speed, the misbehaviour resumed. I conclude that for each of the gadgets, there are two different scripts that have different effects that conflict with one another. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:21, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Perhaps we'll find out later this week. According to the Phabricator page this week's MediaWiki release fixes it. In the meantime I'm thinking of my watchlist as one of those irritating online shops where they keep suggesting the same items, whether or not you've seen them ('Other editors who read Village pump (technical) were interested in...'). BlackcurrantTea (talk) 16:59, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Still not fixed. Someone's posted about it on Phabricator; the task is still marked as resolved, and I can't tell if anyone's opened a new one. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 18:06, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it's still broken. Read items still marked as unread. I don't know what the "Closed, Resolved" status means: either it's fixed in the code but not deployed on the servers yet, or it's already deployed, but then it means the fix does not fix it, and therefore the bug should be reopened.—J. M. (talk) 21:06, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

How is this still happening? More than two months and this problem is still showing up. This morning most of the pages on my watchlist aren't getting marked as read, and those that are get marked as unread again a few minutes later. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:35, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

@Aaron Schulz: It looks like it was you who marked this as resolved on Phabricator, so I'm pinging you to let you know that the problem is still happening. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:38, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Is there a way to reset the entire watchlist? Geordie (talk) 23:49, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Yes, there's a "Mark all changes as seen" button, if that's what you mean. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:16, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
Where is this button to be found? Geordie (talk) 00:32, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Thought it was fixed but just saw one of my own changes to a watched page show up as unseen on my Watchlist. sigh —Joeyconnick (talk) 23:43, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Tracking down which predatory journal?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T216001

I know I've run into this before, but don't remember the fix. I just accepted Draft:Architecture of Saudi Arabia, and got the totally unhelpful error message: 

Error while saving Architecture of Saudi Arabia: {"edit":{"code":"abusefilter-warning","message":{"key":"abusefilter-warning-predatory","params":["Predatory open access journals",891]},"abusefilter":{"id":891,"description":"Predatory open access journals","actions":["warn"]},"info":"Hit AbuseFilter: Predatory open access journals","warning":"
\"Your	Warning: An automated filter has identified this edit as introducing references to a predatory open access journal. If you are confident that you want to cite this source anyway, please click 'Publish changes' again. Note that citations to predatory journals are routinely removed.
","result":"Failure"}}

This doesn't tell me the one thing that would be useful: the name of the journal that triggered the filter. How do I figure that out? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:15, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

@RoySmith: from filter 891 it looks like you triggered based off of doi=10.2495 being used. — xaosflux Talk 14:20, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
This is listed as "10.2495: WIT Press" in the filter notes. — xaosflux Talk 14:20, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Would it be possible to update the error message to include a link to Special:AbuseFilter/891? That at least would get you pointed in the right direction. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:23, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
@RoySmith: I don't think that would be useful for most casual editors, but perhaps a Wikipedia: or Help: page exists that explains this concept for editors, and perhaps a list - we could link it from the error message (MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-predatory) for that filter. Does anyone know of a good landing page (or want to make one)? — xaosflux Talk 14:26, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Well, I agree that the link to the abuse filter might not be the most useful thing, but it's certainly better than what we've got now, which is basically a message that says, "You did something wrong". There's 18 references in that article. Figuring out which one triggered the filter is essentially impossible from the information given. Actually, the best thing would be the text of the reference, plus a link to the filter. Then the user would know what was disallowed, and why it was disallowed. In other words, it makes the error message actionable. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:33, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
The edit filter can not inject variables in to the warning/action-block message, and I can't see us making dozens of separate filters (one for each predatory journal) just for that purpose (not to mention that an edit could hit multiple of them at once). If you had a list of "These journals/DOI's" you could at least see if your diff contained anything on the list though? — xaosflux Talk 15:24, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Having a list isn't really useful. There's presumably 100's of journals on that list. This article had 18 references. Searching for the cross-hits between them is intractable. Sorry to be hard-nosed about this, but the current situation is pointless. You get an error message that doesn't give you enough information to fix the problem, and the operation completes anyway. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:57, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
phab:T216001 is the task regarding variables in warning messages; the list is actually only about ten or so long, so I've added the list to the warning message.
The filter is mainly for people who are adding content to existing articles or creating articles (not for draft to article moves etc by someone who didn't write the article), so it should be easy enough now for those people to figure out which journal triggered the filter. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:52, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for updating the message. That looks like it would be good enough to have resolved the problem on my own. My apologies if I sounded exasperated in the above thread. As a software developer, this is one of my pet peeves. Writing good error messages is not easy; they are often passed along from layer to layer and by the time they get to the end user, any useful context has been lost. So it becomes really important to make sure the message contains all the information the end user might need to resolve the problem. Ah, for the good old days when "?" was the only error message you needed :-) -- RoySmith (talk) 17:37, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Page information: Edits by user

I've been trying to access "The Holocaust --> Page information --> Edits by user" for the last couple of days. The error message is long; it ends with "OSError: [Errno 116] Stale file handle". I've just tried a few other articles and got the same error message. Can anyone advise? SarahSV (talk) 00:25, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

The tool that that link calls is maintained by Σ, so pinging them. In the meantime, the same information is available via a different method as one of the External tools at the top of the history page. * Pppery * it has begun... 00:35, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Pppery, thank you. I've been able to access "edits by user" via the External tools. SarahSV (talk) 02:25, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
This is related to #Major schema changes coming to database replicas (permalink). There was an indexing change that went live a few days ago in preparation for this. That change didn't break older queries, rather made them really slow, I guess too slow in this case. I have updated MediaWiki:Pageinfo-footer to link to XTools TopEdits for now.
On Monday the schema change will be completed and Σ's User Search tool, among others, will no longer function. If a tool you use breaks, and the tool involves getting data about users in any way (as simple as displaying usernames), it's probably because of the schema change. You can direct maintainers to phab:T223406. — MusikAnimal talk 02:38, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
MusikAnimal, thanks for explaining and for changing the link. SarahSV (talk) 21:39, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Searching for an answer

It used to be that when I searched Wikipedia, after I found an article, edited it and then returned to the search screen, the cursor would be positioned at that article. Now it goes back to the top of the screen, which makes me a curser. Is there any way to restore the original behavior? Clarityfiend (talk) 07:35, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

What is your browser? Internet Exploder has an annyoying habit of taking you right to the top when you return to a page that you had scrolled down in. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:15, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
I'm using Chrome on Windows 10. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:19, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
I always use the feature of my browser that opens a new tab, leaving the existing tab intact. In Firefox for Mac, for example, command-click any link to open the resulting page in a new tab, then command-option-right arrow takes you to that tab. You can use this feature to open a bunch of tabs at once, then work on them one by one, and eventually return to your starting tab. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:57, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

You can disable Advanced Search in preferences (Search tab).

Maybe someone could add there also an option to disable autofocus? Or someone know how to disable/prevent autofocus in js script? MarMi wiki (talk) 23:14, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Why autofocus is bad (after displaying the search results). MarMi wiki (talk) 23:35, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Selective transclusion issue

Resolved

I'm trying to transclude a section set up with <section begin=One /> and <section end=One />, which is located at Arrow (season 1), but it doesn't work. I moved the same code to my sandbox and it did. Could there be an issue where this does not work for pages with disambiguation? --Gonnym (talk) 10:44, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

  • @Gonnym: I meddled around and came up with the same result. I thought it was something to do with the table syntax but it works just fine in the user sandbox. But, when I was trying to use {{#lstx:}} (transclude article except section) I realised that the article was only transcluding the "Episodes" section, and therein lies the culprit, the usage of <onlyinclude> tags, that prevents the transclusion of the defined sections, as it's not allowed. You will need some work to remove the tags and bring the referencing articles into line. Sorry about the experimentation in and around your sandbox, I was trying to use one of the sandboxes as control. --qedk (t 桜 c) 11:18, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
    • Thanks for clearing that up! I'll see how I can fix that. And no worries about the sandbox, that's what it's meant for. --Gonnym (talk) 11:21, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
      • Just tested it out and it indeed works. --Gonnym (talk) 11:26, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
        • That's good to hear! --qedk (t 桜 c) 11:32, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
  • And this is (part of) why I have been crusading against <onlyinclude> tags since July 2016. * Pppery * it has begun... 11:36, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
    I'd rather campaign against most use of section transclusion, it is messy and unfriendly to new editors. — xaosflux Talk 12:12, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
    I agree that section transclusion is guaranteed to cause confusion and to periodically break when edits are made. Johnuniq (talk) 23:34, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
    Section transclusions would prevent most issues caused due to <includeonly> family of tags. Contrary to your supposition that section transclusions break things, it is the only transclusion tag that does not affect the entire page on which it is used (and allows multiple tags to nest or rest within each other with no issues) and thus, the best option for any kind of article transclusion. --qedk (t 桜 c) 07:25, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

AWB-alternatives for Linux

Is there any alternative of AWB for linux? Now AWB can run through Wine. But it may not support in all systems. Other AWB-like softwares such as PyAWB, JWB, etc are not working currently (correctly). It is better that creating a linux/mac supporting versions for AWB like huggle 3, huggle version which is compatible for linux also. It will help Linux/Mac using Wikipedians for using AWB more efficiently. Thank you.--PATH SLOPU 07:34, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

List of redirects having categories

Can someone please point me to a list of article redirects having categories. Also should they not be rid of categories? Capankajsmilyo(Talk | Infobox assistance) 09:41, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia redirects contains list of various subcategories of redirects. For your second question, you should ask at Wikipedia talk:Redirect or other appropriate venue as it's beyond the scope of this village pump.– Ammarpad (talk) 12:26, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
@Capankajsmilyo: There is no prohibition on categorising redirects - see Wikipedia:Redirect#Categorizing redirect pages. Previous discussion on this matter may be found at Wikipedia talk:Categorizing redirects/Archive 2#categorizing redirects as though they were articles and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Shipwrecks#Categorization issue (look for Honey Lantree in both). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:52, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

All my contributions today say "Tag: PHP7"

It's annoying. Is there a fix?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:19, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

@Vchimpanzee: Go to the beta features page in Special:Preferences and verify that a) "enable all new beta features by default" is turned off and b) "use php7" is turned off. That aside, using PHP7 is not a bad thing, and there isn't really a reason for you to be annoyed. --Izno (talk) 21:25, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Izno, the beta mode has just been removed, and now gradually more and more people will be switched over. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:26, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
:O --Izno (talk) 21:27, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Vchimpanzee, everyone is slowly being moved over to PHP7. This tag will be in place until everyone is moved over to php7. So this means you are in the group of the lucky few who have already moved over. Nothing to worry about. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:25, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
As long as the tag stops appearing eventually.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:39, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

What is "php7"? DuncanHill (talk) 23:01, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

See PHP. -- WOSlinker (talk) 23:06, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
I did and it seems to be written for people who already know what the article is telling them, rather than for people who don't. DuncanHill (talk) 23:08, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
mw:Beta Features/PHP7#I am a non-technical user. What does this mean?: "Hopefully nothing. This is about changing the software used to run the wiki's code. Ideally, you should notice no real difference." PrimeHunter (talk) 23:44, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
MediaWiki, the software that runs Wikipedia, is written in a language called PHP. For a while, there were two ways for servers to run the PHP code: the default engine called Zend and an alternate method called HHVM. Wikimedia used HHVM because it was faster. A few years ago, HHVM decided that it would only support a specific style of PHP after PHP version 5. MediaWiki is not written in that style, so the developers decided to switch back to Zend. Zend had also become faster than HHVM. This change was first made as a beta feature to make sure nothing broke, but is now being rolled out on a larger scale to test it with more users. TL;DR: What PrimeHunter said. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:55, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, that's the sort of explanation I was looking for. DuncanHill (talk) 23:58, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
@Vchimpanzee and DuncanHill: If you look at the history of many pages (such as this one), the contribs of some users like Vchimpanzee (talk · contribs), your warchlist or indeed this diff, you'll see that "(Tag: PHP7)" has two links. Click the second one. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
My contributions show that any edits I made at a library yesterday or Wednesday do not have the PHP7 tag.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:16, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Tag: PHP7

Why are edit contributions being marked with Tag: PHP7? GoodDay (talk) 01:13, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

GoodDay, See this thread a bit up the page. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 01:17, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

PHP7 tag?

What is going on with the "PHP7" tag/filter on my recent edits, such as this one? Am I doing something odd/wrong? Steel1943 (talk) 22:45, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

@Steel1943: See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#All my contributions today say "Tag: PHP7" above DannyS712 (talk) 22:47, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

PHP7 tag doesn't show for edits made on some computers

No one responded when I posted here.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:34, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Er, lots of people responded, myself included. Also, please don't start new threads for ongoing issues. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:31, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
No, not one response. This is a different question. There was no "Tag: PHP7" with any of my edits yesterday or Wednesday. It is related, but no one responded so I had to start a new thread.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:41, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Did you follow the link that I provided at 18:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)? Whether you are using PHP7 or not should make no difference at all. If there is some kind of difference, it's for the devs to worry about, not you or me. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:27, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
I don't see any explanation in what you linked to, but shouldn't all my edits be tagged with PHP7?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:08, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
It's being rolled out slowly. Currently ~10% of edits are randomly assigned to a php capable server. It's nothing to be concerned about, and you can safely ignore the tags :) Technical details for anyone interested: phab: T219127, mw:Topic:V0lqc8wseu459e0a -FASTILY 06:15, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

AFD stats not working for days. Enterprisey has been notified

AFD stats: This is the path, and the message I'm getting: https://xtools.wmflabs.org/afdstats "File not found. The server said: No route found for "GET /afdstats"" The AFDstats issue has been happening for a few days. I posted over at Enterprisey, and it seemed to work for a different individual. I tried it on two different computers, two different browsers. Same results with all.— Maile (talk) 20:37, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

XTools is not the same as toolforge:afdstats. MusikAnimal maintains the former, and Enterprisey maintains the latter. Enterprisey probably needs to update the code for § Major schema changes coming to database replicas (T223406). — JJMC89 (T·C) 22:10, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
Enterprisey's tool works fine. This is MusikAnimal's domain (who I just pinged). You can consider raising this on Phabricator. --qedk (t 桜 c) 14:21, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
XTools has no AfD Stats feature, and as far as I know it never did. I'm not sure where Maile66 got that link. That said, toolforge:afdstats is still going slower than I recall it going before, which I assumed was because of the indexing change that happened last week. I made a pull request to fix it. If I'm right that those queries are still being used, the tool will break entirely tomorrow unless the fix is deployed. — MusikAnimal talk 15:57, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
MusikAnimal please see Enterprisey to do list. He developed it, and it's been around for years. He's the one you'd have to ask where it came from. — Maile (talk) 16:57, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
Ah, I knew putting it up on GitHub would be useful someday :) Thanks for the patch! I applied it, but the tool's still pretty slow. I'll see if there's anything else I can do. (As a credit-where-credit's-due sidenote, I've just been making minor fixes; Scottywong was the original author.) Enterprisey (talk!) 17:30, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Merging WikiProjects

Hello, There's talk about possibly merging WP:MCB, WP:GEN, WP:BIOP and possibly WP:COMBIO (discussion). I've a few questions:

  1. What's the most logical war to merge their talk page archives? Are there useful precedents?
  2. What's the easiest way to merge the various talk page templates whilst retaining some sort of 'task force' tag similar to {{wikiproject medicine}}? Because of the overlapping scopes, many talk pages have have two or three of them.
  3. If the projects, WP:MCB has the most equivalents in other languages. Is it logical to effectively merge into it and rename, or effectively tart a new one from scratch?
  4. What other processes would been to be done to complete a merge? WP:WikiProject Cell Signaling was just sort of abandoned, and I'd be keen to avoid something similar.

Let me know if there's anything else I'm not thinking of! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 05:15, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Also asked at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council#Merging WikiProjects. Please see WP:MULTI. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:32, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Edit bot?

Hello.

Is there a suitable edit bot where you can submit edit suggestions for needed but tedious and repetitive work?

HandsomeFella (talk) 08:31, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

@HandsomeFella: This is really a question for WP:BOTREQ but they will ask for specifics, and may also direct you to read through WP:FDB and WP:CONTEXTBOT. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:34, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you both.

HandsomeFella (talk) 09:44, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Could we prevent constant switching between edit-window lists?

When editing, using both an alphabet list (e.g., Latin, Greek, or Cyrillic) and the "insert" list (long and short hyphens, etc.) at the bottom of the edit window, I am annoyed at having to switch back and forth between the two lists. Could the "insert" list (or at least its two hyphen variants) be included as an integral part of every alphabet list?

Thank you.

Nihil novi (talk) 13:38, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Advanced Search disable autofocusing (by script)

How to disable (auto)focusing (page scroll to input) from search input in Advanced Search? This doesn't work (judging by the delay it seems that focusing is done somewhere in the AS code?): 

// in common.js
var datao=JSON.parse($('#searchText').attr('data-ooui'))
delete datao.autofocus
$('#searchText').attr('data-ooui',JSON.stringify(datao))
$('input[type=search]').removeProp('autofocus')
$('#ooui-php-1').removeProp('autofocus')
$('input[type=search]').blur()
$('#searchText').blur()
$('#ooui-php-1').blur()

MarMi wiki (talk) 12:34, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Okay, this seems to work: 

$('#ooui-php-1').attr("disabled", true)

$.when(mw.loader.using("mediawiki.widgets.SearchInputWidget")).then( function(){
	$('#ooui-php-1').attr("disabled", false)
} );

Is there a better way? MarMi wiki (talk) 13:45, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

MarMi wiki, the latter isn't too good either. It messes with the loading order of the widget, by creating another loading point for it. Now whichever of the 2 comes first will be the one that is executed, which might lead to unintended consequences now or in the future. There really isn't a good way to do this right now honestly. There probably should be a searchAdvanced mw.hook at the end of the initialisation process for scripts to hook into. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:59, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
It shouldn't be any difference as to when (true) module is loaded (unless code later modifies the loaded module) - that's why they have dependencies. And besides the module probably started loading itself before custom.js code is executing.
Revised code:
if (mw.config.get( 'wgPageName') == 'Special:Search')
{
  $.when(mw.loader.using("ext.advancedSearch.searchtoken")).then( function(){
  $('#ooui-php-1').attr('disabled',true)
  console.log('disable')
  //debugger
  //code from mw.inspect source
  //console.log(mw.loader.getModuleNames().filter( function ( module ) {return mw.loader.getState( module ) === 'ready';} ).join('\n'))
 } )

 //for testing purposes - what forces the focus
 $('#ooui-php-1').one("focus", function( event ) {
  //debugger
  console.log('0 '+$('#ooui-php-1').is(':focus'))
  $('#ooui-php-1').one("focus", function( event ) {
   console.log('1 '+$('#ooui-php-1').is(':focus'))
  })
 })
}
ooui-php-1 re-enables itself magically.
Choice of loader: from requirements to ext.advancedSearch.init (first forced focus in line $searchField.trigger('focus');).
Requirements checked in mw.inspect.getDependencyGraph()['module name'].
BTW, is it normal that methods of module aren't protected from invoking before needed module is loaded? Example: mw.inspect.getLoadedModules() fail with jQuery.Deferred exception: mw.inspect.getLoadedModules is not a function error, unless you invoke mw.inspect() first. MarMi wiki (talk) 15:19, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-23

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

Recent changes

  • You can now write all special letters in all African Wikipedia languages. This works in the desktop version. [21]
  • There is now a field called depicts on Commons. This is a way to show what is in a picture with the help of Wikidata. It is still in development. [22]
  • Some tools on Toolforge may break on or after 3 June because of database changes. Maintainers should update their tools to use the new schema. [23][24]

Problems

  • You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for 30 minutes on 19 June at 05:00 (UTC). This is to fix a hardware problem. [25]

Changes later this week

  • Some wikis have one tab for the visual editor and one tab for a wikitext editor. Others wikis just have one tab. If your wiki has two tabs, clicking a link to create a new page has always opened a wikitext editor. It will now open the editor you used the last time you edited. [26]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 May. It will be on all wikis from 6 May (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 5 May at 15:00 (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.

15:24, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Quarry timeout

If anyone familiar with quarry has a min can you take a look at quarry:query/18989? This used to run in about a min, now it is timing out for 30+ min run time. Thanks in advance :D — xaosflux Talk 15:38, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Probably related to #Major schema changes coming to database replicas. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 16:38, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
Hmmm, smells likely - if anyone feels like rewriting this for me go ahead :D — xaosflux Talk 19:57, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Well, I have a few ideas.  Doing... --DannyS712 (talk) 19:59, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux:  Done
  • I removed the checks for transwiki-import (no users), import (just you and Graham, both of whom have other advanced rights that are checked), and epcoordinator (no longer in use)
  • I joined the actor table per the change discussed above
See Quarry:query/36593 DannyS712 (talk) 20:11, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: thanks, I'll have to go through my personal libraries and add that actor stuff in. — xaosflux Talk 20:14, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Delink option

Can somebody please help me implement an optional parameter for delinking {{Pre-nominal styles}} using {{Delink}}? Thanks! Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 13:18, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Not sure that I'd use {{delink}}. Perhaps augment {{Pre-nominal styles}} with a |nolink= parameter which gets passed to {{Pre-nominal styles/GBR}} so perhaps this:
{{for loop| |call=Pre-nominal styles/{{{country|GBR}}}|{{{1|}}}|{{{2|}}}|{{{3|}}}|{{{4|}}}|{{{5|}}}|{{{6|}}}|{{{7|}}}|{{{8|}}}|{{{9|}}}|{{{10|}}}|{{{11|}}}|{{{12|}}}|{{{13|}}}|{{{14|}}}|{{{15|}}}|{{{16|}}}|{{{17|}}}|{{{18|}}}|{{{19|}}}|{{{20|}}}|skipBlanks=yes|pc1n=nolink|pc1v={{#ifeq:{{{nolink|}}}|yes|1}}}}
If I understand how {{for loop}} works, the rather cryptic parameter |pc1n=nolink is the name of a static parameter that is sent to each call of {{Pre-nominal styles/GBR}} so in this case |nolink=; |pc1v= is the static value assigned to |nolink=, in this case when {{{nolink|}}} hold 'yes', |nolink= gets the value '1' else |nolink= gets no value.
Then in {{Pre-nominal styles/GBR}}
| Canon = {{#if:{{{nolink|}}}|Canon|[[Canon (priest)|Canon]]}}
When {{{nolink|}}} has a value, the switch returns Canon; when {{{nolink|}}} does not have a value, the switch returns [[Canon (priest)|Canon]]
Caveat lectur: not tested, but this is where I would start.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:05, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
Tweaked {{Pre-nominal styles/sandbox}} and {{Pre-nominal styles/GBR/sandbox}} (incomplete) and created minimal {{Pre-nominal styles/testcases}}.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:46, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 Thank you very much! Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 22:36, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Getting a history of an article's previous names

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T152829

Is there a way to do this? If I search the Move log at Special:Log with Target set to an article name, it shows me when a page has been moved from that name, to a different one - which doesn't help me if I only know the current name, and want to follow the chain of renames backwards. Tried searching Hay's tools directory for terms like "move" "rename", "titles", etc. (and some good old-fashioned googling) but couldn't find anything. The history can sometimes be pieced together to some degree based on information in the {{Old moves}} template on the talk page, but those only cover moves that happened as a result of RMs (and sometimes they're missing RMs). Colin M (talk) 21:09, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

@Colin M: That's very interesting! Quite useless on the software's part. It would be nice if there was a page-move tag, which we could use in a page's revision history to find page moves and hence previous names. Sorry, I can't think of any immediate solution. Maybe a user script that gets 5000 edits at a time and filters out all summaries that do not include "moved page" or "moved to" (which I think is automatically added). GUYWAN ( t · c ) 00:03, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
This feature doesn't appear to exist, see phab:T152829 requesting it. — xaosflux Talk 00:23, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Proposal of New Gadget (conversion of existing user script) Suggestion

Hi greetings, the user script named User:Kephir/gadgets/sagittarius (modified version User:Sam Sailor/Scripts/Sagittarius+) seems better (useful) to create and improve redirects. It is better to become a gadget. It may help to reach this to more users who wishes to create or maintain redirects. Gadgets will reach more users than a userscript can. There are many users trying to improve redirect pages with templates, etc. This will help them to do it easily. Hope yours shall consider this. Thank you.--PATH SLOPU 12:44, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

@Path slopu: is there an active maintainer you know of, because I'm not seeing one. Kephir appears to gone inactive years ago. — xaosflux Talk 14:21, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux:Hi greetings, Sam Sailor is the Wikipedian who modified the script and created sagittarius+. He is active now. I think he can become a active maintainer. Regards.--PATH SLOPU 14:27, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm no good at coding, but perhaps Enterprisey would take over my fork. What would the benefit be of turning the script into a gadget? Best, Sam Sailor 14:31, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
@Sam Sailor:It may help to reach this to more users who wishes to create or maintain redirects. Gadgets will reach more users than a userscript can. There are many users trying to improve redirect pages with templates, etc. This will help them to do it easily.--PATH SLOPU 14:34, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

How to connect CSS page to JS page? (Not Common.css mediawiki page)

Hello everyone, how to connect CSS page to JS page? I have a gadget (or a js page) and i want to change it's style, then created a css file with codes, but the style not effect to the gadget!

Note: I tried to move the code to mediawiki common.css and the style code would effect to the gadget. Thanks! --ئارام بکر (talk) 20:55, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

ئارام بکر if you are talking about a true integrated gadget, you can define the CSS along with the gadget on your definitions page(e.g. MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition). — xaosflux Talk 22:29, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
If this is about MoreMenu (the dropdown menus gadget we were discussing on my talk page), you can follow the instructions at meta:MoreMenu#Gadget installation. You will need to adjust the widths accordingly to match the width of the ckb translations. — MusikAnimal talk 01:48, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Thank you very much! After we defined the CSS page on MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition, the gadget worked with CSS very well!
@MusikAnimal: this discussion is not about dropdown-menus gadget; It is about Discussion Closer gadget (i think so it is user script on this wiki, not a gadget). Thanks! --ئارام بکر (talk) 10:08, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Query "blockinfo" of an IP

Does anyone know how to query the blockinfo of an IP address? I tried passing an IP to the ususers prop here: api/query/user, but, apparently, it doesn't work like that. It works fine with usernames, but I need to check whether an IP is blocked or not. Thanks. —RainFall 06:19, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Use a query for blocks,[27] and don't forget global blocks.[28] So, try this:[29]. -- zzuuzz (talk) 06:49, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
@Zzuuzz: Oh, thanks. So, it's not possible to query a registered user and an IP with a single request—that's a bit weird design. Also, can I not pass multiple IPs separated with |? —RainFall 07:10, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
RainFall, This is correct. I have a lot of tools that need to pull lots of IP blocks at the same time. It's always one at a time, unfortunately. Documentation can be found at mw:API:Blocks. SQLQuery me! 08:16, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
You can use bkusers instead of bkip[30] but you will not get the info about indirect blocks. You can do a similar thing with global bgaddresses, however global accounts are locked instead of blocked, so that's a different check. -- zzuuzz (talk) 08:28, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
Looks like that is what I need. Thanks. —RainFall 11:17, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Poorly reduced image

File:Seal of Far Hills, New Jersey.jpg looks splendid, and stays sharp even when I zoom right out in my browser to make it very small. However, the thumbnail on the File: page and its appearance in Far Hills, New Jersey are badly blurred. Is there any way that the original artwork can be reproduced more faithfully at the smaller size? Thanks, Certes (talk) 13:44, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

No opinion on the reduction, but I really wonder if a seal can be CC-0 licensed. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:03, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
Some government entities do release their work as PD (the US federal government being probably the best known), but this one only permits noncommercial use. I've flagged for deletion on Commons accordingly. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:14, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
Sadly the documentation page has now gone, but I believe the uploader claimed to have created the artwork themselves rather than copying a non-PD image. Certes (talk) 14:57, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
Yes, but how can one create the seal of a political entity oneself? Unlike coats of arms, which are art concepts and not artworks by themselves - the organization describes how the coat should look like (e.g "a red cross with vertical and horizontal bars and green circles in each white space between the bars") but it's up to individual people to actually draw the coat - a seal is generally an image by itself. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:03, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
If it's been deleted for not being the real seal rather than for any copyright reason, that makes sense. Certes (talk) 15:06, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Talk pages of articles with a slash in the title

Subpages are not enabled in the main namespace but are in the talk namespace. This means that while, e.g. OS/2 is not a subpage of OS, Talk:OS/2 technically is a subpage of Talk:OS. Is there any way to suppress the display of that parent page link a the top of such talk pages? This does sometimes cause confusion, see for example Talk:Derry#subpage relating to Derry/Londonderry name dispute/Talk:Derry/Londonderry name dispute. If there isn't, is there any way there could be - maybe something along the lines of how {{wrong title}} works? Thryduulf (talk) 22:04, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

It's requested in phab:T41395: "behavior switch needed to disable links to parent pages from subpages". Talk:9 got some misplaced posts and now has a hatnote for users who got there by accident, but the hatnote has no way of knowing where the user came from. Special:PrefixIndex/Talk:9/ gives many possibilities. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:38, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Global contribs down?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T224930

I just noticed that the "Global user contributions" tool that's linked to from the usual contribs page is giving no results (for myself, and a couple random people I tried). Sorry if this is the wrong place to raise this, or if it's already known. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 02:09, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it's not working. This has been reported on phab however. – Ammarpad (talk) 04:21, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Article blocked from search index?

Following this regarding this article, I want to know if such a block is possible? There is absolutely no way to see this article on Google, no matter how pecisely you search for the term, but other related pages (which are newer) does show up (such as Category:June 2019 crimes in Asia). I asked one admin to delete the article and restore (a "dummy delete"), but it was rejected. Any thoughts? P31?P40? (talk) 07:52, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Articles must be mark as reviewed by a new pages reviewer before they show up on search engine indexes. Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:59, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, Galobtter. I did not know that. P31?P40? (talk) 09:00, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Problematic CSS code in a user's common.css file on the Test Wiki

User:0-pigeon on the Test Wiki messaged me a few hours ago asking for help. Apparently, they've locked themself out of their account with a CSS code that replaces every element's content with <a href="#sidebar">🌑</a>. I'm unsure about their desired outcome doing this. I can think of a few ways to help them out; since I'm editing using my phone, the easiest one seems to have an interface administrator clear up their common.css file. Any help is appreciated. —RainFall 16:31, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

@RainFall: They can use safemode - 0-pigeon, go to https://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:0-pigeon/common.css?action=edit&safemode=1 and you should be able to edit the page to remove the code DannyS712 (talk) 16:40, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
That's certainly a good idea. They might not be able to see your ping's notification if they exclusively use the Test Wiki, though. —RainFall 16:54, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm an intadmin on testwiki and blanked it for them. — xaosflux Talk 17:05, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Formatting of fonts in wikitable (colspan)

Dear experts, I have prepared a wikitable with 8 columns, preceded by a colspan="8" to have a heading spanning all 8 columns. That's OK; it's what I want.

I also want to make a remark at the bottom of the table (but not external to it) explaining a few entries in the columns that I have asterisked. If I specify a colspan="8" to have a cell spanning all 8 columns for that purpose, the cell is filled with darkish grey and the font is bold.

Is there any way I can achieve an un-shaded fill and non-bold font in that situation? Cheers, SCHolar44 (talk) 00:02, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Always link to the page you are using as a test, like your sandbox, so that we can help you directly. One nice thing about wikis is that we can explain an answer to you by showing you how to do it, not just telling you. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:46, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Yes, what you want should be the default so it sounds like you are doing something wrong but how are we supposed to tell when you keep your code secret? Maybe you start the row with ! instead of |. PrimeHunter (talk) 07:10, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Thank you very much, Jonesey95, for your kind comment (I had not known that was expected), and PrimeHunter for yet another solution! (It worked.) Cheers, SCHolar44 (talk) 12:46, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Adam Gilchrist

For some reason, Adam Gilchrist is showing as "too technical" and "needing expert attention", but I can't for the life of me find {{technical}} or {{expert}} templates being used anywhere in the article. What is causing this? Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 04:00, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

It's using {{jargon-inline}}, which redirects to one of the technical templates. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:08, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
I've been bold and removed it, seeing as the "technical" term is linked to and fully explained in the standalone article. Thanks for spotting that TPH. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 08:04, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

mw.notify(): Help needed

Hi all, I've been using mw.notify() as I thought it might be useful to display notifications in scripts I've written. Unfortunately, the notifications only seem to fire after the script has executed. Here's an example snippet: 

mw.notify("The script has just started.");

for(var i = 0; i < 1000000000; i++){}

mw.notify("The script has just finished.");

Both notifications appear at the very same time. Also, here's something else I've tried: 

mw.loader.using("mediawiki.notify").then(function()
{
    mw.notify("The script has just started.").then(function()
    {
        for(var i = 0; i < 1000000000; i++){}	
    });
			
    mw.notify("The script has just finished.");
});

Same result. Any help would be appreciated! GUYWAN ( t · c ) 13:03, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Hey, Guywan. I think your problem is that an empty for loop is not a good way of implementing a time delay. Instead, try using window.setTimeout; if you perform the following:
mw.notify("start"); 
window.setTimeout(function(){mw.notify("end")}, 3000);
...you'll find that the notifies are correctly spaced three seconds apart. HTH, Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 13:22, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
(Unwanted commentary) Loops are terrible at this because race condition is inherently a feature (?) in every language. Languages try to do away with this with synchronized alternatives but those would be slower for most other usecases, hence not desirable. --qedk (t 桜 c) 13:30, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
@Writ Keeper: Thank you for your help. The notifications appear to execute properly when there is a short delay between notification and code. However, a delay is not desirable. Is there any way to run mw.notify() synchronously? (here's my script, if interested)
@QEDK: I do not understand your commentary, but it is certainly wanted and welcome. GUYWAN ( t · c ) 14:54, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
@Guywan: You can read race condition to know more about this. The point is that tasks on the same thread tend to race to the finish line so you should expect your loop to act as a deterrent to that but there's no guarantee that it will behave that way, in this case, causing the other functions to finish first instead. To tackle this, we have "synchronized" methods which require a lock on certain objects (this concept is called monitors) and have the process go only in the order it is supposed to. The obvious drawback of these special type of objects is that they are inherently slower, since they have to wait and a blocking task may block the process from going to the next part of the pipeline. --qedk (t 桜 c) 15:33, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
I suspect the more likely cause is that the loop was optimized away since it is entirely empty. --Izno (talk) 15:40, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
I know gcc/clang/javac compilers would definitely do away with an empty loop, but I'm not a JS guru. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ --qedk (t 桜 c) 15:54, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
@QEDK: Thanks! I perused the source code and found this:
if ( isPageReady ) {
    notif.start();
} else {
    preReadyNotifQueue.push( notif );
}
It seems possible that while a script is executing, the document is not ready, and hence notifs will not start. This may explain why a short 'pause' allows the notif to start.
@Izno: An interesting point. However, I populated the loop with 'useful' code, but the notifications still popup at the same time. This optimizer is one tough cookie :D
Regards, GUYWAN ( t · c ) 18:12, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
That does seem to be the culprit tbh. @TheDJ and Anomie: these code-wranglers might be able to tell you more. --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:20, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
If an empty for-loop is being optimised right out of the picture, try making it non-empty by simply moving the increment operation inside it: 
for(var i = 0; i < 1000000000; ){i++}
In a for(...;...;...) none of the three arguments are required. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:13, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Template:Calendar

Considering the above template, can anybody provide any further assistance with this issue? Thanks in advance. Greetings--Hildeoc (talk) 20:20, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

You asked that question again a fortnight later. You did not respond to the reply that you got. Why? Why have you not asked your question at the template's talk page as was suggested in the helpdesk posting that you linked?
—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:45, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
@Trappist the monk: I'm sorry – you're definitely right. I just thought I wouldn't get an answer if I asked on the template talk. But now I'll try in a sec. Best wishes--Hildeoc (talk) 21:39, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
Now done.--Hildeoc (talk) 21:42, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Talk pages bolded in diff view

When viewing diffs using the default viewer (e.g. [31]), the "talk" link now appears in bold – will there be a way to toggle this (or will this now be a new default behavior)? Mélencron (talk) 19:02, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

This seems to be caused by Twinkle, if I disable it the link is no longer bold. the wub "?!" 19:49, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
I've asked over at Wikipedia_talk:Twinkle#Bold_talk_links_on_diff_pages? if this is intentional or a bug. the wub "?!" 19:53, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
Yes, this is from Twinkle and it was intentional, although perhaps not desirable? User talk links on diffs will now include a parameter to fill in the article should you wish to issue the user a warning, similar to what Twinkle has done for years with the success page after the built-in mediawiki rollback. The intent was to signify some level of difference for those links for users reverting/rollbacking edits. It can, of course, be unbolded if folks find it unhelpful. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:12, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
I do a lot of browsing in diff mode from watchlist--I think the bold is overkill for my use case. --Izno (talk) 20:23, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
I concur with Izno. I would prefer if it remains unbolded even though I like the new functionality and thank those who worked on it.. – Ammarpad (talk) 04:25, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
+1, I'd also rather not have it bolded. Twinkle already adds a lot of coloring and brightening to diffs, and yet another bolding seems to be a bit of an overkill. — Mike Novikoff 08:05, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
I'd rather not have it bolded, as because of my copyright cleanup work I appreciate being able to tell at a glance whose talk page I have visited before, to speed up my work. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 21:51, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Is there some way I can shut off the bolding? It's getting in the way of my work. Thanks, — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 14:08, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
Update: Here is the code to shut if off: Add a.mw-usertoollinks-talk { font-weight: normal !important; } to your common.css. Thanks to SD0001 for this patch — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 15:44, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
Pretty resoundingly undesired, so I've turned it off. Thanks for feedback, folks! ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:42, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Twinkle user warning dialog

Some changes were made to Twinkle yesterday. Does anyone else find the user warning dialog to be unintuitive? For some reason, items are listed by the template name.- MrX 🖋 13:05, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

The only thing that's changed (with respect to your thread) is the addition of a search dialog, which is good! Items were already ordered in alphabetical manner, by template name. --qedk (t 桜 c) 09:50, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Detect calling template

Say I have sub-template X, that is used in templates A and B. Is there any way I can code X so that it can detect whether it's being called by A or by B? - X201 (talk) 13:44, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

If X is a Lua module, you can use frame:getParent():getTitle(). Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:50, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
Unfortunately it's not LUA. But useful to know it can be done in LUA if needed. - X201 (talk) 14:06, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
A and B can pass a keyword to X to identify themselves:
from A: {{X|_tid=A|...}}
from B: {{X|_tid=B|...}}
in X: {{#ifeq:{{{_tid|}}}|A|...}} etc.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:22, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for that. - X201 (talk) 18:33, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-24

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

  • When you create a PDF from a page on the wiki this is now done by Proton. Before this we used Electron. It should look the same but work better. Both use Chromium. This is a different system from when you collect several articles into a book and make a PDF from them. [32][33]
  • The Flagged Revisions extension now uses the standard OOUI icons. There will be additional minor fixes for positioning in the next deployment. [34]
  • Advanced item Bots and other scripts that do not set an identifiable User-Agent may find their requests strictly rate-limited until they identify themselves properly. [35]

Problems

  • Please check if the Flagged Revisions configuration on your wiki is as you expect (or as it was a few weeks ago). If not, please report it. [36]

Changes later this week

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 12 June at 15:00 (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.

17:06, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Issue - Edit summary, smaller popups

Greetings, I noticed today that when filling in Edit summary the "remembered" popups are now a much smaller size. Visually, more difficult to read. Is it possible to "Undo" this change? Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 13:25, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@JoeHebda: That's a browser thing, certainly. Nothing to do with Wikipedia. Regards, GUYWAN ( t · c ) 16:19, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
@Guywan: Sometime between late Saturday and this morning the change "happened" with no browser update on my laptop. Wondering if there is a Vector CSS that I can do to override? To make larger size. JoeHebda (talk) 17:17, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
JoeHebda, What browser are you using? Since the dropdown is provided by the browser, it cannot be modified by user css. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:34, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
Galobtter - Using a Chrome-based browser (Viasat, Version 74.0.3729.23547). Laptop is Win7 Pro, 64-bit OS if that makes a diff. JoeHebda (talk) 17:42, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Page permanently stuck and unreadable after a move.

Can anyone help? Earlier today, Megalibrarygirl userfied Chyanne Dennis but accidentally moved it to User:Hmlarson_/Chyanne Dennis instead of the intended target, User:Hmlarson/Chyanne Dennis. Now, attempting to view the page brings up: 

MediaWiki internal error.

Original exception: [XP6fwwpAICwAAGatqbAAAAAT] 2019-06-10 18:21:55: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Assert\ParameterAssertionException"

Exception caught inside exception handler.

Set $wgShowExceptionDetails = true; at the bottom of LocalSettings.php to show detailed debugging information.

There doesn't seem to be any way of accessing the page or moving it back, and going to the original article has no history, because that got moved across. Are we up the tata without a tutu? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:23, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

I've moved it. Is that OK? No idea what happened there. -- zzuuzz (talk) 18:32, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
@Ritchie333: Very interesting. This seems to be caused by _/ ("_" is a URL space.) Try User:Example /Sub for example. GUYWAN ( t · c ) 18:35, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
Only seems to affect the User namespace. GUYWAN ( t · c ) 19:00, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
@Ritchie333, Guywan, and Zzuuzz: Thank you so much! I'm good at finding bugs. :P Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:07, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
So how come zzuuzz managed to move it? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:20, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
Skillz. No seriously, it looked fine, and it moved fine. I didn't try anything unusual (for me). I did wonder for a moment when moving the page if there was some weird unicode character mixed in to the old title (in front of the H), but I'm not convinced. -- zzuuzz (talk) 19:38, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
phab:T200055 looks related. Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:30, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
I've created User:Galobtter_/sandbox4 by moving User:Galobtter/sandbox4 (and back by directly using Special:MovePage/User:Galobtter_/sandbox4), which interestingly works as a redirect but not when "?redirect=no" is set. Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:33, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Washington (state)

Hi there. The portal to the US state of Washington seems a bit wonky. I see that User:UnitedStatesian changed the portal name, but link on the city articles in the US state lead to Portal:Washington. When I changed the name of the link to the state portal, it looked weird. Thanks! Magnolia677 (talk) 20:01, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Which pages are these? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:32, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
I think it is every page that uses {{portal}} or {{Portal-inline}} to call Portal:Washington instead of Portal:Washington (state); Olympia, Washington is an example. Guess I need to install JWB this week to fix it. UnitedStatesian (talk) 00:34, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
@Magnolia677: Weird how? Do you not want the (state) disambiguator in the portal link? GUYWAN ( t · c ) 16:48, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
@Guywan: This would be confusing to readers. When a reader is at Olympia, Washington and they are given an option to view a portal, they obviously want the portal for Washington state, not the city 2000 miles away that shares the same name. At Gibson, Georgia the portal leads to Portal:Georgia (U.S. state), not to Portal:Georgia (country). Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 20:47, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
@Magnolia677: I'm not sure if that's a yes or a no. Does replacing {{Portal|Washington}} with {{Portal|Washington (state)}} or {{Portal|State of Washington}} not satisfy you? GUYWAN ( t · c ) 21:46, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
@Guywan: "I'm not sure if that's a yes or a no".
  • It's a no.
Regarding the portals:

Truncation of watchlist on mobile

The "List" tab on mobile shows only articles. Other page types are not shown. I have to switch to desktop view to see them. Jmar67 (talk) 06:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

It's also limited to mainspace at Commons where mw:Manual:$wgContentNamespaces includes files. That means https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:EditWatchlist only shows gallery pages and not files. If you don't watch any galleries then it says "You are not currently watching any pages." PrimeHunter (talk) 07:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
I found phab:T220678: On mobile view of Wikimedia Commons, uploaded files are not listed on watchlist as "Pages". It's apparently the same for all wikis. The title only mentions a request to include files in "Pages" under the "Modified" button. Maybe that's why there is no response in two months. The limited "List" button is mentioned in the description. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Multiple DISPLAYTITLEs on a page

Pls see ISmart Shankar. The {{Infobox film}} causes title to render in italics. But it is also desired that first letter should be in lowercase. Adding {{DISPLAYTITLE:<i>iSmart Shankar<i>}} anywhere on the page after infobox film (otherwise it gets overridden) does the trick. But it leaves behind an ugly red warning message on the page about the overriding DISPLAYTITLEs. Any way to suppress that? SD0001 (talk) 10:37, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Is it right now? I think |italic title=no in the infobox was the trick, then {{DISPLAYTITLE:<i>iSmart Shankar<i>}} seems to work ok at the top. -- Begoon 10:49, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
@SD0001 and Begoon: Why do people keep asking this when the answer is right there to be seen? Specifically, in the documentation for {{Infobox film}}, there is a box beginning "This infobox should italicize the article title automatically". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:24, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
Redrose64, I don't understand your point. The OP knew that - he said "the {{Infobox film}} causes title to render in italics." - but it uses DISPLAYTITLE to accomplish that, and when the OP tried to also use DISPLAYTITLE to have a lowercase initial 'i', there was a 'clash' of two DISPLAYTITLEs and the software threw an error. The only thing the OP could have found out "right there in the documentation" was that the thing to do here was to use |italic title=no to turn off the behaviour, and it's not unreasonable that they missed that, or, indeed, failed to consider it as a somewhat counter-intuitive 'workaround' solution - since turning off italic display wasn't their intention. I genuinely don't see the need for your exasperation. -- Begoon 22:31, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
If Infobox film wants to mess with the display title, it should include more parameters for formatting it. — xaosflux Talk 22:34, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
I don't disagree with that, but glancing at the source I think it might be the underlying Infobox template/module that actually makes the italic title when Infobox film requests it - maybe it doesn't actually use {{DISPLAYTITLE}} or the magic word per se, but whatever it does clashes with subsequent use of it and throws the ugly red error/warning the OP describes (even though it still "works" in the sense that the displayed title is changed) - I've seen it cause confusion before, which was the only reason I knew about |italic title=no to disable the behaviour, without trawling the doc pages. -- Begoon 22:40, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Begoon for sorting it out. I feel that such warnings should only be shown on preview, as readers clearly shouldn't be worried by it. Someone should file a phab ticket on this. SD0001 (talk) 05:33, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
Well, not everybody previews (they should, but they don't), and on this occasion the 'warning' was annoying because the intended result was obtained, so it seemed spurious. That doesn't mean that sometimes, in another situation, the 'warning' isn't potentially invoked because the rendering has failed to work as intended. I agree it's annoying and messy, though - perhaps, as Xaosflux suggests there are ways to improve the template in this respect - one that springs to mind is some sort of 'DISPLAYTITLE override' parameter, where you can just plug in whatever you want the infobox to do to the title rather than its default of solely italicising - but even that would rely on users knowing that the option existed, and might, I guess, 'encourage' some 'unfortunate looking experiments' with titles - which could, I suppose, be a good argument against doing it that way... Since the use-case here - having a lowercase initial character - is actually the most common reason I can think of to 'override' the current simple italic behaviour, maybe just providing a parameter for that would solve most 'issues'? -- Begoon 05:42, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
The warning is made by MediaWiki:Duplicate-displaytitle. I have added [37] a help link and mentioned [38] the probably most common solution there: "Many infoboxes have the option |italic title = no or |italic_title = no to omit an automatic display title." The reported example was [39]. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:38, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
Just as an amusing postscript, several days after this issue had been 'fixed' by adding |italic title=no to {{Infobox film}}, it was 'broken' again when someone added {{Infobox album}} as a second infobox, for the soundtrack. This needed an additional |italic_title=no (with the underscore) in the second infobox to 'fix' which I spotted on my watchlist, but only a day later, despite the 'enhanced' warning and several intervening edits... -- Begoon 10:12, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
MediaWiki:Duplicate-displaytitle adds Category:Pages with DISPLAYTITLE conflicts. It has no articles currently so I guess somebody is checking the category periodically and fixing articles. It gets at least one page view every few days.[40] PrimeHunter (talk) 09:10, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

PetScan down

PetScan is currently reporting "502 Bad Gateway". The issue has been reported at https://bitbucket.org/magnusmanske/petscan/issues/154/website-is-down but I'm not convinced a service problem will get prompt attention there. Can anyone watching here help? William Avery (talk) 09:08, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

It's working OK again now. William Avery (talk) 10:53, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Global links to website

Hi Village Pump,

I'm hoping you can help me. Last year I contacted an outside company (with help from WP:LIBRARY), to give me access to their paywalled site https://www.azbilliards.com. They were great about it. I wanted to feed back to the owner on the amount of links that I have used this resource for in this time. Is this possible? I can give a ballpark value by seeing how many times I have used the {{AZB}} template (which generates an external link), but I'd also like to see how many times the website has been linked by myself in references (and overall on wikipedia in the timescale). Is it possible to run a search for the amount of times a website has been linked on wikipedia A. By a user, and B. in a certain timescale?

It's an odd request, but I'd really like to feed back and show that the continued support of the project is indeed providing extra links for the website. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:15, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Special:LinkSearch/https://www.azbilliards.com/ shows all current links from one wiki. See Help:Linksearch. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:15, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
Special:Search/insource:"azbilliards" and/or Special:Search/insource:"azbilliards" insource:/azbilliards\.com/ is generally superior as it doesn't care about the scheme of the URL. Neither method will say when it was added. The way you'd get historical is for someone to download a dump of the articles from around the time you started, do the same search, and then just subtract. --Izno (talk) 13:05, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
That said, maybe User:Whatamidoing (WMF) has an answer or can poke the person who does, since I know that WMF has been working on this kind of problem for GLAM. --Izno (talk) 13:11, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll report back to the owner. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:37, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

AFD GNews search template broken link.

MacOS. The link in the AFD template to a google news search returns a google news search of "PageName" - wikipedia, instead of actually functioning problem. I'm unable to troubleshoot rn, but it was at least on AFD/Karen Davis (singer) from June 11th AFD, while 2 AFDs I checked from today function quite fine. Very confusing to me as to why its one one AFD and not 5 others. Thanks,L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 04:30, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

@L3X1: the nomination was malformed, and it wasn't properly fixed -  Done --DannyS712 (talk) 04:33, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks DannyS712 Thanks,L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 04:34, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

What determines the 'suggested languages' in the interwiki links?

On the interlanguage links in the sidebar, I have mine personally set to display all of the languages. When I am logged out, however, most of the links are collapsed, and when I click the "more" button, there are two (and only two) "suggested" languages at the top, the two are always the same, regardless of the subject of the article in question, it displays the same way on several PCs/browsers I have tested, why is this the case? - CHAMPION (talk) (contributions) (logs) 10:14, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The collapsed interlanguage links are controlled by an extension named "Universial Language Selector". The list of languages are not based on the subject, but both your language and the language of the wiki, which is expanded further into other languages users of said interface language are likely to know. If those are less than 7, then the largest languages (in terms of speakers) are added as well.
Specifically, those languages which users are likely to know are based on the language fallback list, which is a list of languages which are used if translations of wikipedia's software are not available in that language. By your language I mean your babel box on your user page and the interface language of your browser.--Snaevar (talk) 11:27, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
Your geolocation is also factored. I don't think user babel box affect the result in anyway. – Ammarpad (talk) 11:43, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
This may be mw:Universal Language Selector/Compact Language Links#How do you decide which languages are shown to me in the initial compact list?. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:03, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
I am not talking about the initial list, but rather the "suggested" languages after you click the more button. - CHAMPION (talk) (contributions) (logs) 01:15, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
This is probably it, as it does say it can be inaccurate in some cases, that probably makes sense. - CHAMPION (talk) (contributions) (logs) 01:25, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Perhaps mw:Universal Language Selector/Compact Language Links#How can I select which languages are shown to me?. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 06:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Problem with watchlist display

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T225727
The missing elements are left of the time-display.

A few minutes back I started experiencing a problem with my watchlist (desktop version): some elements, such as (diff|hist) etc are suddenly missing; the fonts of some some other elements also appear to have changed. Two quick questions for now:

  • Is anyone experiencing anything similar?
  • Is there an easy way for me to temporarily disable all gadgets and scripts to check if the problem is being caused by changes to any of those? I haven't added/removed any user script recently.

I'll post screenshots if I'm unable to resolve this soon. Abecedare (talk) 00:37, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I experience the issue on both Firefox and Chrome, and even after disabling all the watchlist related gadgets. Abecedare (talk) 01:06, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
@Abecedare: please try the watchlist in safemode and see if it is the same? — xaosflux Talk 01:08, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
If it does, try disabling some of your user scripts from User:Abecedare/common.js and see if you can find the cause. — xaosflux Talk 01:10, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Tried both. Problem persists. Abecedare (talk) 01:15, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
AFK for an hour. Will be able to try out any further suggestions after that. Thanks. Abecedare (talk) 01:20, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm having the same issue on Chrome/macOS.- MrX 🖋 01:41, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
@MrX: try monobook safemode: here just to see if it is skin-specific. — xaosflux Talk 02:02, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Yes, same problem with that skin.- MrX 🖋 02:26, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Default watchlist appearance?
For me too, on Windows 10, the problem persists with Monobook+safemode+all custom scripts disabled.
Can somebody confirm that the default ordering of fields in the watchlist is as follows? (see 'default' screenshot)
BulletPoint (diff|hist) .. EditTypeAbbr PageName Time ..(BytesChanged)..UserName(EditSummary)
In contrast, for inexplicable reasons, the ordering I now see is:
BulletPoint EditTypeAbbr Time PageName (diff|hist) ..(BytesChanged)..UserName(EditSummary)
I can learn to work with this but would prefer to go back to "normal", without the reordering and odd spacing. Also if it helps: I don't use any custom CSS'es. Page history pages appear fine. My watchlist on Commons appears fine. Abecedare (talk) 02:45, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
  • In your preferences, is it all messed up still if you pick "Use non-JavaScript interface"? — xaosflux Talk 02:55, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Yes.- MrX 🖋 02:58, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Ditto. Abecedare (talk) 02:59, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
MrX I manged to resolve the problem by unchecking "Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist" at Preferences->Recent Changes. I got the idea from this 2012 helppage and fwiw, I don't recall checking the "Group changes" preference in the first place. Can you see if this works for you too? Abecedare (talk) 03:13, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Abecedare, yes that resolved it for me as well. Thank you for finding the solution. I don't remember selecting that option, but I can't be sure I didn't sometime in the distant past. - MrX 🖋 12:03, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Great. Considering this broadly resolved (the finer issues can continue to be discussed at phabricator). Thanks Xaosflux, for your time and help! Abecedare (talk) 20:14, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Counting links?

Is there a way to count how many pages link to a certain page? I can use Special:WhatLinksHere to find all the links, but not obvious way to count them other than grovelling over the full list. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

XTools' articleinfo has this information (e.g., Macbeth has 4195 incoming), although if that's all you want or you want to check multiple pages quickly, the API (docs) are probably a simple way to go (e.g., Macbeth). ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:24, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Search can also do this; see Special:Search/linksto:"World of Warcraft". --Izno (talk) 22:32, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
And perhaps something more interesting, Special:Search/linksto:"World of Warcraft" -hastemplate:"Warcraft universe". --Izno (talk) 22:34, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

OK, that's a start, thanks. Is there some way to access that inside of a page? I looked at the list of magic words, and didn't see anything. How, for example, is "This template is used on approximately 390,000 pages." generated? I assume there's some Lua magic behind that? -- RoySmith (talk) 22:12, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

No, those are manually updated. There's talk of a bot here or there to update those, but that's hard wikitext based on one of the above methods, not magic. --Izno (talk) 00:00, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Blocking an editor from a range of articles

I recall that a wishlist item in a recent-ish survey was the ability to block a user from editing a set of articles in a given category, instead of protecting all those articles. For example, an editor could be restricted from editing all the articles in say Category:1950 films. Did this ever get implented, or did I dream it all?! Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 08:31, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

I think it's on the way of being implemented, but not active on enwiki yet. Certainly I can't see any special input boxes on Special:Block/Lugnuts yet (sorry, that was the first page available) Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:42, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
Development of blocking by category has been put on hold for now but blocking from specific pages has been deployed on dozen projects already. For enwiki, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Partial blocks has not been formally started yet. – Ammarpad (talk) 10:35, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
Thank you both. I knew I'd seen something about it, but wasn't sure if it had yet gone live. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 12:01, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

User:Mxn/CommentsInLocalTime

Resolved

Cross-posting this from User talk:mxn#User:Mxn/CommentsInLocalTime since I haven't heard back. Maybe someone here can help.

I happened to come across this, and I love it. I'm just wondering if there are some further customization things I can do.

  • Instead of "Last [Day]", is it possible to just have "[Day]"? So instead of Last Wednesday at 10:00 PM, just Wednesday at 10:00 PM.
  • Change the date format to have the month come before the day: May 29, 2019 at 10:00 PM instead of 29 May 2019 at 10:00 PM  Resolved
  • Completely disable the hover tooltip

Thanks in advance for your time. Add: Here is my page, for reference: User:Amaury/common.js. Amaury • 04:44, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Amaury (✉) 16:21, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Without "Last": you probably can change that through one of these: moment().calendar(referenceTime, formats), moment.updateLocale/moment.locale/[41] or moment.calendarFormat
Disable tooltips - assign to tooltipFormats value of null (or empty string '') (tooltipFormats: null), or remove tooltipFormats from configuration entirely (insert delete window.LocalComments.tooltipFormats before window.LocalComments = $.extend(window.LocalComments,... line). It may produce an empty tooltip though (tooltip is inserted as title attribute in <time> tag). MarMi wiki (talk) 19:57, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
@MarMi wiki: tooltipFormats: null removes the tooltip, but still leaves the dotted underline with the question mark when hovering over it. Any way to remove that? As for removing the "last," I am not understanding what I need or what to do. Amaury (✉) 02:30, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
@Amaury: It's like that:
//this can be moved before importScript
window.LocalComments = $.extend(window.LocalComments, {
	formats: {
		day: function (then) { return then.calendar(); },
		week: function (then) { return then.calendar(); },
		other: "MMMM D, YYYY [at] h:mm A",
	},
	tooltipFormats: null
});

//load moment
$.when(mw.loader.using('moment')).then( function(){
 moment.updateLocale('en', {
	calendar : {
     lastWeek: 'dddd'
 	}
 });
 
 //load script - it must run (not necessarily, see note below) after moment.updateLocale
 importScript( 'User:Mxn/CommentsInLocalTime.js' ); // Backlink: [[User:Mxn/CommentsInLocalTime.js]]
 //in case importScript fail (in tests I was using loader) 
 //mw.loader.load( '//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mxn/CommentsInLocalTime.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript' );
 //if script is loaded before moment.updateLocale, you probably could re-initialize (update) the output by manually calling the two methods which script runs after loading moment (code in loader at the bottom in CommentsInLocalTime.js) - but this may duplicate the timestamps.
})

//set text-decoration and cursor to initial values
$.when(mw.loader.using('mediawiki.util')).then( function(){
 //you can place the css (between '') in your <s>custom</s> common.css instead here
 mw.util.addCSS('time.localcomments.explain[title] {text-decoration: initial;cursor: initial;}')
})
@MarMi wiki: Thanks, but mxn has responded and provided a much simpler solution to that on their talk page. Amaury (✉) 01:15, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

A-Z

In my coding I have a navigator at the top of articles to enable me to browse articles alphabetically. However it no longer seems to work fully, if I browse two or three pages the next article link doesn't appear. Can somebody help fix it so it works and two links appear at the top left and right of every page?♦ Dr. Blofeld 07:14, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Presumably this is some kind of gadget or other script. Which one? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:19, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
I assume he's referring to User:PleaseStand/prevnext.js. That script hasn't been changed in five years, and the attached stylesheet in six years, so I assume it's been broken by either an update to Dr. Blofeld's browser, or an update to Wikipedia's API. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:26, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Yes that's right, for some reason it's not showing after I browse a few pages. Used to fine of course.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:59, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Signature forcing black text

Please can someone help User:QEDK fix his signature as it appears in Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#User:WMFOffice_-_Ban_Proposal and in User_talk:QEDK#Problem_with_your_sig_on_AN? It's forcing the following text to appear in a black font, which is invisible to users of the green-on-black gadget. Thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 10:46, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

The code for my signature is <span style="font-family:'Trebuchet MS',Geneva,sans-serif">[[User:QEDK|<font color="#000000">qedk<font>]] ([[User talk:QEDK|<font color="#000000">t</font>]] 桜 [[Special:Contributions/QEDK|<font color="#000000">c</font>]])</span><span style="font-family:'Trebuchet MS',Geneva,sans-serif">[[User:QEDK|<span style="color:black">qedk</span>]] ([[User talk:QEDK|<span style="color:black">t</span>]] 桜 [[Special:Contributions/QEDK|<span style="color:black">c</span>]])</span>. From what I can tell, it is definitely a drawback of the tool itself but if there is no resolution for the people using the gadget, anyone is feel free to roll back my signature to the old version. --qedk (t 桜 c) 10:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
See WP:SIGFONT. DuncanHill (talk) 10:58, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
@DuncanHill: Can you confirm the above signature works fine for you? --qedk (t 桜 c) 11:02, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
I can now read what follows your first signature in this thread, which I could not do before. DuncanHill (talk) 11:04, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Sidenote: that gadget probably need some adjustment for 2017 wikitext editor (Preferences - Beta), example: Wikipedia:Signature_tutorial#Real-life_examples, try editing Real-life_examples section. With that gadget on, parts of text is hidden (black text on black background, even highlighted text is still invisible). MarMi wiki (talk) 11:13, 12 June 2019 (UTC) Scratch that - it's a syntax highlighter fault. MarMi wiki (talk) 11:22, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

  • @QEDK: You still have not fixed either AN or your talk page. DuncanHill (talk) 11:23, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
I've fixed AN for you, by copying and pasting the version of your sig above over the version in the thread. DuncanHill (talk) 11:33, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks DuncanHill, I had to go out for an eye check-up and didn't have time to fix it. --qedk (t 桜 c) 11:52, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
That's OK - I found one more which I also fixed. I see you've fixed it on your talk page, thank you. I hope the check up went well. DuncanHill (talk) 11:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Another 0.25 increase, which falls in the range of not-so-good, not-terrible news. Rest was fine fortunately, thanks for asking. --qedk (t 桜 c) 15:22, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Whenever somebody updates their signature, it would be nice to have some sort of maintenance tool that ran every, say, 24 hours and updated all previous signatures to match the new change. That way, if there were any situations like this, people wouldn't have to remember to update problematic previous signatures manually. Amaury 14:15, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Sounds nice theoretically , but [a] some users have hundreds of thousands of contributions - not all to "talk" of course, but still quite the overhead. [b] What if the change has an adverse effect on page content, such as an open tag rendering all subsequent page content bright pink or bold or gigantic etc... [c] The custom signature might contain contemporaneous content, such as a name/nickname change or a previously non-existent link that would simply be wrong/misleading if applied retrospectively. (etc...) -- Begoon 09:58, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
A manual tool/script would work great tho. --qedk (t 桜 c) 10:02, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
I suppose so - it would definitely need a bot flag because you're not going to make many friends lighting up thousands of watchlists to change a signature. I'm pretty sure, also, there have been objections to people doing this with, say, AWB - and you'd probably get similar objections to mass edits some would view as "pointless". If it's to fix an error that has a negative impact, as above, that would probably be viewed as ok, but I doubt purely 'cosmetic' alterations would be popular with some. -- Begoon 10:06, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
I would hate to think that each time I change my sig, some poor subroutine has to wade through the project to fix something that doesn't need fixing. Roxy, the dog. wooF 10:16, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
On lots of discussion forums (not all), when you view old posts you will see people's 'current' signature/avatar. This, though, is because that software doesn't save the rendered content with the post(s) like Mediawiki does, but generates it 'on the fly' each time. This comes with its own peculiarities though, such as viewing old posts with content like "that cat in your avatar is pretty" when the avatar has, by now, been updated to be a picture of "Judge Dredd", or the old post discusses signature content that has since been altered... -- Begoon 10:32, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Unless ofcourse, it does... --qedk (t 桜 c) 10:42, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
We already have bots (such as WOSlinkerBot (talk · contribs)) that are authorised to fix signatures with problematic markup, mainly concerning missing or misplaced closing tags - for instance, if instead of this: 
[[User:Redrose64|<span style="color:#a80000; background:#ffeeee; text-decoration:inherit">Red</span>rose64]]
I had used one of these: 
[[User:Redrose64|<span style="color:#a80000; background:#ffeeee; text-decoration:inherit">Redrose64]]
[[User:Redrose64|<span style="color:#a80000; background:#ffeeee; text-decoration:inherit">Redrose64]]</span>
[[User:Redrose64|<span style="color:#a80000; background:#ffeeee; text-decoration:inherit">Red</font>rose64]]
a bot could swoop in and fix it up. Apart from that, and other changes in accordance with WP:SIGCLEAN, existing signatures should be left alone. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:49, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Category move/re-name

I used to be able to carry out uncontroversial category re-naming using the page move feature but I don't seem to able to do this any more. Is this a policy change or a technical issue?--Obi2canibe (talk) 12:23, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Both. Per policy, categories should not be renamed except through CFD, and, as an attempt to enforce that policy, I got consensus to restrict the technical ability to move categories to page movers, admins, and bots. * Pppery * it has begun... 13:04, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
OK, thanks for responding.--Obi2canibe (talk) 14:21, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Highlighting new additions to a page.

I hope I'm not the only one who finds it challenging to keep up with fast-moving pages such as Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram. Take a few hours off to sleep and there are literally hundreds of new posts, some of which are helpfully at the bottom, but others for sensible reasons are interspersed as responses to earlier posts. It's not easy to keep current.

I do know how diffs work, so I can and did look at all changes since my best guess at the last time I looked at the page, but the formatting is less than ideal.

My question is whether there is a way to write a script or propose a change to the underlying software to make it easier to see what has been changed since my last visit. My first thought is that all new material could have a highlighted background and soft gray or yellow. As I read the new material, I could either mouse over it which would change the background to default (probably too difficult), or after reading the entire page, click the box that says this is now current and it would change the default.

While one usage for this would be for fast-moving pages such as the one identified, I can think of other uses. Because of my involvement in copyright issues I'm often removing material made by a very new editor, who might come to my talk page and ask a question. In many such cases, they don't know our protocol and drop a note at the top of my talk page. While I do get a ping to know that someone has responded, , I automatically look at the bottom of the page and seeing nothing new, presume that it's an old pain and I've already seen the relevant material. Occasionally, I stumble onto it days later. If it had a distinctive highlight, I'd be less apt to miss it.

This probably belongs in ideas if it's sensible and requires more discussion but I'm posting here on the chance there's a way to do it now and I just don't know how to accomplish it.S Philbrick(Talk) 15:20, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

It might also be simple and useful to allow users to expand their Page History display beyond the last 50 revisions. I've been using History to keep up with the updates on that page when I'm on, but if I take a break for an hour to walk the dog and water the plants, I now have a full screen of "updated since your last visit" revisions on the History display and can't just do a collective diff to the last visit. Alternatively, a one-click option to display such a collective diff of all updates since the last time an editor visited a page might not go wrong, as it would have a similar effect. (While I admit that the "difference between revisions" raw wikitext display isn't the easiest to read, it at least allows one to fairly quickly see what's changed, so...) rdfox 76 (talk) 16:22, 12 June 2019 (UTC)Stricken as moot rdfox 76 (talk) 16:39, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
When viwing page history, you should find, at both top and bottom, a row showing "(newest | oldest) View (newer 50 | older 50) (20 | 50 | 100 | 250 | 500)". Several of those are links; try them. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:27, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Well, that's weird. Could have sworn I didn't see them last time I checked history on WP:FRAM. (I'm familiar with those from the watchlist!) Guess it's another consequence of having been still waking up when I first got on this morning. Stricken! rdfox 76 (talk) 16:39, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
If you don't visit the page, but first go to the page history, does it not say updated since my last visit on the more recent revisions? That's what I do. The information clears when you view the page, so for such pages, I usually just leave a tab open to the page history and refresh that as needed. WP:POPUPS are also helpful in following links to history without first going to the page in question. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:38, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
The issue with the green thing is that you know that something changed but you don't know the something. So, either you see the diffs and then Ctrl+F for the text or you just blindly try to find where it was added. The issue is problematic on very long pages where a few words might match a lot of texts and require you to substantially copy over part of the diff and require you to go through maybe one or several diffs to see what changed. Sphilbrick basically wants to see what was added in the page itself, to identify what and where it was added, and I agree, this would be an amazing tool for long and winded pages (see WP:FRAM). Especially to resolve the edit conflicts on frequently edited pages, the current resolver is plain annoying. --qedk (t 桜 c) 07:50, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Just realized that Sphilbrick was talking about the same page. Ditto! --qedk (t 桜 c) 07:51, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Amorymeltzer, Yes, it does, and that's better than nothing, but not exactly what I was hoping for. S Philbrick(Talk) 19:21, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
Not sure if you are aware of it, but there is a beta feature that enables a "Visual" mode versus the standard "Wikitext" mode for viewing differences between two versions. It doesn't always do a great job with large diffs, and sometimes it just hangs (typically again with large diffs, but sometimes with just a few edits, too). To enable it, go to your preferences, select "Beta features", and check "Visual differences". You will then be able to switch back and forth between visual and wikitext mode when viewing a diff. isaacl (talk) 15:41, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Attach floating navbar outside of table?

Is it possible to attach a flaoting navbar outside of a table, but so that it aligns with the right hand side of the table? Take a look at my sandbox to see, what I'm trying to achieve. Thanks. Wikiinger (talk) 18:34, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

If you add it as a header, people with the sticky header gadget can see it. I believe position: sticky is what's needed in any element like that, and probably (!) can be achieved with the help of TemplateStyles and/or a change in local .css. --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:42, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
Actually, I want to have it below the table (forgot to mention). So I think the header is not an option (I might take it as a last resort). Also this is supposed to go on a "real" template, so a change in local .css is not an option either. Wikiinger (talk) 19:03, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
Make a template wrapper for the table and use WP:TemplateStyles. --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:19, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Freeze Headers in Long lists

Apologies if I'm asking a perennial (I feel I can't be the first), but I couldn't find it in my keyword search

In long lists (ones longer than the height of a normal screen), could the headers be frozen (like the top line in an Excel sheet can be), as it can involve a lot of flicking up and down to remember exactly which column is which?

Cheers,

Nosebagbear (talk) 09:53, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

There's a gadget for this but it only works on some select browsers. You can see that in Preferences → Gadgets under "Testing and development." – Ammarpad (talk) 10:26, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
That's for tables, I'm not too sure what headers of long lists means? Section headers, maybe? --qedk (t 桜 c) 10:44, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Lists don't have headers. The (abandoned) proposed HTML 3.0 spec would have provided the LH element, but that was omitted from the HTML 3.2 spec and has not resurfaced since. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:09, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
@Redrose64: The correct HTML element in HTML 5 for a "list header" is <figcaption> paired with <figure> plus the list itself of course, but neither are supported in wikitext as either wikitext or HTML. --Izno (talk) 23:53, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Moving script page

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T225366

Is it not possible to move a script page? Trying to do so gives the error "[XQaN5wpAAD8AADZAmukAAAAU] 2019-06-16 18:43:52: Fatal exception of type "InvalidArgumentException" repeatedly. SD0001 (talk) 18:45, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

If you're trying to move a script page (js/css/json) in your own userspace, it is allowed (I just tried it) but you cannot move MediaWiki-namespace or other user's script pages, since you do not have the right to edit them in the first place. --qedk (t 桜 c) 19:16, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
That is obvious. I got the above error on trying to move within my userspace. Never mind, I c&p-moved it anyway. SD0001 (talk) 20:23, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Your first sentence is a rather mean retort when your original question didn't specify where and the "rules" changed within the last year as to not being able to edit/move scripts outside your own userspace. Glad you were able to sort your problem out. Killiondude (talk) 23:14, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
This is phab:T225366. --Izno (talk) 23:56, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

chem quirks

How to type things like "t-Bu" using the <chem> tag?

According to mhchem, it should be something like $t${-}Bu, using $...$ for italics and {-} to indicate that the hyphen is really a hyphen (instead of a bond).

In the present-day <chem>:

$t${-}Bu produces (very wrong),
\mathit{t}{-}Bu produces (italic t, but {-} still makes a bond),
\mathit{t}\text{-}Bu produces (how?!),
\mathit{t}\text-Bu produces a syntax error.

Is there any reasonable way to get hyphens inside <chem>? The question is not about workarounds for this particular case, but about the general approach that will work in more complex examples, like "[t-Bu]2O" over a reaction arrow inside <chem>. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 03:22, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Have you looked at {{Chem}}? It might work for you. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:58, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
{{Chem}} only helps to make some lower and upper indices, so it is of no use here. Especially for "more complex examples, like '[t-Bu]2O' over a reaction arrow". — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 19:13, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
According to Help:Displaying a formula#Chemistry, <chem>X</chem> is just shorthand for <math chem>\ce{X}</math>. This makes it possible to not have everything in the \ce tag. The next problem is that everything in <math> is in LaTeX math mode, which doesn't have a hyphen, only a minus sign. I played around a little and put together <math chem>t\textrm{-}\ce{Bu}</math>, which produces . Would something like that work for you? --rchard2scout (talk) 22:10, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
Partially, thanks. Now the question is how to make "[t-Bu]2O"? Unmatched ] inside \ce{} produces a TeX parse error. (I've also noticed that <chem>\textrm-</chem> does not fail like <chem>\text-</chem>, but yields . Where does it get these braces?!) — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 22:47, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
@Physikerwelt: Maybe you might have an interest in this discussion (both to advise on deprecated tags and perhaps provide a solution). --Izno (talk) 02:51, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, if nobody here knows more, maybe there is a better place to ask? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 06:05, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Mikhail Ryazanov, You can try WT:CHEM/WT:CHEMICALS maybe? Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:53, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Help with tables

An editor has been adding large tables to a number of articles, such as Plainville, Connecticut, which appears to have disrupted the layout. I tried adding "mw-collapsed" to make the tables more compact, but was not able to float the tables left. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 17:31, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

  • At Plainville, Connecticut, User:Nthep fixed the table layout with an edit summary "don't float the table - keep it in the section it belongs in". I tried this same fix at Newington, Connecticut and it worked fine, but when I also added "mw-collapsed", that feature didn't work (the "show all" was disabled). Any help would be appreciated, as User:WikiGeek0485 has added these large tables to a number of articles. Magnolia677 (talk) 10:54, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
It works with wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed (as described in documentation Help:Collapsing#Collapsing_by_default), but the long title is then squeezed (spelled almost word under word). |+ class="nowrap" | Newington... prints title in one line. MarMi wiki (talk) 18:54, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
If you're wondering why float:right was removed, zoom out of that page by Ctrl+- (Control and minus key) and observe the table. MarMi wiki (talk) 19:11, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Please observe MOS:COLLAPSE. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:50, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-25

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

Problems

  • You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for 30 minutes on 19 June at 05:00 (UTC). This is to fix a hardware problem. [42]

Changes later this week

  • MIDI files can soon be played without the Score extension. You can then add them with [[File:Filename.midi]]. Later override_midi and override_audio will stop working. Instead you will need to add the MIDI file below the music score. [43]
  • A new video player will soon replace the old one. You will be able to enable it as a beta feature in your preferences. It will later be enabled for everyone if there are no big problems. [44]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 June. It will be on all wikis from 20 June (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 19 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • Advanced item Some gadgets and user scripts still use the old wgEnableAPI and wgEnableWriteAPI values. These values are always true. They will soon be removed. This might break the gadgets and scripts. You should fix your gadgets to not use these values. [45]

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

20:37, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Help needed for creating a gadget

Hello! Firstly, I would like to apologise because my request is not enwiki-related; I hope someone will have a little time for helping. I would like to create a gadget for closing AfD requests on the Hungarian Wikipedia but I have never done this before. I imagine it like c:MediaWiki:Gadget-PermissionOTRS.js with a pop-up window. Bellow you can find an example.

Example

Here is an example request. 

=== [[:19 (együttes)]] ===
{{törlés gombsor|19 (együttes)|2019-06-17}}<br />{{törlés allap útmutató}}

A legutóbbi [[Wikipédia:Törlésre javasolt lapok/19 (együttes)|törlési megbeszélés]] óta továbbra sem [[WP:NEV|nevezetes]]. – [[Szerkesztő:Balint36|balint36]] <sup>[[Szerkesztővita:Balint36|🚌 buszmegálló]]</sup> 2019. június 17., 11:21 (CEST)
*{{t}} Nem nevezetes. – [[Szerkesztő:Ary|Ary]] <sup>[[Szerkesztővita:Ary|vita]]</sup> 2019. június 17., 14:15 (CEST)

The gadget should add {{Tt}} at the first place and {{Ta}} at the end. Between {{Tt}} and the header should be placed the decision by the closing admin. The result would be the following: 

{{Tt}} // first template
Here is my reason why I closed this discussion. ~~~~ // reason

=== [[:19 (együttes)]] ===
{{törlés gombsor|19 (együttes)|2019-06-17}}<br />{{törlés allap útmutató}}

A legutóbbi [[Wikipédia:Törlésre javasolt lapok/19 (együttes)|törlési megbeszélés]] óta továbbra sem [[WP:NEV|nevezetes]]. – [[Szerkesztő:Balint36|balint36]] <sup>[[Szerkesztővita:Balint36|🚌 buszmegálló]]</sup> 2019. június 17., 11:21 (CEST)
*{{t}} Nem nevezetes. – [[Szerkesztő:Ary|Ary]] <sup>[[Szerkesztővita:Ary|vita]]</sup> 2019. június 17., 14:15 (CEST)

{{Ta}} // second template

The reason should be specific (you can write anything) or pre-filled (standard closing reasons) and the user should choose between them. The gadget should need administrator right and check that the title of the page starts with Wikipédia:Törlésre javasolt lapok/. I would be grateful if somebody could help me and create the working beta of the gadget. I believe that I will be able to work on it in the future if I have the basics. Thanks in advance! Best regards, Bencemac (talk) 19:47, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

@Bencemac: I can help try to help out. Give me a few days for a beta version DannyS712 (talk) 00:14, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
Thank you very much! Bencemac (talk) 06:53, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Problem with content pushed to right side of page

A reader ( ticket:2019061710006603) reported a problem with: Portal:Computer_science

As you can see, almost all of the content is forced way to the right.

It seems to have been introduced with this edit, With the ironic edit summary "Deleted line forcing all content to the extreme right."

I see some code in the fourth and fifth lines that looks problematic but fixing this is outside my technical skills.S Philbrick(Talk) 18:09, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

[46] fails because Computer science has special code in the lead. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:24, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
Yes, the module that builds a portal page by extracting the lead section of an article (in this case Computer science) apparently cannot handle tables commenced using the {| markup. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:08, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
{{Transclude lead excerpt | Computer science | paragraphs=6}} currently works [47] but may fail later. Maybe it would be more stable to noinclude parts of the lead in Computer science. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:22, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Category:Candidates for uncontroversial speedy deletion

Does anyone know why CAT:CSD shows Category:Candidates for uncontroversial speedy deletion containing 40 more pages than are actually in the category when you open it? I've got a feeling I've asked this before but can't find it. GoldenRing (talk) 09:03, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, it's been ongoing for a while:
See phab:T221795 and phab:T18036 (and duplicates: phab:T202833, phab:T195397, and phab:T200402). I'm sure it's come up elsewhere as well. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:29, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
@Amorymeltzer: Hmmm, okay, thanks. Not something that's going to fixable in the short term, then. GoldenRing (talk) 12:29, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Template search

Hello. In the article Kurchatov, Russia reference number three shows as a bare url. However this is one of those where the bare url is in the template rather than the article. Now I have gotten pretty good at tracking these down to fix the bare url but I am flummoxed by this one. It isn't in {{Infobox Russian inhabited locality}} nor is it in {{Ru-pop-ref}} so it may be in something attached to one of them or somewhere else entirely. Any help you can give will be appreciated. MarnetteD|Talk 18:18, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

It's on Wikidata. Nardog (talk) 18:26, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Nardog. I have not edited there before. Can I add a cite template or should I ask someone there to fix it? MarnetteD|Talk 18:30, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
The other source there has the title, publisher, and retrieved date filled in, so it seems to me one can (or should be able to) fix it by adding those attributes for the gks.ru source too. It strikes me as a defect on the infobox template's part that even though two sources are given on Wikisource, only one is shown on the infobox. Nardog (talk) 18:48, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
Steel1943 was able to figure out how to fix this. For anyone who is interested please see this thread User talk:Steel1943#Question. My thanks to Nardog and Steel1943 for their work on this. MarnetteD|Talk 19:33, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Editing formatting bar break code

Currently, when editing the source text (i.e. not the visual editor), under the "advanced" formatting tab there is a button to insert a line break, which inserts the code <br>. As discussed at WP:LINEBREAK, this can break several of the available syntax highlighters for wikicode in the editing view (mis-highlighting all text in the page after the occurrence of that tag), and so should be avoided. Is it possible to change the interface so it inserts <br /> instead? (I apologize if I'm not using the right vocuablary.) MarginalCost (talk) 21:00, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

MarginalCost, if a syntaxhighlighter cannot handle a simple br tag, it's broken and shouldn't be used. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:13, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
@TheDJ: Okay, new topic: The built-in Wikipedia syntax highlighter available through the user preferences/gadgets menu is broken and shouldn't be used.
If <br /> is the recommended output, why stick with the less-preferred one? MarginalCost (talk) 23:40, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
Gadgets are not official. They are maintained entirely by volunteers. --Izno (talk) 00:05, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
This is a long-standing known issue with the syntax highlighter, and there are periodic fruitless arguments about it on this page. Since the MW parser outputs <br />, and that form allows the syntax highlighter to help editors find and fix other syntax problems, it seems to me that the least bad option is to insert <br /> as the preferred option. I can find only one Phabricator task that relates to br tags and syntax highlighting (linked at the right side of this section), but I'm pretty sure I have seen others. – Jonesey95 (talk) 08:30, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
The button used to insert <br />, but this was changed by TheDJ in T150172. Perhelion argued at the time that <br /> should be replaced because HTML5 prefers <br>. However, <br /> is valid HTML5, and the MediaWiki parser will convert <br> to <br />. From what I can see, there's two options: go full-on <br>, which includes changing the parser, fixing the syntax highlighters, and changing the advice on WP:LINEBREAK, or go full-on <br />, which only needs a revert of that change by TheDJ. I'm in favour of the latter. Opinions? (also pinging Fomafix, who commented on that phab task.) rchard2scout (talk) 11:01, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
Rchard2scout It just doesn't matter that much, unless you are the type of person that cares about adding or removing spaces between heading syntax and the heading content... Fruitless arguments indeed. Harmonisation of the wikicode is NOT needed here and a waste of editor time. Tools should be able to handle both, both are allowed wikicode, both are allowed in html5, one is better xml, the other better html5. I personally don't see the need for either wikEd or Remember theDots syntaxhighligh lib. Neither are used by more than a couple of people in the grant scope of things. And confusing users with documentation on details of line break syntax.. really.. who reads that and comes away with any level of understanding ?? A line break is <br> done. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:26, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
Interesting support, with details, for <br> from a dev: diff "...<br> is valid wikitext...". I support that view—simple is good and changing wikitext to insert a space and a slash is pointless and confusing for onlookers. Johnuniq (talk) 00:25, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Alright, TheDJ's arguments and Tim Starling's explanation have me convinced. One interesting quote from that reply by Tim: RemexHtml "will initially output "<br />" for compatibility with parser tests", which means it could be changed in the future, and we really shouldn't base our decisions about wikitext on the HTML output it generates. Let's not fix things that ain't broken, and those who care about syntax highlighting gadgets should fix their syntax highlighting gadgets. rchard2scout (talk) 19:08, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Just so you know, the space in <br /> is entirely optional (personally I think <br/> looks better without the space). <br> without the slash is in no way "better" HTML5. The main reason why I don't want to support <br> in the syntax highlighter is because it's confusing to have some tags be automatically closing while other tags like <references/> require the slash. Also, I don't want to have to maintain an ever-growing list of automatically-closing tags. —Remember the dot (talk) 00:34, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

In HTML, the only valid self-closing tags are the void elements, and in fact any self-closed tag in the list of all valid HTML tags not present in the list of void elements is an error (e.g. <span/>). So, you probably should also not support the invalid HTML (except where appearing inside of e.g. <pre>). In the list there, only a couple of those appear as wikitext (though <source> has different semantics in wikitext). That list basically hasn't changed since HTML 4. So...
As for confusion, there's nothing you can do about that--some tags will be self-closing in some situations, and we've introduced a few others to wikitext (e.g. <section> for section transclusion), and some tags will never be self-closing, as is the case for that vast majority of the HTML tags you can write in wikitext (<code>, <div>... and just about every other). What's actually confusing is when a maintained gadget breaks on valid wikitext and then we get discussions like this one.... --Izno (talk) 02:29, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
Sure there's something we can do about that: Deprecate the use of <br> without the slash (maybe show a warning if the non-slashed version is used) and stop considering it "valid" wikitext. It's just not a popular solution because people insist that requiring the slash on tags like <references/> and <section/> but not on <br> and <hr> is somehow more straightforward. —Remember the dot (talk) 06:41, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
The reason it's unpopular is because it's valid HTML, which enjoys a consensus your gadget does not. Right now both of the WMF-sanctioned highlighters (one in the 2017 WTE and the other in the 2010) work just fine (if more-simply in other aspects). A whitelist/blacklist on your part is not hard to maintain once initially implemented and could even be maintained by another editor if you are disinterested. --Izno (talk) 15:50, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
HTML5 made everything "valid", including <p> and <div> tags without accompanying </p> and </div>. This syntax cannot be supported in the syntax highlighter without major detriment to its performance. Nevertheless, you are welcome to get permission to move mw:User:Remember the dot/Syntax highlighter and mw:User:Remember the dot/Syntax highlighter.js out of the User namespace, edit them based on community consensus, update mw:MediaWiki:Gadget-DotsSyntaxHighlighter.js to match, and continue to maintain the shared fork by adding new translations etc. If you implement automatically-closing tags nicely--with a voidTags config parameter analogous to nowikiTags and sourceTags--I won't revert it. Considering how strongly people seem to feel about this, I'm surprised that no one has done that already. —Remember the dot (talk) 20:36, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
No, the </p> tag has never been required until recently (it wasn't mentioned in HTML 1, was implicitly optional in HTML 2.0, explicitly optional in HTML 3.2 and HTML 4, and became conditionally optional in HTML 5); whereas the </div> tag has always been mandatory (HTML 3.2, HTML 4 and HTML5 spec). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:50, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
Oh interesting. Thanks for pointing out that HTML5 doesn't deserve all the blame for implicit </p> tags and implicit </div> is still technically forbidden. However, the fact remains that the syntax highlighter wouldn't be able to support implicit </p> without major, performance-killing modifications. —Remember the dot (talk) 23:20, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
.
Between HTML 4 and 5, there were some iterations of XHTML. Closing tags (or self-closing where no content) were required for everything including <p>...</p>, <hr/>, etc., so that it would validate as proper XML. The space before the slash was an optional but recommended kludge to keep earlier parsers happy (It's valid SGML, and HTML4 parsers would see the slash as an invalid attribute). As mentioned above, <references/> isn't any kind of (X)HTML, it's XHTML-inspired wikicode (and well-formed XML).
When I view HTML source on a Wikipedia page as delivered to the browser, the <p>...</p> tags are paired not naked. If MediaWiki hasen't turned that on its head to go fully down the HTML5 rabbit-hole, then I say our tools should keep inserting XHTML-compatible <br />. The instant counter-argument is that MW emits <!DOCTYPE html>. Sigh. (Although there's an HTML5-style doctype, does MediaWiki create anything else that's not good XML?)
Anybody know what Visual Editor inserts for br?
— Pelagic (talk) 09:17, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I forgot about XHTML 1.0. That was essentially HTML 4.01 with a few extensions and a much tighter syntax: there were no optional tags; tag and attribute names had to be lowercase; all attribute values had to be quoted; etc. But XHTML was more of an offshoot from the main route, rather than a step in the progression. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:35, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
The latest HTML5 spec states "This specification defines an abstract language for describing documents and applications...There are various concrete syntaxes that can be used to transmit resources that use this abstract language, two of which are defined in this specification...The first such concrete syntax is the HTML syntax...The second concrete syntax is the XHTML syntax...This specification defines the latest version of the XHTML syntax, known simply as 'XHTML'." So no, XHTML was not a temporary deviation from the main route; HTML and XHTML continue in parallel as equivalent syntaxes for representing essentially the same content. —Remember the dot (talk) 14:30, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
It states at the top "W3C Working Draft, 18 October 2018". This is not a W3C Recommendation, so is in a fluid state and not to be considered definitive or final. See World Wide Web Consortium Process Document, section 6.1.2. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:05, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
In addition to the HTML 5.3 specification I linked above, the HTML 5.0, HTML 5.1, and HTML 5.2 specifications all say the exact same thing about XHTML. XHTML has been there all along and it's unlikely to disappear. —Remember the dot (talk) 06:13, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid. KISS principle. I use <br> all the time on wikis outside Wikipedia. Don't f*ck it up by requiring the use of <br /> in wikitext editing in the MediaWiki software. And you notice how <br /> with the space can wrap to 2 lines in the wikitext. Yet more confusion. <br> is simpler than </br> too. Or <br/>. People forget where to put the slashes for all of these tags. I still do sometimes. -- Timeshifter (talk) 09:29, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

If MediaWiki required <references> and <section> instead of <references /> and <section />, I would agree with you. However, requiring the slash on some tags but not others, or leaving it up to the whim of the author, is not KISS. The default "tag soup" serialization of HTML5 is in fact the antithesis of the KISS principle. —Remember the dot (talk) 20:36, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
I agree, Remember the dot. If the core software is XML-compatible, then the add-ons, toolbars, templates, etc. should be also. If we can output code that works in HTML5 and XHTML, then why not? Pelagic (talk) 09:17, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

By the way, if the network connection is fast enough, it's actually faster to send data uncompressed than to send it in a compressed format and then decompress it on the receiving end. For the same reason, 10 or 20 years from now I suspect XHTML5 will surge in popularity because it puts so much less strain on the CPU. —Remember the dot (talk) 20:54, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Definitely not, with thinner and thinner fab processes, devices will be more efficient and more powerful as well (a reminder that we have AI/ML on our smartphones now). You're right about the first point as we are approach higher bandwidths, but not so much about the second, the end winners are going to be JavaScript and Python as resource-hunger becomes less and less of an issue and everyone wants a scripting language to just do anything, no doubt. --qedk (t 桜 c) 14:41, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Intel has been trying for years to go from a 14 nanometer process to a 10 nanometer process and still hasn't succeeded in mass-producing 10nm chips. Silicon atoms are only 0.2nm in diameter, so 10nm means lithography that is 50 atoms wide. At some point in the near future, we just won't be able to go any smaller and unless someone discovers a better semiconductor than silicon, we will be at the limit of single-thread general-purpose CPU performance. The bottom line is that we can't rely on CPUs getting faster any more; instead we are compelled to write more efficient software. You can already see the effects of this shift in the increasing popularity of C and C++ and the emergence of new compiled languages like Cython, Go, and Rust, as well as interest in binary (non-textual) data formats such as BSON and Protocol Buffers. —Remember the dot (talk) 15:08, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Oh and how could I forget WebAssembly, which is basically a compiled version of JavaScript? —Remember the dot (talk) 15:13, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
And of course, massively-parallel hardware (and software that must adapt to that) —PaleoNeonate – 15:16, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
TSMC and Samsung are already mass-producing 7nm, whether Intel catches up is irrelevant. And just to remind you, in terms of stats, JavaScript and Python are the only languages to not lose out in the TIOBE index rankings (Python is the largest gainer) and both of them are now on the top of StackOverflow stats, with JS leading in terms of numbers and Python in terms of growth of the numbers. ...instead we are compelled to write more efficient software, this statement was probably true in the conventional times but now we are moving at a different pace and maybe this statement will come to fruit in the later part of the next decade but not earlier than that. --qedk (t 桜 c) 15:34, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Grep tool?

I want to find all my subpages, except for the ones under User:RoySmith/drafts/. I see mention on WT:Special:PrefixIndex of a grep tool (which now seems to live at https://tools.wmflabs.org/grep/), but that's either broken, so so slow as to appear broken. Any better ideas? -- RoySmith (talk) 17:52, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

There might be a tool for it around somewhere, but it was faster to use a blunt instrument than to go looking for one. —Cryptic 19:38, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
Also, there are so few pages that just going to Special:PrefixIndex/User:RoySmith reveals all the pages, and since they are sorted the ones you don't want are all lined up anyway. — xaosflux Talk 19:48, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
Ewww. Token-sucking. Risker (talk) 20:32, 18 June 2019 (UTC) Please pardon the drive-by gross-out
Yeah, well, but it'll make a great DYK hook :-) -- RoySmith (talk) 16:04, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Special:Search/intitle:/RoySmith/ -intitle:/RoySmith\/drafts/ seems to work when set to the User namespace also. Curiously, Special:Search/intitle:/RoySmith\// -intitle:/RoySmith\/drafts/ does not. --Izno (talk) 20:45, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

What is the difference between these two page titles?

We have two Wikipedia pages that bear the following titles:

The first one is a redirect to the second. But no typographical difference is visible to me, so I cannot say whether the page ought to be moved from the second title to the first. What am I missing? Michael Hardy (talk) 22:11, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

The first title contains a non-ASCII character for the "K", it is "GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA". power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:20, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Yup, while the other is the standard Latin capital K. I've added an appropriate redirect category to that. --Masem (t) 22:24, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
@Power~enwiki: @Masem: How did you find out that that's what it is? Michael Hardy (talk) 23:22, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Find a unicode converter online (numerous ones out there). Copy directly from the article titles and paste into the converter which should spit out unicode values. --Masem (t) 23:44, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
Simpler method: take the links above and reduce them to the first character only:
Then click each link in turn and see where you end up. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:38, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
They also look fairly different in the monospaced source editor, but of course not everyone uses it. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:32, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
That also depends on what monospaced font your browser is using. With Courier New they look the same. Eman235/talk 22:40, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
It might be better to nominate this redirect for deletion for WP:R#DELETE reason #8. Unfortunately, it looks like the editor who created this is in 2008 is no longer active and wouldn't be able to give their creation rationale. Checking pageviews, the Greek letter redirect gets virtually no traffic so does not appear to be useful BUT, as this very thread proves, it creates a maintenance burden. Jason Quinn (talk) 10:03, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
@Jason Quinn: The creation rationale is simple: the article begins "Κ-casein, or kappa casein, is a ..." - that word "kappa" (which is the Greek letter, not the sportswear manufacturer) is why. What makes you think that it's a maintenance burden? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:55, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
The (Kappa) Κ-casein redirect page makes sense and should not be deleted. It looks strange because Wikipedia articles don't begin with lowercase letters, but try the lowercase form as a link: κ-casein. Notice that wikipedia correctly resolves that to the uppercase article, (Kappa) Κ-casein, which then redirects to (Kay) K-casein, i.e. kappa casein aka κ-casein.—wing gundam 19:22, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Flickr upload tool

Resolved

Not sure where to report this, but the Flickr upload tool doesn't seem to be working. Thanks! Magnolia677 (talk) 10:39, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Ah, it's been moved to [48]. Magnolia677 (talk) 16:31, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
But still not working. Magnolia677 (talk) 19:25, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Magnolia677, I've never heard of that tool, but have you tried c:Commons:Flickr2Commons? GMGtalk 19:27, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
@GreenMeansGo: It's a wonderful tool that lets you enter a Flickr URL, and then it sucks the information from Flickr and enters it onto a Commons upload page. It even flags questionable copyrights. I'll try the Commons site you mentioned. Cheers. Magnolia677 (talk) 20:29, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Accessing DEFAULTSORT from module code

I was wondering if there was a way to access DEFAULTSORT from module code? The page Wikipedia:Comparable Lua functions to wikitext#Technical metadata has no information for this specific issue, and Template:DEFAULTSORT says not to use the template, which means that I can't use frame:expandTemplate. Is there any other way? --Gonnym (talk) 08:43, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Solved using frame:preprocess{text = "{{DEFAULTSORT:" .. sortKey .. "}}"}. --Gonnym (talk) 09:38, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Better would be to use frame:callParserFunction( 'DEFAULTSORT', sortKey ). See the manual for details. Anomie⚔ 22:00, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Improve unicode support for math tag

The LaTeX math tag gives a generic "syntax error" if any non-ASCII unicode characters are present,

Failed to parse (syntax error): {\displaystyle x+1±y}

and requires a command instead (\pm here),

.

This behavior isn't generic to all online LaTeX implementations (e.g. Stack Exchange's happily accepts any unicode character). But I occasionally run into very long formulae with this error, and it can be difficult to trace the cause. It also impedes normal editing and formula creation for those who haven't memorized the LaTeX command for every character.

Given that unicode keyboards are ubiquitous, even on phones, could the parser be modified to produce a helpful debugging error that identifies the first out-of-range character and suggests the right LaTeX command? Or better yet, can we simply modify it to accept unicode characters? —wing gundam 19:38, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Accepting Unicode characters is basically phab:T50032. --Izno (talk) 20:38, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Hmm outright accepting unicode characters would be nice. There are even some latin/greek characters like ƛ (used in physics) that are literally impossible to display in wikipedia math tags right now (compare ). Is this planned? —wing gundam
The age of the task is more than a few years old. I guess it's non-trivial. We probably should have some page about how specialist (or hard) things don't really get worked on unless the WMF gets to it. --Izno (talk) 00:41, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Button to expand all sections in mobile view

I often come to WP articles on my phone from Google searches, and I want to find the relevant snippet in the article but all the sections are collapsed. Currently I just tap expand on every one, from bottom to top then I use the mobile browser find feature. Would be nice if there was a single button to expand all. --LaserLegs (talk) 23:15, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

If you look at the very bottom of the page, there should be a link to "Desktop view" and that's what I look at when I read Wikipedia on my phone. You have to expand the sections you want to read because a lot of information is crammed into a small screen but I prefer it to the mobile version of the site. Liz Read! Talk! 23:27, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
This is available in mobile settings. Navigate to Special:MobileOptions and toggle the button for "Expand all sections." Note: the option is only visible on mobile, you won't see it if you follow the link on desktop even if mobile subdomain is explicitly requested. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:37, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

How to add an mediawiki extension?

Hello everyone, What should i do to create an mediawiki extension on ours Wikipedia? To learn me, please advice me with [49] Thanks! ⇒ AramTalk 18:42, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

mw:Manual:Developing_extensions --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:52, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
I assume ئارام بکر is inquiring about how to enable ORES extension on their home Wikipedia, not about coding new extension. To enable ORES on your wiki, you have to make a request on Phabricator and link to local community consensus for that. Read mw:How to report a bug for the step-by-step guide and see example of similar request. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:47, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Can no longer get to deleted edits, visual editor gets in the way.

Something changed in the past week or two that makes it difficult to see deleted pages. For example, if I go to Special:DeletedContributions/Peacefulmark, then click on "Draft:Eyeglasses.com", that links to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Eyeglasses.com&action=edit&redlink=1 which gets me to a screen where I'm already in the visual editor, with a notice, "Wikipedia does not have a page with this exact title...".

The problem is that if I click the notice box closed, I'm left editing Draft:Eyeglasses.com. There's a line that says, "View or restore 2 deleted edits", but that's greyed out, so I can't click it. The best I've found so far is to then switch to source editing, where the "2 deleted edits" link is now clickable.

Any idea what's changed? As far as I remember, I used to just get dropped into the source editor when clicking on a redlink. Did something change globally to make VE the default? Or is it more likely that I accidentally changed some preference setting? -- RoySmith (talk) 13:31, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

@RoySmith: after dismissing the banner, in the top right if you click on the pencil icon and change to source editor is it normal again? — xaosflux Talk 14:23, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
The same happened to me but I clicked the article tab and it reverted to the old state and now it does not happen anymore. Weird... Regards SoWhy 14:28, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
Ah, I'm starting to see what's happening. If you're in the visual editor (no matter what route you took to get there), the "View or restore 2 deleted edits" line is always greyed out. And, what seems to be going on is that it's remembering which editor I used last, and using that. So, if the last thing I edited was using VE, then I get dropped into VE and see the greyed-out link. Under Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing / Editor / Editing mode, there's an option to select "Remember my last editor". I don't have that selected, but it's acting as if I did. I've got "Show me both editor tabs" selected. Changing that to "Always give me the source editor" fixes this problem, except that I do find it useful to have both editing tabs available. I know I can switch back and forth via the pencil icon, but the two tabs is handy. At this point, I'm not sure if how things work has actually changed recently, or if I've just started noticing this. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:42, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
I've opened T226267. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:44, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

In-article external links

Is there a tool or gadget available to get rid of all external links in an article, either by removing them entirely, transforming them into references, or converting them into wikilinks? Thanks. — Gorthian (talk) 18:58, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

WP:REFILL will do some of that. If you've got something that's already marked up as a reference (i.e. inside a <ref> tag) but it's only a bare URL, it'll build a full citation for you. But, it won't help if it's just an external link in single brackets. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:54, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the single-bracket kind are what I want to eliminate. See Steven Amsterdam, for a mild example. It’d be nice not to have to do all of it by hand. — Gorthian (talk) 20:06, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
Gorthian, I understand this doesn't respond at all to your question, but before you spend any time on it, why on earth are we permitting an article in which 86% of the content is contributed by user:Stevenamsterdam1? When the subject makes some contributions, that can be salvaged but this doesn't seem like one of the situations. S Philbrick(Talk) 18:33, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
Sphilbrick, I know. I was going to address that, too, but I’m doing too little editing these days, and hadn’t gotten to it. But I’ve run across other articles where various editors have added a plethora of external links, and have often wished for a tool like this. This was just the most recent, and handy. — Gorthian (talk) 23:30, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
Gorthian, I get it. Part of me thinks this would be a useful tool to have. Another part thinks it would be good to do a review of say 100 or so examples, to see how often the best path is conversion into a proper footnote, and how often the inclusion of such a link is more likely to mean COI, or unreliable resource, or other problems. If there are a substantial proportion of such instances the translate to salvageable content then perhaps it's worth investigating a tool to do this, but I'd like to see the stats before devoting resources. I hope you're right that this would be useful tool. S Philbrick(Talk) 00:33, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
Try Wikipedia:User scripts/Requests? Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:40, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
I haven't heard of a really good solution. mw:Citoid in the visual editor will do some of those for you, with a little effort. You'll have to copy the URL (and remove it from the spot where it doesn't belong), put your cursor where the ref tag ought to be, and paste the URL in to the tool (Command-Shift-k to open the correct dialog box). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:10, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Cross wiki API requests - global watchlist

Hi. I've recently started working on a script to create a global watchlist, and have hit a snag. Using the watchlist API, I can retrieve a user's (filtered) watchlist on the same wiki. If you install User:DannyS712 test/watch demo.js, at Special:BlankPage/Global you should see a string version of the RSS feed of your personal watchlist. But, I have been unable to figure out how to retrieve that RSS feed using the API for your watchlist on another site (e.g. meta). Can anyone help? --DannyS712 (talk) 06:18, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

DannyS712, You should use mw:ResourceLoader/Core_modules#mediawiki.api, and use mw.ForeignApi to communicate with the API of another wiki. Quick note if you don't know that there is a crosswatch tool but it is broken. Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:53, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
@Galobtter: I tried, and it didn't work - I read through mw:API:Cross-site requests before I came here --DannyS712 (talk) 08:08, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Hmm, quick testing with:
var api = new mw.ForeignApi( 'https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/api.php' );
api.get( {
    action: 'feedwatchlist',
    format: 'json'
} ).always( (arguments) => { console.log(arguments); });
just gives a result of "http", no idea why - sorry, can't help. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:34, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Attempting the same code with mw.Api() instead of mw.ForeignApi( 'https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/api.php' ); also gives the same response "http". Looks like a phab ticket needs to be filed. SD0001 (talk) 15:25, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: Use action: 'query', format: 'json', list: 'watchlist'. Works with mw.ForeignApi as well (you have to be logged in obviously, which someone who is using the script will be). It doesn't use RSS feeds but actual JSON, which should be easier to deal with. The RSS feed is also restricted using watchlist tokens, and each wiki has a unique token, so there's that too. --qedk (t 桜 c) 15:37, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
@QEDK: Wow - that'll make it so much easier. I didn't realize the watchlist "list" existed. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 09:01, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Glad to be of help. --qedk (t 桜 c) 09:32, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: Using jQuery.get works fine for me:
$.get('//meta.wikimedia.org/w/api.php', {
	action: 'feedwatchlist',
    format: 'json',
	origin: 'https://en.wikipedia.org',
    wlowner: 'yourUsername',
    wltoken: 'yourWatchListToken' (will have to grab this manually, no automated way I think)
}, e => console.log(e));
SD0001 (talk) 15:39, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
I am getting a not logged in error (I am logged in). Just a guess but using BotPasswords and lgname, lgpassword, lgtoken, it should work. --qedk (t 桜 c) 15:43, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Oh yeah, didn't notice the error earlier. SD0001 (talk) 15:56, 19 June 2019 (UTC) Updated above. now works. SD0001 (talk) 16:03, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, getting not logged in error too. Trying to follow mw:Extension:CentralAuth/API#centralauthtoken to be logged in, and:
api = new mw.Api();
token = await api.get({action: 'centralauthtoken'}).then( token => { return token.centralauthtoken.centralauthtoken });
watched = await $.get('//meta.wikimedia.org/w/api.php', {
	action: 'feedwatchlist',
	format: 'json',
	origin: 'https://en.wikipedia.org',
	centralauthtoken: token
}, e => console.log(e));
var serial = new XMLSerializer();
var watchedString = serial.serializeToString( watched );
console.log(watchedString);
gets a bad token error. I mean, you should be able to be logged in on the other wiki and access the watchlist that way (the wltoken is really for accessing another person's watchlist and you'd need to manually enter the token for every wiki..). Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:32, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
You have to use login via POST (works on all sites) or use the wluser/wltoken method (limited to the watchlist wiki), that's all the API supports. --qedk (t 桜 c) 16:58, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Galobtter, are you getting not logged in error even after entering the wltoken (of the target wiki, in this case meta)? That shouldn't happen. SD0001 (talk) 17:47, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
SD0001, I tested the version before it was edited to add wltoken; haven't tested with wltoken but definitely that should work, but it doesn't actually log you in ofc. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:00, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
@QEDK: you marked this as resolved, but I converted it to a link - another problem came up. The foreign api part is working, but I can't retrieve the watchlist token for the foreign site (it always returns "+\") - can anyone help? The full code is at User:DannyS712 test/watch.js, and I added comments to clarify my intentions --DannyS712 (talk) 23:06, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: Are your session cookies being sent to the "foreign" site? I think you need to set xhrFields: {withCredentials: true} for the $.get() request in getToken() for that to happen. Alternately, use ForeignApi for that part as well, which (I'm guessing) does this for you. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:53, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
@Suffusion of Yellow: I switched to the ForeignApi for getting the token, and now I'm getting a token, but it keeps raising the error bad_wltoken when I try to use it DannyS712 (talk) 01:20, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: Ok, it looks like the "watchlist token" in your preferences is not same one that's returned by api.php?action=query&meta=tokens&type=watch. I can't find a way to retrieve the first one for a foreign site. But, oddly, I tried removing the wlowner and wltoken parameters entirely, at it worked! I even have third-party cookies blocked. So I'm guessing that the centralauthtoken that's automagically added by ForeignApi is the only token that's needed. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 02:28, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
@Suffusion of Yellow: thanks so much, to you and Galobtter and QEDK - see version 1.0 of the script: User:DannyS712/Global watchlist! DannyS712 (talk) 03:22, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
Looks great! When I was testing using the 'watchlist' list API, it didn't have any more necessary provisions, and it worked fine for me (and it looks like it still does), hence my edging you on to use this one which doesn't need hardcoded tokens. --qedk (t 桜 c) 05:32, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712, nice work! Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:27, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
Is this meant to be an alternative to CrossWatch? I believe mw:User:OriHoch was hoping to get that working again.[50] Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:45, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): Maybe, but either way I have now implemented a mechanism for users to specify for themselves what sites to include in their global watchlist - cc Galobtter, QEDK, and Suffusion of Yellow if you're interested. --DannyS712 (talk) 00:15, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Searching multiple specific (multiple roots) pages

Bot-related archives (v·t·e)
Noticeboard
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
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1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
21, 22
Newer discussions at WP:BOTN since April 2021
Bot policy (talk)
19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28
29
Pre-2007 archived under Bots (talk)
Bot requests
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
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41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50
51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60
61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70
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BAG Nominations


Is there a way, where in a template like Wikipedia:Bots/ArchiveBox where you have multiple root pages, that could could provide one single search box/search link which would search the subpages multiple of multiple root pages? Instead of needing to do something like Wikipedia:Bots/ArchiveBox/search?

Something like 

{{#tag:inputbox|
type=fulltext
prefix=Wikipedia:Bots/; Wikipedia talk:Bots/; Wikipedia:Bot policy/; Wikipedia talk:Bot policy/; ...
break=no
searchbuttonlabel=Search
}}

or 

{{#tag:inputbox|
type=fulltext
prefix1=Wikipedia:Bots/
prefix2=Wikipedia talk:Bots/
prefix3=Wikipedia:Bot policy/
prefix4=Wikipedia talk:Bot policy/
...
break=no
searchbuttonlabel=Search
}}

That would let you create a single search box

that would search them all? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:47, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Alternatively, something that would let the user search for something located within all pages that start with 'Bot' in the Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk namespaces would also work. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:27, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
I've hacked something, but one of the barriers was that namespaces=Wikipedia talk isn't recognized by the inputbox, and you have to use namespaces=Wikipedia_talk. Also you have visible checkboxes that serve no real purpose. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:08, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Editing ones Watchlist

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T220245

I have an insanely large number of pages on my Watchlist because I opted for adding every page I edited on to it (think twice about doing this). So, over the past year, I have tried several times to edit it. I always get a failed message for Special:EditWatchlist stating:

Wikimedia Error

Our servers are currently under maintenance or experiencing a technical problem. Please try again in a few minutes.

See the error message at the bottom of this page for more information.

If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below.

PHP fatal error:

entire web request took longer than 60 seconds and timed out

I admittedly have an old laptop and sometimes the page times out when it tries to load any random page from Wikipedia. I just reload the page and, ta-da! No problem. But I've gotten this error message every single time I've tried to edit my Watchlist. I did a quick search of the archives to see if this was a recurring problem and nothing from the first 20 search results popped out as being similar to my problem.

So, is this likely my old computer, the enormous size of my Watchlist or do editors generally not bother editing their Watchlists? If there was an alternative way of removing pages, that information would be welcome, too. Thanks in advance. Liz Read! Talk! 23:25, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

@Liz: try to edit it using this link. — xaosflux Talk 23:28, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
If you can read it, but can't save it you can try this link: Special:EditWatchlist/clear to delete your entire watchlist, then you can recreate it in that 'raw' format above by pasting it back in. — xaosflux Talk 23:30, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
There's also User:Anomie/unwatch.js, which adds an unwatch button ("(diff | hist)" to "(diff | hist | unw)") next to entries on your watchlist. It's not good for mass removal, but does the job for stuff that actually shows up in your watchlist. Eman235/talk 02:56, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
@Eman235: This is built into MediaWiki now. There's an "Add direct unwatch/watch markers (×/+) to watched pages with changes" option in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist. Not to downplay Anomie's script, which I enjoyed for many years :) — MusikAnimal talk 03:46, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
Anomie's script has a nice little sorting option though. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:15, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
The error is server-side, so it's not the fault of your computer. The fix is being tracked at phab:T220245. the wub "?!" 19:33, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
Oh, thank you thank you thank you! So many alternatives to try! This was exactly what I was looking for. Much appreciated, everyone. But now that it is up to 36K pages, maybe total annihilation and rebuilding of the Watchlist would be the easiest solution. Liz Read! Talk! 21:41, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
Okay, well, I got it down from 36K to 19K pages pretty fast just by removing all of thousands of Signpost articles and WikiProject pages I categorized years ago. Still, I want to get it down to about 5K, that seems manageable. Most of the pages I removed were never edited any way so it didn't really matter they were on it...but I just don't want to dread looking at my Watchlist. Liz Read! Talk! 22:15, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

WikEd causing false "edit conflict" warning

Google Chrome, Windows 10 v. 1903, Vector.

Issue has been happening continuously since I added WikEd this month.

I also found this issue reported in 2014. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 01:29, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

API search for prefix or intitle together

Is it possible, using a single API call, to get a list of search results matching prefix:"string" or intitle:"string" ? (intitle: search doesn't always give all the results that prefix: search gives since intitle matches only whole words, whereas prefix also matches parts of words.) SD0001 (talk) 05:05, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

You can use intitle:/string/ for a regex search which will thus also match parts of words (although it'll be somewhat slower/more expensive to query - see m:Help:CirrusSearch#Regular_expression_searches). Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:34, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
Boolean OR is not supported in the search. Quarry naturally does. --Izno (talk) 13:47, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Galobtter. I had another query. Does (new mw.Api()).edit() offer automatic edit conflict resolution? Or do we have to code for that manually? The source code makes use of basetimestamp and curtimestamp which seems to be for detecting an edit conflict, but there isn't any code to get the last current version and re-apply the changes to it, like in Twinkle's Morebits' save() function. SD0001 (talk) 14:23, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
No, the timestamps are fed into the API which feeds into EditPage - looks like the timestamps are to make sure an edit conflict is detected when it should be (rather than your changes just overriding any edits made in between). Honestly, not sure you have to worry much about edit conflicts here unless the transform function takes a lot of time, since the wikitext is gotten right before the change is made.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:23, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Weird text overlap issue

Screenshot of the issue (please ignore typo in the filepage)

So my phone has a tiny screen (3 inch diagonal) and I get that a lot of Wiki-markup isn't designed to work on such a small screen, but this has bothered me for a while - whenever an image has a caption longer than a few words, it bleeds down into the text and both are unreadable. Is there a fix for this, or are small screens just considered collateral damage for making everyone else's look pretty? I understand if it's the second. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 16:20, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

From the file name, this screenshot was taken in the Lionel Messi article. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:32, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
@A lad insane: I've tried to reproduce this but haven't been able to yet. Do you mind sharing what browser and browser version you are using? For phone reading, you may want to try using one of the official apps as opposed to the browser as well, see Help:Mobile_access#Official_application. — xaosflux Talk 16:41, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Chrome 38.0.2125.102, apparently- I've copy/pasted that from my "recent activity" on another website. It's the one that came with my phone. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 17:13, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
@A lad insane: your version of Google Chrome for Android is almost 5 years old, the current release is 75.0.3770.101 - could you try updating to the current release? — xaosflux Talk 19:34, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Thanks for the advice, but I'm not sure I can- it's a flip phone, and after a bit of googling I can't find any way to update Chrome on it. I guess I'll just have to live with it. Thanks for the help. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 23:42, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

WP search with no namespaces jumps to mainpage

On Special:Search, enter something in the text box and click [x] for all of the namespaces (so that the "search in:" box is blank). Click [search]. And you go to [51] that displays the mainpage rather than the usual search-results page. Before you say "why would you do that???", the watchlist also has a namespace list, but it's a filter iff any are checked (and defaults to all namespaces if none are checked) rather than a list that mandatorily must be given. Even if we wanted the search to require picking at least one namespace, failure to do so should either return no hits (because there are no pages in no-namespace) or a specific error that at least one namespace must be selected. DMacks (talk) 06:46, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

I have noticed a similar thing on Commons. When you do a search, changing the default settings for the namespaces to be searched. View one of the search results and then press the browser back button to get back to the search results and you end up on the main page rather than the search results list. Keith D (talk) 11:12, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
I just tried that on en.wp, and even without changing default settings, browser-back gave me the mainpage rather than Special:Search. The search-string was pre-filled in the search-box though. DMacks (talk) 14:01, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
A separate matter is that searching through archives using a template like that located in the header of this page will yield appropriate results, but the search area will say it is searching "articles". Killiondude (talk) 00:22, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikidata Bridge: edit Wikidata’s data from Wikipedia infoboxes

Hello all,

Many language versions of Wikipedia use the content of Wikidata, the centralized knowledge base, to fill out the content of infoboxes. The data is stored in Wikidata and displayed, partially or completely, in the Wikipedia’s language, on the articles. This feature is used by many template editors, but brought several issues that were raised by communities in various places: not being able to edit the data directly from Wikipedia was one of them.

This is the reason why the Wikidata Bridge project started, with the goal of offering a way to Wikipedia editors to edit Wikidata’s data more easily. This will be achieved by an interface, connected to the infobox, that users can access directly from their local wiki.

The project is now at an early stage of development. A lot of user research has been done, and will continue to be done through the different phases of the project. The next steps of development will be achieved by the development team working at Wikimedia Deutschland, starting now until the end of 2019.

In order to make sure that we’re building a tool that is answering editors’ needs, we’re using agile methods in our development process. We don’t start with a fixed idea of the tool we want to deliver: we will build it together with the editors, based on feedback loops that we will regularly organize. The first version will not necessarily have all of the features you want, but it will keep evolving.

Here’s the planned timeline:

  • From June to August, we will build the setup and technical groundwork.
  • From September to November 2019, we will develop the first version of the feature and publish a test system so you can try it and give feedback.
  • Later on, we will test the feature on a few projects, in collaboration with the communities.
    • We will first focus on early adopters communities who already implemented a shortcut from their infoboxes to edit Wikidata (for example Russian, Catalan, Basque Wikipedias)
    • but we also welcome also communities who volunteer to be part of the first test round.
    • Then we will reach some of the big Wikipedias (French, German, English) in order to see if the project scales and to address their potentially different needs.
    • Even later, we can consider enabling the feature on all the other projects.

In any case, no deployment or big change will be enforced on the projects without talking to the communities first, and helping the template builders to prepare for the changes they will have to do on the infoboxes’ code.

If you want to get involved, there are several ways to help:

More ideas will be added on this page along the way

If you have any questions for the development team, feel free to ask them on the main talk page. You can also ask under this message, but if you expect an answer from me, please make sure to ping me.

Cheers, Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 12:58, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Finding and fixing redirects in templates

Many redirects in text do not need to be "fixed" - indeed, WP:NOTBROKEN discourages it. In templates however, direct links should be used as this ensures they display correctly in the template on the target page. Is there a tool of some sort that makes fixing these redirects easier - say by highlighting them in the template and suggesting the target link? In some larger templates it can be a bit long-winded otherwise. Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 13:27, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

@DuncanHill: I use a little CSS that if you don't mind some false positives (say, in {{Collapse}}) should work to identify redirects in navboxes and sidebars: .navbox .mw-redirect, .vertical-navbox .mw-redirect { font-style: italic; color: red; }. You can tweak the rule for color or other styling as you might want. --Izno (talk) 15:15, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Weird highlighting of some of my contributions

Resolved
 – Thanks Reedy for fixing it! the wub "?!" 15:43, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

When I look at my contributions, some of them are highlighted in a sort of pale peach colour. Why is this? DuncanHill (talk) 13:58, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

  • I want to know as well. Why are some of my contributions highlighted in that color? Steel1943 (talk) 14:00, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
I just arrived here with the same question. It wasn't doing this yesterday. Not a problem - but why? Nfitz (talk) 14:01, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Also happens when you view other editors' contributions. Started in last hour or so. I find it distracting. DuncanHill (talk) 14:03, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
I don't know why this started, but I figured out that the highlighting is namespace specific. I noticed that pages in the "article" and "Wikipedia:" namespaces are highlighted, but pages in other namespaces such as "Talk:", "Template:", and "Portal:" are not highlighted. Steel1943 (talk) 14:06, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
It's something related to flagged revisions. Paging the related developers now. the wub "?!" 14:08, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
So all my mainspace and Wikipedia space revisions are being flagged now? Does that mean I'm on the Foundation hitlist? DuncanHill (talk) 14:09, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Based on my contribs it simply highlights the edits that are 'current' version of that page (ie nobody has edited the page after you). But I'd also like it removed. GiantSnowman 14:11, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Not only current for me, all my mainspace and wikiepdia space edits appear to be flagged, regardless. DuncanHill (talk) 14:12, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Ditto. All name spaces and regardless of their 'current' edit status. - X201 (talk) 14:14, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, just checked mine again and it's changed - how weird. GiantSnowman 14:14, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Approved edits of pending-changes-protected articles are highlighted in blue and unapproved ones are transparent. Seems like the CSS classes for pending changes are inadvertently being applied to the contributions page. Nardog (talk) 14:18, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
So where does the pale peach come from, and why is it all Main and Wikipedia space pages, not just pc ones? DuncanHill (talk) 14:21, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Yep, only peach on mine... GiantSnowman 14:23, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Translation is add 
.flaggedrevs-unreviewed {
     background-color: inherit !important;
}
to your common.css. I'd already done that before Cryptic's suggestion, but the problem is deeper - see The wub's contribs, for example, where the 'blue' is in effect - that's caused by flaggedrevs-color-1. Also, even with the css fix you still get a brief 'flash' before the user css is applied. -- Begoon 14:34, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks both! GiantSnowman 14:35, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
I think the blue is normal actually, it's only appearing on pages with Pending Changes. the wub "?!" 15:04, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
You could be right - I don't recall seeing it on contribs pages before, but I might be wrong. If it does have this same cause then the reason it would only be on PC page entries would be that the status it denotes can only be set on PC pages, I'm guessing, whereas the peach is the default, unreviewed. -- Begoon 15:14, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Also, it seems to be gone now, after the "fix" by Reedy noted below. -- Begoon 15:47, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
  • For a quick fix, let the flaggedrevs-unreviewed class inherit. ∯WBGconverse 14:34, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
So I "broke" it in an attempt to fix some other config regressions, see T225144 and subtasks. The colour comes from [52] (applying the `flaggedrevs-unreviewed` css class to all contribs that are in a review namespace (which NS 0 is, this part of the code doesn't take any care about whether PendingChanges is enabled, literally just whether it's in an applicable namespace (which the name namespace is, and has been for a looong time on enwiki), and that it hasn't been marked as stable. I'm slightly confused why it wasn't appearing before, and only started now. I'm guessing there's some subtlety in the config that I'm missing, but if the only problem is that things are being highlighted orange-y, the CSS fix above is enough for the moment (and quick) - it might want adding to Common.css or similar for wider reaching coverage, and a specific phabricator bug should be filed against FR (presuming it's not actually a config issue), and see if someone will look into it. Reedy (talk) 14:34, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
I also note, FlaggedRevs has been enabled on this wiki for at least 7 years in some configuration or another (and that was when all the configuration was made explicitly public into a git repo)... Reedy (talk) 14:37, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Do you mean to say that this is not a bug but a feature? ∯WBGconverse 14:41, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
And I have a possible reason, it's due to the complex loading order of FR config. Let me see what I can do Reedy (talk) 14:43, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
What Reedy is referring to as FlaggedRevs is the technical implementation of what is known here as pending changes protection. * Pppery * it has begun... 14:47, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Have requested an interface admin to add the rule to MediaWiki:Common.css as a temporary fix until this can be resolved server-side. the wub "?!" 15:04, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
No need, it's fixed. Reedy (talk) 15:28, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Just putting it out there, I actually quite liked the highlight for mainspace articles in contributions (That's what it looked like on my end). Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:31, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-26

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

Problems

  • The new version of MediaWiki for last week was not fully released due to issues. It was removed from most wikis on Tuesday and from test wikis on Thursday. [53]
  • Most wikis were slow and then briefly read-only last week due to one of the database servers having a problem. It is now replaced. [54]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 June. It will be on all wikis from 27 June (calendar).

Meetings

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

17:29, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Which gadget colors redirects green?

I have it enabled, I like it, but I cannot find it in gadgets/etc. as I wanted to recommend it to other editors? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:05, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

I have it too, set directly in my common.css with a note that I took it from Help:Link color. DMacks (talk) 04:11, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
@DMacks: I don't think I even have a User:Piotrus/common.css. I have a User:Piotrus/vector.css but I don't think it was doing anything (I just blanked it and I don't see any diff, my redirect links are still green). Nothing in User:Piotrus/vector.js seems related to redirects or colors. Ditto for User:Piotrus/common.js. I thought there was a gadget for it but I can't find it? (I did find and enable the one to "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange", why not). PS. I finally found it, I guess it's this code: meta:User:Piotrus/global.css. Hmmm. Someone should just make a proper tickable gadget for this like with the orange disambigs. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:27, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
@Piotrus: See User:DannyS712/Gadget-RedirectLinks.css - if you want to propose this as a gadget, I'd support --DannyS712 (talk) 04:31, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
And, just my 2¢, I use Anomie's script for this and more. Eman235/talk 05:24, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Anomie's script is the one to go with IMO. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:34, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Userscripts Comment

Hi! I've been trying to fiddle with userscripts for a while, but getting nowhere fast. I've tried to edit User:ohconfucius/script/flagcruft to change links to {{ENG}} etc to {{flagicon|ENG}}, or {{flagathlete|[[Person]]|ENG}}. However, I've come to the conclusion my coding is not up to scratch. Is there a good way to do this as a script I can just run in WP? My attempts are at User:Lee Vilenski/script/testing.js. Any help would be appreciated. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 17:20, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

(in theory, not tested) The first replacement (ENG -> flagicon|ENG) should be the easiest (replaces all uppercase 3-letter templates):
regex(/\{\{(\u\u\u\)}\}/g, '{{flagicon|$1}}');
where \u (or equivalent [A-Z]) is a class of uppercase letters.
I may be wrong, but that script (flagcruft) doesn't work - there are no such functions as regex or setreason (checked in console under F12, without installing the script). MarMi wiki (talk) 19:54, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
JavaScript/Guide/Regular_Expressions MarMi wiki (talk) 20:10, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
regex is in User:Ohconfucius/test/formatgeneral.js/core.js (User_talk:Ohconfucius/script#regex_is_not_defined). MarMi wiki (talk) 14:21, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Block conflict

Yesterday I got into a block conflict with myself at Special:Block/Nemaco. How is this possible? I clicked the block button just once (I'm using mouse buttons on a touchpad and would have heard the button go again if I'd clicked it twice), and there's no indication that anyone else was involved. Nyttend (talk) 21:58, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Technical Problem

I am the creator of the page Erich Brauer, but when any onlooker checks the edit history and goes back to the earliest date, the article is listed as being created by User:Mag2k. The reason for this discrepancy is because, before I created the article, User:Mag2k had already made a "Redirect" for a different article, entitled Arik Brauer, and he used the name "Erich" for his redirect. How can I alleviate this problem, and have the article "Erich Brauer" shown in my own list of articles created? The same can be said about the article Beit Shearim, which I created, but because of an earlier re-direct in that name to the article Beit She'arim National Park, the article that I created is listed under the articles created by User:Ynhockey. What can be done to correct this problem?Davidbena (talk) 23:34, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

I suspect you're not going to love this answer, but this is not worth worrying about. One of the major tenets of wikipedia is that nobody owns articles. Despite the sense of pride you may feel at creating the article, it belongs to all of us. The history is what the history is. Don't sweat it. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:00, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
You're absolutely right. I'm fine with that. What is in the public domain is in the public domain.Davidbena (talk) 01:11, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Agree. Since this is VPT, I can say that yes - there do exist a few very annoying methods to "split" the history of a page using administrator or other tools, but it is both challenging and can make things worse so they would only be done for very special technical or exceptional reasons, and your use case does not rise to that level. — xaosflux Talk 01:15, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

"Education Program:" and "Education Program talk:" namespaces restored?

Back in 2018, the "Education Program:" and "Education Program talk:" namespaces were removed from the English Wikipedia. However, today, I discovered that they were activated again. I'm trying to figure out if anyone here knows how this happened (or who did it) since it would require technical implementation to accomplish. Steel1943 (talk) 20:25, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Because on various wikis there were pages that became unaccessible. So the namespaces (only) were re-enabled (not long after) for wikis to clean them up. Reedy (talk) 20:30, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
@Steel1943: the talk namespace was restored so that archives could be accessed; there shouldn't be any pages left in the education program namespace (the last one was a cross-namespace redirect that I tagged for deletion a couple months ago) --DannyS712 (talk) 20:30, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Correction: The Education Program extension was implemented such that upon its installation all traces of education program pages ceased to exist (even as deleted history). * Pppery * it has begun... 20:33, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
It's mentioned at Wikipedia:Namespace#Currently unused. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:34, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
...Thanks all. Yep, turns out the grandeur was on the namespace info page. I guess I got hit with a bit of a shock since I thought its decommissioning was on the permanent. Steel1943 (talk) 20:39, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Any objections to adding these namespaces to the titleblack list for creations, as their only new use would be an admin restoring some history? — xaosflux Talk 22:12, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Added in Special:Diff/903493438 - let me know if any trouble. — xaosflux Talk 01:29, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for doing that. I think it's a safe move. Killiondude (talk) 03:39, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

information Note: This was found out through a self-promotional editor creating Education Program:Usamatahir786 (now deleted). Geolodus (talk) 08:41, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Fundraising Tests

Hey all,

I just want to give you all a heads up that we are getting into that time of year of Fundraising testing in preparation for the end of year fundraiser on the English Wikipedia. These tests will initially be once a week, typically on a Wednesday for a few hours. Later in the year, as we get closer to the fundraiser this might increase to twice a week.

  • If you have specific ideas to share, please feel invited to add them to our fundraising ideas page.
  • If you need to report a bug or technical issue, please create a phabricator ticket.
  • If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS or social media having difficulties in donating, please refer them to donate@wikimedia.org.

Many thanks Seddon (WMF) (talk) 13:17, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

WMFLabs 500 error

I am well aware this technically isnt the correct place, however WMFLabs is not working a all - coming up with a code 500 internal error. Thanks Nightfury 11:45, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Nightfury, which page(s)? I tried the edit counter and Earwig's copyvio detector just now and both were reachable/functioning. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 12:27, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
AfD vote stat counter was not working. I'm guessing the issue may have been fixed if it is now working. Nightfury 15:10, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Not that it's relevant now but every WMFLabs page (links on ORCP) wouldn't work for me yesterday either, Only lasted 10-20 minutes tho. –Davey2010Talk 21:25, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Reset the order of a sortable table

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T226697

I've forever found it frustrating that once you've clicked a header on a sortable table, there's no way to bring back the default order other than to reload the page. I wish clicking on a column header for the third time reset the sorting instead of just toggling between ascending and descending. Has this feature been requested? Nardog (talk) 15:39, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

@Nardog: I don't see it requested in this list; I think what you would want to ask for is to enable "sortReset" in "jquery-tablesorter". — xaosflux Talk 16:03, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. So are you saying the option exists, but it's not enabled on MediaWiki (or on this wiki or Wikimedia wikis) as a whole? Nardog (talk) 16:18, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
@Nardog: a very quick search indicates that it could exist, but is not enabled. I don't think it would be a good idea to try to get it to work for only enwiki, and rolling the function in the main mediawiki core could be the best. I think this is a good demonstration of what you are talking about. — xaosflux Talk 16:25, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Task filed. This is my first time using Phabricator, so please tell me if I did anything wrong. Nardog (talk) 09:06, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
I would also like a way to reset the sorting. Reload works but many users may not think of that. There was no support at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 112#Restoring sortable tables initial order. Somebody wrote somewhere else that there is no good way to place a reset button. I think it's too confusing if a third click on a column stops sorting by that column. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:51, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

AVG and Johannes Kepler artilce

Hi all, I had someone approach me off wiki and inform me that AVG is registering the Johannes Kepler article as possible malware. I ran several checks with other anti-virus software and haven't been able to see an issue. AVG said a link on the article registered positive for PDF:UrlMal-inf[Trj]. If anyone technically minded could take a look to see if this is a false positive I'd appreciate it. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 16:23, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Cameron11598, it's even more complicated. The article links to PDFs, and the PDFs contain links towards websites that have been flagged as serving up 'a' virus. Lots of links to check manually with a virus checker... —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:14, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
@TheDJ: Is there a tool or anyway to run a check on those PDFs? --Cameron11598 (Talk) 15:22, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Cameron11598, not that i'm aware of —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:44, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Other wikis' icons no longer shown when logging out

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T226736
Screenshot showing the Special:UserLogout screen without interwiki icons.

Previously, logging out of one wiki shows the icons for other wikis that one is also being logged out of. But now the icons have disappeared. Why did they temporarily disappear, and will they re-appear in the near-future? GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 16:39, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

@GeoffreyT2000: can you be a bit more descriptive? Are you referring to clicking on Special:UserLogout? Logging out should invalidate your global logon session. You could be "logged in" to 100's of wiki's at once - what were you expecting to display? — xaosflux Talk 16:44, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
I have just attempted to reproduce this issue and did not experience it. Is this an issue you are having repeatedly? Have you hard refreshed the page to verify that the images are being downloaded to the page in full? --Izno (talk) 20:13, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
An image has been uploaded showing the problem. The problem is that I no longer see "Logging you out from other wikis of the Wikimedia Foundation:" or the wiki icons below it. Also, even if I was already logged out, when I visit "Special:UserLogout", the problem still occurs. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 21:28, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
@GeoffreyT2000: are you using monobook by chance (you can easily tell if you have a horizontal scroll bar to nowhere right now). — xaosflux Talk 22:29, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
No, I use Vector and the image I uploaded is obviously Vector. When I visit Special:UserLogout and then click the "Submit" button, the icons appear, but not if I click on the "Log out" link next to the "Contributions" link, regardless of the skin. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 23:01, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
That is correct. I can also attest that it used to show the icons before. But again, not much of an issue. --qedk (t 桜 c) 06:34, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
@GeoffreyT2000: In accordance with WP:WPSHOT, please crop out the Wikipedia puzzleball and any other non-essential portions; you might also consider indicating where the missing icons should be appearing. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:47, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Nowrap makes template topicboxes too wide

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Template talk:Nowrap#Nowrap makes template topicboxes too wide. I don't know what to make of this. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:43, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Help at Template talk:Automatic archive navigator#Arrow issues?

Could someone help with some weird issues involving {{Automatic archive navigator}}'s behaviour? Thanks to those who drop by! Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:03, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

This will involve some LUA shenanigans, btw. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:22, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Newline not rendered as space on mobile

I noticed a mobile web editor removed a newline, with the edit summary "Spacing". The newline presumably was to aid readability when editing. The spacing appears as it should on desktop (see previous revision here) but does not appear on mobile (see here). When testing this in my sandbox I also noticed that the spacing for {{hlist}} does not appear on mobile, see 1 and 2. What is causing this? Hrodvarsson (talk) 02:42, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Text: Do not insert line breaks within a sentence, since this makes it harder to edit with a screen reader. A single line break may follow a sentence, which may help some editors. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:13, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
I was not referring to the second newline, as it does not create an issue with spacing. For whatever reason the first newline is not rendered as a space on mobile. Hrodvarsson (talk) 02:19, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

was en.WP out of service just now?

Hi, there. A moment ago I heard (and verified) that this site (en) was down. Not sure how long was it, 30~50 minutes? Any comments? Thanks. -- SzMithrandir ❈ Ered Luin ❈ 01:26, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

There was issues for a while, yes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:35, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Site was working fine, I left for an hour, came back and it was fine again, saw this thread. Obviously, my fear that Wikipedia will fall apart without me is not so irrational after all. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:37, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Getting frequent and random stalls and errors at the moment, so system problems are still in play. Dl2000 (talk) 03:00, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
I see. Thank you all for the comments. (o well, my frequency of getting online isn't very suitable for watching out the technical issues). -- SzMithrandir ❈ Ered Luin ❈ 03:25, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
  • There's frequent accessibility issues. Per T226685, Marostegui et al are looking. ∯WBGconverse 04:42, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I am definitely noticing now, on both toolserver and just cruising the wikis, frequently get database errors, and incompletely loaded pages. The curious thing is, I guess similar to what Dl2000 experienced, it's not slow but stalling. So sometimes pages usually either load without issue or time out. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:07, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Is Wikiblame broken?

I'm trying to track down changes to Anna Pavlova and am getting no hits at all. Has one of the software changes broken the "find additions and removals" tool? Yngvadottir (talk) 04:19, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Yep, seems to be broken. I just tried several searches on a completely different article and they all came up "0 versions found" even though the words are in the article. Softlavender (talk) 06:08, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Yep. Tried it just a few minutes ago. We really need it fixed, among other things it let's us find out when copyvio was added. Doug Weller talk 14:55, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Have you tried the RevisionSlider feature as an alternative? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:59, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
I find that incomprehensible I'm afraid, and it sounds like an exercise in dexterity? I wanted to know when "little toe" entered the article, surely a search function? Yngvadottir (talk) 20:04, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
It's been reported to the author here: de:Benutzer Diskussion:Flominator/WikiBlame#WIkiblame down? --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 20:12, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Oh good, I couldn't figure out who to report it to. I see my guess was right as to the cause. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:15, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
It's fixed! About to thank Flominator, although the test revealed a weakness in articles with this much history - it returned the 2010 restoration of the vandal string rather than the 2008 insertion (I searched manually from the start of the history). Yngvadottir (talk) 21:15, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
@Yngvadottir, AntiCompositeNumber, and Softlavender: it's still not working. Doug Weller talk 05:41, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Blast. I needed it again today, got an error message this time, and reckoned it was just temporarily down. See the talk page (discussion is in English), where the maintainer is saying his ISP is giving him grief. Yngvadottir (talk) 05:45, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
@Yngvadottir, Softlavender, AntiCompositeNumber, and Doug Weller: It's still beta-ish, but XTools now features a Blame tool. See for example [55]. This new tool uses the fantastic WikiWho algorithm, which should be more accurate and much faster than the old blame tool. Feedback appreciated. Best, — MusikAnimal talk 20:46, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
MusikAnimal, Great! Do you think it is stable/reliable enough to switch the links on article history pages? --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 20:53, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
@AntiCompositeNumber: Yes I believe so. It's possible there are bugs, but from my testing everything seems to work. It's certainly better than nothing, I hope :) — MusikAnimal talk 21:15, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Requested: MediaWiki talk:Histlegend#Wikiblame replacement. Nardog (talk) 09:31, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
I liked the old tool; it was relatively clear what was going on, and I didn't find it slow. I hope we can eventually have both. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:11, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
@Yngvadottir: I would be curious to know what we can do to improve the XTools version. Are the diff views overkill? Someone else mentioned how the old one would tell you what revisions it was scanning; the thing is the new Blame tool doesn't work in the same way. It does not scan any revisions. The speed should be directly relational only to the size of the article, not how many revisions there are. The algorithm is where it shines most, with reportedly 95% accuracy (of course the XTools may be parsing its results wrong, but I have yet to a find an example where it didn't work). It will also find all relevant diffs, I don't recall if the old one did this. Anyway, not a competition :)
You may also be interested in WhoColor. This allows you to do a "blame" while viewing an article directly within the Wikipedia interface. It does this through a web browser extension. It's a little difficult to set up (though Community Tech has plans to improve this). The other issue is you can't search by wikitext, which is why the XTools Blame tool was created.
Regards, — MusikAnimal talk 21:24, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
I should also mention the WikiWho service only has data on mainspace pages. For this reason XTools' Blame could not be a replacement, but hopefully still a nice compliment to the older tool. — MusikAnimal talk 21:32, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: Thanks, a good blame tool would be wonderful. I tried clicking your example link ([56]) twice. The first time my browser said there was a timeout and nothing was displayed. The second time it showed "Error querying Wikiwho API: Unknown" + "Executed in 30.129 seconds. Taken 2.95 megabytes of memory to execute." Then I tried searching a user page to test what happens if it is not the main namespace and got "500: Internal Server Error" + "cURL error 35: Unknown SSL protocol error in connection to en.wikipedia.org:443 (see http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/libcurl-errors.html)". Questions: If it only searches articles, the starting screen should say that? In a 20,000-foot view, what is going on behind the scenes? If I enter a query, is XTools sending my search to f-squared.org/wikiwho/? Is the user identified? Even if not, isn't there a potential for a privacy breach? Johnuniq (talk) 00:54, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
@Johnuniq: There are networking issues going on right now with all WMF servers, which would explain the errors you got. You may have noticed the wiki itself being slow to load pages -- this is for the same reason. Check back later and that example link should load in 3-5 seconds, 10 at the most.
XTools sends WikiWho only the page title, and WikiWho sends back the attribution data, and finally XTools performs your search on that. IPs are completely scrubbed for all tools on Cloud Services, but regardless the requests to WikiWho are made server-side so your IP and user agent (by default) wouldn't be forwarded anyway. — MusikAnimal talk 01:34, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
OK, thanks. An article with a lot of history would have a giant amount of attribution data. Very interesting system. Johnuniq (talk) 01:39, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
The length of the history doesn't actually matter in this case. WikiWho has precomputed attribution data for each "token" of the article (basically each word), and XTools merely loops through that until it matches your search query. This should usually make it very fast, but for very long articles the response payload from WikiWho will be larger and hence take longer to transfer. WikiWho server performance of course is also a factor. This precomputed tokenized system is what separates it from other options (not a claim a superiority, just a different system), and is what makes its content persistence measurements so accurate; e.g. you write a sentence that matches my search query, then someone reverts it, and it gets reverted back again by someone other than you. You'd end up with two diffs that match the query, but WikiWho in theory should attribute it to the original editor who added it. — MusikAnimal talk 02:23, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
  • information Administrator note following an edit request at MediaWiki_talk:Histlegend#Wikiblame_replacement, the xtools version has replaced the broken tool on this history legend. If resolved or if any new issues are caused feel free to revert. — xaosflux Talk 20:31, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
    Sigh, I tried it on the Pavlova article and got no results, repeatedly (for "toe", "big toe", "little toes". The vandalism edit replaced "big toes" with "little toes", among many other changes). My experience of Xtools from looking at the contributions pages for editors is that it's down more than it's up. Although I can hardly blame the maintainers when the database is lagged (recently by 7 hours!) I don't find the downtime inspiring. Looks like one tool that worked for me but has now quit working has been replaced with another that may or may not be as useful but has now quit working. Let's have both linked from the history, please, as we do with the two geolocate links on IP contribution pages, so we can at least try the other when whichever we prefer isn't working ... Yngvadottir (talk) 20:51, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
    (Although maybe I should blame the WMF in this instance, since the servers just told me twice that they'd failed to save that last edit.) Yngvadottir (talk) 20:54, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
    @Yngvadottir: Yes, there are all sorts of network issues going on across all of the WMF infrastructure, which would include XTools. I can't speak for the issue with the Pavlova article (I don't see the word "toes" anywhere), but if you give me more information I might can help.
    I don't know about the downtime you speak of, either. XTools has had close to 99.9% uptime since the new version launched in 2017. Queries may time out, but this has nothing to do with stability, just that the user or page has too many edits to feasibly get results in a timely fashion.
    At any rate, right now is not the time to evaluate the performance or stability of any tool on Cloud Services. Both the WMF networking infrastructure and replica databases are either experiencing severe lag or under maintenance, so you're going to see issues/slowness everywhere. Hopefully everything will be back in working order soon. — MusikAnimal talk 22:15, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
    Ah, you meant Anna Pavlova, sorry. I see results for "big toes". I think one issue is you must use complete words as they exist in the article. That is something I can fix and will get to ASAP.
    "Little toes" doesn't exist anywhere, but I think you were trying to find the edit that added this, even though it has since been reverted. I think WikiBlame did this because it scans each revision, so it is indeed truly a "Find addition/removal". XTools Blame is just that -- a "blame" tool (tantamount to git blame, where the name comes from). If you want to blame an older version of the article, you need to tell XTools that using the "As of" option at https://xtools.wmflabs.org/blame/en.wikipedia.org. I just went to revision history and found a version that contained "little toes", and here are the results.
    I realize now how the XTools Blame tool might be a little confusing, considering people are used to how the old tool worked. "Find addition/removal" isn't really the right name for the link at MediaWiki:Histlegend. "Blame" is accurate, but many people probably don't know what that means. — MusikAnimal talk 22:29, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
    Thanks for that sample output. I did find it confusing. In theory it's nice to be able to see both the insertion and the reinsertion, but instead of the vandal edit substituting "little toes" for "big toes" among several other changes, and the subsequent edit reinstating that whole vandalized block of text after someone had removed it (the latter is what the older tool found and stopped at), the XTools tool appears to have given the original insertion of the paragrah with the correct "big toes", followed by the vandalism diff., and omitted the reinsertion of the vandalized paragraph. That is a bit misleading, since the first of the two diffs provided doesn't have the search string in it. (Or if it does I can't see where.) And aside from the reappearance of a 7-hour lag (!), if I understand your point about many revisions/edits, XTools is of fairly little use if it's going to balk at my contributions (what do I have, 35,000? Several editors have hundreds of thousands) and pages like Anna Pavlova with revisions since 2003 or so. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:46, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

XTools replication lag?

There's quite a bit of replication lag with XTools right now, particularly with TopEdits which right now has a 2 day lag. What happened? Is this related to the recent Cloudflare outage or is this just a coincidence? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 00:01, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Geez, that might be a new record! The replag refers to the lag between production and the Toolforge replicas. So many other tools are affected, too. See toolforge:replag. I'm fairly certain it has nothing to do with the Cloudflare outage. There's been general slowness with the replicas in general. I will poke some people to see if there's anything that can be done. — MusikAnimal talk 00:07, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Hmm okay if you keep refreshing at toolforge:replag you'll notice the lag keeps jumping between multiple days and just multiple seconds. Something else is going on (in addition to the general database slowness) — MusikAnimal talk 00:09, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
This is due to being down a host due maintenance (T222978). — JJMC89 (T·C) 05:52, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
All back to zeroes now. :-) William Avery (talk) 08:38, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Blackscreen notification problems

There is an issue with the blackscreen gadget whereby notification shew black text on a black background. I raised this here a year ago, it was kicked over to Phabricator, who kicked it back. I have started a new thread at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-Blackskin.css#Notifications problem. The edit notice there suggested announcing it here, so that is what I am doing. Your kind attention would be appreciated. DuncanHill (talk) 23:37, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Replied there. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:00, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Still can't play MIDIs

If I remember correctly, there was no difference between [[File: and [[:File: when it came to MIDI files. Now [[File: links to MIDI files behave differently. But you still can't play them, contrary to what Tech News claimed:

(File:Beethoven Op. 33 no. 1.mid)

With the beta player turned on in Preferences, all that shows is a big cross mark and the text "No compatible source was found for this media." With the old player, nothing shows up, not even a link to the file. This is also the case in the description pages of MIDI files, including on Commons.

Is this something transitory? Can we expect it to work properly soon, or does something need to be fixed? Nardog (talk) 09:59, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Nardog, this is because for already existing files, the transcoding will need to be manually initiated right now to generate the files the for the player to playback (Purge the file description page on Commons, then kick of the derivate transcoding at the bottom of the description page). For new midi files it should do that automatically. It's possible to run a maintenance script on the servers to trigger all these, I'll see if we can get something arranged for that. (This is not automatic, as they are very expensive workloads, esp. on 4K video) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:29, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
@TheDJ: Thanks, that makes sense. I'll purge the files used under Category:Articles with audio generated from MIDI files to facilitate the transition of {{Listen}}, which uses the Score extension to convert MIDIs on site.
Tangentially, would it be able to link to the derived Ogg or MP3 rather than the original MIDI using [[Media:...]] (or {{filepath:...}})? There are ~900 articles linking to MIDIs via {{Audio}} (as opposed to the ~100 using {{Listen}}). (If not, perhaps I shall make {{Audio}} link to the file description page if a MIDI is given.) Nardog (talk) 13:30, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Nardog, no you cannot link to derivative files —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:21, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Nardog, the english wikipedia files have now all been purged. With exception of the other issue with audio/mid you identified, all previously uploaded files should now have their derivatives and be playable. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:12, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Meanwhile, this file cannot be transcoded and even the player doesn't show for some reason: File:J S Bach -- Canon per augmentationem contrario motu (dulcimer-piano-harp) (ornam).mid (see also Category:Counterpoint). I thought maybe there was something wrong with the filename, but similarly named files on Commons work just fine. It may be the file that's corrupt, but it seems the Score extension can convert it to Ogg just fine: Canon (music)#Mirror canon. Nardog (talk) 13:52, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Nardog, more likely that part of the software change hasn't landed here yet. en.wp get's changes on Thursdays, Commons on Wednesdays. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:25, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
@TheDJ: I think I found the problem: Some of the MIDI files on this wiki have their MIME type as "audio/mid" as opposed to "audio/midi", and those are the ones that the player does not appear for. Compare Special:Search/file: incategory:"All free media" filemime:"audio/mid" vs. Special:Search/file: incategory:"All free media" filemime:"audio/midi". But I don't know how the MIME types are determined, let alone how to change them. Nardog (talk) 14:46, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Nardog, that could well be the problem. I filed T226784 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:56, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Nardog, I can play the file okay, but that might be because I have another MIDI player on my browser. Adam9007 (talk) 14:29, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Location access request?

I just opened an article using the mobile web interface, and I got a popup from Chrome asking if I would give permission to Wikipedia to access my device location. See my screenshot where it shows it still wants to know, and Chrome is blocking it. What's going on here? Is it WP:THURSDAY? And can this be disabled ASAP? --rchard2scout (talk) 06:05, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

@Rchard2scout: In the screenshot, the site isn't necessarily asking for user location. If you deny location permission on a site, the "Location – Blocked" info sticks there throughout the site, including in pages that don't require it. This can be reproduced by denying access to location in the Special:Nearby page. Go to "Site Settings" and reset the location permission and it should be fine. Drink every time I said "location". —RainFall 06:40, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
RainFall, really ??? never knew this about Chrome for Android.. how annoying is that. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:58, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
@TheDJ: Isn't this how it works with other browsers? AFAIK, mainstream browsers "block" sites instead of their specific pages, preventing new popups for previously-denied permissions on the same site to show up. —RainFall 08:19, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
RainFall, for me on Safari it only shows something when the page is requesting info. On Chrome for desktop, there is an icon but again only when the page is requesting the location. On FF, there is an icon that is indeed shown on every page. But still far from being a huge banner. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:56, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
@TheDJ: https://imgur.com/NiSjnlE (Chrome) Do you see something like this after you deny a permission? Not same as "Location – Blocked", but my point is: browsers manage permissions site-wide. —RainFall 09:19, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
RainFall, i see it after doing the action on Desktop, but it doesn't stay. It doesn't show that all the time on every single page that is NOT requesting the location. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:26, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
Oh... kay. We might be using different versions of Chrome. —RainFall 09:29, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
@RainFall:, Ah, I see, thanks. Just checked again, and yes, the "blocked" stays once one page has requested it and you've denied it (same on desktop, btw). Also, TheDJ, the huge banner in the screenshot only shows when you click the padlock in the address bar, which I did in order to show the issue (because I'd already dismissed the popup).
I'm fine with Special:Nearby requesting location access, my primary concern was that the initial article that I opened this morning (Emma Nutt) should not have asked me for my location. I feared something, somewhere (MediaWiki, template, module, etc), had changed, and now every article would want to know the user's location, which is not something anyone here would endorse. I don't know why it happened this morning, and I can't reproduce it now, on either mobile or desktop. So it's probably just a strange fluke. rchard2scout (talk) 10:46, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, definitely more people would notice if MediaWiki suddenly started harvesting our locations (/s). Also, reading this made me realize TheDJ and I misinterpreted each other. I was referring to the block/allow option that shows up when the padlock is clicked; sorry for the confusion. —RainFall 11:02, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
RainFall, ha. ok that makes sense :) Still like to figure out which page requested that location.. As far as I know, we only have that functionality in the Special:Nearby, not anywhere else.. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:32, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Filter revisions on page history

Something weird has happened to the view of a page history, there's now a filter revisions box and I don't understand it. Help! DuncanHill (talk) 23:40, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

It allows you to filter the revisions by date if you click show on it. I for one prefer the old way; it's less fiddly. Graham87 03:35, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 173#Hideous history page. Graham87 03:40, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
Is there any way to get the old way back? And I have no idea what the tags are, and it doesn't attempt to explain them. I expect the Foundation will want lots more money this year now it's "improved" it. Sorry, I really can't put up with being fucked around much more. I know it's not your fault chaps. DuncanHill (talk) 14:31, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Major accidental deletes when editing pages.

Hello, I have been experiencing a peculiar bug. Twice in two days, when I've saved a section source edit where I added my comment starting with colons and ending in four tildes, the page has registered deletions of thousands of characters into my edit history. They are entirety of paragraphs or complete messages from other users. The diffs are here and here. In each case, I used preview and publish. The first time I previewed multiple times before publishing while the second time, it was a straightforward, typing, previewing, publishing. The page had loaded slowly because of low bandwidth in the second instance but I don't think that was the case the first time (don't well remember). I am also quite certain that in the first one, when I first opened the page (the talk page to view, not the edit interface of it), the page that was displayed to me didn't have those s-tags at all which the edit history says I edited out (the most impossible thing to me in all this). I haven't added tools or changed preferences in quite some time but I changed my signature a few days ago (recombining code from multiple signatures I'd come across). Now I am afraid to edit any page with any amount of activity. I don't know if there were any incidents before the first one. I was warned by an admin for that first one, so I was checking back on history every time I published an edit ever since, which is how I caught the second one. I don't even know what kind of information would be helpful here. So, feel free to ask me. Thanks! Usedtobecool ✉️ ✨ 20:10, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

@Usedtobecool: It sounds to me like servers aren't recognizing edit conflicts when they should be. See above, for the opposite problem. I have no idea what could be causing this. To start:
  1. What browser/version?
  2. For the first edit, is it possible that you had the edit page open for at least four and half hours before saving? It looks like you were somehow editing an old version of the page. But you say you were section editing, and old revision don't have section editing links.
  3. I see you used the 2017 wikitext editor. For either of those edits, did you switch back and forth between the text editor and VisualEditor? Or were you in wikitext mode the whole time?
  4. Do you have the "Two column edit conflict" feature enabled (under "Beta")? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:37, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Suffusion of Yellow, thanks for answering. I apologise for the delay. It couldn't be helped. I am just thankful it's got a reply and isn't yet archived.
  1. Google chrome Version 75.0.3770.100 (Official Build) (32-bit), unless it's been updated in the last three days (in that case, whatever came immediately before.)
  2. It looks 99.99 on that version being the page that was given to me but whichever version was given to me, it was given as the current revision. I went to the page via notification of my mention (could the page have been loaded to the edit version that generated the notification while giving it as the current version?). That edit took me time (first time I wanted to find and use an emoji) but it couldn't be that long, 20 minutes tops. When an edit has been too stale, I copy it to the clipboard and go back to current page and start a fresh edit.
  3. No, I rarely, if ever, use the visual editor (too half-baked IMO). Because of my preferences, I get "edit" and "edit source" options on each section header. I clicked "source edit" from there, clicked preview from the save box and publish from preview.
  4. Yes, I have "automatically enable all beta features". I get edit-conflict window sometimes but haven't found a way to merge edits yet (haven't looked). So, I copy my edits to clipboard, give an ok on whichever edit is suggested to have been in conflict with mine (or just leave the page discarding all my changes) and try again after loading the page fresh.
In the first case, it seems I was editing the page while everyone else was asleep. So, I don't understand how it could have been an edit conflict related bug but I was definitely shown a stale version as the current page. In the second case, it seems the other editor was shown the edit conflict. I am going to be "bold" and continue editing. If it happens again, maybe there will be additional insight there. Thanks for your help! Usedtobecool ✉️ ✨ 14:57, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
@Usedtobecool: Sorry, I can't figure this one out. My first theory, after your latest response, was that you clicked on the "view changes" link from your alerts drop-down, which will take you to an old revision. But (1) diff pages don't have section editing links, and (2), that would have taken you to this revision, which is even older than the one you were editing. I also successfully produced edit conflicts in my sandbox, using the same combination (section edits/2017 editor/two-column conflict). Anyone else want to give this one a go? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 18:37, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
Thank you very much for trying, Suffusion of Yellow. I'll just wait and see if it happens a third time. And if it does, I'll trying tweaking preferences, adding/removing features/tools, etc. If I find anything interesting, I'll be sure to let you know. Thanks again!Usedtobecool ✉️ ✨ 19:21, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Purge cache on Wikipedia App (Android)?

How do I "purge" a page using the Wikipedia Android app? The instructions at WP:PURGE seem to apply to the desktop and mobile versions of Wikipedia only, and not the App. My specific problem is that after editing an article my revisions are not showing up and I'm still seeing the "old" version of the article. (And yes, I have disabled the App option called "Prefer offline content.") Muzilon (talk) 09:15, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Muzilon, which specific article? (Purging is something that should never be needed. It basically indicates bugs in the software. And how much time between editing and getting the new version, etc etc. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:33, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
@TheDJ: In this particular case, Gerald Savory. The revised version is displaying correctly on my laptop, but I can't get the App version to "refresh". Muzilon (talk) 12:40, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
@Muzilon: Well, then you need to clear cache of the application and not purge the page's cache on the server. If you tap and hold on the app icon from your launcher, you'll find an "app info" option, which takes you to another "page" with the option to clear cache of the application. —RainFall 05:48, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
@RainFall: I'm afraid that doesn't seem to work for me either. My mobile device has an option under Settings > Apps > Wikipedia App > Storage where I can choose an option to both "Clear Data" and "Clear Cache" for the App... but the darn page still won't refresh for me. Muzilon (talk) 06:01, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
Clearing the app's "app data" is the last resort, which definitely should have worked. I installed the application to see if I can reproduce the issue but unfortunately couldn't. —RainFall 06:10, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
I even tried uninstalling and reinstalling the App, but that didn't work either. Something is rotten in the state of my mobile phone, it would seem :-/ Muzilon (talk) 06:42, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
Muzilon, that's weird. I checked the api call and that does also give the updated content.. so it must be something in the web request caching of the Android App in that case. I suggest filing a ticket in phabricator. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:02, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Two days later... the revised article has finally "refreshed" itself in the App. But I've noticed this problem before, and there is apparently no option to force the App to refresh/purge an article. Sorry, I am not familiar with Phabricator at all – how/where do I lodge a support ticket? Muzilon (talk) 10:13, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Would like a small change to my watchlist

Would anyone happen to know the right CSS code to put the (diff|hist) links in my watchlist to the left of the article title (as in user contributions) rather than on the right? I would very much prefer them to all be lined up rather than wherever the title happens to end. I tried figuring this out myself but CSS is not my thing. I swear it used to be that way, but I'm not sure. Thanks. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:01, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

@Someguy1221: I saw a similar inexplicable change in my watchlist a couple of weeks back and resolved it by unchecking "Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist" at Preferences->Recent Changes. Worth a try. Abecedare (talk) 02:21, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
It can't be done purely in CSS, which cannot rearrange the order of presentation. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:10, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Incorrect Edit Conflicts

I have had a *large* number (almost half my edits) of incorrect "Edit Conflicts" over the last week or so. In these cases, often no one has edited the article in months, but my edit comes up as an edit conflict between the current version and my change. I wasn't seeing this prior to last week. I'm running Google Chrome, though I'm not sure that affects things.Naraht (talk) 15:12, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

+1 --qedk (t 桜 c) 16:39, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Is it possible that you double-clicked the "Publish changes" button, thus sending the save request twice and so edit-conflicting with yourself? One of my old mice was faulty, the left button developed a bounce which caused a number of unwanted double-clicks. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:02, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Naraht, I've seem some, one a minute ago to my own subpage User:Sphilbrick/Fram. Definitely not a conflict. I don't think I double-clicked, but will pay close attention next time S Philbrick(Talk) 12:47, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Naraht, And I got another one, while fixing a typo in my past reply. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:49, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Happens with me too, occassionally. Some undeniably because of double presses, but I am immediately aware when I do that and this issue occurs even with just one click. Sometimes, just my own diff is shown in the edit conflict resolver. --qedk (t 桜 c) 14:36, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Occasionally doesn't surprise me, and getting them <5% of the time it would be reasonable. Getting them *half* the time, OTOH is a bit odder.Naraht (talk) 15:56, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Naraht, I'm not sure why <5% would be reasonable. I'm getting them often, not half the time, but probably half a dozen times in the last 24 hours. S Philbrick(Talk) 17:55, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
Naraht, three more in last couple hours , which is under 50% but well over 5%. Using Google Chrome. S Philbrick(Talk) 20:28, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
@Naraht, Redrose64, Sphilbrick, and Nyttend: I am still having apparent self-conflicts on edits. I didn't see this so posted below at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)##Posting issues and see that others also have a possible related issues, See: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Block conflict. I have been hitting edit conflicts and it may happen two or three times in a row or may skip one or two, then happen again. I use Chrome so would like to find a solution if it is involved. I suppose there could be a problem of a somehow contagious finger twitch syndrome but it seems unlikely as I have rarely had false edit conflicts before. A result is that I have to open another tab to check the posting to see if it was in fact a conflict or not. In my case the post will have happened and an attempt to correct it resulted in a double post. Otr500 (talk) 12:57, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Note: It showed an edit conflict when posting this but it still posted even showing the conflict. Otr500 (talk) 13:00, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Androit

How can I create a new article using Androit?Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 12:09, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

@Nedim Ardoğa: This is really a WP:HD matter. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:11, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
@Nedim Ardoğa: I guess you mean Android (operating system). Assuming you use a browser and not a Wikipedia app, the key thing is not the operating system but whether you use the mobile or desktop interface to Wikipedia. In the mobile interface you can for example use the second box at Wikipedia:Your first article. Or you can click "Desktop" at the bottom of a mobile page to get the desktop interface you may know better. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:46, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Why can I edit another user's common.css file?

See User talk:Writ Keeper/Scripts/logoutConfirm.js for background.

I'm able to edit User:Khajidha/common.css, even when logged out (see the two IP edits in that page's history). I thought js and css pages were automatically protected so only the user (or admins) could edit them, per WP:REDLOCK. For example, I can't edit User:RoySmith/common.css when logged out; I get a "View source" tab instead of the "Edit" tab. What's going on here? -- RoySmith (talk) 02:46, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I believe the reason for that is that Khajidha created the page as User:Khajidha/common.ccs with the extension spelled wrong and then moved it to the correct place, which meant that the system failed to recognize it as a CSS page (also note that it renders as Wikitext instead of CSS). To fix the problem, an interface admin needs to change to content model of the page. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:49, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
@Pppery and RoySmith: yes, that is exactly the problem (I wanted to be sure) - the code to protect user css from others is in PermissionManager.php, and it only applies when the page is a isUserCssConfigPage, which is restricted by Title.php to only pages that hasContentModel( CONTENT_MODEL_CSS ) (are actually CSS pages) --DannyS712 (talk) 02:53, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Fixed by summoning Oshwah — JJMC89 (T·C) 03:03, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Pppery is correct. Upon creating a new page, the MediaWiki software looks at the namespace and the title of the page (in this example, for the '.css' characters at the end) when deciding what content model the page should be set to - and hence what permanent / system protection should be applied as a result. Because Khajidha had initially created the page with the misspelled title User:Khajidha/common.ccs, the MediaWiki software just applied the plain text content model. Moving the page from User:Khajidha/common.ccs to User:Khajidha/common.css does not resolve the issue; the content model must be changed over by an administrator in order to fix it. Another solution to this would've been to just create the page with the correct spelling (User:Khajidha/common.css), then just tag User:Khajidha/common.ccs for U1. Two things obviously come to mind when writing this response:
  1. Does simply changing the content model on any page to be "sanitized CSS", "JavaScript", or "JSON" automatically apply the system protection to the page as if it were a .js, .css, or .json? Or does the MediaWiki software look at the namespace and title's ending before it does so?
  2. The fact that page moves don't automatically go through this check and update the content model if the move changes the title to be a .js, .css, or .json is definitely something that we need to open a new phab ticket about and report / request. If someone in the not-too-distant-future creates a script that becomes highly used by many users, and they accidentally did so by misspelling the title (just like what happened here), and they fix it by moving the page and without making sure that the content model is manually fixed - this is a security hole that's significant and very dangerous. While this should definitely become a phab ticket, we should also verify that the possibility or potential for abuse of the project using this change is low or non-existent (for example, an LTA or vandal renaming a bunch of pages to "VandalismTitle1.js", "VandalismTitle2.js", etc). Okay, after some testing, we found that you cannot call .js files or import scripts using importScript() if the target .js page is set to the "wikitext" content model, which is what happens on all pages that are created that are not code files. This is not an issue. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 12:21, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Additional comments and input would be appreciated here. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 01:25, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
@Oshwah: if you try to import a page (e.g. User:Xaosflux/common2.js) that is in the wrong content model (such as that page) it won't work. So that it isn't having protection enforced isn't a major security problem. Let's follow up at WP:IANB if there are other use cases that you want to test out? — xaosflux Talk 02:09, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Hi Xaosflux! Thank you for looking into this and for responding here. When you mean "import a page", are you referring to attempting to use Special:Import? Or are you referring to something else? I didn't know if you were trying to replicate what I believe might be a major issue, or were simply trying to test something else... let me know. :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 03:59, 29 June 2019 (UTC) I'm an idiot... ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 04:05, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
@Oshwah: I was just testing this as Xaosflux was responding. See User:Suffusion of Yellow alt 5/common.js, which tried to load the "fake JS" page User:Suffusion of Yellow alt 5/foo.js (before I moved it) in four different ways. All I got were four HTTP 403 responses, and no alert()s. When I moved it to User:Suffusion of Yellow alt 5/monobook.js, it didn't load at all, even though I was using the monobook skin. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 02:22, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Suffusion of Yellow - Ah, okay. So attempting to call that .js file is 403'ing on you? I'm looking at the page logs for foo.js (which is now redirecting to monobook.js due to moving it) and I don't see where the content model has been modified, yet the current content model of your common.js, foo.js, and monobook.js pages are all set to "sanitized CSS" - did someone change that for you? How did you create foo.js? Did you try creating it as "foo something else" (no .js or other ending like that), then moving the page to be "foo.js"? I'm just trying to figure out what you did exactly so that I can follow... Thanks for testing this and for responding with your input and comments. It means a lot. :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 04:05, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
SoY's monobook.js is not in SCSS, it is in JS as seen here. — xaosflux Talk 04:09, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
@Oshwah: I created it as User:Suffusion of Yellow alt 5/foo.notjs, then moved it twice. The content model shows as wikitext for me. I don't know where you see "sanitized CSS". Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 04:28, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Suffusion of Yellow - Oh interesting. What page are you referring to exactly that's currently set to "wikitext"? I might be missing something... lol ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 04:34, 29 June 2019 (UTC) Okkkkkayyy... I just realized that I was using Special:ChangeContentModel to view what the current content model of each page was. That doesn't work... you have to use the "Page information" link to see it. Special:ChangeContentModel's drop-down field option is labeled "New content model", meaning that the drop-down list isn't set to the current model by default, it's just set to the item on the top of the list (which is "Sanitized CSS").... I'm a fool..... ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 04:39, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
@Oshwah: At [57], under "Page content model", I see "wikitext". Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 04:38, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Suffusion of Yellow - I'm a moron. See above. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 04:41, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
@Oshwah: perhaps phab:T226914 may help! — xaosflux Talk 01:58, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
Xaosflux - Thank you for creating that enhancement request. :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 07:55, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
Following up on my talk if you have some experiments you'd like to see. — xaosflux Talk 04:08, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
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