Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current main page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

This is an archive of discussions from the old discussion page for MediaWiki messages "Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki namespace text", but it was moved here to be under the new discussion page.

Self-link

Would anyone object to adding a self-link to each message in the form of a period to be used for tracking? Dori | Talk 19:34, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)

That's not really necessary. You can just use the search function, which also has the advantage that it is not limited to 500 links.—Eloquence

I don't trust the search function too much. It doesn't seem to work well for me. Besides it is not as user friendly as clicking what links here and getting a list. The 500 link limit may be upped or fixed so I don't think it will be a problem. Dori | Talk 19:42, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)

It works for me. You can bookmark the 500 results per page display if you prefer that. But adding hidden links is a workaround that shouldn't really be necessary. The software should just count [[MediaWiki:{{{1}}}]] ([{{fullurl:MediaWiki:{{{1}}}|action=edit}} edit] | [[MediaWiki talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] | [{{fullurl:MediaWiki:{{{1}}}|action=history}} history] | [{{fullurl:Special:Whatlinkshere/MediaWiki:{{{1}}}}} links] | [{{fullurl:MediaWiki:{{{1}}}|action=watch}} watch] | logs) as links. Besides, the way I understand it, the LINKS table is only updated when the article where the message is included is saved. That would mean that it wouldn't work until all articles are re-saved.—Eloquence

Bookmarking is still not user friendly (it is outside the software and not consistent with other usages of What links here). There shouldn't be a problem with the links table unless we change the name of the msg article itself, right? Dori | Talk 19:52, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)

No, what I mean is that if you add the [[MediaWiki:stub|.]] link to the Template:stub page, for example, I believe that this will not work with articles that use {{msg:stub}} until they have been saved again (the LINKS table, which contains the page relationships that are queried by the "What links here" function, is updated during each page save). Aside from that, I'd rather have a function that is exclusively useful for editors be somewhat obscure (list of all stubs) than confuse regular users with strange underlined "."s all over the place (which would also increase the likelihood of them discovering the MediaWiki pages by accident, meaning that we will have to protect them, which is currently not certain yet).—Eloquence 19:58, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)

Security throught obscurity? Not such a good idea. Zocky 19:39, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[[MediaWiki:stub| ]] isn't visible at all, at least my browser (IE). Not that that addresses having to save pages again. Κσυπ Cyp 01:21, 28 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Well, the whole point was to have that self-link before there were too many articles with msg:stub in them. Dori | Talk 01:28, Dec 28, 2003 (UTC)

I was just commenting, with a space instead of dot, the links wouldn't be visible, avoiding strange underlined "."s all over the place. Maybe links like  might have the same effect as invisible links, although I haven't tried it. Wasn't paying much attention to the rest of the discussion. (Come to think of it, not sure if you were replying to Eloquence or me... It's rather late at night, I'm not thinking properly. My reply probably doesn't make sense.) Κσυπ Cyp 01:39, 28 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If it's really needed, we could just generate once in a while a list like Wikipedia:List_of_stubs_without_msg (a few of the 9'000) for those with. --User:Docu

hmmm... the point is to make it real-time and reliable. Dori, since it won't break anything, I think it should just be added. Nobody's making anybody use it. But really, make them point to a page with an ugly name, so there's no other links to it (there are other links to message pages themself already). Zocky 19:39, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I'm still opposed. Confusing and unnecessary.—Eloquence

Discussions in general

Bah, I think there are too many places where discussions about MediaWiki messages could go. I propose we pick one place to discuss MediaWiki messages, and point all the other talk pages there (not a redirect, just a link). What do you all think? Dori | Talk 19:58, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)

Maybe Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki namespace text would be the best place. Angela . 20:10, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Another candidate is Wikipedia talk:All messages in the MediaWiki namespace because many users might check that page. Of course we need a shorter alias WPT:AMIMN :) Dori | Talk 20:17, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)

Well, no one else seems to have an opinion. I will leave a note on some of the other discussion pages, and then move their contents in here (Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki namespace text, or as a shortcut maybe WT:MNT). Dori | Talk 17:50, Dec 15, 2003 (UTC)

Made this page focal point

OK, I moved some comments, and left the following note on the other pages:

Prior comments were moved to '''[[WT:MNT]]''' which is the focal discussion page for MediaWiki namespace messages. Before commenting on this page consider doing there ''instead'' as it is probably more closely watched. ~~~~

Consider doing the same for any pages that I may have missed. Also we should probably archive some parts of this page as it has gotten rather large. Some refactoring required, and I can't get to it right now :) I will do it later, if no one does it. Dori | Talk 02:51, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

OK, I did some summarizing and moved some to archive. Someone figure out how to summarize subst vs msg if the issue is closed (which I am not sure if it is) :) Dori | Talk 07:57, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

This page

I know this page has gotten rather long. I will archive it tomorrow (time to sleep). I still believe it is better to focus MediaWiki discussions in one place, rather than on the hundreds of possible talk pages. Dori | Talk 08:01, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

No, no, no. Please don't do that. Some consolidation makes sense, primarily that of the MediaWiki-related pages in the Wikipedia: namespace. But not the consolidation of all talk pages of the MediaWiki namespace -- that's just annoying. Why should I have all discussions about which tasks to add to Template:Opentask here, of all places? There's a reason talk pages are linked to subject pages. Super consolidation will only make things messy and increase the risk of edit conflicts.—Eloquence 08:27, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

I agree. It'll end up too big like the village pump, which is now having to be archived every day, making it fairly useless. Perhaps a better solution is to hold the discussions on the talk pages of the messages themselves, but annouce discussions here to draw attention to them. Angela . 09:09, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Does Dori actually mean moving some of the older sections to the /Archive 1 subpage? I would support that since this page is getting a bit long. Phil 11:18, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

Let's discuss the messages on the messages talk pages. -- User:Docu

OK, it appears that I am outnumbered :) Should I revert what I did with regard to the MediaWiki_talk:X pages or will that confuse the issue even more? I would agree with Angela's idea, except that I don't think it will work on practice as people are simply not going to bother to post here as well (might not even realise that that is a convention). Dori | Talk 17:11, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

I personally would appreciate a revert if it's not too much work. But it's not a big deal.—Eloquence

Thanks!—Eloquence

Done. Hopefully I didn't miss some. Dori | Talk 20:38, Dec 19, 2003 (UTC)

unprotecting this page

I'm abstaining from the question of protecting MediaWiki pages, but I see no reason to protect this page itself: IE no reason to protect Wikipedia:MediaWiki namespace text. Unless I miss my mark, if someone vandalises this page it will cause no serious problems, certainly not enough to warrant page protection. It's not listed on wikipedia:protected page that I can see (the MediaWiki: pages are, but not this one). Martin 00:20, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps you should ask Tim first. I suspect it is generated automatically and the protection is supposed to prevent changes from being overwritten during the next auto-import.—Eloquence

Reviewing the protection log, it seems that Angela protected it. We don't protect other auto-imported pages, so I don't see that this one needs to be treated any differently. Martin 00:28, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Martin, vandalism of this page won't cause more damage than normal. Evil saltine 00:32, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Me too. Zocky

It was originally protected because it was once in the MediaWiki namespace. Now it's not, I agree with Martin that there is no need for it to be protected. Angela . 01:19, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

MSG: in places other than Wikipedia

Is using {{msg:...}} going to cause problems for sites that use Wikipedia for content? Are they going to have articles that show things like {{msg:stub}} at the bottom of them rather than "This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it."? On the German mailing list (translate), Tom pointed out that there are similar issues with the XML export function showing the msg tag instead of the message. Angela . 05:14, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)

I suspect most of the existing mirrors just use a bot to download the rendered HTML. A standard database dump will include the MediaWiki namespace, so if they do use a MediaWiki installation, it should still work. Perhaps Special:Export could be made to optionally expand MSG tags. I don't think it should expand them unconditionally. -- Tim Starling 06:28, Jan 9, 2004 (UTC)

Med & Legal

could someone maybe create medical and legal MediaWiki custom messages?

Please remember that Wikipedia is offered for informational use only. The information is in most cases not reviewed by professionals. You are advised to contact your doctor for health-related decisions.

Please note: Wikipedia does not give legal advice.

Jengod

No, there is already a disclaimer link at the top of every page. We don't need these as well. That's why they were already deleted. Angela . 04:43, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Disabled

I just created Template:Disabled but I have no idea where to list it. I think it's part of the default interface, but I also can't make sense of the html in that page. I don't think it belongs in the custom listing. What do you think? Dori | Talk 02:48, Jan 16, 2004 (UTC)

I need to write a script to update Wikipedia:MediaWiki namespace text. You can insert it manually if you like but eventually your changes will be overwritten with the real updated version. Template:Disabled is a special case in that I'm not even sure if it's in CVS -- I think Eloquence just patched the live version. So I can't say for sure whether it will even exist in a month's time-- Tim Starling 02:52, Jan 16, 2004 (UTC)

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