Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 194

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Village pump (technical) archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (technical).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

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Compatibility of template parameters with customized signatures

Hi, I recently noticed that customized signatures can mess up template strings when ~~~~ is used as an argument. We specify template parameters using triple braces, e.g. {{{1}}}, and when this parameter is filled out by something with html tags, that messes up how the template displays itself.
For instance, let's take up {{Unsig}}. (The example template can be anything because it's a matter of parameters.) With the default signature:

• {{Unsig|Nonexistent user|~~~~}}
• — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nonexistent user (talk • contribs) Dragoniez (talk) 16:01, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

In this case, there's no problem. But when the signature is customized as below:

• <span style="font-family:Times">[[User:Dragoniez|'''Dragoniez''']] ([[User talk:Dragoniez|'''talk''']])</span>
• {{Unsig|Nonexistent user|~~~~}}
• — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nonexistent user (talk • contribs)

The signature is just gone. Actually, this can be circumvented if the html tags are nested inside the linking wikitexts, as in:

• [[User:Dragoniez|<span style="font-family:Times">'''Dragoniez'''</span>]] ([[User talk:Dragoniez|<span style="font-family:Times">'''talk'''</span>]])
• — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nonexistent user (talk • contribs) Dragoniez (talk) 16:01, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, this is a clear workaround, but you CANNOT decorate anything outside linking wikitexts. (Notice that the parentheses are in the default font in the example immediately above.) Thus:

• [[User:Dragoniez|<span style="font-family:Times">'''Dragoniez'''</span>]] <span style="font-family:Times">([[User talk:Dragoniez|'''talk''']])</span>
• — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nonexistent user (talk • contribs)

This doesn't work. I personally want to use:

• <span style="font-family:Times">[[User:Dragoniez|'''Dragoniez''']] ([[User talk:Dragoniez|'''talk''']])</span>

but is there any way to make it compatible with template parameters? Any help would be appreciated. --Dragoniez (talk) 16:01, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

This is not specific to signatures but an example of the second bullet at Help:Template#Usage hints and workarounds: "An unnamed parameter cannot contain an ordinary equals sign, as this would be interpreted as setting off a named parameter." There is an exception when the equals sign is inside certain elements like wikilinks, but not inside a span. You can write |1= for the first unnamed parameter. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Ohhh, I see. Thank you so much for your help! --Dragoniez (talk) 17:12, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Gatemansgc tilted table of contents

Hello! So the user Gatemansgc has their table of contents tilted and on said talk page they have said they've done so on purpose. The issue they're having is that for whatever reason, whenever someone makes an edit to the page, the tilt changes. What they're wanting help with is to keep it tilted a certain way. I'm asking here for them since they have asked for someone who "knows what they are doing" to help with the tilt at the top of their talk page. Link to the talk page is User talk:Gatemansgc ― Blaze The Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 20:00, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Blaze The Wolf, User:Gatemansgc: They're using {{#invoke:RexxS|wobble}}, which intentionally "wobbles" the element back and forth each time the page is regenerated (which can be done either by editing or performing a purge). In other words, it's working as intended. If they just want it tilted, not wobbling, they should replace that module call with {{transform|rotate([ANGLE]deg)}}, replacing [ANGLE] with their desired tilt angle. I would also highly suggest that they change the "AAAAAA" image to [[Image:AAAAAA.png|225px|link=|alt=]] to avoid it interfering with gadgets that modify the username area (such as User:Anomie/useridentifier.js) and screen readers. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:19, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-50

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

• There are now default short aliases for the "Project:" namespace on most wikis. E.g. On Wikibooks wikis, [[WB:]] will go to the local language default for the [[Project:]] namespace. This change is intended to help the smaller communities have easy access to this feature. Additional local aliases can still be requested via the usual process. [1]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 December. It will be on all wikis from 16 December (calendar).

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

22:26, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

FORCETOC

I can't see the point of __FORCETOC__. Accoriding to Help:Magic words it "Forces the TOC to appear in its default position." But that's where it appears anyway. What am I missing? Does this do something else undocumented? SpinningSpark 17:25, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: you should not normally need it, it is used to override __NOTOC__, for example if say NOTOC was being included via a template, but you wanted the TOC on that page anyway. See example at Special:PermaLink/1060134155. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:45, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I came across it where someone had added it to a couple of redirect pages [2][3]. It's not going to do anything there, right? SpinningSpark 17:58, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

__FORCETOC__ can also be used to display a table of contents even when there are fewer than four headings on a page. Where there are no headings, such as on (I imagine nearly all?) redirect pages, it is superfluous. isaacl (talk) 18:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

In such cases __TOC__ should be preferred. IznoPublic (talk) 20:48, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

__TOC__ also specifies a location for the table of contents. You may just want to trigger its creation in the default location. isaacl (talk) 22:32, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: also if you see odd magic words being added by a newer editor via the visual editor, it is almost always clueless additions that they made by clicking on things they don't understand. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Isaacl: I can think of one usecase for it on a redirect page; if someone is trying to write an article under a redirect while it is at RFD, but that does not apply in this case. SpinningSpark 21:58, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Sure, that could be a reason for headings. I imagine it's pretty rare. isaacl (talk) 22:37, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Infobox subbox not showing header

While editing wikipedia I noticed an edit that tried to combine the {{Infobox TikTok personality}} and {{Infobox YouTube personality}} templates into subboxes of the main twitch infoxbox on the page. The solution that the user who made the change used doesn't look great, with the widths of the vertical bars being mismatched, as well as using an embedded infobox rather than another subbox like the Youtube infobox above it. I tried fixing this by making the template a subbox instead of an embed, but when previewing my edit, I'd realized that the header had disappeared, making it unclear that these were statistics related to a TikTok account. I have set up a demonstration on my sandbox showing this issue in action. After looking at the sources of both of the infoboxes I cannot figure out why the header would be disappearing just because the module is a subbox. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, ― Levi_OP^Talk 15:25, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

How to find pages

How I can find pages like Territorial disputes of the People's Republic of China or Territorial disputes of Japan without need to enter every category at Category:Territorial disputes by country? Eurohunter (talk) 20:32, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Eurohunter: Search intitle:"Territorial disputes". You could also try a deepcat search - see H:SEARCHING. ― Qwerfjkltalk 21:16, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: Territorial disputes of Japan is far away in the results. Why I need to watch all pages which just has Category Territorial disputes of Egypt etc.? It is the same bad way as categories. Eurohunter (talk) 21:56, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Eurohunter It's not that far away - there are only ~24 results (or fewer with a stricter search). ― Qwerfjkltalk 22:28, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

And even fewer if you add china japan after intitle (not in it), if you specifically searching for China or Japan. MarMi wiki (talk) 16:49, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Edit from "What links here"

Resolved

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T297744

Why can't I go directly to edit page from "What links here" (alt-shift-j) anymore? Anyway to get it back? Or is it a new bug? Christian75 (talk) 14:13, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't recall an Edit tab on "What links here". Are you referring to the shortcut Alt+⇧ Shift+e? I don't know whether that used to work. It doesn't work for me now. I have Vector, Firefox, Windows 10. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:12, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

@Christian75: are talking about the results page for WLH (try this example)? I see (links|edit) on each line there. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:53, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, do you mean that at the top of the page the "edit tab" control is not there? When did you last see it there? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:56, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Possible regression, seems similar to phab:T165010. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:00, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

It's that one, thanks. I'm using monobook and in the menu to the left "tools" it is called "What links here", and the shortcut i Alt+⇧ Shift+j. Christian75 (talk) 16:09, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Hmm. I guess it isn't that phab because it happend today (and that phap is from 2017). Normally you could edit a page from here: [4] Christian75 (talk) 16:12, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

@Christian75: WP:ITSTHURSDAY, if I understand your report correctly, you expect an "edit" tab at the top of the page there, and it is not there. That phab was an example of when something like this broke in the past. I understand that it isn't working today, can you recall the last time that it was working though? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:23, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Here is a non-Wikimedia wiki on an old MediaWiki version 1.27.7 from 2019: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Wikipedia. It has an Edit tab and Alt+⇧ Shift+e works. I guess I just never noticed the tab because I don't edit the page itself from WhatLinksHere. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:54, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

It seems like a bug. I filed T297744. Matma Rex talk 19:00, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

The buggy change has been reverted for now. Legoktm (talk) 04:15, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

pass table or struct to Lua module?

Resolved

Is it possible to pass a table via invoke?

A currently used template has an interface width of about 100 parameters and still is not able to show up neatly what it's supposed to. So I'd like to write a module accepting a table of uncertain length, returning table rows for insertion into WP table:

• Each input element shall consist of an n-type and a content.
  • the whole output shall be ordered by n-type.
  • display of content depends on n-type.
• Each content shall consist of an uncertain number of parts.
  • Each part is an n-value, a description, or an n-value AND a description and optionally has one or more control params.

So in Lua such a structure should be declarable like this:

input = {
  {n-type="first",
   content={{n-value="Harry", description="H.r."}}},
  {n-type="throne",
   content={{n-value="Henry I.", crown=true},
            {description="H.nr. 1st, Boss of Foo and Bar"},
            {n-value="Big Baboo", description="unofficial"}}}
}

How could I pass such a structure in WP via invoke to my module? --Vollbracht (talk) 04:07, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that you can. {{#invoke:}}, accepts positional or named parameters as text strings. It is possible to pass Lua tables from one module to another but not from wikitext into a module.

Just a quibble: n-type and n-value keys in your example should be written: ['n-type'] and ['n-value'] because otherwise Lua will attempt to perform a subtraction and because type is reserved as a standard library function name.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:11, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you so far! Anyway I won't call my params that way in a German template. Still I'd like to request a change for #invoke to accept single curly braces as table delimiters. Are any #invoke calls with params containing single curly braces out there yet? If bound to parsing a string describing a struct, I couldn't use '=' within that string. That's ugly. --Vollbracht (talk) 16:06, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this would work, but if your {...} code string was json compliant you could posssibly use mw.text.jsonDecode to create a table. The Lua Reference Manual is rather terse in its description, so I'm not sure if this is what it does. —  Jts1882 | talk  16:31, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I think the easiest way to do this is a Lua data structures in subpages of the module. You'd have your main module at Module:Vollbracht's royal lineage and your data would be at something like Module:Vollbracht's royal lineage/Harry, which would contain:

return {
  {["n-type"]="first",
   ["content"]={{["n-value"]="Harry", ["description"]="H.r."}}},
  {["n-type"]="throne",
   ["content"]={{["n-value"]="Henry I.", ["crown"]=true},
            {["description"]="H.nr. 1st, Boss of Foo and Bar"},
            {["n-value"]="Big Baboo", ["description"]="unofficial"}}}
}

You could then call {{#invoke:Vollbracht's royal lineage|main|Harry}}, which would use

input = mw.loadData("Module:Vollbracht's royal lineage/" .. frame.args[1])

. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:17, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

In the end users should create an info box containing the data. This must not be complicated, so I won't expect s.o. to create separate royal lineage modules. (Still: thank you for showing up this solution!) Even mw.text.jsonDecode is sub-optimal. It would require the users to write even param names in double quotes.

It should be possible to write a parser which uses a template for the structure of the data it shall parse. So the template developer defines such a structure in a json string which his module passes to the parser together with the template user's data. Now, if the template expects a "first"-param in a row, it could reply with "unknown parameter: fist". Any ideas for necessary or sensible specifications for the parser or the json string? --Vollbracht (talk) 23:00, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

If you where to rename the param names so there is not a minus there, then you do not need to use double quotes for them. If you do want to go that route you would avoid all characters under mw:Extension:Scribunto/Lua_reference_manual#Tokens .

Separate royal lineage modules are not needed. An template with numbered parameters would need to explicitly define each parameter, where as an module only needs one definition per each group (that is, handle all parameter names that consist of number + word in a certain way). An module could also power multiple templates easily, where as that is unlikely in a template. Modules are much less complicated than wikicode templates, and modules are modular, where as wikicode is not.

I would assume the n in the parameter names actually stands for a number, which could be anywhere from 1 to 100 or even indefinate.--Snævar (talk) 20:37, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, yes, I want to program a module. And no, in the end it's about name types by which name information shall be sorted: display Horus name information before throne name information before given name information and so on.

This thread is about passing a struct from wikicode to module to reduce interface width just as you recognized: the old style has had numbered parameters like throneName1Code, throneName1Description, someThroneName1ControllParam, someOtherThroneName1CP, throneName2Code, etc. up to 10 and same with a couple of other name types giving a still not sufficient total of about 100 possible params. --Vollbracht (talk) 02:48, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

 Done: A parser for a very simple string syntax has been written: de:Modul:SimpleStruct

Make dark mode toggle script a gadget?

There appears to be a quite a bit of interest in dark mode - going by the several help desk and teahouse queries and the posts at user talk:Volker E. (WMF)/dark-mode. However, the current user experience is sub-optimal as the gadget doesn't provide a toggle, and it seems unlikely that users want the dark mode on all the time. So I suggest converting a dark-mode toggling script such as User:SD0001/dark-mode-toggle.js into a gadget. See also the initial discussion. – SD0001 (talk) 06:37, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Not a direct answer to your suggestion, but I recently created Wikipedia:Dark mode to try to consolidate info on various dark modes available in one place. This page could also be a good place to discuss a toggle which has come up a few times.Dialectric (talk) 10:14, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Posted a linkback to here on its talk page. – SD0001 (talk) 05:47, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

• Support I didn't use the dark mode because it didn't have a toggle, and I didn't use SD0001's toggle because it didn't support toggling it without reloading the page, but now that it does, this seems like a good idea. Nardog (talk) 07:42, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support I did it on viwiki. P.T.Đ (talk) 18:27, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Would be very useful. MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:31, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Sure I can see the value in this one. Ktin (talk) 21:29, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support I think this is a great idea if you want to read or edit Wikipedia at night or you have sensitive eyes. I think adding a built-in high-contrast mode too would also be useful for visually impaired Wikipedians. Linux rules, Windows drools (talk) 06:48, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
• Question... any Foundation/phab/MediaWiki movement on this lately? If they're doing something about it soon then we might want to let that option take its course. Enterprisey (talk!) 07:23, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

  Not as far as I know. @MusikAnimal would be able to provide a qualified answer. Dark mode did end up #2 in 2019 Community Wishlist but it was declined. – SD0001 (talk) 13:21, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

  ughhhhhhhhh ok, thanks for the digging. Support as it's the best option we have available; I'll stand by to implement it, assuming there's consensus here (I see a little precipitation, in fact). I was going to make a few feature requests for the script but it already implemented everything I could think of, so great job! Enterprisey (talk!) 20:20, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

  To my knowledge, no, there is no official dark mode coming soon. What I had heard in the past was that it was (maybe) going to be part of the Desktop Improvements project, so you could ask over on their talk page.

  Anyway, given the absence of a better system, I too support making the toggle script a gadget. I wish there was a way to have both gadgets in the same definition, though, so the user only has to tick one checkbox in their gadget preferences. I suppose that isn't possible? Additionally, I think the Dark Mode gadget should graduate from the "Testing and development" section. It has remained there as we kinked out the bugs, which I assume is more stable now. It hurts to see us iterate and improve on the gadget while mw:Extension:DarkMode collects dust, but I digress. — MusikAnimal ^talk 20:01, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

  In the sense of possibility, yes; in the sense of good possibility? it goes from being a styles-only (early) load to a late load, so FOUCs for everyone. Izno (talk) 21:05, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

  If I understood the conversation between SD0001 and you correctly at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 189 § Proposal for a dark-mode gadget addition (before Earth Day 22 April?), it seems it should be possible to just enable the toggle gadget. isaacl (talk) 21:15, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

  Ah right, apologies for my poor memory and negligence to re-read the discussion! So it seems we will have to have two visible checkboxes, but the user needs only to enable the toggle gadget. That said, perhaps it's best to keep the core Dark Mode gadget where it is under "Testing and development", since it will only be for internal use. Re Izno on FOUCs: my understanding is there won't be any visual flickering, but with the caveat that Dark Mode itself won't enable until you browse to a different page. I think that's fine, though, as long as it's clear in the documentation.

  SD0001 Any interest in making the toggle in the personal toolbar like User:Volker E. (WMF)/dark-mode and the DarkMode extension, or should we keep it nested under #p-cactions ("More" menu)? No strong feelings from me, but I would think the personal toolbar will more clearly expose the toggle, and be less clutter for those of us with many things already buried in cactions. — MusikAnimal ^talk 22:11, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

  @MusikAnimal The caveat has also been removed now (see talk discussion). Toggling applies the new mode immediately by modifying the <link> tag on the page -- which is hacky from a developer perspective but I think worth it given the aesthetic effect from a user perspective. Re the extension: actually I thought about suggesting the same technique for it as you can then avoid sending the dark mode styles to the client when dark mode is disabled - but was unsure if the hack would survive an MW code review!
  Re portlet location: no strong feelings from me as well, but I thought it was better in cactions as that's the standard place for script/gadget buttons, and there's no jump effect (which could be avoided by reserving space using the css, but then there could be folks using just dark-mode without the toggle gadget) – SD0001 (talk) 16:50, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  I would prefer p-personal too, it's annoying it gets collapsed in "More" with p-cactions in Vector. Nardog (talk) 23:23, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  I'm gonna come down on the side of p-personal as well because this gadget is going to be used by new users, so the change to the interface should be obvious. Of course, nothing against a common.js "preference" (the horror!) to set it to p-cactions or whatever. Enterprisey (talk!) 08:56, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

  Looks like I stand outnumbered. Feel free to make the change (before or after this becomes a gadget). It isn't exactly trivial however as it needs accompanying CSS to avoid the jump effect and we need to support minerva as well (in which order of elements in p-personal is different). – SD0001 (talk) 08:00, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

  pt-preferences doesn't seem to exist unless advanced mode is on. Edit request filed. Nardog (talk) 11:01, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support as a user of the gadget first, then swapping to the toggle because the dark mode handled certain tools like Redwarn terribly. Super good for proofreading and resting my weary eyes when I end up editing at 2 in the morning. Sennecaster (Chat) 19:06, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support - I can't really understand why dark mode isn't a thing here ?, It's like the WMF still think we're in 1996 or something. Anyway I support this proposal. –Davey2010^Talk 22:00, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support: My eyes would really appreciate a dark mode right now. I've been dealing vertigo today and yesterday due to COVID—more specifically, due to fluid buildup causing pressure in my inner ears—and Wikipedia, one of my homepage tabs, along with YouTube and Facebook, is the only one without a dark mode. Sunglasses have been helping today. However, I also prefer dark styles in general and would still support it even if I weren't currently sick. Amaury • 02:44, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Amaury and Davey2010: You have access to a dark mode today, please take a look in gadgets preferences toward the bottom. This discussion is solely about being able to toggle easily between dark and light. Izno (talk) 02:54, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Izno: Doesn't look like it affects the Preferences page itself, but that's fine. There's not ever a reason for me to go to that page except rarely when I change something like just now. I wish I had known about this all this time. Wow! Thanks! Amaury • 02:58, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  No gadget ever affects the preferences page. That's for safety reasons. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:32, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  Like I said, it's not a big deal for me, but what safety reasons? Amaury • 23:47, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  You don't want to make it impossible to disable a gadget that is causing trouble when enabled. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:54, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Izno Brilliant thank you, I'll admit I never ever expected it to be in gadgets but gadgets is better than nothing at all, My eyes and I are very pleased lol, Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 08:45, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support: Cabayi (talk) 09:11, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support a toggle seems useful. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 11:37, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support: It's been some months now we have it as a gadget in my homewiki (SqWiki). - Klein Muçi (talk) 09:50, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Requested implementation at: Wikipedia:Interface administrators' noticeboard#Dark mode toggle gadget. – SD0001 (talk) 10:11, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Support and make it a default enabled gadget - for our readers sake, everything has a dark mode. We should provide one by default. ✨ Ed talk! ✨ 10:32, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Correct ID in Template:British-Museum-db

In Nimrud lens putting the identifier W_-90959 at {British-Museum-db|90959|id=W_-90959} produces nothing. Template:British-Museum-db says it relies on "&objectId=" parameter value in the URL of the British Museum collection database record for the item. However, now it seems the museum no longer uses it, e.g. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_-90959. Could someone help? Brandmeister^talk 16:47, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

@Brandmeister The BM has changed their system. The link in your example needs changing from https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=W_-90959 to https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_-90959. I've changed this in the template and also the default link to the help page for the search.

However, a complication is that it doesn't work for the number ids given on the Mold cape page, which have BM registration of form 1883,1207.1 and numeric ids. These now work by modifying the registration number, prefixing with an "H_" and using hyphens as separators, as in https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1883-1207-1. I don't know if this was working correctly before the change, although the page is linked from the template page. —  Jts1882 | talk  17:22, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. It seems that template documentation needs an update now, as do nearly all articles using this template where previous identifiers don't work anymore. Perhaps a bot could do those mass updates? Brandmeister^talk 17:35, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I've updated my statement above on the Mold cape page. They've replace numeric ids for the items in the old database with ids based on the item registration number. I've changed the examples on that page so they work with the template update.

Another example at Chandragupta II needs a "C_" prefix. So does this mean prefix depends on type (C for coin)? Probably means these need to be changed and checked manually. 90 transclusions is not too bad. —  Jts1882 | talk  18:02, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

District map of Moscow is missing districts

I was told to ask about this here.

The map of Moscow used on pages about its districts seems to be missing some. Maryino District shows up fine, but Metrogorodok District (north-east) among others is not marked in green at all. This seems to be based on Template:Moscow district OSM map and I am not proficient enough to make sense of it. If someone would be willing to correct this, I send my thanks. SuperJendrej (talk) 21:54, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

That is Wikidata code. Reposted at d:Wikidata:Project chat#Russian district map. The color on Metrogorodok should be red, since the map shows where the district is, but on other pages the district would be green.--Snævar (talk) 12:17, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Donation requests

Hi Wiki -

You want to know why you're not getting more donations? I offered to make a donation and when I click submit you asked for more money!

I gave $25 to the wiki cause, but I keep getting the incessant requests to donate. If there's any way to not make that happen anymore, that'd be great! Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1000:B12A:9D1D:B990:6216:C43E:7DF4 (talk) 01:58, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

So far as I know, the only way is to adblock the elements or to register and browse while logged in. Izno (talk) 04:56, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Welcome and thank you for your question about donations! To hide the fundraising banners, you can create an account and uncheck Preferences → Banners → Fundraising. The Wikimedia Foundation does not track the identity of IP addresses, so it doesn't know your age, income level or whether you donated in the past.
None of the Wikipedia volunteer editors here who add and improve content in articles receive any financial benefit. We all simply contribute our time because we care about building a great encyclopedia for you and innumerable others around the world to use.
If you cannot afford it, no one wants you to donate. Wikipedia is not at risk of shutting down, and the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the Wikipedia platform and is asking for these donations, is richer than ever.
We are led to believe that users who allow cookies are less likely to see these banners on repeat visits (further information is available here), and you are welcome to communicate directly with the donor-relations team by emailing donate@wikimedia.org. Thank you! ― Qwerfjkltalk 08:38, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Although we welcome your comments, this page is a forum for the Wikipedia community: the unpaid volunteers who write and maintain this encyclopedia. The WMF inserts the appeals into Wikipedia, and receives the resulting donations. The WMF can also be contacted at m:Talk:Fundraising. Certes (talk) 12:37, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Reply tool headed your way in January 2022

Just a heads-up that in about a month, the [reply] tool will be enabled, default-on, for all editors here. Please make a note of:

• Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion – the exact section of your prefs where you will be able to turn it off in January
• mw:Help:DiscussionTools – basic help page
• mw:Help:DiscussionTools/Why can't I reply to this comment? – not-so-basic help page, likely to be a favorite resource for the regulars here
• mw:Extension:DiscussionTools/How it works – by the tools' devs, for other tech folks

If you somehow haven't tried this out yet, then click on https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)?dtenable=1 to reload this page, and look for all the little [reply] buttons after each signature. The Reply tool will auto-sign and auto-indent your comments, has an easy ping (just type @ to see a list of previous participants in the discussion), and you can choose between visual and wikitext source modes. Only the [reply] tool will be enabled in January. Everything else (e.g., the [subscribe] button) will wait for a future date. You can opt in now at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. Once you've opted in, you can adjust your prefs at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion (e.g., if you want topic subscriptions now, or if you don't want the simplified/auto-signing ==New Discussion== tool).

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:54, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Also: Their next projects involve getting the Reply and New Discussion tools on mobile, where the talk page experience is generally poor, and doing some work to make the pages more useful. (mw:Naming things is hard. I've been calling it "Usability", but "Usefulness" might have been more descriptive.)

As a heads-up on that – which you'll probably see in a few months, if you enable the Beta Feature and you use Vector – this Useful Usability Thing is going to involve changing the appearance. This is because when you add new useful features, you have to have a place to stick them. Also, some newbies seem to have difficulty noticing that the talk page is not the place to post their would-be articles, and they think this is partly because the pages look too similar. Even doing something fairly small, like making the ==Level 2== section headings use the "wrong" (sans serif) font, might help with that. So if you flip the Beta Feature on (so far, I'm loving it) and your talk page suddenly looks different in a couple of months, then don't panic. Just tell me what you think of it, and go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion to flip it off if you don't like it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Trying it out right here. This is pretty great, kudos.  — Scott • talk 20:12, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad that you like it. About a half million comments have been posted via the Reply tool now. It seems to be pretty popular. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:19, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

YES! Enterprisey (talk!) 20:26, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• @Whatamidoing (WMF): Is the new-page-creation workflow hijack by discussion tools (see mw:Topic:Wiggfwdwlg1hu8be) going to be the new default for everyone? For example, clicking on this redlink seems to no longer go to the new page workflow, but to the DT widget. Perhaps the editor is just trying to do something like add a banner, simply "following a redlink" doesn't mean you want to "start a disucssion". — xaosflux ^Talk 14:42, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  Maybe some day, but definitely not in January. They're still working on the main test to see whether it was a good/bad/neutral idea. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:30, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Whatamidoing (WMF): ok thanks, hard to test what "will be" in that workflow right now :) So long as this is something that (a)can be disabled and (b)doesn't break what happens when you follow a red link, I can't see it being anything but a net positive. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:59, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  What "will be" is what all the wikis except Meta-Wiki, enwiki, fiwiki, ruwiki, and Wikispecies already have, so you could go to Commons or dewiki or eswiki to try it out now. (Around January 12th, half the users at 20 of the Wikipedias will get a new feature as part of that test, so this won't always be true, but for right now, what they've got is what we will get.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:26, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Name update after renaming

Hello! So as you can probably see my account has been renamed. However it appears that some lists no longer include me because they have my old username on the list instead of my new and current one. Would it be possible for someone to assist me in updating my username on any lists that include mine? I've already updated a few however I would like assistance fixing the rest. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:30, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Which list(s) are you talking about? —GMX🎄^{(on the go!)} 15:20, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

@PorkchopGMX (on the go): I'm honestly not exactly sure. I know the signpost is one of them however i've added my name to various things that I can't remember all of them. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:49, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

You can try WhatLinksHere from your old userpage. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:26, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

That won’t work for all of the lists, I see some that don’t link the userpage and/or only the user talk page. —GMX🎄^{(on the go!)} 16:37, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I get it now. Those are mass message lists. Is it ok if I go through your contribs and update your name in each of the lists? —GMX🎄^{(on the go!)} 16:26, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

@PorkchopGMX:​ Feel free to do so! ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 18:00, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

 Done, I’ve updated your username on the remaining lists.—GMX🎄^{(on the go!)} 18:32, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:05, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Note that MassMessage follows redirects, so it's not strictly necessary to update usernames (though I understand why it would be wanted). Legoktm (talk) 02:58, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Missing Redirects Project

Hu, would anyone be interested in generating the list from the Missing Redirects Project (if it still works)? The source code is on the page - I would run it myself if I had the technical ability. ― Qwerfjkltalk 10:16, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

I just downloaded the archive and had a look at the README.txt and a couple of other files. There is unfortunately no explicit license or statement of authorship on the code. William Avery (talk) 10:39, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

@William Avery: I think it would be safe to reuse, though not listed in every file the launcher, new-run.sh does declare:

# Purpose : Download the latest EN Wikipedia database dump, store it, and then run our script.
# Author  : Nick Jenkins
# License : GPL v2
# Created : 25-April-2005

So long as you keep it under GPLv2 you should be fine to make derivatives. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:44, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Sorry about that, and good spot. Taking a closer look at the code, I notice it refers to the cur table, from which it gets a page's text content. So I don't think it will run against a current database dump without modification, and the corresponding current dump would be pages-articles-multistream.xml.bz2, meaning somebody doing that needs to be able to handle a ~80 Gb database. William Avery (talk) 20:30, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Infobox military conflict - I18n

Hello! I've recently made a question in Template talk:Infobox military conflict regarding I18n and the template's technical nature but I've gotten no answer there for many days no. I thought I could try my luck here. Can someone with some extra time take a look at my question there? I hope what I've written does make sense. My technical terminology is not that good. - Klein Muçi (talk) 23:49, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

{{subst:template}} leaves {{#if}}

Hi, I'm currently trying to make a template, and I need your help (note that this is just for personal use). I'll just simplify what I'm trying to do, it's something like when you input a value for parameter 1 (a username), you'll get:

• Example (talk · contribs)

and when you input values for parameter 1 and 2, you'll get:

• Example (talk · contribs)
• Example2 (talk · contribs)

and so forth. I then tried the following (see Special:PermaLink/1060989898 for the original (coloured) code, and Special:PermaLink/1060989936 for its actual output):

<includeonly>{{ {{{|safesubst:}}}Ifsubst||{{Subst!|}}}}</includeonly>
* {{User|{{{1}}}}}{{#if:{{{2|}}}|* {{User|{{{2}}}}}}}

When I use this with {{subst:template|Example|Example2}}, I get the result I want. But when I look at the source text, it has {{#if}} left over like the following:

* {{User|Example}}{{#if:Example2|* {{User|Example2}}}}

What I want is the source text of:

* {{User|Example}}
* {{User|Example2}}

How can I do this? Thank you for your help in advance. --Dragoniez (talk) 23:55, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Put {{{|safesubst:}}} before #if in the template. – SD0001 (talk) 07:48, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

CodeEditor changes?

Here are lines 2 and 3 from Module:No globals:

function mt.__index (t, k)
	if k ~= 'arg' then

It used to be that CodeEditor would report the 'columnar' position of the cursor at the right edge of its footer taking into account the width of a tab character (4) so that if I placed the cursor between the tab character on line 3 and the i of the if keyword, CodeEditor would account for the columnar width of the tab character. Not so anymore; it now ignores the columnar width of the tab character and reports '1'.

When did this change? Why did this change? Should it have changed?

Also, somewhat related, didn't there used to be a help link in the CodeEditor header?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:21, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

as far as i know, it has always reported character offsets, not column offsets, and 1 tab is 1 character. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:44, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Based on Wikipedia talk:Lua style guide § CodeEditor switched to tabs, after a few months of deployment, the code editor changed from inserting spaces to inserting tabs. Perhaps you have been looking at some code that was written back then? Or someone manually entered in spaces? (Although that's a pain to do with the auto-indenting feature automatically entering tabs.) isaacl (talk) 21:05, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I have used CodeEditor a lot. I prefer tabs to spaces so I notice it when I encounter all those damn space characters in another editors' work; I tend to think the editor (especially for recent work) used the wikitext editor or used an external text editor to create/maintain some bit of code. I am pretty sure that I remember CodeEditor accounting for tab width but, of course, I could be wrong. It seems to me odd that I would only notice that now having spent all these years with CodeEditor.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:00, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

copy link to highlight

Hello developers

the feature of "copy link to highlight" in google chrome was recently intruded, can you develop the reference box to accept such links?, the benefit is known to editors and reviewers, a lot of references are to long to read, but when the citation goes right to the line from which the info was taken it would be time saving.--Abu aamir (talk) 14:13, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

@Abu aamir This feature just appends a URI fragment like #:~:text=This is the text I want to highlight to the URL. Editors can simply include this in the URL when adding citations. If I understand you correctly, there's nothing developers can do to help the situation. But nonetheless I agree it would be good practice to start doing this. Perhaps it's worth documenting at WP:CITE or elsewhere. This feature apparently isn't unique to Chromium and it is likely a matter of time before all major browsers support it. — MusikAnimal ^talk 00:39, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello :@MusikAnimal

thanks, I just have tried the URI fragment in English Wikipedia, it worked.--Abu aamir (talk) 11:52, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I would HATE that. There's no guarantee the page will not change or that everyone who clicks the link will see it (e.g. some may see a paywall), and citing URLs with fragments like that makes maintenance harder (e.g. in case of a link rot) and reusing the same source to support different statements needlessly difficult. If anything they should be removed—not added—just like UTM parameters. If indicating the relevant portion of a source is somehow desired, |quote= is right there. Nardog (talk) 12:36, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

If the text is no longer present, it simply wouldn't highlight anything (the status quo), so I don't see how it could effect link rot. In fact, if given an |access-date=, IABot will find the closest matching archived copy which in most cases should yield a still-working URI fragment. To me the practice seems harmless. You make a good point about reusing sources, but using |quote= would seemingly have the same problem. — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:19, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Since we try to be semantic with citations, it would be better if the text is added in |quote= param and Module:CS1 automatically inserts the URI fragment, if it's short enough to be highlightable. – SD0001 (talk) 06:25, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Lag while typing in long threads but no lag in edit summary

Or in subject lines, or new threads such as this. What's causing it? Doug Weller talk 10:25, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Could be related to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 193#Performance issue with syntax highlighting – SD0001 (talk) 12:32, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I get this lag too, even with syntax highlighting disabled. I wasn't experiencing this like a month back. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:33, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

If you're on Chrome, try turning off the spellchecker. – SD0001 (talk) 12:39, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Or switch to the 'enhanced' spell check. But be mindful of your privacy because whatever you type goes to google...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:10, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

The bug has been fixed, but it will take a while for it to get into the release Chrome versions. In the mean time, Trappist's workaround will work. Rlink2 (talk) 13:55, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I meant to come back here and say that User:Trappist the monk's suggestion did indeed solve the problem. Thanks all. Doug Weller talk 14:43, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed user cannot move over ECP-create-protected title

Resolved

 – Was a title blacklist issue, not a protection bug. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:09, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

For a long time, I have been setting "extended confirmed" create protection on article titles that have had a history of repeated creations and deletions, so that a user with extended-confirmed privilege can move a reviewed-and-approved draft to that title without needing to involve an administrator.

However, something isn't quite right. An extended-confirmed user notified me on my talk page that s/he is unable to move a sandbox draft to the create-protected title Kobi Arad. The user, MerliSter, has the extended-confirmed user right but gets a message that one needs to be an administrator to perform the move.

What is going on? It is reasonable to expect that EC users should be able to create articles on ECP titles. ~Anachronist (talk) 14:42, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Just tried this myself and it seems to be because the title matches an entry ( .*kobi ?arad.* # [[Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Kobi Arad]] on the title blacklist. —GMX🎄^{(on the go!)} 14:57, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I see. That explains it. Thanks. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:58, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-51

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

Tech News

• Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 10 January 2022.

Recent changes

• Queries made by the DynamicPageList extension (<DynamicPageList>) are now only allowed to run for 10 seconds and error if they take longer. This is in response to multiple outages where long-running queries caused an outage on all wikis. [5]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.

Future changes

• The developers of the Wikipedia iOS app are looking for testers who edit in multiple languages. You can read more and let them know if you are interested.
• The Wikimedia Cloud VPS hosts technical projects for the Wikimedia movement. Developers need to claim projects they use. This is because old and unused projects are removed once a year. Unclaimed projects can be shut down from February. [6]

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

22:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Sticky table headers bug report

Hello! After much head scratching, I realized that the sticky table header gadget ("Make headers of tables display...") causes a cell of a wikitable to disappear. Here are screenshots with and without the gadget enabled from the page 2014 Ontario general election. I did attempt bypassing my cache, and I am currently using Chrome, version 96.0.4664.110 (Official Build) (x86_64). Please let me know if you need any more information! HouseBlaster^talk 23:17, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

@HouseBlaster the table was broken. Fixed now. Most of those tables still need a lot of work though. Still stuck in ancient styles. Probably copied over s from earlier election articles. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:40, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

No horizontal scrollbar on wide tables

Resolved

 – Seems to have fixed itself

--Andyross (talk) 17:13, 20 December 2021 (UTC)Not certain where the bug is, but on the Roku page, there are several very wide tables with device info. In both MS Edge and Firefox, there is no horizontal scroll bar. Is this a page issue, or something with the code Wikipedia is generating?--Andyross (talk) 15:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

On Firefox, I get a scroll bar across the bottom of the window allowing me to move the entire article sideways and see the rightmost columns. Should I expect another scroll bar specific to the table itself? Certes (talk) 15:25, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

I, too, get a whole-page scrollbar on my Firefox (94.0.2 (64-bit)). Don't know why you're seeing anything different. I will point out, though, that there is only one table on that page (besides, technically, the infobox). — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 15:49, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Odd. Now it's there in both browsers. Maybe some sort of weird glitch at the time from the servers.--Andyross (talk) 17:11, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

It is indeed only one table, but is divided up into ten sections by full-width cells having the purpose of a subheading, each of which (except the first) is followed by a double row of column headers. These column headers are not always consistent from one division to the next, which might constitute an accessibility issue; the first two columns are consistent down the table, but those from the third column onward vary. For instance, at the "Sixth generation" point, an additional "HDR format" column is inserted between the "Video resolutions" and "Audio output" columns, so if you're reading down the table looking at the "Audio output" column, you need to take a jump to the right here. I think that it should be split into ten tables, each of which should use the caption element properly, instead of using a full-width cell as a pseudo-caption. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

TemplateStyles for navbox

I am preparing to remove the CSS for navbox out of MediaWiki:Common.css in the near future in lieu of its current TemplateStyles implementation (see MediaWiki talk:Common.css/to do#description for rationale), but it will have one effect that may warrant review. Please take a minute to review or comment at Template talk:Navbox#TemplateStyles followup. Izno (talk) 22:29, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

OSM Location map omitting a border

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T288897

800km
500miles

  

China-India border missing

For perhaps a week now, the Wikipedia maps using OSM data, via OSM Location map, Maplink etc., have stopped showing the China-India border. This appears to have been done systematically as if it is a policy decision taken by somebody. But I have know idea who or why. Can anybody throw some light on this? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:03, 21 December 2021 (UTC) FYI: DiplomatTesterMan. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:05, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Great Wall, Great Lakes, what's the difference? (I'm assuming these are symptoms of the same problem, tracked in phab T288897). — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 10:29, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I can reproduce on Firefox 95.0.2 (most recent version), Win10. Zoom level does not affect it and clearing my browser cache does not affect it either. I can follow the west and east Nepal border and there is no sign of an India-China border there, at any zoom level. There are regional borders, but that is it.--Snævar (talk) 11:58, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

It is not a "technical" problem, I don't think, because the border was showing fine till about a week ago. What is more worrisome is that an entire state in the east, Arunachal Pradesh, which China disputes, has been removed. On the western side, at least the states are shown, though not the national boundary. This makes me think that it is a deliberate policy decision made by somebody. It can't be an accident or a bug. My question really is, who is making the decisions here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:43, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Template that shows a redirect's target

Is there one? Using Lua under the hood probably. I feel like I've seen such a thing around somewhere. I.e. something like {{RedirectTarget|MainPage}} rendering as Main Page.  — Scott • talk 00:13, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Module:Redirect. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:17, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

That's the one. Ah, it's under Module:, that's why I couldn't find it. Thanks!  — Scott • talk 01:07, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

I have found {{Target of}} which invokes the module but has few transclusions. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:47, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Missing Great Lakes

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T288897

Hi all... just been looking at one of Wikipedia's map functions, and it looks like North America is short two of its Great Lakes... it may just be my browser (Safari 15.1), but have a look at this and see if you also see the problem... Grutness...wha? 15:24, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

There for me, too, with Firefox 94.0.2. I assume it's a rendering issue (if that's the word i want), nothing more serious, as it also shows places called "nd Rapids", "ittsburg", and "nd du Lac" among others. Funny look, though. Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 15:59, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Missing for me on Chrome 96.0.4664.93 as well. ah yes, the coveted land border between Michigan and Ontario! Curbon7 (talk) 00:56, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

nothing more serious -- GreenC 04:37, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Ha ha, You're right; i probably could have gone with a better ~ slightly more alarmed? ~ choice of words there! Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 11:10, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Hey it's OK, things happen!. "The phenomenon is called a ‘dry down’". -- GreenC 15:26, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

The infobox map of Interstate 80 does not display Lake Huron or Lake Ontario, making the Great Lakes region look . . . strange. What is wrong and can it be fixed? Cullen328 (talk) 02:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@Cullen328: I moved your post to the existing section. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:28, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

No problem, PrimeHunter. I am frequently six days behind the times. Cullen328 (talk) 04:16, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Performance charts?

I want to build a little dashboard showing the length of the various WP:SPI queues over time. Rather than reinvent many many wheels, what I'd like to do is just write a little data shim that throws numbers at some pre-existing dashboard system such as Graphite (software). Does such a thing exist in wiki-land? -- RoySmith (talk) 23:25, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Something via {{Graph:Chart}}? There are some interesting examples and other graphs at Wikipedia:Statistics. DMacks (talk) 23:43, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

WMF used to use Graphite for their statistics, then it moved to Grafana/Prometheus. There is also an unmaintained Grafana extension to display data onwiki. The underlying extension behind Graph:Chart, mw:Extension:Graph, can be used in an interactive way and you can feed it data from the API, so maybe give it a chance.--Snævar (talk) 00:09, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Graph:Chart looks like it might be what I want, although I'm not seeing how you get it to graph data from an API. I had once enquired on the cloud mailing list about this stuff and was pointed to Prometheus, but it looks like it's not really meant for public consumption. You need to log in to a private admin site, sign an NDA, etc. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:10, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Since all the SPI queues have dedicated categories, you could use User:MusikBot/CategoryCounter to automate populating a JSON page with the sizes of the categories over time. That can easily be fed into a chart using {{category chart}}, though currently you can only show one dataset per chart. — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:00, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, cool. This led me on a fun romp exploring mw:Extension:Graph, and Vega, and some obtuse corners of wiki markup. I've added an entry to User:MusikBot/CategoryCounter/config; please feel free to back that out if it breaks anything. I think I've got all the basic pieces here to build what I want without any new wheel inventing. Thanks! -- RoySmith (talk) 14:48, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

@RoySmith Special:Diff/1061256467 :( I do have a bot that's an interface admin, but per WP:ADMINBOT it would need some prior discussion to transfer the task to that account. I was wondering though, is there a reason you're doing this in your userspace, and not the template or project space, like the other examples? Then you could display it at the top of Category:Open SPI cases to satisfy all who are curious (you could transclude a userspace template, too, it's just a bit odd as it implies ownership). — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:01, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

The only reason I was doing it in my user sandbox was to not mess up project space with my early experiments. For the moment, I've got some work to do getting my head around Vega, and I can do that with a static data file. Once I've got that sorted, I'll move everything to project/template space and I'll re-enable the MusikBot data feed. Thanks again for your help. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:18, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

System for handling possibly plural infobox parameters

Example
Spouse	Jane Doe ​ (m. 2001)​

A small but massive scale issue that has long confronted us when designing infoboxes is how to handle labels of infobox parameters that are sometimes plural and sometimes singular. There have been several approaches in wide use, each of which has had flaws:

1. Using (s) in the label, which produces displays like the example at right. This produces a non-optimal display for readers.
2. Changing the display based on the parameter. For the example, that would mean displaying "Spouse" if |spouse= is used and "Spouses" if |spouses= is used. However, this is highly vulnerable to error if e.g. someone remarries but editors forget to change the label. Also, it would require extensive bot work to implement en masse for parameters currently using the first approach.
3. Changing the display based on automatic detection using {{Detect singular}}. For the example, this would mean the infobox would display "Spouse", but would switch to "Spouses" if a second spouse was added. However, {{Detect singular}} is not perfect, and this option cannot be used widely without a way to correct the rare errors.

Following several rounds of previous discussion, we've recently introduced a simple method for overriding the rare {{Detect singular}} errors (just use e.g. |spouse=Charles, Prince of Wales{{force singular}}), which makes the third approach a lot more appealing.

Given all this, I'm opening this discussion to affirm general consensus for the third approach. If there's agreement to move forward, the next step will be to have discussions at individual infoboxes before implementation. Local consensus will be allowed to override if there are any concerns, but if not this will be presumed the standard best practice. Thoughts? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:33, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Courtesy pinging prior discussion participants:@BilCat, Jonesey95, RexxS, GhostInTheMachine, Funandtrvl, AlanM1, Hike395, Gonnym, and Shushugah: {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:44, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Extended content

Not sure if my answer will be of any interest to the subject but I've happened to be working with infoboxes these past few months, importing a lot of them from here for my homewiki (SqWiki) and they suffer a lot from the i18n aspect. A lot of them have if statements that guarantee different text for plural and singular cases which in practical sense means adding or not an extra "S" but that totally breaks outside of English. Having if statements for English vs American spelling reasons again makes no sense outside EnWiki. Or having ifexist statements in wikilinks hardcoded in English syntax (see {{infobox country}} geography of or politics of parts - fully breaks in every language that uses declensions). These are only a few cases of the same phenomenon. I've been a bit more detailed in this topic here. I'm aware this discussion doesn't deal with what I'm talking about but if changes happen, maybe what I'm expressing above can also start being addressed somehow. Maybe...

- Klein Muçi (talk) 00:09, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Notified: WT:MOSINFOBOX. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:44, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

I like this third approach. For the 90% of editors who aren't deeply familiar with templates, they can move along happily, and for the edge cases, we have transparent {{force singular}} and {{force plural}} overrides. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 23:53, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

I've been adopting the 3rd method and in the infoboxes I work with I've yet to encounter a need for the 4th method. Even in a case like Charles, Prince of Wales can be handled automatically by telling the {{Detect singular}} to count the number of links. In this case, there is one link which would mean singular entry. In any case, if the need requires the force templates, that should be a per template discussion and not a global one. Gonnym (talk) 14:15, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

On the other hand, your idea of counting links would screw up cases like William Jefferson Blythe Jr., who has multiple wives listed but only one is a link (FYI, he and the linked wife are Bill Clinton's parents). 93.172.224.115 (talk) 20:33, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Since we're already focused on edge-cases, let's be sure we don't break things further for the range of related edge-cases there might be. What if there are multiple entries that include commas in them? As an actual example, the children of Henry VIII are:

• Henry, Duke of Cornwall
• Mary I, Queen of England
• Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset (ill.)
• Elizabeth I, Queen of England
• Edward VI, King of England

It's a fundamental problem that already has multiple approaches to address when the delimiter between items is an actual valid component of items themselves. Rather than tagging the whole field, it might be simpler to mask the comma character itself so it is the correct character but be parser-recognizeable as a non-delimiter character DMacks (talk) 22:23, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

There's definitely room for some further improvement of {{Detect singular}}. If you or anyone else here would like to work on that, please do! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:46, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

As I thought here, I still think it's un-necessary; "Spouse(s)" looks perfectly fine, and the change is not worth the extra gnoming and maintenance. Should it be implemented, {{Detect singular}} should recognize {{Unbulleted list}} (etc.) being used with only one parm (yes, it could have been added correctly when there were two values and then had a value removed without removing the template :) ). It does currently recognize:

{{Detect singular|{{Ubl|foo|bar}}}}

as not singular, yielding nothing between the arrows:

→←,

but:

{{Detect singular|{{Ubl|foo}}}}

also yields nothing:

→1←.

A shorter form of the template name, like maybe {{Det sing}}, would be good, too. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 19:10, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Template that retrieves the timestamp of a user’s most recent edit

Is there a template that outputs the timestamp of a user’s most recent edit? I was able to retrieve this information from the API sandbox (see here), but I haven’t found a template that can do so. —GMX🎄^{(on the go!)} 18:55, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

This is not possible, I believe for performance reasons. Izno (talk) 23:08, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Disable hyphens not possible!

Hey guys. I need to find a way to disable auto hyphens in the search bar from my custom CSS.

• Scenario: I type a long query, then it is shown in a box underneath with hyphens at the end of the line. I tried to disable that using the code:

.wvui-typeahead-search--show-thumbnail .wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text,
.wvui-typeahead-search--show-thumbnail .wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text__query
{
-ms-hyphens: none !important;
-webkit-hyphens: none !important;
hyphens: none !important;
}

I also tried writing break-word instead of none, but nothing functioned. Please, help me disable them. They are extremely annoying! --Mahmudmasri (talk) 02:12, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri: I haven't seen such hyphens. Do they occur if you log out or view a page in safemode? What is your skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? What is your browser? Please give an example query. You mention long querys. I see three dots (an ellipsis) at the end of the "Search for pages containing" box if the query is wider than the search box and is cut off. Is that when you see hyphens? How many? The box is not supposed to show the full query. It's just a way to always choose search results instead of going directly to a page with an exact title match. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:46, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Prime for answering.

• That behavior was from Safari on Vector skin, the newer version of it, not the legacy version. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 09:40, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
• Which means, I could not verify that while logged out, since the new vector look is only available to logged in users.
• Another notice is that the old look only shows a tiny bit of what was written, underneath in a box, so hyphens can't appear anyway.
• I tested Google Chrome and I saw the same extra hyphenation. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 21:40, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri: If "Use Legacy Vector" is disabled at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering then the "Search for pages containing" box can be multiple lines and hyphenate words at line wraps. Is that all you mean? Add the below to your CSS.

.wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text__query {
   hyphens: none !important;
}

PrimeHunter (talk) 22:44, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri: All skins may be viewed while logged out, you just need to add a query string to the URL: View Example in the skin:
. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:05, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Prime, it was what I meant, but the code did not help, however, it was already included in the long code I had on my common page.

• The following is the line I saw in the inspector:

   .wvui-typeahead-search--show-thumbnail .wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text, .wvui-typeahead-search--show-thumbnail .wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text__query
   {
   -webkit-hyphens: auto;
   word-break: break-word;
   word-wrap: break-word;
   }
  

• Upon unchecking the -webkit-hyphens: auto; from the browser, no hyphenation was added. I don't understand, why can't a custom CSS disable that one?

Thanks, Rose, I did not know that it was possible, however, the same hyphenation appeared, logged out. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 00:03, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri: The code works for me in Google Chrome and Firefox on Windows 10. You posted broken code here with a split

.wvui-typeahead

search__suggestions__footer__text__query

instead of my

.wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text__query

so I didn't know you already had a valid version of my code in your common.css. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:38, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the unintentional copy mistake. As I tested right now, it works too from Google Chrome, however, I am using Safari (on Mac). Would there be a solution somehow? Thanks. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 13:21, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

• I'm having a hard time reproducing a problem here, tried with a chrome and a firefox browser, logged out, desktop vector. Is this some sort of safari-only bug that should be reported to them? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:32, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Steps to partially reproduce for me:

1. Enable Vector and disable "Use Legacy Vector" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering.
2. Enter a long term with long words in the search box at top of pages, e.g. supercalifragilisticexpialidocious pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism antidisestablishmentarianism honorificabilitudinitatibus.
3. Look for a box right below the search box saying "Search for pages containing", followed by the search term. It's multiple lines when Legacy Vector is disabled. Your browser will probably break some long words into two lines and place a hyphen at the end of the first line. This seems normal.
4. The box has the class wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text__query. Mahmudmasri is annoyed that the word breaks with a hyphen aren't avoided in Safari on Mac if this is added to your CSS:

   .wvui-typeahead-search__suggestions__footer__text__query {
     -webkit-hyphens: none !important;
     -ms-hyphens: none !important;
     hyphens: none !important;
   }
   

All three are sometimes recommended, e.g. at https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css3_pr_hyphens.asp, presumably to cover more circumstances. I only need hyphens: none !important to avoid the word breaks in Firefox and Google Chrome on Windows 10. I don't have a Mac for testing. Safari doesn't support Windows. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:59, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Prime for summarizing the issue. Thanks, Xaosflux for caring. By the way, Safari is also available on iPhone and iPad. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 23:26, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Sample 1

— xaosflux ^Talk 00:17, 23 December 2021 (UTC)}}

@PrimeHunter: I was able to get a hyphen to show in that results (see image); however it was a cosmetic display only - actually clicking on it did not insert the hyphen in to the actual search, which worked fine. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:17, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

If this is a cosmetic display only concern, what would you want the behavior to be? For example, forcibly expand the box? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:19, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

XML dumps and QIDs

In conversation elsewhere, it was mentioned that the XML dumps for Wikispecies don't include the Wikidata link (QID) of the corresponding entries there. Is that so? Is it the same for Wikipedia's dumps?

What's the best venue to discuss the feasibility of including them, or to request a change? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:12, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

There's the xmldatadumps-l mailing list or you can make a request in the Dumps-Generation Phabricator project. See also "Getting help" on m:Data dumps. Legoktm (talk) 18:20, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

 This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:52, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Apparent bug in recent(?) Mediawiki(?) change to article reference link mechanism

I noticed a problem for a particular reference/footnote mark (superscript "[3]") in Ecdysozoa (but now only in this recent version since I put a workaround into the article). The problem is that (1) hovering over the mark does not pop up the reference contents as usual, and (2) clicking on the mark does not take you to the entry in the References section. In the linked version, this happens for notes [3] and [4], and a later one, but the problem does not happen on the other reference marks.

The problem looks to be due to a bug in a change to the html anchors used for references when a reference name is given and the name includes the string %20. For instance in the above version, the reference [3] name was "nature%20phylo" and this caused html usages <li id="cite_note-nature%20phylo-3"> and <a href="#cite_note-nature_phylo-3"> and this mismatch probably caused the lack of the popup and failure to scroll. I changed the reference name to "nature_phylo" in the current version, and this avoided this instance of the problem.

There may be dozens to gazillions of such reference names scattered about articles, so this needs attention. I have no idea what piece(s) of software might be involved or how to get fix work going. --R. S. Shaw (talk) 20:40, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

There's maybe just a dozen or so instances (times out). I'd just fix them and if you really think it's necessary, file something in the Cite project on phab:. Izno (talk) 22:03, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Why do you want encoded spaces? If you use normal spaces, the MediaWiki software will transparently perform any encoding that is necessary. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:11, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't care in the least about spaces in reference "names". I had never visited that page before and I just cared about being able to see the references - but they were broken because somelone had used %20 in the "name". This occurs in an unknown number of other arbitrary articles. --R. S. Shaw (talk) 00:38, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Turns out this problem occurs for many other strings besides %20. I've reported it on phab (T298278). --R. S. Shaw (talk) 23:06, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Clicking on "thank" sometimes hits "undo"

Is it just me, or do others have a problem when they click on history to thank someone, try to click on thanks, and just before I do the screen "resets" so that under my mouse when I click is "undo"? Doug Weller talk 12:05, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: you have a lot of user scripts that are running - so could possibly have a race condition. Do you have the problem if you use safemode such as in this link? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:35, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

I think that may be the case, it seems steady on my iPad and my PC. I doubt I can find out what's causing it if it's a script. Thanks though. Doug Weller talk 14:44, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Do you mean when you click "Thank" in "Publicly send thanks? Thank Cancel" that shows up after you click "thank" in "(undo | thank)", or when you click "thank" in "(undo | thank)"? Nardog (talk) 14:39, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

The latter. I don't know why at times I get sent to a separate page and sometimes I don't. Doug Weller talk 14:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

You asked that question and received an answer already: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 192#Why does it behave differently at different times?. Nardog (talk) 14:49, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Oops, my bad. Slow senility obviously. Doug Weller talk 16:08, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

This happens to me a lot. I start to make a click, and just as my finger is moving, the page updates and by the time the click gets sent, there's something different at that location on the screen. Sometimes I can even see it happen, but I'm not fast enough to stop my finger from moving on the mouse button. I'm sure there's something interesting there about the relative speeds of the human visual and motor neural pathways. I really wish browsers had some mechanism to not accept mouse clicks on an element until that element has been stable for 100ms or whatever. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:23, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

@Nardog: I’ve disabled my scripts for a different purpose and I’ve got 500mb speed. Still happens. Doug Weller talk 07:42, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Can a category be a sub-category to multiple categories?

I've created a new category, but there already exists a smaller, more specific category which doesn't include all environmental sampling techniques. The Entomology Equipment Category is a sub-category of Entomology, but obviously Environmental Sampling Equipment branches beyond the domain of entomology - so, can entomology equipment be a subcategory of both simultaneously? Many thanks EcheveriaJ (talk) 18:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Place a colon in front to link a category. The mentioned categories are Category:Entomology equipment, Category:Entomology, and your creation Category:Environmental Sampling Equipment which has improper capitalization. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:27, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Yes, sorry about that - I forgot I needed to place a colon in front, I speedily reverted it. Is the category capitalised improperly in its title, or are you saying that my quoting it did not match the actual name? Thanks EcheveriaJ (talk) 18:29, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@EcheveriaJ, the category Category:Environmental Sampling Equipment is misnamed as according to WP:CATNAME only the first word should be capital (excepting proper nouns), hence "Environmental sampling equipment". --R. S. Shaw (talk) 23:59, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

@EcheveriaJ That arrangement presumes that all "Entomolgy equipment" is also "Environmental sampling equipment". If there is anything in the "Entomology equipment" category that is not specifically related to sampling then it would be better to create an intersection subcategory "Entomology sampling equipment" that contains only the specifically relevant articles. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:56, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Edit conflicting myself

Maybe it's just my computer. But, is anyone else having trouble when the edit or post? Now & then, when I do either, somehow I 'edit conflict' myself. It even happened 'here', making this post. GoodDay (talk) 19:06, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

It's happened to me in the past as well, if I click the Publish changes when the page is loading slowly. ― Qwerfjkltalk 10:08, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

@GoodDay: This comes up often. Standard questions that I always ask:

1. Are you double-clicking the "publish" button?
2. Might your pointing device be failing, and sending spurious double-clicks?
3. Are you using the WikEd gadget?

Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:15, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

It's like a mouse issue. GoodDay (talk) 20:19, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

This used to happen to me a lot, it still happens occasionally. Doug Weller talk 19:03, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

And/or in a ifeq?

On {{OTRS pending}} and {{OTRS received}}, it would be nice if these templates could exclude user .js pages from the category list. Category:Items pending OTRS confirmation of permission as of unknown date, for example, is filled with users' javascript pages. (It's throwing errors in my OTRS date-sorting bot. I can certainly fix the bot to ignore the pages, but the pages really shouldn't be in the category to begin with.)

So we want something like if NAMESPACE <> "User" or PAGE NAME does not end with ".js". (Userspace drafts can legitimately have {{OTRS pending}}, so we don't want to block that from working.) But I don't see a way to do that with the parser functions. Any thoughts? --B (talk) 16:46, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

(ec) To be clearer, the tags should not be used on user pages that end in .js, for example, User:B/somescript.js. The tags are legal on userspace drafts, like User:B/My draft article about something. So if {{NAMESPACE}} is 2 AND the last three characters of {{PAGENAME}} are ".js", then we want to exclude the category listing at the bottom of {{OTRS pending}} and {{OTRS received}}. The problem is that I don't see an "ifnoteq" parser function (which would allow nesting them) and I don't see a way of using an "and" or an "or". Does that make better sense? Thanks, --B (talk) 17:22, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

These are not natively permitted in parser functions and at this time it would probably cause significant breakage to do so. There exist some helper Category:If-then-else templates, {{if both}} for logical and and {{if either}} for logical or. Otherwise, you have to resort to Lua.

For the full question, Template:When pagename is and/or its underlying implementation may be of interest. Izno (talk) 17:44, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##ifexpr has and, or, not, and everything else in mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##expr. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:20, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

A better option would be to exclude pages whose content model is JavaScript. That can be done by wrapping the template in {{#switch:{{#invoke:Page|contentModel}}|javascript=|#default=...}}. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:32, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks - that worked! (I was actually in the middle of saying that my way wouldn't work anyway because the string parsing functions don't seem to be enabled here.) --B (talk) 23:55, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

We have Module:String if you need it. Izno (talk) 00:06, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't wind up needing it. I was trying using [7], which I see is a little bit different. In any event, I have updated and tested the templates. They are now excluding user js pages from the categories. Thanks all. --B (talk) 00:23, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Serving SVG images themselves instead of rasterizations

@TheDJ: I refer to your archived contrib from 2008-04-14. In many cases the use of very simple and small svg symbols would be very much appreciated. Many png representations of given svg are bigger than the original.

In 2008 you stated

The client support for SVG is not "ubiquitous" enough yet to make this a default any time soon.

What about the situation now: Has it changed? Could we now realize small inline SVG portions or even direct presentation of wikimedia svg instead of its png representation wherever the svg is smaller? --Vollbracht (talk) 00:46, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

See phab:T5593 for discussion. It's also linked in the old discussion you quote: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 36#Serving SVG images themselves instead of rasterizations. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:56, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

ok! But what does that mean to us? phab:T5593 isn't assigned to anyone. Everything I could see is a wish for change and a lot of users arguing that clients support svg well enough in a time of ubiquitous html5.

What I do not understand is: If I write inline SVG and inspect the site I find this code as text in html p tags. If I clip this code and reinsert it as inner html it is recognized as a bunch of tags and displayed as an image. So what made it show up as text before? --Vollbracht (talk) 04:03, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

It means that because of the scale of Wikimedia, we cannot just serve up SVGs even WITH sufficient browser support. Because an SVG can be 20MB and you don't want that send to your browser for a 200x200px inclusion, and because text can look very different on different client machines if we send raw SVGs. Because WMF doesn't invest in multimedia it is also difficult to solve these problems.

It would require significant engineering (to assess raw size and return pngs if the svg is too complex, and to render text to vectors via an intermediate svg in other cases, plus a few other things). So what is means is status quo until someone throws money at the problem or a volunteer gets really really really bored. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:02, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

There are several solutions to this problem then. One is to stick ones head in the sand. The other is to support at least inline svg at first. This IS limited to an affordable size as no one will accept a wiki page with a source flooded with more than a couple of paths. And it may be limited to usage of our standard text font. We already filter wikimedia svg to be free of links. We already specify css to be sanitized before usage in Wikipedia. Why not specify svg to be sanitized (no "wrong" font, no link out of Wikimedia, no huge size) before accepting it as media suitable for WP client rendering?

If we'd go that way we could accept ONE Wikimedia SVG source file instead of some 100 pngs to generate one new svg containing many portions of the source instead of a complex table structure used in our <hiero> technics and filled with those pngs e.g. --Vollbracht (talk) 00:32, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:RefToolbar

Hi, I am Itcouldbepossible. I had posted a question at the Teahouse and they asked me to post it here instead. The problem is described there. And there is also a screenshot at Wikimedia Commons. Please see the screenshot and give me a solution to the problem. ― Itcouldbepossible^Talk 06:52, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

You seem to have several (13?) questions posted at the Teahouse. It might avoid confusion if you re-post the question here — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 17:13, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Preferences

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T98379

Why "Email me when a page or a file on my watchlist is changed" and "Email me also for minor edits of pages and files" are located in the "User profile" tab instead of the "Notifications" tab, where they would fit naturally under "Email options"? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 17:37, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

They were introduced much earlier than the notifications tab was. I agree they would probably be better placed in either the notifications or the watch list tab. You can submit a feature request at phab:. Izno (talk) 17:47, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

The email features on the user profile tab are part of the core software. The notifications tab is part of mw:Extension:Echo. phab:T128351 from 2016 suggests moving notifications to core. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:59, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Is watchlist in the core? It would actually make more sense to move these settings to the "Watchlist" tab, as Izno suggested (I haven't paid attention that "Notifications" don't have watchlist-related settings). — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 18:29, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Watchlist is in core. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:45, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

OK, I've checked Phabricator and found that this issue has been already raised in phab:T98379 >6 years ago! Can this, apparently simpler, solution be implemented now instead of waiting infinitely for the proposed Echo unification? I can try to work on a patch if somebody points out where this stuff is coded... — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 19:40, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mikhail Ryazanov: "we", the editors of the English Wikipedia, can't do anything about this. You can poke someone on the phab ticket, or you can help write a software patch and submit it there. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:25, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

We could write in the preferences tabs that some settings are on the User profile tab. https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Special:Preferences?uselang=qqx#mw-prefsection-watchlist and https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Special:Preferences?uselang=qqx#mw-prefsection-echo only show interface messages intended for headings so it wouldn't be so pretty. Some of the other tabs can add a general message at top but not Watchlist and Notifications. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:45, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

It's not really a simple change. mw:Requests for comment/Redesign user preferences goes into a lot of the differing considerations on how things could be organized and I doubt there's much appetite to fix one little thing when we need to fix everything anyways. Legoktm (talk) 01:14, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't see anything specific in that RfC except merging all notifications, which is apparently not going to be done in any foreseeable future... So if nobody works on the "ideal" solution for years, why not to take at least a small step towards it? And why do you think that it's "not really a simple change"? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 19:13, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Uploading images

Resolved

 – Was a commonswiki abusefilter. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:52, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I've just tried to upload a png image that I created by myself (it was an edited screenshot of one graph that I made based on some published figures), but Wikimedoa does not allow me to upload it. I uploaded several images in the past, and I never had problems of that kind. That is my own work made based on the figures published in a peer-reviewed journal. I have no clue why the system does not allow me to upload it. Can anybody explain me why? Paul Siebert (talk) 19:14, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert: I'm assuming you were trying to upload these to Wikimedia Commons, not here on the English Wikipedia - correct? If so, it appears you got hit with their filter, commons:Special:AbuseFilter/154. It seems to be a false positive, and it should have told you to just press upload again to resolve it. If that doesn't work, try using an almost blank description, then fixing it after. Your false positive appears to be the pharse "Getty" in your description. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:31, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, xaosflux. Did I understand it correctly that the system recongized the name of the author (a historian Arch Getty) as a reference to Getty images?

I removed the name, and everything works now. Thank you. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:36, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert: there is a somewhat agressive filter check over on commons that should give only a warning if the description contains a string like "getty" for getting images, or other known image sites that don't necessarily have open licensing. You should be able to edit that description and fix the author name now; classic Scunthorpe problem. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:41, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Understood, thanks. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:08, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Overlapping range blocks and single IP block confuse logs?

Either this is a bug, or I just don't understand how range blocks work. Earlier today, @Star Mississippi placed three related blocks: [8], [9], and [10]. If I look at the contributions for the /64, I get the message:

This user is currently blocked. The latest block log entry is provided below for reference:
(change visibility) 2021-12-23T15:48:12 Star Mississippi talk contribs block blocked 2a02:908:186d:f960:: talk with an expiration time of 3 months (anon. only, account creation blocked) (Per SPI) (unblock | change block) Tag: Twinkle

Why is it showing me the 15:48:12 block (on the individual IP) and not the 16:35:35 one on the /64? -- RoySmith (talk) 22:47, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Likely relevant: T146628, T139656, T188690. DMacks (talk) 23:20, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

@RoySmith You said "if I look at the contributions", but you actually linked to the userpage. There's no concept of IP ranges on userpages, so it's just interpreting the /64 as a subpage of User:2A02:908:186D:F960:0:0:0:0, hence why it shows the block for the single IP. If you check Special:Contributions/2A02:908:186D:F960:0:0:0:0/64, you correctly see the latest range block. — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:54, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, that makes total sense, thanks. -- RoySmith (talk) 03:01, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Belated thanks @MusikAnimal and RoySmith: for this lesson on range blocks, contributions and SPI. Super helpful. Star Mississippi 00:35, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Empty section header on talk page breaks it on mobile

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T298329

Having a h2 of == == on a talk page makes it so you can't view the talk page at all on mobile as it interprets an empty section link as wanting to open the empty section header section so you can't actually view the whole talk page. Example: Talk:voiceless glottal fricative.  Nixinova   T   C   23:55, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

You can tap < at the top left to go "back" to the table of contents although you haven't been there before. I would still call it a bug. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:07, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: that isn't working for me, and fails in different ways depending on logged in or logged out status as well. In any case, I've opened phab:T298329. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:20, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

I tested it in Firefox on Windows 10 and Safari on iPhone 8. It worked before but now it varies. I haven't found a system. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:45, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Creating a user talk archive

Is there a convenient way to create an archive of user talk discussions by extracting the threads from the page history? I neglected to archive my talk page and now wish I hadn't. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 04:40, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@John Cline: Archiving a talk page gives you a few options. ClaudineChionh (talk – contribs) 05:28, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, I'll look straight away.--John Cline (talk) 06:29, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Watchlist capacity?

Hello! For a while now, when I go to my watchlist then click on "Edit your list of watched pages", I get the error message "The maximum request time of 60 seconds was exceeded." Essentially, I cannot reduce my watchlist because I cannot access the list. I am currently watching 22,384 pages. Is there a workaround, or a maximum number of pages supported by watchlists? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:32, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Watchlist timeout time has come down in the past few years, topping out around 15-20k (but just by time).

Can you access Special:EditWatchlist/raw? Izno (talk) 19:15, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@Izno I can! So I just backspace out entries here instead? Thanks for the link. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 19:16, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Exactly so. Try removing one item and then hitting submit to see if the database will actually transact.

I wish it were more obvious in the watchlist links at the top of Special:Watchlist for the power users who do tend to get stuck with watchlist timeouts. Izno (talk) 19:20, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

You might also try a one-hour watchlist as that has less work to do. Johnuniq (talk) 22:57, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: the problem being reported by Another Believer is not of viewing Special:Watchlist, but of being unable to use Special:EditWatchlist. I had the same problem when I got up to a similar amount of watched pages, and successfully used Special:EditWatchlist/raw to trim it down significantly. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:51, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

COVID-19 vaccination statistics

Hello all, is there any way to update automatically vaccination statistics from a website? Specially I talk about COVID-19 vaccination in Bangladesh and URL is http://103.247.238.92/webportal/pages/covid19-vaccination-update.php thanks. —MdsShakil (talk) 15:58, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@MdsShakil: WP:BOTREQ. ― Qwerfjkltalk 16:05, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl is that possible? If possible then i will post a task request at WP:BOTREQ —MdsShakil (talk) 16:19, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@MdsShakil: I don't think some IP address is a "reliable source" to reference, seems like that page is just a summary of the actual source somewhere else? — xaosflux ^Talk 19:06, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Xaosflux this address was used by Directorate General of Health Services for providing real time information, you can also found at here —MdsShakil (talk) 20:23, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Password retrieval

Does this get asked regularly? Apologies if so. But I've heard OTGV that if one can still access one's email account, it's possible for devs to retrieve a lost password from the depths. Is this true, and if so, how does one go about it? Many thanks in advance for any advice  :) ——Serial 19:18, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Serial Number 54129, OTGV presumably means wikt:hear on the grapevine? To answer your question: no. Your password cannot be recovered. Developers who store user passwords in plaintext anywhere on their server are idiots, so it's a safe bet MediaWiki doesn't do that. If it did that would be a serious security issue. (note that recovering a password is not the same as resetting it, but Special:PasswordReset doesn't recover a password) — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 19:32, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: Passwords are stored in a hashed form. There is no means for converting a hashed password back into its cleartext original: when logging in, the password entered by a user is itself put through a hashing function, and the hashed form is compared against the stored hashed password. If the two hashed passwords match, the cleartext passwords are assumed to match as well. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:54, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: what you've probably heard a combination of a couple of things: (1) Users with confirmed email may use that along with Special:PasswordReset to reset their current password, this will make use of that email address to reset a forgotten password. (2) It is possible for those with direct database access to reset a password (they won't actually know what the old password is) - and that in some cases they have done this for people and sent the reset password to their email. There is no official support for the workflow of (2), so it should never be relied upon. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:00, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

As far as I know, they just set a requested email address for the account so the user can use Special:PasswordReset on their own. They want good evidence that the request comes from the user, and they only do it in special cases. I don't know what they require. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:41, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

For future reference, you can refer to Wikipedia:FAQ/Technical § How do I recover a password I have forgotten?. isaacl (talk) 21:10, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Not sure if I have to mark this as {{resolved}} or anything, but I'd just like to offer my gratitude to @Alexis Jazz, Redrose64, Xaosflux, PrimeHunter, and Isaacl: for their replies; very interesting and very useful, cheers! Season's greetings to you all! ——Serial 14:36, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Single Wikipedia draft will not properly load in Desktop on Mobile device

https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Draft:Mone%27_Symone

I can load the page in mobile view but once I click desktop on bottom bar, page loads halfway then hangs. No other wikipedia page, draft, or submitted draft is having same issue.

Tried inspecting wikicode in mobile but didn't see anything obvious

Galaxy S8 Chrome 96.0.4664.104 Android 8.0 Slywriter (talk) 18:18, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Not reproducible in Chrome 96.0.4664.104 Android 8.0 from a different device. Have you tried logging to a different network? Or, clearing cache? TrangaBellam (talk) 18:58, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

loads when I'm signed out. Suspect something with AFC Helper script. Maybe the apostrophe in title. I'll drop a line on AFC help desk (see if another editor can reproduce)if no one can help me here. Slywriter (talk) 20:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

REGEX question

Is it possible to make a query that searches only in an article's lead? I think I probably want the negative lookbehind from the WP:REGEX documentation with "==" as the string to look behind, but I can't quite get it to work. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:21, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

If you are using Special:Search, lookaheads/behinds are not supported. Izno (talk) 04:09, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Izno, I'm looking to do an AWB run, so I think that's indirectly using Special:Search. Is there a different way to go about it? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:00, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, if you have 70-90GB free, you could use an en.wikipedia dump and do a AWB database search. You could also do it in multiple searches of dumps that are around 2GB, so 60 searches in total to cover the whole namespace. The dumps are at dumps.wikimedia.org.--Snævar (talk) 00:31, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Third-party content

I'm probably stupidly missing something, but I can't find this info elsewhere. https://www.bondinho.com.br/, the official site of the Sugarloaf Mountain Cablecar tourist attraction in Rio de Janeiro, serves 6 wikipedia.org scripts and 15 en.wiki.x.io scripts. Why would it do that? The WMF cookie statement does not mention such use. HLHJ (talk) 21:19, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

You will probably need to ask whoever runs that website. Try [11] RudolfRed (talk) 02:03, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Is there a ToolForge doctor in the house? CitationBot could use some help

I suspect that this request may not be entirely within the terms of reference for this forum but...

For months now, Citation bot has a perennial problem with conflict between 'general housekeeping' batch runs (on the one hand) and editors using the bot to clean up and verify citations on individual articles (on the other). For the latest frustration, see user talk:Citation bot#And failure is the usual option again. The issue could be resolved if there were separate instances of the bot for batch runs v individuals. Bot operator AManWithNoPlan says that this needs ToolForge access that they do not have. Maybe they are too proud to ask here but I'm not, I just want the problem fixed and if that means a chorus of disapproval, I have broad shoulders. But if the sentiments of the season motivate someone to be kind, I will be most grateful. Thank you in anticipation. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:10, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Likely it needs one of the people listed under "maintainers" at toolforge:admin/tool/citations to deal with it. Anomie⚔ 18:33, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately the maintainer list consists of Davidbarratt (a former WMF staff member with no obvious volunteer account), Kaldari (who is retired), Mattsenate (who hasn't edited since 2015), Maximilianklein (who hasn't edited since November 2020), and Smith609 (who hasn't edited since September 2021), so you are unlikely to get a response here. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 05:26, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Kaldari somewhat recently added a new maintainer to a different tool of theirs, so they might be willing to do that here as well if somebody wants to take it up and contacts them. Rummskartoffel 12:36, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

just getting citations-dev up and operational would help. OR Perhaps the PHP configuration can be changed to allow more threads. OR the bot needs more CPU at the VM level. Maybe all three. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:40, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

In principle, I approve the idea of expanding the capacity of Citation bot. It's a wonderfully powerful tool, and its huge utility has created high demand. In short, it is a victim of its own success, and since WP:V is core policy, some WMF assistance would be appropriate.

It would be great if batch jobs could run in a separate queue, though I still think that we should distinguish between targeted batch jobs (sets of articles known to concentrate a high level of bot-fixable problems) and speculative trawls (batches of articles where the bot is asked to see if anything needs to be done). A large proportion of the bot's current capacity is wasted on these low-return speculative trawls.

However, some caution is needed: the bottleneck may not actually be in Citation bot. Citation bot's title-filling relies on Zotero servers which are overloaded, and the zoteros frequently fail to return the info needed to fill a bare URL ref which is filled on a later task. So it is possible that extra instances of Citation bot may simply lead to a higher number of pages being processed without a higher number of fixes. This would need testing.

Ideally, Citation bot would have a more sophisticated queueing system like that of InternetArchiveBot, which gives priority to individual page requests. That may be a very big programming job, but it is very desirable.

Whatever else happens, adding new maintainers is clearly long overdue. And technical help with the config is clearly needed.

Above all, please acknowledge the wonderful work dome by @AManWithNoPlan to keep Citation bot running. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:40, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

I have finally managed to recover my toolforge account. I have no idea why password resets do not work, although I am not sure why my phone of all things had the password on it. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:38, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Citation bot seems to be limited to a certain number of PHP sessions at a time. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:42, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey 2022 is coming. Help us!

The Community Wishlist Survey 2022 starts in less than two weeks (Monday 10 January 2022, 18:00 UTC). We, the team organizing the Survey, need your help.

Translate important messages

Promote the Survey Among anyone and everyone you know who has an account on wiki. Promote the Survey on social media, via instant messaging apps, in other groups and chats, in your WikiProject, Wikimedia affiliate - wherever contributors with registered accounts may be.

Only you can make the difference

How many people will hear and read about the Survey in their language? How many will decide to participate? Will there be enough of you to vote for a change you would like to see? It all depends on you, volunteers.

Why are we asking?

• We have improved the documentation. It's friendlier and easier to use. This will mean little if it's only in English.
• Thousands of volunteers haven't participated in the Survey yet. We'd like to improve that, too. Three years ago, 1387 people participated. Last year, there were 1773 of them. We hope that in the upcoming edition, there will be even more. You are better than us in contacting Wikimedians outside of wikis. We have prepared some images to share. More to come.

What is the Community Wishlist Survey?

It's an annual survey that allows contributors to the Wikimedia projects to propose and vote for tools and platform improvements. Long years of experience in editing or technical skills are not required.

Thanks, and be safe and successful in 2022! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 03:15, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

References in VE

Why did this edit define the reference every time, it was used? I used the cite button to generate the first reference and copy-pasted the reference to the end of all other lines. Ideally, there should be one <ref name=":0">{{cite ....}}</ref> and then many <ref name=":0" /> TrangaBellam (talk) 18:41, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Can anybody confirm if they are able to edit the reference after the line A. R. Rahman of the Quaid-i-Azam University and Ahmad Hasan Dani did rudimentary field surveys in the late 1960s in the current version of the page, from VE? I am getting a rectangular box captioned <> Refon the right and an Edit button on the left. Clicking the button opens a blank text box; under that, is another (editable) field for name, prefilled with :0 Bizarre. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:49, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

When you copy paste, there is no automatic duplicate detection and deduplication logic. If you want to re-use a reference, choose insert reference -> re-use and then copy and paste THAT (just like with wiki text). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

User:TrangaBellam I checked. I am getting the same blank text field with name :0. Akshaypatill (talk) 04:52, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Seems like you need to delete and re-add the references. The page was alright before your edits. There are multiple errors with the citations. Akshaypatill (talk) 05:15, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Editing Special:Booksources

Where do I go to request a change to Special:BookSources? I'd like a link added to the results page for the old google books url, which still exists and is so much better than the new display for our purposes. The instructions at Help:Special page#Modifying special pages just leads to a bunch of deleted pages for this particular special, with no indication where the information now resides. SpinningSpark 11:05, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Book sources. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:12, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. SpinningSpark 11:28, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Problem with OneDrive page

I have found a problem with the OneDrive article, and despite my best efforts, cannot find how to correct it. Reference 54 shows up as {{cite web |url=https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/onedrive/9wzdncrfj1p3 |title=Get OneDrive – Microsoft Store |website=Windows Store |publisher=Microsoft However, I cannot find where that reference is set up. The text includes <ref name="winstore">{{cite web|title=OneDrive |url=https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/onedrive/9wzdncrfj1p3 |website=[[Windows Store]] |publisher=[[Microsoft]] |access-date=July 13, 2016}}</ref> which appears to be similar, and in the right area for it being ref 54, but it is not quite the same and seems to be properly formulated. Can anyone offer any help as to how to fix it please? Bob1960evens (talk) 16:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@Bob1960evens it's from {{Template:Latest_stable_software_release/OneDrive}}, included automatically via the software release infobox. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@TheDJ Thanks for the info, and for fixing the problem as well. Bob1960evens (talk) 16:19, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Moves not showing up in move logs?

I am trying to come up with some numbers for Wikipedia:Wikipedia_records#Oldest_pages_in_each_namespace, and am running into bizarre issues. Module talk:Infobox military conflict, for example, seems to have an empty move log... but in its history we see: 2009-09-12T07:39:40‎ Kirill Lokshin talk contribs‎ m 60,547 bytes 0‎ (Kirill Lokshin moved Template talk:Infobox Military Conflict to Template talk:Infobox military conflict: Fixing name capitalization to comply with template naming guidelines). Since this is in the history of Module talk:Infobox military conflict, this obviously indicates it used to be at Template talk:Infobox military conflict. Similarly, in the most recent 500, I see 2014-10-07T07:52:46‎ Jackmcbarn talk contribs‎ m 12,545 bytes 0‎ (Jackmcbarn moved page Template talk:Infobox military conflict to Module talk:Infobox military conflict: the module can be used without using the template, but not vice versa). So it was obviously moved -- but there's absolutely nothing in the move log for this either. What the hell is up with that? jp×g 14:18, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@JPxG: the move log is indexed to the page that was moved, not to the new page name. For example, that move is in the log here. Is that what you are looking for? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:37, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

See also phab:T66184 / phab:T152829 - possible candidate for the 2022 meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2022 possibly. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:41, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Twinkle Citation Helper

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T164954

Moved from Wikipedia:Teahouse § Twinkle Citation Helper

 –  ― Qwerfjkltalk 21:12, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

I use Twinkle, and so there is a citation helper there. I just paste the link, and it automatically generates all the necessary details about the link. There used to be a reuse citation tab, but now nothing happens whenever I click the tab. Is something going wrong from my side? ― Itcouldbepossible^Talk 07:05, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:Twinkle has nothing to do with citations. You seem to be talking about the Wikipedia:RefToolbar instead. After expanding "Cite", I still see a "Named references" option using which you can reuse citations (the ones which have a <ref name="" set) – SD0001 (talk) 11:55, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

@SD0001 Mine looks like this. But unlike you, after clicking cite, the reuse citation tab is disabled. How may I show you? ― Itcouldbepossible^Talk 14:15, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

@SD0001 Please look at this photo. See, the reuse tab is disabled. Can you tell why? ― Itcouldbepossible^Talk 14:19, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

@Itcouldbepossible I see that now. It works for me on VisualEditor, but on the 2017 wikitext editor that you're using. Not clear to me why, I suggest asking this at WP:VPT. – SD0001 (talk) 14:36, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

@SD0001 Should I just paste this in WP:VPT or tell them to look here? ― Itcouldbepossible^Talk 15:20, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

This is not part of Twinkle, but the "2017 wikitext editor". Citation re-use appears to have never been enabled there, phab:T164954 is the request to add it. the wub "?!" 21:32, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@The wub Well but once I had seen it, and used it also used it, but now you are saying that it was never enabled. Well maybe. Itcouldbepossible^Talk 04:17, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

How to zoom a map in Maplink

I am referred to this page from edit notice of Module talk:Mapframe. Please take a look at the bottom map in the infobox of Satna Junction railway station. It is added using default parameter of the maplink. The map is practically useless as it is zoomed out and gives no useful information. I would like to zoom it a few clicks so that the location of the station in the city is visible in the infobox map. I tried but could not do it. Can someone do it for me. Please ping when you reply. Venkat TL (talk) 09:17, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

See Template:Infobox_station#Mapframes. The infobox automatically generates the mapframe with a zoom level of 10. You can set the mapframe-zoom option to change it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@TheDJ Thank you. The maplink was included by adding | mapframe = yes. I was wondering where to put the mapframe-zoom option to set a zoom level of 12. Jts1882 has added it now. So my problem is resolved. Jts1882, TheDJ, please update the documentation to make this clear that these options do not need an infobox module and can be added directly into the infobox. Venkat TL (talk) 13:36, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Is there really no obvious way for mobile IP editors to reply to talk page comments?

I feel like I'm missing something obvious:

1. In a new private tab, open http://en.m.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:1916_Texas_hurricane
2. Wait a little while for all the Javascript to finish loading
3. Click on one of the section headings, e.g. "Todo"

Where's the "reply" form? I see it when logged in, but when logged out, I can only add a new section or edit the lede. The only way to edit any other section is to first click the "read as wiki page" button. And why would someone looking to reply to comment know they have to click on that button? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:22, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Reply links are not (yet) default for editors who are a) not opted in to DiscussionTools which includes b) all editors who are unregistered. Anyway, that is supposed to become the default for all editors sometime (a month or so) on the other side of the calendar rollover I believe, including for unregistered editors. Izno (talk) 20:38, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

If you do want to be notified when IPs do get the reply tool, then follow bug phab:T296645.--Snævar (talk) 00:05, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm not saying that there's merely no way to use mw:DiscussionTools. I'm saying that there's no way at all to reply to a talk page message, unless they guess to click on the unintuitive "read as wiki page" link. As in, someone asks "Good suggestion. Do you have a source?" and they won't be able answer at all except by creating a new section (which might get them yelled at) or editing the lead section (which probably will get them yelled at for "vandalism"). Is that really the expected behavior? For some context, see WP:EFR#Possible strange widespread vandalism of talk pages. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:29, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

I tried your test and you are correct. There is no way for an IP editor on mobile to reply to a talk page message. If only the WMF had some money to pay for a developer. Johnuniq (talk) 22:57, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

If you don’t go into “read as wiki” mode, stay in the default viewing mode, click on a section. Then you’ll see a “reply” box at the bottom. But it does no indentation etc and it’s only capable of adding a reply at the very bottom, so it’s quite lousy. I just use read & edit in wikitext and edit the section manually, and avoid all the reply buttons. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:39, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

That’s logged in tho. I missed the “IP” part — this doesn’t work for IPs. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:42, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Guys, there is an deployment freeze going on at WMF due to the holidays. While I do appreciate the enthusiasm, this is a bit much. Changes like this one are generally just a config change. There is an assigned person on the task, ppelberg, so in January, he will request on wikitech:Deployments a window to enable this config change. There is a team that handles deployments and the assigned dev (or the requester) is required to be present. You would not like to be asked to do an mass admin task during the holidays, so do not expect the devs to do a similar thing.--Snævar (talk) 00:41, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

No problem. Speaking at least for myself, I don't expect problems to be fixed in a holiday period. I don't know how long this situation has existed but if it is fixed some kind of testcase to avoid a similar issue in the future would be good. Johnuniq (talk) 01:13, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

If only the WMF had some money to pay for a developer When I access logged out, I had a begging message in the last week or so. Previously I posted somewhere recently that after I donated some years ago, the b******s sent a begging letter to my name/home address provided by the PayEnemy organisation, even though there was no purchase of product, which I want to pursue with the regulator (Information Commissioner's Office). I still haven't found it but should be in the house - I want to see the name/office details.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 01:22, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

@Snævar: Thanks for the response. I'm not expecting anything to be fixed tomorrow. The task you linked to above (phab:T296645) mentions enabling DiscussionTools for IP users, but not mobile users. And indeed, even when logged in and with DiscussionTools enabled in my preferences, DiscussionTools is not enabled on the mobile site. I just see the better-than-nothing form that lets me add a comment to the end of the thread. Is there also a plan to enable DT on mobile (either logged-in, logged-out, or both), and where is the task for that? Because otherwise I don't see how enabling DT for IPs will help with this issue. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:40, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

I think it's phab:T282638. Izno (talk) 05:05, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

The RFC by the community to enable the talk page access to anons in phab:T293946 seems to have focused on making the talk page link visible without considering the full talk page experience.

The existing workflow is not yet DiscussionTools.

Making the reply box appear is likely highly straightforward... just open a Phabricator ticket and I am sure that done in the new year. However, the existing talk page feature was never finished. It has no support for AbuseFilter or blocks and never will (our energy is better spent on DiscussionTools).

Please also check in with the discussion on Wikipedia:Edit_filter/Requested#Possible_strange_widespread_vandalism_of_talk_pages before opening up more routes to talk page editing. The lack of a reply may actually be serving a purpose in adding friction to people using it as a commenting board.

Jdlrobson (talk) 16:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Alt-Shift-O

Is this keyboard shortcut defined to be something? I'm using Monobook with Firefox with the original wikitext editor, and if I do Alt-Shift-O while I'm editing (accidentally, when I meant to do Alt-Shift-P for preview), it replaces the contents of all the form inputs on the page (the search box, the edit textarea, and the edit summary/new topic subject) with values that I previously entered some time ago (like, weeks or months). It's extremely annoying because I can't use Ctrl-Z to undo and so it means I can lose a whole lot of work. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 09:26, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

If you are logged out then Alt+Shift+O logs in. If I'm logged in then it doesn't do anything for me with Firefox and Monobook. Does it happen in safemode? Do you have a browser extension which may do it? PrimeHunter (talk) 10:50, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah yes, it turns out to be this "Form History Control" extension which I didn't even remember I had. Alt-Shift-O is "fill fields with most often used entries". I don't even know how it decides what those are. —howcheng {chat} 17:59, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Shortcut keys are listed at Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts, and Alt+⇧ Shift+O is indeed shown as Log in.

Many forms are designed in such a way that every control - whether it be a checkbox, button, text entry or whatever - has an ID that is unique to the page. For instance, the edit box that I am typing in right now is a <textarea>...</textarea> element having the ID wpTextbox1. This extension that you mention would, I assume, maintain a table with three columns - ID, value, and the number of instances that the given value was used for that ID. It would be keyed by id and number of instances so that it is easy to determine which value had been used the most times for any given ID. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:26, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Draftification log

Is there any way to see a draftification log (that is pages moved from mainspace to draftspace)? Special:Log/move doesn't account for this separately; the only way I can figure out is to Ctrl+F with the "Not ready for mainspace, incubate in draftspace" string. Curbon7 (talk) 11:47, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

User:SDZeroBot/Draftify Watch is updated weekly. – SD0001 (talk) 12:27, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Unable to make edits on mobile device

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T139861

Hi. I am able to edit on my pc, but mobile editing doesn't work. I've tried deleting the cache. I've tried multiple browsers (Kiwi, Chrome, and the Wikipedia app). I get the following message after an edit, before being able to click Publish. My version of Chrome is 96.0.4664.104. I'm on Android 11, SM-A217F Build/RP1a.200720.012.

Edit: I should mention that this has been happening for over two months. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stix1776 (talk • contribs) 04:29, 27 December 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stix1776 (talk • contribs) 04:26, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Stix1776: are you using the mobile site, mobile app, or desktop site? Can you give step-by-step directions to reproduce this error? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:32, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I'm so sorry for the slow reply. It's not easy to edit without my phone 😂

Anyhow, if I go to most any page and try to make an edit. For instance, I'll edit the page on Cats

So I'll try to delete the last comma in the header.

After I click on the top-left blue arrow, I'll get the preview page. But the preview doesn't show, and I'm unable to finish the edit.

It happens regardless of whether I use Chrome, Kiwi browser, or the Wikipedia app. I've tried "Desktop Site" function in the browser, but it doesn't change my experience. It works fine on my PC, with the same IP address. Thanks so much for your help.Stix1776 (talk) 10:05, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, I haven't been able to get this to fail yet (test edit worked). — xaosflux ^Talk 14:56, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

• Seems like you are getting phab:T139861. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:57, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Two questions

1. Is it possible to get a list of users who were indef blocked on a certain date?
2. Is it possible to see a log of page moves for a given page?

-- GreenC 01:47, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Special:Log/block can show all blocks on a date, not limited to indef. Special:Log/move can show moves away from a title but not to the title or in the page history between other titles. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:05, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I'll be putting #2 on the wishlist survey this year. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:23, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

If you want to and from a quarry like quarry:query/61120 could work. Note that it gets some false positives from interpreting page names as regex which is probably needed to account for both old and new move logs. --Trialpears (talk) 02:26, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Or use my MoveHistory script! Nardog (talk) 16:02, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

@GreenC: you should be able to get that via the API, try in sandbox (example date: 2021-12-27). — xaosflux ^Talk 02:40, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

To use, click that link (permalink), verify I didn't try to make you do something nefarious, then click make request. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:42, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks! -- GreenC 06:32, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikimedia Error

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.

Request from 139.55.214.38 via cp1075 cp1075, Varnish XID 59530574 Error: 503, Backend fetch failed at Fri, 31 Dec 2021 22:22:04 GMT

My computer has been slow today but this happened a lot in the past few minutes.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:30, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

"Our World in Data" logo overlapping dates in SVG maps, but not PNG maps

OWID (Our World in Data) maps. Many OWID maps are used throughout the Covid articles.

OWID has dates at the end of the top text of many maps. The OWID logo is also in that area. When the text is long enough the OWID logo will cover some of the date in the SVG version of the maps. But not the PNG version. I am wondering what is causing this? Is it a Mediawiki software problem? Is OWID not coding their SVG correctly? Or what?

Compare this PNG and SVG map pair:

• File:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.svg
• File:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.png

Note the OWID logo overlapping part of the date in the SVG version. At the OWID source it is not a problem. You can narrow your browser window as much as you want and overlap does not occur at the OWID source. See source for above maps:

• https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-people-vaccinated-covid?tab=map

Another map pair with slightly different date overlap:

• File:World map of COVID-19 vaccination doses administered per 100 people by country or territory.svg
• File:World map of COVID-19 vaccination doses administered per 100 people by country or territory.png

OWID source:

• https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccination-doses-per-capita?tab=map

--Timeshifter (talk) 00:06, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

In the header, it looks like it's a font issue. Whatever font is being used (probably DejaVu Serif) is much wider than the one that the svg was laid out for. Looks like it doesn't like the " in the style attribute for some reason so it's not recognizing the expected alias of "Times New Roman" to Liberation Serif. Literal single-quotes would work.

I also see the footer isn't displaying. It seems that the version of rsvg in use doesn't like <a> inside <tspan>. Anomie⚔ 18:48, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

It should be noted that the maps displayed on the file description pages for the two .svg images mentioned above are not themselves SVGs, but are PNG representations. To compare the actual images, it is necessary to click the "Original file" links, i.e.

• Media:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.svg
• Media:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.png
• Media:World map of COVID-19 vaccination doses administered per 100 people by country or territory.svg
• Media:World map of COVID-19 vaccination doses administered per 100 people by country or territory.png

Whether the document is HTML, SVG or XML, constructs like ' and " are never valid within the value of an attribute: it may only be used outside of tags. Font names that include spaces must be quoted; and the quote type must not be the same as the one used to enclose the value of the attribute. The quote used as a delimiter must be a literal quote, not an encoded representation. So these declarations are invalid:

• font-family:Lato, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif
• font-family:"Playfair Display", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif

and should be replaced by the following:

• font-family:Lato, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif
• font-family:'Playfair Display', Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif

I don't think that <a>...</a> elements are allowed in any circumstances. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:27, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

There is an formatted list over installed fonts at meta:SVG fonts. That list is a bit outddated though, so fc-list is better. As you can see using non-free fonts is not supported, so you should use other fonts in your SVG.--Snævar (talk) 23:30, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Whether the document is HTML, SVG or XML, constructs like ' and " are never valid within the value of an attribute That is incorrect. Codes like &#x27; and &quot; are entirely valid in attributes in HTML, SVG, and XML. That's a big part of why &quot; exists as a named entity in the first place. This seems like a bug in rsvg to me. I don't think that <a>...</a> elements are allowed in any circumstances. The SVG spec explicitly allows <a> inside <tspan>. Anomie⚔ 00:41, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Anomie, Snævar, Redrose64. So the SVG coding is fine, but Mediawiki is not up to date? And so Mediawiki is not using the fallback fonts?

We can't expect OWID to change their SVG if the problem is not on their end. That leaves Mediawiki? Are there Phabricator tasks about these specific problems?

--Timeshifter (talk) 02:40, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

First off, we don't use rsvg any more, but librsvg, which is different.

The SVG spec does allow <a>...</a> tags, but we don't. If you use the ' and " entities, what you get is the displayable character, and not a valid delimiter - which is what is desired to indicate the positions of the beginning and end of the font name. From the SVG 1.1 spec: Property declarations must follow CSS style rules; and see also the CSS 2.1 spec. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Anomie, Snævar, Redrose64. I left a message via the feedback form linked from this page:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-people-vaccinated-covid?tab=map

Message: Hi. Please see this Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) thread titled "Our World in Data" logo overlapping dates in SVG maps, but not PNG maps":

https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#%22Our_World_in_Data%22_logo_overlapping_dates_in_SVG_maps,_but_not_PNG_maps

Feel free to comment now. The thread will go to the archives in a few days, or sooner. Search the archives for the thread title then to find it. [End of message].

--Timeshifter (talk) 08:36, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Did you notice that rsvg is a redirect to librsvg? They're the same thing. Are you trying to refer to the fact that development stopped for a few years, then a new developer picked it up?

You claim that "we" don't allow SVGs with <a>. This is clearly false as the SVGs linked in this topic do indeed contain <a> tags and they weren't blocked from upload. On the other hand, MediaWiki currently does not support <a> tags in that it renders SVGs to PNG for display and does not make any attempt to preserve the links. But despite that the text inside the links should still be preserved, as it is in other places in those same SVGs.

You seem to be heavily confused as to what's going on with &quot;. What you link is talking about the value of the attribute, while the &quot; we're discussing is part of the syntax of the attribute. As stated in the intro, SVG is a language for describing two-dimensional graphics in XML [XML10]. How do you represent the value of an attribute containing double-quote characters in XML? See the "Attribute" EBNF in the XML spec, one way is by using the &quot; entity.

HTH. Anomie⚔ 14:46, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

There is a syntactic difference, simply, it's whether the quote marks are literal parts of the font name, or are delimiters. When we have the declaration font-family:'Playfair Display', Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif the single quotes are delimiters for two font names, the font names being Playfair Display and Times New Roman. But when the declaration is written as font-family:"Playfair Display", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif here the single quotes are taken as literal characters being part of the name itself, so the agent will look for fonts named "Playfair Display" and "Times New Roman" where the quotes are no longer delimiters. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:02, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

You still seem completely confused. The thing you posted in your second bit of code doesn't have any quotes in it at all, and what you have there is not even valid CSS. But regardless, you're still confusing the encoded representation in XML with the CSS value. Let me try one more time, by analogy: In a URL like http://example.com/?field=%22foo%22, the value of the field is "foo" even though it appears encoded in the URL as %22foo%22. Similarly, the value of the style attribute might include "Times New Roman" even though when encoded in XML it appears as "Times New Roman". Anomie⚔ 23:38, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Exactly, it is not valid CSS: but that is the code that is in File:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.svg, specifically, the style= attribute of the first <a> tag on line 12. Go to Media:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.svg and use your browser's "View source" feature. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:35, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

but that is the code that is in File:World map of share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine by country.svg You continue to confuse the XML syntax encoding the attribute with the CSS encoded by the attribute. It works in HTML too: Example monospace text using &quot; in the font-family. But apparently I am unable to convince you of that, so I'm going to give up now. Anomie⚔ 20:31, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, the SVG parser will translate the character entity to a quote character, so by the time the CSS engine gets to see the property name/property value pair, it sees a quote in the same way as if a literal quote character had been entered as part of the property value. isaacl (talk) 21:20, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I left a request on some map and SVG pages for more help. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:19, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

The overlap is a font substitution issue. If a font with wider metrics is used, the overlap happens. SVG 1.1 does not have a facility to automatically break lines.

A reasonable workaround would be break the line before the date, and to put the date completely on the second line. That gives the heading a lot of extra space to account for wider fonts.

The version of librsvg used by WMF is very old. More recent versions have fixed a number of bugs, but WMF has not updated to the newest verion. There has been substantial drift, and the new version of librsvg would break a lot of files on WMF sites.

One of the librsvg bugs is the improper handling of quotation marks for font-family. See Phab:T64987.

Leaving out the single quotation marks should not be a problem for most fonts. Although single quotes are recommended for font family names with embedded spaces, most CSS parsers do not need them.

XML defines a small set of character entities. Those entities may be used in SVG files. HTML defines a much larger set of character entities (e.g., ×). HTML-specific character entities do not work in SVG.

CDATA blocks do not interpret character entities. Early versions of HTML would embed a CDATA block within the style element to avoid accidental character entities. I'm not sure, but I believe modern versions of HTML treat the content of a style element as a CDATA block. SVG files would also embed CDATA blocks within the style element. See SVG 1.1 Styling § 6.6 which suggests the practice.

In most situations, a CDATA block will not be needed.

In most situations, CSS styling does not need to use character entities.

Glrx (talk) 19:49, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Note the files in question do not use a style element (i.e a <style> tag). They do include a style attribute that is running into the bug linked. Anomie⚔ 20:31, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Comment. Why not just use SVG files directly in Mediawiki? No messy conversions to PNG. SVG is supported very well (with few problems) in all the browsers listed here:

• SVG (basic support) | Can I use.

I looked at some of the huge bug trees on Phabricator concerning SVG. People could code SVG images to solve browser problems, and not Mediawiki problems. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:09, 1 January 2022 (UTC) --Timeshifter (talk) 02:09, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Problem using Chrome to edit a particular page - edit function slows to the point of inoperability

Hi, I've been editing a particular page using Chrome on an Acer Chromebook:

List of Canadian appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 1920–1929

The problem is that the edit function has become increasingly sluggish, to the point that it can take a minute or more for the cursor to relocate when I click on a new edit spot; deletions of characters may never happen; new text can take minutes to enter after I hit the keys. Selection of text that needs to be moved (to chronological order) just doesn't work - nothing happens after I hit control-X.

A friend of mine tried to help and said that he didn't have any problems using a Windows browser. At first, he didn't have any problems using Chrome, but he left the tab open for an hour or so, and then found he was having exactly the same problem trying to edit the page on Chrome.

The page is an extremely long table; I don't know if that's part of the problem? I could split it by years if that would help (it covers 10 years of court decisions), if, of course, I could edit it!

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 16:36, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Turn off spell-check or switch to the 'enhanced' spell check. But be mindful of your privacy because whatever you type goes to google...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:52, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

How do I do that, please?Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 17:02, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Three vertical dots in upper right corner; click that. Then choose Settings → Advanced → Languages.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:46, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

That's fixed it! Tjhanks! Can you explain, for a non-techno person, how the spell check caused the problem? Also, by privacy, I assume you mean that the Chromebook saves most of its data to the Google cloud? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 18:48, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't know what it is that causes the basic spell checker to hog so many cpu cycles; its broken (and not for the first time). The enhanced spell checker mode causes your browser to send everything that you type in a browser text box to google where your words are spell checked and the result returned to the browser for display. Google do not say what (if anything) happens to your words after the spell checker is done. Google knows that your browser sent the words so, no doubt, they can combine what you typed with what they know of your browsing habits for <reasons>. What you type here at en.wiki is probably less meaningful to Google than what you might type on a social networking site...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:18, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Fascinating! Thanks again! Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 23:28, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mr Serjeant Buzfuz: tihnk the bug is fixed in the devel repo, the Chromium authors have an "official unofficial" site https://chromium.woolyss.com where you can download the latest development builds. Those should have the bugs fixed. If you want to keep using Chrome but not enable enhanced spell checking, this might be an option. 17:04, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Building your own Bot

Hello there.

I have a few operational tasks that I would like to build a bot or two. Where can I start learning how to write a bot on MediaWiki? A Bot Builder 101 of sorts. Thanks.

Ktin (talk) 18:50, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

@Ktin: The main page is Wikipedia:Bots. To operate a bot, you must read and understand Wikipedia:Bot policy, also Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval which shows how you file a request. Often, it's much easier to simply ask for somebody else to perform the task by posting at Wikipedia:Bot requests. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:53, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

The official Help:Creating a bot page is a mess. You would find User:Novem Linguae/Essays/Toolforge bot tutorial lot more useful. There are some programming language-specific resources as well – which one are you planning to use? – SD0001 (talk) 20:03, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Obdurate redirect

Mangrove microbiome is meant to redirect to a section in Mangrove. But instead, at least on my computer, it redirects uselessly to somewhere in the middle of the references section. — Epipelagic (talk) 07:25, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I works fine for me. I note there are two collapsible sections (collapsed by default for me). Perhaps they have something to do with it and the redirect is taking you to the page position where the section would be if the tables were expanded. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:01, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Source editor freezes in Windows 11

When using the source editor to add tables to 2020 Chilean national plebiscite, the editor frequently froze for 10-20 seconds. I just switched to Windows 11 from Windows 10 and did not have this issue beforehand. The browser I am using is Google Chrome, version 96.0.4664.110. I am not sure if this is an issue with my connection or with the source editor in general. Thought I'd post here in case it is the latter. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 23:07, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

@Presidentman: This is a bug with Chromium based browsers, so it will effect Edge as well. Trappist the monk suggessts that people turn on Enhanced Spell Check to fix the issue, but to be "wary" since "all your keystrokes will go to Google" (his own words). You can also try using a different browser like Firefox, or downloading the updated Chrome/Chromium binaries at https://chromium.woolyss.com which should have the issue fixed. If you want to download the updated Chromium from the site, you want to download the one that is colored orange, since that is the latest version. Rlink2 (talk) 23:10, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

You can also disable spell checking. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:46, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

How to loop a video in Ogg Theora player

Composite video of a tennis racquet rotated around the three axes – the intermediate one flips from the light edge to the dark edge

Hi video experts,

I made this Ogg Theora video file for Tennis racket theorem. When I click on the thumbnail, it plays once. As more than one iteration will demonstrate the principle better, is there a way to specify in Wikitext for it to loop? (I know I can add multiple iterations in the video file but that seems an inelegant hack.)

Thanks,
cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 22:21, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

there is no option for this right now. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:51, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Underlining Chinese characters can be confusing

The article Goat (zodiac) starts like this: The Goat (Chinese: 羊; pinyin: yáng.

So, the character 羊 has four horizontal lines here, but three in other parts of the article and also in the Wiktionary article linked. It took me a while to understand that it is because the character is underlined. Does this even make sense? I don't think the Chinese ever underline characters, and I bet there are instances where this changes the meaning. Should there be an exception in this Wiki code for Chinese characters, or an option to omit the underlining? --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:38, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling By default links are not underlined except when hovered over, unless you have changed the "Underline links" settting in your Preferences, or customised your CSS. I think it would be possible for site CSS to override this and hide underlining for Chinese characters, but not convinced it would be wise. If someone has selected "Underline links: Always" we should probably respect that, especially as they may have accessibility reasons for selecting it. the wub "?!" 15:41, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Ah! That explains it. I did not think that there would be such an option. Thanks! --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:59, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

I own a few children's and "easy reader" books in Chinese where all names are underlined. —Kusma (talk) 15:55, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

So, I am twice humbled. Thanks to you too. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:00, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

MediaWiki functions for Lua modules

Hi, are there MW functions that can be used in Lua modules, which serve to differentiate between IPv4 and IPv6, and which detect whether a user with a certain name exists in local? Mw.util.isIP and its variants don’t seem to work in Lua modules. And if there’s any module that’s already been written and that involves these functionalities, I’d appreciate it if you could provide a link. Thanks. 2001:268:90AE:7C2B:40FC:BC23:135B:7882 (talk) 09:51, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Template:IsIPAddress? ― Qwerfjkltalk 10:40, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

For use in a lua module, you'd want to use Module:IPAddress instead of {{IsIPAddress}}, e.g.:

require('Module:IPAddress')._isIp('192.168.0.1')

will return '4' or '6'. You can also use the :getVersion() method from Module:IP, e.g.:

require('Module:IP').IPAddress.new('192.168.0.1'):getVersion()

will return 'IPv4' or 'IPv6', or you can use the :isIPv4() and :isIPv6() methods if you need it to return a boolean. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:57, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

New page

Is there any way, to get a feed of new pages, that are made by autopatrolled users AND are not redirects to another page? Rlink2 (talk) 16:41, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

@Rlink2 You could always filter it from EventStreams. I took https://codepen.io/ottomata/pen/LYpPpxj?editors=1010 and quickly hacked together https://codepen.io/zanhecht/pen/poWVwPm?editors=1010. You can select the "page-create" stream, put "enwiki" as the database, set the user group filter to "autopatrolled", and set "Page is redirect" to "yes". --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 00:12, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Help outside EnWiki - Module Rfx

Hello!

Is there someone with free extra time able to help me set up Module:Rfx for my homewiki (SqWiki)? Normally I'd just deal with the importation myself but in our community we don't use specific sections for votes. We use only 1 section for all votes, so support/oppose/neutral results are all mixed and therefore the module's code would need to be modified accordingly. Unfortunately my skills at Lua are too small to be able to overtake such a task myself. - Klein Muçi (talk) 12:33, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Hidden characters in article title

Has anyone encountered this before? See this edit and the discussion here. Those same hidden characters have appeared twice at WP:FA in article names. Are they being generated when the FAC page is created, or are they coming from the actual article title, or is is something else? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:15, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

The character sequence \342\200\216 (octal) or \xE2\x80\x8E (hexadecimal) is the UTF8 left-to-right mark. It means that the following text reads left to right when the previous text is right to left (eg Hebrew or Arabic). It happens when you copy/paste from certain Windows applications. Unfortunately, the FACBot cannot perform this task, because unlike GA there is no indication of the classification of a featured article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:07, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

It also can happen when you copy-paste from certain parts on the Wikimedia interface. A bot could strip those out of links if desired, as MediaWiki already strips U+200e, U+200f, and U+202a–U+202e from titles. Anomie⚔ 13:35, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Wikidata issue

I hope this is the correct place to address this issue.

When I look at a wikidata item page, all the properties are listed. With a grey background we first have the property name, and to the right of it with a white background the property value. Behind the value the "edit" option is shown.

I work with an increased fontsize of 125% (using CTRL-+) on my screen. Most properties have a value in text format. The increased fomtsize causes some values to be wrapped over 2 or more lines. This os not a problem. However for the image property (P18) there is a problem. An image cannot be wrapped so as a result the "edit" option is moved outside the screenview. The "edit" option getting moved outside the screenview wouldn't be a problem either if a horizontal scrollbar would appear. But the scrollbar doesn't appear and therefore it It seems as if the "edit" option doesn't exist for the image property. This I consider to be a bug, not the most problematic one, but it is a problem imo. If I increase the fontsize even more (in my case to 150%) the "edit" option reappears in the top left corner of the image. When I increase even more (175%) part of the image is moved out of the screenview as well. Only at that time the horizontal scrollbar appears. However I can scroll only far enough to the right to make the full image visible but not even further to the right to see the "edit" option as well. Two additonal increases (250&), when the full image ends up outside the screenview, the "edit" option reappears again. However it's shown in front of the property name (not value). Of course, not likely someone will increase the fontsize to 250%, but I'm probably not the only one with an increase of 125%. At such an increase the "edit" option should either be visible (e.g. below the image) or it should be possible to make it visable using the horizontal scrollbar. --Sb008 (talk) 00:48, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@Sb008: The correct place for this issue is d:WD:Contact the development team. Izno (talk) 04:00, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Is there a way to pull in images into a table automatically from linked articles?

Hi all

I've spent the last few days compiling Flora of Malta, I think the article would be much more helpful to the reader if each plant had an image. It seems like most of the linked articles has an image. Does anyone know a way to add an images column to the tables and populate them automatically? I'd really appreciate it if you could do it, its way above my technical ability.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 13:04, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I think you have more pressing issues at that page. Trying to have more than 1000 refs, the references are no longer usable and the page is added to Category:Pages where post-expand include size is exceeded. Fram (talk) 13:20, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

And as an aside, is there a way to disallow the addition of such categories directly, manually, to pages? I just had to remove it from here. Fram (talk) 13:24, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Such a function might not do the article justice. I have done similar exercises (eg Dorman Long) and the headline image for each article is not necessarily the best one to use within a list or table; it may be unsuitable as a thumbnail, or not showing distinctive features, or not the best historical portrayal. --Verbarson ^talk_edits 13:57, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@Fram An edit filter to prevent it would be a good idea (I submitted a request at Wikipedia:Edit_filter/Requested#Prevent_manual_addition_of_automatic_mediawiki_categories), but in this case a redirect to that category was added inside a comment by User:Wbm1058, User:SdkbBot ran AWB genfixes which moved it outside the comment, and User:RussBot then changed the redirect to the tracking category. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:58, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks (both for the edit filter request, and for the explanation of what happened here). Fram (talk) 15:01, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Manually added categories can be searched with something like: incategory:"Disambiguation pages" insource:"Category:Disambiguation pages" insource:/\[\[:?Category:Disambiguation pages\]\]/ (currently 185 hits I'm not going to check). PrimeHunter (talk) 15:12, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Then AWB is buggy: it must not alter comments in such a way that commented-out wikicode becomes live wikicode. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:37, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Yep; discussion on the AWB error started here. Best, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:58, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi all

Jts1882 has suggested something super useful, which is a template which calls the Wikidata image for the topic. This is extremely helpful for very large lists of plant species eg Flora of Malta. However it doesn't scale to such large pages, its limited to around 500 images.

{{wikidata|property|raw|page=Abutilon theophrasti|P18|format=\[\[File:%p {{!}} 50px {{!}} left\]\]}}

Which makes this happen

Is there some way to auto replace this wikidata template with the normal image code e.g [[File:Example.jpg|100px]] or whatever.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 10:19, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Whether it's technically possible or not, it's wrong to automate the addition of images to articles, list or otherwise. A significant proportion of images that have been linked from Wikidata items are mis-identified or now have different scientific names, at least in the English Wikipedia which is usually more up to date. Images always need reviewing. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:58, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

{{Wikidata}} works with subst.

{{subst:wikidata|property|raw|page=Abutilon theophrasti|P18|format=\[\[File:%p {{!}} 50px {{!}} left\]\]}}

saves as

[[File:Abutilon theophrasti 2006.10.11 17.01.39-pa110057.jpg {{!}} 50px {{!}} left]]

If a page is affected by template limits then you can do it on a part of the page at a time. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:00, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much PrimeHunter this works perfectly. Peter coxhead I will check them all manually against the images on the Wikipedia article, this will save me hours of copying and pasting. John Cummings (talk) 13:00, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Save the Date: Coolest Tool Award 2021: this Friday, 17:00 UTC

<languages />

Hello all,

The ceremony of the 2021 Wikimedia Coolest Tool Award will take place virtually on Friday 14 January 2022, 17:00 UTC.

This award is highlighting software tools that have been nominated by contributors to the Wikimedia projects. The ceremony will be a nice moment to show appreciation to our tool developers and maybe discover new tools!

Read more about the livestream and the discussion channels.

Thanks for joining! andre (talk) -08:02, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Official youtube channel wikidata template?

In the external links section of the end of an article, there are a number of templates that you can use to automatically use data from wikidata, such as {{Official Website}} or {{Twitch}}. I was wondering why there was no option for this on the {{YouTube}} template. There is a option to link to a channel, but it requires that you provide a channel id. Is this purposeful? Why can't it just default to the wikidata property like the other templates of the same nature? Thanks, ― Levi_OP^Talk 18:16, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Likely because the Youtube template can be used for a variety of link types. YT Video, channel, playlist and user, all with separate Wikidata properties. As such there is a lot to interpret if you want to find the accompanying YouTube link for a page. Generally you'd probably want the channelling, but maybe not always? And which channellink, as many YT'ers have multiple channels.. But if someone were to convert the template to Lua and put some though into how to select the best appropriate YouTube related property, then there is no reason it cannot be done. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:49, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't know much about "converting templates" to lua, but by looking the source for the official website and twitch templates, it looks like you can just invoke {{#property}} with the name of the property and it will just return it's value. Some template editor could probably go in and make the default channel id when there is none provided {{#property:P2397}} (youtube channel id). I don't know if this is a good idea or how it works, but I'd like to be able to have some template that can do this. ― Levi_OP^Talk 15:14, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Why not use SVG files directly in Mediawiki?

Why not just use SVG files directly in Mediawiki? No messy conversions to PNG. SVG is supported very well (with few problems) in all the browsers listed here:

• SVG (basic support) | Can I use.

I looked at some of the bug trees on Phabricator concerning SVG. Seems like a lot of those problems would disappear if SVG files were used without conversion to PNG. People could code SVG images to solve browser problems, instead of Mediawiki's conversion to PNG problems.

For context see this archived discussion:

• Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 194#"Our World in Data" logo overlapping dates in SVG maps, but not PNG maps.

--Timeshifter (talk) 12:05, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

1. We need protection from 20MB SVGs
2. Font differences between clients
3. SVG translations
4. Someone has to put in the work to counter 1-3

—TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:06, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

TheDJ. I am not a developer, and so I am just throwing out ideas here. It sounds like to me that solving those 3 problems would be easier than the many SVG conversion to PNG problems I see in the bug trees on SVG issues on Phabricator. Am I wrong?

Maybe there could be a separate SVG permission for specific SVGs that use only certain fonts or font trees, and also met other strict Mediawiki SVG standards.

[[File:Some graphic or map.SVG|strict]]

The "strict" parameter would allow it to be posted without conversion to PNG if the Mediawiki filter determined it had already been approved for this purpose. A whitelist of approved files or something. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:42, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Well.... its a scarcity problem. Enough users to deal with problems, but developers and their time to fix these issues (and get those fixes deployed) is scarce. Like all programming, this is a time, cost, quality tradeoff. So as long as it works 'good enough' the required investment to make a change is pretty high. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:35, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Watchlist only shows 29 December onwards

What's happening with the format of watchlist showing whitespace with miniscule green/black bullets, and why can't I go back further than a few days (29 Dec) when clicking on 30 from drop-down? --Rocknrollmancer (talk) 23:37, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

maybe because you hit 500 changes before you hit 30 days ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:13, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

TheDJ - it appears to be capped at 250 (emphasis as showing on watchlist page): "Below are the last 250 changes in the last 720 hours, as of 4 January 2022, 23:19". Not much use if I have a few days off (presently showing 30 Dec to 4 Jan); 2,290, must need a purge.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 23:30, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

You can change "Maximum number of changes to show in watchlist" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:48, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

ThanQ, PrimeHunter, done. I noticed the 'old' watchlist format is still being used at Commons. Initially I suspected it (this new visual with excessive whitespace on en Wiki watchlist) might be a change to Firefox that I normally use, but Chrome shows the same anomaly.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 17:41, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@Rocknrollmancer, I wonder whether MediaWiki talk:Recentchangestext#Suggested page layout improvements is what you're dealing with. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF) - unfortunately I am completely bemused, looking at the content of the link. Comparing 'new' format with 'old' at Commons (or, at least, what I surmise En Wiki looked like before the changes) the most obvious difference is that (diff|hist) has been shifted from the left to a more-central position; ie. they are often out of line (vertically) with each other (dependent on the number of characters in the article title), so I'm constantly shifting the mouse cursor. I don't think I ever screengrabbed watchlist, so I'm uncertain. I feel I should be looking for a restore classic view option.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 21:55, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@Rocknrollmancer, if you look in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rc do you see an item (under "Advanced options") that says something like "Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist" or "Group results by page"? If that's got a check mark, try unchecking it and seeing whether you like the results better. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:02, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

(Remember that you have to uncheck it and also save the changes to your preferences.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:03, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Yep, Whatamidoing (WMF) - that's restored it (I unchecked the box). I've mentioned before that I intended to explore the menus, but still haven't got around to it. Thanks.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 22:23, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

If it stays fixed, you're set. If it seems to make a habit of screwing up your prefs, then you'll want to consider installing the automagically-unbreak-my-prefs code in phab:T202916#4807046. I've been running it for three years because of this bug. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:30, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Is there a way to extract all the redlinks from a list article?

Hi all

If I have a list article with a few hundred article links in and say half of them are redlinks, is there a tool which allows you to just list the links that are red? (to create a to do list).

Thanks very much

. John Cummings (talk) 18:10, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Each red link corresponds to a <a class="new"></a> element. You can use javascript to list all elements with "new" class. Ruslik_Zero 20:30, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Also, I think AWB can do this. ― Qwerfjkltalk 22:19, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Ruslik0 and Qwerfjkl, I'm not a very technical person and don't understand either of these options, what would be the easiest way to do this and where are instructions? John Cummings (talk) 00:07, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

John, is this a one-off request, or something you'll need to do repeatedly? Do you already have the list? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:31, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

To implement Ruslik0's solution, you could open up your browser's developer tools, go to the console, and run

console.log(Array.from($('.new')).map(x => "* [[" + x.title.replace(' (page does not exist)', '') + "]]").join("\n"))

This should print out a list of the red link targets formatted as a wikitext list (i.e. if the link is [[link target|link text]], this will output [[link target]]. Vahurzpu (talk) 05:45, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I think the shortcut is ctrl+⇧ Shift+j. ― Qwerfjkltalk 07:12, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much all, this is really helpful, I want to use it for creating list articles from lists of species from external websites e.g species in a country. Then I can use this to make a to do list for myself and others. Thanks again. John Cummings (talk) 21:31, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Automatically tag some G8-eligible pages for deletion

I occasionally tag pages to be deleted under criterion G8 (dependent on non-existent page), and I think some of this could be automated. For example, talk pages without an associated page could be tagged if they meet one of some criteria (not all should be deleted, because some are misplaced drafts). In addition to having to meet one of these criteria, the page must have only one revision (to avoid page-move vandalism etc.). Right now, I think the criteria could be:

• every line starts with {{ or ends with }} (so it's probably all WikiProject banners and such)
• the page is a redirect
• the page contains one section, titled "Contested deletion", and the text in that section begins with "This page should not be speedily deleted because"

I'm going here before I file a BRFA to ensure that there's consensus for this. What do you think? Tol (talk | contribs) @ 23:43, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Chris G used to run Orphaned talkpage deletion bot; here's it's BRFA. Graham87 06:08, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@Graham87: Thanks for letting me know! Tol (talk | contribs) @ 21:33, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Odd behavior: Editing one part of page seems to affect unrelated part

Here's the setup.

1. Consider this revision here.
2. Look at the line containing the phrase "were rejected", and take note of the three bullet points.
3. Now pick a random wikilink (e.g. someone's signature, or the link to water which I put at the bottom of the wikitext) on the page and delete it.
4. Go back to the line containing the phrase "were rejected". Are the bullet points gone? (Edited to clarify: by gone I mean not visible. The asterisks of course still remain in the wikitext.)

Can anyone reproduce this? Deleting other things might also result in the bullet points disappearing, e.g. deleting the first template in the revision. Winston (talk) 04:55, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@Notsniwiast: I cannot reproduce it with preview in Vector, Firefox 95.0.2, Windows 10. Such things may be caused by mismatched tags. What is your skin, browser and operating system or device? Does it happen if you log out? Please save and link a version where you don't see the bullets. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:32, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

See this diff. The revision on the left doesn't show the bullets but the right one does. I have seen this difference on both Firefox/Chrome, Windows/MacOS, and logged in/out. My skin is Legacy Vector. I believe preview doesn't show the difference I do see the difference in preview. Indeed, preview sometimes (but very rarely) doesn't match the actual edit (this might be due to a beta feature). Winston (talk) 12:29, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Another diff here, based on a linted version from @Jonesey95. I also thought lint errors might have something to do with it, but earlier I tried cleaning them up and it didn't work either. Winston (talk) 12:33, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I think you're trying to track down a GIGO problem. The bullets either appear or do not appear in this line:

**:*::{{yo|Nug}} I'hat[[User:atSiebert|Paul 
Siebert]] ([[User talk:atSiebert|talk]]) 00:at(UTC)

Those lines have nutty asterisk and indenting, followed by a line break in the middle of a wikilink. That's broken; don't expect it to work predictably. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, you may be right. For me the bullets appear or do not appear for the line following that one. Are '\n' characters inside a wikilink ever valid? For example, is

[[Earth|
EARTH]]

allowed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Notsniwiast (talk • contribs) 22:53, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

No, because of the problems that it causes. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:37, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Got it. I've seen people make such wikilinks and always wonder if it's a typo since it usually still works. Winston (talk) 23:55, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Template within a template

For some reason, {{Infobox mountain}} is giving me an error with {{native_name}} (see Mount Elbrus) even though it's formatted correctly; I'm using Safari 15.2 on Mac OS 12.1. Esszet (talk) 02:12, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@Esszet: At a quick glance, it seems to me that {{Infobox mountain}} is not equipped to handle a list in the "native_name" parameter; it seems to want just a simple text value for the "native_name" parameter and a single IETF language tag in the "native_name_lang" parameter. DH85868993 (talk) 02:44, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you follow the helpful links, you get to this discussion. There are currently 1,525 articles in the new Category:Native name template errors. I tried putting {{native name list}} into the infobox at Mount Elbrus, but I got the same error message. Maybe Trappist the monk, who made these changes, will be able to update the category page with clear instructions for fixing these new red error messages. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:46, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, and what helpful links are you talking about? Esszet (talk) 03:14, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@Esszet: The infobox for Mount Elbrus currently displays the text: "Error: {{native name}}: an IETF language tag as parameter {{{1}}} is required (help)". If you click the word "help" it takes you to {{Native name}}. At the top of the template documentation for {{Native name}}, there is a box which says "For {{native name}} error messages appearing in various infoboxen, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Infoboxes § native name parameters", which is the discussion Jonesey95 referred to above. DH85868993 (talk) 05:19, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I did click on that, I just missed the message at the topm this is embarrassing. Esszet (talk) 02:20, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Help with moved Module name

Hi, I've recently moved Module:Adjacent stations/Kaohsiung Rapid Transit to Module:Adjacent stations/Kaohsiung Metro thinking it might work like regular articles but it end up creating a mess. Is there a way to undo it? I can't seem to move back to the previous Module name. Or alternatively a bot can help by replacing places where "Kaohsiung Rapid Transit" is used to the new name. However, I am also fine with a revert. If this is the wrong place to ask for help on this, I would appreciate it to be pointed to the right resources. Twoggo (talk) 02:07, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@Twoggo: I put some code in Module:Adjacent stations/Kaohsiung Rapid Transit to fix problems. If people want to keep Module:Adjacent stations/Kaohsiung Metro as the new name, articles can be slowly fixed to use that name. Johnuniq (talk) 02:19, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: Thanks for the quick fix! Twoggo (talk) 04:15, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

The VE divide

Something I've been thinking a lot about recently is what I'm calling "the VE divide". Most experienced Wikipedians created their accounts before the well-circulated default state RfC. One of the things this RfC did, that I don't think was well-considered (or even considered at all) at the time, was enable the VE by default for new accounts. This created something I'm calling "the experienced Wikipedian VE divide", "VE divide" for short.

Other editors of similar or more experience have found it quite shocking that I always, or almost always, edit with the VE, and find the source editor to be an anachronism that hinders my ability to write articles. This has come up numerous times given a lot of my articles were written solely in the VE. It first came up in relation to the fact my VE-written articles had so many nonmeaningful ref names like :0, :1, so much so that I wrote a script (User:Psiĥedelisto/VisualEditor ref namer.py) to autoreplace these. It came up again at Talk:Osteogenesis imperfecta/GA1, where the reviewer just assumed I'd know how to do some complex source editor thing, but actually had to figure it out.

I'd like to write a project-space essay about the VE divide, but hesitate. It didn't matter to the RfC voters, should we care? And if it matters to the project now, does the VE divide rise to the level? Thanks for your time and any comments you leave. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 13:16, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

If you care, feel free to write an essay. You don't need to ask permission. Regards,— JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 14:11, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@JohnFromPinckney: Certainly, but the project space also shouldn't have essays no one else thinks are worthwhile, and I wouldn't want to write an essay only I'd want to read (I have plenty of such ideas but to everyone's benefit avoid them). Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 16:16, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

You can always draft it up as a subpage of User:Psiĥedelisto, publicise it in places like WT:VE and WP:VPR, encouraging people to comment or edit. Then when you have a few people in support, move it to WP: space; it can always be moved back if there is too much opposition. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:12, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes we should care, but unfortunately ppl get very stuck in their ways and things like mobile and VE get ignored by those who don't want to deal with changes. It's a difficult problem to address as it is a human problem. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:24, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

It really doesn't help that VE, upon initial release, was considered not fit for purpose. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Jéské Couriano} 14:36, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

It's been almost 8 years. People have had kids that are now in middle school, or they themselves finished their entire medical school education, wars have started and ended. Several countries devolved back into full autocracies, the USA had 2 presidents, one of which called for and almost caused the USA to become a dictatorship itself. Things change. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:57, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@TheDJ: Sounds like a good alternate title: The VisualEditor is now in elementary school, joining many of its users. On second thought, let's forget it. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 16:16, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I, for one, would love to read such an essay. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 15:30, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: That's all the confirmation I need that writing one would be worthwhile! Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 16:16, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd also be really interested in an essay about this, and as a matter of fact I think I'm gonna go VE-only for a bit just to make sure I'm familiar with what newer editors are seeing. I'd seen the use of :0 and :1 as ref names before and just got slightly annoyed, wondering why the editors couldn't bother to be slightly more descriptive. Now I'm wondering what else I've jumped to assumptions about... Alyo (chat·edits) 21:17, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, Visual Editor was in fact enabled by default for newly created accounts on the English Wikipedia, as seen in phab:T90664, however it did not roll out as intended phab:T132806.

The :01 format in references is used where the user uses an existing citation, which has not been named. Since VisualEditor handles the code itself, they wanted to use an universially unique name so it would not conflict with anything.--Snævar (talk) 00:16, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Snævar: True, but perhaps not the full story; for example, as Alyo notes, in the VE, there is no way to name a reference, even a VE-managed, VE-created reference. The only way to name a reference is to change to the source mode and do it manually; once a reference has a source mode name, then the reference will preserve its name even in the VE, no matter how much it is copied, etc. By the way—this is why VE editors like me tend to use {{rp}} and not the more common style among those who learned to edit earlier of putting page numbers and using {{harv}} for example, because it's such a nuisance to deal with VE cites, we tend to like to cite the source once, and use either {{rp}} or a group=note second cite to expand on anything that can't go into {{rp}}. If you want a concrete example of what a VE-created article (to the extent you consider me an "experienced" VE editor, heh) looks like, either 2channel or osteogenesis imperfecta are a good example; I wrote both basically entirely in the VE, only using source mode to fix bugs the VE introduced. Heavy use of {{rp}}, using group=note instead of {{sfn}} as it confuses the VE. I've gained an intuitive understanding of when something I'm doing has a high chance of causing one of the many VE bugs I'm familiar with, so usually know to immediately go to source mode and fix it. Despite its many flaws though, I can't imagine how people edit the old way, all of the pressing Show preview, manual typing of cites, having to find my place in the textbox again when the preview loads—this stuff just kills my productivity and is why I've stuck with the VE so long, choosing to work around its bugs rather than abandon it. (And in the process, created User:Psiĥedelisto/Userboxes/VisualEditor, complete with a bug apology, as the first thing you see on my user page—because I know I sometimes miss a bug the VE introduced into a big edit of mine.) Thank you both for the idea of content that's needed in this essay, I'll mention all of this, especially the reality of cite naming in the VE. Honestly, it took me almost a year of editing to even know that cites have names. I thought they were just numbered. Sorry about that. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 05:29, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

WikEd's preview function is great because it doesn't reload the page. ― Qwerfjkltalk 11:39, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

You don't need wikEd for that. SourceEditor with the Live preview + syntaxhighlight options enabled does the same. And wikEd is broken in significant ways due to lack of maintenance. The only real reason to use wikEd is for some of it's text formatting cleanup routines. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:59, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@TheDJ: By "Live preview", are you referring to the "Show previews without reloading the page" option, or to the Real Time Preview for Wikitext project (which, as far as I'm aware, hasn't been made publicly available yet)? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 00:30, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

The first. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:56, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@Psiĥedelisto, the reviewer for your GA nomination started editing two months after you. I suspect that he just happened to run across something that most editors haven't. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:28, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I converted the script into a pywikibot script (badly) - User:Qwerfjkl/VEref.py ― Qwerfjkltalk 22:18, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Psiĥedelisto, I'd also love to see such an essay. I sometimes notice editors at the Helpdesk and other fora (less frequently at Teahouse) steering users toward the desktop web site and classic editor. Occasionally I will check a new user's contributions before answering their question, to see if they use source/VE mobile/desktop so that I can tailor my response, but that adds extra effort. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 13:04, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Authority control

Does anybody know what happened to Microsoft Academic? It was working a few days ago. And what kind of data can be shown in "authority control" section? I'm wondering why Microsoft Academic ID and ORCID are shown but not the Scopus and Google Scholar. Ali Pirhayati (talk) 12:29, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Microsoft Academic says it closed December 31, 2021.[12] PrimeHunter (talk) 12:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

@GreenC: anything you can do here with archiving bots? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:04, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Headbomb, Done. -- GreenC 03:47, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@GreenC: was more thinking about the bot being able to find archived versions of these links, rather than marking them as dead. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:59, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Headbomb: It edited 74 pages (not all related to this domain). Added 39 archive URLs (Example). 25 {{dead link}} when no archive is available. For whatever reason the domain had a high proportion of unavailable archive links. - GreenC 01:01, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Ali, Microsoft Academic ID is also being discussed at Wikidata [13]. As for the other IDs, I think there was a change in the past year to make {{Authority control}} only show a small subset of identifiers? ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 13:17, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Category I cannot remove

On Dry Combat Submersible, there is a category named Category that I cannot figure out how to remove. I tried adding it and removing it, which did not work (I was not expecting it to work but it was worth a shot). It does not appear in the visual or source editor. Can someone else figure out what's going on, because I have no experience with categories? Skarmory (talk • contribs) 14:45, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

The category was being added by the {{Update after}} template. I have removed that part. DanCherek (talk) 14:48, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Check if a wiki page exists in .js

Hi, I have a question about coding. Is there any way to check if a wiki page exists in user scripts, using mediawiki api? I searched a lot but couldn't figure out how. Any help would be appreciated. --Dragoniez (talk) 11:48, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

The Title object has an exists() method — see Core modules #Title and The API doc — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 12:22, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@GhostInTheMachine: That seems like it, but I'm not sure why this doesn't work the way I want it to. The code adds a "test" button in the "More" list on the top of the page, and when you click it, it shows an inputbox into which you'll want to type in a wikipage name. So I need "true" back when I type in "Wikipedia:Notability" and "false" when I type in "Wikipedia:Bruhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" (when you run the code on enwiki), but it just returns null no matter what I type in. Do you have any ideas? --Dragoniez (talk) 13:57, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Try giving the function a Title object? — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 14:03, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@GhostInTheMachine: Thanks again for your reply. I'm quite new to coding and sorry still couldn't make it work. Does that mean I should give something like {Title: txt} to the exists() function as an argument? When I did so the console gave an error saying "give the function a string". --Dragoniez (talk) 15:27, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, not near a real computer at the moment, so I can't check this myself until later. I assume that the function can take a Title object, so first step is to construct a new Title object from the name of the page as a string and then give that to the exists() function. The info implied that the exists function could also accept a page title as text, but not sure if that needs a specific format ... — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 16:24, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

It's ok, I really appreciate your help! --Dragoniez (talk) 17:46, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Embarrassingly little help as it turns out. Sorry about that. Mind you, the documentation for the two exists() methods is quite specific Whether this title exists on the wiki. ..., but wrong somewhat misleading. I assume (from the existence of the exist() function) that the functions exist to cache the result of real "does it exist?" enquiries. — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 13:00, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@GhostInTheMachine: No worries, it's totally fine. And I agree, the description of the function is misleading. --Dragoniez (talk) 19:04, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Just use action=query API with the pages in titles, and the corresponding query.pages[n] objects of the response will have missing if missing (and also known if it's a file on Commons or a user page on Meta that exists). mw.Title.exist is a synchronous interface you have to implement yourself (and obviously each tab in your browser doesn't know the names of all 61,848,209 pages that exist), and I don't know why it's there (I can't find any use cases in MW core/extensions). Nardog (talk) 18:11, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I see. I looked at the source code of mw.Title and noticed that Title.exist has the property of pages {} (an empty object). I'm guessing this means we need to define the content of the object manually when we use mw.Title.exist. Is my understanding correct? --Dragoniez (talk) 04:14, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

You don't even need to use mw.Title.exist (nobody does and I don't think you should). Just handle the response yourself, as in:

mw.loader.using('mediawiki.api', function () {
	var pages = prompt('Enter page names (separated by "|"):');
	if (!pages) return;
	new mw.Api().get({
		action: 'query',
		titles: pages, // This can be an array
		formatversion: 2
	}).done(function (response) {
		var msg = response.query.pages.map(function (page) {
			if (page.missing) {
				if (page.known) {
					return '"' + page.title + '" doesn\'t exist locally but is a blue link.';
				}
				return '"' + page.title + '" doesn\'t exist.';
			}
			return '"' + page.title + '" exists.';
		}).join('\n');
		alert(msg);
	});
});

Nardog (talk) 10:57, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@Nardog: Thanks a lot for your help! I gave it a try in my local environment and something like the following worked just fine:

$(function(){

    $(".btn").click(function(){                             

        const apiEndpoint = "https://ja.wiki.x.io/w/api.php?action=query&format=json&origin=*&titles=";
        const pagename = prompt("Type in a page name.");
        const url = apiEndpoint + pagename;
        $.getJSON(url, function(result){
            for (var key in result.query.pages) {
                var missing = result.query.pages[key].missing;
            }
            if (missing === undefined) {
                console.log("The page exists.");
            } else if (missing === "") {
                console.log("The page doesn't exist.");
            }            
        });        
    });
});

--Dragoniez (talk) 13:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

FWIW I highly recommend you use mw.Api() (or at best $.get('/w/api.php', {...}), which mw.Api() is essentially a wrapper for). Your example won't work if the input contains e.g. an ampersand. formatversion=2 makes sure boolean-esque properties are returned as booleans rather than empty strings (which are a relic from the XML days) btw. Nardog (talk) 15:54, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@Nardog: Got it. I tested it in a local html file, so I'll use mw.Api() when I write scripts on wiki :) --Dragoniez (talk) 18:36, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Question about {{Infobox theologian}}

Hello all. I can't figure out a template issue. I am using {{Infobox theologian}} on this page, but when I add the parameter "| website = ", nothing appears. Though {{Infobox theologian}} doesn't show the website parameter in the documentation, it does appear in the source code. What could be the problem here? Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 03:55, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

The template does not actually use it; although it does appear in the source code, it's only there as part of the basic skeleton of things it could use when it calls Infobox person. Compare it with things like | birth_name = {{{birth_name|}}} or | notable_works = {{{notable_works|{{{notableworks|}}}}}} higher up in the template's code. Somebody would need to implement a website parameter, and for that, somebody would need to be sure there's consensus to add it. Leading to the question: Do a lot of theologians even have websites? — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 04:32, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

hastemplate:"Infobox theologian" incategory:"Living people" gives 67 hits so I guess there is some potential. hastemplate:"Infobox theologian" incategory:"Living people" hastemplate:"Official website" only gives four hits but many articles don't use {{Official website}}, e.g. the posted example Mary Healy (theologian). The implementation would only need website = {{{website|}}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:22, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

CodeMirror syntax highlighter change - is it now the default?

Some time in the last 2 weeks, probably after Dec 31, I am now seeing a syntax highlighter active on all my enWiki editing pages. Is this a WMF change? If so, could someone point me to a discussion on the change?

I previously edited with plaintext / no highlighting, and prefer the plaintext style. I don't recall changing any preferences or settings related to syntax highlighting. I use Vector with the 'legacy vector' option checked. I tested with monobook as an alternative, and am still seeing syntax highlighting with monobook. I don't see much discussion of CodeMirror on enWiki, but did find https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CodeMirror, which says 'By default it is switched off.' I have not yet found a way to switch it off, or all syntax highlighting off, and would appreciate advice. The highlighter also seems to introduce some additional lag to edit page loads. Dialectric (talk) 01:49, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Did you unintentionally click the pencil icon (next to the advanced menu)?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 02:09, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) And that's to be exact. It's a highlighter, not a pencil, but you're not the only one. Nardog (talk) 02:13, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I did unintentionally click the 'highlighter' icon (and I subsequently intentionally clicked the pencil - not highlighter - icon that switches between visual and source editor a few times because I thought that might turn highlighting off). Now I'm going to edit my custom css to just hide the highlighter 'group-codemirror' class so I don't run into this problem in the future.Dialectric (talk) 04:44, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Get wiki timezone with Javascript?

Can I get the wiki timezone using JS from something like mw:mw.config? (can't find it there) For example UTC for enwiki, CET for dewiki, etc. Not the browser timezone, don't care about that. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:51, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

meta=siteinfo&siprop=general? I don't know if there's a synchronous way. Nardog (talk) 21:23, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't know about JavaScript, but the timezones are in InitialiseSettings.php found from this page (they're under wgLocaltimezone). Graham87 07:02, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Graham87, Nardog, thanks. I made a feature request (phab:T298884) but if that gets declined/ignored I'll go the siteinfo way. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 14:34, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Newer post archived while older posts ignored

Hello! So in this dif, the archival bot archived a post from December of last year, however it ignored all posts before and after that. So uh... why did it ignore the older posts? ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:02, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

It ignored the older post because that thread is pinned. I can't explain why it seems to have ignored the |minthreadsleft=2 setting and left behind two or three threads that seem to meet the 30d criteria. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:22, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

The remaining threads have been replied to within the last 30 days so they're not old enough to be archived yet. DanCherek (talk) 14:24, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

That would explain why they were ignored. I didn't see the previous post was pinned in the dif viewer so I thought the bot had somehow ignored that thread. My bad lol ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:27, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

DanCherek is right. I have been editing for too long today and failed to recognize that December 2021 was only two weeks ago. The bot did it right. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:26, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Archive all the selected threads?

It took me a while to figure out how to reproduce this, but:

• Go to Special:Permalink/1064841853
• Scroll down to the SPI Zero thread at the end
• Click the screenshot
• Click again with the magnifying glass cursor. That should get you to https://up.wiki.x.io/wikipedia/en/6/69/SPI_Zero%2C_2022-01-10.png
• Click the browser "back" button.
• Click the "back" button again.

You should now have a huge "archive all the selected threads" banner on the bottom. What is causing that, and why does it take this bizarre sequence of events to get it to appear? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:45, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Didn't appear to work for me. From the screenshot I would guess that you are on Mac OS? ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:31, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I also tried with my alt to see if my preferences might be affecting it but nope, same result. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:35, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

It's from User:Σ/Testing facility/Archiver.js. You import it in User:RoySmith/common.js. I don't know the script. Maybe it only loads properly for you in some circumstances. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:07, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Interesting. I guess it's time for me to make another sweep through my common.js cleaning out old junk I've installed and long since forgotten about. Thanks. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:22, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I know how you feel. ― Qwerfjkltalk 18:15, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-02

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

Recent changes

• A oauth_consumer variable has been added to the AbuseFilter to enable identifying changes made by specific tools. [14]
• Gadgets are now able to directly include JSON pages. This means some gadgets can now be configured by administrators without needing the interface administrator permission, such as with the Geonotice gadget. [15]
• Gadgets can now specify page actions on which they are available. For example, |actions=edit,history will load a gadget only while editing and on history pages. [16]
• Gadgets can now be loaded on demand with the withgadget URL parameter. This can be used to replace an earlier snippet that typically looks like withJS or withCSS. [17]
• At wikis where the Mentorship system is configured, you can now use the Action API to get a list of a mentor's mentees. [18]
• The heading on the main page can now be configured using MediaWiki:Mainpage-title-loggedin for logged-in users and MediaWiki:Mainpage-title for logged-out users. Any CSS that was previously used to hide the heading should be removed. [19] [20]
• Four special pages (and their API counterparts) now have a maximum database query execution time of 30 seconds. These special pages are: RecentChanges, Watchlist, Contributions, and Log. This change will help with site performance and stability. You can read more details about this change including some possible solutions if this affects your workflows. [21]
• The sticky header has been deployed for 50% of logged-in users on more than 10 wikis. This is part of the Desktop Improvements. See how to take part in the project.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 January. It will be on all wikis from 13 January (calendar).

Events

• Community Wishlist Survey 2022 begins. All contributors to the Wikimedia projects can propose for tools and platform improvements. The proposal phase takes place from 10 January 18:00 UTC to 23 January 18:00 UTC. Learn more.

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

01:22, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Bellezzasolo/Scripts/arb is broken, Bellezzasolo hasn't edited for two months

See User talk:Bellezzasolo/Scripts/arb - when using the script to give a covid alert, it leaves the whole GS table but no alert. I don't know if anyone can fix it or write a new one, but I find it extremely useful. Doug Weller talk 08:52, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

If someone has a minor fix for User:Bellezzasolo/Scripts/arb.js - feel free to open an edit request on the associated talk page, an intadmin will likely process it. If a larger rework is needed this should probably be forked to either a community page or to the userspace of whomever is going to take over ongoing support. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:31, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm still around, just not very active at the moment! Iirc the script looks up the active GS sanctions from a table somewhere, so if COVID isn't in that table then it might be a problem. Alternatively format changes or anything really might have broken it...

It populates from User:Bellezzasolo/Scripts/arb/gstopics, which has COVID there. Tracing it through leads to Module:Sanctions/data, which doesn't have COVID. I'll see if I can fix that. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 19:38, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

COVID got switched from GS to DS. That may be what needs to be fixed. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:47, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I think Bellezzasolo fixed it. It's working for me now here. ––FormalDude talk 03:09, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

And for me. Doug Weller talk 08:15, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

False edit warning that a draft article exists.

I've noticed here and there that I've been getting false warnings, when editing a page, that a draft article exists for that page. In each case, there was a draft page, at one time, that has since been published. The thing is when a draft is published, it is moved from the Draft: namespace into mainspace, leaving a redirect behind. In some templates, the test for a draft article is done with #ifexist, which only determines if a page exists, not an article. Redirects are returned as true, just as articles are, resulting in a false conclusion that an article exists. The test needs to determine if a page exists and that page is not a redirect. Template:ExistNotRedirect appears to be an example of just such a test.

For a current example of this behavior, try editing Oregon Trail Memorial Association, a redirect left as the result of a merge. I was trying to add a redirect description ({{R from merge}} is appropriate here.) Hitting "Edit source", I get a pink banner with the message "There is a draft for this article at Draft:Oregon Trail Memorial Association." That "draft" is, in fact, a redirect resulting from the page move of the draft to mainspace as described. Given that this problem is part of the edit function, deep inside the Wikipedia engine, I'll have to defer to experts to chase this problem down further. I hope this is clear enough to convey what appears to be wrong and why and hint at a possible solution. PoundTales (talk) 06:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

It looks like this comes from Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main. It looks like this functionality was discussed in the 1 October 2021 edit request, but not implemented because there was a bug in there somewhere. Pinging SD0001 and MSGJ who worked on that edit request. --rchard2scout (talk) 09:18, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Not usefuI in this case, but nevertheless the note is intentional. The draft exists, and usually draft redirects point to somewhere relevant. The way to "fix" this would be to check if the current page and draft page redirect to the same article, which doesn't really seem worth doing. – SD0001 (talk) 10:43, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

That warning is mostly of use to new editors, so they don't try to create an article from scratch when there is draft material to work from already - if you purposefully bypass the redirect this still could be useful as well, possibly the check would be to not show this if the draft is also a redirect, but depending on why the draft is also a redirect it could still be useful - and the template would have a hard time determining why it is a redirect. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:36, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I think it would be simpler to suppress that link when the draft is a redirect. Even if the redirect points somewhere useful, the message is incorrect as it is stating there is a draft article where there isn't anything. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:44, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@MSGJ: not sure, If I created Draft:Commonly Misspelled Word - then it got moved to Draft:Properly Spelled Word, creating a redirect - I'd say that there would be use in notifying creators of Commonly Misspelled Word that there is something else going on would be useful. Perhaps it would be even more useful if that message would tell such creators that a "redirect exists" though. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:28, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Okay, yes I agree that would be good. But I think a non-existent message is preferable to an incorrect message. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:02, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I added "or redirect" in to Template:Draft at - so it won't be incorrect now, still room for possible improvements. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:04, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this. The most important thing I was missing was the pointer to Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main. I had a sneaky feeling there may be a hook to a template somewhere in the code, but I couldn't tell where. There still seems to be some misunderstanding about how the Draft: space works versus other namespaces. In other namespaces, the usual page move is from one name to another within the namespace. In Draft: space, the normal move is from Draft: space to mainspace, not within the Draft: space. Think of a redirect in Draft: space as a Draft article's gravestone.

At any rate, while trying to troubleshoot this particular situation, I've run across some more odd behavior. Please try this: click on this redlink: FAO Money and Medals Program You'll get a create page with a perfectly valid warning. Now hit "Show preview". The warning disappears. I think I know why it does not appear in the preview, but why did it appear the first time?? What is different about the first display of a create page that does not happen with subsequent displays?? The reason the notice disappears is a mistaken "fix" in the 8 November 2021‎ edit of Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main. It appears they were trying to fix a double display of the banner and removed the wrong display. They removed the display generated by the template. What remains is the display coming from somewhere else. So the question, at this point, is where is that somewhere else?? Once the somewhere else is located, and that display removed, the banner should stop displaying completely. Then, when the edit of 8 November 2021 on the template is reverted, the banner should start appearing again ... this time, only once. Once that issue is resolved, I can finalize a proposed fix to the template (my original problem), which I'll post to the template talk page. But first, I need to know where the phantom display is coming from. Thanks for all your help. PoundTales (talk) 16:20, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@PoundTales: It comes from Template:New page DYM which is transcluded by Template:No article text (which is in turn transcluded by the system messsage MediaWiki:Noarticletext). – SD0001 (talk) 05:22, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@SD0001: Thank you so much for locating this stray hook. I do find it interesting that both MediaWiki:Noarticletext and Template:No article text display false warnings that "Wikipedia does not have a template with this exact name." even though you can "View source" and "View history", showing that pages clearly do exist for both of them. That's an issue I'll have to leave for someone else to chase, I've already drifted far enough from my original purpose. Given there is no talk page (or talk page redirect) on Template:New page DYM, I'll take further discussion to Template talk:Editnotices/Namespace/Main, the first hook identified. Thanks again for the detective work! PoundTales (talk) 08:31, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Page creation log

Is there a way for the Page creation log to include a namespaces option similar to Contributions to sort out pages accordingly? 1989 (talk) 01:39, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@1989, would Special:NewPages work for your purposes? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:45, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, no. It is limited to 30 days, similar to the New pages feed. 1989 (talk) 02:47, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@AKlapper (WMF), I couldn't find a relevant Phab task for this, but surely someone's asked for this years ago. (Volunteer-me wants this for Special:LinkSearch, too.) Would you mind looking for me, and let me know if I need to write one? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Hi! :) Not totally sure which "Page creation log" this is about (links are always welcome to avoid ambiguity). If this is about Special:Log, then this would be phab:T16711. Cheers, --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 08:58, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia Library notification

How do I get rid of the "Congratulations! You are now eligible for the Wikipedia Library" notification? I've looked at it & I'm not interested. But now, I'm stuck with a 'grey' notification square. GoodDay (talk) 19:48, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Click the blue "Mark as read" circle at the top right of the notification. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:54, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah unfortunately the mechanism by which notifications mark as read when clicked assumes you're going to land on another Wikimedia project, not an external site. We have a solution in mind (T295871) but it requires TWL being added to the interwiki map, which we're waiting on. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Clicking the blue circle worked for me in Vector, Firefox, Windows 10. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:22, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I got rid of both of mine today by clicking on them as usual. But why two, and why today when I've been using it for ages? DuncanHill (talk) 23:36, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@DuncanHill: Per T288070, this is something we've only just worked on - it's technically difficult to not send it to users who were already using the library, so this is just going out to everyone who meets the eligibility threshold. I'm curious about you receiving two notifications, because that shouldn't be happening. Did you see them on different projects, or the same project? If you go to Special:Notifications do you still see two separate notifications, or just one? Thanks, Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:46, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@Samwalton9 (WMF): Both in my notices (at the top of any page) here on en-Wiki. Both still visible there and at Special:Notifications. The "markasread" links are 237041809 and 237041811. DuncanHill (talk) 15:37, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @PrimeHunter:, that did the trick. GoodDay (talk) 02:47, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

IPv6 similarities

I was under the impression that with dynamic IP addresses under IPv6, the first eight bytes were constant and the last eight would vary. Now take a look at these four edits - at first I thought that they were all the same IP because the last four bytes are clearly the same. I guess that :: is short for :0:0:. But the IPs differ although they're clearly the same person making them, one edit per IP address, all within the same minute; and the byte that varies is in the upper half of the address. How does dynamic IPv6 work again? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:03, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

The same as dynamic IPv4, it's just that (indeed) the WP:/64 address (the top 8 bytes) is the most common variance point for a single user. Some networks however, do other things, for which you can :|. Izno (talk) 22:28, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Izno: can you give me an example of using :|? Is there any way of knowing when to use it? Thanks. Doug Weller talk 08:15, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Doug Weller That is a flat face, not anything technical. :D Izno (talk) 08:50, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

The bottom 32 bits spell faceb00c (i.e. facebook). That's got to be spoofed. -- RoySmith (talk) 05:10, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Heh, check this out: https://www.facebook.com/groups/205279572820598/ -- RoySmith (talk) 05:12, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Those IPs all belong to Facebook/Meta, it's a pretty nice trick. Legoktm (talk) 00:39, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

So, does this means that it's some sort of proxy, like Tor? Should we disallow such IPs from editing? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:51, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

These are often related to Internet.org, and they've been discussed in the ANI archives. This /32 also has a block log. I'd say no to your questions, it's a bit like asking if a cheap or free ISP is a proxy. But I'm of the school which says blocks should be proportionate to any disruption. Is this /32 currently disruptive or full of socks? I don't know I haven't really looked. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:49, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Glossary of engineering

Could someone with the technical expertise please restore the glossary of engineering back to its un-split version per discussion on talk page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:387:0:80D:0:0:0:5E (talk) 12:33, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I would oppose that per WP:SIZE. Even at 270k per page as it is now it is too large. Izno (talk) 18:52, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

No links to user pages in old page histories

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T2323

Why is there no link to Larry Sanger's user page in the first entry of User-friendly? Kleinpecan (talk) 19:42, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

@Kleinpecan: that, like many very very old edits, were recovered and/or imported; that one was via an import (Special:Redirect/logid/26539837) from this nostwiki page). — xaosflux ^Talk 19:55, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

@Kleinpecan and Xaosflux: Nope, if that edit had been imported from the Nostalgia Wikipedia, it wouldn't have had that problem, because the import tool would've fixed it. The problem is the underline in Larry's username, which was OK in UseModWiki and Phase II software but not now. There's a very long-standing bug about these usernames and how edits made with them cannot be accessed in a user's contributions list at T2323 (previously known as bug 323; see below), and Larry Sanger (or Larry_Sanger if you prefer) is just the most high-profile victim. It's only because of the current migration of user data to an actor table that we have the additional problem that the username links don't appear, because the user ID of these edits is 0. Apparently all the relevant database fields are supposed to be fixed eventually once the migration is complete, but for now we have User:Nemo bis/Bug 323 revisions. Edited to add: hmmm, [this edit is listed at User:Nemo bis/Bug 323 revisions/positive rev user but now appears correctly. Graham87 06:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Possibly malformed edit request

Hello! A user has made a COI edit request on Talk:Rocket League however I'm thinking they didn't create it correctly as I"m unable to answer it with the edit request helper tool and I can't see anywhere to mark the request as answered. The request would be denied anyways as while what they said is technically true (i've played the game and know that is what happens, but that doesn't matter because that would be WP:OR), they didn't provide a reliable source to back it up. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 16:03, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I have reverted it as malformed, and as you say, grossly insufficient. Malformed, empty, or otherwise unactionable edit requests like this are often simply removed instead of being processed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:48, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Alright sounds good. Thanks for telling me! As I said I would've answered it but I saw no way to do so. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 16:49, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

See WP:TPO#empty edit requests. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:56, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Proposed Google Summer of Code project: expanding citations

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is when students get paid to work on certain software projects over the summer. Usually there are Wikipedia-related projects. Maybe we could propose a project in which a student works on our community's citation expanding tools (reFill, Citation bot, etc). They could be better. We could fix the tools up and/or start a new one. This could help with Citation bot's limited capacity or with the need to bother maintainers when websites get mis-parsed (see also lottery factor). Please let me know what you think. I will default to submitting the proposal if nobody responds. There's also a related Community Wishlist entry, but to be frank, this has a higher (but still tiny) chance of getting approved; as with the wishlist, the more editors who support this, the better a chance it has. Again, your thoughts are appreciated and I'd be happy to answer questions. (I will ping some editors who work in this area.) Enterprisey (talk!) 07:58, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes please - ping me if you need any assistance. firefly ( t · c ) 09:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Support Even for GA getting the cites right is tedious, and it is one of the reasons I gave up trying to get a FA. Far more automation is needed. Chidgk1 (talk) 10:10, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• Not sure what GSOC can do with respect to increased Citation bot's capacity. GSOC students can't allocate toolserver resources after all. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:17, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

What exactly is the "limited capacity" issue? If the default allocations offered by Toolforge are not enough, has a request for a Cloud Services instance been made? I've seen a lot of trivial/superficial project requests being accepted, I believe this would be accepted easily. Is there any development work needing to be done, such as adding new features? GSoC students will have no interest in continuing maintenance after their 2/3-month project period gets over, so I don't see how this addresses the bus factor. – SD0001 (talk) 14:55, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

The bot's running at full capacity, and there are timeout issues when there's a backlog of jobs. @AManWithNoPlan: would be able to tell you the details of the issue. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:03, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

It might just need someone who understands PHP config files or it might need some serious re-working. Hard to tell exactly. It is problem with limited number of runs being able to run at one time. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:07, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Some more details of the issue would be helpful, along with pointers to what the problematic code is (or suspected to be). Any quota increase request would easily be approved, whether on Toolforge or in a separate Cloud VPS instance. Legoktm (talk) 05:58, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• If the quota is the only change needed, that's great. For the code, I still think having one bot that uses the Citoid database (as TheDJ suggested) supplemented with whatever the current bots use is the way to go. It should also be flexible enough to be run from an editor's computer, by itself on toolforge, or as a central toolforge tool. So that's at least two features. For the bus factor, the students may leave but the mentors will retain knowledge of the development work (and my bad for not mentioning that). Enterprisey (talk!) 06:13, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Problems with speedy deletion category counts

Resolved

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T299244

Hello, Village Pump folks,

Currently, and for the past few hours, the speedy deletion categories are showing incorrect numbers for the contents in the categories. Sometimes the numbers are incorrect, other times there are numbers even though the categories are empty. This doesn't change even when you take the option to purge the pages, which in the past was effective in updating the counts. Look at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as abandoned drafts or AfC submissions, for example, and look at the right-hand list of categories. It gives a total of over 50 pages that have been tagged for speedy deletion but this is in no way an accurate number of pages if you go through the various categories.

I know there have been problems in the past with pages not showing up in category counts that has a priority which is way on the back, back burner for the WMF but the speedy deletion categories have been reliable for a long time so this is a new problem here. Thanks for any help you can provide. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:22, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

:Now I'm finding editor contribution pages that are not updating even though I can see edits they have made on to articles but they have no contributions since yesterday that appear. What's up? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:47, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Now the count for pages tagged for speedy deletion is 165! This is impossible since many CSD categories are empty. The counts are all off. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:36, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Liz: I left a comment on T293958#7621679 about the issues with category counts not updating properly. Can you clarify a bit more about the issue with Special:Contributions? You're seeing edits in article history by those users but it's not showing up when you visit their contributions? Can you provide an example? Legoktm (talk) 05:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into the category counts. I was incorrect about the contributor logs, it was an editor who is tagging a lot of pages for deletion tonight and when I looked at their Contributions, it looked like they hadn't been active since yesterday. I just needed to look at their Deleted Contributions and, for some reason, I was looking at their Contributions and their Log and not that. So, I've struck that comment and am kicking myself for not realizing this earlier! So, it's just the categories. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:19, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Given that a commons admin replied to that ticket suggesting that counts have been incorrect for them going back to at least Jan 5, I worry that this will not just be a 1 day issue. Any clever technical people with thoughts on how admin could see if there are actual CSD noms to attend to? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:11, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Could we just make it so purging a category page initiates a recount? At least for categories with less than 200 members? The issue is most acute for empty categories not showing as having 0 members (the number of pages in Category:attack pages for speedy deletion is used to notify some admins whether there are attack pages that need deleting; if that number is wrong these processes do not work). —Kusma (talk) 16:19, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Could you transclude all the groups onto one page (or at least the less busy ones) so you only have to look at that page?Slywriter (talk) 16:23, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

The issue for me is that I use User:HighInBC/attackPageNotifier.js, a script that adds a hard-to-ignore link to the attack page category to the interface whenever its official element count is nonzero. —Kusma (talk) 16:26, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Kusma:I noticed this last night. The API call for categoryinfo is showing 2 pages in the category, but the categorymembers API call shows nothing in it. Annoying I know, hopefully they will fix it soon. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 23:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

The "purging" piped to "recount" in places like {{Admin backlog}} does not in fact initiate a recount, it just means that the backlog condition is checked against the current value of PAGESINCATEGORY again. Our templates make it look like we are updating PAGESINCATEGORY. —Kusma (talk) 16:24, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure there's an older phab task about category counts somewhere. I vaguely remember Jonesey95 maybe participating in the ticket, so they may know which one I'm thinking of. Could be related. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:49, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Closest I could find is phab:T157670. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I have the following possibly related phab tickets on my hit list: T221795, T132467, and T157670. I don't know if they are related. We did just have a software update (Wikipedia:ITSTHURSDAY), which may have something to do with it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:46, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

phab:T85696 would be a helpful workaround for the next time we have this problem (this is not the first time). —Kusma (talk) 18:06, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Just a note that I posted on WP:AN I about this and Kusma directed me here to this discussion, I'll be keeping a close eye on it, thanks! – Athaenara ✉ 16:57, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

No, you posted to WP:AN - they're very different. But just as it's not an AN matter, it wouldn't have been an ANI matter either. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:11, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Understood, and I tagged that brief exchange as resolved there a few hours ago. – Athaenara ✉ 20:18, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Redrose64 administrators understanding that the category counts are currently not accurate on the page admin are instructed to look at if they wish to handle CSD absolutely seems appropriate for the Administrators' Noticeboard. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:46, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Category emergency reads like a request for help, not an alert that all admins should take note of. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:16, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

This is such a bother, I'm even wondering if it's the result of deliberate sabotage / skillful vandalism. – Athaenara ✉ 17:43, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Athaenara: Hanlon's razor --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:39, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Ahecht: Aye, I get that, and I sound like a spoiled brat calling it "a bother", but we admins rely upon these categories to sluice the crap out of the stables every day on this encyclopedia. I thought of checking what links here for the speedy deletion templates commonly used, as a stopgap, but many have aliases / redirects too, it would be a huge time sink. I'm not a coder. I'm waiting for the coders to figure this out! – Athaenara ✉ 19:46, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Not unless it's the developers you're accusing of being saboteurs/vandals. quarry:query/61534. What looks to be happening is that rows aren't being deleted from the categorylinks table when a page is deleted; this is distinct from the long-standing bugs linked above where the running counts in the category table aren't reliably updated. —Cryptic 20:50, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Update: the release engineering team is actively looking into this now. I linked the Phab task above which you can subscribe to for updates and someone will post here once it's fixed. Legoktm (talk) 22:10, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, Legoktm. I know I have started at least two discussions here over the years about the problem of pages not showing up in categories but these have been specific, time-related categories for eligible G13s and empty categories. When I inquired about that, it seemed like it was a known problem but low, low priority item. This situation seems different as it is not for status-related categorization but it looks like deleted pages aren't being removed from the category counts so the numbers are all inflated. I'm glad to hear that someone is working on the problem because it can't just be happening on this Wikipedia if it just developed after a software update. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:42, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

This was just brought to my attention by Gonnym, Category:Belgium weatherbox templates...this category, tagged as an empty category, CSD C1, has a tag saying that it is not empty but, as you can see, it is empty! I hope this problem hasn't spread beyond speedy deletion categories but it makes sense that it wouldn't be limited to maintenance categories. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:26, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

A revert has been deployed, so newly deleted pages will not make the category counts problem worse. I kicked off runs of the script we use to clean the database tables, once that's done (hopefully a few hours), we'll run the recountCategories script to fix the counts. Legoktm (talk) 03:10, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your help with this, Legoktm. It's appreciated! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:47, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

You're welcome. Everything should be back to normal now. Cleanup is still happening on some other wikis. Legoktm (talk) 06:21, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

It looks like everything is back to normal! Although it is weird that the category counts are all now 0, as if no one was tagging pages for CSD deletion over the past day. Maybe the odd counts threw off our patrolling editors' routines.

Many thanks, Legoktm! Glad this was resolved in about 24 hours. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:34, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Awesome work, Legoktm, thanks a million. – Athaenara ✉ 12:00, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Nowiki espace parameter in template?

I've been trying to put the contents of an argument into a nowiki tag to be displayed in the template. The first thing I tried was just doing <code><nowiki>{{{1}}}</nowiki></code>, but this didn't work because the {{{1}}} was being escaped and wouldn't take the input at all. Next I tried using the {{Nowiki}} template, but this also just didn't work. For some reason, it would just show {{subst:Nowiki|test}} instead of actually nowiki-ing it. The last thing I tried was using {{#invoke:String2 | nowiki | {{{1}}} }}, and this kind of worked. It escaped the text and didn't display it as rendered wikimarkup, but instead just showed the raw html, which was not what I was looking for. ― Levi_OP^Talk 16:19, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Is there any way I can just get the contents of an argument and display it as raw text? Thanks, ― Levi_OP^Talk 14:47, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

You can do that with Lua. Wrap a parameter in nowiki tags, then read the parameter, unstrip the strip marker with mw.text.unstripNoWiki(), which can then be output as raw code or preprocessed to show the result. This is useful for examples in documentation. I don't know if this can be done with templates. —  Jts1882 | talk  15:40, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps {{Unstrip}} or {{UnstripNoWiki}} will help you do what you want. —  Jts1882 | talk  15:45, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jts1882: I think you've misunderstood my issue. I have a template with a parameter that contains wikimarkup. I would like to display this wikimarkup on the page without it rendering. For example: I would type {{template|== Heading ==}} and the template would display "== Heading ==" instead of showing the actual heading. The issue I'm facing is that I cannot escape the parameter with nowiki because inserting {{{1}}} into a nowiki tag makes it not render the parameter, just the literal "{{{1}}}". ― Levi_OP^Talk 18:14, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Aren't you trying to display some wikitext code in a table showing raw code and rendered result? The following uses a template I use for documentation:

Wiki Source	Rendered Result
''italics''	italics
'''bold'''	bold

My understanding is that reading a parameter will always render the wikitext in it, so the value in the parameter has to be wrapped in nowiki tags. That way you can get the raw wikitext and then display in various ways: raw, with syntaxhighlighting, or rendered. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:38, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jts1882: Yeah, I came to the exact same conclusion while thinking over the issue last night. I'm assuming you looked at my contributions to see my mess of attempts to do this. I couldn't find any examples of this template being used on any official pages so I didn't know if it existed. This template will probably do the trick. Thanks for the help, ― Levi_OP^Talk 15:12, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

@Levi OP: Yes, I looked at your contributions to try and find exactly what you were trying to do. That template was written for documenting the {{clade}} template used for creating cladograms. As it's used for larger diagrams, the layout may not be ideal for you (too much padding etc). I duplicated the behaviour using the {{unstrip}} template in this edit on your user page Wiki Source Render (which I reverted). That might be more suitable. —  Jts1882 | talk  15:55, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jts1882: The issue with using {{Unstrip}} is that, according to the template page (and some testing), Templates inside the tags will not be expanded. That means that the untagged wikitext will not actually execute any templates that are in the example, but just display them as "{{Template|Parameters}}", while the markup will display. That's why, as you can see in the most recent revision of the page, I'm using the template {{Expand wikitext}}, which treats anything inside the wikitext as code again just executes it like normal, which is the effect I was going for. ― Levi_OP^Talk 16:22, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Try {{#tag:nowiki|{{{1}}} }}. MarMi wiki (talk) 16:02, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@MarMi wiki: This still just produces the raw html, not the wikimarkup code. ― Levi_OP^Talk 18:05, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Never mind, I've figured it out. My end goal was to surround the parameter code in a syntaxhighlight tag, which wasn't working. The issue was that the syntaxhighlight tag converts all already escaped text into html, which was making me think that the functions themselves weren't working. I ended up using {{#tag:pre| {{#invoke:String2 | nowiki | {{{1}}} }} }} to get the contexts as raw text and then surround them with a pre tag so that newlines take effect. Thanks for any consideration anyway. ― Levi_OP^Talk 19:16, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Never mind this never mind. I was not testing it enough and realized it only worked in one instance ― Levi_OP^Talk 21:15, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Try using msgnw: - this transcludes the markup of a template without actually invoking the template code. You can see it in action at m:User:Redrose64#Geonotices. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:54, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Redrose64: As far as I can tell, the msgnw magic word only works on other templates. Trying to use it like {{msgnw:{{{1}}}}} just doesn't do anything. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? ― Levi_OP^Talk 21:15, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Not tested, but it could work if you escape the nowiki tag with includeonly inside the template code. Regards, -- hgzh 22:54, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Hgzh: The includeonly tag doesn't help anything in this instance. Includeonly makes it so that anything contained in the tag is included only when the template is used, and not on the template page. The nowiki tag would still effect the {{{1}}}. ― Levi_OP^Talk 23:51, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I probably misunderstand your objective here, but isn't {{Markup}} doing something similar? 65.88.88.71 (talk) 17:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw that template a few hours ago and it's pretty much the same as what I was doing. I didn't know this template existed when I asked the question and I've already solved all the problems I was having so the issue has kind of passed. More of a learning experience about how templates work for me I guess. ― Levi_OP^Talk 18:39, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Apparent MediaWiki change to table parsing, related to magic word ! or to pipes in general

I have a suspicion that something changed with the latest code update a few days ago with respect to table parsing and pipes, or possibly just with the {{!}} magic word. I fix Linter syntax errors, and the following code on template documentation pages was not causing an error last week and is causing an error this week:

{|
|-
|colspan=1 align=center| ''When your text uses a {{!}} pipe:''
|}

I have a demonstration in my sandbox showing that the code by itself is fine, but when it is added to a table, it causes Linter errors that are consistent with the parser thinking that the pipe is starting a new table cell, thereby leaving the italic markup orphaned twice. As you can see in my sandbox, the text is rendered just fine. These errors were not detected last week; I think they may be new false positives.

Does anyone know of any code changes that may have caused this? Should this be reported as a bug in Phabricator? – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:19, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I would recommend reporting. Izno (talk) 16:14, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Reported at T299311. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:40, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Use of magicword NAMESPACE in template

{{Infobox comics creator}} use an if NAMESPACE statement to prevent images being displayed if the infobox is used outside of article space. The message appears to be confusing as it says Wikipe-tan says: "You can't use fair-use images outside of articlespace!" even if the image is and free image and not a fair-use image. If it considered that such an if statement is required (why?) then can the message be amended to say Images will not be displayed when this template is used outside of articlespace? or, the logic is changed to actually see if the image being used is free or non-free? Nthep (talk) 16:46, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Greetings Nthep. I'm pretty sure that either of the things you are asking can be accomplished (technically). I do believe, however, that it would be best for you to pursue this as a {{Edit template-protected}} request on the talk page of the template you are wanting to modify. This way the discussion will be a matter of record in the place where it is most useful and easily found if needed. Also, FWIW, fair-use images are not only restricted to article space, they are also restricted to use in a single page only and the fair-use rational (FUR) must indicate the exact title of that single page where it is to be used. So you can't display it in multiple locations simultaneously, and if you move the page into a different title or move the image to a different page, the FUR needs to be updated accordingly.--John Cline (talk) 17:38, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

The template only has a small number of watchers so I'm not sure how much an edit request will get there. Nthep (talk) 17:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Nthep edit protected requests have categories and templates advertising that requests are open. So, probably as much as a request here. Izno (talk) 17:50, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

subst not substing?

Any idea what went wrong with Special:Diff/1066294463? -- RoySmith (talk) 18:04, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

The link to the SPI is missing a closing ], that might be the problem. Nthep (talk) 18:12, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Word order in article titles

Notice the following two examples:

• Argentina men's national junior handball team
• Argentina men's junior national softball team

Which article has a better word order? We should rename one of them and the whole category, too. Maiō T. (talk) 12:45, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

@Maiō T. This isn't a technical issue. You should bring it up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:17, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Issues with Edit Preview

Problem during a template creation by CX Zoom

Hi, I was creating new templates, and I was experimenting them first at User:CX Zoom/TestPage24. Everything that has actually rendered on the page seems to be perfect, but the preview window is not. The table class is set to "wikitable floatright" by default, but removes floatright if an additional parameter is added. However, the corresponding preview loads neither of the two class attributes and somehow renders the word floatright itself on top of the table, (see picture). Could it be a bug or something? ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 10:24, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

It only happens when "New wikitext mode" is enabled at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. Here is a simplified example:

{{User:CX Zoom/TestPageTabs}}{| class="{{#if:1|wikitable}}"
|-
| A
| B
|}

<!-- Same as above with a newline inserted: -->

{{User:CX Zoom/TestPageTabs}}
{| class="{{#if:1|wikitable}}"
|-
| A
| B
|}

When this is previewed with "New wikitext mode", the first version displays the word wikitable instead of applying the wikitable class. The second version displays correctly. There are no issues with the default editor. I don't know what in User:CX Zoom/TestPageTabs causes the editors to behave differently. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining, it works out well on inserting a newline. As for the preview error due to TestPageTabs, I believe it's because I only used {{start tabs}} to create it and not coupling it with {{end tabs}}, though I'm not 100% sure that it is behind the error. Thanks again! Cheers! ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 19:50, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-03

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 using WikiEditor (also known as the 2010 wikitext editor), people will now see a warning if they link to disambiguation pages. If you click "Review link" in the warning, it will ask you to correct the link to a more specific term. You can read more information about this completed 2021 Community Wishlist item.
• You can automatically subscribe to all of the talk page discussions that you start or comment in using DiscussionTools. You will receive notifications when another editor replies. This is available at most wikis. Go to your Preferences and turn on "Automatically subscribe to topics". [22]
• When asked to create a new page or talk page section, input fields can be "preloaded" with some text. This feature is now limited to wikitext pages. This is so users can't be tricked into making malicious edits. There is a discussion about if this feature should be re-enabled for some content types.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 January. It will be on all wikis from 20 January (calendar).

Events

• Community Wishlist Survey 2022 continues. All contributors to the Wikimedia projects can propose for tools and platform improvements. The proposal phase takes place from 10 January 18:00 UTC to 23 January 18:00 UTC. Learn more.

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

19:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Developing Project Around Wikipedia Ecosystem

Moved from Wikipedia:Teahouse § Developing Project Around Wikipedia Ecosystem

 –  ― Qwerfjkltalk 21:04, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi fellow Wikipedians, I am software developer in college. I am looking forward to develop an open-source project around the Wikipedia Ecosystem (something like afdstats. Is there any page with a list of ideas that I can refer to ? Something which the editors currently need and requested. I understand that there are a lot of superb interesting projects going on, where I can contribute. But I would like to build something from scratch this time. Please let me know if I can provide any other information.
Thanks.
 2405:201:5C15:501F:1575:2088:7B92:24FA (talk) 07:49, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello, and welcome to the Teahouse. Working on the software is not something that Teahouse hosts particularly do. If you want to get involved in the MediaWiki software, look at mw:MediaWiki. For projects specifically about Wikipedia, I don't know if there is a list, but you could review WP:VPT and WP:VPP. --ColinFine (talk) 11:11, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

You may be interested in mw:Google Summer of Code where students can be paid by Google to make software for Wikipedia. There are eligibility criteria and a timeline. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:05, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

The list you are looking for is at phab:. There are many potential components you could contribute to with open tasks there.

Otherwise, you might swing around the ongoing meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2022 where some direct requests have been made for various changes. Or one of the earlier-provided links.

Lastly, there is mediawikiwiki:How to become a MediaWiki hacker. Izno (talk) 01:38, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

See also mw:New Developers. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:38, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

It also depends what you know or are willing to learn. Templates are written in MediaWiki's own language. Modules are written in Lua. MediaWiki itself is written in PHP. Gadgets and User scripts are written in JavaScript and sometimes CSS. Bots can be written in many languages. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:50, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

How to obtain the equivalent of a mix of a Reflist template with a Refbegin template?

I hate to use citation templates within footnotes in the body of an article that are reported automatically in a Reflist template at the end. I prefer to put them directly at the end within a Refbegin-Refend template. When an article already uses the Reflist template, I would like to use a method that combines both approaches. What I did in Karl Popper is to put the reference in the Refbegin-Refend template in a new section "References" and renamed the existing one "References and notes", because it is what it is, a mix of both. Is there a better approach? Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:19, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

@Dominic Mayers The best way to do this would be to use List-defined references, so you can maintain hyperlinks between the in-line citations and the full citations at the end of the article, and you can easily mix citations within the body of the article with citation at the end. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:02, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

This is what I first tried, but I did not succeed, perhaps because the named ref tag was nested within a note, in a section Notes. The reference itself with the citation template was in a section "References" under a Reflist template using "refs =". Besides, there is another issue with this approach. With a ref tag, we have a superscript link, but in the notes, I want an harvard style link such (Name 1999). Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:07, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

There is a long-standing bug with nested references in the situation you describe. By long-standing I mean it appeared as soon as the first-ever nested reference was attempted. It has to do with the way the parser works with reference lists. I remember a ticket on this had been opened, about 10-12 years ago. One workaround is to manually put the nested references on top, as it appears in the article. The other is to use short referencing and list-defined references as proposed above (eschewing <ref tags altogether). 71.247.146.98 (talk) 13:51, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

I think you are referring to Karl Popper. What you have done with the further reading looks fine. This is intended to be a list of citations for relevant works that do not directly support any of the content of the article and so would not appear with the references. See MOS:FURTHER. Your use of "{{harvnb}}: text" for the notes is also fine (I would say that, it's what I do too). However:

• the citation for Popper 1962 in the first note is buried in the references at no 45. This would be a usability problem for a printed version of the article
• you are missing a citation for Akrami 2009 to resolve the harvnb reference in the second note

A tidy way to resolve these is to add a list of citations (as subsection or section) after the references section, but that itself is tidier if you use the harvard short notes ({{sfn}} and friends) for the references. The list-defined references mentioned by Ahecht move all the distracting junk of the citations from the article content source to the reflist, but the citations still appear scattered in the references section. --Mirokado (talk) 18:47, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. The issues that you mention are corrected. However, the section "Notes and references" continue to hide some references that should be in the section References. This was the situation before I started to edit the article. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Well the refs that appear @ "Notes and references" do so because <ref> tags list under {{reflist}}. I suggest you decide on one scheme for the entire article to begin with. Keeping in mind that nested references choke when the nest is on the same reflist as the included reference, as pointed out. 71.247.146.98 (talk) 14:00, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

appspot.com

Is there a problem with appspot.com, I've been trying to use the google citation generator [23] but I keep getting a server error? WCM_email 08:21, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Appspot is a hosting platform by Google. It is just fine, but reftag is an app by User:Apoc2400 and it has been down for some time it seems. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:10, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

You can use https://alyw234237.github.io/wiki-doi-gbooks-citation-maker/ instead. —  Jts1882 | talk  13:57, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Cheers, thanks for that. WCM_email 15:37, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Moving Content from one Wiki to another.

How do you move content from Wikipedia to another wiki? An example would be moving the userbox galleries to a different wiki. Any help is appreciated, thanks. AWESOMEDUDE0614 (talk) 14:03, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@AWESOMEDUDE0614: "it depends" on your specific usecase, if you are only talking about shared projects such as WMF projects, and if your images are on a shared repository. See Help:Export for some details. If you can provide a specific example (e.g. How I can duplicate the content of $LINK_TO_A_SPECIFIC_PAGE to $LINK_TO_A_SPECIFIC_PAGE_ON_ANOTHER_WIKI?) - then we can give you a more specific answer. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: From [24] to [25] is this possible? AWESOMEDUDE0614 (talk) 15:20, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@AWESOMEDUDE0614: so, this is not going to be easy - assuming you don't want that page - want the subpages, the templates on them, and the pictures. You can use Special:Export on the pages to export them with history, and admins on your other project could use Special:Import to upload there -- but export doesn't include the images, which you would need to download and reupload. If doing things like that, be sure to note the copyrights and licenses in use here - most of which will require you to provide attribution when reused elsewhere. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I know, thank you for the help, I will probably do it all manually with all of the images. Thanks again for your help. AWESOMEDUDE0614 (talk) 15:48, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Template appearance on different screens/browsers

Hi all, a favour if you could...can you go look at the timeline template I've fitted in here and say what you think of it? I'm not sure it's appearing properly, but I have a curious combination of an extra-wide screen and an extra-old browser, so can't rely on my own eyes (or, frankly, technical abilities in the first place!) All the best for the new year, SN54129 19:22, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

In my browser, all of the text is overlapping, so it is completely unreadable. Since the timeline is all one color and repeats/summarizes what is in the table, I would scrap it (even though you put a lot of work into it) and focus on improving the table. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:32, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I tried many combinations of browsers, window sizes, zoom levels, desktop/mobile and an iPhone. All of them have lots of overlapping unreadable text. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:05, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: see File:BadTimeline-Capture.PNG - please remove this from the article as-is, it is completely illegible. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:10, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Purge this, with fire. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:37, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

And alacrity. Has now been removed, since SN54129 is hors de combat (or, um sleeping). — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 02:45, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

The timeline is mostly readable for me, the only overlapping text I see is the reference #s. But in Timeless it pushes the table content all the way down until after the timeline finishes. Legoktm (talk) 06:03, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Five days after the last comment, ten after the initial request, for me (Firefox, Monobook) this is still illegible in several places. Any possibility of having it corrected or, preferably, reverted to the table which is fully legible? Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 15:38, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, well on mine android phone, both in the app and out of it, the template shows perfectly legibly. Maybe the issue is Mobobook which, while the best, is rather an old interface. So, likely i can be ignored. Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 15:49, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Is there a way to create a reading list on wikipedia?

I’d like to know if there is a way to create a “reading list” more or less of articles to add to a queue for future reading. For example, if I am learning about a topic, I may want to read many of the topics it references, and those that they reference, etc. but I don’t necessarily want to interrupt the article I’m reading (or I’d never finish).

In the past I used the book creator to quickly create a reference with maybe a hundred articles most relevant to quantum physics, artificial intelligence, the middle ages, etc. but that tool has been deprecated for some time. It had a very good interface to suggest related pages you might like to add and ultimately resulted in being able to understand the full breadth of a subject area. This was a great way to learn, but I don’t expect this kind of functionality to return. (Although it might be a really nice feature to be able to use the book creator functionality to create a list of articles for future reading without the pdf/publishing aspect)

Does anyone know if a reading list feature currently exists within wikipedia already that I might not be aware of or have any good suggestions? The closest thing I see is the watchlist, but that seems to serve a different purpose for monitoring article changes. Right now the best thing I’m able to do do while learning is keep opening new browser tabs to related pages from the current article I’m reading (and eventually end up with about 50+ open) and close them out as they are read, but this is a bit unwieldy, isn’t portable between devices, and eventually gets lost when the browser closes or crashes, etc.

Thanks for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikibrain13 (talk • contribs) 12:42, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

There are various user scripts that you can add to your Wikipedia configuration that will build a list of articles. Maybe ToDoLister or TodoList? However, if you are not comfortable with adding one of these, then the simplest route is to use the Bookmark system that is included in web browsers (or the Reading List feature if you use Safari) — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 13:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm working on one which syncs with apps. I can turn it into a gadget if there is interest.

mw.loader.load( 'https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=User:Jdlrobson/readingList.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript' );

Jdlrobson (talk) 03:18, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

If user scripts doesn't make sense to OP, there's also a relatively new Google Chrome feature that adds a reading list in the top right corner. Curbon7 (talk) 03:21, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Pages with missing files

Could some smarter-than-me person explain why Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020 is in Category:Pages with missing files? And is that why, when I try to use that reply-thingie, whose name I don't know but WhatamIdoing helped me install somewhere for a one-click reply, fails on that page? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:03, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia It's in that category because the Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020#Signpost and 2022 goals section has a gallery that is trying to display File:1396231548000-AP-Superstorm-Sandy.jpg. The reply tool seems to fail on pages like that one where there is a border around the talk section, but Whatamidoing (WMF) might know more. It probably has to do with that page not having {{End tab}} at the bottom, so there are unclosed tags that the Reply Tool doesn't want to mess up. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:12, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks! This edit removed the page from the error category, but I still can't use the reply thingie on that page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Is the gallery where start tab and end tab are needed? That syntax is beyond me; if that is the problem, could someone add it? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

PS, I have moved the gallery to Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020#Interview for the Signpost. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:49, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: This edit fixed the issue preventing the reply tool from being used. It's basically the same issue described at Template_talk:Start_tab#Disabling_frame_functionality_on_talk_pages, except this time it was an unclosed table that was adding a very small border around the page. Legoktm (talk) 08:37, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

All good; thanks so much ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:05, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Just a note that CD seems to work on that page. ― Qwerfjkltalk 18:21, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Problem with giving DS alert

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T298263

When adding a new section for a DS alert I no longer get a warning when adding {{subst:alert|code}}. I do have to click on "Add topic" twice. The first time the button shows gray. Doug Weller talk 10:44, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: is this the same thing you reported last month that is still open in phab:T298263? — xaosflux ^Talk 11:33, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: doh, I seem to have forgotten that. I think the fact that I no longer see the animation bars had me confused. I guess I should go mention that there. Sorry. Doug Weller talk 11:40, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Email notifications

Hello! Can someone tell me the right TranslateWiki place where most of email notification elements like subject, body, etc, are configured? - Klein Muçi (talk) 12:55, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Do you mean texts displayed at Special:EmailUser/Klein Muçi, at Special:Notifications when you get mail, in actual emails you may receive automatically for certain events, or when other users mail you, or all of the above, or something else? Do you actually want TranslateWiki: links or just the name of MediaWiki messages like MediaWiki:Emailpagetext which can be customized locally? PrimeHunter (talk) 13:15, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Many messages can be found by entering "Email" at Special:AllMessages. See also WP:QQX. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:20, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter, thank you very much for your so detailed information! I mean actual notifications I receive by emails in regard to things that happen here. Mentions, reverts, etc. I want to translate the messages at TranslateWiki for my homewiki (Sq-Albanian) because the current messages have typos and other similar problems. I searched on TranslateWiki but wasn't able to find them and I can't use the QQX trick given that it's not part of the Wiki per se. - Klein Muçi (talk) 14:15, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Could you past the mail body text here (redact anything private) for reference? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:20, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-extensions-Echo/blob/master/i18n/en.json – SD0001 (talk) 14:21, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Redaktimi juaj u kthyen në Wikipedia - This is the header of an email I got because of my changes were reverted. It's grammatically wrong. It needs to be "Redaktimi juaj u kthye në Wikipedia". Similar to that, there are some other changes that need to be done.

@SD0001, I have yet to check carefully the JSON page you sent me at the time of writing this message. - Klein Muçi (talk) 14:28, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

That's notification-reverted-email-subject2 from the sq json file – SD0001 (talk) 14:33, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@SD0001, I was able to find the correct message using your GitHub page. Any chance I can open a "list" of all the messages related to that on TranslateWiki somehow? So I have them all in front of me, see what's wrong, if anything, and translate/correct them in a row? - Klein Muçi (talk) 14:35, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@SD0001, yes. That "list" will do. Thank you! :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 14:37, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

The sq message is at translatewiki:MediaWiki:Notification-reverted-email-subject2/sq. You can also search a string at https://sq.wiki.x.io/w/api.php?action=query&meta=allmessages&amlang=sq without knowing where the message belongs. Some characters are encoded and it shows the source text of the message like the JSON page. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:47, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Pinging Amire80... Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:21, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, @Whatamidoing (WMF)!

Hi @Klein Muçi,

If I understand correctly, you've already found what you were looking for. However, I invite you to read some more information on your translatewiki user talk page. I hope you find it useful. If you need any more info about translatewiki, please ask me.

Thanks! :) Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 11:11, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@Amire80, yes, I did. Thank you! I wasn't sure it was part of TranslateWiki or not. (I've had cases where the translation needed to happen at Wikimedia Code Review for example.) But it's good to know I have somewhere to ask for TranslateWiki matters. - Klein Muçi (talk) 11:56, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi, this is strange... I guess that when you say "Wikimedia Code Review", you refer to Gerrit. English strings have to be changed there, but almost all user interface translations are done in translatewiki. The only translations that have to be submitted to Gerrit are namespace names, special page URLs, and magic words. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 12:42, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@Amire80, yes and yes. I meant Gerrit and I was looking to translate precisely that for Albanian. Many of those for us had typos so I dealt with it. My commit has yet to be reviewed though.

To be honest, I'd wish that even those were part of TranslateWiki. There are a lot of times when you need to modify a translation a couple of times before it reaches its "matured state". Those modifications happen when you start seeing it in use and how it "blends in" with other "surrounding elements" and Gerrit doesn't allow for that kind of simple usage because of its "hard-review requirements". But I do understand that given the technical nature of the aforementioned strings it may be necessary for the overall workflow that they're part of Gerrit instead of being reached from TranslateWiki. - Klein Muçi (talk) 12:55, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh, I see @Klein Muçi. Yes, magic words are a special case. It actually used to be possible to translate them on translatewiki, but this created several technical issues, and unfortunately, it had to be disabled. Luckily, they don't need to be changed very frequently.

I've reviewed your patch. It needs a technical correction, and once you make it, I'll merge it. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:25, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@Amire80, yes I was seeing it in real time, thank you! Not preserving code legacy is my most common "mistake". To be honest, in most of cases, that is done deliberately by me, choosing to make a change and then working backwards from it to change all the instances that make use of it, thus lowering the future maintenance cost. (I've also resorted in bot solutions, in what may be considered "cosmetic edits" in some cases, to make that happen.) But in this case, that was my first time working with Gerrit so I never thought of that aspect. I'll take a closer look to make sure I don't have any other changes to do I might have missed and deal with that. This is one of the problems I mentioned above though. If I'd have to change another minor thing in the near future, the aliases' list would keep growing. But... For the moment I'll comply with that. - Klein Muçi (talk) 13:54, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

In the case of magic words and special page titles, it's important to keep the backwards compatibility in any case. Even if you fix everything on Wikipedia, there may still be other MediaWiki sites in your language, outside the Wikimedia world, and fixing all of them is just impossible. It's like a redirect page that is automatically created after moving a page: usually it's better not to delete it :) Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 14:17, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@Amire80, I put the old aliases for the special pages. I have some questions now though:

1. Should the magic words' section also include the English terms as aliases or is that a mistake made by the first editors? The special pages' section doesn't include the English terms but they still work if used in English. If for a reason it should, can you give me a concrete example of how I should add the old aliases there? Please try the one in regard to the "currentmonth". I can model the remaining changes after your example.
2. Are the PHP arrays case sensitive? How about special characters sensitive? (Able to differentiate between E and Ë for example.) If they aren't, a lot of the current aliases for the namespaces and special pages are superfluous and can be safely removed.

I've been reluctant to deviate much from the original PHP file I found given that it was my first time dealing with PHP but if both the answers to my above questions are "NO", then the overall code can be reduced greatly. - Klein Muçi (talk) 23:14, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

1. It's not a mistake. The English words are supposed to be in the end.
2. I think that they are not case-sensitive, but not sure. Just be consistent with how it's used in the rest of the file. A for special characters, write them correctly according to your language's orthography and usual users' typing customs. If ë and ç can be typed by Albanian wiki editors and have to be used in the word, use them.

"currentmonth" now is:

'currentmonth'              => [ '1', 'MUAJIMOMENTAL', 'MUAJIMOMENTAL2', 'CURRENTMONTH', 'CURRENTMONTH2' ],

"currentmonth" with your corrections should be:

'currentmonth'              => [ '1', 'MUAJIAKTUAL', 'MUAJIAKTUAL2', 'MUAJIMOMENTAL', 'MUAJIMOMENTAL2', 'CURRENTMONTH', 'CURRENTMONTH2' ],

I recommend checking other languages for examples, such as French, Czech, Lithuanian. The whole list is here. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 14:37, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

@Amire80, the specific versions you showed me did have some variations between them but anyway, I finished adding the old versions. - Klein Muçi (talk) 01:27, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Requests for undeletion page missing archives

Hello! AFter I removed a completely blank section (all that was there was a section header) form the Requests for undeletion page, I noticed that the page is archived by a bot, however the box that's supposed to allow you to select and view a specific archive is missing all the archive links and instead only allows you to search within the archives. Is this done on purpose or is something broken? ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:40, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

@Blaze Wolf: {{archives|auto=no|search=yes|age=7|index=/Archive index|editbox=no}}
produces this effect. The auto parameter is what's causing this. ― Qwerfjkltalk 19:52, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Ah ok. I would assume there's a reason auto is set to no? ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

It was altered from |auto=short to |auto=no by Protonk (talk · contribs) at 17:00, 22 July 2014 (UTC) in this edit. There does not appear to have been any discussion. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:08, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

They have good reasoning. I might propose changing how it currently is to something similar to what's at WP:TEA ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 22:21, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

It's probably best suggested at WT:Requests for undeletion, just in case people have other opinions. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:50, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Redrose is right that this is best discussed at that talk page, though I don't know how active it is. My input is any solution (like that at the teahouse) which shows an archive but does not let it grow on the page out of bounds is good. I set it to display none of them because we were generating copious bot managed archive pages with little need for or benefit from direct access. I am no longer active on that page so my reasons/opinions may not reflect what the community wants. Protonk (talk) 17:30, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Why is this archival different from all other archivals? (Echo weirdness)

After I archived this thread, I got a notification saying that I'd successfully pinged Nableezy. This confuses me. I've archived plenty of threads containing pings before, and never had one re-send a ping before. WP:MENTION doesn't make clear why archivals don't usually send pings. The out-of-date mw:Manual:Echo says that a ping isn't sent if the diff has a new section header anywhere other than its first line, but I don't think that's true anymore. This test also sent a ping, which I'd consider expected(-ish) behavior since there's only one message in the thread. So, what's the difference between the Nableezy archival and others? I archived threads containing pings on either side of this edit, and they didn't re-ping (other than the one-liner test). Could the difference somehow be that Nableezy doesn't link to his own userpage in his signature, and that's causing Echo to parse this as all one big post by me?

Also, appreciating the irony, going to intentionally ping Nableezy here to see if he can confirm that he got the inadvertent ping (i.e. to rule out the possibility that there's a glitch in the "successful ping" notification somehow). -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 15:37, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Okay, upon further investigation, I think it is the lack of a userpage link. This test (line signed by User:Example, indented response signed by me, double-indented response signed by Example) did not result in a ping. But this one (same exchange, except removing [[User:Example]] from the {{subst:example signature}} output) did ping. So... is this undocumented/poorly-documented behavior, or a bug? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 16:11, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

I did get both pings, thats weird, never been pinged before being archived. nableezy - 16:19, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Hmm. And surely this isn't the first time someone's archived a thread that was just you and them back-and-forth, so if it is the lack of a userpage link that's doing it, this must be a recent-ish change to Echo. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 16:42, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Okay, more investigation. @Nableezy: It looks like this is "your fault". /lh You're actually being affected by a cousin of the bug I had some months ago, when I had a subst'd parser in my signature and sometimes my pings weren't sending. It seems that when Echo is determining whether more than one user's signature appears in a thread, it finds every userpage link, usertalk link, and user contribs link on a line (so the lack of a userpage link is not an issue); checks what ~~~ is for that user; and if that also occurs on the line, it concludes, "Okay, this is not a mention of this person". However, you subst a .css page with some magic words in it in your signature, and either that's confusing Echo, or Echo's correctly comparing the two but deciding it's not your signature because the time-based portion has changed. The fact that this hasn't happened to you before makes me think it's the former, i.e. that it only fails like this sometimes; but maybe you just don't talk to a lot of people who archive their own talkpages, or all your conversations with such people involve at least one other person.

The upshot is, if you're okay with getting the occasional random ping like this, then carry on. Otherwise you'll probably have to do what I did with my beloved old signature and find a way to not subst something time-dependent. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 17:08, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

I was never able to figure out how to get the time/date in to my signature box without making it included in my ~~~. But getting a ping from you when not intended is what Bob Ross would call a happy little accident so Im cool with it. Plus its been like 13 years with this signature, which makes it my most successful relationship ever and I dont want to break up with it quite yet. nableezy - 17:13, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Incredibly, your signature doesn't break the DiscussionTools reply tool either, unlike pretty much every funky signature I've seen before. Quite successful indeed! Matma Rex talk 20:51, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

text is jumping 3 to 6 lines downwards after scroll

am not really sure how to report this, however, am doing a fast scroll downwards of few pages, using finger on phone screen, from top of Portal:Current events mobile page, and after scrolling stops, text jumps 3 to 6 lines downwards..occurs often, although not always throughout page..it is very distracting, difficult to follow the text..what is causing this, and how can it be fixed?. Gfigs (talk) 10:13, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

I think problem may have to do with where scrolling starts eg on heading box, type of link or other object in page?.maybe some objects are not receiving the scroll event?. Gfigs (talk) 12:50, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

@Gfigs Do you have Short Desc helper enabled in preferences -> gadgets? I sometimes find that the short description adds after the page has loaded and has the effect you are describing. Nthep (talk) 16:10, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

thanks Nthep, it's not enabled though.. Gfigs (talk) 16:52, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

It looks like you're using the Mobile Web site. Do you have this problem on other sites? Does it happen when pages seem slow to load? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:05, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

thanks, seems to be only happening on Portal:Current events..this is happening after pages have loaded normally..with scrolling downwards..at moment when scrolling stops, and one starts focussing on the text..it does not happen when scrolling upwards, from bottom of page.. Gfigs (talk) 21:34, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Block reFill until fixed

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC:_Block_reFill_tool_until_fixed -- GreenC 21:58, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Templatestyles edits

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T299767
Resolved

A few weird edits recently:

• [26]
• [27]
• [28]

They're adding lots of raw HTML relating to the infobox (see etc nonsense). Based on geolocation of the IPs, the editors seem unrelated, so I don't think it's some kind of vandalism. Is there a software bug here? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 08:44, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it is a bug. It is done by copy-pasting an template, in this case Infobox officeholder, from either wikicode editor or VisualEditor and pasting it in VisualEditor. VisualEditor then auto expands the template. This is the third incarnation of the bug, the last one has been closed, so file a new one.--Snævar (talk) 10:04, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Do you know the phab ticket ID for the last report? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:08, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

This kind of junk happens when VE editors copy and paste ISBNs too. I filed a bug about it in 2017: T174303. I used to tidy up ISBNs in articles, but the unstanched firehose of errors caused by this issue has motivated me to move on to other work. I hope that the developers will take a look at this stuff one of these days. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:18, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

I was just coming here for this issue. Here's a few more diffs. The Rand Paul one was a section edit, so I don't understand how it would have happened based on the explanation of copy-pasting the template, Snævar [29][30][31][32] – Muboshgu (talk) 16:31, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Basically, VisualEditor takes the copied template with all of the parameters with it and instead of doing an template transclusion like normally, it decides to take the code of the template itself, then fill in the parameters and spit out the results. By template transclusion I mean that templates are usually used on articles by having a code starting with the two brackets, then the template name and then the parameters listed as "parameter = value". You would get the same result if an template transclusion was copied to Special:ExpandTemplates, which explains that technical jargon. The previous bugs are T273234 and T56410.--Snævar (talk) 17:38, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Can anyone reproduce this deliberately? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:10, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

The task that's still open (which you've linked once 2 years ago on Phab) is phab:T54091. Izno (talk) 18:20, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF) for example see diff. I removed ref number 14 in the Damian Williams (lawyer) article. It is very easy to reproduce it, because any edit ends up like that. Renat 18:23, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

That's the best example I think: diff. Do what you want - you will always get this mess. Renat 18:49, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

I have most often had this issue with citations as it happens, but not surprised it's showing up with infoboxes.

This probably needs an edit filter set to warn or something for insertion of any TemplateStyles tag. "We know you didn't mean to, but this caused wikitext corruption. Please try again, but this time do not copy-paste any templates." Izno (talk) 18:19, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Such an edit filter would at least get this particular corruption, if not the ISBN copy-paste issue. Which actually could be filtered on with Special:Booksources, because no one links that deliberately. Izno (talk) 18:25, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Ditto here, I first undid an edit with this issue, and then experienced this issue several times while using the visual editor. --PerpetuityGrat (talk) 19:01, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Whenever I make a change in visualeditor, it adds several duplicated infoboxes without my knowledge. I even clicked on the button that would show me the changes I made to the page, and it did not indicate the adding of any duplicated infoboxes. As such, I will abstain from using visualeditor until the problem is fixed. Sorry for any confusion this has caused. X-Editor (talk) 21:09, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

This was caused by a recent change that was meant to improve how templates using TemplateStyles are shown in visual diffs and when using visual editor to edit a single section (on mobile). We're reverting it now (see phab:T299767), which will fix this bug. Sorry about this, and in particular that it took us so long to notice this bug report. Matma Rex talk 21:17, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

It's fixed now. Note that the fix won't take effect on users who currently have the editor open (only when they open it the next time), so it might take some more minutes until the corrupted edits stop appearing. :( Matma Rex talk 21:41, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for all involved taking care of this quickly. --PerpetuityGrat (talk) 23:20, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Last two days for submitting proposals

Tomorrow is the last day for submitting proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey 2022.

Also, everyone is welcome to translate, promote, and discuss proposals. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 14:45, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Anne Frank

Anne Frank: Script warning: One or more {{cite web}} templates have maintenance messages; messages may be hidden (help). .... ?? ... 0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 19:03, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Looks like Category:CS1_maint:_url-status has info. DMacks (talk) 19:06, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Is there a question hiding in your post? Gonnym (talk) 19:06, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

The CS1/2 modules have recently been updated. One change to them is raising the maintenance item or error more obviously in preview. A second change is identifying citations where |url-status= is used without |archive-url=, which it should not be. Maintenance messages may be hidden to you as stated in the message. Click the help link in the future for more info about the specific item. Izno (talk) 19:12, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Special:ShortPages and Set Indexes

Can Set indexes be hidden from Special:ShortPages, the same way that DABs are?. I'm not familiar with anything technical about WP, here is a Talk Page Convo: Wikipedia talk:Special:ShortPages#Lastnames clutter the list. Can we fix it?

Extended content
Pinging from prior discussion: @Gaioa:@Avelludo:@Qwerfjkl:Signed, IAmChaos

Signed, IAmChaos 01:55, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

You can add {{subst:long comment}} to the end of a legitimate short article to remove it from Special:ShortPages. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 02:33, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Impractical. There are hundreds of legitimate short articles cluttering that feed, and editing that into each and every one of them is unrealistic. I guess a bot could do it, but it'd be much more solid to change the underlying algoritm. Gaioa (T C L) 07:40, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Adding that comment is the general practice for most legitimate short articles, I'm pretty sure. I don't see it as impractical. Elli (talk | contribs) 10:25, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

@Gaioa: I just worked through the first 50 pretty quickly by JWB: Added {{subst:longcomment}} to 36, BLAR'd 3, AfD'd 1, left the rest for more substantive review. (Micro 17, Satu Mare, and Salara tribe should both probably be redirects somewhere, I'm just not sure where.) I may continue on through the list, but if you'd like to take a stab, get AWB access and use the following JWB setup (or, if using AWB proper, ping me and I can tell you how to adapt the filters for the same effect):

• List:
  • Load Special:ShortPages at whatever limit you prefer
  • Copy-paste the whole list into your sandbox
  • In your sandbox, use find-and-replace (top right corner of the source editor) to change \(hist\) .(.*?) .* to $1 with "Treat search string as a regular expression" checked
  • You should now have a list of page titles, each on a newline. Put that under "Enter list of pages" in JWB
• "Editing" tab:
  • Summary something like Add {{subst:longcomment}} to remove legitimate short page from [[Special:ShortPages]]
  • Replace: ([\s\S]*)
    With: $1\n{{subst:longcomment}}
• "Skip" tab:
  • When page contains: {{Db-
    (Can also be expanded to catch other things like {{unreferenced}} or {{stub}}, by making it a regular expression, something like \{\{([Dd]b-|[Uu]nref|[Ss]tub).)

This can also be done without JWB/AWB. A bit slower, but not by much, and definitely faster than waiting on anything to get changed in MediaWiki. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 22:16, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

@Tamzin: For the list, you can use the script User:Qwerfjkl/scripts/getLinks, which is probably easier. ― Qwerfjkltalk 08:40, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Help request with statistical comparisons and/or filtered search string formulations

Greetings technical keepers of this page. A page in RfC-before development has an open request for badly needed help of tremendous value related to the development of statistical comparisons and/or the development of filtered search strings that can deliver custom results related to the RfC in development. I can't express how helpful this information will be if it can be ascertained. The open request is at: Wikipedia talk:Consensus/No consensus RfC 2022#Request for help with statistics and search string formulation. If someone has given assistance, please consider adding yours as well; too much information is not a possibility while the thread is open. If ever sufficient capabilities have come about, the request will be wrapped in a closure template and marked as resolved to prevent any duplication of effort. Thanks in advance, and please do visit the page if your prowess is in this realm.--John Cline (talk) 11:37, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Category:CS1 errors: external links

Is there something happening somewhere which is affecting this category? I check it daily; yesterday morning it showed 9,089 pages in it; this morning it showed 12,577, and seven and a half hours later it's showing 13,580. I recognise these are estimates, at least to at degree, but a four thousand page increase in its contents in a day?! Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 16:09, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

cs1|2 updated yesterday. There are more articles in Category:CS1 errors: external links because of decisions made at Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 77 § url in name parameters.

The best place to address cs1|2 issues is at Help talk:Citation Style 1.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:24, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Brilliant, thank you ~ so long as i haven't messed up somehow, i'm happy. My little semi-automatic friend will just continue plugging away.... Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 16:51, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

More articles like

How I can easly find more articles like Italian language in Croatia or German language in the United States? Eurohunter (talk) 17:15, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

this search?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:18, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

It mostly finds redirects but there are relatively few results so it can be sorted out manually. Is there any way for an intitle search or other title search feature to omit redirects and pages which only appear because of a redirect to them? For an editor working on article names and not searching for content, redirects are an annoyance. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:45, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Viewing changes to all subpages of a page

I am a featured article candidates (FAC) coordinator and it would be really useful to be able to view all changes to subpages of WP:FAC. I know about related changes, but unfortunately since that tracks linked pages instead of subpages, it ends up having a lot of irrelevant results.[33] Is there any way to do what I'm asking? (t · c) buidhe 06:55, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Related changes on pages linked from User:AnomieBOT/C/Wikipedia featured article candidates gets pretty close. DanCherek (talk) 07:10, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! This looks quite sufficient for my purposes. (t · c) buidhe 07:26, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Special:Relatedchanges for a page containing only {{Special:Prefixindex/Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/}}, alas, doesn't work. I suppose you could build a tool out of something like this, if you expect it to be used often enough to be worth the effort. —Cryptic 07:25, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Disabling prompt message when purging cache

Is there a way to disable the "Clear the cache of this page?" message when purging? I remember back in the day it was done straightforward, without prompting. Brandmeister^talk 13:25, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

See the code starting at line 71 of User:Jonesey95/vector.js. Caveat copier, but it works for me. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:20, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, seemingly works, but takes a few seconds before the messages disappears. Brandmeister^talk 17:41, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

@Brandmeister: you could try lines 9-12 of meta:User:Xaosflux/global.js instead, it is a little less reliable if there in certain certain timing situations, but is faster most of the time. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:54, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Or use the "Add a 'Purge' option to the top of the page, which purges the page's cache" gadget. Nardog (talk) 07:37, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

What would be the process to get Extension:Wikispeech enabled on English Wikipedia

Hi all

I'm not a developer and know very little about the technical side of Wikipedia. My question is does anyone know the process of getting an extension enabled on English Wikipedia? Specifically I'd like to ask what the steps would be to have https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Wikispeech enabled. I also assume there are different level of 'enable' like having it as a gadegt you can install yourself having it as a beta feature/feature etc. Also is there a link for all currently enabled extensions on enwiki?

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 12:15, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

The list of installed extensions is at Special:Version. Kleinpecan (talk) 12:23, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Kleinpecan, very helpful, hopefully someone else can answer the other part. John Cummings (talk) 13:12, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

First comes a request for a wiki configuration change, which needs to show consensus and so on. In the case of Wikispeech it seems WMF has already accepted the idea. Then, if the extension is not already on Wikimedia wikis, it would have to be reviewed for security and performance by WMF staff (which also probably involves convincing the appropriate staff's managers to make time for it). Looks like T267918 is done but T180021 it still open. Then someone (probably WMF staff) needs to actually do it (T264842).

As far as an extension goes, there aren't different levels of "enabled". There might be different levels of how the extension presents itself to users, but at the wiki configuration level an extension is either enabled or isn't. Possibly confusing the matter in the specific case of Wikispeech is that it seems there's also a userscript that is related to but different from the extension (and it's not clear how far the backend for the userscript is intended to scale or what its long-term support prospects are if WMF never gets around to enabling the extension). Anomie⚔ 13:37, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Getting the extension approved for use on any WMF wiki should probably get done before trying to get it installed on this project. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:38, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much Anomie, one question, are there examples of proposals to enable Extensions which I could follow when requesting that is is enabled? Xaosflux (sorry for accidentally deleting your reply), I had thought about this but since the security review request was made 15 month ago and it appears that there has been no work or response by WMF since then I think getting it approved for use as an extension might help prioiritise it. People can try out the same functionality as a gadget as part of the process. John Cummings (talk) 17:03, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@John Cummings: phab:T289383 is an example of a request to install an extension on a project, but WMF is not going to have any non-approved extensions installed on any project - why I was saying that is a blocker. If you could show enough community support you could certainly open a request, and then it would be blocked - and then you might be able to get a champion of the extension to try to drive their tasks forward with more enthusiasm. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:11, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Xaosflux, I think I missunderstood and we are saying the same thing :) Do you know where I could find any extension consensus requests for English Wikipedia? John Cummings (talk) 17:18, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@John Cummings: not finding one right away - here is a small one on metawiki: meta:Special:PermaLink/16265891#Enabling_RSS_extension_on_Meta_wiki. Basically just start a VPR discussion about what you want. In this case, make it clear that it can't actually be deployed yet - but that the support will be used to help push for the extension to be approved and then eventually deployed in the future. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:38, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Xaosflux super, thanks. John Cummings (talk) 17:53, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Is there a server issue with rendering SVGs at the moment?

Anyone know if there is some server issue affecting the rendering of SVG files? I can't get the most recent version of File:Vito Technology logo.svg to show. I uploaded a distorted version of the logo at File:Test.svg, which rendered the thumbnail just fine. Perhaps its just on my end? – Pbrks ^(t • c) 19:00, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Actually, now that I think of it, I believe I had this issue before, where if the first file uploaded was corrupted in some way, the most recent file would also not render properly for some time. Can anyone confirm if this is true? – Pbrks ^(t • c) 19:06, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Just confirmed, it is the case. I uploaded it under a new file name and it rendered just fine: File:Vito Technology Logo.svg. Figure I'll still leave this thread here in case anyone has this problem in the future. – Pbrks ^(t • c) 19:10, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-04

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

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 January. It will be on all wikis from 27 January (calendar).
• The following languages can now be used with syntax highlighting: BDD, Elpi, LilyPond, Maxima, Rita, Savi, Sed, Sophia, Spice, .SRCINFO.
• You can now access your watchlist from outside of the user menu in the new Vector skin. The watchlist link appears next to the notification icons if you are at the top of the page. [34]

Events

• You can see the results of the Coolest Tool Award 2021 and learn more about 14 tools which were selected this year.
• You can translate, promote, or comment on the proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey. Voting will begin on 28 January.

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

21:36, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Sitenotice id

Hello! Can someone explain to me how exactly the sitenotice id works? What's the exact mechanism behind it? Everywhere I've read it says To show the site notice again, even for those who have dismissed it, sysops should increment the number in MediaWiki:Sitenotice id. Do we really need to increment the number for it to work? The reason I ask is because I'm afraid the numbers at my homewiki have been put rather randomly throughout time. Sometimes they've been incremented, sometimes they've been decreased and many times they have been skipped in each direction. I'm not sure what numbers to put in the future cases if I want to make use of that function. - Klein Muçi (talk) 11:29, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: no, but they need to be a new unique ID each time - best practice to to use incrementing numbers otherwise everyone who would work on it is going to have to go through every version ever used to see if the id was already used. If it was reused, that means that those that dismissed it the first time may not see the new message. The actual dismissing is used by another extension, mw:Extension:DismissableSiteNotice. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:42, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, that one may literally use "is greater" (our local dimissiable watchlist notice is "is different" so there was a little overlap). You could ask more at mw:Extension talk:DismissableSiteNotice - but even if it is "is different" you should still increment for the reason. If a project used numbers all over, find the highest, make the next highest+1 - and make directions for your admins to use that process. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:45, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Hmm... I see... Is it too much to ask if there is any phab ticket open to change things a bit in this process, @Xaosflux? :P I mean... Maybe it is straightforward enough for a lot of people but to me it looks kinda chaotic and may even dare say that it leaves room for abuse. I don't know what would be better though. :/ - Klein Muçi (talk) 18:21, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: no, and I don't think it would have much support. For example just because you "change" the sitenotice, doesn't mean you want a new revision of it to have to be dismissed by everyone. Say you made one, then wanted to make a spelling or grammar correction - you normally wouldn't want to bother everyone that bothered to dismiss it to have to dismiss it again. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:24, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux, no the mechanism overall is fine. I'm good with that. I was just wondering if it could be found a better way to act with the cookies than just setting up the numbers manually. Maybe a kind of "gadget" that would remember numbers already used or maybe every once a year we could somehow clear the old cookies from the users' PCs (if we can do that) and be able to start the counting from beginning. That's what I was hoping for. - Klein Muçi (talk) 18:42, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: just checked in testwiki production, it is actually looking for "was dismissed id" not "Is greater than last dismissed id" (i.e. id was 0, I dismissed, incremented to 2, dismiss, decremented to 1 - and it was back and dismissiable. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:14, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

It sets a cookie, e.g. :dismissSiteNotice:"2.5". It does have a 30 day expiry at least on testwiki. And just tested more, looks like it only keeps one cookie, with one value. So reusing old values that haven't been dismissed seem to work just fine as well. That whole process should prob get redone in to localstorage objects - but in the meantime, seems like if you haven't used a number in a month - you are fairly safe to reuse it. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:20, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Wow, I really didn't want to read this much about dsn today, but here is a task that wants to do automatic numbering like you suggested: phab:T29442, and a set of tasks wanting to make this core functionality: phab:T259903. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:22, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux, oh so the values DO have an expiration date! Well if that's true, than everything is alright in my eyes. But the documentation should be changed, no? Because "incrementing to infinity" is a total different thing when compared with "choosing different values for the duration of the month". - Klein Muçi (talk) 21:17, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: it appears they expire "today" - the cookie policies could update outside of this - and sometimes browsers behave oddly. The "use incrementing integers" still seems like a best practice, just not a technical explanation. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:20, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux, well okay then. I got all the information I needed and more. Thank you very much, as always! :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 22:26, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

More Articles...

The above post Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#More_articles_like got me thinking about the iOS Wikipedia app. The iOS app has at the bottom a section called "Read More" and an algorithmically determined list of three articles. The listing is very accurate and I have found it useful. I think it will be a good idea to incorporate that into Wikipedia's Web Interface. Does anyone know where I could pass this along as feedback / feature request? Thanks. Ktin (talk) 21:53, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

It's enabled on the Minerva skin. It was disabled on Vector by request so needs an RFC to be restored there. I personally find it useful on desktop and load it via user script:

mw.loader.load(['ext.relatedArticles.readMore.bootstrap', 'ext.relatedArticles.styles']);

Jdlrobson (talk) 22:52, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much. I tried changing my skin and I was not comfortable with the new skin. Please can you explain the bit about the user script? I am assuming that the script would load it onto the default skin. Appreciate your inputs. Ktin (talk) 17:20, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

you can put that user script safely into User:Ktin/common.js and it will load on all skins. Jdlrobson (talk) 19:49, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jdlrobson: It schows only 3 articles. Is ther any way to extend it? Eurohunter (talk) 21:16, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes. Like so:

mw.config.set('wgRelatedArticlesCardLimit', 9 );
mw.loader.load([ 'ext.relatedArticles.readMore.bootstrap', 'ext.relatedArticles.styles' ]);

Jdlrobson (talk) 23:45, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Invisible audio clips on mobile

Recently, it appears that embedded audio clips have become invisible and unplayable on mobile versions of the site. This can be observed both inside ([35] vs. [36]) and outside of infoboxes ([37] vs. [38]). Any ideas as to what is happening here? — Goszei (talk) 22:42, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

TheDJ Relevant to things you've been doing or is this someone else's? Izno (talk) 23:15, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

 Works for me they display, and play, just fine for me when following either of those links. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:53, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, it might be a Chrome-only problem, then; for me, the player is invisible in Chrome but works fine on Firefox. — Goszei (talk) 02:08, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

The same issue exists on the mobile version of Template:Infobox anthem. It's on Windows Chrome and Edge browsers. Inspecting the element shows removing "height: auto;" from .mediaContainer audio makes the player visible again. Probably should bring it up on that template's talk page since that page is affected too. Jroberson108 (talk) 02:44, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Also, the mobile version has different markup for the player than the non-mobile site. Jroberson108 (talk) 02:54, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

It affects other templates too that play audio like Template:Listen, so the issue is site wide. Jroberson108 (talk) 03:28, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

The height:auto was added in T291591 and reverted. The revert has not been merged yet. So, this has been a bug since 20th of January, this year.--Snævar (talk) 07:53, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Merged, will land on January 27 at 22:00 UTC.--Snævar (talk) 00:40, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

speedy deletion of code

• User:ClueBot III/Detailed Indices/User:Acebulf/monobook.js
• User:ClueBot III/Detailed Indices/User:Acebulf/huggle.css
• User:ClueBot III/Detailed Indices/User:Acebulf/EditCounterOptIn.js
• User:ClueBot III/Detailed Indices/User:Acebulf/huggle3.css

I request speedy deletion of 4 pages created in error. They're derived from User:Acebulf's wrong use Special:diff/357888832 of ClueBot III. Sawol (talk) 08:10, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• User:ClueBot III/Detailed Indices/User:Cheezejack/common.css
• User:ClueBot III/Detailed Indices/User:Cheezejack/common.js

I add 2 more. Sawol (talk) 09:33, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

 Doing... — xaosflux ^Talk 11:19, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

 Done — xaosflux ^Talk 11:28, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• User:ClueBot III/Detailed Indices/User:LiteralKa/monobook.js

@Xaosflux: Thank you. I found one more. Sawol (talk) 12:11, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Gadget for page histories: Display Revision ID

I created a script that puts several additional links alongside of Preferences, Watchlist, and Contributions and the top of the page to execute other scripts I've created for my own use. One might be generally useful for others who, like me, occasionally post {{copyvio-revdel}} requests at the top of a page and need to access the IDs of the revisions where a copyright violation first and last appeared. On a History page it causes each revision's ID to appear to the left of the usual fields displayed for it. The script is simple:

function showRevIds() {
	$("#pagehistory li").prepend(function() { return "<small>" + $(this).attr("data-mw-revid") + "</small> "; });
}

An optional button that appears on History pages to execute this script could be offered under Preferences | Gadgets. Largoplazo (talk) 14:18, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Largoplazo: I think it is too soon to gadget-ize this, however welcome to the world of userscript writing! Here are the next steps you could do: (a) Make a page (e.g. User:Largoplazo/Display Revision ID) and document your script, (b) Set up a dedicated page for it (e.g. User:Largoplazo/displayrevisionID.js). (c) Add it to Category:Wikipedia_scripts and Wikipedia:User scripts/List. (d) Feel free to lightly advertise it (such as in this discussion) and see if others want to use it, either as a transclusion of your page, or a copy-paste. Encourage them to include a backlink for tracking. (e) If it becomes quite popular, come back here and we have discussion about turning in to a site gadget. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 14:38, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Oh, there's a process. Makes sense. 😀 Thanks! Largoplazo (talk) 15:19, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Email notifications 2

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T300030

Currently with the Echo extension for 1 single comment added, I usually get 3 emails. One notifies me that the page I had automatically watchlisted because I wrote in it has been changed, the other notifies me that I have a new reply in this conversation I had automatically subscribed while being its starter and the last one notifies me that a certain user has mentioned me while replying to the conversation I started in that page I'm watchlisting.

I am aware everything I said above is coming because of the way I've set up my preferences and I don't worry that much about email numbers as I have them organized and can always delete in bulk periodically. Having said that though, can there something be done that for cases like the one I just mentioned, the said emails be merged into a single one? Either by me as a user (which I doubt) or by updating the Echo extension maybe? It feels too much redundant. - Klein Muçi (talk) 09:47, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Not currently. In Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo - you could change your notification from each to daily bundle. You could also make a feature request to add a new option, something like: "Bundle echo email notifications triggered from the same action". — xaosflux ^Talk 11:34, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux, well, Phab it is then... - Klein Muçi (talk) 12:02, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi When you're both subscribed to a topic and mentioned in a reply in it, you should only receive one notification and one email. (Watchlist emails are separate though, so that one would be a second email.) Can you give a specific example, so that we can investigate why it didn't work as expected? Matma Rex talk 12:06, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Matma Rex, I tried looking back at my emails but couldn't find a specific one. I receive a lot of emails given that that's basically what I use for being notified for everything Wikimedia related. Maybe I just couldn't find it now or, maybe, it has always been 2 emails and I've been mistaken into believing it was 3 given that I've received many emails at the same time. :/ Either way, with auto-subscription and auto-watchlist enabled, I receive doubles of everything. It would be nice if they could be bundled into 1. - Klein Muçi (talk) 12:19, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I updated the task accordingly. - Klein Muçi (talk) 20:12, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

AWB bot page blanking

My bot, SdkbBot, mysteriously blanked three pages last night, before resuming its task and carrying on normally. Mainframe98 kindly alerted me to the issue. This is the only time this has come up in 210k edits, and previewing the pages manually through AWB, it appears that if I set the bot on them again it'd work normally. Any idea what caused this? Is it just a rare fluke of AWB, or is it something where I can implement something to guard against it before reviving the bot? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:13, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

It's a rare fluke. If you implement Skip doesn't contain '[^ ]', like so, you should be immunized against this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:22, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Will do; thanks! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:42, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Current policy for auto-selection of PageImages causes a "disaster"

Hi, current policy for automatically selection of PageImage of articles, also applies to templates that transclude pictures from sidebar templates, and current policy may select this picture as the PageImage of that articles. The disaster is when this picture is an example of that concept. For example the template Template:Machine learning has the picture File:Kernel_Machine.svg that shows a "linear support-vector machine's decision boundray", and this image is inserted as the top image in all of the articles that transclude this template. The disaster is that it is the PageImage of:

1. Hierarchical clustering
2. CURE algorithm
3. BIRCH
4. DBSCAN
5. OPTICS algorithm
6. and etc.

For nearly all of them, an image of a support-vector machine is a wrong PageImage. As a case, it is obvious that Hierarchical clustering is not a support-vector machine and it is wrong that the PageImage of that article be a support-vector machine. In my opinion this is really a disaster in Wikipedia. Please do something that writers have some more control on the selection of PageImage of articles. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 16:25, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

With WP:Popups enabled, I don't see what you're seeing. Instead, I see, for example, File:OPTICS.svg for OPTICS algorithm. So first we need to figure out what your actual context is. I also see a note at Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups#Features about a syntax that can control what image is displayed. So we also need to make sure that actually works in some contexts, and make sure its limitations are documented also. DMacks (talk) 16:34, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

@DMacks: Many users of Wikipedia are merely viewers of articles (perhaps more than 90%, please see the article 1% rule (Internet culture)) and they are not logged-in to their account to change the tool you mentioned. So they view the image File:Kernel_Machine.svg for OPTICS algorithm, as what I see for that article in contrast of what you see. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 16:44, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

So far as I know, Popups does not use the page image but its own selected image. Izno (talk) 17:57, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Page images being auto selected sometimes coming from navboxes and the like is a known issue and regularly appears here since a while; see phab:T91683. Izno (talk) 17:59, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

@Izno: No, such popups show exactly PageImage. In my opinion, this issue is a very big problem, and should be resolved immediately. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 18:14, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

You can see how old the task is, and no, it's not a very big problem. A suboptimal image is used. That's not a big deal at all. Izno (talk) 18:15, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

@Izno: Is a support-vector machine a suboptimal image for Hierarchical clustering concept? No, it is a wrong image. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 18:19, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Arguing with me is neither going to get it fixed nor is it going even to increase the priority of fixing it. I suggest you move on now that you know that it is being tracked and where to go for updated information. You have about 24 hours left to submit a wish for the meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2022 if you want to do that. Izno (talk) 18:22, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

That would be meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Editing/Select preview image. DMacks (talk) 18:28, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Isn't this what MediaWiki:Pageimages-denylist is for..? You can add File:Kernel_Machine.svg there. Or is there more to this? Jdlrobson (talk) 22:49, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

That would work but requires an administrator. I don't know whether a huge MediaWiki:Pageimages-denylist would give performance issues, and the images would also be blocked on pages where they are wanted. A per-page feature would be nice. Maybe two features, one to choose the image and one to disallow a specified image on that page. Sidebars and other templates could use the disallow feature. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:45, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Colorful recent changes

Hello! I have asked this before (I think on Help Desk) and I'm asking here now. Can anyone explain why adding goodfaith=likelybad& to the recent changes URL when said filter disappears, causes the recent changes to become color coded. here is the link. Looking at the link now, it appears that for whatever reason, when the filter disappear, the goodfaith=likelybad& part of the URL gets moved after the filters in the URL and adding it back to where it should be but not removing the other part is what causes the colors. For reference here is a normal recent changes URL. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:12, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

And here is a URL where that filter is broken. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:25, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

That highlighting is an software feature (mw:Help:New filters for edit review/Highlighting function). Just file a bug with the tag Edit-Review-Improvements.--Snævar (talk) 22:11, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Poorly thought-out change to citation template is causing red warning labels to appear as false positives on articles

Not sure who did it, or where exactly it's pulling from, but any appearance of (ed), Ed., or editor in author name templates is flagging an error in red saying "generic name". It makes sense that we should be using the editor parameter for when there is an editor, but whoever did this apparently didn't realize that a lot of people have the first name Ed. Now if this was just putting this into a hidden category, that wouldn't be a big deal. But at least on my system (probably because I have a harv/sfn error script), it's showing up in bright red letters that it's an error when it isn't. Can this change be reverted/tweaked so that it isn't blasting red error messages where they don't belong? Hog Farm _Talk 22:05, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Hog Farm, you can use safemode to see whether it's just your script. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:24, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

As usual, please provide this feedback at Help talk:CS1, particularly some (new) subsection of Help talk:CS1#Generic names change. Yes, we were aware that |author= in particular had a lot of problems of people using the wrong field (20k before the update, now up to 30k), but the new update may have introduced suboptimal behavior regarding the name "Ed" because the change did not take into account the previous work on the categorization that did exist. Izno (talk) 22:28, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Guiding newcomers to editor-specific advice

Many of our help pages describe tasks that work differently if you're using the source editor vs. VisualEditor. However, we currently have no {{If VisualEditor}} template akin to {{If mobile}} to guide users to the correct set of instructions for them. The ability to do this would improve the usefulness of help pages like WP:REFBEGIN, particularly given that many newcomers may not know which editor they are using. In the WP:DISCORD discussion beginning here, we discussed what to do about this, and ElijahPepe helpfully came up with some code that can accomplish the task, as demonstrated here. I'm opening up on-wiki discussion here to help decide how we want to move this forward. (Note: Also follow-up to this previous post I made here.) {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:02, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Umm, oppose to putting this in common.js 100%. Don't think a default gadget is a good idea either. Can't those pages just be better improved to appeal to all readers? — xaosflux ^Talk 23:13, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux, yeah, folks at Discord suggested this probably couldn't go in common.js. Izno suggested it might be something that loads with a click.

Regarding your question, not really. The #1 thing that can be done to improve our help pages is to shorten them, so that they tell users what they're looking to know with as little extraneous information to wade through as possible. When we have to provide both source and VE instructions, or add a banner blindness–inducing banner for another page with instructions for the other editor, that adds complexity. And especially so if it forces newcomers to learn about what the different editors are to figure out which they're using. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:22, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

On-click - sure, that can e trialed right away. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:47, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

To help make things simple we send students to here. Very simple format we could follow.... its a stripped down version of our help pages with zero accessibility concerned like text sandwich, mass white space or random images.Moxy- 00:46, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

LinkSearch for this domain

Why does searching for "en.wiki.x.io" on Special:LinkSearch return only a few dozens with corrupt URLs like .org./ or .org:/? Same with HTTPS. Similar results with "de.wiki.x.io" on German Wikipedia and "he" on Hebrew Wikipedia, but not with "fr" on French Wikipedia, "ru" on Russian Wikipedia, etc. Nardog (talk) 07:54, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

See mw:Help:Linksearch#Links_in_external_link_style_to_the_same_wiki. – SD0001 (talk) 10:00, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Since I found the results by following the example at the top, I've requested changing MediaWiki:Linksearch-text. Nardog (talk) 13:21, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

How are the ribbons at List of awareness ribbons created?

I need one but in cyan and I've no idea how to do it. I want to create a Parkinson's userbox and the UK ribbon is cyan. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 13:42, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

They are just SVG images. Try asking at Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Illustration workshop * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 14:02, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Will do, thanks. Doug Weller talk 14:05, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Language category redirect filling up

For some reason Category:CS1 Bangla-language sources (bn) has suddenly started filling up (examples Dhrubatara, Para Commando Brigade (Bangladesh) or Yohani) when it's a redirect to Category:CS1 Bengali-language sources (bn) and this is usually because someone's been changing language templates/modules without dealing with the consequences. Is anyone able to identify the cause of the problem and fix it? Timrollpickering (talk) 11:46, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Timrollpickering Please leave this feedback at Help talk:CS1. Izno (talk) 18:07, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Dates in search-list

In this search-query, Mediawiki returns Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 7 as the second hit. Then, the particular lines with the word "Indian" is shown in a snippet. Followed by 255 KB (36,991 words) - 02:57, 28 September 2021.

I assume that Archive 7 has 36,991 words and a page size of 255 KB but it is from July-August 2008. Nothing happened on 02:57, 28 September 2021 except in being edited by some bot which fixed Lint errors. This is an issue that affects every discussion board from AN to RSN to FTN to NPOVN to talk-page archives: some or the other bot has been going around fixing new errors every few years across the last decade and these dates are picked up by the search tool, corrupting the very purpose of providing one.

I propose that we exclude non-archiving bots from affecting the last-edited date. Any edit by an user or an archiving bot will continue to affect the date. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:31, 26 January 2022 (UTC) TrangaBellam (talk) 05:53, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Oppose as causing more confusion than it solves, and being poor use of developer time. It would require a MediaWiki change and a second bot flag. Many bot edits are substantive, e.g. updating whole pages like Wikipedia:Database reports/Orphans with incoming links. The last non-bot edit was in May 2021, making it sound outdated. People may use the shown date for different things. Many will be confused if it's not the latest edit. There could be more complicated rules about precisely which bots update the date in which types of pages, maybe configurable by which task the bot is doing in that edit, but it's a big mess with little or no benefit, and it would make it unpredictable what the shown date means. You may be interested in User:PrimeHunter/Search sort.js. On your example search it shows many "Sort by" links including Creation ascending and Creation descending. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:17, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

What type of user might land up at Wikipedia:Database reports/Orphans with incoming links from a search page, consider it outdated, and be consequently misled? I provided an user story; what is your?

Thanks for the script. TrangaBellam (talk) 09:32, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

You just provided an example search. We have 55 million pages and almost infinitely many possible searches for various reasons. Let's not get into a "most plausible example" contest. It's simply confusing if the date means different things in different search results, and few searchers will know when it means what. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:49, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Jump paste?

I posted this at Help Desk, but got no replies, so I'll try here. "Recently, when I've pasted text into an edit page, even if it's just a cut-and-paste within the page, the edit box jumps back up to the start of the edit page or section. It was particularly annoying earlier today when I was adding a new ref to a table multiple times, and had to go back down the page to find the table on each occasion." Any ideas? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:02, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jimfbleak: It's possible that you are pasting some unicode or something similar that starts with an ampersand (&) followed by numbers and ends with a semicolon (;). It appears as a space or newline, so it is invisible in Wikipedia. It also happened to me. If I recall, holding down shift and hitting enter produces some of those weird characters. To fix it, I paste it into Sublime Text first, remove the weird characters, then cut-n-paste the new text into Wikipedia. Jroberson108 (talk) 13:16, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Jroberson108, thanks, but it happens every time I paste, irrespective of content, and only started quite recently. I've edited here for (too) many years and never seen this before. What is Sublime Text? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:21, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jimfbleak: Sublime Text is a free text editor I use. If it is irrespective of content, even something simple like "Hello", then I'm not sure. Since it only affects you, I would suggest looking at what changed recently. Did you enable a new extension or add some JavaScript to your common.js page? These kinds of things. Try another browser to make sure it isn't a browser extension/add-on. Jroberson108 (talk) 13:34, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Is it all pages, including this one? Pasting text would cause a jump to the top of this section? If so, then I would definitely test it in another browser. Jroberson108 (talk) 13:57, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

• Sounds like something is causing a carriage return character to appear at the end of your paste function. As stated above, I'd suspect it to be an issue with the browser; either that, or whatever you are pasting from contains an invisible carriage return character at the end of the text you copy, but that is unlikely compared to it being a browser issue. Steel1943 (talk) 14:39, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

• Jroberson108, Steel1943, thanks. My browser updated recently, I'll see if the next update clears the problem... Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:02, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Jimfbleak If you are using Firefox it sounds like it might be a similar issue to this - User talk:Cacycle/wikEd#Cursor jumps to top of edit box, WikEd with Firefox 94 & 95. Nthep (talk) 15:28, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

• Nthep, that makes a lot of sense. I can live with it or work round it until the bug in Firefox is fixed, many thanks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:40, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Broken template

Template:Catholic Encyclopedia appears to have been broken for some time, right at the top I see {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) and this is transcluded into all articles that use, e.g. Star singers. Could someone handle this? Brandmeister^talk 10:49, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

@Brandmeister: The error message at Star singers looks correct to me - the notice claims that some of this text has been copied from the Catholic Encyclopedia, but the reader is given no clue about which CE entry has been copied. According to Template:Catholic Encyclopedia/doc#Detailed notes at "Minimum", either title or wstitle must be set. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:08, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

It's about this error message, partially in red, at the end. Page history shows no obvious vandalism, perhaps some WP:AGF edit broke something. Brandmeister^talk 11:15, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

It appears to be working as intended. The error message is deliberate and is only displayed on 552 (11%) of the 4927 articles using the template. That's the cases where the mandatory title or wstitle is not set. But it would probably be better if the error message linked the used wrapper {{Catholic Encyclopedia}} instead of {{cite encyclopedia}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:36, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I see now. Looks bizarre though, perhaps there's some technical solution, such as making title or wstitle optional rather than mandatory. Brandmeister^talk 12:11, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The |title= in {{cite encyclopedia}} is mandatory because it refers to the specific encyclopedia entry that verifies the wikitext. Similarly with |wstitle=. One cannot seriously cite an entire encyclopedia as a verification source. The documentation at {{cite encyclopedia}} is confusing as it makes practically no distinction between "encyclopedia" and "title". I would suggest adding the in-source location to the citations that need it. This error message is pretty much essential. Note that discussion involving WP:CS1-related templates is ongoing at Help Talk:Citation Style 1. 71.247.146.98 (talk) 12:47, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The article title is required by the template. That is why Star singers is in Category:Articles incorporating text from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia with no article parameter, along with 800+ other pages. If an article title is provided, the helpful error messages and tracking categories will go away. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:04, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

So looks like this may be potentially avoided by replacing this template with relevant inline citations from Catholic Encyclopedia, with reserving the template only for those wikiarticles that largely or wholly rely on a single entry in Catholic Encyclopedia. Brandmeister^talk 16:06, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Or use the template to cite each entry separately. I agree that this is more cumbersome. Another option is to use short references to point to individual or multiple entries (for example, using {{harv}} and/or {{harvc}}), and one full reference to point to the entire encyclopedia. This will do what you want, but the learning curve may be steep for novices. 65.88.88.69 (talk) 18:37, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The best way to fix the problem is to add a wstitle or a title parameter. For many errors, the Wikipedia page title will match the encyclopedia entry title. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:38, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Special:Diff/609006048

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T300311

Template:Subst was red-linked from the edit summary despite having already been created. API shows nothing special; JS/CSS doesn't seem to be the problem either. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 13:08, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

That's an odd bug. Steps to reproduce a similar case:

1. Edit Wikipedia:Sandbox
2. Preview with edit summary [[Wikipedia:About]] [[de:Wikipedia:About]]
3. The link to Wikipedia:About becomes red but works

Some observations:

1. It only happens when there is a local wikilink and interwikilink to the same page name.
2. It happens on page creations and full page edits but not section edits.
3. It doesn't happen for mainspace links like [[About]] [[de:About]]

PrimeHunter (talk) 01:38, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Are there any Phab tasks about this? NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 06:33, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't remember seeing this one before, so probably not yet. Do you want to write it up yourself? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:50, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I wound up creating T300311 for this. It looks suspiciously like some sort of cache corruption in whatever link-cache is involved in the wikitext rendering inside CommentFormatter. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 23:06, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Cite title-link

Many years ago, I coded the following REF: <ref name=Schedule>{{cite web |url=https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/File:TYRR_schedule.jpg |title=Daily Schedule - Sutton to Toronto |author=Toronto and York Radial Railway |date=19 May 1916 }}</ref>

Then sometime afterwards, someone reformatted that REF as: <ref name=Schedule>{{cite web |title=Daily Schedule - Sutton to Toronto |author=Toronto and York Radial Railway |date=19 May 1916 |title-link=:File:TYRR_schedule.jpg |author-link=Toronto and York Radial Railway }}</ref>

The problem with the reformatting is that it now generates the error message "{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)". I think the error message started to appear in recent years. The "title-link" still displays properly. The question is: How can I code a REF to a jpg so as not to produce an error message. Thanks. TheTrolleyPole (talk) 01:20, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Use {{cite sign}}. This is no longer a web-based citation, but an interwiki-based one. 68.173.76.118 (talk) 02:27, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

On second thought, perhaps {{citation}} is more apt if this was printed as a pamphlet or brochure. If it was posted in a physical bulletin board, {{cite sign}} is better. It is tricky regarding verification. 68.173.76.118 (talk) 02:36, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. TheTrolleyPole (talk) 03:21, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Is there a way to filter my contributions by size to find articles I've created from redirects and stubs?

Hi all

I'd really like to create a list of articles I've created, however I've realised that the wmflabs tool doesn't count pages created where a redirect already exists or where I've taken a one line description and created a full article. What would be a good way to do this? If someone explains here I can write it up somewhere for others to use.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 09:32, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

John Cummings For overwritten redirects, use tagfilter like this. Harder for stubs, may be this - your edits with "creat" in summary - is of some use. hemantha (brief) 06:15, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Hemantha thanks so much for this, one way I was thinking about was trying to filter my edits over 5000 characters to give me some likely ones to look through, but not sure how to do that. Any ideas? Thanks again. John Cummings (talk) 09:22, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't know how to sort by size. Perhaps copy edit list from Special:Contributions page by page (you can increase limit to say 5000, by changing the url) to a spreadsheet, split text to columns and then sort by diff size. hemantha (brief) 10:47, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

quarry:query/61982 ain't pretty, but does what you want. —Cryptic 22:23, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Automatic signing

Hello! Recently at SqWiki we're setting up our own "Teahouse" and signing comments is something rarely happens with new users. The new reply tool has helped a bit in this direction but it doesn't cover most new-user cases. I didn't want to create a preload template because that might end up being a bit confusing for very new users so I thought about asking if SineBot could be made available for SqWiki but then I remembered I had already done that some months ago and Slakr wasn't active back then and, by its current talk page, it doesn't look like he's active even now. Is there any other option I might have in regard to automatic bot signing? - Klein Muçi (talk) 12:42, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately SineBot is closed source, but the Commons SignBot has source available here. You can try to contact Zhuyifei1999 if you need more assistance. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:51, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

@Ahecht, thank you for your help! :))

@Zhuyifei1999, would it be possible to start utilizing your bot at SqWiki/SqQuote? - Klein Muçi (talk) 01:10, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@Ahecht, considering I'm unfortunate and user Zhuyifei1999 is unavailable to help me, do you have any idea what would be the general steps needed to fork the bot's code? Would it be anything similar to the steps we took together some time ago with your bot? - Klein Muçi (talk) 01:15, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi At a glance it should be similar, since both are based on pywikibot. See also commons:User_talk:Zhuyifei1999/Archive_37#SignBot_on_the_Hungarian_Wikipedia for how it was adapted to huwiki. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 07:29, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@Ahecht, I copy-pasted the code to a .sh file, changed only SignBot->Smallem, gave the needed permissions and run it to see what it would happen. I was hopping to get the same error as the one in the example you gave me but unfortunately I get a different one:

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "./Smallem-Signing.sh", line 38, in <module>

import pywikibot

File "/data/project/shared/pywikibot/stable/pywikibot/__init__.py", line 148

def _ISO8601Format(cls, sep: str = 'T') -> str:

^

SyntaxError: invalid syntax

To be honest, I don't really know what I expected to happen once I set it to run but the presence of errors seems to imply I have a long way before me. Sorry I'm dragging you into this. :/ - Klein Muçi (talk) 11:25, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi, please tell me more about "it doesn't cover most new-user cases". Do your newbies need the New Discussion tool (for auto-signing when you start a new ==Section==)? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:07, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF), you are a very new user that understands Albanian. You somehow end up at this page and click the big blue button to ask a question. 90% of the cases, you'll just have a text that ends up unsigned. That can be solved with a preloaded ~~~~ text but a sign bot would be friendlier for new users than that. - Klein Muçi (talk) 22:52, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

(Of course clicking on "Add a new section" would make the whole workflow work normally in regard to signing. But I believe the big blu button wins when compared with that in regard to usage by new users.) - Klein Muçi (talk) 23:48, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi, would you be happier if you used this link instead? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:31, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF), that adds the signature at expense of removing the title. That's the traditional workflow I think, no? What normally happens if you click on "Add a new section". This is exactly what I meant with "It doesn't cover most new-user cases". In many of these kinds of pages some parts of the page is expected to be preloaded, be that the title or the main content. We use Extension:InputBox for that (see here), hence the BBB (Big Blue Button). All these kind of pages have no initial support either by auto-signing or by auto-subscription.

Other examples: Check here how many times is used the same extension for preloading RFC tickets for new admins/crats or for privilege removals (Ctrl+F Preload). Check the cases here which only later I understood that basically it was the same problem globally. When the traditional workflow is "hijacked" by extensions (above you have a case for WikiLove) or templates, you get no assistance, be that auto-subscription or auto-signing, in the first instance of the conversation. This is a problem because, templates aside, extensions are an integral part of everyday wikiwork and I don't believe we can ignore them easily. - Klein Muçi (talk) 08:44, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I think that anyone who has sent e-mail can figure out how to add a "Subject" (i.e., the ==Section heading==). Missing signatures are more common than missing section headings. Also, the tool warns you if you don't have a section heading. It's just a warning, but it seems to work. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:16, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF), actually, if I remember correctly, I switched after we had 4 questions in a row without subject. :/ (Even though your explanation with the warning looks promising enough.) But even if we let that one go, there are other cases when the same problem persists. :/ - Klein Muçi (talk) 22:39, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Apparently what I'm suggesting is being tracked partially in T285358 for 1 year now. - Klein Muçi (talk) 00:16, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

You might think about adding your use case to that ticket. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:40, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF), a bit of a silly question but what would that exactly mean in practice? I'm still rather young when it comes to being a Phab-ulous editor. :P - Klein Muçi (talk) 03:07, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi, you always have to log in to Phab, so step one is to find the button that uses your regular Wikipedia account.

Once you're logged in, you have two options. One is that you can edit the main task description yourself. To do that, find "Edit Task" on the right sidebar. (While the markup is a little different from wikitext, it should look reasonably familiar.) The simpler option is to scroll to the bottom and add a regular comment. (You can safely ignore the "Add actions" dropdown for your comment.)

A little common sense handles most things at Phab, but if you want more details, then mw:How to report a bug and mw:Bug management/Phabricator etiquette are the places to start. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:04, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF), thanks a lot for the provided information but I already have a Phab account and I know the overall procedure. I meant to ask what should I do in this case: Rewrite the ticket to be about extensions in general and to include auto-subscription + auto-signing, add that as a comment or do nothing of that and just add a comment that links to this conversation saying that "this topic is also mentioned here". - Klein Muçi (talk) 00:07, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Problem with featured article in Science

The Qayen earthquake in Iran's featured article has a strange image of a green button. Overlooked vandalism or an article error? Cannot provide image. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.220.177.123 (talk) 00:57, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

I see no such image in 1997 Qayen earthquake. Please be more specific. Is that the article and where is the image? PrimeHunter (talk) 01:02, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Special:PendingChanges - Rollback option

Should Special:PendingChanges have a rollback option beside each listed edit like Special:RecentChanges has? With the popups gadget you can hover over the change and see it without having to actually go there. In case of a vandalism, the rollback option could be useful. Would that be wise to be a native feature or would it be better if it was a personal user script (considering that it could be useful only? when paired with the aforementioned gadget)? Any phab tickets already exist on this? Thoughts? - Klein Muçi (talk) 04:08, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Weird kind of delay in categorisation

I'm faced some weird issues when tried to categorise templates today. I opened up the issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories § Weird kind of delay in categorisation. Hopefully someone from here will give it a look. Thanks! ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 10:44, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

The issue has been resolved at the destination page. Cheers! ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 13:25, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Sticky table headers not working on iPhone

CSS is used to make a big table's column and row headers top and left position sticky respectively. Works on Windows 10 (Chrome, Edge, Firefox) and Android (Chrome, Firefox). One user said doesn't work on iPhone SE 2020 (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari), which we found "position: sticky;" on the table's "th" does work on non-Wikipedia websites and, if applied to a div box, works on Wikipedia. I don't have Apple products to test with. iPhone help appreciated.

• talk
• Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/styles2.css
• Template:2020 monthly cumulative COVID-19 death totals by country
• Template:2021 monthly cumulative COVID-19 death totals by country

Jroberson108 (talk) 16:02, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

For starters, can anyone with an iPhone or Mac computer verify that an issue exists where the table headers aren't sticking to the top and left while scrolling so they remain in view? We didn't have a Mac computer to test with. Please identify the device and the browsers tested. Jroberson108 (talk) 03:51, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Headers appear to behave correctly on Firefox-96.0.2 on OS X (desktop). DMacks (talk) 04:04, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

@DMacks: Thanks, not sure if you could test other browsers too on your Mac? Just need someone to test iPhone browsers. Jroberson108 (talk) 08:19, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Does no one have an iPhone that they can use to verify the issue exists? Jroberson108 (talk) 18:14, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Works for me (tablet, Silk browser). ― Qwerfjkltalk 18:31, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jroberson108, it's not working on an iPhone using iOS 15.2. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:44, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl and Whatamidoing (WMF): Thanks for testing.

Can someone help figure out why sticky table headers don't work on Wikipedia with iPhone? We've already tested and found that using the "position: sticky;" style on a non Wikipedia site works on iPhone, so there is something going on with Wikipedia's styles that I haven't been able to identify. Jroberson108 (talk) 03:26, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I still need help fixing this. If "technical" isn't the right section, then where should I ask? A front-end iPhone web developer is needed. Jroberson108 (talk) 20:47, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Is @TheDJ around? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:42, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Nested overflow contexts with sticky elements dont mix well. Fixed now. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:06, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

TheDJ, Jroberson108 and all. Thanks all! Fix is working. Both column and row headers are sticky on my iPhone SE 2020 in 4 browsers (Safari, Edge, Chrome, Firefox). For more info see:

Template talk:COVID-19 pandemic data#iPhone fixes

User:Timeshifter/Sandbox169

--Timeshifter (talk) 17:09, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Community wishlist survey

The 2022 meta:Community_Wishlist_Survey_2022 is now open for voting on which wishes you would like to see worked on. A table of all wishes and their ranking is available. I proposed some, as did other English Wikipedia editors, and you may vote for as many wishes as you want. Thank you for lending your input to the process! — xaosflux ^Talk 20:42, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

To keep things together, if anyone wants to advertise any specific wish, please use subsections here. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:43, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Does a wiki page exist? Aka - could we get WMF to finally fix a bug from 2007?

A long-running technical issue, which dates all the way back to 2007, is the simple question: does a wiki page exist? If you're developing a template or Lua module, then you can sort of do this already, but the answer will automatically include a link to the page in Special:WhatLinksHere - which causes problems for editors trying to resolve links to disambiguation pages and redirects. I'm trying to get the WMF to fix this via the m:Community Wishlist Survey 2022 - see m:Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Miscellaneous/Check if a page exists without populating WhatLinksHere for the proposal. Please have a look and consider supporting it, and also please have a look at the other issues that are being raised through this survey, so we can get WMF to work on them! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:18, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Sdkb's suggestions

Transclued from my talk, here's a non-comprehensive, non-ordered list of some items I'd be happy to see taken up:

• Allow wikilinks and formatting in TemplateData
• Show editnotices on mobile
• Tool that reviews new uploads for potential copyright violations
• Limit which namespaces are allowed in a category on the category page itself (fixing WP:DRAFTNOCAT)
• Make the edit request process easier
• Tool to add Wikidata to an article
• Better diff handling of paragraph splits
• VisualEditor should use human-like names for references
• Formatting columns in table
• Advanced table tools on Visual Editor
• Include section links in WhatLinksHere
• Table sorting on mobile
• Allow adding sitelink to redirect in Wikipedia section (Wikidata)
• Floating table headers

Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:39, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

I support New reference-filling tool and More capacity for Citation bot as well. ― Qwerfjkltalk 19:50, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

intitle: redirect search

When I search for Lucifer intitle:/2019/, the first result is Lucifer (film). That's expected, because Lucifer (2019 film) redirects there. However, this redirect is no longer mentioned in the search results as it used to be. Is this an intentional MediaWiki change? It's not my scripts or gadgets; I see the same when logged out. Certes (talk) 17:56, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

The search has several "redirect from" entries. It appears to only be omitted when the other part of the search matches the title. For example, Prithviraj intitle:2019 shows "Lucifer (film) (redirect from Lucifer (2019 film))". PrimeHunter (talk) 20:43, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Issue with citation anchoring

A page I put a lot of work into, Timoleague Friary, has recently passed GA review. As part of the review, however, two issues with citation anchoring arose, and while I was able to correct one of them, neither myself nor the reviewer no how to approach correcting the issue. The reviewer suggested that a 10-15 character htlm string would resolve this issue, but to be honest I do not understand what that means. The problem is that when using the {{sfn}} template, some of the sources have editors but no listed authors. As a result, they not anchoring the reference to the cited source. Could anyone please advise? Thank you.

The sources with anchoring issues in the article are as follows:

• Crowley, Helen; et al. (2016). Timoleague Friary (Mainistir Thigh Molaga): Self Guided Tour Booklet. With the assistance of Flor Hurley, Dr Anne Julie Lafaye, and Monastic Ireland. Timoleague, Co. Cork: Molaga Tidy Towns Association, history sub-committee. pp. 1–14.
• Hallinan, Mona; Nelligan, Conor; Sleeman, Mary, eds. (2021). Heritage Artefacts of County Cork. Cork: Cork County Council; Heritage Unit. pp. 231–233. ISBN 978-1-911677-03-1.

Xx78900 (talk) 10:39, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

When given multiple names, the {{cite book}} template uses the first four from |last1=–|last4= + the year portion of the date from |date= or |year= to make its CITEREF anchor ID. To work properly, the {{sfn}} template needs the same names and year so:

{{Sfn|Crowley|Harrington|Hickey|Kingston|2016|p=1}}

Crowley et al. 2016, p. 1

to link to this citation template (I changed Hickey because titles and postnominals have no place in the citation; I deleted |others= because not necessary as a finding aid):

{{Cite book |last=Crowley |first=Helen |title=Timoleague Friary (Mainistir Thigh Molaga): Self Guided Tour Booklet |last2=Harrington |first2=Emmett |last3=Hickey |first3=Patrick |last4=Kingston |first4=Diarmuid |last5=McSweeney |first5=Edward |last6=Murphy |first6=Joe |last7=Whooley |first7=Donal |publisher=Molaga Tidy Towns Association, history sub-committee |year=2016 |location=Timoleague, Co. Cork |pages=1-14 |display-authors=1}}

Crowley, Helen; et al. (2016). Timoleague Friary (Mainistir Thigh Molaga): Self Guided Tour Booklet. Timoleague, Co. Cork: Molaga Tidy Towns Association, history sub-committee. pp. 1–14.

Hallinan is the same sort of issue. When there are no authors named, {{cite book}} falls back to |editor-last1=–|editor-last4=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:32, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Template from mass messaging system refuses to follow talk page format

Hello! So on User talk:ARoseWolf, I attempted to move the message from the Mass Messaging System to be within the talk page format, however for whatever reason, when I moved the ending brackets to have the message contained within it, the message is still outside of the format. What is going on here? ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:15, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

@Blaze Wolf: seems like a pile of GIGO: (a) The message contains a "table", but it is not very well formatted, and probably shouldn't be a table at all; but in general it works on normal pages. (b) Your talk page is also using a table element that you are trying to surround everything in, breaking any new-sections. Looks like you try to suggest people don't do this by breaking the "new section" buttons, but that doesn't work for MMS - which would have no way to ever try to insert a "new section" in to the last section, before some table tag that is supposed to match a higher section. Suggestion: get rid of the table on your talk page. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:37, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: That is not my talk page. It is the talk page of ARoseWolf. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:39, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

@Blaze Wolf: oops - I mean theirs not yours in all of that :) For the first part, you could ask @Megalibrarygirl: to see if maybe they could improve their newsletter, maybe with a div wrappper instead of a table. Also note, every single time you try to "fix" that other user's talk page, you are retriggering the "you have new messages" banner. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:41, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Yep I know. Not trying to spam their notifs. Hopefully RoseWolf or Megalibrarygirl will be able to make it work on the talk page temporarily. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:43, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-05

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

• If a gadget should support the new ?withgadget URL parameter that was announced 3 weeks ago, then it must now also specify supportsUrlLoad in the gadget definition (documentation). [39]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 February. It will be on all wikis from 3 February (calendar).

Future changes

• A change that was announced last year was delayed. It is now ready to move ahead:
  • The user group oversight will be renamed suppress. This is for technical reasons. This is the technical name. It doesn't affect what you call the editors with this user right on your wiki. This is planned to happen in three weeks. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections. As usual, these labels can be translated on translatewiki (direct links are available) or by administrators on your wiki.

Events

• You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey between 28 January and 11 February. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on.

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

17:40, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Bug: broken heading/edit summary on redlink(?) talk pages

What's causing these? The edit summary's "new section" text gets included in the section's heading. It seems to happen when you start a new discussion section (with the "New section" button) on a redlink page, and it seems to have started in September 2021. See e.g. Template talk:Taxonomy/Streptophyta, Template talk:Taxonomy/Faboideae and Template talk:Taxonomy/Amygdaloideae. I already reported this here, but since this seems to happen elsewhere too, I decided to bring this up here. 85.23.79.231 (talk) 01:40, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Namespace filter for logs

Hi. I come from phab:T16711. Is there any people interested in contributing a patch to allow namespace filtering for Special:Log? It would be really useful to be able to see, for example, all categories deleted by some user. Thanks in advance, Paucabot (talk) 18:37, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Adding a new edit filter trigger action: pop-up box

We currently have four edit filter trigger actions: disallow, warn, tag, and log. The first two are both very strong, and the last two are both quite weak, leaving a big hole in the middle. There are many actions someone might do where it makes sense to give them a warning (ideally in the moment) that they're probably doing something wrong, but not to stop them from saving the page with a bold warning.

Example of a pop-up box

One example of this is adding external links to body sections, a common newcomer mistake, as in my post here. Another is linking to disambiguation pages. This second one was the subject of a winning wishlist proposal, and the wishlist team recently rolled out a solution to it, the disambiguator extension, which produces the orange pop-up boxes seen in the screenshot at right.

This architecture for a type of notification could be extremely useful if it could be applied in response to any edit filter, as it'd allow us to fill in that middle hole. Ideally, the circumstances for triggering and content of the message would be entirely definable by the community to suit our needs. I asked NRodriguez (WMF) about this possibility here, and now I'd like to hear from some of the technical editors here: how feasible would this be? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:07, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I'd really like this, but it would basically require writing a whole new extension form scratch (or at least repurposing some third-party software). In order to operate at any reasonable speed on large pages, the "filters" would need to run on the client (e.g. inside a Web worker), not on the server. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:21, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

It'd definitely require some work, but I wonder if most of it would be just reusing the code from the disambiguator extension. Courtesy pinging Enterprisey in case you're interested, as this relates to WP:Making editing easier. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:27, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The hard part would be writing a whole new parser for the AbuseFilter syntax, at least if you want compatibility with existing filters. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:28, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

...or maybe not. What if the client just calculates a diff every time the user stops typing for more than a second or so, and sends that to the server. That's not so much bandwidth, but the client and server could still keep a synced copy of the edit form. Still that's maybe hundreds of extra web requests (and filter checks) for every edit. Could the servers handle that? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:31, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I think that it can take up to three seconds to send that information (that's the high side of normal, but not an extreme event), and one-second breaks are common, especially for people who don't type fluently. So you might set your wait time a little longer, but in theory, it should be feasible. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:28, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

This is basically what my WP:Text reactions was about. It is not connected to the abusefilter system, nor do I think it should be as this is something that's better done client-side. And when done client-side, we should smartly use JS events rather than evaluate the entire text every n seconds, which is not exactly performant. – SD0001 (talk) 15:01, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it makes sense to try to incorporate this into AbuseFilter, or at least the effort required may not be worth the while. For your example of adding external links to the body, specifically, I would advise going the same route we did with the disambig notifications feature (source code), and building it into a local gadget. Keystroke listeners are actually fast, and unlike disambiguation this wouldn't even require an API request, just some good regular expressions to identify when an external link is added. Wikipedia:Text reactions sounds like the more correct approach.

I would also keep the mw:Editing team in the loop on any plans we have, since the broader "make editing easier" effort is also on their radar (phab:T265163). — MusikAnimal ^talk 22:34, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

• @Suffusion of Yellow, SD0001, and MusikAnimal: Thanks all. I'm not particularly attached to any particular method here, so long as it can generate the desired behavior and is as configurable by the community as possible without developer help. SD0001, is there anything I can do (as a non-coder) to help move text reactions closer to something deployable at scale? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:41, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
• Something else that hasn't been suggested yet: If the user has CodeMirror (the syntax highlighter) enabled, highlight the problematic text instead of making them hunt for it. Yes, that's possible. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:37, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Suffusion of Yellow Nice! I would file a task for that, if one doesn't exist already. My team may be able to help with it. Thanks! — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:23, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

• @Suffusion of Yellow re server-side checking: I recently discovered that every time you stop typing in the source editor, an action=stashedit request is posted with the entire edit box contents. (This is happening in MW core, since at least 2014 according to git blame – so seemingly bandwidth isn't a problem.) So the server already has the text and already parses it to prepare the edit, the question is whether AbuseFilter can operate on stashed edits and send its warnings along with the action=stashedit response. (Too bad the CommTech proposal phase has ended!) – SD0001 (talk) 03:59, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

  @SD0001: Thanks. I was under the impression that stashing didn't start until the first time you focus on the summary field. But it seem you are right, and it starts before that.

  Actually, stashed edits already are run against all the filters.[40] The result is however not revealed in the response; it will come back as successful even if the edit will be disallowed. Revealing the result would be an obvious security flaw; people could work out what the private filters are checking for without us knowing about it. So if we go with the server-side approach, it would only take a tiny change: If the filter actions include "pop-up", do reveal the result in response to a stashedit response. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:35, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Artificially-generated redlinked maintenance category

There's a page, Draft:Performance (finance), which is filed in the redlinked maintenance category Category:AfC pending submissions by age/2 weeks ago — the issue being that said maintenance category was deleted a few weeks ago per Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 December 26#Category:AfC pending submissions by age/2 weeks ago due to an AFC project decision to refine it to more detailed subcategories like 14 days, 15 days and 16 days. And for added bonus, the category was empty at the time it was deleted, meaning that this is a new issue.

The problem, however, is that the redlinked category isn't being declared on the draft, but is being artificially transcluded by one of the AFC templates — but it doesn't seem to be coming from {{AfC status/age}}, the apparently obvious candidate, because that doesn't appear to have a "2 weeks ago" option in it at all, and I have no idea how to figure out what other template is generating it. But (a) pages aren't supposed to have redlinked categories on them at all, and (b) this obviously strands the page from the AFC maintenance queue that it should be in, so for both of those reasons it needs to be fixed.

So could somebody with more technical prowess figure out what template is generating this outdated category, and fix it to refile that draft where it actually belongs? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 15:18, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Looks like Template:AfC age category is doing it. —Cryptic 15:29, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I am digging into this one. At the moment, it appears to be a quirk with {{time ago}}, which, when fed two different date stamps – from 21 days and 1 hour ago and 21 hours and 16 hours ago – gives "21 days" when asked for days but "2 weeks" and "3 weeks", respectively, when asked for weeks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:38, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, that was an hour well spent. It appears that there is a bug in {{Time ago}}, which I have reported at its talk page. Any logic-minded programming nerds are welcome to take a look. It appears that if you feed the module a time stamp in the form YYYYMMDDHHIISS (I is minutes) and the hours and minutes are both "00" (i.e. the first minute after midnight), the module calculates the weeks incorrectly when the time ago is a multiple of 7 days. This appears to be an edge case, but edge cases happen (the odds of a time stamp being in the one minute after midnight are 1 in 1,440, if I am mathing right, so this will happen to that percentage of drafts for exactly one day when they get to 21 days old). For now, I have adjusted the time stamp on that draft by one minute.

If the bug does not get fixed, we could probably fiddle with {{AfC age category}} to have it rewrite the category name when {{time ago}} suggests "2 weeks" erroneously. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:05, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I haven't looked at this issue but if desperate I could use Module:Date for this as it calculates date differences accurately. Johnuniq (talk) 22:45, 1 February 2022 (UTC)